Backtrack SG: Catching-up

I met up with the usual suspects on my June trip (I know, September’s coming, and I’m still talking about June…), but pity our schedules did not agree for Amy and Jeannie. In any case, the rest of the meet-up sessions were as usual, loads of fun, but as usual as well, not proper catch-ups since I would be looking over Rosabelle than focusing on who’s doing what/where now. Oh well…

On 6 June, we made a trip to Meibao’s house, her new pad (still at Mandarin Gardens) after she sold away her old one, to make more space since she had her second daughter, Emily, in April. As we had to go only after Rosabelle woke up from her afternoon nap, the rest of them like Shumin and her daughter, Meimei, and Jinxin, were waiting for us to cut Jinxin’s birthday cake as it was her birthday on that day.

My mum gave me a lift to the main road, and we then hailed a cab from there. Once in the taxi, my goodness, Rosabelle suddenly started bawling and wanted Popo – now this was highly strange as she was always very hostile towards my mum, not wanting Popo to go near her. She was crying so hard that the taxi driver asked, ‘She’s more attached to Popo, is it?’. So highly embarrassing. He must think I’m an irresponsible weekend mum who’s never around, bringing her home only for weekends... Anyway, luckily that strange spate stopped after I told her off severely, and as we went into the house, Rosabelle greeted Jinxin with a 快乐 (prompted by my生日).

I didn’t let Rosabelle eat the sweet cakes, but she took one kueh bangkit (soft type of cake) and enjoyed it, dirtying poor Meibao’s floor in the process.
As Meimei and Shumin had to go off first, it was just Jinxin and us as Rosabelle had fun playing around with Meibao’s older girl, Sophie’s, toys (they are both born on the same day), and we also saw the second girl, Emily (I forgot to take photos, can you believe it???), until Sophie woke up from her afternoon nap. This sweet girl had a tiring morning as she was taking part in the finals of the Motherhood Baby Competition – doesn’t she look so pretty?
She was quite clingy to Meibao, maybe because she just woke up, but quickly warmed up to Rosabelle and the grapes my girl was offering her. Sometimes my girl does get too over-zealous and passionate at times…
Guess who’s the girl-girl and who’s the tomboy between the two of them? Haha!
And there we have it – a foursome – can you believe slender and svelte Meibao, who looks barely out of her teens herself, is a mother of two???
Anyway, we then had to leave as my mum was calling to pick us up to go get dinner together, and so that marked the end of a short get-together, which I would not have missed for the world, especially after we did not make it due to Rosabelle’s sudden bout of diarrhea during our February visit.

The next day, on 7 June, there was another precious get-together with my ex-colleagues Kit, and Sin Sin, at the former’s nice house at Thomson 88. I remember wanting to change Rosabelle’s top that morning and she very cleverly plucked open her buttoned-up shirt for me to quickly put the top on – sheesh! Sin so nicely got Rosabelle a Playdough set (and my sis also had an unopened set – I should have waited and actually saved on having to buy one for her myself before I went back in June…), and Kit had prepared a very wholesome lunch of chicken porridge and fried bee hoon – yummy! Her teenage daughter, Claire, was also at home that day, and was very endearing towards Rosabelle, heh, so sweet. I remember it just wasn’t too long ago before I left for China in 2003 that Claire herself was just a toddler… sigh, time really flies!

Rosabelle also had a go at the piano in their house, and Sin, being a piano master, remarked that Rosabelle has potential for the piano as she’s using her fingers to tap on the keys, not banging them full-on as some kids do. Hmmm… is that why she loves singing and dancing, and can pick rhythms and music up so quickly? We shall see about that…

A few days later, on 9 June, my mum and Simon sent us to Pauline’s house (and Rosabelle could say she wanted to go for a ‘car ride’), where we all went upstairs before Simon left with my mum. It was nice to see RaeAnne and Raelynn again, as RaeAnne Jie Jie nicely, and gradually, shared her toys with Rosabelle.
We all had macaroni soup with nice, wholesome ingredients like chicken, fish meat and vegetables, and it was a good catch-up in spite of the girls’ conflicting schedules (RaeAnne had to sleep early right after lunch, whilst Rosabelle has late lunches and naps).
On the way home in the taxi, Rosabelle was quite fretful, wanting to nurse, and true enough, she KO-ed from 4pm till 7pm that afternoon, waking up once in between to nurse and fall back to sleep. Too much excitement in a day, I guess!

On 19 June, I took a taxi down to Turf City (my back-dated mother said Saturday’s a race day and the roads may be jammed… the whole race course had already shifted like eons back…), where we had lunch with Angeline, George and Belden at Sol Playground Café, and I was meeting their second son, Glendon, for the first time. It was a hot day and I’d initially wanted her to wear this cotton white dress, which looked rather over-sized for her…
And so she got changed into another outfit, and we got there in time as the Kohs were making their way there. It was a kid-friendly place, and there was an indoor play section, as well as an outdoor slide area. Belden wasn’t as scared of Rosabelle as before already, and they could play quite well alongside, if not together with, each other.
We had a good lunch, where they had huge portions of food, as Rosabelle ate tuna for the first time (massive chunks, and not just flakes of, tuna) with her pasta and sun-dried tomatoes, and drank some soup and pinched some of my strawberry milkshake. A tad too salty, but otherwise quite yummy.

Glendon also had his first taste of outside food (Angeline usually prepares for him prior and packs it out) – doesn’t he look oh-so-chubby?
After lunch, we all ventured out to the outdoor area where the kids had fun at the playground.
Next came nice dessert as George drove us all to The Daily Scoop at Sunset Way for nice ice-cream. I’d intended for waffles (something that Rosabelle can eat), but they sort of messed up the mixture and after about three unsuccessful tries, and a long wait, they asked if I could order something else instead. Oh well… I went with my de facto brownie and it was very good, alongside delicious ice-cream that Rosabelle could eat as well. Apparently, their lychee martini ice cream is superb, but pity there wasn’t any on that day. By this time, Glendon had already KO-ed on his mum’s lap, whilst Belden was eating too much (and too quickly) ice-cream for his mum’s liking, so we took a taxi back home after we all finished up the dessert.

Such precious catch-ups every time I’m in Singapore, where Rosabelle can see all the Uncles/Aunties who have been such long friends with her Mummy – priceless…

Introducing her to Mao Ye Ye...

