"This is the way i brush my teeth, brush my teeth, brush my teeth. This is the way i brush my teeth, early in the morning."

nope, Matthew is still boh gay, toothless rooster. I thought it is a good practice to start him early, so that it becomes part of his bedtime routine. He was hesitant at first, but slowly enjoyed massaging his gums...

Matthew had fun today, so did we! We love watching him play and enjoy himself. We brought him to Suntec City where they opened a section called Happy Kids' Zone, especially catered for kids. Interesting stuff there, but a wee bit too expensive. We popped by at Toys R Us and he really enjoyed himself playing with the toys. There was this toy that had a steering wheel and it made lots of sounds. I also had a chance to let him play with this walk-push toy. At first he held on it with two hands and walked along. Then he saw a boy riding one hand on a skate scooter. Monkey see Monkey do. He then walked with one hand on the push toy. Copy Cat!

We made our way to Marche for dinner. Along the way, he was cooing, enjoying the sights and sounds! He was a good boy, like last week at Sakae Sushi, finishing quite a bit of the porridge. Today he had plain white porridge with chye sim and threadfin for dinner. This is something I wanted to train him, to learn to taste different foods, rather than have everything cooked into the porridge. That would prepare him for adult food four months later. He also had plain macaroni (1st time) and toast with cheese.

Oh ya, we had this Toys R Us catalog and there was this photo of a boy on the bicycle. He was totally captivated by that!

Matthew has this funny facial expression. He would smile and open his mouth and eyes shut tight. Mike was taking a video of him with this expression. He then opened his eyes and was surprised to see Mike. Take a look at the video clip at the side bar! click here to see my expression

MATTHEW IS NINE MONTHS OLD TODAY! Come X'mas next month, he would be 10 months old! How time flies!

What a wonderful Saturday we had! After Matthew had his afternoon nap and milk, we made our way to Xiao Gui Lin at Bt Gombak (Little Guilin, a "miniature" replica of the world renowed Guilin in Guangzhou, China).

We decided not to drive. Instead we took a good 8-minute-walk to Bt Batok MRT Station. At first Matthew wasn't sure about the MRT ride. After a while, he was ok and screaming in delight. But it was only a stop away, so it ended too quickly.

We walked to Xiao Gui Lin. Along the way, Matthew entertained himself by looking at the vehicles that were passing by. He took special interest in the buses, motorcycles and bicycles. He saw birds and made noise. Nothing interesting to talk about Xiao Gui Lin. There were no buses to Bt Batok MRT Station, so we walked back to Bt Gombak MRT Station.


We decided to have an early dinner at West Mall's Sakae Sushi. We have never brought Matthew to a restaurant for dinner before. We decided on Sakae Sushi, because it was more convenient and there was a variety of food. I thought that we would be out of there in half an hour. Matthew was at his best behaviour and both Mike and I could finish our dinner. We stayed there for more than an hour! We were pleasantly surprised!

So while I fed Matthew his dinner, Mike had some sushi. We kept Matthew occupied with his books and a spoon. He finished his dinner in double quick time and while Mike fed him banana, I had some sushi. Matthew played with his spoon (actually biting) and we ordered more food.



This little outing at Sakae Sushi boosted my confidence and I think we would be bringing him out with us for dinner more often from now on. Yuppie, Hippie, Hip Hip Hooray!!! fun at Sakae Sushi - video clip

AH HA! I've learned how to put a video clip on the blog. Scroll down the side bar and you will see an image of Matthew with the title "video clip of me!". Click on the Play button and you will see a video clip of Matthew. Looks like I would be taking a lot of video clips... Enjoy watching Matthew's brillant smile! Bright and sunny, early in the morning! my first video clip on my blog - click here

Matthew has recovered from his bad bout of rash or hives. His sore throat has also cleared, but he is still coughing slightly.

One observation today - Matthew has become lazy. We have this egg toy that was from my childhood. When Matthew first learned how to crawl, he would crawl to pick up the egg to play with it again. Today, when the egg rolled away from him, he did not crawl to pick it up. Instead he pulled his grandpa's pants, as if telling him to pick it up for him!

