Let's round up 2012

 

Finally, a well deserved break in the month of Dec.  We did 2 trips, 1st on a 5-day Royal Caribbean cruise to Phuket, Thailand.  There was full of anticipation and excitement for this trip as there were several good reviews about the ship "Legends of the Sea".  We were looking forward to utilizing the services of the kids club and baby sitting facilities, but we were so wrong.  The kids club facilities and program was well run, so no issues for En Xi, who had such a great time.  The setback, which for some is no 'biggie', but extremely important for us, was that there were no baby sitting available throughout the 5 days.  This meant that En Jun was with us all day and night!  There goes our couple time, but on the flip side, it mean dedicated bonding time with En Jun.  Overall, the trip was satisfactory and not fantastic as many has raved about.  I lost some $$$ at the casino, nonetheless, it was still a fruitful trip with plenty of food and good entertainment on board.

Plus, we meet a great family from Hong Kong, who shared our dinner table for the 4 nights.  On the day of check out, we headed straight home and immediately rush off to En Xi's pre-school for her year end concert.  Excellent job from En Xi, despite not rehearsing for the past week.

Then, came the Malacca Trip.  It was a mega family trip with extended family members from Grandpa side, with a grand total of 29 pax.  A simple trip with good fun.  Any worries that En Jun will not survive the trip, proved to be unfound.  Judging by En Xi's pose in most photos we took, I reckon that En Xi found a new boyfriend.

 Right: Glenn Ong (I've the hots for him)

Left: Charlene Ong (BFF)

About En Xi

It seems that you are ready to be off diapers completely.  Next step, is to let both yourself and En Jun to sleep together in your own room without us.  Next year, will mark the start of K1 for you and that means the start of spelling, writing, reading and lots of homework.  For a start, we hope not to add more enrichment programs for you on the weekends and plan to keep it solely for fun-filled family activities, with the exception of swimming classes.

Having fun as "Pink Princess Witch" during Halloween.

Last year in Dec, we enrolled you for a week of Drama workshop with Act 3 International.  Unfortunately, if you can recall, you contracted HFMD.  After witnessing your disappointment, I enrolled you in the class again.  To my horror, you contracted HFMD again!  How can this be possible?  This place must be a jinx!

About En Jun

You were trying to get to terms without direct feed from Mummy and has been disturbing mummy's sleep.  Enough is enough.  You are now sleeping with me in your own room with the door locked up.  Cry as you may, but no one else can save you in the middle of night.  I'm a deep sleeper and is not affected in any way by your cries.  Initially, you cried a couple of times, but after realizing that you are in this alone, you pretty much get the drift and stay asleep.

You also had a bout of diarrhea that lasted for a week and duly lost a fair amount of weight and chubbiness in your body.  Fortunately, all that is over and you are feeding well again.  But again, you are not into solid food, preferring to have milk and cereal only.  You are turning cheeky as well, engaging eye contact with us, before turning to run or climb away.  You love been chased after.

Yes, let's not forget about our yearly X-mas party with Mummy's BFF(s) aka 7 princesses (errrmm, maybe 7 empresses)

Review of 2012 New Year Resolutions

At the start of the year, we decided on 3 New Year’s resolutions and the following is our report card thus far.

1. Do more outdoor activities, such as Zoo trips, walks in the parks, camping by the beach and etc.

Numerous Botanic Gardens Trips, Numerous Farm Visits in the West (Hay Diaries, Bollywood Veggies, etc), 1 x Night Safari Outing, 1 x Water Play @ Jacob Ballas, Kite Festival by Act 3 International, a 5-day Vacation @ Club Med, Bintan.

2. More arts and crafts activities when we are holed up at home.

Lantern making, drawing and painting.

3. Sticking to a regular routine and stay at home on Sun evenings to prepare for the week ahead.

Done.