On Saturday, we were greeted with bright sunny skies – perfect for our girl’s first visit to Tiananmen Square! So off we went as I briefly oriented Rosabelle about what Tiananmen is, and how she will very soon pass by a portrait of a Ye Ye, and this Ye Ye’s name is Mao Zedong, or Mao Zhu Xi. As Wayne drove by to get a carpark space, she called out excitedly, ‘Ye Ye!’. And that marked the start of her getting-to-know-you with Chairman Mao.

Wayne dropped us off at the junction first as he parked a distance away (RMB30 for 2 hours! I sure miss communism!), so it was just us two ‘laowais’ crossing the road to the square opposite Tiananmen. There were loads of people, it being a weekend, so I think Rosabelle felt slightly intimidated and wanted me to continue carrying her after we had crossed the road. There were security checkpoints going into the Square, and I crossed my fingers they would not question me on why I had a huge pair of scissors in my bag (for cutting Rosabelle’s food up during lunch later). Either they missed it, or we both looked decent enough for them to wave us on.

Luckily Rosabelle was her usual self after awhile, and despite it being a sweltering day, and there having no shade/trees around (i.e. we were getting UV-burnt from the reflection on the ground as well), she started walking and running around in front of me. I told her prior that there were a lot of people and to stick close to me, and to stay in one place and call out for me if she suddenly does not see me. Thankfully nothing traumatic of this nature happened as I was keeping an eye on her at all times.
Daddy came by soon enough and we slowly made our way to the underpass to get to Tiananmen. Along the way, we saw many huge lamp posts as people were hiding in the little shade it provided. Our girl decided she wanted to also take a rest and set her little bum down, jumping up quickly with a '烫!' as she sat on the sun-scorched part, haha! That taught her well as she would use her fingers to gently test the areas first before she sat down after that.
I made sure she stored up well on her water, and also cut up a fragrant pear for her that morning as we made the short walk.
Whenever she got tired, she would ask for either of us to carry her and I simply love this series of photos where she is tenderly caressing Papa on the cheek… so sweet!
Only when you come to China, or perhaps Beijing Tiananmen, will you understand the full meaning of 人山人海 (just like I made the mistake of visiting Tiananmen during the October National Day holidays in my first year here). There were just too many people around that it wasn’t very safe (nor clean) for our girl to continue walking and smelling the knees/butts of people, so we carried her mostly when we reached the area outside Tiananmen Square.
It’s mostly photos of father and daughter as I was carrying the bag and in charge of feeding her the pear, but you can see them in front of this boulder called a 华表. According to Wayne, in olden times, this was just about as tall as a man, and citizens could post their comments (i.e. a traditional suggestion/feedback box) in a book. However, as time went on, this structure became bigger and taller, and like I said, it’s a way of saying that ‘your views don’t matter’, and became quite useless. Interesting…
We didn’t pay to go inside Tiananmen – not sure if it’s relevant nor interesting for her at this age, so we just milled around at the entrance, where she had more fun playing around and at the entrance of the photo and souvenir shops…
And so that marked her brief encounter with the Chairman (as she went home to tell Nainai, she could recall her Tiananmen trip and say that she saw毛主席, heh!). Just nice that Nainai has been singing to her a rather Cheena-sounding song窗前一朵大红花, as she suddenly blurted out the whole song (all four lines of it) yesterday – we didn’t see that coming as she had never even sang a single word of it before. Clap clap! Mao Ye Ye would be proud of her!
After that, we again walked the same way back to have lunch at Sun Dong An Plaza at Wang Fu Jing. I’d wanted to try having lunch at Banana Leaf in the shopping centre since Pizza Hut said there was a wait of 20 minutes. However, after getting a seat in the former and looking through the menu, I realized that there wasn’t much that Rosabelle could eat, so I had to make a detour back to Pizza Hut and get a queue number again. Drat. Luckily throughout the wait for our table and the food, Wayne kept Rosabelle occupied with the many life-sized structures of Ge Ge and Jie Jie around the complex…
We had a quick-enough lunch where our girl was thankfully cooperative and finished off the spaghetti with chicken/mushroom/spinach, some potato waffles, and soup puff, so that we could walk around a bit as I ran some errands to get some stuff. Wayne warned her not to touch the bags at this display of soldiers (by the clothing label TOUGH), and she remarked that ’叔叔放好了，不可以动。'Good girl!
When we got home and put her to bed, it was already about 4:30pm, and when she woke up at 6:15pm for a feed, I thought that it was just nice for us to head out for an early dinner. However, she rolled over and went back into deep slumber… and woke up only at 8pm! Goodness… we speedily got ready to go out after letting her drink some fresh apple juice, and went to Charme, a Hong Kong-like restaurant, near The Place. That’s her looking at the menu and deciding she wants to 吃肉...
Although there were quite a few items that were already off the menu (maybe we were too late…), the food came quite quickly enough, and this was a restaurant that actually served food with portions larger than that depicted in their menus. Amazing! By the time she ate dinner, it was close to 9:30pm and we cleared out by 10-nish to take a quick walk around the area and The Place – needed for her to work the dinner (and long nap) all off so that she can be tired-out for bedtime. I was really tired that day as I did not sleep in the afternoon, so I was already almost half-asleep as I sang ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean’ (she will cheekily change the lyrics of the second line to ‘seahorse’ instead of ‘sea’, haha!) to her. Thank goodness she still managed to sleep close to 1am that day, bringing with her sweet dreams of 毛爷爷, heh!

To detract slightly from this post, since we’re on the topic of sleep, yesterday, she woke up after only 1h 20m of nap, as there was constant knocking and drilling coming from our upstairs neighbor. When I went into the room after hearing her call out for me, she was lying there and asking ‘叔叔敲什么?', heh. I took out the ear plugs I had originally bought for her to use during swimming (did not use at all), and wanted to see if she could go back to sleep after I nursed her, trying to put in the ear plugs. Obviously, she got so distracted and excited by this new squishy, spongy toy (she called it蘑菇at first), that she did not want to sleep again. She was, however, very cooperative and wanted me to place the ear plugs into her ears for her, but they seemed too big and kept popping out. Oh well… thank goodness I did not have to use them today.

