The Path to NZ (ITA Lodgement)

Got an email from NZ Immigration Shanghai office a few weeks back that they have received our application and it will take around 2 months to get a CO (Case officer) assigned. What??? 2 months just to get CO assigned???

Oh well, i guess patience is key. More waiting....

Just to keep record, here is our time line for the whole application:

27/10 - EOI submitted
28/10 - EOI Selected
16/11 - ITA Issued
11/12 - ITA sent to Shanghai
14/12 - ITA Lodgement

Some people actually got their PR/WTR (work to residence) like within ONLY 8 months of submission, some ppl had to wait 18 months...so we'll see

The Path to NZ (The first part)

So, few months ago (28th of September to be exact) when the news of the company closure was announced. It was sort of like the final nail to the coffin. We have been tinkering with the idea of migration for a few years now but never had the guts to actually get around to do something.

And how did we end up with NZ? To be honest, there weren't much choices or we are just plain unadventurous! It was mostly between Australia and NZ. Both had its pros and cons. Australia is nearer, and we actually own an Australian degree which gives us some extra points and also Australia is less boring (??). But to maintain an Australia PR, we have to be there every 2 yrs of 5 years, which is a bit rigid.

NZ on the other hand, we did enjoyed ourselves in NZ, love the people there, the scenery, the environment but it's a bit quiet. When we were there 3 years ago, we could even hear crickets chirping at night! Like 8pm at night!

So after much weighing between the 2 options, we decided to go ahead with NZ. The other reason being, in order to gain sufficient points to submit our EOI (Expression of Interest) for the Australian resident visa, we have to sit for IELTS and get a MINIMUM band 8! so NZ it is!

I submitted my EOI on the 27th of October 2015 with a points of 150 (min points for automatic selection is 140), and got my EOI selected on the 28th of October 2015.  The cost of EOI submission at this point of time is NZD510. Then on the 16th of November, i received my ITA (invitation to apply) via email. The ITA is basically the green light for you to start submitting all your relevant documents proving what you have claimed points for in the EOI. This is when the scramble begins.

Luckily, I still keep all my job offer letters and even pay slips! But i also had to write back to my first boss for a letter proving my employment at the company. So boys and girls, very very important, dont burn bridges! Hehe...after that it was the medical check. We did ours at Adventist hospital Penang at the wellness center. It was pretty smooth flowing and pleasant.

Bought bank draft (my first time!) for the ITA submission. We were "unlucky" enough that the ITA fee increased just a week before our submission. FML! It went up from USD2065 to USD2222. BAH! Submitted our ITA on the 11th of December. Not too bad mah...less than a month since we got our ITA. hehe...they actually gave us 4 months. And now keeping fingers crossed and my eyes peeled for status updates on the webpage. Argh!

Will blog more when i get more updates!

Wormy at 16 month and 26 days

Let's see what the little missy has been up to recently:

1. Can "count" up to 4. Well sort of...its like :

Me : One?
missy : TWO!
me : Three?
missy : oh! (four)


SO CUTE! ok bias mom here..lol

2. A-B-C. A is for ? she will say AH PEL, B is for ? BAER and so on. normally until the letter F . F is for "og!" (frog)
3. can recognize her diaper brand..LOL!!! she will tell you its PETPET. if I ask her WHERE do you put petpet? she will reply THE BUTT BUTT. LOL! ok what kind of rubbish am I teaching her
4. ya she appends most words with THE . its like if she's looking for her ball...she will be walking around the house asking "THE ball?". For a while I was wondering why would she say THE  ball. then I realised its probably because I always ask her "where is THE ball?" "where is THE book?" and she thought it needs to come with THE
5. Can recognize most animals now : dog, duck, bear, horse, cow, cat, lion, owl, bird, frog, pig
6. Can point out most parts of her body and also say it out  : nose (nok), eye, ears, teeth, tongue, mouth, head, hair, feet, legs, arms, hands, tummy, shoulder, butt 😁

Fired

Hmm so yeah on this day September the 28th. I was fired. lol. Yeah like for real along with all 400 of my colleagues

