The Eight Night....

A little disaster around 10+pm... Reese woke up coughing and vomited on the bed.... had to clean up the mess and then gave him some milk because he asked for it. He had fever again before bedtime. We gave in. :) Sick boy got exemption right?

I am very happy to say that he did not wake up after that but he woke up around 5.50am!!! He has been getting up at around 6am ever since we wean him off his night feed! How ah??

Poor me was coughing so bad that I didn't sleep until after 2am! and woke up around 5.30am!! I need to go see doc to get some medication... I had to sleep in the living room because it's just too much work trying to muffle my cough with my pillow.... and the air-con is not helping either.

Feeding Reese medication this time around is sooooo easy... just need to reason with him and tell him that the medication will make him better and he willingly take them with some of his favourite drink. Ah... no more struggling. He had to take 3 different medication. :(

The Seventh Night....

First of all.... yesterday evening we had to take Reese to the Pediatrician because my poor boy was down with fever, sore throat and very chesty. He even have an ulcer in his mouth. It's a first for him. He kept asking me to take away the 'dry skin' in his mouth. :)

Despite being sick, my boy slept through the night again! :) he did wake up at about 11+pm crying because of the cough and he was sweating! No more fever.... phew.. and we gave him a little bit of milk.

Still will wait a few more days before I declare him night feeding free! Ah.... can't help but feeling proud of my boy..... hehehehee.....

The sixth night....

*SMILES*

Reese slept at 9.30pm and did not wake up at all for night feed! Praise the Lord!! :)
Well, now is only 5.10am. I am can't sleep, I am not used to the new routine... hahaha.. The past few nights I kept waking up around 11/12 plus am and then by 5am I am awake again. I think I am just anxious whether Reese will wake up or not. :)

I am still not 100% convinced that Reese is totally off night feeds. Will monitor for another 1 week then only will I make it official! :)

Yippie so far.....

Fifth night....

Reese slept late again, at about 10pm and woke up super early at 6am! The good news is, he did not whine but roll alot on the bed (not sure whether it's due to his sore throat and phlegm) or because he did not have his usual dose of milk! Anyway... as usual around 2am, he woke up and ask for milk very nicely this time and I just told him no milk until the sun comes up and gave him a bottle of water... he took one sip and gave it back to me and went back to sleep. :)

Still not sure whether it is working or not but at least he has accepted that he will not get any milk in the middle of the night. Now the other problem is he sleeps later and wakes up very early because of the new routine.

I hope in the coming weeks he will get used to the routine and sleeps through the night. How much sleep is required of a toddler? On average Reese will have about 11 hours of sleep including nap time a day. On really good days, he will sleep about 12.5 hours. How long does your child sleeps a day?

Computer Skills

Reese was exposed to the computer when he was less than a year old. He likes watching whatever we show him on the computer. There is always a concern that children who are exposed to interactive stuff too early in there childhood will find it difficult to learn using more traditional method like books. They get bored easily and there are many books and research by experts that support this claim. Am I concern? Sometimes but I make sure there is a balance and somehow... Reese likes both. So I guess it's ok.

Reese's favourite gadget is of course the Ipod touch. Daddy downloads lots of free programs like virtual violin, drums, drawing program, some simple games, virtual pets and many more. Reese is an expert when it comes to using Ipod touch. He knows how to search for his favourite program and open it. He knows how to close the program that he doesn't like and he knows where to search for his favourite cartoon and play them.

When he is out eating with us, the PSP is his favourite companion. He will watch his favourite cartoon on it while we all eat in peace.

His latest skill is using the computer (MAC). He now knows how to navigate his favourite site starfall.com) by using a mouse and he is able to play the games too. We used to do all the navigating for him and he will just watch but now, he can do it by himself. It took him a couple of days to get used to the MAC mouse and the PC mouse. Now he will surf his favourite site both at home and at my mother's place. An additional activity for him to do! He can be surfing the site for a good 20 minutes or more on his own!

