First week Mummy went to work.

Laetitia started to go to the daycare (halte garderie) from 8:15am to about 6pm last Monday. It was an interim solution to the temporary work that I found. I found a three and a half weeks temp job and for the first week, Laetitia was able to have a spot in the daycare for the mornings to supplement her existing afternoons sessions there. However for the next two weeks, she will be taken care of in the morning by a babysitter. She is someone who has taken care of Laetitia before and is very experience with looking after children.

In the last week, everything went very well in terms of her day in the daycare. I would prepare her lunch the night before and they would heat it up and give it to her around noon. I was told that she was very independent and insist on feeding herself all the time. It was very reassuring for me to know that she is able to handle full day collective care very well. The next two weeks will be a test on how a combination of a part time nanny and collective care works.

Laetitia seems to not feel too much the difference of me working vs me staying home with her except on Friday night when I went out and Etienne was responsible for picking her up from the daycare and her night routine. I was told she kept asking for me and when they entered the apartment, she went "Cou Cou Mummy" a few times. So SWEET.

And of course, the final decision making would also come after this temp project ends. The big question of how much I enjoy going back to work vs the cost/quality of childcare possible and the trade-off between working and being home with my daughter. To add to the complex equation, I have to think about how much this affects Etienne as well. The last week that I was working has additional stress on him as well since he was responsible for helping send Laetitia to the daycare in the morning. He has mentioned a couple of times how nice it was when I didn't work. Knowing him, he was not trying to put any pressure on me regarding the decision to work or not. The other option I have is to go back to school (I am considering either doing a Masters in Marketing or a French language and civilisation course). We'll see how things pane out in the end. For now, I am enjoying the adult interactions and just the whole different experience of being a working mumy.

A few current pics.

There has been a lack of photos updated recently and I finally managed to capture a couple of pictures over the weekend.

It's getting cold in Paris with the temperature dropping to less than 20 degrees. We had to make sure that she is warmly dressed when we step out of the house. This was Laetitia walking along the street of Paris.

During one of her favourite activity time, reading. She is seen here enjoying Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!


And playing dress up with my summer hat

And finally a pic with her mummy. Please pardon the slightly runny nose of my little chou.

A letter to my 18 months old!

My most dearest darling,

OMG! You are 18 months old, one and a half year old. I am at a lost for words (momentarily). It is both a scary and wonderful feeling. It amazes me how much you have grown and at the same time, fills me with some uneasiness on how time just seems to be slipping by and before I know it, you'll be a teenager or an adult. From a helpless baby, you are now a babbling toddler who could almost count 1-10 in English and French, go through your alphabets and express your views with "don't want", "No", "please Mummy" (usually said with a BIG smile) and have little conversations with me. You are also become a fabulous dancer and singer.

The last 18 months have been a roller coaster ride but with much more ups than downs. Aside from becoming a first time mummy, I also had to cope with being in a strange new place (not unlike you) and learning a new language (again I'm sure you are experienced in this too). At times I worry if I am a good enough mum or I question myself in reference to my "lack" of motherly instincts considering that I started leaving you in the daycare from the tender age of 6 months old. Did I put you through much trauma in letting you cry either in the arms of "strangers" while I walked away to enjoy my afternoons by myself or when I leave you in the cot to sleep? Was I being an alpha "kiasu" mum when I started showing you flash cards when you were less than a year old?

All these insecurities I have are eradicated when I see what a joyous and happy little girl you are. People are constantly telling me how you are always smiling and seems to be a delightful child. I am so proud of you, of your cheerful personality, of all your milestones and the simple fact that you are such fun to be with. I enjoy telling people how you would say "Bravo Mummy" when I finish singing you a song or finish saying the alphabets! I am smiling from ear to ear when people tell me just how adorable you are. I love it when you try to kiss me on the lips (though I am pretending to look disgusted and give you my cheeks instead) or when you refuse a kiss from me. I enjoy our current game where you would run into my open arms and I would lift you off the ground. As much as I complain about you going "Mummy's here" in the middle of the night when you are woken up from your sleep, I am secretly smiling to myself and feeling all important.

I enjoy the last 18 months we spent together at home and I am apprehensive that it is going to change. Though it does seems timely that I should start a new full time job on Monday I know for a fact that I want to strike a balance between working and spending time with you. I love the conversations (though somewhat limited right now) we have, the laughters that we share, the games we play, the books we read together, all the moments we spend with each other and as a family. I want to continue to build this wonderful relationship we have.

I want you to know that I love you very much and so does your papa. You are our little darling and always will be.