This morning, she woke up and called me again. When I opened the room door, I saw her lying there, scratching her belly and saying ‘itchy’. I saw a much-dreaded mosquito bite. Shucks! Thankfully both Rosabelle and I aren’t the kinds who attract mosquitos, i.e. other folks around us can paste/spray insect repellant and get stung, but we remain unscathed, touch wood! Guess with Wayne and I out of the room, the bloody bitch (literally) stung her and woke her from her sound slumber. Idiotic. Hopefully we smack it to death before we go to sleep tonight, or I can only be grateful that Wayne’s around (as he’s the kind that mozzies love), haha!

When planets collide

Thursday was my Friday the 13th, or a Black Monday, or whatever day in whatever culture that is used to describe a day that everything just went wrong. Ok, not everything, just some major mishaps/misadventures that I’d rather do without. Our girl woke up early enough and was cooperative enough to finish her breakfast quickly so we could keep to our 10am appointment with some of the rest of the folks in the yard to go to The Place, Yu Island, again in the morning.

But just when she was eating her breakfast, I started my day off on a wrong foot – literally. As I was shifting the fan out of the bedroom, I accidentally kicked my left foot against the base of the fan, the foot which had my third toenail already slightly splintered at the left edge. And so the impact almost ripped off my whole toenail – all I could see was blood oozing out from the sides from maybe whatever exposed flesh on the nailbed. I half-expected to see my nail on the floor (nope…), and quickly dabbed the nail dry of blood and put a plaster on it. Luckily I had a pair of soft, cloth-like Puma shoes (I did not dare to wear heels nor open-toe shoes that day!) to wear, and thankfully the pain subsided enough for me to bring her out, sans Nainai, with the rest of them.

Thinking that was the worst thing that could happen, I shared a cab with Xinran meimei and her mum, meeting three other children there. Xinran does not take well to car rides, wanting to get off only about 5 minutes into our ride, and she was fussing so much her mum had to take out a Sachima snack for her to eat. At this point, she kept wanting to offer Rosabelle, who obviously wanted and started crying when I declined it vehemently. Xinran’s mother felt I was too strict, but I was quite irritated with her for insisting that Rosabelle can have it – who is she to judge what goes into my daughter’s stomach? Luckily Rosabelle got distracted quickly by other things. When we got off, Rosabelle got waylaid by other sights on the way into the shopping complex, so I let her hang outside and enjoy the cool breeze, as well as the company of some of the other children there.
After that, we headed to Yu Island, where after seeing her skirt cause friction on the slide (and she had trouble sliding down), and getting trapped under her knees when she climbed, removed it after we visited the washroom. I decided to let her eat her grapes outside first before I had to run around (or worse, have her run around with the grapes in her mouth) feeding them to her.
And so she enjoyed her usual stations of the water bed, hamster’s wheel, and animal kiddy rides (the animal kiddy rides were suspiciously ill-maintained, with at least two of the animals’ spines broken – i.e. not upright…).

Strangely enough, Rosabelle then mentioned that she wanted to 吃饭, but seeing that it wasn’t even 12 noon yet, and she had just finished her grapes, I decided to whip out some旺仔小馒头biscuits for her to eat. She was so happy, as she enjoys this snack, but I only give her to her like once every month or so (way too sweet, I think), and encouraged her to go share the box with the other kids (so she would not gobble up everything in the box). Luckily, she fell for my ‘trick’ and nicely walked over to the foam blocks area and sat with the rest of them as she offered them the biscuits. After finishing up the box, she walked off with a triangular foam as I kept the box and prepared to take out her water bottle to rinse her mouth and that was when it happened.

I heard her crying and before I knew it, saw Baobao’s mother carrying her to a side as she held onto Rosabelle’s hand. I ran over quickly and saw that the tip of my poor girl’s right index finger was bitten badly near the nailbed. Two deep canine-like wounds that made the little finger turn purplish-black at the edges. Of course she was crying ‘painful’ and I quickly comforted her as I assessed the situation. Another mother was holding onto a younger boy, who was in turn holding onto the triangular foam that Rosabelle was walking away with. The mother apologized, but claimed that my daughter was trying to snatch her son’s foam, and thus he bit her. She said that she assumed the lady next to Rosabelle was the mother and would stop their dispute, so she did not run over to control her son. I was outraged and told her point blank, ‘我刚才明明看见是我女儿拿着这个东西的。但是那个不重要。小孩子这种东西肯定得两个大人看着，你哪里可以让别让帮你看？你又不是不知道你孩子会咬人？肯定不是第一次！' I think she was quite apologetic, and I must admit her attitude was quite good, and kept asking me if we needed to get it checked. I was feeling very angry, but had the mind to quickly whip out a Zappy Boy sanitizer wet wipe from my bag to wipe the wound – who knows what sickness the sick boy had if he could bite like a rabid dog?

Throughout this minute or so, poor Rosabelle was crying as I held her, but otherwise she was very brave. Luckily there was no blood, but to put it in mushy terms, my heart did bleed to see her suffer for nothing over some silly inept parent’s oblivion to her own child’s bad behavior. I did not want to blow things up, and just walked away with a ‘拜托你了，你是养个孩儿，又不是一条狗。' I think I was mean in saying that, but I felt such a strong surge of fierceness erupt in me during that episode that I was really very angry. Maybe the boy snatched the foam away, Rosabelle hit him, and he then decided to bite her. Even still… she did not deserve to get bitten!

Thank goodness the two punctures subsided after some time, and when I purposely pressed on the finger a few hours later, she did not say ‘painful’ anymore. Our brave, strong girl stopped crying very soon after as she rested on the waterbed, and even Baobao’s mother said that she almost cried seeing the deep teeth marks on Rosabelle.

I did not cry then, nor later, but have learnt another lesson (other than teaching Rosabelle to never bite people) – Wayne told me other than telling Rosabelle the ‘not tos’, I have to teach her the ‘to dos’, as in this case, to defend herself and not let other children bite her, like pulling her fingers away quickly. For example, whenever she wants to get friendly with people, and they are not as welcoming and even hit her, or if she wants to borrow a toy and the boy/girl retaliates, I tell her to move away and look for somebody/thing else to play with instead of standing there getting hit, or worse still, fighting with each other.

