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YIONEUNOICHIEIN1

Yah, the title may look gibberish but the super observant can quickly discipher the meaning behind it all.
Cutie Charlotte is 1 year old!!
A year ago, Cutie was torturing Darling inside her tummy. She refused to come out on her calculated 9 June birthday and decided to stay 2 days more. It happens that Charlotte’s birthday is the sum of Darling’s and my birthday.. Darling’s birthday is 6 Dec while mine is 5 May, so Charlotte decides to come out on the 11th. Lolz. Darling had to go in and out of the delivery suite a few times, undergo a few rounds of the uncomfortable cervix assessment and the anxiety of childbirth before Cutie decided to make a grand entrance. And what a REAL GRAND entrance involving almost everyone on call that night at the delivery suite! She wants everyone to be present on her birthday, so decided to make it a CODE GREEN emergency caesarian entrance, getting nurses, gynaes, neonatologies and paediatricians all around to receive her! A year on…. she is still as attention seeking as the start! Haha. She grabs the attention of everyone with her presence, be it in a good or bad way. She can amaze you with her motor skills (suddenly standing up when you least expected her to, and then walk towards you unaided!), she can suddenly utter gibberish and start clapping when she sees something interesting, she can dash towards a corner of the room only to pick up a strand of hair to lick, she can cover her mouth with her little hands and break out in a howling cry that can make you think she was trained by a Korean drama actress. Yup, that’s Our Cutie Charlotte and she turns 1 year old!!!

We decided to have a celebration for Cutie a few days before her actual birthday as her birthday is on a Thursday. Darling has been planning for her birthday party in March and April, spending hours browsing through numerous websites and images of 1-year-old birthday parties happening in Singapore for ideas of theme and venue. She shortlisted this cafe which fits the bill of being in a central location and “specialises in birthday parties for babies and kids” and it won awards being a child-friendly restaurant. EatPlayLove Cafe is a cosy cafe situated in Kampung Glam area, near to Bugis, located in the Aliwal Arts Center. It’s a Thai-fusion cafe with vintage decorations and dedicated areas of the cafe for kids to do craftwork while parents dine. We didn’t personally visit the cafe and the FB pics were all we had to decide this IS the cafe we want to hold Cutie’s important milestone birthday party.

Cafe settled, next up is the theme. “Sesame Street” was the initial plan since Cutie loves her Big Bird and Elmo hand puppets so much and there were so many kids party photos with the Sesame Street Theme. So we spent a few weeks browsing through google images, getting ideas on decorations etc before we felt that Sesame Street may be too “common” as a theme. We wanted something more personal, more special, more Charlotte. So I decided to put a search on Disney princesses. I wrote down a list of Disney princesses and decided to analyse each princess’s characteristics and see which one will fit our Cutie Baby the most. It is a very interesting research I must say, haha as I realize that each Disney Princess does indeed has 1-2 unique characteristics. There’s a few comparisons online done by other like-minded people which I can look through and it makes my job in searching for a fitting theme easier. Alice emerged as the leader with many characteristics similar to our Cutie Baby! Alice is a curious little girl who loves to explore the world, sometimes not realizing the dangers involved. She has no fear of the unknown and the unknown made her more curious to explore and experiment. She is rebellious of sorts, going against public opinion, wanting to do things differently. She can be feisty, going against authority, even speaks back at the Queen! Alice dares to try weird concoctions and food, resulting in her growing and shrinking, while Cutie will dash towards scraps of paper, strands of hair and never hesistate to put them into her small mouth and shutting it tight. There were elements of Alice in Wonderland that we find coincidental to Cutie as well, such as cats and 10/6 on the Mad Hatter’s Hat. Alice loves Cats and there’s also a Chesire Cat that she talks to a lot in the story. Charlotte, likewise, will get all excited when she sees the stray cats at the void decks. The price of the Mad Hatter’s Green hat is 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence) while Cutie’s birthday is 11/6, the 11th of June. The Alice in Wonderland theme fitted Charlotte almost too perfectly we feel, so decided on this theme!

Theme settled, the next important thing is the cake! Again, Darling is the one with the connections to this wonderful artisan baker whom her friend engaged. She was impressed by her friend’s child’s birthday cake and wanted something as amazing, if not MORE spectacular! The cake has a moving component, something we though we will only see on Food Network’s Amazing Cake challenge. Well, this friend of hers managed to get her child a moving cake. How can Charlotte get something inferior?? Cutie deserves the best! So we decided to engage Jill Patiss to be our Cake designer. This will be her first Alice in Wonderland themed cake as well, so it’s equally exciting for her. We had to come up with important elements of the story to be incorporated into the cake. Darling searched the web, finding similar designs to show Jill Patiss, hoping to inspire her creativity. We never saw the cake’s design blueprint and the first time we saw the cake was at the actual birthday party itself!

EatPlayLove Cafe is also doing the Alice in Wonderland themed party design for the very first time as well! So we had to come up with the colour theme we wanted to show the cafe as a sample. We brainstormed some designs by looking at similar parties done elsewhere and consolidated the ideas to give to the cafe. Gayle was the person in charge of coming up with the designs of our ideas and she did not disappoint. She tried to incorporate everything we asked for. The colours, the food labels, drink labels, banner designs, quote cards etc, hoping to make this party a success as well. We paid for the dessert table and decoration package and everything will be set up for us before the TEA PARTY started. This saves us a lot of stress, because I wanted us to enjoy the party together with Cutie and not to get stressed over unnecessary things. The final design was amazing!

Pictures speak a thousand words… …
The birthday dress was bought during one of the EXPO baby fairs and is very well matched with the headband and ribbon! Lucky Darling is good with matching colours… … if I was the head designer, it will be fashion disaster!

Birthday Girl getting ready for the Party!

The cafe has done many birthday parties over the years and Tristan is very fast in setting up the macarons, cupcakes, stands and arrow banners. They even have colour matched table decorations and balloons. The next picture will showcase the details of the decorations, matching the Charlotte’s ONE-derland Theme.
“DRINK ME”, “EAT ME” are classics from the story and we loved how the colours combined to give a cheerful vibrant atmosphere.

