Blabber Update: 19 Months

Adult: Call ______
Gabe: Don't be rude. [He actually meant to say "no!" but instead instructs himself while looking at you, with the response that you will give him when he does say "no", hence skipping the step of actually saying "no". The innocent bystander will be wondering why he is being told not to be rude when asked to be greeted. Alternative responses include "don't say no" and "must call people".]

Instructs the mother on a regular basis with "must call sam sok gong", changing the names of people according to his mood.

Tries to form a sentence with all the accurate vocabulary and grammar but due to the sheer feat, doesn't get it right the first few times. Will try and try again until he gets it right, and is satisfied with the final sentence, all on his own.

Negotiates. Understands the "do ___ first, then do ___" concept and tries to apply it to his advantage.

Increase in number of phrases in Chinese.

Can sing quite a few songs on his own without assistance. Increased repertoire of songs from The Sound of Music.

Can complete the-couple-equation for most of the people we hang out with, even if you only see him once a week, or been to visit at our home just once. For example,
Cheoklet: Auntie Joyce and...?
Gabe: Uncle Keith

Recognises and remembers all maternal and paternal family members on cheoklet's side and most paternal members on derod's, since derod's family is really large and we don't see all of them on a regular basis.

Counts from 1 to 20 in English, something he accomplished about two months back. Forgot his A for apple -- Z for zebra (which he achieved at about 15.5 months) since he moved on to other toys, books and veggietales.

Can describe your mood as "happy" or "upset".

Can grasp the concept of two. He takes a walk in the park and points out "two dogs", remembers there are "two aunties" in weiwei's house, etc.

Verbalises specific landmarks or memorable details of a place or person.

Please be Patient, the Doctor is In

For a boy who hardly makes any trip to the doctor's office, gabe has been doing more than his fair share of trots there these few weeks, and for all sorts of reasons.

He came down with a weird, red rash all over his body one morning. No accompanying fever or other symptoms. Turns out it's due to a virus. It was gone within a day but we still got to pay for the consultation and medicine.

One fine morning after I took him off the toilet bowl when he was done doing his business (yes, we've been poo-training him), I got more than startled to find it stained red, much like someone just poured a cup of ribena into it. So off to the pediatrician we went and he was diagnosed with constipation. Apparently, I had failed to notice the small but persistent signs for the last few weeks and the situation aggravated to this point. We had to give him a special sugar syrup to loosen his stools, go aggressive on the fibre in his diet and make the boy drink, which is one of the most tiring things I have to do. You see, gabe is bad at drinking. We have to coax, force, disguise, negotiate, do all sorts of things just to get him to take three sips. Anyway...

He came down with a bad bout of flu a week later. My personal method of dealing with gabe's flus is to last it out and unless it gets really bad, or if it affects his sleep, I would keep medicines out of the way. And if I were to medicate, it'll usually be self medication since I'm familiar with the few that he's been prescribed with thus far. But this one was bad. So off to the doctor's we went. Much to my dismay, we had to drug him for a week, but it all went off eventually and I took home more knowledge about his medicines and how/ when to administer them.

Two to three weeks later, which is today, we saw the doctor again! For the last two days, he has been giving me three soiled diapers a day, versus the daily trip to the loo for his downloads. The queer part was that the stools were progressively more watery with each incident. I wondered if that was diarrohea, since I'd never met with a situation like this before. On day two, he started to develop a low grade fever. Derod and I decided to take him to the doctor's the very next morning. Turns out, even if we didn't have that intention, the incidents following that morning would get our butts up and going: gabe woke us up just as the sun rose up the horizon with a big soiled diaper and after his morning milk feed, gave us two others within an hour. The diagnosis: gabe caught a virus and it should self-resolve but we have to last it out for the next three to four days. Meanwhile, we have to hydrate him with like a litre of fluids a day (I almost fainted) and we busted our pockets purchasing the prescibed fluids, which gabe fought to push away after just one sip. Apparently, he caught this virus from where children gather. The doctor named the possibilities of childcare centres and playgrounds.

When gabe was between six and ten months old, a friend commented on us washing his teether-toy when it dropped on the sidewalk where we had lunch, and on us wiping the high chair gabe was on (the wet tissue turned out pretty black). I thought about whether I was being too picky about cleanliness but decided that it was reasonable for two reasons. One, my son is a fingers-sucker and those little hands find themselves in his mouth after touching the world. Two, when we we young, there weren't such things as hand-foot-mouth disease, rotavirus and all sorts of other stuff you'd only encounter when one enters the realm of modern day parenthood. But as gabe grows older, I become more relaxed in this aspect but to rid him of the fingers-sucking habit is still the goal yet to be achieved.