And then, just when I was telling myself to keep an eye on her all the time (I worry about her hitting others, as well as getting hit), she was climbing to the top of the rotating tower on her own (I obviously can’t get it but can still peep at her from the netting on the sides). As she was preparing to climb from the second to the top level, and had her hands on the floor of the third level, I saw a much older boy stomping on her little fingers from the top level. My friggin’ goodness! I unleashed my anger and went ‘喂！你干嘛踩她？你给我下来！你妈妈在哪里？' and bullies being bullies, are ALWAYS cowards. He quickly scrambled down, falling over a younger boy and making the latter cry in the process, and ran off. I later saw him run to a lady and I went up to her and asked ‘这是你儿子？刚才他故意踩我女儿的手指，你好好教训他吧。' I just walked off after that – if she wants to scold him, so be it. If she wants to close an eye, then fine. It’s up to other parents how they bring up their child – I have done enough for my daughter, and myself, by informing the idiotic child’s guardian of his behavior.

After that, I went back to Rosabelle and she did not mention anything about getting her fingers being stomped on. Instead, she just went concernedly, ‘哥哥摔倒了', referring to how the scaredy-cat bully tumbled down. Haha, so sweet of her… By that time, it was almost time for lunch but some of the others were heading home to eat, whilst the others were not hungry yet, so I decided to bring Rosabelle downstairs alone to eat.

Hmmm… it was actually my FIRST time out alone for a meal with her. I’ve brought her out alone, but never had a meal where I had to cope with feeding her/myself, but I thought it shouldn’t be so bad, right? And so we ended up in this Vietnamese restaurant (I can’t even remember the name) that I’ve always been wanting to try every time I’m there since I quite like Vietnamese. We got ourselves a nice seat at the front of the restaurant and she had a nice ratten, high chair to sit in. Just as I was placing my order with the waitress, Rosabelle said she needed to pee, and since she was wearing her diaper, I asked her to just do so. And then she stood up in the chair – I did not adjust the diaper properly and it had apparently leaked at the side onto the high chair and her legs. Eeeks! I quickly cleaned up her legs and the chair and changed her into a clean diaper as we waited for the food.

The Hakka tofu came first, which she liked as she fed herself a huge piece as I cut up the noodles, beef, and vegetables for her. I managed to sneak in a few bites as she fed herself quite well, until I had to come in to make sure she also scooped up the vegetables. I also decided to give my girl a treat, probably to make up for her bite-on-finger ordeal, so had pre-ordered a banana pancake (with strawberry ice cream on top, from the looks of it on the menu) to come after our meal.

When we had almost finished up, the waitress asked if they could prepare the dessert already, and just as I was going to feed Rosabelle her kiwi (first get her to eat the fruit, or she would be too distracted by dessert to want to eat anything healthy!), the banana pancake with ‘strawberry’ ice cream came – the ice cream was green in color. When I asked the waiter what ice cream that was, he had to ask the same waitress who took my order, and they said that it was green tea ice cream. Now, I did not want to start introducing any caffeine-related foodstuff to Rosabelle at this stage, no matter what kind of artificial green tea they had in the ice cream, so requested that they change it to strawberry-flavored one, just as they had shown in the picture in their menu.

The clueless waiter replied ‘怎么换啊?', since they had already prepared the dessert. At this point, the ice cream was melting into an alien blood goo-like mess onto the pancake, making it look highly unappetizing. And Rosabelle was clamouring, almost crying pitifully, ‘要ice cream, 要ice cream’ at one side. I was seriously pissed and told him, ‘怎么换？你们有草莓冰欺凌对吗？把这盘子拿进去，把绿茶冰欺凌换成草莓冰欺凌，就这么换。我的女儿在闹了，你赶紧换，要不这个没法吃了。'. But he was adamant, and I demanded to speak to either the manager or somebody who could make a decision. I then requested for the bill and said I was not going to eat the pancake anymore since it had by now become a green mess.

After a few minutes, the waitress who took my order came with the bill, charging me for the dessert, and explained that the pictures in the menu are for reference only, and the ice cream flavor can change. I explained that I ordered because I was misled into thinking it was strawberry ice cream, and that we do not want green tea ice cream. She stubbornly refused to admit it was her fault in not telling me, and even rebuked that she asked if we had any忌口 (things we do not eat). I was really angry by now and went ‘冰欺凌这种东西需要说什么忌口的吗？炒菜才得说！那就这东西跟图不一样，算是我倒霉，点错东西了啊！' I said she has to cancel the order or I would not pay.

Thankfully our good girl Rosabelle wasn’t making any fuss about the ice cream and even obediently finished up the kiwi during all these commotion. A few minutes later, the manager came (just where the hell was she all this while???) and apologized, saying that they will waive the dessert charges and said that ‘这个冰欺凌是我们赠送您的。' I was still pissed and said outright ‘这哪是赠送的？我都不吃，是我不要，你可别说是你们送我的!' until she retracted and said ‘好，这是你退的。' When she came with my change, she was once again very apologetic and thanked me for the feedback, but no way will I come back again – the food wasn’t even that good nor authentic to begin with!

And then we set off for home, taking a taxi as I called home to ask Nainai to prepare the bath. Now, our apartments have intermittent stoppage of hot water at times, to repair or check don’t-know-whatever like once every few months, and there was a notice going up to say that there would be no hot water on 25th till 26th August. It meant that we were going to have hot water that night, and that we were boiling water the day before already to mix a bath for Rosabelle (and for adults too). However, Nainai told me there wasn’t even cold water, from 1+pm that day. Hmmm… strange. So on the way back, I called the management office, who said that as they were repairing the hot water thingey, something got spoilt, so even cold water has stopped.

My goodness! Can anything be more messed-up than that day??? Luckily Nainai was clever enough to prepare a steamer-full of water to prepare to boil, and poor Rosabelle needed to cut short her bath time as she bathed in whatever shallow water that afternoon.

And so we did not even have water for washing hands or flushing the toilet (we saved some from her bath water, haha…)– we washed dishes with potable water from our drinking tap – how lavish…

Water did not resume till around 7pm, and by then, Nainai had already gone down to cart up two pailfuls of water as the management had sent men down to set up a water station. So like 1970s Singapore water rationing… hot water also came as promised that night as I had to bathe with my left foot raised (for a few days at least) as I kept my wound dry and wrapped a shower cap around it. Upon closer inspection, my nail is like 4/5ths split low down the middle, and it will probably take at least two months to grow out, but luckily it has not dropped. But herein lies my dilemma – I cannot apply medicine on the wound (i.e. the bleeding nailbed) since my nail is only semi-detached, so I can only apply Zam Bak on and around the nail. Sigh… probably no pedicures or open shoes (can’t imagine getting the whole nail ripped off!) in a long while to come (luckily I just had a mani/pedicure the day before, which unfortunately left me with about 6 small sores on my right sole as the over-zealous pedicurist was picking away at my dead skin and probably cut too deep in – ouch!).

