Baby Daniel

Camping in Loire, Brittany and St Malo

2009-07-09T20:09:00.019Z

Two-week self-drive camping holiday in France finished on last Sunday. Three of us all had great time, Daniel enjoyed all the campsites, sightseeing, beach very much. Compare to skiing or sailing, camping didn't appeal to me that much in the past before Daniel was born. I had Eurocamp holiday with Terry and girls 7 years ago in Holland, last time we stayed in mobile home therefore it shouldn't be 'camping' in the real sense. This time we stayed in tents. Terry expected that I wouldn't enjoyed tent, but I did and enjoyed it very much. I rated it was the most relaxing and child-centered holiday we had so far. Daniel had both of us attention all the time, no wonder Daniel wouldn't want to come back England.

We camped in Loire valley for 4 days, the campsite in between Orleans and Blois. Liore Valley concentrated the most famous French chateaux, it is also called the garden of France and the cradle of French language due to its history and architectures heritage and the landscape. After 4-days in Loire, we drove to Benedict in Brittany, west coast of France, spend 4 days there for beach, then drove to St Malo, stayed a big campsites there. We went to St Malo and Mount St Michel for day trips. Then spent Friday whole day for Ferry crossing. The Brittany Ferry was really good. It has three nice restaurants, children play area. Children disco, magic shown. Daniel really enjoyed his big boat experience. last two day holiday were spent in Southampton in a 5-star hotel. After two weeks staying tent, we would think five-start hotel would be a bit luxury, but it proved to be a disappointment. i enjoyed tent much better than the 5-start hotel.

Flowers in the garden and on the window sill

2009-06-13T19:29:00.001Z

Summer Holiday Soon!

2009-06-13T19:25:00.000Z

Terry's 3-months contract is near the end, which mean he is not working away anymore, which mean no more screaming for Daddy from Daniel during the week anymore. Being parents to a T2 toddler is tough enough, I'm lucky enough to have another go of being single parent with work and home to juggle on my own during the week. However, we are surviving! We tend to go out a lot over the weekends. Recent outings includes Chatsworth House, Winter garden, The Deep Sea Life Center etc. Daniel enjoys outing so much that his favorite sentence now is 'shall we go somewhere, mummy?' That's why our life is so hectic! Luckily In one week time we will be going on holiday to France for two weeks. Hopefully get a bit rest!

The Deep Sea Life Center

2009-06-13T18:51:00.008Z

Chatsworth House May bank holiday

2009-06-13T15:42:00.017Z

Mother Shipton's Cave

2009-05-04T20:07:00.007Z

We made most of the day yesterday as it was sunny. We took Daniel to Knaesborough , a beautiful historical market town north of Harrogate.

Before we set off, we told Daniel we were going to see the Petrifying Teddy at Mother Shipton's Cave. Daniel didn't understand much. Then we told him that we were going to have fish and chips afterwards. What Daniel remembered most after 1 hour car journey was Fish and Chips.

The famous Petrifying Well, a unique geological phenomenon. The waters extremely high mineral content means that everything in it’s path is turned into stone. people had hanged their toy teddy, hat etc were all turned into stone. The Petrifying Well is England’s Oldest Visitor Attraction, first opening its gates in 1630! Over the years millions of people have come to see for themselves the amazing powers of The Petrifying Well. We've been there quite a few times before Daniel was born, we've house-hunted in Harrogate area before but didn't successful.

We had lunch in the bear garden of a pub overlooking the River. The sun was so shinny and the blossoming cherry tree in their garden covered whole yard. It felt so nice! I ordered Chili Rice, obviously Daniel ordered Fish Chips, but he got fish fingers with peas and chips instead. He likes his food and he sat there with his giraffe and at them all up...

Daniel's Garden Activities

2009-05-03T20:21:00.009Z

neighbourhood

eating noodles like this!

i finally got interest in this toy

Picking out daisy is fun

I got lots lots... daisy

sitting in the tent is one of my favourite activities

shut the tent please!

Daniel really enjoys playing in the garden, even on a rainy day. Now that the summer has arrived here, Daniel demands to go garden to play all the time. On my weekend, the first thing Daniel wants to do when he wakes up is ' Shall we go garden, mummy?' he likes running around in the garden shouting 'I'm busy, I'm busy...' he likes to copy his Day to push a lawn mower. he would push his toy wheel burrow and pretended that it is his law mower. We bought his a toddler gardening set with little buckets, toddler garden gloves and little spade. He would use it to dig the mud. He rides motor bike in the garden, sitting in the tent or sit on his tiger deck chair eating and drinking and demands to eat dinner in the garden all the time. The trouble is it could be a bit cold in the evening in the garden still, but he insists...

Planting Seeds

2009-04-24T20:46:00.007Z

I always think planting is a great toddler activity as it teach toddler about growing, about faith, and patience, and waiting. Daniel plant some sunflower seeds and strawberry seeds with his daddy last weekend.

The sunflowers seeds grew just over a week. I think Daniel was very excited to see the seeds he palnted growing.

The Sun Got His Hat On

2009-04-23T19:54:00.003Z

We took Daniel to see The Sun Got His Hat On, a puppy show in the new Civic Center. The Theatre Room locates in a newly-refurbished 19 century stone building with a modern interior. The show is about the comical tales and colourful animal puppets from land, sea and sky in a sway-along, bounce-along, sing-along romp of musical storytelling. All inspired by tales and rhythms of the Caribbean. Aimed at the twos to fives. We walked to the Civic Center and Daniel fell asleep in the buggy. Daniel wanted to go playground last minute before we went, I took him to the local playground, and we ended up arriving theatre a bit late, the show was just about to start. While I was worrying that Daniel would wake up screaming in the theatre, it turned out he was OK. He sat there watching the show and other children, enjoying and participating when people sang along, sway along and pat hands along. It was a bit experience for him..

Daniel's Fashion Sense

2009-04-16T21:16:00.002Z

Tuesday morning, having had his breakfast in the kitchen Daniel rushed into lounge, Terry just turned on Telly to watch Breakfast news. The lady presenter on Telly that morning was wearing a white Chiffon blouse with a black jumper outside. The blouse has some beautiful bold frills at collar, with the contrast of the black jumper, it looks very exaggerating. Daniel gave a glimpse on the Telly, uttered a sentence like this ' people silly... got bib on...' then ran away, I can't help bursting into laugh. That presenter had been criticised for bad dress sense before, as for her outfit that morning, Daniel said exactly what i felt that moment. Haha...

I don't know where Daniel got all these fashion ideas from, I certainly never talk about fashion in front of him.

Daniel was sitting in the bed watching nursery rhythms on my laptop while i was doing my make-up in front of mirror. I tried on a red shirt and a mini skirt, both are very skinny type, which I don't normally wear as they hug my body tight. Daniel raised his head from laptop giving me a quick glimpse, said 'Mummy pretty!', which is a bit unusual and fresh. I had never asked him this sort of question like 'is mummy pretty?'. It was a bit surprise to hear Daniel make such a comment. Hearing this, Terry didn't want be left out, he dive into the conversation and asked Daniel: 'Is Daddy pretty then?' Daniel said loudly and firmly 'No!' .... we can't help to laugh...

More Easter Photos

2009-04-13T20:29:00.006Z

Wentworth Garden Center and Farm was fully packed today. People everywhere, kids everywhere. We didn't bother the tea and coffee as there was a long queue in the coffee house. The scene is pretty much similar the ones in China during the major public holidays. We went there trying to buy a cherry tree and also let Daniel to play in the farm and playground. Daniel just too busy with all the toys on offer in the farm to look the animals.

Easter Update

2009-04-12T20:04:00.009Z

Daniel's Easter Friday spent at Jolly Tots, a local soft play place. Jolly Tots is a bit better than Jelly Bean in terms of interior design and toys. Daniel enjoyed playing Jolly Tots, I played with him on Slides for a bit, he was giggling and laughing with a little girls. Then he got on play on his own, leaving us relaxing with coffees and magazines. That's why I like to take Daniel to soft play.

Saturday I went down gym and Daniel went to shopping with Daddy in the morning. Afternoon I took him to the local Playground. Daniel hunted Easter eggs at home after playground. Chocolates certainly made his day.

More Chocolate eggs today. And we went to Lord Nelson, a pub the other side of town for lunch. I shared vegetable lasagna with Daniel, which he enjoyed very much. Terry had Lord Nelson pie. Afternoon, playground again at Daniel's request.

I had so much fun with mummy...

2009-04-07T20:31:00.005Z

'Daddy, daddy, I had so much much fun with mummy...' Daniel shouted towards upstairs to Terry. Terry was working upstairs. We've been playing the-dragon-come-to-get-you for ages, Basically Mummy played the dragon and the dragon come to get Daniel and tickle him then snatch the jigsaw numbers from his little hands, Daniel then come to get the numbers back by recognizing them. Daniel was laughing and giggling and rolled head over heels. He really loved this game and he can't contain his excitement by shouting to his favorite parent Daddy.

This morning when i parked car at the nursery park and got Daniel out of the car, Daniel said 'Mummy goes to work... she still love me so much...'

We took Daniel to Manchester last Sunday to meet up some other Chinese children in a Chinese restaurant.There were 8 children there. Daniel seemed to get along, he was among the youngest ones there, he was running around after the old kids and enjoyed the whole event. Yesterday, i asked him 'Now you got lots of Chinese friends, you should speak Chinese, right?' Guess what Daniel said. Daniel responded to me 'I got English friends at nursery, i say English' he made me laugh (frustrated as well)...

Daniel is very sunny and sociable lately despite of his tantrums. He rarely display his tantrum outside house for a while. At Manchester's Chinese gathering, people kept telling me how well Daniel has behaved, he knows taking-turns and returning things. It seems that his don't-like-sharing phase is over. He might still doesn't like sharing but he does share.

The weekend before last one, we took Daniel down south to see his grandparents and girls. Daniel's cousins were there as well. Daniel chatted away and played ball with Mathew and Charlotte in the garden, who are over 12/15 years senior than him. Nanny thinks Daniel is really sociable

Wouldn't mind to be the second favourite

2009-04-04T13:33:00.009Z

We are still on Daddy phase! It wasn't actually that bad once I got used to it. I had a lot more ME time while Daniel hanging on Terry's ankle. Now I have a lot more time going down gym, doing more exercises / reading /looking Internet etc.

Daniel didn't reject me that much as he used to do, but he still prefer his Daddy over me on lots of occasions. He still prefer his daddy to read story to him though he wouldn't mind I read to him if I tell him that Daddy hasn't got time. He still prefer his daddy to cuddle him to sleep most time though he would let me cuddle him if he has no choice or in good mood. He is still lighten up million times when he saw Terry comes home than he would do when i come back from work, he would normally just give me a glimpse, on a good day he would give me a cuddle, but normally he would just go straight back to his daddy and order me 'Mummy cooking'. (we must have already modelled the gender stereotype for Daniel: Mummy get to do all the chores and daddy is the 'fun guy', daddy do all the fun things with baby, rough and tumbles!) . The most used sentence for Daniel lately is 'where's daddy gone?' though he ask 'where is Mummy gone ' as well but not as often as ask his daddy. The upside for me is , he threw a lot more tantrum to his daddy instead of me now. Terry actually said he wouldn't mind to be the second favorite to Daniel! Well, I might just take this chance to have some break. Lucky Terry is more patient to Daniel than I do, I rarely see him snap though sometime I saw him feeling like smacking Daniel.

Having said all these, Daniel is still very sweet boy. I have read him a picture book titled My Mummy Goes to Work, which is about a little boy whose mum goes to work but he knows that his mum still loves him so much. Daniel quite like this book and always want me to read this book to him, when I read this book he would touch my hand and say ' Mummy comes back...'. When we read him another story about a little boy who'd lost his parents in the desert, he would say' Sad! boy has no mummy...' then point me and say ' Daniel got mummy'. So he does start to emphasize. Sometimes Daniel is very funny and made us laugh. There was a day when Daniel really wind his Dad up, at the bed time Terry just want to get Daniel sleep quick, but Daniel just didn't want to cooperate by jumping up and down on bed. Terry threatened him 'if you don't calm down, daddy would go', we anticipated that Daniel would sit down as he normally does, however Daniel said ' Yep! ' loudly without hesitation, 'I want daddy go cause Daddy grumpy!' It was true that daddy was grumpy, this made us laugh, how come Daniel can read emotion at such young age? There are the occasions when Daniel was told off by Terry he would come to me for cuddle and say 'I've been told off by daddy'

A sunny Friday

2009-03-21T21:43:00.002Z

Daniel is so energetic nowadays!

Friday was a sunny day, the whole country seemed to bask in the sun. Daniel wanted to go out to play when he woke up. (We normally go to Jelly Bean on Friday morning) He started to pester me to go to playground 8am regardless i repeatedly telling him that it would be too early to go now, we meant to meet Justin and his mum at car park around 10am. But Daniel just kept whining. In the end I had to text Joanne that we'd go there early and meet them at playground. I took Daniel out 9am and arrived park 9.15. The park was very quiet apart from couple of dog walkers. Daniel paddled his tricycle along the path enthusiastically and kept telling me about the things he saw along the path 'Look... Mummy... Daffodils, daffodils, purple one...', He paddled, paddled with the push from me when it comes uphill. He paddled a long way to the playground and spent the whole morning going on slides again and again, digging sand in the sand pit... We fished playground 11.45am , Daniel and Justin paddled tricycle alongside each other back to the car park. we parted Joanne and Justin from there and I took Daniel to supermarket for a quick shopping. We backed home nearly 1.30am. Daniel had lots food at supermarket, so he skipped lunch and went out with Terry to local post office by feet. When Daniel back home, I tried to get him to nap, but he wasn't tired enough to sleep. he kept playing in the lounge. 3am he started to get a bit cranky, so I took him out for a little drive. Daniel was fast asleep once he was in the car, I drove to the Newmillerdam, which is a lake surrounded by woods and parked the car in their car park for an hour to wait Daniel wake up. While I was browsing Internet on my mobile phone Terry texted that he want to come to join us. Terry said because it was so nice and we could have a walk in the woods then have an early dinner at the nearby pub. Why not! We should make the most of the day! i said. When Terry arrived the car park in his car, Daniel already woke up with more than an hour nap, he was asking me to buy him an ice cream cone from the ice-cream van in the car park. Daniel then followed behind Terry and me along the path with the inspiration from the ice-cream. Terry held his ice-cream for him. he walked a bit, and ran to Terry to bite his ice cream. Daniel walked a long distance in this way. When his ice-cream finished. He decided to detour from the path to try tough Terrain in the woods, Daniel said 'I want to play hide-seek in the forest...' Daniel surprised me with all his physical impulse, because the terrain he chosen to climb up is actually quite steep and hard with lots of tree roots and fallen leaves, but he just decided to go independently and we had to follow him. We walked in the tough bit of the woods for another 20 minuets before we got back down to the flat path along the lake. It was a very physical day for Daniel !

After pub dinner when we got back to the car park, Terry asked Daniel 'Whose car do you want to go in? ' I said ' Don't need to ask, obviously he want to go with you!' It was true, Daniel answered without hesitation ' I want to go Daddy's car!' I drove back without Daniel and it felt like off-duty for a while and i could listen to my own CD in my car instead of Daniel's nursery rhythms. Terry said Daniel was singing at the back of his car all the way home and he slept really well that night!

Daddy Phase

2009-03-17T20:57:00.004Z

Apparently, Daniel has been going through Daddy Phase lately! Terry is Daniel's favorite parent now!

Daniel used to be so attached to me that once I leave room he would cry. But now he is so into his Daddy that he started to reject me. He has good bond with Terry, which is good, But to the extent of rejecting Mummy, is upsetting. Since he was weaned off Dummy, Daniel started want Terry to settle him to sleep instead of me, which is a task I've been doing since he was born. Two weeks ago was the worst when he started to say things like' Don't want mummy...don't want Mummy.. i want my daddy...', it was really upsetting for me , because I am the one carried him for 9 month; breastfed him for 9 months, spent last 2.5 yeas keep him fed, diapered, bathed and entertained; I'm the one looking after him the whole time, all of sudden, he seemed to forget about all these, what he wanted was just his daddy. He doesn't want me to read bed-time story for him since we backed from China, which was fine. But that day when he actually said he doesn't want me to cuddle him, I felt heartbreaking. I've cried to my Mum over the phone for an hour at midnight, and my Mum said I was silly and shouldn't take it personal.

