I have to  be very frank... My impression of F&N drinks since I was growing up was that it's a major sparkling drinks brand and that the brand's been around longer than I am. That's about it.

But I was so happy to be selected by omy to go cover the Singapore Dance Delight Prelims, and eventually selected as the top 6 bloggers to go into the finals! Because of that, I did many publicity stunts among my friends and members of public, and helped to promote F&N Drinks as their ambassador. I also had the chance to savour F&N sparkling drinks all over again and rediscovered my love for them! It has been an amazing journey so far.. =)

Not only me, my friends around me have also experienced a new-found love for F&N Sparkling drinks that grew up with many of us.. Quite frankly, my life has been revolutionalized by F&N!

And you'll see why.... =)

There're post-its everywhere reminding me to go buy my fav drinks!

I have got F&N drinks stored in the fridge all the time!

My friends shower their love on me by treating me to F&N Sparkling drinks!

And my babies!

They too have been intrigued by F&N and their wonderful-ness! =D

As my 'ambassador-ship' draws to an end soon, I just want to say once again,

"THANK YOU, F&N!" :)

Though Joey had her fair share of ‘I-hate-taking-photos’ phases in her last 4 years, I am glad to say she’s been a cooperative model most of the time. Now that she’s older and more sensible, she can understand that Mummy needs to take photos of her all the time so that I can document her growing up. Cool.

She was enjoying a snack sitting happily on her red chair and I whipped out my camera and snapped and snapped, while she gave me funny expressions! I don’t know why she loves to ENLARGE her nostrils that way (P.S I didn’t teach her that.)

I don’t know why all her poses have to be so unconventional… =.=

Finally, a rather normal one.. =P

  

You must be wondering why I wanted to take photos when all she was doing was eating her snack! Well… that’s because she’s sitting on a chair that’s…

ON A BENCH!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My girl is so cheeky!

By the way, if you are observant enough, you’d notice that her left eye is swollen.. It’s been swollen for quite a few days, and it’s the kind of infection where a small lump grows under the eyelid (people say men get that when they peek at ladies bathing! Ha!). I don’t exactly know what causes it but I think it’s due to heatiness.

Hope that the swell will drop very soon!

Let me end with her another attempt to show you her enlarged nostrils. Hee..

I have this belief that every firstborn in the family has innate leadership abilities in them. Somehow, the eldest is always able to lead and guide the younger ones in the family. It is a special anointing that God has placed on the eldest kid and the firstborn.

This feels all the more right when I observe Joey. Since young, she’s been showing strong leadership abilities. In a group of children playing, she is often the one leading, even though she may not the eldest. Not everyone will follow her obviously, but she still leads anyway.

In a group of kids she’s unfamiliar with, she will not hesitate to take the initiative to suggest a game for everyone to play together (usually hide-and-seek) and before long, all the kids would be running here and there having a crazy time.

In school, she’s the pseudo monitoress in her class. She will chide the kids who are not behaving, and give instructions on keeping the chairs, packing the table etc. Somehow, she takes it upon herself to maintain order in the class everyday. Very admirable, I say. Her teachers have told me more than once, that she is the most mature in the class and is able to mentor the younger kids who need help. She is often made the buddy of the new kids or those who need more attention. Good eh? =)

Now that Joey has a younger sister, her leadership skills are put to better use. She watches over her sister, complains to me if she tries to touch my things and chides her for misbehaving. You should hear her long speeches to her mei-mei about how well-behaved she is, and that her mei-mei should learn from her. =.= It is very important for leaders to have strong confidence in themselves.

I am glad to have a firstborn like Joey. She is every bit a joy and pride to me. Gambatte Joey! I can’t wait to see how mightily God will use you as you grow up! =D

To my own astonishment, I have not announced it officially here!

BABY JAYNE HAS CALLED ME ‘MAMA’!

Yes, I know it’s almost unbelievable for an 11-month-old baby to do such an amazing thing, but yeap, she did. I am super proud of her because in my eyes, she’s still an infant. She is supposed to drool all day and know nothing at all, enjoying the bliss of babyhood. But little did I know, her little mind has started to capture and learn little things here and there.

As was with Joey, we couldn’t exactly confirm Jayne was really calling me Mama because she could have meant ‘mum mum’ (eating) or she was making a noise randomly. But on several occasions, the moment she sees me, she would go ‘Mama.. Mama..’! Confirmed she was calling me!

