Gearing up!

As Rosabelle had a bout of grapefruit OD and thus wasn't eating well last week, we requested for the nanny not to have her usual off day on Saturday (the poor woman!). She asked if she could have a day off before Rosabelle's birthday, as she wanted to go get our girl a present. After discussions, she decided to quickly go out whilst Rosabelle was taking her afternoon nap, and very sweetly got Rosabelle a nice thick long-sleeved top and pants.

That's Rosabelle this morning, looking pretty in pink, but the nanny looking tired as she has been working hard.

The other mummies in the yard all think our nanny is a rare breed who looks and behaves fairly decently and takes good care of Rosabelle. We heard another horror story today of a mummy who went home early and found the nanny stuffing herself silly with food, their main door wide open, and their two-year-old girl gone. When questioned, the nanny said the girl had gone out to play in the corridor, but when they couldn't find her, they ended up searching for her at a neighbour's place. Now, they aren't exactly very pally with their neighbours, and the girl was at the home of an elderly couple, with the man wearing an indecent-looking pair of tight thermal underwear. The mummy almost fainted, and chided the nanny for not accompanying the girl. She said that at one time, her house phone was engaged for almost 40 minutes, with the nanny using the phone to make her personal calls. When she eavesdropped through the main door when she reached home at times, she could hear the nanny screaming at her daughter, but the former's attitude would change when she entered the house. So, sayonara, chatty, greedy nanny who was working with them for a year, and seemed pretty ok to all of us downstairs.... GULP.

Rosabelle's vest is courtesy of another mummy in the yard, who also gave us a few other pieces of thick clothing her daughter has since outgrown. Rather than just layering loads on Rosabelle, Wayne and I took a trip to the children's clothing wholesale centre yesterday, where I spent close to two hours looking at just 5 shops, and got quite a few pieces of thick pants, tops, sweaters, inner/sleeping wear, and knitted hats. Alas...the stall owner said one of the hats could fit a two-year-old, but our 46-cm head circumference girl could not even put the hat on, so I gave it to the mummy who gave us the clothing as she is now expecting a boy and could let him don it, haha!

Today, we went to another wholesale centre to get goody bags and some deco stuff, but simply could not find any birthday-related signages/backdrops/deco, nor helium silver balloons. How I longed for shops like those we find in Concourse, or even simple stationery/toy shops in Singapore would house such stuff...sigh! I ended up buying a horribly-ugly ching-chong maroon-coloured banner with golden '生日快乐' wordings, and got chastised by Wayne when he saw how terrible it looked. 'You know what's the meaning of desperate, no?,' I asked him... Anyway, we are adapting it and will cut out the wordings instead, and hopefully it'll be less disgusting-looking, haha!

Our girl is doing us proud by learning things very quickly before her birthday. Yesterday, Rosabelle melted Wayne's mum's heart when she called 'Nai Nai' when Wayne was on the phone with her. She did not call at first, starting to call only when Wayne hung up, and calling for a few times after, prompting Wayne to call his mum again to hear Rosabelle call out to her so clearly.

These few days, she even knows how to say 'circle' (sounding suspiciously like her favourite word of the moment 'Ge Ge'), repeating after me when I draw circles, or point circles out to her.

Well, after a hectic week of preparations for her 'simple' party on Friday, we are looking forward to spending some quiet time with her on the actual day (24th). It'll be over before we know it!