carissa's capers

episode 1

after we saw jeremy off to school, i came back upstairs with carissa and tried to catch some shut-eye. since carissa got up at 5+am, i tried to get her to join me too. she wanted to play instead! argh!! i told her i wanted to sleep. guess what she did next?

while i laid on the bed, she told me to "chlow eye" and very gently pat me on my back.


episode 2

mei's down with a really persistent cold that's been bugging her for the past week. i finally gav up and took her to the doc's. without an appointment, we were in for a super long wait. to try to distract her, i tried to get her to sing (one of her fave things to do these days).

her response?

"no way!"

oh boy, more evidence of the early onset of her terrible 2s... have i mentioned that her catchphrases these days are "no", "don't want" and "不要"?


episode 3

failing to engage her, i rummaged through my bag and came up with this plastic camera toy we got from a kfc meal. now that got her attention.

guess what she did?

she went to the weighing scale, placed her camera on the ledge where the display was, turned and walked several steps away, turned back to face the scale, posed with her peace sign (see pic right on top) and went "cheeeese!!"

forget entertaining her. she was the entertainment!

digital art ala jackson pollock

we were hanging out at stacey's today when she introduced a cool website to me: http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

when we came home, i let the kids try it out and this is a sample of what they came up with. this is carissa's piece:

and this is jeremy's:

choices @ bedtime

carissa seems to have some trouble getting to sleep at night. it's been that way ever since she was a baby.

last night she pulled another "i dun wanna sleep" stunt. she came to our room, laid on our bed and said "dao dao orh orh" (that's "sleep" in carissa-talk).

when i told her to go to her room, she patted my bed and said "orh orh!"

so i said, "do you want to sleep in your cot or your bed?" (referring to the baby's cot still set up in our room though she has moved on to a toddler's bed)

without a word, she trotted off to her bed and that was the last i heard of her that night.

no longer daddy's boy?

if you know jeremy, you'll know that he is seriously one daddy's boy. so imagine my surprise when i heard this exchange today at naptime:

carissa: daddy where? daddy where?

jem: (nonchalantly) dad's in france working. he'll be back on saturday. we'll go to the airport and pick him up on saturday ok?

carissa: (starting to cry) want daddy...

jem: it's ok, daddy will come back on saturday ok? don't need to cry ok?

home alone, again!

YE's off on a business trip again, argh!! another week of "single parenthood". soooo not looking forward to it. good thing we have a helper!

pilots

today, jem was playing with his plane again when he said, "you be the co-pilot then i will be the warm pilot?"

perhaps i shouldn't be surprised, not after the mix-up between right & wrong...

taking things for granted

this is the march holiday week and i signed jeremy up for one of those holiday workshops to help kill time and prevent him from driving everyone at home nuts! ;o) i took him to the workshop one morning and he happily dashed in to join the other kids. just as quickly, he ran right out again to give me a hug and kiss before rejoining his friends.

as i straightened and prepared to leave, the parents near me *gushed* about how sweet jemmy is!

to be honest, i didn't think much of it... this is what jem does. i guess i've been taking it for granted and it's time i changed that.

dandelion head

i know we should cut carissa's hair (i've only been trimming her fringe so far) but she looks so funny with her hair all tousled especially when she wakes up! and i kinda like the wispy bits too! check out her bao4 zha4 tou2 (as christened by jia)!

but i still think this is her funniest bedhead yet.

btw, did you notice that her fringe is sloping downwards? it's not an attempt at the assymetrical look. i was trimming her fringe yet again when carissa decided she'd had enough and ran off. i decided i'd had enough of battling with her too so i left it at that! ;o)

say cheeeeeeeeessssse!

the top, one of carissa's favourites, is just one shirt out of the oodles of clothing that auntie huey ying and chern yee jiejie so generously gave us! thanks gals!!

we built this city

this is the city jeremy built. ain't great-looking, i know, but at least he tried.

and lest u think the little blocks on the ground are random bits, he actually has an explanation for everything. that or he was just conning me, which, come to think of it, is pretty likely too!

mushroom boy

that's jeremy, a mushroom monster cos he loves them so much, slicing mushrooms for our cream of mushroom soup...

and once again, i forgot to take a pic of the finished product. *bleah*

new bed?

we were out at ikea over the weekend and came across the kura bed (shown above). the kids had a lovely time climbing up and down. then came jem's question: "can you buy this for me pleeeeeease?"

we told him we'd think about it.

a couple of days on, jeremy mentioned the bed again. so i told him we'd consider getting him the bed if he became fully night potty-trained. of course he promised he wouldn't have any accidents from now on and he should get his bed now.

yeah right, but i digress.

you see the bed tent in the pic? jem really likes it too. guess he wasn't sure the bed tent would be included in the "bed package" we'd be considering which is probably why he said this: "but when i sleep upstairs, i will fall down when i roll roll, like that you see?" while pretending to roll off our bed)

and he continued, earnestly, "so you will buy me the grille right? if you put the grille, i won't fall down!"

i've got a budding negotiator on my hands don't i? :o)

which one??

