Happy 7th Birthday, Emmalyn

Dear Emmalyn,

Happy blessed 7th birthday!

How did all the time fly so fast? It felt like we had just celebrated your graduation from your childcare last Nov with a concert. We love your performance and how you shine even though you are the smallest in size. We have seen how you've grown in personality and learning. But that was just the beginning of an even more exciting journey!

Entering primary school is such a great milestone and I thank God that you've been adapting well. You gained independence and courage with your new status. You had fun making friends, buying things and still quite chill about learning even though we had our fair share of struggle in keeping up.

It's unfortunate that Covid-19 happened and you didn't get to enjoy a more carefree 1st year. Instead of lots of running around the school, it's filled with home based learning, zoom lessons, safe distancing and masking. But thankfully, like many children, you are more resilient and flexible than we could ask for. I'm also glad we had some short trips to Batam and Malacca before all the lockdown.

We got to spend alot of time as a family during the Circuit Breaker and it's a blessing to be able to do so. You get to play more than you could under normal situation - Lego, TV, dolls and role play. We should really had studied more but I can't cope with working from home, Avalyn and housework. Instead, I decided to spend more time and effort on working on your heart.

I thank God that you have been a really good sister to Avalyn. Both of you do fight over toys and disturb each other, but there are alot more loving and sweet moments. You would come back from school telling me that you miss her. You enjoy spending time with her. You always drew pictures of her. You taught her many things like talking, drawing, playing, dressing up. And of course, some naughty things too. Avalyn loves you alot too and looks up to you as a role model.

Now that we are back to the regular routine in the new normal, it's time to pick things up. You started English writing at Write Edge and went back to physical lesson at Fun with Abacus.

You were supposed to take the RAD ballet exam in April but it was postponed till July. Since the examiners can't travel to Singapore, their dance was recorded for the examiners to grade. Glad that it went well and you came out of the exam happy with her performance! You are truly passionate about ballet and would like to continue learning.

As much as I would love to see you persist in drum, I know that you lack of that passion you had in ballet. I'm proud of how far you had came along and I believe the past 2 years of learning drum has surely helped to develop your interest in music. Your 2nd drum rectial last Dec was amazing! You also did a combined piece during the Covid-19 with the rest of the instructors and students of Aureus.

Because of Covid-19, we stopped swimming lessons and you only get to attend a few soccer classes. You miss swimming but we decided to take things slow. 

 

Meanwhile, let's continue to pray for Covid-19 to get out of our way! As we celebrate your 7th birthday, I want to give thanks to God for watching over you and our family for the past 7 years. There are always so much new experiences and incidents that we aren't always ready or equipped to handle them. And, I'm feeling the inadequacies and helplessness more and more year after year. I know I could only rely on God in this parenting journey. I pray for more wisdom and faith to parent both you and Avalyn. 

With love, 

Mummy & Daddy

Happy 4th birthday, Emmalyn

 

Dear Emmalyn,

 

Happy 4th birthday!

 

Hope that you have enjoyed all the birthday celebrations! You had a pool party put together by Auntie May at Koh Samui, a non-theme turned Frozen themed party at school, shopping of presents and feasting with grandparents! Many had also showered you with presents - toys, books and clothes! (Thank you!)

 

You asked for ear piercing after seeing your cousin, Xara, having pretty earrings on her. In fact, you started asking for it when you saw your school BFF, Angelina, had it on many months back. So, we finally did it on your birthday!

 

Emma: 3 years + 9 months

It has been 9 months since I last wrote about Emma's growth and progress. Emma has been doing really well and I pray that she will continue this way!

3 years old - 3 years 8 months old

Emma's 3rd year updates!

It has been a joy documenting Emma's monthly updates the past 3 years and I still love to read back at her growing journey, but it's time for a break. Instead of updating on monthly basis, I look forward to keep up with her monthly photos and update on individual milestone, learning and growth experiences! Click on the links to join her on her growing journey!

3 years old

3 years 1 month old

Potty trained!

Love dance and music

Happy 3rd Birthday, Emmalyn!

