The Bub in the Belly

Happy and Sad Elmo

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

We are pretty excited about what Ryan drew last night!

The night before, Richard introduced the watercolour paper to Ryan. Ryan has worked with watercolour before but not on watercolour paper. He was very excited and last night, he actually asked Richard to set up the art table for him again!

In addition to his usual art pieces, he made this.

The first thing he did was to write "Elmo" at the bottom in blue. Richard said, "Elmo is red!", so Ryan wrote "Elmo" in red directly above the blue "Elmo". Then, using the blue watercolour again, Ryan drew a face! Can you see it on the left? Two eyes, one nose and a smile! After that, Ryan used the red watercolour and drew another smiling face (in the middle) and a sad face (on the right)! Then he wrote the word "sad".

He did everything on his own, completely unaided. I wasn't even there, I was editing a movie in another room. Richard told me what he had drawn and I asked Ryan as well. Ryan said "Happy Elmo" and "Sad Elmo" when I asked him what it was. When I pointed to the dots for the nose and asked him what's that, he cheekily sniffed a few times (to signify his nose). When I pointed to the dots for the eyes and asked him what's that, he blinked his eyes!

Ryan had been playing all day with an Elmo hand puppet, so it was not surprising that Elmo was prominent in his thoughts.

We were really excited! We knew that Ryan could write and spell of course, plus we knew that he was aware what happy and sad mean, but this is the first time that we've seen him draw a face. I think he must have seen some similar images somewhere, because we have not taught him to use dots for the eyes/nose and a curved line for the mouth.

Drawing faces is supposed to be a developmental milestone for his age, so it's really good news to know that he's right on track! Well done, son!

Spelling

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Here's a Youtube video (2:14 minutes) of Ryan playing with something we bought last Sunday, basically spelling words to match pictures.

Ryan is taking his time to spell as he is a little preoccupied with handling the material (this is the very first time he is playing with this). You can also see how tidy he is, making sure that the letters fit nicely on the spaces. I got a little impatient (because I know he knows the spelling for these words) so I tried to prompt him but I misled him by prompting with the wrong letter sound! He was spelling the word "CLOCK" (at 1:30) and he said "L". I wanted to repeat after him, but somehow I said "/e/" instead of "L", so he picked up the letter "E". Just goes to show that sometimes trying to help is not helpful!

Ryan can pretty much read all the words in the set, if I spell them out for him. The question is whether he can spell the words himself. Spelling is a different thought process from reading so even if you can read a word, you may not be able to spell it. For the picture sheet that you see in the video, Ryan is very familiar with the spelling for those words, but there are more advanced sheets in the set, which he may not know how to spell out, so we will be working through them slowly.

This set was pretty cheap - about $10 from Popular Bookstore. If you're interested in this sort of game, there are lots around and we have a few different versions at home. You can consider Boggle Jr. - Ryan has been playing Boggle Jr. at his nanny's place, which is similar - it also lets him form words to match picture cards (or word cards).

Happy Valentine's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Happy Valentine's Day to these two lovelies of mine!

Our morning was spent at the modelling agency where Ryan had his agency shots updated. He's getting better and better at the whole thing and the session went really well - I can't wait for the photos!

I went into the office in the afternoon, and was greeted by this lovely thing.

It's my Valentine's Day bouquet! Thank you hubs!

Also got these from my office! Love them! Muack Muack!

The three of us had dinner at The Big Bad Wolf in Tanjong Katong where we had the most amazing pulled pork. I am definitely going back there to have it again!

Can you spot the big bad wolf?

To top it off, my dear hubby bought me a new gadget, something I've been dreaming of for some time! I need some time to figure out how to use it though - it looks pretty high-tech! Thank you hubby - big muacks!

Here's to all our loved ones - Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!

As around the sun the earth knows she's revolving
And the rosebuds know to bloom in early may
Just as hate knows love's the cure
You can rest your mind assure
That I'll be loving you always

As now can't reveal the mystery of tomorrow
But in passing will grow older every day
Just as all that's born is new
You know what I say is true
That I'll be loving you always

(Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky)
Always
(Until the ocean covers every mountain high)
Always
(Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea)
Always
(Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream)

Did you know that true love asks for nothing
No no her acceptance is the way we pay
Did you know that life has given love a guarantee
To last through forever and another day

Just as time knew to move on since the beginning
And the seasons know exactly when to change
Just as kindness knows no shame
Know through all your joy and pain
That I'll be loving you always

As today I know I'm living
But tomorrow could make me the past
But that I mustn't fear
For I'll know deep in my mind
The love of me I've left behind
'Cause I'll be loving you always

(Until the day is night and night becomes the day)
Always
(Until the trees and seas just up and fly away)
Always
(Until the day that eight times eight times eight is four)
Always
(Until the day that is the day that are no more)
Did you know you're loved by somebody
(Until the day the earth starts turnin' right to left)
Always
(Until the earth just for the sun denies itself)
I'll be lovin you forever
(Until dear mother nature says her work is through)
Always
(Until the day that you are me and I am you)
Always
(Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky
Until the ocean severs every mountain high)
Always mm mm

We all know sometimes life hates and troubles
Can make you wish you were born in another time and space
But you can bet your lifetimes that and twice it's double
That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed
So make sure when you say you're in it, but not of it
You're not helpin' to make this earth
A place sometimes called hell
Change your words into truths
And then change that truth into love
And maybe our children's grandchildren
And their great grandchildren will tell
I'll be loving you until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky

- "As" by Stevie Wonder

Our weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Last weekend, after the many months filled with festivities (Christmas season, Chinese New Year) and the many months of rainy weather, we settled back into familiar activities.

On Saturday, we went to Vivocity for lunch and I also popped into Daiso (love this store!). We also popped into Page One bookstore to check out their closing down sale where Richard picked up a ton of books on design and architecture. After that, we took Ryan to Forum the Shopping Mall to get some new clothes and to get a haircut, as he is scheduled for a photoshoot at his modelling agency in a couple of days.

We got home close to 6 pm and it was straight to the playground! Lots of people were there, the place was very lively.

Our dog, Max, came along too.

Ryan has been keeping horrendous hours recently - he's been going to bed at 3 am! Mind you, he's not walking around like a zombie, eyes half-closed, and refusing to sleep. Nope, he's a full-on Energizer bunny right till the end! On Saturday, he didn't take his afternoon nap, so we were hoping that he would have an early night and he did - he fell asleep in the car on the way out to dinner (about 8 pm) - but he woke up about 11 pm and refused to sleep till 6 am! Obviously depriving him of his nap didn't work out.

Sunday was a washout. By the time we got out of bed, it was nearly 1 pm. We missed swimming class for the fourth time in a row! Shichida class being at 1.45 pm, it was a rush to get lunch on the table and get everyone out the door. The solution - instant noodles! Heh heh, instant noodles actually rank quite high on my list of favourites, so I'm not complaining.

After Shichida class, we went over to Art Friend and Popular Bookstore at Bras Basah Complex to pick up some art and craft supplies plus some stationery. Richard picked up some watercolour paper for Ryan so I'm looking forward to seeing more watercolour work from him.

After dinner, Ryan played with some new materials which were quite interesting - will post about them soon. Ryan did have a nap in the afternoon but that only meant that we went back to the 3 am bedtime routine, and all of us overslept the next morning. In fact, Ryan was still asleep when I sent him to his nanny at half-past 11 am! Here he is in the carseat. I find it so amusing that his T-shirt says "Cat-like Reflexes" while he is actually sound asleep. His nanny bought that T-shirt for him.

Anyway, that was our weekend. It zipped by even faster than usual, because we slept half of the daylight away!

Ryan the Little King

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Something fun today.

I wanted to pen down the process that we went through when choosing a name for our son. Actually, it's a really short story - Ryan was the first name we chose - but we went through the process anyway.

