Honey Tree Family Day 2013

My Saturday Morning Snapshot post last weekend mentioned that Blake and I attended his school's family day for the first time. Here's what happened. Haha.

It was a super early start to the day, even earlier than his regular school hours. I also had Blake drink his milk before leaving the house because who knows when we'll get to eat, right? On normal school days, Blake will have his breakfast in school. I stopped giving him milk cos he regurgitated daily after every morning feed at one point.


So anyway, once that was all settled, we left home. The sky was beautiful that morning.


The initial plan was for me to drive my dad's car, and have it returned before he needs it later that morning. But to play safe, I messaged my dad the night before (close to midnight!) to ask if he could send us there instead, and we will make our own way home. I don't really enjoy being rushed for anything, you see. Haha.

So at 7.20am, my dad picked us up and drove us to the field near Blake's school, where the event was held. Blake slept throughout the journey. He was very tired!




My dad :)
We were one of the first few to reach, and the place has yet to be set up. Blake began to explore the place. He had found it rather strange that he woke up and saw a field rather than his school gates. Haha. It took him a while be aware of his surroundings, but soon, he was all over the place - running, jumping, climbing!






Grabbed him for a couple of shots before he couldn't take it. Haha!












Everyone was busy setting up while Blake was busy exploring the place
Close to an hour later, we were all gathered in the field for the morning warm up exercise, before the games begin.


We were asked to spread out to prevent hitting one another, but seems like only Blake and I did. Haha! We stood under the shade of trees! :P


Stretch your arms!


Now your shoulders!




Shake your hips!


Shake, Shake, Shake!
After the morning exercise was done, it was play time! But by this time, Blake was bored of the field already. We only managed to play one game before he decided it was time to go. Haha.


Blake demonstrated how to play this game with his teacher


After we left, we made a slow walk to the bus stop, where Blake stopped at every parked car along the road to call out the colours. It was really funny! We also saw a white crane in the big drain!

Soon, we were on the bus home and this was when Blake replenished himself with water, and rested. After we got off the bus, we went to the playground (empty!) and Blake continued playing.














After playing for about 30-45 minutes, I bribed him with a lollipop to go home. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to go home to rest! And so, that concludes our first school family day. Hopefully, we will be able to play more than one game next year! Haha!

It's Saturday!

After our new IKEA furniture (my new work station!) was all done, Nakayla was sat in her rocker while Blake took his toys out to play. Nakayla loves watching Blake play and enjoys being near him, while Blake happily includes her in his play cos he loves to make her laugh! But this boy is very shy (so the opposite! Haha!). The moment he realizes he's being photographed, he will move away. Must maintain his "macho boy" image, I reckon. Haha!



Linking up with:

Bye Bye, Pacifier!

Cue Dora's mission accomplish song:

♫ ♪ We did it! We did it! We did it! YAY! ♪ ♫

Blake is off the pacifier for good! In just a couple more days, it will mark a whole month of being pacifier-free for him :D

The weaning process was rather unexpected as I hadn't planned on weaning him off the pacifier, yet.

Here's a little background as to how Blake got started on pacifiers.

When Blake was only three days old, my grandma asked me for a pacifier to comfort him with. Thankfully (or not), the starter kit we bought came with one. From that day on, a pacifier (there were always four in the house) was always within reach. Blake never fell asleep without one, and never went to anywhere new without. It was his permanent trademark, I guess. It was constantly in his mouth, clipped onto whatever he was wearing that day.


These were taken when he was 12 months old.


As he grew older, his reliant on them grew too. The pacifier was actually his motivator in all our learn-to-crawl activities, back when he was still a little baby. Nope, no fancy crawling toys worked. Only the pacifier did.


When he could walk and climb, Blake would climb up to the table just to take the pacifier and put it into his mouth. Even after the birth of Nakayla, and after I introduced the pacifier to her when I found her sucking on her thumbs and fingers, Blake would still want his pacifier. A couple of times, I caught Blake taking the fallen pacifier from Nakayla's mouth to put it into his. That's how much he loves pacifiers.

I honestly had no idea how to wean him off, and felt cruel to be doing it to him - considering Nakayla uses it on and off too. It's akin to some kind of mental torture to let him go cold turkey while seeing his sister using the very one thing he's trying to quit! But somehow, we did it!

Cue Dora's song again:

♫ ♪ We did it! We did it! We did it! HURRAY! ♪ ♫

Here's how the happy weaning surprise happened.

It all started on 15 February 2013, after Blake went to school. After my mom had taken Blake to school did I realize that the pacifier was left behind. I panicked and immediately sent a message to his teacher. I wanted to warn her of the impending disaster to come during the children's nap time. Blake can be quite the horror when he throws tantrums, and combined with his strength, things can get very tough for us adults. But his teacher replied that she will pat him to sleep. Subsequently, I received two more messages from her. One to inform me that Blake is sleeping, and another after nap time to let me know that he slept well during his nap time. I then told the teacher that maybe I should take this chance to wean him off the pacifier, and she said that they will try to not give him the pacifier while in school. And because I'm super lazy, I suggested to just leave the pacifier behind - one less thing to pack, one less thing to wash! - and she said, "Ok :)".

When Sean returned home, I told him about what happened earlier, and we decided to continue with what I had accidentally started.

The first few nights were tough. It took Blake longer than usual to fall asleep, and we had to keep occupying him so that he won't remember anything about something called the pacifier - out of sight, out of mind. After a whole week off the pacifier, I thought that maybe this was a fluke, and that surely he will want the pacifier when given. But no. The following days and weeks had seen Blake going to bed when asked to, sans the pacifier. Neither did he try to take it from the table nor from Nakayla's playpen anymore! You simply cannot imagine how happy and proud I am of my boy!

Blake went from this...


To this!


Bye bye, pacifier! It was fun while it lasted :D
Now that he's off the pacifier, I guess it's time to potty train him. I had been telling myself that potty training will only come after Blake is off the pacifier. Now, if only that was just as easy...


P.S. Blake was watching Dora when I was typing this. Hence, the 'song'. Haha!