I think it's quite an achievement for a 2 years 7 months 25 days old toddler! :)

Fourth night....

Yesterday night was fast to get Reese to sleep because he did not nap and had played 3 hours at Kidspot! So by 8.30pm he slept. I was not well either so slept with him. At around 10+pm Reese woke and whine a little but eventually fell asleep. He didn't ask for milk. Then around 12+am, 2+am he woke and again whine a little and kicked about with his eyes closed. Again didn't ask for milk then finally at about 2+am he woke up asking for milk. So again we told him only when the sun comes up then only he can have milk... he whine a little and I got up and gave him some warm water in his bottle. He took a few sip and then gave it to me and fell asleep again.... :)

Now it's 6am. No movement from him so far.... Is it working? I don't know... I think it is still too early to tell... will have to wait for another few more days..... thank you for your support mummies.. will keep you updated.

Third night....

It's 3am and I can't sleep again. Reese woke up asking for milk about 15 minutes ago. Tried to talk him out of it but he started to whine and kick. Since we are all sleepy, I got up and gave him warm water. Guess what? He didn't complain at all! I thought he will reject the bottle of water...but.... he drank anyway but only a little and he went back to sleep... hehe.

He slept really late though. He slept at 10.45pm and he requested for more milk but we reasoned with him and he accepted that.

Will he wake a second time and ask for milk again? I don't know... what I am afraid now is that he will stick to his habit even though he is given water. As long as there is a bottle for him to suck on... mmm... hopefully not. Will update later.

Latest antic.....

Cheeky Reese... he looks like he is 4 years old!

Playing with the computer

Oops! caught in the act...

What's so exciting?

Clapping?

Ah.....dancing.... Reese loves to dance lately...

Doing a crazy dance....something like tap dancing.... :)

Second night...

Ah... it's 4.35am. I can't sleep. Reese woke up and ask for milk a second time in less than 2 hours. Daddy gave him a diluted bottle and he had no complain the first time. Finished and went back to sleep. Just now he woke up and whine and wanted to kick and shout...but I gently spoke to him and told him that there is no more milk till the sun comes up in the morning. He repeated the 'Milk not open yet' and 'now is night time'....After 5 minutes of persuading, he finally fell asleep. Phew! At least he accepted that.

Yesterday night again before bedtime I told him that he cannot behave badly and there will be no milk until the next morning when the sun comes up. He asked for a second bottle before he slept and I told him no more milk. Eventually he fell asleep. I told him if he misbehave mummy will be angry and daddy will put him in a room. I think after a few episodes of being put in a room or outside the apartment door... he is somewhat afraid of the consequences.

Tomorrow night, I will do the same routine again, only one night feed with very diluted milk and if it goes well, will take away the night feed and see what happens.

Slight Improvement...

After weeks of tantrums and multiple night feeds.... yesterday we had a break. I told my little rascal king many times before bedtime that he should not cry and scream and if he wants milk just ask for it. Well, he did not cry just slight whining and he asked for milk... 2 times and towards 4am... he asked for milk again twice and I kept reminding him that he already had his milk and that we will have to wait till morning when the sun comes out before he can have milk again. So after that... he fell asleep... took him sometime though but at least he did not throw tantrum... phew... will see how tonight goes. I also reduce half a scoop of milk powder for each feed yesterday night.

5X milk in a night.....

Reese is getting very difficult again (Could it be because he is down with runny nose? or could it be because he didn't have enough sleep?). For the past two to three weeks, he will ask for milk up to 5 times a night!! Imagine we having to get out of our slumber and make his milk. If we ignore him, he will keep asking non stop or he will cry and kick up a fuss!! He will throw himself on the bed, kick with all his might and cry and screams. It's happening so often that a few times daddy has to carry him and take him out of the room and leave him outside the apartment door (still within the inside grill) until he stops. We are going nuts really. Poor us not having enough sleep every night. Husband is the most effected since he sleeps late and once woken it's harder for him to fall asleep again. Not only he ask for more milk, Reese also sleeps late at about 10pm plus and gets up super early like 6.30am! His nap time is also irregular and at times refuses to nap.

