Matthew's 18 months old!

we reached this mini-milestone on Sunday... This also means that we've been in Singapore nearly 6 months already, where has the time gone?

So.. what's been happening you ask? Well, life resumes as per normal after our very relaxing 2 week break in Sydney and the Hunter Valley. We enjoyed ourselves a great deal catching up with friends and family while we were there. Matthew especially loved chasing 'Whoa Whoa' (our golden lab) around daily and receiving early Christmas presents from Nanna and Pop. Not so relaxing was for us was Matthew's disturbed sleep during the 2 weeks, we probably only had 2 nights where he slept through! To complicate matters, Matthew also battled a viral infection which meant fever, coughing and generally being super clingy. We were very fortunate to have had grandparents on hand most days to help with looking after him.

There are lots of pictures from our trip away... here are a couple of my favourites.

His little canines (cuspids) on the top also made a sudden appearance during the end of our stay - which makes a total of 14 teeth visible. There should be 16 in a couple more weeks with the bottom canines erupting. The next and final lot of milk teeth will be his 2nd molars and they should make an appearance at around 24 months. 

 We've been back a week now and I'm glad to report that all remnants of the virus seems to have gone away and Matthew almost back to his normal self. I say 'almost' normal because, he seems to be a different boy lately. He's decided that using the blocks to build towers can be as fun as knocking them down. Playing with his shape sorter used to frustrate him, now he'll patiently work the pieces through without problem and when he's done will ask me to politely 'open' the sorter again so he can start over. After months of repetition trying to teach him primary colours (red, blue, yellow...), he's just put two and two together and his gorgeous big eyes light up like he's had an epiphone! There are other little changes which I've observed too, he now suffers from separation anxiety, particularly when he's away from me. It manifested itself while we were in Sydney. Before this I used to be able to step away for hours and it wouldnt bother Matthew in the slightest. It's all part of his development the experts say, along with the temper tantrums which we've had occasion to experience as well. All part of Matthew growing up I suppose...

Over the next couple of weeks, Matthew will transition from attending JWT Playgym to Kindermusik and Duncan will take him to have toddler swim classes on weekends. Matthew clearly loves dancing, music and swimming. Come next year, Matthew will begin first term at Pre-Nursery school (Jan 4 to Mar 12).

Matthew in Sydney 6-21 Nov

the lack of updates is due to the fact that we are on holidays in Sydney at the moment. We've been here a week now and Matthew and I have enjoyed catching up with friends and family, but have been a little busy. Yesterday, I took Matthew to the Early Childhood Centre for his 18 month checkup. All is looking very good indeed. He's tall and slim for his age (as expected, I mean look at his Dad!) and checks all the other milestones with flying colours. Tomorrow we head off from Sydney for the upper Hunter. I've posted a ton of pictures on Picasa already from our visit including a super one of Soc (our Golden Lab) and Matthew.

Seeing as I've had the luxury of babysitters this week, I've had some time with play on Photoshop. Here are some of the results...Look at 'em BIG gorgeous eyes!

 Lovely and Ethereal Matthew

 Vintage Matthew

 Old West Matthew

 70s Matthew

Sunshine Matthew

Hazy Days

Before moving to Singapore my local friends had warned me that there would be days like these...

What I'm talking about is the haze from smoke fires that have descended upon the island. It looks a bit like the pea-soup foggy winter mornings you get in Sydney. But unlike those, this has been hanging around for days now. It got progressively worse as the week led on. The haze I've read in the local paper is due to the smoke from Sumatran fires brought here by the southwesterly winds. The Pollution Standards Index (PSI) went above 100 units, anything above this figure is considered to be in the unhealthy range :(

Today, the PSI is hoovering just under 100 mark.

Matthew and I have retreated inside and haven't left the apartment since yesterday morning for play gym. This has meant that we haven't been able to go for a swim for the past few days. Although it doesn't smell terrible, there is a hint of smoke in the air and you can definitely see it. Duncan who suffers from allergies is not terribly happy with the situation. I'm hoping that a big gust of wind will carry it off to sea. Here's a picture taken from our lounge room window of what I'm referring to...

Teeth! lots and lots of them...

The poor boy has 5 new ones *, which makes a total of 13 and counting. Fortunately though Matthew doesn't seem to be terribly bothered by all the toothy action.

* Edited to add: Oh dear, there's actually about 6 or 7 new teeth, one of his molars on the bottom seems to have pushed through overnight as well. There are sharp little bumps all over his gums - brushing his teeth is hard enough as it is.

Matthew for some weeks now has shown quite some interest in birds, hence we thought it'd be a nice thing to go to Jurong Bird Park on the weekend. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. Gorgeous gardens, pretty birds of course, loads of people (as we went on a Saturday) and the shows were entertaining. Though not somewhere I'd buy annual membership to but interesting enough to recommend to visitors at a loss at what to do when visiting us. Matthew's Poh Poh and Goong Goong paid us another visit over the weekend also, so Matthew got his little dose of home plus presents from from their recent trip to China - lucky boy!

Our flights are now booked too for our trip home to Australia, we'll be their from the 6th to the 21st of November and hope to catch up with as many of you as possible during our visit.

