SAM - Singapore Art Museum

It was a trip down to SAM (aka Singapore Art Museum) to take advantage of the free entry during the month of August. This will be Baby G's 2nd trip; the 1st one was in July when he went with his schoolmates. It will be our first trip, so actually Baby G knew the place better than we did. Although the main entrance was free, the one to the Children's Art Garden wasn't; $5 per adult.


The 1st stop was a place called "Fruits - Wit Pimkanchanapong". All the fruits you see here are made from paper and glue. They look pretty realistic. Each ticket entitled us to one fruit that we had to fold it ourselves. Baby G choose pear & mangosteen as they ran out of apples and bananas. Glue was provided & we went to the Glass Room to try out our paper-folding skills.


In the end, I was the one who painstakingly folded & glued every little piece to come out with my mangosteen.
Mummy :- This is hard.
Baby G :- Mummy, you're lucky I chose a simple one for you.
Mummy :- Faint.....

After a while, Baby G got tired with the colouring, complaining his hands were tired (to be expected). He then went on to play with the train tracks on the other side of the table, leaving me to work on my mangosteen.



Soon he got tired and decided to try his hand at the giant puzzle pieces. Daddy accompanied him while I continued with my mangosteen.



Finally, after almost an hour, I completed my mangosteen...... phew!



The next stop was 'Tree of Love - Ben Puah". Here, the children were given markers to simply scribble or doodle to their hearts' desires. Me & Baby G left our names somewhere along one of the branches.



We then ambled along to the "Elephant Sitting & Elephant At Rest - Elephant Parade Singapore 2011" exhibition. Here, Baby G was given some stickers to stick onto the 2 elephants. But he only chose to use one sticker on one of the elephant and decided to keep the other 2 stickers for the home. *tsk tsk tsk*



As it was still early for the train workshop, we walked to the modern art exhibition... Baby G was very bored and couldn't wait to move on to the other exhibitions. Kept complaining that there was nothing to see.....



The "Mummy Dearest - Justin Lee" exhibit.


"Go - Twardzik Ching Chor Leng". Baby G enjoyed this very much.



Finally, the hour that Baby G was waiting for : the chance to start bulding his tracks. The workshop only allowed 10 children per session. We had to wait almost 2hrs for the 130pm slot to start. You can see him sitting patiently, in fact, he was the first one in and sat there waiting for them to start. After a few words of instructions from the staff, off they go......

And... to end it all, we must take a photo of the famous rabbit that marks the Children's Art.....

See you again next year....

San

Gabriel's Best Friend

Today's blog is dedicated to his best friend.

Who is Baby G's best friend? It is not a someone, but actually a 'something'. It is none other than Froggie (or Froggy)..

Froggie came to us when Baby G was literally still a baby. It was a gift from one of Ah Ma's friend; I still remember it was given to him when we were down in Tiong Bahru for breakfast. It came wrapped in a Takashimaya wrapper. Initially Baby G didn't really take to Froggie. He also had other soft toys that accompanied him on his bed & during play. I didn't really notice when was the exact moment that Froggie actually became a part of Baby G's life and ours too.



Froggie would 'follow' Baby G just before his bath. He will be placed just outside the bathroom and will be collected once Baby G finishes his bath.



What Baby G wears, Froggie also wears the same.




Froggie accompanies Baby G during play time. He simply sits there quietly with Baby G. Sometimes, Baby G will talk to him and 'look after' him. When he's playing with the cooking toys, he'll cook for Froggie to eat too.



When Baby G is sick, Froggie will also be there for him.



Froggie is always with Baby G when he is sleeping. Just before bed, he will make sure Froggie is around, else we have to find him. Froggie also travels with us on holidays, in fact, this is the only occasion that Froggie is allowed out of the house. We do not allow Froggie out of our house cause we are worried that once Froggie gets lost outside, he is irreplaceable. He's not like Mickey Mouse or Barney or those famous soft toys that are easily found in any shopping centre. Once Froggie is gone, I will never ever be able to replace him.

