First Day At The Playgroup

Today is the first day of the adaptation class (1 hr) for the Playgroup. Parents are allowed to be with their kids for the whole hr of the class. This morning, when I asked her whether she wants to go to the school and she answered yes happily.

She was very enthusiastic when she reached there. She started to play with the toys in the room without any problem. When the time was up, she didn't want to leave the place. I told her that we will be coming tomorrow and after awhile she waved goodbye to her friends and left with us. Thru observation, I am not so worried about the language barrier between her and the teacher as she seemed to understand what the teacher wanted her to do by looking at her body language.

Oh ya, I drove her to school today!!! Daddy was sitting behind as a mentor.. I am still abit nervous especially on the narrower roads. Shannon made my day when she said she wanted mummy to drive.. Heehee. ^_^ Now, daddy is asking me to drive her to school by myself tomorrow !!! I know I can do it!!!

2 Great Falls Withing 8 Hours :(

Last evening, during the bbq gathering, Shannon fell down from the chair in the garden and had a bump on her head again. Luckily this time, there is no scar. Her scar from the previous fall had not faded yet. I think I must get some "Vitamin E" gel to apply on it.

To make things worse, she fell down from the bed around 3am in the morning!!! I was very angry with daddy as he knew she rolled over him and slept on the edge. Instead of shifting her back to the center, he just let her be. Poor baby had 2 falls within 8 hrs!!! Couldn't find any bump this time, but I had problem falling back to sleep as I was constantly checking on her.

Luckily, this morning the bump subsided and she is happily preparing to go to her playgroup.

Roll Over...Roll Over

Shannon is enjoying the "roll over" session with her daddy who finally put down his work and play with her...

Interior of Our House

Finally, our house is 99% packed!! The remaining 1% is to organise those tiny little stuff... ^_^

HedgeHog Visited Us Again

I saw the HedgeHog again... thanks to our neighbours who finally clear their garden of bushes... hahaha... All our gardens are now neat and tidy... Yeah!!! But poor Hedgehog, got to find a new home... Guess it will choose my next door neighbour's (93) as there are still some bushes at the corner...

Shannon's 2nd Haircut

It took me more than half an hour to trim her fringe. After trimming her hair and bathing her, I am dead tired... Today is a Sunday, Daddy is busy fixing his pc (s), he messed up one of them by installing some disc and had to back up and format everything... A boring Sunday indeed... When is the transition period going to be over??? Kitchen and Study Room are still in a mess, still got so many tiny little things to pack... xianz...

Our Garden, Shannon's Playground...

This is our garden!!! Daddy loves the trees because he can tie his hammock up during summer time. He loves sunbathing in the garden too. Most importantly, this will be Shannon's playground!!! We will be getting her a bigger slide next year. Oh ya, Daddy bought a small "swimming pool" for her to enjoy during summer time as well. We will try to source for the Motorised Car (present from Sanyi and SanyiZhang) as soon as possible.

We also intend to grow some vegetables during spring and summer time and of course, some seasonal flowers like Tulips and Mommy's favourite, Sunflower. The vegetables at the Chinese stores are really expensive. One packet of Bean Sprouts or Chye Sim can cost us SGD 4 when you can get it less than SGD 1 back home! :P

Shannon's Language Development

Recently, I noticed that Shannon have picked up more words. So, as I observed, I jotted down all the words she used/ said.

Angry Apple Baby Bag Ball Balloon Bang Bear Bird Black Blow Book Bubbles Butterfly Byebye Cane Car Cat Chair Cheese Chew Chocolate Chop Clean Clock Close Cold Come Cover Cry Cut Daddy Dance Dirty Dog Down Draw Drop Duck Ear Egg Elephant Elmo Eyebrow Eyes Fall Finish Fish Flower Fly Frog Go Hair Happy Have Head Heavy Help Here Home Horse Hot Inside Itchy Iron Jojo Jump Key Kick Knock Leg Light Medicine Merci Milk Mommy More Morning Mouse Mouth Nice Night NO Off On Open Orange Pain Pat Phone Pig Play Please Porridge Pull Push Put Rabbit Rain Raining Round Sad Scare See Rice Shannon Shoe Sit Slide Snail Snow Socks Song Soup Spoilt Spoon Stand Star Step Sunshine Swim Swing Take Teeth Thanks There Throw Ticker Tongue Toys Turn Up Walk Wake Want Wash Water Wet Wing Write Yeah Yes You

