Trip to Edinburgh

We took a little weekend trip to Edinburgh to visit our friend Ash over the weekend (5th to 7th) and while it was nice to get away from Paris for a bit, it certainly was a tiring weekend sincedim Laetitia missed her naps on most of the days and went to bed pretty late. The food was good though. We had excellent Indian (biryani) and Chinese (dim sum).

Edinburgh is a rather pretty city but not exactly very toddler friendly (it was hard to let Laetitia walk by herself but then maybe it's just the Christmas crowd). Then again, Paris is not very toddler friendly too. Laetitia did have a good time though. She enjoyed the food and the shopping like a true blue Singaporean. In fact, she managed to grab a pair of Clark's Molly the magical cat boots that was on sale and promptly wore them out of the store. I, on the other hand, came back empty-handed since being 7 months pregnant means that I have no idea what would fit me post partum. Sigh, what a disappointment for me.

Here's the little one (with chocolatey lips) and her mummy on the plane. We took Easyjet which was reasonably priced. It was good that we did the online check-in and was able to be the first few on the plane since we had Laetitia (who was under 5 year old) with us.
Laetitia and her papa along Princes Street. Both looking cool with their shades.
Coffee time with Papa, mummy and Uncle Ash.

Summer in Carqueiranne

Laetitia is having a good summer holiday in Carqueiranne now. We came here on the 1st and Etienne and I left today while we left Laetitia behind to enjoy herself further. Well, actually I was feeling a little anxious this time since when I tried explaining to her yesterday that papa and mummy are going back to Paris and she will be staying with her papou and mamou, she looked a little sad and said she wants to go to Paris with us too. But I know she will have lots of fun with my in laws and her cousin Alexandre. She will stay until the 23rd but Etienne will be joining her on the 18th. I will have some personal free time from 11th to 23rd and before that, Etienne and I will take a little romantic holiday to Prague and spend some time in Paris.

One of Laetitia's favourite thing to do here is to swim in the sea, check out how happy she is!

She is getting rather tanned considering that she goes to the beach everyday and sometimes TWICE a day. Lucky girl.

Leaving Singapore tonight.

Our two weeks vacation is up and we're due to leave Singapore tonight (our flight is at 11.40pm). I would have loved to post more photos but sadly our camera is out of battery and I cannot find a multi function plug that I can use for my camera (which was bought in Canada) so the photos will come after I get back to Paris.

On a whole, Laetitia had a good time. She met up with so many friends of mine and of course all the different relatives. She had a good time with her cousins (Benjamin, Natasha and Natalia) since we stayed with them for most of the trip. She also enjoyed spending some time with her other cousins Nicholas and Dylan. It was funny when she told Nicholas (who is a very quiet boy), "talk to me kor kor (big brother), I'm talking to you!"

Her English language skills grew by leaps on bounds over the two week holidays. It is amazing to see how her English language ability developed from the first two days she was here (speaking 90% French and 10% English to the reverse situation now just before we leave). My sis who said that her kids spoke pretty early commented that Lae is much more talkative then her kids when they were her age (at 2 years 2 months). To give an example, once when she wakes up, she would greet me with "Good morning mummy", followed by "I slept/sleep well" (She uses slept and sleep interchangably since I usually ask her, "Did you sleep well?" and if she ask the same question, I reply with "Yes, I slept well". When it comes to her, she uses both interchangably so I think she has not yet understood the difference between the two tenses). After this, she normally would tell me, "I'm hungry Mummy, I want to go outside to eat breakfast with you." And of course I would ask her what she wants to eat and she would proceed to name me a few things.

I hope I can help her continue progressing in the language.

We're in Singapore again!

Well well well... We're in Singapore for our annual trip to see family and friends. We left Paris on the night of the 8th, arrived late afternoon on the 9th and since then have been enjoying a packed but fun time. Laetitia is finally setting back into a good rhythm and I am also able to take some time off alone to meet some friends. Thanks to my sis, Doreen who kept her addition domestic helper for another month so that there could be someone devoted to watching Laetitia, I feel more at ease leaving her at home while I go out. And finally meeting with some friends. I cannot believe that I forgot to take pictures when we meet Jaimie and Michelle for lunch but the good thing is, we will be seeing more of the both of them. But here is the dinner date with Kylan, Kylene and Trixillia (and of course their mummies).

A shot of Trixillia taking a picture of me while I was taking a picture of them.
And here is Kylan and Kylene with Dolly and her helper.
We have 10 more days here in Singapore so I suppose there will be more photos coming. On a different topic, although Laetitia is sleeping well now, I, on the other hand, am not doing so good. I have a tendancy to fall asleep after putting her to bed at 8pm or maybe an hour later BUT I wake up all the time around midnight and cannot get back to sleep until 2am or later. And to add to that, I have a splitting headache. I hope things get better for me soon. Ciao.

A day out.

We're in the south at my parents in law and since the weather is relatively good, about 25 degrees during the hottest part of the day, Laetitia spent quite a bit of time outdoor. Laetitia actually went to play in the sea yesterday afternoon at about 4pm. I thought that was a little crazy considering that the temperature in the sea is probably less then 20 degrees! When she came home, her limbs were really cold and I was just a tiny bit concerned that she might catch a cold.