Now that Baby G is much older, Froggie still remains a part of his life. Although he knows that Froggie is not real, he still treats him like a good friend. Froggie still sleeps with Baby G and goes on holidays with us.

One thing Baby G doesn't like is when we wash Froggie. Baby G says that the smell is not the same or that the feel is different but no choice, Froggie has to be washed. The entire day after Froggie is washed, he'll just be complaining & nagging at us. After that, it's back to normal.

Baby G also has, a few times, requested for Froggie to be brought to school to accompany him during his nap time. He's promised me that he'll not touch Froggie except during nap. I have remained steadfast & resisted all of his begging & cajoling. Think he has more or less accepted it. However, on rare occasions, he'll tell me that his school friend's mother allows his friend to bring a soft toy. Although he doesn't specifically asks for Froggie, I know when he's trying to hint to me. I just ignore the hint. Haha.

Just wondering when he'll ever outgrow Froggie.... til then, Froggie will always be an extended part of the family.....

San

Happy Father's Day

A bit late in my post for this celebration..... but better late than never.

We decided to go down Changi Airport's T3 for our Father's Day celebrations, after hearing a number of comments that it's a place suitable for the family. Earle Swensons was our choice since we had the free ice cream courtesy of Baby G's Kid's card.

San

Birthday Weekend

Birthday Celebrations - Day 1
Baby G's birthday celebrations began very early. In fact, it started on Friday itself when he went to Sentosa's Underwater world for his school excursion. He only got back around 3pm. He was pleasantly surprised when I went over around 4pm to pick him up. He was still in the midst of having his afternoon snacks when he saw me. I told him to finish his snacks while I waited outside. I could even hear him telling his friends that his mummy is here to pick him up. While on the way back, he couldn't stop talking about his trip to the Underwater World. He talked about the fishes he saw, the stingray and the 'aeroplane' fish (can't figure what fish that was).

In the evening when Daddy returned home, we decided to go down to VivoCity to pick up our fan from Best Denki as the one in my room has finally konked out. Baby G was very excited to be able to go out again. After getting our fan, we walked around a little and finally had stopped at Swensons for his 'free' ice-cream with the Swensons' Kid Card. We thought we could have desserts but he actually ordered the Kids' meal cause he told us he was still hungry. I think he just wanted a chop on his card. Hahaha.




Birthday Celebrations - Day 2
On Saturday, we went to his 'I Can Read' classes earlier than usual as we wanted to catch the KungFu Panda II movie in the evening (courtesy of Daddy's company's free tickets). He was very excited and even told his teacher our plans for the evening.

The movie ended around 730pm and we wanted to have pasta for dinner, but can't seem to find anything suitable at Suntec. In the end, we walked all the way to Millenia and settled on Bab Noodle.



Birthday Celebrations - Day 3 (Actual day)
In the morning, we set out early to catch the RSAF Open House. Too many pics from there to post here so will do so via FB instead.

For his actual birthday party, we decided to have a BBQ at our block downstairs. It was generally a family affair.

This year, we asked him to select the cake he wanted and he chose Mickey with the aeroplane picture on top.

Besides enjoying putting the candles on and blowing them out, he especially loved opening all of his presents... and boy, there were so many of them, courtesy from all the family members.

Happy Birthday my darling boy.....

San

ps. He made me a promise that once he turns 5, he'll no longer drink from the milk bottle. I must say, so far, he's kept his promise to me.

Happy Birthday Ma-ma

It was Ma-ma's birthday on Friday. She has always liked to eat Chilli crabs so this time, we brought her to East Coast Seafood Centre. We didn't know which one to choose so I went to the HungryGoWhere website to look around. Found this restaurant called "Seafood Village" which looked like they serve interesting dishes. I called to make reservations and was told that they changed their name to 'King Crab', didn't think much of it since I thought it was only a name change.



