her name is chloe

we named her "chloe", and according to wikipedia:

"Chloe (also Chloë, Cloe, Chlöe, Chloé, Clowy, Kloe, Khloe, Khloë, Khloé, Kloé or Kloë) is a first or given name for girls, especially popular in England. The name comes from the Greek χλόη(khlóē), meaning "young green shoot" and is one of the many names of the Greek goddess Demeter.^[1] The name appears once in the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 1:11 in the context of "the house of Chloe". The French equivalent is spelled Chloé."


Demeter is the goddess of harvest, and according to wikipedia again: "Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of marriage, thesacred law, and the cycle of life and death."

alan's 2nd lunar birthday

i should have posted about this earlier.  it was alan's 2nd lunar birthday last wednesday (lunar calendar 3rd of january), and here's alan enjoying his little creamy cake.

A New Baby is Born

i started feeling some contractions at about 5am 17th January 2012, and we went to the hospital at 7.30am.  baby girl didn't want to come out until just before 8pm.  so although it was my 2nd time giving birth, it wasn't as fast as i expected.

baby girl weighted 3.1kg, 49cm and head measured 33cm.  she came out very clean, with eyes wide open and looking very calm.

this blog has to have a new name now!

a few things about school

we got a few comments on facebook after i posted the photos and my last blog post link, which made me see that there were quite a few things that i should record.  so here it is:

• the school is an early education centre called "new oriental", and this class is especially tailored to young toddlers aged 1.5 to 3 years of age.  it is the first time they're running this full time class in guangzhou, but they've had a few years experience doing so in beijing and shanghai, and they're a reputable early education centre which runs weekly classes that runs for a hour or so.

• because it's only less than a month to the chinese new year, there're only 5 students this month, and 2 teachers and a baby sitter.  after the new year, there'll be about 10 students.

• alan had chosen the spiderman school bag for himself, his other options were a few different micky mouse bags (photo of spiderman bag here);

• we bought him this new pair of shoes especially for going to school.  alan had wanted a black pair, but ended up with the green ones as there weren't his size in black.

i should write more about his first school day experience once i receive the photos from his teacher - he's been the best boy.

alan's first school day

today was alan's first school day, and we took this photo in the morning before we head out.  he was happy about going to school and he kept on saying "qu shang xue" ("go to school" in mandarin).

this is our spiderman school bag, which alan had picked for himself.

we've just returned home as i'm writing.  teachers said that alan had been a very very good boy!  he was the first to finish lunch, ate double servings; and the first to sleep and slept for 1.5 hours, the longest among 4 other kids.  he didn't cry at all.  and when we went to pick him up, he didn't want to leave!

more photos to follow once i received them from the teacher.