From our report card, it is clear we had done fairly well for outdoor activities rather than indoor activities.  However, En Jun is at an age where more adventurous activities are deemed unsuitable for him.  So, in some way, En Xi is shortchanged in the more fun stuff like going to the Zoo or walks at the Henderson Bridge.  This is exacerbated by the different afternoon nap times for the both of you.  En Xi typically naps at or around 1-2pm, while En Jun struggles from 11am.

Nonetheless, En Jun is growing from strength to strength and is very much stable in his walking.  I think we can do more adventures in the near future soon.  This year also saw 2 vacations for us.  In June, we visited Club Med, Bintan, Indonesia and WOW! What an experience!  En Xi thoroughly enjoyed herself with the mini-club that houses the kids throughout the entire day.  At the same time, this gives us, Daddy and Mummy some breathing space to chill and do some relaxing activities with En Jun.  In fact, we even had a babysitter for En Jun for 3 hours, so that we parents could enjoy a spa treatment massage.  Subsequently, next week in Nov, we will be going on a Royal Caribbean Cruise to Phuket, Thailand.  I’m sure we will have loads of fun since it has a Club Med concept.

About En Xi

Our proud moment.

(We were extremely proud of you, En Xi at Club Med.  You are by nature, what Mummy term as 'closet extrovert'.  i.e. You need to be comfortable with your surroundings before you exhibit your extrovert nature.  You did something extraordinary when the event host asked for volunteers to sing a song on stage, you actually raised your hand enthusiastically despite having no one raising their hands.  Then, the moment came when you muster your courage to sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.)

Your linguistic ability has increased at least by 2 folds in my opinion and our daily conversations go by how our day went by and the many exciting moments you may have had.  Recently, one morning before I head to work in my uniform, the conversation between us went like this:

En Xi: Daddy, today you go shoot monsters with your friends. (Cos I have a badge on my uniform that is a rifle)

Me: Ok, I’ll do that if I see monsters at work today.

En Xi: If your friends don’t want to and you are angry, just walk away. (??? Go Figure.  Mummy taught you how to handle difficult moments with your friends)

Our routine with En Jun is changed now with Mummy taking over patting him to sleep instead of me.  Hence, I now have more time with you, especially at night, where I read to you every night.

You are still into Barbies and fairyland stuff.  Recently, Mummy bought you and Charlene to watch the movie, ‘Brave’.  You enjoyed the experience tremendously and we are toying with the idea of doing this again for your birthday.  In fact, sometimes you introduce yourself as 'Merida' to new friends.

About En Jun

You are getting cuter by the day and walking very well, you seem to be talking better too.  Ah, the wonders of being the 2nd child and having your sister as a role model.  You definitely like to play with your sister and En Xi is still trying very hard to come to terms with you messing her stuff around.  You love ball throwing and pulling toys with wheels on it.  Also, for no apparent reasons, you have this fascination with opening and closing doors (with safety stoppers of course) and sliding windows back and forth.  You can go on and on for a good 15 min.  More importantly, you are sleeping better and only wakes up once in the early morning.  This itself provides a lot more sanity for us.

About Us

We also did a family studio shoot.  We’ll probably do this again in 3 years time or sooner, depending on the rate that my hairline recedes.

Another new year, 2012

Late last year, Daddy and Mummy took some time off to review year 2011 and pen down our new year’s resolutions for 2012. The following are the our 2012 resolutions to achieve as a family:

1. Do more outdoor activities, such as Zoo trips, walks in the parks, camping by the beach and etc.

2. More arts and crafts activities when we are holed up at home.

3. Sticking to a regular routine and stay at home on Sun evenings to prepare for the week ahead.

At the time of this writing, we’ve only managed to achieve s/n 3. We are working on the rest.

Meanwhile, we’ve planned for 2 vacations thus far, a drive to Malacca with a 3D2N stay over the Good Friday weekend in April; and a 5D4N Bintan Club Med trip in June. The early vacation planning is not our style, but enforced due to the limited leave available to Daddy as an Officer-on-Course. We are so looking forward to our well-deserved breaks and quality time together.

