My first Honda

Is Bryan interested in cars? Not really. When we took him for the car rides at Giant, most of the time, he just sat there and enjoy the mechanical movements rather than to play with the steering wheel. I noticed that some kids play with the steering wheel non stop while in the kiddie ride, but not Bryan.

We took Bryan to Queensbay Mall last Saturday and there was a Honda cars exhibition. There was a Honda Civic and CRV. When hubb and I were checking out the cars, Bryan wanted to as well. So we let him take the driver seat.

Just look at how much he enjoyed playing with the steering wheel and pressing the buttons in the car.

This boy got class eh? Only plays with the real stuff!

Water babies

This is by request of his youngest uncle’s wife (his seh-kim). They complained that I did not load enough of Bryan’s video and that they misses him from Singapore.

So here’s one of Bryan enjoying himself in the swimming pool.

I introduced Bryan to swimming when he was 6 months old at the adult pool. So he never really “stand” in the pool as we seldom take him to the baby pool. Thus, he does not need to get over the insecurity of not being able to feel the bottom of the swimming pool.

Sure, he drinks swimming pool water all the time but that’s part of learning, isn’t it.

How time flies…

Did some housekeeping on my laptop and found this photo…

This photo was taken 1 year ago and see how innocent his face was then. I am amazed to see how much Bryan have grown into…

Feeling nostalgic on a Friday evening…..

Pick up skills

About 2 weeks ago, we were at Borders. We took Bryan to Borders’ children section. There was a little girl of about 7 reading at one of the tables at that section.

The moment we got there, Bryan walked towards the little girl and said, “Hi.”

Unfortunately for him, the girl chose to ignore him. He continued to smile at the girl and tried to make “small talk” with the girl.

After a while, I think the girl got a bit uncomfortable and left the table.

So Bryan played by himself and busied himself exploring the books there. Within a short while, he found the little girl and her younger sister at the front of the children’s section.

So he wandered towards them and tried to start a “conversation” again with them.

Hahaha…obviously, this is a boy who doesn’t give up easily. But he still has lots of room to improve when it comes to his pickup skills….hehehe.

What’s in my name?

Got tagged by A-Mom’s Diary on the the meaning of Bryan’s name.

Bryan’s full name is Bryan Lim Shern Khai, and it is selected by my hubb. Bryan is a Gaelic name which meant noble, strong and virtuous.

Although neither one of us have English name, we chose to give our son one. Why? For me, I do work a lot with people outside Malaysia – Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese….etc. And almost everyone have problem pronouncing my name. And I am not comfortable adopting an English name. So to avoid problem such as this for our children, we decided that we will give our children English name.

I did come up with my list of preferred English names. But hubb rejected every single one of them. Some it is because he already knows of someone by that name or he didn’t like someone by that name. Others he could coin up other words with similar sound with that name.

So I got fed up and let him make the suggestion instead. He suggested Bryan and Ryan,…and out of the 2, I chose Bryan.

Next comes the Chinese name. I am a banana, so my hubb has the responsibility to find and suggest names. My friend loaned me a book on Chinese names. It is sort of a numerology book. The number of strokes in each Chinese character contributes an element and the combination of elements and total number of strokes will determine the strength of the name.

We evaluated the “quality” of the book by doing a calculation of our own names first. Turned out that the book did give pretty good description of both our characters and prediction based on our name. So we decided to use it to select Bryan’s Chinese names.

Hubb uses reverse engineering methodology to find the suitable name. Since the surname is fixed. We use that as an anchor point. Next we need to get a certain number of strokes for 2nd and 3rd character respectively and arrive at a total number of strokes for the entire name for it to have a good overall element.

Then, we look up suitable words based on the number of strokes that we need. The books did come with a small “dictionary” to suggest the meaning of different Chinese characters and what are suitable in a name and what are not.

Once we have a list of suitable 2nd and 3rd character, we perform mix and match until we find a name that is pleasing to our ears. And that is of course Shern Khai.

“Shern” meant holy. For example “Sheng Jin” – Holy Bible.
“Khai” meant victory.

