China Beijing

after korea, i stopover in beijing for 2 days... key purpose is to visit the olympic village...

i last visited beijing in 2002 and i have observed many changes... mostly for the better but some old habits die hard....

noticed some queueing system this time round....

but people are still spitting all over the place!!! gross!!!

and improvements in the traffic there... people drive on the right side of the road this time..... but everywhere you go, people cross the road at will, drivers ignore traffic signals and most irritating of all.... drivers blaring their horns like nobody's business!!!!

anyway, some photos of beijing to share

Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing (damn expensive.... seafood horfun for almost 88 RMB!!!!)

Olympic village (from the red square around the middle which is MacDonalds to the stadium at the bottom, it is 2km!!!)

Bird nest in the day

Bird nest in the night

Water cube in the night The only safe food in China!!! (Really?!!??!?)

Photo updates and new baby girl!!! Tng RuiTing

this is the new photo mantage for Elkan... have been making one of these montage for Elkan every month and it is interesting to see the changes and development just by looking at these photos... at the same time, when doing this montage, realise i do not have many photos to choose from... means i am not taking enough photos of my son!!!

anyway, on 2 Oct, Baby Tng Ruiting (Yanxiong and Khaibin's precious girl) has arrived...the longest delivery of 48hrs!!!(from start of hospital stay to delivery...)

Elkan and his girl friend Claire...

Back from Korea and China...

have been really busy the last few feeks and did not have the time to update this blog.

before i went overseas 2 weeks ago, Elkan has been really cranky and this got me and jasmine really tired.... we have to wake up frequently at night to check on him cos he gets uncomfortable from all the turning and flipping when he sleeps at night.... he has been sleeping on his back and side a lot recently.

anyway, was in korea, Daegu from 23 to 26 sept. had the opportunity to see "stars" in action... was at the Colourful Daegu Athletic Meet 2008 and they invited some Korean stars to perform there..... but i dunno who are they!!!

ha ha anyway, also saw Yelena (Women's Pole Vault World Record Holder) in action there... she looks quire pretty but there is an irrtating guy (who happens to be Yelena's boyfriend) who sticks around her like a leech and instead of just carrying her bag for her.... he has to go everywhere HOLDING her hand just to show the world that HE is HER MAN!!! Actually come to think of it... i would probably have done the same... holding onto my GOLDMINE and never let her get out of my sight!!!

group photo of the friend and officials in korea!

lamborghinis!!! even their exhaust smells sweet....

was at the LTA KPE run the other day and as part of the charity event, there were lamborghinis and lotus on displays...

the way their car doors open looks really cool.... the way the engines sounds.... just brillance....(forget about the talking in the background... ha ha)

Elkan wakes up at night.... sigh...every night

In my last post, we were hoping for Elkan to have peaked in his crankiness.... but this is not the case...

The last few days have been really tough managing him... it is no longer easy to feed him, change him and getting him to sleep.


nowadays, we really do not know what he wants when he cries or gets restless.... in the past, it is just either hungary or sleepy (and wants someone to carry him to sleep). but nowadays, it can be hungary (usually not the case), wants to carry, wants to flip or we just dun know what he wants!!!


Difficult to change and clean him because he always wants to turn/flip himself over... if he does not get his way... we know what happens!! then the poor parents (usually the mother... hee hee) will be struggling to pin him down to finish the job. sometimes it takes 2 adults to clean /change him - 1 to talk/entertain him and help pin him down while the other change/clean him.


do not know the reason why but seems that he have not been wanting to drink as much recently.... many times when we try to feed him (when it is time to feed him), he refuses to drink or that he is drinking lesser...


worse of all, he has been waking up in the middle of the night every night lately.... but most of the time, not because he wants to drink!!! We notice that he has been sleeping on his side (see photo below) and sometimes while sleeping, he flips fully onto his front, then he starts crying cos he does not know how to flip back... then we will have to wake up, flip him back and usually he goes back to sleep.... if that does not work, then we will carry him and try to coax him back to sleep.... and lastly, if carrying him still does not work, then we will give him his sleeping potion (by breast feeding him).... To date, this is still the most effective way of getting him to sleep... works most of the time... But this can happen 2-3 times a night and daddy has to wake up to check on him while mummy stands by to give son the sleeping potion!!!!

