Grandpa reprimanded you

Grandpa was sharing this article in the newspapers where a parent has sued due to his toddler being bitten in childcare. Samuel (more eager than his mum) snatched the papers to get a closer look. Being concerned that the papers’ ink might dirty Samuel’s hands, Grandpa reacted by shouting.

Samuel went crying to Grandma: “Grandma, Grandpa reprimanded you”

Grandma as a matter of fact responded: “Grandpa reprimanded me all the time”

Tears were rolling in Samuel’s eyes who felt misunderstood.

I was amused. Samuel is like the Crayon Shin-Chan in Manga who is forever confused with ‘you’ and ‘me’.

I immediately picked him up and consoled him by acknowledging what he was trying to say. “Poor Samuel! Grandpa scolded you?”

Lunar New Year 2013

My family has never much done the traditional Chinese New Year. I think in the past we sometimes travelled out of country to make use of the CNY holidays. This year is different with my brother who came home from China. And of course, with my dear husband away in China.

CNY celebration starts early for Samuel since they have their celebration on 8th Feb. We had to pack festive goodies for him to bring to school. With all the activities and food, it’s no wonder I remember looking forward to CNY when I was a kid.

Going for CNY celebration in School

Going for CNY celebration in School

Uncle came home to visit

Uncle came home to visit

Samuel made sure he’s well behaved whenever there are guests around. (This is beside the fact that he torn the red packet wherever he gets his hands on one.) He was actually willing to let us do the nasal spray (the daily dose) with his uncle carrying him upright without any struggle! It’s the first!

Are you ready for parenthood?

Recently I was talking to a friend when we touched briefly on this subject about ‘not having a baby’ after being married for 7 years. One, he mentioned the cuteness of a kid probably last for first few years. Two, he thinks it requires a lot of determination to be selfless. Three, he’s just not ready…

I am impressed. For the fact that he did not succumbed to peer pressure or family pressure. That is already very admirable in this world we live in. Although he did feel for the wife who is being pressured by the biological clock, he stay firm by his beliefs to ensure he is ready when it happened. This is something not everyone could do. A lot of time people jumped in not knowing what is expected of parenting.

Imagine this. Ever since Samuel came along, I never much sleep later than 7am and that is on a good day. A baby has its own schedule. Regardless how many times he has woken up through the night, he always look forward to the early morning when sunrise. And I’m considered fortunate given I have the support of my parents who helped with the meals and any general caregiving. This at least give me time to get ready for the morning where it’s a dash to the childcare by 8am. Again, I’m lucky to be able to locate a childcare which is less than 15 minutes away. After all the madness to get into work, I then have to make sure I finish my tasks on hand or at least the priorities in the next 8 hours. This requires a lot of focusing power and discipline and if I don’t meet my productivity on a bad day, it means I have to eat in for lunch and most likely bring back home the rest of my work. As it is now, 90% of the time I’m working the night shift after putting Samuel to sleep.

When I finally do reach home with the baby, he would be expecting my utmost, unwavering attention with him. For the fact, he did not see me for the whole day. He would probably try to test me in every way he could to find out if he is still his mum’s favourite baby. So the next 3 hours, we will be pretending to compete with our horse (inflatable) and his car. Samuel would try to knock down Mum in the horse and mum would pretend to be hurt. We would play more pretending games like mum carrying the baby and driving around in the small toy car. (Don’t ask me how I could do that. You could probably tell from my picture I’m small enough to squeeze into the toy car or bike.) In between, I continue exercised my patience of giving him all the attention he wants. The moment I turn away for a spilt second, Samuel kicks the toy train and gets frustrated that it stop moving. I get different tests from ‘I’m going to skip eating today’ to ‘I’m going to climb up the dining table even though you have said no’ or ‘I decided to mess up the living room with all my toys so you can’t walk through it’ or simply ‘You can do your monologue of clean up song and I will continue to ignore you and not pick up my toys’. So you bet, by 8pm we would have done rounds around the house and it feels like I have run 5km. We did everything we can together. Or at least mum has tried every single way to bring a smile to the baby’s face and pass all his tests. Dancing together, singing, reading a book, going through the numbers/alphabets, mimicking a tiger voice with hand puppet or any other activities that could help wear out some of his energies. Obviously my energy runs out before the baby does. And before we know it, it’s time for another power struggle for bed.

