Happy 5th Birthday, Rynae!

This year, Rynae's birthday fell on a school day hence Mummy asked if she wanted to give out goodies bags to her classmates. There was a period of time when she was paranoid about growing up, getting old and dropping teeth (long story) so by acknowledging her birthday, I hope she can overcome her fears. She said she wanted and I acceded her request by fully sponsoring the 26 goodies bags. I asked her what she wanted to put inside them and I'll get all sorts of (funny) ideas. In the end, we settled with some tidbits, some sweets, a balloon and a party blower in each bag.

If you remember, she gave out goodies bags in pre-nursery 2 years ago but those were prepared by me. Now that she is old enough, I got her involved in packing them. This will give her more ownership and pride. It delighted me to know that she had a great time sharing the gifts with her friends at school and getting blissful birthday wishes. Happy birthday my darling! Stay out of trouble and be an obedient girl.

Young Author

Sometimes when Rynae is bored, she'll find her own programme. This time, she got into the mood of being an author, an illustrator and a publisher. This is her very first book and I'm gonna keep it as memento. The title of the story is 'Going to the Movie' (If you noticed, the title was corrected after the story took a twist.. aka side-track).

Here's the storyline:

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Lilly. She went to the movie. One day she reached the movie. There was an empty seat so Lilly sat on the seat. Soon Lilly said 'What is that?' Soon a thunder came. Soon it was raining. So luckily Lilly brought and umbrella and got home."

~The End~

Believe it or not? I am giggling as I am typing out the storyline now. It's such a child-like story! But, I love it! I love the innocence of the storyline but the maturity behind the idea. Our friend scripted it herself and she merely asked for my help when she didn't know how to spell some words. I am so proud of her.

Fly My Kite

Daddy loves to bring Rynae kite flying when the weather permits. She will play the part of an assistant and be given the responsibility to keep the kite soaring high after Daddy brings it up into the air. We're lucky we've got a vast land nearby for this activity.

7 Month Old

I cannot believe how time flies. It's been exactly a month since my last post and I bet you must be yearning for my update. Cowboy is 7+ month old now and is an active, cheery and easy-going individual. He is off breast milk now and am now fully formula fed. This chap doesn't like plain rice cereal hence Mummy mixes baby pureed food into the rice cereal to boost its flavour. What a gourmet.

As for physical milestone, he is able to sit but unstable. It is so amusing to see him commando crawling now. And you know what? This is the most rewarding and satisfying moment of being a SAHM because you get to see your child's milestone at every step of their growth. You get to prepare their meals and you get to nurse them back to health if they fall sick. You felt so important when you know that 2 lives are so dependant on you. I was a FTWM after I gave birth to Rynae and I felt that I missed out a lot. Yes! I'm enjoying every moment bringing up and spending time with Cowboy and Rynae now.

Rynae's New Look

We collected Rynae's glasses yesterday and had a difficult time conning her to put them on. She will carry this new look from now. I kinda like it.

Diapers Pressies?

The picture you see above is not taken in a warehouse. It is my home, turned temporary storeroom for a bulk purchase order of diapers from ibaby.com.sg. I am attracted to their cheap selling price. Furthurmore, the diapers can also be delivered to your doorstep with a $6 delivery fee top up. Saves a lot of enery to lug them back! I shared the lobang and delivery fee with one of my neighbours and one of my sisters so each of us just need to pay $2 delivery fee! These loots were delivered to me on X'mas Eve and with no other free area to hold them, I had them sit in a corner, beside my X'mas tree. Gee... such large pressies...

My First Taste Of Cereal

I couldn't believe that half a year is gone in a puff. My boy turns 6 months old today! And.. it's also the ripe time to start him on semi-solid. Nah... he didn't quite like it but managed to finish most of his feed (because I thrust it down his throat!).

1 Night In Rasa Sentosa

Coca Cola - The enery drink for swimming.

Enjoying his complimentary morning breakfast buffet. Made such a mess!

Our hunk, basking in the sun

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la... This is what I hear everywhere I go now. The spirit of the season is strong and infectious and everyone's in holiday mood, planning how and where to spend the last days of the year. Even my sisters and parents have gone down under to Perth to greet the kangaroos and do up their christmas shopping.

It is such a hassle to go travelling with a baby hence we chose to take up a 1 night stay at Rasa Sentosa special staff discount in Daddy's company. We brought Rynae there when she was about 2 years old and we're gonna revisit that place again. Asked if she remembered the trip, our friend could hardly recall anything as she was still too young then. Her memory bank started maturing only when she was 3 years old.