So, yes Ryan was the first name we chose. It had an instant appeal for us, it sounded right. Nevertheless, we wanted to be thorough so, before committing to it, we threw up several other names, but none of them had that "connection" for us. I guess everyone wants a name that sounds nice. But there are many, many names that sound nice. Some people want a meaningful name. But there are many many names that are meaningful. Most people want both a nice-sounding name and a meaningful one but that doesn't narrow the choices by much.

For us, there was a third factor - we had to feel a connection. Some people are inspired by songs, by experiences, by people, and we did discuss some names along those lines. For instance, I toyed with the name Dylan, remembering Bob Dylan, but I decided that I wasn't inspired enough and I wasn't enough of a fan to name my son in his honour - besides, what if it turns out that he hates Bob Dylan?? So, although there had to be a connection, it couldn't be something majorly significant, because it could turn out to be absolutely meaningless to our son or worse, the source of our inspiration might turn out to be a completely turn off for him and be totally inappropriate.

Here, the fact that it started with the letter "R" was good enough. It was a small connection that didn't demand anything from our son. He didn't have to like the song that he was named after, he didn't have to read books by an author that he had no interest in, he didn't have to feel that he needed to live up to a biblical character, etc. Anti-climactic? Haha, it really was that simple for us.

And the meaning? "Ryan" means "Little King". Perfect.

There were other criteria, which was the pretty usual stuff - we didn't want to give our son the same name as a relative/friend/friend's son; we didn't want a name that would look odd on a Chinese boy; it had to be easy to pronounce (especially by the old folks); and we didn't want a name that you couldn't find on a souvenir. We didn't need a unique name or a name with a unique spelling - our son was already special in our eyes - we felt that having a unique name/spelling was more of a burden than a gift for the child. "Ryan" satisfied all that.

There was one more criteria - we didn't want an "old" name, ie. it had to fit into the present era. "Ryan" was definitely not an "old" name so no problem there. This was amply demonstrated yesterday. As I was watching Ryan Giggs play in a football match on TV, I thought it'd be fun to look up some of the well-known people with the name "Ryan" and so I did. I didn't get any people or characters from bygones ago. Instead, these hunks (and one beautiful lady) turned up!

Ryan Giggs. Hmm, I'm not a fan and he's not really my type, but he's apparently quite a ladies' man. Anyhow... he's fit, drives an Audi and is intensely loyal (to his club). Good enough.

Ryan Reynolds. Need I say more?

Ryan Gosling. No words. No words are necessary.

Ryan Seacrest. The most hardworking man around. He probably has twenty jobs going at the same time.

Everybody (from my era) knows this lady. Meg Ryan.

These are fictional characters. Ryan Wolfe - a character on "CSI:Miami" played by Jonathan Togo.

Ryan Atwood - the protagonist on the TV series "The O.C." played by Benjamin Mackenzie.

None of these people was the reason for choosing the name "Ryan" for our son, but it's good to know that he's in good company!

How did you come up with your child's name?

The Year of the Water Dragon

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

A simple post today to show some Chinese New Year decorations. This lunar new year is the year of the water dragon so the dragon featured prominently in the festive decorations.

Chinatown looked fantastic! Here's a couple of photos.

These were the decorations in our home. This first one was placed on the wall above the TV in the living room.

More decorations on our bookcase. The one in the middle says "Gong Xi Fa Cai".

A 7-ft plastic dragon adorned our windows, swooping low above our woodland creatures.

This one was pretty cute, five children on a dragon boat! I bought it because there were going to be five children attending the Chinese New Year gathering at our home (three boys and two girls, like in the boat). We hung it from the light above our dining table.

Hope your Chinese New Year was festive!

Last weekend of Chinese New Year - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:42:00 +0000

So, as mentioned in the last post, the usual bunch of families gathered at our place on Sunday (5 February 2012) for a Chinese New Year party. It was mainly for the children - we each have a three year old child and we try to arrange little outings and events for them. Of course the adults get to sit around and gab too, but it's usually the children who take centrestage. Except, this time it was the adults who were in the limelight! Shann had suggested that the parents put up a performance or an activity to entertain the children and she got everyone organised in preparation for Sunday. (Richard and I volunteered to take care of the food so we were "excused"!). I think it was an excellent idea, and it was wonderful to see the contribution and the effort by the parents involved. The children were intrigued and entertained, and I think they also learned a thing or two! Hopefully, we'll do something similar for the next indoor gathering.

So, after dinner, there was a music appreciation activity (Kenny), storytelling in Mandarin (Shann/Ee Fann plus I understand Alicia helped to prepare some of the props), a Mandarin skit (Shann/Ee Fann) and an arts and craft session (Alicia/Chris). As far as possible, the segments were Mandarin-based to keep in the Chinese New Year spirit.

Here's a Youtube video of the four activities. It's quite long (19:35 minutes) so settle in for a good viewing! Ryan only appears in the video during the last activity - he was with me during the first two and he was with Richard (the videographer) during the third. In the last minute of the video, during the arts and craft segment, Alicia shows him some fake eyelashes (to paste onto his paper plate) and he is so amused - he starts blinking his eyes furiously to try to flutter his eyelashes!

This was Ryan's creation during the arts and craft segment. He didn't get around to pasting on the eyelashes (or the nose)!

After all the activities, it was time to toss the yee sang! I asked Shann to separate a small portion from the main yee sang for the children so they could have their own fun. I bought each of them their own pair of chopsticks for the task - the Elmo one is for Ryan of course! (It also happens to be much shorter than the rest, don't know why.)

Here's a Youtube video of the children tossing the yee sang! The video is about 2:27 minutes long. Each child has a different style - Ryan is mainly moving the chopsticks left and right (vigorously) on the plate, Brayden is mainly moving his chopsticks in a circular motion, Matthias is mainly stabbing the plate, and Ern is quite demure and a little worried about the mess. They got into the spirit of things and most of them managed to do some tossing, especially Brayden! By the time they were done, most of the yee sang was no longer on the plate! I think the children had lots of fun, so hopefully we'll be able to give them the chance to do it again next year!

You can also see that Ryan is partial to his left hand although I don't think he has quite made up his mind yet which will be the dominant hand.

Red packets were distributed to the children and the party ended shortly after 10 pm. Each family left with a pair of mandarin oranges and each child left with a paper dragon and those chopsticks. This is the paper dragon (I got it from Chinatown). You hold one stick in each hand and stretch it out. Ryan loves it!

Oh, I wanted to show you what Shann's family brought for us! Garlic! As her daughter, Ern, passed them to me, she told me, "Huat ah!"

Shann & Ern

Ryan had a bit of an upset earlier in the evening when one of the other children kept (innocently) getting in his way while he was playing with his alphabet set. He had skipped his nap that day, and he had tolerated the "interference" for some time, so it wasn't surprising. We gave him a short period of calm and quiet, after which he was all right again. I was happy that he didn't take out his frustration on anyone or anything, he simply voiced his feelings to me. I will post more about that in a separate post and let you know how we generally handle these episodes.

It was a fun gathering and I think the children, especially, had a fantastic time. When I look back now at the videos and the photos, I remember the laughter and the good vibes that evening. The evening will definitely stay in my memory for a long time.

Here I am, the next morning, having just got out of bed and still feeling happy!

Last weekend of Chinese New Year - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:07:00 +0000

The usual group of parents organised a Chinese New Year get-together for the children on Sunday (5 February 2012) and everyone agreed to contribute in some way. On our part, we volunteered to provide the food and host it at our place. So for us, last weekend was a blur of cooking (with a little bit of art appreciation thrown in).

It seemed only right that we serve Chinese food and incorporate Chinese New Year dishes so the menu was yee sang, fried rice noodles (bee hoon), minced pork porridge, curry chicken, fried spring rolls, stir fried prawns in XO sauce, stir fried asparagus and chicken, egg foo yoong, koi fish-shaped agar-agar, and tang yuan (dumplings in ginger flavoured syrup). We decided to buy the first three and make the rest. I initially wanted to make the yee sang too, and had already bought some of the ingredients, but when I started planning the menu, I decided that I would focus on the other dishes instead and just buy a good quality yee sang (we ordered the salmon yee sang from Si Chuan Dou Hua).

