Dear Sweet Pea,
To say we were excited would be an understatement. Extensive renovations were underway for our new house! We were finally moving from a tiny apartment to a proper house. We were guilty of neglecting you a little this month as we spent a good portion of our time coordinating and supervising the renovation process. Not only that, we drove around the entire Singapore to shop for lightings, fixtures, furniture and home decoration. It was an exuberating experience to have saved up for years and to purchase a dream home for the family. When you come of age, you will understand the joy of working hard, scrimping and saving for something that you love and wish to own.
The pandemic and disagreeable weather put a downer on our enthusiasm as the renovations were severely delayed. Hence, we had to impose on Grandma and moved in to her house on short notice. We were fast becoming professional packers and movers under this uncertain climate.
Nonetheless, Mummy managed to jot down a few key milestones for this month.
Despite the constant delay we experienced during the interior rebuild of the house, every cloud has a silver lining! By moving into Grandma's place, you managed to overcome your fear of her. You used to cry buckets when Grandma tried to carry or kiss you. You finally felt snug as a bug with her after living together for a few weeks allowing her to cuddle you without having her constantly struggling with a wriggly caterpillar. We rejoiced as it had taken us a long time to get to this stage. Grandma loved to say "Aiyoh" when things go wrong and before long, you started imitating her, much to our amusement.
Since there was no bedframe for our mattress at Grandma's place, we laid it flat on the ground. You have found immense joy in climbing up and standing on the edge of the bed, with your back facing the bed and free falling backwards onto the mattress before cackling with laughter.
We were proud of you being able to hold on to your straw cup and sip water from it unassisted. You have also learnt to say "Thank you" in Mandarin, a key step in embarking on a lifetime journey of being polite and grateful. You identified every animal as a "dog dog" due to your limited vocabulary. You were able to say pee pee and poo poo to indicate that we need to either change your nappy or give you a quick shower.
For playtime, you loved to sit in your green Lego box and "submerged" yourself in toys and shoes. You were curious about the swing at the playground but was still not comfortable enough to sit on it as we pushed you along. You also went on your first trip to River Safari and slept through most of the animal enclosures. Classic.
We found you more musically inclined than Mummy. Daddy would hum a tune using the same word but in different tones and you would be able to replicate the exact same tune. Bravo my child!
To rub salt into the wound, not only were we delayed indefinitely in our renovations, you caught a bad stomach flu from school, not once but twice, and had the most miserable time. We brought you to 3 paediatricians as we fed you different medications and applied various lotions to soothe your bum bum. The skin on your bottom was sore with rashes and blisters. There was occasionally bleeding and our hearts bled along with it. Therefore, my child, we decided to pull you out of the school.
On the day you turned 17 month-old, we finally moved to our new place!
So much love and excitement,
Mummy and Daddy