Cranky Elkan... tired parents...

dun know why but Elkan has been rather cranky last few days and his crankiness "peaked" last night (hopefully, last night was the peak...)

last couple of nights he has been waking up in the middle of the nights (though mostly once a night) but i dun think it is because he needs to drink... somehow he does not seem able to "sleep thro"...

yesterday we brought him out and was at zr's house at night when he was unabel to finish his milk... the last few feeds has been pretty difficult because he is able to use his hands to push away his milk bottle.... we had to break up his feeds and this was "unusual" for Elkan... He normally finishes his milk in one go!

yesterday he did not sleep much in the day and we thought he would be tired at night... but no... at 10+, tried to carry him to sleep and though he was yawning away but he did not want to sleep.... he finally sleep at past midnight about 1am when jasmine gave him his "sleeping milk".... but he woke up again 2-3 times last night... but he slept again once we carried him!!! think he needs some diciplinary action!!

Anyway here are the more fun stuff... Elkan, Claire and Elroy

Claires shows her preference... this girl not shy....
Elkan and Claire at the movies... ha ha

Elkan flips effortlessly!!

Today, over dinner jasmine was just telling me that my mother-in-law has been "training" Elkan to flip from him back to his front.... but so far i have only been able to witness Elkan flipping without help from us once successfully...

Just 10mins ago, Elkan surprised me by flipping over like within secs... I was watching him, then I walked into the kitchen to check on the boiling water and by the time I walked back again(all within 15sec... maybe 10sec...) and voila!!! Elkan turns onto his front and is supporting himself on his elbows!

I turned him around again wanting to witness it and film it to be shared with all my friends here...

Elkan is teething??

According to jasmine's auntie and mum, they say that Elkan is starting to teeth now.... Not that you can see the teeth already growing but it is in the very early stage and so the gums will feel itchy...
According to them, this is the reason why Elkan is salivating so much and he also has the tendency to put his fist into his mouth (yes, the fist not just the thumb)... cos he wants to soothe his own gums...

though not sure if it is really true, cos it seems too early for Elkan to start teething but what the heck.... whether Elkan is teething or not, there is nothing we can do about... only keep a lookout for the 1st sign of teeth coming out....

Photos of Elkan's friends

this year is a very productive year amongst my friends.... the government must be pleased to know this.... like to also put up photos of Elkan's friends here...
Enjoy the overdose of baby photos...

Over-run..... ha ha ha

Feb 05 - Joy Tan (The big sister) by Ben and Judy

Now showing

Feb 08 - Portia Yap by Zhiyuan and Cheyenne

May 08 - Elkan Yap by Weiyao and Jasmine

May 08 - Mikayla by Ken and Xiangling

June 08 - Claire Wee by Zhongren and Jamie

Aug 08 - Elroy Gan by Quanxing and Elaine

Akan Datang... Coming soon

Oct/Nov 08 - ?? by Yanxiong and Khaibing

Nov 08- ?? by xx and yy (to be released soon... watch out for more details on this blog)

Actually there are more friends/relatives whose babies are borned this year or due soon, but not possible to post all of them right....

if anyone of you objects to having your child's photo being posted here, please inform me and i will take it out. But if you have nicer and cuter photos of your child, you can also send them to me and i can also post it up...

More photos of Elkan

Photos of Elkan for the month of August

was looking at our records of Elkan's feeding time and realise i can actually observe from here when did he started sleeping through the night...

Starting from 1 July... we notice that he has been stretching his night sleeping hours....

if we define "sleeping through the night" as from 12midnight to 6am... then the first time Elkan actually slept through is on 8 July when he last fed at 2310 and the next feed is 0625hrs... Just another piece of useless statistics for you guys and for my recording pleasure...

