Celebrate with Me!

We celebrated Gabe's second birthday together with Rou's 1st month at the Community Club near our place. We rented an enclosed space, ordered a buffet spread and spent time with loads of relatives and some close friends.

It was chaotic in a good way, I think, but I hope never to do such a mass gathering again :p

Birthday boy looking so smart in his new clothes. Posing with papa in color coordinated outfits.

And with mummy

Yup, it's a Veggietales chocolate cake! It was supposed to be Junior Asparagus but the baker got a little confused and included Father Asparagus instead.

So wowed by cake-cutting.

Too fast too furious. Gabe loves this zoom zoom from uncle Max and auntie Connie. The other kids, boys actually, love it too. It was labeled "most coveted toy/ gift of the day".

The other zoom zoom. It's automated and has a gear stick to change from forward to reverse mode. A gift from daigupor, gupor and sumsokgong and families.

We were surprised to find this looking like a studio shot, with half a Nike tick behind us though. It was taken in much haste and hence none of the few shots had everyone ready enough to call it a good picture. Nevertheless, we're happy to have this family portrait for February 2009.

Territorality

As part of the challenges that come with the terrible twos, Gabe has begun to get really possessive of what belongs to him. The items can range from his own toys to stuff that he is holding in his hands at that point in time. His angst is especially towards children around his age and to the dismay of the parents, he gets aggressive enough to shove the kids on top of shouting "no!" in instruction.

On our part, we have been trying to be consistent in teaching him that he should not push other children, or anyone for that matter and to share. We have also been very liberal in smacking his hand in response to his disobedience. It is the perseverance in consistency that is most tiring on us. Sometimes I wonder if this whole process if for the disciplining of the child or of the parent.

Anyway, we were surprised when he reacted the same way to others coming near to rourou's bouncer. He will also protest when adults whom he is not familiar with or close to, carry his sister. He'll verbalize "don't want so-and-so carry meimei". I wonder where he got the idea that meimei belongs to him since we never really drilled that part in. But well, the beginnings of protectiveness of his little sister is something we are happy to see in the midst of struggling with the problem of his territoriality.

Same Same But Different

The gor gor

The mei mei

Brotherly Love

Right from the beginning, our prayer was for Gabe to embrace his little sister and be gentle with her. We've also done our share of drilling - from how mummy's going to be away in hospital for the doctor to help to take meimei out from mummy's stomach, to how mummy needs to carry meimei pretty often to feed her milk. God has answered this prayer and thus far, he has been a very cooperative little boy. I know dynamics may change as the two of them grow, and we'll just keep praying for the big brother to love his little sister and take care of her, as the younger one learns to love and respect her gor gor.

Gabe was so excited to carry meimei in the hospital.

The usual cheeky face.

Let me take a closer look at meimei.

He was supposed to stretch out his hands under her, but it happened otherwise.

"Mummy let you sayang meimei!!" is the daily cry from Gabe. And he's really gentle with her ; )

Looks like we're beginning to collect pictures like this one.

Another one of those times where Gabe asks to sayang meimei.

Now papa's got his hands full.

A Happy 2nd Birthday

Gabe is two years old!

His birthday happened to be right smack in the middle of my confinement period so we made do with a small celebration at home, with both sets of grandparents and aunties over for dinner. My confinement auntie volunteered to cook and whoa... did she cook up a storm. Can you believe it? We forgot to take pictures of the spread -- beehoon, curry vegetables, fried chicken, fried ngo hiang (made from scratch), and some soup just for Gabe.

The long-awaited cake cutting took place after dinner and you can see the glee on the boy's face.

I'm two and happy!!

Oh... that's meimei behind me.

Soooo happy when everyone was singing the birthday songs (both languages).

Serving cake to all the elders.

With waigong, waipo and yee yee.

With yeye, ah ma and gugu. Ah pek was at work.

Time to open presents! Rip rip rip. Gabe got so excited over this gift, which was from waipo's colleagues.
Not bad hor, so distant also give presents, and a very apt one samore. Cement mixer!

This, in yee's words, is the "bestest birthday present ever" and it's a vrooom vroooom Ferrari car!!!
Thank you Mark and yee!!

The Second Arrival

Dear everyone, meet my little daughter, number two to the Boonite household, 陈智柔 Gayle.

Rou was born on 28 January 2009 at 3.41pm, weighing in at 2.96kg. She came out demonstrating how strong her lungs were with good bouts of cries and the first thing the nurses noticed was the two little lobes of flesh on her right ear.

More about her on her very own blog, when the mother has more time. Yes, I have caved. Visit www.rourou-tzg.blogspot.com for updates! Meanwhile, here are some pictures taken while we were still in the hospital.

Fresh out of the womb, cleaned, bathed, dressed and happily relaxing on the warmer.


Heh heh... she's still got mummy's eyes, just like gor gor.

Christmas 2008

I have only just realised that I didn't blog about the last Christmas, so it's coming at the same time as the update for CNY.

This year's celebration was held at Gabe's sum sok gong's home, where we found an overwhelming amount of food, noisy company with lots of laughs and a mountain of presents under the Christmas tree. It'll suffice to say the adults were all stuffed with food and the kids with fun and presents.

Gabe and auntie Nikki at the sidelines of the water fight out on the balcony.

Fuel up before the real fun begins. I love the mini santarina hat!

As always, getting all four kids together for a picture tops the list of challenges.

And it's finally time to distribute the presents. Gabe's patience finally paid off when he was called to collect his first gift. See the glee on his face!

Waiting for his turn again. Last year, the wide-eyed babe sat through the distribution with nary an idea of what went on. This year, with the ability to participate, he was thoroughly enjoying the process.

Entertaining everyone with displays of purposeful ha-ha-s.

The loot. Gabe very obediently helped mummy to stack all the presents up until it was time to open them.

Carefully tearing up the wrapper...

Another conscientious effort...

And another...

And another...

Present of the year: the remote control Taxi! Incidentally, waigong bought him the yellow one and uncle ET got him the blue one ie HE HAS TWO of them!

Ending off the day with the bubble gun, which each kid got in a different color.