Highlight of the day: Eric is pointing at everything nowadays. “Geegeejah!” at a book. “Ndjeahjah!” at the remote control.

Also, his goofy teeth are so cute!

My kids are at the ages where hugs are still abundant — they love being hugged and getting hugs. Eric would come to me for his big boy hug at random times, especially when he’s tired. Joel demands one every morning, noon, and night with such gusto that sometimes I would almost fall back as he run towards me and jumped, expecting me to catch him every time (do I have a choice not to?). When he’s not too excited, he’ll just calmly sit on my lap, grab my arms around him, and he’ll hum “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Ezra… well, he’s still a baby, but what baby doesn’t like to be hugged? Ezra will either put his head on my shoulder, or be most alert, smiling and babbling himself away.

There will come the day when giving a hug to Mommy and Daddy becomes more and more sporadic, somewhat of an embarrassment, not to be given publicly. But that’s a long time away. I hope. I’ll take things one day at a time.

*sigh* Nice… I had an almost undisturbed sleep with Eric last night. It’s just so wonderful when he does get an undisturbed night’s sleep, and wakes up happy and dandy.

Highlight of the day: He is quite an expressive baby. He helds out his hands and gives out a hoot, a signal that he wants to be carried. His calls for “mama” and “dada” is much more audible, and I think he now can relate those words to us. “Mama!”, holds out arms to me. “Dada!” holds out arms to my hubby. It’s easier now to tell whether he’s happy, or hungry, or sleepy, or wanting to go out, or wanting to watch TechTV… ahh, he is so like his momma and poppa.

Oh, did I mention how cute his fangs are?

“Eric, see what Joel’s doing…”

“Eric, clean your room…”

“Eric, go play with Joel…”

“Eric, help me take Ezra’s diaper please…”

“Eric, help me hold Ezra’s bottle, I need to do the dishes…”

“Eric, please do the laundry…”

Believe it or not, these are the things I asked Eric to help me with around the house. I certainly appreciate all that this big kid of mine does around the house. He’s even more helpful than his dad. To my delight, he especially loves doing the laundry — well, up to the washing part, that is. He asked me one day whether he could help me to wash clothes, and I thought why not. It took him five rounds of laundry to understand where and how to do it.

Always eager to help me with that particular house chore, he would carry a load of dirty clothes and stuff them into the washing machine, and press those nifty buttons that buzz, and as the machine loads up with water, he would pour the detergent and softener to the right amount into the right compartments. His reward would be the chance to observe those clothes splish-sploshing their way through the wash cycle. That’s as far as I let him help with the washing.

I think about how much Eric has helped me around the house, and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to do half of the housework if it weren’t for his help. This precious son of mine is my very own little handy helper, God bless him.

His mood is getting better now. I just wished that his cold gets better soon. It worsens his coughing… I worry sometimes.

Highlight of the day: Oo, his two top “fang” teeth are starting to show! He now has 5 teeth growing out simultaneously. About time, I say.