small talk...

At 21 months and 4 weeks, Kristin does amuse us sometimes with her funny facial expressions and comments.

The other night when Alan was back for dinner before he flew off to Hamburg, we all heard jingling sound of keys from our neighbour. She pretended to look all concerned and a little something like the picture below and whispered, "Oops, who's that?"

I thought that was quite something for a not-yet-two-year-old.

We had quite a chat this morning too.

Mommy: Kristin, where's Daddy?

Kristin: No, not home. Work.

Mommy: Where's Bryan?

Kristin: No, not home. Bryan is with Buba. In school.

Again, I was very amused and surprised at the same time by her capability of expressing the exact whereabout of Bryan and relating his brother to his friend, whom she also considers as her friend now. Wow... she surely doesn't need to wait till three to be able to name a friend - according to the developmental chart in Singapore Health Booklets for young children.

Yesterday, Kristin was devastated when Buba went home after the playdate. Even after she woke up from her nap, she sulked and ran quickly to the window that had a view to the garden, pining for Buba. She didn't stop pouting until I told her that Buba had to be home sleeping so that we could all see each other again in school the next morning.

Oh dear, she's surely gonna miss this boy come autumn, when Buba starts attending another school.

small talk...

After Alan left for Hamburg tonight - yes, again to Hamburg, Bryan told me, "I hope Daddy is enjoying himself with his friends like I do with my friends in school." I corrected my son's judgement of what a business trip is about by explaining to him that Daddy's in Hamburg to work and not to play and have a party.

Then after tucking the children to bed, I called up my darling to find out if he had arrived in the hotel safe and sound. There, on the other line, was loud music and he told me he's in a pub now with his colleagues.

Hmmm, guess Bryan does have a better sense of what a business trip is like than I do.

boo-hoo...

Daddy's gonna be away for the whole the week. Well, he's coming home to sleep on Tuesday night, but that's as good as being away to the children coz it will be past midnight by the time he gets home.

Bryan made such a scene when Daddy started explaining to him about flying off after dinner and being away for the week after he woke up from his nap.

Sigh... yap, it's back to crying and whining part 2!

So after Alan left, Bryan was just asking for books and more books. Kristin was absolutely being silly. She was diving on Bryan and myself, while we were reading on the couch. I think she went a little off too, knowing that Daddy will be gone for the next 5 days. But this isn't it. When I put her to bed, she took the longest 30 min to finish her 6 oz of milk! In the end, I just took out the bottle. Fortunately she didn't protest and fell straight asleep in bed.

Bryan? Sleeping soundly? No way. He was waltzing in and out of his room while I was in Kristin's room. But when I came out to the living room, I was pleasantly surprised. He's cleaned up the mess: The books, the cushions, the toys that were lying around. He knows that tomorrow is Monday. And the cleaning lady is coming :o)

what do you do with cranky children at home?

It's definitely the lack of sleep. Bryan was such a terror the whole morning, from the moment he woke up to Daddy picking him at Sunday school. Every moment was filled with some tantrum outbursts.

Yeah, we had been terrible parents. We were out the whole of last evening, night and only got home at midnight. Errm, that's horribly late for kids. But we did enjoy ourselves at Bryan's teacher's place. Marcia and Stefan invited us over for an evening of barbecue in their gorgeous garden. We were totally filled with respect when we heard how this man singlehandedly remodelled the whole house: How he knocked down walls, re-did the plumbing, laid the electrical cables etc. Sorry, didn't take any pictures there.

Anyway... I was talking about cranky kids, eh?

Yap, so what I did after lunch was I filled up a tub of soapy water (baby bath foam) for Bryan to wash his crocs imitations.

Both of them had lots of bubbly fun until Mommy's finger got pricked by a rose thorn (I was busy pulling out weeds), and Daddy caught Kristin brushing her teeth with the dirty foamy water!!! In the end, we showered them and tucked them to nap.

Erm, if you must try: Water play is definitely fun. And getting Bryan to wash his own sandals does save me alot of trouble too. But I think I shall look for a better brush the next time. I just gave the kids old toothbrushes to scrub the sandals.

joke of the week...

At the traffic light, we stopped right next to a van. Bryan exclaimed, "Look, Mommy! Look, Daddy! There is a dog inside! Right at where Mommy is sitting." Well, he meant the front passenger seat of the van.

So Alan wound down the window for him to say, "Hi, doggie!" And our son was waving frantically to get the dog's attention. He did.

Then I asked him if the dog waved back at him. Bryan replied, "No, Mommy. Dogs don't wave!"