My mum was right, I was silly, but my reaction was normal. The following day when i googled ' why toddler prefer daddy over mummy?' just in case I've done something wrong as I started to think' is this because I started to discipline Daniel?' I've found pages pages comments of Mummy saying exactly the same and had even worse situation. Also found the other way round- toddler attached to mummy too much, which upset Daddy. Most people say this just a phase, it comes and goes! Better count the blessing now when your toddler hanging on your other half's ankle and have the precious ME time. Obviously Terry enjoys his new-found (maybe not so new!) attention from Daniel and started to taking on a lot of toddler-caring stuff. For bed time routine We now have new routine. We started to jointly settle Daniel couple months ago but mainly Terry just read story.Now Terry started to co-sleeping with Daniel on alternated days. He actually settles Daniel quicker than I do now!

Daniel has co-slept with Terry on alternated days for two weeks and now he started to feel insecure about me now, he started shouting 'i want mummy...' at night when he woke up... It is true, it's just a phase.

I'm the Musical Man

2009-03-01T21:01:00.007Z

Daniel used to love bath, he started to dislike bath time since he turned 2. Each time he heard the word 'bath', he would scream. However since last week, i changed the wording for bath as ' shall we go play bubbles in the bathroom?' and this worked very well with Daniel because he likes to play bubbles in the bath. We are thinking to get him some rainbow bubbles (multi-colors bubbles), but Daniel just got into a a new routine in the bathroom. He sings and dances in the bath tub before he eventually sit down to have his bath. Normally Daniel would sing:

'I'm the musical man, I came from down your way... I play piano... Pia...pia..piano.... Pia...pia..piano', he would jump up and down when he sang' oba... oba..obaba... oba..oba..obaba...'

Tonight is Daniel's hair-washing day, which mean Terry will come up joining us to watch Daniel as a form of support for Daniel. Daniel has already sing a few songs when Terry came in the bathroom. I said to Daniel ' come on... sing to Daddy' Daniel put both his hands behind his back as if he was on the stage, he sang through all the songs I required him to sing, he sang Baba Black Sheep; 'baba black sheep, have you have any wool? yes!..yes!.. three bags full... one for the master... one for the dame... one for the little boy who lives down the lane...' He sang Row Row boat: 'Row.. row... row your boat gently down the stream... if you see the crocodile, don't forgot to scream... Ah! (very loud)...

He also sang 'the wheel on the bus', he even sang a Chinese nursery rhythm in Chinese and Terry had to ask what that song mean. He was just so lovely!

28 month old and Fawell to Dummy

2009-02-26T21:59:00.008Z

Daniel turned 28 month old last week. There were a few challenges for Daniel in last couple of months and he had overcame them very well.

1) Recovery from holiday - Daniel has done well on this. He recovered from jet-lag very quickly. We backed on Sunday and Daniel was invited to play with Justin at their house on Monday. I thought Daniel would be really tired after 5000 miles travelling and would probably be cranky at Joanne's house. But he got very excited to see Justin. He kept going on about his China trip. Daniel shouted '(I've) been on big... big... aeroplane.... ' with his hand pointing the sky. 'Been Beijing...Been Olympic stadium... seen PO PO...' Also, he was really excited about Justin's new toys. Justin got a new cooker and lots of other new toys following his birthday in January. Tuesday when i dropped him off at nursery, he was fine, didn't cry or whinging, he seemed to go back to routine straightway. In contrast, i felt so tired after coming back from holiday, it took me a week to recover.

2)Farewell to his beloved 'Ga Ga' - 'Ga Ga' is how Daniel call his dummy. We got Daniel completely off his dummy the second week after the holiday. Daniel stopped to use Dummy at nursery since 14-15 month old, but we continuously used it to settle him at night.
I wanted to wean him off dummy a few times in the past but it didn't succeed
Before China trip I've really made the resolution to wean Daniel off the dummy, but Terry said he cant go on a long-haul holiday with Daniel without dummy. Then we waited until we came back from China, one morning when we woke up, Daniel was happily eating his breakfast at his little table, he neatly put his dummy on the table, I said to him ' you are a big boy now, big boy doesn't use dummy, shall we put dummy in the bin...' he nodded ' yes...yes...' Just like that we went cold turkey. Daniel was OK all day during the day until the bed time when he asked for his Ga Ga and I told him 'Mama put dummy in the bin', then there was this ear-splitting scream. We had a-week up and down at nights and Daniel refused me for couple of days as I threw his beloved dummy in the bin. after a week, Daniel's sleep has gone back to normal.

One night last week while driving home after work, I was tuning the radio, then there was the talk about getting baby off dummy, someone phoned in talking about how they got their son off the dummy. He said they got his son off dummy when he was 2.5-3 years old, It was such a big thing, they actually had a little ceremony for his son by the canal before they threw the dummy in the canal. The presenter praised him 'you are really thoughtful!' The radio talk spurred me on writing this. The funny thing was Daniel now started to laugh at his friend at nursery who still uses dummy. One day he came home said ' Bradley is such a baby, he still got Ga Ga on...' Sometime when he saw other baby crying he would say ' baby lost his dummy'.

Tantrum and Discipline

2009-02-25T20:14:00.005Z

Here comes the moment! the moment that I start to discipline Daniel.

I always believe that the responsiveness of parents towards their baby helps shaping the baby's emerging self-esteem during their early stage of life. There are so many research suggest that leaving an infant crying-out is so wrong, because the baby's brain is still undergoing fast-developing during his first year of life, the neuron cells in baby's brain will form the connections from the primitive part brain to its front lobe (which in charge controlling the emotions) at fast pace during the first year development. Leaving a baby to cry for too long will stop such connection's formation and make it hard for him to regulate his emotions at later life. For this reason, I always responded to Daniel's request very quickly when he was little, which probably taught him that tantruming is the way to get what he wanted. In the past We haven't really tried to discipline Daniel as such, not even naughty chair. But Daniel's tantrum is getting bigger and bigger, there were such moments when Daniel's tantrum would drive my anger sky-high that I found I was shouting to him, then later I became very regret with my outburst, because I knew clearly that shouting and scream wont work, it's just your primative reaction towards another person's anger/rage, besides shouting will probably just teach him that outburst is the the way to go in such situation. Now that Daniel is 28 month old, I came to realise that I need to keep the balance right, Daniel is probably old enough to respond well to discipline, and discipline doesn't necessarily mean damage as it would do when he was little, I also came to realise that the way I react to Daniel's tantrum will not help us to steer away from tantrums, it will probably helps to head more for it. We more or less react to Daniel's rage like this: when he whimpered we cajoled, as his anger mounted, we told him we would ignore him- but we didn't. we reasoned, then pleaded, then shouted, just one step before smacking him.

Since we came back from holiday, I started to discipline Daniel using the Cool Down technique combined with positive reinforcement. Basically, whenever he starts tantrum, I make my expectation clearly, eg. I say 'Mummy don't like you screaming, then I would withdraw attention completely (strictly no response) no matter how hard he screams. I found this works better than Time Out. With Time Out we put Daniel on naughty step, because Daniel can't physically sit there for required minutes, I had to go back to put him back on the step, which actually gave him the attention. Also, I now start to tell him how pleased I am when he doesn't throw a tantrum as a form of positive reinforcement. Now Daniel behaves a lot better. i am using Daniel's own word: ' I'm really a good cub today!' as the finishing words for this entry.

Park and Ride

2009-02-23T22:10:00.004Z

We took Daniel to York for bus ride on Sunday.

We don't go York that often as we do to Leeds and Manchester though we are probably at similar distance to these three cities in the north, we tend to go Manchester and Leeds more often. York, Once the Roman capital of Northern England, is full of tourists all year round. The reason to take Daniel to York is for its Hop-on and Hop-off bus ride. ( Daniel's obsession with bus hasn't gone yet). However, while we were driving to York on A64, Terry suggested to change plan to Park and Ride when we saw this sign for York popping into horizon. I agreed immediately, why not? It would be a better plan than the original one. Daniel wouldn't mind it's a double-Decker open-top bus or a normal bus, as long as it's a bus. And the Park and Ride would save £13 parking ticket in York city center. The return ticket for park and ride only cost £2.3o each and it's a relative 'long' bus ride for Daniel (opposing to the normal bus ride I take him from our local town center to our house), the hop-on and hop-off bus ticket would cost twenty-something pounds. We took the bus No.3 white line from Akham bar to York city center. York is full of restaurant's, pub and bars. Terry and me visited here for romantic weekend when we still lived down south. Yesterday there was a continental market in York, so we ended up eating too much snacks at the market. We had Turkish chicken / lamb wraps. Daniel had French Pain De Raisin and Dutch pancake. I don't normally like Continental market, but the one in York was nice. Shops in York are all scattered around its medieval, cobbled street, so browsing through all these shops is a bit different from browsing through other high streets in any other Major cities/towns. It felt nice! We all think we should come to York more often, maybe book hotel for weekend sometime...
Daniel certainly enjoyed the day when we got the return bus back to the car park, he kept waving to bus shouting' bye... bye... bus...'

Daniel's First Visit to Beijing

2009-02-12T21:02:00.011Z

We left Kunming on 29th Jan for Beijing and spent the last 3 days of holiday there before returning Britain. It was only the Forth day of the Chinese New Year, my parents and my sister and her husband were all in airport to see us off, I felt a bit sad that the visit was so short, i felt that I don't want to leave this place, but somehow we all got used to this scene every year.

The flight was 13.oopm and we arrived at Beijing airport around 16.00pm. We took taxi to Wang Fu Jing. Terry booked the WangFuJing Grand Hotel online while staying my parent's house. He tried to book the one where we stayed several years ago but we both couldn't remember the name of the hotel. So he booked this five-star one at the heart of the Wang Fu Jing. Daniel was quite excited about hotel, he likes to jump up and down the king-sized double bed and play his toy on the chair. He put the Please-Don't-Disturb label on the door on his wrist and pretended it's his handbag and he was doing shopping. It was cold in Beijing, but we are lucky just to avoid the -14 C temperature a few days ago. It was -5C when we were there. It didn't feel that cold. We went out for meal every evening in WangFuJing. We were all excited about the food choices that WangFuJing offers, in particular, Both Terry and Daniel likes Yoshinoya Japanese Restaurant and Hanna Shan Korean one. They also likes the Food Republic inside the Xin Dong Fang Guang Chang.

We took Daniel to Forbidden City one day and the Olympic Stadium the other day, but he wouldn't interest them that much.

Daniel likes staying hotel so much that when we landed at Heathrow and put him in car, he said he wanted to go hotel, ' donut want to go home... don't want to go home...' I think, Hotel for him probably mean staying late, that's why he likes it.

Chinese New Year - Kunming 2

2009-02-09T07:25:00.007Z

Hai geng Da Ba

Peddling Pool for kids on NanPing street

Looks like a moody tanager (in the communal garden at POPO's place)

(nationalities village)

Daniel quite like my parent's new apartment. He probably doesn't have any memory about my parents' old place where he has been when he was 6 months old. He call PO PO's balconies as PO PO's garden, my mum has a few plants in the balcony. He ate his breakfast there in the morning as it was very sunny there. Also he likes to watch people practising the drag dance in the neighbouring school. He also likes play the staircase in the lounge by pretending he's getting on the bus then sitting on the bus. I had to watch him all the time. My parents specially installed a stair gate at top floor before we arrived, however, due to its open plan nature, they cant do one at the bottom.

Gong Gong, Po Po and Xiao Yi (my sister) really want to shower Daniel with love, they have been waited, waited for over the whole year... but Daniel wouldn't cooperate apart from the first day, the rest of days, it all depends on his mood. he wouldn't let them to cuddle him if he wasn't in the mood. But he certainly understood they are all his relatives and they love him, for example, when just my mum, me and Daniel went out, if i said 'Mummy cannot carry you anymore', he would say' Po Po carry Daniel', Daniel received lots of 压岁钱 in the red envelopes at Chinese New Year Day, he held them all in his hands and thought they were all Bus tickets. We went to my Aunt's place for dinner on the Second Day of Chinese New Year, my aunt gave Daniel a pair of socks she knitted for him, Daniel quite like that, he now wear them like a pair of slippers in our house and he called it 'GU PO PO socks'.

Daniel picked up Chinese very quickly when he was in China. After one or twice getting in and out the lift to my parents' apartment, he can say '门要开了，门要关了'. he copied what people said very clearly and quickly but on top of that, he would put English phrase ' I don't like...', e.g. my mum said ' 来，婆婆亲亲' , Daniel would say ' Don't like 来，婆婆亲亲'... Daniel used the 'Don't like' so frequently that we called him 'Mr. Don't-like' at one point.

After two-week Kunmingnese, Daniel and Terry fancied western foods, so we went to Blue Bird for Pizza, which made Daniel quite excited. He jumped up and downs. The pizza there costs RMB68 Yuan for a medium sized, virtually the same price as the one in the UK. The taste of Pizza are nice!

Chinese New Year - Kunming

2009-02-06T13:06:00.006Z

My Dad has already been waiting at the airport for us for a while when we arrived Kunming as the flight had been delayed. When we met, I told Daniel to call 'Gong Gong' and Daniel surprisingly obeyed my 'order', he said 'Gong Gong' and didn't struggle off when my Dad try to cuddle him, it's a pleasant surprise for me. Daniel called my mum Po Po as well when he saw her. Also the following day he even want my mum to carry him. It was such a shame that we couldnt stay in Kunming longer than i would like to,

My parent has moved to a new apartment which has two floors since we were in Kunming last time. The tiled lounge and balcony was a bit novelty for Daniel. It was cold when we got there, my Dad especially went out to buy an extra rug to put on top the tiled floor for Daniel to play on.

Daniel was so excited with the buses in Kunming that he demanded to go on the bus every morning when we woke up and we did. It was like a Bus Holiday. We went everywhere by buses. Lucky the bus service in Kunming is so convenient and efficient nowadays, to some extent it's better than driving.

Food wise, my mum was bit worried about what she was going to give Daniel to eat before we arrived, but Daniel was just doing fine. He was OK eating soup rice noodles for breakfast, he called it 'Noodles in gravy', he also likes 饵块. Eating-out was a bit problem as most restaurants foods in Kunming is very spicy, but somehow Daniel liked going out for dinner...

Chinese New Year - Outbound Journey

2009-01-24T01:01:00.007Z

We drove down Heathrow Terminal 5 on Thursday. The flight was 16.35pm. we set off around 8.30am. It didn't seem that long for 4 hours driving. We booked valet parking and checked in online beforehand, so actually we ended up too early at the airport. Luckily Heathrow Terminal 5 have soft play area for toddlers, which kept Daniel occupied until boarding. While Daniel was playing on the mat, there was a 3-year old little girl came along, she was keen to play with Daniel, but Daniel just ignored her and run away. The little girl speaks German. After chatting with her mum, i knew they live Cape Town, German is the girl's first language. Her mum hope that she could speak more English. After a while, I saw two little persons watching the big air plans taking-off / landing side by side in front of the curtain wall together. Also, i saw the little girl's mum took a booster seat in her pushchair to take on the air plan, then I started to get a bit worry about how Daniel going to be seated on the air plan as he is smaller than that girl. But it turned out that Daniel sat on an adult seat just fine. We booked 3 seats next to the window, Daniel sat the middle one. Daniel did well for 9 hours flight on the outbound journey. He enjoyed the children meal (fish +mashed potato) we prebooked for him, played his bus toy and had a few hours sleep. we lift the chair arms so he could lie down with head rest on my lap.

We had to wake up Daniel after the BA flight landed at Beijing Terminal 3 10am local time (2am British time) the following day. Lucky Daniel didnt cry for losing sleep and we didn't loose any luggage despite of the fact that Daniel's name was appeared on the lost luggage list. After border control, reclaiming the luggage, exchanging the currency, we bought the internal flight tickets to Kunming for 16.oopm. after another 3 hours domestic flight and one hour delay, we finally arrived Kunming 21.00pm on Friday night. Total two days on the journey!

Love and limit

2009-01-12T22:39:00.003Z

Just as I was thinking that Daniel had behaved very well since December, he threw three major tantrums today, one in public.

Daniel was so looking forward to go the playgroup this morning as they shut for Christmas. Today is the first day when they re-started. At start Daniel was so happy that he engaged in playing so intensely. He played kitchen for a while and moved on to a plastic playhouse, i was talking to Joane, Daniel wanted me to watch him 'Ma watching you (me)... Ma watching you...'. Following his order I squatted down but was still talking to Joane. Daniel screamed 'Don't like ma talking... Don't like Ma talking...' A little girl walked into the playhouse, Daniel immediately protested:'It's baby's house...' and looked my way hoping I do something about it. I told him:' share it... it's every one's' Daniel said' Don't like every one's...' Daniel abandoned the playhouse and moved on to a toy lawn mower and i continued to talk to Joane , Daniel suddenly burst into tears and cried so loud for no reason, i went to pick him up trying to cuddle him only to realized that it was too late, he was so worked-up, he was sobbing 'Don't want ma cuddle... don't want ma cuddle... Ma standing there...' i put him down and stood where he pointed, he cried even louder. In the hindsight now when I am writing this , I think I should give him the full attention straight away, he probably just want me to do pretend play with him.