Dear Emmalyn 

We'd an incredibly fast and eventful year! 

Emma: 2 years + 11 months

We had a proud parent moment last month! 

Emma took up the challenge to be the flower girl for my cousin's (her aunt's) wedding. Prior to the wedding day, the flower girl and flower boy (her 4 yo cousin J) met up for practice a couple of times. On the actual day, both of them put up a good show and walked in a quite a good order in front of the the couple.

Emma: 2 years + 10 months

It has been a month of growing independence!

Emma has been sleeping in her big girl's bed for coming to a month and she had succeeded without falling off the single bed/guard rail! However, it has been slightly more challenging to put her to bed as she would always find reasons to get off the bed/room. I had more trouble with "I want to urine!", "I want to say goodnight to papa!", "I want bear bear." when I accompanied her than her strict Daddy. 

Emma: 2 year + 9 months

We'd a pretty happening month and the highlight got to be our Hong Kong trip! 

It was a birthday trip for me but felt so much like one for Emma. Haha. No, I'm not complaining. I'm happy as long as the family is. Anyway, we had a simple & yummy celebration on my actual birthday. It was such a fun trip and I'm still missing Disneyland, Ocean Park and all the yummy food. Let me try to work harder to get some travel posts up! 

Emma: 2 years + 8 months

If you think that being a great parent requires a limitless amount patience, you are wrong. You need more than that. 

Pink dress from @genkidsg

Emma: 2 years + 7 months

Inquisitive, Imaginative and Irresistible!

Emma's at such a fun and enjoyable age now. She's always full of energy and actions. Her minds are bursting with ideas and can't wait to explore the world. She questions all she wants and never give up until she gets a satisfactory answer. That's include some rolling and tears but it's all manageable and we know it's all part of learning.

Emma: 2 years + 6 months

Here's what happens, just 3 decent photos, when Emma isn't in the mood for photos. She took off her shoes and monkey around. She was probably overstimulated by her morning trial gym class. She was also obviously very nap deprived as she couldn't get herself to sleep without her thumb.

I'm back on trying to stop her thumb biting and dabbed chili padi once again! We had been pasting plasters at her thumb before she go to bed at night (She's probably the best ambassador for hansaplast as she uses plenty of them daily). It worked for a while but then she started to remove them in the middle of the night to suck/bite.

Having tasted the spicy chopped chili padi and cried like mad, the unchopped chili- dabbed plasters are now working great to stop her from removing her plasters at night. Hopefully she will outgrown the fear of chili next time!



At 28 months, Emma is growing so fast that I find it hard to catch up. She growing, eating, sleeping and playing well.

She is definitely acting like a big girl. She imitated her teachers when she was back at home. She sat her soft toys facing her and started to read a story book to them. Then, she stood up suddenly, asked some of them not to push each other and praised a couple of others. I could totally imagine how these happened in her class.

She also picked up a new hobby - photography! Now that she is tall enough, she keeps stealing our phone from the table to take photos. Thus, we finally decided to dig out our old olympus camera and let her play with it. She is quite good at this and even managed to take photos of the family. It really funny to see how to angle the camera, direct and command to get some shots. I should find one day to showcase some of her photos.

She is getting better at drawing and recently like to draw some ugly smiley faces. I managed to figure out the eyes, noses and mouth anyhow. She also enjoy cutting and could easily spend 20 mins to cut papers.

Emma: 2 years + 5 months old

"Emmalyn, is papa more funny or mama more funny", I asked. 

And guess what she replied with? "Emmalyn's more funny". 

Looks like she has quite a good sense of humor! Daddy taught her Olaf and when she said Olaf, he laughed out loud. She got it quickly and we started pointing at each other and olafing (olaf-laughing) for a good few minutes.

Emma: 2 years + 4 months old

The school promoted Emma from the PG1 class earlier and she has been with the PG2 class for almost 2 weeks now. I was a little sad that she had to leave PG1 as she really loves her teachers but I'm really glad that almost the entire class has been adjusting well to the new environment and teachers.

