Birthday card

Last night, Pumpkin slaved over a birthday card for one of her classmates. She wrote "Happy Birthday", she drew a birthday party scene with a birthday cake and children with party hats on and she used different colour markers to colour the picture. We put the card into a party bag together with some sweets and a little toy. And then what happens? When she gave the boy the party bag today, he was very happy with the toy but didn't want the birthday card and gave it back to her.

In the car on the way home, Tai Pi discovered the card and said, "Hey, you forgot to give him the card!"
Pumpkin said sheepishly, "He didn't want it."

He doesn't want it, fine! I'll give this lovely card a permanent home on my blog.

Let's play.... restaurant

Hello and welcome to our restaurant!

We have a very wide variety and we cook our food in many different ways.
You want potatoes? We have spisy patatoes, smash patatoes, boiled patatoes, hard patatoes and roust patatoes.
You prefer corn? We have spisy corn, roust corn, boiled corn, cold corn and hot corn.

And you will love our desserts. How about a Rainbow ice cream cone? or the all time favourite here - the Fear Factor ice cream cone with toppings of cockcroaches, catepillars and ants. Yum!!

Fun with inflatables!

If there is anything Singapore needs more of, it's indoor playgrounds so we don't have to get hot and sweaty and burnt. And last weekend, we had a ball of a time at an indoor playground. There was a fair taking place at the Singapore Expo where there were stalls and at one end, there was a big area occupied by many different types of inflatables - bouncy slides, bouncy playhouse, obstacle course, etc. It cost just $5 for half hour or $10 for unlimited play. Woo hoo!! We first went there on Friday night and then again on Sunday. The kids played for some 3 hours on Sunday, climbing, crawling, jumping; it's amazing how much energy kids have. After 3 hours of standing around, my body was aching! Unfortunately, the playground is not a permanent fixture so I can only hope that such fairs at the Expo will be a regular event.

Don't strain your brain sweetheart. Mummy & Daddy will do the thinking for you.

Am I too bo chap or are some parents in Singapore too involved in their children's lives? Today's newspapers had a letter from a reader writing in to say that the Ministry of Education should provide more information to help parents and students in their decision-making in regards to the choice of junior college.

You can read the full letter here.

I might be wrong but from the letter, I picture the writer to be a high strung control freak of a parent. Here is an excerpt from the letter:

"Helping your child choose a new school, in this case a junior college (JC), is a stressful process.
It is a balance of knowing her abilities and the right JC for her. When our daughter did reasonably well in her O levels, we thought she might have a chance of getting into the top JCs. We were also concerned that the order of her choices might be a factor in her final posting.
We therefore pored through the Ministry of Education (MOE) information booklet and called the hotline."

Isn't a 16-year-old fully capable of choosing a school for herself? I can just imagine it - this 16-year-old (my grandma was married at 16, for heaven's sake) sitting there while her anxious parents sweated over the information booklet (what, she illiterate?).

It's so tough you know, choosing a school for our baby. So many to choose from - 15, yes 15 junior colleges! Of course it is a much smaller number than the hundreds of primary schools and secondary schools that we had to pick from for our precious darling (oh, I can't begin to tell you the stress we experienced then), but still, it is a tough decision because the 2 years she spends in junior college could make or break her entire life you know so there's simply no room for mistakes.

Oh puh-lease!

When I was 12 years old, I made my own choice of secondary school and so did my friends. Same thing after the "O" levels and "A" levels. Pa only offered some advice at best; didn't pore over any information booklets, didn't call any hotlines. In having the freedom to make my own decisions, I learnt to be independent and to have confidence in my own judgement, and to accept the consequences of any mistakes or poor decisions I made.

And I thought a parent's duty was to bring up their child. Looks like some parents want their children to remain in their care forever - "you'll always be my little baby." Yeech!

Accepting myself

See lah, just one day after I resolved to pay more attention to Tai Pi's school work, we failed to follow the timetable (as usual) which says that she has to spend an hour on math revision (split into 2 half hour sessions to accommodate Winx Club - the timetable is built around a TV schedule) and an hour on Chinese revision on Saturdays. But at least I did make sure that she completed the corrections she had to do on some worksheets. And the good news is that she doesn't have any holiday homework. Looks like I chose the right school for her (and for me!).