Gummies Tier. Personalized Birthday card. Water with the “Drink Me” labels. Cupcakes with the “Eat Me” labels. Giant flasks to hold mashmallows and Cookies.

No Disney cartoon has as many memorable quotes as Alice in Wonderland, so I selected these few quotes, 1 from each character of the story, to make the themed decoration more complete. Darling was very satisfied with the end result.

Memorable Cute Quotes

The centerpiece of the dessert table is Cutie’s Birthday Cake. It makes a superb dessert table decoration PERFECT. The cake is an amazing piece of art! The detailed elements of the Story can all be seen on the cake. The cake is such a joy to watch! Every part of the cake is filled with details that it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE not to have a Jawdrop reaction when you look at it. The girl on the cake was supposed to be Alice but we decided to let Charlotte own the cake by having her own figurine on the cake! Notice the dress of the girl’s figurine?? YES!!! It’s modelled after Cutie’s dress. Darling has sent a pic of Cutie’s dress to Jill Patiss so that she can create an almost perfect replica of the dress. We replaced the 10/6 on the Mad Hatter’s hat to 11/6, to reflect on Cutie’s actual Birthday. There is a revolving Tea party table as a cake topper with miniature cakes, teacups as well as a teapot. We were told that the entire cake is edible, except the battery operated revolving tea party topper. Lolz. We absolutely love this cake. Darling is absolutely delighted that this shall be the best cake amongst all the 1-year-old birthday parties she attended, and it will stay number 1 for a very long time we feel.

Mr Rabbit, Mad Hatter’s Hat, Caterpillar, Chesire Cat, Charlotte, directional signs, complete with a revolving tea party table cake topper.

Wonder how it all looks when pieced together?

The final setup of Charlotte’s ONE-derland Tea Party

The Tea Party is a success! Kids were entertained with the crafts corner. Adults have ample tables and seats to have a chit chat, catching up over yummy food. They can even have an eyefeast on the POWER cake. Almost everyone has a group photo together with Cutie Charlotte and brought home some cakes and cookies. Darling looks very very very happy and satisfied with the ONE-derland party and we get to keep all the decorations. Next time when Cutie is old enough to have her own room, we can use them to decorate the room.

On Cutie’s actual day birthday, we ordered a cake for the infant class to celebrate with the other classmates and her teachers. A pity we could not take leave to join her but teachers were kind enough to give us soft copies of the photos taken during the birthday celebrations.

Josiah celebrations

Cutie even had a birthday gift from the school!

Birthday Gifts from School and her favorite teacher Ms Angie

We also held another sing-song cake-cutting ceremony together with Darling’s family. The tart is super yummy!! It’s supposed to be a “snickers” Tart and it tastes exactly like a Snickers Bar! Lolz, super delicious. The cupcakes are Mint-Chocolate, which tastes like the “After-Eight” Mint chocolate.

Mini Birthday celebration on 11 June

She drank from a bottle called “DRINK ME”
And up she grew so tall.
Grow Curiouser and Curiouser everyday our Cutie Charlotte.

Alice: “This is impossible!”
Mad Hatter: “Only if you believe in it.”

Believe in yourself Cutie Baby and You can achieve Great Things.
This is a land full of Wonder, Mystery and Danger our dear Cutie Charlotte, but Mama and PaPa will be with you every step of the way.

Happy Birthday Our Cutie Baby

Well, since my darling took a while to decipher the title…I shall provide the answer. Haha
YIONEUNOICHIEIN1
It’s the way to say “1” in different languages…
YI = mandarin
ONE = English
UNO = Spanish / Italian… coincidentally UN = French
ICHI = Japanese
EIN = German

Well, even more coincidentally, they all happen to be from the countries we have travelled to before!

Birthdays and outings

April and May came and gone so fast! So many activities during the last 2 months that I have yet to record in here. Lolz.

April:

Darling and I brought Cutie to her first “indoor playground” trip. There are so many indoor playgrounds springing up everywhere to cater to different ages, such as polliwogs, cool de sac, hokey pokey etc, I thought Singapore has a low birth rate?? Well, most of our generation parents think that the old-fashioned HDB playgrounds are dirty, not fun etc and it does not help when the weather is so super duper hot these days! Indoor playgrounds is the answer to all these! And if you have a maid, can even leave the maid with the kid in there while husband and wife can have some me-shopping-time! At Cutie’s age, there’s not much playgrounds that offer a play section for < 1 year olds. Cool De Sac happen to have a small section for infant play, so we decided to check it out. The area is quite big, but older kids will enjoy it more for it’s slides and bouncy obstacle course. The infant section is small but the users are small too mah, so it’s ok. There are many toys there, ranging from building blocks, to miniature animals and vegetables, to plastic rocking horse and the foam slides and foam blocks for climbing. Cutie takes a while to warm up to the slide and toys but after a while, she started to enjoy. She loved the pool full of colourful balls and especially the yellow rocking horse! Haha, maybe it’s because she love yellow stuff.

Go Yellow Horsie!

She loves the Freefall feeling, so the see-saw is one of her favorite HDB playground installments, see how much fun she has with Darling! Darling is having lots of fun too!

See-Saw Up & Down. U go up and I come down

Cutie is becoming more mobile and it’s getting harder to get her to sit down in her high-chair for meals. We have to put distractions on her table such as toys, blocks, remote controls, cold packet drinks etc before we can get her to sit down to finish her food! We try very hard to instill the idea of having to sit down in the chair during meal times and she can only get out after eating. So far it has worked when she is in our own home and when she’s outside. =) She will quietly sit down in her baby seat when we feed her the puree or cereal.

Big Boss Cutie Charlotte

May:

May is an exciting month with many important events! I love May as we have lots of opportunities to go out!

Our first outing in May is the River Safari! Cutie loves small animals, esp those that are very active with lots of movement, just like her! So cats, dogs, birds, monkeys are her favorite! She was so excited to see a monkey up close and personal, lolz that she keep pointing and laughing to herself when she saw the small monkeys jumping from branch to branch and walking on the railing. Cutie loves hide and seek as well, and she loves to look for monkeys hiding in trees and in the shrubs and will get super duper excited when she spots one. If she points into the bushes, there’s sure to be a monkey hiding there if we look hard enough. Her vision is perfect! She loves big animals as well but tend to lose her interest very fast because large animals usually move very slowly…. The appearance of the Pandas JiaJia and KaiKai got her interested for a while but cutie will lose focus once the pandas sit down to eat their leaves. Haha, but she don’t mind staying in the panda enclosure looking at other tourists while she enjoys the air-con.

