Gabe had his immune-shot today and he did well. He was upset at the nurse and pushed her hands away with the look on his face saying, ‘I’m cranky at you!’ but at the end he smiled at her and said, “bye bye” before we left. Grandpa and Grandma went down to the doctor’s with us as well. It was good having them over the weekend and Gabe was so happy to see his ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama.’
Gabe’s into numbers these days. Often he gets them right, but still a bit confused between 6 and 9, and 1 and 7, other than that he often gets them right when he sees the numbers. He’s talking a lot more and copying almost everything we say. He’s learning to say the seven days at the moment and it’s so funny that ‘Saturday’ seems to be the easiest day for him to pronounce. Anyway, I should get a nice video and post it on here. I need to go to bed now…zzzzzz
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Gabe’s first word was “hello”-he said the word when he was two months old. When I was in Thailand, I got a chance to babysit my little nephew, Ford, can’t remember how old he was then but I was able to teach him to say a couple of words and since then I realized that baby can start talking when they’re that little.
I found Gabriel always tried to copy things I said since he was a couple of months old. He was able to ask the question, “what’s this?” since he was about 6 months and that was when I started to take time teaching him words, telling him what they are and how they relate to our daily life.
Being able to communicate has made him a happy boy.(That’s what we think anyway) These days he’s able to say “peace(please) and ta(thank you) when he asks for stuff. Recently just learned to say kyou kyou(Thank you) and it sounds so cute. He’s also learning to put words together and sometimes he gets it right, and sometimes we just have to guess what he’s trying to say.
Last Sunday at church, he’s finally old enough to join the other toddlers upstairs where parents are allowed to be with them for 5 minutes then they’ll have to leave their kids and go join the service. It was pretty emotional to me, thought he might cry, but it turned out so well. He just said “bye bye, Mom” and gave me a kiss and he was fine. I couldn’t concentrate on what Ray was preaching cuz I wondered whether Gabe would be crying or when those ladies were going to come down to get me, but thankfully that didn’t happen. After the service I ran straight up and Gabe pointed at me and said, “Mom” with a big smile and I was happy then to know that he had a good time. At women’s church, he’s going to join the bigger kids next week, so I’ll be able to just concentrate on the study. That’s such a blessing!
Oh, well! Anyway…this video shows our routine after giving him a bath or a shower, that’s when we learn more words together. Sometimes it’s a little bit tricky though cuz I breastfeed him right after putting the clothes on him and he’s often can’t be patient enough to have his tucker. 😀
Today’s our 3rd wedding anniversary and I got the most beautiful card ever with a very surprising gift. Dave and I took Gabe to the park this morning and had a good family time together before he headed off to work.
Gabe’s 17mths old now and he’s really into drawing, coloring and saying words and putting them together. Every number used to be ‘six’ and every alphabet ‘W’, but now he’s recognizing more and able to tell some differences. I often take him down the road and he’d walk to people’s mailbox and points at them then reads the number out. We made a new friend down the road about 4 houses from ours. Coral is such a lovely lady. She invited us in and showed us her lovely backyard and the 2 cute birds.
Gabe knows that Tuesdays and Sundays we go to church, so in the mornings of those two days he often says to me, “…church,” which I gathered he means today we’re going to church. I’m happy that he’s able to communicate a whole lot more, which makes things easier for me. We’re recently joining a playgroup, which takes place on every Friday morning where we join other ladies and their kids in the morning and the kids get to play and learn new stuff and the moms get to catch up and chill out.
Well, I added new slide show down at the bottom of this page, hope y’all enjoy ’em 🙂
We took Gabe to get his pictures taken. It took quite a long time, cuz he kept pointing at stuff around him and asked the lady what they were…hehe Well, finally we’ve got TWO versions and we think he’s adorable. (I know we’re bias)
Gabe’s saying a lot more words these days and I’ve better write them down so we can come back and look at them together when he grows up: aunty, uncle, mama(Grandma), Papa(grandpa), Ah-gong(Grandpa-Chinese), Ah-po(Grandma), Gege(older brother), Jiejie(older sister), Ah-yi(aunty), Teddy Pooh(he calls all the teddies Teddy Pooh, basically mixing Teddy bear and Pooh bear together-you can blame Daddy for that), bread, yuck, chunky, bye Dad, Bob(the tomato – from VeggieTales), ball, bib, burp, bird and a few other words we can’t think of right now.
