Boy's back at school!!

The boys now go to school from 830 am to 245pm. Since last weds, ike fell asleep on the weds and thurs last period but fri managed to stay awake then plopped asleep in the car. I suspect he will sleep today as well as he woke up before 6 am, he has done 2 days of successful night no diaper! Phedre the headmistress in SA was right, just start them! otherwise how will they learn. I have tried to find a flannel cloth like the piece I bought from a supplier (mom) at Broadacres but there is no substitute here, am almost tempted ot buy 6 of those super absorbent sheets that one buys for kitchen use, sew it up and then place on bed.

Here is ike, with his new James the train that moves... he took Zeda's S$50, went to the store and got that, with 10 cents remaining as change. Ouch. But he can spend hours looking at that train chug along the railroad line, what is it about trains and boys???

So Vini's marigolds have done tremendously well... going there the other day made me feel like springtime in SA where all the flowers have come to bloom! Very very nice....

CNIS school orientation

was held today, nate and ike got to join lilin and her kids, sage and jonas to the zoo, while I went to the school for the orientation. This is the view fm the assembly hall, I looked out and thought, wow at least they get lots of fresh air here, a nice forest behind the school.

The teachers gave a little introduction of themselves and Ikes new teacher is Japanese American but grew up here, she speaks more like a singaporean than me, his chinese teacher seems really nice as well. The orientation booklet... I have now figured out the scoring system, ike has been getting D's!!!

Today I also joined Ike in a violin class, the teacher was very good, later I found out he was the principal. It was interesting to see ike interact with another adult, he actually whispers. Although he does talk more around people he is familiar with, I wonder how he will be like in school.

HK Disneyland

is a HOT HOT place in summer. We must have gone on over 100 buzz lightyear rides, shooting our way thru space and the evil emperor, Zurg.

I think the kids enjoyed it tho Ike was definitely sapped out by the heat and passes out in an early nap every day we were there. Nate had the widest eyes at the fireworks at night, Ike watched only half the show and said he was tired and wanted to go back into the stroller.

We got to see old friends who travelled from HK to disneyland to see us. The hotel even has a disney princess service where you can buy a princess outfit, they do your make up and hair and you get a picture taken! Thank my lucky stars I don't have one of those, tho nate was afraid we would sign him up for a package.

My kids must be the only one's scared of mickey mouse... as they really did not like it when any of the characters approached them.

Ike turned 3 at Disneyland - wheee.

Pups!

We were invited with Kenneth to go pick his new puppy... well actually we asked to join, since I had not seen a puppy in years and years. Little bundles of golden retrievers. Kenneth's dog, PJ had passed on last year and they can't quite decide what to name the new pup (KL? KK? JB?... NOT)

We are off to HK Disneyland tomorrow... friends are telling us that the heat is SWELTERING with close to 100% humidity. Christine and family must have just left now... their sms's were like, ITS SO HOT, DRINKING COLD DRINK AGAIN, MELTING IN THE QUEUES.... hmmm. They should have prob transited here, its rainy season, cool, cloudy and rather pleasant. So we are heading for the hot wok of disneyland. Nate is excited to see the "real" buzz lightyear.

Jin went last year and said it was really fun, tho the park only opens at 10am, I sure hope these kids sleep late and wake up late.

Chloes birthday

Its nice to be able to mix with some family here and that Caden is Nate's age, they take music classes together and we often head off to Jin's place afterwards.

Chloe had her birthday party last friday, Jin baked the cake herself, at least I got to stick the marshmallows, that was quite fun as I like to use my hands but seem to need a push to using them. The mom's that came remarked that my boys kept going to the sweet station... which they concluded must because they get no sweeties at home (correct! said the singaporean way... KOR-RECKK). We didn't stay for the games but they felt they had a great time anyway.

I have finally got my act together for the boy's birthday party... I found some ethnically made whistles (bamboo) from the Malaysian trip as party bag stuffers but now I can't find them!!!! Have ordered the cakes (a ben ten and a thomas one), awaiting the invites and need to go find party bags... Sharon said she will go with me next thursday.

Baking gingerbread men...

I have not come across good gingerbread men cookies here yet... I remember our look see trip to S. Africa, loren said how come I keep eating and buying so many gingerbread men (to fuel ike the embryo!), but I like gingerbread men. When we moved there, the saturday routine would be for loren to take the boys to fournos to get their own FRESHLY baked gingerbread men...

