statues at the entrance of the restaurant….

day 2 away from ashley

Posted on June 27, 2006

gooooood morning ashley! (27 june 06). i love that smile of hers and poor ashley had a mozzie bite on her right cheek then!

blog hopping from beijing
i thought i’d be deprived from blog hopping this week while i’m at beijing since i couldn’t access any of the blog sites last night but i could update my own blog site using via blogger.com. and then i realised that blogspot sites are actually banned in china! so i did some searching in the internet and found out that I can actually access my own blog using this url instead - http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://babyashleywong.blogspot.com

handbag, handphone
my mom told me over skype that today, ashley carried one of our handbags on her shoulder and had a hand on her ear as though she was talking to someone on the mobile phone! ah…i missed that!

mommy’s day at beijing…
after a day of training at the office, my colleague and i set foot to the streets of Wanfujing, Beijing.

here’s a pictorial version of my day…

my colleagues and i walked over to a nearby restaurant for lunch which was just round the corner from the office…..

what’s up with the barrier? we got into a cab and realized that the cab driver was separated from us via a plastic barrier. it literally looked like a make-shift barrier! it didn’t leave us much leg room….

wanfujing street, beijing

the whole street was lined up with sculptures in conjunction with the olympics to be held at beijing in year 2008

somemore pictures of my day at beijing…

what a lonnnnnnnnnng day…

Posted on June 27, 2006

the moment i stepped into the cab this morning (7am) which was going to ferry me to the airport, i immediately missed home…especially ashley. unfortunately for me, she was sound asleep when i left home. on the bright side,

- i get to travel with a colleague (as opposed to travelling alone….)

- we get to transit at hong kong airport for 3 odd hours to do some mindless shopping. this time i resisted myself from any impulse buys. had kiv lots of stuff but i am proud to say that this mommy resisted all the temptations!

- i get to step foot in beijing for the very first time in my life!

- i get to take pictures of the places i will be visiting at beijing. the land of my ancestors.

after being on the move for 11 hours, i’ve finally arrived at beijing. i left my house at 7am this morning. i arrived at the hotel at beijing at 9:30pm! i’ve had a longgggg day!

monkeying around….
since ashley was a couple of months old, we noticed that her arms were really strong. each time we stood by the window grill, she would grab the grill and attempt to pull herself up! yesterday, she tried to climb the fence!

grandpa supporting ashley while she tried to climb the fence!

…..notice how attentive sydney (our labrador retriever) is….she didn’t want to miss out on whatever that ashley was looking at over the fence….

sydney also wanted the attention that grandpa was giving to ashley…..

our pumpkin, our dumpling
grandma calls ashley her little pumpkin
aunt carol calls her a little dumpling!

day 1 - away from ashley

Posted on June 26, 2006

mommy’s off to beijing for training for a week….

fantastic!

Posted on June 21, 2006

when we woke up this morning, ashley was still sound asleep in her cot which is covered with a mozzie net. notice that her thumb is in her mouth….

goooooood morning ashley!!!! when she woke up, she was looking around the room to see if anyone of us was around….
her book was at the side of her bed….she then reached for it and started to flip through the book….

after flipping through her book, she waved the book at me….fantastic!
(as told by my sis)
last night, uncle ryan was speaking to someone on the phone and exclaimed, “fantastic!”. ashley surprised everyone by saying,”ta ta tic”. unfortunately i missed it when i went upstairs to get something. however, later, they tried to get her to say it again for my sake but she didn’t get round to it.

toothpicks
ashley loves to shake the container full of toothpicks. she loves the sound it makes when shaken.

dancing on the dining table
last night, we decided to put ashley on the dining table and asked her to dance. she entertained us by bouncing up and down (by bending her knees) and tapped her right foot occassionally. what an entertainer! unfortunately papparazzi mommy didn’t have her camera within reach…and besides i was on the alert in case she misses her footing and fall off the table! (imagine that!)

she understands
i can’t help to think how ashley has grown. one year ago, i was still in confinement and dear ashley was merely less than a month old. now, she is 12.5 months old, always pottering around the house, babbling and imitating us. she understands alot of things now. last night, while having dinner, i asked her to walk over to my side so that i could give her some soup…

mommy : ashley? do you want some soup? come over here….mommy will give you some soup
ashley : (ashley stopped whatever she was playing with at the living hall and eagerly walked over to me so that she could have the soup mommy offered.)

