Ride-On

{ Very back-dated Post }

Ern got this ride on from her 1st birthday and she had been 'riding' on it. She started to learn to paddle herself like few weeks after birthday. Back then, she needed to tip-toe a bit in order for her leg to reach to the floor to paddle.

Occasionally, we also pushed her from the back round the living hall. As we didn't want her leg to be trapped in anyway during the pushing, we asked her to lift her leg up and placed them on the ride on. I guess from here, she learnt that she needs to put her leg everything we need to push her.

We kept the ride-on at our guest room like 6 months ago since we didn't see Ern played with it anymore. Until last week, a relative came and put up at our place. So, we temporary moved the ride on upstairs.

Ern saw that and happily ride on it. Of coz this time, she was able to request us by saying "Mummy/Daddy, push". Tired for us but fun for her.

Oh ya, MIL sewed a padding cover for her. She claimed the seat is too hard for Ern. :-) How lucky is Ern!!

Puzzle

* This is NOT a paid post *

Sue recommended Ern's 1st puzzle set in Nov 07 after she told me her girl was able to match her shoes before turned 1. I was so amazed to hear that and i gave it a try.

1st Puzzle - Nov 07


Sue gave me a guide how to make the puzzle playing session more interesting. It was indeed very helpful. It took Ern around 4 weeks to bring us the right piece together. Back then, she wasn't able to fit them nicely but I was quite pleased to see she brought me the right piece.

2nd set - Jan 08


It was from this 2 sets that I discovered Ern likes puzzle. Ever since, no turning back for Ern to fall in love with puzzle, so as the mother to continue to buy puzzle for her! LOL

This time, it took Ern around ~3 weeks to match the right set for both puzzle set. I also used the puzzle to teach her about animal & their home namings like cat & basket, bee & hive, etc.

3rd set - Feb 08


I took a risk when I purchase this Opposite puzzle as it was meant for 3 years and above. However, I thought I should give it a try and if Ern is not ready, i can still keep it till she is ready. To my surprise, she was able to match some of those simple ones like Up & Down, In & Out at 19months. It took her around month or so to master the difficult one like "Full & Empty", "Light & Heavy".

She started to match all the 16 sets but I have to split them up like 3-4 times, like each time, I can only put 4 sets for her to choose. Anything more than that, she get distracted and unable to concentrate. Slowly, I increased from 4 set to 8 sets and eventually, i threw her all 32 pieces for her to choose.

Matching Set - July 2008


I introduced all the 20 pairs to Ern by using the 'flash card' method, ie to show and tell her what they are and why they have to go together. It was like story telling :-) I repeated twice for all the 20 pairs. Then I started to take out like 8 pairs (easy one) for her to match. Easy one means those objects that she is familiar with from our daily routine or from her books. She was able to get me right on the spot. Then I introduced the remaining according to their difficulty like needle and thread, glove & scarf which she has never seen before.

I was so pleased and proud actually. Ern was able to take the correct pair and show it to me,all of them after just the 2 times of flashing.

4-6 pieces of Puzzle - July 2008



I got this 4-6 pieces puzzle set from one the local book stores during sales. I think it cost me like RM5. Right now, Ern is able to complete the Ship set (4 pieces) within 3 days and now working on the Aeroplane (which is 5 pieces).

Before & After Puzzle


At the same time, I also started on this puzzle set, to teach Ern about 'cause and effect' in our daily life. I used the same ' 2 times flashing' method and she was able to bring me 3-4 sets right immediately.

What's the moral of the story here? Never underestimate your child's learning ability. Also, you don't necessary need to follow the age guide on the toy/book that you buy. It is just a GUIDE :-)

Girl Always A Girl

I was packing these Derma*logica skin care for a friend and leave them at the side of the room. Ern saw it and tried to lift it up.

Mummy: No Ern...Cannot take...Aunty HL one...
Ern: *put the paper bag down*
Ern: Okay..Aunty...Char Char (apply in Mandarin) *put her index finger on her cheek*
Mummy: *surprise*

I didn't tell her it was a "char char" and I really don't know how can she tell it's a skin care. Ern practically saw me apply my skin care everynight but all these were without boxes or wrapped in bubble foam.

