Love Letters to Natalie
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Busy Helper
Dearest Nat,
You are starting to be very helpful after you started walking. For example, we could ask you to pass us the tissue when we need one, we could ask you to run simple errands like bringing something for Auntie Sandra to throw etc. You are also a very generous person who will not think twice about giving us your favourite french fries or anything else that we ask of from you. Of course that doesn't apply when you are in lousy mood.
We had French toast tonight complete with honey and margarin. You asked for some so I gave you some, and then Grandpa heard you eating and asked you for some too. You looked at me immediately with your mouth opened wide. I cut a small piece of the toast and gave it to you. Instead of putting it right into your mouth, you walked quickly to Grandpa's bedroom to give him the piece of toast. He was so delighted that he gave you a big hug. I think that piece of toast must be extra special to him.
You were very happy to be praised and kept coming back to me for more toast to give to grandpa. Everytime before you reached him, you will chuckle loudly. We all know you are extremely pleased with yourself and see that as a game instead of a chore.
I hope you will continue to be helpful and derive lotsa happiness from helping people.
Love,
Mommy
natnat's mom at 12:40 AM
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
To the Zoo
Dearest Nat,
We went to the zoo last afternoon. Daddy felt bad about not bringing you to the zoo on Sunday as planned, so he took half day off on Tuesday to make his promise true. It came as a surprise on Monday evening when he emailed me to let me know that he has taken the next afternoon off. It was a pleasant surprise for us nevertheless, to have the zoo to ourselves on a weekday.
We didn't make it to the zoo till about 4 pm in the afternoon. We first had some snacks at KFC, starting your special day with your favourite french fries which you happily fed us. By the time we entered the zoo, it was nearly 4:30 pm. We have 1 and 1/2 hour to roam the park.
We went to see the Polar Bear feeding, camels, zebras, giraffes, wolves, lions and etc. We didn't have the time to cover the whole zoo so we just select what we wanted to see. It was nice strolling at the zoo, looking at the animals and enjoying the look of excitment on your face. I thank God for blessing us with times like this. Everything is so serene, tranquil and peaceful. The zoo at weekday is so different from weekend. We should make an effort to frequent the zoo during weekdays.
Some pictures for memory sake. Look at the look of happiness on your little face!
Laughing at a silly action Daddy makes
Daddy with silly face
My little Miss kay poh
Love,
Mommy
natnat's mom at 6:54 PM
Picnic - Botanical Garden
Dearest Natalie,
Mandy and Elaine Jie Jie suggested going for a picnic at the Botanical Garden last Saturday afternoon. Of course we were all more than happy to tag along and we also got grandma to join us! It was great fun, a pity grandpa couldn't join us because of the AGM at the condo.
Daddy drove us to the factory to pick grandma up and upon reaching home, we changed you into more comfy wear and set off for the Botanical Garden in 2 separate vans. Mandy Jie Jie prepared alot of yummy food for us, we were going to have sandwiches for our picnic. Jiu Jiu also found some cool packet juice which he claimed we used to drink them when we were young. I thought he was bluffing me because I couldn't remember drinking that before, however Grandma said that he's right. So maybe my memory is failing me.
It was a nice sunny day. We reached there at around half past three in the afternoon. The sky was still bright and sunny when we were on our way there. However dark clouds started to form above us by the time we reached. The gloomy sky didn't drive away our enthusiam and we went ahead to lay our picnic mat, take out our yummy food and all of us had a jolly good time.
Your first visit to the Botanical Garden was when you were 3 months old. This time at 14 months, you were able to walk on the grass. You fell down a couple of times while running down the slope and you didn't seem to like the feel of grass on your hands and legs. You squealed in excitment when you saw the mandarin ducks swimming leisurely in the pond. You were also fascinated by the fishes, tortoises in the pond. We gave you bread crumbs to feed the fish and you fed yourself instead. When you finally understood that those bread crumbs are for the fish, you enjoyed throwing them into the water.
It was a pity that it finally rained heavily halfway and we had to cut our picnic trip short and go home. All of us had a good time enjoying the afternoon in each other's company. Rest assured we'll be going for another picnic together soon.
Running to Daddy
Asking Grandma to bring you somewhere
Eyeing Mandy Jie Jie's sandwich
Not wanting to get your hands dirty
Taking a huge bite at the delicious sandwich
Enjoying the apple juice
Looking up
Our little family
Those who were with us
A happy one with Daddy
Feeding the fish
Love,
Mommy
natnat's mom at 2:02 PM
Monday, February 20, 2006
Two Funny Incidents
Dearest Nat,
Many people laughed when I told them the two incidents below so I will jot them down so that you can have a good laugh when you are reading this too.