mommy : do you want somemore soup?
ashley : (she opened her mouth…)

eat eat eat
ashley is ALWAYS interested in whatever food that we eat. i suppose it is a good sign that she is not fussy when it comes to food (fingers crossed). each time we have a bite of something, she’d walk over to us, point at whatever we are eating and make some noise to signal that she too wants a bite of whatever it is that we are eating.

showing more interest towards books

Posted on June 19, 2006

books
i’m glad to say that ashley is showing more interest towards books. before she turned one, she only paid less than 1/2 a minute attention to what we read to her. these days, she’d pick up a book, walk towards us and signal for us to read it out to her. her attention span towards books that we read to her has increased tremendously. for example, after dinner just a while ago i sat on the living room floor. ashley walked over to her cot, reached between the cot bars and attempted to take the book out of the cot but failed because of the angle of the book. she then signalled for me to reach out for her book. i took it out of the cot, passed it to her and sat back down on the floor. she then walked towards me, turned her back towards me and sat on my lap. she opened her book and i read out loud to her.

hyper ashley
ashley has been very hyper these days and she doesn’t nap as often and as long as she used to. this evening, when i came back from work, ashley was busy pottering around the house. she was so pre-occupied with what she was doing until she didn’t notice me walking through the doorway. when she finally realized that i was home, she walked straight up to me and signalled to be carried. as soon as i carried her, she sucked on her right thumb and played with my hair. she fell asleep after 15 minutes.

head above the floor
after falling down and hitting her head countless times, ashley now knows the consequences of knocking her head - pain. this evening, ashley accidentally fell backward. when i tried to cushion her fall, i realised that ashley had already tried to avoid her head from knocking the floor. she did this by having both hands stretched out to cushion her fall and controlled her head up above the floor with her tummy and neck muscles. way to go babe!

bay beh….kor kor!
i took a video of ashley and when i showed her the replay of the video, she pointed to herself in the video and said, “bay beh (baby)…..kor kor (big brother).” you see, cousin bridget has this notion that she is a boy and insists that ashley call her kor-kor (big brother). these days, when ashley sees an older girl, she’d call her ‘kor-kor’.

mommy’s hair is the best
when ashley’s sleepy, she’d want me to carry her so that she can suck her right thumb and fiddle with the edge of a lock of my hair with her left hand. if my hair is tied up in a poney tail, she’d reach out and grab my poney tail.
when my mil carries her and tries to put her to sleep, she’d grab mil’s hair, feel it and let go (cause it’s not mommy’s hair….)
when grandma carries her and tries to put her to sleep, she’d reach her left hand out to grab grandma’s hair but unfortunately, grandma has short hair.
therefore…in conclusion, mommy’s hair is the best! which leaves me no choice but to keep it long!

our living room

our living room can no longer be the way it used to. half the floor is filled with ashley’s toys and these are only some of them. we have 2 baskets-full of her toys tucked at the corner of the living room. we had to re-arrange the sofa sets to maximize the space in our house so that ashley has more space to walk/run around.

happy father’s day!

Posted on June 18, 2006

gooooood morning ashley! this picture was taken on sat morning (17 june 06). ashley decided to explore how the world would look like from down under….

happy father’s day @ Souled Out Cafe
we celebrated father’s day a day earlier with my parents. we had a feast at souled out cafe and while we were there, we felt more of the world cup fever than anything else.

the restaurant was decorated with a world cup theme….

