Night Safari

Finally the day had arrived - 31 August. Mummy had waited the whole of August for the Hungry Ghost Festival to end so that we could visit the Night Safari at a 50% discount off entrance fee! Not that I'm superstitious but I'm just trying to avoid the avoidable. Night Safari is known for its extortion ticket price so having a 50% discount means a savings of $27.50 for 2 adults and 1 child. Quite significant isn't it?

We had our dinner at Bongo Burgers and spent a little while watching the Tribal Dance Performance at the entrance but alas that was a mistake! We should have gone in at the strike of 7pm and headed for the Creatures of the Night Show. Visitorship was so overwhelmed that 7.30pm show was full. We had to go for a 45min tram ride instead. There weren't a lot of variety of animals and we couldn't even locate some of them in the darkness! By the time we finished our ride, it was around 8.10pm and we were so filled with anguish that the 8.30pm show was full house too! To kill time, we went to trek the fishing cat trail, 1 of the 3 trails that visitors can explore on foot. Nothing much to see too. Most of the animals were getting ready for bed and the crocodiles have turned in already! Well, sweet dream ya?

Thereafter, we went to queue for the 9.30pm show at 8.30pm. The show had better be worth the wait. We complained then. It turned out to be very similar to the other shows at Jurong Bird Park and Zoo. They're afterall under the same management. Humour and suspense were the main perks of the show; not so much the tricks performed by animals. We headed home after the show because there really weren't much attractions left.

This is an outing that I took the least photos because no flash photography is allowed on all the animals, including during the show! Hence, I only posted a picture of Rynae against a Night Safari logo as backdrop (Ignore the 3 calefares in the background. It wasn't easy to get a clear coast).

After all is said, Daddy and Mummy prefered the day zoo where we could go on foot around the whole park, have clearer visibility and let Rynae play at the children's world playland. I guess unless we get pro bono entry, we wouldn't be stepping into Night Safari for quite a while...

RSAF Open House

On Friday night, Dad casually suggested going to watch aeroplane on Saturday and I thought he meant going to Changi Airport. This morning, he clarified and I realised that it was actually RSAF's Open House that he had proposed. What a miscomm. I commended him outright and applaud his idea without hesitation. This would be such a good opportunity for Rynae to get up close with majestic fighter planes and helicopters! Brilliant. We took free shuttle bus provided by RSAF at Hougang bus interchange. There were clear directional signs to lead us to berth 6 and waiting time was almost zero! There were also many friendly RSAF cadets to usher us. We felt so appreciated.

When we reached RSAF Museum, we had to queue up to have our bags checked for security reasons. We didn't and shouldn't complain as this is understandable. Luckily, the queue moved fast and we got through smoothly. I started clicking away with my camera. The sky was already looming with dark clouds when we got in. It was worrying but we prefered the cool weather to scorching afternoon sun. We managed to explore the outdoor planes on exhibition and admiration before it started to rain.

We took shelter in a hugh, enclosed marquee eatery and came out smelling like dead rats! RSAF seriously needs to improve on its ventilation. Food was edible but rather expensive. After the passing shower, we went to Kids Zone. There were 3 gigantic floats and the happiest person is non other than Rynae. She climbed, somersaulted and rolled in all 3. Expectedly, when it was time to go, she was so stinky and sticky that any flying insect that came into contact with her will get stuck onto her skin.

We didn't stay throughout the postponed Aeriel Display but we did catch some parachuters and watch some perfomances by deafening jets on our way out. RSAF's hospitality had given us a pleasant Saturday. Well done and keep it up! I leave you with some event shots we took today....

More Animal Crafts

Adding to the brood, Rynae brought home another snake and elephant today. With all her toys and crafts, my house is looking more and more like a child care centre. Tommorrow marks the start of a 1-week holiday and that means unrest at home too. Luckily it's just 1 week. I think I can bite it through. Hopefully.

Happy Teachers' Day

It never crossed my mind that I have to repeat what I did 20 years ago - giving presents to teachers on Teachers' Day. True enough, what goes around comes around. Rynae was nonchalant when I told her that Teachers' Day was round the corner. At this age, toddlers simply don't understand the meaning of each festival hence I'll have to inculcate the values behind each. Mum never take it easy when it comes to gifts because it shows a presenter's personality, how much he/she knows the recipient and the importance of the recipient. Mum wants to give something useful and practical. After days of brainstorming, I decided on hair accessories as both teachers have long hair!