So the day before, Saturday, was spent getting ready for the party, which for us meant going to the market to pick up some groceries and preparing the dishes that could be prepared in advance. When we got back from the market in the morning, I made the koi fish agar-agar. The moulds were made of very thin plastic and the first one was a disaster - the mould went out of shape when I ladled in the (too) hot liquid! I corrected my mistake and the following moulds turned out fine. I was very happy with the result!

These had fresh milk in the mixture, resulting in brighter colours.

These were without milk, giving a more crystalline appearance.

For lunch, we went into town. Richard did some banking while I picked up some extra plates, bowls and servingware. Then, we took some time out to go to the National Museum to visit the Dreams & Reality exhibition, which was a collection of mid-19th century to early 20th century works from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. There were over 140 masterpieces including works by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne and Manet. Some of the highlights of the exhibition were Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and Alexandre Cabanel's "The Birth of Venus"!

Ryan was pretty intrigued with some of the paintings as you can see from the photos.

This was Cabanel's "The Birth of Venus". Absolutely breathtaking. Ryan was quite absorbed.

This was a Monet. Lovely.

When we got home, I started on the curry chicken. Richard helped me with that - he does like to pitch in and so I usually chop up and prepare all the ingredients while he does the work at the stove. I love curry chicken with potatoes and have been making this dish since I was about 14 years old. Actually, I think every Malaysian loves this dish. I made it less spicy and a little more creamy, as I wasn't sure everyone could take the heat. It used to puzzle me whenever someone asked whether the curry was hot - after all, isn't curry supposed to be hot? Malaysians never ask this question, but I find it quite common in Singapore.

Here's the curry chicken! We served it with bread and it soon became a dry rendang because everyone mopped up the gravy!

At night, I rolled the tang yuan - I must have rolled 500 of them! Ryan helped me and we worked until the wee hours of the morning, making baby tang yuan without filling and bigger tang yuan with gula melaka filling. Richard pottered around, tidying up the house, making sure all the cameras were fully charged and arranging the furniture.

The next day, we overslept and missed Ryan's swimming class! By the time we got out of bed, it was already half-past 11. I quickly chopped up and fried the filling for the spring rolls, letting it cool and drain. I made enough for 50 rolls.

The filling for the spring rolls

We went out to pick up more fresh ingredients as well as the fried noodles (which came with cabbage and fried chicken wings). Then it was off to Shichida class while Richard picked up the yee sang and the porridge (and dough fritters). After class and back home, it was a race to the finish! Teamwork was crucial - Richard went back to the stove to make the sweet soup for the tang yuan, while I cleaned the prawns, sliced chillies for the condiments, rolled the spring rolls, and marinated and chopped up the ingredients for the other dishes. Richard fried the spring rolls and cooked the rest of the dishes while I pottered around preparing everything else and setting the table.

We made it by the skin of our teeth - the families arrived just as Richard was cooking the last dish! I didn't have time to do a few things, like remove the price tags from our new plates/bowls, heat up the porridge and prepare a mini yee sang for the children (I asked Shann to do that by taking a small portion from the main yee sang, while I dashed upstairs for a quick shower). But that was all right. As long as the food was all there, our job was done!

Next post - the party!

Chinese New Year 2012 - Back in KL

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Continuing the update from the last post, we arrived in KL in time for a short rest at home (and the receipt of very good news from Singapore - more on that in a separate post). Dinner was another reunion with Richard's family, this time including Richard's eldest sister, Margaret and her family, who had been visiting in her husband's hometown. Margaret has three children (Ryan's cousins) and Ryan was so delighted to see them, he couldn't stop grinning.

After dinner, we all went back to Margaret's house where the children played their little games and the adults played their adult games (yes, mahjong). Later that night, we lit the "tian deng' (sky lantern). Here's a video of it (about 3 minutes long).

Ryan had tons of fun with his "gang", so much so that, when Richard and I met up with my ex-schoolmates for paella the next evening, we asked Margaret if Ryan could spend the evening with them and she graciously agreed. We knew that Ryan would be bored out of his mind if he went with us so it was a good decision - Ryan was pleased as punch to be with his cousins.

Richard and I had the luxury of some "adult" time, catching up with Kar Yee and Yin Yin over paella at Changkat Bukit Bintang. We picked Ryan up close to midnight and the report was that Ryan was very well-behaved and didn't fuss at all, he was happy and enjoyed himself.

The next day (Sunday), we met up with Margaret and family again for lunch at Mont Kiara and again, we let Ryan stay with them while we walked around the shops a bit. Managed to spend a bit of money on an oil painting by a Japanese artist, which just barely fit in our car boot.

In the evening, we drove to Mary's place. The initial plan was for the children to go swimming there but it started raining so we scrapped that. It's rather unusual for this time of the year, but it has been raining everyday.

Anyway, the children were happy to just hang out ...

... while Spiderman kept a close watch ...

... and the adults gambled (what else did you expect? heehee). Extremely small stakes were involved since it was all within the family (ie. pretty meaningless). This is Richard's immediate family - his parents and two sisters.

Dinner was at a nearby Chinese restaurant in Mont Kiara, after which we gathered at Margaret's house for Ryan to have one last bonding session with his "gang" and for Richard to have one last bonding (mahjong) session with his "gang" (his mom and Margaret).

The next day, we packed up, drove into the city to do some banking and had lunch at Madam Kwan's at Pavilion. Picked up some diapers from the supermarket and then we set off back to Singapore. Got in about 6 plus and dropped by the garden slug for dinner before heading home.

Guess how we ended the evening? With mahjong of course! Some friends came over and we played late into the night, milking every last drop of our holiday.

The next day it was back to work! Happy and refreshed!

Chinese New Year 2012 - Back in Ipoh

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

The first day of Chinese New Year was spent with Richard's parents and his second sister, Mary. We had Japanese food for lunch and a quiet dinner. After dinner, Richard played mahjong with his parents and then we took them out for a quick supper before going home.

Here's a Youtube video (2:13 minutes long) taken on the second day of Chinese New Year, of Ryan and Richard dancing around. We had just opened his birthday present from Mary. Ryan asked to wear the gift wrap as a cape, and so we put it on him. He proceeded to dance and jump around in it, chuckling and giggling. Simple pleasures.

For lunch, we drove to Ampang to pay Richard's uncle a visit, together with Richard's parents and Mary. We do this every Chinese New Year. There is always a massive lunch waiting for us, all homecooked. The wine is home brewed, the chicken is home reared and the fruits for dessert are grown in their garden. Last year, they even prepared homemade yee sang (this year we didn't have any yee sang).

After lunch, we went home, packed up and set off on a two hour drive north to Ipoh. We go back to Ipoh every year because most of my relatives are there.

Ipoh is in a valley formed by limestone hills and the drive up is very scenic.

Ipoh has a very comfortable feeling to it. Mixed with the modern shopping malls, you can still find a lot of old businesses and trades there. These are the street lamps that are found all over the city. Aren't they charming?

We arrived in good time to check in at the hotel and go for an early dinner, which was the famous "nga choy kai" or "beansprouts and chicken" at Lou Wong. Extremely satisfying. The rest of the evening was spent at my second uncle's house.

The next day (Wednesday), it was off to my third uncle's place which is nestled at the foot of the hills in Tambun. Very picturesque.

After lunch, most people settled down for some blackjack. Here you can see three generations of people crowded around the table.

The expert gamblers' game of choice was mahjong. That's my third uncle, my second uncle's wife and Richard playing three-kaki mahjong.

Ryan had a minor upset when we first got there. He doesn't like people coming up to him and looking at him as if he is under a microscope, especially if they are also talking to him in loud voices, which unfortunately was what happened. Everyone was excited to see him and was fawning over him and talking to him excitedly. He just hated it and got upset. I took him into one of the bedrooms and gave him his Noddy Funbook so that he had something to focus on and so that he could tune out everything else. He was relaxed after a while and when I brought him back into the living/dining area, he was happy to see everyone and warmed up quickly, proceeding to play happily with my cousins. My uncle has a miniature schnauzer, like our dog Max, and Ryan was also happy to play with her.