And so marked the end of a lousy day, for which I am only grateful for such an obedient and sweet daughter… everybody go ‘Awwwww….'...

Wheels, fans & beer

On Sunday night, Rosabelle again went to her favourite Ge ge, Mai Dou’s, house in the evening, and when returning, kept saying she wanted to sit on his bicycle. So his grandma and grandpa sneakily slipped out the bicycle to us as we were going out the door, and our girl sat on it home. She can reach the pedals, but does not really know how to press upon them with her feet to move the bicycle, so I asked Wayne to bring her down to the 8th floor lift landing (where we usually have our water play) for a quick tutorial. As I was going home to prepare her dinner, I heard her crying for me in the lift but all was well once she started ‘cycling’, heh!

On Tuesday morning, I put her on the bicycle again so that she could try and cycle outside. As I was asking her to pose for a picture, amazingly enough, she pushed onto the pedal and cycled forward one single revolution – yippee!

She, and of course Nainai and I, were pretty pleased, so I happily headed out with her as I pulled her along, controlling the direction by putting one hand on one of the handles (she does not really know how to maneuver it yet), and stopping her from slipping/falling by putting another arm around her. Now, as you can so imagine, this was how I was positioned for the next 5 minutes or so as we went down the lift and out into the open space downstairs to try and cycle. It wasn’t as tiring as it was straining for my back and neck (I’m still sore till today!), as my girl just relaxed and placed her feet onto the pedals as I controlled both the bike and the direction, aiyo…

Later, she decided she did not want to cycle it anymore and I had to chase after her AND look after/drag a heavy bike along with me until I decided it was more a hassle than anything else, so we sent it up again before coming out sans bike.

Later that evening, she said she wanted the bike again, so obliging mother that I am, put her onto the bike and did my ‘awkward position supporting daughter and controlling bike’ stance again. Goodness… I was so glad when she wanted to get off and many other kids were fighting to get onto the bike. Mai Dou doesn’t usually let others touch, let alone ride, on the bike, so you can imagine the field day others had taking turns on it that day.

As for Rosabelle, she was happily running away with someone else’s toy as I chased her around the corner. That’s when I decided to give her a lesson on accountability and went into a mini lecture about her having to be responsible for the bicycle since Mai Dou lent her, and not others, the bike, and she has to continually check that it’s not missing or spoilt. She seemed to realize and quickly walked back and called out to the girl riding on it, then went on to grab the bike and hold onto it without letting others on. To clear her confused mind (you wanted me to take care of the bike, so nobody can touch it!), I told her to just ensure that she knows where the bike is all the time and return it safely to Mai Dou when others are done. That worked and she was happy to play alongside others riding the bike after.

At one point, all seven toddlers and their mothers were holding hands in a circle playing a game of 木头人 (we’d played this before and she actually blurted out木头人out of the blue that morning, so just nice we were playing it on a large-scale that evening). We all walk around reciting ‘我们都是木头人，不许说话，不许动!' (she can now recite this as well) and at that point, we are supposed to keep still and will run up to tickle anyone who moves. Kids being kids, there are some who purposely laugh every time and everybody will go up to tickle her. Rosabelle managed to keep still but after a few times, giggled and came up to hug me. The next few times, she actually went up to hug, not tickle, the ones who laughed, going round to hug all the kids in turn, haha!

When we were going home after that and I was carrying her, I tried dragging the bike along with one hand whilst carrying her with another. Gosh… too menial and tedious for me, so I put her on the bike and had to quickly push her along the road as it was already quite dark and dangerous. I seriously felt my back and neck strain then man, sheesh! We returned it to Mai Dou on the way home, and no way will I put myself to such physical torture until she’s ready (or has a smaller bike!)…

Other than outdoor activities stuff, one other thing she has been up to of late is doing a fan dance. Haha… of course inspired by Yours Truly. She will rip the two covers off her toy baskets, and then request for/turn on the music, and slowly wave the covers around as she twirls around or bobs up and down or sways from side to side. Not bad at all for a toddler of her age, I must say, and needless to say, highly entertaining for us adults as we look and cheer her on. She has an exhibitionist streak in her, often going, ‘Show Mama’, or ‘See, Mummy, see’, or ‘奶奶看玥玥xxx (whatever she’s doing)’, as she proudly demonstrates whatever she’s doing, heh.

She was also highly thrilled by Papa’s paper plane that Wayne folded for her on Monday night, shrieking when she saw it soaring in the house. She actually saw another kid’s paper plane that morning and I had to remind her that it belonged to others, and she could not just grab any dirty paper off the floor (she wanted to pick up a soiled brochure) to fold a plane. Keeping to my promise, I was going to fold one for her when Wayne took over with a more sophisticated version, haha! She has yet to master the art of throwing it well, but as Wayne remarked, ‘小孩子可以对这么简单的玩具玩的这么开心'. I also think it’s all the more meaningful and exciting for her because it’s a handmade gift from Papa as Papa held her hand and taught her to hold/fly it. It’s not something I’m trashing in a long time to come – it’s still in the toy box.

Of late, I’ve also been singing ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean’ to her, and she loves the song, especially when I’m nursing her at night, and has started singing, breaking out into a ‘bring back, bring back’ at times out of the blue.

Our girl turned 22 months old on 24th August, and to mark her coming of age, very cleverly tried to trick Nainai that night. She saw Nainai trying to block her iPod earphones on the latter’s bed, and wanted to reach for them when Nainai said that she could not touch them. And then the below exchange took place (R=Rosabelle, N=Nainai):
R: 奶奶，出去！
N: 奶奶不出去。
R: 玥玥出去。
N: 好。
(As Rosabelle stood outside the bedroom door)
R: 奶奶出来。
N: 好。(Nainai stood up to follow her out to the door)
At this point, our girl sprinted quickly back onto the bed and wanted to reach for the earphones when Nainai dashed even more quickly and caught her in time. We had a good laugh at her cheeky, but oh-so-clever, strategy after!

This is a cheeky face that she likes to give these days, liking to peep her eyes to one side (not captured very well here, though). I do get worried at times when she keeps liking to jut her lower jaw out (maybe because of the growing teeth), and really don’t wish for her to have a permanently jutted-out lower jaw, so I have gotten down to reminding her that it’s more pretty for her to push her lower teeth inwards and make her upper and lower teeth meet. Hope it’s just a passing phase!

