Jayna's Baby Dedication

Today, we dedicated Jayna to the Lord in church. I thought to let her wear the dress she wore during her first month celebration. What was meant to be a long dress in the past has become something that resembles a baby doll dress. That's how much she has grown over the past one year!

Doesn't she look like a ballerina?

Made a new friend in the infant room.

Since Joash was not supposed to be in the limelight, I originally wanted him to wear his normal clothes. However, the moment he saw his sister's dress, he suddenly said he wanted to wear it too!!! *faint* Recovering from my initial shock, I realised that he actually meant he wanted to look equally nice but he did not know how to express it well. Thus, I took out his tuxedo and asked him if he wanted to wear that instead. He shyly nodded his head. Since the weather was rather warm, I skipped the vest and the bow-tie. He was grinning from ear to ear when I put on his attire for the day.

Here's a photo of him while he was reading a book at our CG mate's house. Doesn't he look absolutely charming and scholarly? Someone commented that he looks like some rich man's son! Hahaha...

After hanging out with our CG mates for a marvelous afternoon, we headed down to Jurong Point's Soup Restaurant for dinner. It was hilarious taking the two kids to the toilet. Everyone along the way was really amused by the sight of me holding onto two beautifully dressed toddlers; Jayna with my right hand and Joash with my left hand.

I'm so proud of Jayna for being able to stand by herself by leaning against the wall of the cubicle while she waited for Joash and I to finish our businesses. As the walkway out of the toilet was narrow, we had to walk in a single file with Joash in front of me and Jayna behind me. It was a challenge not to let go of either hands as the human traffic was quite heavy. Thankfully, we eventually made it to the toilet and back safely.

It became a little tough to hold onto their hands when we reached Kiddy Palace though. They had different ideas of where they wanted to explore and this was what happened...

I was grateful when they finally

agreed to check out the same thing.

*Phew*

Marina Barrage

God answered our prayers for the perfect weather to go for an outing with our CG mates at Marina Barrage! Yeah! It was cloudy and windy. As usual, our family was the first to reach the destination. Here's what we did while waiting for the rest to arrive...

Checking out all the water fountains

Exploring the perimeters

Looking out into the sea and observing the construction

When our friends finally came, we went up to the roof for kite-flying. It was extremely annoying that the $25 styrofoam aeroplane kite that I bought for Joash could not stay up in the air. It seemed too heavy and kept falling to the ground the moment I stopped tugging at it. Good money down the drain for buying a good-looking but useless kite...

Doesn't Jayna look like a director

sitting on the portable stool?

Jayna: "Camera roll... Action!"

Now watch a short clip of her

taking a stroll with her Daddy.

This is my favorite picture of our friend's kite

Soon, the sun came out from behind the clouds and it was too hot to enjoy ourselves. We headed back down for our picnic. There aren't any photos of the food, I'm afraid, cos I was too busy eating while feeding our princess Jayna who has the nasty habit of biting more than she could chew and spitting the food out.

After a nice meal...

Like always, it was really tough trying to take a family photo. The kids hate to stay still and we valiantly attempted to smile and pose while fighting to contain our squirming children. It was so hard getting a decent shot and all of them turned out looking like our smiles were frozen and the kids just ate some worms... *haiz* Still, I really wanna thank our CG mate for his patient efforts to capture something presentable for us.

Drinking from a straw cup

Jayna: "Ooo... Is this how you open it?"

*gulp gulp*

Jayna: "Ahhhh... Nice refreshing water!"

牵我的手

Jayna has been walking around while holding my hand for more than a week already. However, she is still not confident enough to let go of my hand and try to do it on her own despite constant encouragement.

Her utter reliance on me to explore the house reminds me of how God desires for us to be like little children, depending upon Him to hold our hands while enabling us to live the godly life He wants for us. Unlike us human parents with limited power and patience, God has the full capacity to guide us ALL our lives. A hokkien Christian song comes to mind and I would like to dedicate the following video to my beloved God who holds my hand.

Psalm 23:3

"...He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake."

Verbal Explosion

It is true after all that girls are more linguistically inclined. Jayna is picking up so many new words that it is hardly possible to keep track of them anymore. And for those things she can't yet pronounce, she made up her own words for them.

I was taken aback when she actually told me "Pain, pain." when she accidentally hit her head with a toy. I nearly fell backwards when she said "Carry" while stretching out her hands to me. And when I asked her, "What must you say if you want something?" She could reply with "Please." And these are word I did not even teach her explicitly. Needless to say, words that I took the effort to teach her are mostly well-learnt such as juice, eat, diaper, sleep, door etc, and the names of some of her favorite toys.

