National Museum

Brought The Little One to the National Museum for a visit on Sunday.. was trying to find a place to beat the heat and my ever trusty friend's blogs never fail me in suggesting new places for us to explore. I have not returned to the National Museum since it was revamped and was curious to see how the place has changed! And it really has changed by a lot! This time, with The Little One around, we didn't get to explore much of the Museum, just had time to visit some of the Living and History exhibits before the wailing started.

But before the wailing and the more adult activities, the little One had loads of fun at this children's playarea on the ground floor. There was an interactive art exhibit which featured magnetized pieces of wires that you can throw against the grass wall! There were quite a number of kids trying their hand at this art piece and The Little One tried to have a go at it too :)

Here's a picture of him trying out the exhibit! What impressed me was how the new Museum has lots of interactive mediums which kindof made history more alive and more personal. Gone are the days where a visit meant really just viewing showcases after showcases. Now, with the help of technology, i must say that we have to do away with the idea that Museums are stuff old places, in fact, its all very refreshing and fun! Even for toddlers!

Even the Big One got to have some fun at this exhibit :) or rather getting all tangled up in the wires and stuff!

There is a kids playarea nearby, mostly textured surfaces which the kids could explore :) Like the petals of the flower on the wall can be peeled off and stuck back (cos its velcroed) and there was like grass like material on the floor for kids to play, and some funny looking humps which the kids can play peekaboo with. The Little One however, prefered playing at the gate.

That was a really nice picture taken by the Big One :) I think we enjoyed the Museum very much and should be returning there very soon!

The words he knows?

Noticed lately that he is starting to recongize a few words like Duck, Dog, Cat, Flower, Truck, Butterfly and Caterpillar. When we are reading his story books, he will make a sound that sounds like those words :) Its quite cute! Both hubby and I are happy that he likes reading cos we are both avid readers and definately hope that he will pick up the habit too.

For before bedtime reading, The Little One reads with me 3 of his all-time favourite books: The Furry Caterpillar, The Flower and The Thing Under my Bed. The first 2 are animal stories of 3 main characters: Velvet (a zebra), Bamboo (a panda) and Beak (a pengiun). We bought them cos its quite a colourful illustrated book and the stories are quite catchy. I think the author is Australian. Anyway, it has 7 books in the series, but so far we have only got 4 of them. Still on the hunt for the rest whenever we visit the bookstores. The little One likes to flip the pages of the book (its not hardcover) and so some of the pages are torn now!

The 3rd book is written by a local author, descriping how a little boy named Buster would eat before bedtime and leave the rubbish under the bed, hence a monster visits him! Its quite a cute story, well, if u don't give the child nightmares about monsters under the bed. The LIttle One likes to imitate the monster sounds and goes "grillllll.. grilll.." each time we reach the page where the monster is featured. When we ask where is buster, he can point to the picture of the boy on the page. OK, he tore the last page of this book too..




He still has like 2 big boxes of books including some from Eric Carl that i bought at a spree. Maybe i will start introducing more to him since he has developed a liking for reading :) Can't wait to see hubby and him reading together!

The Little Helper and the one about school

The Little One has been helping out around the house..came home yesterday to see him walk around the house with the magic mop! How industrious! Sari told me that he was doing that the whole day and refused to give up the mop. If only we can train him to cook his own meals :)

We have been viewing schools for justin to start playgroup classes next year and so far we have seen 4. They all have their pros and cons but i have more or less settled on 2 choices.. now waiting for the Big One to see them too and see what he feels. Its quite exciting to see how much the Little One has grown, big enough to go to school! and the good thing (well so far ) is that he displayed no fear at the schools and was happy enough to just roam around on his own. Hopefully, this will mean less tears when he actually starts school. cross fingers and toes! He will only start school next year when he is about 20 months, so meanwhile, i still have my extra little helper at home to help with the chores!

Dustbin

The Little One has discovered the Dustbin...

He has been throwing toys into it.. of cos we didn't realise it until his toys started to go missing! So hmm, wonder how many of them have been thrown away already?

