Bible reading Ellie

Ellie is reading the NIV Bible. We gave her a bible for christmas. She wanted a "princess" bible, the one that her cousin Erika has. The princess bible is a regular bible with a pink shiny cover and a diamante clasp, and with absolutely tiny print, something I couldn't read it without hurting my eyes. There are so many bibles for children with a 6 or 7 font size! So I got her the Young Woman of Faith Bible. She's now at Genesis 9, underlining the words she doesn't yet understand.  I'm pretty amazed she's gotten so far-she's five going on six. 

Teething problems

Kristen's fussiness must be related to all those huge teeth coming out. Five teeth out now and more counting. The latest was the upper left tooth.

She's all over the place, which makes doing anything with the older girls really difficult. Put her in her fenced play area and it's only a matter of minutes before she is clamoring to get out. Let her out and it is another matter of minutes before she is in the kitchen or under the table or munching Ellie and caitlin's drawings. she's putting everything in her mouth. Yes this is a critical developmental phase but the parenting books don't tell how tiring it is trying to push every dangerous object out of the way or yelling at the older girls to pick up there tiny toys. At the end of the day I'm totally pooped.

A week at home

I wasn't really looking forward to this week. KM was going to be in the US which meant that I had to put all three girls to bed every night. No break after a days hard work at home. Then on Monday morning, I noticed these spots on Caitlin's fore arm, and neck.  The all too familiar spots. The same sort Kristen had 2 weeks before when she was diagnosed with chicken pox. Something in me said that this was going to be a longer than expected week. I went to the doctor and he confirmed my suspicions. Chicken Pox. The very week KM had to be out of town.

Chicken pox meant that I had to take Caitlin out of school for a whole week. And for good measure I took Ellie out too. Just in case. That meant a whole week at home with the girls out of school. Sigh.

As it turned out, everyone had a lot of fun. The girls especially. And I? I just wasn't as tired as I usually am. I kept to my scheduled activities- something arty on mondays, science on wednesdays, cooking on fridays, with bit of other things in between, and managed to survive a whole week at indoors. Not even a trip downstairs to the playground. (I did manage to attend a google talk on tuesday, while my mom babysat! hooray!) But other than that were were pretty much indoors. Ellie and Caitlin had a blast playing together.  Caitlin's 10 pox(es) didn't seem to cause her much discomfort.  Kristen now that she can sit up and commando crawl could join in some of the fun. Amazingly Caitlin's usual whininess didn't get to me as much as it usually does. Must have been prayer.

We ended the week with the girls.......

a. making a collage each.

Caitlin always wants something fish-related. This time she wants to make a fish tank even though the lesson plan by the instructor (me) is to make a bedroom. Heck! Go with the flow I think. When I suggest making some seaweed, Caitlin says, do it for me I am so tired and runs off to bounce on the sofa. She comes back when I ask her to put the fish food in (thats all those little spots) and cuts just one rock (the bigger mass amongst the spots) for her fish.
 

Ellie sat down (and I am really amazed at this) for almost one and a half hours to design her princess bedroom. I helped cut the clothes for her princess out but she did pretty much everything else herself. There is a clothes stand on the right. Bed with drapes in the middle. Two dressing tables, a wardrobe with clothes and stuff in it, a tiny purple rug in the foreground and a toilet complete with a floor trap. (that's the architect in her.)

b. making their own dinner.

They love making their own favourite food. Pizza on whole meal pita, topped with heaps of Mozzarella, Cheddar and Parmesan, not forgetting the veggies- asparagus.

Caitlin's never serious when it comes to photos.

Ta-da! Pizza for dinner!

and here's Kristen, seven months old cheering everyone on.

Kristen . 5months

Kristen's first tooth came out exactly on the day she turned 5 months. 25th Jan. Two days later, another one popped out. 

I used to take so many pictures of Ellie. Not as many of Caitlin.  And now for Kristen, I have to remind myself to take those photos. Photos of significant moments, photos of the banal everyday life at home because you just don't remember the times when the girls are little when they grow up. Ellie is almost five and Caitlin is three and if it were not for photos I wouldn't have all those memories. They grow so fast. So fast my mom says that suddenly they are 30. She is talking about me. And of course I am much older than that already.

I really got caught up with the phototaking this time round.

 Five months old and loving it. 

 Look at that arm(pit).

Our new fuzzy rug.  Really effective in cutting down the visual clutter in our home. We try desperately to gain some sort of control over a space taken over by toys toys and more toys. At least now every toy looks good against this neutral background.

June Hols

The school holidays went by so quickly! Didn't really anything big this time round. Too tired to plan huge play dates or any really long days out. We went for church camp the first weekend. Then outings to the supermarket, the playgym, library, beach, Spotlight, the Science Centre and Sentosa with Papa. A picnic by our own pool, swimming, baking (pretty tasteless chocolate cupcakes), lots of drawing, painting sessions with grandma. Chilling out at home with toys. Somehow the 4 weeks just zipped by, and Caitlin will start school on Monday!