So by the time it’s 10 or 11pm, I wearily do a quick shower and hopefully finish whatever remaining tasks on hand for the night shift. If I’m lucky, I get to sleep before I hear the baby cries for milk or attention. Or other else, I end up attending to the baby before I get to my pillow. Needless to say, I don’t think I ever get my 8 hours’ of sleep. And I wish I’m not a light sleeper. For the strangest reason, a mum could always hear her baby cries.

And this is a typical day of a motherhood and I’m only at the beginning of the journey. Can you imagine when Samuel has his PSLE (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_School_Leaving_Examination)?

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PS. Samuel’s winning smiles at the end of the day: I’m worth it!

My birthday staycation

For my birthday, we went away for a staycation on the island of Sentosa. Although it’s supposed to be a short relaxing holiday, it’s never that relaxing with a baby. The super charged monster was so excited with everything that he missed his naps and managed to survive with just power naps in between travel to another site. But on another hand, he slept through the night and effortlessly whenever we reached the hotel so mummy and daddy could get the nights to themselves. So while both parents are totally exhausted with a hyper tot on the move, still totally worth all the efforts because we have so so much fun.

Oh I forgot to mention, I have bought the ‘39% off Super-Value Sentosa Package & Family Day’ streetdeal.sg deal so we only need to pay additional $3 for child doubling fee on top of the $39 per pax deal. And I would say it’s worth the check. Imagine we get segway ride (not utilised since we couldn’t with the baby), cable car, luge and skyride all in the price of $39.

First stop after checking into Capella hotel, we went straight for the Skyride + luge ride. The min. height requirement for the skyride is 85cm and poor Sam is not even 80cm according to their height ruler guide indicator. I was all ready to ‘beg’ but lucky us, the operator decided to let us off. Hurray! And off we go up the skyride. Although I usually hesitated when it comes to anything that got to do with height, the speed of having to hop onto the moving ride did not leave us with much time to decide. By the operator’s instructions with ‘baby in the centre and parents on both sides’, we hopped on before we knew it. The view was remarkably breathless and definitely rewarding. Samuel pats his chest and told us he is really scared. Same for the mum. We hold onto him with all our might, in case he slips through the gap. He was so tiny for the seat. The view, the experience took us away. We sat side by side pointing at everything that went by. Mummy was also busy taking pictures while daddy was busy shouting at mummy to hold on tight to the iphone and baby. Haha!

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Straight after the skyride, we went on to collect our helmets for the luge ride. The helmets even at size XS and S were too big for both baby and me. The instructor provided some basic instructions on how to manipulate the lube ride. We then zipped off. After the skyride, the daddy has no confidence that playful mummy will look out for baby. So baby went with daddy. Each time the mummy zipped by the baby, he has this ‘I’m too scared and what the heck are you guys doing to me’ look. But still when I asked him if he has fun after everything, he always responded with a yes. It’s our first time on these rides, everything is exhilarating.

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Soon it was sunset, time always flew when one is happy. I reviewed all the photos I took with a smile. The spontaneous photo we took on the skyride warmed my heart instantly. Nothing in this world could buy you a happy family shot.

We hurried off to the next location, the cable car. For the whole week, I have been telling Samuel that I will be bringing him to the cable car with the Angry birds. I even called the Cable car sales hotline to make sure the theme is still on and that we don’t need special tickets to be on the cable car with the angry birds theme. It was a funny conversation that goes like that “Hi, can I check that there is angry birds even with normal priced ticket. Oh you mean there might not be Angry birds on all cars? Ah I see so I just have to wait for the birds?” My colleagues in the office were laughing the moment I got off the phone.

After all this wait, Samuel couldn’t wait to get on the cable car mumbling ‘kaible kar…’ nonstop. It was a simple marketing gimmick. All there was some static cling that dressed up the cable cars and a huge angry bird character plush toy in each of the cars. And the children are happy. We went to Mount Faber, check out the angry bird theme stuff that were on sale in the shop and back. It sounds easy but in fact exhausting for running after the baby who is as almost as swift as the wind is not a simple task especially for our age! I kid you not! I have been attempting to take a video of Samuel running but he’s too fast even for the camera.