Older now, she enjoyed her stay more than when she was just a tot. She wanna get involved in finding the hotel room, wanna insert the room key, wanna soak in bath tub and had many more requests. This trip was planned with her in mind and we had a good family bonding time together. We are sure to be back next time they have such promotion again.

4-Eyed Gal

So the verdict is out - Rynae would need to wear spectacles. I'm not surprised actually because I knew that something is gonna be wrong with her eyes when she rubs and squints them often while watching TV, complains of eye pain and headache frequently. If you remember, I did bring her for an eye check up in March this year but because she was uncooperative, we couldn't find out how serious her condition was.

I finally had her redo her vision test at a polyclinic on Tuesday. Her score was terrible - 6/18 and she was referred to KKH immediately. It was also my intention to route via a polyclinic so that we could enjoy a subsidised rate at KKH.

After a detailed assessment, she was not short-sighted but had rather high astigmatism - 275 for left eye and 175 for the right. Worst of all, she had minor amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye. The cause of it was due to the long period of poor vision hence the brain has not been working hard to process the image received from the weak eye. Our friend has to be put on glasses so as to stimulate the brain to process normal sight.

I cannot imagine an active young lass like her wearing glasses. Comical or studious? I look forward to see the look.

R.I.P FIL

Our whole family went back to indonesia for about 2 weeks recently. It was always with much happiness everytime we make the trip but emotions were different this time. We went back holding back tears in our eyes and with hearts never so heavy before. 14th November - a date that I'll not forget - the date that we lost someone we love and respect - my FIL, my 2 children's fraternal grandfather.

It happened like this...

We received a call from Indonesia on that fateful day informing us that grandfather collapsed while having lunch but in a moment of frantic, information conveyed weren't clear. We thought he had merely fainted and they were trying to resuscitate him. We were alarmed and stayed by the phone for update, hoping to receive good news. The next call crashed our day. He was gone. We couldn't accept it. My FIL has always held a pink health slip and how could someone so healthy given his age be gone in a puff? In deep sorrow, we packed our lugguages and rushed for the night ferry back. My FIL was a man with a big heart and was the easiest-going and contented old man I've known. He was happy as long as his love ones are. We could not accept his departure.

It is with deep, fond memories of him that I'm writing this blog. R.I.P FIL. You'll always be in our hearts.

Art Class

Together with 3 other neighbour mummies, we signed our kids up for art class every Friday evening at a nearby community centre. With company of friends, Rynae enjoyed her lessons more. She was taught how to draw penguins in the first lesson. She did fairly well and her drawings were visibly more distinct than her peers. Well done!

Painting On Pebbles

Mummy used to do a lot of crafts and activities with Rynae but after the arrival of little brother, it was difficult to find decent free time to spend with her. She has school in the morning and her afternoon nap time coincides with Raynen hence while she's awake, so is he. Evening is the only possible period for me to interact with her but guilty speaking, I was hooked to Starhub channel 55's Moonlight Resonance for the past 2 months. Damn. That's the addiction of drama series! I was contented to wrap up the TVB big hit after watching the finale yesterday night. I forbid myself to catch on another drama and I'm gonna use this free time to do something productive - not on facebook but to spend quality time with Rynae.

When I told her that we're going to do some painting on pebbles, she was elated. She got so excited that she couldn't even wait for me to set up the things! I picked up a pebble and painted too. After a long day of nagging and chiding, it felt totally different doing crafts with her. We were both relaxed and at ease and she ranted about everything that came to her mind.

I noticed that she has a better concept of colour usage now. Previously, her paintings were always a whirlpool of colours but now, white is white, red is red and black is black. Her only complain was that the pebbles were too small for her to paint anything explicitly. Well, I couldn't agree more.

Rock and Roll!

Yeah.. It's another milestone. My boy can roll over now! In fact, his first successful attempt was when he was 3 months and 3 weeks old but I wasn't sure if I should record it down as I suspect it could be a moment of sheer luck. To be fair and accurate, I recorded his achievement at 4 months and 4 days old. Like any other babies, he couldn't lie still on his back from then onwards.

Mummy wasn't quite enthusiastic about his new found capability because changing his diaper and minding him has become a challenge. I used to dump him on the sofa while I run errands around the house but this form of convenience will cease to happen again. My boy is an acrobat who has fallen once from my bed and once from the sarong (Negligence parenting. Haha). Thank god his falls were blessed with no injury.

