3 Little Pigs

I was being asked for 5 toilet rolls and 1 shoe box the previous week and I finally saw the end product today - 1 toilet roll wolf and 1 shoe box pig. In the curriculum update by Rynae's teacher, I understood that the class was told the classic tale of 3 little pigs henceforth these crafts help to reinforce the story in their mind and to spark their imagination. The pig was the biggest craft done so far and I do have a moment of dilemma (due to shortage of storage space) whether I should just trash it away. I didn't of course. Maybe let it sit on the shelf and collect some dust to show my appreciation first. Haha.

First Morning Swim

In recent weeks, late afternoons always showered or the skies were always packed with vapour choked clouds. For the first time, we went swimming in the morning instead of taking our chance in the afternoon! Rynae woke up early that Saturday morning and that gave us ample time to prepare for the swim. We hit the pool before 11am and gosh! The water sure was chilling! Embarrassingly, my used-to-warm-baths body took a while to adjust to the low temperature. Sun was soon out and the heat coming from the morning sun made me feel so athletic.... psychologically....

My Portfolio Cover

Dear Parents,

We need your kindest attention and fullest co-operation in participating in an activity. Your child requires your help in completing an assignment. The assignment is entitled 'Design Your Own Portfolio Cover Page'. The design, colour and font size depends on your own creativity. Looking forward to your participation and wonderful creations! Happy designing...

I was amazed when I saw this note in Rynae's handbook last week when I went to fetch her. Parents kena homework? There was an outline and proposed template so I thought I could easily settle it in powerpoint. After double checking with her teacher the next day, I was told to involve Rynae in the making of the portfolio cover.. Now, this is the headache part. How and what shall I ask her to do? She hasn't the motor skills to do proper, nice colouring (I don't want to end up colouring for her) hence I kept colouring minimum - just 'My Portfolio'. Her major contribution is the punching, glueing and sticking of the leaves. Minusing away the mandatory information, there wasn't much space left on the A4 hence involvement is thus much. We're both quite proud and happy of the end product.

Proud Portfolio Cover

Extra leaves are being used to play as 'food' to play

How Good Friday was spent

21 Mar was a Good Friday holiday and we decided to spend this Holy-day (pun intended) shopping in Cityhall. Daddy needs to make a trip back to office to pick up his forgotten house keys hence we waited for him in Raffles City. We moved on to Marina Square next and got to know that Puma was organising a Fashion Show in the mall. Rynae had her fun with some Fisher Price toys in Kiddy Palace and a S$2 kiddy ride. Tea break was spent at Kopitiam and mummy ordered her fav waffle ice cream and grass jelly! The waffle ice cream was yummilicious! It brought back the good old A&W days. As for the grass jelly, it was disappointingly tasteless!

DVD for Recommendation

I was disappointed when I couldn't find any Little Einsteins or The Backyardigans DVD for Rynae during my last trip to the library. There weren't any interesting titles to borrow too. Rushing for time then, I simply grabbed Bounce:Emotions! with curiosity of what could be within. Hope it's not another crappy show. Production of this title was simple and economically inexpensive as it was casted in a studio with just 5 toddlers and a music therapist. Furthermore, the duration of the DVD is a mere 15 minutes! However, I would say that this is worth a watch as it teaches children about emotions, which is what we feel inside! It identifies emotions such as being happy, mad, scared and silly through friendly and interactive songs and dances. Knowing and understanding how oneself and how others feel is important in day-to-day communication. I would say this brushes a child's EQ!

Orchard Shopping Day

The wet spell that smack right in the holiday week is a curse that's keeping everyone indoors. Thank god the weather's fine over the weekend. Having coop up for so many days, we decided to head down city belt to Orchard Road for a shopping spree Saturday. Timing was coincidentally well planned as a show just started when we arrived at Forum the Shopping Mall. Rynae enjoyed the show and even participated in the boogie dances!



Mummy couldn't be more delighted to chance upon Little Einstein's VCDs in a toy shop. She couldn't find it anywhere else on this little island thus had almost ordered the latest Feb 2008 DVD titled 'Race for Space' over Amazon! Oh Boy, wasn't I glad I hesistated! What a great feeling of satisfaction. I grabbed 2 VCDs, one of which Rynae had seen but I do not mind owning one of our own as it is very difficult to borrow Little Einstein's series in the library.