The evening was set aside for my family's yearly reunion dinner. Despite starting the dinner in a slightly grouchy mood (because I roused him prematurely from his nap), Ryan regained his good spirits quickly.

This photo was taken by my cousin, Amanda. I "lifted" it from her Facebook.

The dinner was very long, we finished at nearly 11 pm because we were karaoke-ing at the same time! We actually told the restaurant to serve the courses slowly because everyone was having so much fun! Young and old, everyone had a go, and it was a rowdy, fun night. After dinner, my uncles and aunts adjourned to a nightclub to continue their fun, but we decided to go back to the hotel and rest.

My ex-schoolmates had their reunion in Ipoh the same night. I regretfully had to give that a miss. I arranged to meet up with some of them in KL over the weekend instead.

The next day (Thursday) was filled with more eating and more relaxing. We had lunch at my second uncle's house and spent the rest of the day there. Richard played mahjong, while I just hung out with Ryan and my cousins. Dinner was at a restaurant nearby, famous for its freshwater fish and other seafood.

In the morning (Friday), we woke up early to drive to Menglembu together with some of my relatives for the famous noodles. I realised I didn't take any photos of myself this Chinese New Year so I quickly snapped one in the hotel room mirror - hello!

I don't know the name of the famous noodle restaurant, but it was packed with people even though it had just opened for the day. The food was amazingly good, as is most food in Ipoh and well worth the drive. Snapped this shot as we were leaving - you'll never see cows lounging by the road in Singapore!

We left Ipoh after that, to go back to KL. Here's a parting shot - you can see Colonel Sanders on the side of a limestone hill.

Bye-bye Ipoh! We'll be back next year!

Ryan's 3rd birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Ryan turned three on 22 January 2012. It was the eve of the Lunar New Year this year, so we were in Malaysia for the family reunion dinner.

The first thing Ryan wanted to do when he woke up was to play with his alphabet set, making words, arranging the letters in alphabetical order and just standing the letters up on their sides.

After that, it was time for a bath with daddy!

Then it was time for other fun activities. Here's Ryan playing with his Noddy Funbook!

For lunch, we went to have dim sum at a restaurant near our place, although Ryan didn't eat much.

Being the eve of the Lunar New Year, it was a quiet day, with most restaurants and shops being closed. By the afternoon, the neighbourhood was pretty deserted. We spent the day at home, just relaxing and lazing about. Around teatime, we took Ryan to A&W!

In the evening, it was time for the reunion dinner cum birthday celebration! Mary bought a birthday cake shaped like Elmo!

My baby is three years old!

After dinner, we all went back to Richard's parents' place to wait for the Lunar New Year, as per tradition (this is supposed to give your parents long life). Richard played mahjong with his parents while I played with Ryan (not mahjong!).

It was a good day. Ryan was surrounded by love all day and he was happy and in a good mood from start to finish. It was a reflection of the journey to his 3rd birthday, which has been nothing but beautiful. Ryan has filled our lives and our hearts with nothing but joy.

I taught Ryan that the answer to the question, "How old are you?" is "I'm three years old" and I spent the whole day asking him that same question because I couldn't get used to the fact. My baby is three!

Happy 3rd birthday, son. We love you.

Home away from home

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Chinese New Year celebrations go on for 15 days in Singapore. The official holidays last for only the first two days but celebrations start a few days before and continue for the rest of the 13 days, albeit in a slightly less intense fashion.

Yesterday (Sunday, 5 February 2012), we had a small gathering at our place with four other families. It was great fun, and I will put up a full post on it soon, after I get through the updates on our trip back to Malaysia.

This year, the first day of the Lunar New Year fell on Monday, 23 January 2012. We needed to be back in Malaysia in time for the traditional reunion dinner on Chinese New Year eve and so did everyone else so we expected the roads to Malaysia to be jammed up over the weekend. We decided to drive up the Friday before, which was a good decision, because it was a very smooth drive. We arrived in time to do some banking, have lunch at our neighbourhood coffeeshop and then we popped by Richard's sister's (Margaret's) house for a bit.

The next day, we lazed about at home. In the evening, we met up with Richard's parents for dinner, together with his sister Mary at Mama Mia Chinese Restaurant in PJ State. Here's Ryan tossing the "yee sang" at the dinner table.

After dinner, everyone adjourned to our place for mahjong and to watch a movie on DVD.

It was interesting to see that Ryan has become quite familiar with our place, even though we only go there a few times a year. He knew where everything was and he was very comfortable there.

Having moved several times, and having once seriously entertained the thought of moving back to Malaysia, we have a lot of stuff packed up in boxes in our place in Malaysia. Mostly knick-knacks, sentimental stuff, display items, photographs, etc. I'm looking forward to the day when we are old and grey, firmly settled down in one place, where we can finally have a place for them to be displayed properly. I love it when I visit someone's home and they display their little treasures, maybe some photographs, some evidence of their travels or their experiences, their interests and hobbies. Of course, it shouldn't feel like a hoarder's den or a museum, I still like lightness and lots of space.

Our place in Singapore is too small for much else other than our books and we are not around often enough in Malaysia to make it worthwhile to have all our stuff displayed in our place there. So, it's more practical to have our stuff boxed up for now. As sentimental as I am about some of these things, I do not like to have too many things around. I do like an almost-minimalist look. Also, these things collect dust!

However, try as we might to keep everything safely stored away till that red letter day, we still end up amassing knick-knacks here and there. We had this cabinet built (in our home in Malaysia) so that we could toss everything inside.

You can see, at the very top, some framed photographs taken when Ryan was still a baby. Below those, is this ceramic photoframe, which was a gift from Mary. We put in a photo of Ryan taken each month from birth till his first birthday.

Our wedding photo, taken in 2001.

Some books, lots of graphic novels.

Richard bought this Bang & Olufsen Beolit radio online, after scouring the internet. He bought two sets, from two different people outside of Singapore, and both were not working. He was undeterred and managed to hunt down an old guy in Singapore to repair them for him. Now, one set is in Singapore and one is here.

A photo taken at our wedding - me, my grandmother and my mother. I wanted to throw this out, because it was so old that the photo has stuck to the glass of the photoframe, but in the end, I just let it be.

There's quite a lot of stuff in the cabinet which we picked up from our travels - this photo below shows a pair of dragon-phoenix vases that we bought in Beijing.

Gifts from friends are also displayed here. These are from Terri.

At the bottom of the cabinet, you can see a round white bowl. That was a housewarming gift from Sarah for our Singapore house. I felt it was too big to display in our Singapore house without risk that it would be accidentally smashed by either the pets or children, so I carted it back to Malaysia. Somewhere at the top of the cabinet is a pair of jade Chinese guard dogs which Richard's parents bought for us as a housewarming gift for our house in Malaysia.

These are wooden figurines from Sarawak, which are probably as old as I am. My family stayed there for a few years when I was very little.

A lot of the other stuff is from my mother. At this point, I want to pen down a reminder for myself. I end up with a lot of the "Family's Stuff" - you know the stuff that belonged to your parents and which they no longer want but they can't bring themselves to throw out, so suddenly it get labelled as the "Family's Stuff" and they "hand it down" to you as if it was some heirloom? Sometimes they tell you some fantastic story behind it to make it seem precious but actually it's junk to them and they can't really be bothered whether you keep it or not. The important thing is that THEY didn't have to make the decison to throw it out. Oh goodness, I have received a lot of things over the years which hold zero meaning for me but can't throw out. I've even got stuff like old mismatched crockery, old tablecloths and old shawls and cheap souvenirs from places I've never visited.

So, a reminder to Richard and myself - make sure that we take responsibility for our things! If it needs to be thrown out or donated, we should do it ourselves. Some items may be beautiful to us, but much less beautiful to others. If the item has no value or meaning to our children, then we shouldn't be passing it off as a "gift". We would only be placing an emotional burden on our children.

