Saturday, December 12, 2009 ;
10:17 AM
Nov 23-26, Nov 28
The kids watched the theatre puppetry play on Swimmy, Frederick and Inch by Inch earlier, and it was organised by Act3. Act 3 advertised their acting/ drama workshop for kids called The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Both my boys were very keen.
They watched the Fantasia DVD and loved the story on the tin soldier, and thought this was about that. So I signed them up for the workshop. I was thinking I could use that free time to do stuff related to the house renovation.
So from Mon to Thurs, I'd ferry the kids to the Act 3 drama academy at Cairnhill. It was a very pretty enclave, but unfortunately too many parents drive and it was always a nightmare driving into the dead-end and narrow space within the gates. There wasn't enough parking and many of the parents liked to stay throughout the duration of the workshop.
So sometimes I park further away and after dropping the kids, I always walk to Orchard Rd. I don't like sitting around (many mosquitoes as well) and waiting for the kids. Each session lasted from 9am to 12pm.
(forgot to mention on Mon and Thurs, Dh has the violin lesson at Jurong with the Boys' Home boys, so on those 2 days I took the taxi or bus. I took the bus when it was not raining.)
My boys don't have any problem with separation from me anymore, I guess that's because I am a SAHM and I am with them 24/7 so they can't wait to lose sight of me actually. So they happily went to their respective classrooms while there were several kids outside each classroom, crying and holding on to their parents/ grandparents and maids.
I am equally happy to "get rid" of them, so I quickly walked to Paragon the first day. I read the Straits Times and other magazines at The Soup Spoon while savouring a hot bowl of mushroom soup. After that, I walked around once shops opened at 11am. Too bad shops open only at 11am, because I was so happy at Muji, and the other home/ lifestyle stores at Paragon that I came to the sudden realisation that it was almost 12pm.
Oh man, at the speed I was walking at that stage of pregnancy, I would never have made it in time to pick them up, and I visualised them lost and crying cos of me being late. Fortunately Dh called me and said he was driving past our area and on his way to work anyway so I told him to pick the kids up then meet me at Paragon! Phew.
So he picked them up and we had lunch together at Paragon before heading to Dh's workplace. We ate at the new Thai Express Lime restaurant (can't remember the exact name now).
The kids looked tired but they were happy about the workshop and told me all the poems and songs they learnt. They both were assigned to be marionettes. At the end of the workshop, they are to put up a show (on Sat) where parents are invited to watch.
On Tues, after dropping them off, I had the car, but there were absolutely no empty car park lots, even further away from the arts center, so I decided to drive to Ion Orchard. I spent a happy 2.5 hr there, walking around Alessi, and yup, the whole floor of home/ lifestyle concept stores on that level, then I headed to the basement levels, cos the other upper floors were all high class boutiques and there was nothing I really could buy there!
Then I saw all the yummy food in the Food Hall. So I ate beef noodles, and bought fish soup, dim sum, chicken rice etc etc for lunch at home for the kids and my mil.
The Muji there had some interesting furniture that wasn't at Paragon, so I browsed Muji there and some other stores before heading back to pick the kids up. I was a little late once again. Sigh, can't bear to leave browsing the stores when I had that long-deserved break away from the kids!
When I reached, the teacher of ds2 was still with him (probably cos he's younger), but ds1 was all alone. Fortunately he didn't run off elsewhere. ds2's teacher's voice sounded hoarse, poor thing. ds2 said his class was very noisy and several kids were very naughty so the teacher had to shout at them the whole morning. (Every time I hear such things, I am very thankful to teach 17-18 yr olds. At least I don't have to shout when they misbehave, just need to be sarcastic, haha.) But I really take my hat off to teachers of younger kids of course. I admire their patience and stamina.
On Wed, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Linda, so we had a hearty breakfast at Canele at Paragon, and then Linda had to run some errands while I browsed all the kids and maternity stores within Paragon. I managed to get a pair of maternity tights, yay! I was so tempted to buy many pieces of little girl clothes and accessories for my own princess but successfully restrained myself. I would spend way too much if I ever started.
I already have enough hand-me-downs from my sis and others, so my 3rd baby actually doesn't need anything new. She'll get gifts when she arrives, so I guess that should be enough, I really shouldn't splurge!
On Thurs, Linda got me an appt with her cousin who is a hairstylist at Wheelock Place, so after dropping the kids off, I went for a wash and cut at the salon there. The massage was wonderful! I felt so refreshed and relaxed after the haircut.
This pic shows their performance on the Tin Soldier on Sat. This is ds2's class of 5 yrs and above. The older kids did much better of course.
The most coincidental thing that happened that day was:
I spotted this lady who looked very familiar, so I kept observing her. She had 2 kids, and I didn't recognise the kids. She looked like an ex-schoolmate but I couldn't place her, whether it was Pri, Sec or JC or Uni. Definitely not a classmate. The hilarious thing was, when her hubby was done parking their car and joined her, I was struck by double deja vu when I saw him.
Now that guy was even more familiar! He was my primary school classmate! He used to sit beside me in pri 5, and we were classmates from P4 to P6!