She also picked up on the 小花猫 phrase as I was commenting about an older girl who had ice cream stains around her mouth. Later that day, she said she had a 小花猫脸 when eating, and when she saw our neighbour’s girl with a rash on her face, also said, to my embarrassment, that’妹妹小花猫脸', haha!

One grouse/gripe I have been meaning to, and forgetting to blog about, is that our girl will at times not chew the food/fruits in her mouth. My goodness… similar to Marianne Jie Jie’s bad habit now! I will bring a box of cut-up honeydew outside, and pop one into the mouth, and she can leave the piece of fruit in the side of the mouth for the next few minutes until I nag at her to chew, or when I’m impatient enough and put another at her mouth, she will spit the previous one out. It’s not that she does not want to eat – after the first few pieces, she will chomp on them quickly, finishing the whole box of fruit. It’s just that she has to get past the first few bites, and I do get frazzled nerves at times, especially when I’m trying to feed her the fruit, and somebody else comes along with a biscuit or some other fruit, and she will want that instead. I have learnt to stand my ground and tell others not to offer alternatives to her, telling her that if she does not eat the fruit I have prepared, there is nothing else till lunch/dinner time, and she is not supposed to eat anybody else’s fruit.

I’ve seen parents feeding their kids (younger than Rosabelle) lollipops, jelly, chocolate, sweets, potato chips (hell, the girl was holding onto a whole can of it!)…and funnily enough, they complain to me that their kids don’t eat their meals well. *roll eyes till whites turn out* So. very. asking. for. it.

Many mothers have remarked that their kids will cry and fuss if they don’t get to eat some other candy another kid is eating, or God forbid, if they even dare to reject a biscuit on the child’s behalf. I believe all these are excuses for taking the most convenient way out, to not deal with a crying child. If it makes their child happy, so be it, but don’t sigh and complain later that you wish your kids weren’t eating such things – it’s because as an adult, you let them! You just have to harden your heart, stand your ground, and for goodness sake, you are the adult, so why should someone half your size, and a fraction of your age, tell you what to do? I also absolutely hate/abhor/detest/spit on it when they believe they are the better mother and start pushing the food into Rosabelle’s hands/face, saying, ‘你就给她吃吧，你看她想吃呢。' Hello… salty chips versus boring banana… which would the kid pick? Of course your sinful tidbit right? So I have had to physically/manually block/push their hands away at times. ’I believe in not going, ‘It’s only one time’ as kids have good memory – she will go into the supermarket and point out a potato chip bag to me the next time, and probably bawl till I buy it for her. To her, it’s like, ‘But you gave it to me the other time, so why can’t I have it now? I mean like NOW. As in NOW!!!’

So the only snacks I indulge her in are the occasional ice-cream or cake (at least apart from the sugars, there are milk and eggs), seaweed, homemade almond jelly, and haw flakes. Is she deprived? Maybe. Am I too strict? Maybe. But will she learn to better appreciate the occasional chip or biscuit and not take it for granted? You bet! Will she start eating all the junk when she goes to school, and doesn’t have me around to say ‘No’? Hell, yes! But I will persevere to keep her little body off such unwanted junk for as long, and I have done my part as a responsible mother.

And the point of all this rambling? It’s the sickness and anger I felt when I heard that another mother (if you can call her a mother?) of a 19-month-old girl actually feeds her daughter beer. Yes, you read it right. BEER. With all its alcohol and gassiness and nothing healthy about it. Her daughter was vomiting and having diarrhea (so poor thing, you say… and poor mother, you must be so tired out from looking after a sick child…), and could not even keep water down on Monday morning, so they went to the hospital, where the doctor diagnosed that she was eating too much, and too many different kinds of food. Maybe she neglected to mention to the doctor that the little patient was also drinking beer? I don’t care if it’s only one time (apparently not, because as the mother told me, somewhat too proudly, that it’s not the first time that her daughter was drinking beer), or if it’s only a sip. Just WHAT are you trying to achieve by pumping beer, no matter how little, into your own child’s body? Get a laugh/kick out of seeing her drunk? Get a proud moment by saying that your girl had beer and liked it, and that she can go on to hold her liquor well in future?

Although some cultures might similarly stone me after I let Rosabelle try durian for the first time (caveat: durian actually has ALOT of vitamins and nutrients in spite of the smelly garlic-like smell the Caucasians make them out to be, unlike beer!), I think it’s universal, really, that beer does NOT benefit a child in any way, and will in fact, harm a child. If you really have to, like if someone was threatening to poke a fork into your eyeball (ewwww…), maybe some white/red wine as there are some benefits to those kinds of alcohols. But beer???

This aforementioned mother even let her daughter eat Green Tea-flavored Poky sticks that evening, goodness! And from what others are saying, they eat at roadside stalls, feeding the child food from a steamboat of chili/spicy soup, and even let her eat duck’s neck before she turned one year old (the kinds that people buy in bags as a snack to eat with beer – i.e. very salty and heavily spiced). Please note that I have nothing against roadside stalls, and if you are poor, it’s ok, but this mother splurges on new clothes and shoes for her daughter and seemingly brags about it.

I told her mother unsympathetically (not the tone you would use when you are reassuring a worried mother) when she admitted her daughter had drank beer the night before, that ‘这是你们大人自找的。' I can go on all day… it just makes me sick to my guts, really, and I have no respect for a fellow mother like that. NONE at all. ZILCH.

Backtrack SG: When in Singapore...

In Singapore, other than major outings (which I will detail in later posts), I will bring Rosabelle out to other places since transport is so accessible and clean. On 4 June, I walked to Singapore Post Center with her and went to the optician, bought books from Popular for her, and even to NTUC as I fed her sweet cherries that she loved, as she sat in the supermarket trolley (cherries in Beijing are so sour!). I regretted buying the books on my own as I realised later that my brother-in-law has 10% member discount, and I had to lug it all the way back whilst carrying her at times when walking home.

On our way back, we saw a stray cat that she liked, and not being afraid, she started saying '猫猫，来!', and sure enough, the pregnant cat started galloping towards us. I remember my hairs standing on end, as not being a cat person, I get goosebumps when they come too near, so I had to quickly drag her away and run on home. Heh!

And of course there's the perennial trips to NTUC, especially the one in Bedok, as we would go to the hawker center to buy food. On 8 June, and many weekends after, we went there together with my mum.