Mama, I see a Monkey!

MaMa, what’s that Black & White Bear?

The Black & White Bear is YUMMY!

My birthday falls on the first week of May so Darling has planned a surprise trip for Cutie and me on a Sunday. She drove using iPhone Apple Maps for the first time while I was in the backseat entertaining Cutie. Yeah! I love surprises!

Darling brought us to Sentosa RWS and the secret Birthday lunch will be at OCEAN Restaurant by Cat Cora, located within S.E.A Aquarium. We are having lunch in the Largest Aquarium, haha. Eating fish with fishes swimming around us is a wonderful experience. Cutie saw lots of fishes swimming around while she’s having her puree too. She enjoys seeing the schools of fish more than the single Manta Ray or Shark and points non stop too!

Birthday SEA Aquarium visit

On my Actual birthday, Darling gave me another surprise! She ordered a rainbow cake for me! I always wanted to try a rainbow cake. so YAY I got 1! This rainbow cake is special, the colours are all made using natural ingredients and it’s supposed to be a natural rainbow cake. Colours not that vibrant but natural things are good! And it’s super yummy too! I love you Darling! Cutie enjoys singing the birthday song and keeps pointing to the candle flame rather than blow it out!

See How Excited Cutie is!!! Pardon my Fat Tummy. =p

The following week is another exciting event! It’s Darling’s First Mother’s Day!!!!! We had a combined celebration with my mum at Prima Tower revolving restaurant. Cutie again loves the cake cutting. She does not know how to blow out the candles yet but she sure is attracted to them!

3 Mummies having Mother’s Day Cake

Initially we planned to go Mount Faber and the Henderson Wave bridge but I guess Cutie is too tired so she slept while in the car. So we ended up chilling at the Vivo starbucks! Cutie had a fun time too, playing with her light sabre bubble stick. =p

The actual mother’s day was a real surprise treat for Darling! It’s her first Mother’s Day after all, so She deserves a special award…This prize is awarded by Cutie. She had her First Stand on Mother’s Day!! Can you imagine how excited we were when Cutie suddenly stood up on our bed?!??! We were like “WOWOWOWOWOW WOW!!!”
We applauded Cutie for her effort and she felt so proud! Then continued to attempt standing for longer durations, just to impress us and earn more applause! Haha We love this Hao-Lian behaviour of Cutie, it spurs her on to achieve new milestones!

Standing performance on Cutie’s playmat

Cutie amazes us and amuses us as much as we amuse her I feel. She is such a curious girl! She is a naughty cheeky girl as well! Sometimes we really dunno whether to be angry or amused when feeding Cutie Charlotte. She can really seal her mouth tight and no matter how we push the spoon, it will not go into her mouth! Sometimes it’s the last scoop of porridge that we can’t wait to put into her mouth and declare a Beautiful Victory but she will just seal her mouth tight and deny us that temporary gratification! How irritating! Lolz. The end result of the battle? Cutie will be transformed into a “大花猫”!

MaMa, Did you REALLY pick me up from the Rubbish-Bin?? ;p

Amused by her own reflection before bedtime

Darling and I used to go for several running events a year, but since her pregnancy and the arrival of Cutie, we have stopped doing so. The last one we went to was the StanChart marathon last year. So when the opportunity came for the baby-friendly running event, I immediately signed her and Cutie up!! Haha, I am talking about the Cold Storage Kids Run 2015 on 17 May 2015 @ The Meadows (Gardens By The Bay).

Baby Champion

Darling and Charlotte in action!

Cutie Charlotte loves vibrant colours and she loves her Elmo and Big Bird puppets! Every night without fail, she will give the puppets to her favorite Puppeteer to bring them alive…..And that favorite puppeteer is none other than…. ….

MaMa can always bring Elmo to life! Notice Barney on TV? Dunno why kids just love Barney… …

I want to bring Cutie outdoors often, to let her feel the wind blowing in her face, to smell the scent of trees and the morning dew, to touch the silky smooth surface of a leaf and to see people of different ages engaging in activities. I hope this stimulates all her senses, to engage her enough to hopefully make her smarter. Hahaha, which parent do not want their child to be smart? So we decided to try out a new activity on 1 of the May Weekend. It was one of our favorite pak-toh activity too but too dangerous to try with a baby. Lucky they came up with this new vehicle so we can have some family fun time! This vehicle has no gears and no brakes! It moves really slowly and the speed is constant despite our maximum effort…so it’s a good workout for us parents too, while Cutie baby enjoys the breeze first hand in the front seat. Hahaha.

Happily driving the vehicle, enjoying the sea breeze on her face and hair blowing in the wind

As mentioned in the earlier paragraph, Cutie’s favorite cartoon DVD is “Barney in the Zoo”. Hope she likes the animals more than she likes Barney. She loves some of the animals featured in the DVD, essentially the Meerkats (Top Top favorite), Monkeys and Tigers. Everytime these animals are featured on the DVD, she will be glued to the TV screen and her index finger will start pointing to the animals on screen. She will even clap when the Meerkats appear! So we brought her out to the Zoo during the last weekend of May to show her the REAL deal! Haha.

Meerkats Live

We ended the zoo trip with a visit to the KidsWorld waterplay playground and she enjoyed the jets if water spraying onto her face and body and the huge water bucket pouring water over her head!

Since she likes waterplay, we brought her to another water playground at Changi City Point for another session of water fun! This time, we donned her with the Hello Kitty Swim Suit which darling has been DYING to let Cutie wear! Hahaha. Well, Darling got her wish and Cutie got to play in the right attire! And I got drenched too.

Proud MaMa with Hello Kitty Model

That brings us to the close of May. June is another big BIG month for us. It’s going to be Charlotte’s Birthday Month! How time flies, Charlotte is going to be 1 soon! We have planned a themed party for her and I will cover it in a blog post very soon!!