More photos and videos of Elkan

here is a video of Elkan "talking" to me and jasmine...
see it to believe!!

this is a toy given by zhiyuan and cheyenne... quite useful as we can entertain Elkan on this for about 30mins without the need for us to carry him.... we use it when both jasmine and i are busy like taking our meals

Elkan enjoying his bathing time...

Recommendation to all parents.... this is a place that sells baby clothes (home wear type) quite cheaply... North bridge road (opposite ICA building across the canal) #02-5045.

Some indication - 1 set of sleep wear (top and pants) - $4/set, long sleeve top - 4 for $10. check it out yourselves.

Elkan supports himself on his front

Recently, I blogged about Elkan flipping onto his back but he always cannot get his hand out of the way for a complete flip. His lower body and head would have turned but his body is always blocked by his hand....

Just 2-3 days ago, we helped him move his hand out of the way for him to be lying on his front and he surprised us by using his elbows to prop himself up (in the crawling position)!! With his elbows supporting himself, he is able to lift his head up and look around... But i think he gets tired after a while and his head will drop back down onto the mattress...

I wanted to capture his photo of him propping himself to post it up here but have not got the opportunity to do so.... With his latest developments, we suppose he should be starting to crawl soon... maybe when he is about 4 months old (which is less than 1 month away)....

Will try to get a photo of him and post it here for all to see...

here are some photos and video of Elkan trying to flip

Anyway, Elroy's baby shower(Elaine and Quanxing's baby boy) is on 6 Sept at Elaine's house... As a reminder for all friends, Elroy is a National Day(9 Aug) baby..... another gathering then for Elkan, Claire and Elroy.... and their mummies and daddies...

In another 2 months, will have another baby shower for Khaibing and Yanxiong's baby girl...

2 boys and 2 girls.... so fun...

Elkan drinking milk

This ia a video clip of Elkan drinking his milk taken this morning.... he drank about 160ml in about 8mins.... I think many friend will envy us for this as we do not have to spend so much time
feeding our son.... Some of our friends have to spend about 30-60 mins feeding their child about 100-150ml.... Yes, we are indeed fortunate that taking care of Elkan in many aspects have been relatively easier than our friends..

Just some information to about the amount of milk that we have been feeding Elkan....

For the first 3 weeks, Elkan was taking full breastmilk.

We started the formula milk on 4th June and we started with 40ml. Realising this is not enough, we fed him with 60ml on 5th June.

7th June, we increased it about 90-100ml.

20 June (1 month old) - 120ml

23 June -130ml

11 July (8 weeks old) - 140ml

5 Aug - 150ml

19 Aug (about 3 months old) - 160ml

Different babies drink different amounts and there is no fixed formula to how much your baby can drink.... as long as he has enough and he is growing (but try not to cause your child to be overweight)

Government new baby bonus initiatives

i suppose the talk of the week must have been the baby bonuses announced by PM and DPM this week... the extended maternity leave, more childcare leave, no-pay infant care leave, more baby bonuses etc etc

these are really good to have measures but i think they will not really be very effective in attempting to raise singapore's fertility rates...

i am more disappointed with the government decision to bring forward the implementation date from 1 Jan 2009 to 17 Aug 2008.... The way i look at it, i think this is just a farce, a ploy by the goverment to make the people happy. I am sure when they first decided that the implementation date to be on 1 Jan 2009, they would have expected the people to petition and wants to bring it forward... the people's attitude (mostly mothers who gave birth this year) would be to backdate the implementation date to the date "my child was borned"... as long as my borned child is covered... who cares about the rest!