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We were running all over the island the next day. Sometimes I even wondered if we need to plan any activities at all as Samuel seems satisfied just with running.

We spent majority of our time hunting down food with seems scarce for an island that is built for tourists. Or perhaps we were too choosy over the type of food but it doesn’t seems like they have food laid out for the tots unless one considered having fish and chips or fast food for every meal.

At night, we stayed out later then usual just to catch The Songs of the Sea. According to Sentosa site, it was supposed this mesmerizing show with a live cast, dramatic effects and pyrotechnics which turned out to be such a big disappointment. Perhaps I was comparing it to the music fountain dance we used to see when we were young. It was colourful and beautifully tuned as if the water were really dancing to it. I wanted to share the joy of my childhood not knowing they have now tried so hard to enhance it with the laser shows and real dancing by some amateur live cast. They lost us with the plot and it was all confusing and boring for Sam. Other then the ending fireworks and the occasional fire bursts that have his brief attention, I think all he wants is to run free along those seats. I had to consoled myself that the $15 premium ticket I bought is just so that Samuel could get a glimpse of those fireworks.

The rest of the family staycation were much more peaceful. We have wonderful times at the pool and because it was a weekday, the pool is all ours.

Here’s another beautiful memory to add to our family album. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

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I love you

Samuel has been humming or mumbling a song for the whole afternoon. And I thought it was ‘This ole man’. So I sing along with him. But he look confused. I was puzzled.

As usual, I googled for the youtube video. That’s when I realised there is another version by Barney ‘I love you’.

I love you.
You love me.
We’re a happy family,
with a great big hug,
and a kiss from me to you,
Won’t you say you love me TOO!

So I found the lyrics online and sing along with him. To exaggerate the action, my husband and I hugged him together when it was ‘with a great big hug, and a kiss from me to you…’. He laughed with delight. That’s how important family love is.

Korea Family Trip

We brought our dearest baby to Korea. See how happy he is in these photos.

Some highlights of our Trip

 

Excited with the huge Fraser Suite apartment

 

On the way to Gyeongbokgung Palace

 

Playing with the local kids

 

Samuel with grandparents

 

Happy laughs with mum

 

Having Tom Toms coffee (I mean us not Samuel)

 

Waiting for the KTX train to Busan

 

Exhausted from overly stimulated

 

Yay! Korean food

 

While waiting to board, at the Incheon Airport

 

Cousin Sophia

Sam pushing sophia

Cousin Sophia came to visit again. And I really would love for her to hang out with Samuel more. So Samuel could learn from her. Sophia unlike Samuel has a really lovely gentle, soft disposition. And she always have this thinking look that I know she doesn’t act rash like Samuel. That she actually thinking when she is playing with Samuel. But Samuel has terrified her so much that I swear she shivered a bit when Samuel came close yesterday.

Samuel was overly excited when Sophia came. He held her hand and show her his play yard (the balcony which my mum has now converted to his play area and we now have invisible grilles installed so it’s really safe for himt to hang out).

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Samuel’s New Play area

After a few times of dragging Sophia here and there to show her his stuff, she cried in fear. Unfortunately Samuel hasn’t learnt to be gentle. He continued to throw toys around when he gets too excited. It’s his way of showing happiness. I think at some point the toy accidentally hit Sophia whose near. She cried out in pain.

When he accidentally hurt Sophia in the process, he tried to pat her to pacify her. Sophia didn’t like his display of affection. His ‘pats’ was too rough and he didn’t know how to control his strength so sometimes his ‘pats’ can be painful. Furthermore he kept snatching Sophia’s toy away when it’s in her hands. I think he was trying to show Sophia how he play but not understanding girls and boys are totally different. I don’t think Sophia enjoyed the rough handling. She’s puzzled about all these climbing onto a rocking horse or any other higher ground.

Next whenever Sophia tried to eat her cookie, Sam would snatched it away and pop it into his mouth. But when we asked him to share, he put whatever he just bite off into Sophia’s mouth. None of us is fast to react.

