Love Letters to Natalie

Saturday, September 24, 2005
Picnic - East Coast Park

Dearest Nat,

We went for a picnic at East Coast Park this afternoon. I prayed for a sunny day and a sunny day we have got. Thank God for that!

We prepared 3 loaves of bread, egg mayo, tuna mayo, ham, tomatoes and lettuce and drinks for the picnic today. Mandy and Elaine Jie Jie were very helpful by helping us with the food. We were kept busy at the kitchen while you were having your afternoon nap. You had a good 2 hours nap today and I even sneaked out with your Daddy to Cold Storage to buy drinks and ingredients for the sandwiches.

We reached East Coast Park at around 4:30 pm today. The first thing I did is to run to the beach with you and your porpor. I love the beach and the waves splashing on my feet. Although the beach isn't the best beach around but I'm grateful for somewhere like this without having to travel far.

You are still quite fearful of the waves, I guess it takes time to overcome your fear. I'm sure very soon, you will love the sea and beach as much as I do. I saw a very nice and cute beach set a little girl has and I'm going to get you a set too. When we are older, we can build sandcastles and jump at the wawves together.

Thank God for your por por, I was able to go rollerblading this time round. Por Por spent time playing with you while we were busy trying to balance ourselves. It was a fun and thrilling experience. Now Daddy is toying with the idea of getting us a pair of rollerblades each. I think it is too extravagant even though he had just received a very substantial amount of payrise. If your Daddy went ahead and purchase the rollerblade, you'll have very cool rollerblader parents in no time.

Picture Time

Moments with Por Por

Eyeing Por Por's sandwich

Mommy in rollerblade gear with Elaine Jie Jie!

This is what Por Por and you did while we were rollerblading

Your cool parents!

Getting friendly with people

One funny incident when we were about to leave your home. A little girl was attracted to your tricycle and came with her Daddy to look at it. You became really friendly and tried your best to get her attention to play with you. I took a quick video clip on that. I hope you will grow up to be a sociable person like you are now.

Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 11:31 PM 1 comments

Grandpa's 55th Birthday

Dearest Nat,

21st September is your Grandpa (my Dad)'s 55th Birthday. On this joyous occasion,we went to our recent favourite "Swa Garden Teochew Restaurant" for a great feast. The cold crabs there are really mouth watering delicious!

We also invited our neighbour Mr. Poon and Daddy's friends - Wee Yong & Grace - to join us. Everyone was in high spirit on that day. You were also busy eating whatever we gave you from the table. There are some food which you can eat and some which you can't. You were obviously very happy that day and kept asking for more food even though we had fed you your porridge. You were also full of silly tricks and made all of us laugh.

As usual, some photos of that day below.

A picture moment with Por Por before we go out

All dressed up in the lovely pink dress Adel Jie Jie got you

You sent all of us laughing with this pose! Jiu Jiu said this is your Kungfu.

Trying to be cheeky

Eating Greedily

It's a pity that we were too busy pigging out that we have forgotten to take a group picture together. Nevermind, there's always a next time. I thank God for happy times like this. These are moments that are better than Gold or Silver.

Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 11:04 PM 0 comments

Friday, September 23, 2005
To the Cinema

Dearest Nat,

Guess where we brought you to last night? To the CINEMA!

We went to watch "The Myth" by Jackie Chan at Plaza Singapura lastnight with Jiu Jiu & friends. Was contemplating whether to bring you along coz you are still too young to enjoy action movies. Anyway, thought we needed a break and your Daddy would enjoy the movie, we went ahead.

We bought Nachos with Cheese combo, ice cream. Before the movie started, we finished the icecream. You love the Ben & Jerry's strawberry icecream and kept screaming excitedly for more when I gave you a small mouthful. I had to finish it really quickly before you finished it all.

When the movie began, you were attracted by the horses in the movie and flapped your hands up and down in excitment. After a while, you got tired and started to make noise. Luckily I told jiu jiu to get seats in the last row and I promptly got up from my seat and nursed you in my sling while I watched the movie standing up. You fell asleep after a while and didn't wake up till the movie had ended.

That is our 2nd successful attempt with you at the movie. The first movie we went together is "March of the Penguins" a few weeks back at the same venue. You fell asleep halfway through the movie too. Looks like we can bring you to more movies in the future which is good news for daddy and me!!

We are off to the beach tomorrow! What another wonderful weekend!

