More on our little girl...

Gosh. Updates on our little girl are waaaay overdue. So much has happened over the last few months- where should I start? Hmmm.

• She started walking at around 11 months, which was really exciting to watch. When she could walk around a bit more, she would hold both arms up- bent at the elbow- to balance herself, and toddle around, with each leg somewhat 'flapping' in turn, swaying a little side-to-side. A bit like a penguin. Hilarious!! At one point she also liked to pat herself on her chest while she walked. Feeling proud of herself, I suppose. Heh.
• She loves to explore and play on her own; she's quite independent that way. Good girl.
• She does get bullied quite often (sigh); her brother loves to snatch her toys away and sometimes shoves or smacks her as well. We're working hard on trying to get him to be more civil towards her, and we're slowly seeing some improvement, so we do hope that continues. She's learnt to kick up a big fuss whenever she gets bullied, and at the rate she's growing, she'll probably be big enough to defend herself soon! :p
• She's a real screamer- her screams and wails are seriously deafening.. and she's a real drama queen too!
• Her motor skills are quite good as well, and her physical development does appear to be faster than her brother's at the same age. One of the things she can do is to swirl a ball in a 'bowl', which is not really that easy because it involves a certain amount of control to keep the ball from swirling out of the bowl.
• Dancing- she loves that! It's sooo cute to see her pointing her fingers to the music, bending her knees and shaking her head and butt, and turning round and round :)
• For some reason, she drools A LOT! So much so that a bib is perpetually round her neck. Hmm, we never had that problem with that for No.1....
• She likes to 'smack'/pat pat me while I nurse her :p
• She loves bouncing on things; if she sees us lying down somewhere she would climb onto our backs or tummies and bounce away!
• She also loves bouncing and playing on the bed, which is actually quite dangerous. She's quite oblivious to the danger, going very near the edge of the bed, expecting us to always be there to catch her. Also, she loves to plonk backwards onto the bed! Such a playful little girl.
• Sad to say, she's a chronic thumbsucker. She sometimes even uses the other hand to pat pat her elbow, thus helping to keep the thumb firmly in her mouth. She sucked her thumb so much that a nasty looking scab developed on it. Yuck. We've since devised a way to help wean her off her thumb, using a sock tied firmly over the hand. Of course, we've had to substitute her thumb with a pacifier, so now she's hooked on the latter instead. Sigh.

May God bless you, our little darling!

No.2's birthday celebrations...

Hubby and I took the day off on our little girl's birthday and took the kids to MegaKidz in MidValley. It was a weekday so we virtually had the entire place to ourselves, which was nice. The ball pit was being cleaned though, so that was rather disappointing, as the kids absolutely love playing with balls.

Scary-looking slide..

My dear mummy cooked a lovely dinner for all of us- featuring noodles, of course!

In addition to her birthday party, we had another 2 mini-celebrations for our little girl. Check out the makeshift 'cakes' we had- a muffin 'cake' and a doughnut 'cake'. Haha!

Hubby and I bought her a new toy, which was of course 'hijacked' by her older brother. Sigh. It's really tough trying to teach No.1 about sharing; we hope and pray that both kids will learn to get along better as they grow up together.

May our good Lord watch over you always, our little darling! Blessed birthday! :)

Our little girl turns ONE!

Time flies- our little girl turned one in early October! We threw a birthday party for her the weekend before and both kids had a great time!

Our little boy was busy messing about with the helium balloons with his friends (the balloons were a real hit with the kids, and each kid got to bring 1 or 2 balloons home); and the birthday girl was smiling from ear-to-ear from all the attention she was getting as the star of the night.

We ordered a lovely cake from Choffles- complete with a Baby TV theme. Isn't it amazing? I got the decoration ideas from all the research I did online, and hubby drew a sketch for Choffles to follow. We were super-duper pleased with how the cake turned out; the looks on all the kids' faces (and all the oohs and aahs from everyone) when we unveiled the cake was simply priceless! Hmm.. looks like every cake we order from now on has got to top the previous one- oh no! :p

Check out the lovely gifts our little girl received- thanks everyone!

And to our precious little girl- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! We love you so very very much.

*HUGS*

Beautiful Maddy

I stumbled upon this blog about a year ago via Facebook. The writer and I have a mutual friend, and one day I chanced upon a comment that my friend left on her friend's wall, leading me to this amazing blog.

I truly believe God led me there. I was in my confinement period after delivering my little girl; and things were very hard. I was crying often and feeling crappy most of the time; partly due to the crazy hormones and the challenges of breastfeeding. Reading this blog actually made me cry even more, but it was a great reminder that the opportunity to be a mother is a blessing from God, and one that I would not trade for the world, despite it being a really tough job.

Maddy is about a few months older than my little girl, and she has Diastrophic Dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism. This wonderful blog is mainly written by her mother, Nicole, and in it she displays an amazing amount of courage, optimism, strength and love. She writes about learning to live with their 'new normal', and her writing gives me a glimpse of her own motherhood journey. She writes about her feelings, her thoughts, Maddy's medical challenges, and through her writing I have learnt so much about dwarfism... but more importantly, what it means to be a mother.

As mothers we all hope for our children to be perfect and healthy, and sometimes, we may even take it for granted and just assume that will be the case. But sometimes, God allows the special mothers to be given special children, and along with it, He will supply an amazing amount of strength and grace. And that is why we read of mothers (and also fathers, of course) who will sacrifice anything and everything for the love of their child. And what amazing stories are those!

I have been so touched and humbled by this blog that I dropped Nicole a message on Facebook to tell her that, and she was gracious enough to send me a short reply. I still follow this blog closely and try to keep the family in my prayers; sometimes it feels like I 'know' little Maddy although I have never met her. She is such an adorable and beautiful little girl! :)

Do check out Nicole's blog if you can; start by reading 'Maddy's Story' and work your way from there. There is also one particular post written by Maddy's father- Bernard, which I guarantee will bring tears to your eyes.

May the Lord bless you and keep you always, lovely little Maddy!

Bangkok Trip- Day 4 (Last Day)

We went back to the Platinum Fashion Mall bright and early the next morning; even the taxi driver snickered, saying that it was still closed. When we got there, almost all the stalls were indeed closed, save for a few. Hmm.

Nevertheless, we took our time walking around slowly, and watched as the mall slowly came alive. Most of the early morning visitors were those getting their stock for their businesses elsewhere.

Needless to say, we bought loads of stuff! Shopping is so much fun when things are affordable. Plus, shopping in the mall is so comfortable, as opposed to sweating it out in outdoor markets. That really tires you out after a while.

When we were done shopping (or rather, when we absolutely HAD to leave to catch our flight); we went back to our hotel, freshened up, and made our way to the airport.

The airport is actually quite nice, as you can see from the photos below. I was hoping to catch a foot reflexology massage at the airport, but we didn't have enough time. Too bad.

We had a nice trip, but we were glad to be going home. We really missed the children!

Check out the stuff we bought! :)