So ok, I have the reason to approach them now. I said hi to him, exchanged introductions, and then I dared to ask his wife, where have I met her before? She wasn't my Uni classmate. She did physiotherapy in London. I said, oh, which year? Turned out my JC best friend and another close friend did physiotherapy in UK the same yrs too. She knew them cos they were all under the same PSC physio scholarship. But that could not be the reason why she was familiar. So I asked her which JC and yr she was from.
She was from HC, and was from the 94 batch! And man! She was from the class next to mine! No wonder. For 2 years, we lined up side by side to sing the National Anthem... haha.
She's still working as a physiotherapist in one of the hospitals, like Yonghao. But my JC best friend had already broke her bond and is in another line of work now. Her hubby, my Pri school classmate, is still at the Ministry of Environment. He was also a scholar, that's why everyone's still within the civil service.
And oh, their son was the one acting in the performance. Their dd is still too young to join in. Their son was one of the lead actors! Very cute boy.
This pic shows the kids getting their Act 3 certs. They sure had fun!
My boys need more exposure to Chinese, and I saw this Tien Hsia advertisement in Jurong Point. It was a camp that revolved around a lot of fun activities, yet incorporated songs, poems and stories in Chinese. So I signed them up for it as well. It was from 30 Nov to 4th Dec but I enrolled them for 4 days only. (The last day was a trip to Snow City, and my kids had played with real snow for the past 3 yrs, so I didn't see why I should pay to have them play with fake snow).
I received photos from the teachers only a week after the camp, so I only took this pic below, the view of the kids' shoes outside the classroom.
This was a real camp, 9am to 5pm every day. It was a little too much for ds2 I think, because he fell sick during the camp. Had cough and fever. It could be a bug that was spread amongst the kids in his class, or it could just be because he is used to taking a nap in the afternoon and this camp didn't allow for naps. Or that he ate far less veggies than he should, cos at the camp, there was no "mommy" to force him to eat his greens. The teacher reported to me that he refused to eat his greens and when it was the day for McDonalds' lunch, ds2 happily told the teacher that's his favourite food. Argh!!
These are the booklets of poems and activities they did during the camp. ds1 learnt a lot more, because he came home reciting many different poems and could sing several songs that I could understand. ds2 recited one poem and sang many songs but I couldn't really catch what the songs were all about. He must have gotten the pronunciation of many words wrongly. :-)
They do a lot of craft each day as well. This is one of them.
I was surprised that they said they wanted to continue going to Tien Hsia. Even now when we pass by the school in Jurong Point, they will point to it and say they want to go for camp. That's nice. I haven't signed them up for anything because they are just starting school in Jan and I am not sure how tired or busy they will be. Let's all settle in before I decide if they should have any other enrichment activities on top of school. They should have time to laze around at home and have free unstructured play too. That's very important.
Maybe I would miss them too much, that's my concern? I've had them at home with me for so long... and seriously they are helpful when I go NTUC to buy groceries. They get the cart, push the trolley, carry things for me... And when I reach the void deck, they can unload and watch all the bags for me while I continue on to park at the multi-storey car park. I can stroll leisurely back to the void deck and then have them help me carry the stuff up to our apt.
When school starts, I will have to do grocery shopping alone! Sob sob... I will have to fetch my own things around the house! Now I always holler for one of them to turn on the air con, or open/ close the window, switch on the lights, bring me this and that, and they also help me to fold and sort the laundry... It's difficult for me to bend and pick things up with my huge belly as well, and they've been so useful to me in this area. Yes, I will miss all these!
Looks like mommy is the one who will suffer from withdrawal/ separation anxiety come Jan 4!!
rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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The most coincidental thing that happened that day was:
My boys need more exposure to Chinese, and I saw this Tien Hsia advertisement in Jurong Point. It was a camp that revolved around a lot of fun activities, yet incorporated songs, poems and stories in Chinese. So I signed them up for it as well. It was from 30 Nov to 4th Dec but I enrolled them for 4 days only. (The last day was a trip to Snow City, and my kids had played with real snow for the past 3 yrs, so I didn't see why I should pay to have them play with fake snow).
This was a real camp, 9am to 5pm every day. It was a little too much for ds2 I think, because he fell sick during the camp. Had cough and fever. It could be a bug that was spread amongst the kids in his class, or it could just be because he is used to taking a nap in the afternoon and this camp didn't allow for naps. Or that he ate far less veggies than he should, cos at the camp, there was no "mommy" to force him to eat his greens. The teacher reported to me that he refused to eat his greens and when it was the day for McDonalds' lunch, ds2 happily told the teacher that's his favourite food. Argh!!
They do a lot of craft each day as well. This is one of them.
I was surprised that they said they wanted to continue going to Tien Hsia. Even now when we pass by the school in Jurong Point, they will point to it and say they want to go for camp. That's nice. I haven't signed them up for anything because they are just starting school in Jan and I am not sure how tired or busy they will be. Let's all settle in before I decide if they should have any other enrichment activities on top of school. They should have time to laze around at home and have free unstructured play too. That's very important.