Cebu

We're back from our holiday to Cebu in the Philippines with Matthew's Uncle Tim. We all had a great time and it's such a shame that holidays must come to an end! Cebu is highly recommended as a holiday destination for rest, relaxation and diving. Matthew had a lovely time, although was a little cranky at times, we assume due to a little bit of a cold (which came and went) and possibly due to the 3 new teeth that are coming at this time. He spent everyday either swimming, playing, running around being naughty, biting, eating, drinking 'Ju Ju' (banana or mango shakes) impressing and collecting new girlfriends or sleeping beautifully through the night and 2-3 hours during the day.

By the end of our stay in the Philippines, Matthew had attracted the attention of A LOT of ladies and girls. In return, he gave lot so of cheeky grins and cuddles and a lucky few even received frangipanis hand delivered from Matthew. As result, the female staff (and some of the male too) and guests knew his name and would call out a 'hello Matthew!' to him every where we went.

We stayed at the Plantation Bay Resort and Spa in Cebu for 6 nights and found the staff there to be very attentive and friendly. There is enough to do (if you like your water sports & spa treatment) at the resort to keep you occupied for a weeks stay. However additional activities come at a price. The most costly for us being the scuba diving, but it was well worth it. Duncan and Tim managed to accomplish 5 dives each and I managed to squeeze in 2 dives ... my very firsts. The AquaSport shop which doubles as an accredited dive centre was a minutes' walk from our 2 bedroom suite. The in-house spa which is one of the best in Asia is located 2 minutes walk from our room. We took advantage of both as often as Matthew permitted :) There is also a children activity centre and playground which Matthew took advantage of a couple of times. In addition to the usual resort facilities, there's also rock climbing wall, archery and firing range and free activities for children and adults scheduled throughout the day. One of the evenings, we took advantage of the Butler service and went out for grown up dinner and drinks while Matthew slept under the supervision of not one but two babysitters.

A quick update on Matthew's modeling career, he was offered a job which we unfortunately had to reject as the assignment shoot was scheduled for the period while we were away. Here's hoping the next job will be better timed next time.

16 Months old today!!

This is Duncan's FAVOURITE photo of Matthew at the moment. (I wonder why??)

He's doing great by the way, a molar is coming at the moment but doesnt seem to bother him at all as he's sleeping like a baby all night and not at all cranky. He is however STILL BITING!

Matthew 69 weeks

Matthew's Goong Goong and Poh Poh paid us a short visit a couple of weeks ago, and the little guy had a great old time asking for 'Sheee' (Cheese) and 'Brue' from his grandparents while I wasn't watching. He also got to spend one on one time with his Poh Poh so that I could duck over to Malaysia for the day to run an errand. Matthew missed me only a little and asked for his 'Nya nya' (Mama) only at nap time, other than that he was totally fine not having me around for the day.

a haircut might be in order...

I've recovered from my cold and finally regained enough energy to keep up with Matthew. Gosh he's such a handful some days! Always up to something naughty. His language and communication skills have really taken off these few weeks and is such a delight to interact with. He's always making me laugh throughout the day with his little antics. He is growing not only in stature but also as a person. I've got a couple of new videos on YouTube for your viewing pleasure :) One of the new videos is of Matthew swimming solo with his floaties, kicking his legs furiously. We had an impromptu swim lesson a few mornings ago and the swim coach gave me a few tips to encourage him to swim.

Life lately has been pretty relaxed for Matthew and I, a bit of shopping, play gym, play dates with friends, swimming and lazy lunches... Duncan however has been extremely busy at work. We are all looking forward to taking a holiday together in Cebu in a couple of weeks. There is also talk of Matthew and I joining Duncan on one of his business trips if that eventuates. Our firmer travel plans entails a trip back to Sydney for a couple of weeks in November and in December a short holiday in Hong Kong staying with some of our friends.

Our next visitors to Singapore will be Matthew's Grand Aunty Ade, arriving in a week and Uncle Tim arrives a few days after that. It's really nice hosting family from Aus.

Matthew (I've lost count of how many weeks)

... I'm going to apologise in advance if this blog makes no sense and for the lack of photos these few days. I'm sick, Matthew was kind enough to pass his icky germs to me over the weekend. Little Man however bounced back after 24 hours of mild temperatures last Thursday and is back to driving me crazy with his pointing and bossing me around. Normally I'd find this pretty amusing but not this week, not when I'm sick.

I suppose I can now post that Matthew was shortlisted to be the cover model for a parenting magazine last week and attended his very first 'casting call' on Wed. I was informed that it was 'highly confidential' and was sworn to secrecy - I still don't really comprehend why? - hence refrained from telling the world about it. Unfortunately, he didn't make the cut which in hindsight was a good thing as Matthew had a temperature the next day which was the day a 4 hour photo shoot had been scheduled. It would have been a very bad 'stage mummy' thing to do to make your sick 15 mth old toddler 'work'!

My side of the family arrives this weekend - hooray!  I'm looking forward to Matthew spending lots of time with his Goong Goong (Grand-dad)and Poh Poh (Grandma) and Auntie so I can take a rest.... ZzZ ZZ ZZzz Z

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.