He will also cry, screams and kick after a nap in the day. I had to shout and scream at him and put him in a room to get him to stop. One thing very irritating is during such tantrum, he will demand for something and when you give it to him, he will say he doesn't want it and when you take it away... he will ask for it again and throws his tantrum... this can go on and on and on.... it's so frustrating! I had no choice but to scold him and put him into the room and let him screams and cry until he stops and apolozises. I felt so sad when this happens but I really have no choice I even gave him a smack or two on his legs during one of the super bad day.

Yesterday after one of the episodes, I was patting him while he takes his milk...and I explained to him why mummy shouted and punished him and told him if he does it again, mummy will be very angry and go away. My poor boy gave me the saddest and fearful look...looking straight into my eyes and he said, " I want mummy, don't want mummy angry". *sigh*

I wonder when this phase is going to end. I really need to wean him off his night feeds. I think I will try giving him super dilutated milk and just have to brace for another few weeks of sleepness night and see whether we will be successful.

From my observation, he is not really hungry when he ask for milk. For him, milk is just some sort of comforter because he will surely ask for milk after one of his tantrums. Milk is his comforter.

Is your child like mine?

Blogging again...

Ah.... been busy with work, holiday plans and my rascal king. I guess I didn't have the mood to blog either. It happens once in a while. My mood is coming back and thus this post and many more post to update on my rascal king and me. Sorry if I haven't drop by your blogs or reply some of your comments. :)

Imagine, Imagine....

Some of the imaginative play Reese came out with. Can you guess what these are?

It's a rocket. Going to blast off!

It's the MTR underground train (Reese came up with this after our trip to Disneyland last year)

Obsession with lining up cups and bowls at the playgroup

Without fail... everytime we go to the playgroup, Reese will look for the cups and bowls to line them up.

Reese likes to play with little doors and windows or anything you can open and close and he will imagine them as doors. He loves it when we build a big house with steps and lots of windows and doors using Lego. Reese also started to play with little figures (Lego) and having them do all kinds of things. One of the funny ones is putting two Lego pilot figures together and said that they are kissing. :) (Reese learned this from us kissing him and morning kisses from daddy to him and mummy)

Sometimes he will feed us with pretend food and latest obsession is to line up trains/cars/blocks/cups/bowls in a straight line.

He likes to play with his Thomas and friends trains. He will take the trains to go up/down hill (sometimes on mummy's knees or thigh), go through tunnels (under pillows/bolster or our legs!) go on rescue missions (funny expressions coming from Reese like "Oh no!", "What happen to Mike?", "Rescue Thomas!"....

Another thing that amuses us is when he uses a tiny magnetic sticker with a magic wand on it or a long plastic strip and claims that it is a magic wand... he will go around the house and starts changing (with sound effect) everyone into a pumpkin or like last night, he turned mummy into Pocoyo!

I am glad my son is becoming more creative in his play.

Desserts...

Yummy doughnuts. He loves it when I deep my finger in the chocolate and he gets to lick it!


Ice blended coffee....

Ice-cream....

Ice Kacang....

Doughnuts....

Cheese cakes.....

Cream puffs....

Chocolate cakes....

Cupcakes....

Remember I used to rant that my son didn't like sweet stuff? Well, that has changed. I know it's good that kids don't take too much sweet things but I also want my son to enjoy what daddy and mummy enjoy! So whenever we have desserts, I will let him try and the past 1 month his taste buds seems to be changing. He had tried the above and his favourite has to be doughnuts and cream puffs! :)

It's nice to watch him enjoy the food! Of course we are not feeding him with these food all the time. Only once in a while and I try to keep it to the weekends only. On weekdays is strictly home cook food and healthy snacks only.