The afternoon one was at home and it was a major tantrum. Daniel cried so hysterically in the rage, because i refused to give him his dummy. I have to physically restrain him in case he hurt himself. He cried so long but I was just holding him tight in my arm. i was torn by the two ideas: should I just give in, I know I could just give him his dummy, the storm will go quickly, but i scared that if i do, am i sending a message to him that tantrum always works; On the other hand i was torn to see Daniel in such a state, a state seemingly like being in torture. I love Daniel more than anything else. In the back of my mind, I can hear a voice say' is it worthy it?'It's so hard to get the balance right in such a situation

26 month old and Pretend Play

2009-01-10T15:56:00.008Z

Last Thursday morning when I drop Daniel off at nursery, nursery staff asked me what Daniel's interests at home, they have registered Daniel's interests at nursery is 1)Role Play; 2) reading books; 3)Sand play... there must be something else but I didn't remember as I was in the rush to go to work. They explained that children might have different interests at home, so i quickly summarised a few Daniel's interests at home for their record:1)singing, Daniel is quite into the music, nursery rhythms. he likes to sing; 2) hopping and dance, bouncing in bed; 3) Books, which was coincided with his interests at nursery. I was going to say Daniel's first interest at the moment is BUS RIDE because this was the first thing pop in my mind, but i dint think they will take him out for a bus ride, so I decided to save this one to myself. While i was driving to the work that morning i thought through their question and the answers they came up with, i concluded the same answers for Daniel. Actually I should have said that Daniel's first interest at home is Pretend Play as well, which is the same as when he is in the nursery.Two and three year old like to practice talking, by talking to themselves. Daniel likes talking, he chat chat chat chat... non stop. Most of time he was pretending things. He likes to pretend 'going to work':

Daniel was pedaling his bike, 'I (am) going to work... give me a kiss...bye...bye...' he pedaled, pedaled, came to kiss me and Terry then pedaled away. ' don't forget your sandwich', he came back pretending to ask for money, I pretended to give some money. he said 'don't drop it...'

'going to the gym', 'going on the bus';'going shopping'; 'going the tent' are also Daniel's favorite things to pretend. actually while I am tying this he is pretending that he was Makapaka, who is peddling his bike to go under the 'tunnel'(table). I really like to offer encouragement and suggestions when Daniel is engaging in pretend play through my part of pretend conversation /play because pretend play helps him understand the power of language. In addition, by pretend playing with others, he learns that words give him the means to reenact a story or organize play.

No more boucing in the bed! (for tonight)

2009-01-06T20:05:00.009Z

Daniel really doesn't mind cold at all! It was -5 C yesterday, he played long time in the garden with his garden toys. We haven't been to garden for a while since the winter came. But yesterday Daniel kept ask me ' going the garden..gong the garden..' when he saw the snow outside. I let him out, he went straight to his little burrow, emptied the water and ice in there and started to pester me to push him while he sitting on his trekker. Terry got out the sledge we bought for Daniel last year on the ski trip from our garage. Daniel didn't enjoy it much last year when in France, but yesterday he certainly enjoyed the sledge ride very much while me and Terry took in turn towing him. he played the snow, when he started to play gravel like he used to do during summer, he realised he can't play with gloves on. he took his gloves off and handed to me. He played for nearly an hour outdoor ignoring my request to put gloves on, in the end i have to remove him from garden to go indoor despite he threw the biggest tantrum screaming 'going the garden... going the garden...' with legs kicking in the air. Originally I didn't mind he play in the garden as I have the intention to let Daniel play outdoor at least an hour or so every day as Long as the weather allows. but yesterday was really cold and his hands were frozen and gone red, he just doesn't mind cold at all. He is so willful and strong-minded .

Today is my first day back to work. It took me 10 minutes to scrape the snow and ice on the car in the morning. Danie helped me scraped the snow in the car as well. Daniel was all right this morning going nursery, he wasn't upset, instead, he was quite excited told me 'mummy, get shoes on... go nursery... see friends...' I said ' who are you going to see?' ' Bradley... Cohen... Amy... Jess...'

This afternoon Terry picked up Daniel a bit earlier from nursery to go to the Travel Clinic for Daniel's injection. We are taking Daniel to China to see my parents next week. When I back home from work, I asked Daniel:

'Have you seen doctor?'

'Yes...'

'What did doctor say?'

'No more bouncing in the bed!'

The last one is really funny as it is from a nursery rhythm. Daniel was so tired first day back to 'school' that he fell fast asleep on the high chair. I put him straight in bed. it was really 'No more bouncing in the bed' for tonight. Bouncing on the bed is one of Daniel's new bed time routine.

Daniel, Benji and weekend...

2009-01-02T21:33:00.008Z

We took Daniel to see his sisters and grandparents in south after Christmas. Five-hours car journey down, five-hours journey back, Daniel behaved very well. He is always good at long car journey as long as his favourite nursery rhythms CD was on. This time was even better, he was signing along the Jingle Bell at the back of the car:

'Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle all the way...' stop, 'Hi...' he continued ' what a fun (it) is to ride on an one-horse open sleigh, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle all the way... what a fun is to ride on an one-horse open sleigh...' I would very pleased that he can sing to this length, but he continued:
'Dashing through the snow... on the one horse open sleigh... all the field we go... laugh and play...bell and bow tie ring... make spirit bright... what fun is to ride on the one horse open sleigh...'

We stayed hotel for one night at Southampton, picked up Charlotte and Hannah the following morning and drove they three to their grandparents' house for a two day visit. Daniel used to be a bit scared of nanny and granddad as he didn't get to see them much. He used to cry when they try to cuddle him, but this time I felt he is really connected to them and I was very pleased. he rushed in the house called 'Nanny... Granddad...' He followed nanny around house. He said 'I go see nanny ...' then dragged me from upstairs lounge to the downstairs one where nanny and granddad was. He played well with Charlotte and Hannah and he let them hold his hands to swing him when we walked down the beach.

The other thing made Daniel's little break so exciting was playing with Benji, nanny's dog. i didn't realize that Daniel loves dog so much until I saw he play with Benji. Daniel showed great interest on him this time than any other visits in the past. Benji always sleep on the sofa, Daniel went to stroke Benji straight away when he saw him this time, he talked to him , which looked so natural and when Benji got up and chased him, Daniel run away fast with laugh and thrill then went back to stroke him again... Daniel said 'Benji smelly... Benji smelly... let him out...' He liked to see Benji run to the garden to get the fox, which made him giggle...

Boxing Day

2008-12-26T14:35:00.009Z

Daniel was very upset this morning when he got up and rushed down the lounge, I couldn't worked out why at the beginning. He was sobbing, I asked him ' what' the matter?' He said 'Presents... presents all gone....' there was one little present got left there and I asked him to open that one and he said ' No, not this one...big one...big one...' then i realised that he expected to see a whole mountain of presents like yesterday.

I asked Daniel 'What do you want to do today?' he said without hesitation ' go to the library.... going on the bus....' I said ' Are you going to walk there? walk to the library on your feet? then get bus back?' Daniel nodded 'Yes...yes'.

The day before yesterday he walked all the way from home to the library without a buggy. I decided to leave buggy home when we set off , because Daniel seemed to like long walk recently instead of wanting me to carry him. The trip took us 40 minutes for a-normal-20 minutes walk, which is the first time for Daniel to walk such a long distance by feet, Daniel enjoyed the walking, so did I though I got backache as I had to slightly bend down my body to make Daniel feel comfortable when holding his hand . The main excitement to inspire Daniel to walk such a long distance was the bus ride. Daniel likes the nursery rhythm The wheel on the Bus so much that he can sing so many different versions of The Wheel on the Bus. We don't normally use bus service, so it would be a real excitement for Daniel to experience the getting on(off) the bus/seeing people up and down/ seeing the bus door open and shut as the lyric of the BUS song suggest. Hearing the bus driver to say 'ticket please!' would probably be the highlight of the day for Daniel, he was holding that ticket in his little hand tight all the way home after the bus ride to show Daddy and got really upset when he lost just before we home...

Today is Boxing Day, there wasn't any bus services and library was shut. Though I kept telling Daniel library was shut and there would no bus today, he still insisted to go out for a long walk under a below-zero temperature. Never mind! Daniel doesn't mind cold, so we went out for walk. Daniel did 40 minutes walking to the library without complain and came back home in the buggy. obviously he was disappointed that there is no bus today!

Christmas Day

2008-12-25T15:55:00.008Z

Daniel had a really happy Christmas today. This morning when he woke up he rushed downstairs to the lounge to find his presents. He took a glimpse under the Christmas tree, surprised why there was no presents there. we stacked all the presents in front of the chimney to give Daniel the impression that Santa came down the chimney. Despite the effort, Daniel still said ' Daddy paid....' when he opened his first present. The first present he opened was a bus, he like the toy bus so much that he didn't bother to touch other presents. We have to remind him of the other presents. Daniel was quite tide with all the wrapping papers. he neatly put them all in one pile.... among all the toys we bought for him, the bus proved to be his favorite. (He is really into the BUS recently, bus book, bus toys, bus ride... all started from the BUS nursery rhythm.)

Terry cooked Christmas Dinner. This is the first time we spend Christmas Day in our own house. It went well, even Daniel agreed to put the Christmas hat on, he normally hate to put hat on his head....

Playdate

2008-12-19T21:42:00.004Z

Another lovely day for Daniel. (apart from his usual supermarket tantrum).

Daniel's best friend Justin's house is just a few block away from ours. Joane and me regularly invite each other over for coffee and kids playdate, so Daniel knows Justin's house quite well, each time when we walk / drive past Justin's house, Daniel would shout ' Justin's house...Justin's house...' with excitement. He likes to go Justin's house to play. This would be fine if I had appointment with Joane, but sometimes when I take Daniel out for a walk locally, he would insist to go Justin's house, which makes me a bit apprehensive as I know it's not good time to visit Joane, Daniel certainly hasn't got the concept of appointment, so he developed into the habit of 'phoning' Justin. Daniel would pick up phone on the table, uttering words like this 'phone Justin... phone Justin...', then he would press button on the phone (lucky he hasn't work out which button is SEND. He would key in number randomly) 'hello, Justin, uh... go playgroup...bye, bye...' normally it would be followed by phoning other people around; 'phone Charlotte...'; 'phone Hannah...'; 'Phone Popo..' etc

This afternoon we went to Justin house for a playdate, also gave Justin Christmas present. Daniel was very good today at holding my hands when walking on pavement, he immediately demanded ' holding mummy's hand when the gate of front garden shut behind us. Upon arriving at Justin's house he literally shouted 'Justin... Justin...' and knocked the door. Daniel and Justin played really well WITH each other, instead of alongside each other, they seemed to start to doing thing together, which is probably the first time they two both show the sign co-operative play.

Password Please

2008-12-16T09:47:00.006Z

Daniel had a really lovely day yesterday.

He had Christmas party at playgroup with his best friend in the morning and went to library in the afternoon. Library is one of the best place he would like to go nowadays alongside bookshop, jelly bean (a softplay center) and playgroup at our local church. Upon arriving at library, he immediately required to 'have coffee' though I knew he wasn't hungry at all as we just had lunch at home. However i still ordered him a glass of orange juice and two slices of toast as I know if not there would be a tantrum on display. 'Coffee and toast' is the routine for our library trip as we normally go there to meet up with Justin and his mum, there would be baby group on Monday morning sand Story and Rhythm time on Friday. It was quiet in the library yesterday, so Daniel quite enjoyed his free play at the children section. He picked out a Bus book from the book case and sat there browsing through the book and read out loud:

'the wheel on the bus go round and round...all day long'; he turned page,

'the wiper on the bus go swish and swish...all day long', then turned page,

'the horn on the bus go beep, beep,beep...all day long', turned page,

'the people on the bus go up and down, up and down... all through the town...' turned page,

'the baby on the bus go wah wah.. wah.. wah.. wah, all day long..';

'the children on the bus go party time, party time...all day long... finished'

A mum with 18 month baby sitting opposite us was very impressed and said to me 'your son's language development is very good'. I agreed with her but actually i was more impressed with Daniel's fine motor skill or his ability of turning each page without missing one.Then he picked out another one titled The very hungry Caterpillar and started to browse this book while reading it out page by page;

'Monday caterpillar ate one apple...' he turned the pages of the picture book;

'Tuesday caterpillar ate two pear...'

'Wednesday he ate three plum...'

'Thursday he ate ... strawberries..'

'...... finished'

i was very impressed with this one as i didnt remember I have read him this book before. It must be someone in the nursery, then i asked him:' who read this book to you, Daniel?' Daniel said 'Kirsty'.

Daniel did some drawing at the table, jumping up and down on the steps, getting in and out a boat at the children section. Finally he spot the computers at the corner, which are just about the right height for him. he managed to climp up the chair and sit at the keyboard shouting 'password please...password please...' I said to him ' It's four o'clock, it's getting dark, shall we go home?' He said to me firmly 'No, password please!' I said ' Mummy don't know the password, you have to go ask the lady' he hesitated a bit then decided he would do it no matter what, he climb down the chair, walked to the librarian and said 'password please!' the lady firstly didn't understand what he want then i explained that he want to use the computer. So the lady helped him to log in. I helped him logged in the In The Night Garden website, one of his favorite BBC children programme, he was pointing the character shouting 'Nincky Nonk... Upsy daisy... Maka Paka... tombliboos...' after 10minutes's excitement for Daniel i had to persuade Daniel off the computer by promising a bus ride. When we got out the library, there was just a bus arriving... it was the first time Daniel got on a bus, hehe, What an exciting day for Daniel

Photo with Santa

2008-12-15T21:02:00.004Z

I didn't think I would ever get a photo of Daniel with Santa as he thinks Santa is scary. Having said that today I finally got a picture of Daniel sitting on Santa's lap. We went the playgroup's Christmas party at the local church with Justin and his Mum Joanne. Daniel was quite excited about it as he knew there would be cakes and biscuits. We wasn't even for sure if there would be a Santa there. Joanne texted me early that she was going to bring a small present for Justin just in case there aren't enough presents to go around ( it is a very popular playgroup in the neighbourhood). So i did the same. To our surprise, Santa turned up with plenty of presents and every child's name has been called and Daniel got a very decent set of nursery rhythm jigsaw from M&S, which is just what he would want. Daniel asked me to open his presents, then he took two piece of jigsaw out and walked to the Santa, which was a bit out of character. He was standing in front of Santa trying to gave back the two piece of jigsaws, obviously he didn't know they are for him, then i had to say to Santa 'he want to thanks Santa for the present...' Santa picked up Daniel to sit on his lap and I clicked my camera quickly. Daniel become the first one to get photo with Santa. After Daniel's turn, there was soon a long queue in front Santa for photos.

Santa Scary

2008-12-08T22:22:00.002Z

Daniel said to me 'Santa Clause in the bedroom...' when he woke up in the morning, I said 'Did you ask him for presents?' He said 'no... Santa Clause scary... Santa Clause come down the chimney... atishoo..atishoo!' I was thinking I'd better not to take him to have photo taken with Santa if Santa is so scary... there are queue everywhere anyway.

we finally put up our Christmas tree early this year, my neighbour across road had a big Santa and red-nose reindeer lights on their wall and Daniel kept asking to look it from window...

Winter in the Park

2008-12-07T21:21:00.010Z

It was below zero today when we woke up. The ground was completely frozen with wide-spread frost. We got heavy snow 2 days ago but it melt the same day. This morning was so frosty and the lake was covered by inch-thick ice, which is not like the normal weather here, the winter here normally isn't that harsh, it would be cold but it wouldn't normally go icy like this, I mean it is more like the weather in the Canada or Nordic country. It explains that why I saw people pick up the ice from the lake in the Pugney Park. Daniel certainly felt excited to see ice when we took him to feed duck as the ducks were all walking on the ice. He enjoyed the playground although it was very icy and slippery.

Two Year old

2008-11-10T21:23:00.006Z

This post meant to write a few weeks ago, but I was just too busy to update the blog at that time. Daniel's nursery progress report for last 3 months is due back tomorrow, which reminded me that I haven't written anything about his Two. For me, Daniel's Two is definitely 'terrible two'. I have already identified Daniel's tantrum hotspots:

1) getting dressed. Daniel is very picky on his outfit. He likes to wear pajamas. If we are not going out, that 's fine with me. But if we are going out, it always need a bit persuasion to get the proper clothing on him.