When in Singapore, I always make a pilgrimage to my favourite Parkway Parade (this place seriously has everything and anything I need to buy and eat), going on 10 June with my mum and Simon. I got her a pair of shoes from Mothercare and after that, we went for lunch at Fish & Co., where my mum was so angry with Simon for not eating well, sigh... bad example for Rosabelle meimei!

I rented for her a car stroller for SGD3/hour, and our girl enjoyed the novelty for all of like 5 minutes before deciding that she wanted to come out and run and/or be carried by me. At the same time, she refused to let Simon sit or touch it and was pushing him as I loaded up on my Bodyshop stuff...so naughty. I also got a pair of Diego Crocs at 30% discount for a kid in the yard as his mother couldn't get a small-enough size (and it's more expensive) in Beijing.

That's her in the car stroller as I fed her some some durian ice-cream (she could recognise the taste as durian even though she only tried the fruit once prior).
And her trying out the kiddy rides whilst waiting for my mother to clear the hurdle that is Giant supermarket...

Maybe it was the ice-cream that day, but thank goodness she pooed as it was already the 6th day since she had moved her bowels. The whole Parkway experience must have made her so exhausted (she only slept awhile at 5pm - a much-too-late nap that day) that she slept really early that night, phew!

On 12 June, we went with my parents to United Square, where our little poser (poseur) strutted her stuff:

I bought loads of clothing for her from Cotton On as there was a sale on, and everything looked oh-so-cute and importantly, they were not expensive. We had dinner at Swensen's that night, and then, two days later, on 14 June, we went to United Square yet again...this time with my sis, Simon and Marianne to catch...

The Ben 10 Show!

After we all shopped together at Cotton On (where I bought even more items again) and Toys R Us (to get receipts in exchange for a photo session with Ben 10 characters), my sis brought the kids to queue up for the photo opportunity first as I went to Coletee and bought her two pairs of shoes on 50% discount (a girl can't have too many shoes - that's my mantra, and who says they can't start young, tsk tsk...).

That's our girl watching the show from below:

And that's the group shots of us with the characters (with her being more fascinated by the big-headed lady behind her), haha...

After that, we went to Jack's Place for a late lunch, and on the way home, she liked the California sundried raisins I brought so much that she was asking for a third small packet, aiyo!

By the time we reached home and she had her nap, it was 5pm, and she slept for a solid three hours!
On 24 June, she was due for her DPT/DT jab and together with my mum and Simon, we brought her to KKH for her 3:30pm appointment (thank goodness she slept till 11am that morning since she was going to have a later nap anyway). She refused to cooperate to get her height/weight taken, so we're open on that, haha! Here she is waiting for our number...

The nagging heart murmur is still there, so we have an appointment for 20 October with the cardiologist (strangely, the system does not have an open date, with the clerk advising that I call nearer to the date to push it - otherwise, I can't get an appointment and also have to pay private fees if I schedule it myself in future). The doctor also ordered me to put her on lactulose (for up to two months) to clear her constipation problem - she started on it the next day and actually pooed 30 minutes later (5 days' worth), and another time about 5 hours later! Our poor girl then had to take her jab, as well as draw blood from the back of her hand that day as the doctor ordered a thyroid test to eliminate the condition, given the signs of prolonged jaundice, constipation (but otherwise she's developing well), so thankfully we have that cleared. At the pharmacy, when an aunty passed by and saw the handyplasts on her hand and thigh and asked what happened, she told her 'painful', haha...

Luckily our girl wasn't fussy/fussing, but to make up for it, I sat together with her on an animal ride before we went home... (and forgetful me actually went against the doctor's advice and totally forgot, giving her a bath that night - eeks).

That evening, we went out for dinner with my family for nyonya food at Chili Padi, where our girl tried soursop and bamboo shoot for the first time, heh!

Maybe it's the injection that was keeping her awake, but she did not want to go to sleep till way past 12 midnight that night, wanting to go from room to room to look for the kids, and squeezing with Marianne onto her bed, aiyo! Such light nights, coupled with side effects of the jab, caused her to have a fever (38 deg) and be fretful the next morning, but thankfully that cleared after a cold patch.
On 26 June, we went with our parents by train (taking the circle line for the first time!) to Ang Mo Kio Hub where we had lunch at the food court. After lunch, I let her sit on the kiddy rides for awhile, but she decided that she wanted to be permanently glued to it and refused to get off after repeated warnings/cajoling. So I literally plucked her off the train ride, bawling away and pushing me as I carried her on the escalator towards the toilet. She was pushing against me so much that I had to carry her sideways, still crying, as I continued scolding her to get her to stop. In the end, I put her in a corner near the toilet as I threatened to walk away if she continued fussing, and had to carry her into the toilet cubicle with me to stop her crying. Sheesh, what a meltdown! Many on-lookers must have thought that I'm a mean mum for making her cry like that, but that tactic worked as the next kiddy ride she went on (yes, I don't learn my lesson - the lesson is for her to learn), she came off it obligingly when I beckoned her to. I believe in giving warnings (and not immediately just plucking her off), but when a warning is not heeded/falls on deaf ears, sorry ma'am, don't say I didn't tell you.

After walking around, we took a bus back, and she again made me angry that day before her nap when she pushed me again when I was carrying her to shampoo her hair, that I hit at her arm to stop her coming at me. I saw a faint fingernail mark on the arm after and felt slightly guilty, but it taught her well to stop being ungrateful when her mother was sweltering away in the hot toilet, and trying to carry her properly with one arm whilst shampooing her hair with the other!

Again, abrupt end to post as I go dedicate my efforts to drafting other updates, so there!

Joy in the City

Last Saturday, I had actually intended to bring our girl to Tiananmen Square, since she was learning to sing the 我爱北京天安门song some time back, to let her see for herself what 天安门she’s actually loving, and had prepared summer clothing ready for her the night before (i.e. singlet, light skirt, hat). As luck would have it, it rained the night before. Nope. It poured. For almost the whole Saturday (save for slight drizzles at times…). In August. In Beijing. Sheesh…

But was it going to dampen our moods? No sirree… I’m a PR person, mind you – so Plan B swung into action and we went to the new Joy City for some indoor action. There were 8 floors of this massive shopping complex with a myriad of shops/brands, and I liked the many household furnishings/deco stores with cute knick-knacks (even bought a cute metal spoon for Rosabelle as she declared '玥玥勺子漂亮' as she fed herself watermelon juice that evening with the spoon).

