New friend Madeleine

John and Cheryl recently had a new addition into their family, a baby girl, Madeleine. We visited their place so the kids could play together and to meet the baby. Made is so adorable (baby acne aside). She basically slept the entire time; what an angel. Brings back memories of what newborns were like.

Jasmine and Julia played with Benji, who is one year younger than Jasmine and one year older than Julia. Wow, does he have lots of toys! It was like a carnival for them, so many new toys. Jasmine was in a "Thomas the Train" phase and admired all the train things Benji had in his room. All 3 kids enjoyed running up and down the hallway...until nap time. It was a fun day.

Julia's first swim at Killarney Pool

It was the long weekend and we had fun outings planned for each day. Today, we went to the Killarney swimming pool since it was super hot. We arrived there thinking that the pool would be really busy, but because the weather was so nice, the pool was pretty empty. Good for us!

This is actually Julia's first time in a swimming pool. Julia is used to being showered in the laundry tub so she didn't really know what it felt like to be in a big pool. She wasn't scared though. She loved the water and as soon as she stepped into the pool, she waddled deeper and deeper and deeper until I had to grab her, or else her head would be under the water.

We bought this pool float thingy for kids and it looks like a doughnut ring except there's a seat in the middle. Once you put the child in the seat, they float leisurely in it. Julia enjoyed it, and so did Jasmine. (Jas is too tall for it but she's still very light, only 30lbs, so she was fine in it). We had to alternate putting Jas and Julia in it because they both liked it so much. Having this float thing also allowed Richard and I to have a few minutes (literally) to enjoy the waterslide.

But after about 45 minutes, Julia got a little cold, her lips turned purple and she was shivering so we had to leave. It was a fun day.

Summer Preschool

Jasmine started summer preschool again this week, after a 2 week break. (we had to register on a weekly basis and I was too late registering her for some of them). Anyways, she started school again this week. Jasmine really likes school.

Since I'm at work during the day, I only hear about preschool from my FIL. I get home on Monday and my FIL tells me that the teacher pulled him aside at the end of class, and told him that Jasmine was being difficult during class. She threw a magnet ball at the wall. Bad girl. But my FIL also informed that balls are meant to be thrown around so Jasmine threw the ball... hmmmmmm. Ok. She got away with that one.

Then on Day 2, my FIL tells me that the teacher pulled him aside again and told him that Jasmine threw a bunch of colored sand onto the floor (rather than playing with the sand in the sandbox). Ikes. What a mess. Bad girl again!

On Day 3, Jasmine apparently blew spit bubbles onto other kids. Makes me wonder - how did she learn that? Even I don't know how to do that. Maybe I should ask her to demonstrate for me. What are we going to do with her? Sigh.

Day 4 - what next? I'll find out tomorrow...

Benjamin's Birthday Party

It was Benjamin's birthday celebration today and we all dropped by his place for some fun. There was lots of food, a bouncy castle at the back and tons of mini-cupcakes to go around. The mini-cupcakes, you couldn't just have one! Jasmine, actually had 3... hopefully the other kiddies didn't notice. There were kids running around the house, in the backyard and in the playroom.

At the end of the party, both Jasmine and Julia had grab bags with neat little toys. There were even homemade fishy soaps, which Jasmine had to use that night in her bath. They were so cute; it matched the shower curtains perfectly!

Peanuts - Incident #2 for Jasmine

I haven't eaten peanuts, especially cooked peanuts in quite some time. It's been maybe a few years? I can't remember. But the inlaws made some cooked peanuts this evening, along with the usual sausage, chicken, celery, carrots, broccoli. Jasmine was hanging around and wanted to have some of the yummy sausage. She actually asked me for food????? Of course I'd give her some! Without a thought, I gave her some sausage with my chop sticks.

About 15 minutes later, I noticed that Jasmine's lip was a bit swollen but I wasn't sure from what. Did she bang herself on the lip? What did she run into this time? Funny thing is, only the top part of her lip was swollen. Richard then asked me, "did you give her some food off your plate? Did it touch the peanuts?" Hmmmm. Aiya... I completely forgot about that. The swollen lip could have been a reaction to touching the peanuts. Could be I guess. She didn't get any hives, breathed fine, and she looked ok. Just the lips? What a scary thought. I guess we really have to be super duper careful about the peanuts from now onwards.

