Happy Birthday Isabelle!

And thanks for all your wishes at FB.

So, like any other days, after I bath the kids, they will pick their clothes and dress up by themselves. Isabelle knew what to wear, and after dressing up, she went to the playroom. That’s where the kids go when hubby and I get ourselves ready everyday. Yeap, just like any other normal days…

Then suddenly, I heard hubby “screaming” “Oh sh*t!!! Oh sh*t!!!” So, I thought the kids got hurt and I quickly rushed over. Do you know what happen? Take a look…

Here’s the “crime scene”, untouched!

You guessed right!!! My little princess….cut her hair…by herself….on her BIRTHDAY!!!!! Argh!!!! I almost wanna pengsan…

But then, both hubby and I laughed like h*ll because this is very very hillarious. I always read or heard about other kids cutting their own hair, but I have never thought that it would happen to my kids. And now, it did!!!!

So, how do I look? One part boh liao…

She really cut a lot of her hair, and since she doesn’t have a lot of hair and it looks like one part is gone. She also trimmed off her top part and it’s very short now. You see la, the mommy is so precious about her hair, never cut her hair, except the fringe for 3 years and now my little girl picked up the scissors and cut it off by herself. Sigh…

You might be wondering where she got the scissors huh? It’s the new kiddie scissors hubby wanted to get for her. She started learning how to use a pair of scissors many months ago, but that pair of scissors can only cut paper, but not other stuffs. Then hoh, this daddy said that scissors lousy woh, go get a better one like Justin’s woh…So now this happen loh…Why? It’s because the scissors are kept on the rack in the playroom.

So how? We were late for school and work woh? So how? Pergi sekolah first la…

Isabelle was feeling very uneasy on the way to school. She’s old enough to understand her mistake and I think she’s embarrassed. She kept saying “Don’t tell my teacher. Don’t show teacher my hair” in the car until we reached school. She almost cried when I passed her over to her teacher. I did mention to her teacher, don’t say anything about her hair so that she won’t feel awkward.

By 11am, hubby and I passed the birthday cake and camera to the teacher, she said that Isabelle was doing fine. So, here are the photos taken by her teachers…

I purposely tie the top part to cover the big hole of “emptiness”.

Singing birthday song…

Blowing the candle. I wonder if she made a wish like make my hair grow back in a day?

From the photos and her smiling face, I think she had a good time at school. And I’m glad that the teachers pretended nothing happened and didn’t ask her about her hair.

So, you know where am I going after finishing this post?

Ya, I think I need to bring our birthday girl to the hair salon. One part gone leh….so let all be gone la… I mean, let’s cut it short!

Isabelle at 2 and a half years old

Height: 92cm (about that or more)

Weight: 13kg (very chubby leh?)

We are going through a hard phrase with Isabelle’s tantrum. I think it has lasted about 2 months, and I tell you, it’s very testing and challenging. Her cries can tear off the roof and give you migraine, if you can’t stand her crying and shouting. The worst thing is, she tends to take off her clothes while doing so, and I don’t know why. If we are at home, I will just let her cry if I’m busy and only coax her after that. Sometimes, we don’t know what she wants, even if we have given everything she asks for. But giving in is definitely a short term solution as we don’t want her to use her tantrum as a weapon to get in her own ways.

When she’s in the right mood, she will be our charming little girl. She can undress and dress herself with minimum help, and she likes to take shower on her own. We only allow her to do so in the morning when she’s less sweaty and dirty. She doesn’t cry when we wash her hair anymore and in fact, she loves it. She wants her hair to smell good! Besides that, she can use the toilet by herself, wash her hands with a stool, and she likes eating on her own. She’s very independence, and if we insist on helping her, she will throw a tantrum.

She eats well, but for the past one month, she hates veggies. I’m having a headache feeding greens to her, and so far, she hasn’t rejected broccoli. She will only take the top part though, and left the stem behind. I found that she loves meat and fish lately. I wonder if my veggie cooking is terrible and she won’t take it?

For language skill, she speaks some Thai, and English is still the main language. She’s good at singing, and she can remember lots of songs well. Mostly nursery rhymes though, and I think I might want to introduce her to some Chinese oldies. LOL!

She loves dancing and she likes ballet over the influence of Barbie: Swan Lake. She’s definitely too early for the class, and I hope that she won’t have a big tummy by then. LOL!

She likes coloring and drawing. Her pencil skill is quite good for her age, maybe due to Justin’s influence.