4 Months Old

Review On DVD - World of English Vol.1

I like to pop into Popular bookshop whenever I pass by any because there're always new preschool activity books. One day when I was checking the shelves, I inadvertently found one new DVD title - World of English. The cover's simple and straight forward enough - teach beginners verbs, nouns, adjectives and antonyms and that's what I would like Rynae to learn next. However, I hesitated about buying it because it was priced at $19.90. I'm also doubtful about its content. Couldn't possibly rely on packaging ya?

Went home and googled it but there were no relevant search results. The closest result was a DVD bulk purchase exercise organised in SMH. I read from there that the content is animated and I could buy it at just $15.50! Of course I grabbed a copy.

Rynae is a TV addict and was so excited that she has a new DVD to watch. Ask for my review on it and I'll say it's a pretty good buy. Besides a shortcoming on the flat and back-dated illustration style, language used is simple and teaching approach is soft.

Cow Boy's First Trip To Zoo

Rynae's been requesting like a broken record to go to the zoo and we felt that it's time to visit that place before our Friends of the Zoo membership expires in November. Anyway, the last time I brought her there was when I was heavily pregnant with Raynen, and that was already 5 months ago! Gosh. Our membership is so under-utilised!

We wanna hit a weekday hence Daddy's gonna take leave. Last Sunday, we checked NEA's weather forcast for the next 3 days' weather outlook - Mon to Wed morning showers with thunder. Well, no choice, gota postpone. HOWEVER, there weren't a single drop of rain for that 3 days! Mummy was miffed. Who needs a forecast if it has such low accuracy? Next check - Thur to Sat morning showers with thunder too. Heck. Friday it shall be. And guess what? It was bright and sunny on that day. Now.. I'll never believe NEA's weather forecast again.

As it was a weekday, there was no crowd at the zoo. It felt so touristy with the presence of many ang mos and hybrid expatriats. After paying insincere visits to some of the animals there, we headed right for the main attraction - the Rainforest Kidzworld. My lass had a whale of a time there. As for Raynen, he is still too young to enjoy the outing... for now..

The happiest person in this excursion

'Guest of Honour' at Rainforest KidzWorld

I Can Carry Him!

3rd Month Injection

"Mum! Save me!"

There are so many decisions to be made when it comes to matters of children. Before birth, parents have to decide what pram brand to buy, at birth have to choose what formula to give and now after birth have to decide what type of immunisation to give and where. 5in1 or 6in1? GP, PD or polyclinic?

Rynae had 6in1 immunisation at a PD hence initially we decided to follow suit for Raynen too, until neighbours and friends advised that there is actually no need to spend that much. Indeed, after a comparision, 6in1 package costs only $326.10 at a Polyclinic while a PD charges $500. On top of that, PD also charges $45 consultation fee for each visit while Polyclinic charges a mere $4.80. With 2 children now and surviving on a single income, we thought we had better be more frugal in our spending thus we opted for Polyclinic. Afterall, their vaccines are all from GSK and there were already so many infants being vaccinated in Polyclinic!

We pre-booked an appointment at Polyclinic for Raynen's 3rd month vacination & assessment today. As Polyclinic does not provide vacination for Rotavirus, we hopped over thereafter, to Rynae's PD for first dose of the oral medication. Our little friend was force fed the vaccine by the PD and we prayed hard then that he keeps the medicine down. 'Cos it cost $105 ok!

Recently, Mr Mah Bow Tan announced a possibility to include Pneumococcal as part of the National Childhood Immunisation Programme. However, there were no details as yet on the implementation timeline. Rynae was immunised with just 1 jab at 2 yrs old and Raynen will definitely be given the jab too. According to the schedule, he would need 4 doses, which means more pain and also more money - $150 to $180 per jab! We have no intention to put him through the pain now hence we hope that by the time he turns 1, there would be news about the implementation details. Looking forward to a subsidised price!

Raynen's First Passport

Raynen's passport was ready for collection and we brought him down personally to claim it today. There were many others who were there for the same purpose hence in the end, we waited for over an hour. It would be commendable if they could open a counter to provide speedy passport collection service for infants and children below 2 years old. With this little red book, Cowboy can now travel cross borders! First destination should be Indonesia. Woohoo...

3 Months Old

In a bink of an eye, Cow Boy is 3 months old already. He doesn't cry like a newborn now but converses his needs by different whines, shouts and cries. Sometimes, he also gives cues with different facial expressions. At 3 months, he is able to hold his head upright (though at times a little wobbly), is learning to exercise control of his hands and can see further objects and people. This chap is becoming more curious about his environment hence he doesn't like to be carried lying down anymore (unless he needs to be pat to sleep). It is tiresome to carry him for long but I love to hold him because I know that in time to come, he'll be squirming out of my arms.