Let's pray that she'll get less fussy as she becomes better at communicating her wants and needs.

Good Initiative

It was such a pity that I did not have my camera at hand.

While we were having our usual playtime in the room, I gave Jayna a purple plastic wrapper to play with. After delighting over the crisp sounds it makes in her hands, she suddenly pointed to the door to indicate that she wanted it opened. Curious at what she could possibly want, I opened the door for her and watched in amusement as she butt-scooted on three limbs to the kitchen with the wrapper still tightly clenched in her right fist.

She stopped half-way, turned to me and kept pointing to the dustbin. Startled by what I realized she wanted to do, I explained to her that she could only throw the wrapper into the dustbin if she were walking cos she would not be able to reach it if she were sitting down.

To my further surprise, she said, "Walk". So I went over to hold her left hand, help her up and walk hand-in-hand towards the dustbin. I stepped on the lever to open the lid and she accurately threw the wrapper into the bin without a hitch. She then beamed at me with satisfaction as I praised her for her ingenuity.

She must have seen her brother help us throw trash so many times that she decided she will take the initiative to throw it for us too. How she even knew that the wrapper was trash in the first place is something that totally eludes me.

OC & 313

It's been ages since we have gone to Orchard Road cos it was the "same old, same old" for quite some time and we hate the crowd. Plus, there are always quite a lot of smokers who lurk around that street for whatever strange reasons.

So when we drove along Orchard on our way to our destination, we were quite amazed at the new fancy malls that sprouted over the past 2 years. That stretch of buildings has also undergone a facelift! I've long heard of them from friends but I admit I wasn't impressed enough to go down for a visit till I've seen their facades for myself.

Here we are at the rooftop garden on top of Orchard Central.

As usual, Joash was the one who enjoyed himself the most. Because Jayna can't walk yet, she could only resign herself to being carried in the sling.

Playing hide and seek with me

Inspecting every nook and cranny

Running/walking up and down the path

We ate dinner at 313@Somerset's Muthu's Curry. It was fabulous! There weren't many customers and the place was nice and spacious so we had quite a peaceful time there. We ordered cheese naan, tandoori chicken, masala chicken and mutton vindaloo. The spices were super shiok!

The kids chomping down on the fragrant crackers.

More teeth

Looks like there's a reason why Jayna has been fussing more lately and can't bear to part from the bottle long after the milk has all been drunk!

Another Step to Self-feeding

Jayna is rather quick in mastering her fine motor skills even though her gross motor skills still leave much to be desired. She has already started to experiment with drinking from a straw and drinking straight from a cup, all done under strict supervision of course. During playtime, I noticed that she has been holding the spoon and pretending to eat from a bowl quite correctly so I thought to let her have a go at the real deal.

It took her a few minutes before she understood that she was not supposed to play with the spoon and food like the way she does with the toys she's been used to and eat in all seriousness. Here's a clip of her newest accomplishment. *double grin* You can also find out how much longer Joash took to come round to these skills. (Click Here)

Novelty Headbands

Prelude to Walking

As much as I would love for Jayna to start walking asap, she is simply too cautious and timid to do it without help. I'm hoping that practicing with the walker once a week at my in-laws' house would help to build up her confidence level. Let's see how it goes...

Here's a video of her 'test run'.

Keyboardist

Most toddlers I've seen having their go at the piano, including Joash, would simply bang on the keys. But not Jayna.

At 14 months old, she seems to have a natural feel for playing the keyboard without anyone teaching or demonstrating to her. Watch the video yourself and tell me if it doesn't already sound like some kind of music. I'm so gonna let her take lessons when she's old enough!

Couple Time

While waiting for the food...

What we ate

While we were on our way home last Sat, we just happened to drive by some Bak Kut Teh store. We started chatting about how long it has been since we last ate that dish. On the spur of the moment, we decided to make our couple time the next day a Bak Kut Teh trip. (Note: 'On the spur of the moment' no longer means 'immediately' cos we have to consider our kids.)

So we deposited the children at my in-laws' place and headed down town to have some nice alone time together. Food was great and the company even better. Thank God for that!

Down at the Zoo

It was a great visit to the zoo with our friends. The weather was cloudy and fairly cooling and most of all, the kids were manageable. The one thing that marred the perfection of the experience was the hideous 1 and a half hour wait to get a table and buy our lunch at KFC. The zoo guys seriously need to consider increasing their food outlets within their compound!

