The Road to Independence

Matthew is 19 months now, and he is certainly eager to grow up. He likes to copy us when we do things, like, drink from a cup, feeding himself. Nowadays, whenever he's having dinner, we need to prepare 2 spoons, 1 for me and 1 for him. And his way of feeding himself, is putting food in my spoon, then I in turn feed him. He does put food in his mouth occassionally. There are also times when we forbid him from self feeding, and then he will get really frustrated and keep saying 'feed feed'. He has been learning to drink from the cup now, and getting better at it.

Staying at home with him can be quite tiring but also fulfilling. He seems to be learning new things everyday, and when I did a count of words he knows...he actually can say more than 85 words! He's quite a vocal boy, or at least that is what we taught him to be. He used to be whining whenever he wants something, but we told him to tell us what he wants because we cannot understand his whines. He seems to understand, and has been picking up words pretty quickly ever since. I don't know if he's considered advanced, but I am not complaining.

Here's a picture of him taking cereal in the morning, and posing for the camera at the same time.

Spring is coming!

Today is a sunny and cool day. Just 21 degrees, perfect temperature. We went to the market early this morning to do our weekly marketing. Made it a point to go earlier, to avoid the crowd. Matthew also woke up very early, and won't go back to sleep after his milk. We had no choice but to wake up also.

Box Hill, where we stayed, is a town with the largest Asian population. If you're at the town on a Saturday morning, you might have thought that you are in one of the Asian countries, instead of Australia. It is also very convenient shopping here, as you can get almost everything you can find in Singapore. Price difference aside, it's always heart warming to see familiar food.

Since it is a sunny day, Matthew has been able to roam outside without a jacket on. Here's a picture of him playing with the pebbles outside the house. He likes to throw them on the floor.

Something very funny happened. We bought strawberries from the market, so I taught Matthew how to say it in Mandarin. Strawberry is 'cao mei' in Mandarin, but he said it as 'dao mei'! (which happens to mean 'bad luck', something very very different.) He kept repeating it, as it is a new word...and we nearly faint as he got better at it. In order to distract him from his new word, I introduce something else to him.

Back online

It's been a while since we wrote anything, and it has been largely due to lack internet access at home, but that has been resolved recently after subscribing to an ADSL service.

Since we came back from Singapore, we've done up the house a bit more to make a house look more like a home. I've also started work for a few weeks now.

Job and work topics will be absent from my blogs for obvious reasons, however I may talk about 'work life' in general.

I've been taking the train to work (in CBD) but occasionally driving. Trains here are fairly frequent and the service from our stop, Box Hill, to CBD is quite fast (18mins) as there are express services during peak. This means that the train stops at only 2-3 stations as opposed to the full 12 stations. That makes a big difference.

Weather here is still cold. 5-17C usually. Day time is OK, but it is quite chilly in the morning and nights. Although my train ride to town is 18mins, I take another 18mins to walk to station from the house. I tend to walk faster when its colder :) . It's a good 1.3km walk, so it can be a little uncomfortable when the mornings are 3C and all I got on is a suit. Once I get my new car (on the way) I intend to do lot less walking in the cold.

Once I reach my station in town, a short 5min walk brings me to my office. I would normally grab a coffee and "kueh" at a nearby coffee shop and "tarpow" up to my office for a quick brekkie. That has been my routine so far. A brekkie like that costs me around $5. Things like that are more expensive, so one needs to get used that. If my "brekkie lifestyle" becomes unsustainable, I will probably resort to waking up earlier to eat at home ( = less sleep).


Little Matthew has also been coping quite well. He is aware of the changes in the surrounding, but doesn't seem to be affected too much by the changes. This is a picture of him with his new bed in his room.