A piece of heart-breaking news made the headlines yesterday. A body of a 17 month toddler was found floating near Bedok Jetty. Whilst the mother was rescued in her attempt to commit suicide, her baby was silently being swept away by the sea.

Whilst we do not know what happened, the cause of it and the verdict yet, I had tears welling up as I read the news. A child of 17 months knows so many things already! This boy would have known who his parents are and would have probably started calling them mummy or daddy or whatever terms of endearment he was taught. A child of 17 months brings so much joy. 

I imagine the poor baby gulping amounts of sea water and struggling for just that short breath of air and suddenly mummy or daddy or any of his care giver is not there to help him this time. I just hope that he didn't have to struggle too much in this very unfortunate end to his short life.

I do not know what else to say but the sadness and your heart wrenching is far from what the family is feeling right now. God bless his soul.

We spent some time with baby K yesterday evening at Jeremy's and the usual routine on Tuesdays when we see her, is to bring her down for a walk slightly before 8pm to catch a line-dance recreation group. She enjoys watching and emulates as much as she can from the aunties there. It's such a regular routine that the aunties and uncles recognise us. 

Baby K is starting to be a little shy now although she still extends a friendly wave, says her hi's and bye-bye's. I also notice that she tends to sometimes stand behind me and peep at whoever, especially when we are in the lift. She has also developed a dislike towards sand, exactly like Josh when he was a tod. 

When we were at our staycation in Sentosa, at the sandbed of the swimming pool in Hard Rock Hotel, we led her to the 'beach' but she started getting squirmish with the sand between her toes and the hubs had to carry her. She doesn't even like the feeling of sand at the bottom of the pool.

On Sunday morning, she gave us a laugh when she came out of the room not wearing anything! I had asked her to put her clothes in the basket for wash and although she stayed in the room for quite a while, it didn't occur to me to go see if she was alright. Well, I'm a little relaxed like this. Anyhow, we found out that while putting her worn clothes in the basket, she had also removed her top, pants and diapers! And yes, she had put  those  clothes into the basket as well and left her diaper on the floor. 

The things that she does are so cute now and how I really wish time would just stop at this stage, for all of us.

Baby K spent 1 day at Jeremy's before the hubs fetched her back home yesterday evening. I am glad I went back to work yesterday instead of taking the whole week off. I had so much emails and work to clear!

As the hubs had to go the the new guild house in the late morning today, I was pretty much alone with baby K most of the time and when he returned home, after his nap, I insisted that we go out. And we did but only for about 2 plus hours as we did not want to bring baby K home too late for her nap. Well, now that we can control our timings, we will. We don't like how some tods are still up and awake at the coffee-shops etc at 10pm, sitting there with their parents, and not doing anything.

On another note, Joshua made us so proud with his fantastic PSLE results and getting admitted to the school of his choice. I think no one else in my family have scored such high points. The next step of his journey starts next year. How fast he has grown and I still remember when he was a toddler and how I used to love bringing him out. He doesn't show the same affection to us anymore and I pray that he will continue to grow into a earnest and humble young man.

Unfortunately, we had to leave Malacca right after breakfast as the husband had a few meetings to attend during the day. But I'm glad that we could enjoy some time with my family nonetheless. 

On our first night there, while all of us were in deep sleep, well, maybe not for baby K, she gave us a scare. It was about 1240am and she suddenly threw up. We got woken up when we heard her cough and a fountain of vomit started raining. My first reaction was to carry her out of the cot and to the bathroom, hoping that she will throw up in the toilet bowl but she kept crying. There was puke on her cot and a trail of of it to the bathroom. I had to wash her up and my poor baby was shivering and crying while seated on the bathroom floor. Thankfully, she was able to return to sleep soundly between the hubs and me. 

While I was attending to baby K, the hubs was trying hard to clean the vomit off the carpet. We think it could be indigestion as she had a little too much the night before and are glad that it's not something more serious. Everything was back to normal again once we woke up.

Going on a holiday is usually more tiring, notice the oxymoron and I hope with the longer days that we have in Bangkok next month, baby K can just doze off while in the stroller or on our shoulders. 

I had such a busy day yesterday, despite my day off and I'm still feeling the after-effects of tiredness at this point of entry.