抱 谢谢 起来 姨姨 公 嬷 丈 跌到 背 被 痛 揉 菜 肉 豆 臭 大便 拿 画 躺 搽 美美 排

Other Languages Merci (thanks in French), Giap (夹), PongPong (bath) ShhhShhh (when she needs to urine) Orh Orh (sleep) Sayang, Wee (when playing slide), pui (when she vomit) Shhh (as in quiet)， cekcek (uncle), Papa, Mama

Etc.. etc..

After listing down all the words, I found to my surprise that she could speak more than 150 words now. Well of course she couldn't pronounce exactly what it should be but, its close enough for me to understand. She is also trying to use sentences as well, eg. I want, I have, . And she is able to sing out some of the lyrics along with the songs. On top of that, she knows how to recite 1-10 and A-Z after us.

Now, here is my worry. We were too used to speak baby language to her. As a result, all single syllable words became 2 syllables… She would say bear bear, shoe shoe, sock sock, cat cat etc etc...

Guessed I have to brush up my English and cut down on our baby language when speaking to her...*_*

Shannon started DANCING!!

Masak Masak

She arranged everything herself. It's so amazing that at such a tender age, my baby girl knows that on every plate, it must be one fork and one knife, not two forks or two knifes.

I'm so proud of her!

Peaceful Moments

Give them tibits and switch on the TV!!!

And of course



Napping time!!!

Swimming in the Bathtub...

This afternoon, she puked all over me after her lunch, thus I decided to bath with her. Since we bathed together, I thought I might as well fill the bathtub with water and play with her. She loves playing with water since birth. I dried myself since she does not want to come out of the water. After awhile, she started to "swim" happily in the bathtub.

After relocating here, I didn't let her take her bath in the bathtub to reduce bathing time. But I guessed she missed her bath toys and all the water splashing time...

Hmm...Maybe I will let her play in the bathtub once in a while as the water utility is pretty expensive here.

Enjoy watching her swimming time!!

Bedtime Battles

Ever since we relocated in France, we had this problem with Shannon almost every night. She will take about 1 - 1.5hr to fall asleep. We started with a routine initially but it really stress me up till i gave up. But things are really getting out of hand, cos she wakes up 11am and take her nap between 5-7pm and sleep at only 12-1am

Well, I have started a routine recently because she will be attending her playgroup next week.

I will give her milk at about 10pm, then repeatedly reminding her that this will be the last TV program she will be watching. Of course the battles was fierce for the first few days and eventually she accept the fact that mummy is not going to let her watch another show. Then, we will bring her soft toys (all that can be seen in the living room) back to the bedroom. Arrange all the soft toys nicely on the bed and another battle begins. I will sing her a series of lullaby, after all the songs, she will start asking for things to delay her sleeping time or rather to test my patience.

"Mummy, 搽搽" Then she will turn and sleep on her front. I will get up the bed and find some moisturizer to rub it on her back and chest.

10 mins later

"Mummy, mummum" She will point to the " 惊风散". Well, I will get up again and give her some.

10 mins later

"Mummy, ter ter" She is referring to "Water", sometimes I guess she hope that I do not have water in the bedroom so that she can follow me to the kitchen to get some for her. Because when I pass the water to her, you can see the disappointment in her eyes.

Etc... etc... till my patience runs out which is usually after 45 mins. I will tell her please close your eyes and sleep or else I will off the lights! She will lie down; close her eyes sometimes with both her hands covering her eyes. After another 15 mins of toss and turn, she will finally fall asleep.

It's usually hard to start a routine but I will persevere on for her own good... There are still a lot more of rules, habits or routines to carry out. Good Luck to Me. ^_^

Shannon had a great fall...

