Happy 3rd Birthday To Ian

This morning, Ian went to school as usual and had the last Speech & Drama class for the term.  Hubby took the afternoon off to spend some time with our boy, so I picked both of them up in the afternoon.  We ordered takeaway MacDonald's lunch, and Ian got to enjoy his favourite fries in the car as we drove to the Apple service centre to get a replacement for Hubby's phone as the warranty was expiring at the end of the month.  On the way back, we collected Ian's birthday cake and went home to let Ian get some sleep.  Unfortunately, the short trip had made him overly excited to sleep. 

When we went over my Mom's place for dinner, Ian had a surprised party.  My sister-in-law bought a birthday cake for him as well as a toy car which he loved.  So, he had a small celebration with his 2 favourite cousins (whom he would love to bring home if he could) singing a birthday song for him.

Back at home, we had our own small and quiet celebration as well...so that the cake would serve as a supper for us.

Some quick stats for our 3 year old:
Weight: 15.5kg (estimated)
Height: 100cm

He has recently began to like singing, and has been singing songs that he picked up from school very frequently.  He has also picked out a soft-toy dog (a present from Hubby to me) as his pet dog, which he always carried around at home, and even to bed.  Apart from the dog, he has chosen soft-toy pets for us as well - a teddy bear for his Daddy, and a "Knuffle Bunny" (one of his top favourite books at the moment) for me.  And, he always forces them on us even if we do not want it!

Field Trip To Changi Airport

Ian's school organised a field trip to Changi Airport, and the teachers requested the company of his Daddy as they felt that he was too active and always running around.  So, Hubby took the morning off from work to chaperone this little naughty boy.

As his teacher required Daddy to sit on the coach with Ian, I had to drive to the airport on my own.  The bus driver did not know which terminal they were going to when Hubby asked him during boarding, so I could only follow the bus from the school to the airport, and it was a tiring drive because the bus was travelling at only 80km/h along the expressway.  In a way, it was good to drive safely with so many preschoolers on board.

I followed the bus all the way to terminal 2, and then went my own way to the carpark.  It was the first time I drove to the terminal 2 carpark (we always parked at terminal 3).  Unfortunately, after parking, I discovered that they had taken the sky train to terminal 3... duh... it was a long walk to the sky train terminal, and I finally caught up with them at terminal 3.

First destination: Viewing gallery....the children were excited to see the airplanes.

We took some time at the gallery, and then moved on.  The teachers had wanted to find the exhibition at the airport, but nobody could remember where it was held, so eventually, we ended up at MacDonalds. As usual, Ian was running and jumping around.  Daddy said it was because I appeared, that was why he started to misbehave. :(

Although the whole school did not participate in this field trip (unlike the Dairy Farm trip that I had gone before with Ian), I thought that it was good that Daddy came along to take him in hand.  We shared a table with 2 other children (who eagerly helped us finished up our fries).  I noticed that Ian was particularly mischievous when he was with another boy, and so I made him sit with his girl classmate for the rest of the meal.  Perhaps more female company would do him good!

After lunch, we got a balloon for Ian (as I had promised him one for behaving) and quickly left, as the other children were starting to ask for it as well from the teachers and other parent volunteers.  It was good that we drove there because we could bring Ian home directly without following the bus back to school.  After driving us home, Hubby went straight to office to work again.

Mee Sua For Ian's 3rd Lunar Birthday

What my Mom cooked for Ian (and both Hubby and I got to benefit as well)... yummy...

Checkup @ 24 Weeks

This afternoon, our family made a trip to TMC for my 24th week checkup.  It was quite a long wait and I was almost the last patient to go in.

Quick stats:
My weight: 52.6kg
Baby Princess: 697g

During the scan, her head was on top (unlike Ian, who was always in the "good position" with his head down).  Dr also attempted to show us her face which was facing us in  the machine.  Dr said that our baby's weight was "good", meaning she would not be a small baby at birth, and she would be like Ian (above 3kg), growing at this rate. 

I seriously think I need to cut down on Anmum and switch to low-fat milk or calcium tablets, so that I will have an easier time during labour!


Tonics
Ever since I fully recovered from my prolonged cough at around the beginning of February, my tonics include birdnest, cordyceps, and chi2 di3 sheng4 taken on a weekly rotational basis.  Occasionally, I also drink chicken essence, or red date and longan tea, for an extra energy boost.  Hopefully, this princess will have a stronger immunity than her brother who has been a constant prey to flu and cough since the beginning of last year.

BBB for Baby Princess

Purchased these items online (after adding shipping, they were still much cheaper than buying locally!), which I thought would be useful for my #2 (based on previous experience with Ian):

• Nursing cover
• Swaddle cloths - Ian always managed to wriggle out of his swaddles when he was young.  Not even the Kiddopotamus SwaddleMe could keep his arms inside for long.  Hopefully, these would prove to be better than the small receiving blankets that we had used with Ian.  A good thing was that they could also be used as blankets in future (just tried one on Ian and it still fitted his height).
• Sleeping bags - Gotten 2 medium sizes of these from a "steals" website at half price, and another one (small size with swaddle) from Amazon using their 25% discount code plus a $10 coupon.  In fact, we thought that Ian would do well with one of these bags because he always kicked off his blankets.  But because we did not start him from young, we were not sure if he would like to sleep in a bag now, even though they had those with leg holes.
• Not in photo - some spare parts for my Medela pump and a box of Lanisoh nursing pads to stand by.

Completed Yet Another Sticker Book

This was a follow-up book to another one that we had completed in September 2010.  I had kept it in the cupboard for a while, because the exercises needed some thinking.  Like the first book, it was worthy of its price.  Ian had completed in within a few days (though we deliberately dragged it). It was something that was good to occupy some of his time, while giving his brain some thinking to do.

His Doraemon Hand Soap

This was something that our little guy had been wanting us to buy for a while, ever since I brought him to Guardian 1-2 weeks ago.  Whenever we passed by the shop after that episode, he would ask me to buy it for him.

This evening, we went to Guardian again because Hubby had wanted to activate his new credit card.  Ian saw the hand soap again and was so thrilled.  He begged his Daddy to buy, and surprisingly, his Daddy decided to let his little boy indulge a little.  It was not exactly cheap, coming close to $7.  However, it did have a nice fragrance and lathered well.