3Y1M helping to clean

We had a cleaner the first year we moved to Singapore. She would come to wipe, vacuum, scrub, mop, and iron for a few hours weekly. It was great having her help so that I could spend my time elsewhere. However, her cleaning job became sloppy over time and Kodi (who was 2 at the time) started to associate mops and brushes with her. She thinks those are used exclusively by the cleaning lady. 

As a concerned mother and housewife, I decided to let her go and started a new routine on Saturday afternoons. That is, all three of us roll up the sleeves and get the bucket out!

Kodi has been very interested in helping out various housework. She doesn't think of them as "hard" labor, but part of her everyday play. She likes washing and squeezing water out of the small piece of rag we give her to wipe her furnitures (although we always need to help her squeeze again to get rid of the excessive water). Later we got her a very cute stand-by-itself pink lion shaped duster/rag. She loves to waive it around and claims that she is the "super little helper".

The cleaning time has become a great team building exericse (if you are up for the fancy term) for us. We would each take up a share of the load, rotate between different rooms and comment on the fruit of our labor after the job is done. I would not say that it's the most fun thing we have ever done together, but absolutely a nice way to take care of our home. And for the record, the Saturday cleaning lasts about 1 to 1.5 hours. I scrub the bathrooms and Kun irons his many shirts on a different day. 

3Y1M Folding laundry

The pictures pretty much tell the story. Kodi does the best job with long pants and shirts. The panties are a little tricky because of their triangular shape.

I often fold mine and hubby's laundry while she does hers. I would tell her how to give them a little shake, lay them flat, smooth the wrinkles and make a crease, and last but not the least, fold the laundry across a couple times so that they could fit inside the drawer nicely. 

Keep folding.

Stack them up.

Da la!

3Y1M First Pedicure

I had the most obvious color on my toes recently during a trip to the pedicure place. It was almost-neon-like fiery orange... Not sure why i was in the mood for this color at the time but it certainly caught Kodi's attention.

Tonight she asked me for the very first time that she would like to have a "pedicure"done. 

I trimmed her nails a little (it was due anyway), and painted a layer of pale pink on top. It was right after bathing at bed time so I told her that she needed keep her toes up when we read the story. She did a good job of holding her legs straight and keeping her toes clear from anything. 

Pink toe nails, one happy 3 year old girl! 

The next morning when she woke up, she was estatic to find that the pink polish was still there. 

"I have pedicure"! 

Of course, she showed off her toes at school.

2Y11M Inviting Jesus

Say grace at supper time.

Praying at church. 

We have been in the Vacation Bible School for the past two days. Kodi goes to the nursery while I teach the bible activities with the first and second graders. She seemed bored whenever I walked by that one way window. I'd see that teachers were dancing and singing, with a few enthusiastic children following them, a few others playing toys here and there, younger babies dozing off, and Kodi sitting there looking that she didn't care about what's going on. 

Maybe she did care. She just didn't know what to react at the moment.
She sang "Into my heart" after bathing while I was dressing her with the pajamas.
I asked, just out of curiosity, " Are you inviting Jesus into your heart? She said joyfully "Yes"

"Do you know who is Jesus?"

"Jesus is God"

"Does Jesus love you?"

"Yes!" almost shouting out. 

"Do you realize that you do bad things some times?" 

"Yes" 

"Can Jesus help you to do good things?"

"Yes", with lots of nodding

"Shall we ask Jesus to come into your heart now and help you?" 

"Yes"

So we started the prayers. In fact, she was more than ready to pray as she got her head down and her hands together. It was not our normal praying time. When we pray at bed time after finishing the story and lullaby, she'd often hug her blankie or me while we pray. She doesn't usually get down to a perfect praying posture like this so I believe this is a Godly timing. God is calling Kodi for something. After the prayer, she got up and looked for her bible and devotion book. We read the story of John the Baptist, Jesus called his disciples, and the paralytic that was dropped from the roof to be healed. I pointed to the baptism picture and asked if she would be ready to wash off the bad things. She said "I don't want, I don't  like" (OK, she has started this sort of Singlish and I am still working on it). When I probed a little more about why is it that she doesn't feel ready. She said "I don't like John" (referring to the graphic character on the book).

I needed to talk to someone at the church about this tomorrow and figure out what I should do next. This occurs at an interesting timing as we are going to share the ABCs of becoming a Christian with the VBS kids tomorrow. Nonetheless, I rejoice at God's calling that she was ready to say a prayer with me about inviting Jesus into her heart, and that she knows Jesus is God! Thank you VBS nursery teachers!

2Y10M Dancing

Kodi has always loved dancing. She just hasn't had so much fun dancing until the day Rebecca got married.

It was a formal reception at the Dupont Country Club. Everyone dressed up nicely, the silver wares were sparkling, the food was delicious, and the service was remarkable. The photographer roamed through the tables taking shots while we toast to the newly wed. We were very happy for Rebecca and Steve.

Kodi was the only mini guest that evening.  The other guest under 18 was Rebecca's niece, Dodo, who is about 10.

Instead of steak or salmon, she was served chicken strips and fries, with LOTS catchup!

She had a huge tantrum outbreak earlier that day after the wedding ceremony at the church. She was screaming her lungs out, not wanting to do anything, and being so upset that got us real upset too.  On top of that, she refused to nap, not even for half an hour. Hubby and I were exhausted after an afternoon of fighting with her and trying to put her down for a nap.