First wedding anniversary with our bundle of joy

Parent-teacher-meeting…never heard that term for a very long time.

We enrolled Cutie in an infant-care center since Dec 2014 and we had the first parent-teacher-meeting a few weeks ago. So fast time flies, Cutie has been inside the infant-care for 3 months.

I remember back in late last year, we were still discussing the care plans for Cutie once we all start work. Shall we leave her in an infant-care facility? Or leave her at grandmother’s home? Or hire a domestic helper?

Cutie is not the “easy” baby to take care of as she needs lots of care. We are aware of these and thus were quite hesistant of sending her an infant-care facility, fearing that teachers may not pay as much attention to Cutie’s various challenges as required. Cutie has sensitive skin and would have an eczema flare inermittently, she has problems finishing her milk and she was very dependant on the traditonal bab hammock to get to sleep.

We finally decided to go with this infant-care center Josiah Montessori @ Aperia, which offered 1:3 ratio and has available vacancy.

The teachers did manage to wean Cutie off the hammock after 2 weeks and it did surprise us when Cutie actually can fall asleep at night with just some patting and song humming.

Sleeping on a rocker

Cutie is always the “On the move” baby and she loves getting on her feet and on her belly to explore new surroundings, new toys and new friends. Well, Charlotte means “Free Man” anyway, so she loves to roam around freely. During the parent-teacher-meeting, her main teacher showed me some of Charlotte’s on-the-move pics which were so cute!

Walking with assistance from her favorite teacher

Enjoying the climb during play-time

Cutie can sit down to play on her own too, sometimes enjoying a quiet moment with her books and sometimes interacting with other babies. There was even a pic with Charlotte showing her friend how to play a cube!

Sitting on a bumbo chair

Attempting to read

Teaching a friend how to play

Those were good moments in school but sometimes there can be lapses in Cutie’s care during the last 3 months there. On 3 occasions, Charlotte was handed back to us with very bad diaper rashes, even though she did not have diarrhoea. Never before did Charlotte had such a bad case of diaper rash. Darling would meticulously apply Desitin cream and clean up for Cutie over the weekend and ensure Charlotte’s buttocks were back to a clean normal state during the new week in school. However during the next weekend, Charlotte will again have an angry looking Diaper rash with bad excoriations. It’s so bad that Charlotte would refuse to sit down and cries whenever we change her diapers, it was that painful. Back-and-Forth communication with the teachers finally had them realize the importance of regular diaper checks and change. Hopefully Charlotte will have no more Diaper rash days.

================================================ Chinese New Year! Charlotte baby celebrated her first Chinese New year this year! Even though she didn’t manage to master the “Gongxi Gongxi” gesture, she still managed to collect her very first AngBao! Haha. She enjoyed the festival thoroughly as there were plenty of stimulation and interaction with adults and children. She was so high daily that she would jump around on bed and “talk” non stop even when her bedtime is way over!

Cutie’s makeover during Chinese New Year

Darling managed to dress cutie up for the occasion and gave her a 格格makeover. Hahaha.

Having cutie baby around in our lives have definitely brought more laughter and joy. Cutie baby is the ONLY ONE capable of making darling melt everytime. When darling is angry or sad, a smile from our Charlotte baby will lighten her mood every time. How I wish I have that power!

 

Many cheeky moments of Cutie

 

Today marks the our 9 years courtship anniversary and 3 years actual day grand shanghai wedding anniversary. The best years of my life so far. I’m sure there will be more years better than these 9 years coming along and I can’t wait to explore the world with my darling and cutie Charlotte. Next challenge is to go overseas with them!

Cheeky Cutie Baby

ONE23456

Well, whenever there’s an entry, something significant must have happened. This time round, the date to note is 31 Jan 2015.

“180306 My First Love . My Only Darling 310110” This is the message etched onto our champagne gold rings which we wear day in, day out.

For the past 5 years, we have been spending this anniversary with each other, but this year is different as we have a bundle of joy in our midst to celebrate together with us!

We went back to where it all began, Shangri-la Hotel with the dreamy Waterfall Terrace and the pond full of colourful Koi. The place where we held our ROM reception has been converted into a Cafe called The Waterfall but the charm of the place and the memories of us walking down the terraces to friends shouting and throwing rose petals is still fresh in my mind. We had high tea with Cutie at The Rose Veranda, sipping TWG tea and having nibbles of the buffet line. Cutie is having an infant high tea buffet of her own too, mainly having bites off slices of fruits.

Happy Wedding Anniversary!

Cutie with her buffet spread

“Wow, a family protrait that looks nice for once!!!” — Darling exclaimed

Cutie had a new bathing indulgence as introduced by Darling… …a Literal Milk Bath! And we are using Real Milk….Breast Milk! Hahaha yeah! So No fear of Cutie drinking her bath-tub water already, since it’s breast milk anyway. Ever since Cutie refused to drink the frozen expressed breast milk, they are left in our freezer, taking up precious space for our ice-creams…haha, so what better way to use them but to use them for Milk Shower! Maciam Empress Dowager, we have Mini-Princess Charlotte enjoying her Breast Milk Bath. Priceless smile…

Preparing to enter her bath tub full of Mummy’s Milk

Enjoying her first Milk Bath

The last 3 weeks has been a culinary roadtrip for us. First we went to Rose Veranda for our Anniversary high-tea, 1 week before our actual anniversary, then 1 week later, we visited the Botanical Gardens where we had brunch at Food For Thought. The botanical gardens is also another memorable place for us since it is where Darling received her first bouquet of 99 roses from me, back at the day when Au Jardin was still open for business. Food for thought is quite a child friendly place with their own in-house playground, complete with a slide. It’s spacious to accomodate strollers and baby chairs inside and food is not too bad. Parking is a breeze as the carpark is just outside the restaurant. After brunch, we had a stroll inside Botanical Gardens, exposing Cutie to the many big trees and green leaves and colourful blooms along the way. Weather was hot though and Cutie fell asleep quite fast in her stroller. Haha, in the end, it’s only darling and me enjoying the scenery, pushing Cutie in the stroller. According to darling, THIS is the image of a blissful life! Husband and Wife, pushing a baby pram with a sleeping baby inside, strolling through the park….if only the weather is more cooling…

Darling with her Anniversary Bouquet comprising of flowers from her ROM bouquet

Cutie and Mummy having a very interactive feeding session

Cutie loves to crawl around now and she is standing up more easily too. She can walk really fast forward holding on to our fingers. Of course she don’t know what is fear…haha venturing forth to every corner of the house. She will also attempt to squeeze into any holes (under chairs, tables, TV consoles). Cutie even managed to find a way to climb out of her teak chair! (Which I congratulated her for… Haha, I think it takes creativity and imagination to maneuver her way out of the chair and she deserves the credit!).