To show her bit of sincerity, I asked her to doodle on 2 pcs of paper, which I made into wrapping papers. I also printed 2 greeting cards for her to colour but she brushed it off with messy strokes. Her teacher should believe without a doubt that this is solely her effort.

Jungle Animal Crafts

Our friend came home today with a lot of animals! She brought home a tiger, giraffe, elephant and many more jungle animals! So teacher has been reading Walking Through the Jungle with the children and these are crafts to elaborate about the story! Isn't it fun to attend pre nursery?

Soupilicious!

I don't usually buy recipe book but I took a fancy to The World of Nourishing & Fine Soups by Kenny Chen because it is bilingual (most important purchasing factor actually), has simple layout and uses common ingredients. Rynae loves drinking soups thus mum decided to dish out lotus root soup with peanut and mushroom stem to whet her appetite as well as to boost our health.

Ingredients are:
lotus root 40g
red dates (seeded) 3
candy dates 2
peanuts 15g
chinese mushroom stems 15g
stock 100ml

I try to follow as close as possible to the recipe but I have no idea how much of each ingredient I added as I had no weighing scale! So.. everything was agar-ration. I also didn't know what the hell is chinese mushroom stem! Guess what? I added dried mushrooms! Stock too, was modified to plain water.

This remedy is supposed to tonify the heart, regulates blood circulation and improve appetite. My modified soup tastes saltish sweet and the smell of mushroom stands out quite a bit. Still drinkable lah...

Gone Fishing

Some salesman's been to Rynae's school recently to promote Sounds Write! "The Phonics Series" (USP $79.90) at $35.50 but Mum didn't buy it 'cos I felt it's too advance for beginners. Hence, Mum has to do the teaching herself. Rynae has learnt letter blending with 'at' like cat, mat, sat so it is time to move on with 'ap' and 'an' and then digraphs like 'sh' and 'th'.

She's getting bored with picture and word matching (oh kids!) so I've gota plan another teaching method. What a headache. I tweak our usual game by attaching paper clips to each word card (no pictures this time) and got Rynae to fish out the correct word. I've gota provide excitement enough to learn but not over excited until she is over-awed, in order to keep the learning process going.

Rynae's excited about anything new so she's taking the fishing game quite well. Hopefully this method will tide me by for a while...

Pasta Necklace

Rynae started her first pasta necklace business recently and business is expected to be picking up. Never mind that mum only has 4 poster colours. This little entrepreneur is able to expand the range of colours by simply messing and mixing up the paints! She now knows that when you mix blue and yellow you get green. Workmanship of the necklace is excellent, with thick and uneven coats of paints! But that's what we call art. The shortfall is you've got to be careful to keep it dry while you're wearing it 'cos it'll leave paint stains on your shirt if it's wet! Then again, this will teach one to wipe their hands properly after washing their hands! Haha. Now.. if you wish to own one limited edition Rynae's pasta necklace, place your orders now... C'mon! Show some support....

1st Italian Homecook Pasta

It's always a headache when it comes to lunch. So what shall I cook for the little gourmet today? On days when I am lazy, I'll just cook all-in-1 porridge. Other days, it'll be soup-based vermicelli or noodle. I decided to be a risk taker today - prepare Rynae's 1st homecook Italian pasta! Which 'D' does it look like? Disgusting or delicious? Haha.. Consume with gusto!

First Customer of the Day

It's time for a visit to the hairdresser again! Bye my locks...

Perfecting Parenthood Seminar

The moment I knew of Perfecting Parenthood : Tips Tricks and Truths to Raising a Well-Developed Child seminar organised by CNA, I went online to check out the speakers, speech topics, and the ticket price. There has been a lot of such parenting talks but I had attended none as I believe most of these seminars with shallow insights are organised as a sales opportunities for merchants to hard sell their products and courses to unfailing parents. I was surprised when I saw the ticket price: $11 for early birds! That's relatively cheap! Attractive pricing aside, the topics covered were interesting and having CNA as an Organiser gives some credibility. I wasted no time in grabbing hold of an early bird ticket. Luckily I did that because the seats were all sold out in the end!

