Reagan's first school excursion - Zoo

The new learning theme for his preschool this week is "In The Jungle" and the students and teachers are going on a excursion to the zoo together! 

Some snapshots taken at the Zoo

 Reagan has shown vast improvement last week in adapting well to school. He used to whine or cry when he sees us leaving the school, but his teachers informed us that his cries did not take long to stop after we left as he was easily distracted by the books and activities in class later on. 

Now, he looks forward to school everyday! When we walked him to the school entrance, he will wave and yell "BYEBYE!" out loud to us (as though telling us that we can leave already) before running into the arms of his teachers. It is comforting to know that our boy has really grown up and has shown independence and confidence and I hope he continues to enjoy himself in school :)

A random Saturday

Reagan has never really like horses ever since he was scared by one during a farm trip some time ago. Look at his grumpy face when we made him sit on this "horse". After that he was whining for us to carry him down.

Look at how his face lit up when we let him ride on the "car"

 As daddy has always been our "chauffeur" fetching us up and down,each time he rides or play with a toy car ,he will say "Dada's car ! Dada's car!" And when I ask him what is the colour of our car? He can reply confidently, "BOO (blue) CAR !"

As usual each time we pass by a place that sells books, he never fail to stop to browse at them, then conveniently pick one, walks to me and get me to buy one for him. 

 At the foodcourt, Reagan boy cant wait to rip open his new book and get daddy to read to him.

Poor daddy has to "entertain" him first before he can order his food haha.

New Home Activities for March 2014 - (21 mths adjusted age)

1) New flashcards topics

Ever since Reagan begins his morning preschool, I've couple of hours to spare in the morning. Last few weeks I've been using the free time to work on more new flashcards topics to add into his collection.. Of course I've to thank Fleur's mama for sharing with me the soft copies of some of the topics she made. I can say she's really good at finding those awesome pictures.

2) The listening game - CD + Cards

This is one of Reagan's favourite game of the month! I bought this CD which contains soundtracks of things around us eg. sound of the dog barking, starting of the car engine, the thunderstorm, the helicopter, the crushing waves, the ringing phone, the strumming of the guitar, children laughter , baby crying and sneezing and etc. It comes with pictures and the child is supposed to listen to the sound in the CD and identify it to the picture on the card.

I actually re-printed the pictures and made them into flashcards instead and called it the "Listening game". So while I play the soundtrack, I flash the picture to him.

Reagan loves this activity very much. Before we start this game, I would ask if his "listening ears" are ready or whether he has brought along his "listening ears"? He would then show me by pulling both his ears wide and sits down quietly, and wait for me to play the CD. Sometimes he has this serious-looking expression on his face as though he is really trying his best to listen hard and identify what it is. Kinda amused me too. After a few practices, he is able to match most of the cards to the right sounds, and his favorites are still the sounds made by the animals and the vehicles. 

3) Preschool and activity books 

I'm often "forced" by Reagan to do at least a couple of pages with him every night. Nowadays I let daddy do with him instead. 

4) Right-brain memory board game

This was a gift from his god-ma and I've just started him on it a couple of weeks ago. Will blog more about this game in another entry soon.

5) "WOW I Can Read" series set 3

Reagan is still able to point the words in the sentence by himself while I do the reading. We have completed the set 1 and 2, and now moving on to the last set.

Story-reading has became a nightly routine right before he goes to bed.

 Set 3 series

6) Learning more new words and sentence construction

I've made little print-outs of words that he can recognize and new words that I like him to learn. Everyday we construct a couple of sentences with the words and read them together. Reagan is able to form short sentences by himself, eg, My name is Reagan. I can read. I love mummy. I like to play. I like to eat apple.... etc. 

Baby Reagan boy is progressing well and I'm driven by his source of energy and enthusiasm to constantly think of new games and activities to challenge him. 

Well that's all for the new home activities we're doing this month. I'm still thinking of ideas to start him on mathematics concepts, will work on that area soon.

Anyway my boy has just woke up from his nap and staring at me now haha! So thats' all peepz! 

An awesome weekend with Reagan - Waterplay + The City

Hubs suggested we should spend a fulfilling weekend with Reagan and swimming was the first activity that came to his mind. But with my huge boobies and "heavy watermelon tummy" now, it's not easy to find myself a swimsuit to join them. So we changed the plan to waterplay at the rooftop water-playground at TampinesOne and our baby boy equally enjoyed himself there .

The next day, Hubs wanted to take him to an indoor playground and I suggested The City at Liang Court as I remembered how much he had enjoyed during the first trip there with his friends. 

Reagan seemed to know what to do when he reached there. Immediately he sped to the supermarket section, grabbed a trolley and began his grocery shopping!

Daddy was the cashier that day and helped Reagan to check out the items he bought.

My two boys playing with the giant soft blocks.

Daddy tried to build a castle and encouraged Reagan to give him a hand.

What's more fun than knocking down the castle they built!

Reagan really had a wonderful time at the soft blocks area with his daddy.

Playing games together at the classroom section.

 Daddy put on a wig and Reagan almost couldn't recognise him!

It was hilarious when Reagan tried to run away from him haha!

Waiting for our baby boy to whip up a nice meal for us.