She fell down from the chair after losing her balance while trying to climb and sit on it... I carried her up and saw a big bump swollen on her right forehead... This is the biggest bump I ever saw on her... Hopefully, it will be the last...Luckily Renee gave me a bottle of "magic medicine"!!! I rubbed it on her forehead as soon as I can and massaged softly for 20 mins during her afternoon nap... and the bump disappeared within 4 hrs althoug there are still abit bruises on her forehead due to the knock on the corner of the tiles. Hope the pain goes away soon...

Playgroup Interview

This morning, we woke up at 830am preparing ourselves for the interview for Shannon's playgroup. Well, the interviewer do not speak nor understand English, we tried our best to understand what she is trying to say and guess we will need alot of interpretation on the documents she gave us. None of teachers speak English in that school. We went to view the classrooms and Shannon is very interested to stay longer but we have to bring her out cos she pooed.

I am worried that she will have problem adapting it. First, she is such a koala bear, I cannot even be out of sight for 5 mins at home... How to stay in the school for 3 hrs a day? Secondly, she just learned how to express what she wants and how are the teachers going to understand her or vice versa? Anyway, we will be having 1 hr trial lesson for 4 days on the 2nd week of May. Let's see how it goes...

Everywhere is In a Mess...

After unpacking for 4 days, Every single room in the house is still in the state of Mess!!

When are we going to finish unpacking??? Tired leh... Jason's knee got inflammation and my back is lightly sprained...Are we clever or stupid for bring so many things over? Guess we have no choice cos we do not have places for them in Sin too... Luckily our dear Shannon is very co-operative for the first 3 days.. She seems to know that we are really busy and she plays alone and watched tv alone. Thank you, my dear girl..Thank you for your thoughtfulness...We love you...

However, guess she started to feel boring liao...... no place to walk, no place to play...today she kept pestering me to go walk walk or to Didi house. This morning, my back is getting worse.. after taking the 少林寺铁打丸，(heehee) I feel so much better. The pill is damn big!!! I have to cut it into 8 pieces before I can swallow it. Hmmm... need to get someone to send more over because I left only with one pill!!!

Our Shipment Finally Arrived!!!

After a long waiting,our shipment finally arrived!!! Shannon can drink her milk with original taste again!!! Previously we were mixing her milkpowder with Damian's milk powder together with the readymade milk sold here. Complicated Siah...

The shipment almost filled up the garage. The house is in a mess. While packing, we took out Shannon's softtoy... Look at the photos and you will see how she misses them. Guess I will have no time to take photos for Shannon to post it here... Bear with it for the moment...

Swing Swing

We bought this cheap swing for her. It cost us about $13 Euro... so much cheaper than those with stand... The cheapest swing with stand is about $70 Euro!!! We are so glad that she is enjoying it...

Mowing our Garden

Today is a public holiday in France, thus daddy decided to mow the grass in the garden... Shannon was busy picking flowers and curiously looking at the mower...

We finally moved into our house!!!

After a long wait...we finally get to move into our rented house for the coming 4 years!


Our living room


Open concept kitchen which is just behind the "barcounter"


Left: Our Bedroom Right: bathroom infront and toilet room is behind the kerosene heater


Shannon enjoying herself in the living room... She love carpets, maybe the floor is too cold for her... Once we removed it, she will wants us to put it back or she will start complaining.

Shannon's dogdog is sick....

Well... she dropped her dogdog in the toilet bowl last night (as much as i guessed earlier).She looked very guilty and sad when she passed the dogdog to me or rather when i saw her walking out the toilet panickly... she showed me the dogdog indicating that the dogdog's head is wet... so i washed dogdog's head but she refused to let me hang it to dry. No choice lah.. got to dry it with the hair dryer... when she is distracted by other things, i hanged the dogdog near the heater and glad enough that it was dried when she was looking for it.

This morning... I told her that her dogdog catched a cold... She took out Damian's Doctor Toy and pretended to be a doctor!!! She listened to the heartb on front and even the back of the dog using the Stethoscope. When I mentioned dogdog needs medicine, she will put the stringe in the dogdog's mouth like how she drink medicine from a stringe.

Sometimes I just feel amazing that she can remember the details during her visit to the doctor and even act it out.

She fell asleep in her new ducky softtoy

We went for some grocery shopping for our new house... She fell in love with the ducky and even fell asleep on it...