LMM's Trip to Hort Park

Pictured here with Mami Bel

One advise: Bring lots of water and go at 5 pm when the sun is setting.  It can get pretty hot.

The Hort Park offers children numerous pockets of play areas and playgrounds with different themes.  We spent most of our time at this windmill garden because the LMM was mesmerized by the spinning flowers.  The playground opposite this garden also proved to be a lot of fun. The LMM showed us that he can play on the slide all by himself this time!

The LMM on the slide

IMM Water Park

Auntie Vernice and Uncle Eujon highly recommended this water park but warned that we will all get SOAKING WET.   Undeterred, we brought the LMM to IMM armed with an extra sets of clothes for all of us and a large towel.  And the verdict? HOURS and HOURS of GOOD, WILD, WET FUN!!!!!!! 

Meal Options at 15 months

For a 15 month, 6 teeth baby like the LMM, meal options have expanded a lot more compared with say 4 months ago.

Breakfast
Milk 180ml and either of the following:
Oats and banana
Wholemeal Bread and butter
Hawker fare (once in a while) : Chui Cheong Fan without sauces, Beancurd without sugar
Pancakes with/without butter
White noodle pancake without the coconut and orange sugar

Lunch and Dinner
Either of the following, fruits and then milk 180ml:
Porridge with meat and vege/roots
Pasta with meat, vege/roots and cheese
Kuay teow with meat and vege/roots
Rice with meat and vege

Meat options: minced or finely chopped chicken, pork, beef, lamb
Vege options: Spinach, broccoli, taiwan chye, cauliflower, french beans
Roots (or non-greens) options: Potato, Sweet potato, Carrots , pumpkin
Pasta options: ABCs, shells, twisties, etc.
Cheese: I use the laughing cow cream cheese. It's most yummy!
Fruit options: Grapes, apples, pear, banana, kiwi, oranges, dragon fruit

Snacks
Mini Animal biscuits at Marks and Spencers
Japanese children biscuits

15 months and on...

The LMM is reaching the 15 month milestone tomorrow.  It's been an incredible journey thus far.  Today, he showed us that he could dunk a ball into his basketball rim. He did it with such smugness, it was so funny.  Its the same yesterday when he was playing Adelle's (a good friend's daughter) toy piano.  He played a couple of notes, then paused for applause before he played more.  I think he is really enjoying the attention he is getting from performing these tasks.  More than before, he is really saying,"Hey Mum, Hey Dad, watch me!!! I can do this! And this!"

We hope to be able to teach him to say "Thank You" and "Please" next.  He's been asking for things by putting his thumb and second finger together, pointing to the object of desire and then whining.

We notice that the LMM whines (and cries) a lot.  He whines when he does not get what he wants.  He whines when no one's paying attention to him.  Hopefully, when he is able to communicate a bit more, the whining will go away.

I can see his seventh tooth coming out (bottom left).  Think the itch's getting to him. He'll grab my finger at any opportunity and stuff it into his mouth and YES, he bites it really hard.

14 Months

Time really whizzes by when you have a little one like my LMM.  Its been 14 joyful months.

The LMM can say quite a few words:

Mama

Papa

Ye Ye (grandpa)

My My (our housekeeper Marilou)

Car car

Ball

Gai Gai (Go out)

Ply ("APPLY" he will say it when he sees that I am taking out his rash balm)

He can also understand words such as:

Light (looks up at the ceiling)

Fan (looks up at the ceiling and swirls his finger)

Hair (Starts pulling his hair out)

Nose (touches)

Eye (touches)

Mouth (touches)

Umbrella (he needs this when he is going gai gai. Refusal by the adult to bring it along is dangerous... he DEMANDS it and it doesn't need to be a rainy day)

He can also follow instructions:

Sit down

Go Em Em or She She (toilet)

Eat

Clap hand

Bye Bye (the waves and blows kisses)

Give to Mama/Papa

He can also :

Dance (esp to Ellen Degeneres' morning show and his fav children songs)

Bounce the ball

Kick the ball around

Demand to be fed whatever we are eating (putting his thumb and fingers together, he points to the food we are holding on to)

Drink from a straw 

He loves to:

Hug other children and cries when he gets rejected

Suck his fist and fingers

Stuff his little fingers up our unsuspecting noses

I wonder what he'll do next..its like a little adventure unfolding once again.

