Riverboat Ride

We brought the kids to take the riverboat ride over the weekend. The half hour ride brought us to Boat Quay, Clark Quay and out to where the Merlion is. DS was really excited especially since he could recognise key places of interest like the Merlion, the Singapore Flyer and the Esplanade. DD seemed stunned. I think she didn't know what to make out of the boat ride. Hehe.

Unfinished Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort. Should be completed some time next year.

Behind us, you can see the Merlion spouting water and also the Esplanade. Oh, and the tall building sticking out from above my head, that's Swissotel the Stanford, where DH and I got married 7 years ago. :)

DS giving one of those "I-don't-really-want-to-smile-cos-I'm-busy-but-Mummy-wants-to-take-a-picture" smile and DD looking stunned throughout the ride.

DD still not knowing what to make of the boat ride. No smile from her throughout the ride!

Statue of the boys jumping into the water. I really like this! :)

DD's 2nd Birthday!!!

I know I've said this a gazillion times, but I really can't believe how quickly time flies! I can still remember carrying 8 week old DD at Singapore Changi Airport waiting for our flight to Denver. Well, before I can catch my breath, DD has turned 2 years old! Unbelieveable, isn't it?

I've yet to organise a birthday bash for either kids because I'm a lazy mummy, but I decided to just have a small family gathering comprising the kids' grandparents and DH's sister's family to celebrate DD's birthday. Here is the birthday girl, proudly showing us that she's 2 years old already! :)

The cake that was custom-made for DD - strawberry shortcake with a teddy bear face on it - by the talented chefs at The Line, Shangri-La. Those chefs can apparently do up a cake in whatever design you want, even in 3D. But the 3D cakes will set one back by over $350! Maybe I'll start saving up money to get DD a 3D cake on her 10th birthday. :P

Side-view of the cake. Yummy white chocolate with heart-shaped cut-outs and lots of almond!

Here's a picture of the kids and their cousins. They couldn't wait to sing the birthday song!

As it was also Singapore's National Day that day, we had great fun watching the National Day Parade 'live' on TV. The kids had temporary tattoos of the national flag pasted on them too! Here's Grandpa admiring DD's tattoo.

DS with his tattoo.
The kids' 4 year old cousin with her tattoo.

Hehe. The kids' 2 year old cousin, getting the tattoo placed on her face! :)

And finally, the moment that DS has been waiting for. Yes, that wasn't a typo. DS (instead of DD) was so excited about opening the presents. He got a few presents because we didn't want him to feel left out but I think he thinks that DD's presents are also his! Haha.

The Past 2.5 Months - Part 2

We're now proud owners of fish. Yes, fish. Never in my life did I expect to have fish as pets. I call us "accidental fish owners". Well, the story goes that we attended a friend's son's 4th birthday party and as parting gifts, they gave out fish. Yep, fish. We couldn't simply leave the fish to die in the plastic bag, so the next day, we went out to get a fish tank. Well, the kids had a fantastic time picking out the decorations for the fish tank. :)

Unfortunately, due to my poor knowledge on keeping fish, the 4 guppies died 2 days later anyway. But thanks to my lovely Aunty Clarice, we now have 3 red zebras and 3 tetras! She kindly bought us the fishes and even came to set up the tank properly for us! Yay!!! I must say that taking care of the fishes has been great fun and even therapeutic at times. The kids also love feeding them and watching them swim around in their little tank. :) The fishes are now my constant companions as the tank is placed on the study table right in front of me!

The Past 2.5 Months - Part 1

Everytime I think that that will be the longest time I go without blogging, it just gets longer! This time, I haven't blogged for 2.5 months. Unbelieveable. Where has the time gone?!?

