Gabe Can Spell!!!

Actually, it's only just because he can sing "The B-i-b-l-e"...

Hee...

Gabe Says in "Dress Me Up"

Mummy used to have a lot more freedom before I came along -- freedom in mobility, in earning an income, getting stuff done and basically being productive in a different sense. I'm not sure if it's because mummy gets bored with this lack of freedom that she decided to go creative, with me as the subject/ model. She has this thing with headgear.

That's my gai gai pants on my head. And I'm holding my pajamas pants.

Switch.

Then there's this ah go go hairband...

Sigh... so I decided to give in to her craziness and strike a pose. The things I have to do for my mummy...

I Love My Music

Gabe was first introduced to Veggietales when he was about 10 months old. I needed to plop him somewhere when I vacuumed and mopped the house and attempted to use Veggietales as a form of distraction and entertainment. It didn't work. He just wasn't interested. But things took a turn when he was about 17-18 months old.

He started liking the Theme Song. In fact, he liked it so much he'd allow me to brush his teeth without the usual fighting, screaming or crying. He liked it so much there were some mornings the first thing he said to me was "Veggietales. Theme song." He'd like it so much he'll plague me with endless requests throughout the day to "Mummy, on Veggietales. Theme Song." And when he didn't get what he requested for (video's only turned on once a day), he'll go "Mummy, sing song the Veggietales! Sing song the bome bome bome bome!" Throughout the day. Here's how the theme song sounds like.



One day, he decided to attempt to sing the song for himself. And boy did we have a good laugh. This is his first attempt.



Then, he got to a more advanced stage where he added sound effects and commentary. He also chose which lyrics he wanted to leave out. For your information, nothing is wasted in this version of his. Even the parents took some time to figure out the parts that sound like jibberish, but they are parts of the song. Go figure.



The other figure that commands Gabe's attention is the purple dinosaur. Seriously, I do not know of any kid that doesn't love Barney. Why ah? Gabe can now sing, word for word, Barney's signature "I love you" song.


And... it is true that you'll influence your children according to your background. I grew up with a certain type of music in my household and it is then no surprise that with both influences from me and Gabe's waigong, that he'll be introduced to...

Yeah, go ahead and faint. The king of Cantopop is the next in line on Gabe's music list. Let's see how far this list will stretch by the time he turns two.

Introducing...

The latest to-be member of the boonite clan: Gabe's sibling to-be.

I think the two are going to be very different, judging from how I'm going through their individual in-utero phases, and perhaps from a very biased perspective, how they "look" on ultrasound at 12 weeks.

Gabe

Number 2

By the way, fella's got a hand plopped on the forehead here.

Surprises

Gabe: Papa. Armpit hair. *derod raises arm and gabe fiddles around*
Derod: Smell? *gabe does it!*
[Now, the boy will plonk his face into his dad's armpit voluntarily expecting some laughs out of us.]

While out in his stroller one late afternoon, Gabe repeats in complaint "shai!", after which he reaches backward and with both hands crack the pram's shade down to maximum, exclaiming "cover!" as he does so.

"Dark dark cannot see aeroplane!"

Derod: Waigong/ waipo/ yeeyee zhu na li?
Gabe: Potong Pasir
Derod: Baby zhu na li?
Gabe: Sengkang
Derod: Ji lou?
Gabe: San lou.

Gabe woke up one morning, sat up and declared "Must call gu por and hinweng gong!"

It was one of those days that we had derod's dad's car with us and I took Gabe to pick derod up from work. I casually told him as we were entering the CTE tunnel, "go inside tunnel". It stuck. Subsquent trips would involve Gabe going, "Fetch papa. Papa office. Go inside tunnel. Uncle James [derod's colleague who shares his office room]."

Gabe was with his maternal grandmother one Saturday afternoon and she was having a hard time putting him down for a nap. After having her patience tried for some time, waipo decided to raise her voice and Gabe pouted, rolled away with his back facing her, and a short while later, turned back to tell waipo "hui jia..."

Ze Incredible Taxi

Behold the amazing invention of my father, ze incredible taxi, of which gabe is main driver.