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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Jazzing up with a splash of colour!

A few updates on the speech/development front before I touch on the topic of this post -- as you may now know, Rosabelle likes to say '八' alot, and she can now recognize the number '8', as there are numbers on her playmat, and the nanny has taught her to spot '8' on it. Just yesterday, she looked at the stacking cups with numbers on it, and called out '八' on the corresponding cup!

Another favourite of hers these days (other than fishes and making fish sounds) is saying 'flower', and pointing out flowers in pictures, on our bedsheet...and kissing the beautiful blooms. She is also learning to say 'bye bye' (and use it in the right context) pretty well, proactively shouting 'bye bye' to people when they are/she is leaving. She has also picked up the 'mehhhh' sound of the lamb, adding to another animal I can sing when we do the 'Old MacDonald' song, haha!

However, I notice she still mixes up rabbits with cats, often seeing a rabbit and going 'mao mao' - must be the long whiskers lah! Also, at this age, she probably can't really tell the distinct difference between a duck/chicken/goose, going 'cuckoo koo' when she saw the outlined shape of a duck magnet on the fridge. She loves playing at the fridge these days, as we have placed the magnets down, and brought some photos down for her to stick them on. She goes with a loud and enthusiastic 'Yaaay!' every time she places a magnet/photo successfully on the fridge or the window panel ledge next to her, so funny!

She has picked up actions like using her saliva towel to want to wipe our mouths, making cheeky 'ti ti ti' sounds (as in 'tickle') as she attempts to tickle me or the nanny on our legs, putting her hand to her ear if we ask her 'How does a baby sleep?', and going to the DVD player and start dancing to indicate she wants us to switch on the stereo.

One rather anal-retentive trait she has picked up (from who? me???) is she will always place her stacking block the right way up (i.e. with graphic facing up) before stacking something on it. Aiyo!!!

Well...on to today's topic...

Today, Rosabelle is showing off her down jacket in a multitude of rainbow colors (the one that we paid slightly more from the shop than if we had bought it online). She had already worn it before on previous occasions, but as we are almost always rushing to go out (or she'd start making noise bundled up as a heat ball), and I don't usually carry a camera when I'm out with her alone, I never got a shot of this outfit. So, braving the strong winds this morning (we headed back after about 30 minutes - there were no other children around as the strong winds were coming up), I also made her wear her brand new, white Barbie hat (also from the same shop). Already, two mothers have enquired about where I got this down jacket from the first time she wore it out - I nicely told them, but hope they won't be copycats!
And I got my fair dose of colour as well today at Tony Studio (东田造型) at Xin Dong An, where I finally decided to colour my hair after 22 months since my last dye job - yaay! My last haircut (that turned out into disastrous bangs, against the good advice of my stylist Zhao Ming) was in April (the salon has since been renovated too), so this was loooong overdue.

Luckily I managed to catch Zhao Ming today as he's out of town tomorrow - he says he's travelling for business half the time, as he follows celebrities for their shows/appearances, ooohhh.... He's good, not pushy/over-chatty, but yet still very detailed when doing my cut and advising on the color (the colourists do the actual dye job). Well, he'd better be... he is now Creative Director and costs more to do a simple cut than before (RMB280 vs RMB180 in the past - GULP!). Erm...that's him on left, not his model in large photo on the right...

Let's just say I went away happy (even if I had to be at the studio for 3 full hours, and the poor nanny had to look after Rosabelle whilst preparing the latter's dinner), as I now have purplish-brown base hair with bright red highlights. Will definitely be sharing more pictures! I also enjoyed a manicure (also paid for) as I was in the chair, and topped up more moolah for my Diamond Card (to get 25% off each time). The card allows a once a year free haircut for birthdays (either me or my family members can use), so I will ask Wayne to make use of it this month, seeing that I had missed this special promotion in September!

Coming back home, I decided to trawl through some of my photos in the past few years that showed the different colours of my hair...(only showcases the more interesting ones from when I started visiting Tony Studio):

Purplish-red in July 05 at Amy and John's wedding in Malaysia...
Brownish in Singapore with Sin's dearie, Alyson, in January 06...
This below constitutes as my perennial favourite in March 06 where I got alot of positive comments and remarks from friends and even strangers on the street. Slabs of red at the base and side of my hair, so that when I let it down, only the tips are red, and when I tied it up, you can see the whole panel of red.
With this style, when we were in Singapore, I was approached by someone asking me to be the hair model for a Shunji Matsuo show that week - alas, I was due to fly back to Beijing that night - I sure hope they weren't thinking of asking me to be the 'Before' model, haha!

This is what the hair looks like bunned up (my trial make-up/hairdo session for the wedding in Singapore).
That's me with Tricia when she was visiting in Beijing...
It looks straggly in the picture below (blame it on bad photography, not me!), but you can get an idea of the effect. In fact, this was what I wanted today, but I ended up with less 'loud' and narrower highlights, with only thin slabs at the base, heh! I was actually thinking of going for a never-before loud look, seeing that I was not working and thus not constrained by 'corporate looks', but oh well, it looks decent enough if I do go for job interviews, heh!
This was reddish in June 06 in Hong Kong with Vanessa.
And then came the wedding, with my three hairstyles on D-Day (October 06) in Singapore.
I kept my hair to its longest for the wedding, and made sure to colour it a safe dark brown colour so that the colour won't detract from the fanciful hairstyles for the wedding day.
And I kept my long hair for the remainder of 2006, in Malacca with my family.
Then in April 07, I had my last dye job on long hair (red highlights on a blue-black base)...
Because in July 07, I decided to cut my hair short, a change from long hair I've had since 1999. This is my first bob haircut and colour - I was quite happy with it...for all of about two weeks, before it became really hard to maintain, and then I decided that for lazy me, long hair's so much more convenient!
I had to hire a stylist to do my hair when I was the emcee for an MDA media conference in September 07, as I simply did not know what to do with it, sigh...
And usually I am happy with my holiday photos, but I think this batch of photos in October 07 in Western Australia with my family would have turned out nicer if I had more manageable hair that did not look so wispy and dry...sob...
I had to go for even more regular trims and colours even as I wanted to grow it out - so I had red highlights again (my favourite, don't you know by now?!) for CNY 08, taken in Singapore with my brother...
And in Bali on our family trip...
And that marked the end of the last hair colour I had before I found out I was pregnant (only went for trims after), and then I gave birth, started nursing, and decided to play it safe by not introducing chemicals like hair dyes (and nail polish!) into my system. But, seeing that Rosabelle's not so dependent on me for her nutrition now, and research has shown that there are no adverse effects, so it looks like if time was not an issue, I will be keeping up with my dye jobs more often (but I still decided against getting chili red nail polish just now - just gloss - as I sometimes use my fingers to feed Rosabelle, and don't want her to come into direct contact with it)!

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