Cutie with walker

Go Forth My Cutie! Have no fear! But please do it in our presence lah!

Next up are some cute pics that we took along the way with Cutie and there’s a cute faceoff between Cutie and Joshua!

Cutie trying to test if Mummy’s teething necklace is made of Gold

This pic resembles a Young Darling to the MAX

“Don’t U dare take my Diapers! Only left with these 2 packets on the shelves!” – Charlotte

PeekaBoo I found U hiding underneath my Stool!

Angelic and ever-so-innocent look…

Cutie and Joshua Face-off…David vs Goliath

ONE Cutie Baby Charlotte, 246 days old, 35 weeks.

ONE23456. Question answered. =)

Can’t wait to have a family hug with my darling and Cutie later!

32.7.10.224

In case you are wondering if this is an IP address… nope.

Make an educated guess what the numbers mean and maybe u are right?

It has been almost 11 weeks since my last entry about our Cutie Baby Charlotte, and a lot of interesting developments have taken place. =)

Sitting independently

 

“Sit @ 7 months, crawl at 8″….the old saying passed down from our parents’ time…..Cutie does not seem to follow that and she is more like Sit @ 6th month, Crawl + stand + assisted walk @ 7. She is developing motor skills quickly and I am so looking forward to the day we can UNLEASE her in the park and let her run wild! I may have to source for rare materials to clothe Cutie before setting her loose, by royal decree from my Darling, les Cutie suffers any injuries. Of course Cutie has to be clothed with fairyleather infused with magical energies, wears a helmet made from  adamantine, dons a mithril vest, finally completed with knee and elbow guards made from Spidersilk….Now where can I find those materials…..Any ideas?

Cutie has grown bored of just flipping and rolling around (she only does that when throwing a tantrum), now she wants to grab hold of anything to assist her standing up. The world looks different from a higher perspective and she is enjoying that. We occasionally indulge her by lifting her up on our shoulders but we have to limit that if we still want to keep our hair…YES she pulls hairs! She can sit fairly comfortably on her own, leaving her hands free to play with toys or her favorite piano gym.

Cutie and her Piano play gym

 

She can play on her own but she definitely prefers a playmate or many playmates. She will grab every opportunity to “Eh” an adult to play with her. Her small cutie head will follow you when u walk pass and then she will assess….if she fancies your company, she will either “eh” you over or she will start to crawl towards you…but if she is lazy to do that, she will just cry. She loves to just stand and bounce…she can just stand and bounce all day without feeling tired!!! Small bundle of energy which can be expanded beyond capacity… The solution??? The Fisher-Price Bouncer! Yeah!

Always wanting to stand, bounce and be entertained

Cutie in Bouncer, talking to Big Bird

 

 

Cutie is in childcare now for the last 6 weeks and she seems to be enjoying her time there. Teachers will be around her all the time and she is surrounded by other babies and cheerful people, singing songs. She feeds more regularly in school surprisingly and hope it helps with her weight gain! Well, with school and other children, there is bound to be viruses floating around and Cutie has been in and out of a cough since the start of Jan…missing a few days of school due to fever but she still remains cheerful most of the time. So, we kinda accepted that falling sick is part and parcel of school and it may be beneficial for Cutie in the long term by introducing her to the common viruses in the community, building up her immune system database. Nonetheless, we can see that Cutie is happy in school, as she will readily jump into the arms of her favorite teacher Angie every morning and reluctantly let me carry her away from school every evening. Haha. Hope she develops more inter-personal skills in school! I want our Cutie to be a sociable, adorable, smart active baby!

Cutie went for her KKH checkup in early Jan 2015. Her weight was 6.44kg, which maintained her at the 25th percentile but we are glad her height is at the 50-75th percentile and head circumference at 50th percentile…does that mean she has more potential to be intelligent?? We sure hope so! Hmm…now Charlotte looks so puny next to her ~7.8 kg cousin Joshua who is just 4 month old!!

Charlotte has started eating solids and Her masterchef Mummy spared no effort to create nutritious purees for her! Every week we would raid the supermarket in search of yummilicious stuff to make her puree. Currently she has tried brown rice, wholegrain cereal, millet rice, pumpkin, potatoes (Her Favourite!!), tomatoes, threadfin fish, sweet corn, carrots, beetroot, tofu, Kale. Fruits she has tried apples, bananas, orange, avocado (her Ex-favourite), Strawberries (Her favourite!!).

Nibbling away at her Favourite Little Strawberry

 

Darling has been wanting to try this with Cutie during 1 of our super-market trips and we eventually did it!!! (After a massive wipedown with several pieces of baby wipes…)

Cutie shopping for her “MumMum”

 

Yup, she enjoyed it for a while because the metal pieces are cold cold to the touch but after 30 min, she wants out…maybe she wants to push the shopping trolley!?!?

Charlotte has brought much joy into our lives and it’s amazing just to see how she’s learning new things and achieving new milestones. There’s never a dull moment in our lives now that Cutie is in the house! Of course, Poor mummy is often tired out by caring for her and coping with her busy work…Cutie is a bundle of energy which takes a long time to use up and takes a short time to recharge. Haha maybe they are made that way so they can ever-ready to learn from the fast changing world.

Mummy is still recharging but Cutie Charlotte has finished her Charge Cycle and ready for more activities!!!

 

Darling and I celebrate our 5th year wedding anniversary on the 31st Jan and I am indeed blessed to have 2 angels in my life now!

“Hold my hand as we celebrate our new lives together” The wedding quilt cover is still relevant for Cutie and us!

Hope there will be more happy days ahead for all of us!

