Hair Makeover

This term, Alicia's learning all about occupations at school and this week, they were focusing on hairdressers.

When I went to pick her up from school today, it appeared that all the girls in the class had some form of makeover and her hair was teased pink, geled and even had sparkles (a la getai singers) sprayed on.

Cute at this age but a little too cheena for my liking :)

Typically an au naturale gal who prefers the knotty hair in the breeze look, I asked Ms Ivy, her teacher "Did Alicia sit still and let you do all this to her?". Apparently so. Guess when all the other kids are doing it, it would seem like a cool thing to do. Gosh, early signs of peer influence. Shudders.

HK Trip - Part I

Been wanting to spend some quality time with Alicia ever since I came back from my rather long business trip to Madrid so we took advantage of the fact that Ray was going to HK for a business trip and joined him for a quick weekend visit. This time, it was just Alicia and I so she would have my undivided attention.

On Friday, while Ray was at work, Alicia and I went up to the Peak in the morning for a quick visit. She was in good spirits, aided by the notion of her first tram ride up a big "hill".

By the time we got out of the tram and circled five flights of escalators to reach the lookout point, her patience had wore thin and boredom set in quickly. She tool one cursory glance around, proclaimed that she wanted to go back and after much coaxing and threatening to not bring her ice skating (next on the itinerary), she obliged with a terribly forced smile. Oh well, at least the skyline looked great in the back ground.

So after that, we trudged back to the hotel for a quick wardrobe change and then it was off to Alicia's first ice skating experience.

Our friend in HK has a daughter the same age as Alicia and we gate crashed her lesson. Alicia was very excited about getting the gear on, especially the cheapie $5 extemely bright gloves we bought at the rink.

Then it was lesson proper and for the next 30 minutes, Alicia skated up and down with the aid of a balance bar. She landed on her butt a few times and eventually learnt to get up by herself.

Halfway into the lesson, they were learning how to push the bar a few feet away and then skate towards it by themselves. It's so amazing how kids learnt stuff, not sure whether to chalk it up to their low centre of gravity or just the sheer lack of fear. Either way, it was exciting for me to watch.

Tune in for HK Trip - Part II: Alicia takes on HK Disneyland!

Class Equality

I’ve got such a blog back log with all these entries I’ve been meaning to post but haven’t got a chance to do so. Anyway, here’s a quick update, since my business trip to Madrid, It was back to work for three days and then off to HK with Alicia for the long weekend (will post on that later) and the back to work and for this weekend, Alicia and I will be going to watch the Dora show!

Lots of attention for Alicia anyway, probably trying to make up for the guilt of leaving her and Kayla for 10 days. Not that they were roughing it out mind you, sounded like they were having a ball in Moranbah with the grandparents.

So what’s been happening on the Kayla front? Like most other second born kids, she’s been relatively neglected on the stimulation front. She’s now 7 and a half months old and when Alicia was at that age, she was practically a baby enrichment class aficionado, having tried Kindermusik, Gymboree, Growing up Gifted (at 8 months) and was going to embark on Julia Gabriel’s Chinese playgroup and The Shichida Method.

I’m trying to tell myself it’s not just the novelty of the first born child but also the luxury of being a stay at home mum trying to find things to occupy her (and mine) time. I finally decided that it was time for more social interaction for Kayla as well and enrolled her in her first Gymboree session at the Marine Parade Central location.

The first lesson didn’t go down so well – with HFMD afoot (no pun intended ) and a long holiday inducing weekend, all the other kids couldn’t make it and they called to cancel the lesson 30 minutes before it started, only I didn’t get the call and showed up anyway.

I think they felt bad for me and suggested doing a 1:1 class with Kayla just to get her used to the class activities. So here she is in her first and very private lesson at Gymboree.


Meeting the school mascot, Gymbo the Clown, she wasn’t much a fan and started bawling.


Stimulating her tactile senses, straight to the mouth as usual.



She loved playing with the scarves though, wasn’t too excited about feeling the other textures at this point.



Learning to balance.



Just 30 minutes into the 45 minute class, she got grumpy (it was time for milk and sleep) and I decided to stop. I think a 1:1 was just too intense for mummy as well.

Missing the kids

I'm here in Madrid on a business trip and won't be back till next Thursday so won't be blogging for a while. Kids are in Australia with Ray visiting their grandparents. I'm really missing them and can't wait to get home again to see them....

Will be back next week!

Mummy's Girl

This is what happens when I walk by Kayla and don't pick her up.

When I emerge from the room and cross her line of vision, she watches intently, arms outstretched, chubby legs kicking furiously in anticipation and if I exit from her sight without a cuddle, she launches wholeheartedly into a full blown wail.

I know this is the cause because as soon as I come running back to pick her up, she reverts back to her usual cherubic self, bestowing me with her generous gummy smiles again.

Not that I don't appreciate the affection but what puzzles me is the level of attachment she has. With Alicia, it was understandable as I was a SAHM for a year, which meant 24/7 interaction.

With Kayla, it was pretty much back to work after maternity leave and even the breastfeeding bond was truncated as I relied more on the pump this time round.