On our Great Malaysian epic journey, at one of the stops there was a book on the gingerbread man story and Nate memorises the line, "catch me if you can, I am the gingerbread man" (or something like that), Ike likes being the gingerbread man and asks me to be the fox (yeah! foxy mama! hahaha).

Nate would take the blue icing ones and Ike sometimes the white, mainly the yellows. In Singapore... there is a place that sells gingerbread men (tiny ones for like US$ 2.50!). They taste processed too. So since we have dehdeh the baker here... I googled up a recipe, got the ingredients, could not find icing sugar, decided to splurge on little, little decorations with heart shapes, dot shapes, well many shapes.

We finally got to use our 100 piece cookie cutter thing... they had cute ones like a small gingerbread man, a little bear, a dinosaur, a hand, alphabets, a dog (we did for dada but got burnt).

So here are some of the pics....

Picking red seeds

Its that season where the big big trees are dropping their red hard seeds, kids really like picking them (well me too) and we got a whole bucket load near portsdown. They had a long rope attached to an old tree that made quite an interesting swing.

Garden Show

Took Ike to the garden show after his drs visit, he had a continuing fever as his ears were infected. He promptly fell asleep as soon as we got there but here are some vertical gardens, our neighbour also has put in plants all over his walls, nice to see this catch on quite quickly in Singapore.

This long long banana is from the children's garden at the botanical garden, did not realise that monkey banana's grow into such long long long twirleys!

A green enviro car and bubbi with the boys at at the bus stop, i delivered my car for servicing and we took the bus to the central bus station, then took the MRT to orchard, picked up some sushi and a cab home.

more pics of club med

Club Med Bintan

I was not feeling great before going on friday, my nose was getting sniffly and my right eye was bugging me so it was glasses the whole time and eye drops, am glad the eye is good again! Thought I may have to do the eyepatch but that mean I could not do the trapeze. By saturday, I stayed in in the morning but went to play with the boys on the beach in the afternoon. I tried my attempt number 21 on bubbi, she asked to go on a kayak!! so we kayaked around the bay a bit.

The didn't like the kids club the first day but Nate liked the trapeze so much that he would go back everyday just for that one try. By Sunday, I had achys and fever. Not bad being in a resort tho, I got to watch TV all day, between bubbi, dada and the kids club, there was nothing much to do but rest.

They did have very good choc cookies. The spread of food was quite good too but my stomach capacity just isn't big enough and then by the time I was really sick, I had no appetite. The kids however thought they were in heaven, fruit loops, cocoa pops, hot dogs, evil chips, luckily they did not know the free flowing coke dispensing machine... they only know coke in a bottle! so much for brand recognition, they didn't even realise the coke logo.

Club Med put on shows at night and the kids napped to watch the shows, they even played Bingo. By Sunday night, Ike woke up with a croup like cough and we decided to come back a day earlier with the holidaying crowd on monday and managed to get seats on the ferry.

I think they may have sand flies too... I got two familiar marked bites... sorry thi pics are small, I lazily lifted them off the uploads from loren's facebook page.

I took Ike to the dr today, he has croup, very high reoccuring fevers. The dr doesn't think its H1N1 but had to prescribe ibuprofen to break the fever as paracetamol wasn't working. He was red cheeked from the fever and all floppy, once he cooled down he was zipping around but now he's asleep and the fever is up again. Deh deh is doing night watch.

Aunty Vini's place

Our monday afternoon activity. We harvested her exotic red ladies fingers... I built a compost heap for her and I hope it works! we really need to recondition her soil.

She showed nate the science of wind power and boats and of course kona wanted in on the pool action. Wonder if he would jump into a deeper pool?

So I have now booked nate and ike's birthday party spot except that the sunday school timing will clash, I need to move the time slot... nate wants a ben ten cake and ike wants a thomas one, the cakes are made of yummy chocolate and it has a 3D effect. It looks really good, I brought the brochures back for the boys and they could stare at them for ages, trying to decide which cake they want. At Ben and Jerry's they have now started looking at cake design. I am almost tempted to do the cake myself and ice it... tempting... tempting.... project. Maybe I start smaller scale on the birthday at school cake.