Emma: 2 years + 3 months old

Last Saturday, we attended our first teachers-parents meeting. We are thankful that Emma is developing well, learning fast and enjoying the company of her teachers and friends. She is promoting from infant care PG1 to childcare PG2 with the same group of friends next year!

Emma: 2 years + 2 months old!

Emma is so full of smiles these days. On good days, she would happily pose and give me her sweetest smile. At times, it would require some treats like her Mickey Mouse milk or raisins.  

When she is outside of home, she is usually quite reserved and looks serious. She loves to observe her surrounding and people before she reveals her real self.

Emma: 2 years + 1 month old!

After weeks of contemplating, I've finally decided to continue Emma's monthly update for another year! I love to read back at her younger days and I'm glad to have recorded most memories and photos of her first 2 years.

She spent her first year building up her muscles to get her around and the 2nd year building up her singular vocabulary bank to get her thoughts across. Right after she turned 2, she quickly emerged into a chatterbox and speaks countless strings of sentences. She is also more observant and curious than before.

She's growing taller but not so much in weight. She eats fine on most days apart from those days when I cook porridge for her. She is totally over the porridge phase and prefer solid food. Her bedtime is still at 9pm and naps once in the afternoon. 

She felt sick again just before turning 25 months and it's the fever, cough and flu combo. She got well after few days and, thanks to the haze, got cough again. It looks like it's going to be a period of bugs for her as she has pretty sensitive respiratory system. 

Emma's Toddlerhood #12

When Emma turned 2 years old, I wrote her a long letter. It has been over 2 weeks and she has grown so much since then. However, I thought I should just finish up her 24th monthly update! 

It's amazing how fast she is learning and talking these days. Last night, she surprised me once again by saying " I want raisins" when she saw a box of raisin with her cousin. I didn't teach her how to say "raisins" and she just picked the word up from our daily conversation. 

She was so excited when she spotted the zoomoov animals that she dashed for it (too fast till she fell down). As if that wasn't enough, she then climbed up the Zoomoov ride all by herself.

Emma's toddlerhood #11

Time really flies, Emma's turning 2 in a month! I was so emo when I saw her in this cute dungaree from Pinky Pony (website and FB). She's really looking like a big girl now! 

My heart melt every time she throw teddy bear hugs, plant kisses on our faces and reply "I love you" when we say we love her. She recognizes many more people and always call out/ask where some of us are. When she is out with her cousin, she happily hold their hands and play with them

She is better at expressing her likes, dislikes, needs and tempers through simple words and actions. So, it's getting easier to understand her. We are also doing our best to figure out what are the common situation that will blow up into bigger drama and try to avoid the situation right from the start. Things are working out fine and I'm praying hard that it's not the "calm before storm".

 

Emma's toddlerhood #10

At 22 months old, Emma is very much like a copycat now. She likes to follow what we say and do, laughed and shows different expressions. When we were outside, she sometimes surprises us by imitating the actions of posters - she called out Gor Gor and reached out one of her hand when she saw the little boy on OSIM umagic poster and put her hand at her waist when she saw the lady on poster outside the beauty salon. If she's happy, she could even do multiple actions when we asked her to. 

Her vocabulary expanded greatly and is talking in short sentences. It's amazing to be communicating with her and understands what she wants. Sometimes, it's hard to decipher and sometimes, it's really clear to us. She repeats words after us and I'm losing track of what new words she has said. Many times during the day, she'd recite 1-10 in English and Chinese at her own accord and sing songs in her own world.

She's certainly growing up fast!

Emma's toddlerhood #9

How interesting is it when the school teachers always shared that Emma is doing well. She seems like a perfect little girl who eat, play and sleep without much problems. However, there is a different side of her that she only shows to us like crying fits and picking on food. Lately has been slightly better as she is able to communicate more. However, Emma's certainly growing up to be a strong minded girl. 

Adding on, Emma is also very loving and sweet girl who enjoy giving hugs, kisses, pats, giving hi-fives and hellos. She loves to call out Pa Pa and Ma Ma affectionately and loudly. As she learns to have a mind of a own, I pray that we will also learn to teach and handle her.