Last Friday, we had a snowstorm, but before mommy could bring Sheri out to play with the snow, the snow had turned into ice because of the freezing rain. On Saturday, we brought Sheri to the park near our house for her to roam around. However, the park was fully covered with ice. which made it very difficult for her to walk as her feet tends to sink into the ice. Instead, she sat on the ice, picking pieces of ice from the ground. She must have found them very interesting as they feel so cold and icy.
Today, an unforgettable incident occurred between mommy and Sheri and I wish to share it with all my readers of my blog. As usual, I was trying to put Sheri to sleep after lunch. However, she refused to sleep beside me on the bed and started crying miserably. Usually, I will just try to put her back to her sleeping position every time she sits up. After awhile, she will usually give up putting up her resistance and take a short nap. However, she was very uncooperative and persistent in her attempts today. She crawled over mommy to get out of the bed. At that time, mommy was also getting a bit frustrated with this defiant girl and I just told her that she could do what she wants, but mommy would just lie on the bed to sleep, hoping that she might just stay with me on the bed for companionship. Usually, when that happens, she will just roam around in the bedroom.
However, her response was very different today. She just walked out of the bedroom and headed straight to the living room to read her storybooks with her back facing the bedroom. She did not even try to turn back to take a quick glance whether mommy was following her. That really surprised me. I could not believe that 14 month toddler can be so headstrong and insistent in her own way. I just felt at that moment that I am not dealing with a toddler anymore, but an adult with a mind of her own.
After about 15 minutes, she finally returned to the bedroom and went to the side of the bed where mommy was. I gave her a hug and tried to explain to her why mommy was so insistent in putting her to sleep just now. Actually, I did not know whether she knew what mommy was telling her at that moment, but she did fall asleep when I put her beside me after that.
One of the favourite activities of daddy during the weekend is to help little Sheri do her morning exercises. I must confess that daddy has always been the one who is more consistent in stretching her after she wakes up in the morning, especially during weekends when he has more time with her. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would have watched a videoof daddy helping Sheri do her morning exercises when she was very little.
As usual, daddy did his routine exercise with Sheri on last Saturday morning. As he was counting one, two three, four, five, Sheri miraculously blurted out the number 'six' and after he finished saying 'seven', she said 'eight' to continue his courting. At first, we thought that it was just a coincidence, so daddy did the courting again. Amazingly, she did it again. Somehow, she managed to recognise the number pattern subconsciously whenever we do the courting in front of her.
This incident reminded us about what daddy's boss told him when Sheri was born. He told daddy that babies are smarter than us. They can make sense of what they are hearing and seeing everyday even though they may not be able to express it instantly. As time goes, they never fail to surprise us with occasional sparks of brilliance.
We were unable to celebrate Valentine's day on last Thursday as daddy was busy rushing to complete his proposal that was due on last Friday. Hence, we had to postpone our celebration to last Saturday. Well, the day started with mommy waking up late in the morning. Weekends are well-deserved breaks for mommy as daddy always tries to take care of Sheri who never fails to wake us up early in the morning regardless of whether it is a weekday or a weekend.
On that morning, we were pleasantly surprised to receive a gift from Auntie Yin Shan in Singapore. She bought a very sweet Spring dress for our little Sheri. Mommy could not wait to put on the dress on her when Spring comes. Thank you, Auntie Yin Shan!
After taking a late breakfast, we finally got out of the house to do our usual grocery shopping. Tonight, we decided to prepare a sumptuous dinner for ourselves to celebrate the belated Valentine's day. We caught our Sheri dozing off in her cart while we were shopping at the supermarket. See how soundly she is sleeping! How I wish she can fall asleep that easily at home in the daytime! After lunch, we decided to bring Sheri to an indoor playground at Emmaus' Macdonald, which is the world's largest indoor playground for kids. What mommy like about the playground is that it has a small section for toddlers to roam around. That is a perfect place for our little Sheri who is just learning how to walk.
See how energetic this little girl was as she went waddling around the playground!
After all the play, it's time for little Sheri to indulge herself in her favourite fast food, freedom fries! Yummy!
Finally, it's time to go home. As usual, Sheri fell asleep in the car. At first, we were happy as we thought we could enjoy our Valentine's dinner peacefully, but....... our dear Sheri woke up the minute daddy put her to the bed. Mommy had to pretend to sleep beside her while daddy started preparing the dinner. However, my attempts to put her to sleep were ineffectual. Mommy gave up after half an hour and decided to feed her dinner instead. After dinner, she went off to watch her favourite DVD called 'Puppydog'.
