Squishy turtle

I brought out a turtle toy for Rosabelle today – lugged this back all the way from Singapore (we brought back a lot of toys for her – three of us had a total of 66kg worth of luggage coming back, obviously the smallest member of the family used up the most luggage allowance. Tsk Tsk...)

You are supposed to first inflate the toy, then put water into it so that the baby can pat the turtle's body and play around with the different sea creatures inside. When we first took this toy for her to play when she was 4 months old, she was indifferent. However, lately, I noticed she likes patting alot - patting the sofa, my thigh, the pillow, the table... So she was rather intrigued by the feel of the buoy-like turtle and the shapes squirming around in the water. And started patting the shapes.

She's developed skills of late like a pincer grip (able to grab small things and even helping me to turn the pages of the nursery rhymes book), holding the stackable cups and banging them in tandem with me to create noise (alot of noise), and even singing along (more like random warbling at times) with me when I hit the cups and sing nonsensical lyrics/rhythms.

Mum called last night and told me she has bought loads of herbs to come and boil soup for me when she's here. I forgot to say thank you, but it's really sweet of her. She's supposed to be on vacation, but she doesn't forget to take good care of me and Rosabelle. As usual, Rosabelle wanted to eat the telephone when I put Mum on speaker, but these days, she has been looking alot at the photos I developed of her times in Singapore, and taken with my family members. Maybe she could be wondering when these folks in the photos will pop to life and start talking/playing with her again. Soon, my girl, soon.

I did up a simple list of places to go and restaurants to bring them to. Just as well, Simon and Marianne love Peking duck, so my sis said they can live on what they know as 'pancake with the duck' (first time they tried last week) all day long! I also have to look for a two-bedroom apartment for them in the vicinity for the two weeks they are here. The short-term lease company I went to previously does not have any in my estate over the same period...sigh, see how it goes.

I obviously only have time to update my blog if Rosabelle's asleep, or isn't making too much fuss taken care of by the nanny. The latter has been good (she'd better be, with the kind of money we are spending...hahaha!), only grouse is that her Mandarin pronounciation is at times worse than mine... (Counts '1, 2, 3, 4' as 'Yi, er, sHan, sHi' instead of 'Yi, er, san, si'). Well, I shouldn't expect more lah. Just hope that next time Rosabelle doesn't say she is from SHIN Jia Po (Singapore) - I will faint...

P/S: The cot bed came today (it's a Graco Lauren dropside convertible bed in white), minus the mattress (the company plain forgot to put in the order for the mattress). Grrr...have to wait for another few more days before we initiate her into her new bed - need to air the bed and mattress first.