Love,
Mommy

P/S: Wednesday was your gong gong 55th birthday. We went to Swa Garden again to have a feast!!

natnat's mom at 3:45 PM 0 comments

Thursday, September 22, 2005
East Coast Park

Dearest Nat,

Last Saturday is the eve of Mid-Autumn Festival. This is one of my favourite Chinese festivals. I love to eat the mooncakes (especially the snow skin ones) and watch children carrying lanterns happily. I love to spend this day with loved ones and enjoy the bright round moon together. This year is special because we have got you to celebrate this festival with us. In a year or two, you will be able to play with your own lantern and I'm looking forward to it.

We joined your Jiu Jiu and friends to East Coast Park last Saturday. It was an impromptu decision for us and we went quite unprepared. Nevertheless it was really fun. It was your first time to the beach, not counting the time when we brought you to Sentosa coz we stayed less than 30 mins that time and you were asleep most of the time we were there.

Your Jiu Jiu and friends were there to kayak, I wanted to join in the fun but couldn't coz there wasn't anyone to look after you for me. Your Daddy kayaked for the first time in his life. Despite my many reminders not to wander too far out to the sea, all of them were very bold and kayaked really far away. While they were kayaking, I took pictures of you.

When they came back to the shore, I brought you out to okay with the sand. You were not afriad of the sand at all. However when I brought you nearer to the sea, you were terrified by the waves splashing on your feet and started to cry. I quickly carried you up and you started to cry again when you saw the waves coming towards us hitting my feet. That was funny! As I don't want you to develop phobia of the sea and waves, we waved goodbye to the sea and went to the little cafe by the beach. We took many photos at the beach.

After everyone has changed, we went to the hawker center to have a feast! We had beef noodles, rojak, chicken wings and fried oyster. This was how hungry everyone was after kayaking! You had some chicken too and was happy about it.

We went home for Round 2 of our Mid Autumn celebration. Your Gong Gong cooked yummy nasi lemak and kong ba bao at home and we had those for dinner. There was Karaoke at the Condo organised by the Condo Committee. You stayed up most of the time to join in the fun with us and only went to sleep at nearly 12 am.

It was a relaxing but exhausting Saturday for both of us, I guess? We might be hittng the beach again this weekend. This time we will go prepared with sandwiches and changing clothes!

Some photos taken at the beach

Lovely Sandcastles NOT built by us

Photo time. Look at the attention you were basking in!

Curious & Happy

Daddy getting ready to kayak

You're my little model!

Coming back to the shore!

Family photo time!

Jiu Jiu and Mandy Jie Jie

Lastly, Mommy & you!

Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 3:08 PM 0 comments

Chinese Garden Lantern Safari

These past 2 weekends had been very busy and fun for us. On the weekend before last, we went to Chinese Garden to see the lanterns display. This year theme is Lantern Safari. All of us enjoyed ourselves tremendously and took many photos. We even went back to the same place where your porpor and I took a photo together when I was a baby and we took a photo together, this time with 3 of us.

Then

and Now

Jiu Jiu & Mandy Jie Jie

My favourite - Noah's Ark

You fell deep asleep when we were leaving the park. After that we went to have a sumptuos dinner at our new favourite "Swa Garden Restaurant" which serves yummy Teochew food. All of us were very hungry by then and ordered a whole table of wonderful dishes such as braised sea cucumber, roast suckling pig etc. You ate quite alot too! After dinner we all went home after dropping your Daddy and Jiu Jiu to join their friends for a few hours of LAN game.

When we reached home, I gave you a quick bath and you fell promptly asleep. That was one great weekend we had.

Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 2:59 PM 0 comments

Achievements

Dearest Nat,

This letter is to update your recent achievements. You now know how to do a "high 5" when we say "High 5"! When we stretch our hands out to you and say "Clap clap", you will hit our hands happily. Whenever you are happy, you will hold your hand up and want us to do a "high 5" with you. You never fail to make us laugh with that.

And what makes me really happy is you are finally creeping fast! Very soon you will be able to crawl well. Last Saturday, your jiu jiu left a box of yellow pucca cookies on the floor and you were attracted by it and tried all your means to get it. That is the first time we see you moving so fast towards something you like.

The evidence

Another thing that pleases me is you are able to response to my "mm mm" sound and poo into the potty. Previously when I put you on your potty, you will fidget a lot and refuse to sit still on it. On Monday, I decided to try again under the advice of your porpor and you didn't disappoint me this time! You sat quietly on your potty and pooed for the 1st time into it. For the past few days, I will put you on the potty the first thing in the morning and you will pass motion on it without fail. I'm mighty happy about it!!!

