Visiting to the Great grandma house and bookstore

Today, brought Ethan to Great Grandma's house, he has stranger anxiety even though he didn't cry. So weird as usually he is very friendly to everybody when we brought him outside. He can even smile to stranger.

After visiting the great grandma's house we went to the bookshop to buy some books for him. Mummy managed to select 11 books for him under "Ladybird Read with Me". Besides buying the books for him, mummy and daddy also bought some books. Ethan saw other kids and become very excited, the other boy is 23 month old - is bit older than Ethan. Ethan baby talked to that boy but no response from him. It might be because he didn't understand what Ethan was talking. Ethan walked, ran and yelled around the book cabinet inside the bookstore. He was very happy. Later, after playing for quite some time Ethan became restless. This was because he was very tired and cannot sleep. His mood became very bad. We quickly paid for the books and gone back home. Inside the car, mummy let him drink milk. After a while he fell asleep inside the car while we were on the way back home. Really pity him.

At night, after giving Ethan a bath Mummy found out that his asshole is red. It may be due to these few day he got constipation. Mummy need to think how to solve this problem .....

Driving the Car

Ethan likes to drive Daddy's car. Whenever daddy brought him out in the car, once the car is driven into out car porch - Ethan will climb from the passenger seat behind to driver seat in front. Sometimes daddy will let him hold the steering wheel. However, he is not satisfied by just holding the steering. He will also play with the indicator light and also switch on the car head lights. One amazing thing is that Ethan even tried to mimic the way daddy change the gear. Daddy guess he must have seen my changing gear numerous times when daddy drove.

Ethan with Daddy on the wheel ....

Apart from driving the car, Ethan also tried his hands on helping Daddy wash the car.

Is it really washing the car, or getting washed?

Playing ball and wearing shoe

Notice that Ethan like to wear adult shoe especially his daddy shoe even though his feet is too small to fit but at least he tried his best. Finally bought the sandal for him. However, I would need to go back to my hometown in Kedah to get it as was brought by Ethan's grandma. Before that we have tried to buy a few for him but it was very difficult for him to wear. This was due to the fact that we lacked experience of what type fits him since he just learn to walk two month ago. Daddy also brought a sandal from US but is too small. We just wondered why shoe sold in US meant for 24 months old toddler is not able to be worn by Ethan. Tried but it was too small. Seems like he got big foot.

When mummy brought him to the outside garden of my house to play ball, he likes to throw the ball inside the bottom of the daddy car. When we asked him " Where is the ball?" - he will sit down and sometimes even slept on the floor and pointed to us that the ball is under the car. He then asked us to take it out for him. Beside throwing the ball he also like to collect all the dry leaves on the floor and he will never let go it.

He likes to hold the dry leave and walk around. Even when asked him to pick up the ball, he would not let go of the leave. Weird little fellow...

Take a short rest on the staircase ...

Learning Maths and reading books

Today, Mummy had made flashcard for Ethan to learn mathematics. Daddy helped to laminate them so that we could paste them on the cabinet in our bedroom. Hope that he like its. Beside these math still wonder when is the best time for him to learn Chinese language. Headache!!!!!

Ethan likes to read the "Key Words with Ladybird - Peter and Jane". Everyday he will pick up the book and flip the page by page. Even sometime take the book to Mummy or daddy to ask to read for him. Mummy told daddy the new book became old book after being flipped so frequently by Ethan. First mummy wondered why he likes the Peter and Jane so much, then only realize that a lot of words in the book he knows. Like red ball, train, water, jump etc... Every time mummy asked him to find the words inside the page he can actually choose the correct one . So it is very motivating for mummy to try to teach him other than English. Daddy does noticed as well that Ethan likes to flip to a particular page that has Peter kicking a red ball. When daddy asked him to point to the red ball, he pointed the wording "red ball" in the text instead of the red ball in the picture.