The past 2.5 months have been pretty exciting, to say the least. DH took a weeks' leave in the first week of June with the intention of having a holiday right here in Singapore. Yep, that's right, to save some money, we decided to tour Singapore instead since there were so many places we have yet to visit in Singapore. Unfortunately, the night before DH's leave started, DS came down with a fever. And as usual, the bug spread to me and DD too. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse with DH's leave ruined and us spending time sick at home instead of enjoying our holiday, DH came down with sore eyes! Yep, he must have picked up the bug from work. It was a really nasty bug with each eye being infected for 2 weeks. DH says he has never seen sore eyes so bad, even though he sees patients with sore eyes fairly frequently at work. Well, it spread from DH to me, then to DD and finally DS. And guess what? DS spread it back to DH again!!! It took us a grand total of 7 weeks before we got rid of the bug from our household. I started reading up about sore eyes and from our personal experience with it, this was what I learnt:

- Sore eyes can be bacterial or viral.

- The eye drops prescribed for sore eyes are anti-bacterial so they wouldn't work if yours is viral. But doctors usually prescribe them anyway, possibly as prophylaxis. But really, if they are viral in nature, even if you do nothing, it'll eventually go away anyway. Some literature suggests that using the eye drops as prophylaxis on the good eye (assuming only one eye was initally infected) would, in fact, make the good eye more susceptible to picking up the virus.

- If it's bacterial, it'll respond to the eye drops within a few days and you'll see the eyes getting much better. If it's viral, it may not respond and the sore eyes can continue for 2 weeks.

- If it's viral, just drop breastmilk into your eyes a few times a day. Breastmilk contains antibodies which do work against viruses. So there, go befriend a few lactating mothers. You'll never know when you need their help. :P We used only breastmilk in the eyes later on in our infection and that seemed to have cut down the infection time from 2 weeks to 1 week.

- Change pillow cases and towels (bath and hand towels) daily. Change sheets twice a week if you have kids who love to bury their faces into their sheets. Throw away all eye make up or any other make up which goes near the eyes. Wash all makeup brushes if they are too expensive to be replaced. No face towels, just use tissue paper.

- If you have more than 1 kid, put most of their toys away, leaving only those which can be washed or wiped down easily. Towards the end of our infection, we disinfected everything (toys, furniture, doors, etc) nightly with a diluted bleach solution. Door knobs and other common household items like telephones and remote controls were disinfected twice a day.

- And contrary to what many believe, you can't get sore eyes by simply looking at someone with sore eyes! The bug, however, spreads really easily. For instance, if I have sore eyes and I unknowingly rub my eye and later open a door, the next person who touches the door knob will get the bug on his hands. If he proceeds to touch his face, he may transfer the bug to his eyes.

- Oh, and one more, you don't develop any immunity to sore eyes just because you've just recovered from it. DH's eye doctor warned him that he could catch it again anytime. And he did! DS spread it right back to him!

What NOT to Ask a 4 Year Old

This is a recent picture taken of DS. In case anyone was wondering, he was trying to put a crayon behind his ear.

Anyhow, DS has begun noticing the concept of "young" and "old", and how adults and "older" than children. Here is part of a conversation between him and me recently.

DS: Mummy, are you old?
Me: What do you think? Do I look old?
DS: (seriously and surely) Yes.

Following the above exchange, I proceeded to explain to him that I was relatively "young" in comparison to someone who was 80 years old, for instance. I don't know if he understood what I was trying to tell him, but the moral of the story is - don't ask a 4 year old if he thought you look young (or old!). Anyone taller than him by 1 inch and not in preschool is considered "old"! Haha.

We Went Bowling!

I think our kids are sort of old enough to participate in some activities with us, so we decided to go bowling recently. We had a ball of a time (no pun intended!), the kids had a blast and we'll definitely be going bowling again in the near future! A few bowling alleys in Singapore have kids' lanes - i.e. lanes that have side "bumpers". These "bumpers" prevent the bowling ball from going into the "drains". So no matter how the kids rolled the ball, it will always end up knocking down some pins. Hehe. Of course, DH and I also benefitted from these side "bumpers". Not surprising, we scored more points than we normally do. :P

Although DS had a special lightweight ball weighing only 4 lbs (specially for kids!), he still had difficulty rolling the ball down the lane, given that he's only 4 years old. :) DH had to help him along.

We hadn't intended to include DD in the game, but she was quite insistent that she participated. She was very determined to pick out a ball too. But she was quite puzzled as to why she couldn't lift any of the balls!

Here she is again, trying very hard to lift a 14 lb ball. Hehe.