You can imagine how jealous Papa Isaiah was, that he started drilling the word Papa into her by repeating it umpteen times to her. (It doesn’t work, daddy. This kind of bonding comes naturally, get it?)

So, one fine day, after much brain-washing, she blurted out a ‘Papa’! Finally! Haha! Papa was thrilled!

By the way, don’t try to trick her into saying the Papa and Mama just to satisfy your curiosity on how it sounds like, cos she doesn’t do it on command. That might  take a while more to happen..

It’s scary how fast my baby is growing up! Her grand one-year-old happens next month!!!!! =D

Excuse me while I verbal vomit for a while. This blog has weaved too much of a fairytale fantasy about the beauty of raising up kids that I am bringing all my readers down on earth today.

The past few days have been pretty tiring because Baby Jayne got into this ‘I-just-want-to-whine-all-the-time’ rut. I mean, previously she already whines pretty much, but the past few days have been gloriously worse. The worst part of it was putting her to sleep. She would close her eyes, then suddenly burst into a struggle of some kind, as if I was trying to murder her. I don’t even want to go into the screeching non-stop crying that starts right after that pretty much last for about 90 minutes flat.

People say that your patience levels improve at an exponential rate once you have kids. The person who said that probably doesn’t have kids yet.

I have to admit, I’ve always been an impatient and quick-tempered person. You can probably tell by the speed at which I talk and walk. I cannot stand slowness in general – Slow people, slow speech, slow movies. I need everything to be fast and excellent. I may be petite in size but those who know me know they cannot mess with me. I bite, basically. If you are slow, that is.

But I am truly put to my wits’ end when I face a cute snuggly little thing who whines and cries and scratches me with her sharp nails whenever she doesn’t feel comfortable enough and I can’t scold her, or beat her or even nag at her. She simply doesn’t get any of those. When my sanity leaves me and I complain into her face, she just wails even louder and fiercer. Not exactly what I was hoping for, quite frankly.

What used to work sadly does not work for this period of time. Nothing I do can pacify her to sleep. Not the usual soft music, dim lighting and cool air-con. All she wanted to do at an unearthly 11pm…… is to stay awake.

The battle occurs even during naptime during the day. She would wriggle and struggle when I put her into a sleeping cuddle position in my arms, when it all used to be a breeze.

Please do not tell me politically-correct stuff like ‘All babies are like that!’, and ‘Babies cry and whine, don’t we all know that??’ because

MY BABIES HAVE NEVER BEEN LIKE THAT!!!!! SO STOP TELLING ME IT’S ALL VERY NORMAL AND OKAY, AND IT WILL ALL PASS ONE DAY, AND I WILL LOOK BACK TO THESE DAYS WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I’m sorry, please excuse me. That was a necessary outburst right there. After all, it’s been almost a week and I’ve lost my sanity many times over. I’ve shoved milk bottles, pacifiers, bolsters and tranquilizers into her mouth many times and got everything spat back at me. Nothing worked.

OK, I might be over-exaggerating here and a more realistic truth would be that my baby has been more difficult than usual and my usual is very well-behaved and easy sleeping pattern. I don’t want to get used to this whiney and seemingly normal stage for babies. I want my peaceable easy baby back!!!!!!!! Today, now, immediately!!!!!!!

ok, I’m done. Peace.

Back to the very cute baby that I have!!! Frankly, when she’s not whining, she’s really cute. =)

Yes, anytime to keep her quiet for a while. =P

Quite frankly, I don't usually do such things!

But since I was at the Singapore Dance Delight Finals and they had this super cute vintage open-top car for phototaking, I couldn't miss the chance! I had the chance to choose between different colored wigs, feathers and hats.. and this was what I chose!

Don't you think I look groovy!? Haha..  I think the yellow wig fitted my head perfectly well! (But I was quite tickled by the feathers though!)

By the way, this is one of the fringe competitions that took place at the venue called "Are You Ready To Groove??", and you can see all the photos taken of others who were there here! :)

Now that Baby Jayne can and loves to crawl, there’re a lot more things she can do inside of the office nursery. She’s no longer confined to the rocking chair or play gym, but the caregivers will sometimes let her roam in the playroom. I think that makes her very happy. =)

By the way, they recently built what a call a ‘Great Wall of China’ inside the nursery, to cordon off the feeding/food preparation area from the common areas. This is actually quite good because it keeps the kids away from the areas where hot water and lots of power sockets are. That day, I was in the nursery with baby and I suddenly realised that, from her perspective, she cannot see what’s happening on the other side of the wall! Ah, how sad.