She was looking from the top and didn't take out any bottles from the paper bag. I don't know if she remembers the colors (grey and white) or what...

But I am amazed...

Meaningful Blanket

By looking at the picture, this is just an ordinary children blanket, with animal printing. It was a birthday gift for Ern’s 2nd birthday recently.

So..you may ask, what’s so special about this blanket that you need to blog about it???

This blanket replaced our hands and presence in putting Ern’s to sleep. It helps Ern to sleep independently without patting her butt or need to sleep next to her.

On the 1st day when I showed the blanket to Ern, she excitedly read out the animal names to me like Al-fen (elephant), Bi-Bra (Zebra), Cat, Giraffe, etc. Before I switched off the light, this was our conversation:

Mummy: Ern Ern, tonight Giraffe sleep with you ok?
Ern: Okay (in delighting mode)..giraffe sleeping
Mummy: Good girl…you sleep with giraffe ya..
Ern: Okay, night night, see you
Mummy: Good night *quickly switch off the light*
Ern: * happily pat her own butt, as if trying to tell giraffe to sleep*

Day 2, I repeated the same story but just change the animal name. Instead of giraffe, I used Elephant.

Day 3, same story line but change to zebra

It has been 1 week now and Ern has no problem sleeping on her own, as long as I need to ‘tell’ her who is sleeping with her! LOL

I didn’t expect a simple blanket can turned into a useful tool to transition my girl to sleep independently.

Thanks Aunty CW! It was the perfect gift for Ern!

Ar-Pot

Lately, hubby and I took turns to travel (on biz) like every week for the past 1 month.

Whenever either one of us are back from our trip, we took the effort to bring Ern to the airport. Normally, we will tell Ern this - "let's go, Ern. We go to the airport to fetch Daddy/Mummy.". She happily followed by saying "yes, ar-pan (airplane)" because we told her "Daddy/Mummy take airplane to go to work!"

2 days ago when I was about to fetch Daddy over to join us dinner at Poh Poh house, this was a conversation between Ern and I.

Mummy: Ern, let's go. We go and fetch Daddy.
Ern: Ok. Ar-pot (airport)
Mummy: No, daddy is at home.
Ern: Papa..ar-pan (airplane)

At 2 Years Old

This post came in 1 week late when Ern turned 2 years old last Sunday. Busy..busy..busy...
Anyway, it's never too late to write one now... * excuse*

At 2 Years Old:

Vital Stats:
Height: 90cm
Weight: 10.8kg

Development:
- Potty trained on her poo. She is now able to table us "Ng Ng". Either we will let her sit on her potty or directly on WC. On the wee part, sometimes she will tell us but most of the time, it's always "after-the-fact'. She would say "Mummy, shee shee". Now we just need to tell her to inform us BEFORE rather than AFTER.

- Sapu Car: In Hokkien, when you addressed someone as 'sapu car', means a person literally eat everything. You bet, Ern eats everything. She can even ate my spicy Char Koay Kak without showing any hot sign or request for water. She can take 'not so spicy' nasi lemak too. She just inherit Daddy's gene on this. Daddy is like Chili King!

- Speech: She started to form short sentences and we get to hear more two syllabus words coming out from her mouth.

- Trilingual: She is able to answer in the right language on the question you asked her.
English: Do you want XX? She answered: Want or Yes
Mandarin: Ni Yao Bu Yao XX? Her answer: Yao
Cantonese: Lei Aoi Ng Aoi XX? She answered: Aoi

- Manipulation: When we pretend angry over the things that she was prohibited to do, we told her off we are angry. She would walked up to her, hugged you dearly and said "soli" (sorry). After then, she would tickled you by saying "tickle, tickle, tickle" in a very fast way. So you get to hear the 'er' sound very clearly and also see her tongue rolled up!! It really melt everyone's heart but I told everyone in the family to 'remind' her over the wrong thing that she did.