Steven Chia, the suave prime time morning presenter was the host and he was a humourous dude who cracks intelligent jokes! I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon with them and I brought home not only a bagful of goodies but a more inspirational and positive mindset towards parenting. This is what I gathered from the seminar:

Every child has core needs and it cuts across culture. Attend to a child's core needs because when core needs such as basic safety, protection and love are not met, it results in lifetraps like emotional deprevation, entitlement and unrelenting standards. Constantly give affirmation to your child and recognise and praise the efforts as much as results. Parents have to be assertive too. Say what you mean and mean what you say. There is no such thing as perfect parents. The most we can achive is "good enough" parents. "Good enough" parents are about striking a balance.

There are 3 simple "secrets" to having an intelligent child.

First, parents need to have a correct mindset. We need to know how to excite, enroll and enjoy with them. Children look up to us and if we enjoy the symphony of life, the little ones too will..

Second, parents need to develop a thinking child. Teach them to ask questions, give them freedom to explore and help them ask the right questions. A child that is able to make the right decision is more important than having a high IQ.

Lastly, parents need to light up because when you light up, your child will shine.

Doesn't the concept of intelligence clash with what we as parents thought it is? Is it all about schools, jobs, universities and careers? Guess we all need to define what we call intelligence....

Phonics!

Now that Rynae has perfected her phonics stage 1 - learning the 26 letter sounds, I thought I should subsequently introduce digraphs and word blending to her. Well, I've tried simple methods like using alphabet-shaped toys but she is uninterested with this one-way teaching. Usually a chatterbox, she'll turn reticent and unresponsive. To tackle this, I DIY-ed several sets of pictures and words cards to play with her. There was a 360 degree change in her behaviour! Expectedly, everytime we play this 'matching game', she'll always request to hold the pictures while I, forever having to hold the words, will have to match hers. Of course I'll try to act dumb and illiterate so that she could correct me lah...

Hopefully by giving her a headstart on phonics, she can cultivate an interest to read at a young age. To become a competent reader, a child must be able to recognise letters as well as the overall shapes of words too. Rynae might know how to read a few words now but most probably might not be able to spell without aid but that is fine because the easiest way to know how to spell a word is to listen for the sounds in that word!

Thta's all fokls! Sitll cna raed waht I tpye evne thuohg I spel wornlgy? OMG! Soemone tel me waht phoincs is for! kekeke...

Kitchen Lab

Crazy mummy wanted to teach Rynae some simple Science knowlege about solubility so I set up a 'lab' for her in the kitchen. We tried solutes such as salt, sugar, pepper, corn flour, soya sauce, coffee powder, milo, ice, chocolate and even ikan billis! Some of the solutions turn out pretty yucky and I purposely ask Rynae if she wanted to drink it!

HFMD Preventive Soup Recipe

Grandma passed me a newspaper cut out about a preventive recipe for HFMD. This article couldn't have come at a better timing, now that Rynae is schooling and needs to be ward off this epidemic! In this article, it mentioned that according to TMC, HFMD is caused by a deficiency of qi (most simply translated as energy) coupled with heatiness driven off by humid weather especially in a tropical country like Singapore. This saying, is contrary to western medicine that believes that HFMD infects children with weak immunity. Continuing from there, it also said that if a child were to be down with HFMD, having regular bowel movement and ample sleep speeds up recovery. Enough said, here's the recipe (no dosage mentioned):

• Barley (I used china barley as it's 'cooler')
• Winter melon strips
• Bei Qi (helps retard aging and enhance immune system)
• Codnopsis Pilosulae Radix (simply known as Dang Shen)
• Wolfberry (simply known as Gou Qi Zi)

This 'soup' taste exactly like barley water with a slight wolfberry sweetness. Not as pungent as I expected it to be. It's a drink for everyone in the family! Last but not least, it sounds cliche but I'm still gonna say it.... Prevention is better than cure!

MAZE..zz.zz..z

Rynae has a fetish for mazes after attempting some easy ones I printed from websites. As I mentioned before, mazes are good in training children forward-thinking, hand and eye coordination and memory (I made her use her fingers first then memorise the route, thereafter use a pen) hence I've no qualms about her playing with it. Most of the maze activity books in book stores aren't suitable for 3 yr olds but I managed to grab 2 from Twinkle Thinkers at $5.90 each. No doubt price is a little steep but Kumon is selling mazes with similar difficulty at $8+! Downright daylight robbery!

