Thursday, September 25, 2008

Pet Caterpillars

Ellie loves butterflies. Butterflies have been her all time favourite creatures since she was one. We don't watch much TV so she really isn't quite up-to-date with the latest or coolest toy. I am happy to have it that way- she has her whole life more to catch up on TV. When grandma mentioned that you could buy caterpillars at a farm in Sembawang I googled it and found that the butterfly farm was just 10 minutes from my home, and made plans for an outing the next day (that was Wednesday) with my friend M and her two children.

The rest of the farm was a mess. Sort of run down and definately not like any farm you'd see in a storybook. But the butterfly enclosure was magical. Should have brought that camera. With hundreds of butterflies fluttering in the sunlight, colouring the whole space with specks of orange and blue and yellow. Ellie was enthralled, and just stood there looking and the butterflies, trying to touch their wings. "Gentle, Ellie, gentle." Then we stopped by the farm shop to buy the caterpillars. We chose one of each of the two types, got our supply of leaves, made a stop to buy fresh veg, another last walk through the butterflies and then headed back with our caterpillars. Ellie's first pets.

I'd appropriately taken out Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Ke Ai de Hu Die (chinese butterfly book), and the beautifully illustrated "A Caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Ellie put her four caterpillars (two for Ellie and two for her cousins Erika and Tim) on her table and started reading to them. I haven't had pets in ages and found my self strangely drawn to these creatures. Fascinated at the same time- checking to see if they had eaten. Emptying their poo. I think one caterpillar has begun to spun its crysallis.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Another turning point

Everytime I want to blog and have the time to, something happens. Yesterday, the server was down or just too slow. And today the USB port just wasn’t working well. By the time I get down to anything serious I am either too tired or some one wakes up. Maybe I should switch to blogger or try to streamline the downloading process. I don’t know.

Anyway yesterday marked a turning point in growing up. Ellie that is. For the first time in a long time, I left the house with Ellie awake to go for a course. KM babysat, spent the morning with Ellie, and when I left Ellie hardly fussed, didn’t cry, said a decent goodbye, and I was on my way. Sounds like nothing great, but definately a big step. I used to have to run out when Ellie was asleep or have to deal with hysterics, or a babysitter calling halfway. The next step would be KM and I both leaving the house together leaving Ellie with the grandmothers at home. So far the grandmothers have had to take Ellie out before we leave. And Ellie played big sister when KM babysat- helping to feed Caitlin, playing on her own a lot, going into the room to nap all on her own. I was so please to hear that everything went well. Of course Ellie took great pride in reporting that she tried to “squash meimei” but that by all accounts was nothing major.

Caitlin 9 months old

We had J and her two little girls over for lunch today. And without me realising it, Caitlin, nine months old today, had her first playdate. She’s always tagged along with her big sister and never quite had friends to play alongside, but found a little friend in Katie who turns 1 next month. Nevermind that they didn’t talk very much. They shared toys, didn’t snatch, patted each other on the head (or at least Caitlin did). 

Friday, September 12, 2008

Tidbits and milestones

Ellie is full of what is this? what is that? what are you doing? And lately, why this and why that. Non-stop. We were in the car a few days ago

Ellie: Mama what are you doing?

Me: I am driving

Ellie: You are driving me mad!

And caitlin started crawling on fours last week on 2nd sept (eight and a half months). This week she is clapping and waving on cue.