Originally published at keat n candice. You can comment here or there.

I am moving to www.missustay.com!

Much appreciated if you could update the URL and your feeds.

Thank you and see ya around!

Originally published at keat n candice. You can comment here or there.

For his first birthday, we brought Thaddeus to the zoo for the first time.

The husb and I were crossing our fingers for good weather and for Thaddeus to stay in his stokke for as long as possible because either of us cannot deal with carrying him for long now. Thankfully, the outing went quite well. Thaddeus sat in the stokke for almost 3 hours, which was a feat considering how warm and sunny it was!

Initially, Thaddeus was pretty bored and was starting to get fidgety in his stokke. THEN! He discovered something moving in the trees! I think there were two chimps climbing in the trees. That got his attention for quite awhile.

The otters are very experienced with visitors. Or, they could just be mistaken that all visitors would feed them. They scurried in a pack right in front of us when we approached their enclosure and that got Thaddeus to sit up to check them out.

Next, we brought our little Tiger warrior to see the only cat I like - the Tiger in my favourite color (white)! I think Thaddeus may like tigers as much as I do! He pulled himself nearer to the fencing, kept looking at them and turning around to give me a smile.

We were initially worried that Thaddeus would not be able to appreciate all these animal-watching. But we are glad to report that our worries were unfounded.

We brought Thaddeus to the sea lion show but we couldn't go down to the front of the show because of the stairs. Unless absolutely necessary, we were determined not to bring Thaddeus out of the stroller because once he's out, we won't be able to get him in easily.

Thankfully, he did managed to see the sea lion from afar and enjoyed clapping around with the rest of the visitors.

It was almost noon when we got to the water playground. The sun was blazing and the baby was tired. We waded around the playground for awhile before we decided to get out of the sun's way!

As expected, Thaddeus refused to go back into his stroller after his change. So the husb-cum-superdaddy had to take over to carry him for the rest of our excursion. We could see the energy depleting from Thaddeus as we checked out the last few animals along the trail.

Soon enough, he drifted off to sleep on his Daddy's shoulder.

And pretty much slept through the afternoon after we got back home!

Originally published at keat n candice. You can comment here or there.

Oops, a little late again!

Dear baby cub,

You've grown SO MUCH this past month! You are such a little boy now, yet still very much a baby in many ways. What they say is true..you can't remember how life was really like without having your own child. We have experienced tremendous joy (and fatigue) like never before!

Becoming a parent has now made me more kia-see (scared to die) than ever. Your Daddy and I had a car accident a  few days before your birthday celebration and we were extremely fortunate and blessed to have got away with only slight injuries. If our car had moved any quicker or slower, it could have been a very different and disastrous consequence. I came out of the car feeling so relieved that your Daddy and I are generally okay. Every time I think of the accident, I'd be filled with immense gratitude that I still can be by your side, celebrate your birthday with you, spend time with you and watch you grow. One can never tell which day or moment is going to be your last. So baby boy, remember..to always spend your time wisely and cherish the people and beautiful memories you have.

Enough of the sombre stuff. Here are some of the highlights of your 12th month. Most of the milestones are quite similar to those of the previous month. Hence I did not put them down point by point.

You love your little outings with your 公公 and 婆婆. And you have now become their little helper in choosing vegetables/fruits when you go to the market with them. Last I heard, you are very popular with the market aunties and uncles too! Remember to ask for discount when you learn how to talk. Then you'll be like your Daddy - 师奶杀手!

You now know that shirts/tops go to your body, shoes/sandals go to your feet. When you see Daddy trying on clothes while shopping, you would want to join him too. 

Here you are doing the "For me??"action when your 婆婆 prepared some longevity buns (since you don't know how to take vermicelli yet) and gave you a big ang pow for your Chinese birthday. Sooooo adorable!

Now that you are rather adept with crawling, we try to help you to learn walking. You can walk pretty steadily when we hold your hands. However, you will just plonk to the floor and go back to crawling when we let go.

You are one funny baby - trying to fly before learning how to walk. In this case, you are trying to conquer the stairs by walking instead of crawling. And you would walk all three flights of stairs that get you to our room without giving up. Good effort, darling!

We have been a little naughty as parents too. We shared our fresh orange juice with you and that helped you to pick up the skill of drinking from a straw real quickly! I only had to show you once or twice how to suck the drink from the straw and you knew how to do it. So glad we could skip the sippy cup stage because you always refuse to tilt the cup to get the water to your mouth!

You are getting the hang of how to play with the baby car. You only know how to reverse the car for now but that's good enough fun for you. In fact, you are enjoying it so much, it takes a lot more to get you out of it now.

From your responses and actions, we guess you most probably understand what we tell you. You can do your "byebye" (a proper one now!) when we tell you to. And when I tell you there's no more snack after you finished it, you would do your "no more" gesture.

Your Daddy taught you how to sayang and you would rub our faces gently when we tell you to sayang us. When I showed you my tummy and told you to sayang it, you understood and rubbed my tummy! Such a dear you are. I love you sooooooo much!

One huge milestone has gotta be you putting on shoes at last! Well, your 婆婆 had told us not to let you wear shoes until you are about one. That's why you have only been putting on socks usually when we bring you out. In the last couple of months, you seem to have developed a dislike for wearing of socks, pants, diapers. That makes it very challenging for us to get you to wear shoes. It's a battle every time. But we have hope that you will learn to like wearing shoes once you understand that wearing shoes means you get to go out!

You are not doing so well in the food department though! You still do not like porridge but love your baby cereal. Oh yes, you are a great fan of bread too. We share some of our dinner with you now that you are almost one - mostly just rice, soup and toufu. They are however, not as enticing as the baby snacks. Sigh, I hope you learn to appreciate porridge better so that you get more nutritious stuff in!

We have not heard any mama or dada, or anything that sounds like a proper word. Nonetheless, that does not stop you from giving us orders with your pointing and body language. Speaking of which, you can really move that little body of yours! You would jiggle your body non-stop whenever you hear music. It's really funny! I tried getting a video of you doing your little jiggles but you would stop and look at me with your signature wide-eyed look whenever I get my camera out.

Every day is a learning adventure with you. The past 12 months have been been such an amazing journey. We hope you have enjoyed it as much as we did 'cos there's much more to come!

Originally published at keat n candice. You can comment here or there.

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Originally published at keat n candice. You can comment here or there.

I couldn't quite get over the choice of photo Mothercare selected to represent Thaddeus and dropped them a message on their Facebook wall to justify our participation, along with a series of random photos that I took of my baby boy one morning.

Although these pictures may not have the perfect background, he may not be dressed in pretty clothes, they are SO MUCH MORE natural and cuter a representation of Thaddeus.

Following my earlier post on this casting call, I think my dad is Thaddeus' greatest fan. Whenever some random strangers tell him that Thaddeus is cute, he would tell them Thaddeus has taken part in this casting call and asked them to vote for him!! GOSH, it is kinda paisey! But you know grandparents...!

My folks are putting in the effort, so I probably should do my part too. Please do drop by here to vote for Thaddeus if you think he deserves your vote! He's no. 111, and is on page 3 of the category: 0-3 years old boy. Last day to vote is on 15 September!

Oh, and erm, I don't do the I-vote-for-your-kid-and-you-vote-for-mine. Please vote only if you think he's worth your vote. Remember, like how we do it for our elections?

Muchas gracias!