2) Choosing music. Daniel likes songs and music. He was into Sound of Music and Jingle Bell last month. He kept listening the two CDs last month, he's off Jingle Bell and Sound of Music now, and moved on to different version of Wheel on the Bus. This one is his all time favorite. 'bus...bus...' If i didn't play the right track 'not this one...not this one...' , it guaranteed there would a big tantrum.

3)Choosing food. There would a big tantrum if the food are not prepared/given as he expected. so I do ask him what he want first before serving him now.

Daniel's progress report for last three month is a 34-pages document. I was quite surprised that the new government framework requires such in-depth assessment(500 milestones!!) towards a toddler. Daniel has a lot ticks towards 36 month on the areas of self-Confidence, making relationships, language for communication, reading and counting; Movement and space etc. Not so much on shape and colors.

Photos were taken on his two year birthday party with Justin and his mum. Daniel insisted to wear his pajama for his birthday. What can I do! Joanne said 'It's his birthday anyway, he got to choose the things he want...'

'Too much...'

2008-10-31T13:00:00.009Z

'Too much' is one of Daniel's frequent used phrase at the moment. He understand this phrase very clearly. he say that word when I try to force him something or when he really can not cope what's going on around him. Lasst weekend we took him to see his grandparents down south. It was bonfire night in town that night, so we took Daniel out first time in the evening for such an event. Daniel firstly was very excited about seeing every children holding a flashing light. But after the parade, especially after the steamy engines' whistling, Daniel really had enough, he started to say 'too much, too much... go home... go home...'

Life has been really hectic recently. firstly, Terry started to work away from home, which mean there are just me and Daniel at home during the week, his new work is beyond the commuting distance. This is not the first time Terry has to work away. We worked away from each other many times in the past, but for Daniel, it is the first time to live without Daddy. Secondly, Daniel now moved up the class, which he is very resent to. Nursery tried to move himto Toddler Room in September, but Daniel was crying very hard , then I asked them not to too pushy on him. Two weeks ago, on a parent evening Karen raised this issue to me again and I said Ok, Daniel has to move on and grow up anyway, he is the oldest one in the Baby Room. And now it seems that the clock has been moved back to exactly one years ago when I finished my maternity leave and dropped Daniel off at nursery first time, last year it was in Baby Room, this time in Toddler Room, again, lots of tears, lots of guilt as Daniel virtually like plead me not to leave him there. Every morning for the last two week, once I mentioned that Mummy have to go to work today, Daniel immediately throw himself on the floor crying' don't like nursery... don't like nursery...mummy...mummy...' hevwould refue to put shoes on, coat on. Then I had to say things like 'Mummy will sit with you in nursery' to calm him down and got him in car. He murmured 'mama sit nursery...mama sit nursery...' all the way to the nursery... , which made me feel very bad as I can't sit with him in nursery all day. The following day when i tried the same tactic in the hope to get him in car but it didn't work as he knew mummy didn't mean it through the previous day's experience. Then i had to say 'you'll go baby room today...' he calmed down a little bit once he heard 'go baby room...' On the way to nursery, He murmured something like 'go Jelly Bean... go jelly bean...' at the back of my car all the way there, I thought Daniel was using kind of self-denial as the coping strategy, he knew he wasn't going to baby room anymore and he recognises the route to nursery, but still he would like to think we go to Jelly Bean, one of his favorite soft play center we go regularly.

Also, now I drop him of fand pick him up everyday. With my new work, I finish at 5.30pm, which mean he is always the last one to be picked up at nursery. So, there has been too much change for Daniel to cope in such a short period of time. No wonder he keep saying 'too much... too much...'

winter walk

2008-10-29T21:27:00.009Z

It was so sunny on Monday morning, i took Daniel to feed duck in our local Cannon Hall Park . Since Daniel can speak sentence, ' I don't like...' has become one of his favorite and most frequently used sentence, he likes to say 'don't like...' to everything I suggest him to do, however, 'feeding duck' is one of the thing he would say 'yes'. So off we went.

It was so cold in the morning though it was sunny, and windy too. Daniel was in a light fleece jumper when we got out the car. Getting him in the new thick winter coat always needs a bit battle, but to my surprise, after he wandered around the park being chased by all the ducks for a good 10 minutes, he didn't tantrum a bit when i put his winter coat on and he even allow me to put the hood of the jumper on his head. It must be really cold that day!

Dinner party

2008-10-22T21:25:00.003Z

I hosted a dinner party for Daniel's best friend Justin and his parents last Sunday evening, which, in my opinion, was s success. Terry was a bit apprehensive with my choice of menu at start as I was planning to do a Thai meal, he thought it would be too spicy for Joanne and Andy, also it wouldn't be suitable for Daniel and Justin, therefore I have to cook separate dinner for babes. Terry suggested to do Moussaka, a dish with Aubergine layers on top of lamb mince then with cheese on top, which would be suitable for both adults and babes. I wasn't keen on this idea as we had lasagna at Joanne's Dinner party, Moussaka would be too similar. Terry started to practise for two weeks on this dish, in the end, I still insisted to go back to my original Thai idea, but ditched his idea of having Chinese dumplings as starter ( because that would be too much hassle for me). In the end I decided on Thai pumpkin curry as main course with some shop-bought desserts as pudding.

I cooked Thai Pumpkin curry with chicken, this idea came- from Waggamma restaurant in Leeds. It is very easy to cook and taste great, both Joanne and Andy liked it. The most time-consuming bit of the whole cooking was peeling the pumpkin and cut it into small pieces, but I prepared this in the morning when Daniel was settle and playing around in the kitchen. I shopped all the ingredients on Saturday and cleaned house on Friday. They came around 3.30pm, the idea was Daniel can play with Justin and I can get on with cooking. But I cooked the Thai dish just before they came and pop it in the oven for slow cook pumpkin so In the end I can still sit down for talk in the lounge while keeping an eye on cooking in the kitchen. The main focus at this stage was left for cooking Daniel and Justin' meals. As Justin preferred fish fingers and peas (lucky i asked Joanne beforehand), I cooked some roasted potatoes and fish fingers and peas for him and Daniel. Terry was in charge of wine and dessert, Daniel played with Justin very well, Justin seemed to like Daniel's toys, Daniel is just the same, Daniel likes Justin's toys when we visits Joanne's house. We had a really good evening.

The key to throw dinner party with little kids is to organise! organise and organise! and keep it simple!

Fashion Conscious or Too Stubborn?

2008-10-08T19:36:00.006Z

Daniel has been chosen his own outfit every morning for a while and I've been very happy to leave him to do so, I thought all the toddlers of this age would want to show their independence by making choices to some degree, but here comes the trouble: while the winter draws in and the temperature is getting down fast, Daniel seems still insist to wear his summer clothes, e.g. his bus top, which is a short-sleeve T-shirt , and it is Daniel's favorite. Every morning when I try to dress Daniel for going out he always tell me: ' choose one... choose one...' then he opens his shirt drawer and pull the 'bus one' out or his Bee Top out or pull some other summer clothes like shorts out. I have bought 7 new long-sleeve shirts for him since last month and Daniel would cry over each single new clothes I bought for him. First I thought maybe he doesn't like the pattern on the new shirts, then I bought some more with cars, fire engines etc. on them. It still ended the same with Daniel crying over it. Then I took him shopping and asked him ' do you like this one with diggers on it!' Daniel answered: 'Put away... put away... don't like it...'

Yesterday I was getting so stressed in the morning to get Daniel in his clothes because all his favorite tops and coat has been washed. I had to force a new top on him and he screamed as usual and said 'take it off...take it off... too much!...too much!', He made me laugh by saying 'too much' also made me felt so bad about forcing on him. I don't know where he picked up this phrase 'Too much' from and I certainly didn't teach him.

Terry think Daniel is fashion-conscious, which is taking after me. But I know Daniel just doesn't like the things he doesn't familiar with...

'...Had busy day...'

2008-09-28T12:38:00.007Z

Had busy day!....

who's that?

what?

Daniel has been 'on the phone'(my phone) for ages. While he was talking (pretend talking) to whoever he think is, I got the chance to grab the camera. Here are his conversation:

'...swimming...swimming... Justin...Justin mum... pool closed... water park...Justin upset...coffee...

bye,bye,bye...Popo...' then he pressed the button; pressed button again:

'... had busy day! ...(long babble)...Hannah...Bye...'

What Daniel was trying to say was ' We've been swimming with Justin and Justin's Mum. The toddler pool was closed, we went to the water park instead. Justin was a bit scared of the water park and he was upset for that. afterwards we had coffee with Justin and Justin's mum at the swimming pool'

It looks like that Daniel has already understand how to use phone for socialising. He really made me laugh by saying ' I had busy day' I never teach him about this sentence and he must pick up from somewhere and applied in the right context.

23 month old

2008-09-26T13:24:00.005Z

Daniel will be a two-years -old in a month time. The nursery has told me that they intended to move Daniel to the toddler room a month ago, but Daniel refused to move up the class as he's been very much attached to the staff in the baby room, they put him in the toddler room for couple of hours each day as trial. however, after a while, Daniel would rush back to the gate in front of the Baby Room shouting the staff's name 'Jade...Jade...get baby...'; '...don't like it...' ; 'I don't like it...'. Jade is the one who always look after him in the baby room. On the mornings of my working days, if I'd mentioned Jade's name , Daniel would quickly go to fetch his shoes and say 'shoe on... shoe on..., jacket on... car...', he would stop dawdling immediately and get ready to go, this is the way I used to speed up the process of getting out the house.

For some reason Daniel still calls himself 'baby', despite of the fact that I keep telling him that 'you are not a baby anymore, you are a big boy now...', he call himself Daniel sometime, but not as often as 'Baby', the other word he used to refer himself include '宝宝' (bao bao), less frequent one '丹丹' (Dan Dan), his Chinese name. Daniel's language development has been so good that he constantly amazed us. He has a very large vocabulary on English, he likes talking about his days, I really enjoy the moments when I come back home from work, Daniel rushes to me telling me all about his days. He would do the same when Terry comes home from work. He says words like 'bulldozer', 'aubergine' or 'elephant' very clearly, which, i think are quite hard for baby to pronounce. The most amazing thing Daniel likes to do is to show off his skill of finishing the sentences in the book. No matter which word we choose to leave blank, He can finish all the sentence in very long story, like Amanda, the Panda, I thought this maybe because he is too familiar with the story. Then, i noticed that some of the new books i have just read to him only for 2 or 3 days he can do the same trick, like the new book Godilock and the three Bears I bought for him last week. And Daniel's interest on Chinese is just picking up, now every night he would require to read Chinese books, his days normally finish in reading Chinese book, and now he demand to watch Winnie the Pooh in Chinese, he used to pretest if I dare to put his DVD in Chinese, and now he would say ' Winnie pooh Chinese... Winnie pooh Chinese...' he can say some Chinese nursery rhythm, like this one

胖胖敲鼓，敲乒乓; 乒乓鼓响，逗胖胖; 胖胖忙着挥动棒棒.

Looking back, it was so silly to worry about that he won't be talking, but I did have this sort of worry and have read a lot about autism, I remembered I've read a rather touching autobiography book about autism titled Daniel isn't talking.

Harewood House

2008-09-21T19:29:00.013Z

It meant to be Autumn now but it was so sunny and warm today.We took Daniel to Harewood House today, which is an hour's drive away. Harewood House was home to the Queen's cousin, the Earl of Harewood, and was built in the mid-18th century. It has a splendid landscaped garden around a small lake and acres of woodland. The terraced garden behind the house reminded me of the The Palace of Versailles in Paris, and now it was turned into a nice terraced Cafe for people to sit there to admire the great view of the lake and the acres of woodland below it. As usual, the first thing we did when we arrived there was sitting in this nice Cafe. Daniel liked the creamy scone. After the coffee we took a walk around the lake along the shady path, which took an hour or so. then we took Daniel to the adventure playground and visited the Penguin House, as the last activity, we visited the Stately home itself, which house the exhibition of 18 century kitchen, the familly's collection of arts etc and the familly's collection of Chinese objects. Throughout 2008, Harewood is celebrating a long standing connection with the arts of China.

In 1988 around 20 sheets of hand painted Chinese wallpaper were found rolled up in the outbuildings of Harewood House. Research showed that the rolls would form a complete scheme, possibly hung in the Chintz Bedroom by Chippendale’s men in December 1769. the wallpaper, described by experts as "possibly the finest example of Chinese wallpaper anywhere in the World" has been painstakingly conserved and hung in the East Bedroom on the State Floor of the House.

Daniel enjoyed the walk, the playground, and the most exciting experience today for him was watching the penguins, he was getting really excited and was literally shouting to everyone with his finger pointed to the penguins ' Penguin...penguin!....' it was not the first time he saw the penguins. He's been to Marwell Zoo couple of times and saw them couple times. The reason he was so excited to see penguins in real today was that he's been hooked on the Pingue DVD recently. For the stately home itself and the exhibition, Daniel said 'I dont like it!' ...he amazed us by saying the whole sentence...

Specutacular Show

2008-08-08T20:27:00.003Z

I spent the whole afternoon watching Olympic opening ceremony today, also talking to other Chinese over the Internet about the show. Obviously every Chinese was excited. The other most notable thing here is that The Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony was so spectacular that it has already intimidate Olympics next hosting country. London 2012 officials have already admitted they will not be able to commit the same resources to their opening event. Tonight's choreographed show took seven years to plan, and costs are estimated to have hit a record-breaking $40bn (£20bn). When I told Terry all these reading on Internet after the great show and said joyfully that GB would never done a show like this and Terry said 'we are a small country, we can afford such money'...

But chief executive Paul Deighton said London organisers can stage an equally inspirational ceremony in four years time. "We are not daunted; we are really, really excited, what an inspirational show. We can't wait to get started on our welcome to London in four years' time," he said.

Hope so! Then maybe I can watch that show in London in four years' time

Daniel Visiting Castle

2008-07-27T20:54:00.010Z

We took Daniel to visit Skipton today. Skipton is a small market town on the verge of Yorkshire Dale and it made famous by filming the film Calender Girls there. We got up early today, after spent two hours doing house work and 1.5 hours driving,we still got there about 11am. we went strict to find a cafe in town and had early lunch. After lunch, we went to the castle. This is not the first castle Daniel visited but it is certainly the one he enjoyed most so far, throughout the visiting, he insisted on walking by himself even the steep steps inside the medieval castle, he would hold both our hands whenever there are steps and start to count the steps enthusiastically 'one, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight...' and he was so happy. we were surprised by his 'counting' . later when we talk about it, Terry think Daniel is counting and he can count to 8, but I think he was probably just reciting the sequence of numbers, anyway, we are very proud of him.

Park fun

2008-07-27T19:43:00.011Z

My mum always tell me that Daniel is such a happy child and I've done a good job whenever she heard Daniel's happy voice in the background over the phone. I can't agree more! Daniel's days are packed with lots of thing to do, to see, to eat... he loves outings, he likes parks, feeding ducks/swans ,walking, swimming, restaurant, cafe, library, museum, bookshop... Glad I'm part-time working and have more time to take Daniel out. These photos were taken in Pugney park when I met my friend to fly kite and have coffee, Daniel fed swans and played on the playground...

Summer & Garden Fun

2008-07-13T21:47:00.011Z

Daniel's imagnative play

2008-07-12T21:08:00.004Z

The toddler's ability to use a toy or object as a tool for imaginative play is an important step for being able to engage in pretend play, an inevitable social milestone in the young child's development. The use of language supports and enhances imaginary play and vice versa. When a child pretends, she uses words to express feelings and ideas. As pretend play becomes more sophisticated, so do language skill.

Daniel's ability to pretend play has certainly become more sophisticated recently. Yesterday he surprised me by some sort of horse-riding game, I was laying down in bed trying to settle him for his nap after lunch, he didn't show any intention to sleep after the unusual book-reading, instead, he was jumping up and down on bed as if the bed is a trampoline, which wasn't unusual. The unusual thing was he suddenly jumped to sit on my belly ( i was laying flat while both my knee bended up in a position like sitting-up) using both his hands to hold my knees shouting 'horse, horse, horse...Mama, horse!' and then started to bounce up and down on my belly. He was certainly imagine his old mum as horse and he is riding a horse, I never played this with him before due to the lack of imagination myself, so I was in a state of shock, also as he was bouncing really hard on my Cesarean scar, which I wasn't prepared for. But still i was very pleased. With a bit of help from both my hands to support his bottom to minimise the impact of his bouncing. i joined in his bouncing horse game. He was laughing and giggling and we had so much fun.