Anyway, back to the here and now. More updates to come about what we got up to in Malaysia over the Chinese New Year break, including what we did on Ryan's 3rd birthday!

Reading BOB books

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Here's Ryan, 8 days before his 3rd birthday, reading BOB books from Scholastic. You can hear how precise he is with his pronunciation, enunciating the letter sound at the end of each word clearly.

We have Set 1 for Beginning Readers. There are 12 books in the set. I'm a little slow here because Ryan has been able to read them all easily for some time now. I was planning on buying the set from the next level for him, but he is already reading much more advanced stuff now, so I won't bother. A few nights ago, he opened one of his books and read the introductory foreword (meant for parents). I helped a little but was pretty amazed nonetheless.

Once he finishes reading a book in a set, Richard will pass it to him and get the next one until he finishes them all, so Ryan is busy arranging and playing with the books that he is holding. Richard is pointing to the words here but Ryan usually reads without us pointing to the words. Here, Richard is guiding him because Ryan is a little distracted playing with the other books.

Although a little outdated, I wanted to mention these books because I think they're pretty good. When Ryan started reading phonetically, I hunted high and low for books with CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) and there weren't many suitable ones. These do the job pretty well.

Sorry about the poor lighting. We were all lazing about in bed on a weekend, and I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed to adjust the lighting!

Nikitin blocks

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Here's a Youtube video of Ryan playing with his Nikitin blocks. It's about 3:44 minutes long. It was taken on 13 January 2012, 9 days before his 3rd birthday.

Around 2:37 you can hear me say, "Good job!" Ryan corrects me by saying, "GREAT job."

There are a few types of Nikitin blocks. These are the pattern cubes which we use to form 2D coloured patterns. We play with these often although I generally prefer right-brain games at Ryan's age (I consider this a left-brain activity). We used these blocks during the left-brain segment in Shichida class sometime early last year or late 2010 (I can't recall now), although just once or twice. We no longer play with these in class. Since Ryan was about two and a half, the class has been doing 3D patterns with plain blocks - the blocks get stacked on top of each other in different formations.

What's in my handbag?

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Something fun today.

When I see ladies carrying huge totes, I always wonder what they have inside. I used to carry a lot around when I was younger, but as the years passed, my list of essentials shrank and the tote and I have parted ways. Now, I carry a small to medium sized handbag, and I try to keep the contents to a minimum. I just have my wallet, my phone, my blackberry, my business card holder, my house keys, my car keys, and sometimes a notebook.

Even when I became a mum, I never had to carry much around. Just a diaper and some wipes, and a blanket for breastfeeding. Ryan had no milk powder/bottle (that was me), no pacifier (that was also me) and no toys for entertainment (me, again). We never worried about getting dirty/wet and needing extra clothes - we just rolled with it. There was one time Ryan had to go topless while we finished up our outing. I wrapped him in his blanket while carrying him in my arms. A stranger came up to me and told me he would catch a cold. He didn't.

I never bought a diaper bag or any sort of dedicated bag for baby stuff, although I confess that, a few years back, when Richard took me to the Louis Vuitton store to buy a handbag for me, I did ask to see their diaper bag (when the sales assistant was wrapping up our purchase). I was more curious than anything, and any shred of interest I had in buying it evaporated the moment I saw it - it was big, bulky and heavy. Not for me.

Now, in addition to my handbag, I usually carry a bag for my camera, which I load with quite a lot of gear, plus I still carry Ryan around quite a lot. So I do try to keep the total weight of all our bags as low as possible. I don't need to carry a diaper and wipes anymore, we just keep a pack in the car. I also don't bring a blanket around anymore as Ryan doesn't nurse as often as before. Depending on the occasion, we might bring some stuff for Ryan to play with, like an alphabet set or a drawing pad.

Anyway, I was walking about today and my handbag was feeling so very heavy. I looked and discovered that there was so much junk inside! It still holds the evidence of our holiday plus I had a few errands to run which explains some of the stuff. Nevertheless, I think you'd be shocked at what was in my handbag (I certainly was!) so, just for fun, I thought I'd share it with you, to give you an idea of what I carry around as a mum of a three year old (yes, three already!). Ready?

Here's the big picture.

This handbag is a Louis Vuitton Wilshire PM in Amarante (Monogram Vernis). Doesn't hold much? That's what I thought. I was so wrong. Let's go through the contents.

1. Loewe wallet (thick - filled with stuff - but that deserves a separate post)

2. Black business card holder (also contains my access pass to my office)
3. Blue notebook for scribbling ideas (not for notes).
4. Two ballpoint pens
5. Red packets
6. Blackberry (office issued. Extremely old generation - my office has offered to get me the latest one, but I'm just too used to this one to bother)
7. Frequent customer stamp cards (including one from Borders, which has closed all its Singapore stores)
8. Receipts from shopping, eating, etc.
9. Hairbrush
10. Under the hairbrush is a concierge card for a taxi from the Conrad Hotel (I had lunch there on Tuesday with clients)
11. Receipt from Casa Bom Vento because I still owe them the tray that the fish heads came on (from the curry fish head for the birthday bash)
12. Chopard watch, a gift from Richard which I carry around because I need to change the worn-out strap. I keep forgetting when I'm out in the shops so the watch keeps going in and out of my handbag.
13. Tag Heuer watch, also a gift from Richard. It's here because I took it off when I weighed myself two days ago (every gram counts!)
14. Two hair scrunchies
15. Two tubes of lip cream
16. A new eye makeup applicator
17. Some coins, which should have gone into my wallet
18. Pet Lovers Centre membership card and an expired SK-II card
19. A spare cashcard
20. Spare contact lenses
21. A birthday card for Ryan from his grandmother (my mum)
22. A pouch containing our bank account books and cheque books (had to do some banking today)

There's more...

23. Serviettes and tissue paper

24. House key and condo access pass

25. Master bedroom key (we are having some renovation work done in the house so we locked up the bedroom)

26. Three iPhones (yes, three)

27. Mail (mostly bills to pay)

28. A rubberband

29. Below the rubberband is some reading material

30. An email from Alicia, which I printed out and brought back to Malaysia to read over the holidays (if you can see, the subject is "Dot Cards and moving on to simple equations")

I was hoping to end at 30 but there's one more...

31. Car key (at the top right, above the notebook)

In the interest of full disclosure, there was actually one more item (which I put away before I thought of taking these shots) - it was a set of photographs.

In my defence, I will only say that having this much junk in my handbag was unusual. Please believe me.

A mish-mash

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:32:00 +0000

This post is a mish-mash of recent photos. Like many parents, I snap a million photos of the son (almost) everyday, and not every photo fits into a theme, so I thought I'd just throw them into one post.

This is Ryan's recent Lego Duplo creation. That's Buzz Lightyear at the top right corner, preparing to fly "To Infinity and Beyond!" We're not sure whether Ryan prefers Woody or Buzz at this point, but it sure is amusing to hear him exclaim, "To Innininy and Neyornnnn!" In December last year, we had thoughts of popping into Hong Kong Disneyland where they just opened up a section based on Toy Story, but we decided not to go just then. Maybe this year?

This photo shows Ryan building a train track plus a marble run. It is a combination of several sets of playthings. Up till a couple of months ago, we used to keep each set separately in their own boxes, which worked okay - Ryan would choose the set that he wanted and just play with that. Now he's getting more ambitious so we leave the sets out of their boxes and jumble them up (except the train sets) and Ryan gets to combine them into massive structures.

The next shot was taken at Beach Road Prawn Noodle Restaurant, which is near our home. Ryan loves chopsticks so he always collects a handful when there are some around.

There was a couple sitting at the next table and the lady apparently decided that I needed to be aware of some important things, so out of the blue...

Lady: Your son is very handsome.
Me (after looking around for the voice): Oh, thank you. (smile)
Lady: He will be a good speaker. (she says this in Mandarin)
Me: Oh (laughing a little), he is just starting to talk now. I'm still waiting! (smile)
Lady: Yes, he will be a good speaker because his upper lip points upward. (she says this in Mandarin and with absolute conviction)

(That's according to an old Chinese saying - if your upper lip (Cupid's bow) has an upward arch, you will be a good speaker.)