Wormy's 14 month (and 17 days) update

Yikes...i dont know why i just cannot commit to posting monthly progress updates. Mostly on dayre now but i know my blog is still going to be a better memory keeper. heeheehee...i just want to document down the words wormy can say at 14 months

1. mama (of course!)
2. papa
3. star (twinkle twinkle little star)
4. dog (her fav)
5. meeww (cat's sound or mao in mandarin)
6. owwwweeeer (flower)
7. bye bye (sometimes dai dai complete with waving)
8. duck
9. bear (just recently, pronounced as baerrrrr)
10. bird
11. koko
12. car
13. book
14. ball
15. no
16. baa baa (baa baa black sheep)
17. mum mum (eat)
18. nen nen (milk)
19. mai (no in hokkien..lol)
20. bik! (complete with the hand sign for "finish". cos the nanny always tell her mum mum "habik")
21. go out (pronounced as one word i.e. goout)
22. don't want (occasionally with an added "i" in front becomes "i don't want")
23. walk (wants to go down and walk)
24. wooooo (shoe)
25. circle (erker)
26. hewooo (hello)
27. pom pom (bath)
28. two 
29. choo choo (train)
30. take

wow ... never realized her vocabulary is expanding fast until i listed it all down

other updates since the previous 10 month update :P

1. she learned to walk unsupported on her actual birthday. 12 month exactly. she walked like around 2 steps. and within the weeks after that she gradually started to walk more steps and finally able to walk quite steadily by 13month :)
2. drinks 6 oz of milk and around 2 solids per day (porridge and oatmeal)
3. she now has 4 teeth on top, and 4 on bottom and another 4 coming out! sorry i dont know the proper name for those teeth...
4. eats a varied diet of fish,meat, veggies, grains (rice, oats, millet), pasta, biscuits, bread, cornflakes and occassionally food off my plate :x
5. when she sees a shower head she will make the "shhh shhh" sound and wave her hands in front of her face..lol! mimicking showering with the shower head
6. last night i was feeding her the white creamy soup at kim gary and she suddenly shouted "nen nen"!!! she thought the white soup was nen nen! omg
7. I used to count the steps (saying 1-2-3) when i am carrying her up or down the staircase, so now whenever we see staircases she will say "two!". LOL
8. she just learned how to nod her head recently. sometimes it is pretty helpful cos at least now we know what she wants. but in some situations it can be a bit hard to interpret what she actually wants. e.g. turns on her favourite app on iphone i.e. pink fong. "which song do you want to listen?" (nod nod head) "WHICH song baby?" (nod more profusely) :D
9. if you brandish her favourite book for her to see and you ask "do you want mama to read you a book?" (nod nod) "come sit on mama's lap" she will clamber over trying to sit on my lap although most of the time she will have one leg on my face or her head in between my legs.wahaha
10. still pretty clingy to us....and still cries when she gets sent to the nanny esp after a long holiday..wahahaa
11. yep still drinking mama's milk although i stopped pumping at work few weeks after she turned a year old. i dont mind direct latching (as much) but i do hate pumping...huhuhu. and i m happier after i stopped, no need to worry about dwindling supplies anymore. it sorts of gets to you after a while. not sure when am i going to stop bf-ing her...

for documentation purposes, some of her meal combination...

pumpkin porridge with shredded fish 

porridge with zucchini and pumpkin cooked in homemade chicken broth and topped with salmon. this was yums!

creamy pasta cooked with cheese and a bit of greek yoghurt

Wormy the 10 month old

Developments so far :

1) able to clap hands, gong Xi gong Xi and do the open and close hand action when you sing twinkle twinkle little star 

2) able to walk quite far with the aid of a box. Few times I caught her trying to stand without support but she still hasn't gained enough confidence to do so I think. 

3) can eat a lot of different types of food now. Even eating cny cookies =/ and now eating 2 solids a day

4) she has been super clingy recently especially since our cny trip back to Kuching where everyone was so excited to see her and tried to carry her. But she didn't let any one carry her at all

5) she now has 8 teeth in total! 4 on top and 4 on bottom! My poor boobies. Lol!

