Remember when you were a kid, how you used to stand in front of an electric fan and vocalise just to hear the funny vibrato the breeze from the fan created in your voice?
My kid has found much more dramatic uses for this humble appliance.
Erin has always had a penchant for re-enacting her favourite scenes from her favourite movies. Her latest favourite is The Little Mermaid, which, in my humble opinion, still packs in the highest density of Disney's best work in terms of music, voice talent (all non-stars and hence, people who really are qualified for the job) and story. And Ursula still rocks as the best Disney villain ever!
Erin's favourite scene from The Little Mermaid is the scene where Ariel, with the help of Flounder, manages to swim out to the wedding ship in the open sea to stop her prince from marrying the sea witch in disguise. Ursula, in the meantime, has been beseiged by sealions, seagulls, dolphins and a large sheepdog, and, in all the commotion, her necklace falls to the deck and the magical locket which held Ariel's voice trapped wihin is shattered. Ariel's ear-wormy, wordless refrain is heard, as her voice finds its way back into her throat while she stands there, stunned.
At first I couldn't figure out what Erin was doing when she stood with her back to our fan and started singing wordlessly, finally ending the performance by bringing her hand to her throat.
Then I recognised the tune (it's a little off-pitch but you can easily tell what it is) she was singing and it dawned on me. She was mimicking what happens when Ariel regains her voice.
Complete with the MTV-esque effect of windswept hair and dress billowing around her.
And that was today's edition of creative uses for everyday household appliances, brought to you by Erin Chen.
E calls out, "Come here; put your head on my lap!"
She obliges, a bit surprised but pleased.
E then pats her head gently, cooing, "Don't be scared!" whenever the taxi shakes and rattles over road bumps. E is worried; the taxi driver's negotiating turns like he's Michael Schumacher on a death wish. The body on her lap quivers ever so slightly. Overcome with emotion, E cries, "She's scared!" then smothers her with twenty kisses in quick succession. "I love you," E whispers. "We'll go home and watch Ice Age, OK?"
We reach our destination. The taxi stops, and the tender scene comes to an end.
Eleanor looks up at Erin, and sighs in quiet contentment, "I love you too."
I haven't posted about the munchkin in a while so here goes.
One of the things I love about Erin and which I hope never changes is how affectionate she is. She gets a daily truckload of cuddles and kisses from the husband and me, as well as her besotted grandparents and uncles. In turn, she freely expresses her affection for people, even complete strangers. When she meets little girls she likes, she will pat them and attempt to hug them. With little boys...well.
Let's just say that I foresee a lot of trouble in about twelve years' time.
This girl is already going up to handsome boys and kissing them! On the first meeting! Once, wthout even having been introduced! (For those I've told this story to, yes, this was the incident that took place in front of the rabbit cages at the Pet Safari in Simei.)
Somehow, I don't think shyness will be a problem for Erin.
Okay, here goes: 5. The longest word in Erin's ever-growing vocabulary is "excavator".
4. Erin has watched Ice Age a gadzillion times. Luckily, it's a great movie. Better than Finding Nemo and The Lion King, in my opinion.
3. Erin and I have a new game. First, she winds her Dragon around her body, grabs the head with her hand, and shakes it at me with the fiercest growl she could muster, "Rrrrooaarr!". I then fall over in mock fright, after which we both dissolve into giggles. Repeat 10 times.
2. Another new game. First, she cajoles me into letting her watch Ice Age. I then say, "Okay, only if you can kiss me." She tries her darnedest to plant a kiss on my cheek, while I run away from her or pull my head back (when I'm carrying her) so she fails to do so. We both dissolve into helpless giggles. Repeat 20 times. Another variant: she comes to me and demands, "I want to watch I Age!" I say, "No, you have to pronounce it properly." Erin then enunciates her words, "I want to watch I-ss-e A-g-e. May I, please?" I capitulate. What else can I do?
1. Yesterday, she locked herself in the master bedroom, where we keep all our spare keys. She could not open the door, so we had to call a locksmith. She was quiet for a while, then started to wail when she knew we could not get to her. I was worried sick, even though Eleanor assured me that Erin would be fine. True enough, when the locksmith opened the bedroom door, Erin was snugly ensconced in the middle of the bed, with the quilt pulled up to her chest and a pillow arranged just so under her head. She was watching TV while sucking her thumb when she saw us. With her spare hand, she gave a little wave and exclaimed, "You come already!"
