Not until Theoden came along.
Remember those babies/toddlers who can't stop screaming and crying non-stop on the plane with 400 others passengers trying to sleep? And everyone is throwing dagger looks at the poor mother/father who is desperately trying to placate/bribe the kids with zero luck? Uh-huh...those are the moments I dread most when I had my own baby and we had to fly to Puerto Rico to attend a wedding. I've thrown dagger looks before, I just dun wanna receive them.
With careful planning and research, I think I know how to placate my baby on his first plane ride. Now, he really did me proud and emerged as the SuperBaby Champion - not a whimper on board!!! 3.5hours flew past without a hitch or a burp! None of our other friends on the same flight even knew there was a baby on board! Queens' "We are the champions...my friends..." comes to mind as I rejoice the minute we alighted the plane. Whoohoo!!! We did it unscathed!! (*whew!* actually...)
Another first for Theoden is dipping his petit toes in the water.
Well, we bought this supercool baby float and dunked him into it and he completely loved it! 
He's like chilling out in his new float, waddling a little, kicking a little, but mostly just laying back and simply float around while his parents go bersek with the new underwater casing for the camera. 
I contemplated throwing him into the pool and see if he will "naturally" swim like what I've seen on BBC, but Emmanuel got protective and objected. Wise man, he is. The truth is, the more time we spent with our baby, the more deeply we love him and care for him. Our love grows by heaps and bounds by the minute. If SIDS or anything remotely horrible were to happen and he dies(*choy!*), I think a SUPERHUGE chunk of me will die too.
I guess I now understand the true meaning of this Chinese saying, "Children should never die before their parents - it is against the natural order of things."
And so, my experiment with water babies will have to be shelved till our next child. Emmanuel's logic is that if we wanna put the baby into the water to swim naturally, we should do it when he is young and able to associate being in the water as to being in the mother's womb. So, er...like 1 month old, perhaps? (I can hear my mother screaming
"NO!!!" all the way from Singapore...keke...)
But after coming back home and doing some research, the UK company Water Babies did teach a 2days old baby how to swim underwater so they do start young! They advocate starting babies on lessons before they turn one. Wish I have such courses where I live...Till the next child then! Stay tuned!