Hee, that's what you get for posing a silly question at an almost 4 year-old! :p

Lost & Found

Our Maclaren baby pram was found & delivered back to us yesterday at 11:30am... after > 48 hrs. We were half-hoping to get a new one at Lufthansa's expense. Oh well...

btw, hello to all out there. After much persuasion, I am finally co-authoring this blog.

blog no. 1 & counting...
:o)

tec is here!

My long awaited dvd box of the Best of the Electric Company finally arrived today. The German custom still ripped me off with a duty of 7,55 Eur on top of the USD 43.97 that I paid Amazon for the dvd box plus shipping!!! But I think the fond memories the dvds has brought back is worth every cent!

Of course, I do hope that it will also inspire Bryan to be interested in reading words. While I was cooking lunch, I could hear him cracking up on the couch, watching the sketches and singing along with the funny songs. Even Kristin was imitating sounds, pretending to read.

Can't wait to watch it with Alan tonight.

Hmmm, am wondering if I would yield any results by incorporating Jolly Phonics with each episode. E.g. Bryan learnt alot on "ow" today. Maybe I should get him to write "ow". He was already hopping around on one foot, yelling "ow, ow, ow!"

what's up in london?

A paparazzi's shot in Whiteley's, Bayswater London on June 7 2007 at 1437 hrs.

brother and sister...

This is one golden moment when they do not fight.

But it isn't always picture perfect in real life.

joke of the week...

When I came home from my quick grocery shopping (I left Bryan with the cleaning lady and took Kristin along. Well, you know about the sob story of my MacLaren), I found these two bears hanging on our bookshelves.

Hmmm, who did that to the bears?
It's me, Mom.

So when Daddy came home, I directed his attention to the bears on the bookshelves.

Oh dear! Who hung the bears on the bookshelves?
I did!
What crimes did those bears commit to deserve such punishment?
Two crimes! They played with the dog. And the dog played with them.

Haha!!!!!!

P/S. The frog was the witness.

my maclaren techno xt...

The flight back from London was a torture...

For those who've been to London, we all know that London Healthrow is a huge mess.

Checking in was slow, getting through the security was slower, getting into the waiting lounge at the gate was even slower... and then getting on board was the longest wait ever. As if we hadn't waited enough for the whole morning, we had to wait for another hour in the plane for clearance to get onto the runway!!!

I would have waited with much patience and composed. In fact, the Japanese lady who sat next to me was all serene and slept through the wait for the plane to take off. But that's not the same with my two fidgety children. And to make matters worse, the baby sitting behind us wasn't the most patient one either. Those 60 minutes were like an eternity, confined to the three seats that we had for the four of us.

The plan was to have lunch when we touched down in Frankfurt. By the time we arrived and went to the baggage claim, it was already 3.30pm. What lunch? And just to wrap up the long journey with another nasty surprise: We were held up for another 45 min just to confirm that our buggy was lost!

11.30am - that was the last time we saw our MacLaren Techno XT. Gone are the fixtures of our buggy board, along with our MacLaren. Now I'm stuck at home with both kids. I really miss my MacLaren pushchair. We've been to many places together. And you never failed to help me transport both my children. What am I gonna do without a sturdy pushchair like you???

trooping the colour...

We actually wanted to catch the changing of guards at Buckingham Palace on Saturday morning. I was quite hesitant to still go through the trouble of squeezing our way through the London tube to Green Park, and then hike down to the Palace. It was already 11 am when we left home. And wasn't the changing of guards supposed to be at 11am? Hello, aren't we too late now??

Well, good thing Alan convinced me to go nonetheless. You see, one thing about Alan, sometimes the impossible does become possible. And it did that morning.

When we got to Buckingham Palace at 11.30am , we saw a couple thousands of tourists surrounding the whole palace gate, watching expectantly. Now, I thought changing of guards was long over. It turned out to be our lucky day. This was what we saw at about 12 nn.

We caught Trooping the Colour on rehearsal! (Hee, something we only found out at the end of the day when we got home. Apparently, Trooping the Colour is aka The Queen's Parade - meant to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Though her birthday is on the 21st of April, the parade usually takes place in June when good weather is often promised and the Queen herself will ride in a carriage into the palace to inspect her troops. And that will happen next Saturday on the 16th.)

Didn't I say that Kristin is our lucky star? Changing of guards I've seen before... but Trooping the Colour, no, not until today! I think we've seen enough of the Queen's troops for the rest of our lives. We were indeed very fortunate coz tickets to such a parade were balloted and the balloting has long closed. The public can only watch the parade from the mall or on TV next Saturday. Ok, we still didn't see the Queen herself. But it was a colourful treat to the eyes of many tourists, including ours too!

We didn't do much shopping this time round in London. But we certainly did more sights.

on westminster bridge...