 

 

And Finally… Yes 32.7.10.224, it’s the age of Cutie Baby Charlotte on this day… 32 weeks ie 7 months 10 days ie 224 days. Did you get it right? =)

21 weeks of Naughtiness

Cutie baby is 21 weeks old today! Well, still a far distance from 21 years old and getting the key but I rather she is 21 weeks old than 21 years old now. Who knows if she will still want us around her at 21 years old? At least when she is still 21 weeks, she DEFINITELY wants us around her!

Cutie Charlotte is an early waker, She usually will sleep very early at about 7-8pm, when she will start whining and asking for milk milk and bed at the same time! Darling will pat her to semi-sleep mode then Cutie will drink her Dream-feed before going to LaLa-Land. She can sleep 4-6 hours at night before waking up for her next feed. She starts the day early, often waking up at 5-6am, then will start her “baby-talk” and even kicks Mummy to wake her up! Haha doesn’t work with me, coz I sleep like a pig!

Wide awake Cutie still in her sleeping bag

Cutie loves “flapping her wings” as Darling will say. She will open her arms wide and quickly slaps down on her tummy repeatedly whenever she is excited or happy. Hahaha, similar to a bird flapping wings, just that Cutie will not fly out of her rocker when she does that. At 21 weeks, Cutie is super curious about her surroundings, trying to absorb everything she sees or hears. Sometimes we feel she is too curious and is easily distracted. When we bring her out, feeding time is always a challenge as she will be more interested in look-look-see-see more than her milk-milk. She will rather play with her uncle TJ, auntie Val and PoPo than drink her milk milk. Sigh… Her cousin, Joshua, is finishing his 3 hourly 120ml milk feed while she is struggling with drinking 100ml….How to grow fat fat??

With Cutie around, Our life will never have a dull moment coz she won’t allow us that! Hahaha. She Baby-talks a lot, cries for attention when she sees nobody around her, screams when she is left hungry or soiled, shrieks if she wants to sleep and is unable to fall asleep herself. She loves to play too! Cutie has rattling toys, teethers, a cuddly ball, a piano play-gym and 2 humans as playmates. Hope she gets the stimulation through free play and grow up smart!

Fisherprice Piano Play-gym, create music as she plays! She loves the blue elephant with big red ears.

Sofie is Charlotte’s favorite teething friend

Cutie watches BPL with me. Guess which team? Hehe

PoPo buy many toys for Cutie and she sat in the exact same chair Darling sat in as a child! How special is that!!!

We are bringing Cutie out every week, trying to get some life of our own back. Hehehe, lucky somebody inverted the baby carrier so we can be more mobile with 2 hands free. At least I have 1 hand to pat Cutie, 1 hand to hold my darling while we are shopping and I can still kiss Cutie on her head….On the move! Yeah. We have been to Westgate, Tampines mall, Marina Square, Expo, Vivo, City Square etc, hoping to explore more. Notice they are all indoor places?? Yeah, cannot venture to Nature yet coz weather too hot nowadays and Cutie will have eczema flare when she sweats too much, and my darling is paranoid about Mozzies targeting her cutie baby. But 1 fine day, I will make sure Cutie loves Nature too. Aspiring to bring her to nature reserves to touch the leaves, smell the air and play with grass, to the beach to play with sand…Hahaha I guess my darling will freak out soon…

 

Mummy carrying Cutie using Carrier

Cutie loves her bath time too, kicking and splashing the water all over the floor, occasionally we see her secretly sucking the bath water from the face towel we used to wipe her. Lolz, dirty girl. “Ding Ding” an idea from Darling—why don’t we let her go swimming?? Can exercise too….

Great idea Darling! So during one of the Baby Fairs @ Expo, we signed up for the babyspa package. We signed for a 20 session package and it comes with 10 free baby massage sessions. Babyspa has several outlets in different parts of Singapore so it will be easier for us to bring Cutie to explore Singapore…by going to different outlets. Hehehe, great thinking. From the looks of it, Cutie does enjoy being in her own big bath tub, especially with the Jacuzzi function switched on!

Cutie Swimming

Darling even bought Cutie a Hello Kitty towel to use after her Swim-Swim! Haha, Darling couldn’t go for this year’s Hello Kitty Run so she will make Cutie baby her Hello Kitty! Hmm… maybe we could name her Hello Kit-Tan??

Cutie after Swim Swim

Cutie Cutie….she is going for her 5-in-1 jab next week again.. be brave and hope the jab makes you stronger!

Looking forward to the day we can bring you overseas! Hahaha

Cutie Cutie Look

14 weeks and counting…

Charlotte reached several milestones the last 2 weeks.

She can lift up her head from week 10 and is ever so curious to turn her head from left to right, trying to take in as much scenery as possible with her black round eyes. Yes, she can track objects as well for a full 180 degrees if she is interested in it, even at a distance! Maybe I am fat, so more easily trackable… … Hmm…

She smiles more for us and seems to recognize faces too, especially appears more friendly by kicking her legs when she sees faces who will potentially indulge her by carrying her and pat pat her in their arms. (Me included… Lolz, guilty me…. How not to carry her when she shows you her ever-so-cute eyes with 2 drops of tears at the edges??? I will melt lo! But I will try)

Hahaha, Darling and I have been limiting Cutie’s carrying time so she will not get pampered too much. We are trying not to indulge her too much les she feels it is a norm to get patted or carried 24 hours a day, whenever she is awake. As far as possible, we seat her in a rocker and play with her. Yes, she loves to play, especially if she can hear different sounds when she is playing. I try to talk to her, in our language, in her language and in an alien language…she seems to like to talk! She feels entertained by me dancing in front of her and is super amused when I am imitating her cries. Hahaha, So cute! Sometimes she will “fake” a cry to get carried and hugged and I will irritate her by imitating her cry, such that she don’t know whether to laugh or cry…so she will wail a bit, then crack up a big smile and wail a bit more before giving up and continue playing by herself. It’ s such a joy to have her around and to play with her.