My own project, the Huang Yao project strategy and presentation work is now almost done. Heard back from the publisher (that will publish the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya, written by my granddad) and it looks like they will jointly publish with the SIngapore National Archives. Need to think what we do with that exposure opportunity for the book launch mid next year. Need to finish off the Huang Yao "bible" for the TV documentary presentation and meetings with a digital media co next week.

Summer School

So I enrolled the boys into summer school at Patschoolhouse. They seem to have adjusted really nicely, it must be a fun place, well apart from the first day of ike really crying, he now goes in with his school bag happily on his back. Nate almost the fastest eater in his class, must go check what they are feeding him.

On monday, nate said they painted the walls with water (huckleberry finn scheme?), on tuesday the on duty teacher in charge of seeing the kids off said they were really chatty to her. They are already known around the school! The boys are in really good moods after school every day, hmmm!

Today I also realised, maybe I should send them to the jewish kindy here, on fridays they do a little shabbat thing. Tomorrow I will call to see if they will be accepted the next time a long holiday rolls by. While checking out the jewish services here, I find they have sunday school for the kids! Nate is going to start in sept, sunday school with 7 other kids learning the torah, holidays, songs, and to read hebrew. Loren is so excited, he wants to join in so I am trying to get him as the assistant teacher (they already have one tho). Ike? he can join next year, it will be me and him at the elephant show on sundays.

Took the boys to the train park today, the train part is closed for some renovation work. Bubbi took them for ice cream (shhh... don't tell dada) and when they got home we played chef (nate and ike) and barber (me), I gave the boys a haircut. The haircut is a bit uneven but better than the bowl haircuts I got. The hair will go to my worm bin.

Here is nate in caden's swim suit, cap and goggles. Jin told me she gets a woman (who is 70) in to rub her kids heads when they have a hard knock... I never heard of that? anyone ever hear of that? I wonder if I should do it for Ike and now that she mentions it, I noticed Ike bumped his head alot recently. Maybe I need to check his balance or send him to more coordination classes. He sometimes calls himself Mr. Bump and although there are cute cups, I think I will avoid buying them as I don't want him to associate himself with being clumsy. He also wanted to follow nate climbing some structure today which I stopped him, I really don't want him to get another bump, but I must be contributing to his perception of his own coordination abilities?

Sundays

We usually head to the zoo really early. We caught the elephant show this time and one day we will catch the Splash Ampitheatre show with penguins and seals.

Here are the boys post show paying $5 to feed the elephants, no ike wasn't swimming with them but in his one of those, "naked naked" days.

Found that the big tree near the elephant show exit is the one that has beautiful red seeds, next time we go to the zoo, we will spend time picking those lovely seeds, I have always wanted a big jar of those. My granddad used to pick them up from his morning walks at the Penang reservoir route for me.

That night for dinner, we went to korean BBQ. The kids liked the marinated meat and also scoffed down the "fake meat" ala tofu. It was nice to eat kimchi but the kids and bubs didn't go near it.

Bub's thinks I am trying to knock her off and counting from our trip, its been nearly 20 failed attempts on my part...
1.) she thought I was trying to kill her with sand flies at sibu island
2.) the big Biawak lizard in trengganu likes jewish food...
3.) the small wall lizard in perhentian, kept her in the toilet...
4.) the sun screen, mosquito repellent and sand fly repellent must have closed off all her breathing pores...
5.) my dad tried to get her to eat durian, she takes a bite...
6.) we get her to try mangosteen, langsat, keropok... octopus tentacles...
7.) Vinisha almost succeeds with ver spicy papadam...
8.) tried drowning with snorkelling and swimming with the kids...
9.) walking on the big rocks by the beach and she is in slippers...
10.) she avoided the turning teacups in sunway lagoon...
11.) today she needed the hairdryer and we have a two prong plug, taught her how to push down the safety prong with a wooden chopstick, now I know why people make metal chopsticks...
12.) we did at least 8 boat rides... some bumpy, some in the dark....

hey, she wants to go to japan, we need to get her on a seaweed diet soon! and can you believe this, she tries to shoo pistol the chihuahua upstairs, I said why not carry it and she says yucky-poo, how can a chi be yucky-poo??? I should have taken a shot of that pistol hold.