Finally, we could sit down to enjoy our dinner. Mommy must commend daddy for preparing the Valentine's dinner. We had steamed lobsters, home-made salad and sparkling cider. Cheers to our love!
Yesterday, it snowed and it was followed by freezing rain during the night. When we woke up this morning, we realised all the trees have turned icy. The branches of the trees are encased in ice. Mommy was enchanted by the icy trees, so daddy went out to take a few shots. Just hope to share with all of you this beautiful sight.
Kids love to imitate the adults. Our little Sheri is no exception. With her newfound mobility, she loves to roam around the house now. In particular, she loves to follow us to the bathroom to see what we do inside. Mommy always has to find things in the bathroom that is of interest to her to prevent her from pulling the bathroom tissue, which is her favourite activity in the bathroom. Once, I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. Knowing that our dear Sheri was just standing behind me, I gave her toothbrush to her to keep her entertained. We have not let her use her toothbrush yet as we are still brushing her teeth using a finger cord with a small brush on it. When I gave her the toothbrush, I just turned my back on her to continue brushing, thinking that she might just play with it. Guess what! After I turned my back on her, I heard some brushing sound coming from someone behind me. Our dear Sheri was using the toothbrush to brush her teeth just like what I was doing! From this incident, I realised that kids are always observing us. They love to imitate us. So, we, as adults, must always be conscious of our behaviour to make sure that we set a good example for them. Here's a short video of Sheri imitating daddy brushing his teeth. Happy viewing!
Last Wednesday was the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year. As a tradition, it is customary for the family to get together to have a reunion dinner. Even though we are so faraway from home, we feel that it is important for us to celebrate such an important occasion. This is Sheri's second lunar New Year, but I don't think she remembers anything for the first one since she was just a newborn baby. This year, she is more aware of her surroundings. Just look at the way she fiddles with the New Year's decoration.
Usually, we will have steamboat with our family back in Singapore. In order not to give it a miss, Mommy took some time to prepare our traditional steamboat for dinner on last Wednesday. Of course, I must confess that the food that we have for steamboat will definitely not be able to match that of our mothers in Singapore, but it does look quite reasonable, isn't it?
Unlike in Singapore where the weather is so warm, I think that it makes more sense for us to eat steamboat here as the heat from the steamboat really keeps us warm in such a cold weather.
A family shot before we start eating! Xin Nian Kuai Le!
Last but not least, many thanks to daddy's sister for sending us all these New Year's goodies!
Finally, mommy has the chance to sit down to write this post. The last week of january had been a pretty tough one for mommy and daddy. First of all, mommy had a bad fall on that Tuesday outside the house on my way back from my wellness checkup. After parking the car, mommy was hurrying to go back to the house to relieve daddy so that he could go to work. However, little did I realise that I stepped on a black ice on the ground. As a result, I slipped and fell on my back. It hurt my back so terribly that I couldn't get up at that moment and my vision was blurred suddenly. I tried calling for daddy, but it took daddy quite awhile before he realised it as all the windows were tightly shut to keep the cold out of the house. When daddy opened the door, he was shocked to see mommy on the ground. Knowing that mommy had a fall, he quickly carried mommy to the house and gave me some water to calm me down. It took me quite awhile to recover from the fall. I was also feeling very naueous too at that time, perhaps because I did not take my breakfast in the morning. Worst of all, daddy told mommy that Sheri was not feeling well. She had a bad cough and a terrible runny nose. That was the first time Sheri was sick ever since she was born, so mommy and daddy were quite inexperienced in taking care of her. After having a bad fall, mommy was clearly not in a good shape to take care of Sheri, so daddy decided to cancel his meeting on that day to stay at home to take care of Sheri and mommy. For the rest of the day, I had no choice but to spend most of my time on the bed. However, being a mother, I could not help but worry about Sheri most of the time. Later in the day, mommy decided to take some painkillers to numb the pain so that she could help take of Sheri. We called up the children's healthcare to inform them of Sheri's condition and see if we could bring her down for an appointment on that day. Guess what! After hearing about Sheri's condition, they do not regard her case as an emergency, so they refused to schedule an appointment for us. When mommy asked the nurse for some medication for Sheri, the nurse just told mommy that they do not encourage giving any medication for kids under 2 years old and all we had to do is to give her warm water to dissipate the flam in her throat and turn on the humidifier in the room to curb her runny nose. It sounds ridiculous, isn't it? Next day, we noticed that Sheri was running a fever. Mommy immediately called the childeren's healthcare to see if we could bring her to see the doctor. Once again, they refused to schedule an appointment for us as they feel that it is not an emergency. All they want us to do is to give her fever-relief medicine and monitor her temperature. We could only bring her down if her fever did not subside the next day. It really broke our hearts to see Sheri feeling so miserable. Hence, we had no choice but to get her some children's medication over the counter based on our intuition. Fortunately, Sheri seemed to get better the next day. Since Sheri was feeling much better, mommy decided to see a doctor for her backpain on Friday. I took an X-ray. The X-ray results shows that I could have possibly fractured my sacrum, so they referred me to an orthopedic for further treatment. The beginning of this year did not seem to go very well for us, as we were overwhelmed by too many events which happened one after another. Hopefully, things will get better soon.