Incident 1 - Home
We were having dinner. Grandpa finished his dinner first and went to take a shower. He came out from the shower without his shirt. As he was walking out from his room, you happened to turn your head his direction. Suddenly you broke into a wide smile and squealed "neng neng", pointing to Grandpa at the same time. We all laughed! You then stroke your face with your finger, doing the "shame shame" sign, laughing at Grandpa. See how mischievous you are!
Incident 2 - Kindermusik Class
We signed you up for some music fun since late January at Kindermusik. So far you have been enjoying the lessons and I also noticed that you have become more responsive and is able to take instructions quite well.
The teacher will play several songs and pass around different instruments for each song during every lesson. After a song ends, teacher will tell the class to say byebye to the instruments and all of you are supposed to return the instrument to the teacher who will be holding a box, going round the circle to collect them.
For the first two lessons, you refused to return the instrument after each song. You clutched them tightly and I had to coax you to put the instruments back. Sometimes you tried to crawl away with the instruments.
However on the third lesson, your behaviour took a 180 degrees turn! You happily returned the instruments without much prompting and I was so proud of you. On the fourth lesson, you went up to the teacher to return the instrument instead of waiting for her to come to you. That's another improvement. You were eager to return the instruments and were all smiles when we praised you for being good.
Now guess what happened during your fifth lesson which was last week? You were getting ready to return the instrument when the song was about to end. As soon as the song ended, you dashed out wobbily towards the teacher and waited for her to bring the box out. You happily put in your instrument, turned towards me with a wide grin and a "I'm such a good girl" expression and then started to walk back. Suddenly you detoured and walked towards your classmates who were still holding on to their instruments with a stern look on your face and went "Orhhh Orhhh", pointing at their instruments as well (showing disapproval).
I was very amused by your behaviour and the first thought that ran through my mind was you're so different from me. I don't remember being so bossy at such a young age. You really have character, my dear!
Love,
Mommy
Waiting for class to begin, playing with the fun ball
natnat's mom at 3:27 PM
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Taipei Taipei
Dearest Nat,
It is my family tradition to spend Chinese New Year away since I was a little girl like you. We'll go back to Malaysia every year for our Chinese New Year, staying at my maternal grandma's house by the beach. However since 2001, we spent our new year at places such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia and this year, Taipei. It is only during the Chinese New Year that the factory can be closed for more days, giving us ample time to travel together. We are hoping to invite your 爺爺 and 嫲嫲 to join us for our Chinese New Year trip next year. We plan to go New Zealand.
So we went to Taipei for 5 days 4 nights. We arrived in the late afternoon and were picked up by mommy's friend, Patrice and her hospitable family at the airport. Our first destination is Ta Shee Resort located at 大溪, where Patrice's hometown is. Our reunion dinner for the year of dog was taken at the restaurant in the resort, together with the nice Hsu family. We had international buffet and it was a good meal to end a year and welcome another year.
Much to our delight, we discovered that the resort has a hotspring pool and an indoor heated pool so we woke up really early the next day to go for a dip at the hotspring. However to our disappointment, we were too early for the hotspring so we made a detour to have breakfast first. After breakfast, you had your first dip at the hotspring. That's also 外公，外婆 and 舅舅 first time at the hotspring too. Though we were unsure whether the water is too hot for you, your excited face told us that the temperature is just nice. All of us had a whale of a time at the hotspring and went back to our rooms to prepare for checkout after 30 mins.
At 11 pm, we were greeted at resort lobby by Patrice and her family. We set off to our next destination - 石門水庫。Patrice's parents love to go there daily for their exercise routine and according to them, the reservoir is very scenic. It so happened that it was so foggy on the day that we were there and we came back without the faintest idea of how the reservoir looks like. Our saving grace is in the delicious live fish lunch we had there. The yummy meal lifted our moods again!
After lunch, it was time to go back to Taipei and checked into Rainbow hotel which I had booked us for the remaining nights. We roamed around the bustling 西門盯 area and were very excited to see many street hawkers selling different kind of snacks. 外公 wasted no time buying whatever he could find and we were so full after eating all the snacks that I could hardly eat anything for dinner. Dinner was at 鴨肉扁 which sells delicious goose meat with either bee hoon or noodles. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to bathe you and then nursed you to sleep. You slept alot when you were there, you slept all the way from the reservoir to Taipei city for a record and you slept easily again when I nursed you after dinner. While you were asleep, I sneaked downstairs to buy magazines and souvenirs for a good 30 mins.