and the fact that the government so quickly made the decision to bring forward the implementation date further makes me suspicious that this is already all planned.... the government knows that whatever implementation date set will be met with criticisms unless they can satisfy ALL mothers.... so thay announce it to be 1 Jan 2009 first... then wait for appeals... then make people happy by bringing it forward... (just like when you buy clothes... you feel happier if they quote you high, you bargain it low then buy it compared it to the quote you low and fixed price...)

to me, it is not the date that really is important... it is the principle that if you decided on the date, you back it with reasons and stick to it. They is no end for stuff like this. now you bring forward to 17 Aug... so how about those babies borned from 1-16 Augm or in july, or in june or like mine in May...... especially the National day babies and the 08.08.08 babies (many mothers opted for to have their babies borned on this auspicious date).... looks like the real auspicious date is 17.08.08 (ha ha... played out by the government...). I think i should start a petition to backdate the implementation date to 19 May 2008 because it is an auspicious date, 15th day of the 4th month of the lunar calendar, which is also Vesak day! (actually only because my son Elkan is borned on this date...)

A Joke to share with you guys.... on 22 Aug 2008, Friday's "My Paper" - there is a letter oublished in "My Say"
Ms M Abdul K says: " (abstract only).... My husband and I feel that the benefits are not enough as the first two years of a child's life are crucial to his/her development. Mothers want to spend more time with their children right after their birth. To us, MONEY DOES NOT MATTER, but the time we have for our child is very important. (emphasis mine)
We were hoping that the government would extend the maternity leave period to one year and hence were disappointed to hear the news..." (news of the extended materialy leave of 4 months only).

Friends - what are your opinion and immediate reaction?
Bulls*it right!?!?!?!?! Money does not matter then quit your job or take no pay leave lah!!!! It is ok to want more leave and money but don't use the pretense of "spending more time with children" as an excuse and then saying "money does not matter" lah....
I think if the government really give mothers one year maternity leave, this mother will become "full time mum/or full time child bearing machine" and stay home year after year just to give birth and get paid maternity leave consecutively....
I am also disappointed mah... they should give fathers 1 years paternity leave, mothers 3 years maternity leave and reward parents S$250,000 for every child born!!

But on a serious note, i am disappointed that there is no paternity leave at all. Not that we fathers (at least for me) are asking for 1 month or 2 months... but i think practically, giving fathers 1 week of paternity leave is not too much to ask for.... I think typically all fathers already take 1 week of leave when their child is borned.
From the actual day when the birth process starts (water bag burst, contractions etc), the father has to leave work immediately. Hospital stay is typically 2-3 days. Bring baby home another 2-3 days of transition period...Voila... 1 week leave already.... Wonder why our "SCHOLARS' or government does not know this simple formula....
Maybe our PM only talk to powerful "highly paid" women and these wives typically have lagi highly paid husbands and so... to give paterinity leave has too high an opportunity cost...

will be going malaysia later for my haircut, massage, eat some seafood and hopefully got time to go buy some cheap groceries and baby diapers...

Friends (yz, ym, hl), dun forget next sunday another 10km run.... train yourselves during the week!

Elkan turns to his back!

21 Aug 2008... Just over 3 months since Elkan arrived...
Today my mother-in-law informed us that Elkan has successfully turned from "lying on his back" to "lying on his front" twice today!
Actually he has been trying to turn for the last 2 weeks and we(jasmine and i) were only think he was trying to turn to his side.... little did we realise that he not only wanted to turn on his side but went one step further to make a full turn to lie on his front.

we know that Mikayla (xiangling and ken's precious baby girl) actually sleeps on her front and this helps to train her neck to be stronger... we tried it a few times on Elkan to put him on his front but he looks rather strange and he is unable to lift his head to look around... We stopped getting him to rest on his front since...

just finished running 5.5km this evening..... the run felt good...

Singapore's years of investments finally pays off (or Singapore finally successfully buys first Olympic medal)

Beijing Olympics 2008

Women Table Tennis Team Results

Gold - China

Silver - Singapore (China)

Bronze - Korea

Singapore (China) wins the table tennis silver medal... After paying so much and spending millions of dollars, Singapore has finally "bought" an Olympic Silver Medal back home. The medals are delivered to Singapore by 3 China-borned athletes who are converted into Singapore citizens (and one of whom only got her Singapore citizenship in 2008!!!)