The Talking Hall in Taka was having a small-scale toys sale fair and Rynae insisted on a S$5 toy. Captured herein was her victory look.

1st School Holiday

7 March is the last day of school before the 1-week school holiday starts. Ever since the little one started school, Mummy has to take note of school terms, which was oblivious to me previously. Rynae received a puzzle from NEA that day. It was actually a public education campaign initiative by the government agency to create more awareness about the prevention against dengue fever. Was good to receive a free toy anyway. Gagaga.. She also brought home another piece of art and craft - a rooster made from recyled honey stars box, bubble tea straw and drawing board. Excellent! Now.. where shall I keep it?

More Prezzies! Yippe!!

Uncle Leslie's Mama came over recently for a short holiday and along with her are 2 blouses that Uncle Leslie has bought for Rynae. Uniqlo (a household name in Japan) is not available in Singapore yet hence there is an almost 0% chance that there would be a child spotted with the same top as Rynae. That's one thing Mummy likes about imported or limited stock merchandises. Fox apparels are simply too common! Well, Mummy used to buy Hush Hush clothings for Rynae but this brand has withdrawn out of Lion City about 2 years ago. Wat a pity....

D-I-Y Play Doh

This is the 2nd time mummy DIY a Play Doh for Rynae. Though a little troublesome, it saves $. Most important of all, the made-from-natural-ingredients DIY Doh does not have a strong synthetic smell and it is easy to clean up! I lost the recipe I tore from a parenting magazine but I could still remember the ingredients used. Not the portion of each, however. Anyway, to share with you, here's what I used:

- half pack of plain flour
- few tablespoons of cream of tar tar
- few tablespoons of salt
- few tablespoons of cooking oil
- water


Freshly made Doh


Doh with permitted food colouring.
No preservatives added.

MC

Rynae fell sick 2 days after the IMM trip and we guessed it must be the afternoon heat.. causing her heat stroke.. or.. whatever you call that.. Luckily, she recovered the very next day! V is for Victory or Victim? Hee..

IMM open water playground

I read from Straits Times a few months ago that IMM has a new open water playground. Some mothers in my neighbourhood have been talking about it hence we decided to bring Rynae there to check it out. We have no idea where and which floor it is located so we shot right up to level 5, speculating that it should be at the roof top. An empty hall greeted us at level 5. We went 2 levels down and Daddy spotted the playground on level 2. It was pretty hot at 12ish pm therefore we allowed Rynae to play in the dry playground only (which is beside the wet playground). We revisited the place at about 4ish pm. The sun's less blazing then, so permission granted to play!

The dry playground

The wet playground

Vege Stamping on 19 Feb

Whenever mummy feels like role playing as a teacher, she'll think of something for her only student to participate in. This time, I cut up some carrots, potatos and broccoli stem and carved some simple shapes onto them, to be used as stamps! Rynae love the activity but Mummy can tell that she is more interested in squeezing and mixing the paint rather than on stamping!

Gift of love from San Diego

Auntie Sharon came back to Singapore during the CNY holidays and along with her is a demin dress she bought from San Diego for Rynae! What a lovely thought... The dress is a little oversize now but it will suit Rynae perfectly next CNY. Mummy like the dress a lot because of its simple yet classy design. Most important of all, the demin fabric is soft! Great buy!

Belated Birthday Present

After dinner, as usual, we brought Rynae to Kiddy Palace to have her fun there. I decided to get the little gal a Toy House because I could use it as an educational piece of material for role playing to teach discipline, time management and respect etc. Anyway, we didn't get her any birthday present so let this be considered so then.

10th Indo Trip Home

Mummy and Daddy brought Rynae back to Indo during the Chinese New Year for the 10th time and below are some pictures to share with Dashing Mama's blog fans!

One moment, she was eating with style. The next, she knocked out.

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!

Birthday Girl Treats!

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:

Mentos mini x 2 packets ($1.05 x 2) = $2.10

M&Ms milk chocolate x 1 packet = $4.95

Wang Zai mini mantou x 3 strings ($1 x 3) = $3

Goody Bags x 2 packets ($1 x 2) = 2

Manpower Cost = FOC!

Total = $12.05

Each Good Bag = ($12.05/15) = $0.80

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.