The next photo was taken at Tanglin Mall's snow village. I like this photo, despite the technical flaws, so it gets included! It's the expression on Ryan's face that brings me back to this photo again and again - so innocent and full of wonder.

We are still breastfeeding! More on that in a separate post.

This photo shows Ryan playing with his beads and suction pads. Actually it was a bit of a surprise. I thought Ryan wouldn't be interested in doing this particular fine motor activity again, but one evening, he just pulled out the suction pads and the beads, did some threading and thereafter proceeded to put the beads on the suction pads. I didn't ask him to do it and in fact, I didn't say anything except to give him praise.

There were a few weeks last month when Ryan liked to stuff his fingers into his mouth. And I'm not talking about sucking on a thumb, I mean five fingers at one time go into his mouth! Here he is in the car, playing with his fingers in his mouth and reading "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle.

Enjoying another book in the car. This was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", also by Eric Carle. Ryan turns the pages and prompts me to "read" the book to him while I drive. Yes, I know every word by heart. And so does Ryan! I'll try to get a video of him reciting the story!

Brushing teeth with daddy.

Some post-birthday bash photos here.

Fresh flowers - anybody knows what these are called?

The leftover curry from the curry fish head. After keeping it for a day or two in the hope that we'd find some way to consume it, we gave up and threw it all away.

A couple of nights after the birthday bash, the wind came howling through the house and lifted the inflatable bouncy castle off our terrace, depositing it in the bushes in the driveway. That shows how strong the winds were because that thing is heavy! Fortunately, Richard went out to the terrace in the morning to check on everything, otherwise we wouldn't even have realised that the bouncy castle had flown off. On a previous occasion, the wind tried to take off with our sprinkle mat but that landed in the driveway too. Exciting living in the east. Anyway, here's Richard collecting the bouncy castle while I snapped a photo from our balcony.

At Sarah's

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:59:00 +0000

We're back from our break and raring to go ... back on holiday! Haha, no no, life back in Singapore has got a lot to offer still, and we're happy to be back. I guess that means that we had a really good break.

Let's start tackling those updates, shall we? After the combined birthday bash at our little home, the celebrations didn't stop - we had a housewarming cum birthday party at Sarah's new house the following Saturday (14 Jan). I've mentioned before on this blog that Sarah is our domestic goddess - she is Martha Stewart in disguise. Last year, she bought an old rundown house and, over the course of many months, turned it into a cosy and delightful home, and she did it all on her own. She literally counted the number of bricks she needed to construct her patio! She also loves to cook and entertain - she whipped up a lunch for our group of friends that day and we tucked in gratefully.

Ryan brought along an alphabet set, which kept him entertained while the adults sat around and yabbered on.

This get together was supposed to be over Christmas, but we could not find a good date for everyone around that time so it got pushed to January, which meant that we got to celebrate Sarah's birthday together with the housewarming. As Ryan's birthday was also coming up, he had a go at the birthday cake as well.

Apart from Ryan, there was one youngster at the party, an 8-year old, and I was pleased to see Ryan spending some time interacting and socialising with him.

It was a lovely afternoon, we had a great time chilling out with friends, talking about everything and nothing in particular. After that pleasant lunch, we had a short rest at home before making our way to the Shangri-La Hotel for a wedding dinner of one of Richard's old junior college classmates. It was a full day, and a good one.

Have a great weekend!

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:59:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

Just a note to let you know that we are away in Malaysia! We've been here for a week now, since last Friday, and we'll be back in Singapore on Monday. We're here because of Chinese New Year, of course, and it's been a blur of eating, eating, catching up with family and friends, mahjong, card games, eating, and, have I mentioned eating already? yes eating. Ryan has been surrounded with nothing but love, love and more love.

I have lots to update, but that will have to wait till we get back next week. We still have lots of eating to do, family and friends to catch up with, mahjong/card games to play, and, have I mentioned eating already? yes, lots more of that!

If you celebrate Chinese New Year, I hope it's been a fantastic one so far and that it only gets better! If you don't, here's sending you some Chinese New Year wishes anyway! May the year of the water Dragon bring good health, harmony and prosperity all round!

See you next week!

Leona

Amazing Alicia

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I have been saving up this post in my mind for a very very long time now! It's going to knock your socks off!

Remember Ryan's goodie bag from the combined birthday bash which I showed in yesterday's post?

As I mentioned yesterday, the goodie bag was prepared by Alicia. Alicia is one of the mummies that we meet up with from time to time, together with some other families. We all have a child born in January 2009. Actually, our little family doesn't join up with the families as often as the rest do, but it's all right because we keep up to date with social networking, emails and sms.

Anyway, back to Alicia. Alicia is the sweetest person and is completely generous. She has given us many, many things that she made for Ryan. When her son Brayden had his second birthday, she prepared a personalised goodie bag for Ryan, even though we did not attend the celebration! The goodie bag was chockful of ... err.. goodies... and the most amazing one was this personalised colouring book which she put together for Ryan. Here are a few pages!

Alicia is very interested in parenting, child development and early childhood education. She does a lot of research and reading up on her own. We talk a lot about those topics and it's always pleasant and interesting. Sometimes we exchange ideas for activities. For example, the shape activity for Valentine's Day that she made (in the photo below) was inspired by the Circle Bear that I prepared for Ryan. In turn, her train shape activity inspired the train texture and shape page in Ryan's quiet book. Mostly though, she is the one inspiring me with her dedication and consistency.

Alicia uses the Shichida Method with her son, although they do not attend the programme. Instead she reads up on her own and gets updates and feedback from other mummies who are using the method. She is the perfect demonstration of what I always tell people about the Shichida Method - the weekly class is just to keep you on track, the important part is what happens at home. Ironically, she is one of the people who helps me to stay motivated in this Shichida journey even though she is not attending the programme. Alicia's efforts in preparing home practice materials put me to shame! Everytime I fall behind on my own home practice, I think of Alicia, and I tell myself to buck up. Everytime I hear a parent from Shichida telling me that she has no time for home practice, or that she is too lazy, or too this or too that, I think of Alicia and I am reminded that, where there is a will, there is a way.

Alicia is a powerhouse of creativity and I am always bowled over by her work, because it is so beautiful and professional. The home practice materials that I produce are adequate for their purpose but not pretty at all (to be frank, they are very much like the materials in Shichida class). Alicia, on the other hand, takes the trouble to make her materials absolutely impeccable and beautiful and, if I didn't say anything, you would think that they were store-bought.

Let me show you more!

Alicia made these worksheets in the style of the Shichida printsheets (hers are much nicer!). She gave Ryan a set. I'll show you a few pages. This page says "Draw the strings for the balloons."

This page says "Draw a line from top to bottom connecting two pictures."

This set of worksheets that she made is about identifying the odd one out, which is a game we play regularly in Shichida.

These are for sequencing.

These are for photographic memory games. She made stacks of these!

These were also made by Alicia, inspired by Shichida material.

These are ESP paper scenes which she made.

Flashcards by Alicia.

Have you fallen off your seat yet? Jaw on the floor? Let me add that Alicia works full time in an office so all this is done outside of that as well as on top of all the things that most people have to do (family time, household duties, errands, etc). Truly, I take my hat off to her - for her dedication, for being so hardworking, and for her generous spirit.

Birthday Bash!

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

On Sunday, 8 January 2012, we had a combined birthday celebration for Ryan and four other children born in January 2009 - Matthias, Brayden, Rou Ern and Victoria. The families gathered in our little home for dinner, adult conversation, children playtime and birthday festivities. It was still very early for Ryan's birthday (which is on the 22nd), and I'm not sure that he understands what a birthday is, but he had fun nevertheless.