Just as I expected, Singapore (China) lost to China 3-0 (yes, I predicted 3-0) but they did better than I expected by stretching China to almost 2 hou... (I predicted a 1 hour 3-0 mat... ha ha) And I suppose the only way Singapore (China) could walk away with the gold medal is for them to buy off the China players by paying them 1mio CNY each (just like how Singapore paid and bought our Silver medal anyway)

Anyway, I have said this before - Yes, Singapore has got a silver medal…. We can be happy ( I use the word "can" not "ought" or "should") but there is nothing to be proud of….Simply because we paid for it this is what we should g....

My question to the relevant sporting authorities is - How much did we pay for this silver medal? I do not want to ask if it is worth it because this is a very subjective question and there is no correct answer to it. If I told you for the last 8 years, we spent S$10million to train and pay these athletes (mind you... probably only on a handful of 10-20 athletes) - Is this Silver medal worth it? Can we make better use of this money? Subjective again...

Thought of the day (for the sports people) - Back to the drawing board on the implementation plan to buy Singapore the Gold medal in London 2012.

Elkan's photos

friends have been asking me to post Elkan's photos and videos on the internet to share our finest moments...

i think we would also like to add some "advises" of what new parents can do to help them in their new journey... going thro a new phase of life can be scary... but doing it with sufficient information can help ease the journey... (will try to find time to do it)

here are the first few photos and 1 video.

the photos are created by me like a summary of all the nice photos we have taken.... to post all the photos or select the best will take some time considering the hundreds of photos we have taken... but this video clip is one of the more interesting with Elkan laughing and "cackling"...

By the way, yesterday (16 Aug) Elkan has just taken the 6-in-1 jab and some anti-neumo*** syrup....cost me $93+$96 for these... raising a baby is expensive.... he now weighs 6.25kg and length of 63cm. Drinking 160ml of Similac Formula milk now. (Just some statistics.... ha ha)

the next appt is on 20 Sept for more jabs.... will to spend money again....

damn shag now... after our 10km run (with yz, ym, hl and jasmine)

Busy weeks...

i was having reservist training this week starting from monday and will finish tomorrow on friday. so many interesting stuff has happened this week but i have not got the time to put it all into words here..... i will summarize them into points to remind myself of the things i could write about in the coming days...
1. Singapore Open is over! The annual major track and field event organised by Singapore Athletics Association (SAA) is finally over... it was held on 2 and 3 Aug but this year there was very little participants both from locally and overseas... Post event thought : we (SAA) have lost the focus and the intent of the Singapore open! will have to discuss with my boss before bringing it up in the SAA MC meeting.... Can finally take a break from all the nights of testing etc. (and still not complete)

2. Travel opportunity to Daegu, Korea....

3. Elkan's tantrums.... My son has been throwing tantrums recently starting from Monday at a dinner with SAA at Copthorne Orchid... He has been demanding for direct breastfeeding and rejecting bottle feeds.... actually he juist cried (very hard and loud) because i refuse to give it!... he is going to start crying again but we just have to start to discipline him about not choosing his method of feeds!

4. 1 week of reservist....

5. Standard chartered half marathon, training program and running mates...

son crying now.... have to attend to him. will try to expand on all of the above soon...

First posting

this is my first attempt at blogging and the main reason i am doing this is so that i can keep a record of the interesting happenings in my life and i have something to reflect upon in future...
i would also be blogging a lot about my son, Elkan Yap, who is now 9 weeks old (borned on 19 May 2008, 0618hrs)...

i have already forgotten the many firsts of my son's life (like the first time he tekan us in the night, first time he he slept through the night... etc) and with this blogging, hopefully i can remember them...

son is crying now.. will get back again...