I woke up at the usual time I would on a working day, made sandwich for the hubs for his breakfast at work, put baby K's laundry to wash, bathe, had my breakfast and off I went. 

I had an exclusive VIP invite to the yearly Crabtree & Evelyn sale and surprisingly, I belonged to the very active members category and was invited to a sneak preview a day ahead of the VIP sale. I had to lug $450 worth of items back home and although I hate cab rides, I had no choice but to hail one back home.

I quickly dropped everything as soon as I reached home and left on a long train ride to Tampines to pick baby K up to collect her passport from ICA. Thankfully, Jeremy was kind enough to pick me up from the train station and sent the both of us to ICA.

Baby K's first passport photo was taken when she was about 4-5 months old and she looks very different. She looks totally like a boy in that photo and fearing that we may not be able to go through airport immigration for our upcoming trip to Bangkok next month, I decided to get a new passport for her. ICA no longer allow the old practice of updating passport photos by pasting the new photo on one of the pages. So despite baby K's passport only having 2 used pages, I have to pay for a new one again in less than 2 years. The e-submission is fantastic but because we went without an appointment, we waited for about 1 1/2 hours for our turn.

Although I have made an appointment for tomorrow, the hubs forgot to revert to me on his schedule and it ended up with the last time-slot being taken up. So I had to do a walk-in yesterday since I was on leave anyway.

Our road trip to Malacca with Jeremy, Ivy and Jerry's family is confirmed although our family may have to leave ahead of them on Wednesday morning because of the hub's work. Oh well, I'm looking forward to some fun times with them. :)

It all started on Friday, with the rec club putting up a banner on my workstation. A colleague treated me to ramen lunch, followed by a cute little cake, which he bought when we happened to walk past the bakery and I commenting that the little mouse is so cute. :)

And at the home front, the hubs 'surprised' me with a staycation at Sentosa. Well, 'surprise' because we sort of had an argument on Friday night and besides, you can't really hide a staycation with the packing you need to do, especially with the little one. Lol.

So packed away I did on Friday night as well as Saturday morning. We went to the market as usual with baby K in tow on Saturday morning, got busy with a million stuff when we reached home, fed baby K her lunch and off we went to Sentosa. 

We checked in at about 1ish and were pleasantly surprised with an upgrade. Not a room upgrade but a hotel upgrade! The hubs had booked us at the Festive Hotel but we ended up in the Equarius with a room half the size of new 4 room flats! We had the view overlooking Adventure Cove and could see the simulated snorkeling area and spotted 3 dolphins on the day of check-out! 

I bumped into an ex-colleague on Saturday evening at the hotel lobby while we were waiting for the shuttle bus to go for dinner. Although she had paid for their staycation at the Equarius, we definitely got the better deal, even view! And the next day I met another ex-colleague at the kids pool at the Hard Rock Hotel. The hotels were definitely having a high occupancy rate over the weekend.

Now I hope that we can go ahead with the road trip to Malacca with my 2 brothers as the hub's project at work has been delayed. :( Fingers & toes crossed.

I met the hub's ex-SIL for dinner yesterday evening. I got to know that she is expecting a baby girl on FB and messaged her to congratulate her and who knows, she replied and we started chatting. And so we caught up and I gave her a little gift for her baby. It's good to know that she's doing well and happy with her new marriage. Of course, the hubs need not know about my meet up with his ex-SIL.

Anyway, another childcare centre called me yesterday to offer baby K a place from as early as December. And after deliberating, the hubs and I have decided to stick to the one that we have registered baby K with. I hear of feedback that says the anchor childcare centre only teaches the child motor skills, which I am glad to say, baby K has mastered most of the basic ones and is really not too difficult to teach at home. A colleague tells me too that the same childcare operator that her son goes to, does not provide potty training and expects the parents to do it at home. When you are a working parent, the only time you have with your kid/s is not time you want to spend pulling hair and being frustrated. 

Although we rejected the same centre that the nephew in law attended when the youngest BIL and family were staying at the PIL's much earlier due to it seemingly being overly academic, I still prefer some form of curriculum that allows baby K to learn not just through play. When the idea of sending baby K to a childcare centre first appeared, I thought that any childcare centre is ok. The responsibility still lies on the parents to teach their child and that was what I had intended to do. But reality is, how much time can we afford when we only have time with her from 6pm-9pm on the weekdays and then the weekends, which we would likely go out. So, having a balance would be of course perfect. We as parents, would still be responsible for bringing her up to be a fine Christian lady.