The bed is currently next to ours, but the plan is to eventually move Erin into her own room across the passageway. Meanwhile, I am more than happy to have her in her own comfy bed (her cot was really too small; this girl rolls around all night and she kept crashing into the bars,) but still close to us all night. And the design of the bed means that all we have to do is push her bed right up against ours to ensure she never falls out of bed.
Erin, for her part, seems to adore her new daybed. She's certainly more comfortable; she sleeps more soundly and is more reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. And she loves making a little hideout for herself by draping a blanket over the side of the bed, wriggling into the little space under it and then playing peek-a-boo through the bars.
The bed isn't exactly what I had in mind, which was something more like this:
But it's devilishly hard to find decent metal daybeds in Singapore, and the Ikea one was very affordable to boot. I hope it lasts her a good long time; I certainly wish I had a pretty bed with pretty sheets like this when I was a girl!
Last Friday, we brought Erin to the Jurong Bird Park. The first things we saw when we got there were rainbow-hued scarlet macaws flying through the air during one of the live shows, and Erin squealed and yelled so excitedly at the sight that twenty people around us turned to look at her.
The only thing that excited her more than all the gorgeous birds was blowing bubbles and playing with water at the chiildren's playground. Predictable lah.
I'm no great fan of soft toys, but I remember that, as a young child without any siblings, having a favourite teddy bear who went everywhere with me and kept me warm at night was remarkably comforting. He was pink, he was woolly and he was nameless, but he formed a very significant part of my memories for perhaps 5 years of my life.
So, for the past few months, I've been looking for the perfect teddy bear or doll for Erin. And let me tell you, it's a surprisingly difficult task! In this day and age of toys so advanced that they do everything but breathe, it was actually really hard to find a soft, cuddly bear or doll that was just the right size and weight, and wasn't all knobbly from built-in functions that require a degree in rocket science to operate. The sort of soft toy you can have a relationship with.
My search finally came to an end at Barang Barang at the Harbourfront Centre 4 days ago. And here is Erin with her darling BearBear:
Erin is a born housewife. She loves Magicleaning the floor (and she actually does manage to pick up quite a lot of dust when she does it!), and if something spills, she'll grab the nearest piece of cloth - even clean underwear from the pile of laundry awaiting folding on the sofa - and try to wipe it up.
She points out even the smallest specks on the floor, and identifies them (usually wrongly) as ants, or remarks, "Eeeee..."
Last night I scratched a mosquito bite in my sleep and bled a little on sheets, and when Erin saw the small stain in the morning, she pointed at it and said, "Dirty..." and then gestured at the sheets in general and said, "Change."
I swear, no one taught her any of this!
Obviously, she's going to turn out to be very different from me.
Yesterday, we went to dinner at Tuscan in Plaza Singapura with good friends Zach, Mary and jodecro. Pretty good Italian/Mediterranean cuisine at reasonable prices, great ambience. Anyway. Moving along...
Sweetie pie here still loves to suck her thumb, even in public. We never got into the habit of using pacifiers, you see. Recently, I've been trying unsuccessfully to break of her of the thumb-sucking habit. Last night at the restaurant, I pulled her thumb out and said, "No, darling; don't suck." At which point she happily repeated, "Suck...suck..."
And if that wasn't bad enough, Zach engaged her in a playful tussling match over her Rainbow Fish book and her gingerbread man, so she was hugging her things to her chest, patting them and proclaiming, "Mine!"
I hope that when she says "suck" in future, she says it clearly. And that she never puts the two words together...
All photos except for the first taken with my ever-handy Sony Ericsson k700i camera phone, perfect for lazy farts like me who can't be bothered to carry digital cameras around, and for capturing candid moments on the fly.
On Erin's first date, perhaps I shall follow her with a camera too...*evil Elvira laughter*
On Friday, my mom said she poked a fingertip into Erin's mouth and just barely felt the sharp edge of a tooth in her lower gum, even though we could see no trace of white when we excitedly pulled her lower lip down to peer at the site of the alleged first tooth.
But this evening, after a long day of mood swings and clinginess, I gingerly poked a finger into Erin's mouth and was promptly bitten -- yes, bitten! -- for my efforts. The razor-sharp edge of Erin's first tooth has finally made its appearance!
*Sob* My little baby girl is not so little any more. It's kind of the way I felt when she began pulling herself up everywhere and insisted on standing most of the time. Half of me is overjoyed to see her growing and learning and making progress every day, but the other half wants her to stay my sweet little baby, safely tucked into the crook of my arm forever.