Daniel has been obsessed with hoover for a bit of time. He would be amazed by a hand hoover I used in the kitchen. Whenever I start to hoover floor using this hand hoover, he would whizz around with excitements and demand to have a go, he would say' baby... hoover ...', he would push the hoover across the kitchen floor and use his mouth to make hoover noise. Now when I am having shower in our en-suite upstairs in the morning, he would pick out some of my plastic lotus flowers with long stalk in a big vase in the bathroom holding it upside down with the flower bit on floor and sweep it across the en suit and bedroom with his mouth producing hoover noise and occasionally shouting 'hoover, hoover...', and it really make me laugh and think how imaginative he is! Well, while he got himself occupied, I had my peace to finish the shower. So I am quite pleased with his imaginative play though he ruined all my the lotus flowers.

Daniel used to having my undivided attention all the time and it seemed he need to constantly entertained, but now he can entertain himself with his imaginative play, so i am pleased, and he did this without resort to new toys/ activities. It's a good thing too, though I believe that structured play and activities are essential for stimulation the minds of young children and helping them to develop different skills. Now I'm taking the view that toddlers and children who have too many toys and are constantly entertained and stimulated soon become hyperactive, demanding more and more attention because they get bored very quickly.

20 month old

2008-06-30T20:29:00.004Z

Just like what the parenting books say that children develop at different rates and they do not grow or grow up at a smooth rate. They will sometimes seem to stand still and at other times leap ahead. This is certainly the case for Daniel. Daniel's development seemed slow on first year, but second year into his life, he seemed to leap ahead since he was 14-15 month old. The most noticeable is his language development.

he is now use tow-word sentences, increasing to three words; he express recurrence 'more milk', 'more cereal; no-existence 'all gone milk'; attribution' big wheel'; nomination' that book', 'there' etc. His words are clear.
he starts to use pronouns (mine, yours);
he talks about activities if encouraged, when he came back from nursery he would say' baby, Jade, ball...Cohen', he know he is baby because he would point him when he says baby, the translation for his telegraphic sentence would be Jade(nursery staff) played ball with him and Cohen (another tot of same age in nursery).
he can tell us what he wants, e.g. 'milk' (he want to drink milk),'chair'( he wants to sit on his chair); bus (he want to watch the wheel on the bus)
he starts to use verbs ,e.g. 'Mama hover', 'Daddy plant flower'
he knows his name Daniel and he can say his name in Chinese 'Dan Dan'
Daniel's language development ticks the checklists for a two-year-old, reading to him early finally paid off, i think. he loves having books read to him and remembers the stories I read to him many times. Every night he would demand to read eight-night picture books until I have to say 'no more books! Mama too tired!' he remembers lots of nursery rhymes and songs and would joins in action, e.g. dance to it, try to sing... tell me what's it's called, like 'star' mean 'twinkle twinkle little star...' ; ' Spider' mean ' Wincy, wincy, spider'...

he sits at table to eat with us in a normal chair now and can feed himself with spoon although still messy, So I still tend to feed him but he insists on d it for himself. On his progress report from nursery it said he can fed himself without assistance.
he starts to play with other children instead of just playing alongside them. Last Friday I took him out with his playmate Justin and his mum to a farm. Justin is two month younger than Daniel. Daniel seemed to know to look out for Justin as he is his friend. When Justin wandered off, Daniel would point him and say 'Ju..Ju..Ju..'
he can recognize himself in the mirror and laughs..
he ascribes human properties to animals and objects, like eyes, noses, mouth etc..

Sex and City - the Movie

2008-06-25T20:25:00.005Z

Like many other women I was a Sex and the City fan on TV series. I didn't miss any single episode when it on TV 5 years ago. I went to see the film on Monday evening with a girl friend, who is on the verge of breaking-up with her fiancee. To cheer her up i suggested to see this film with her. Terry agreed to have a boys' night-in with Daniel with Winnie-the Pooh and fish finger dinner.

A great see! a film about relationship and friendship! I like the way it portrait the mordern relationship, the way it deals with real emotional issues that people identify with, but does so with a hearty dose of glamour and sex. It's about addressing the insecurity of modern love and life and moving forward regardless of all these insecurities and risks... the film is also a big metaphor about friendship and loyalty and honesty despite one's limitations and neurosis. But somehow i have a bit dout about this, how true this can be? Miranda dropped the ball of sex in her juggling act of work, kid and husband and home but she has the time to go on an exotic holiday to cheer up her bed-bound friend Carrie while her own relationship with Steve is in breakdown. How can she leave her son behind?

Tagged

2008-06-21T19:39:00.008Z

So, I have been tagged by Li. Guess i have to answer the questions

1. What did you do 10 years ago?
I was planning the future with my ex-husband decorating our new-bought flat in Kunming

2. Five things from you ‘to do’ list?
Have an early night!
Have an early night!
Have an early night!
Have an early night!
Have an early night!
I normally goes to bed at 10pm, here, what I mean by 'early night' is going to bed the same time as Daniel does (8pmish).

3. Favorite snacks?
Pringles; Nacho with cheese dipping & chili.

4. What would you do if you were a millionaire?
Pay off the house and buy a ski chalet in French Alps

5. Places where you’ve lived?
Kunming (China), Nanjing, Portsmouth, Southampton, Yorkshire.
===========================================
Done!!!
I don't have many blog friends and Guess I got no one to tag!

Daniel is feeding ducks

2008-06-09T11:25:00.007Z

It is an unbelievably sunny day, not the sort of weather you can expect in England, more like the one in Hawaii and it's so hot as well. This morning we took Daniel to Newmiller Dam, a country park not far from us, where we can feed duck and walk in the woods around the lake. there were so shady in the woods and it felt so lovely in such a scorching weather. We took a three-wheeler pushchair with big wheels and suspension, but Daniel didn't bother to sit in it,he was running around in the woods, along the path. He walked quite a bit distance and got really excited when feeding the ducks.

Family Beach Fun

2008-06-01T15:13:00.009Z

We drove down south on Friday to see Daniel's two sisters in Southampton, we booked Holiday Inn this time and stayed over for Friday and Saturday nights. Friday afternoon on arrival in Southampton we took Daniel to Marwell Zoo to see animals. Daniel was delighted by the road train towed by a trator in the zoo, he kept saying 'more, more...' each time the train stopped.

Daniel's two sisters are certainly approaching the busiest year of their teenagehood with Hanna is doing her GCSE and Charlotte has one more year to go before university. That's why our visit was planned short this time as they were both busy with their study and part-time working. Friday night we had meal at the pub where Charlotte does her part-time waitressing, Daniel behaved very well the whole evening and he even handed in the tip to his sister as she was on-duty that night serving us. On Saturday we took 3 children to visit their grands in littleampton and came back the hotel in the evening. We certainly made the most of weather on Saturday coming back home with bad sun-burns on my shoulders and tan on everyone faces. (I was busy putting lots of sun-cream all over Daniel's face and body I forgot to put some sun-cream on my shoulders.) We spent the day strolling and making sand castle on the beach outside Terry's parents' house and had ice-cream and fish & chips at the sea front. Daniel certainly enjoyed playing in the sea and paddles. He would say 'gone..' with both his hands stretching out flat when the tides gone. He didn't even mind to walk on the pebble bit of beach...

Obsessions

2008-05-26T20:45:00.002Z

Daniel is obsessed with cars, diggers and tractors...

Daniel is gardening (cont.)

2008-05-26T20:29:00.007Z

Wentworth Garden Center

2008-05-26T20:02:00.009Z

Daniel is keen on getting out pushchair these days to walk. He was playing Hide-and-seek with me around a bush in the historical garden

Wentworth Historical Garden in the Wentworth Garden Center, we go there almost every week not only because it's a nice garden center, but also there is a farm for children to look animals and a very pretty historical garden there

Little Gardener

2008-05-26T15:08:00.006Z

Daniel's love of garden started since he was a baby, now he is officially a toddler, garden and the outdoor are somewhere he truly enjoys. he loves to play in the garden, running around playing the ball or stone and gravels,chasing bubbles I blow to the sky etc... even in the coldest days he would demand to go to the garden.

He doesn't seem to mind the coldness and the wind that much once he is in the garden Now the gardening season started again. Our last coupe of weekends were all spent in the varous Garden Centers.Terry did lots of planting today, so 'did' Daniel. Daniel's favorite activity is scooping up the gravels with a little spade and tipping them out in the garden pots. Once he saw Terry heading for the garden he would shout 'shoe... door, gar(den)...'he knows the procedures of going to the garden pretty well: shoes on, go through the door then garden...

Daniel starts walking

2008-01-07T20:41:00.000Z

Since we came back from France, Daniel started to take one or two steps at his nanny's. Daniel isn't an early developer on many aspects,He always want to be carried especially with me. We bought him a sturdy walker long time ago in the hope of assisting his physical development, he could walk with the aid of walker, but he has never been keen on that toy. Then we bought him another walker, a classic wooden trolley for Christmas, he didn't show much an interest either. He just continuously acts like a little boss, whenever I put the walker in front of him, with both his hands up and bout of scream, he always gets his way. last Wednesday he started to move several steps in a row to catch Terry's greeting hands after nursery. We were so surprised and delighted. Since Wednesday Daniel has became really interested in walking. He would stand up in the middle of the floor without holding onto anything for a minute and giggle, he probably realised he wasn't holding onto anything ( normally he would hold walker or adults' hand when he walks), then he would shuffle and giggle until he reach some furniture. I only captured his walking photo today before we set off to supermarket, so here we are Daniel's walking, we are proud of you.

Daniel's 'School Report'

2008-01-05T20:56:00.000Z

I got Daniel's progress report for last 3 month on Thursday when I picked him up from nursery. Finally i got a glimpse of what my son was doing all day in the nursery. It contains so many pages (9 pages for a 14 month old! ;)) The report recorded Daniel's progress on 4 headings: 1) A strong child; 2) A skillful communicator; 3) a competent Learner; 4) A healthy child under an Individual learning Plan itemised into different action plan and they produced every 3 months.

On the summary page, I read that Daniel has made excellent progress with settling in after weeks of being upset. Daniel got all good comments under the four headings, e.g. 1) a strong child, i read Daniel has sense of belonging and being able to snuggle in; 2) A skillful communicator; Daniel sat well and used crayons well to make the marks; 3)A competent learner: being imaginative, mirroring movement;4) healthy child: growing,being well nourished. All evaluations are backed by individual Observation Sheet with photos attached. I particularly like one Observation Sheet dated 31/10/07, which read:

Daniel sat with a small group for singing, he had a tambourine in his hand. Daniel climbed up on a practitioner's knee, facing the other children. When the singing started, his peers play their instruments, Daniel put tambourine on his knee and pat it using his RH palm(open) smiling at the sound. Daniel sat well throughout Singing, tapped his tambourine using both hands while it still rested on his knee. he watched his peers and joined in most of the songs today, 'well done Daniel!'

Daniel enjoys songs and musical. I noticed that recently he would wave ans shout( his way of showing great joy) and move his body up and down or tap his leg once his familiar music was on. Nursery Singing session must contribute to this. I was quite delight to receive a report like this, but Terry think it's silly to do a detail report like this for a 14-month-old and categorize everything. 'that's what the money paid for' I said.

The Beginning of 2008

2008-01-03T21:19:00.000Z

Just took a look on what I wrote on my blog in the Year 2007, I found it was quite interesting to me as it brought the mood up for me to go through what I has experienced in the last year. I don't normally do this sort of exercises, now all these photos and text remind me of what happened in our life in the past year, Daniel grows so fast and he is looking so different from when he did when he was little. I looked lots of our photos in Kunming with my parents and other relatives, then I can't help the feeling of missing them. This mood probably started by Terry's email about Flights to China this morning when we were both at work. We exchanged quite a few emails about this topic throughout the morning (my work was so quiet at the moment, half of people are still on holidays), then it looks we are going do the same again this year. My plan is to go back kunming in April with Daniel, that's for sure. Other things we haven't decided are wheather Terry go with us or not; which airline to fly with, namely where to transfer; then what we are going to do with our summer holiday etc. When I read some of my old postings this time of year, it looks that we are doing exactly the same thing same time of the year, ;) the only thing different is that Daniel is one year older...

Alpe d'Heuz - Daniel's First Ski Trip

2007-12-28T20:14:00.000Z

Chalet near Kids' Club
View from 2700m
Playground
What's this, Mummy? It's snow!
Bench a bit cold, Mummy!
Apartment we stayed

Our first ski holiday with Daniel and his two teenager sisters wasn't as bad as I anticipated. Skiing with a baby - utterly madness, it's the words my parents put over the phone when I told them we were going to skiing this Christmas. We are probably not the ones to allow parenthood to get in the way of going on holiday, but we are definitely not the extreme ones like one of my colleague who skied with his baby strapped on his back. He said 'you have to be completely confident that you would never fall...' I thought it's nuts to ski with baby on your back as he/she might get hypothermia. apart from this, I told him that I just consider myself as intermediate skier, so skiing with baby on the back was out of question.

Departure on Saturday( two weeks ago) was a bit shock. Our flight was 8.30 am, The driving to the Gatewick airport only took 45 minutes from Terry Mum's, where we stayed over for Friday night. We were up at 4am thinking we'd have plenty of time at the airport browsing the shops... . However when we got in the check-in hall, we found that the First Choice Check-In queue was lined up outside the building. I was amazed so many peopel were going ski this time of the year considering it was the first week of the season, normally most resorts were not expecting good snow. Daniel was definitely not the only baby going ski though. I did saw other people having their baby tucked in their rucksack on Daddy's back.

Alpe d'Heuz proved to be all-rounders skiing resort, it is youthful with so many sporting facilities on offer yet it was family-friendly resort on many respects. First Choice's Kids club wasn't bad at all with English Nannies and English nursery routines. There were quite a few kids in their creche that week and Daniel was the youngest baby there. Originally we expected Daniel wouldn't settle in there and we expected to take in turn to look after Daniel at the apartment. However, Daniel seemed to be ok with them first day, he did cry on drop-off in the morning but staff said he was ok after 30 minutes. So we went on taking him there everyday as we paid full-day care in advance anyway. Every morning we dropped Daniel 9.30-10ish together and in the afternoon I finished off skiing earlier to pick up Daniel 3pm ish on my own. so i end up skiing virtually everyday apart from one afternoon I picked up Daniel just after lunch. First couple days I felt so-much guilty about tucking Daniel in the Childcare that I stormed off one afternoon (felt bad about it later, it probably to do with my PMS). Terry persuaded me that Daniel would be better-off at Kids Club as there are plenty toys and other children there and they have a routine for him, otherwise what Daniel would be going to do with me in the apartment whole week, we would be bored. The creche staff took Daniel out for walk in town in pushchair everyday so Daniel got fresh air and ended up having two naps a day ( he only has one nap a day at home). So the rest of week I gradually eased off about childcare issue and didn't feel guilty anymore.

For skiing I enjoyed everyday though I got problem on my left knee (it felt painful each time I try to straighten up the knee) just weeks before our ski holiday. Several years ago I had a bad fall in the shower of a hotel in Wakefield and injured my left knee, It didn't bother me that time. But the knee joint always get worse each time when I want to go ski. One year I went to see the doctor. He said it was tissue damage and i need physio. As we all know there was long waiting list for physio on NHS, so I didn't bothered, I just carried on doing a lot stretch exercises on that joint in gym after my work-out and it healed. But since Daniel, I didn't stretch much the knee and the problem came back again. I must love skiing. I forgot the pain once I was on the slope

Cough

2007-12-07T21:23:00.000Z

Daniel has been ill for a month, he caught cold (or flu) a month ago and started coughing since. Now symptoms of the temperature, running nose and reduced appetite have gone following the treatment of medicine but the cough is still stubbornly persistent. As a result of this bout of illness, Daniel lost weight. He weighed 500 g less on recent weigh-in than he was 5 weeks ago, he weighs 11.2 kg now. we became a regular-goer of the GP surgery. We sat at GP punctually every Monday morning. Now Daniel's germ has spread on me, I started to cough few days ago and now it just turned nasty.

1.5 days to go

2007-12-06T13:23:00.000Z

One and half days to go before I am finishing off for Christamas. Can't wait!. I'm taking 1.5 days next week, 3 days the week after next one off as Annual leave, now I got nearly whole December off until 2nd Jan 2008. Hopefully next week I can have a bit sleep-in before we hit the skiing slope.

