Fountain Play with Daniel

Yesterday, we went to Sentosa with Daniel (and his mom and brother Gabriel). After a very pleasant walk and as we were thinking of heading home, the boys spotted their favorite fountain and just had to go in ...

                       

Look a bit smaller than you expected? That might be because this is not a pic from yesterday, but from almost exactly a year ago in the same fountains... They were so tiny and so adorable (in my very unbiased opinion!).

Back to yesterday's fun, as it was warm out and we had a change of clothes for the kids, we let them go in and play around all dressed up... They had a blast. Such pure excitement and joy running and jumping in the fountains...

                     

As it started getting a bit darker, they turned on lights which rapidly changed from color to color. The kids were very intrigued. 

Goodbye Diapers Experiment Part 2

We last mentioned the goodbye diaper experiment about 2 months ago. At the time, Noah had requested  that we say goodbye diapers and had ceremonially discarded his diapers (which I then hid in my closet). The experiment was successful in that it got him over any remaining poop issues he had but every morning for a little over a week he woke up either wet or drenched.... so we brought back the night diapers (except for the occasional poop at the beginning, he has been diaper free during the day since September).

A few days ago, he asked to wear his underwear at night. The first morning, he was slightly wet. The second morning he was wet. The third night he wore a diaper and... this the fourth night... he requested his underwear again AND.... HE WAS DRY this morning. His first dry underwear night :) We will see if this was a lucky break or whether this is really a final goodbye diapers. In any case, we were all pretty excited!

On another potty note, Noah now mostly pees either in the potty or standing up in the big toilet  - he shoos us away, barely brings his shorts and underwear down and stands on tiptoe by the toilet - very cute and generally pretty effective!

Pepper Milk

What you may wonder is pepper milk? It was my childhood creation to down a beverage I otherwise found undrinkable. I hated milk but was obligated to drink it so I figured if I put heaps of pepper in my milk, it would not really taste or smell like milk as much. It was a big hit (with pretty much only me but it worked for me - and it even turns out that a famous French chef used pepper in his ice-cream to make some sort of pepper ice-cream so maybe I was not completely crazy...).

Fast forward almost 30 years - Noah is not very excited about drinking his milk in the morning (well - he wants milk but then gets unhappy when I bring out the cow milk; he gets powdered milk with his fruit snack and a small glass of soy milk with dinner but in the morning he gets fat free cow milk) so I offer to try sprinkling a different condiment in his cup of milk every morning (my last attempt to try cow milk with him as I had promised myself I would never ever force a child of mine to drink cow milk). We started with cinnamon which he seemed to like, then mint flakes, then basil flakes, cumin ... all seemed fine and interesting. Finally I asked him if he wanted to try pepper like his maman when she was little. So in went the heaps of pepper... and he LOVED it. Since then he asks for pepper in his cow milk every morning! This morning he told me (in French). I love pepper. It's spicy. I like spicy things.... my little boy :) (oh and these days apart from the Singaporean chicken rice, he asks for his spinach and goat cheese crepes on a daily basis :) - not that he gets them that often but at least he likes some French dishes even though he is growing up out East).

Friday Festivities

This Friday (March 16th 2012), Noah went on a zoo trip with his preschool - apparently, they saw the gorillas and elephants and tigers... quite an exciting morning. And then... to top off the day, we had tickets to see Disney on Ice with some friends. The show was about 1.5 hours long but Noah loved it - he kept pointing at the characters and the props and commenting ("look - Mickey", "the dog is having a birthday party", "a big spider web", "oooo presents"...) and asking questions ("where is Mickey?" "Who is that?" "What are they doing?" "Where are the carz?" ...) and commenting and asking more questions :) He was very involved with the show. On our way out, our friend purchased some mickey ears.

Our little mouse.

My ears are falling off.

 

Maman and the little mouse.

 Say cheese Noah.... "cheese", "cheese", and then "pipi", "pipi" - much more fun than cheese!

Crunchy Granola

Before last weekend, I had never made homemade granola. It seemed like such a crunchy granola/ attachment parenting/teva wearing thing to do which made it both appealing and well not-so appealing. But, unlike making your own cheese or almond milk or tofu, it is remarkably easy. So, after hearing a slate gabfest on the best granola recipes, I decided it was time to try this out... (with some help from our two chefs...).

Here are the chefs mixing the ingredients.

And spreading the mixture on the pan to put in the oven.

It was quite good though given the prices of nuts around here, I am not sure it will be a weekly staple! (you can click on granola recipe if you want to see the recipe we made and on gabfest to listen to the granola off on slate's culture gabfest).  

Water Painting

When Noah was 11 months old, we went to an amazing children's garden in Delaware with his great-aunt Renee. Among many fun activities, they had a pot full of paintbrushes by a water fountain. Below is 11 month old Noah "painting" the wall grey. 

He looks so tiny!

Last weekend, I was looking for an activity to do before lunch when I remembered water painting. So down we went with a pot of water and some paintbrushes...

Although Noah enjoyed water painting (and found some little friends from our condo to join in), his favorite bit about the whole thing was probably spilling water all over the place.

Next time, we will try this when in a bathing suit by the pool...

Noah is a big boy now...

in the eyes of our cat Lhasa. We have had Lhasa for almost five years now. She is a sweet cat and never ever scratches you BUT she sometimes bites. We were slightly worried when Noah was born that the interaction between the two would prove dangerous for Noah. Lhasa surprised us. She was amazing with a little Noah trying clumsily to hug her or pet her or smother her with kisses. She would just calmly walk away when she had had too many Noah cuddles.

Recently, I noticed that instead of walking away, she sometimes took a harmless swipe at him. He would look up surprised and confused but there would be no mark whatsoever on him. Well, our little boy has grown up in Lhasa's eyes and today for the first time she bit him. Not badly. He did not even cry but enough for there to be a mark on his arm. I am not sure he learned her lesson but from now on we will all need to be a bit more vigilant.

Crazy Weekend

A few weekends ago, we had a crazy weekend. Most weekends we have a few things planned and then have some downtime to play and relax or spontaneously go to the beach or pool or playgym depending on the weather. But that weekend, we had back-to-back engagements.... all fun but a bit crazy.

It started Saturday morning with a brunch with some friends and their son Elias. After brunch, the kids  had some fun on the slides.

Then Noah napped for a bit and just as he woke up, we headed down to the condo function room for Matthias's 

... and Niels's birthdays. Noah was very excited about the chocolate cake and made sure to stand very very near it.

Immediately after the birthday party, we headed out to meet a colleague of Seth's and his family for dinner. Yum, Peranaken food. 

Next morning, we trekked to the air show where we met up with Alex and his parents to watch planes dance in the sky and look cool on the ground. Here Noah with one of the fighter planes.

And with Daddy and a Russian plane.

After the airshow, we met up with an old friend from college days for some sightseeing (Marina Bay Sands area and Chinatown) and dinner in Chinatown. A fun packed weekend :)

All teeth are in!

Yesterday (March 2 2012) I noticed a little white speck where Noah's last molar was to be... It's official, he now has all 20 of his teeth. No more teething and drooling .... till he starts shedding them and growing a new set (do you still drool for the second set? I hope not).