It’s Summer here in Australia now but we’ve got quite a bit of storm and rain in the past few weeks. We went to church this morning and went to Westpoint shopping center after that because I heard Dalta was coming and I wanted to see her sing. I’ve always liked her. We saw Natalie, the latest Australian Idol yesterday and she’s got beautiful voice as well! Anyway, we invited Alan and Saranya to join us and our plan was to go to Cabramatta after that. Thank God it didn’t happen!! Saranya and I decided to just do some grocery shopping there at Westpoint instead and after that Alan invited us to go to their place. I didn’t wanna go cuz I was tired and so was everybody else. It would be nice to just go home and have a nap. Anyway, we thought it would be nice to catch up with Alan since he was away for 2 weeks and would be great to talk about his trip! Later in the afternoon the sky was all dark, and I said ,”we should probably go home before it rains.”-I really wanted to. Saranya kept asking me to stay and go home after it stop raining. Okay then! So we stayed and there came the rain. It was louder than usual and we figured out it was actually hailing!! I was excited and ran outside with the camera and took some pictures. I picked up a piece of hail that I thought was big and put it in my palm and took a picture of it.
About 10 minutes later we received a phonecall from Mom and Dad saying Fiona’s house was damaged by hailstorm and they were the size of a fist(a tennis ball)! They asked whether our house was okay and we said oh yeah, it should be fine. It was quite sunny after the rain was gone and we decided to come home an hour later. We saw leaves and glasses everywhere on the road as we drove into Moody Street and the neighbors were out looking at the cars and that was when we thought, ‘oh no, our house!’ When I got off the car I saw some white stuff on the grass and had a close look and I was shocked to find out that they were the hail still the size of a golf ball. Dave and I went and checked around the house and we are so thankful that only one window is smashed and there are some dents on the roof and that was it. Neighbors have holes on their roof and their cars are damaged and straight away we know it was God. He is so good to us. If only we came home straight after the concert or if we went to Cabramatta, we would have been hit by the hailstorm and our car would have been damaged and perhaps we could have been injured as well. See more pictures here!
Wow! Another year’s about to end! God has been so good to us and we’re looking forward to the 2 week-holiday during Christmas and the new year. We plan to go up to the Central Coast to celebrate Christmas with family up there, then they’ll come down to spend a couple of days down here with us. I am seeing a christian counselor for my postnatal depression. The depression I’m going through has a lot to do with my childhood and I am thankful that now it’s being dealt with professionally. The ladies at church have been a great support and I can’t thank them enough for their encouragement and prayers! Gabriel’s still being a handful to me. Just three days ago, he started to climb up on the couch and I’m not excited at all. I know that many other kids his age have learned to do that a lot sooner than him. Gabe on the other hand is well in progress with his language and communication skills. I don’t want to encourage him to climb cuz I know one day it’s gonna come, but well it’s just another part of life I suppose and all I can do is to make sure he’s safe. The weather in Australia is so changeable and often during the day it’s too hot so I just take him out and play on the front porch a lot instead of going out for a walk. He’s shown a lot of interest on basically everything around him. Being able to communicate a whole lot more makes him a happier child. I’m so thankful that there’s gonna be a christian playgroup around the area we live early next year and Gabe and I are lookin’ forward to being part of it!
Gabe’s 14 months and 8 days old today. Yesterday I decided to give him another haircut. I had to give him something to eat for him to sit still for me and there were only 3 pieces of cookies left and I had to be ‘super’ quick. Didn’t do a bad job after all, I think.
Gabe’s a very touchy person. He loves cuddling and kissing. He’s learning to feed himself and is learning to draw. It’s been a lot easier to communicate with him as he’s learned to say more words and able to express more emotions. One thing I find very interesting is that I thought he was always left handed, but recently we’ve seen him using both hands- often he’d draw with his left hand and eat with the right. He loves his music and sometimes I’m surprised to hear him humming a tune. It is amazing to watch a 14 month old child to be able to do so many things. Anyway, hope y’all enjoy his pictures and would appreciate it if you could pray for him. 🙂
One thing I learned from women’s church 2 weeks ago was that you never stop praying for the children. I’ve spent more time praying with Gabriel. I pray that God provides for him good friends, good teachers, good leaders. I pray that he’ll grow up knowing Jesus and understanding his love and forgiveness. I pray that he’ll be a loving person and that he’ll put others first. I also pray that God will give him wisdom and strength when he goes through trials and hardship. It is amazing just to see how God’s answering my prayers. Gabe loves it when I pray, he’ll just put his face on my shoulder and stays quiet until I finish praying, and often it’s about 10 minutes plus. I want to encourage everyone to pray for their children and other kids as well, not just once a day but as often as they can. Gabi loves the bible, even the adults’ one that has no pictures or anything. He would flip through it as if he’s reading it, it’s just too cute to watch him doing that.