"wife" and "I" in Chinese

2007-12-05T12:36:00.000Z

Just read this on Internet about some foreigner who is trying to learn Chinese was scared off by the list of synonym for wife and I in Chinese, it's so funny! Thinking I'd better save it. At same time, fear Daniel would never learn Chinese properly as he would never understand all these subtle difference of each word.

据说一个在学中文的外国人看到"wife" 和 "I" 的同义词表，吐血而亡。
　　>>> wife
　　1、配偶 2、妻子 3、老婆 4、夫人 5、太太 6、爱人 7、内人 8、媳妇 9、那口子、10、拙荆 11、贤内助 12、老伴 13、孩子他妈 14、孩子他娘 15、内子 16、婆娘 17、糟糠、18、宝贝 19、小甜甜 20、蜜糖 21贱内 22、达令 23、女人 24、马子 25、主妇、26、女主人 27、财政部长 28、浑人 29、娘子 30、大姐 31、家属 32、屋里的、33、另一半、34女当家的 35、发妻 36、浑家 37、堂客 38、山妻 39、婆姨 40、中馈
　　>>> I
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little scribbler

2007-12-05T11:45:00.000Z

Haven't updated Daniels' development for long time. To be honest, I don't feel there is anything to be write about under this heading purely because he's been ill for so long, all my energy was directed to make him feeling better. Also because, for his days at the nursery, I got little information other than what he ate, what time he slept for how long and how many times nappy had been changed etc. it is not a complain to the nursery, it's just the arrangement we got at the moment, I drop Daniel off in the morning and Terry picks him up at four in the afternoon, I rarely got a full picture of what Daniel's day like during my working-days. Nevertheless, I did noticed some of Daniel's new 'favourite' activities, He's now like scribbling. This must be learned at nursery as we never gave him a pen before. He kept pointing pens on the table making a request to grab it. Initially I was very reluctant to let him hold one due to the safety concern, I don't want him to poke his eyes with the pen by accident. As Daniel was so wilful and persistent I gave up. He seemed to hold the pen well and know that it is to be used to scribble the paper in general, obviously he would scribble things like the book I am reading or my hands. He has enjoyed 'scribbling' for coupe of weeks since he took home his first scribble at nursery.

A few updates

2007-12-02T22:00:00.000Z

Been back to work for 5 weeks.

Couple of weeks ago when I had lunch with Alison at Joseph Brammer, she asked me if I'd settled back in work, my answer was 'as if I had never left there!' :) It's an honest answer, I don't know why I am so used to a 'corparete life' here in the UK. maybe because it's so mechanical, so predictable...In contrast, Daniel never seemed to fit in his nursery life that well, he still cried every morning on drop-off but not for long, only until last week I saw he got a comment back from staff on his little notebook saying he had the best day so far. The following day I asked them what they mean by 'the best day', It turned out it was the first day Daniel didn't cling on any of the staff and played on his own happily. Couple weeks ago I felt rather sad about leaving Daniel at nursery, especially when I faced the thought of it is a long day for him and for me, we did our best to try to minimise the time he spent in the nursery, at one point, Terry emailed some of the nanny agency website to me and said we think about this over the Christmas... Now I got used to this arrangement more or less. I can't say the arrangement is ideal but sometimes it felt like going to work to have a rest

It is not uncommon for babes who's attending nursery to pick up bug one after another, I was told by our GP, so Daniel was no exemption. He caught cold and cough badly for nearly 3 weeks. I had last Tuesday and Wednesday off, only worked Thursday. Lucky I am holiday-rich at the moment, on top of this year's holiday allowance, I carried over 8.5 days from last Holiday Year (on the condition they have to be spent before the end of the year), so I will take almost whole December off. Also, 2 more weeks to go before we off to ski, The snow started to fall at Alps and it is said it's the best snow in Decenber since the 50 years ago... we just bought Daniel's first skiiing-suit, boots, hat and need to get a sun-glasses for him but the trouble is Daniel don't like anything on his face...

Tuesday night I went to my ex-boss's 50th birthday celebration dinner party at one of the restaurant in Sheffield city center. It's a very enjoyable evening though I had to drive a long way in the rush-hour traffic and leave Daniel to Terry for the entire evening.

Not much hope...

2007-11-06T12:51:00.002Z

Tuesday back to work.

Daniel started whinging just when the car turned at the library, he must recognize the route to nursery now, I was thinking. When we arrived at nursery this morning, there was already a baby crying same way as Daniel did on his first week and the baby boy is coughing as well...so Daniel is not the only sick child in the nursery, i also noticed there was a baby girl sitting on the floor who got running nose... It looks that there isn't much hope for Daniel to get better soon... I singed the Medical Consent Form for them to give Daniel Calpol during the day. Daniel has finished the course of antibiotic over the weekend, he wasted half bottle of the medicine as he spat it out when I tried to administrate the medicine on my own,in the end it became a two-person task like this; I held him firmly in my arms in a lying down position and Terry used a cartridge to push the medicine into his mouth.

Ear Infection

2007-11-04T19:54:00.000Z

It happened!

Daniel never had any serious illness since he was born, not even when we took him on a long-haul holiday when he was just 5-month old. He had couple bouts of minor ailments, like sore throat, a bit rash and he all made full-recovery in one or two days. He certainly never had temperature before. I expected Daniel would get sick more often when he go to nursery, but didn't expect it happened so quickly. Second week into nursery, Daniel caught the bug and I received this phone call from nursery saying that Daniel coughing badly and his breathing was causing their concern and I should take him to see the doctor. (nursery seemed suspect he got the croup). I was just in the middle of a discussion with one of the colleague (actually winding up each other) when the nursery rang, the call ended the unpleasant 'discussion'. Told boss that I have to go and no time for timesheet ( Thursday is my last day of the week) I left the office just 2 hours after arrived it. Got back nursery , picked up Daniel and rushed to the GP when they were just about shutting, apparently they don't open Thursday afternoon. After I told the receptionist that I was pull out of work by nursery to take my son to see the doctor, she managed to fit Daniel in as the last patient just when I was thinking to take Daniel to the A&E in hospital. The Gp's diagnosis was that Daniel got ear infection and caught cold as well. Antibiotic was prescribed. Then I drove to ASDA's chemist to get the medicine with Daniel in the back of the car, the pharmacist went out for lunch and I end up to have to have coffee and some shopping done while waiting the dispense of the medicine... What a busy day!

Daniel got temperature for two nights and he got chesty cough and brought up phlegm when he coughing , very hoarse voice and wheezing, which was very scary to me, And he only got better since last night when the antibiotic start to effect.

My friend Nancy's Daniel went to nursery when he was just 6 month old and she told me her son got so many bouts of ear infection that they lost counts... If Daniel was to get ill so often, It's certainly not worth for me to go to work, I won't make any money, if I had to take leaves to look after Daniel every other week...

Upside I had an extra long-weekend, Thursday almost all day, Friday, Saturday , Sunday and tomorrow...

Last week

2007-10-30T13:14:00.000Z

Last week was so horrendous and heartbreaking. Every morning when I dropped Daniel off, he cried so badly that I actually broke down on the third morning when I put him down in the nursery. It was so heartbreaking to see him waving his little hands so frantically and desperately to me and what I can do was just walking away. He was probably wondering why Mummy abandoned him in such a stranger place; First day he scratched himself very badly and didn't eat much, second day Terry went to work after loam specially to make sure Daniel had a short day at nursery as it was his one year birthday. Every afternoon when I finished work I drove at 80m/h whenever the traffic allowed, which was out of my character, just to be home a little bit earlier so I can enjoy a bit play time with Daniel before putting him to sleep… everyday when I saw him, he didn't smile to me like he used to do as if he was cross with me… I felt so guilty. Daniel only came back to normal after we spent the weekend down south to see his ground parents and two sisters. We drove down Southampton on Friday morning, arrived Marwell Zoo hotel just after lunch time. Me and Daniel was waiting at the reception of the while Terry went to pick up the girls. We spent the Friday afternoon in the Marwell Zoo. Daniel was a bit happier after seeing all the animals and stayed a bit late in the hotel room. We stayed this hotel in June, which wasn't that expensive. But this time maybe it was in half term, the room price shot up as £99/room/night and in the morning when we had our breakfast in the hotel restaurant I fount that it was surprisingly full.

Monday, Daniel was completely happy back to his old routine. He was laughing and giggling again. He even refused to get out the shopping trolley in the supermarket… He thoroughly enjoyed the day with mummy...

First day back to work

2007-10-23T18:01:00.000Z

First day at work, I know exactly it's going to be like this and it happened like this:
1)Couldn't find my desk. After the help from some one's pointing, I found the desk with my name plate on it. Then I found it was not my old desk as all my stuff in the drawers had gone! Luckily my 3 boxes of books are still there labeled with my name by someone, thanks whoever did it for me!
2)No computer for me and the IT guy wasn't in today, typical, there is only a monitor sitting on my desk and the main part has gone missing.
3)Couldn't remember my log in detail.After the reminding of the colleague sitting opposite me, finally got in the network. 800 junk mails sat in the mailbox, something to do for today.
Daniel cried really hard this morning and he waved his hand frantically to me when I left the room, it was so heartbreaking!

Matlock Bath

2007-10-21T19:33:00.000Z

It was freezing cold this morning when we arrived Maltlock Bath, a resort and natural beauty spot in Derbyshire. 2 C, it said on the thermometer in Terry's car. Lucky we took the cosy toe for Daniel, I had nearly told Terry not to bother before we set off. It was misty and foggy in this sleepy village and above its beautifully river bank, along the waist of the Apraham Height, a hill top park with superb view of Peak district. The Heights of Abraham is our outing place today. There is a chalet-style coffee shop, licensed restaurant, picnic area, all taking advantage of the superb view. There is also a Victorian Prospect Tower built in 1844, 2 show caves,Rutland Cavern and the Great Masson Cavern, nature trail,landscaped gardens and childrens play area. as we got there early, the cable car ride was empty and we had coffee first thing when we arrived on top the hill. From the terrace of the cafe, you can have a superb view overlooking the valley and the river and it's sunny on top the hill and warmer. Maltlock bath in Victorian time was called the 'Little Switzerland in Britain'. It felt really true when you sitting in this Alpine style cafe sipping coffee. Then we took Daniel a mini adventure down to the Cavern and was out halfway down the hill. As It's not allowed to take buggy down the cavern, Terry and me carried Daniel in turn throughout the film session about the history of the cave and the trip down the cavern. Carrying Daniel back to the hilltop cafe through the woodland proved to need a bit fitness and I did the job most of time as Daniel seems cling to me more these days... anyway, It's a great day out!

Poor thing

2007-10-19T13:35:00.000Z

Little Angel when he sleeps
Bit tired, mummy

Daniel is in nursery now. A full-day session today!

As a bad start, he cried on and off while I was driving to get him to sleep ( he is not normally like this) before nursery. I dropped him off at 10am. He was smiling when I got him out of the car, once he saw the door of the nursery, he started to get upset, the the trauma of being left without mummy must flood back ( the memory area in his brain must be developed very well, I was thinking), I handed him, together with his little rucksack(in which I packed his milk and spare clothes),to one of the staff, he cried very hard with tears pouring down... Poor little thing! He must sensed this going to be all day...

After the drop-off of Daniel, I went to an optician for my eye test appointment. It felt such a relief to have an appointment done without Daniel's presence. My dentist appointment on Tuesday was completed with Daniel sitting on my lap while the dentist working on my teeth at the same time, it was so stressful as Daniel was crying when the dentist started drilling... However, I started to miss Daniel by lunch time, it felt so strange without him whizzing around my feet while I was cooking.

Picking him up in an hour...

(Added: when I went to pick up Daniel at 4pm, I expected to see his puffy eyes and red nose from crying. To my surprise, when I popped my head on the high window of the door, I saw him sitting there calmly in the cuddle of Karen's arm (she was cuddling another new-starter baby in the other arm) without any sign of puffy eyes and red nose. Apparently he had a 45 minute nap after lunch, which is another surprise to me, I had predicted that he wouldn't nap at all in the nursery. Karen said honestly that Daniel was very unsettled in the morning,but he was not distraught. I knew that as I phoned an hour later after dropping him off and was told he was still crying. Daniel's voice did get a bit hoarse though. Terry said he felt sad all day as if we abandoned Daniel today)

11 month

2007-10-15T19:43:00.000Z

One more week Daniel will be 1 year old, but I haven't write about his 11-month-old development, this is partly because he's having new tricks everyday and I can hardly keep the time and energy to write about it on daily basis, from time to time Terry would shout to me from lounge 'Daniel can do this , Daniel can do that and you missed it! ', when I pop back from kitchen I would say 'I saw him doing this the other day'... Maybe I am more relaxed about Daniel's development these days, after all he is doing what an 11-month old meant to do. Obviously I am still thrilled by every little progress he made.

The remarkable progress he made on physical side this month was he started to cruise around coffee table in a standing-up position unaided and can lower himself down unaided in a sitting position, I don't even remember since when and how he did it at first place, but now everyday he just happily cruise around the table picking up toys or putting them on it...the other remarkable progress is on language development. he now understand a lot of what we say. He knows his favourite toys/books name in English. For example:

I say 'Daniel, go get your choo-choo train' he would crawl fast to get it and have a pla;
I say 'Get your Yellow Digger Book, mummy read you a story' He would go to his toy box and pick out the yellow digger book and give to me;
If I cite the 'Daniel, it's snooze time' at wrong time, he would immediately cry or throw himself back;
If I say 'it's trekker time' He would wave his arms with a smile on his face immediately and crawl fast to his trekker. A trekker ride in the garden with mummy's push is Daniel's favourite daily routine in the afternoon. On his ride if I ask him to beep, he would push the horn; if I say 'Daniel change gear' he would change gear. It's hilarious watching he can follow our words.
Today when I handed a toy phone to him and said 'phone waipo!' I saw he put the phone right on his ear... he must see me phone my mum too often! This little copycat!

Ski holiday booked for Christmas

2007-10-12T13:39:00.000Z

The nights are drawing and the temperature is dropping, it's this time of the season again... we just booked family skiing holiday for Christmas.

Alpe d'Huez in France is destination for five of us, Terry,Daniel, Charlotte, Hannah and me. Alpe d'Huez is part of the Grandes Rousses Ski Area, the resort has been made famous by its thrilling World Cup downhills. With over 200km of slopes to explore,it is said that the resort is lively and youthful. Apart from skiing, the activities include a grand sports centre, a large outdoor pool and a skating rink - all free with full area lift passes (we've booked this pass). We booked everything online, flight, accommodation, ski hire, lift pass and the most important, childcare for Daniel. We booked 6-day full day care at resort creche for Daniel though the plan is only to use full day care for Daniel at first day when all of us go skiing together to get familiar with the area, then Terry and me will babysit Daniel in turn for half day each day so Daniel only go to creche for half day.

Since I met Terry, We go skiing every year especially Christmas time apart from last year due to Daniel's birth in Nov. Before Daniel was born I'd always say if I had baby I would take him ski when he was 2 or 3, especially when I saw all these cute little tots skiing down the nursery slopes. Having said that I didn't expect to take Daniel skiing when he just turns 1 year old until couple weeks ago Terry suggested that we go skiing this Christmas, which really made my feet started itching, so I agreed. We considered options like skiing in Finland, which is cheaper than France, but I thought it probably too clod for Daniel. At one point, after the calculation of all the cost, added up the travel insurance, airport parking and the clothing for 3 children(they grow so quickly that we need to buy ski wear for them every year), Terry suggested we should have a beach holiday in Canary Island instead as it will be £700 cheaper, but the girls are not keen on Spanish holiday. In the end we still booked French one.

A few photos for Pugney

2007-10-11T17:44:00.000Z

wrap up warm
some place where we can do sailing
tranquil
walking in the woods

There are a few nice country parks around where we live. Pugney is among the ones we'd like to spend our Sunday for. Though the winter is looming, it is still quite nice to go out for a walk in a nice sunny morning and have some coffee in the park cafe...

Gym training so far

2007-10-10T19:12:00.000Z

Gym training is still going to plan so far. On top of my normal cardio program, I added the chest-press, sitting-up on inclined bench on last Friday's session. Did the same on Monday. The training results were like this:
Fri: calary,300; Performance Index, 46 ( 30% dropping from pre-pregnancy): chest-press, 3 sets, 12 reps/set, tour de France 3.9km
Mon: calary,350; Performance Index, 56 ( picking up): chest-press, 3 sets, 12 reps/set, tour de France 3.9km.

When comes to gym training, motivation is not normally an issue for me, my aim with gym isn't to lose weight, is to keep fit and body tone. So far so good. (Terry hasn't gone down gym training once since we joined it! Excuses lined up...)