Finally when they were playing the shape sorter together, Sam did not gave her a chance at all. He impatiently push all his bricks into different shape and snatched from Sophia when she hesitated. Sophia watched his aggression in dismay!

While Sophia is here, Sam is so happy that he will be singing ‘Mei mei! mei mei!…’. (Chinese for sister) Even when Sophia left, Sam would be occasionally be mumbling ‘Mei mei’ to show he missed her. I just hope he will learnt to be gentle soon. Poor Sophia!

Sophia giving Sam the look

Sam with Sophia

 

The Carnival at Kiddiwinkie Place @ Newton

Samuel’s cousin, Sophia and Samuel were at Kiddiwinki place @ Newton carnival. See all the fun they were having.

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Win a token by rolling the balls

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Fish a duck with grandparents

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The cousins having fish balls

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Samuel getting a henna (which smeared onto his nose when he tried to scratch it) haha!

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The Tigger Tattoo that Sam got from the Carnival

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We finally spent all our vouchers!

Gardens by the Bay

I have been feeling really bad about being behind my blogs; we brought Samuel to more places than I could even write on my blogs. Perhaps it’s time I attempt photo blogging than trying to write a whole essay. There’s so much I want to do as always! Especially now that I got a mac, I have been dying to hook up on wordpress with my mac and getting to use all these enhanced tools. But again, days flew by before I could even get myself familiar with my mac.

Oops! Sorry for the unrelated content! Back to subject, as you probably know the Gardens by the Bay is really the next thing to check out in Singapore. Considered all the investments that was put into this project that totalled to 810 mils and the size of the garden is equivalent to 177 football fields, it’s definitely worth checking out! You don’t want to be wondering about the Dome and the Supertrees that are visible from the ECP highway.

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But since this is not a touristy blog, if you need more info about the Garden, please visit www.gardensbythebay.org.sg I’m mainly writing to share my trip with baby Samuel 😉 And if your intention is to go to the Gardens by the Bay with the babies. You might want to know this is really like a 4 hour trip so short trip is out of question. Do not attempt to do everything on a day. You dun want to overstimulate your baby. 🙂

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Baby Samuel and I came via the MRT this time. One, my car is in the workshop. Two, we are meeting my family from Finland who are here on vacation. So there’s no way I can fit 7 persons in my small car. We decided to meet at Bayfront MRT. Be prepared to walk a lot and don’t bring a stroller if you are coming from Bayfront MRT because there isn’t an escalator to the Garden entrance.

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But coming from here, give you a different perspective of Marina Bay Sands. The view is spectacular!

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From there to the Visitor Centre, it took us around 20 mins. And that is walking very fast for our standard. We took a stroll that went via the Dragonfly bridge and through the Heritage Gardens. And there was plenty to see. Samuel was fascinated with the horse statues, the water fountains and the Dragonfly lake. I can’t even say we manage to cover everything in these themed gardens. But it was a fairly hot day so we were eager to get into air-conditioned places.

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Once at the Visitor Centre, we found out it’s concession prices to enter the conservatories if you are local. Although I still feel it’s quite stupid to split up the crowds by local and non locals. I can see the non locals were not too impressed by this. And it is kinda of messy. You don’t know which queue to join as it’s not really clear. In my opinion, you could always have just one queue and offered the locals the concession pricing the moment they presented their Identity cards so there is no need to split up the queues. However the good news is they are offering additional 10% discount for NTUC Plus, SAFRA, Passion and home team cards. And there is an annual membership in case you intend to return. (just like Sentosa). We decided to go for the Cloud Forest since it’s look cooler being a man made mountain. There is a special price if you opted to go for both the conservatories but we figured we probably won’t be able to do this in 4 hours.

Another note here, if you are bringing babies, please beware that there might be uneven or wet areas in the conservatory since it’s supposed to portray a mountain. Samuel was happily running around in the Cloud Forest. So he slipped on one of the wet surfaces and bounced like a humpty dumpty. A bump immediately appeared on his forehead. The volunteer nearby was very helpful, he even offered directions to the nearby first aid area to get Samuel’s forehead check. Even with this, I still say the Cloud Forest is definitely worth every penny. The vegetation was amazingly lush and coupled with the 35m high waterfall, the view was superb. It was a surprise to me. We enjoyed going up the mountain and Samuel was doing his usual ‘stamping’ on the drain openings’ tricks. I can see he enjoyed the cool air and the change in environment. The waterfall totally took my breathe away when we first entered.