The Great Wall

The little baby perched at the Great Wall.

Poor baby – She doesn’t know what’s going on in the world over at the other side!

The play gym that often confined her, especially when the older kids are stomping all over the place. For safety, you see. Just in case she gets stepped on or pushed around.

But THIS is where she’d rather be anytime!

The playroom!

It’s here she gets to roam around..

And touch every single colorful toy lying around!

Ah…. her 2 front teeth in its full glory. =)

See the boat structure behind? Any kid will fall in love with that. So fun, and you can even play pretend- Titanic!!!

“Aye Mama, you trying to be funny huh? =.=”

Happy Monday, Guys!! =D

You know, life is made up many, many choices. Some of the choice we make today will have a great effect on what’s going to happen to us in the future. If we make the wrong decision today, we will have to suffer the consequences later. So, never belittle this freedom of choice that we have been given. Use it wisely.

Why am I so philosophical today, you ask? Well, let’s just say I got inspired by my baby.

When asked which F&N Sparkling Drink she prefers, she chose… ICE-CREAM SODA without hesitation! woooooo!

But of course, I can totally understand. Ice-cream soda is the most unique drink of the lot, and I must say F&N did a great job developing and producing this drink!

Then, when she realised that she can actually have both cans if she wanted to, so she started protecting her possessions! (See how one hand is already on the Outrageous Orange and the only hand still firmly on Ice-Cream Soda??)

“Why can we only choose 1?? I WANT BOTH!”

Alright girl… you win. :)

Baby Jayne is crawling so much nowadays and she always wants us to put her down on the floor so that she can go crawl-exploring. That makes everything quite troublesome because it means we have to sweep our floors all the time, and try to keep stuffs high beyond her touch.

The problem is, we don’t really have time to sweep the floor all the time, and actually 50% of our stuffs are all at low level, especially stuffs that attract her attention – mainly Joey’s toys.

That made child-proofing the house a critical and immediate task to look into. Either that, or I can just endure all her screams and whines and confine her in her cot.

As if the cot is any safer actually. She has grown so tall now that the top ledge of the cot is now at her waist level! And because she loves to stand along the ledge, she can fall over the moment she bends over! And that can happen whenever she drops a toy onto the floor and she instinctively bends forward to attempt to pick it up.

And I haven’t even mentioned what a great big mess she causes every time she pulls down ALL of Joey’s coloring books, color pencils, rattles, musical instruments onto the floor. The worst thing is I can’t get mad at her!

The basic child-proofing stuffs I can do is to put rubber stoppers on the sharp edges of tables, put all heavy and hot things up high.. etc. Ahhh… Boring.

Kids are the most innocent and say the darnest things. What’s hard for us to swallow sometimes is how honest their comments are. It’s scary how kids always see through us, and say things that most adults dare not even mention.

Just yesterday, Joey brought me a storybook as usual close to her bedtime, and asked me to read to her. I was busy attending to some urgent work matters, and I really hate to pull my concentration away from it, and lose all my thoughts, but because I haven’t been spending much time with her the whole day, I was very happy to be able to read her a story and just bond with her. So, I gave her a big smile and asked her to sit on my lap.

Joey sat on my lap, and said, “Mummy, today you are not angry.”

I know perfectly well why she said that. There were many times when I was rushing my work, and she came along to ask me to read her stories, and I would refuse and tell her not to disturb me. She must have caught my frustration each and every time.

Pretty sad to know that. In her eyes, she must be thinking that I am a very angry mummy, who’s always angry at her. :(

Of course, I try to spend time doing activities with her whenever I can, so that I can talk to her and do something together. But, sometimes when I feel too tired or frustrated, I lose my patience, and that goes straight to the kid.

That incident jerked me right from my attitude.

I need to put my kids as my first priority. They love spending time with me and the least I could do is to give them my time and attention. It’s not like I am totally not doing that now, but I really ought to do much more. I need to invest in my kids. Showing them my frustrations will only confuse them further. In their minds, they may wonder what made their mummy angry. Was it them? And if they really thought that way, why am I inflicting such unnecessary stress on their little minds???!

The truth is, God has given me these lives, and I have been given the authority and responsibility to nurture them and raise them in the Fear of the Lord, teaching them how to be good and faithful people. I must treasure each and every minute of their lives, and give them my best. The last thing I want is to be overwhelmed by the demands of my work and my personal agenda and neglect the needs of my precious ones.