Anyway, we ask for you to please pray that the little boy will recover soon and that we'll be rid of those doctor's visits. It's lucrative to be in anything that involves children (consultations, clothes, education, etc) so if you are considering a career change, why not place this on your list?

Training: The Church Part

Derod and I have come face to face with a growing gabe and decided that certain forms of training have to be put in place. For starters, we have set aside a routine to take place on Sunday during church services.

Thanks to two very kind and generous ladies who are supporting our efforts, we are training gabe to sit through the front part of the service like every other member in the congregation. That means that he'll participate in the singing portion of worship and sit through intercession and the Lord's supper with me. After this, he'll follow derod to the toddler's class, and spend time singing, learning a short lesson and getting some craft work done.

He has been relatively cooperative thus far and except for one occasion, we were able to co-exist peacefully. The distraction comes when he starts shouting out the names of people who go up to lead various portions of the service. He grins in glee when the children are dismissed to their classes. According to derod's reports, he is beginning to settle down as part of the class, versus living in his own world while being in the same room as the other children. He looks forward to the singing (and comes back home to ask us to sing the same songs for him), and to the tubes of glitter during craft time.

But of course, the papa is the one who has to do most of the craft work and getting the son to press the pieces of paper down after he glues them. Derod speaks with pride at this piece of work shown below, because he says the others just randomly paste the stars around, while his was the only one with a sense of artistic direction...

Gabe Says in "I Am Chao Been Because..."

My mummy turned me from this

To this...


Yee yee and auntie livingjoyfully have been the most articulate in expressing their *ahem* opinion towards mummy's "talent", which she doesn't exactly refute. Her only defense is that I can't sit still, a reason she can't use this time because I was happily watching Veggietales. Looks like the more challenging it is, the better my haircut will be.

What to do? I howled down the entire Compass Point and the small hair salon at waipo's place when they tried to give me professional services. So mummy says I'd better not complain too much. We just hope the hair will grow out soon.

Uncle ET in Beijing

Gabe's uncle et is well settled in the Paralympics Village in Beijing and has now got a space on the Straits Times blog to pen some thoughts prior to his race.

Please continue to pray for him to fully recover from the bout of flu and be in tip top condition as he races down the track for the heats on 11 September, and the finals on 12 September!

Conversation at the Masak Station

Gabe managed to "cook" a plate of vegtables and a plate of sausages, and derod came walking by.

Cheoklet: Why don't you let papa eat the sausages?
Gabe: Papa! *took the sausage out of the plate and handed it to derod*
Derod: Eee... use hands one. Papa give you rating "D".
Gabe: What's that!!

I thought that to be absolutely hilarious.

Paralympic Champ!

Image taken from the Team Singapore press release on 28 January 2008 entitled "Boccia Team Achieves Singapore ASEAN Para Games History"

Gabe's Uncle ET flew off to Beijing early this morning to participate in the Paralympics 2008. He's part of Team Singapore, and the only representative from the country in the wheelchair racing event.

We're cheering you on, and keeping you in our prayers. So fly with the wind and race your best! Whatever the outcome, you're already the champ in our eyes. And as for gabe, he's just waiting for you to come back soon so he can play with your wheels and see those lights on the little wheels go.

Clap clap! Uncle ET's the best!

The Father and His Son

Derod was a jitterbug when he discovered we were expecting our first child. Elated, but jittery. He won't say it but if you probe and probe enough, he would tell you he doesn't really know how to be a father, and most of all, about his fear of carrying a new born baby. A wobbly, fragile, head dangling (if you don't hold the neck properly) new born baby.

But he rose to the occasion effortlessly, and by Day three, was already doing this.


From then on, derod has been nothing but an amazing dad. In fact, he can do everything that I can do and look after gabe independently. Everything except cook his meals, cut his nails and hair. When I was stuck at home the last two months, he took gabe to church on his own, brought him to class, fed him lunch while out with the lunch kakis and took him home half a day later. He can bathe the fella, have his meal while feeding him, play with him, change him, put him to bed, basically exist independently with gabe, without me. I know of very few fathers who can, and who are willing to do that (kudos to you, you know who you are, dear friends).

So needless to say, derod has cultivated a certain bond with his boy. I've always been very proud to have derod as a husband, and now looking at him with his son, am so proud of him as a papa too.

In matching OP tees