These feelings were especially strong today when we attended the first-month celebration of Hanyu, the second daughter of one of hubby's singing friends. I got to hold Hanyu for quite a while, and she was sweet and soft and light as a feather, and made tiny bird-like cries...nothing like the squirming, kicking, saliva bubble-blowing, babbling, hair-pulling, tissue paper-shredding little bundle of mischief that my Erin is. But I love my darling girl madly anyway. :)
10:38 am: Announcement Mommy and Daddy will be taking over the updating of this journal from the next entry onwards, as I'm far too busy growing, learning, and squishing and tasting everything I can get my hands on to write in it any more.
I shall probably read it thirteen years from now when I can't remember a thing from my adorable baby years, and be completely and utterly mortified at how uncool my parents are and what icky things they made me wear.
We got off to a nice, leisurely start. The sight of so much greenery was very relaxing. So relaxing, in fact, that we hadn't gone more than 200 metres before I let loose some greenery of my own...
That is to say, I did my biggest, messiest, greenest Number Two ever all over my fresh clean diaper and the bottom hem of my new hot-pink romper! Forget relaxation, everybody panic...WHERE'S THE TOILET?!
After the toilet had finally been located and Mommy rushed me in and laboriously completed a long, thorough clean-up operation under far from ideal circumstances, all the excitement had me completely, well, pooped. Time for a snooze.
So I missed the big lake with the two mute swans from Holland and the lonely, solitary duck and the luohan and the terrapins. I did catch a glimpse of the fluffy tabby cat outside the souvenir shop before I popped off to sleep, though.
I wonder why mute swans are called mute even though they aren't really mute. I suppose it's like bald eagles which aren't really bald, and flying foxes which aren't really foxes...
11:56 am: My first outdoor expedition
Sorry for not updating for so long. I've been busy growing (growing takes a lot of energy, you know, which explains why babies and children need a lot of sleep). I'm now about 10 cm taller than I was when I was born; go me!
This weekend, Mommy and Daddy took me on my first outdoor trip. Daddy borrowed the car from his parents, and we drove up to Mount Faber. Then Mommy strapped me in my sling carrier and off we went to the lookout point right at the top.
I snoozed most of the way up while Daddy and Mommy sweated their way up in the late afternoon heat; being a baby definitely has its perks. At the top, Mommy showed me the mini-Merlion and pointed out Sentosa and the oil refinery islands off the southern coastline, while Daddy snapped photo after photo of us in the landscaped gardens.
Mommy's dying to take me to New Zealand someday to see the mountains in the South Island that so enthralled her when she was teenager, but for now, Singapore's humble sights will have to do. Next stop: Sentosa?
10:33 am: Song and dance
Daddy likes to sing. A lot. Mommy likes to sing. Not as much as Daddy but she has to do it for a living, so she's starting to practise. A lot.
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET ANY BEAUTY SLEEP IN THIS HOUSE?
Okay, okay, that's not quite fair. I do get a lot of sleep. But there have been a couple of times when Daddy was trying to rock me to sleep, and he decided to sing at the same time, which woke me right up again.
And Mommy is practising for her musical theatre workshop, so she keeps singing the same songs over and over again. Sometimes, she even repeats one line ten or twenty times if she feels she hasn't got it right. Plus, it's usually the line with the highest notes in the entire song! It drives me nuts! I know she's in the next room, but I can still hear her. After all, the walls of this flat are so thin that Mommy gets woken up by my cries at night even through two closed doors.
Mommy and Daddy are hoping that I will grow up to love music like they do. I don't know about that. It's entirely possible that all this will scar me permanently and leave me a great fan of silence. *Sigh*
06:55 pm: Burn, baby, burn...
I have a severe sunburn! From all the time under the UV lamp; what else? I look like I'm going through some sort reptillian moulting phase; baby-smooth skin my eye.
Quite tragically, Mommy forgot to bring the baby oil when she visited me in the afternoon, so all she and Daddy could do was try to remove the worst of the peeling bits with jojoba-enriched baby wipes.
I considered making her feel guilty about it by fussing a little, but then I decided to be magnanimous and favoured her with a couple of half-smiles and a few bird-like chirps instead. They sent Daddy and Mommy, not to mention Mommy's parents, into absolute ecstasy. Adults are so easily entertained; isn't it silly? At this rate I'll have them wrapped around my little toe in no time.
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Mommy:
calm
giddy
blah
sleepy
energetic
awake
bored