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. :)

DS's 4th Birthday

Unbelievably, in the blink of an eye, DS is 4 years old! Like in previous years, we had a small celebration at home (thankfully too, cos DS was down with a fever) with my parents. Interestingly, DS wanted a Dora cake, which is usually what girls will choose. Hence the pink border. Yep, no Diego, no Thomas the Tank. Just good old Dora. :)


All of us at his "mini" birthday party. :)


Cake cutting after blowing out the candles.


And finally, the part DS was waiting for all day - opening the presents!

We got him a backpack for preschool (he'll be starting preschool next week) - black color, of course, since he has been asking for one to match DH's work bag. We also got him a few storybooks, since he loves to read. Grandpa and Grandma got him a remote control helicoptor and DD got wooden puzzle (since Grandpa and Grandma didn't want her to feel left out). :)

DD's First Words

With DD, we weren't as conscientious about jotting down her first words (I wonder why!). She said her first word a few days before her 1st birthday. Here are her first 10 words, sorta in order of emergence. :)

1. Papa - Perfect pronunciation! Later on, she also started saying "papa" for "grandpa", but in a slightly different intonation.
2. "Bah!" - Meaning "peekaboo".
3. Uh-oh - Again perfect pronunciation. Used when something falls, or spills, etc. Interestingly, this word is repeated many many times a day. Hehe.
4. "Row row" - For calling "Aunty Rose", our domestic helper.
5. "Ro ro" - For when DS sings "row, row, row your boat".
6. "Mama" - For "Mummy". Later on, she used it for "grandma" too, again with different intonation.
7. "Mng mng" - Hmm, it's difficult to spell out that sound, but she uses this to indicate when she wants to go potty. We use it to cue her to move her bowels, but since she can't pronounce "shee shee" for wanting to pass urine yet, she uses "mng mng" for both forms of elimination.
8. Kor Kor - To call her dear brother
9. "Barg barg" - Saying "bark bark" when she hears a dog bark.
10. "War" - For "wash", eg wash hands.
11. "Or or" - For indicating that someone is asleep.

OK, well, that's 11 words! :)

DS's First Words

I was packing a drawer tonight and found a list of DS's first words! He spoke his first word at 18 months old. I was thinking that if he didn't speak by 18 months old, I'll probably have to do some speech therapy with him. Well, he met my deadline and has been a chatterbox ever since. :)

So here are DS's first words, in the order that they emerged:

1. "mum mum" - whenever he wanted to breastfeed
2. "ka ka" - referring to Papa, but within a few weeks, he could pronounce "Papa"
3. "Ti Tee" - referring to Kitty, one of our cats
4. "bar" - for "bus" (my mum always took the bus with him on weekends)
5. "ba ba" - for "bubble"
6. Pour (he loved playing in the bathtub and pouring water from one container to another)
7. "ba ba" - for "bye bye" (yep, I think it sounded exactly like when he wanted to say "bubble")
8. "pao pao" - referring to being full after a meal
9. "pish" - for "fish"
10. Pour away

Down Memory Lane. DS - The Very Early Days

When I look back at pictures taken soon after DS was born, I remember all the stress and anxiety we felt as first-time parents. With DD, we felt much more laid back and relaxed. :)

With DS, we chose to cup-feed (rather than use a bottle and rubber teat) when he had to be supplemented with formula milk before my milk came in a few days later. It is theorized that cup-feeding may help prevent "nipple confusion" in newborns. In "nipple confusion", the newborn may get accustomed to drinking from an artificial teat and refuse to drink direct from mummy's breast. We found the experience a hassle. It was really difficult to cup-feed a newborn and besides, DS started to get accustomed to drinking from a cup instead! Bah. So with DD, when she had to be supplemented because of her low birth weight, we did away with cup-feeding and went with the good ol' feeding bottle and rubber teat! Besides, I didn't intend to be supplementing DD for long. We were fortunate to have chosen a pro-breastfeeding paediatrician who worked with us to ensure that DD was not over-fed with formula milk and would still be hungry enough to suckle from the breast.

The picture below shows DH patiently cup-feeding DS. :) It was certainly a laborious task!