About En Jun

You have reached another growing-up milestone. You are now able to stand on your own and straddle along the sides of the sofa or cot bed. Sleep wise, you are still struggling to sleep for longer periods and keeping Mummy up at night. However, I have taken over the night feed, this allows Mummy to have some rest before I get stoned and have to hand you back to Mummy.

There have been 2 accidents since the turn of the year and you were fortunate to escape from both incidents unscathed.

(1) I’m superman, I can fly.

You fell from the kitchen tabletop, head first, did a 180 degrees flip and landed butt first in a seated position on the floor.

You did not cry immediately. You were startled before your emotions overwhelmed you and you started wailing. I managed to witness this event ‘live’ before my eyes and I’ll be devastated if this will cause any life-long injuries to you. Nonetheless, we brought you to the doctor and you were assessed to be all well and fine.

At this moment, you must be wondering, how did this even happen in the first place. I’m entirely at fault because I placed you in the bumbo seat on the kitchen tabletop and went on to do my chores, albeit within touching distance. It was early morning; we were all getting ready for work and no one had the time to pacify you. Placing you on the bumbo seat with some toys was one of the many ways we thought of to keep you occupied.

Why didn’t I place the bumbo seat on the ground? Well, I’m still asking myself that.

(2) Its raining! Its raining Cappuccino!

We were having a family lunch at Nandos, Plaza Singapura. After our meal, Mummy suggested that we have coffee to round off an otherwise, excellent meal. The waitress was placing the cappuccino down and you reached for it, sensing danger with my spidey sense, I reached for your hand to stop you. Only for me, to knock into the cup instead and as a result, you had a freshly brewed cappuccino spilled onto the side of your face and body.

Fortunately, the cappuccino was lukewarm. Nonetheless, you screamed and had red patches on your body. Mummy was visibly upset, but still kept her cool. We bought you to KK Hospital and were greeted by an avalanche of people. Tough luck, so we moved on and bought some lotion for your body at the pharmacy. After some observation, you looked ok and all was well.

By dinnertime, Por Por, Mummy’s mum came by to check on you. How did she know about? Well, one kan cheong mummy was at a lost @ KK Hospital. She called her mummy for help. The kan cheong mummy’s mummy was equally kan cheong. (Pun intended) So the kan cheong mummy’s mummy spend her dinner with us over dinner.

About En Xi

I chanced upon an interesting Sat class for you. It was a ballet cum tap dance class by KinderDance. You always loved dancing and the class seems more about having fun than anything else. You thoroughly enjoyed the 1st class and that was it. Somehow, for unknown reasons up to now, you started to be uncomfortable with the class and didn’t want to change into your outfit or enter the studio. We suggested for you to stop the class, but you kept hinting that you like the class. We were like, “Huh?” This went on for weeks and you began wanting us to join you with the rest of the kids on the dance floor. At times, you would just change into your pretty outfit and sit in the studio watching.

We suspected that you were uncomfortable with the instructors, the environment or the fast paced routine. All suspicion proved to be wrong, you just wanted to wear the princessy outfit and stare at yourself in the mirror. Talking about being vain.

Always Suspend Judgment

Depending on your perception, you are either a persistent child (positive) or a stubborn child (negative). There was this night, where you came crying hysterically to me with a torn sticker, demanding that I fix it. I had a pre-conceived mindset and assumed that you are trying to be difficult again. You kept jumping and wailing; and I continued to threaten you with disincentives. It was clearly not working and the situation was getting worse.

Just then, Grandpa came by with the torn sticker. It was patched up with a simple clear tape. In that instance, you radiated with a smile. I couldn’t help myself and I hugged you giggling. You cracked up as well and we had a good laugh. In my mind, I was thinking how silly we were and was stupefied by Grandpa’s simple act.

After the incident and some reflection, I felt embarrassed. All you wanted was to fix the torn sticker. A simple sticky tape would have solved the problem. My presumptions clouded my judgment. I’ll keep them in mind in future. Always suspend judgment.