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Our Australia holiday was one of the most UNholidays we’ve ever had. It was the first time we’ve gone for an extended (2.5 weeks) trip with a child and, boy, was it different to our pre-baby holidays!! To be really frank, it was one of the worst experiences ever in terms of sleep deprivation, and has scared me off going on another holiday for a very very very long time :X
Hunter was pretty awesome during the day time, his usual cheery self. But come night-time, all hell would break loose and he would WAIL himself to sleep – no amount of ignoring, or cuddling would placate him. Then, he would wake up every 3 hours or so, whining/crying until he was patted back to sleep. In the morning, more often than not he would wake up crying too. It was INSANE. Considering he was a sleep-through-the-night baby at the tender age of just over 2 months old, it was a HUGE AND NASTY SHOCK for us, to basically be dealing with a ‘newborn’ again.
Even more bizzarely, the moment we arrived back home in Singapore, he IMMEDIATELY went back to his 12-hour uninterrupted sleep – falling asleep by himself, and waking up cheery. I guess he loves being home and in his own bed, and can’t tolerate being away :X So the whole time in Australia, we were zombies and poor Chris had to deal with an extremely irate wife almost daily… oops.
But, at least we had a TON OF FUN during the day! Hunter was so fascinated with everything, loved going out, and we had heaps of fun catching up with family and friends.
Most importantly, we were there for Chris’ sister’s wedding. This was held in Canberra, so we stayed there for a couple of days first. The weather there was so cold though! It was nice in the afternoons, but mornings and evenings were pretty painful. All 3 of us suffered dry/peeling skin and lips as we had to acclimatize ourselves to the climate. However, the benefit was that my hair and skin loved the dry weather. Helloooo good hair days! I really noticed it especially now that we’re back in Singapore and I see how the humidity destroys your hair and skin ;)
Hard to tell that he was a real terror the night before!
"A night terror? Me??"
The wedding was held in a really lovely high-ceiling cathedral, and I loved the black-and-white colour scheme, which I thought was super chic. It also brought back such nice memories of our own wedding.. and was really nice to see Chris’ sister so happy on her wedding day :)
Hunter was supposed to walk down the aisle as well, but it didn’t work out because during the rehearsal, we saw that the aisle was actually really long.. which translated to major distractions for him, and we weren’t confident he would have the focus to make it all the way down, especially with a ton of eyes staring at him!
Saying their vows
Drowsy after waking from his nap in time for the ceremony
I was also delighted to do a reading for the ceremony. I almost pulled out at the last minute, because I developed a bit of a cough and was worried I’d start hacking up a lung mid-reading. But thankfully all went well and I did the reading without any issue – whew!
Doing my reading
Afterwards, we had photos outside the church and in a park/lake. The skies were GORGEOUS… though the temperature was quite chilly down by the water. But Hunter didn’t seem to care and had a fab time tottering around the lake and running around on the grass.
The wedding party
Meeting one of our college friends for the first time, and trying to charm the socks off her
Family pic by the lake
Hunter with his great-grandma and nanna
My 3 loves ;)
The wedding reception was really lovely, with some fabulous food! The beef… OMG *faint*. Chris and I actually shared a large pizza prior to dinner, because we were too hungry. But I still stuffed in appetizer, main, and dessert and cleared my entire plate.. because the food was fab!!
Everyone was having so much fun, and Hunter had an afternoon nap (rare, because he naps 1x/day) so he could stay awake for a bit to join in the celebrations.
Us with our pajama-clad baby
"Hiiiii Uncle Matt!"
Hunter discovered he could make Uncle Matt drink by stuffing the bottle in his mouth and then tilting upwards. I think both boys had a lot of fun with that ;)
The wedding party again. I LOVE that quote!!!
Chic table setting, and Hunter got his own special goody bag :)
Oh and Chris was MC for the evening! He did a lot of public-speaking when he was younger, and is a natural in front of an audience. And he really nailed it. He’s an awesome MC!