When we actually reached there, the place was totally empty except for 2 tables filled. And it was sandwiched between 2 restaurants that were packed with food. It felt a little ominous & I was wondering if we selected the wrong place. Anyway, we proceeded to order our dishes. Had to say that the selections were quite limited.

Well, as there were so few people, our food came really fast. Service was definitely prompt. Just beside us at Long Beach, you can see lots of people with their hands up, trying to get the attention of the servers to attend to them.

Their signature dish (according to them) was the Roast Pork. I must say, it is really nice. Tender meat & crispy skin. The meat kinda has a 'melt-in-your-mouth' texture, coupled with the crunchy skin. The chilli crab sauce was very thick but it was a tad too sweet and not spicy enough. The crab itself was delicious, the meat was easy to extract from the shell. The crispy chicken was surprisingly good. I expected it to be dry as most crispy chicken are, but it wasn't. Alex liked the fried rice & Sheng Mian. The only disappointing dish was the 'Sotong With Salted Egg Yolk". Couldn't really taste any sotong and felt more like those normal fried prawn stuff.

After dinner, we took a short stroll along the beach. Though it was pretty humid and not as windy as expected. We then went back to my place for the usual 'happy birthday' cake celebration.

Happy Birthday, Ma-ma

San

Reward System

It's always difficult to get Baby G to do his worksheets so we decided to re-use the Reward System that we had when he was being toilet-trained. Basically, it consists of stickers that he gets when he completes his tasks.

Previously, when we were toilet-training him, he would be rewarded with a 'Star' sticker whenever he told us he wanted to go to the toilet. After accumulating about 20 'Stars', he would get a small prize. After he was fully toilet-trained, we stopped this Reward System and Baby G did not ask about it.

Now I have decided to re-start this system since it's so difficult to motivate him to do his worksheets. Now, for every 5 pages of worksheets, he gets a 'Star' sticker and for every 10 'Star' stickers, he'll get a prize... so that works out to 50 pages of worksheets per prize.

So far, he's accumulated 1 prize... which was the figurine from the movie, 'Rio', which we brought him to watch, courtesy of Happy Meal. Looks like we will be eating a few more Happy Meals to collect the figurines.

San

Well Done Baby G on your 1st 50 pages.....

Ouch!

Got a call from the school today while I was at work. Everytime I see the Caller ID showing his school number, I always have a feeling that he was probably up to some mischief & that the teachers were calling me to tell me about it.

This time though, the call was from "W" 老师 who told me that Baby G was bitten by his classmate, "A". She explained the entire story to me on how it all happened..... but here is Baby G's version....

When I saw him.....
Baby G :- Mummy, mummy, "A" bit me today.
Me :- Oh dear, what happened?
Baby G :- "W" 老师 asked me to look after the (white)board when she went to take her 故事书. Then the marker dropped on the floor and "A" picked it up. I wanted to give the marker to "W" 老师 but "A" didn't want to give it to me and used the marker to write on the (white)board.

(.....Accurate so far...... teacher said he was assigned to be the class monitor while she went to get some books)

Me :- And then what happened?
Baby G :- I took the marker from "A" and he bit me on the face. It's so painful. I wasn't fast to push him away.

(... I have always told him if anyone wants to hit him, he should run away towards the teacher and tell her......)
Me :- Let me see where he bit you.
Baby G :- Over here, mummy. "W" 老师 put some cream for me. All the teachers said "A" is very naughty and no one loves him.
Daddy :- Did he say 'sorry' to you?
Baby G :- Yes, he did. He even went to Miss "T" (principle's) office.
Me :- I think you're a good boy cause you told your teacher and did not bite back.
Baby G :- Yes, aren't I good? Do you know that "A" daddy *makes sound of camera* of my face?

(.....Baby G doesn't say "take picture" but he makes the sound of the camera instead.....)


Here you can tell that "A" took a big chunk of his skin......

As long as it doesn't leave any scarring, I'm not worried.

San
Poor boy