You grow really fast, my dearest baby! Sometimes I wish you will grow slower so that you will always remain a baby but at the same time I can't wait for you to grow and learn new things and be independent.

Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 2:01 PM 0 comments

Saturday, September 10, 2005
Phone Addict

Dearest Nat,

Like what I mentioned in my earlier letter to you, you love to play with our phones. Yesterday you have taken that a step further by imitating us talking on the phone. You went "ah bu ba bu" while holding your dummy phone to your ear. It was a funny sight.

I managed to capture a video of you doing that in the morning. You repeated this new trick of yours again in the evening and made everyone roared with laughter. I hope you won't take after me and become an ultimate chatterbox. I'm beginning to feel that once you start talking, there isn't going to be a single silent moment at home. Already your daddy, por por and me are anticipating the many "why" and "what" you are going to ask...

Later tonight we are bringing you to Chinese Garden to see the lanterns. Mid Autumn is around the corner and everywhere is selling lanterns. We are going to get you your first lantern, hopefully we will see something special and nice. I used to live very near Chinese Garden when I was before 8 years old and had many pictures taken there coz I went there very often with my mom. She suggested that we find the same spot to take photos of you and then do a comparison. It should be quite fun. I hope the place hasn't changed much.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it won't rain today!!! We'll have a good dinner after our excursion to Chinese Garden.

I dress you up in this sexy top today
Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 3:07 PM 0 comments

Thursday, September 08, 2005
Growing up

Dearest Nat,

At 8 months old, you are looking more and more like a little girl. I miss how you look when you were a newborn, all frail and needy. You have grown to be very expressive. You are someone who knows what you want and try all your means to get it. I hope you will continue to have an opinion of your own (nevermind that sometimes I have to give in to some of your unreasonable demands) so that you'll not be led by your nose when you grow up.

Normal toys don't interest you anymore. Seeing that you love to play with our remote controls and mobile phones, Stephen (JuJu's frien) got a few dummy phones for you to play with. He used to work in a mobile phone shop in Melbourne and is not here to continue his studies. The dummy phones that he got you are the latest high end Nokia models. That got your grandpa amused! I guessed being a mobile phone "collector", he was secretly jealous of you having newer models than him. Ha Ha! However your interest in the dummy phones was shortlived. You played with them for a while and in the end still prefer the real stuffs - our phones. My poor Sony Ericsson has been thrown to the ground for uncountable times by you but thankfully it is still working fine. This is the reason why I decided not to get a new phone, I can't imagine how I'll feel when you throw my new phone to the ground.

You no longer protest when we put you on your stomach. In fact sometimes when you are tired of sitting up, you will lie down on your stomach on your own. You can play on your own but will always prefer us to play with you. When you play on your own, you make all kind of sounds and then eventually you'll sound very impatient and that's when we know we have to play with you or carry you around. You are also creeping around on your own so we have to be extra careful.

You have also begin to understand some words. When we say "bao bao", you will look at us with a smile and stretch our your hands. When I say "neng neng" (milk milk), you will look at my breasts smilingly and lean forward towards them or use your hands to touch them. If I show you the nipple while saying "neng neng", you will get very excited and position yourself in such a way that you can suckle. It's very funny and that never fails to crack your porpor up. :-) You don't act the same to your daddy's nipple or porpor's nipple. You will simply look and smile knowingly (knowing that they are not yours to suckle) and turn away. When we sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars", you will open and close your hands and look at us and sometimes "sing" along with us. When we call your name in Cantonese, you will turn around to look for us and give us a wide big smile. You love your name, don't you?

A big thank you to your lovely Daddy who got me a new digital camera which comes with a video recording function to capture beautiful moments of you. I've since put the new camera to good use and took quite a number of photos and recorded a few videos of you.

The first picture here was taken last Friday in Grandpa's car when we were on our way home from the factory. You were fiddling with the new phone Stephen got you.

This series of picture was taken a few days back when you were playing by yourself. You got bored and started to make noise. When you saw me, you gave me a funny look which turned into a bright smile.
This is where you sit at your meal time.
A pretty picture of you with Mandy JieJie. Taken after we came back from the Comex show
VIDEOS
Bath Time
Laughing Heartily
Love,
Mommy

natnat's mom at 11:56 AM 0 comments