What did she see up on Westminster Bridge?

london, here we come...

This is our lady luck for the day!

We arrived as scheduled. And after making our way through the maze of Healthrow Airport, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the queue at the immigration was manageable. In fact, we cleared the custom, picked up our bags in less than 30 minutes. So early that the cab we ordered hasn't even arrived. We thought it would still be another one good hour to get into Central London given the heavy traffic in the late afternoon... Boy, were we mistaken. We were at Swiss Cottage in just another 30 minutes!

Kristin, first time in London? You're a lucky girl! :)

in and out of cherry windows...

When I was about 2.5 years old, I too went to a nursery. (See, there's a family tradition to send children to school early... haha!) That was the result of pestering my mom every morning, when I saw happy preschoolers marching past our windows to get to their PAP kindergarten just next block. But no one then would accept anyone at three, much less a toddler who's just about 2.5 years old. After a hunt for a nursery, my mom finally found a private one in Chip Bee Garden. Hmm, wonder if that place still exists.

I had fond memories, snapshots here and there. And I particularly enjoyed a song. It doesn't quite make much sense to me right now, or my memory has certainly faded. Nonetheless, I found myself humming to the tune yesterday during lunch. Out of the blue, the words came out as I tried hard to help both my children to concentrate on their lunch.

It went like this: "In and out of cherry windows (x3), I am the leader. Tappa' (x3) on my shoulder, Tappa' (x3) on my shoulder, Tappa' (x3) on my shoulder, I am the leader."
It was a game we used to play during the nursery class, where children held hands to form a circle and one kid would be tunneling in and out of the circle under the held hands, until this kid decided to tap the shoulders of another kid to make him the leader. And then the little train continued to tunnel in and out the circle to find another leader.

Within 5 minutes, Bryan was singing the song together with me.
This morning, he asked me where Mommy learnt the song from.

From my teacher, in my kindergarten, of course.
Oh, I see. I learnt mine in the kindergarten too. You see, we sing, "In and out of cherry doors (x3), I am the engineer."

Hey, son. You sure think fast.

Btw, if you've ever heard of anything close to my version of cherry windows, please leave me a note.

joke of the week...

This little conversation happened on our short drive back home from Ikea tonight.

Bryan: Hmmm, Ikea was the play park. It has a wonderful slide. Errmm, No. 1 was to go to a play park. And No. 2 was to climb up a mountain. Hey, I did both already. I've done it in life!

Daddy and Mommy were rolling in laughter - ok, I won't exaggerate. We were in the car and Alan was driving.

Looks like we've got a son with simple ambitions in life.
Remember my earlier post when I mentioned what he wanted to do in this summer, he said it with greatest satisfaction: I did it in life!

I'm really glad for you, my boy!

Lego bricks galore...

Have you ever seen so many Lego bricks on display in your life?

I remember the time when Lego did its tour around the world and stopped by in Singapore - was it in the Concourse or some hotel along Beach Road? Anyway, that was eons back, and I was only 6, possibly 7... whatever! I thought I saw an immense amount of Lego bricks. There were Darth Vader, R2D2, CP3O, Luke Skywalker etc... all decked out in Lego bricks. But I ain't seeing nothing until I was in Legoland Guenzburg. It was purely Lego bricks galore!

And... nothing beats travelling in groups: Daddies and Mommies have adult company, while the kids have each other to play with. Legoland was a blast for both families!

Here we were in the Legoland Express, checking out Lego town and starting out on our day of crazy rides.

One moment, the boys were knights on their horses, riding at the foot of the castle. Next moment, they were on a Safari tour out in Africa! They canoed, they flew aeroplanes, steered boats, went up a manually-operated lift (thanks to Daddies' arm power), drove trains, they were firemen etc. The highlight of the day was when they became pirates - kings of the high sea, gunning down people and sharks alike with their water canons!

Going to a play park - That's the other thing that Bryan wanted to do this summer.

Will post more photos and upload videos soon. :)

is that really me?

Guess curiosity got the better of me:
2,805,259 people took this quiz and there are 137,770 others like me out there...? Nah...

VIOLET

You surround yourself with art and music and are constantly driven to express yourself. You often daydream. You prefer honesty in your relationships and believe strongly in your personal morals.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Surrounding myself with art and music? Well, at the moment, I only read children's books. All tunes must be approved of by my 4-yr-old son. So much for art and music and self-expression therein.

Daydream... yeah, who wouldn't? Just a dose of it is always good. It gives hope, does it not? ;)

Hmmm, but the last part??? Gee, that makes me sound like a puritan. Haha! But, hey, a second read: Mark the word "personal". This could be anything, man.