Happy 3rd Birthday Celebration on 27 Jan

Admist the festivity of CNY, there lies a very important date - Rynae's 3rd Birthday. Her actual hatch date, 29 Jan fell on a weekday hence we've choosen a Sun to celebrate for her instead. Mummy and Daddy have decided to do away with a big bang birthday party for the golden girl this year. Celebration for her was kept small but meaningful. Daddy bought her a Prima Deli Cake and thank god we're all fine after eating it!

First Handicraft on 25 Jan

Rynae brought home her first handicraft today - a handprint 'puppet'. Not too sure how much was done by her though. Hee... Anyway, she was so proud of it that she couldn't wait to show it to me, the moment the school door swing open for release. Her enthusiasm lasted the whole journey home and right after her grandparents praise her for the work well done, the poor 'puppert' was cast aside, forgotten amongst her neglected toys... never to be mentioned by her again...

CNY Prelude

Mummy and Daddy are into CNY mood. Before the festive pasar malam starts, we already whisked downtown to check out what's painting the street red. Mickey and gang's character are everywhere! I bet Watt Di$ney's $miling cheek to cheek to the bank this year!

Stages of Creative Development

Rynae loves scribbling and I noticed recently that her drawings are more than just scribblings of circles and wavy lines. They are representative and more deliberate. The setting in her writing board captured herein, is in the playground with people holding balloons.

According to therapists, Rynae should be at the pre-schematic, or pre-symbolic, stage which begins around age four; however, it may start earlier or later, depending on the child's cultural and artistic experience:

"In this stage, the amoeba (a circle with arms and legs, and sometimes eyes) or tadpole people may have faces, hands, and even toes, but no bodies. These figures face front and often have big smiles. Omission of body details is not a sign that something is developmentally wrong. It just means that other things in the drawing of the person are more important. For example, heads are the first objects drawn and may continue to be bigger than other parts of the body. This is usually done because the child sees the head as being very important. The child eats, speaks, sees, and hears with parts of the head. The child's self-portrait appears as an amoeba person, but it will usually be the biggest figure, appearing in the center of the page. The child may test different ways to draw a self-portrait before settling on one for a period of time. In this instance, art helps define a child's self image."

1st Day of Pre Nursery

Today is the start of a new chapter in Rynae's life - Schooling. She has been looking forward to the arrival of this day since being told that she will be going to school soon. She woke up by herself at 7.10am and was very co-opertative in allowing me to brush her teeth and wash her up for school. A seldom occured phenomenon indeed. As I was dressing her, I couldn't help but have this nostalgia of recalling those good old days when my mum prepared me and my sisters for morning session school. And here I am, 20 odd years later, doing to same thing for my daughter.

As this is a new beginning for these toddlers, school for the entire week will be only 1 hour and parents may stay for 30 to 45 min if they so wish. Rynae was a little insecure at first but proceeded on to play with toys soon after. Children this age are solos who do not interact hence nobody bothered to self introduce themselves to one another or to make the initiative to make friends. Haha.. All parents, maid and ah mas are being shown the door at 8.45am to allow the children 15min of independent school life. All were fine except a boy who let loose after realising that his ah ma is not around.

At 9am sharp, the door opened and Rynae stood in line, ready for release. Everyone bid farewell to their teacher and dispersed. When I asked Rynae what did her teacher teach her, she replied, 'My teacher teach me how to play toys'. Well done! Go to school to PLAY TOYS! Enjoy your childhood dear... older kids wish they never would have to grow up..

Post Christmas Gifts from Bangkok

These gifts are from Ah Ma, Da Yi and San Yi who just came back from Bangkok on 31 Dec. Mummy like the simple designed navy blue pajamas because the fabric is soft and cottony. Below is the conversation between Mummy and Rynae when Mummy laid out the clothes on the sofa for photo taking:

Rynae: Mummy, who buy these one?

Mummy: Its Wai Po.

Rynae: Where Wai Po buy one?

Mummy: She boought from Bangkok.

Rynae: No... she bought from Yishun!