For the birth of DS, we chose to spend 3 nights in hospital (instead of the regular 2 nights for a normal birth) because we wanted breastfeeding to be established as best as possible before returning home. In hospital, there were lactation consultants and experienced nurses to help us along with breastfeeding. While I had read many pregnancy books in preparation for DS's birth, nothing really prepared me for the part about breastfeeding! DS was a problematic feeder (well, he still is now! Haha!) - he was always sleepy during feeding time, suckled poorly and fed really really slowly. We had many problems during the first year of breastfeeding DS. Anyhow, because of DS's poor feeding, this was frequently my routine during my 3 nights' stay at KKH. For example, 8am to 9am - breastfeed DS. Half an hour per breast. 9am to 9.30am - apply breast pump to stimulate milk flow. 15 minutes per breast. 9.30am to 10am - eat, rest or toilet break. 10am - the nurse brings DS back again because he's hungry!!! Yes, DS used to breastfeed every 2 hours. So throughout the 3 nights at KKH, I was doing this 2-hour routine most of the time. I ended up staying in my room (which was, thankfully, a single-bedded room) all the time, only venturing out on the morning that we were due to check out. I was tired, stressed and getting depressed!

Anyhow, here's me hooked onto the breast pump trying to stimulate the milk to come in while at the same time collecting "liquid gold" (colostrum). :)

DS, even though sleepy during feeding time, was a very active and wakeful baby. Well, he obviously got his priorities wrong right from birth! He didn't sleep very much (like me when I was young, I was told) and enjoyed playing (yep, really playing and moving his hands around in attempt to swipe at the toys) in the baby gym right from a few days old. This is in contrast to DD, who only took an interest in the gym when she was almost 3 months old!!!

Here he is again, this time having a good time watching the toy mobile go round and round above his crib. DS was a delightful baby, he started smiling a day after he was born and when a few weeks old, started giggling and laughing really loudly at the littlest things. :) DS would be really entertained by the mobile turning round and round and would laugh really loudly while watching.

I had to include this picture of me trying to breastfeed DS at my parents-in-law's place during DS's one-month celebration, organized by my late father-in-law. I was really stressed up about breastfeeding because of the issues we were having. And it didn't help that almost every well-meaning relative asked about how we were doing with regards to breastfeeding. The most famous question being, "Do you have enough milk?". Haha. Enough said. :P

Looking back, I laugh at how stressed I was in the first year after DS's birth, especially in the first few weeks. But I'm glad we all came out of it smarter and really enjoyed the precious newborn days the second time round, when DD was born. :)

Down Memory Lane. DD - The Very Early Days

I have been spending the last two nights organizing our 4 years' worth of digital photographs when I came across some of my favorite pictures. :)

DD was born 3 weeks early at 2.1kg. She was really tiny (well, she still is now!) and all her newborn clothing, mittens and socks were literally falling off. That's my hand in the picture below for size comparison. :)

In this picture below, you can see her shirt just hanging off her. Everything was way too big. We even had to stitch up the opening of her mittens a far bit so that they wouldn't keep falling off everytime DD moved her hands.

I love this picture of DS and DD. Probably one of the first pictures of them taken together. Sorry about the rotated picture though, it rotated as I uploaded it onto the blog and I can't seem to undo that. Although DS and DD do fight at times, snatch toys from each other and do all the naughty things siblings do to each other, DS is actually a very sweet brother to DD. He would help out whenever I am taking care of DD, for instance, fetch a blanket, diaper, help with bathing her, etc. He would also give her kisses and hugs. In this picture, he was patting DD on the head.

In the picture below, DH was "sunning" DD, who was slightly jaundiced. We had to "sun" her once or twice a day either in the early morning or evening sun, for about 10 minutes each time.

My favorite of favorites - this picture of DH carrying DD. We had just stepped back into the house after staying two nights in hospital for the birth of DD. We were just hanging around waiting for our confinement nanny to arrive.

I hope to upload some pictures of DS next! :)

Our Professional Photo Shoot

After deliberating for almost 4 years, we finally decided to fork out the money to get a professional photo shoot of the family done. And what can I say? We should have done this ages ago!!! We have been putting it off because we didn't want to spend the money on it, but at the same time, we knew that to have many good pictures of the kids taken, we'll need to pay a bit more for that.

We shopped around a bit before deciding on the photographer who took our wedding pictures 5 years ago. We are familiar with the photographer and knew that he would put in the time and effort to get good pictures of our kids. We also like his style of photography. The photo shoot itself cost only $150 (supposedly for an hour, but it went on for almost 2 hours), but the CD compilation of all the photos taken (107 photos in all) cost us a whooping $400. This is in comparison to some other photo studios who charge much less but also take fewer pictures during the photo shoot.

We are very happy with the photos taken and wish we had done this earlier to capture more memories of DS when he was younger, or of me when I was pregnant. :) For anyone contemplating whether to spend the money taking some family pictures, I would say, "Go for it!". The kids grow up too fast to be deliberating about this for too long! :P

Here are more of the photos taken.