However, I was mindful that our family day did not turn into a shopping trip for me (I only bought myself a scrunchy – that’s how resolute I was, so there!). Since at this age, she dawdles a lot so everything is/was new to her, I had to gently nudge her to move it along by asking her to pretend to fly like an aeroplane/bird/butterfly as she ran from one place to another (she even wanted to crawl under the benches until she hit her head and decided this was not a playground tunnel…), as she spotted something along the way that caught her eye…
This shop Teenie Weenie, with far-too-cutesy bear-bear clothes, always has a statue of a bear outside its shops, and Rosabelle saw the ‘大熊, 小熊', and ‘熊with dark blue bow tie’, and deemed the big bear’s ‘皮鞋漂亮'as she posed for shots with it.
I was looking at the directory to check out if there were kid-related shops, but when we hit the third level, it came out of nowhere – a kid’s playground (which you had to pay RMB20 for and as you can imagine, was flooded with kids… and adults), and some kiddy rides/arcade. Our girl was clamouring to '要坐这个', pointing at each and everything, and being the cheapo we were (refusing to pay RMB5 for only about a minute of ride), saw a girl on a carousel – and there were two empty horses as well. Since some other parent was nice enough to pay for the ride, we dumped her on an empty horse (another parent did the same later…) and had her taken for a free ride, heh!
She kept wanting to sit the helicopter, so we put her in it, and of course did not put in any money. She was quite happy to just press the buttons – thank goodness she’s not at the age/stage to insist that we throw money tokens in now…
Guess it’s a transportation theme at this place as they had trains, buses (that’s her being the underaged bus driver below and me looking very tanned in spite of me wearing a black top, gosh…), cars… but all instructions/displays were in Japanese. Maybe that’s why the rides are so expensive…
We then wandered out of kiddy land and came across an older boy posing for photos in front of some displays for his father. Our girl had to go sit next to him and also start preening her stuff, sheesh!
Gosh, I really have NO idea where she picked up her camwhoring ways from… *pretends to roll eyes* (self-taken shots as we waited for Papa to visit a store)…
We also saw some cute mushroom-like sculptures that she liked being in the midst of:
That’s her enjoying the view (and fresh air!) from way up there!
After that, we headed for lunch and looked around for somewhere to rest as well – there are many restaurants at this place, but Wayne was a tad disappointed when I pointed out that Rosabelle would not have any proper food to eat at Burger King (our favourite!), heh! And so we ended up at泰和草本 where she had mini wontans, chicken fillet, corn/carrot, peanuts and an egg tart.

As we walked back to the carpark, we again came across the stage area where they were having some travel magazine event. The stage was free though, and both times, our girl went up and pretended to sleep on it, jumped/sang/danced on it, and climbed up and down, taking it as her own playground.
We stopped at BreadTalk to buy some breakfast, and Wayne offered Rosabelle a sip of his yogurt, not counting on her finishing more than half a cup (and even spilling some on the chair as she tipped it over whilst carrying it herself).
And that marked a rather uneventful, but still fun morning for us (she KO-ed for three hours that afternoon). Later that evening, with rains still coming down, we went to一坐一忘, a Yunnan restaurant, for dinner with Nainai.

Some random updates of late…
She managed to jump about 5cm off the ground on Saturday night! She always does her小白兔hopping with her knees bent, and seemed resolute enough to want to jump that night, so Wayne and I jumped around and she was happy as a lark when she managed a jump of her own, without losing her balance or falling.

Some other things that make me proud of (or just simply laugh at) her are when she cajoles me when I’m angry, going, ‘Mummy….mummy…’ as she looks pitifully at me, then when I break into a smile, she will say ‘妈妈不生气了'. The other day, before she slept, as she goes into her usual soliloquy (so-named as Wayne and I will ignore her in an attempt to let her sleep and not be entertained further by our responses), she said, ‘小姑娘几岁了？两岁！', and I burst out laughing at her own Q&A session. She also called out to Nainai very loudly in the next room, but of course Nainai also ignored her. After a few times, she remarked, ‘Nainai so naughty’, since we always teach her to acknowledge with an ‘Aye!’ whenever we call out to her.

Also, Baobao’s (the older playmate in the yard) mother was telling me that her own daughter had not been drinking formula for a month already, making her very worried. That day, in front of Rosabelle, she purposely remarked that ‘玥玥妹妹每一晚都喝奶' and true enough, Baobao drank her milk that night. Her mum said that her daughter knows whenever she uses our girl as an example, it’s for something good, so she will aspire to be like Rosabelle. That made me mighty proud indeed, though I pity Baobao at times when her own mother puts her down with her ‘你看玥玥妹妹都不害怕，你怎么不能象她一样好奇呢？' whilst she was clinging to her mother as she was terrified of a remote-controlled army truck on the ground (as our girl was chasing after it and picking it up to touch the soldiers inside). I tell my girl off (like she now knows to go stand in a corner or sit on a bench by herself on her own accord whenever she pushes/beats somebody), but I would never tell her, especially in front of her, to be 'so and so because so and so is better in so and so way’. It’s very demoralizing for the poor kid.

She can say 幼儿园 now, using it correctly to say that her favourite ‘麦兜上幼儿园了'. Latest song picked up of late is 我的朋友在哪里, as she suddenly sang in the bath the other day, listening to the CD being played. We’ve never taught her this song, so guess she picked it up herself, going ‘在天涯，在海角，我的朋友在这里'. Speaking of teaching, I have to bite my teeth at times when I hear Nainai teaching her the wrong lyrics, and sometimes nicely correct her by jumping in at the next refrain with the correct lyrics, for songs likes 小蘑菇 (Rosabelle will sing ‘小雨小雨下不来’ instead of ‘小雨小雨下得欢)', 小袋鼠 (she will go ‘他说一个、两个、三个…' instead of ‘他说一、二、三、四、五'), (ooooh… I don’t wish for her to undo all the efforts I’ve put in to teach, no matter how well-meaning she is…)

However, there is some regression on some fronts, in the potty training area, as she had some pee accidents for about three nights in a row (maybe it’s because we now make it a point to fill her bottle and let her drink from the straw as she plays – all to ensure she drinks enough water to poo everyday). Her diapers are also not dry at night on some days, but guess we’re slowly getting there as our girl will be ready when she’s ready!