Hand me down

Baby En reminiscing the happy times he spent lying on this cot watching the same little prince mobile just er... 12 months ago? How time flies. Now, his brother Xuan is hogging the cot, using the same bean bag, and watching the same mobile and seeking solace in the same soothing tunes.

Also see the interesting Kodak moment video on babyenyap.blogspot.com.

Return of the mahjong prodigy

Yes, the return of the mahjong prodigy - the mahjong table and beyond.

After a wonderful lunch excursion to his namesake - En's house (THANKS) - where he roamed the house as if he owned it, poked a golden retriever (Pebbles) twice his size on the head, made a mess of the dining table, hid a lego toy at every corner of the house, baby En returned home and continued to make his mark at the mahjong table. Grandpa and aunty succumbed to his mahjong prowess where he totally hogged the tiles and refused to give anyone any tiles he fancied (or he reckoned they fancied) - already the making of a great mahjong player.



I'm so going to get flamed for this.....

Scared or not?

It's a fine line between a mischievous kid and a hyperactive kid. At the age of one, you don't know whether you kid's exuberance falls into which category. En is at that age, and displaying signs of being over active. He's like an energizer bunny, and can go on and on and on and on..... dragging you around the house. Of course, his grandparents are in denial and said that we are paranoid, and that this behaviour is cute. Of course lah, they only see him once or twice every week leh. Although his nanny says his fine too.

One night, he was reading his puppy book and suddenly went hysterical. He started to laugh and then kept on banging the book on the floor. He even licked the book (like a puppy)...eeks. I don't know whether to laugh or start to get worried. Maybe is because I keep saying rearing children is like keeping a dog - either my theory is right - or a 'sublimal side effect' arising from our parenting method. He is turning out like Momo (our corgi).

En - The Mahjong Prodigy?

I think this is the only video neither my wife nor I want to post in our respective blog. It is a classic 'violation' of all the sacred parenting handbooks. But since I am already not a firm follower of parenting handbook (see my first posting), I will do the honour of presenting to you "En - The Mahjong Player".



Ok, some backgrounder before I get slammed by netters. We play mahjong almost every weekend - and instead of Mozart & Beethoven - En was stimulated by the clashing and banging of mahjong tiles, the shouts of "pong", "kang" and "hoo" throughout the nine months of pregnancy and when he was an infant. I did a small experiment one day, and realized he slept like a ... er well ... baby in the same room we played mahjong. As he was growing up, he was always keen to see us play mahjong and would sit ..almost quietly beside us... while we play. He would even arch his head to see our tiles.

Happy New Year

Ok, we received the Year 2007 in our normal way - mahjong and fireworks, albeit with fewer number of people this year as wifey is till doing confinement. Wife and I won $23 from her parents in mahjong, and we watched the spectacular fireworks (probably for the last time) from our flat in Cantonment - dig the ones that flared from the rooftops of some buildings in the CBD. None of the kids were awake, and we had no intention of waking them up in the middle of the night for this.

Wife and I are quite strict about bedtime - and our elder son would be in bed by 9.30 pm (used to be 8 pm a few months back). So we are generally quite appalled when we see parents with blurry eyed kids shopping or having supper late at night. We reckoned it is because either i) they don't have maid / someone at home to help tend to kids while they need to run their errands or ii) they are trying to make up for lost time with their kids. If it's the latter, I think it's very uncalled for - it's not good for the kids - they need the sleep. It also enforce discipline and gives you some time at night to spend time together. Even if we are at someone else's place, we make sure we find him somewhere to sleep at the same time until we leave.

Though some of our friends are still quite bewildered as to why we avoid bringing kids to wedding dinners or for night outings as per other parents. For the record, wedding dinners start at 8.30 pm - BEDTIME!!! I don't want to bring a kid there, only to find that when the dinner is about to start, he starts getting cranky the entire night. Well, it's different parenting style, and this is something worth picking up from the western school of thoughts.

Happy New Year folks. And to my pals -sorry can't spend both NY and X-mas with you guys this year - must have been fun.