So what were we doing instead? Tai Pi made a birthday card for a friend, the girls made jewelry boxes and in the afternoon we enjoyed a chocolate fondue with marshmallows. I also made this box thingy using a cereal carton, a button, ribbon and a piece of cord. It looks pretty good, doesn't it? but I'm not quite sure what to use it for.

So you see, there are so many better things to do than to study and I have too little discipline to follow the timetable (which I had set myself and it's a pretty unambitious one for that matter). So instead, I will be realistic in my expectations of Tai Pi and of myself. I will accept myself the way I am. The fact is that I hate homework and I never enjoyed studying. I realise now that those times when I turned into a monster while coaching Tai Pi, I was probably feeling resentful of having to deal with school work. And it really wouldn't be fair for me to demand more from Tai Pi than I demand of myself. So now I resolve to put in just enough effort for Tai Pi to achieve fair enough grades and the rest of the time, we will spend on activities that we really enjoy and which will give the girls happy memories of their childhood. There, I feel better already.

No poor people in Singapore?

At work, someone sent me a PowerPoint slideshow which compares the life of poor starving Africans with that of more fortunate societies like ours, such as how we might complain when we receive a pair of Addidas when what we really wanted was a pair of Nikes and in the meantime, the poor in Africa are using flattened PET bottles as sandals. It ends with the message to complain less and give more. I played the slideshow for the girls this morning and they were shocked at the images (maybe a bit too much for them) but they understood. Just this morning, Pumpkin was complaining because I had said we would have marshmallows in the afternoon but she had wanted them in the morning, but after watching the slideshow, she is thankful just to have marshmallows and has stopped her whining.

Later on, Pumpkin asked me "How can poor people be in Singapore?"
Me: "Why not?"
Pumpkin: "Poor people must be in poor country."
Me: "What makes you think there are no poor people in Singapore?"
Pumpkin: "Because I only saw one poor people in Singapore."
She was referring to a man we drove pass last Sunday on our way to Taekwondo class. He was walking along the roadside carrying a toddler and pushing a stroller in which sat 2 other young children. All four of them looked like they had not had a bath in weeks, their faces and clothes all grey with dirt. It was really sad. I was so shocked I didn't have the presence of mind to stop and give them some money.

Me: "What do you want to do next time we see the poor man?"
Pumpkin: "I want to help him, give him things to make him happy, like my old slippers."

I think we learnt an important lesson today.

4 years 3 terms to PSLE

It's been 5 months since I started blogging and I have been having so much fun I almost forgot how this blog was born out of my frustration and anxiety over Tai Pi's school work. Flashback - it is Oct 2005, Tai Pi's exams are around the corner and I only just discovered how bad she is at math because the irresponsible mother that I am I hadn't bothered to check her work all the while. So then came a period of intense coaching during which I turned into a crazed woman, screaming, crying, banging the table. Fortunately just before Tai Pi's exams, with Kong Kong's help, I came to my senses. So now I am back to being my old bo chap self; didn't even look into Tai Pi's organiser to see what homework she had till 2 months into the new year. But somehow, I have a feeling that closer to exam time, I'm going to turn into Mr Hyde again. Poor Tai Pi. But no, I cannot let that happen again. So today, on the last day of school term one, I resolve to pay more attention to Tai Pi's school work and not to resort to last minute mugging. My blog title will be a reminder.

Anyway, just a couple of days back, Tai Pi's teacher called to ask about some form that Tai Pi was supposed to hand over but seemed to have lost (typical of Tai Pi). At the same time, she told me that she considered Tai Pi to be a "high performing student" - fwah, my Tai Pi is a high performer leh!

Witness the joys of parenthood

After Taekwondo class this morning, I brought the girls for a haircut. We went to Suntec City where there is a kids section featuring kids related retail shops including a kids hairdresser. We had to wait quite a bit at the hairdresser because the salon was having a very difficult customer - a little boy, maybe 2 years old, screaming like a pig being slaughtered while the hairdresser took a little snip here and a little snip there. The little boy was being held by his mother, a hip stylish looking lady with blonde streaks in her hair. As I stood there waiting with Pumpkin, the lady, without looking at us, said "Can you all please stop staring." I suppose she could be referring to Pumpkin and I although I wasn't quite looking her way. I wanted to say to her "OK, we'll stop staring if your son stops screaming." But I'm not so mean lah and I felt a bit sorry for her (at least up until she made that very unnecessary remark). But maybe I shouldn't feel sorry for her - maybe her son's that way because he has been over-protected like many kids in Singapore. Incidentally, later on the salon had another screaming wailing customer and it was yet another little boy - what kind of men are we breeding in Singapore?