It was fun watching my two men having a wonderful time at The City. Actually I should be put on bed rest now but I can't resist a great weekend with my baby boy! Furthermore I'm also glad that Hubs has been doing a great job "entertaining" our baby boy and ensuring I get all the rest I need at home and outside.  

Reagan has also became more expressive and starts to imitate sounds after us. He recognises all his alphabet letters and their phonics sounds and now he can read most of them out loud. Same for some of his favourite words , such as"Barney" as "Baa", "yellow" as "ah-low", "Blue" as "boo", "open" as "ah-pen", "elephant" as "ah-yee-pen" , "umbrella" as "uh-lala" and so on...Probably need to practice on his pronunciation too but it's always so amusing when he tries haha! Maybe he can read the words out better when he reaches at least 2 years and above. 

Reagan also enjoys following instructions and doing certain tasks at home,eg. helping me to keep his toys or putting his books back onto the shelf , throwing used tissue of used diaper into the bin by himself after we changed him, picking out his own shirt and pants from his wardrobe after his bath, putting his milk bottle onto the table right after he finished his milk...etc.
 

 He is learning fast and after completing a certain task instructed by us, he will clap for himself to show us that he did a good job haha! My boy never fails to bring a broad smile onto my face every single day.
 

I'm certainly a proud and blessed mama of his. 

JG Bilingual Playclub - Last Lesson

Reagan completed a term of Julia Gabriel Bilingual Playclub class and received his certificate last week.

 

A group photo with his lovely teachers.

 

I've bought another new phonics/alphabet learning material for him to practise ;

Julia Gabriel's Alphabet Zoo CD + songbook.

Will start him on it soon...and I know he will love this as much as his other Phonics materials.

Reagan @ 18 mths indoor photoshoot

We bought a mini photoshoot package for Reagan 's 18 mths shoot during one of the baby fairs in Singapore Expo. The package includes 4 soft copies of 5R printable size and a photo frame customised to his name. He had over 50 lovely poses to choose from and in every single photo,he was either laughing heartily or smiling charmingly, so we had a difficult time trying to choose only 4 copies.

 

We were quite unwilling to top up to take more since we have decided to arrange another shoot for him again when he hits 2 years old (adjusted age). By then his baby brother will arrive and we can arrange another photo-shoot for both of the boys together, probably in June or July. Meanwhile, we shall keep a look out for any promotions or good deals from other photo studios out there.

 

Reagan loves photo shoot ! Actually he just like all the attention that was on him during the shoot. Most of the photographers who work with him never fail to comment that Reagan is one of the "easiest" baby to shoot with. Just like his mummy, Reagan loves the camera, and the camera loves him too haha!

The 2nd pregnancy of a preemie mom

I thought it'll be nice to update more about my 2nd pregnancy, especially for other preemies moms who too consider about having a 2nd child but at the same time have the same worry about having another preemie again.

Who can ever forget the emotional-wrecking time in the ICU days that our preemie once gone through, and of course all preemie moms wish it will not happen again for their next pregnancy of course.

Reagan my first boy, was delivered during week 29 via emergency c-section birth. My placenta was ruptured and gynae suspected that I had eclampsia which resulted in my early birth. Reagan stayed for 2 months in the ICU before he was discharged.

(Reagan in ICU)

Nearly 1 year later, I was blessed with another baby boy. My 2nd pregnancy came as a surprise as we were not planning to have a 2nd child that soon. But of course we graciously accepted this wonderful gift bestowed to us.

 

(My beautiful belly at 29 weeks- 2nd pregnancy. I am one of the lucky ones to have a nice, fair and smooth belly without any itchy skin or stretch marks...yet.) 

Reaching 29 weeks during my 2nd pregnancy was like the most "critical" period and that's because nobody can forget that Reagan made his "grand" arrival at 29 weeks. Needless to say, love ones like my mom and hubs behaved as though they were tip-toeing on thin ices around me and watching over me daily like a hawk.

It was known to us that moms who once had an early birth will have higher percentage of delivering early for their next pregnancy too. But since I returned to my previous gynae, he was aware of my condition and took extra precaution to try reduce the risk of early birth for this round. I visited the clinic more frequently for more scans and check-ups, and was put under some medication to "relax" my uterus. I was also put on bed rest from 27 weeks onwards and gynae advised me to watch out for early contraction and to rush back to the clinic or hospital if I feel something amiss.

This is my 30th week now, I've finally passed the "threatening" 29 weeks range but have 7 more weeks to hit the full-term mark. So far besides my crazy weight gain of 18kg now (more to expect later on..), terrible backache and pelvic ache (probably due to my heavy weight),and a couple of leg cramps attack in the night, everything seems fine and baby boy number 2 is always actively practicing kungfu inside me.

Will update more again soon...

Weekend High-Tea @ Halia

Baby Reagan is in an awesome mood today! He can't wait to lay his hands on the menu once we put him on the highchair.

Peekaboo with daddy!

 

Recently Reagan easily gets excited by cakes and can relate cakes to birthday party. Each time he sees fancy cakes, he claps his hands and hums the birthday song to himself! He seems to know that his birthday is approaching haha!

 

Baby Reagan's laughter is contagious, I wish to see him that happy and smiley every single day.

JG Bilingual Playclub- Gold Theme + Waterplay

Gold theme artwork this week!

Exploring the treasure chest!

 

 Reagan's favourite waterplay!