She’s not as adventurous as before lately. She will tell us things like “Later I fall down and blood come out, then how?” or “Later I get lost and cannot see papa mama, then how?” Thus, she stops checking things out of curiousity. So maybe I can place a pantry moth trap or a mouse trap in the house now…

Another thing is, she’s very “teh”. Justin likes to disturb her and she will whine and complain all the time. It’s irritating, but hubby said which siblings don’t fight? If yours don’t fight, tell me your parenting secret! Sometimes, it’s annoying when both of them fight like that, but I keep telling myself, if they don’t fight and unusually quiet, they must be ill. As long as they are active and healthy, we should keep our cool with our noisy kids and be grateful that we are given the chance to be their parents.

Weight: 11kg

Height: Not sure…

Isabelle is 2 years old today, but we already celebrated her 2nd birthday days ago. We won’t be doing anything special today except giving her more kisses and hugs. But she got herself a boo boo on her head. Sigh…She fell off the sofa when we were waiting for the doctor for my ear inspection.

One minute later, she fell off the sofa. Sigh…

She’s really playful and active nowadays. Even strangers will tell me how active and “kwai” she is when we are out. A few days ago, we went shopping for Crocs shoes and she ran out from the shop when hubby was picking his. I chased out as fast as possible in my heels and I was glad that I managed to grab her before she ran further. Luckily, Justin didn’t came for us, if not I would have my greatest nightmare if I lose either one of them.

Pretending as Supergirl

But some times, she can be really “lady” and soft, especially when she talks to me. She talks more by joining more words together like “(give) mei mei sweet plz”, “(I) want Tom and Ri (Jelly) now”, “Mommy sleep with mei mei (this one really like full sentence liao), and her favorite phrase, “koh koh naughty, mommy”.

She likes playing with lego Duplo now. Previously, she will just stack them up like a tower, but now I can see some structure. Sometimes she will tell me it’s a train, but most of the time she will just play them quietly and refuses to tell me what they are. Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s doing? I don’t know la…

Isabelle plays Lego a lot

Besides that, she gains some weight. Everyone said that she’s fatter now. She eats a lot since she’s a baby, but lately, her face is rounder and her tummy is bigger. She loves noodles, especially wan tan mee. She can take half a bowl by herself now, and surprisingly, we don’t have to cut the noodles in smaller pieces for her anymore. She can help herself with it.

Enjoying her noodles.

Time flies so fast. My baby girl has grown from a baby…

Isabelle, 2 months old

to a little girl with the same smile…

Isabelle, 2 years old

I had a hair cut

Height: Unknown, it’s not easy to measure her anymore!

Weight: 10kg

Her speech development is amazing. She’s started some simple sentences like “Mei mei wanna sleep now” or “Mommy sleep with mei mei”. She knows how to complain about Justin too, and her favorite one is “Koh koh naughty, mei mei no naughty.” She likes to put “no” in front of other verbs to stress a negative statement, such as “no can” which means cannot or “no touch” which means don’t touch her toys and etc.

Me “Jabel”

I’ve been teaching her to pronounce her name or using “I”, but she still calls herself “mei mei”. Sometimes, she will say “Jatin (Justin) and Jabel (Isabelle)”. Maybe it’s kind of hard to pronounce her own name huh?

Ever since we left her with my parents while hubby and I were away in Bangkok, she’s getting very clingy to me and hubby. During the day, she will ask “Papa leh?” and I will tell her that papa’s at work. Maybe she has the phobia of mommy and daddy not being around, so she’s insecure about it.

Her terrible two tantrum is truly terrible. When things are not going her way, she will bump on the floor and throw a tantrum. I used to comfort her but I felt like it’s making things worse. So, I ignore her cries and kicks until she cools down. It’s working so far as she stops crying faster and will come hugging me and tell me what she wants instead of crying out loud. Frankly, I can feel that my temperature is rising each time she throws a tantrum and by walking away, I can calm myself better. But when she’s not angry, she’s an angel.

I got dimple, can you see?

She’s getting bored with her 2 piece puzzles and that animal puzzle is too simple for her now. She’s more interested in Justin’s old alphabet set, but she can only complete 4 letters randomly. She doesn’t know the name of the letters but just putting them in place by their shapes. She loves repeating the letter “O” over and over again because it’s the easiest!

Playing the alphabet set

She can recite some of the words of the books we read to her regularly. I would normally stop at the last word of a sentence and she will complete it for me. She knows which page to flip if I ask her question about the story or certain object. She won’t read too long, the most I can do with her is 2 books at a time and she will proceed to playing something else.

I’m looking more like mommy loh…

She loves singing too. I still can’t capture her singing “Gao Shan Qing”. She doesn’t sing the whole song but most of the words. She stops once she sees the camera! She loves dancing too, and I managed to catch her dancing without her knowing it. Once she heard hubby say “Dear, you taking a video ah?”, she came for it. Gee…

BTW, her boyfriend came back from UK. LOL! My neighbor matched them up and said that his grandson and Isabelle are a couple.