Mummy: No... she bought from Bangkok!

Rynae: No... she bought from Yishun!

Mummy:

Last Day of Year 2007

Joe suggested a ridiculous activity for our last day of year 2007 - countdown in Esplanade and was jolly gun down FLAT! For obvious reason, we would need to bring Rynae who not only will knock out before 12am but also for safety reason of not wanting to be sand pit on. Since the weather was fine and sunny, we decided to hit the pool instead. Woodlands swimming pool reopened in early Nov after few months of renovation and we were curious to find out the extent of the facelift, hoping that there would be toddler friendly slides and water features. Though there weren't slides like Chua Chu Kang SC, there was a playground built within the children's pool. A pity kitty cat Rynae daren't play with it because she doesn't like water running over her head. She super under utilised the facilities!

Raffles and Suntec City Shopping Trip on 30 Dec

After having spent our whole Sat at home, we decided to head down town this Sun. Raffles City SC had a makeover, doing away with the humungous empty space on level 1 to increase its floor area for several levels of extra tenant$. A crowd of children caught our attention when we were in the basement and we went closer to check them out. As expected, Rynae joined in the crowd who were jumping, kicking and cheering along with moving digital images on the floor. This, is called Reactrix, an interactive outdoor media owned by SPH MediaBoxOffice that can respond to people who walk by or move over the display area. Nobody seem to know or care how exactly to play with it and that includes Rynae who simply just want to... well.. step on anything.

Christmas 2007

Every year on Christmas Day, we will gather in Da Yi's house for a makan and gift exchange session. There are no Christmasy delicacies like roast beef, honey baked turkey, mince pies, yorkshire pudding and log cake. On the contrary, we had Nasi Brani, Chicken Curry, Fried Fishballs, Hor Fun and Swenson Ice Cream Cake! Look at the spread! Rynae had a lot of fun playing with Asher Di Di's toys and watching Jayden play computer games on Yi Zhang's Mac. Rynae dashed to her gifts that were arranged neatly on the sofa when she woke up. Without hesitation, she tore the wrappers to reveal what actually lies beneath. Favourite gift? A fishing game by Ah Ma. Least Favourite? OOops! No la.. better not say it... Hohohoho...

Magic Painting

"The pages in this book are printed with a very special ink. Using clean water and a clean paint brush, carefully paint each part of the pictures and the colours will appear as if by magic!"

My intention initially was to buy only 1 of these magic books as a X'mas gift exchange but eventually I bought 1 for Rynae as well. I guess she will like it because she loves to paint. The best part is there's no need to use paints hence no need for messy aftermath clean up too! Just water will do the act. It was an ease painting with just water (but with lots of smirches of course). Rynae coloured 4 pages in about 5 mininutes and I had to stop her from going on, if not she could have completed the rest of the 12 pages in 1 session! I asked her to pose with her proud piece of work and see how she did it?

Caught Sleeping Again

The wet spell has been keeping us indoors and Sunday's accommodating weather couldn't be better for us to hit the mall. Recalling IMM's recent announcement of an upgrade, we decided to pay that once familar place a visit. We paid $3 (for 1 hr) to get our little one into a pushy buggy but ended up paying $4.50 for 1.5 hr because someone fell asleep in it! Going marketing with kids are troublesome. We decided to load them all into a NTUC trolley and maybe traffic them off!!

Wheely Trolly

We considered ourselves lucky to be able to choppe this FREE 2-in-1 car trolly cus we heard there're only 5 in Fairprice Xtra! Parkway Parade had similar push carts but they're put on rent. Rynae was but of course gleeful. But poor me.. this big pushy isn't light and is not the least easy to navigate in the crowded supermarket. I could feel my stomach muscle craunch whenever I maneuver any bends. There weren't much things to buy in AMK Hub but I did buy a small Dora puzzle (S$1.90) from Mums & Babes. Should have bought more as Christmas present giveaways. Argh...