While the girls were having their haircuts, I witnessed an argument taking place just outside a shop nearby. Now I've seen lovers quarrelling in public but here was an argument between a man and his maid. "You are lying. Where were you at 7pm?" "I was home already. sob sob"....."I know his pattern. He doesn't poo poo everyday. You're lying.".... The man had his toddler son (the one who doesn't poo poo everyday) with him and the boy seemed oblivious to what was going on; was probably used to it. If I were the shop assistant, I would have said to the man "Excuse me sir, please could you make a scene elsewhere? You're scaring away my customers."

While I was sitting there, I also saw a frumpy-looking lady walk pass me with a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. I suppose she was feeding her child and was walking about searching for her child. I will never understand why parents allow their children to walk and run about during meal times. They are raising spoilt brats I tell you.

Now I know why the mall has a section just for kids/families - so that the rest of the shoppers would be spared these horrors!

Where's the logic?

It was just in the news that the Singapore Gahmen or some authority or other is now thinking of making it mandatory for school buses to have seat belts. I think this may be a reaction to a recent accident where a school bus ferrying a busload of primary school children overturned on its side. No one suffered any serious injury.

If they do make it mandatory for school buses to install seat belts, that may lead to higher school bus fees which already have been increasing ever so often, much to the chagrin of parents.

Now my question is why the authorities bother looking into seat belts on buses when many children and even babies are not strapped in or using child seats when travelling in a car? A child or baby sitting on an adult's lap in the front passenger seat is not an uncommon sight here. I should think that the risk of serious injury and death is much higher in the case of a car accident than a bus accident. I doubt you could suffer any serious injury in a bus accident unless the bus falls off a cliff. So unless it was a bus travelling up Genting Highlands I really don't think seat belts are all that necessary.

Shouldn't the authorities first focus on safe car travel and strictly enforce the belt up and child seat law? It doesn't seem that they actually enforce that law so if they do introduce the bus seat belt regulation, it's likely they wouldn't enforce that either. Why bother passing laws that you don't enforce??!

Sai Pi turns three

We were planning to have a birthday party for Sai Pi but cancelled the plans when she fell ill earlier in the week. It was to have been a fairy party where the girls and their cousins would make their own tiaras and wands (see picture of Sai Pi with her home made tiara and wand). It was a blessing in disguise because I was so busy last week I wouldn't have had time to prepare for the party. Instead we celebrated her birthday with lunch at Spaghetti's and a birthday cake at home. Happy Birthday Sai Pi!

My hidden talent

Having children is the perfect excuse to be a kid again. And with that, I am indulging in something I used to do when I was little up till my late teens or maybe even older than that. I call it my hidden talent because it's something I'm good at but have always been quite embarassed about and I'm not sure even my closest friends know about this habit of mine. I'm talking about playing with stuffed toys.

I didn't just move them about, I gave them elaborate personalities and did voice-overs so real, the toys really seemed alive. There was Bowwow Bowzer Darling - only one to call Sis "Mummy", spoilt brat, liked to throw tantrums stopping only when given a potato chip, had a bank account with $1 in it, had a best friend called Fatty Chong Ah Boon. And my favourite - Wally, a little white bear in a clown outfit, very senstive and in touch with his feminine side, Sis's fashion consultant. There was also this other white bear who told the same joke over and over - "Are you hungry?" "No, I'm stuffed. Ha ha..".

Sis was my partner in crime. She did not animate the toys at all but she had a big part to play - the toys were alive only because she believed in them. At times she would tire of this childish nonsense and wanted out, and the toys would "die". Guilt ridden and perhaps missing the fashion advice from Wally, she would return to our make-believe world and all would be well again.

It wasn't easy having to animate so many stuffed toys. After the 20th one, you kinda run out of voices and personalities. And I didn't just animate our stuffed toys, even the bolsters were not spared - PoPo, PiPi and BoBo but they had very little personality those bolsters. The pillows were lucky to get away.

