I’ve been looking forward to Eric’s first ever school holiday camp ever since I saw the ad on TV and registered for it late July. Eric went to the half-day Junior Labs camp in the afternoon meant for the 7 to 12 year olds, to learn how to make slime! In adult translation — “learning the properties of polymers and colloids.”

Being a seemingly shy boy, Eric was in his usual mood of observing everyone, but brave enough to participate in the ice breakers. When the camp started at 1:30pm, the parents were shooed out of the hall and were asked to return by the end of the camp.

I returned half an hour before the end of the camp session at 5:00pm, and saw that they have started handing certificate of attendance to the kids. At the end of the ceremony and group photo, Eric went up to me and told me it was “awesome”.

I observed that a couple of the camp facilitators were quite charmed by Eric for some reason, and even during the certificate presentation, the woman in charge gave Eric a light pinch on the cheek.

In any case, I’m glad Eric had a great time, even though he didn’t know anyone there. I wouldn’t hesitate to send him to another one soon.

My home is now free of my brothers-in-law after almost 10 years of living with us, and now Eric finally has his own bedroom today! And, boy, he’s loving it!

Although my in-laws left our home early in the morning, and the room was now empty for me to do as I wish, I couldn’t yet rejoice because I needed to clean the room up before Eric could move in. Cobwebs and dust stuck on the walls and scattered on the floor was the first sight that I saw when I entered the room. Amazingly, I got everything cleaned up in just half hour. Which was good, because time is so precious when you have two little tykes to deal with simultaneously. I was glad Eric was eager to do the rest of the work, i.e. moving his clothes and toys from the office room to his now official room, while I dealt with the wailing Ezra and Joel.

The final touch to the room was the setting up of Eric’s PC, and this was the most exciting to Eric. Now he can play and shout around frantically as he played with the various PC and online games he’s into (Spongebob Squarepants, Playhouse Disney Channel, Mario Bros, etc), and the living room now sounds less noisy. Even Joel is enjoying himself as he watches his big bro play on the computer.

I’ve been looking forward to Eric having his own room for a long time, especially now that he is in Primary 1. Not having his own room meant that he had to do his homework in the living room. And since the office room is currently a makeshift baby room, Eric has no privacy when it comes to reading or doing his school work, with the TV on, or his little brother Joel keep pulling him away or climbing on Eric’s chair insisting that his big brother play with him. I’m glad that now with his own room, most distraction have been eliminated and Eric can now focus better on his studies.

Now I am in my kampung Tuaran Labuaya. I have a cousin. His name is also Eric Ribuan and Eric noel is my name. He is 11 years old. I have my PS2 in the kampung. He doesn’t have a video game. His daddy doesn’t buy for him.

Our family and the locals here have this habit — or rather, tradition — of calling a baby’s one-month old birthday as the baby’s “full moon”, and today is that day for Ezra. I was wondering what was going on when my husband and in-laws came home this afternoon with an armful of fresh food ready to be cooked, before realizing what day it was today.

It’s going to be a small celebration with just the family members. Tomorrow will be our big family trip to Tuaran, my hometown. Apparently, my in-laws have never been there, and it was something I didn’t find out until a few weeks ago. Oh well.

By the way, someone dropped me an e-mail today saying how cool Ezra’s name was (yeah, I know!). I couldn’t have done it without the Web and the myriads of site dedicated to baby boys names as well as girl. Thank God for the Internet!

Ezra is 10 days old today, and all’s well in the Dony household. His jaundice is clearing off, and his umbilical stub fell off on the seventh day. So far, he’s gained a little more than 0.1 kg from what we found out through our follow-up visit to the pediatrician last Thursday.

One issue I’m having with this little one is his feeding habit. Since I’ve never had this issue with Eric and Joel before, I was slightly baffled at first that Ezra can’t finish his feed at one go. He kept falling asleep halfway through, so I usually end up spending time feeding him for at least 20 to 40 minutes at a time. I suppose, due to that, he has a little problem letting out gas, and that makes him uncomfortable at times.

But really, they are more of an inconvenience than something I would worry about. At least he can finish 2 ml every two to three hours, as well as wet his diapers and stools frequently. I’m also using the tried and true method of rubbing his tummy with a little eucalyptus oil and that made him pass gas better.

I’m eager to see how he will be like in a month’s time!