I can't believe Caitlin's going to school. Ellie is really excited to have her little sister go to school. She can't wait! Part of me is happy because I get three hours to myself (so precious) for 2 months (or maybe less) before the baby comes, but part of me will miss spending mummy time (the three hours when Ellie is usually at school) with Caitlin alone.

Here are some pictures of the girls at home. We just don't bring our camera out with us enough these days.

Ellie with her butterfly costume. I got the skirt and tee for $10 each! Unbelievable! They were on sale at  CottonOn Kids.

Caitlin with one of her favourite tees. I bought Caitlin a butterfly tee-shirt but she just wasn't as thrilled to wear it as her big sister was. Caitlin loves tees with animal pictures. Did I blog about what Caitlin says she wants to be when she grows up? She wants to be "An Elephant".

The two sisters goofing around.

All in a days work

I thought I would put these up cos the girls look so serious about their work. I can't remember what exactly they were doing. I think it was www.starfall.com. Its a great reading site by the way.

Crafty Days

We spent almost two weeks at home when Ellie and Caitlin were down with Hand Foot Mouth. When you are stuck at home, doing something crafty keeps everyone sane. Of course, as usual I am posting these late. I really admire those crafty moms who blog (and make a living out of blogging), craft (and of course update their blogs with their crafty creations almost everyday), manage 3 or 4 kids, cook and clean, AND manage to write and publish books about their crafty exploits. Will get there some day..

Here are the clutch bags we made together. Got the basic pattern you see below from Martha Stewart then dug around for old iron ons and felt and my old button collection. Ellie wanted butterflies and flowers and Cait wanted fish both wanted lots and lots of buttons! The girls loved gluing down the buttons, butterflies and fish. Of course I then had to sew all the buttons down so that the bags could take the wear and tear of 2 preschooler bag-lovers.

The completed bags! 

Both girls having fun arranging the buttons and butterflies and fish.

These are great do-it-yourself from ELC. Got them from my good friend PS a while back. Finally made another 2 puppets. Ellie and Cait had good fun biting each other with their zebra and crocodile puppets.

Also another christmas present. Not sure if I did these right though. These sun catchers wouldn't peel of the plastic base.

Working from home

This is what working from home looks like. Having children run past when you are trying to get some photography done. Playing dollies and teatime just inches from the photo setup. I actually like how this turned out.

Caitlin at class

I brought Caitlin for a trial music class at Kindermusik today. Her second class of any sort. The first was a trial at Gymboree. That first trial did not go well at all. She cried most of the time, was afraid of the crowd (not much of a crowd-about 12 adults and babies) and didn't like the Gymboree mascot. I had signed up for the trial with the good intentions of any mother wanting the best for her baby. Caitlin quite obviously didn't think it was such a great idea.

Well, Caitlin fared so much better the second time round. Even though she was sound asleep when we arrived and woke up in a completely new environment, she was up and about after 10 minutes of warm-up time, participating and being very cooperative. I couldn't say the same for Ellie when she went for these same classes almost 1 and a half years ago. Ellie took weeks to warm up to the class. Of course, she ended up enjoying herself and taking all those songs home, but there were weeks, I recall, where she would just lie on the carpet and suck her thumb, or tire after half the class. I went with my friend E and her 15month old daughter Isabel, so I had some mummy time too, and Caitlin a new friend.

Ellie at work

Ellie is really into cutting, pasting, colouring, drawing and any combination of the above. She sits for about 45 mins straight doing her “work”. Of course she then has an obsession with all her cut outs. This drives us all crazy. There are a thousand and one things she cuts out. We try to organise them in boxes, but inevitably (how not too) the cut-outs get lost. And so every now and then we weather yet another Ellie episode. “Where is my pink heart?” “Where is the rabbit?” Followed by lots of crying, trying to reason with Ellie, persuading her to communicate with words rather than vocals.

The blue piece is her piano with cut out keys and buttons (ours is a digital piano). *

Ellie turns 3

Ellie’s third birthday was marked by a series of parties across and entire week. I’ve never had so many cakes and candles in that short a time. And to think I’d wanted something small and cosy.

Feb 28- We have a family birthday lunch before KM heads off to US

March 03- WK and P are in town and so we have the my bunch of good ol’ architecture friends over and have a mini reunion of sorts + joint birthday celebration for our kids (3 of them) who are born either on 4th or 5th March.

March 05- This is Ellie’s real birth date so we have a mini-candle blowing session which turns out larger than expected with more family joining in the fun

March 06- KM flies back in time to celebrate Ellie’s birthday in school

March 08- The last and final birthday cake (Phew!) in sunday school.

These pictures were taken on the morning of Ellie’s actual birthday March the 5th.*

Doodles

I used to do so much with Ellie. I feel guilty that Caitlin gets much less time. So Caitlin finally gets her mummy-drawing time on huge A1 paper.*

New Blog Address

My brother migrated me over to this new address- some technical reason for not being able to keep me on the other address. Something about sub-domains and hosting. That's why I have not been blogging for a week or so. Not that it makes that much difference since I blog so little anyhow.