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ashley couldn’t help kissing herself in the mirror….

happy father’s day @ Mama’s Kitchen
we had a father’s day dinner with my in-laws tonight. ashley managed to meet both her cousins bridget and nicole.

nicole and ashley giving each other high-fives…ashley was being carried by auntie pam (nicole’s mommy)

ashley and her daddy….this picture was taken after mass on saturday evening….

kito - part II
over father’s day dinner at Souled Out Cafe last night, all of a sudden, ashley clapped her hands once and shouted “kito!”. we wondered for a sec why she clapped instead or wave her hand (like how she imitates us at home with the mozzie bat) and then we realised that she actually attempted to kill a little flying insect. she thinks that all flying insects are mozzies (for now..). we burst out laughing after that! and we were all amazed that she actually knew what a mozzie was!

car seat shopping
for awhile now, we’ve been looking around for a car seat for ashley as she has outgrown her baby carrier. after shopping around, we finally bought a chicco car seat from sogo. looking at the prices of the baby car seats in the market, we decided to settle for one car seat for now. we initially planned on getting two car seats to be placed in each of our cars for convenience.

hubs distracted ashley with a toy while the sales lady was strapping ashley in the car seat at the mall….

playmate at church
as usual, when we attend mass, we’d sit at the children’s section. yesterday, we let ashley walk around. she instantly made friends with a little boy who’s probably a year older than her. he shared his toy car with her and they were both exploring the place on their own.
i loved watching them.

toy car
hubs noticed how taken ashley was to the little boy’s toy car during mass last night and decided to buy her a toy car!

supermarket trolley
after shopping for ashley’s car seat, we decided to shop for some groceries. we placed her on the trolley and she loved every second of it. only thing was that we had to make sure that she was always on the move or else she’d make known of her displeasure.

ashley on the supermarket trolley….

leg lifts with grandpa

Posted on June 17, 2006

since ashley has been taken care of grandma and grandpa she has learnt more play tricks ……here’s one of them that would surely keep her entertained (as long as grandpa can withstand!)

these are some of the activities which took place when ashley was in grandma and grandpa’s care:

- leg lifts with grandpa

kito kito kito!

ashley walked briskly around the living room, waving her right hand and said, ” kito kito kito!” she probably saw us doing the same thing when we were trying to zap the mozzies with the mozzie bat!

yes, we’re still battling with the mozzies! they seem to love ashley. as of today she has two mozzie bites on her forehead! and several on her legs! damn the mozzies!

mommy drink

last week, when we were at the mall, i gave her some water to drink from the new bottle i got her (with a straw)….after she drank her share, i took a sip from the bottle. then she took the bottle back, drank from it, and then extended her hand out so that i could drink from her bottle. and this went on and on for a while. at least we know that she is willing to share her water with us

shopping bag

Posted on June 14, 2006

gooooood morning ashley!!!! (13 june 06)

shopping bag
these days, ashley has been imitating us by carrying her handbag or paperbag on her arm and walk around the house as though she was going out to shop!

interest in books
ashley didn’t have much interest in books in her first year. 2 weeks ago, aunt carol gave her two books and it was the first time she showed so much interest in the book when grandma was reading out loud to her throughout our 20 min journey home in the car.

a e i o u
all of a sudden, about a week ago, we heard her pronouncing the sound of the vowels in sequence. we reckon she picked it up from cousin bridget. or was it a fluke?? she’d also look at papers/books, point at the wordings and say, ” ooo ooh oi ah ah e e i i oooo..”

boogey
ashley has learnt to dance by shaking her upper body from left to right.

straw
i bought a water bottle for ashley from mothercare 2 weeks ago. the bottle came with a straw. i wasn’t too sure how well she’d adjust to drinking from a straw but she surprised us by drinking from a straw like true pro.

running around butt-naked
after my mom gave ashley her bath this morning, ashley was fussing around and wanted to stand up on her own even before she was dressed. so my mom gave in to her whimps and cries and let her stand on her own. as retold by my parents, she was happily running around the house butt-naked! her actions cracked my parents up. i wish i witnessed it myself!

ashley pointing at the oranges at 1920…. 

mommy and daddy’s weekend off

Posted on June 12, 2006

scuba diving is something which hubs and i picked up some 6-7 years ago with a bunch of our friends. till today, we always make it a point to scuba dive AT LEAST once a year. this time round, we decided to dive some place near - and so on thursday night, 8 of us headed off to tioman island. if you’ve been to sipadan to dive, diving anywhere else within malaysia is really nothing to shout about. nevertheless, the break was so darn good! while we were away, grandma and grandpa were on duty.

our room with a splendid view

when we got back, grandpa and grandma trained ashley …. :

• to say mom-meh (mommy) but she doesn’t voluntary call me ‘mommy’
• to hold her own bottle while drinking her milk (again)

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