Perth Road Trip

Chocolate Overload at the Margaret River Chocolate Factory

Sunflower Farm, Margaret River (A$8 per adult, A$3 per bucket of feed).  The LMM and Mami sayang-ed a baby lamb and a baby goat in the farm enclosure.  The baby goat was eyeing the food bucket Mami was carrying and got pretty aggressive trying to get the vege in the bucket.  Dad had to come into the enclosure to help separate the baby goat from Mami.  Other animals we tried to feed include ducks, kangaroos, lambs, rabbits a rather fierce emu and a silly looking llama.  The llama was a really fussy eater. Didn't like anything we gave him so we fed the leftovers to who else, but the black PIGS!!  We didn't feed the large horsey. We were convinced that our fingers wouldn't survive a snap of its jaw.

Voyager Estate, Margaret River.  This is the best lunch we had in our entire trip.  A$100 bought us a lamb and beef (see below) main and absolutely great wine!  We bought a bottle back to Sg.


The Voyager Estate has wonderfully manicured lawns. After lunch, we let the LMM run loose on the grounds.  We sat there, enjoying the sun, and the super cool weather.

The Jewel Cave (A$19 per adult). Loads of stairs to climb, narrow walk ways.. but we made it!!! We took turns to carry the 9.5kg Travis.  There was a part where the guide turned off all the lights in the cave to let us experience complete darkness and silence.  Travis cooperated and didn't make a single sound!

Back at Isaac's Ridge. It's dinner time again.  The corn we bought at the supermarket was extremely sweet.  This picture's taken on our last night in Margaret River before we made our way up north to Perth.  We knew that we'll miss this place.  Lead We cooked all these food for Mami.

The Aquarium of Western Australia, Perth City.  This is Australia's largest aquarium and underwater tunnel.  We saw lots of giant sharks, rays and really huge turtles. 
Travis learns to feed himself during this trip.  Maybe its because we aren't as fussy about keeping the floor CLEAN at all times.  So he gets a lot of practice.

Travis at the Fremantle Markets. Pictured here touching a sheep skin carpet.  The market reminded us of the night markets in Bangkok. The fruits and vegetables looked extremely fresh. I would even say beautiful.

This picture's one of the last few we took in Australia, at the pier in Fremantle, after a hearty meal of Fish and Chips at the famous Cicerello's. 

Preparing for Perth

Oh no.. we have only couple more days before we fly off at 1 am next Wed.  Looking at the growing list of things to bring, it seems like we have an awful lot to carry to Perth - stroller (thank God we decided not to bring our own car seat), tin of LMM milk, Papa's camera things including a tripod, then there's the LMM's potty, a whole stack of diapers (he uses 5 a day so we need at least 60 pieces), numerous milk bottles, a baby carrier and everyone's clothes... 

Speaking of clothes, not sure if you belong to the "buy new clothes before a trip" category. I am damn sure Lead We doesn't belong there but his mum and my mum and I do.  And so while I'm planning what to bring and yes...what to wear, I also jotted down a short list (hopefully it stays vertically challenged) of new must-haves ;)

This will be the very first trip with the LMM. We are a little apprehensive about how the trip will turn out with the LMM around but guess its always harder the first time round.. then you get seasoned.  He just turned one and eats easy (bread, fruits, rice, vege, meat).  There should be alot of babyfood available in Perth but even if I don't manage to get any on the first day, the LMM should be able to survive on some of our adult meals. We'll keep feeding him bread and fruits hahaha..

And so the accommodations have been booked. We stay a night at Denmark in a Ocean front chalet called Surf's Up (along Ocean Beach Rd), we stay 2 nights in a Pemberton farm parked in the middle of the Karri forests, we stay 3 nights in Magaret River and finally, we stay 4 nights in Perth City in Aaron All Suites... all the selected accommodations come with full kitchens for preparing the LMM's meals.

I also managed to buy the Aussie dollar we required for the trip at just 95.6 Singapore Cents to a Aussie Dollar. So everything there is at a discount to our currency. There seemed to be a shortage of Aussie notes in Singapore. I later found out that all the money changers bought their notes at a high of 1.2 - 1.3 and were reluctant to change them out at the current parity rates. So they kept all the notes, telling customers that they don't have Aussie.  Thank God my bank has some stock and the relationship manager reserved some for us.

The next thing I need to do is to research on all the highly recommended restaurants in all the places we'll be visiting since food is a priority in any of our overseas trips.  Hope to do some trout fishing (and have that fish cooked for lunch or dinner or heck, a snack), try that marron thing which seems to be the local flavour seafood, eat plenty of Albany Rock Oysters and all its cousins/relatives, drink plenty of wine (who's taking care of Travis??) and beer, Ostrich steaks. This trip I hope to be brave enough touch a goat, or a pig at the farm, touch that live fish and feed a lamb.. yieks, maybe I should pack my golf gloves along.