Change the Batteries

Clara's 4th Month Checkup

Clara had her 4th month checkup this morning. Dr Henar thinks she is doing great.

She weighs 7.2kg and is 25.25 inches tall.

Length = between percentile 50 and 75
Weight = between percentile 75 and 90
Head Circumference = between percentile 10 and 25

She still doesn't flip over on her own yet. Dr Henar says that we can try introducing infant rice cereal.

Now that she is 4 months old, we can try introducing milk and soy back into my diet again. If she starts having rash or become very irritable again, I will have to be on the milk/soy free diet again. I am going to have chocolate ice-cream tonight!

Mooncake Party

Last year, my parents and friends sent quite a number of paper lanterns for Sonya for the Mid-Autumn Festival but we didn't get a chance to use them. This year, we thought we invite some of Sonya's friends at Westgate to our house for a mini mooncake party. I went to Super 88 to buy some mooncakes and that funny horn vegetable. I wanted to get the pomelo but apparently it was sold out in just 2 days last week :( I also went to Home Depot and got some bulbs for the lanterns since the children are too young to handle candles.











This is Ryo from Japan. His little brother is just one month old.



All the kids got some "Clifford juice" while the adults had chinese tea.





This is Lea from Poland . Her baby brother is due in November.



The children got bored of the lanterns and started playing with Sonya's toys.





This is Elizabeth and she is just so cute. She speaks really well and is always ready to explore everything.



And this is Michael, from Malaysia, having fun with Sonya's paints and brushes.



The party ended before 9pm since the children had to go bed.

We brought Sonya out with her lantern for a walk in the playground and also to take a photo with the full moon.



We had more mooncakes and tea ourselves.





Justin dropped the horn vegetable into my tea and tried to fish it back out.





It was one of the most enjoyable Mid-Autumn Festival we had for quite a while :)

Sonya Did it Again

Sonya just says the funniest things...

Justin and her were lying in bed under the covers with just their upper bodies sticking out and she said, "Daddy is big ice-cream and Sonya is small ice-cream"

Quite few months ago, we were watching 'House' one night. There was this girl who went into shock and was foaming at the mouth. To this, Sonya turned to me and said, "Girl girl spit out ice-cream..."

When asked how she is going to go out to play on a rainy day, Sonya said Bob the Builder will take the water away and use umbrella so that "water no drop on head and no wet wet" :)

Sonya was watching TV and a Sikh with a red turban came on and she shouted,"Santa Claus! Ho ho ho..."

Sonya had some pretty bad rashes a few weeks ago and I told her to massage instead of scratching the itchy spots on her body. 2 days ago while I was preparing dinner, she asked me her favorite question,"Mummy, what you doing?" I told her I was massaging the chicken with the marinade. Her next question was,"Is the chicken itchy?"

Mount Washington

The day started out as an ordinary sunday and our plan was just to go for a walk in the park. We were looking at the map to see which park to explore and decided to go Mount Washington instead. Little did we realise what we got ourselves into :) Anyways, we noted down the route and off we went! Everyone were in high spirits. Sonya was excited to see "big mountain".



We set off at 9.50am and took i93 North all the way to New Hampshire. This is the only the second time we drove out of state into New Hampshire. The last time was when we were in Newburyport and crossed the Merrimac River.

We stopped at New Hampton, NH for petrol and also went to the tourist office to get some detailed maps of the White Mountains.

Stopped at Plymouth, NH for lunch at Lucky Dog. I think there are not many chinese, although we saw 2 chinese restuarants, there. We felt all eyes on us both on the streets and in the restuarant. Or maybe it is such a small town that everyone knows everyone else and we just stand out.

After lunch, back on the road we went. Suddenly there was this loud tapping on the glass. The rubber lining had come off the windscreen. Justin tried to fix it but it came right off again the moment we got on the highway where the winds were rather strong. This is where my hairband came to the rescue! We just tied it to the wing mirror and that did stopped it from swinging around and tapping on the glass.



Finally, we reached Lincoln, NH. The guy at the tourist office had warned Justin about the speed limit in Lincoln. His words were, "Not 31mph, 30mph"





Sonya getting restless in the car and started taking off her shoes.



Route 112 - Scenic drive but we were running out of time. The auto road at Mount Washington closes at 5pm and we have less than 2 hours left!












The scenery is fantastic but Sonya was too busy drinking water!!!





Sonya is really getting restless. She said she needed to "Da bian". We found a pub and I brought her to the toilet but as expected, no da bian.

Finally, we reached the entrance to the auto road at 4:45pm and were glad that they told us that the drive to the peak is half and hour and we need to leave by 5:45pm.

The sign at the entrance read, "If you are afraid of heights, you will not appreciate the ride up"






This is the observatory at the peak of Mount Washington. The wind was blowing at 50mph with gusts up to 80mph.




A woman told us to hold on to each other at the top. Justin wanted to go outside to take more photos. He saw woman fell down and nose bleed.











We started our way down the mountain at 5.45pm. We had dinner at Red Fox Tavern & Grill along Route 16. Kids fell asleep in the car soon after dinner. Justin wanted to take i93 back and so we had to go onto Bear Notch Road. Even though the moon was up, it was pitch black all along that road. It was quite scary and felt like we were in some horror film!

It was a long way back and we finally got home at 11.30pm.