"JAIMIE"

Kindly allow a very proud mother to show off her daughter's first writing of her name!!!!

Clement helped her with "M" by holding her hand because Jaimie insisted that she couldn't write it. She wrote the other letters herself!!!

Jaimie dear, Mommy is SSSSOOOOOO proud of you!

A Very Focused Zoo Trip

We wanted to go to the zoo for 3 reasons. (1) Try out my new fujifilm F70. (2) Let Jaimie play at the at water playground (3) take the boat ride.

Our plan was to go to the zoo tomorrow afternoon but we decided we should go today instead so as not to miss out the good weather. It was windy and sunny -- a PERFECT day for an outdoor trip until our car drove out of our car park. It started to rain.

Ho-seh liow lor.

Nothing is going to distract us from our focuses. Armed with 2 big umbrellas and a child's raincoat which we got from our last fire station visit, we went ahead to the zoo. Jaimie was reluctant to wear the raincoat until we told her that she would not be allowed to take the boat ride if she got wet. Then she obliged.

Luckily the rain stopped about half an hour later.
We only stopped by to see the few animals (deer, lions, zebra, peacock) which was along the way to the kids' playground.
Jaimie was, as usual, thrilled to play in the water.


I suspect Jaimie is undergoing a growth spurt lately because her appetite is extremely good. She just had a big bowl of porridge at her grandma's place at 11am and she was yelling that she was very hungry at 3pm. I showered and changed her while Clement bought her a chicken popcorn chicky meal. She ate half the chicken popcorn and drank 3/4 cup of milo.

Then we proceeded to take the boat ride.
The boat ride was boring and short. We didn't think it was worth the money but Jaimie enjoyed it. We were saying we would rather pay the same amount of money to take the tram instead the next time we visit the zoo. That was another thing Jaimie had been asking for every time we visited the zoo.


We tried out with the new camera. The pictures did not turn out as good as we expected them to be. I will call my IT helpdesk (aka Clement) to look into the matter. Perhaps it was the camera setting.

Objective (1), (2) and (3) completed.

And my arms were very tired from carrying Jaimie in the zoo.

Sunny Sunday, Let's Go and Play

Although Clement was on the verge of falling sick with a sore throat and a blocked nose, we went ahead with our plan to bring Jaimie to the Jurong West Swimming Complex for some water play.

It was fun to just drift along with the water current in the lazy pool and enjoy the waves in the wave pool. Jaimie was uncomfortable with the water sprays in the lazy pool and refused to go another round while I laid on the rented float and went in circles.

They said no photography and no food in the pool so these shots were taken sercetly. This public pool is weird in the sense that it is a popular picnic place for non-Chinese. There are many, many groups of people who brought their picnic mats, curry puffs, fried bee hoon, coke, kweh-kwehs (in big trays!!!) into the swimming complex. Most of them came in near noon time. As soon as they found a shady spot (eg, under the bridge), they laid out their mat and food and they camped there. I even saw a man eating curry puffs after curry puffs INSIDE the kids' pool. I wonder why he couldn't come out of the pool to eat his food. After we had moved to the condominium, we were quite pampered so we couldn't bring ourselves to shower in public toilets anymore. We dried ourselves and put on our clothes over our swimming costumes and left the place before somebody spilled curry chicken inside the pool.



After 3 hours of water play, we were all tanned by at least 3 shades. Jaimie took a nap after her lunch and we left for more Kids' Dance session at the Esplanade. Unfortunately, the usual friends couldn't join Jaimie at the dance today.

Jaimie was quite excited about the dance session because she had a lot of fun last week. Since we were early, we walked around and took some photos before the dance session began at 6pm.

Jaimie dancing before the show.

Jaimie was more badly behaved today than last week. She shy to go on stage at first. After some encouragement from Clement, she decided to hop onto the stage. There, she was more interested in disciplining other children and reporting their misbehaviours to the instructor than to follow the instructions. She almost got into a fight with a boy!

Anyway, the kids participants today were more challenging than last week's. Many of them were rolling, crawling on the floor, attempting forward roll etc. Anything but following the instructions. It was so bad that the instructor had to threaten those kids who kept hopping on and off the stage that if they ran off again, they were not allowed to come back; and if they misbehave again, they will be removed from the stage/ scolded. Jaimie was such a disgrace that I had to remove her from the stage at one point of time too.