YE walked out of our room and came towards the kids and me in the living room.

carissa (pointing): papa??

jeremy: which one? show me? kor kor doesn't know. come, you bring me!

good thing we weren't outside. people would wonder how many dads my kids have!

daddy the slacker

YE was involved in an event that involved sandcastle building on a weekday evening. i decided to take the kids to east coast park where the event was held so that they could cycle around a bit and we would be able to pick YE up after he was done.

when he was done, we met YE at the event venue. the sandcastles were plain for all to see. jeremy was really excited at the sight.

after his enthusiasm was exhausted from gushing over the sandcastles and asking repeatedly if he could build one too, jeremy said "daddy, why you never go to work today, you go and play sand castle??!" *snigger*

* the pic was taken at one of our own family sandcastle excursions. the ones built at the event were waaaay bigger and more impressive!

爱你

guess who came n said "mummeeeee, 爱你" to me today??

carissa!!

:o)))

i was reading bedtime stories with the kids tonight when jeremy said "mummy, 我爱你!"

he has been doing it for a while now. it was quite disconcerting the first couple of times he expressed his love for me verbally in mandarin. i've pretty much gotten used to it by now but it somehow feels sweeter when he says it in mandarin as opposed to when he says it in english.

as usual, i replied that i love him too and gave him a hug and kiss.

carissa then said, "mummeeeee, 爱你!" (in this weird ang-mor/chinese twang)

*heart melt*

i know she probably doesn't understand what she just said but it was really heartwarming nonetheless!!

so i told that i love her too and hugged and kissed her.

and then she repeated herself "mummy, 爱你!"

and on it went on for quite a bit before both kids finally went to bed.

i was just telling YE not long ago that we'd better cherish this time when the kids are so innocent and so affectionate. in just 3 years, jem will be off to primary school and he'll probably become much less demonstrative. *sigh*

honey stars

photo credit: Angie Torres

because their baby/child dedication was going to be held towards the end of the service today, both kids were with us in the sanctuary. as the sermon was ending, the kids got seriously fidgety so i pulled out the little container of honey stars hoping it'd distract the kids enough.

jem immediately took control of the container. we reminded him that he was to share the snack with carissa and he was quite willing to do so. and we also reminded carissa to say 'please'.

shortly after, we heard this exchange between the kids:

jeremy (holding out a honey star): mei, you want?

carissa (nodding): yeeeahh!

jeremy: say "please".

carissa: please....

jeremy nods, satisfied but makes no move to give carissa a honey star.

jeremy: say "please" again.

carissa: please...

jeremy (nodding absently): mm, good! ok korkor give you.

next exchange:

carissa (wanting more honey stars): please....

jeremy: ok, kiss korkor.

carissa dutifully pecks jem on the cheek.

jeremy: ok, the other side...

carissa plants a kiss on his other cheek.

jeremy: ok, good, honey star for you.

i sure wonder where he gets such ideas from...

start of the "why"s

jemmy asks "why" so much that we've become so accustomed to it and don't notice anymore. until he went to vbs. after the 1st or 2nd day, one of the teenagers helping out has christened him "mr why why".

well a new wave of "why"s has just descended on our home, courtesy of carissa.

during church service today, i told carissa "no sitting on the floor".

her immediate response, "why? why???!!"

oh boy.

update in march: carissa still asks a lot of "why"s. sometimes i reply with my own "why?" and she'd say "cause...." and trail off... :o)

big boy

it was bedtime. i thought the kids had fallen asleep (yes, unfortunately we've somehow gotten ourselves back in the situation where we've gotta stay in the kids' room till they are asleep) and was making my way out when jem asked "mummy, can you stay with me please?"

actually, the kids had been falling asleep on their own for the longest time. but after we moved carissa out of the cot and into her own bed, she'd protest if we left the room before she was asleep. so now both kids want company. *sigh*

anyway, back to the story.

since carissa was already asleep, i decided it was time to get jem re-adjusted to falling asleep on his own. so i said "you're a big boy already, you can sleep on your own."

to which jem replied, "last time i'm in nursery class and you will carry me, carry me, carry me. now i am a big boy already."

i just made a short sound of agreement and paused at the door just to see what he would do.

jeremy, on his bed, just turned to his side and went to sleep!

i thought it was funny how he thinks he's no longer in the nursery class anymore when he actually still is (technically, he was in the pre-nursery class last year and in the nursery class this year). and when he said "carry me, carry me, carry me" he made sure to place increasing emphasis on each "carry me", as if to describe how much effort it takes to carry him these days!

acting like an adult?

carissa insisted on carrying jem's bag and walking around with the cordless phone the other day (perhaps imitating us?). here's how she looked:

wish my phone camera produced less grainy pics!

tied hair

what's so special about this photo? carissa has her hair tied! :o)

carissa still hates wearing hair accessories. so when her xiaogu somehow managed to get carissa's hair tied, i received an mms with this photo from her:

and the moment i arrived at home, our helper told me excitedly to look at carissa's hair!

funny how something as simple as this generates so much excitement in our household huh?