Seond settle-in session without mummy

2007-10-10T18:30:00.000Z

Daniel had his second settle-in session without me this afternoon. He was crying on and off after I left, which mainly was due to the lack of nap this morning. He slept until 8am first time this morning since I can't remember (probably around 8-9 month old), therefore there is no need for him to nap in the morning and he only napped about 50 minutes lunch time before I dropped him off at nursery. I warned Karen that Daniel might go cranky as he hadn't napped enough, she answered' Oh, don't worry, we can cope!' Just after I plonked him on the floor, Daniel cried immediately. I left nursery without too much worry this time as I knew they would comfort Daniel after all these visits and i would think this nursery would be a happy place for Daniel. I went to the library to borrow some books, again one hour has gone very quickly. When I walked in the baby room, Julie, the nursery manager, is comforting Daniel and she told me that Daniel like being cuddled to get sleep... also Karen told me that I should meet the twins' mum and she will tell me that how bad her twin were when they started nursery and she never believed that they would settle. 'But they settled very quickly' Karen said. She reckon that Daniel would settle in the nursery routine very quickly as he got Tue/Wed/Thur 3 consecutive days.

Test Run

2007-10-03T18:40:00.001Z

Today Daniel had his first nursery session without my company, only one hour though, it was a test run for me to see how bad he could go. He had another 2 hours' settle-in session with my company on Monday, which went well. So Nursery deputy manager Karen suggested me to leave him for an hour on next visit. I booked 3 one-hour session to leave Daniel alone, One was on today, the other two will be on next Tue and Fri 2-3pm respectively, and a full-day without me on 19 Oct /Fri, the last week before start to work.

Life is pretty hectic at the moment. Daniel's nap has been getting worse since couple weeks ago, he totally refused to sleep in the cot during the day since he was able to pull himself up in the cot. Since then the settling method has gone backwards to driving him to nap again, which works very effectively, Once the car start moving, Daniel would doze off quickly. Today was no exception, I drove him to a country park prior to his nursery visit just in case he would gone hysterical in the nursery without me.
2 pm, the moment of truth, I asked Karen if I could stay for 5 minute watching him from the window, she just told me to go, don't make any fuss and ring up later. She picked up Daniel from my hands before I even finished kissing him and saying good-bye, Obviously Daniel was in distress immediately in a stranger's hands.I did what I told, left without fussing over Daniel. Walking out the nursery, I didn't burst into tears like what I thought I would do. The moment has passed, I think. My mind has already been well-prepared for this scene. Had this parting scene been in couple months ago, I would react pretty badly. Remember one month ago on one Saturday morning when Terry took Daniel out on his own leaving me to have a break at home, I was totally at loss and felt tearfully after they had gone, and I was alarmed by this emotion that moment, remember I was thinking what I'm going to do with myself when Daniel goes to school and when he goes to university...

Leaving nursery I walked to library, which is nearby, to have a cup of coffee and return some books. Seating in the library cafe, I phoned my mum telling her Daniel has gone to nursery on his own first time, then phoned Terry telling the same thing, 20 minutes later I phoned nursery asking how Daniel getting on. They answered he is fine, stopped crying 5 minutes after I left and now is playing the toys...anyway, one hour has past quicker than I realised, Before I have time to finish my coffee and pick up some new books, it was time to pick up Daniel. Obviously Daniel must know the time when I due back as I can hear his screaming from outside the nursery. He was crying in a staff's arms in front of his favorite toy when I walked in. Once he saw me he cried even louder (this is to make me feel guilty, according to nursery staff). I picked him up he stopped crying. We sat there for another 5 minutes, I can see that he want to get on toys again...

Joined gym again

2007-10-01T21:01:00.000Z

Finally we signed up a joint gym membership again after quitting it two years ago due to my pregnancy. The plan is like this: I go Mon/ Fri 4pm, the days when I'm not working, Terry will come home early at 4pm to babysit Daniel and settle him to sleep. He goes Tue/Wed/Thur straight after work. I work 8am-4.30pm on these days, back about 5.15pm to pick up Daniel. Terry will go to work a bit late on these days to drop off Daniel. I am aiming to do 1.5 hours work-out on each gym visit.
Had my first gym session since pregnancy this afternoon, it felt really good afterwards. It meant to be my induction session, because i was with them for four years before, the instructor didn't bother to induct me. What he did was just quickly input of my medical details and the program I wanted into the computer system and gave me the tag key. I did bike, treadmill and stepper today on a lower resistance level than I used to do. After 30 minutes, I was very sweaty but felt really rejuvenating. Told myself not to overdo it on the first day, also worried about Daniel's evening routine, I didn't do weights after finishing my cardio program...

The cost for the gym membership wasn't that bad, £50 joint fee, £54 monthly payment and we get the 6th, 9th, 12th month for free. Considering I spent about £20 a month taking Daniel swimming in their water park every Thursday, it's really not bad as the swimming now is covered by the membership, plus classes i might do,like boxercise or yoga and the free off-peak badminton / squash court hire.

First settle-in session

2007-09-27T19:08:00.000Z

Daniel had his first nursery settle-in session yesterday afternoon. It was on 2pm. I specially made him nap a bit earlier just in case he wouldn't settle in the nursery. The nursery is not far from our house (15 Min's walk), as it was not a particular nice day I drove Daniel to there. Despite its central location the nursery has plenty of parking spaces. It locates right behind a public park. This is one of the things I like about this Day Care as I will drop off Daniel by car on the way to work.

There were 8 babes yesterday afternoon. To start with, Daniel just sat there quietly watching the world around him while I was chatting with the nursery deputy manager Karen, who is holding a crying 6-month baby who just started nursery the day. I can see she was quite loving as she held the babe trying to rock him to sleep. She asked me if Daniel is always that quiet. I answered 'you haven't see his true colour yet!' After a while Daniel relaxed a bit, he started to take interest on the toys in other babes' hands, he tried to grab a rattle ring from a 20-month old baby, but didn't succeed as the other one guarded it firmly in his hands. Lucky Daniel didn't mind though! ;)i thought he might cry over this first setback in the nursery. While i was sitting there, couple of babes kept bringing toys to me ( probably thought I am one of the staff), especially a twin, they kept bringing picture books to me asking me to read to them and I did. Just after i had started reading to the twins, very quickly Daniel crawled back to my side declaring that this is his mummy.

Overall, Daniel wasn't that bad at all. The only crying incidendt was at the snack time. Just after i expressed 'how surprised i am that Daniel wasn't cry when one of the staff seated him into the high chair', he bursted into tears with handfull snacks holding in his hands, he must realised that it was not in the home...The session lasted for 2 hours, we left at 4pm and another session was booked for Monday morning...

Signed up nursery

2007-09-24T12:20:00.000Z

we decided on Chatterbox.

I took Daniel to view another nursery this morning. The viewing just confirmed our first choice. Lunch time I dropped the signed forms together with the required £20 cheque at Chatterbox. Signed up Tue/Wed/Thur (I'll be working on such days) for Daniel's full day care. Also booked the first settle-in session for Daniel on Wendesday afternoon...

10 month old

2007-09-20T14:19:00.000Z

Daniel has amazed us with his burgeoning motor skills on daily basis since he turned 10 month old. Terry had to tell him to slow down 'One trick at a time' he said. After months of having to rely on me to get him from place to place, Daniel now seems to have new tricks every day. My baby development recording can hardly keep the pace of his growing spurt.

Firstly he started to crawl on all fours scooting and scrambling across lounge and kitchen, then he started to crawl like a spiderman with one knee on floor and the other leg to propel him. The next day, he was chasing Terry with crawling style like a chimpanzee, one hand hold a DVD high and shouting at the same time, the other hand on floor and one knee on floor the other leg to propel. Now he can happily pull himself on a standing position in the cot or on the coffee table. He likes to practise walking with my hands under his arm to aid, sometimes he felt like running, good for him, not good for his old mummy as it's a back breaking activity for her.

One morning Daniel was sitting on his high chair after his breakfast playing the empty bowl, 'Dang,' 'Dang' he knocked the bowel twice with the spoon in his hand and tried to put the spoon in my mouth, I realised he was trying to feed me by copying my action of feeding him. Now he responded to the word like 'feed mummy', whenever I say so he would dip the spoon in the bowl then put it in my mouth. He started to give things to us to hold, he would hand a ball, a toy to us and now he even offered his dummy to me to suck. He seems to understand the concept of 'give' and 'take': Also now he understands the concept of take in turn when playing ball game with us. Whenever we say 'Danie's turn' he would push the ball.

He can speak perfectly the word of 'Mama' and 'DaDa', but I'm not sure if he truly understand what's it mean. he can say Daddy, but I have to remind him, he even said 'dirty' sometimes when I warn him not to touch something dirty...He babbles a lot and begins to respond to request and command like 'come here','come to get mummy'; 'give to mummy' ; 'open the door' etc. and he recognises lots words for common items in the house,like 'cupboard','shoes' ,'doors','windows' etc.

First office visit since maternity

2007-09-18T13:50:00.000Z

I went in the office to have a meeting with my boss this morning. I emailed him last week letting him to know that I due to return work 23rd Oct and he asked me to come in to have a meeting with him as part of re-introduction to the team. Apparently there have been lots of change since I left. Lots of new faces and they now have lots of structural workloads from various sources ( good news!). I asked Terry to take half day off to look after Daniel though my boss offered to have meeting at my home if I had difficulty to arrange childcare.

I haven't been back office once since the starting of maternity leave, so it felt very refreshing driving to work on a sunny morning, especially when I chose a scenic route to one junction up motorway instead of my usual motorway exit.

On arrival office I reported to the receptionist (who is a new girl ) that I have a meeting with my boss. She gave me a visitor badge. I know I doesn't need that but just being polite. After a year maternity I found that my memory has gone down hill as I failed to remember lots of people's names when my boss briefed me the new organisational structure, some of the names rang the bell but I failed to link to particular faces. Terrifying, isn't it? The funny thing was i found myself moved up ladder when I was on my maternity. Though I told my boss i just want to work 3 days a week on return, he still seemed to keen on putting me on more responsibilities. He even spent quite a bit time telling me his personal story/advices on childcare choice to try to persuade me not engaging with guilt for going back to work. Apparently his wife went straight back to full time with their first one

Nursery Hunting

2007-09-15T18:22:00.000Z

Nursery always an option for me before Daniel was born and I'd always said I would put my child into a nursery even the first couple months of maternity leave. Not wanting to do so is because of the increased awareness of the emotional risks of early separation for a baby from his mum followed by my extensive child-rearing-books-reading.

However all these readings and awareness, I kind of felt-the-fear-do-it-anyway and started nursery-hunting last week. I viewed couple of them light-hearted when Daniel was around 6 month old and now I really got my head around it. I viewed two so far and spent quite a bit time in each premise talking to staff. I have asked the questions like qualification, staff consistency, environment, diet, safety, cost, learning and emotional policy in particular. I was quite impressed bye one called Chatterbox, which came from a playgroup mum's recommendation. Maybe because i always believe that word of mouth is the best reliable source of information when it comes to choosing nursery, I got the good impression instantly when i stepped into their baby room, there are 8-9 babes of Daniel's age in the Chatterbox, they all looked very content and peaceful and engaging in what they are doing when we were there. Apparently, in terms of learning and play, they follow UK government's Birth To Three Matter Fram, also they provide daily log of baby's activity like what time they napped for how long, what time they had their nappy changed, what time they eat what and play etc... plus the observation sheet for the baby's development milestones backed up by photos ( hehe, saving me to do the blogs).. I particularly asked their emotional care and was delightedly told things like they nurse baby to sleep if the parents ask to. My own observation was that one 12 month baby cried when the manager left the room to show us around and he got picked up by her straight away , she explained that the baby was with her since he was 4 month old and he therefore became very attached to her. So it was not as bad as I thought. Regarding to ease baby's separation anxiety, she said we can visit the nursery many times as we wish for settle-in session without charge. Also they will phone parent at work to tell how the baby get on etc...

There is nothing to sad about sending your child one year old to the nursery, I love being with my son. I know I will miss him when I at work and might be shedding tears the first day when I let him go solo, but in that age old dilemma I also love being me and the freedom of being able to go on holiday and providing him a better education. there will be enormous personal cost if I choose otherwise now. I wouldn't trumpet the transition back to working life as some sort of symbol of having-it-all, like everything else in the life, there always comes with cost, I just have to get on with it!

Restless train journey

2007-09-06T20:12:00.000Z

I took Daniel to Leeds to meet Terry for lunch yesterday. Normally i would just drive to Leeds, as it is just 40 minutes Motorway driving. But yesterday I decided to take train as a change. The fast train from where we live to Leeds would just take 32 minutes, plus 15 minutes walk to the train station, so it would be just under an hour journey, i thought, and it would give Daniel some fresh experience. Though it's not the first time for Daniel to be on a train, it was the first time I took him on train on my own. Terry was a bit worried about how I manage to get on and off train with Daniel, buggy and shopping, but i assured him it would be fine... I checked the train timetable on line in the morning before we set off, allowed 25 minutes to walk to the station to catch up the 10:12am fast train to Leeds. We got there 5 minutes earlier, however just to found out the intended service was cancelled, the next service would be a slow one which take nearly an hour to get Leeds and also there would be another 20 minutes waiting. Never mind! ! I was like thinking why i was so unlucky with train? This was the second time in a year when i used a train service and it went wrong. last time when i used a train service was when I serviced my car, the intended train back home was cancelled and was replaced by a bus service, which went every village and eventually took me 2 hours to get home for otherwise a 50 minutes journey. Anyway, i didn't feel that frustrated yesterday apart from the next train was so packed due to the cancelled fast servie. On boarding the train we just managed to find a seat next to the aisle. Daniel was so restless that he kept wanting to struggle off my lap, lucky i took some toys to distract him. However toys only kept him occupied for a little while, the next thing he found interesting was the newspaper that a neighbour gentleman was reading, Daniel tried to grab the newspaper a few times, but didn't succeed as i moved his hand away., then another lucky thing that kept Daniel still was that he found the conversation going on between two Indian doctors across the aisle was so interesting that he kept gazing at them, occasionally the lady and the young gentleman stopped their conversation to give Daniel a friendly smile.. Daniel fell asleep in my arm the last 10 minutes train journey.

We got Leeds just before 12am, met Terry at city Square and had lunch together in a Asian buffet restaurant near train station. Afterwards Terry went to back to his office neawr train station, Daniel and me went to shopping. The return journey was much more smooth. We got on the fast service as we intended at 1516 and the train was a lot more emptier and fast, Daniel got a spare seat to jump up and down and we got home just after 4pm.

Can't let go of co-sleeping with Daniel

2007-09-04T19:29:00.000Z

I'm sure Daniel would probably be fully capable of sleeping on his own if I had practised a bit controlled-crying or I had been toughened up a bit more on him. I've been camping besides Daniel's cot for two weeks offering him my hands to hold whenever he woke up. He was doing fine and slept well, but I felt as if something missing on me, then I realised that I was genuinely missing the closeness it felt when a baby curling up towards me.

Some two weeks ago, I have finished reading another parenting book Titled The Science of Parenting by Margot Suderland, a practical guidance on sleep, crying, play and building emotional wellbeing for life backed by solid evidence from latest brain research into the impact of parenting on children's brain development and the experience of real families. It is a 280-pages thick book with lots neurological term to explain why particular parenting style is better for the child's developing brain and I read it letter by letter. In this book it states:

Sleeping in close physical proximity to a parent provides a baby with a sensorially rich environment because of all the movement, touch, smells and sounds. Skin-to-skin contact throughout in the night has been shown to regulate a baby's immature body and brain systems and can play a key role in maintaining his long-term mental and physical wellbeing. Extensive research shows close bodily contact between mothers and infants will regulate the infant's body temperature, metabolic rate and hormone levels, enzyme production, heart rate and immune system
( No wonder that it never heard Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in China where co-sleeping is the norm)

I was thinking: ' what I have done ! Instead of pressurizing myself to meet some fictitious norm, I should have just followed my own instinct to co-sleep with Daniel until he is no longer need my help to stay sleep!' That's where we are now: Daniel sleeps in the cot from 6pm to 10pm when I go to bed, from 10pm onwards he sleeps with me in our spare bedroom again.

Baby Proofing

2007-09-04T09:22:00.000Z

Now that Daniel is able to crawl fast in a spiderman style. Over the weekend, we urgently baby-proofed our house , at least downstairs lounge and kitchen. Terry steam-cleaned the carpet for whole house. Terry used Daniel's old flower cushion, which Daniel never use again, to surround the house plant ( to prevent Daniel from eating compost, he was very interested in doing that) and hide the cables behind the TV cabinet (saved buying Cable Tidy). The mat from the cushion has been used to wrap around the corner of coffee table. Also, we urgently bought some socket covers and fridge lockers from Mothercare. Stair gates are the next thing to buy.