So, our mind's settled. And pray that baby K would move on to this new transition with ease.

Baby K has finally recovered from a bout of running nose, which she was having for about 2 weeks now. Thankfully, it wasn't dripping all day but boy, when her nose wasn't dripping, they were filled with dry snot. Ewwww...

Her running nose didn't look too uncomfortable to warrant bringing her to the Doctor's and thus it was allowed to run it's course. The only thing I did and had Ivy do was to rub ru yi oil on the soles of baby K's feet and then put on her socks. And while she slept, I'll use a tweezer to pull out the dry snot. Lol....Well, she has come out of this stronger and has built up her immunity, at least I hope. Relying on medication would probably not allow her own immunity to build up to fight the germs. Shortly after she turned 1, we started giving her a daily dose of cod liver oil, in it's original flavour. Not the nicest thing but good for her.

Hopefully, she will continue to have good strong health when the time comes for her to start at childcare.

Auntie Leena, the hubs' paternal auntie who is actually a year younger than him, invited us over to her home yesterday evening for a yearly ritual. The family has the opportunity to observe a Nepali ritual, Bhai Puja, thanks to her. Although the men do not take it seriously, they laugh and crack jokes while Auntie Leena is going through the ritual, it is still a novelty of sorts to watch.

The purpose for this observance is actually where "sisters put tika on the foreheads of brothers, to ensure long life, and thank them for the protection they give.When the sisters give the tika, the brothers give gifts or money in return. A special garland is made for the brothers out of a flower, symbolizing the sister's prayer for her brother's long life. Brothers sit on a floor while sisters perform their puja." 

So every year, Auntie Leena will play the role of a sister for the FIL and the 3 boys while her daughter performs the ritual for the nephew in law, which will be taken over by baby K when she is older. Well, it's a fun thing for us, not something that we take very seriously because of religion. And the 3 brothers, none of whom retained the hindu faith, partake of this ritual in good sport, as a yearly 'festival'. 

This is very much the only Nepali influence left in the hubs immediate family, if not for his aunt. So whenever people asked me about the Nepali culture, I am shy to say anything as I only know momo, a traditional Nepali delicacy, which are actually steamed dumplings. 

Nepal has such a rich culture and it is a pity that the PILs and none of the sons make any effort to share it with the 3 DILs. I don't blame the sons really for they migrated here when they were so young. So really, children learn a lot from the parents. Unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, the beautiful culture and tradition is wasted on this family.

I'm in a little bit of a fix. I received a call yesterday afternoon from one of the childcare centres that I've placed baby K on waitlist in. It belongs to a chain of childcare centres and the branch that was offering us a confirmed slot was nearer home, is non air-conditioned and charges half of what I'll be paying compared to the one that baby K will be joining come January. 

Few months back when I called them to check on our status, I was told that our queue number was less than 20 and the centre at the PIL's old place was under 40. With the numbers looking like these, I didn't think baby K had much of a chance to be enrolled in either one so we went ahead with the new operator. Some of the main reasons why we did were because we were comfortable with the staff and that the school was new. However, I still don't like the fact that it is air-conditioned.  

The hubs passes by the school everyday when he travels to work and back home from work but it's pretty much out of the way for me. So I'm hoping he will be able to send baby K to school everyday and pick her up at least on most days. 

Nevertheless, in order to confirm a place for her, we had to make full payment and I do not know whether they will refund us the entire amount even if we give them advance notice. The incumbent school is only able to offer baby K a confirmed slot in February and when I told the lady that we're actually hoping for January to start, she says she will call me back again next week after confirmation from another parent.

The hubs doesn't seem too keen to make the change and says baby K is comfortable with the existing one. I think he's just being lazy as it'll take a bit of work to get whatever we've paid for to be refunded. Besides baby K is comfortable almost everywhere. She has not even started school so, one can't really tell yet right?

I've been telling the hubs that I would like to make the change and he says to wait till the lady calls me back again next week to decide. At the mean time, I guess I can only pray for God's wisdom to guide us to the right direction.