Faith turns 2

We celebrated Faith's birthday with the extended family on Saturday. There's more to celebrate other than the fact that she turns all of 2 years old.

I have successfully breastfed her for 2 years and would still continue with it until a time where either she or myself decides not to. I still recall how I was so tempted to give up on breastfeeding during the first couple of weeks after she was born due to the difficulties and challenges. I'm glad I persevered. Even now, there's still some people who feel that I should have stopped breastfeeding her long ago, but I try to tell myself (and sometimes tell them too) its becos they do not know the benefits of extended breastfeeding.

Her daddy is progressively improving slowly but steadily by the day. He walks around the house without any crutches, but when he goes out, he still continues to use one -- partly for support and also for those just-in-case moments when its crowded or he's tired.

The only little glitch was that he was having a fever on the day that we celebrated her birthday. A fever that came on on Thur and did not abate even with medication until Sunday. However, nothing was going to keep him away from helping his girl celebrate yet another milestone.

We decided to hold a simple affair at home with the food catered in. Our little extravagance was a 2-tier birthday cake with a Sesame Street theme from Pine Gardens, featuring some of her favourite characters like Elmo, Bert, Ernie and Cookie Monster. The top tier was a black forest cake targeted at the kids (though its not quite a kid's treat given that the cherries were liberally laced with kirsch) and the bottom tier was lychee martini to satisfy the adults.

She had gotten a little bicycle (the ones with a handle at the back for the adults to push) from her grandparents, a Leapfrog Phonics Fridge Magnet from the ACE family, 2 sets of Barbie doll from the grand-aunts and grand-uncles and a Playdoh set from us. Apart from that, Eileen had also given her another Little Miss Sunshine soft toy on Monday to add to her mini Little Miss collection, as well as an Elmo hand-puppet. Given the amount of toys she received, we wisely decided to hold back from opening our present to her and one of the Barbie doll sets.

This year, she was all smiles when everybody sang her her birthday song. Louis had been prepping her for it by singing it to her the few days leading to Saturday. This year, she knew to blow the candles all by herself.

Faith's Dua Peh was filled with pride when she finally acquiesced to allowing him to carry her just before her birthday song was sung. He was absolutely reluctant to give up his perch on the chair with her even though Faith's Dua Erm was shooing him away so that the little family could take a family picture :)

She loved all her presents and she had great fun. We know so becos she said to us while we were turning in for bed, "FUN!" We knew she was referring to the celebration that evening. Even though Faith's not speaking full sentences yet, we absolutely know what she means :)

On Monday, which was her actual birthday, my mom brought a vegetarian fruit cake. We put a symbolic candle on it, sang her another birthday song and let her blow the candle again. She seemed rather thrilled to have us sing her so many birthday songs.

Certainly, our lifestyles have changed drastically since Faith was born. Yet, she's given us so much joy, pride and have taught us so many valuable lessons in life that we just cannot imagine what we would do without her. Like every proud parent, we think our little girl is the best in the world. Or as a friend and I used to say jokingly, "The Bestest"!

Happy Birthday, Little One!