We had to attend the reception although we did not have the nerve to think what could happen with a tired and angry 2 year old. Rebecca's wedding was the main reason that we came back. Let's brace ourselves for the worst tonight, we quietly thought. Nonetheless, I seriously explained to Kodi that we were celebrating for Rebecca, and she needed to be a good girl, before we left the hotel room.  She seemed to get it, nodding her head calmly.

Out of our most pleasant surprise, she behaved nicely at the reception. Actually she was extra good, even better than her usual table manner. She quietly sat at the high chair playing with tatoo stickers, and ate most of the food on her plate, and interacted with friends in the most adorable way. She turned into a sweet heart.

She was also the first one to jump in when the DJ opened up the dance floor. She did her best swaying, turning, feet shuffling, bunny jumps, and the wheels on the bus kinda arm gestures, following the rhythms most of the time. A lot of friends came up to us and commented on how comfortable she was while everyone was watching and how she was on the ball with the music and rhythm. Did you teach her how to dance (could be, we sometimes dance impromptu at home when the music feels right, but it's silly dance that I'd not show anyone else)? Were you a natural dancer too? (uh,,, couldn't you tell I wasn't?)

If you ask me whether I enjoyed the joyful moment as much as Kodi did. I'd say quite the opposite. I was anxious through the whole time thinking when and what will she turn into a screaming and unhappy child. Looking back at the photos from the reception, I should have enjoyed myself more.

Hello Kitty luggage

Kodi somehow got the idea that she needs a carry on when traveling, possibly just by watching daddy pack constantly for his business trips. She packed all her bags one day saying that she's ready for the airplane. She knew that our US trip is coming up fast but probably didn't know when.

 She was very good about hauling her carry-on everywhere. She even insisted on walking through the long isles, not in the stroller, just so she could pull the bag. Here at Changi airport.

 Here at Narita airport. 

Here at Newark airport.

Did you see the little bag tucked along with our big bags? Here was at Hotel Hershey. 

She got another travel companion during our last stop in New Jersey. A puppy named "Dory" in her own carrier!

Gone shopping

We love go shopping at Cold Storage Jelita for the reason that this is the only place that I know of, in Singapore, that offers mini shopping carts for kids. 

Ever since we came here when Kodi was 18 months old, she loved to push the cart and adding stuff into it. She wasn't very good at navigating through the isles and around the crowd initially and needed my constant supervision, and intervention. 

Now she is a pro and has her own opinion about what fruits, vegetables and cereals we should get.

She is also great at moving stuff onto the check-out counter. Quick unloading! The only thing I am not so comfortable is that she prefers to return the shopping cart herself while I am finishing checking out. The return location is tucked between the row of check-out counters and the store entrance. It is probably the busiest corner in the whole store where people come in to grab a cart and rush to get out after shopping. Nonetheless, she is usually fine dodging the crowd. 

But not today. 

A girl with curly hair, probably around four years old, grabbed the empty car that Kodi just finished unloading. The two girls just stood there staring at each other for about 10 seconds. I said to the curly hair girl "Please give it back" she mumbled something that we couldn't understand and the next thing I knew, she just ran away like a wind, with the cart. Kodi asked me "whey did she take away my cart?"  "I don't know. Maybe she needs a cart?" There was a woman calling the little girl and waiving at her from a distance, which really bothers me that people could just leave their young children unattended at a public venue.... It was almost dinner time so I decided that it's not worth a fight. After all, we were ready to return the cart anyway. This cart hijack just ended Kodi's shopping routine prematurely. That's all. We still had fun shopping!

Jet lagged

Badly jet lagged.

We came back from the States on the Monday after Mother's day only to find a stinky frige greeting us. So stinky that we smelled the odor seeping through the frige door and traveling all the way to the foyer. Sigh.... the circuit breaker tripped and who knows when did this happen? Hubby threw away all the stuff in the frige and we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.... a bit traumatic since frige has always been my trusted friend.

2Y11M Kodi speaks

沒有坐小孩子的椅子就沒有小孩的碗吧 4.6.2012 @ ding tai fung

Problem solving

Kodi discovered that to remove a strong magnet from the frige door, it's pretty hard to just pull it away but much easier if she glides it down toward the edge of the frige and then separate it by tipping it off.  

"Mommy this is the book I had when I was a baby." 

"Yes. I am going to pass it onto my brother and sister."

" But can I let my animal friends read it now?"

"弟弟妹妹還沒有來!"

3Y3M grandparents visit Singapore

My parents visited us from Taiwan for a week. 

It happened so that Kodi was off school that week so we did lots of touristy 

 

Here is the newly opened Garden by the bay. We all appreciated the air conditioned conservatory where they house plants and trees primary from the cold climate.

 

How refreshing it is to stroll through the garden in 20C cool air!

  

 

 

Where there are stones, there is fun! I am not sure why kids are fascinated by small rocks and pebbles. However, the different shapes must be very inviting to the little minds. Let alone that there are usually plenty of them laying around at parks or by the creeks (although not frequently spotted in Singapore). No one needs to fight for that one precious pebble. There is enough for everyone!

 

Parents happily posing for iphone!

 

 

 

 

 

We got this pinwheel for Kodi from Beijing in July. It cost something like a dollar but it is so colorful and so easy to spin with a blow of air. She loves to hold it high up and watch them spin.

 

Yep, gotta visit Sentosa when you come to Singapore. On this day, Kodi insisted that we should all wear the same color shirt, and that is green! It was such a hot day that we didn't stay there for long. Nonethess, we - the green gang, took a photo with the green octopus. Mom turned out to like that picture very much because somehow it made her look skinny with even longer legs!