Sip pun loh…

My cutie pie is 22 months old 3 days ago, and I have thinking about what to write about her progress. I found that I have updated about how good she is at shape sorting, block puzzles, scribbling, learning how to sing, and she’s getting self conscious about herself.

For the past week, she has started to talk in short sentences like “I want mommy (go) upstairs”, “I want sweet sweet”, “Mei mei (is) here”, “Cannot put (in the) mouth”, “I want milk milk” and etc. She misses out some of the words, but I know what she’s trying to say.

But there’s something about her that I don’t understand, she dirties her diaper more often now. Maybe she’s too playful and only waits until the last minute when she can’t hold any longer, so she poos in diaper. Thank god it only happens like before bedtime or nap time and she has diapers on. If not, what a mess!

She has a favorite song now and it’s called “Gao San Qing”. Wait la, one day, I will capture her singing this on video. Be patient ya?

I’m 20 months old loh!

I’m a bad bad mommy. I promised to update about Isabelle’s progress every month until she’s 2 years old but I didn’t do so on 23 December 2007. We were having a holiday in Bangkok and I couldn’t get a connection until days later. So, sorry ya girl? Mommy will get it done now. I’m having some hard time with her sometimes. It’s terrible two huh? She throws tantrums out of anything unexpected. So, it’s a challenging moment for me to be more patience….*breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out*

I beh shiok!!!

She’s talking a lot now. It’s more on single words on anything! I am always surprised by her when she utters some words that I never know she knows. We only try to correct her when the pronunciation is totally out like for “thank you”, she will say “ka put”. LOL! It’s totally out, but we know what she means. Other than that, she’s doing fine. She’s using words like “I”, “me”, and “mine” now. If you grab her toy, she will cry out “mine mine mine” while whining. She has started singing by following some sounds and words. The songs that she likes are from her Kindermusik CD, and we have been listening to the songs for months!

I wanna be a singer…boleh? (A shot at FIL’s place in Bangkok)

At 20 months old, she’s great at traveling. She’s been to places like Bali, Bangkok and Kuching by flight. She was doing well until our last flight from Bangkok to KL. She’s bored and tired and she was very difficult throughout the flight. One of the passengers thought it’s her first flight and told me to get some pills for her. I told her it’s not, and it was the only time she fussed on plane. Maybe she’s really tired and restless. But with 2 thick-skinned parents who don’t care about what other people think, that doesn’t stop us from planning for more holidays. So, she will still be flying with us, but I need to get some stuffs to occupy them on the plane now.

A shot at Bangkok International Airport

She’s very adventurous and playful. Maybe she has koh koh and jie jie to play with, she’s quite advanced in terms of motor skills. She’s been feeding herself for the past few months, and she likes “drawing” and “writing straight lines”. She loves to play with my mouse too, so I always joke that she’s going to start her own blog one day. LOL!

At the monkey bar… (Justin was playing at the back)

Of course, she’s not as boh kiasi as before. She understands what danger means and she listens to us most of the time. But I found that the boh kiasi-ness is still in her. Here’s a clip on how she reacted to a barking dog.

The dog was in the house compound la…

When it comes to food, she takes anything, even spicy food. She won’t cry after tasting it but will ask for “wover” (water). I love to see her eat. She has no problems with spoon and fork, but she still makes a lot of mess. Hey, she’s only 20 months old, what do you expect?

Trying out a snack in Ayutthaya, Bangkok

BTW, I can stop worrying about her being a tomboy. She’s getting interested in hairpins even if only for a short while. She loves dresses too, but simple way of dressing is still her style. She will not put anything on if she doesn’t like it. So, maybe she get her fashion sense from me.

My Hello Kitty hairpin nice leh?

I like this Minnie tee. Mommy knitted for me.

She has a comfort object. It’s a baby doll without hair. She chose her by herself while shopping at Carrefour. This doll comes with some changing clothes, but she only knows how to strip her naked and laugh at her. LOL! When she goes to bed, she will look for her baby. She will ask me to put clothes on her before hugging the doll and me to sleep.

Isabelle’s baby doll

She’s very adaptable. We don’t have problem traveling with her and she doesn’t recognize the bed or house. So maybe I don’t have to worry too much if we move.

A shot taken at BIL’s house in Bangkok. She likes the trees in the yard.