Another observation to confirm that - Matthew would always crawl the stairs when he has the chance. So the other day, I followed him up the stairs as he crawled up. Half way up, he kept stopping and turning around to look at me. At one point, he stopped, turned around and wanted to stand up "unsupported". I urged him on, but he just refused to move. We concluded that he's just lazy...

Something new - Matthew now knows where the bread is kept in my mommy's kitchen. He would edge towards and point at the cabinet. So smart!

It's always something new everyday! Isn't it amazing just watching Matthew growing up day by day? It's a surprise everyday, not knowing what's up next... Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what to expect!

After asking for opinions, it seems that Matthew is after all not down with false measles. The measles rash was supposed to be mini red dots, starting from head downwards to the toes. What Matthew has seems like hives, due to food allergy. By process of elimination and the food he has been taking the past two weeks, we narrowed down to three possible causes: cheese, yogurt or ginseng. Let's see how he is today, we would bring him to the doctor tomorrow.

But I think what's causing him much distress, especially at night, is his sore throat. It seems to be getting worse. He has been drinking at much as 4oz of water at night to relieve the pain. I think he's also teething...

*sigh* Poor Matthew. How come all come at one time???

Matthew has been making lots of new sounds these few days, despite his condition. On Sunday, the whole day he was trying to say "Bird". Well, at least, that was what we thought he was trying to say lah... then yesterday, he was roaring like a lion since morning... This morning, we thought he said "Pa pa", but sounded more like "Blah Blah Blah". Ha... what's for tomorrow, I wonder???

Poor Matthew. He has been sick since Wednesday night. It started with a fever of 38.4degC. We gave him a dose of Panadol drop, but it did not go away in the morning.

Then we brought him to see his pediatrician Dr Dorothy Ong. He was diagnosed to be having sore throat, fever and blocked nose. Dr Ong saw some rash on him and warned me that he might have caught the measles. She confirmed that when I called her in the afternoon. She said the most tell-tale signs would be the rash and red eyes. She told me to follow up with her on Saturday.

Friday and Saturday - Matthew seems to be feeling ok. Playing and screaming! More rash. No fever, which was a good sign.

Dr Ong confirmed yesterday that Matthew is down with false measles, i.e. he gets all the symptoms of measles, except red eyes. At least it would not be as serious as the real McCoy. According to my colleague Mitch, whose little girl also came down with it some time back, it would take almost two weeks for all the rash to clear. *sigh*

I think his sore throat got worse today. Started coughing. Super cranky and whinny. No appetite. Did not even finish his milk... poor thing. He's sleeping now. Got to wake him up at 1am to give another dose of cough syrup and panadol drop (to relieve the pain from his sore throat).

The first photo was taken on Friday, during his nap. see that the spots were still pretty small. The second photo was taken yesterday, bigger spots. Today's photo showed more and bigger spots. *sigh*

I shall now compile a list of words that Matthew knows:

1. Feng1 Shan4 (electric fan in mandarin)
2. Lan2 Tian1 Bai2 Yun2 (blue sky white cloud)
3. Bed
4. Book
5. Milk
6. Deng1 (light in mandarin)
7. Pear
8. Apple
9. Cat
10. Fei1 Ji1 (aeroplane)
11. Che1 (car)
12. Bird or Niao3
13. Banana
14. Papaya
15. Cao3 Mei2 (strawberry) - my mom successfully grew some strawberries in her garden. vv small ones, but still they are strawberries!
16. Hua1 (flower)
17. Elmo (red monster from Sesame Street)
18. Cookie Monster (blue monster from Sesame Street who eats cookie)
19. Winnie the Pooh
20. Rain

Of course, the list will grow. Although it's only 20 items, I think he knows more than we thought he knows... we will find out eventually!

It was our usual first Sunday of the month outing at Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) for SPH 160th anniversary concert. The theme for this concert was Rhythm & Blues (R&B). We met up with Chris, Tianfa and Megan at SBG for a late afternoon tea picnic to enjoy the concert and for the kids to play around. My mommy came along too.

