Katy at twenty-one and a half months

Sleeping a lot better - later in the mornings (6.30-7am) and longer during the day (1-2 hours) :)
Still waking up crying though :(
Going cold turkey on weaning from twice a day nursing :(
Eats really well still, although erratic and fiendish on snacks - has oatmeal or cereal and milk for breakfast - doesn't like the plain yoghurt I insist on serving her...might have to have baby yoghurt again as a treat
Has omelette and carrot juice for late morning snack with Dada
LOVES mushrooms, green olives, prawns, avocadoes, baby ccinos, apple juice (as a treat - Mama is relenting on the no juice rule), sweets of any description, chicken schnitzel
LOVES water - washing hands, garden hose, bath...any running water anywhere is an invitation to play, evian water bottles with the pull out drinking spout...
LIKES crafts more than she did, likes to draw and colour but only for about 3 minutes
LOVES playing with her myriad baby dolls, pushing her stroller, sitting in Katy sized chairs and using Katy sized furniture and utensils, trying out other babies' strollers, water bottles, snacks (anything anyone else has is fascinating)
LOVES doing everything herself
LOVES tall slides, running down hills fast, climbing and swinging on playsets by herself (real wild child!) but still wants Mama to carry her sometimes
Still favours her left hand
LOVES baby ballet
LIKES her Mandarin playgroup better now (loves the snack time and playtime)
(pictured here with Karen, Qi Qi and Qi Qi's Tita)
does not like Kindermusik much anymore (only likes the dancing parts)
LOVES Jonah (Jo Jo) and Ellie, holds Eva's and Emily's hands during baby ballet, disdains younger kids, but is fascinated with older kids
Can sit through Mass pretty much now
Loves to choose her own clothes to wear (!!)
Has very fine and soft hair that is wavy at the back and almost reaches her shoulders - hates having her hair put up (it irritates her scalp it seems as she always scratches at it after a while)
LOVES wearing Mama's shoes and carrying Mama's bag, putting on Mama's lip gloss and doing pretty much anything Mama or Dada doLoves piggyback rides
Loves Mama and sometimes does not want to be separated from Mama
Loves relaxing with Dada reading books and having baths with Dada
LOVES Silent Night and insists on having this as her sleepytime song now - she refuses to listen to "Seek Ye First" or "Prayer of St Francis", which is what Mama always sang to her from birth (Dada always sang Silent Night and Hush; Mila always sang Silent Night)
LOVES dancing and singing, especially where there are movements that go with the words, like The Ants Go Marching In
Speaks in sentences: Help me Mama (adds please when prompted), I go there, Dada goes boat, Jonah come here, I play there, sit there please, Mama carry me please...but still goes ah ah ah when she wants something to eat
Not interested in potty training at all although hates having her nappy changed
Quite brave - doesn't cry when she falls down, although will now point out her owwies
Does not whine
Very loving, huggy, kissy (although learning to withhold this as a means of asserting her own will!)
Allows Mama to conk heads
Is becoming so independent and grown up - but still our beautiful little baby girl in so many ways

Dada Mattress

hmm very comfy

Li'l Gard'ner

Katy was thrilled yesterday to be allowed to play with the garden hose again finally after a long hiatus of 3 months during the winter. It just makes us smile and laugh so much watching her have such a fun time with a simple garden hose. She embodies the words "delight" and "joy".

Great Hair Day

Here's Katy's two-horned look.
and Katy's latest fear conquered is the hairdryer. She used to be petrified of it, in keeping with her interesting fear of small appliances. She loved large and medium appliances, but was just really scared of small ones...anyways, she now loves the hair dryer and particularly loves doing everything Mama does, so loves to dry her hair just like Mama does it.
...including leaning over and shaking her hair upside down...

More sleep update

Katy slept until 7.15am this morning (again) and had a two hour nap this afternoon from 1pm to 3pm.

Yippee!!

Sleeping Report

Katy has been going to bed later lately - around 7pm or even later the last couple of nights, but so far has been making it to 6.30am or 7am. She even slept until 7.15am on Sunday morning, which gave us quite a shock! Could we be turning the corner finally (again) on the early wake ups?

Daytime naps are still hard for Katy. We are happy if she gets an hour and ecstatic if she gets an hour and a half.

Since I went to Macau two weeks ago, we have weaned Katy off one nurse a day so she is down to two. This is a big step for Mama and Katy!! She has been great about it although we have had some tears and a few traumatic moments that tested our resolve.

