weaving the rainbow

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 ;

5:29 PM

19 Nov
Appt at Camden Medical came again.

This time I brought both boys there alone because no one was free to look after them. My mom was with my sis and her newborn. My mil is on tour in China. Dh had to teach violin at the Boys' Home (a project with MCYS).

Both boys enjoyed looking at the ultrasound scan though. And when they couldn't tell that it was dd's side profile of her face (can't blame them, they thought it would look like a video clip or a full colour photograph), Dr Lai was kind enough to switch to 3D mode to show them. Both were very impressed that they can see her. They didn't comment that she looked like an alien, so that's good enough.

There was quite a long wait that morning. Fortunately Philip gave me a Dr Seuss book the prev night at church and I happened to still have it in my bag. (no wonder my bag is always so heavy, and i wonder why... it's cos i never review the contents. it still has tons of things from long ago)

We read that, and I weighed them on the electronic weighing scale and did all kinds of things before I was finally glad to be seen.

After that, we met Dh for lunch since Camden is in Orchard vicinity. Then Dh went back to work and I decided to let the boys watch Fantastic Mr Fox at GV Grand (Great World City).

After the movie, and loads of popcorn later, I decided to walk around GWC, especially since there were a couple of very interesting home furnishing lifestyle concept stores there. So I left both boys outside each store each time, to play their make-belief superhero games, while I browsed the stores, like Molecule, Laura Ashley, iwannagohome etc. Cos these shops tend to display all kinds of expensive or fragile knick knacks all over the place; and it's so much more fun for me to browse the store alone than have to be alert and see if the boys are in danger of knocking anything off.

Got some good home decor ideas from the stores. Hope I can replicate some ideas in a more economical way. :-)

My sis' house is nearby and my mom was still there, so we all popped by for a visit and ended up staying for dinner. Ordered spizza delivery. I like their portobello mushroom/ feta cheese salad (only to be reminded by sis that pregnant women should not eat feta cheese, oops). And their artichoke pizza (called Donna or something) was very yummy too. The kids don't care for such stuff. They only ate the garlic bread and penne carbonara.

But everyone was happy.

My sis said Eva doesn't keep still enough for her to try the piggyback function of her German Didymos wrap, so she asked ds2 to be her model. She's carrying this and other pouches and wraps and baby slings on her website (www.buddingbubs.com). He was very happy to be used.

My sis will give me one for my baby shower, and I think I need to learn how to do the wrap first. Had always used the MIM shoulder sling. This takes some practice.

21 Nov
Primary School Orientation!

It was an undescribable feeling to have ds1 go for the Orientation. Grade 1 or Primary 1 seems like such a milestone. I think I will be rather overwhelmed to see ds1 in his school uniform, grown-up school bag, going up the school bus to go to school on Jan 4 2010 (1st day of school).
He still seems so small to me. I can't believe he will be in Pri 1 soon.

The kids got into their classes in the school hall while parents gathered for a talk by the principal and other teachers. Kids were led to their classrooms by their form teachers (aka homeroom teachers) for some activities (ds1 said they took turns to introduce themselves, talk about their favourite food, and the teacher asked them to write the alphabet on the board!).

I was quite amused by that. The teacher was probably checking to see if everyone knew their ABCs and was ready for school. Yet in other schools' Orientation, I heard from friends that they had diagnostic tests because the school practised banding for English and Math. So I had thought ds1 might be sitting for some tests too. In the end, they wrote some ABCs.

Anyway, the parent talks were very informative. I got to hear how the school places an emphasis on holistic development. Indeed, the kids will have enrichment activities in the areas of sports and the arts integrated into their curriculum time. These are free, so every Tues and Thurs, they get dismissed later at 3pm (rest of the days at 1.30pm). They start at 8am. It's a single session school, and each P1 kid will have a P4 buddy.

There will be no tests and exams (paper and pen type) in P1. I said a quiet hooray in my heart. Cos I heard from friends and my niece that other schools still have CAs and SAs (term exams), e.g. Rulang, ACS... They will however have to compile an ongoing portfolio and do projects and of course, they still have spelling bees and Chinese tingxie. The tingxie alone would keep ds1 very busy, I am sure.

After the talk, parents filled in some registration forms, and then we were free to buy the school uniforms, sign up for school bus routes, and buy the books for next year. We did all of those, then met up with the Chess Club teacher. He asked if he can play a round of chess with ds1. We said ok, but he's not dismissed from his class yet. He said it was ok, they're just doing activities to take up the kids' time while the parents are busy getting paperwork done.

So he went to ds1's class and spoke to his tr and got him out. They played a round of chess near the staff room while I met up with another teacher-friend of mine.

Later the chess teacher told us his strengths and weaknesses and asked us to help work with him on those areas at home, reason being, he wants to train ds1 for the U9 chess competition eventually. Usually the P1s don't join the competitive chess club, so he hopes we can help and support him at home.

I think the chess teacher is very nice and helpful. We appreciate him wanting to help us develop ds1's interests.

You might ask, where is ds2 while Dh, I and ds1 were at his new primary school?
My mom babysat for us. Reason being, he kept wanting to go to "grade 1" like ds1 and he would insist following ds1 to class if we brought him.

When we went to meet him after the session, my mom said he was very upset and kept saying he wants to abandon us and leave us 3 forever. That kind of emotional extreme things he was wont to say when he gets very angry. But he was easily pacified after that when I said he will get to go to school, to a new big K1 class too.

rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
____________________________________________________________