- Sleep Independent Without Patting: After I weaned her off from pacifier, it took me a while to fully wean her off from patting her butt. After we received a blanket from Aunty CW, after trying for few nights, it worked!!! So, I can officially said Ern is able to sleep independent on her bed now. More details in my later blog.

- Counting 1-10: She is able to count 1 to 10 now. She can even point on the object and start counting. Next step is to teach her to recognize the numbers.

- Movie Buff: She enjoys watching her cartoon channel and if we switch it off half way the show, she would CRY. So, we need to 'negotiate' with her by telling her after this movie, we will need to turn off. Then, she is ok with it. She is able to say out some characters like "Bikey/ Biney" (Mic*key & Min*nie), Turmas (Thomas), Bob (this one very clearly), Jo Jo ( Jo Jo Circus) and Yo (Poco*yo)

- Dining Outside: Usually when we sit down on our table, Ern would asked for food "mum mum". After I told her she has to wait for uncle/aunty (the chef) to prepare, she would say : Okay, uncle cut cut cut!!". She can associated that with her mamasak set at home!

Scrap credit:
Quickpage by Lynn Griffin

On 13th July 2008 (Final Part)

Afternoon:
We brought Ern to her Kindermusik class in the afternoon. We managed to coax her to take her morning nap on time and slept for like 1 hour, which is consider 'quite ok' for her napping hours.

She enjoyed the class as usual and this time round, she even KPC to 'offer and help' other mummies to keep the musical instruments.

When we are home after the class and late lunch, we quickly put her to nap again to ensure she is all charged up for dinner with family members. Phew, she took another 1+ hour nap.

Evening:
We meet Ah Kong and the rest at The Ship Batu Feringgi at 7pm. It wasn't crowded and we were like 2nd customer on that evening.





Ern also 'asked' for a menu to order her share. Of course she ate quarter of my Salmon Steak and 1 small price of fried fish from Poh Poh's Seafood Platter.

Food was lousy, small serving, sizzling steak served without sizzling, prawn wasn't fresh and etc. It was a terrible dining experience and all of us were so disappointed with it. Putting the cost aside, the standard has dropped tremendously!

Anyway, it didn't dampen our spirit to celebrate our Princess birthday. While waiting for our food to be served, Daddy took Ern to walk around the ship deck. Then they passed by a aquarium that has lobsters in there.



Daddy: Ern, this is lobster (by pointing to that)
Ern: Shui (water in Mandarin)
Daddy: Yes, it's cold water and lobster stays here
Ern: Cold...
Daddy: Ya..Cold water
Ern: Sleeping (point to the lobster and do the sleeping hand sign)
Daddy: *laugh*



Once we were done with the lousy dinner, it's the candle blowing and cake cutting time. When I opened the box to show Ern her birthday cake, she was shouting in joy and said "Kitty". When I pointed at Snoopy, only she said "Nop-py". So you can tell she likes Kitty more than Snoopy.

Here goes the cupcakes that I ordered from Angeleyes.

Theme: Kitty & Snoopy

Angeleyes really did a good job on the decoration and the cupcakes. Sweet color combination that went well with the theme. Also, the cupcakes tasted superb and I strongly recommend it if you want to order a personalized cupcakes for your occasion.

When we sang birthday song to Ern, she clapped along and said "happy, happy". When it was time to blow the candle, she repeated what I have taught her for the past days on her wooden birthday cake toy. Of course, she didn't have the energy to blow off the candle and daddy helped on that.



Simple celebration yet our Princess so happy. Happy Birthday again, my Princess!

Photo credit on cupcakes: Angeleyes

On 13th July 2008 (Part 1)

Morning:

I put up the pressie (most of them) nicely outside of the room before Ern wakes up.



Once she woke up and took her milk, I walked out of the room and asked daddy to open the door while I had my camera ready to take her first reaction of seeing all these presents.



Manatau, she walked out from the room with her hand taking the wooden birthday cake that I bought from Sue, which is her current favourite toy!