Seabird Lane's Littlest Tai Tai

As you know, Katy has taken to dressing up in Mama's shoes and bags. Here she is insisting on going out to the Plaza in Mama's Ferragamo's and Gucci. With her little Shanghai Tang outfit, she looks like a genuine little Tai Tai from the Peak!



Katy actually insisted on wearing my shoes down to the Plaza but of course, got only half way! Rather than switch to her own shoes, Julie had to carry her the rest of the way with the shoes on, as I had gone ahead to finish the grocery shopping (it had taken us 30 minutes to go about 100 metres...)

And what Tai Tai feels dressed without her big hair?

Katy loves Dada to do a little mohawk when she is having her hair washed and she loves to check herself out in the mirror. Actually Katy loves seeing herself in the mirror anytime!!

Reunion with Olivia

On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to Lola and Imogen Shaw's place in Conduit Road for a reunion playdate with Olivia Hill, who was visiting from Singapore. You may remember that the twins' Mummy, Maxine, Olivia's Mummy, Debbie, and I were all in prenatal fitness class together and the girls have been playing together since Katy was 2.5 months old, Olivia was 6 weeks old, and the twins were still not yet born. (Their first "playdate" was afternoon tea at the Mandarin).

The girls are such girls. Without any conditioning on our part (at least not conscious), Katy pretty much ignores the building blocks and trucks we have bought her, and loves to play with her baby dolls, shoes, bags, kitchen etc. Imogen and Lola have a great little kitchen set that Katy and Olivia loved.

Katy still loves to sit in her toy stroller - she asked Olivia for a push. Olivia was a bit surprised it was a lot heavier than when there is a dolly inside only!
As always, we tried to get the babies together for a photo. Better luck than before but still not a perfect shot. We couldn't get all of them to sit together long enough for a photo. But they had a lot of fun!
Lola and Imogen have these cute little armchairs. Katy has also taken to little Katy sized pieces of furniture lately and loved these mini armchairs. What she loved more though was sitting on Olivia's lap! Katy seems to be the huggy touchy feely child in any group of kids. She loves to hold hands and hug and kiss the other kids - when she is not trying to snatch something off them that is!

We tried a full group shot with Mummies but even that didn't work with our wriggly little very tired babies.
Maxine, me and Debbie, together again over cheesecake, smoked salmon and pastries, just like old times!
Debbie and Olivia LOVE Singapore (the giant DB we call it). It certainly sounds awesome for kids. We can't wait to visit some time.

The funniest moment of the afternoon came when the three little girls Lola, Imogen and Katy were playing outside the apartment door on the 2nd floor lobby and Lola decided to teach Katy to scream. They thought that was the most fun in the world - how you can scream and try to be louder than the next girl!!! Don't try this at home...so we had a little lesson on loud and soft...and good neighbourliness...

Zai Jian

Sadly, we went to the airport last Tuesday to say bye bye to Kung Kung and Poh Poh, who were going home to Darwin via Singapore and Kuching. Katy loved the bus ride there - she calls buses "bus stop" at the moment and loves to point them out - and there are a LOT on the way to the airport!

She is totally fascinated with roll on bags. She loves to try to pull or push them along. We'll have to get her a little baby hello kitty one next time we travel!

Poh Poh found it hard to go into Customs and leave Katy!
And this was the first time that I think Katy really understood that we were saying Bye Bye to Kung Kung and Poh Poh and they were going to get on a plane and we wouldn't see them for a while. Katy did the little kid thing of not wanting to look at or smile at or play with Kung Kung and Poh Poh when it came time for them to go into the departure area. She was sad.

Farewell Lunch at Lotto

Last Sunday 15th February, we all gathered at Lotto for a farewell lunch for Kung Kung and Poh Poh who are off to their "other home" in Darwin for a few months before coming back to Hong Kong for Bert and Pinky's wedding.

Katy loves finding Kung Kung in his office and playing with his laptop.


Katy has always loved running around naked but seems to be relishing it even more lately. We've been giving her more nappy free time because she gets a pretty bad nappy rash when she is teething. Uncle Bert and Auntie Pinky love playing with Katy and she loves all the extra attention and energetic games!

Poh Poh as always loves to give Katy little treats - including little chocolate Ferrero Rochers, which she claims Katy found herself and demanded! Katy quite likes chocolate after a lifetime of deprivation!