Darling is the more studious one, reading stories to her, singing nursery rhymes while I am the nonsense one, trying to entertain her, machiam a court jester trying to make a princess smile. We even got a puppet book to read to her, she seems to enjoy more of the puppet moving than the story read but that doesn’t matter, as long as she is happy and drinks her milk milk.

self entertaining Charlotte amused at her Cute Face

I got a chance for daddy-cutie bonding last week, when Darling and her mum went for Cavalia @ MBS. Quite an exciting experience. I was pushing the pram with cutie inside till the entrance of the white tent theater of Cavalia, then I am left alone with Cutie. Heehee, yeah! I pushed Charlotte around Marina Promenade, letting her admire the Singapore Skyline and night lights, enjoying the cool night breeze. She may be tired after so much lights stimulation, and started rubbing her eyes and yawning, so I drove her back home all by myself, with her in the car seat of course! Initially she was all cranky as I woke her up from her slumber and transferred her to the car seat. She was crying loudly while in the car, but after a short journey, she drifted back to sleep again.

Cutie with backdrop of Marina

Back in the air-con comfort of MBS

Settled down back at home, sleeping cutely again

Last week we went to celebrate TJ’s birthday! TJ is darling’s little brother AKA Cutie’s uncle or Jiu Jiu. It’s his 21st Birthday and we decided to doll Charlotte up with the dress TJ bought! She seems a bit small for the dress but still sweet nonetheless! We went to Diamond Kitchen at Marine Parade, place looks nice with good food at reasonable prices. Cutie enjoyed the outing, but she has to be contented with her bottled milk while we indulge in yummy food!

 

Charlotte all dressed up

Birthday Boy TJ with Bryan and Valerie (with Baby Joshua inside her)

Cutie also started to flip last week! She is able to flip from back lying to tummy proning position with a little bit of help at times, and she will be happily lifting up her head to enjoy the scenery from a different perspective again! But she cannot last long though, once she feels tired and yet unable to flip back, she will start to CRY for help! So amusing! Hahaha. Mummy Darling bought a new toy for her this week too! It is a gloved teether and also serves to prevent her from rubbing her eyes too much! It also instantly transformed her into CAPTAIN CUTIE HOOK!!

Captain Cutie Hook! Zap Zap you

We took her to the polyclinic 2 days back for her 3rd month vaccination this week. It will be her first dose of 5-in-1 as well as pneumococcal vaccine, 1 on each thigh. She screamed when the needle went in but settled down after a few pats, such a brave girl! Wonder if it’s more painful for Cutie or more painful for my Darling. Darling seems to be on the verge of crying when seeing Cutie scream, but Cutie put on a brave front and composed herself really quickly! Well Done Cutie!

She is growing taller but somehow her weight gain is slowing down… hmm… not the Michelin Baby darling is hoping for with the meat creases on her arms and legs and tummy. But hopefully Cutie can catch up on her potential of a big, tall healthy baby! She was born at the 90th percentile but her weight is only 10-25 percentile now, height at 75th percentile. Jiayou Cutie! Grow Grow Grow!

Poor Cutie had fever yesterday and was cranky after her vaccinations, drinking only 3/4 of what she used to drink. Darling has been taking good care of cutie with regular sponging and syrup panadol. Thank you Darling for everything!

Looking forward to more good things with Cutie Baby and eagerly waiting for her to do more new things! Having a baby is amazing! Thank you darling for giving me a chance to be a father! I love you!

Now eagerly waiting for Baby Joshua to pop out this week, and Cutie will have a new playmate!

 

A Perfect 10. 10-11 Weeks old Cutie Baby Charlotte

Well, nobody says parenthood is easy and we learnt it through experience. No matter how many books we read will not prepare us enough for the challenge of looking after Charlotte… …moreover I only read 1 book. Hahaha
10 weeks flew past just like that and we have the VIP seats to view the growth of our Cutie baby.

Cutie is growing steadily day by day, gaining valuable meat along the way. (Darling is complaining that Cutie does not look MEATY enough! She’s looking for a Michelin tyre Baby!!!) I really need to pump up my muscles soon coz my arms are getting tired faster while carrying her. She may look small but she is indeed getting heavier, maybe she’s the slim atheletic type? Dunno leh but weight gain and height gain is there lah. Still…. it does not hurt to look beefier! At least it satisfies Mummy. Lolz

Cutie has started coo-ing, ah-ing, ooooh-ing for the last 1-2 weeks and she has started using different tones and pitches as well. Darling feels that Cutie just discovered her voice and she can change her voice and is very excited by it. But she tends to use it in the wrong way! She will shriek and scream and screech more often whenever she don’t get her way….ie, when milk arrives slower than STAT, when milk is less than warm enough, when she is left in a wet diapers for too long, when she wants to have back massage…YES a back massage, when she’s feeling hot, when she wants u to play with her, when she wants to sleep but somehow can’t fall asleep…
Sigh….
With advise from friends and colleagues and books and internet, we have tried to let her “cry it out”. It works actually, she will cry for at most 5 mins, legs flying around kick-kick-kick, wringgling her body, punching the air, wah lao, really like Qi-Siao like that lah! If other people don’t know, sure send us to prison for child abuse one. But after 5 minutes, Cutie will simmer down, then her screams will turn into a wimper while she looks at you through her teary eyes… occasionally she will give us a smile, maybe signifying that she concedes defeat. Hahaha, so cute lah she.
But of course before we let her “cry it out”, we have to make sure that she’s not really crying for help lah, so we will check her last feeds, check her diapers etc to make sure we are not missing out something. Only when we know that she’s just throwing her tantrum then we will let her “cry it out”. Hope this experiment works!

Apart from her new found tone/pitch-changing voice, Cutie has been more alert to her surroundings now. She will actually look at us when we are talking to her, occasionally giving us her wide smile, showing us her pink cute gums. She can track us moving around in front of her. She even “talks” back to us!
Cutie is getting stronger too! =) She’s able to sit up with some support and she will scan the room left and right whenever she is in an upright position, trying to absorb all the happenings around her. She loves looking out the car window as well, maybe she is amused by the surroundings moving so fast by themselves! She can even lift up her head when lying on her tummy. Hahaha. Of course we cannot leave her in the tummy time position for too long as she will get tired and start crying again.
Recently we discovered that she has a budding tooth! There is a hard white spot on her lower gums, noted since last week! Wow, she’s fast becoming a Eat-Sleep Princess. =D

I shall present a series of photos showcasing Cutie Baby’s growth!
This is about 4 weeks old

small head next to big fat head

Can you smell What my Diaper contain?

