Matthew and I went to Jurong Bird Park yesterday. It was fun. Entry was free, courtesy of Auntie Jannie, who lent us her family pass to JBP. Only needed to pay $4 for the panorail ride.

First stop was the Penguin Parade. It was all dark and cool. We saw lots of penguins, big and small, some were swimming, some were just "hanging" around.

Next, we took the panorail to Lory Loft. Matthew enjoyed walking around the elevated walkways and the suspension bridge.


Matthew on the elevated walkway


Matthew attracted to a red lory

Third stop was the Waterfall Aviary. We walked to the suspension bridge and was greeted by 3 birds. The view from the bridge was fabulous.


What did Matthew see?


3 birds walking across the bridge

Then we walked to the base of the waterfall.


Matthew fascinated by the waterfall

Finally we made our way back to the entrance atrium. We saw the beautiful pink flamingoes from the panorail. When we got off the panorail, Matthew said, "Xia qu kan Fla-min-go." (Go down to see Flamingo)




He was so captivated by the pink flamingoes and waved his hands when he saw them flapped their wings.

We stopped by the Talking Birds (mynahs, parrots and macaws). Only one said, "Harlow!" The rest were all quiet.

It was near lunchtime, so we made our way to the exit and went to Auntie Jan's place. Matthew had his lunch there and spent the entire afternoon there, made himself comfortable, playing with En En's toys. Too bad, we forgot to take photos of the 2 boys.

Too lazy to write long stories, so it would just be photos, photos and more photos in this post.

19/8/06 Botanics Garden


Matthew and Mike feeding the ducks


A pair of swans at Swan Lake

20/8/06 Bukit Batok Nature Park


Matthew eating his bread


We spotted a monkey


and saw some birds and squirrels

20/8/06 Dinner at Crystal Jade Jurong Pt


Mike feeding Matthew some La Mian (handmade noodles)

27/8/06 Dinner at Sakae Sushi


Matthew feeding himself - rice with chawamushi (steamed egg)

Matthew is 18 months old TODAY! We bought a small slice of fruit cake for him. He blew out the candle and finished most of the cake!


Matthew blew out the candle and demanded to be fed immediately.


Matthew eating cake and watching Baby Beethoven at the same time!

Matthew recovered from his gastric flu last Thursday 17/08/06. All the diarrhea had made him confused and mixed up about poo and shee. When he wants to poo, he tells us shee. Got us all confused too. He has huge appetite too! Eats a lot (so much so you really can see a huge tummy!!!) and every 2-3 hours! He has developed a liking for apricots and rasins, which are actually good for his bowels.

The past one month saw Matthew's language abilities taking flight! He picked up so fast that we really have to watch what we say and teach him the right things. He has learned to describe certain items.

Yesterday, my mom took out this 30-year-old toy which I played when I was a toddler. A matchbox toy. It's amazing some of the stuff my mom kept. Anyway, we were commenting that it was a Made-in-England matchbox toy. Matthew just blurted out, "Matchbox!". Goodness, that was fast!

This morning, he just pointed out of the car and said, "Green qi"! Half english, half mandarin. We quickly told him, "Green flag". Then he tried very hard and said, "Green Flag". Well, at least we know he's bilingual. :p

He would tell us what he sees when we are in the car. Gao1 gao1 (tall chimneys or construction cranes), qi2 (flag), trains.

He sees a colour, he will go blue, green etc.

He will tell us if he sees the stars at night; if there's no stars, he will go, "no more star".

He wants me to read a book, he will bring a book, sit himself in my lap and say, "Mama read" or "Mama du2".

Matthew is learning so fast! In another 9 days, he would be 18 months old. Another milestone. So fast so soon.

I was having dinner in my mom's kitchen yesterday and Matthew was with Mike in the living room, playing. Then I heard Matthew shouting "Mama kan4 (look), Mama kan4", followed by his hurried footsteps. He was carrying a tower of duplo blocks and he wanted to show me.

He set the tower down on the stool and showed off his creation. There was even some colour co-ordination. He was so proud of himself that he got us all applauding for him.

Here's that tower!

Mike had an exam at Suntec in the morning, so we went to Suntec MacDonalds for breakfast. After that, Matthew and I went to Botanic Gardens.

We made our way to the Symphony Lake and met up with Elaine, WW and Ignatius there. Elaine sat with me and Matthew, feeding the fishes, while Ignatius dragged his daddy round the pond. Before we knew it, they were already on the other side of the pond. As we were walking to join them, we came upon a family of 4 water birds, father, mother with 2 chicks. Then we saw 20 ducks in the pond, resting.

Here are some photos.


Matthew at Suntec MacDonalds


Matthew tried to shake hand with Ignatius. Ignatius "ignored" him, so Matthew turned his back on him. Hahaha...


The 2 boys happened to be wearing the same colours! Green and blue!

Labels: BG

Last Wednesday was National Day. Instead of staying home to watch the parade on TV, we joined our friends at Jamie's place for a BBQ gathering. I prepared a non-dairy apple crumble, washed some corn, sweet potatoes and baby potatoes to be thrown into the pit and a simple salad. Jamie ordered the BBQ stuff from bbqwholesale.com. The food was not bad, especially the buffalo wings and otaks. Matthew ate fried rice and meat from the buffalo wings. Good, he would tell you when you asked him if the food was "hao chi" or delicious.

Some interesting snippets from the gathering.

1. 3 of the boys had their pants off because they wanted to go into the pool! It started with Ignatius, then Cayden and finally Cheng En.