Here are some evidence of her misbehaving.

Bochup.

Hopping wildlly with the other kids and not listening to the instructor.

Disciplining others.

The instructor "threatening" the gang of naughty children.

Bochup somemore.

*sigh* it's really not easy to conduct a kids' class!

After the dance, we went for dinner at one of my favourite places, Thai Express, for dinner with Meekfreek and family. Izzy woke up late from her nap and hence they were not in time to join in the dance. However, the girls had a good time together!

Halloween-- The Longkang Fishes' Nightmare

It's Halloween. We must to do something scary. Let's do it to the poor, defenceless fishes in Bottle Tree Park. I messaged my usual partners in crime and 3 of them responded.

To terrorise the fishes, WG brought her mom and sister. Joyce brought the most skillful fisherman and a diver. MF came with the most formidable longkang fisher who caught the most number of fishes in the shortest time. Clement and Jaimie chased after the fish like Michael Myers.

As usual, the kids had lots of fun! It was about 6pm when it began to rain heavily. WG left early and the rest of us adjourned to the Japanese restaurant for dinner before we went home.

Jaimie having fun in the longkang... in her underwear. She wasn't shy about it.

Rain preferred not to dirty her feet so her Ah Mah and Ah Yi caught the fishes for her.


Cherrlyn came shortly after we did. If CS didn't stop her, she would be diving in the longkang. Hahaha~
Jaimie trying to catch a fish. Literally.

The patches on Clement's shirt was not water from the longkang but his prespiration. After 30min+++ of hard work, he finally caught the FIRST fish!!!!!!! I think the others caught their first fish in the first 3mins...

Must take a picture of this VERY FIRST FISH Clement caught. We named it BRAVO.

Jaimie admiring Bravo.

Still admiring Bravo because Clement had not caught the second fish.

Champion fishermen!

Cherrlyn: "What shall we do with the fishes?"

Jaimie: "Make curry fish head."

Izzy: "I prefer asam fish head."

Clement: "..."

Assessment Books and a panicking mom

I was walking aimlessly in Popular Bookshop while waiting for Clement and I happened to pass by a stack of assessment books.

Wow! They do have assessment books for nursery children!! However, when I picked up the books, I was quite shocked to see the difficulty level of these assessment books! For age 3-4 (that is Jaimie's age!), besides writing small and capital letters, they have a book on writing sentences too!!!! For the Chinese books, there are books on writing simple characters besides the easier ones on learning the basic strokes （笔画）and basic element （部首）of a word!

Suddenly I panicked.

Jaimie could only recognise the letters and write the capital A and B (I am not sure about the other letters as I seldom asked her to write for me to see). For Chinese characters, she could only recongise 小 at the moment. I have not even started to ask her to write anything!

Many of my friends' children who are of the same age as Jaimie seem to be far more advanced than her. Some can read, some can write, some can do maths, some can draw. Jaimie can only talk and dance. =_=

Sometimes I really wonder if I should be doing more than what the teachers are teaching her in her childcare. When should I start her on doing extra homework on a routine basis. How much should she be learning now. I do not need her to be very advanced but neither do I want her to be falling behind. I want her to have a fun childhood but am I sabotaging her future learning. Is there a guideline to advise parents the average progress of a child at different age.

I have no answers.

So I bought 2 letter tracing books for Jaimie just to make myself feel better.

Kara-O-Jae

Its a wonderful day today, to be on leave from work, be able to catch up with couple of primary school classmates in the morning, and then spending the entire afternoon hitting high (pitchy too) notes at KBox with Angie.

We decided to play around with the song recording feature so we ended up picking some songs that Jaimie likes, so she might hopefully get a kick from hearing Papa and Mama's renditions when they are eventually played from our mobile phones. It turned out to be really easy to use. Just hit the record button on the touch screen panel when the song begins, then again when it ends, and send the recording to your mobile via bluetooth. It's quite cool. Those of you who havn't tried this should do so the next time you visit KBox @ Jurong SAFRA.