This is about 5 weeks old.

Innocent smile that melts your heart

This is about 8 weeks old when we started her on tummy time!

Tummy Time!

This last few photos were taken during the last week. Mummy is reading Cutie a book and her various smiles. =D

New Jingling Toys

 

Story Time!

 

She enjoys being around Big Things

 

Super Drool, maybe she’s teething

 

Gentle smile from Baby Charlotte

Life will never be the same with Cutie Baby Charlotte around. Life will only get better and more colourful! Now I have 2 angels in my life! I feel so blessed.

First Outing with Cutie Baby

We have been pondering this for quite a while… …Can we handle cutie baby when we are outside?
Since the arrival of this bundle of cuteness, apart from making short trips to the polyclinic for checks and short trips for our newborn photoshoot, we have been pretty much stuck at home. Last weekend we could have made the trip to Sushi Tei for Darling’s sashimi fix but we ended up having Sakae Sushi as take-away coz Cutie Charlotte can’t seem to settle down. This weekend we are determined to make the trip out again! Yeah! Challenge of the day!

Challenge 1: Take Cutie Charlotte out on a day trip to Alive Museum @ Suntec City.
Challenge 2: Take photos with the 3D interactive illusionary installations
Challenge 3: Complete challenges 1 & 2 and return home before sunset (Coz Lunar 7th month cannot go home late, especially with Cutie Baby)

Challenge 1: Tickets bought online @ 20% off, so each ticket costs S$20, valid for 1 month. If we buy tickets on-site, it will be S$25 but with a free BK meal *(Fish n Crisp/Chick n Crisp only). I still feel the online offer is more attractive. =) We waited for Cutie’s feeding at 1.30pm and we set off at 2pm. Reached at 2.30pm and we proceeded to Suntec Tower 3…to our horror, there’s a queue to go in!

Entrance to Alive Museum

It’s a 1 hour wait. During the whole 1 hour, we left Cutie in the Maclaren Stroller, Darling even managed to change Cutie’s diapers while in the queue, with Cutie still in the stroller. Good start…until Cutie starts her hysterical crying bout. Louder and louder it became, Cutie almost seems like trying to overpower the background music with her cry! BOBIAN, we gave in and Darling carried Cutie. Eventually, we put Cutie in the Babysling, and the mini mobile Sarong did the trick of soothing her.
We went through the exhibits with Cutie all the way in the sling! Poor Darling have to carry Cutie all the way.

Angel Darling delivering Cutie to us

Eee, Never wear Underwear!

Window cleaner Darling, Peeping Jane. =p

How I would look like wearing Cutie’s diapers

All Hail the Sleepinqueen Darling

Mummy and Baby inside another Mummy

Have you seen such a fat and flabby Ballet dancer before?? Now you have!

Eatinking eats anything, including drinking dog pee

Transformed Little Merman

Dragon attacking Cutie! Mummy protect

Merlion is wetting Cutie

Stealing a kiss from Spidey

Moon walker power lean

Family on the top of the world

Didn’t know Darling is so flexible

Roll your paper boat, gently down the stream

Misc creative shots

Playful Darling, defeated Dar Dar, Saved by Superman

More stupid shots and Darling doing a split while holding Cutie!

Time passes fast. Cutie baby is very cooperative throughout the whole visit, sleeping comfortably inside the baby sling, even beyond her feeding time! The Museum is super crowded lo! Takes a long time to get our turn at every photo and it’s not possible to take all the shots with Darling carrying Cutie baby around. Too dangerous as the crowd will push and squeeze. We had to bypass a few shots but nonetheless, we had quite a lot of decent poses as shown above. =p
The cutest shot of them all will be this curious giraffe trying to have a lick at Cutie.

Giraffe curious about Cutie Baby

We left the museum at about 5.30. Cutie cried for her milk milk on the way to the car. Hahaha. She has been very cooperative already. She deserves her feed!
Well, quite a mission success this time, maybe we can set a bigger challenge next time out!

Triumphant Darling

The Sound of Music

Yay! The day has finally come! We can finally have a session of relaxation together, Darling and me, enjoying a musical. Heehee. Cutie Baby meanwhile in lying on her rocker at Grandma’s place. Hahaha. Leave her alone while we go dating.
Hey, Darling worked hard to care for cutie, so she deserves this break k!
I Love You Darling!

The Sound of Music

I got introduced to The sound of Music during my primary school and secondary school music lessons. I remember teacher will play this short clip from a very old CD where the actors all sing and do not talk. Then we will listen to a few songs, after which we will learn to sing them.
Wow, I didn’t know so many songs we used to sing during the music lessons came from this musical!
It’s a musical from 1959 I think, based on a memoir written by Maria von Trapp, just before World War 2 and Hitler’s Germany is able to invade Austria. Maria is an Austrian girl raised on the mountains separating Austria from Switzerland, and she is postulating to join the local abbey as a nun. The musical stage was small but it is still able to create the environment of the abbey, with the nuns singing the church songs or chants, then nuns starting coming off stage and walking the aisles, singing at the same time! We had an immediate surround sound of church song, totally immersing us in the perfect ambience.
The props were excellent and transition smooth. The actors on stage were great! Great vocals and the children were so adorable! Hope our Cutie Baby can grow up and sing as good as them!
Well, we know that Cutie Baby has a wide variety of pitches and notes she can reach from her shrieks, screams and screeching and crying. Hahahahaha. We will cultivate and train her multiple tones and pitches to make her a perfect singer! Yeah!
The songs were so fun to listen to and seeing the actors performing the songs is pure enjoyment. The Sound of Music, Do-Re-Mi, 16 going on 17, So long farewell, Edelweiss, Wow! I am so totally blown away!
Hope Darling enjoyed it too! More musicals to go! Yeah!
Cutie baby has to wait at least 15 more years before she can understand and appreciate these musicals, so wait lay Cutie, your time will come. Lolz
Darling Loved the songs so much that she even wanted to buy the music CD! Now we are going to play it on loop mode to Cutie baby everyday! Maybe someday she will start singing those songs to us!