Melaka Road Trip Update

Hello All, I'm pleased to report that we made it home in one piece! Melaka was great fun as both Matthew's Auntie Kim and Grandfather Goong Goong were there to show us around and babysit. We left the house at 8:30 in the morning and 30mins later (a few left turns and mucking around with the newly acquired GPS) we headed for the Causeway between Singapore and Malaysia. Although Google Maps had predicted that the drive would take around 3 hours, the trip itself was closer to 5 hours due to the queue at both the Singapore and Malaysian immigration check-points. A little more mucking around as we figured out the toll system for travelling on the Malaysian highway also set us back a little time. Sat afternoon was spent enjoying the spoils of Goong Goong's durian hunt. Wikipeadia reckons it has a 'unique' odour, but Duncan and most causasians would say it stinks :) I had given Matthew a piece of durian to try in the past and he had not taken to it, but it seems that Matthew doesnt seem to mind a little bit of durian delight in the afternoon!

During our very short stay, we manage to squeeze in a visit to a couple of the tourist sites around town and came away with a few snaps, these have been posted in the usual spot.

Matthew is 15 months old (tomorrow!)

I'm posting his 15th month update a day early as we will be heading to Malacca on our first road trip in to Malaysia. Pretty exciting as we haven't purchased any maps and will be relying on google maps on my phone to get there! Should be a laugh, maybe a few tears too, we'll see... We picked up our new car on Tues and are enjoying to freedom of driving and getting to know our new home a bit better. Matthew loves grooving in his car seat dancing, clapping and kicking his legs to the radio. He also fell asleep in the car on the way home from play gym yesterday.

Can't possibly be comfortable with his head dangling like that!

At 15th months of age, Matthew is still an EXTREMELY active and alert little person, he's on the go non-stop every waking minute. He's enjoying life very much and is still getting himself involved in everything and observing the world around him with a very keen eye. He loves to communicate to us in both sign and verbally and is adding new words and signs to his vocabulary every day. This week he signed 'Teddy' and 'book' for me for the very first time, he's only done it once so far and I'm still waiting for him to do it again! Matthew loved signing 'water' for his Nanna and Pop while they were here, and more than a few occasions would trick them into fetching his water bottle just because he could :)

Matthew loves to ...
... play with the phone and hold it up to his ear and pretend to 'chat'. He's worked out where to plug-in Dad's audio/video cables for the amplifier and enjoys pushing and pulling the plugs in and out. He knows that the mouse controls the cursor on the computer screen and which remote controls the air-cond in the apartment and loves to play with them. He loves to pull apart blocks and is a destroyer of all things that ding, beep, plays music or moves. He loves anything with buttons and has pressed the emergency button in the elevator on more than one occasion (actually, I've lost count of how many times I've had to apologise to the security staff). He loves going through my wallet and pulling out all the cards and coins too! He loves roaring like a lion and will walk around with his toy safari animals yelling 'RRRRRrrr!'. He likes drinking the water in the swimming pool :( His favourite food is still blueberries and he also loves oats and looks forward to a big helping every morning. He's still a great little independent feeder with a healthy appetite and has a well developed palette for a toddler , I've just discovered that he loves olives, balsamic vinegar, chilli (will eat chilli sauce straight out of the bottle), pepper and raw garlic. He's even tried a little bit of wine offered on my finger tip and wanted more.

I'll post some pictures of Malacca next week some sure.

Matthew 64 weeks - A visit from Nanna and Pop!

This week Matthew's been treated to a visit from Nanna and Pop from Aus. They've even coined a new nickname for him, 'Destructo' (Daddy calls him 'Godzilla') as he likes to pull apart and destroy everything! - blocks and train sets especially. Matthew's had a wonderful few days so far out and about town, by the pool and yesterday we went to the zoo. We kicked off the visit to the zoo by watching the elephants splashing about in their bath and Matthew even got a chance to feed them. We even had a lovely breakfast with the orang-utans and some other furry and not so furry friends (snakes). Matthew would have loved to have pounced on any of the active animals, but showed a clear disinterest in anything that didn't move. I've got lots of pictures posted in Matthew's week 63 and 64 Picasa gallery - certainly a week to remember in years to come.

 Pic of Matthew pinching Pop's 'news'.

In the last couple of weeks, Matthew has been doing lots of baby talk and his favourite word at the moment is 'brue brue' which means blueberries, his favourite food. We avoid mentioning the word 'blueberries' as he'll run to the kitchen and attempt to open to fridge door to get at the blueberries. 'Brue' can also mean food in general, and at dinner time he'll yell 'brue! brue! brue!' lots until you feed him. He's also started saying a 'nose' which sounds more like 'news' as he'll say it when pinching his nose at the same time so it comes out very nasally (very cute!).

Singapore's 45th Birthday & Hungry Ghost Festival

Singapore celebrated it's 45th Anniversary since gaining independence from Malaysia on Monday, for us, this meant that Duncan could enjoy his first 'long weekend' since arriving in on this little island country YAY! We enjoyed lots of family time together and even squeezed in a few of play dates and swims with Matthew's friends Charlie (3) and Lizzie (nearly 2) and new friend from our building Hayden (1). We stayed away from the celebrations to avoid the heat and crowd by lazing by the pool at a friends' place. The only thing which made National Day any different from any other weekend for us was the armored tanks that came thundering down the road that night and the fireworks display we could see in the distance.

On a more interesting note, Tuesday was the start of the Hungry Ghost Festival. According to Chinese tradition, the 15th day of the seventh month (I know it's August, but keep in mind that Chinese New Year was celebrated on Feb 14 this year) in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month, in which ghosts and spirits including those of the deceased ancestors roam. On Ghost Day, ghosts and spirits are believed to visit the living. On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to amend and set free the sufferings of the dead. Sounds a little scary doesn't it?

This past week with Matthew has been a bit of a blur. Matthew is back to his bad habit of biting again. My shoulder is covered in little Matthew bite size bruises. Saying a firm 'No' doesn't seem to cut it and he thinks it's funny when I pull the 'Mummy's angry' face. He often does it when he's overtired although he does sometimes like to nip at you when you least expect it. I guess that's why they call the 'ankle biters' (yes, he's bitten me on the ankle before).

Oh yes, .... between visits to the playgym and pool over the weekend, we managed to take a look at a couple of cars. It looks like we will have a little Honda Insight, which looks remarkably like our old car in a couple of weeks.

Matthew 62 weeks

I made this compilation of pictures from Matthew's first year and Matthew just loves sitting on my lap and watching it with me. Besides using it as a tool to get Matthew to sit still for a few minutes, I use it also to point out the people in his family so he remembers faces and names while we are living away from home.

This is the edited version so it doesn't run too long and small enough a file so I could post it on here. Enjoy :)