It is of course naive to think that I can spend all my time with my kids, but as far as possible, I want to do the best I can. I am after all human, and to ask me not to ever lose my temper and patience is impossible. I am just working on keeping that to a bare minimum and deal with my kids’ nonsense and tantrums with an easier heart and a smile.

Parenthood is a steep learning curve. I wish I knew everything, but even after 4 years, I don’t. I am learning to be a better mummy everyday and I hope that my kids can sense my efforts. While I am trying, I pray for God’s grace on me and special grace on my kids to understand their mummy..

In the meantime, I just keep doing as best as I know how.

请为我加油吧!

Once upon a time,  a lady was feeling bored at work, and wondered what she can do to brighten up the whole office..

Suddenly, a bright idea struck!

She can treat her colleagues to their favorite drinks - F&N Sparkling Drinks!!!!!!

Little did she know….

Her colleagues’ reactions were SCARILY VIOLENT!!! You’ll know what she meant after watching this video… =P

And of course, everyone was HAPPY to get their fav drinks!

The office was no longer dull! Everyone’s spirits were high!

F&N makes the day once again!

Thank you F&N!! =D

~ The End ~

I was still chuckling to myself silently that Baby Jayne’s teeth seemed to be taking its own sweet time to come out, which is a good thing. The later it comes out, the later we need to take care of her milk teeth.

Little did I know or expect, within a span of 7 days, her two upper teeth popped out! It was so different from the one tooth on the lower gum which took more than 3 weeks to fully grow out!

Now that her teeth have sprouted out, her entire looks changed. I no longer see a toothless grin whenever she smiles now. Instead, I see a cheeky smile! How adorable. :)

Oh, by the way, a new slide has been installed in the office nursery, and it’s become Baby Jayne’s favorite play area every morning when we reach.

And the walking the wall continues as she is trying to learn how to walk on her own. =)

What a funny expression! haha..

 

Looks like the teeth-brushing gotta start soon!!!

City News is one of my favorite media because many of their reports are very positive and give off happy vibes! :)

Last weekend, this blog was featured in their papers, along with other daddy & mummy bloggers! What an honor to be able to share the page with Best Daddy Blogger (2nd place), Edmund Tay and two of my fav mummy bloggers - Sandra Tan and Daphne Ling! =D

I really think such articles are so good and important. Daddy & Mummy bloggers should be profiled, I say. After all, childbearing and child-raising are major events in the lives of people! Blogging not only allows the blogger to air his/her thoughts and relieve the stress from taking care of kids, it also gives advice and tips to those others who need help. Daddies & Mummies also find support in each others’ blogs, knowing they are not the only ones facing a particular parenting issue. How awesome!

 

And this is the portion that mentioned us… (And it HAD to be the entry on her gross mucus… –.-.. I hope it won’t deter people from coming back to read! kekeke..)

Many people have asked me before, what is the motivation behind all my blogging efforts, and how I keep up with a new post everyday. Quite frankly, it’s not easy to be able to find something to blog about everyday, and even more difficult when my life gets busier and busier. I hardly have time for myself, and when the kids are asleep and I can settle down to do my own stuffs, I must still remember to blog for tomorrow’s entry. It does gets stressful sometimes, but I’ve found that it instills discipline in me in maintaining the blog, and I will not miss out on documenting my kids’ lives.

Blogging has made me a person who’s more aware of happenings around me. It’s become part of me to watch out for interesting things to blog about everyday, and because of that, I often get inspirations for topics to blog about when I watch my kids and what they do. The instinct is to take out my camera and shoot even though in the eyes of other people around me, it was just another play time or meal time. To me, it’s something worth exploring and talking about. =)

And of course, seeing my adorable kids everyday, I can’t help but thank God for them. They are so precious to me and they are truly the ones who inspire me to keep on blogging! They are the source of my daily entries! Plus, you can say I have some degree of exhibitionist in me – I want to show off how cute my kids are! =P

Blogging has also brought me experiences I might otherwise not have a chance to go through, and brought me to places I’ve never been, or met friends I’ve never met. The exposure that blogging has given me is priceless and it’s also opened up doors for me to touch the lives of some people. It’s just amazing, really. =)

Thank you to each and every one of you, who has been reading and supporting this blog. I love writing and blogging for you guys! =D