So actually, both the English and Chinese name have similar meaning.

Bryan Lim Shern Khai – we hoped that you will grow up to be a strong, noble, virtuous and successful man.

Wait, there’s more…..

The character Shern is a combination of the words – Ear, mouth & king. So, we hope that he will be a leader (king) who listens and are able to guide the others as well.

Khai meanwhile has the words mountain & bean in it. Bryan is born in the year of the Rooster, and these characters are supposedly beneficial to the Rooster babies as well. Mountain symbolizes home & strength to the Rooster, and presence of the word “bean” meant that there will be plenty of food (income) as well.

Pwuahh…!!! This is a really long post but I am happy to do this as it will be good for Bryan to know the meaning and how we came up with his name when he grows up.

And now, I want to know the meaning of the names of
Pei Sze’s Hin Lerk
Angie’s Evan
Joyce’s Ethan
Wooi Sin’s Ching Ern
Jin Miin’s Wei Xuan

Enjoy the tag.

Instructions

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Why babies shouldn’t play with HP

I used to let Bryan play with my hp almost whenever he asked for it. At first I thought he could do any damage (as long as he don’t drop it of course). Afterall, it is a slide phone and I didn’t think that he would know how to slide it open.

Well, I am wrong. He figured out a way to slide the phone up. And once the phone is slide up, the keypad is automatically unlocked. And this is what this little boy has done to my phone.

He has been saving numerous funny contacts to my phone.

And of course, he has been calling people on my phone. Some are numbers from my contact list, others….perhaps his imaginary friends.

Worse, I found him dialing ‘999’ on my phone as well. Eeekkkk…..!!!!!

Ok that’s it! No more playing with my hp for Bryan.

Sakae Sushi for Bryan

We went to Sakae Sushi last Sunday and Bryan had his first Japanese food meal. He has been to Japanese restaurants with us but we were just feeding him morsels of food, hardly what I would call a meal. Besides, in his previous visit, I always feed him his proper meal before we go to the restaurant.

We ordered these for Bryan

He finished the plate of grilled fish sushi, except for the inner fillings which is something really hard. It felt like crunchy bones to me, so I did not give it to him. He did not like the sweet tofu, so we just gave him the sushi rice. And I gave him another rice ball from my salmon sashimi.

And he polished off the rice with a cup of tori chawan mushi.

We know he has had enough because nowadays, whenever he has had enough, he will say, “Pau Pau” (carry me). He will ask to be removed from his baby chair, so that he can start wondering around the restaurant.

Pressie for Mummy

Have been a busy week last week, and did not have time to blog about this. I missed this week’s CSI so that I can catch up at Bryan’s blog as well as make some moolah on mine.

Anyway…everyone has blogged about how they spent their Mother’s Day. Well, i did also la…at least what I did during the day.

I have been bugging hubb that he need to get me a gift on behalf of Bryan on Mother’s Day. He kept saying, “Ai meh (one meh?). Wait until he is older for him to get it himself.”

Anyway, the whole day, i got nothing from hubb, so i thought he diden get me anything liao

So i was getting dressed for dinner and hubb helped to bath and dress Bryan. We were supposed to go out with my parents for dinner.

Then came Bryan came toddling happily into my room with a little pressie. He gave the pressie to me then toddles happily back to his daddy in the living room, as if to say “Mission Accomplished.”

So I went to the living room to thank hubb and I found a lovely cake on the dining table with the words Happy Mother’s Day. Hubb did make an effort anyway….Thanks love!

So, here’s what Bryan got for me.

It is appropriate because he goes, “Mama, Mama” all the time now the moment I am out of sight. Even when i am nearby, if I am not paying attention to him, he’ll go “mama mama.”

Now, i just have to find a lovely photo of Bryan for the lovely frame.

Sorry, no pic of the cake, as I took it out for dinner to share it with my mom, and it got damaged on the way. Silly me put a tupperware on top of the box, and it squashed the cake at the top, damaging the design. But it was still a yummy chocolate and almonds cake!