Playtimes like the good old kampong days.... 
Drinking coconut water, fresh from the trees.... 
Any idea what this is? A slide on a school compound playground made from tiles and cement! Mind your steps!
Mummy decided to make 29 Jan special for Rynae, being her 1st year of school, by making her little goody bags to give out to her classmates as a form of announcement and well wishes for her. As it was mummy's 1st attempt in preparing goody bags, she spent several sleepless nights planning the number and type of things to include. In the end, she prepared 15 packets of it, each with 1 mentos mini, 1 M&Ms milk chocolate and 1 Wang Zai mini mantou. In total, 10 goody bags were given out and 5 were brought back home. The cost is broken down as such:
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!
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.
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.
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.
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..
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!!!
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!
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!
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..
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..
Now that I'm a premium library member, I try to frequent the library to look for entertaining and educational audio visual materials for my little tyrant. Afterall the membership is only for a year. I borrowed only DVDs because of errors trying to install CD ROMS borrowed. Initially, I was awed by the collection of titles the library has but I came to realise that most aren't suitable for her age or interesting enough to capture her attention for long. I chanced upon Little Einstein's Mission Celebration (without having heard of it before) and it was a hit with the little queen! Do you believe that she will be glued to the show for as many as 3 repeats? I myself find the series a good educational material that teaches listening skills, music appreciation, task solving, colours and numbers etc. Takashimaya children's department is selling each VCD at $12.90. I wonder if I should own a few titles... erhem.. any sponsor??
It was an uncalled for decison to visit the Chinese Garden's Underwater World theme lantern parade this year. Lazing around after dinner at my mum's place, I threw the suggestion to visit the Chinese Garden. Surprisingly, everyone was ok and we went in my sis's bf's car. The entrance was crowded with people however queue for the purchase of tickets was fast. Visitors to the premises were mostly families with kids (like me). Youngsters, I reckon, rate these events as out-dated, boring (to a certain extent true) and uncool and they would rather squander their time in Orchard Road. I wouldn't consider the event 'worth the money' as there wasnt much entertainment and light-ups that made me go 'WOW'. The Organiser was wary of infringing copyright by its careful simulation of similar yet differenciated little mermaid, snoopy & nemo. $12.50 for such an event, we felt was a little dear so we decided to make it more worthy by staying for the 10pm fireworks. As expected, the short fireworks wasnt very fantastic but something is better than nothing right?
Joe was off on 21 Sept. With an excellent weather and impromptu request by Rynae, we decided to go swimming. Woodlands swimming pool is under going renovation now. We heard from a friend that Chua Chu Kang has a family friendly swimming complex with slides and playground. Thus, after a quick research on the net, we headed for that ‘neighbourhood big splash’. As it was a weekday, we each paid $2 to get in (Usual is $2.50/pax). Rynae rightfully, has to pay 80 cts but she didn’t of course. We smuggled her in. (Expected of us? Chey!) It was a disappointment that the kid’s activity pool was closed for maintenance. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves on the slide and the hourly wave pool.
