It's done!



Our excavation of the fossils bones has been completed and this is the brachiosaurus pieced together.



Unfortunately, amidst the moving, I've misplaced the display stand and the instruction sheet (there are parts which needed to be glued together) but Daddy managed to piece the bones together and I thought it's nice to put the dino out in the garden before taking a shot.



For the kids, they had fun smashing the remaining plaster into dust - not with their tools but with their hands and feet!

6th Sept: A Day to Remember

We decided to do an impromptu road trip today: drive into JB so that I can taste my Nandos chicken once and for all, and check out the Toys R Us at Tebrau City.

It took 2 hours from the time we left home, to packing breakfast to eat in the car, to survive that windy sickening poorly designed new Woodlands causeway to get into JB and find Tebrau City mall. 15 minutes into Toys R Us, the call we have been expecting for nearly a week, came - my maternal grandmother has just passed away.

She's my last surviving grandparent and she's 91. Mom says she is older because she gave a younger age in her birth certificate. We are relieved she has passed on because she has been battling lung cancer and staying in a nursing home for more than 2 years. Her dependency on oxygen was worsening, she could not do short day outings anymore or eat herself or even chew solids. The most depressing part has to be that her mind was actually working well, she was alert and could carry out conversations well and recognised all of us and enjoyed her TV programs.

So it will be a hectic week coming, given that we have to attend the wake every night with the funeral proceedings on Thurday.

After we cut the trip short and rushed home, we found out our help was not needed at the moment so we stayed home with the kids. There was supposed to be a birthday celebration for Dad tonight - he turns 60 tomorrow (Chinese birthday) but that has been cancelled.

Aidan turned paleontologist with the new science kit we bought while Am continued with her fascination with her brother's collection of Thomas and Friends; and other trains. She likes to line them up in a line or set up tracks for the trains to roll on. Good, I like to know my toys are well utilised and played across both genders.

I had fun 'digging' with Aidan too, and he certainly had more fun hacking chips of the plaster block off rather than brushing the 'sand' patiently to uncover the bones. Just like what the instructions mentioned, the block is built to imitate the real thing so it will take hours or days to finish uncovering all the bones. So far, after an hour plus, we haven't retrieved any. Guess with a 5 year old who has no true profession for uncovering fossils and with a bigger interest in hacking randomly, this project of ours may take weeks or months.

About Ammi

Ammi is talking.

She has a vocab range of about 50-80 words, I think.

She knows the names of many animals, she knows how to tell you to "go", turn on the "TV" and "sit" with her.

She still gets bullied by her brother, but absolutely holds no grudges against him.

In fact, when we ask his brother to apologise to her, she reaches out to 'sayang' him back instead.

I only wish she'll eat more and less fussy over food, compared to her brother who eats practically everything (except durians and pure cod fish liver oil).

This morning, she sat on my Mom's bed while I was attaching my phone to Mom's phone charger.

"Ah-no, ah-no...Mama, ah-no..", she said.

I stared at her: "Er, Ah-no? Ammi, Mummy doesn't know what you want. O-no? Is it Ah-no, or Oh-no?" (which I didn't have a clue to either one actually).

She looked at me and pointed forward: "Ah-no!"

I was starting to panick, because our little Ammi usually bursts into a fiery temper when we don't understand what she is talking about.

Today, this cutie stared at my blank face after she "Ah-no"-ed 1 more time. Then she closed her mouth, pondered for 2 seconds and following, she looked at me and went: "Raaaaaaahhh!!"

"Oh! Dino! You want to watch Dinosaurs, is it?"

Ammi nodded and smiled.

I thought that was the cutest thing. Our baby actually gave some thought to how she could use other way to communicate what she wants!