Originally published on May 22, 2019

Part 1

1. We booked the midnight flight from Singapore to Australia. This way we would arrive at around 5am and immediately start with our exploration of the city.

The first stop was to have breakfast at the Grounds of Alexandria, a highly rated restaurant, with a market and a playground for kids.

Unfortunately Mika was grumpy throughout breakfast and kept crying. We assume it’s because of the lack of sleep during the flight. With that said, despite being served good food, it felt that we weren’t able to enjoy it. We didn’t even finish dessert (which is an extremely rare occasion.)

As the first meal of the trip, I hoped that it would not be that way throughout the entire trip.

2. Later that day, Mae said, “It’s mother’s day tomorrow. What’s your gift to me?”

Having prepared nothing, I said “You’re not my mother. Ask Mika“.

Then I looked at Mika and said “What’s your gift to Mommy”?

The following day (Mother’s Day) we were set to eat at the “Little Kitchen” café near one of the beaches at Sydney. About 10 minutes before arriving, Mika fell asleep on her stroller. My immediate thought was that she fell asleep too early – meaning she would want to play while we were eating.

Upon arriving at the place, there was a 20 minute wait time. “Sayang yung time na tulog si Mika” was my thought.

We eventually got our seats, and placed our orders. Surprisingly, Mika was still asleep!

The food arrived. Mika stayed asleep. And she remained sleeping until we finished our food…

This has literally never happened before.

As we were paying the bill already, Mika woke up.

As it turns out Mika had prepared a very nice Mother’s day gift… allowing us to eat an uninterrupted full meal!

3. So far Mika has been enjoying Mae 24/7 for the past week. This means she is always looking for Mae, even if it’s just been 10 seconds, and even if Mae is just behind her.

In our visit to Yarra Valley, a wine region near Melbourne we booked a private tour. This meant that instead of joining a bus full of people, and Mika sitting on Mae the entire trip, we had our own car, and tour guide and Mika had to seat on her own car seat.

The car seat was located at the left side of the car. So Mae would strap Mika in from the left side of the car, then go to the other side to ride the car.

In that few seconds, Mika will cry and look for Mama. Yes with real tears.

Our tour guide probably thought it was cute the first time. But Mika kept on looking for Mama every single time she was put on or off the car seat.

Towards the end of our tour, our guide witnessing the 14th time that Mika looked for mama within 1 second of being strapped in the car seat… the guide said: “She’s just remarkable, ain’t she?”

4. Today is Mae’s birthday! So for brunch we ate a the Higher Grounds restaurant, one of the very popular places here in Melbourne.

Since it’s Mae’s birthday we ordered 3 dishes (instead of normally just 2)… Mika was wide awake going into the restaurant.

But just as the food was being served, Mika fell asleep again.

And we ate happily ever after.