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And there was this +5 degree presentation where they were even featuring the change in climate with all the effects of the snow, the undersea animals etc on the floor. Samuel was chasing and running on top of the effects. It was so fun for him.

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I’m sure I will be back again to check out the other gardens. But this time, I will be prepared. I would even recommend bringing food in case the visit took longer than one expected. Since the eateries are not fully opened, the choice is really limited. For this trip, we almost missed lunch time since there’s really so much to see. And the walk out from the Garden was really exhausting when one is hot and hungry. I’d be back in a car! And hopefully my next trip will be less exhausting.

Re-exploring Singapore

You have to agree with me with a baby, priorities change, i.e lifestyle changes. I used to be a frequent traveller but travelling with a family requires lots of advance planning. For me, too much time is spent planning at work so I prefer impromptu arrangement for life.

Needless to say, I don’t know when’s my next vacation. So I opt to explore within my home country, Singapore, i.e. re-exploring the places of interests on this small island. Now since your perspective changes with a baby, instead of looking for the latest hangout places that are popular, you start to want peace and lots of space for your baby to explore plus child friendly facilities such as diaper changing room. Not to mention, any parking space closer to the venue is a plus since you will be carrying so much baby stuff. (Yes, I can’t live without a car!). Additional criteria include the nature, playground or any other stimulating objects.

Bringing a baby out requires juggling between his routine nap/meal time. That being said, packing a baby bag is equally challenging. You have to ensure his baby bag is packed with all necessities which include his spare clothes, his water bottle, his milk bottle, his formula, his lunch pack, his snacks and the diaper bag and maybe even the anti mozzie cream in some cases. But very often, I find myself forgetting my own water or stuff but yet never the baby stuff. So to make time to even bring the baby out once a week is an effort. One trip is enough to tire all adults although the baby remains energetic (unfortunately since the main objective is to tire the baby so he could sleep longer :P)

Recently I started making a mental list of places I would explore with my baby. Haha! Is this consider planning?  To my surprise, I have yet run out of things to do even on a small island of Singapore. In fact it amazes me there’s quite a number of places one can consider for family outings. And I haven’t been to these places myself even though I’m born and bred on this island.

For the past weekends, we have brought Samuel to:

1. Ang Mo Kio West Park

The Playground is huge, creative and colourful. There is a lily pond nearby. I usually combined this trip with either the nearby Macdonald’s and Ang Mo Kio Libary. And I love this AMK libary since there have so much more baby books than the others. I like the fact I could push my pram with ease through the bookshelves.

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Ang Mo Kio Park

2. MacRitchie Reservoir Park

Two storey car park! What can I say? 🙂 Definitely improved version of MacRitchie Reservoir. I have been here since I was a teenager and it has changes so much. Strolling along the water edge calms one down. The plenty of grass and space is a good place for a toddler whose learning to walk. I will definitely be back since I haven’t had the time to check out the TreeTop Walk.

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Football time!

3. West Coast Park

Did I say I’m a MacDonald fan? I would so check out the MacDonald here. Strolling and playing at the various playgrounds after breakfast is relaxing. Yes it’s playgrounds, they even have the flying fox for the bigger kids. Wish I have more photos.

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West Coast Park

4. Henderson Waves Bridge

I can’t believe it took us 2 hours to get from Mount Faber to Henderson Waves Bridge and back. And we are already panting with the stroller. But still the view is brilliant and nothing beats the smell of botanical plants and the sound of birds singing.

We made it!

5. Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden

Arty features and a nice exploring place for children. Although not so much for a toddler since there is ponds and hanging bridge which could be hazardous. I will bring Samuel here again when he’s older.

6. Changi City Point “The Arena@L3” Playground and Tree-house Trail

I wish I have brought spare clothes for Samuel. The water features look fun and the fact that this place is not very popular yet helps. I ponder upon this place during one of the baby expo sales. I will definitely come back with his swimming bag. 🙂

7. Vivocity Children Playground

The playground within a mall. Happy parents and kids.

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Vivocity Walk