Our little Sheri is always very fascinated by the colourful pictures that she sees in the storybooks . The first thing she does every morning when she wakes up is to lay her hands on her storybooks. Be sure to catch this little bookworm in action!
Sheri is very good at playing peek-a-boo with us, but it is difficult to capture a video of her because she will usually try to snatch the camera from us when she sees it. At last, mommy had the chance to take it secretly when she was playing with daddy on last Sunday.
We always see the sign showing the direction to Bear Creek Mountain Resort along route 100 outside our apartment complex, but we never had a chance to check it out. Last Sunday, we decided to take a look at the resort after lunch. It was just about a 20 minutes drive from our home and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a ski resort. There were lots of people there and most of them were well-equipped with their skiing gear. Daddy even commented that it has been quite some time since he saw so many people in one place. I guess this is partly attributed to the fact that we are staying in a suburban place where population is not so dense. Anyway, let's check out the ski resort. Besides having some eateries that allow the patrons to overlook the mountain while they enjoy their meal, they also have a spa for people to relax in this mountain resort. Mommy was very keen to find out the details of renting the skiing gear. I cannot deny that I really feel the urge to go skiing after seeing so many people in their skiing gear. However, our little Sheri is obviously too young to go skiing, so we just took some pictures before leaving. Hopefully, the pictures will serve as a remembrance for her that she has been to a skiing resort when she was just one year old.
Auntie Jess and Uncle Jeff invited us to their son's two year old birthday party two weeks ago. The birthday celebration started at Junglefun, which was a huge indoor playground for the kids to exhaust their boundless energy. Sheri loves animals, so of course, we did not miss the chance of putting her on those animals' rides. . After all the fun and play, we proceeded to Uncle Jeff's house for some food and not to forget, the birthday cake as well. A picture of mommy and Auntie Kuang Yi with Auntie Jess's son, Garrit.
We brought Sheri to her 1 year old's check up last week. She now weighs about 21 pounds and she is 31 inches long. That brings her to 50 percentile in terms of weight and 95 percentile in terms of height. Yes, she is pretty tall in comparison to other kids of her age. Hopefully, her growth will be sustainable as mommy has given her good headstart. Anyway, we were relieved to hear from the pediatrician that her development is on track. In terms of her motor skills, she is fairly developed. She can feed her herself with finger food very well, and recently she is also capable of feeding herself using a fork. However, she is still learning how to walk even though we noticed a few days ago that she is learning to take a few steps forward without any support. Fortunately, she has been very enthusiastic in pushing her mini car around the house.
Mommy, daddy, I'm ready to push my car outside.
I have to commend on Sheri's effort in pushing her car outside even though the windchill made us feel that it was close to sub-freezing temperature.
As far as her verbal skills are concerned, we are happy with her progress so far. Besides saying 'mama' and 'daddy', she can also say a number of words like 'sit', 'cheese', 'dirty' and 'messy'. Sheri is quite an interesting child. She likes to mimic what we say to her. I always ask her to sit down to eat and to change her clothes, so she learns to repeat the word 'sit' after me. Cheese is her favourite food, so I made her repeat after me when she eats it. As for 'dirty' and 'messy', I guess I am also responsible for that as I always use these two words on her. Am I a bad mommy?
In celebration of Sheri reaching the one year old milestone, we had compiled a collection of her photos from birth to one year old in a video. This will be a gift to our beloved daughter, Sheri. Happy viewing!
I don't know if it is in the genes from her daddy that little Sheri is an avid reader just like him. The first thing she does when she wakes up in the morning is to take a book to read. She never fails to surprise us with the way she reads the book. Even if we were to give her a book upside down deliberately, she will turn the book to the correct way. That's pretty amazing as mommy and daddy do not seem to recall ourselves reading at such a young age. Perhaps, kids are getting smarter nowadays. However, she has a perculiar habit of reading the book from the back.
Anyway, daddy is getting a bit worried about her excessive interest in reading as both of us strongly feel that kids should play more in their childhood years. Learning will take care of itself in the later years. Don't you think so?