On the boat

We think we have been conditioning Katy that certain activities automatically mean feeding time. This is a legacy of our bribes in the past to get Katy to sit still and quiet during certain activities.
So right now, Katy thinks going to Mass is feeding time and getting on the ferry is feeding time.
Right after the processional hymn and as soon as we get settled into our seats on the ferry, Katy goes "ah" "ah" like a baby bird wanting to be fed. Hmm. And she expects treats!
It's quite cute right now but we're going to try to wean her off eating during Mass - it's getting noisier and messier!

These photos also show Katy and us in one of our routine activities - getting on the ferry. Katy has actually not been riding the ferry much until recently. Now with her one nap a day, we have been going on lots more outings, including more outings out of DB. She's quite fun on the ferry ride. We have lovely chats and look at the boats and buildings, try to find where our apartment is and which building is Daddy's work building. Sometimes, she tries to run around, but she has gotten over that stage where all she wanted to do was have someone walk her all over the ferry and up and down the stairs. She is finding her sea legs and she knows that if it gets bumpy, then you need to sit down. Which all bodes well for more adventures in the future. And more adventures with just Mama and Katy or Dada and Katy rather than an entourage of parents and helpers and multiple bags of snacks, toys and nappies. It's fun just having Katy all to myself for little adventures! And Dada is really looking forward to doing the same as soon as he gets better.

Happy 21st Katy!

21 months that is! What a lot of fun Katy is. And such a happy, loving child. She brings so much joy to all of us.




Katy, you are our angel, such a blessing, and God's great gift.

Teething Update

Katy is teething again. The painful lower incisors I think. Or whatever the third from the centre vampirish pointy ones are called. She has her upper ones out (we think - she won't let us look) and that took a little while and was quite painful for her - more so because of the bad nappy rash she got than because of any actual tooth pain we could ascertain. They started coming out over a month ago, first the upper right hand one then a couple of weeks ago the upper left hand one came out.

Now, we think the lower ones are coming out because she is again starting to have a bad nappy rash and feeling "owwie" generally.

It seems all the kids are going through this right now.

Katy's a tough kid. She pretty much picks herself up and dusts herself off after most if not all falls. Hardly ever cries from falling over. But this teething business has been a pain!

Luckily she loves her Hyland's teething tablets. Mama loves them too. They are soo soo helpful!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday, Katy was invited over to Ellie's to celebrate Valentine's Day. She was so excited all afternoon about going to a "party" (although I don't think she knew what a party was). Here she is catching sight of her favourite Hire Car Uncle coming to pick her up...And presenting Ellie with her Valentine rose.
Ellie, Tiffany and Evelyn had prepared a bunch of activities. Tia Mila went ahead to help set up and learn how to do these activities with Katy at home. First up was a marble rolling exercise, which fascinated Katy. She really didn't know what to make of it all.

Katy's favourite activity was doing the handprints. She loved the feeling of the brush on her hands. Her first glimpse of this was watching Ellie have her hands painted and you could practically hear the cogs turning in her brain as she tried to figure out what was happening and reconcile it with all her previous experiences. She has not been a big fan of yucky stuff on her fingers and for a while now, she will ask you to wipe food or crayon or colour marks off her hands.


Pleased to have gotten the hang of it, Katy took the opportunity to sneak in an extra handprint when Miss Tiffany leant away to help another child!
Katy loves playing with water so the whole experience was topped off nicely with a little swirl in a bucket of water.
The next activity was decorating heart-shaped cookies that Lynne, Sam's Tia, had made.

Katy was quite enthusiastic about icing (frosting) the cookies and sprinkling the decorations on them, but she refused to actually taste the icing or the decorations. I guess they looked too much like the paint? At least she was refusing to eat the icing because it looked like paint, rather than trying to eat the paint because it looks like icing!

Sam tried to persuade her to try some of the candy hearts and sprinkles...


After all that activity, the kids ran riot with all the toys and the playhouse in Ellie's backyard. Here Katy is with Natacha, whom she really took a shine to yesterday.
And here she is trying to give Callum a ride on the princess car.
We all had such a wonderful time. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. After an hour or so, Katy kept clamouring to go home and then to go inside. She just wanted some quiet time with Mama. So she sat happily in Ellie's high chair and shares some strawberries and watermelon with me and we just chilled out for a bit. It's amazing to watch Katy and her friends mature - it's great that she is learning when she needs some space and peace and quiet and asking for it in a quiet and measured way rather than having a meltdown from being overtired. Our little babies are really growing up fast!

In Hong Kong, our playgroups are our families and it is wonderful to have such a loving and active group to create and share family traditions and celebrate holidays with! Rick and I really love celebrating holidays and family traditions, and sharing them with Katy.