This morning, i passed him a piece of tissue paper and told him, "help mummy throw it into the dustbin". He toddered off in the direction of the kitchen, lift up the dustbin lid and throw it in and turned around and clapped! :) seems that he is starting to understand simple instructions.

Next time, we should teach him how to make me a cuppa of coffee :)

His first scrapbook frame

I LOVE this... many thanks to Amy who did this for him :) Its now displayed proudly at our shelf.. so everyone will see it immediately after they walk in! Its so super super beautiful that i told Amy.. it really motivates me to start scrapping! Thanks so much!

Polliwogs...

Thanks to a rM's ecommendation, we found another place at East Coast where the Little One could go.. Its called Polliwogs, a new indoor playground which is siutated at the back of Burger King. Its new so its still relatively clean:) So far, we have been there twice, both on weekdays. I think the crowd is much smaller on weekdays and heard that on weekends it can be quite crazy.

Here is a picture of the Little One climbing on one of the play structures:

He was on a playdate with G :) trust me, trying to take a picture of the both of them was so difficult cos they were just wild and all over the place! The last time we saw G was at her 1st birthday party and now she is already 17 months old! Really sweet little pretty girl! Hopefully at their next playdate, i will be able to take a better picture of them...

Drinking Water

We like to spend saturday mornings at the beach. 2 Saturdays ago, we went to the beach with The Big One's cousin. Brought along a plastic sheet (actually its the old tablecover from the Little One's birthday) and made a madeshift picnic mat. it was a really hot hot day and the Little One wanted some water. He was interested to drink out of the cap.. wonder why.. but it sure makes one hilarious video!

PS: the music in the background is from the radio or CD player that was blaring away for these 2 ladies practising their taiji.

My Little Helper

A picture of my little helper at work! Nowadays he likes doing chores :) Guess its imitating the adults at work. So the little helper helps "fold" the clothes, load the washing machine and cleans the house.

Came home early from work today. Decided to embark on a little bit of springcleaning cos there is just too much stuff at home! especially the Litle One's stuff.. his toys, his clothes, his books, more of his toys.. The inventory goes something like this:

1. 3 full toyogo boxes of his toys

2. 3 of the push walk toys

3. 2 cars (one stationary that he used when he was younger)

4. One cozy cycle which is still in the box from his birthday

5. 2 Bouncers (from his infant days)

6. 3 playmats (why do i have so many??)

7. A wooden train set complete with table (his birthday present from us)

8. Countless others from his birthday which are unopened..

And yet, why did i have to buy him a Fisher Price Learning Home yesterday at Robinsons? The Big One said that i was spoiling him.. :) It looks something like this:

Its being delivered on Friday :) hehhe.. i think i will enjoy playing with it more than the Little One ... i saw it at my friend's place a long time ago.. before i had the Little One and it just looked so fun that when i saw it on sale, i just had to buy it. Having some free vouchers does make the deal that much sweeter!

So after that springclean, we finally found some space in Sari's room to store some of his older toys and clothes...

The expression on his face is priceless......"Mummy... I am very tired!" :)

Is it a temper tantrum?

The Little One is starting to exert his will on stuff.. it can be wanting to touch a certain item, or wanting to eat in a certain way, or even run around naked. It drives us nuts, cos we know that he does it more when sari is not around and its just his old mummy and daddy on sundays. At the end of the day, we would be so knacked that we would just collapse on the sofa. But i have also seen that when its just Sari and him, he doesn't do all that? Why?? My mum says its just basically trying to bully us, as parents.

I read this particular blog regularly, Ask Moxie. Was trying to understand sleep regressions then and chanced upon the blog when i did a google seach. Its written by a mother who isn't an expert in parenting but i like it cos it has a huge following and they provide some useful comments and insights about parenthood. There is this entry about temper tantrums: http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/11/qa_18monthold_t.html

Description of a average 18 month old: "This age is rough. It's rough on the kids, because they have all these emotions and desires they don't know how to manage. Sounds like the back of a romance novel, but you know what I mean. All of a sudden they realize that it would by possible, hypothetically, to express their wills and get what they want. But they just can't seem to do it to make it work the way they want it to because the facility with language just isn't there yet (unless you've lucked out and have a signing superstar). That makes them little cauldrons of frustration and hurt."