Lest you think I'm completely insane, I don't just animate any stuffed toy. I adhere to the Golden Rule of Stuffed Toy Animation. Look at the stuffed toys below. Two of them can be animated while the other two are inherently inanimate and you should not try to animate them. Figured it out yet? It's in the EYES!






*** Golden Rule of Stuffed Toy Animation: Animate only stuffed toys whose eyes comprise of only pupil and no eye white. Stuffed toys with eye white are completely lifeless and no amount of effort would bring them alive. ****

Some years ago, I saw an ad for a character voice-over artist for Disney Channel and I was quite excited until I saw that they were looking for someone with a Caucasian accent. Being the self-respecting Singaporean that I am, I don't put on a fake foreign accent; I speak proper Singaporean English ala Tommy Koh and Chan Heng Chee (well I try). Want me to talk like Ang Mo...? Cannot lah!

Kids say the darnest things

Last Saturday, I flew to KL for work. When I got home that night, Tai Pi showed me a story she had written for me. It was titled "Mummy the Exsporer". She wrote "One Saturday morning, Mummy was on a field trip to Kl. Mummy had to take an aroplane, because she could not drive a car. So she had to take an aroplane." Well, she is right... I don't have a driver's license.

My 3-year-old niece gave this valuable advice to her newly licensed-to-drive Mummy - "do not drive into another car." Kids really do say the darnest things!

Five Million Dollar Dream

I had it all planned out. I would share my fortune with my family, donate generously to charity and keep the rest in the bank to generate income and then quit my job and become a volunteer charity worker (so noble hor). But alas, it was not to be...

I pooled with a colleague to buy $104 worth of Toto tickets hoping to win the Hong Pao Draw top prize of $10 million. We did all we could to make it happen, like getting a lion to dance in my colleague's office and believing with all our heart that it was our destiny to win. Wasn't there this thing about if you believe hard enough your dreams would come true? Well, whoever said that never bought Toto! So here I am, my millionaire dreams shattered - instead of being $5 million richer, I am now $52 poorer.... *sigh*

Versatile fashion

I am very pleased with a couple of skirts we bought for Tai Pi and Pumpkin for the Chinese New Year. The girls love long skirts that they can twirl about in so we got them these long flared skirts from Zara. Later I realised that the skirts could also be worn as dresses which is great because each skirt cost more than $60 so I want to get as much mileage out of them as possible. And they come with elasticised waists and are so long the girls have to wear them above the waist which means they will be able to wear them for some years.... that is if they don't fall apart by then; already one half of the drawstring on one of the skirts came off and the elastic on the other is coming loose at some parts. Pity about the quality.

A different Chinese New Year's Day

Over the years, we seem to have fewer and fewer people to visit during Chinese New Year. It was like that yesterday, so we had time to do something we had mentioned before to the girls. We finally went on a cable car ride! Auntie V from France was here for a visit so it was just the right time to be doing something touristy.

I can't remember when I last stepped foot on Mt Faber but the place has undergone an amazing transformation. The souvenir shop sells beautiful stuff instead of your standard cheesy Merlion knick knacks (see pic of Pumpkin at the shop) and the washrooms are so stunning, there were tourists taking pictures there.

Being the typical Singaporeans, we didn't spend any money at the souvenir shop, only on the main event - the cable car ride. KK and I have a fear of heights so when the cable car left the tower, we were feeling pretty nervous; I didn't dare look around or even move an inch at the start; fortunately we did not get one of those transparent floor type of cars. But the girls were totally fearless and were thrilled with the ride from start to finish. You could say we started the new year on a high note!

Hairy hair accessories

The parcel arrived one morning and the girls tore at it and finally got it opened. They stared at the contents... what in the world...? Now the girls are very familiar with hair accessories - clips, clasps, pins, bands, you name it. But these... they had never seen anything like these! I guess the best way to describe them is that they are a hybrid of hair elastic and hair extension. They are made in Thailand but clearly for the Singapore market, because they are kiasu hair accessories - elastic band with furry bits and feathers and bead-decorated long braided hair attached. Once the girls figured out what Kong Kong and Mama no.2 had sent them, they had a blast with the hairy hair accessories. Don't they look smashing?