I made salad, coleslaw and baked some chicken nuggets and sausages for the picnic. Despite only have an hour plus, I managed to put everything together! Chris brought focaccia and olive oil / balsamic vinegar as dip to go with. Forgot to take a photo of the picnic spread. I must say that it was all not too bad, you know... ;o)

I finally managed to get some photos of Megan and Matthew sitting together.





Matthew has his dinner and pumpkin soup, as well as half a banana. yum yum. Both Megan and Matthew love the Gerber Fruit / Veggie puffs! Here are photos of Mike and Matthew kicking Megan's ball and Matthew with his pumpkin soup!

Labels: BG, sunday

We brought Matthew to the Zoo for the first time today. Thanks to Chris and Tianfa for inviting us along to the zoo. You see, Tianfa's company has this zoo pass, which admits 4 adults, as part of welfare or something, so lucky us got a chance to go FOC. Matthew has this Animal Picture book, which I bought from Commercial Press at IMM Mall and we have been going through the different types of animals for a while now. It was time to show Matthew the REAL thing!

In order for him to enjoy himself, I allowed him to nap for 2 hours in the morning. In order to do that, I made the environment so conducive for sleeping that I got to wake him up for his lunch at 1130. I turned on the air-con and fan, closed the curtains and he slept like nobody's business!

We met up with Chris, Tianfa and Megan at the entrance to the Zoo and went our separate ways thereafter (because the three of them had already covered half of the Zoo on their previous trip). First stop - Simang... Aiyah, actually it's just a type of ape. I just told Matthew that those were monkeys. These apes were aglie, swinging from tree to tree... But what actually got Matthew's attention were the water hens that were by the stream below the broadwalk. Not sure whether he saw the mouth-wide-opened crocs, waiting to snap their jaws on these birds anytime!




Next up were the white tigers! It just happened to be feeding time. We saw tigers chomping on pieces of meat. One of them was even in the water. Matthew saw the one in the water and eyed it as it moved from one end of the moat to the other, before leaving the water to enjoy its meal. He was so captivated that he did not even want to look at the camera


Then it was the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia where we saw deer and baboons. Again, they are just apes, which I would just categorised them under Monkeys to Matthew for now... Until he is old enough to differentiate. These baboons are active, running around, jumping up, down. There were rockscape for them to exhibit their skills. We also saw some little ones on their mothers' backs. Matthew was just watching all the action on the other side of the thick Perspex window.

Primate Kingdom was where all the monkeys or apes were sited. But when we were there, the sun was out and high. It was too hot and most of the apes were hiding in the shades. We did see a few but nothing exciting...

Elephant time! But Matthew was getting tired and it was time for a short nap. As we walked him in his stroller while he slept, we passed by the sea lions, manatees and penguins and made our way to the Children's World Animal Land.

Matthew finally woke up at the Animal Land, where children could interact with the goats, sheep, horses, cows and pigs, the farm animals. I brought the Animal Picture book along and showed Matthew the photo of a horse and the real horse. He looked at the photo, then the real animal, as if trying to match the two.

Then there were the goats. Somehow the gate to the enclosure was open and several goats "escaped". Mike informed the zookeeper who chased the "fugitives" back into the enclosure. But I was telling Mike that the "fence" keeping the animals were so low that they could just simply jumped over, gate or not... ha ha ha.

After meeting up with Chris, Tianfa and Megan after the animal show, we made our way to the Children's World Funland. There were playground and fountains for kids to play. Megan aborted her plan for a nap and made her way to the playground. Matthew wanted to get himself WET! Wet he got. He was promptly dried and changed and we made our way to the Zoo entrance, as it was near closing time.

On our way out, we saw the lions and giraffes, but did not stay for long. After saying our byes to Chris, Tianfa and Megan, we fed Matthew near the Zoo entrance. He had his brown rice porridge with spinach and meat and banana for dessert. Well, we could say that he enjoyed himself, so did we!



We will be back!

Labels: zoo