Here are a couple of recordings that we did for Jae. She was all smiles when we played them for her just now. :)

Yes yes....you Simon Cowels out there, we are aware of how these sound. But hey, at least we've got one little appreciative audience who'd enjoy these as bedtime tunes. :)

童年



外婆的澎湖湾

Yo Yo Yo! Hip Hop @ Esplanade With Friends

Wolfgirl jio us to go to the Esplanade for children's hip hop dance last week. It is one of the activities of the dance festival that is happening there. I was very keen to bring Jaimie to go but I forgot all about it until Joyce sms-ed me last evening when I was having dinner after another kite flying session at WCP. Thanks Joyce!!!! I would regret it very much if I had missed it!

The dance session for children start at 6pm. We went early since Jaimie missed her nap again today. Jaimie was totally excited about "dancing".

See, she even did Bollywood dancing as a warm up.

Maybe she will go for an audition for the musical "Cats" as well.

And maybe one day, she will perform in the esplanade... maybe.. one day...

Warming up at the beam, do some stretching before the hip hop.

No lah. She was just practicing how to climb out of her castle when her prince comes to rescue her.

WG arrived shortly after we did. Jaimie was extremely happy to see Rain.

And I am happy to see my good friends too!

Yo yo yo!! Check out these girls!

There was a hip hop performance by a group of teens. After that, it was hip hop time for the kids. 2 young and funky teenagers went on stage to teach some simple movements. Jaimie enjoyed herself trememdously although she was shy at first (bluff one lah).

She takes instructions quite well.

Look at her expression. Attitude, yo! Attitude!!

They were told to strike a pose. Jaimie's one is not too bad. Yo yo!!

Parents were invited to go on stage to dance with their kids. Errr.... we prefer to take photos.

After an hour of fun and dancing, Joyce's family and us went to Kenny Rogers for dinner. Because I had some discount vouchers, we split table so that we could split the bill. Silly me, I think we should have joined tables after we ordered seperately. Nonetheless, Cherrlyn and Jaimie had more fun running around the tables after they finished their dinner.

Jaimie totally zonked out after that. She fell asleep on the way home, which rarely happens.

Jaimie's interest in dancing is apparent and I am seriously considering dance classes for Jaimie. Maybe not ballet but hip hop or something. We'll be checking the classes out. Do drop me a comment if you have any good recommendations. Thanks!! :D

To Fly Kite To fly kite to fly kite again

This is a breezy Saturday afternoon. Daddy brings me to West Coast Park to fly kite again. This is my third time flying a kite.

Daddy says Ayden gor-gor is joining us for the kite flying too.

I am trying to help daddy to tie the kite.

In the end, he does it himself.

I thought I am quite experienced in kite flying so I try to fly it myself.

Well, I still need daddy's help.

Yeah!! See my octopus kite?

Daddy says, "Be Happy."

He is happily flying my kite...

No wonder he gets tired faster than I do.

Suddenly, the wind died and my kite falls onto the ground. No matter how hard I try, it will not go up the sky again.

So we go over to the playground instead. What can I do at the playground?

I can walk on the balancing beam without support.

I can hop over.

I can walk on the rope by myself.

I can balance on the pole.

I can't bury my feet in the sand myself. Daddy does it.

After an hour and a half of fun, we go to West Coast Plaza for the BBQ chicken dinner with Ayden gor-gor. Mommy says the chicken taste good today. They do not have the frozen chicken smell like the ones she had the last time.

This is a lovely Saturday evening.

Bento #99

I got to know YB because of my sister in law, and because all of us are MayDay fans. :D

YB went to Tapiei to watch the MayDay DNA Concert in September (ENVIOUS!!!!) and then flew to Okinawa to continue with part 2 of her trip. This is SO GOOD! I wish I could do the same!!!

Anyway, YB came back from Okinawa with a super lovely Hello Kitty bento box for me! I like the samurai kitty so much! And yes, Okinawa and samurai are closely related. I just goggled to find out. Click here if you are interested to find out more.

Fried udon seems to fit perfectly into the Samurai box! This time, I tried mixing oyster sauce and black pepper sauce to give it a peppery taste. Not bad!!

I shall make something nicer to put inside this box next time.

Thanks for the bento box and the friendship, YB!!

I really must say it again -- MAYDAY ROCKS!