6) while we were in Kuching she was so fascinated by the little poodle at home. She tried to touch her and even let the poodle lick her hands! And when the poodle is far away she will wave for the puppy to come. And she even called out "dog". Which sounded a lot like "duck" but slightly different sounding. Lol 

Here she is totally in awe with the dogs antics: 

7) took her 3rd ever plane ride. still pretty well behaved but compared to the last plane ride when she was around 5 months old, it is becoming more challenging as she can move around. Even went and grab the utensils of the passenger sitting behind us from the gap in between the seats. She was doing pretty well during take off and landing. I tried to alternate between breastfeding her or giving her the pacifier which is totally foreign to her. She treats it like a teether. Lol 

8) now sleeping at pretty regular times at night although not sleeping thru the night yet T_T she sleeps normally between 9:30 to 10 and wakes up around 7 to 7:30. Wakes up once or twice at night. On a good day she only wakes up for feed at 7am. Takes 2 naps in the day

Wormy the 9 month old

1) can stand up assisted with one/both hands

2) can walk assisted while holding on to something 

3) words she can understand : splash, kick, bye bye (oh yea! She learned to wave bye bye. First it was Sth like just showing you her parm like hitler then it evolved to a shooing wave. Now it's a real bye bye! ), sometimes...peekaboo. She will lift both her tiny arms up high. So cute ^_^ 

4) words she can say : just yesterday she said "duck". The nanny told us she said it once there. Then when I told the Hb she repeated after him again ...twice! and of course papa and mama. Mama is when she gets really frustrated and she will shout out real loud =_=

Wormy the 8 month old

Oh dearie me. I have missed 4 monthly milestone posts for wormy. That usually happens for babies who are not first borns cos the mother is too busy with the other siblings. Lol. Oh yes. Happy new year 2015! 

She is now 8 month old!! Another 5 more months and she's going to turn 1! Since I can't really remember at which month she managed to reach which milestone. Let's just summarize what has happened in the past 4 months yea? :x

1. Oh yea. She got chicken pox at the tender age of 6 months :( she got it just few days after turning 6 month old, the half year mark where she reached the eating solids milestone. At first it was just one blister like spot on her forehead. The hb asked me what's that! I said oh that's a pimple. Lol! The night itself, there were few other spots 

But I just refuse to believe it's actually chicken pox cos there was a boy who got it at the nanny's but that was a month ago! So how is it possible that she only show the spots one month on. But chicken pox it is without a doubt. That started our 2 weeks rotational duty to take care of her since she could not go to the nannys. 

The hb will stay home with her in the morning and me the afternoon. After a few days it sort of became fun to spend the day with her. And I sort of felt sad when the 2 weeks was up and we had to send her to the nannys :D she is a fighter though, fighting thru the chicken pox like a trouper! So proud of her :) except for the one night when her temp hit 40 deg and we had to rush her to the paed only to get sent back again. Let me just record it here, the day she got the first chicken pox spot, 8th of November 2014

2. Starting solids. A day before she turned 6 months old, the nanny told me she's going to start cooking porridge for her the next day. The kiasu mom in me immediately went home that day and made a purée of whatever available fruit in the house for her so that I can be the first person to feed her solids. Wahahaa! And of course to take photo. Here she is eating banana purée. Lol! 

3. Conversational skills. Mostly repetitive sounds and baby talk but sometimes she will call "mama" or "papa" and once I even heard her pointing to her picture book with picture of a dog and she went "gie gie". I said "doggie?" She said "yessh" Hahahaha. Coincidental? Perhaps. Cos that was a one off deal. But she does try to communicate with us now although in her own way

4. By her fifth month she was able to smile and laugh a lot. Usually on cue. Lol.  But this was also around the time she started to recognise people and be clingy to us. When she turned five month old, we brought her back to Kuching again and even though she went back barely a month before, this time round she was extremely clingy and cried the minute my mom wanted to carry her at the airport. Lol. When we went for a wedding dinner and put her at my moms place she cried uncontrollably for almost the whole night that we almost had to go home early. When just barely a month before when we put her at my moms place she was ok and slept  and ate well. 

5. She learnt to crawl (belly down at 6 mths, with belly off floor at 7mths) and sit up by herself (7mths) and now pulling herself to a standing position with support (8 mth)