She knows how to take off her pants and demand for her potty. Accidents still happen, but it’s getting lesser. She is learning to put on her shoes now, but we still have to help her. She likes bathing me, and helping me to clean the table. It’s like I’m having a little helper who’s eager to help, but mess things up for me to clean it later. LOL! Nonetheless, I let her do her share. It’s nice to see how hard she’s trying to be a “grown up”.

I only do the strap lah…

She loves puzzles and she has started playing the 2-pieced puzzles for a month.

I can do 9 sets before I cabut and run away. LOL!

I don’t have plan to send her to school now. She likes school, but I really hope that she can just play at home and have more fun growing up as a kampung kid. Once she’s going to school, I will be very bored at home. Besides knitting, what else can I do? Get paid for doing environmental site assessment meh?

Weight: 10kg

Height: Not measured, but she’s getting taller. It’s getting harder to measure her height.

Isabelle is very independent. Sometimes, she doesn’t look like a 19 months old as she does most of the things by herself. If she speaks well, a lot of people will mistaken her for being more than 2 years old. She only knows some words like “mama, papa, po po, miao (cat), woof (dog), jie jie, nen nen, mum mum, mmm mmm, no more, gai gai, ma (horse), pao pao, and some other sounds that only I understand. But she is more eager to follow us when we ask her to try to talk. Last night, when I was singing the phonic songs with Justin, she followed our singing, especially for the phonic sound of “a, f, h, i, m, o” and “s”. I’m so happy to see how much her has improved in her speech, as comparing to last month.

She has gone to school for 3 days, and today she cried. She was doing well until 11.30am. I got a call from the school telling me to pick her up, but I was already on my way. When I reached there, she was panting with breathe and I knew that she’s been crying a lot. The teacher said she refused to take the porridge and Justin couldn’t pacify her as well. Then my maid realized that we didn’t prepare milk for her as she has to take her milk at 11am. Poor girl…I told the teachers that I will prepare the milk for her, if she’s really ready for school. I am a bit reluctant to start her now, but she likes it. Maybe I have to pick her up earlier if she really enrolls.

Another thing is she likes to look for hubby whenever he’s not around. She will ask for hubby’s photos and “read” this blog to remember those places we went with hubby. Even if hubby is not shown in the photos, she knows that papa took her there. Just now, she kept pointing at Casuarina, signing that she wanted to go there. So hubby promised her that we will go there for hi tea and she was so happy. LOL! She’s getting good at capturing papa’s heart to be his little princess.

But Isabelle is not so girlie yet. While most girls like dolls, my gal like Shrek. *shake head*

Isabelle with Shrek

When we are eating out, she doesn’t like her water anymore and will ask for our drinks. It’s hubby loh!!! Always give in to her and let her take those drinks. So, now she knows that we can have juice or other beverages when we are eating out.

I like orange juice

BTW, she’s very good at dancing. LOL! It’s just that she stops doing it when she sees the viewcam. I have to capture those movements before she grows out of it.

Height: 80cm

Weight: 10kg

My little girl is one and a half years old today. We brought her for the jabs and she was very uneasy about it once we stepped in the clinic. But after being trained by mommy to be “camera face”, she smiled at the camera before the jab. Can see koh koh at the back hoh? He’s asking to be carried by daddy, but I said cannot as hubby is the only one who is strong enough to hold Isabelle now.

See? She’s struggling to get off daddy’s arms but what to do? The vaccination is a must. But once her paediatrician had done with the job and gave her the sugus, she stopped immediately. All for the power of a sweet. Geng….

I told her paed that she’s not talking much, but he said as long as she understands what we are talking about, she’s perfectly fine. Oh well, just like what I read too. But he asked about the wound on her eye and I said she fell loh…My active little gal! She keeps running around since she knows how to do it now. For the past week, she is learning how to jump and I only hope that she’s not copying the act from Justin who likes to jump from one sofa to another. *shake head*

BTW, she stopped nursing for day 2. So far so good, but I have to get up and rock her back to sleep and keep reminding her that she’s a big girl now and big girl no nen nen. She understands and will fall back to sleep. I just did that half way through writing this post and I know it’s going to take a period of time before she learns how to sleep through by herself.

I will update about her weaning progress after a few days. Hopefully she is not only weaned, but sleeping through as well.

Isabelle is good at climbing up on anything now, especially the chairs. If we are not watchful, she will climb on the chairs and try to climb on the table to reach for the food. That’s why we have to follow her almost everywhere she goes as she is very boh kiasi. Even if she falls, she will cry and shortly after, she will try the same act again.

Can’t blame her. She got this trait from both hubby and I. We are damn stubborn and determined, so does she. She’s willing to try until she makes it and if she climbs up higher, she will give us a satisfying smile while I almost get myself a heart attack.

Sigh….really tomboy….