Good times in Melbourne - Great Ocean Road

Stop-over for our Fish & Chips lunch

where Baby Adam met a hot Taiwanese chick!

Clearly knocked out by the intensive whole-day tour!




"I'm on top of the world!" (or at the bottom, depending on how you look at it!)

Good times in Melbourne - Home away from home

During our short stint in Melbourne, we stayed with Aunty Irene, Uncle Leong and my cousins Philesia and Jacqueline.
Home away from home was at Scoresby, and we pretty much did what the local folk did - dine at Asian restaurants and had dim sum at Yum Cha, go shop at the local supermarts etc.
The only touristy thing we did was probably joined a local tour to Great Ocean Rd to see the 12 Apostles (or 8, whatever's left of em).

At the airport departure:

My happy family shot



as usual, Gonggong is very proud of his fav Grandson.. because he's the only grandson. Haha!



At first, Baby Adam slept in the bassinet.

But after a grand total of 15min, only Mom's lap will do.


Home after 8 hours!!! What a long tiring plane ride for us, and poor Baby Adam is jetlagged.
Local Aussie time was 7.30AM, but in SGT it was only 4.30am. Can you imagine?!


We stayed at my Uncle & Aunt's huge but cozy home in the suburbs.


Our guest room had a mini bar, toilet, couch with TV, and even a big piece of lawn attached!


As expected, Baby Adam spent most of his mornings in the lawn playing, often on his own.


Showing Mummy a blade of grass he plucked from the ground. Hehe


Getting distracted by magpies on the cherry trees



And he also walked his baby steps too!


"I made it to you Mummy! Ho ho ho"


Went to the local Carribean market which apparently sold everything from food to vehicles.


Baby Adam playing and observing seagulls & ducks in the nearby lake.


Cheeky bubs!


We also brought Baby Adam to the nearby Chesterfield Animal Farm which was only 5 min drive from our home.


He can't feed them yet, but at least he is enjoying himself under the shade of a tree.


In the Nursery Barn with tame baby animals.



more photos to come when I have time :)

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

Here's Baby Adam wishing all our friends & loved ones a Very HAPPY & PROSPEROUS Lunar New Year and Happy Valentine's Day!

This year, being Baby Adam's first CNY, is extremely busy as you can expect - we had soooo many places to go, so little time, therefore we had to plan whose houses to go to first/last.
It is also Andy & my first year distributing angpaos instead of collecting. Boo hoo! But thankfully we have Baby Adam to help us collect back some $$ hahaha!
Baby Adam collected close to $1k of angpao $$ on the 1st day of CNY. Fatt ah!
Andy & I decided to open his own Savings Acct with that money, on top of his current insurance-tied investment and CDA account.

We've also got our visas approved, changed AUD$$ and almost finished packing our luggages. Phew!
Catch ya all when we are back from Melb.
Have a lovely V-day everybody!

The Tans :)

Babies are perfect...

...excuses (oops!) reasons for everything.
Stuck in a call with someone who doesn't know when to hang up? "Sorry I gotta go now! Adam's crying for milk".

Don't know how to turn down your Mom who wants you to run errands for her when you're already up to your neck at work/home?
"I can't. Not today. I gotta look after Adam. He hasn't spent quality time with me all week".

Or simply... "I better bring him outside" makes a quick escape strategy.


Prior to having kids, I was absolutely clueless about what to say/ask around people who have kids, mainly because not many relatives/friends I know have children.
In order to make conversation, I said/asked things like "Did she cry?" (after a fall), "Do they cry all the time?" In retrospect, I feel like kicking myself in the shin right now when I think about that.
And my idea of a perfect way to spend an off-day in the past? To laze around at home with a magazine, sleep in till I need to go pee, then come back and sleep somemore, wake up, refuse to brush teeth, eat, take a long bath and finally brush my teeth, doll up, go shopping, meet Andy after he knocked off, go for romantic dinner for two, or meet my gal friends...


NOW, I seem to have gotten used to not getting enough sleep, no time on my hands, our worlds all centred around Little Adam, who has EVERYONE wrapped around his little little metacarpals.
Oh wait, Sundays are good for sleeping in, even with a baby! One of the rare treats in a parent's life.

And I appreciate people who ask me about motherhood, about Adam, and friends who still remember me as "Veron" and not merely "Adam's Mummy".
It's great talking about Bugaboo, Stokke, milk bottles ("Orthodontic or normal teats?"), where to buy what, etc with my friends, particularly a certain gal friend *cough cough*, who is gonna have her bundle delivered in May!

But really, babies are good excuses to go shopping! They need wardrobe changes all the time, and everything's too cute to walk away from at Mothercare.
Speaking of Mothercare, go check out the flagship at Harbourfront. It has the largest collection of all the other outlets combined into one.

My new ride

Finally, some photos of Mummy's speed demon :)

In my favourite Candy White. This color wasn't an available choice and we had to wait 8 weeks for one to be shipped from Germany.

The newest 18" Work Emotion 11R matte bronze rims, which had to be custom-made for our GTI's 5-pcd.
Again, more waiting. Took 9 weeks to reach us!





Personalised with Baby Adam's first pair of booties.



Actually, it is Baby Adam's car, Mummy is just the chauffeur :P
the young master is pictured here going grocery-shopping with Mummy.

(photo taken at 7 mths)

New Ikea high chair for CNY

Baby Adam has 2 places to go for his Reunion Dinner - first stop is buffet with Andy's family, followed by steamboat with my mine.
Therefore, we bought a new high chair for him, something simple & light from IKEA to put at my parents', which costs only $29 ($25 without the feeding tray).

We actually rushed out to get it on last Friday night and we bumped into Crazy Carol & Hongkuan. They were furniture-shopping for their new pad.

In fact, I'm liking this new feeding chair better than his current one, which drives me insane because Baby Adam is learning how to self-feed now and can you imagine all the food he has smeared onto the cushion and how many times I have to wash it!

With this new feeding chair, it is so much more convenient to wipe clean and I don't have to worry about Baby Adam being a messy eater.
.
.
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by the way, Baby Adam went for his 9 months development assessment today (which he did well) at Dr Simon's and at the same time we took his travel meds - for flu, fever and diarrhoea.
Speaking of diarrahoea, I apologise if I sound as though I'm having Blogspot diarrhoea, but really, February is a busy month for us with many happenings!