We set up a ball pit and a small bouncy castle on the upstairs terrace but it started to rain so the children did not stay up there for long. When they migrated downstairs, they were very well occupied and entertained with all the toys in Ryan's room and in the living room. I realise now that we have enough toys to entertain at least five active toddlers! It was pretty amusing seeing the children together, beginning to behave like little adults. One funny scene was when Matthias and his family arrived, with Matthias asleep. Ryan let him sleep in his bed and the four children cheekily stood around his sleeping body with curious looks, seemingly deep in discussion over his fate.

Our dining table was full of yummilicious food! Ern's family brought homemade mushroom soup and homemade pig trotters bee hoon. Richard and I went around our estate and bought East Coast specialties - curry fish head from Casa Bom Vento, salt-baked chicken from Serangoon Salt-Baked Chicken (which despite its name, is on East Coast Road), and prawn paste chicken. Victoria's family brought fresh fruits, briyani rice and some rendang. Matthias and his family came with nuggets and french fries, and rojak.

Richard and I took care of the decorations - we set up some birthday banners and some balloons. We actually made a replica of The Very Hungry Caterpillar with a string of balloons - one red balloon and 6 green balloons. On the red one, I stuck on eyes and mouth cut from sticky-backed felt, plus ears made from pipe cleaners wrapped in crepe paper. Unfortunately, overnight the red balloon burst (I had a spare red one which burst as well) so we were left with a string of 6 green balloons which looked like, well, just balloons. I suspect it was the balloon contracting overnight and bursting because of the tension caused by the felt that was stuck on it. Next time, I'll just draw on the balloon. Richard thinks it was the dog, but then again, he blames almost everything on the dog.

We ordered a 1-kg birthday cake from Sugarholic, designed with the theme of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". Alicia made mini banners with each of the children's names and the families took turns with the birthday song and candle-blowing, after which the five children had a combined song and candle-blowing!

After indulging in the yummy cake, and cleaning up the rest of the food, it was time for presents! Thank you, our friends, for the lovely presents!

You can see from the photos here, which were taken quite late into the party (which only started about 6.30 pm), that Ryan is looking tired. Earlier in the day, he had his swimming class and Shichida class, but skipped his nap. Despite the busy day and insufficient rest, he was very well-behaved, not cranky at all, and was more than willing to share his toys with the other children. Prior to this occasion, he's had only one child visitor at a time rummaging through his stuff (not counting his cousins, who are way past his age and uninterested in his toys), so I was wondering how he would take to four children descending uncontrollably upon his territory and possessions. Fortunately, he took it in his stride and I think he enjoyed himself. He was a sweetie.

I think all the children had a good time because they left reluctantly, with some of them declaring that they did not want to leave at all! The party ended about 10.30 pm, and each child left with a goodie bag prepared by Alicia.

We are going to have another birthday celebration for Ryan on the 22nd, when we are back in Malaysia with our relatives. Still can't believe my little munchkin is turning three!

A new season

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:52:00 +0000

I had such a relaxing break in December! It was so good. We spent a lot of time at home, being very domestic. We've been staying in our condo for one year now, and it's nice to feel settled in, to be comfortable enough to hang up more pictures on the walls, and to feel like the "seniors" whenever we see new residents around the development.

The sun is finally shining, mighty and proud! Our bamboo seemed to dry up almost overnight after a day (or two) of non-stop sunshine. I was worried at first and virtually drowned the bamboo watering it, until Richard told me that the bamboo was just changing its leaves for the season, like an autumn molt. Well, I'm not sure that's true (as there is plenty of bamboo around the estate which is still green) but the change in perspective opened my eyes to the beauty of the brown and gold leaves, and my mood changed instantly. My irritation at having to pick up the dried leaves that flew into our living room evaporated instantly. I was happy. It's amazing how putting on a different pair of eyes can make all the difference.

With the change in the weather, it was back to outdoor activities, like swimming!

We did a lot of cooking over the holidays - stoved chicken, spaghetti bolognese, fried noodles, some simple Chinese dishes, etc. I kept forgetting to take photos because most of the dishes are dishes which we've been making for years now so they seem pretty ordinary to us. I did manage to snap these few shots of the last couple of dishes (using my phone) to share with you.

This is the stoved chicken mid-preparation.

There is a bed of potato slices at the bottom, then there is diced carrot and sliced onion, plus some bacon. Some herbs go in too, plus seasoning. The browned chicken pieces go in next (there were more pieces than just the three you see in the photo) and then more carrot and onion. The potato slices get layered on top of all that until the whole thing is covered (the second photo here was taken while I was halfway done with the potato layer). Add chicken stock or stout, depending on your preference. Smear some of the bacon fat on the top, and the whole casserole goes into the oven. It can also go on a fire on the hob like a stew, in which case the chicken should be cooked through first before going into the casserole. We like this dish a lot and have made it many times.

This one is a simple Chinese dish - chicken with lots of ginger, chilli and spring onion. The original recipe was a Western recipe with honey, I modified it by replacing the honey with oyster sauce. We eat it with noodles. A messy picture, couldn't be bothered to clean up - was hungry!

We had friends over for mahjong a few times. The routine is that Richard and I will take turns to play while the other accompanies Ryan. A mahjong session (3 rounds) takes an average of 6 hours or more, so there's a lot of time to fill. We play with him in his playroom, sit with him and watch a video, and sometimes Richard will drive him out to have something to eat. Sometimes, we will stay in the living room and hang around the mahjong table (because the accompanying parent wants to watch the action!). Sometimes, Ryan will want the attention of the parent who is playing, so he will ask to sit on the parent's lap while the game is going on. He's been very well behaved at the table - he doesn't fling the tiles around or mess things up, so he's always welcome. He even participates in shuffling, stacking and arranging the tiles!

These shots were taken two or three mahjong sessions ago. Ryan took my shawl and spread it out like a picnic blanket, set up the iPad and lounged around. He only lasted a few minutes though - he much preferred to sit with me so he came over to where I was and climbed onto my lap, leaving his picnic behind.

Anyway, a new year and a new season is truly upon us now and I've run out of excuses to keep the Christmas decorations up. Chinese New Year is fast approaching so I need to shake off the rabbit and welcome the dragon!

A different point of view

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:01:00 +0000

Here's the phone dump! Enjoy!

Ringing in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:18:00 +0000

On New Year's eve, we woke up later than usual after a late night with friends (we played five rounds of mahjong with them...). Our day was pretty relaxing, the details are fuzzy to me now but I think we went to IKEA in the early afternoon and came home for a swim in our condo pool. Ryan took a nap soon after that and Richard and I settled down to watch "Thor" on DVD. Ryan woke up for the last part and soon it was time for the countdown to the new year.

We watched the Marina Bay fireworks from our upstairs terrace. Ryan was pretty intrigued, he exclaimed, "Planet!" I guess the round ones did sort of look like planets! Anyway, here are just a few photos of the fireworks. Unfortunately a construction crane was in the way. Just pretend it's an artistic sculpture.

New Year's Day is quite fuzzy to me too, but according to my trusty camera, my boys went swimming at our condo. I stayed with them for a bit to snap some shots before running up to cook our dinner.

How Ryan found his nanny and our criteria for a nanny

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:01:00 +0000

One of the more popular posts on this blog is this post in April 2011 about what Ryan gets up to at his nanny's place. I've received not only post comments, but also private emails, and it's also been brought up in conversation with friends a few times. Following a recent query from an anonymous commenter, I thought I'd pen down the things that we were looking out for when we were searching for a nanny for Ryan.

First, let me tell you how we found her. We placed an ad on the internet (gumtree), which was picked up by Ryan's nanny's daughter. We got calls from a few other people, but because of location or lack of experience, they were not suitable. When Ryan's nanny called, the boxes got ticked (experience, location) so we asked if we could visit her at her place and she agreed. At the time, she was not looking after any children. We visited and had a chat about her experience and her family. We raised a few queries and asked if she could handle our requirements (which were not many). It wasn't a very probing "interview" - we spent most of it just pleasantly chatting about children in general, just seeing if we clicked with her and her with us.