Joash being afraid of water, refused to take part in the waterplay at the Kidzworld. I was terribly disappointed as I brought all the swim stuff with us. But on hindsight, it probably was a good thing since Jayna, who loves the water, would want to join in the fun if her brother were to do so. Her eczema might have gotten even worse from that.

However, Joshua and I discovered that our kids are not exactly fans of the animals. They were far more excited about the tram ride, boat trip, railings, food or the retail shops. Perhaps they got that trait from me cos I am sooooo not crazy about the animals too. I only took one photo of the white tiger which was the single animal that I really liked. I supposed we're really true blue city people.

The sole picture taken of an animal...

Us Low family with the gorgeous couple and their gal.
(As usual, it's not easy to get the kids to pose at the right time. LOL)

Our only decent family shot.
(Thanks to our dear friend *muack*)

Jayna: "What are you taking a photo of, Mummy?
Me or the baboons?"

The kids checking out the red-butt baboons

On the tram
(If I were to name this picture, I would call it "Directions".
Can you guess why?)

Joash was completely "knocked out"
(Such a pity! He would have loved the boat trip.)

Jayna was ecstatic throughout the ride!

Enjoying the breeze and scenery

Lazy or busy?

When I lacked the desire to capture moments on my camera during special trips with my family, I knew that something was wrong. Some of you may have noticed a slowing down of activity on my blog. Posts have become more and more infrequent cos I have too little material (i.e. videos and pics) for a decent entry.

For the past few weeks, I've had gone with my family to places we've never been to together. One was the trip to East Coast Park for a cycle, one kid on board each parent's vehicle. It was really cool and the kids enjoyed the ride. However, it rained so we only rode for less than half an hour. Another was to Changi Airport's T3, gallery and race-car exhibit. Yet another would be the visit to the Esplanade for some live Rainbow Bear performance and watching the boats go by at the waterfront. We've enjoyed ourselves but I've got nothing to show or illustrate the fond memories. My camera was entirely untouched.

Joshua did say that he found it weird that I had not whipped out my trusty black box and seized the chance to eternalize the noteworthy moments with visual evidence. Am I becoming too lazy or have I been so busy with meeting people, managing the household, involving in ministry and serving my family that I was too exhausted to take photos? Perhaps I've become more interested in enjoying the experience than making permanent the memories? I don't really know for sure. All I know is that I'll probably regret it in the future if I don't buck up now.

Thankfully, the trip to the zoo on Children's Day was somewhat documented. Maybe, I was motivated by my friends' zeal when they snapped away at every opportunity. However, my meager 20 pictures are peanuts compared to their hundred plus photos taken for the journey alone. Ah... so am I too lazy or too busy after all?

Children's Handiwork

Very interesting things are 'made' while the kids are at play.

Joash always pretends to make ice-cream for everyone to eat. He uses the balls or the hemispheres of the nested globe to act as the scoop of ice-cream which he then places on the mini cups we bought from IKEA. Not that I allow him to eat such things though. I usually don't let him eat chocolate, sweets or ice-cream except on one occasion when we gave him the permission to try a scoop of ice-cream of his choice at Swensen's since he loved playing at it so much. However, he was instantly attracted to the vibrant purple colour and picked the yam flavour. He didn't quite like it in the end! LOL

The fake vanilla ice-cream

The made-up blueberry ice-cream?

As for Jayna, she picked up things pretty quickly if she weren't too lazy to do it. Despite not intentionally teaching her how to stack the donuts, she did this all by herself within seconds. Not the most accurate but it was an admirable attempt.

Tada!

She has a very strong sense of what belongs together too. This is the family of Doremon characters which she has been migrating from one surface to another. She'll pain-stakingly arrange them nicely and then do it all over again at another spot. She sure understands that family needs to travel together. Hahaha... Seriously, no one taught her that explicitly.

Caught her in action.

She's also quite proficient at scribbling, I must say. This is one of her handiwork and it happens to look like a cross on the rocky terrain. It's totally my favorite. What a surprising reminder to me about the sacrificial work that Christ had done to earn my salvation amidst my mundane life as a homemaker and God used my daughter to do it! Praise God for His marvelous ways!

Can you see what I saw?

Milkmaid?

I bought a navy-blue dress for Jayna so that she can match the rest of the family when we wear that colour. It was pretty and costed only ten bucks so I thought, why not? Joshua said it looked like a milkmaid costume. LOL I think he's right. What do you think? *grin*

The front view

And the back view