Mother's Day

Cheeky boy waiting for his food


Carbonara for Reese


Lamb Shank for mummy


Chicken Chop for daddy


Choc Fondant for all of us

It was a quiet Mother's day. We had brunch with my family and two aunts. It was to celebrate mother's day, sister's birthday and aunt's birthday.

Then we headed home and do nothing till evening. We took Reese to Tropicana City. Our first time there and went to this new eating place call Indulge. We like the food there. Fusion style and nice and comfortable surrounding.

Then we headed to the toy shops and then bookstore. That's how we celebrated Mother's day. Oh... Reese gave me a carnation (Courtesy of of Sister).

Great Children Music CDs

Over the past two years, I had come across many children music ranging from rhymes to popular children songs but was never really satisfied with the quality of the singing until I discovered Wee Sing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies. It came with Reese's homeschooling program. At first I find it quite irritating because it not only contains songs but also a story to go with them. After listening to it for sometime, I began to love it. Reese learned alot of songs and rhymes from this CD. He will listen to it during our daily car ride. If you chance upon it, you should get it. It's wonderful. Recently I got another Wee Sing title: Animals, Animals, Animals (RM34+) from Kinokuniya at KLCC. This is a fun CD where all the songs and poems are about animals! This CD also includes fingerplays. I love it. Reese learns about animals from the sounds they make to some of their behaviours too. It's really a wonderful collection. Another great thing about Wee Sing is that it comes with a book that has basic musical notes and lyrics to each song in the CD.

About two weeks ago, I bought another 4 Wee Sing titles from U.S. and is waiting for it to arrive! Sad to say I can only find Wee Sing titles in Kinokuniya but the CD that I bought from them a sometime back was the last copy and I am not sure whether they will bring in more so I had to order from U.S. You can buy Wee Sing titles from www.christianbook.com (Highly recommended) where you get to enjoy great discounts too (after shipping charges, the CDs are still cheaper than here) and don't buy from amazon.com! their shipping is expensive and no discount.

I bought Wee Sing Around The World (they even have a song from Malaysia:Pok Amoi Amoi), Wee Sing Bible Songs I & II and Wee Sing Silly Songs. You can check out more titles at www.weesing.com. I also bought some books from christianbook.com for below USD1 each... Will tell you more once I got my CDs and books! Just can't wait....

Reese can spell!

My son can spell!

I was kinda surprised. I know he can read 3 letter words but spelling was not expected until I discovered his ability to do so a few days back. We were sitting casually in front of the Mac when Reese said he wanted to go to starfall.com. So we went and browse the Learn to Read section (He has graduated from ABCs section). We play the spelling game of 3 letter words by matching the alphabets. We have done this a few times a few weeks back. I am always the one that did the matching, this time Reese wanted to do it and surprise surprise.... he match all of them from 'at' to 'ug' combination. Then I thought could it be just from memory? Can't be, there were over 36 words to match and he did everyone correctly and so much so...he finds it boring just doing that..so now.. he will purposely take the wrong alphabet to match the word so that he can have a good laugh when the computer rejects the alphabet with a funny sound! So when I ask for the correct alphabet..he will promptly match it for me.

Ah... I am so proud of my boy. He is sure a fast learner. Hehehe....

**I have stop doing reading with him for a while because I have been busy and lazy. Maybe it's time to start again and do something fun with him.

Mix & Match

Aren't the bears cute? It's a game designed for toddlers and the generously thick cards and easy rules make it ideal young children. There are 12 picture pairs and the teddies are so cute. This game came with Reese's homeschooling program and only recently I took it out to play with Reese.

Too bad, he is not interested in the game but just arranging the bears and count them and we named each bear with cute names like 'honey bear', 'chocolate bear', 'biscuit bear'....

Fish Galore!