Her place was calm and peaceful and Ryan slept in my arms throughout our chat. Towards the end of our conversation, I put Ryan in her arms. She cradled him naturally, my sleeping child, spoke quietly to him, stroked his head, and couldn't take her eyes off him. Ryan snuggled in close and continued sleeping without a care.

Up till that point, apart from Richard and I, nobody had handled Ryan in that calm, gentle, focused manner. Other people, including relatives, bounced him up and down in their arms, talking to me without looking at him. When they did look at him, they talked about his features and dispensed advice, but they were talking to me, they never talked to Ryan. They held him without feeling any connection, and treated him as if he was unaware of what was happening, as if there was no point interacting with him because he was too young to understand.

This lady, Ryan's nanny-to-be, a perfect stranger, held him with such tenderness and looked at him with such wonder in her eyes, interacting with him and treating him like a person, never mind that he was asleep, so much so that you got the impression that this baby must be so very precious and special (as all babies are).

I knew, right there and then, that she was the right person to care for our son.

We procrastinated confirming the deal, not because we had any doubts about her, but because we couldn't bear to think about the moment of parting. Still, the day for me to go back to work crept up on us and I had to face the fact. As luck would have it, by that time, we had misplaced her number! My reluctance was then replaced by panic at the possibility that she might have found another ward and we would have to search all over again. God intervened at this point because she called us! She asked if we were still interested and we told her, oh yes!

So that was how Ryan found his nanny. She was the only person we "interviewed" and she fit the bill perfectly. The ultimate seal of approval for us was when strangers came up to us to fawn over Ryan and, upon learning that a nanny takes care of him while we work, told us that he looks well taken care of and that his nanny must be very good. This has happened a few times, in fact.

So what should you look out for? I've set out below a list of the things that matter to us. I acknowledge that we did not have many requirements, so the list below is not exhaustive, and it may not even be very helpful to some. I guess much depends on you and your child, your child's needs and your circumstances. This is perhaps the very basic criteria. Ok, here goes.

1. Time flexibility and proximity to home/work. Most of the infantcare centres insist that you pick up your child by 7 pm, and we could not do that. The official arrangement with Ryan's nanny is anytime from 8 am to 8 pm, but we usually send him around 9 am and we have picked him up later than 8 pm on occasion. She is always understanding when we are late. If we are going to be very late, we will call ahead to check if that's ok. She lives somewhere between our home and our offices, so it is perfectly convenient to fetch him to and fro, or to get to her place in case of any emergency.

2. Experience. We do take her advice on issues, we are not too proud to do so, and that's the whole point of getting someone with experience - she knows what she is doing. Proficiency in handling the baby and taking care of the baby's basic needs is a given, of course. The nanny should also know how to recognise an emergency and what to do. Apart from those obvious points, experience is also crucial so that she knows what is "normal" or not and can pick up any signs that your child may possibly be suffering from development delays and/or medical disorders.

3. Chemistry with the child. This is the intangible X-factor. Some people have the ability to soothe a child and calm a child instantly, and they just have that special connection. Since he was an infant, Ryan has been able to communicate with his nanny without straining - she knows what he is thinking and feeling without him having to express or say it. She, in turn, can communicate effectively with him. Basically, Ryan is comfortable with her. Also, as I mentioned above, I like the way that Ryan's nanny interacts with him, treating him like a person, talking to him even though he may not yet fully understand the words that are being said. She gives him attention and respect, and shows him empathy and understanding. This created an emotionally secure environment and helped a bond to form quickly between them.

4. Chemistry with the parents. We needed someone who spoke English because Richard and I speak mainly English. I don't mind if she uses other languages or dialects with Ryan, that's perfectly fine. I only need her to talk to ME in English because that's the limit of my ability. More importantly, although Richard and I never discussed it, I guess we were looking for someone who would handle Ryan the way we handle him - being calm and firm, but not fierce and iron-fisted. Certainly not someone who was overly concerned about petty or superstitious things, always worried that the child cannot do this or that, or cannot eat this or that because of some bizarre outdated belief or practice. Essentially, someone who was on the same page as us. We didn't want to be constantly "fighting" with the nanny over little issues, giving rise to tension between us. One interesting thing I will mention is that, I have never noticed any childproofing measures in Ryan's nanny's place (to this day) - and I like that! Ryan is allowed to roam around and touch anything he wants, climb up on chairs, open drawers and explore freely. It also means that he is supervised closely. We apply the same philosophy in our own home.

5. Environment. Apart from cleanliness and (less) noise, what one looks for may differ from parent to parent, so I'll just say that you may want to consider factors such as the presence of other people living there, the family's lifestyle, the environment outside the house (ie. the neighbourhood), the languages/dialects they speak, maybe even their religion, etc. For us, we were not bothered about a lot of these things (and nothing seemed out of the ordinary when we visited). We were simply looking out for a clean, peaceful and welcoming home, a place where Ryan would feel comfortable and safe. We were lucky that all the other factors fell into place.

6. Specific requirements. Either you or the nanny or both of you may have specific requirements. We had just one - Ryan would take breastmilk and only breastmilk (until we felt he was ready for solids, of course). Ryan's nanny was not familiar with handling breastmilk, but she was willing to learn (and really, the only thing she had to learn was how to store it). Some parents may have requirements like not bringing the baby outside, must nap/bathe at a specific time, morning must eat this and afternoon must eat that, cannot watch TV or can only watch programmes selected by the parents, etc. Personally, I think that, apart from medically prescribed dietary requirements or if your child has special needs, the parents should adopt a hands-off approach. I mean, you're trusting this woman with your child, basically putting his life in her hands for 8-12 hours, and you still want to dictate what time to bathe the child? Forgive me for being blunt, but it sounds ridiculous. Which brings me to the last point...

7. Trust. At the end of the day, will you be able to trust this person with your child? Richard and I trust Ryan's nanny completely, without reservation. We are absolutely confident that he will be well taken care of. I have never felt the need to question her judgment or to dictate her actions. I have never called her to check on Ryan, not even on the first day that we sent him to her. We brought him there, gave him a hug and a kiss, placed him in her arms, and left straightaway. After work, we came by and picked him up. He was clean, fed, rested, happy and content, and that was all that mattered. That's the whole point of taking the trouble to choose a nanny with experience and who meets all your criteria - so you can then step back and let her do what she does.

I will add that, the parent-nanny relationship is just as important as the nanny-child relationship. Even if you're hard on everyone in your life, your child's nanny is the last person that you should be hard on. If you are hard on her, or unpleasant or difficult, you'll likely end up needing her more than she wants you. So, if you do find a suitable nanny that meets all your criteria, play your part and be reasonable, be understanding, be nice, and pay her on time!

That's all I can think of, and I hope that helps. All the other stuff that I mentioned in my April 2011 post - the different activities that Ryan gets up to with his nanny, the mental stimulation and the social interaction he receives, the bond that he shares with his nanny and her family, the toys/clothes/books/videos that they buy for him - honestly there was no way that we could have known all that when we started this partnership, when Ryan was 16 weeks old. There's no way you can be sure how it's all going to turn out. There is no guarantee that things will still work out when your child is 6 months old, 1 year old or 2 years old, when his needs change. No matter whether the nanny is new to you or is someone familiar, there is always going to be a leap of faith that you need to take. The only things that will remain constant, and which I believe are the things that matter, are the things I've set out above, so get those things right, and have faith that everything else will fall into place.

This is the way we brush our teeth

noreply@blogger.com (Pinkie Pirate) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:01:00 +0000

Checking out the stuff on the counter

Using toothpaste.

Turn off tap, finished!

Please pardon the missed focus on some of these shots. I took these with my phone, holding it high up in the air while trying not to get in the shot.

Please also don't worry about Ryan's safety. We are watching him all the time when he is on the counter, usually we are standing at the counter right behind him. If we leave the counter, we still stay very close by and our eyes remain on him at all times. The moment he is done and turns the tap off or returns his toothbrush to the stand, we are right by his side again.

Some previous shots of Ryan taking care of his pearlie whites - click here and here.