Love always,
Mummy

Bonjour Bear Bear, ça va?

Heehee. I was putting Laetitia down for her nap in her cot a little while ago when she pick up one of her stuff toys, a bear, and said to it, "Bonjour Bear Bear, ça va?" So sweet and polite it made me smile. Then she continued to babble to it. Ah.... my little one is so adorable (if I may say so. :p).

ABC time.

I realised I have been posting less recently and that is because I do not spend as much time with Laetitia anymore. She is off to daycare all week from 1pm to 7pm. She is doing well at daycare, eating her teabreak all by herself, taking naps and playing nicely with her friends.

During the mornings that we do spend together, we would mostly play with her toys and do some educational activities such as going through some flashcards. Yes, I know, she is not even one and a half. Well, we do it for fun and she enjoys it too. And when she is not interested, I would not push her to continue. Anyways, this is taken this morning after we finished going through the cards once. I thought, oh, I should totally record this down. However, she was not as interested the second time round but we managed to go through about 1/4 of the alphabets. You can see her kissing Brunie, her little "goggie". It's fun hearing her say "googie" and "elephanhan".

Laetitia and famous people

So, Laetitia did some time travel with her papa and visited Mr. Rodin. She took a photo with him while he was in the process of creating his sculptures.

Then she time travelled back to take a photo with Mr. Jacques Chirac. Yes, of course I am kidding. We just spent the afternoon in Musée Grévin (the wax museum in Paris)

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.

A love for singing?

It's been a couple of weeks from the last update. I've been on the road, Florence from 26th to 29th August and then on the 29th when I got back into Paris, I was off to Futuroscope for a two day trip to celebrate my fourth wedding anniversary. After a night at home, we left again on 31st for the south of France to my parents in laws. All in all it's been a busy summer. In the meantime, Laetitia spent the week with her grandparents. I was told that she was very well behaved and loves to sing!

Apparently when she goes into the car seat for a ride, she would start singing to herself. I witness this over the last couple of days. She might not know all the words but she sure is humming and singing away. And whenever I sing to her, she is always asking for an "encore". Hah! She will probably be the only person asking for an "encore" of my out of tune singing performance. :p Let's hope she does not pick that up from me.

Aside from the singing, as I had already known since we were holidaying in Singapore, she seems to be extra fussy with me around. Don't misunderstand, she is still a cutie pie but it's harder to put her to bed and of course she whinges more. I seriously have to try to work this issue out.

Anyways, since there has been a lack of photos lately, here's some.

Enjoying the sun in the south of France

Sharing her toast with her mummy.
Two of the photos from the photoshoot in Singapore

Overly attached?

So, we are settling down well back in Paris. Laetitia got back into her routine within 2 days. The only problem we have, the way I see it, is that she is becoming WAY TOO attached to me. It's Mummy, Mummy all day long. Even in the middle of the night when she wakes up briefly, she is calling for me. It is sweet and at the same time, a little worrying. I hope this is but a phrase that she is going through. This weekend she will be going to my parents in law in the south of France while I leave for Florence with my friend Jaimie who is here on holiday. I hope she will be able to adapt well to being without her parents (especially her mummy). I know she will be well taken care of by her grandparents. It is more about her being fussy and difficult that I am concerned about. Of course I am keeping my fingers crossed that this would help ease her strong attachment to me instead of reinforcing it (which was probably what happened after I got back to Singapore from my Vietnam trip). We will see.

On the other hand, in terms of her development, she is progressing very fast with her language skills. She has no problems speaking in short sentences and can converse in both French and English. She knows to be polite, e.g "Please, Mummy", "Non, merci", "Bonjour Madame". She can count from one to four e.g when I go "One" she will continue with "two"... She recognises and names most of the items on the alphabet list including my favourite "umbrella" which she pronounces in the most adorable way. My mum was telling me that when I was away in Vietnam, Laetitia was taking her stroy books and "reading" them to her! My mum even asked me if there was something about a lady putting her fingers to her lips telling someone to be quiet as that was what Laetitia did when "reading" one of the books. And there is! In one of Laetitia's bedtime story books, "Goodnight Moon", there is a "quiet old lady whispering hush".

She sure is growing up fast.

Finally back in Paris.

We're finally home after the long five and a half weeks of holiday in Singapore. Laetitia has been really good on this trip and I was even able to leave her for a couple of days with her grandma while I scoot off to Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) for a short holiday with my very good friend Eileen.

She missed her papa very much since he left 10 days earlier than us and boy, was she delighted to see him at the airport today.

There are lots of updates of our trip and photos to be uploaded once I have properly readjusted back here.