Anyways, today as my father-in-law had to do some works on the boat, we decided to go to the port in Hyéres and then hang by the beach for a while. When we arrived at the port and was by the boat, we told her that it was papou and mamou's boat but she declared that NO, it was her boat. DUH. She insisted on going onto the boat so we took her on it and took some photos. She was absolutely delighted and even sang a song or two about boats while she was on it.


I am sure she will have lots of fun when we come back to Carqueiranne in August and we could take the boat out. I can't wait to see her excitment during then.

After staying on the boat for about 10 minutes, we set off for the beach which was just around the corner. I was thinking that we will probably play by the beach and maybe dip our toes in the waters but boy was I wrong. Well, what can I say? We did end up playing in the sea though that was definitely not my intentions. I had to hike my tights all the way up to my thighs and even then, it was slight wet. Laetitia though was almost totally soaked as she sat down in the water and a small wave came and splashed over her head. :p And yes, it was less then 20 degrees in the sea. My little one is defintiely one courageous girl when it comes to the cold.

We all started by playing just on the beach. As you can see, it was a beautiful clear blue day.
Slowmy, we ventured into the waters.
Checking out how deep she can go.
Realising that wet panties gives her wedges. :p Well, I guess I am to blame for her lack of proper swim/beach wear as I had naively thought that since the sea would be under 20 degrees, it would be pointless to bring them along for this trip.
She decided that she did not like wet clothes on her so the other shots of her dipping fully in the sea are all topless which I hesitate to post on an open blog.

All in all, she had good fun and I guess I have a toddler who has a high tolerance for cold unlike me.

Her cousins in France.

Today Laetitia met her cousin, another Lastennet, for the first time. She is the daughter of Etienne's cousin (her papa is the son of my father in law's brother). As my in law has a small family, there are not many Lastennets in Laetitia's generation. So far, there are three. Laetitia, this little girl, Thaïs, and her younger sister who did not come along today.

Laetitia got on fabulously with her newly met cousin as she usually does with children. She was happy to go for a walk with both Thaïs and Alexandre. My mother in law took them to a little tulip park/farm very close to their place (within walking distance).




Here's another picture of the three cousins striking a "cool" pose.

At her grandparents.

We thought that we sent Laetitia down to her grandparents for a holiday but we might have been deceived. We received this email today from my mother in law.

"Vous pensiez que Laetitia était en train de passer des vacances chez papou et mamou. Erreur : elle est venue travailler mais, après l'effort, elle a le droit de se reposer un peu..."

(You think that Laetitia is having a holiday at her grandpa's and grandma's. Error: She is here to work but, after working, she is allow to rest a little...)

These photos were attached.

We joke. She is having lots of fun with my in laws. Here's another lovely pic of my darling enjoying herself in the park.

Laetitia and friends.

I was sorting out some of the photos we took in Singapore and came across some that I feel would be lovely to have on the blog. Just a few of Laetitia and the other toddlers she came into contact with during the holiday (they are all my friends kids). She is quite a sociable child and most of the time, it is not difficult to leave her alone to play with other children. I say most of the time as there are occasions when other children will make her more upset than usual but it is really quite rare.

So here's my little pie and her friends.






And here is my little "gourmand" enjoying her crab. She got to taste many different new food and fruits in Singapore including crabs, prawns, durians, rambutans, mangoteens and many others that I probably forgot.

My li'angel.

We went for a photo shoot here in Singapore again (the same studio that did the previous shoot last October.)

The photographer captured some really great photos of Laetitia and out of the 165 that was taken, the ones in this post are three of my favourites. We had a hard time trying to select the photos in our package (we were limited to 10) and had wanted to keep so many more that it was more value for money to purchase all the shots taken during the shoot.

This is my current screen background.

This is Etienne's messenger avatar.

Singapore Zoological Gardens.

The Singapore Zoological Gardens is reputed to be one of the best zoos in the world and we thought it will be fun to bring Laetitia there. Although it had been raining for the last couple of days and the weather did not look great in the morning, we decided to try our luck.

When we arrived, the weather was overcast but it was not raining. In fact, it was nice and breezy. We made our way to the Elephants of Asia show since elephants are one of her favourite animals. We were a little early (15mins before the show started) and after five minutes on the bench, Laetitia started to get a little restless. It was a bit of a challenge keeping her occupied before the show finally started. She was very excited to see the elephants and kept making the "elephant sound" (which basically is her going ahhhhhhhhh!) But, after 10 mins into the show, she started to fidget again. Anyways, we did manage to stay till the end of the show but realised that expecting her to be still in one place for 30 mins might be too much for her to handle. We quickly moved on as it had also started to rain. We made our way to the children's world area to look at miniature horses, cows, pigs etc. After another half an hour of pottering around, we decided that it was all too much for Laetitia and we should head home. As we are leaving the zoo, we came across a few more animals that she knows, the lions, zebras, giraffes and rhinoceros.