OK, so DD gets a go too. Needless to say, she was very excited to be able to bowl like her big brother!

DH helping her along. :)

DS Has Started Preschool

Well, it seems like eons ago since I last blogged, but it was actually about 1.5 months ago. OK, I seem to having less internet time than ever before! Now, who told me that I will have more free time when DS starts school?!? All this chauffeuring him to and from school (30-40 minutes away during peak periods and 15-20 minutes away during other times) is certainly taking up a lot of my time!

Anyhow, after about 3 long months of searching for a suitable preschool, we found a nice preschool for DS! After viewing more than 20 preschools, interviewing more than 30 principals, in a search which started in the East (where we live), then further expanding to the rest of Singapore excluding the furthest areas from us like the Western and Northern parts of Singapore, we are glad to have this over and done with. We were even contemplating homeschooling DS (a thought which has crossed our minds a few times before) if we couldn't find a suitable school.

Now, some of my friends (mostly without kids of their own yet) have asked me why I'm putting so much effort in looking for a suitable preschool for DS. "It's only preschool afterall, it's not like it's primary school already!", they would say. Well, the thing is, primary school would be easy. We're just going to send DS to the school nearest to us, just a few minutes walk behind our estate. But preschool? That's the place where DS is going to be spending 3 years (Nursery II, Kindergarten I and II) of probably the most vulnerable period of his life, in terms of health, behaviours and values. Since I am a SAHM (stay-at-home-mum), why would I want to spend money sending DS off to a preschool with an environment less ideal than his time spent at home with me?

Some have mentioned that all preschools are probaby similar anyway, so why all the trouble? Well, I can say for a fact that preschools in Singapore (and probably all around the world) are not made equal. The PAP kindergarten which most of us attended millions of years ago, now called PCF (PAP Community Foundation) Kindergarten, should not be a first choice if one can help it. Though they are very affordable compared to private kindergartens, they are less than ideal. For instance, they have high student-teacher ratios and their curriculum appears less than the average private kindergarten, according to a trustworthy source. A teacher I spoke to also mentioned that there are notable differences in knowledge between children who come from private kindergartens as compared to PCF ones. So I ruled out PCF kindergartens right from the get go.

Now, private kindergartens. Some friends have asked me how different they can be. Well, perhaps we (or rather, just me!) are quite fussy as parents, but these were the attributes I was looking out for in a kindergarten. Of course, I was willing to compromise on some of these if we found a good kindergarten which didn't have all these attributes. :)

1. Preferably non-airconditioned
2. No homework
3. Preferably Montessori-based teaching, or activity/play-based learning rather than using mainly worksheets
4. Small kindergarten (e.g. 40 students in total rather than 150)
5. Good exposure to Mandarin
6. English teachers speak good English
7. Located somewhere in the East
8. Preferably no school uniform
9. Teachers with good qualifications
10. Clean

How difficult would it be to find a preschool with the attributes as listed above? I mean, for example, shouldn't most English teachers speak good English? Well, I must say I did strike off certain preschools after the phone interview because the teacher or principal I was speaking to didn't speak good English. Or they replied to my email in broken English. :( Another preschool which I visited was almost perfect except for the fact that it had really dirty floors! The students there were all bare-footed (they had to remove their footwear at the entrance) but when I walked in, I was amazed at the amount of debris I could feel with my bare feet. And when I looked at the teachers' feet, they were all wearing slippers indoors!!!

And yet another preschool was almost perfect, except that it was located right beside a petrol station. Being non-airconditioned, the students were exposed to petroleum fumes for the 3 hours that they attended preschool. Now, DH was very uncomfortable with that.

Another preschool which I really liked actually turned down my application after I queried the principal more than once about the qualification of the teachers (amongst other questions). In his email reply to me, the principal stated that my questions "over-stepped boundaries". Huh? Seriously? If I was going to be paying $500 a month for a private kindergarten, I would certainly like to know in detail what was happening in the school!

Anyhow, we are just really glad to find a preschool for DS which he loves! He looks forward to going to school everyday. Even I find it difficult to decide which days he should only spend half day in school because the activities are all so interesting! We look forward to DD attending the same preschool too. Probably next year. :)