Rice Milk - no more dairy

After 8 weeks, Julia's face rash is still on full force. With the 2% cortizone cream, the rash can be kept under control but as soon as we stop putting it on, the rash comes back with a vengence. We can't stop using it. Terrible. I am highly suspecting the homo milk being the issue so as of last night, we put Julia on fortified organic rice milk instead of homo milk. Very expensive stuff ($3/ltr) but we'll buy it if it'll help Julia's skin. We are hoping that her rash will clear up on its own after a week (and if it does, this will confirm her milk allergy).

We are not fond of soy milk (estrogen-like), and I do like almond milk but due to Jasmine having a nut allergy, we'll stay away from that for now. Let's hope that we can narrow Julia's allergy issue down.

Hair cut?

It was time for the girls to have hair cuts again. Jasmine's bangs were drooping into her eyes. Julia's side hair is way past her ears. So, since it is Wednesday which is wash-hair-day, we decided to give both girls a hair cut. We bought these small sharp scissors from Daiso which is perfect for cutting/trimming hair. I managed to cut Jasmine's bangs without too much trouble, right after her dinner, when she is enjoying her yogurt stick. She was still sitting in her high chair. No fuss at all! Yay! I think it looks quite good actually. Good Mommy.

As for Julia, she doesn't quite understand the concept of "don't move" yet. Especially when she sees these cool looking scissors, which she thinks is a neat toy. Julia continuously grabs at it every time I go near her face with them. Sharp scissors + grabby baby = not a good match. The last thing I want to do is poke her in the eye or ear with it. So I left the daunting task to Tweet, who happily suggests that he is better at cutting hair anyways. Sure, I say.

So I take Jasmine into the bathroom for her bath, while Daddy goes about his hair cutting duty with Julia. 10 minutes later, I go into the kitchen. Julia's hair cut is all done, says Daddy. "Look". I glance at Julia... OMG! She has no bangs!!! Smile. Poor Julia. She went from having long hair to way-too-short hair. I vaguely remember Jasmine had a similar bad hair cut when she was around 16 months too! What a coincidence. I guess it's not such a bad thing, considering we won't have to cut it again for awhile!

Leaking Ceiling

Had a late night tonight doing chores and zonked into bed around 1am. Around 4:30am, through my grogginess, I heard a huge "splash" sound, and then some "drip, drip, drip" sounds. I lay in bed thinking "I must be dreaming this. Go back to sleep". Then, I hear louder "DRIP, DRIP, DRIP" sounds and it keeps on plunking away. I sit up, then look at the time. Turn on the lights and stare at the floor. All wet. What the? Then I realize... the ceiling is leaking!!!! ACK!!! I dash out of bed, run into the laundry room, grab 2 buckets and place them below the leaking area. I grab towels, wiping the water off the laminate floors (because Richard keeps on telling me that any water on the floors will RUIN them...) and then another area in the ceiling starts dripping. Great. I run to grab another bucket to stick under that area.

I quickly wipe the floors dry then run upstairs to find out where the water is leaking from. A quick survey indicates the upstairs bathroom sink area. I knock on the inlaws room to wake them. Both MIL and FIL wake up to see what is going on. They turn off the water tap, then start wiping the floor upstairs. I go back downstairs to try to sleep more. It was now 5:30am. Surprisingly, both Richard and Julia slept through the entire episode. Lucky them.

Choking - 911 Call

Had a fright tonight when Julia was having dinner. She was almost done and she was playing with 2 plastic spoons in her high chair. I went to wash something in the sink and she suddenly started gagging and coughing really badly. I thought she was choking on something. She was crying hysterically, face bright red. Still coughing. So I started looking at the food that was on the high chair, looking for the spoons. I only saw one spoon. Where's the other spoon? Where? WHERE? So, I thought Julia swallowed the spoon!

I pulled her out of the chair, starting bashing her back to unlodge whatever was stuck in her throat. Still coughing. Got Richard to carry Julia and proceeded to call 9-1-1 to dispatch ambulance. But just before I gave the operator our address, I found the purple spoon. Phewf. So I told the operator that everything is ok. What a scare...