Sunday, January 31, 2010

2 boys fm the sister school of CNIS






I was asked if I wanted to host 2 boys that we part of a group of 60 kids from the CNIS sister school in BJ, well it was quite fun, they are 9 going on 10 and got along well with nate and ike. We went to the zoo with sage and jonas and had a great day.

They came back to play with water guns and also swim. Later we took them to original sin to take advantage of the under 10s eat for free promo, they thought we were going to pizza hut for pizza, but when they had the pizza they said it was so good, they had seconds.

They were very well behaved and helpful but they did leave things behind... wonder when boys will truly be independant?

This plant is what a sesame pod looks like.

Here's a tiger made out of flowers for the CNY ushering in year of the tiger... ROAR!

CNY performance at CNIS




Here are the boy's doing their CNY performance at the school... Was shocked at ike's outfit! I did not ok that one! he looks like he is in some girly underwear!!!! My friend Yang Ping however said in China its quite common for children to wear that... boys in red and girls in green. Here its associated with loose women as that is the traditional underwear! Well at least Nezha the mythical child character that throws fireballs wears that too, I've always wondered if Nezha was a boy or girl but I guess red is for boys!

Nate did a "wish everyone a Happy and prosperous new year" in chinese!

The boys are now on 3 weeks break.... loren is back from austria. Next week they will spend most part of the day at Yang Ping's house with their friends and I do hope to take them to see the egypt mummy show that is in town. I think as loren will be in Finland next week, we may head to KL earlier... they can then play with their cousins.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Progress reports - Semester 1, 2010

Can't believe the kids will be off for 3 weeks over CNY. I have planned for them to hang out with their friends instead of more interim school.

So the progress report of Nate leaves me wondering whether he needs more challenge or him doing so well in class gives him confidence. He is progressing well on all fronts... excerpts from his teachers...

- he is one of the more verbal boys in class, expresses himself well and the class has learnt alot of Star Wars facts from him.
- he grasps concepts no matter what subject matter very quickly and participates in all activities with alot of enthusiasm.
- he is very effective in his communication because of clarity of speech and thoughts.
- he nudges his friends to be conscientious...

His chinese is improving and apparently his math is v good too. Its funny to see how he has a little fan base.

Ike... his report card now has not so many dots on the far end of "not initiating". He gets away with alot (like the teachers feeding him)... he still alternates his crayon between the left and the right hand and can't write his name yet. He is surprisingly quite good at the chinese new year phrases I have been indoctrinating them with...

So the report cards says, he apparently has a temper and needs to cool off and seems to want to hit his friends! (he does get aggressive when tired), he is trying his best to write. He's very active at PE class and is starting to sing songs. He is starting to take a greater interest in Chinese, his favourite song is the giraffe song and has the class sing it several times.

Head Lice in School!!!






Nate's classmates are all hit by headlice... good thing nate and ike's hair is so short there is little risk of that. Nate asked me whether I have prepared all that lice shampoo, well I'd rather shave him than to use such strong chemicals on his head, failing that I will go look for the traditional method of a monkey pulling the lice out... so I told him no I don't have the shampoo but will look into the monkey option.... which olivia described in detail how she used to go to her neighbour's monkey with offerings of banana's...

Here is the Huang Yao portfolio with the art outreach program, my mom and I wrote this about 7 years ago and its used throughout the public schools (from primary to secondary) in Singapore. I have had good feedback from volunteers but this is actually the first time I have seen it, I like the spiffy bag it comes in and I borrowed it as Nate's module is about art. Its quite neat, its got the cheat sheets behind and sample questions for different age groups but I think I know why they start for P1 and not below... its quite hard to present to little kids, so I found out! or maybe its me, I need to learn some crowd control for that age group.

Here's our doggies taking in the sun, bullet will be 7 in March, need to get his bloods done, he has been alot more lethargic of late and the last vet said he most likely won't live past 8.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Misc shots



One day I will use this toe eating shot at ike's bar mitzvah.... We also spent 20 minutes today looking thru their old workbooks from South Africa and all the crafts they made at Broadacres Nursery, the old pictures there as well, Nate looked so young at 3!

He will be in primary 1 in Sept this year... A week before I left to china, we practiced some Chinese New Year phrases with the boys...

Xinnian Kuaile (Happy New Year)
Wanshi Luyi (may all the things you do be successful)
Gongxi Facai (may you be prosperous)
Shenti Jiankang (may you be healthy)
Yongyuan bulao (may you never grow old)

I was very surprised that Nate could get 3 when I asked him about it today after a week of not practising this... and then he could get all if prompted with the first word... which makes me wonder whether I should start him on the chinese classical poems?? tho the motivation for him to learn these phrases are that he will get large red packets and with the money in the red packets he will buy his star wars lego set....

Ike is getting there too...

West Coast Park






We decided to take the boys to the West Coast Park for a change. Its a nice smaller park where they can ride their bikes and they have a big adventure park area. Here they are happily trying out all sorts of play areas. We spent more than an hour there and ike said how come so short.... I think I may need to venture out to Punggol park as well! The parks here are just really nice. It was not overly crowded and a nice way to get them outside for some exercise.

Ike is getting alot more coordinated and I think when he was younger his rather large head must have tipped his balance from time to time.

What we do with Ike on Sundays




when nate is in Talmud Torah... well sometimes we head to the library, the weekend before my #2 China trip for my granddad's project we headed to the zoo... there we saw an orang utan and its baby... then also watched this polar bear do laps. Though it was far, I thought I'd make the effort anyway since his school module was about animals and am not sure how long more kids will like animals.