Sunday Children Church Programme

There is a new church, just diagonally opposite our house and today, the second week into its opening, Mum brought Rynae to its Sunday children's programme for some fun. There was inevitably some preaching worked into the activities but Rynae got to play with musical instruments and toys, colour, sing and dance too! Mummy stayed throughout as onlooker to monitor how Rynae and other children behave socially. Each child has a character and temper of its own. Some took it quite well to the temporary separation with their parents while others wail their heads off. Some were meticulous when they were asked to colour while others simply want to get it over and done with. Rynae was the latter - impatient and doesn't pay much to details. It was a pleasant start to a Sunday morning. My imp had whale of a time there!

Let's Party~! 08-08-08!

I jumped out of bed before the alarm clock rang this morning. Rynae, on the contrary, had to be lugged out of bed. Aren't she the one who was supposed to be excited? The school is having a National Day party today! As requested by the school, I dressed her up in red top and white bottom. She brought along a pack of crackers to school too, because the teachers want to educate their children the virtue of sharing and to strengthen their bonds as Singaporeans. Indeed. Instilling a sense of belonging and patriotism should start when our offsprings are still young (and gullible). Our miss Singaporean came back with a zipped folder as national day gift and stuffed inside, loads of goodies!

Optical Illusion

An optical illusion is a visually perceived image that does not correspond to physical reality. After an image hit the retina, the brain will have to work hard to process the stimulus source, so as to make sense of the world. It is proven that left-brain vs right-brain and children vs adult, see optical illusion differently. Which means, what I see or could see might not be what Rynae could. Mummy has never shown any optical illusion images to Rynae so to kick-start the programme, as well as to test water, I DIY-ed a handy booklet with 18 optical illusions.

These illusions can be used as stimuli for her to create her own illusions! Definitely a good brain exercise. To testify what she actually saw, I had to continuously query, challenge and prompt her like a broken-record. Some curvy lines I perceived were reported to appear straight for her. I have completely no idea how to certify if she was speaking the truth though. However, I was sure she could see different dimensions of cubes as I made her count them - sometimes it was 6, sometimes it was 7 cubes. Rynae said the picture has magic!

Monkey See Monkey Do

For the past 3 weeks, Rynae was introduced to Zoo animals such as giraffe, elephant, monkey and so on in school. The children also learn about each animal's characteristic and the proper place to keep these animals. As you've guessed, the monkey in this picture is no other than Rynae. Green is her favourite colour so that explains why her monkey mask is green.

Book Review

Wherever Mummy goes, she's always on the look out for good bargains. Out one day, I passed by a second-hand book sale and grabbed 2 books for Rynae, which I would highly recommend to novice readers. Dr Seuss series of books are known to drill children in word rhymes and phonics but not all collections are suitable for Rynae. Old Hat New Hat is targetted at beginners thus repetitive and simple words are used. It uses mostly adjectives and Rynae seems to be able to read the whole book by herself now!

I would say Ready, Get Set Go! complements Old Hat New Hat as it emphasizes on comparison of adjectives. Characters are simple: just dad, sister and brother. It enabled Rynae to relate to the story better. She loves the book so much that she insisted on bringing it to school and teacher read it to the whole class!

Spill the Beans!

In Glamour Mum and the Dude, Pan Ling Ling provided a fever remedy tip - green bean with salt. For the benefit of those who have missed it, the recipe is to add 2 teaspoon of raw green beans and some salt into a cup. Thereafter, pour in boiling water and simmer for about 10 minutes. Consume after that. The weather is eccentric these days and Rynae showed some signs of heatiness so I decided to make this hassle-free drink for her. I tried some too myself and it taste akin to diluted green bean soup, err.. well, the salted type.

Memory Game

Today is the 1st day of the Hungry Ghost Festival but freak not. These aren't offerings. They're fruit artifacts that Mummy bought for Rynae when she was a baby. In an attempt to keep her occupied and at the same time engage in some meaningful games, I decided to play 'recall the items'. It's a simple game. Just collate a few items and choose some to be placed on a tray. Let your child have a look and then cover it up with a piece of cloth. Next, ask her to list out the items one at a time. Rynae is pretty good at it but occassionally, she'll forget 1 or 2 items and she'd try to peek! I'll then wrap the cloth over the fruit so that she can guess what fruit it is from its shape. Good brain game for me cus I got tested too! Very importantly, remember to pile on the praise when your child gets it right...