New fishes (There are a few types)

On Sunday we had breakfast close to TTID market. After breakfast we took Reese along to the market. While I went about buying meat and vegetables, daddy took Reese to the fish shop. Daddy bought 12 fishes (few types) for RM12. It's cheap as compared to shopping malls' pet shops. It's half the price actually!

Anyway...when we got home, daddy put the fishes into the tank, we went on to do other things and about an hour or so, daddy and Reese sat down to watch the fishes and suddenly daddy exclaimed.... "Girl, the fish gave birth!" (In hokkien). I was like huh? As I look closer, there were many tiny baby fishes trying to avoid being bullied by the bigger fish!! So immediately we decided to separate them. We were baffled as to how they came about... didn't notice them earlier and the fish can't just lay eggs and the baby immediately hatch right? So I guess it came with the rest of the new fish... Guess how many we manage to scoop out? 21 of them!!! Wow... pay RM12 and we got ourselves 12+21 fishes! (One baby died later in the day and one of the adult fish died the next day) Not bad huh?so now we have two tanks (later in the day we bought a cheap plastic tank and a filter pump) .... doubt we can keep all of them in the big tank...but for now... will let it be.... :)

The 2o babies

31 months

What's new? nothing much. Everything is on the up trend. Oh...one thing is on the down trend which is good. He throws less tantrum and is easier to manage. When tantrum kicks in, we just need to warn him about sending him to the room and he is somewhat afraid. :)

He likes doughnuts very much! Something new for him. He is also more willing to take cheese cake. Still not a fan of very sweet stuff. Loves chicken and potato rice.

Beginning to be more adventurous with climbing obstacles and slides. Loves to jump down from steps and sofas.

Loves to sing but totally out of tune.

Loves to substitute own lyrics in songs.

Getting more creative in his play.

Still wakes up for milk 1 to 2 times.

Still naps for about 1.5 to 2 hours daily and sleeps between 9.30pm to 10pm.

Uses diapers only during napping and sleeping time as well as when we are out. I think he is ready to go out without his diaper but mummy needs to practice a few more times helping him to use public toilets. So far, Reese did his poo poo 2 times in shopping malls and once on a highway restarea's toilet. The key is to make sure you have plenty of wet and dry tissues! So far the toilets we went to are very clean. :)

Personality? mmmm... not shy and friendly only when he gets to know you. Loves to play with other children. Not a sensitive boy and he is super cheeky. Doesn't like to be alone. Oh... very manupulative.

Learning ability: Very fast and has a superb memory. A few weeks ago, Reese started to count down from 10 to 0. He still love doing that. Now he attempts to count from 20 to 0...

Grammar, Sentence Patterns and Vocabulary

Daddy wants me to note these down because he finds it amazing. Reese's speech is getting more sophisticated. He understands certain rules in forming sentences. He knows how to use 'ing' in his sentences. For example, if we say "The door opens", he can say "The door is opening". It is also clearer for him now when to use pronouns like 'me', 'I' and 'you'. He also understand better singular and plural and most of the time he will add 's' when referring to something plural. Pretty good at using articles too. Sometimes in his sentences, he will use past tense! Well, not that he understand the concept but more in imitation of what we say...hehehe...

His pronunciation is also getting better. He can pronouce words like hieroglyphics and hipopotamus.

As for vocabulary, he is picking up many words from us, cartoons and books. He knows alot of instruments by name from panpipes to acordian, he knows China and Egypt, he knows what hieroglyphics means, he knows a number of sea creatures like scorpian fish to puffer fish, bowling to badminton and many many more. It's just amazing how much he can absorb!

Latin anyone?

Reese's favourite cartoon has to be The Little Einsteins. He watches them at least once a day. We have it on DVD and even on his PSP. Lately he likes to use a couple of Latin words he picked up from The Little Einsteins.

Allegro
Accelerando
Presto
Diminuendo
Moderato

He also pronouces them very clearly. He knew what each means. He also talks about musical notes, so perhaps I should introduce music to him? As in music theory... hahaha....