Cutest moment ever: we were seated at the table in front, right where Chris was standing. As he was speaking, Hunter kept pointing to him and going “Da da!!!” loudly and happily, much to people’s amusement. And then he would clap his hands in glee, seeing his Daddy up there. LOL!!
Chris the MC
Hunter went to sleep at around 8:30PM so I had to go into a back room and sit there with him. Unfortunately no one brought their maids/nannies, so I had to be there the entire time! It meant I missed out on all the fun stuff in the latter-half of the evening.. and because Chris was MC-ing, he couldn’t really be there keeping me company either. And my iPhone had run out of battery. So I spent the entire time just sitting there staring at the wall. D’OH!! But, at least Hunter slept well considering all the music and noise.. so I was happy.
"G'night guys, it's bedtime for me!"
It was a pretty epic day, but we all dealt with it really well considering the lack of sleep we had. Hunter was in a good mood throughout, and adrenalin kept us going.. though we did leave a little earlier to get ourselves to bed. It’s so nice being at a wedding and joining in the celebrations!
We are back from Australia… just in time for Mothers Day!
Last year, we celebrated with Hunter. This year, we celebrate with both Hunter and #2-in-the-belly :) It still amazes me, because if you’d told me 3 years ago this would be my life now, I’d have thought you were nutty since I always felt that my career came first and that I wanted to make sure I’d accomplished everything I wanted to do, before ‘taking it easy’ and starting a family. Ummm.. I guess no one warned me that it’s quite the opposite!
I love our little family, and really looking forward to being a family of four, with 2 lil bandits running around :P
So to all you Mums, and especially my own Mum, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!
I leave you with one of my favourite quotes about being a parent: “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
Celebrating Mothers Day this year as a Mum of 2! (OK, maybe 1.5)
Happy 15 months, Hunter!
LOL
Well HELLO major growth-spurt month! Hunter had really obvious physical and mental developments over the past month, which also brought about a week’s worth of crap sleep (egads). He studies what people do with great interest and just loves to figure things out himself.
A cute trick he does is when we’re out shopping and he’s tired of walking around, he’ll go to his stroller and stand in front of it, say “Up!” to me, and when I put him in, pulls the stroller bar across him so I can snap it down.
He also loves reading, so will proactively go look for his books, choose one, and bring it over and try to climb onto our laps, asking us to read it to him. Love how he can easily understand instructions now, and has his own lil personality. And, boy, with that comes quite the temper too..! He can really tell you off resoundingly when he feels you’ve done him wrong ;)
He’s also learning to swim by himself, holding onto a floaty tube/bar and kicking himself forward. It’s tough, cos they have to learn to grip as well as keep themselves afloat! He’s learning this way, the super-hard way, because he refuses to have those inflatable water-wings on his arms :X
Learning to swim by himself
MONTH 14-15 PROGRESS:
He has 2 formula milk feeds (1 morning, 1 night) and 1 fresh milk feed (afternoon) daily. Sometimes I’m too busy talking or shopping in the afternoon and forget to give him his milk by 3PM, so he’ll twist around in his stroller, look at me, and go “Nan, nan, nan!” whilst doing his baby-sign for milk. Guess a kid’s gotta do what a kid’s gotta do to get fed ;)
He’s also really into pretend play – cooking alongside me in the kitchen, putting Lego man on his horse and galloping it, feeding us and his toys food/water (making appropriate lip-smacking sounds to get his point across), etc.
He also enjoys putting on his shoes, and will go search for and bring me his shoes when I ask him to, and lift up each leg so I can put them on his feet.
Hunter's weakness - vehicles
No worries mate, let me screw that in for you
Follows more complex instructions like “Look for the ball, and throw it to Dad”, but now has a cheeky side and sometimes after getting the ball, will look at the person he’s meant to throw it to and go “no no no!” and grin and run away with the ball, thinking himself rather clever. LOL!