I think this is one bub with a pretty high EQ - she instinctly knows who her mummy is (despite the maid being with her for most of the day). Either that or she's a big copycat, after observing how her jie jie interacts with me, she felt justified in getting her fair share of hugs too.

Either way, I'm not complaining. It's indescribably gratifying to have two people love you so unconditionally.

Milestones

Experiencing Kayla's milestones is kind of like watching your favourite TV re-runs. The second time round is slightly different - you love the show so much you would gladly watch it again but this time round you know how it turns out and sometimes, you can't wait to fast forward the boring bits to get to the good part.


Which explains why this entry should have been done three weeks ago when Kayla FIRST started sitting up by herself. There was an initial "Hey look what she can do!" excitement but that fizzled out way before the video camera was whipped out.


We're still really proud that she can do this just before her 6 months mark but we're more interested in the walking and talking stage this time round.


In some ways, she's quicker than Alicia in terms of development but in others, she's a little behind (alicia had two teeth at 7 months; Kayla's got none at 6.5 months). I'm attributing the lag to the fact that I evicted her three weeks early which I'm using as an excuse for any delay in her milestones.


Here's Kayla trying to sit up by herself. She's not totally stable yet so it usually tends to be resting on her arms....

or leaning precariously to one side.

Smiley Baby

Here's a layout I just completed last night that really shows Kayla's regular repertoire of expressions. She's just such a happy baby, so generous with her smiles. My aunt jokingly said to me yesterday:

"I think the second child is generally more calm and happy so that you'll be enticed into having a third!"

Tempting at times but when I think back to the 9 l-o-n-g months of pregnancy and the first three colicky months, that door in my mind slams shut pretty quickly.

Interactions

The best part about having two children (besides the very generous 2nd child rebate from the government) is watching how they interact with each other. It like they exist separately in their own Lilliputan world and adapt their activities to suit the audience.

Because Kayla still doesn't have a voice of her own, she pretty much caters to Alicia's demands on how their 5 minute play periods should run. I say 5 minutes because that's how long it takes before Kayla gets annoyed at being man (or rather girl) handled like a ragdoll by her older sister and that's pretty much how quickly Alicia gets bored as well.

So this is how the 5 minutes evolved today.....


Alicia: I want to carry mei-mei. Mummy can you put her on me and take a picture?

I quickly obliged because it's not often I get Alicia to willingly agree to have her picture taken. Start of the 5 minutes - Kayla is thrilled to get some attention and Alicia is giggly from Kayla lying on her.

I take Kayla off and put her on the bed and Alicia goes "I want to lie down like mei-mei too".

Doesn't take long for this trick to tire so Alicia, being the brains of the operation, decides she's going to tell mei-mei a "secret".

This goes on for a while as Alicia thinks up three or four sweet nothings to whisper into Kayla's ear. As you can imagine, the monologue got tiresome and she decided "Let's make a T" ...

This heralded the end of the 5 minute play for Kayla as she started fussing and writhing on the bed. So I got one last shot in and called it a day.

Offspring Update

It's been a while (to put it lightly!) since my last blog so much so that now I have two subjects to blog about instead of one.

I was wondering what would be an appropriate point to start the updates but too much has happened and to fill in all the details would probably cause a minor overload on the Blogger server so I guess the short version will have to do.

Alicia

She's almost three and a half now and sometimes acts more like a little adult than a kid. She goes to Pat's Schoolhouse (just across the street from where we live) everyday in the mornings from 9-12pm. She seems to be settling down quite well and the teachers tell me she's a quick learner prone to mood swing and very stubborn. Not surprising considering her gene pool.

She's at the "Why?Why? Why?" stage now which drives me nuts sometimes and other times, leaves me in hysterics.

Fortunately, she loves her little sister and her regular after school routine would be to march through the front door, kick her purple crocs off as far across the living room as she can, announce "I'm Home!" at the top of her voice and then rush over to give her mei-mei (who by this time, would be wide awake after that entrance) big kisses all over.

Here's a pretty recent pic of her over Easter when we went to Bintan for the long weekend.

Kayla

This baby is a godsent! The first three months looked like she was going to follow in her sister's footsteps and be a "needy" baby but once the colic settled and the magical fourth month came around, she decided that her poor parents needed a break and switched on the charm and left it there ever since.

Every day though, I wonder if this is a fluke and this lucky streak will run out soon. She's such an amazing textbook baby who smiles all the time, goes to sleep by herself and knows how to soothe herself when she wakes up in the middle of the night.

These are her typical expressions:

She thinks the world of her sister as well and never ceases to laugh out loud at her silly antics.

Watching the two of them now, I hope they grow up to be close and be able to depend on each other as mummy has decided that they will be the only sibling for each other!

Blog Resurrection

Since the demise of my last blog , I’ve been thinking about starting up a new one for a while now especially with the addition of a new blogable subject and trying to keep friends and family around the world updated on our lives. The final kick in the pants came from two sources: a truly inspirational book (“Life Art”) by famed scrapbooker, Ali Edwards and a straight to the point text message from a friend that read “Action! Woman!”

So voila! Unveiling “Sisterhood” – my new blog chronicling the lives and antics of my two little girls, Alicia and Kayla.

Let’s see how long I can keep this one going.