Luke just learnt how to pull himself up and sit down

It's always stressful whenever I bring Luke for his routine checkup. It's like bringing him for Exams. He would need to be tested by the therapists - the physio, OT (occupational therapist) and Speech & Language Therapist (SLT).

Physio is still not too bad cos Carol just does some simple exercises to check on his development and tell us what kind of exercises we can do with him at home to strengthen certain parts of his muscles. Twice when Carol was not around, other therapists took out their 'assessment sheet' and recorded the 'scores' and told us which areas were lacking. But Carol is so good with kids and probable very experieced, she doesn't usually do the scoring. In fact she doesn't even need that sheet to do the tasks, thus making the experience more pleasant and not so daunting.

OT is the worst cos we (Luke and I) have to sit there while she takes out her little props and test his fine motor skills. Then she'll record the scores on her assessment sheet and tally the scores at the end to tell you how he fared . It's really like sitting for an examination! What is so stressful about this is when you see Luke unable to do a task and she writes the big ZERO on her sheet, and our kiasu mentally says "Oh-oh, FAIL!!". And worse of all, at the end, she tells you "your child is functioning below his age...bla bla bla..." Having been through a few failures, I've learnt to do selective listening and sieve out what I think is irrelevant. Was told the last time that he was 2 months behind, so this time round we weren't expecting much also. Was such a boring test that I unconsciously (and uncontrollably) yawned halfway through (hope OT didn't see that!). Saw her wrote some 'zeros', so thought, 'oops, fail again!' To our surprise Luke passed this time round with flying colours! OT said he's functioning at 14mth!! (corrected age is 12mth). And she told us to continue doing what we've been doing with him (Oops, we've been watching TV with him all day long! Does that mean we should continue letting him watch his favourite Ellen Degeneres?!?)

Okay, she says he's suppose to scribble at this age. Again, the kiasu mother needs him to pass with flying colours again when we visit in 3 months' time (oh dear, how am I going to survive when he goes to school next time? I won't be able to take his failures!). Decided to buy MAGNA DOODLE so that he can learn to doodle and scribble without dirtying my precious wall, floor and furnitures!

Met up with Martha for lunch today at J8. Decided to drop by school to pick up badminton rackets for Josiah since I'm in the North. So many people saw Luke and touched him, didn't dare to ask them if they've washed their hands (obviously they haven't!!). He so so grouchy after that, think he met too many people in 1 day. But the minute he reached home he was full of energy again, especially when he saw his toys! My conclusion, Luke is a stay-home buddy!

Okay, these two photos have nothing to do with Luke. I found it in the other memory stick and I don't even remember taking these pictures, was taken in Dec, MinAi's birthday. The second photo looks kind of strange, I mean Meng Ling looks kind of strange, her face, in the mirror reflection, looked kinda swollen! And where is Luke? As usual, fast asleep. He never gets to join in the cake cutting most of the time cos it's always done like 9pm or later, that's why on his 1st birthday we had get everyone to come at 6 and let him cut his cake before he went to bed. :)

In my 36 yrs of life, I've probably been to the zoo less than 5 times. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of 'zoo' is HOT, SMELLY! So, it's really unbelieveable that we actually went to the zoo for the 2nd time today in less than 2 months (the last time we went was in dec!). I guess when you have your own kids ou really don't have a choice. And the scariest thing is I actually signed up as Friends of the Zoo in anticpation that we'd probably go there very often!!

Luke really enjoyed his last trip at the zoo so we thought we'd take him there again to see those animals which he didn't manage to see the last time. He managed to see the Lions this time round and saw the keepers feeding them too. After their so-called 'snack' (the lions had about 2 chickens each!), the lions still looked hungry and were looking at us. I told Luke to waved at them, he waved and said 'come'! Thank God the Lions don't understand him! :)

All ready for the visit

Bought a tricycle for Luke cos his friend, Zia, has one and Luke 'tested' it the other time and seemed to like it. He was really enjoying the view when we brought him down today. The funny thing was when I asked him to look into the camera, he suddenly gave me a 'thumbs up' as if to tell us it's 'good', and we didn't even tell him to gesture it.

Luke was entertaining himself with his two bolsters today. After his bath time, he still had loads of energy and started playing with his two bolsters for 15 minutes. After he had used up all his energy, he fell asleep within 5 minutes. Kids are just so unpredictable!