He understands too many words to document (babies always understand waaay more words than they can speak) but he can now accurately identify and point to his (or someone else’s) body parts:
I do think Hunter’s ability to point to all the above body parts is pretty good for his age, but I’m not sure why. I think he’s just really fascinated with the human body?! That, and vehicles; he can tell the difference and identify aeroplane, helicopter, boat, train, bus, car, motorbike, etc. Such a BOY ;)
He loves singing along to his nursery rhymes. He can’t get the words out properly, but can hit a few notes accurately and blabber in time to the actual words. In particular, the “abcde….” song, where he’ll rattle away in his own babbles in time with the alphabet :P And like all other kids, he loves listening to music, and will ‘conduct’ with his hands and bop his bum and dance whenever he hears music ;)
Great pals: having a babycino with my Dad
And so at 15 months old, Hunter goes on his first trip to Australia, today!! He’ll have attention galore and Chris is also really looking forward to spending quality 24/7 time with his son :) And I’m excited to see what kind of baby clothes, toys and supplies Australia has to offer!
PREVIOUS PROGRESS:
I was delighted to be invited to a Drypers event, held at Cookyn Inc, my fave cooking party house :P The focus was on cooking healthy food which work both for young kids and also pregnant mums. I love planning and cooking Hunter’s meals, so I was especially interested in the event, and even more so when I heard it featured salmon, one of his favourite foods!
I have never seen SO many pregnant women under one roof before ;) Guess this really is a bumper year for Dragon babies. Hunter was the only kid there and so was all smiles with the attention he received.
Fabulous local 'pulled' tea that is perfection at Cookyn
The various ingredients we would be using
We made a beautifully simple and fresh hummus dip with toasted pita. It was very baby friendly and Hunter could munch on the chips as well as the hummus. It was quite the hit and made me realise that this is great to serve when we have friends over, because it’s simple to whip up and oh-so-addictive!
The secret in the AWESOME chips? Use fresh (ie. soft) pita bread, cut into triangles, and bake in the oven for a bit. They come out crisp and they taste so good, better than the Doritos that we normally use when we eat dips.
Hummus dip with toasted pita
Hunter signing "more please", cos he liked it too!
We also put together a wild rice salad. Honestly, it was pretty good! I NEVER thought I’d enjoy eating wild rice, let alone a wild rice salad.. But I liked the flavours of the ingredients and it was actually really tasty. It’d be a brilliant idea to make up a batch of this and store in the fridge (to let the flavours really permeate) and have it as a healthy lunch when you’re in the office.
Full concentration required!
Wild rice salad with grilled tiger prawn
Really into the whole drawing business now
And…. the Parcel-wrapped salmon! OH HOW I LOVE THIS DISH!!! Will do it every time we buy salmon now. It works for both adults and babies, because the salmon is utterly soft. It’s also laughingly simple to make: Get a slab of salmon and plonk it on unwaxed parchment (baking) paper. Pop in some diced cherry tomatoes and whatever diced veggies you want (I put in asparagus, zucchini, carrots), sprinkle on salt & pepper, and add in a small pat of butter. Wrap it all up like a bag, and pour in a tablespoon of chicken stock just before you seal and fold over the bag shut. Bake at 210 celcius for 11-12 minutes.
You will find the salmon so so so soft and moist, kind of like a poached salmon, but with a lot more flavour because it’s been cooked in with the rest of the ingredients. It’s LUSCIOUS :) Hunter totally noms it up, and so do we.
Happy little goody bags
Parcel-wrapped salmon
I’m normally not a fruit/berry person and would NEVER order trifle at a restaurant, but I’m a fan of Cookyn’s Summer berry trifle. It’s pureed strawberries, chunks of soft Sara Lee butter cake, vanilla bean-spiked fresh cream, and topped with blueberries. And it’s just so tasty!
Summer berries trifle
Mums and mums-to-be!
Hunter, very pleased with his food-clip thingy
All smiles :) And isn't that goody bag cute??
