My 14mo

Kit loves playing with sand. In fact, he is more interested in the sand and wood chips (found at the play ground) than going down a slide. And here's what he means when he says:
- "alma?" = Elmo
- (with hand to his ear like holding a phone) "woe?" = Hello

He can also say (in Mandarin):
- ＂妈妈＂ = mummy = me! :-)
- ＂猫＂= cat
-＂摸＂= touch. He says everytime he pats Smokie our cat.
-"奶奶＂= for milk rather than paternal grandmother
- "mum mum" (in Cantonese) = eat i.e. feed me!

Very recently, he has also figured out how to stand up on his own.

Here's Kit getting ready to put his hands on the floor.

Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble. He's pushed off!

Ta da! Success!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Anxiously waiting for...

The weather was cold and the sky was grey when we arrived at The Train Shed, but that didn't bother Kai at all. For all intends and purposes, the whole objective for our trip to Australia this year was so that he could ride on Thomas and his friends at the miniature railway. He was the sunniest person that grey, grey day; it was such a joy to watch him.

The miniature trains at The Train Shed probably made the cartoon characters come alive for him. Here's Kai anxiously waiting for his last ride on....

Toby! I thought he might pick Thomas again or ride on James, another main Thomas and Friend character, but he chose the adorable and silly steam tram instead. My sweet, sweet boy is a sentamentalist. (Toby is the only steam tram on the Fat Controller's railway, and he's really old.)

More from our Sydney getaway:
- Road trip snacking and its consequences
- Where the wild things are
- Paddling like a hamster
- Summer in Jervis Bay

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Road trip snacking and its consequences

When you have two young children, going on long road trips can be a really stressful affair. You have to pack lots of snacks, plan stops, include an entertainment device for older kids, and most importantly bring a sense of humor.

During our recent holiday in Sydney and surrounding areas, our road trips can be as long as 4 hours. I have a 14mo toddler who can't usually sit still for more than 5 minutes on a normal day and a 4yo who hasn't been on long road trips for quite a while so I wasn't sure how he'd take to it.


Snacks (lots and lots) and cartoons loaded on the iPad saved my sanity.


But our rental car suffered dreadfully. I lifted up Kai's booster seat to find a treasure trove of crumbs that can keep a nest of hungry roaches pretty happy for a lifetime. In addition to crumbs, I found pebbles that Kai picked up during our stops.


As well as rotting blueberries and dried up blueberry skin.

I am pretty sure the cleaner from the rental car company found even bigger horrors after we returned the car. What would they think! Which horrible family with terrible manners sat here? I certainly don't treat my car like this back home, but when you are on long road trips and you are always getting in and out of the car, lugging heavy luggages out of the boot while trying to keep an eye on two boys, sometimes feeding young toddler in a moving car, something's got to give.

More from our Sydney getaway:

- Where the wild things are

- Paddling like a hamster

- Summer in Jervis Bay

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Where the wild things are

As city dwellers, I don't want my boys growing up thinking that the natural habitat of animals is the zoo. Every chance I get, I remind them that hey, animals do live in the forest or parks around us.

One bright early morning (at 6.30am) during our stay at Bay of Plenty Lodges, which is located right in New South Wales (NSW) Booderee National Park itself, I saw a bright patch of red among the green trees right outside our cabin. It was a bird chomping on some fruits for his breakfast.

I brought Kit, who was awake at that time, as close to the bird as I dared and pointed out the bird to him. Then I left him in his playpen, grabbed my camera, and tried to see how close I could get to the bird.

I got really, really close and the bird just continued eating. It obviously didn't think I was going to have him for breakfast. (Later I found out that this species of bird is called the Crimson Rosella. What a pretty name.)

Pretty Rosella wasn't the only wild life we saw at the national park. Kai and Terence were chased by a wild kangaroo which probably knew they had some yummy grub for him back in our cabin. It stood right outside our door for a long time before going back to graze at our front yard. On our way to the lodge late in the evening, we saw more wild kangaroos (and a joey hopping into a pouch!) as well as a mummy possum with her baby on her back.

I certainly hope Kai will remember this experience for a long time to come.

Paddling like a hamster

The weather on our third (and last) day in Jervis Bay was finally warm-ish enough for us to go kayaking with Kai in the bay near our Bay of Plenty Lodges.

The kayaks were rented free of charge to guests, which I thought was such a lovely gesture. The bay was just a short 5 minutes walk from our cabin and it took Terence and I about 15 minutes to haul two kayaks down to the bay which was just a few steps away from where the kayaks were kept. The water was clear, a light breeze was blowing across the bay, and it was calm. Absolutely nothing that would spell disaster.

In fact it was a perfect setting for Kai's first time in a kayak, and he was thrilled to bits.

But as we paddled, we noticed that the tide was coming in and the current was carrying us very quickly towards the opposite side of the bay. That was when Terence said it was time to call it a day and I remembered words like "danger", "strong currents", and "be careful" coming out of his moving mouth. How they all got strung together I can't remember because I was already trying to paddle back to shore like a mad woman and I was NOT moving. The current was against me all the time.

I felt like a hamster running in its own exercise wheel. So much energy spent but the hamster's going no where and neither was I. I was in my version of caged up, hamster hell. And whenever I stop paddling, the current would push me further and further away from where I want to go. Terence and Kai were getting smaller and smaller. Then they disappeared.

I paddled. I cursed. I paddled. I cursed.

Then I thought, "To hell with it." I got out of the kayak and WALKED, dragging the kayak behind me. The water was shallow enough to walk yet deep enough to dip the oars in. How unglamorous.

I dragged the kayak to a part of the bay where the current wasn't so strong (and the water deeper) and paddled quickly back. Terence was about to launch his rescue mission after dropping Kai off in our cabin, but he came back just in time to see his tired wife hit the shore in her kayak.

I don't remember what I was doing when Terence took this picture^. All I can say is that the whole experience was lovely enough but I am no national sailor.

Summer in Jervis Bay

Australia's Jervis Bay is the kind of place that is beautiful, charming, and atmospheric even on a cold, rainy day. It is the kind of place which I wish is just an hour's drive away so that I could--any time I want--go canoeing with Kai, explore rock pools with the boys, and just be the only family playing on the beach.

When I read about Jervis Bay two months ago, I knew it was a place we would enjoy as a family. But we were plagued by a cold spell when we arrived about two weeks ago. It was cold, the sky was overcast most of the time, and worst, it rained on our second day there. So most of what we wanted to do in Jervis Bay was cramped into the third day, which thankfully stayed mildly sunny though the wind was chilling.

It explains why we were decked out in our sweaters and long pants at Chinaman's Beach in Jervis Bay; it wasn't a good time to bring out the bikinis and swim shorts. And it certainly didn't feel like summer!

We arrived at Chinaman's Beach by accident; we originally wanted to go to Hyams Beach, which reportedly has one of the whitest sands in the world, but we weren't quite sure which stretch of the beach it is. But no one minded. We all had a lovely time, and there were so much to see and explore.

There were plenty of rock pools to peer in to see if any fishes or sea creatures had been trapped when the tide ebbed.

We could walk among the corals and seaweeds.

And find creatures we have never seen before in our entire life.

The only sign of spring/summer were the wild flowers blooming on the beach.