Little Miss Entrepreneur

I used to get them for free but now I have to buy them. While she was staying home with chicken pox, Tai Pi's thoughts somehow turned to making money and she rang me up at the office and told me she wanted to sell her drawings "downstairs" which means the condo grounds. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the people here wouldn't want to buy her drawings so I told her that maybe she should first sell them to Mummy and Daddy. When we got home, there it was - her gallery, with her drawings nicely laid out and their prices, 50 cents, 80 cents, $1 and even $5, clearly written. KK and I bought some of the cheaper drawings (there was no correlation between the aesthetic value and price of the drawings) and Tai Pi happily put her earnings away in her piggy bank. She even sold a drawing to the next door neighbour for $1. Here is what a typical Tai Pi art piece looks like. This one is a drawing of grandma cooking in the kitchen. This morning, the girls did some painting. Here are a couple of Sai Pi's paintings. I think they are pretty good for a two-year-old...might be able to sell for a dollar or two...

Our favourite stories

A few weeks ago, I found this book at Borders which I read when I was a child - The Five Chinese Brothers. It is exactly the same as I remember it. I loved this book and now the girls can enjoy it too. It is based on the classic Chinese tale of the, I think it is 10 brothers but here it is just 5. I love the illustration, especially the part where the first brother holds the sea in his mouth while desperately trying to get the naughty boy to come back to shore. It is hilarious!

When I buy books for the girls, I like to get them funny stories. We have a good laugh and I think these funny stories are somehow more imaginative. Some of our favourite funny stories are "Not Now, Bernard" and "The Hill and The Rock" both by David McKee, Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola, and there's "Bad Bad Barney Bear" by Tony Ross which is the funniest children's story I've ever read. I like to think that these stories help the girls develop a good sense of humour.


Talk about imaginative tales, nothing beats Hayao Miyazaki's films. He is one of greatest animators and film directors ever. His stories and characters are very compelling and full of imagination. He is a true genius. We have a whole collection of his films which we have not finished watching. My favourite is My Neighbour Totoro which does have much of a plot but is very captivating and we have the Mandarin version to give the girls more exposure to Mandarin. The girls' current fave Miyazaki film is The Castle of Cagliostro. I've not watched it yet so I think we'll put it on this afternoon... another wet day with nothing much to do....

Not so good first week

Our new year could have had a better start. First I came down with flu after we got back from KL and then towards the end of the week, so did Sai Pi (and she only just started Nursery this week). But worst of all, Tai Pi has Chicken Pox! We quickly got Pumpkin vaccinated against Chicken Pox but it might be too late, we can't tell yet. Sai Pi could not have the vaccination as she was running a temperature. So now we can only wait and see if Pumpkin and Sai Pi will develop Chicken Pox. Tai Pi is coping well. I hope it runs its course quickly. Already, she will miss her first Tae Kwon Do grading which is scheduled for tomorrow. Now she'll have to wait till April for the next grading exercise.

KL Trip

We got back from our KL trip day before yesterday. It was a kids' holiday and an adults' holiday - the kids had fun with their friends while the adults had their own fun (well at least the women did, with all that shopping!).

We stayed at Berjaya Times Square Hotel which is part of this huge development with a big shopping mall (a lot of vacant shops and low traffic - not a very successful mall) and a theme park. The theme park is what makes KL a good family holiday destination, nothing else really. The theme park is very well maintained and has a section for younger children. And it is an indoor park which is good because there is no worry about rain or hot weather; why don't we have an indoor theme park in Singapre? The kids especially love the bumper cars and went on them over and over again. After they have their fun, we leave them in the hotel room with the maids to have a take-away dinner (burgers, pizza, etc) and to watch VCDs. See pic of them glued to the TV.

While the kids are kept amused in the hotel room, the adults go out for a sumptuous meal. We also went for a foot massage and tried ear candling. See pic of me with a burning candle stuck into my ear. There is this street which is just packed with foot massage centers that stay open till way past midnight; I suppose to cater to tourists. We should have establishments that open this late in Singapore; shops in Singapore close too early, so boring. On New Year's Eve, we left the kids in the room with lots of junk food and balloons and they had their own "children's party". They've been to so many parties, they were able to organise their own party games. I'm glad the kids are so independent; it makes life that much easier for us. See pic of the kids with the balloons we bought from a roadside vendor at the New Year's Eve price of RM35 for 9 balloons.