Kong Fu Sleeping

Mummy and Daddy played host to Uncle Leslie and Auntie Maggie today by bringing them to Vivo City and Plaza Singapura. The rainy weather aren't too conducive for outings but that didn't dampen our spirit. We had a sumptuous lunch, many snacks in-between and a great time together. Everyone also took turn to run after the little sprinter who refused to seat in her pram. We speculate that she would fall asleep by 5ish but she did not. In fact, she missed her nap totally and knocked out only in the taxi on the way home. Upon reaching home, I had to wash and dress her up for bed but she was so worn-out that she could sleep anywhere, anyhow... What a pose..

Early Christmas Gifts

Christmas arrived early for Rynae this year when Santa Clause Uncle Leslie and Santarina Auntie Maggie descended from Hongkong on 8 Dec. Look at the wonderful gifts they showered my little tyke with! They sure can read her mind cus they're all her fav! Hip Hip Hurray!!!

Got Milk?

These photos reminded me of the infamous 'Got Milk' moustache. But then, Rynae's moustachio aren't traces of milk! They're made by Nestle's Drumstick Minis ice cream! A bad example of food wastage though...for that, I'm gonna starve her for... err... 2 hours!

Sticker-holic

Rynae's recently having a craze over stickers and has been 'decorating' my house with 'Spider Man', 'Poor Bear', 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Want Want' stick-ies. We have to not only guard the house to make sure any of these stick-ies are removed, we also have to be vigilant not to be sabo-ed by her! What an impression I'll make if people were to find a Spider Man hanging for dear life on my butt!? Well, well... taking it out on herself is better than vandalising my wall or my butt lah... hor?

My 1st Laptop

Rynae's grandma has been talking about 'a computer' for the longest time, over the past few weeks. Everytime we met, she would update me from 'out of stock' to 'supplier increase in price' to 'distributor undecided whether to consign the goods or not'. She's full of praises of 'the computer' that I, myself cannot help but look forward to see how wonderful this piece of toy is. After the long wait, the day finally came. When Rynae saw her 'computer' she was so elated and engrossed in it that you can leave her alone to read your whole week of Straits Times! (I exaggerated it a bit la...) The S$18 toy (U.P. S$15) could recognise hundreds of different cards and read out the words, interactively when user pressed on it! Product design aside, its function is almost comparable to Leap Frog. Quite a good buy (for once) this time, Grandma!

Trip to Changi Airport Terminal 3

As usual, we have to crack our head on where to go when it comes to every weekend. Expo is abuzz with exhibitions this week but that also meant a lot of human crowd! It struck me suddenly when i recalled Changi Airport Terminal 3's Open House Ad in The Straits Times. I did a quick google search and confirmed that the Open House is still on. The new airpot was ravishing and spacious. Lots of natural greenery and flora. However, the viewing mall's a bit disappointing though. Not only was it constructed a distance away, the 'specially designed shades' are blocking half of our view of the run way! The Architect is afraid of heights or what!? I was dying to see the Crown Plaza but it was non-accessible. In fact, it's still under construction! Well, CAAS, you had beta buck up cus Jan opening's not too far away!

What I want to be... FIRE FIGHTER!!

Rynae is learning about occupation nowadays and she takes particular interest in a kind of job called 'fire fighter' after she watched Richard Scarry's Busy People Video Ever! She has been pretending to hold a water hose, spraying water onto me, mimicking a scene from the VCD. Things couldnt be more coincident when her cousins gave her an extra fire fighter's hat from their Civil Defence participation. Now.. what she lacks is the uniform and perhaps the fire engine! Haha..

9th Indo Trip Home

It's a semester break for me which means another trip back Indonesia again. Rynae was elated and was very cooperative in all task delegated, when we told her we were going back then. Needless to say, she rode up and down the island (without the need for a helmet) in a motorbike, roamed in and out, front and back of the house compound throughout the day during her stay there. Someone has to always keep an eye on her in case she wonders off and fell into the sea water. Can be tiring actually. Aren't I glad for once I live in a confined HDB flat.

Do you believe the bike was in movement and I was a pillion rider when I took the picture of Rynae on the bike on the left? Skillful photography skills right? Ghee..