Hmm.. sounds a bit like what justin is going through. He can be all happy and then whining over something so small. But if we manage to get what he is trying to say, the smile comes back on! And boy is that smile a delight to look at.

Well, most books recommend that we either a) ignore them or b) comfort them. We are using the (b) option... i know that we worry that we will spoil the kid but somehow i am not comfortable yet in ignoring them.. he is too young now. But not sure how we will react when he gets older. I find that when i spend more 1 on 1 time with justin, he is happier and more well behaved. Its when i tend to rush things through that he deliberately or seeming so, decides to do things his own way.

Am reading this book "The Happiest Toddler on the Block". Hopefully it will provide me with more insights.

Its the Little Guy's 14 month birthday!

The Little One turned 14 months on Saturday :) We had planned to bring my dad out for a early Father's Day celebration so we ended up having a double celebration of sorts. Had lunch with the family at T3's Dian Xiao Er.. cos that's one of my sister's favourite resturants and cos justin is at this age where he is in love with big open spaces. So weekends are a frantic exercise of trying to find him a suitable place to walk around ..

Here's justin having his lunch.. he was busy feeding me and himself that he kindof made a mess, but i guess that's all about growing up and learning. Fed him some cod fish that was meant for the adults and he gobbled everything down.. nowadays he likes adult food so feeding him has become slightly easier.

It has been sometime since we took a picture together :) can see from this that justin does resemble me a lot. No wonder when we dress him in those netural colours, pple ask if he is a girl. Does he even look a little girly? I look a lot like my dad too.. sister got more of mum's looks.

After lunch, we went exploring around the airport and chanced upon the Dora live show. Had spent quite a lot at the resturant which entitled us to a free ticket for the show. Now, justin has never really watched Dora on Tv but i tot, to occupy his time and energy levels, we could just try it out. This boy, wasn't really interested in the songs and the Dora which was jumping up and down on the stage. He was more keen on making friends with the other toddlers around! I had to hold him down.. Plus the music was a bit loud, so we left after 5 mins..Luckily the ticket was free.. otherwise it would have been a waste of money.

I am not a big fan of Dora so Justin doesn't have the DVD at home.. he watches Hi 5 which he is like totally in love with and Pocoyo :) Don't think i will bring him to the Hi5 concert cos he is still too young plus i don't know if i can actually sit through one of these shows.. its quite high level! and trust me, when the kids are all screaming.. u can get a headache!

So we left the other screaming bouncy children in search of more tamer stuff to play with. Justin loves this playground at the basement of T3 and there is a fountain nearby - 2 perfect things to occupy this tod.




Can u see his shoe? This is the 2nd pair of crocs that he has.. the first one was bought at the zoo when we lost his shoe, that one was quite cute and was really in the shape of a crocodile. This one was bought in marina square.. really comfy i must say and he loves it. Except that its really ex and he is outgrowing one pair each month!Eeee.. that's why we make him wear it all the time, even when just walking around the corridor. $50 divided by 30 days in a month.. that's still more than $1 a day! His foot looks quite cute in this pair :)

After playing in the playground for a while, he started yawning and was tired.. so it was time to head home for his naptime :) That day, he actually napped for 4 hours (2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon), and was hyper at night.. woke up at 3am and refused to sleep. Too much nap that day!


He has really grown a lot in the past 2 months.. now this Little Guy is walking around everywhere and even running! He loves his 3 bedtime books (The Monster under the bed, the Furry Caterpillar and The Flower) and can read along .. making the "cater cater" sounds when i say caterpiller. He points to stuff on his floor map and wants us to read it out to him.. sometimes he repeats the word too. So far, i have caught him saying "flow (for flower), cat, dog and yes Hi5..and he does the Hi5 action too.. :)


The last height and weight check - 81cm and 13kgs.

The first entry..

Setting up this new blogsite on this super hot Friday.. Am going to try to migrate the older posts from live journal here cos its quite hard to update live journal. Am hoping that blogspot will be easier to use...