There will always be areas that are unsafe. Last night when I read this: every year children die because they pull furniture down on top of themselves, or because they scale chairs and tables to reach open Windows. Tow years olds have even been known to hang themselves from curtain cords, Terry told me to put two big vases on top of our display cabinet away immediately and I did. This morning when we woke up Terry said he had a nightmare about Daniel falling down staircase. Later I also found 3 decoration balls on the top shelf of the display cabinet has gone as well. Terry must put them away after I've gone to bed.

It has already been felt that the home is a bit like a death trap for babies and toddlers. I did remember I climbed high windows when I was a tot and jumped height. When you think about it, it's surprising how any of us made it to the adulthood.

2 months to go and separation anxiety

2007-09-01T20:57:00.000Z

2 months to go before returning to work. 23rd Oct will be the Day I meant to return to work from my additional maternity leave. I don't really look forward to this for the obvious reason, the worry of how Daniel would cope the separation anxiety when he at a nursery. He 's been with me 24/7 since he was born, now merely the sight of me leaving the room would set him off crying or being in distress, and he still cannot fall asleep and stay asleep independently

Before Daniel was born I just planned to take 6 month ordinary maternity leave thinking I could go back to work easily to earn the money. However, when 6-months OML was up, emotionally I found I couldn't leave Daniel to a nursery, (parents have separation anxiety too!). Now another 6 months AML is nearly up, I found it's still hard for me to leave Daniel to a childcare arrangement.

I totally agree that one author's (she is also a psychotherapist helping parents who have children with sleep difficulties) view: she views sleep difficulties as the result of a failure to resolve issues about the relationship between the infant and parents, in particular feelings about separation. Her therapeutic work is designed to help parents and baby be better able to deal with separation. perhaps Daniel's sleeping issue is partly because of my unwillingness to let him go independently.

Hide-and-Seek

2007-08-31T19:41:00.000Z

Daniel enjoyed peek-a-boo game in the past few months, now he enjoys hide-and-seek more than anything else, even more than the excitement of exploring cupboard and messing about all the controls. The game is like this: I hide myself behind the sofa asking where is mummy, Daniel will stop whatever he is doing turning to look the direction of the sofa and get himself into the crawling position immediately, Sometimes I peep out behind the sofa, sometimes I just crawl out sideways, each time when I show up he always bursts into laughter...

Daniel used to just be able to worm along on the floor or do a bit backwards-crawling with hands and knees. Since we started doing hide-and-seek game Daniel learned how to crawl really fast (to find me). Separation anxiety is such a big motivator!

Daniel's first theme park

2007-08-28T20:09:00.000Z

It's been half a month since the last entry. Terry's one-and-half-week holiday was over. We had great time with his two daughters here. Holidays always mean the ruined routine. This one was no exemption,.Though we didn't go away we did go out for day trip almost everyday, which mean Daniel's new sleeping regime being sent back to square one and my habit of blogging nearly on the verge of being abandoned.

We went to the Flamingo Land, a theme park, zoo and holiday village in North Yorkshire. Whilst they boast there are the most x-treme coasters and rides in this county in this theme park , there are still a great selection of rides for families. Daniel had his first theme park experience with Professor Bubble's car ride. I generally avoid the sort of thrill from rollercoasting now as I know if I do I would scream my head off, which make Terry's daughters embarrassing, but it looks that the girls started to avoid some of the extreme rides as well. I remembered that we went on every ride together when we were on holiday in Wassenaar, Holland a few years ago. Daniel also looked aquarium and lots of animals.

Beach fun

2007-08-14T12:43:00.000Z

I've been down this beach countless times, (Terry's parents live just yards away from it), however, I've never spotted so many attractions on this beach like what I did on this weekend with Daniel. There is fun park for those thriller-seeking children and adults alike, also miniature railway for babes and young children. We took Daniel for a rocking-rolling-riding on the miniature train to a nearby park , where we fed ducks and put Daniel on the swing. We took the gentle stroll along the beach twice a day during our 3-days' holiday at Terry's parents, one in the morning when the beach was deserted and tranquil and one in the afternoon when the beach was busy and packed with sun-chasers. There are lots of kite-sufers. Daniel paddled a bit water on the beach when the tide has gone out.

(Too busy to blog this week, I had to hit the publish button before I finish the text this morning. Terry is taking this week off to spend some time with his daughters at our home.)

A weekend at nanny's

2007-08-14T10:06:00.001Z

what's nanny doing?
I am pole dancing

what are they up to?

nice shady place for me

tried out cousin's toys

Bored

Sleep-train or Not?

2007-08-07T20:06:00.000Z

Just read another baby-care book titled Babycalming- Simple Solutions for a happy Baby by Caroline Deacon, which mentioned that

'Most people who favour extinction (controlled crying) as a method claim it does work - that the baby will eventually stop crying out in the night (I believe this as well). But we don't really know what the long-term effect of this short-term gain is likely to be'.

It had been argued that leaving a baby to cry: 1)take away his desire to communicate;2) makes him lose trust in you; 3)could damaging your baby's emerging self-esteem.

This coincided with the Steve Biddulph's book Raising Babes I read early, which mentioned a perceived 'good' baby who doesn't cry might just be a withdrawled baby, a convenient baby for parents. That' why he argued that early nursery attending will have the damaging effect on a baby's emotional intelligence, as even the best nursery carer will be unable to provide that kind of timely response for a baby's cry as it is not a one-to-one situation, also the nursery staff are normally required not to be emotional involved with a child to maitain their professional stance, while what babes need in their first 3 years' life is the intensive input of love from parents. You can't outsource love.

Wrote this just o record what I have read lately. I have read quite a bit books lately on childcare and baby development. Baby Sign- How to talk to your bay before she can talk to you; Baby's First Year; the secrete language of babes; Suppernanny. I have never read so intensively on a subject in such a short period of time since the departure of university, not even on my professional area, which I've read quite a bit and accumulate 3 boxes of books and papers, but all at work ( have never read a structural engineering book at home)all been done over the years. It's not that I want to become a childcare expert or child psychologist, I simply find all these parenting books are fascinating and useful. Years ago when I was child-free, I would give a loud sniff to my child-rearing friends' taking the plunge into the sea of parenting books as I believed that parenting is just a natural low-grade stuff and you don't need a child psychology degree to do that, but now I am doing exactly the same myself. We all want the best for our child after all.

There are more to read, like this one How to survive the terrible twos - Dairy of a mother under siege which I borrowed today from library. Better be prepared (though a bit early for Daniel!)

Summer Weekend

2007-08-06T20:32:00.000Z

We had lots of house work done this weekend. Now it's school holiday in England, Terry's 2 daughters are coming up for a week for their summer holiday next week, we are just tiding up house for their visiting.

Saturday, Terry dusted and hoovered 2 bedrooms on top floor, I put all the bedding into the washing machine for a good wash. It was 30 C, so all the washing can go on the washing line in the garden. Weather is so unpredictable here that I normally just put all the washing in tumble drier to save the hassle of putting out and getting in. After the housework, we went to ASDA for the grocery shopping. I go to ASDA with Daniel every other day during the week, he likes sitting in the shopping trolley bouncing up and down. He would never be bored of this. He would babble loudly producing all sorts of sound these days. At weekend with Terry pushing him, he was virtually shouting with the joy about this novelty. In supermarket I sometimes handed item like cereal box for him to play, these days he can't wait for me to hand things to him. He would grab one himself.

Sunday, Terry hoovered the first floor and the ground floor while i was settling Daniel for his morning nap. After Daniel's morning nap, I prepared the picnic box for our park trip while Terry mowed the lawn at the same time . Amazingly we got all the housework done by 10.30am. Then we set off to the Cannon Hall Country Park for a picnic. Luckily we got there early, the car park would be full had we got there a bit late. The park was packed with families. We had picnic in some shady place. Daniel really enjoyed the picnic. We left the park at 1pm, which was just about the right time to have little snooze. Back home, after Daniel's lunch time nap, he played a bit in his paddling pool in the garden with Terry.

Move to cot

2007-07-31T13:51:00.000Z

Daniel slept the following arrangement: 0-4month, in a Moses basket in our main bedroom; 4-9month, co-sleeping with me in our spare bedroom; Recently, I move him to sleep in a cot in his own room for night sleep and naps as well.

Day 1, I expected he would cry for hours before settling down. However,It turned out not as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't used the Controlled Crying method though the Gina's advice is that Controlled Crying would be the most effective for an older baby to establish a good sleep habit, however, this will just be my last resort. Instead, I used the Gradual Withdrawal, which is known as the most gentle approach to sleep-training. My aim is just to break off his sleep association with breast milk at this stage. One thing at a time! Dummy would be the next thing to go. The thought of weaning him off the dummy altogether did occur to me but it would be too cruel to watch him crying hysterically. So dummy stays on, Daniel cried for several minutes, no worse than some the occasions when the breast milk ran out and he failed to sleep. Once dummy was on, he stopped crying. Obviously with me sitting by his bed reading or talking to myself(explanation in next paragraph).he fell asleep quickly at 7.15pm, not much later than he would fall asleep in the old ways.

Day 2, Same story as Day 1 but Daniel fell asleep a bit earlier than Day 1 at 7am, and he had a good first half night sleep, during which he didn't stir at all. (he would do this couple of times when sleeping in our spare bedroom). The second half night he woke up once crying for boobies and I settled him by talking to myself. Here I have to mention one of the trick to get Daniel sleep is to phone my mum, which I found out by accident. Daniel will fall asleep very quickly and calmly while I am talking to my mum over the phone. This trick always works to a point that once I say 'Phone Waipo' He would calm down. And each time I phone my mum she would know that Daniel had trouble to sleep, she would talk to Daniel a bit and Daniel would listen to it. I virtually phone her every day. Unfortunately this trick I can only use for his day naps due to the time difference. In the evening when settling him I tried to read Chinese children book but it didn't work, he knew the tone is different. So I pretended to phone my mum with a toy phone, I ended up talking to myself for 30 minutes and it worked. Daniel fell asleep calmly and quickly listening my voice.

Day 3, Daniel seemed to get use to sleep in his cot and he slept very well this night. I expected he would stir on the second half of night as he settles quite early in the evening (before 7pm) and would normally come to a light sleep around 5am. But he didn't. He just roll from on his side to on his back and slept again.

Day 4, Daniel backtracked a bit wanting to get back his old pattern of settling by reaching out his arms and legs in between the bars of the cot and I have to hold his hands through the bar of cot while lying down on the floor next to his cot.

It is said that this method will take a lot longer than using controlled crying. Finger crossed! Hope I don't need to practise the controlled crying, because I believe babes should get frequently support while they are learning how to go to sleep without direct comfort from their parents.

9 months old

2007-07-27T19:26:00.000Z

Yummy fingers!
Dinner still not ready!
Did you see my teeth?

Daniel turned 9 month old last Wednesday. They say babes will almost get mobile one way or another at this stage. Daniel is not a good crawler, he used to just be able to creep, now he learned how to launch himself into crawling and he can arch his body into a 'press-up' position with bottom in the air but he still doesn't like to crawl mush though, as he can't turn himself back to a sitting position from the crawling one.Today he has just managed to complete such a movement with much a struggle. However, Daniel certainly is a good bottom-shuffler, he can move quite a bit distance by just doing this, moving from his toy box to the coffee table etc.

His fingers is a lot more under his control, pick up and put down object a lot more at his will. I shall look out for his pincer grip at this stag, the ability to hold objects between thumb and index finger, which is typically start to develop from this month.

He can pull himself into a standing position standing unaided for a few moments before losing his balance, he is very keen on doing this whenever I pick himself up he would straighten his legs and it's hard to put him into his trekker for a ride as he tried to stand on it all the time.

He learned to wave to people. He wave goodbye to daddy every morning as one of his routine. He waves to supermarket check-out girl and babes at the playgroup and he waves to himself in the mirror sometimes.

He has a great deal of separation anxiety: I have to be in his sight every second now as once I leave the room he will cry. I noticed each time I sit him to watch his favourite nursery rhythms DVD and try to leave the room for a while and he would scream and would turn his body away from telly towards the direction of the lounge door at once.

He produces lots of sounds with babbling now. One grandma at playgroup once commented Daniel was almost talking. I know the bilingual babes will have a bit speech delay, so I speak to him quite a lot, unfortunately in a mix of English and Mandarin. I ought to speak Chinese to him exclusively to avoid the confusion of language, but I just can't do this when we are out to the supermarket or playgroup. I found myself slip into English so easily.

JiaoZi (Chnese dumplings)

2007-07-19T13:25:00.000Z

Finally I made some Chinese dumpling (JiaoZi) as promised. The receipe for the filling was inspried by the Dumpling Restaurant(老大娘水饺店) in Kunming: 250g pork mince mixed with 250g prawn mince and some crushed pine nuts, finely-chopped spring onion, a bit dark soy source, one egg and a bit sweet chilli source. Shamely I didn't make the dumpling skin myself, I used the ready-made one from chinese shop instead though, the ready-made one is rather cheap (£1.60 for 100 pieces) therefore I opt for using it to save time and effort. The whole preparation only takes 20 minutes.

I was proud of myself for doing this as I wasn't brough up in a family who hnow how to make Jaozi, my mum has never made this herself. So my self-taught Jiaozi-making technique wan't that bad in the end!

First illness

2007-07-18T08:10:00.000Z

Daniel was ill yesterday. Monday night was pretty awful. He woke up every hour crying hysterically, which is not his normal behaviour. I thought it was due to his teething pain. Whenever he got the chance he was holding my hand not letting it go... and he hold it so hard that I virtually felt his nails denting into my skin. Also I noticed he was very sweaty, when I tried to fed him a bit water I didn't hope he would drink much as he doesn't normally drink water. To my surprise he drunk nearly half beaker of water at one go. I took his sleeping bag off trying to help him sleep a bit better, but he still woke up 5.30am, Terry came in trying to settle him back to sleep early morning but didn't succeed either.

When Daniel got up he looked very grumpy and tired, he got rash spread all over his face and his body. I noticed he got a bit rash on his forehead the day before yesterday but wasn't alarmed, as he was still feeding well and was generally happy. I didn't expect the rash could got this worse so quickly, so I phoned the GP and described the symptoms and they told me to take him straight through. At doctor's consulting room, Daniel cried so hysterically (as usual) that the doctor could hardly examine him. He shut his mouth so tight when doctor tried to look his throat that the nice lady virtually had to force that piece of stick into his mouth... when I told my Mum over the phone this morning about what Daniel looked like at doctor, my mum laughed saying that Daniel behaved exactly like me when I was that age. after the doctor's thoroughly check-up, the diagnosis was Virus Infection, no need to panic (to my relieve it was not meningitis), just give him infant paracetamol and keep him hydrated. So I followed the doctor's advice after we came back from the surgery giving him paracetamol and plenty of water. He had a good night sleep last night. This morning his rash started fading away. He perked up again, when I put him in a shopping trolley pushing along the aisle in Asda this morning, He was cooing and 'talking' to people again... my tough little boy!

Last week

2007-07-14T19:45:00.000Z

I'm not a dedicated blogger, I have to admit. There were lots of things happened last week which I thought I would written them in the blog but I didn't. It's not that I was busy. I just lost the mood moment when I actually had the time to sit in front of the computer. Things like Daniel got his first two teeth coming through ('he started brush his teeth'); Daniel learned to wave to people; Daniel started to develop separation axiety and so on... Apart from the baby development, I thought I would write a post titled 'No place like home' to record my thought after watching ITV new series with the same title; I thought I would write about the lump found in my breast, which my GP wasn't conviced it was mastitis and refered me for a hospital check-up subsequently 6 weeks ago. Last week I got all clear answer from a hospital visit, which ruled out cancer or Breast Abscess...

Nowadays my priority during the day is to settle Daniel sleep in the bed. I used to allow all Daniel's nap taking place in the pushchir or in the car, then I realised that i have to sleep-train him in the bed before putting him in a nursery. Daniel now naps twice a day, both in bed, one in morning and one on lunch time. I end up napping with him. In the evening, after Daniel settled and all the housework done there were too many other things I want to do, like reading, watching a bit telly, having a bubble bath or doing nothing

Crawled a bit more...

2007-07-14T19:21:00.000Z

Fun! let's do it again!

I'm going to knock over the block wall mummy built, haha...determined!

Um, Cawling maybe not a bad idea

Don't like to crawl...