Ciao for now.

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.

UMBRELLA!

YES! That's the new word that Laetitia said today, "UMBRELLA". I am so impressed and proud. It has been raining and my friend brought along a children's umbrella and as she was opening it, Laetitia said "umbrella". *eyes wide open, mouth gapping----->me.

Nothing to this post except to say that I am very proud of her. After all, she is less than 16 months. :)

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.

Biker girl?

We bought Laetitia a tricycle during the week and finally managed to take her out in it when the weather was slightly more decent (a little sunshine and no rain).

She loves it and is constantly trying to get on it and then shouting "AU REVOIR" (goodbye) and pointing to the main door.

The only thing is, she is still a little short for the bike and therefore her feet could not reach the pedals. At some point as I was pushing her along, one of her foot would touch the ground and she would drag her foot along. I hated that especially when it is destroying her lovely shoes at the same time. So I was constantly telling her "Laetitia, your feet please. Lift them up!". Hopefully she will soon be tall enough to really learn to ride the tricycle by herself (before summer is over).

My adorable cookie.

Little drummer girl.

For Laetitia's first birthday, I got her a little band set. On and off she'll have some fun playing with them and just the other day, we were having lots of fun jamming together. I remember telling Etienne I would so love to learn to play the drums. Well, maybe my little darling will have a chance to do what I haven't done. I think her papa is keen to have her play the piano since that is his favourite instrument though it was the violin that he spent years learning (about 10 years or so). Anyways, I hope this gives her some headstart with drums and maybe she might want to start a rock and roll band when she grows up. :p

Check out the little rock drummer.

How will our lives change?

Or rather how will Laetitia's life change? How will my decision to go back to work affect the life of my little sweetheart? THAT is the big question that has been hanging over my head.

It's coming to two years since I stopped work. Of course in this time so many things have come to pass. We left Toronto and moved to Paris. More importantly, we had a baby! Now that Laetitia is 15 months old, it really is time for me to move on. I have always said that I will stay home for at least the first year and I have. At the same time, during this one and a half years, I realised that I might not be the material for being a full time stay at home mum. I need some form of adult interaction that DOES NOT revolves around babies/childcare etc. I also need the mental stimulation of work. In fact, I feed on it to give myself some form of personal satisfaction. I do not deny that seeing Laetitia grow up to be a joyful child is not providing me with pride but it is not the same. I LOVE my little girl with all my heart but I find I am not an effective mum if I have to be with her all day. Hence, the decision to go back to work.

Now, the BIG question is what type of work should I go for. Personally, after budgeting, family discussions with Etienne and what nots, we came to a conclusion that the pursue of a career developing job that requires me to work crazy hours is not an option. I do not want to spend all my time consumed by work and neglect the most important things/people in my life, my husband and my child. No money can substitute seeing my little girl grow up. No money can replace the closeness that can only be built through time spent together. And no, finances is not the focus of why I want to go back to work. I want to go back to work so that I can be happier, feel more fulfilled and therefore, be a better mummy and wife.

I must say that my job search seems to be going in the right direction. I have received calls (actually two) from headhunters for positions that I did not even apply for and at the same time I came across a position that I applied and interviewed for that could be the solution (fabulous vacation time offs and relatively flexible hours). Now, I just have to leave it in God's hands. I did what I had to do (the natural) and I am sure HE will do what he has to do (the supernatural). It is good, though, to know that I am marketable at the end of the day and people do find that I have an interesting profile. I know it should not, but it does make me feel valuable. :-) Yes, I know it sounds shallow, I should not be measuring my worth based on that.

As a final thought, I want to say no matter what the final job is that I take up, it is important to me that Laetitia continues to be able to spend lots of valuable time with me and that we will build on the closeness that we currently have.

Attack of the bacterial/virual infection of the stomach?

Arrrrggghhhhh...... poor baby and poor mummy.

My little pie is being attacked. Poor little darling vomitted four times yesterday. And she HATES it when she vomits. It makes her so upset that she cries more. And she had a fever to cope with at the same time.

I googled some information about vomiting and fever and from her symptoms, it seems like it's a stomach bacterial attack. But then it's only vomiting and fever with no diarrhea. Hmmmm... It did say it will pass in 12-24 hours and so far she seems to be better. We are also trying to avoid giving her milk though. She had some yogurt in replacement of milk for breakfast. I think we'll keep to light and small meals for her today.

I'm so tired as I was up trying to get her to go back to sleep till 1.30am. And she decided to get up at 8am this morning. Okay, I also know I should not complain considering that lots of mums of young children do not get 6 straight hours of sleep.