The next morning, we decided to change our hotel because your grandparents couldn't stand the bad ventilation in our hotel room. I booked a family suite at rainbow hotel but the ventilation was so bad that smell from the kitchen kept coming into our room from the aircon vents. At East Dragon, we were given adjoining rooms as they do not have family suite available for us.
Our first stop on our third day in Taipei was 九份, which used to be a goldmine. The place hardly has any sunny day due to its geographical location. It is wellknown to be a place of wetness and rain. Interestingly, the rain chose to stay away on the day we were there. It was all bright and sunny and Patrice couldn't believe her eyes, or rather, our luck. 九份 is another place for us to gorge ourselves silly. We had alot of nice food and 外公 and 外婆 went crazy buying lotsa snacks there to bring back to Singapore. 舅舅 bought a 陶笛 for himself which you have learnt how to blow.
As it was the second day of Chinese New Year, the place was badly congested with people when we were leaving. You got intimidated by the crowd and cried all the way down. In the end we were caught in the bad traffic jam for nearly an hour and missed our train back to Taipei. So we hailed a cab from 瑞芳火車站 to 基隆 and from 基隆, we took the 6:30 pm train back to Taipei City to have our dinner at tea restaurant. After dinner we went back to the hotel to bathe you and then head off to 士林夜市 and got totally put off by the substandard food they offered there.
On our fourth day in Taipei, we set off early in the morning at 9 am to catch the MRT to 淡水。We reached 淡水魚人碼頭 at around 10:30 am. Once again, fog began to build up when we reached there and by the time we settled down, it was too foggy for us to see a thing and we didn't manage to take a ferry back to the MRT station as planned. We took a bus to the station instead, for our next journey to 新北投。We had our lunch at 淡水, 外公 chose a lobster and some flower crab for us to try and we didn't quite like the way they cooked the stuffs, just not the taste we are accustomed to. Nevertheless you had great fun at 淡水 because we let you ride on the toy cars there. You went round and round and round and laughed so merrily that we didn't have the heart to tell you "It's the last round!". Your 舅舅 discovered how to start the car without having to slot in the coins so we just indulged you in your fun.
The rest of the day was spent at the hotspring resort (Asia Pacific Resort) at 北投。The place is totally awesome. We walked for almost 30 minutes to reach the resort but it was a very scenic and enjoyable walk. There were cherry blossoms along our wayup and the weather was nice, cool and the sky was clear, unlike our foggy morning at 淡水。We had hotspring fun for 100 minutes at the resort and it was such a relaxation to do nothing but soaked ourselves in the comfort of our private tub and tatami room. We had 2 rooms, 1 for your grandpa and uncle, and other for daddy, me, grandma and you. Again, you were really excited to be in the hot tub of water and kept wanting to stay inside. We had to make you get out of the water a few times because you are still a baby and it is not advisable to stay in the hot water for more than 15 mins. After a while, we let 外婆 take care of you while we continue with our hotspring session.
Our trip to 北投 also marked our first time meeting Patrice's BF - 楊先生。He's a really nice guy and I am very happy to have this chance to meet him in person. I've known Patrice since school days and this is my first time meeting her boyfriend and I am really happy for her. They kept saying how cute you are and that made me a very proud mama! After hotspring, we went down the hill to visit the 地熱谷。Then we left to have dinner with the Hsu family at a Mongolian Steamboat Restaurant. The farewell dinner was yummy and kind 楊先生 paid for the dinner. We went to Taipei 101 after dinner for a quick photo session and headed back to the hotel after that.
Our last day in Taipei was very short as we had to board the bus to the airport at 2 pm, we only had a few hours to venture around after we got ready in the morning. We went to the 中正紀念堂 for a quick visit, bought a few pieces of jade and then head back for a quick lunch and then got on the bus to the airport. We anticipated traffic jam so we took the 2 pm bus giving us ample time for our 6 pm flight! Traffic was as smooth as it can it all the way to the airport and we were too early for our flight. We loitered around at the airport for a couple of hours and finally it was goodbye Taipei!
We will definitely go back to Taipei again in the near future but maybe the next time we are there, we'll avoid the city and stay longer at the suburbs or rural area. We all had a great time enjoying each other's company, spending our Chinese New Year in such a cosy and meaningful way. The happiest person of course got to be me because I finally get to see my friend and her family again. I'm also happy to have you and the rest of the family to share this trip with me! I'm now looking forward to New Zealand next year!
Photos for the trip are too many to be included here. Click to see the Slideshow
Love,
Mom
natnat's mom at 2:22 PM