How did we spend our last day of 2007? Actually, we did not do much on the last day of the year. We just went to Princeton to collect a kitchen gate from Oki's friend. This is little Sheri's greatest enemy as it would keep her out of the kitchen. Nowadays, she likes to go to the kitchen and look at her own reflection on the oven. Worst of all, she can reach out for the knobs on the stove when she stands up, so we feel that it is better to keep her out of the kitchen for her own safety. Since we had to drive 2 hours to Princeton, we decided to make full use of the trip. We had lunch at our favourite restaurant 'Penang', which specializes in Southeast Asian cuisine. I guess this does not sound very appealing to Singaporeans as they can easily find these dishes in local food centres. However, it is not easy to find all these local delights in the States, so mommy and daddy will always cherish every opportunity to dine in 'Penang' whenever we have a chance. We had fishhead noodles and tom yum seafood noodles. Yummy! What a great way to end 2007 with all these sumptuous local delights!
After lunch, we went to a Asian food market in Princeton to stock up our food supply. Even though it was very chilly in the carpark, little Sheri seemed to be very happy to feel the cold wind blowing her. After shopping, we went to collect the kitchen's gate before heading back home. Daylight hours are much shorter in winter. It gets dark at 4 'o' clock in the afternoon, so there is very limited outdoor activities that we can do in the winter.
After putting little Sheri to sleep at night, Mommy and daddy watched the 'Countdown' in Times Square on the television. We could not help but reminisced what we had gone through in 2007. It was an interesting year for us as we have certainly progressed from not knowing how to change diapers to taking care of a one year old baby singlehandedly. To us, this is a great achievement, and we would not have made it without constant encouragement and motivation from each other. Little Sheri also deserves some credit for keeping herself healthy and strong in her first year. Three cheers for the foo family!
Last but not least, we would like to wish all our family and friends a very 'Happy and Prosperous 2008!'
Last year, we spent our Christmas in the hospital as little Sheri was born on 22nd December. Mommy could still remember that she kept baby Sheri company on Christmas Eve night in the nursery. She was sleeping so soundly then. So, strictly speaking, this is Sheri's second Christmas even though I doubt she could remember anything on her first Christmas.
This year, we went to a family candlelight festival at the United Church of Good Sheperd on Christmas eve to experience some festive mood. Surprisingly, Sheri was quite well-behaved while daddy and mommy enjoyed the Christmas caroling.
On last Thursday night, Daddy suggested going for a night bus tour in Bethlehem, which is known as the Christmas city, to see the beautiful Christmas decorations.
As it was pretty cold outside, we waited for the bus in the waiting room.
This was the Welcome Centre cum Museum in Bethlehem. The guide who brought us on a bus tour was dressed in colonial Moravian costume. Little Sheri was still pretty well-behaved at first, but she was getting sleepy during the journey and started become cranky. Mommy and daddy were busy trying to quieten her down as we did not wish to disturb the bus ride of the rest of the passengers. I guess we learnt our lesson. It is not a wise idea to bring a 12 months old baby for such a tour as we may not be able to control her mood at times. After much struggling with mommy, little Sheri finally fell asleep on the bus and we could enjoy the beautiful Christmas decorations at last. According to the guide, there is a certain historical meaning in the Christmas lights that they put up. The view of the Lehigh Valley from the top of the South Mountain and the 81-foot-tall Star of Bethlehem were just spectacular. It was a pity that mommy's camera is not very good at capturing night shots. Anyway, it was a very memorable trip as it was something that we have not done it before and it could probably be the last time that we could share the joy in celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem-the Christmas city.
Last Wednesday, we brought little Sheri to the Photo Studio in Baby'R'Us for her one year old studio shots. I must confess that it is not easy to take pictures of little Sheri. First of all, it is not easy to make her sit still on the same spot. Usually, she will start crawling to us once she sees the camera. Secondly, it is not easy to make her smile on request. Before we started the photo shots, we did convey our difficulties to the photographer just to give her some mental preparation that it might not be a easy task for her. I must admit that they tried their best to make her smile, but little Sheri just stared at them in bewilderment. Finally, mommy had to jog on the spot and made some animal sounds just to make our little princess smile. So, it seemed that we had to work harder than Sheri just to take some photo shots. Poor us!!!
Mommy, daddy, I'm ready to push my car outside.
After lunch, we went to a Asian food market in Princeton to stock up our food supply. Even though it was very chilly in the carpark, little Sheri seemed to be very happy to feel the cold wind blowing her. 
After shopping, we went to collect the kitchen's gate before heading back home. Daylight hours are much shorter in winter. It gets dark at 4 'o' clock in the afternoon, so there is very limited outdoor activities that we can do in the winter.