Ellie went on her first school outing today. I decided not to follow her, (although parents were allowed to accompany their child) to let her be on her own for a bit and get a few hours alone with Caitlin. Of course I was ready for plan B- which would have been driving down with Caitlin and helper in tow if she kicked up a big fuss (she is prone to hysterics) about wanting me to go along. But she didn't. She calmly said good bye without as much as a tear.

So Caitlin had some mummy time. I decided to go for a trial kiddy play-gym type of class. I thought Caitlin, being the more outgoing and active of the two sisters would really enjoy this class, but no. I spent most of the class playing with her solo and carrying her (she cried almost half the time) while the other mums and babies sat in a circle and sang songs or got their kids to climb this structure or other. The other kids seemed to be having a good time. Not my Caitlin. Think the money could have been better spent. Especially since some the things they did in class like songs and bubbles and stuff with toys were pretty much what I do with the kids. Except the gym bit-we don't have gym equipment. So maybe that's what the parents pay for.
KM is hogging the study room computer (where the photos are downloaded) with another conference call. That's my excuse for not posting pictures tonight.

Ellie's first "Princess Pedicure"

For a while Ellie had this thing about going everywhere with me. She actually behaves pretty well when we are out alone (without having to compete with Caitlin for attention) so I sometimes bring her along for my girly outings. This time it was a pedicure with my good friends PS and J.*

Pink playdough (by the way Pink is Ellie's favourite colour)

I try to have activities that both sisters can do together. We dance in the mornings, play games like football and hide and seek. A lot of the time it is pretend-play. We shop; Ellie and Caitlin go around the house with hats and handbags, Mama is both the mama and "shop-lady". We play dress-up; Ellie pulls hats out of our dress-up box, sometimes Ellie and now Caitlin wear my t-shirts. And we play "doctor-doctor"; Caitlin is the nurse, Ellie directs the patients, and her doll is the doctor.

When we are in the whole day I try to involve both girls in sometime arty or crafty. This is Caitlin's first experience with playdough.

Will the lights be off or not?

Just when we think we really need a break from the kids, Ellie says the funniest things which remind us it is all worthwhile

• When KM tries to tell Ellie how to arrange her shoes at the door, Ellie says, "This is my job."
• When KM walks around without his shirt in the house, Ellie says," Don't show everyone your tummy papa"

And for the first time yesterday, Ellie sat through an entire show-The Very Hungry Caterpillar. One whole hour. Enjoying every minute (well, almost) of it. She has this thing about having the lights on in the show and about (not) watching scary things, so I had to really prep her about the lights being off, how you need to have the lights off to see the puppets, how she needed to sit through the entire thing. She's growing up, my little girl.

Lately Ellie's been asking tons of questions. Non-stop. And asking the same questions again and again. "I told you the answer Ellie... don't ask again." Her latest series of questions end with "or not". "Is Mama coming or not?".  "Is Papa going or not?" Back home we were looking at the programme for next year's children's theatre festival and there she went again, "Will the lights be off or not."

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.

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). 

17 months. Bits and bites

17 months. Yesterday. Bits and bites that I just need to record.

We started this counting game. I didn’t know Ellie could get past “3″ until K told me she was counting in the bath last week. I realised she cannot get past 3 because she cannot pronounce “three”. Then last week in the car we decided to help her along. We did all the odd numbers and Ellie filled in the even ones…. and we got to 10! Ellie was so excited she shouted “again” and we did this almost 10 times until we got home. Then just a few days ago she finished up her “eight, nine, ten” all by herself.

Then last night, hurrah! we got Ellie to bed by 830. She dozed off drinking her milk with “Ni Wa Wa” (Chinese Children’s Karaoke DVD) playing in the background. Then at 1am when everyone else was asleep,  she woke up. Lucid as if she hadn’t been asleep at all. “Wa wa…watch”

She heads to the door, “Door” “Wa wa”. What? Watch your chinese Karaoke at 1am?  So K follows her out. In a few minutes, I stumble out of the room and see father and daughter sitting on the sofa watching TV. Oh no, I think this is probably going to be a long night.

Then a few songs later, Ellie says “Off”. “Are you sure you want to turn this off?”, we ask.

“Off” Ellie repeats.

So fifteen minutes later we are back in the room. I ask Ellie if she wants some milk and I get her bottle from the fridge. She lies down between us, drinks her milk, hands her bottle back to me when it is empty then promptly goes back to sleep. Funny girl that Ellie, you never know what to expect.

Booooooo with bubbles

Gurgles, squeals, yelps, goos, and ahhs! Ellie’s new project is to perfect her booos! They now last a few seconds and are accompanied by bubbles. The continuous boos go on for a minute and we have them on tape for posterity. We are now teaching her the “mmma” sound. 

Ellie and I spent the last few afternoons with (my cousin) Melissa, as subjects (actually Ellie, not me) of a Montesorri assignment! Ellie had the easy task of just being herself-rolling, laughing, giggling, grasping, gurgling at Mr Brown, leaping to music, wiggling, creeping and cooing.

As Ellie discovers the world little by little I too am learning - so much to read and so much to teach.