I thought she would shout in joy seeing so many presents but I was totally wrong. She sat down in front of me and continue to play with the wooden toy. *slap head* I decided to let her play with this birthday present earlier so that I can prepare her about cake cutting & candle blowing.

Ern said "Mummy, cake..cut cut cut..blow...arm (eat)!"



Then, I passed her a present to unwrap but she returned to me in less than 30 secs. She didn't know how to remove the tapes..So, I got the honour to unwrapped all the presents for her.

Of all the presents, this was the one that caught her first attention.



Then it's this. Maybe it's the same theme as her current Kindermusik class and she sort of familiar with it.


photo credit

Next few hours after then, she was busy pressing the buttons and all we hear " A is A" or " ABC song"....noisy, noisy, noisy..

To be continued....

Happy Birthday Ching Ern

Happy Birthday Ching Ern!

"Ah-Bit-Chi"

One evening while I was watching tv at Poh Poh's house, then Ern pulled my hand..

Ern: Mummy, Ah-Bit-Chi!
Mummy: *puzzle*
Ern: Mummy, Ah-Bit-Chi!
Mummy: What is Ah-Bit-Chi? Mummy don't know wor
Ern: Mummy, Ah-Bit-Chi!
Mummy: Ok, you show mummy what is Ah-Bit-Chi
Ern: *Sit down on the floor and show a rectangle hand sign*
Mummy: Oh...you want your ABC right?
Ern: Yes! (nodd her head at the same time)

This is it, her ABC. It was a hand-down from Poh Poh's friend. It was a complete set but somehow, we don't know where Ern misplace the 'V'. It should be somewhere in the house but we just don't know where she hide it.



Poh Poh started to teach and play with her, another activity not to turn her into potato couch. Ern loves it! Every day when she steps into Poh Poh's house, she would ask for her "Ah-Bit-Chi".

After like 1+ weeks, she is able to put most of them correctly, except "V & Y" and "H & N". Sometimes, she got them mix-up as it looks alike.

Managed to take a video for my own record. She even clapped for herself when she slot the right alpha into the right place...haha...actually, she just wanted me to praise her "clever girl' only lah...

Sticker

Ern loves sticker, including masking tape. I think she enjoys the process of 'sticking' and likes the "sticky" feeling in her hand...LOL

When she saw us holding one, she would asked us for one by saying ti-ker.

We normally bought her cheap stickers (RM0.80 each) from market with Dis*ney cartoon characters in it. Or when we are away on biz trip, we normally ask for children goodies bag from the airlines as it normally comes with sticker too. Sometimes when we visit PD, she will get a sticker book too.

If the sticker peeling is not tight, then she is able to take out the sticker one by one. However, if it is tight, then we will need to help her to peel off a little on the side.

Normally, she would stick the stickers in the same spot. So, we will need to point to her at other spot for her to stick! For now, she is 'trained' to stick those sticker on a note book. Sometimes, she choose to stick them on her board story book, which is ok for me as long as it's not the wall!





Hopefully she is not smart enough to stick them on the wall or our cabinet.

Lately, she started to choose on the sticker that she wanted to stick first. I wonder when will she starts to choose her clothes.

Activities Without TV

When Ern is under my care, I normally try not to switch on tv for her unless I am busy and no one at home with me to look after her.

I bought a book that has 501 ideas of activities parents can do without TV. It has outdoor, indoor, food, art, etc ideas and activities range from age 2-6 years old.

During weekdays, I don't have time to do anything fancy but just keep things simple. Either I let her play her mamasak or I let her do this:

1) Peel of sticker and stick on her notebook/story book




2) Balloon Blowing



Hopefully I can introduce more activities to her this weekend...

Psst...more stories later about her sticker activity...

Candid Shots

I like these 2 pictures.... :-)




Bubble effect could be better.

Finally...

We are able to 'break' the usual photo posing from


This:




To This:




Isn't the later one better??!!! LOL

PS: Her 2 ponytail that Poh Poh tie was so funny. To me, they looked like a butterfly! Photos taken prior to her hair cut.