This week, we took him to the botanical gardens... he is very astute about what snacks he can get at which activity area. He knows to get seaweed from the Science Center, ice cream from the zoo and milo from the botanical garden - children's park. I have yet to take them to have fish and chips there which I think I will do this weekend.

I just got back from Beijing and Shanghai last night, I think I will post the China trip on my other blog. Loren has headed out to Austria tonight and I am very happy to be back in the warm weather of Singapore!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Some more china pictures







I remember one scene when Wei Han was taking Ike for a race and when a scooter zipped pass, Ike hugged his leg so hard he found that so funny and it made him happy in someway.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

More China pictures






streaming in from Boon Hwee's camera...

Friday, January 08, 2010

Kelly and Helen in Singapore






We managed to meet up with Kelly and Helen in both KL and Singapore. This week after school we got to spend a few days with them at the botanical gardens, our home and the science center. They left last night back to Joburg, I guess they must be quite happy to be back after being away for 3 weeks.

Here are the boys and the monk hairstyles... its quite funny the reaction from different people. Was at the mall yesterday to pick up a juicer and people were just staring at them, they get enough stares as mixed kids, then when I start talking to them in Chinese... we get more reaction, now these monk heads... I should just dress them up in orange robes, pass on a begging bowl and some beads and get arrested for abusing my children!

Ike really likes his number 1 cut, many people come up to him to touch his head, he seems to be enjoying the attention and they are still at the age they think the short hair gives them a swimming competitive edge. I didn't do such a good job with the back of ikes head and he has a crooked hairline, its hard to cut there. He was practically in tears and screaming at the discomfort of little hairs in his shirt.

Yesterday am tho he woke up came to my bed and said, "I am very very happy today, how about you?", "are you happy? sad? angry or surprised?" Funny guy. Nate on the other hand had a bad case of croup at nite. I thought kids grow out of it by 5 and as the air is damp here he really should not be getting it but then it is a virus.... I think it was his worse attack yet and made worse by crying, luckily he didn't turn blue and calmed down and went back to sleep.

He rested at home the next day watching Star Wars episode 2. So at the mall we got a juicer... the reason, Ike in China had saw an ad on tv of a juicer making juice and has wanted a juicer since. We got one and yesterday they made cucumber apple juice, today I think they made a peach apple juice.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Maybe not a good idea


Ike insisted on getting the number 1 haircut and he looks practically bald, maybe I need to put sunblock on his head when he goes out?? He does think he can swim alot faster now like gege.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Fujian - Day 8





One last adventure... there was a marathon the day we need to leave so we have to move our bags 200 meters from the hotel to the bus... the poor bus man waited from 5 am for us while we got on the bus at 11 am. 200 meters from the bus includes going the underpass.... luckily the chinese underpasses have a bike ramp part and we can wheel the stroller and bags down and then up again.

We then head to a last lunch with the family... this is my mom's mom's sister's son and his son's.... as in true chinese fashion we gather for a banquet... the food includes an exotic sea cucumber, an abalone soup (ike ate that one... he also was the main eater of fish eyes on the trip, he will definitely win the college I dare you fear factor drinking sessions, he also like octopus tentacles, ike is also quite large for his age in china and could potentially be a good rugby player with his fierce growl before chargins, maybe a NZ rugby team could be interesting as an extra curriculur activity)...

So apparently my grandma's sister and husband did come to Malaysia and did not do very well so they did return to China. Their eldest son has 3 son's that are doing very well now, one is a high official at the custom's office, another son is allowed to be in the private sector and public sector so is doing financially well. Also only officials are allowed to drive Audi's (with inbuilt sirens) and he has one which he took Nate in the first day to see the bone doctor.

It was also nice to reconnect with my cousins... I think though they should all head to the golden door for their next holiday, this moving around like a refugee and eating a big portion of the time with little exercise is tough! Golden door will have group activities where we can have group sport and detox, they will probably be cursing me the first 3 days of the detox... but they will be happy the last 2 days. I would be so envious as I would like to go with the kids there, they are a tad young for that.

Maybe the next holiday with them I will organise everyone to make a little speech or talk about something they have interest in. I think stored in Uncle Kok Swee and Aunty May Ying and mom are tonnes of stories from the war and prewar days... and then the younger ones can talk about what they like doing or get up to doing, or maybe we should have a comedian contest... until then I need a holiday after this holiday.

Its so nice to come back to the land of heat, where we need to wear little and its never freezing!

More Day 7 pics





Ike eyeing the fatty chickens inside the Hutong. He was hungry all the time as he refused to eat proper meals. He is also constipated and will now have to go on a mega brocolli diet.

Orchids I would have liked to bring back but not possible to carry carefully with kids and the extra load of gifts from the rellies in day 8. The stone step bridge that the cousins took ike across and a plum blossom tree...

Fujian - Day 7






We headed on another long bus ride to see the Hakka homes. Hakka's are guest people and were driven out of their homes, they live in these circular structures. The weather was a lot warmer, tho the early part of the trip was wet and drizzly.

I've enjoyed reconnecting with my nephews. Ian and Johnathan were only 5ish when I baby sitted them in HK and now they are 17 and 19! In another 10 years they can take nate and ike to go party... the world is quite a different place now, though universities still exist and university parties... Its also been enjoyable to meet Wei Han, Jin and Yi (baybeeee), whose baby post is now taken by ikeeee. Chester too is so different from the time he opened the car door at our wedding. The trip is an interesting insight into what trajectory the shuster boys could be taking in another 10 years. I think the boys will grow up being as caring as their cousins, the cousins will also keep an eye out for them and serve as a generational gap bridge. Speaking of which reflecting back, I must be the most immature 39 year old aunt.