At the zoo again!

What do you do when your school is closed because of H1N1? Go to the zoo!



On monday morning, the first day of my week off work at BC, I drove Hannah to school to be greeted by masked teachers giving out letters explaining that the school was shut for a week due to a child having H1N1. Time to rethink my week off.

Well, by Wednesday I managed to muster the energy to get Hannah and myself to Zoo Negara for a morning of animal magic. It didn't seem very long since our last trip here, but it was well over a year ago. That time, Hannah called everything "cows" and "ducks". This time her vocabulary was very much expanded. But she was still only really keen to see a select few animals: giraffes, lions, tigers and flamigos. Go figure...

When all is said and done, it was a fun morning out and Hannah was tired enough to take her nap without a fuss when we got home. Well worth the effort, I say.

A Smashing Weekend

"Let's keep it simple."

Or at least that was the plan. Afterall, how complicated can a 3-year-old's birthday celebrations be? To the uninitiated, NOTHING about a child can ever be simple.

So, Hannah's birthday celebrations started on Friday, when Mummy + doting grandparents made a special appearance during her scheduled break.

Not only did we meet the "naughty boys" Hannah kept talking about, we also gave a little extra attention to the poor new kid that Hannah reportedly bullied.

There was also a particular young man I wanted to meet - someone who apparently meets Hannah at the door each morning and carries her bag into class!

What was planned to be a short half-hour treat turned into an hour's nightmare. Multiply a 3-year-old's hyperactiveness by 13, with dripping ice-cream, messy creamy cake and spilling Ribena, we were profusely apologising to the teachers by the end of the session.

Po Po and I spent most of the time catching drips, washing little hands and wiping up cream from the floor. It was utter chaos. Hannah lost her spoon (can you blame her?) and ended up in a heated argument with her arch rival. Someone vomitted.

Somehow we survived, thanks to the skilled competence of the teachers who managed to smile and look cheerful through it all. The children probably enjoyed themselves, but we vowed never to do this again...


Fast forward to Saturday - Hannah's birthday party! ... the second one.

Hannah managed to catch an afternoon nap despite the excitement of having all the family over for her birthday party. She was up and about by 5pm, all dressed up and anticipating the arrival of her guests.

Unfortunately, a series of road blocks in town meant that ALL her guests were late, leaving us to answer repeated questions of "Where's Po Po? Where's Gong Gong?"

When they did arrive though, Hannah had a splendid time, staying up way past her normal bedtime. More pictures on our web album...

Possibly her favourite new toy, a shopping trolley!

Tesco seem to be the only hypermart around with little trolleys for children to push around, so it was a no-brainer to get Hannah the toy version of "Tesco toy shopping trolley and playfood".

Predictably, it is now her #1 toy.

By Sunday, energy levels were running low.

Somehow we managed a full morning in church and a quick dash to Midvalley for some errands before having a nice long nap at home. Hannah's birthday weekend was then wrapped up with a bit of quiet activity (although Hannah's never really quiet) and a quick dip in the pool.

Happy 3rd Birthday sweetie!