2. Ribena boys drinking packs of Ribena. There was this Ribena advertisement from our younger days that went like that:

Iggy : What are you drinking?
Cayden : Ribena, my mother says it's good for me.
Iggy : Can i have some?
Cayden : Yes, but not too much



3. Matthew loved his apricots and he shared! Matthew and Joshua were sitting side by side on the steps next to the BBQ area. I asked Matthew if he would share with Joshua. Matthew, without thinking, stuffed the remaining piece of apricot he had into Joshua's mouth. Evon's helper and I were so worried that he would choke on it, but no, he didn't. Joshua just chewed and munched and finished it!

4. The fathers gathered at the BBQ pit, manning the pit. Some male bonding there. We gals wondered what they chatted about.

5. No more stranger anxiety for Matthew. He did all the Hi-5s, byes, hugs and kisses! He sat on my lap while I was chit-chatting with the gals and would giggle and laugh where we laughed! Hahaha!

6. Actually the boys are more or less the same height, but Cheng En is definitely the tallest! Matthew has biggest feet of them all, I think.

7. YiXuan was the only gal at the BBQ. Cherylin came and left earlier, before we started the BBQ.

So who were there at the BBQ? The hosts were Jamie, Joash and Cayden. The guests were me, Mike and Matthew, Evon, P and Joshua (with their helper), Elaine, WW and Ignatius, Jannie and Cheng En (with her helper), Lih Miin, CW and YiXuan.



We all agreed that we had lots of fun. Next time the kids are older and can play together, it would be more fun!

Labels: SMH

Last Saturday, Matthew came down with gastric flu. Sad to say, he got it from YiXuan during a BBQ gathering at Auntie Jamie's place on National Day. It started with a low grade fever <37.5oC and a bout of loose stools in the morning. After that, he seems ok and we even went to Suntec and Botanic Gardens.

Near lunch time, he had another bout of diarrhea and wasn't too keen on his chicken rice. We went home and he had a nap. He ate a little porridge and had diluted milk. Fever still moderate. In the evening, he had some porridge for dinner and fell asleep in front of the TV. We woke him up for his paracetemol and went down for our dinner. He broke out in hives! He had taken paracetemol before, so we were surprised to see hives. He slept around 10pm. By then he had about 5-6x diarrhea and minor vomitting (because he ate too much too fast).

At 11pm, his hives subsided but fever went up to 39.5oC. We decided to give him brufen, a stronger fever medicine to try and bring down the temperature. An hour after, he broke out into FULL BLOWN hives. His eyes were swollen, body full of patches and it made him very restless. He was a zombie, leading me around the house, turning on all the lights. That worried me quite a bit, so I decided to get ourselves to KKH.

When we reached KKH, Matthew's fever has gone down to 38.9oC but eyes were still swollen and he was in a better mood. He really hates having his temperature taken. He cried! Really loud! and got everybody staring at him... as if they have never seen a kid cry before. *sigh* We walked around the whole place and waited 2 hours before we finally saw a doctor.

What I like about KKH is because it has a children's emergency department and they attend to the urgent cases first. But the non-emergency cases are often seen by the not so experienced doctors. They always have a more experienced doctor who they can consult, so that wasn't too bad. But sometimes you got to repeat the exact same thing you told the 1st doctor to the 2nd doctor. That can be annoying, especially when you have a crying baby on hand!!!

Anyway, we finally got to see TWO doctors and Matthew was given 5ml of some steroid based medicine to suppress the hives and 10ml of some pink anti-allergy medicine and half an hour later 5ml of paracetemol. By this time, my crying Matthew (who hates doctors because of the steroscope) was wore out, tired and falling asleep. At least he took the medicine without fuss and even drank 1 oz of water.

We spent another 2 hours in observation. By then the hives have gone down quite a bit but eyes were still swollen. Temperature was down to 38oC. After paying $65 (which included the medicine), we went home, with Matthew still sleeping and he slept till 9am.

What an ordeal! It really scared the hell out of me. Dr Ong said that what I did to administer the brufen was right, because his temperature did not come down, but we had no idea that he might be allergic to brufen.

Matthew is ok now, no more fever, but diarrhea continues. Get well soon, my dear boy.

Last Sunday morning, we decided to bring Matthew to Qian Hu, a local fish farm / breeder / exporter.

He was all excited when we reached Qian Hu, pointing and exclaiming "Fish" or "Yu2". He ran around, stopping to look at the different varieties of fishes, so amused to see so so so many fishes.







There's an education corner in the farm, where they have drains or longkang for the kids to catch guppies or longkang fish. Catching longkang fish used to be a fav pastime for many kids my generation, but with technology, kids now are more interested in computer games, rather than spending time outdoors with nature. There are some local fruit trees planted around this corner and Mike went round pointing out the different fruit to Matthew.

We took a break and had a drink and Matthew had a piece of dried apricot.



We lost our way, taking a left turn instead of a right and ended up at some vegetable farm where they were selling fresh produce. We stopped to take a look. I bought some sweet potatoes and pumpkin for this Wednesday's BBQ at a friend's place and some mushroom to cook.

Matthew was quiet on the journey back, probably a little tired, kept himself entertained, talking to his little soft toy dog. When he was home, he was so active and refused to nap till 2:15pm and that was after some insistence on my part!

What a mess of hair!


Here Garfield, drink some water.


Playing with his puzzle before going to Po Po's place.

I remember blogging a year ago about how Matthew quietened down and slept within moments when we sang Edelweiss from The Sound of Music. It was quite a while since I last sang it to him. 2 nights ago, he refused to lay down quietly during bedtime until I sang the song. He laid down very still next to me and fell asleep within 5 min. It happened again last night. I was totally amazed that it still works!

Matthew knows his numbers from 1 to 13, as in he knows how to recite them. We decided to teach him how to count. After each counting exercise, we will clap for him and praise him. He caught on fast.

watch a video - Catch his expression after each counting exercise!
Matthew learns to count!