But the time we got to the car to leave the zoo, it was more than 2 hours after we arrived. It was a short visit considering the size of the zoo. We probably only saw less than half the animals there. Well, there's always next year when we plan our next visit to Singapore.



And some random pictures that we took of her.

Lego fun time.

Laetitia has been spending some time playing with lego bricks. My sister's kids have both the normal size lego and the bigger sized for smaller children. Her cousins who love lego have been building interesting things for her. So far, they have built three different chairs for her to sit on and many other interesting buildings and towers.

Her papa has joined in the fun in playing with the lego too.

Here's a sample of the lego creations.

The chair that her cousin Benjamin built for her. I didn't manage to take a picture of the other chair that Natasha built for her.



Laetitia playing with the "Incredibles" like robot that her papa and her cousins built together.

Fun activities in Singapore

Laetitia is having a fabulous time in Singapore. Her sleeping routine is getting more reasonable, 10pm to 8.30am. This means that we can take her out for dinners and also have some decent sleep. And the day can be filled with different fun activites for her. So far we have gone shopping and she loves to walk in the malls. The pretty marble flooring catches her attention. The loveliest ones are at Suntec City, they shimmers!

We have also filled her time with splashing time in the swimming pool (I think we have been about three times in less than a week). We also went to this place called Bambini where she met up with Auntie Michelle and the kids. She played a lot with legos and her cousins.

We're planning trips to the zoo, the botanical gardens, maybe the bird park, sentosa and the aquarium... Thanks to my good friend Jaimie, we have a car to use and it has made travelling around so much easier.

Splashing good time!


Dinner at Kallang Oasis No Sign Board restaurant with Grandma (and the rest of the family who is not in the photo)


A photo with her cousins Natasha and Natalia before going out.


An enjoyable time at Bambini with Auntie Michelle, Vanessa and Aaron.






Buidling or rather destruction time playing legos at home. In this case, she is pretending the lego is a phone while drinking on her play bottle.

In Singapore.

We finally arrived in Singapore on the 11 July after almost 18 of travelling (including 2 hours transit and 1.5 hours delay). It was a relatively tiring trip for Etienne and I as we took turns entertaining Laetitia. It was a good thing that for the second segment of the flight (8 hours), she slept for about 5 hours straight in the bassinet. This allowed us to catch our 40 winks and also eat in peace.

The tough part since being in Singapore is that our little girl is more jet lagged than the both of us for the first couple of days. On Wednesday night, she went to bed at 10pm and work up at 1am. She was hungry but even after we fed her, she did not go back to sleep until 3.30am. And on Thursday night, she went to bed at around 10pm again BUT woke up at midnight and did not go back to sleep until 4am! Finally last night, she went to bed at 10pm (I made sure she was given some nice warm cereal and milk before bed) and stayed asleep till this morning 8am. Hopefully she will soon adjust her internal clock and work her way through sleeping 12 hours straight through every night soon.

On a side note, apart from the jet lag, she has been having fun with her cousins (my sister's children) and enjoys playing with them. She loves the every other day swimming time too. We took lots of photos and I'll get to posting them when I have them uploaded into the computer.

Enjoying her time at her grandparents.

My sweetie pie has been staying in Carqueiranne with my parents in law since we left last Saturday. She will be there for a few more days. I'll pick her up this coming Friday afternoon. It's going to be a nice long journey for me. Four hours there and another four hours back.

She has been spending a wonderful time with her grandparents. She gets to go to the beach almost everyday, takes nice morning walks, chases after the cat and basically have jolly good fun. We have been getting "briefs" and photos daily on our little darling from Mamou. We try to do video-conferencing every day and it's so much fun seeing my little puupet. I miss her and at the same time, I enjoy having this time of freedom.

This is one of the photos we received this evening. It made me laugh out loud.

"Bye Mamou! I'm going to go to the office."

More activities in Carqueiranne.

Aside from riding a police bike and having fun in the little pool, my little pie had fun exploring the house too. She was opening drawers, trying to push open doors, cruising around from room to room using a makeshift walker (aka plastic stool)... It was wonderful that she had all the space to move around.

Being caught red handed trying to ransack her Mamou's drawer.

"Opps Mummy!"
"Errrr. What shall I do next?"
"Maybe try to push open this door..."

"Aha! I'll use this chair to make my way across the room"

"No. It wasn't me nor mummy who did whatever you think we did. :p"

Finally, asleep in my arms after all the playing and exploring.

She also enjoyed being taken out daily by her Mamou. She would be taken out in the stroller to the beach, the port, the supermarket etc.

Here's a lovely picture of her and her Mamou.

I think she is relatively ready to spend the next week here without her mummy and papa. I'm the one who is a little apprehensive but I know she will be well taken care of. The first couple of days that we are here, she was a little difficult when it comes to the night routine. It is getting better now though we will be adjusting some of the routine while she is here. We will be giving her the bath in the day instead of the evening as part of her "put to bed" routine as she has proven to be more cranky and resistant to taking her bath in an unfamiliar environment. Other than that, I am not worried about anything. She has spent the entire afternoon without us while we went out and has been a darling with her Mamou.