Learns How to Stack Wooden Blocks

Two days ago, Ethan learned how to stack the wooden cube blocks that daddy bought in the US. He played with the blocks while sitting on his potty. He managed to stack 11 blocks. During his attempt for the 12th block, the whole stack collapsed.

But he got a bad habit is that he likes to throw the block into the potty while he is passing his bowel movement. This really scared mummy as every time she need to monitor when will Ethan throws the blocks. This persist until mummy doesn't want to let him play the blocks during the potty time anymore.

He got successful before by throwing the toys inside the potty after he passed the bowel movement. Really a naughty boy.

Ethan's Words Picking Captured on Video

Mummy SkyPE me that she had captured the video of Ethan picking the word today. He actually picked 16 words then he didn't want to play anymore. Her comment is that she thinks Ethan actually knows more than that as this morning in the room he also know to pick the body part. The video captured was for previously learned words and not the new words. So Mummy predicts that maybe he knows more than 30 words.

Back home at night, daddy saw the video. Pretty impressive that Ethan can now recognize so many words. Since the video file is in huge 100MB of MP4 format, daddy have trim it to around 12MB (the length of picking 2 words, "ball" and "key") to be posted here in this blog. Happy watching ....

Penang Hill Outing Trip

Daddy have taken one full day of vacation leave to bring my family to Penang Hill. This is mainly meant as an exposure trip for Ethan. This would be his first time taking the tram car up a hill.

We woke up early in the morning at 7.00am while Ethan is still asleep. Mummy prepared sardine sandwiches so that we could have a mini picnic up the hill. Daddy watered the plants and took the Innova to the Toyota workshop for servicing. Ethan woke up 10 mins before daddy left. It is amazing that at 7.55am when I reached the workshop, I was number 3 customer in the waiting list !!! While writing this blog, I am still waiting in the customer lounge. According to the service person in-charge, my car should be ready before 11.00am. Luckily the customer lounge has free wireless LAN access, therefore life is not so boring with the 3 hours waiting time. :-)

Our plan is to go to Penang hill after I have gotten my car serviced and before lunch time. Hopefully, being week day and all - the crowd should not be so many at the base of the hill in Air Itam.

Unfortunately the plan had to change a bit. When I got back home Ethan was ready to take this nap. So we had to wait until he had fully slept before we could make a move. At 2.00pm, we were ready with everything and headed towards Penang Hill. Arrived roughly 3.40pm, just in time to buy the ticket and take the 4.00pm tram car up the hill. Adult tickets costs RM4.00 for a return trip. Children below 3 years of age (namely your truly, Ethan) does not need to pay. 3 ~ 12 years old is half price at RM2.00 for return trip.

This photo was captured in front of the tram car terminal at the foot of Penang hill. Both Ai Yoong and Ethan pointed at the same time I snapped the shutter of my Canon Digital IXUS55.

There were quite a crowd when we boarded the tram car. Most of the tourists were families from Saudi Arabia, I think. The ladies were wearing black dress and veil that covers completely their faces. Numerous times Ethan was pointing his finger to them and let out a sound, "Ah!!".

Penang hill upper (top most part) is roughly 700m from sea level. At mid-hill (lower) at around 300m above sea level, we had to change a tram car. During the ride up hill, Ethan was as usual being friendly and smiled to the Saudi husband and wife. The wife took off her veil and smiled at Ethan, he smiled back. Later, he even let them hug him for a while. However, after 10 secs Ethan held out his arms to ask me to hug him back. Both Ai Yoong thought that maybe he was not shy with strangers. However this event shown that he has his limit.

Insert is a photo captured while we were in the tram car moving uphill.

It was a bit hazy at the hill top. With luck we were still able to see Georgetown and the city. News says that our neighboring country, Indonesia is at it again (open burning) - this cause the Haze. It just started since yesterday. Could get worst by the days if no rainfall.



Short rest up the hill to take a drink and also some biscuit to replenish energy.



Caught the 5.00pm tram car coming down the hill after wondering the top of the hill for about half an hour.

Some other photos captured during the day: