The Bub in the Belly

Today, to top off our long relaxing weekend, we visited the Marina Barrage. We went with Kenny and Belinda and their son, Matthias who is a few weeks older than Ryan. Our car had stopped at a traffic light last evening and Kenny and Belinda strolled across the road right in front of our car with Matthias! It was such a coincidence that we figured it must be a sign from above so we asked them to join us today to visit the barrage, followed by dinner at KEK Seafood. The photo above is taken by Kenny.

What is there to do at the barrage? Well, nothing really and that's the beauty of it. It's like a small park - it's a great place to relax, stroll about, do some kite flying, play with the water features, hang out with friends or just be by yourself. We had a lovely time.

Some info on the Marina Barrage: "Built across the mouth of the Marina Channel, the Marina Barrage creates Singapore’s 15th reservoir, and the first in the heart of the city. With a catchment area of 10,000 hectares, or one-sixth the size of Singapore, the Marina catchment is the island’s largest and most urbanised catchment. Together with two other new reservoirs, the Marina Reservoir will boost Singapore’s water catchment from half to two-thirds of the country’s land area." See here for more info.

Here are some of the photos taken by Richard and me.

It was a public holiday yesterday and we took the chance to rest and relax as everyone is down with the flu. We went tubbing at Harbourfront Centre, where we bumped into Gwen, one of the SMH Jan 2009 mummies, and her son, Tristan. In the evening, we went to Saizeriya at Liang Court for dinner.

Today was another relaxing day. Skipped Gymboree, cooked dinner at home and went tubbing again. Then we hung out at Page One at Vivocity for a while before calling it a night.

I've been nursing a flu for about two weeks now, having caught the bug from Richard who suffered for about a week before me. Ryan survived unscathed until recently when he started having a bit of a runny nose. The weather isn't helping, it's getting colder and wetter. Time for socks and long pants and cozying up together in bed.

We took Ryan to see Dr Pauline Cheong for his eye check yesterday. Ryan has a bit of a runny nose so Dr Cheong did not want to sedate him for the detailed physical examination. She did do a simple check and told us everything is fine. We are to come back to see her for the detailed examination when Ryan is better.

We've put up some of our Christmas decorations. Yes, Christmas is a long way away but since the Christmas lights are already up in Orchard Road, there is already a warm feeling of Christmas in the air and it's nice to keep that feeling going strong when we come home.

This year, there are three stockings to put up because there are now three of us!

Ryan is popping his fifth and sixth teeth now, one on each side of his two front teeth. He's also getting quite adept at biting off bits of his food and chewing. I'm starting to wonder if I should be brushing his teeth?

I can still remember his toothless newborn grin. I should have taken more photos of him then (in addition to the one million photos I did take).

Today was Ryan's first session at Level 3, which is for children from 10 to 16 months. Some of the older ones are already walking. Ryan was watching one little girl squealing with delight as she took tentative steps across the playmat - hopefully he will get the idea to try it for himself! This is one of the benefits that Ryan derives from all these sessions - he is able to observe what other babies do and mimic them.

Level 3 is slightly more challenging in terms of the equipment that is set up for individual exercise. For the group portion though, it is much the same with parachute time, bubble time, peekaboo with Gymbo the Clown, etc.

We went to Hwa Xia today after more than a month of no tubbing. Ryan still has lots of sessions left on his package as well as some free sessions he won in their contest in September.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that we can no longer con Ryan into believing that flapping about in a tub the size of a washing machine qualifies as swimming. The smart boy knows that all that exertion isn't going to get him anywhere. So I made a deal with him that, after the contest, he wouldn't have to do all that pointless kicking and flapping anymore.

Well, he showed me that he was serious about our deal. When we strapped on the neck float and lowered him into the tub today, he started to yell and fuss, which he has never done before. Even the shop staff were surprised, as they remembered him from the contest as having no problems at all.

So we switched the neck float for a float that he could just sit in. This way, he didn't have to do any useless kicking and flapping about and he could just relax in the water and play with the floating toys. This made more sense to him - no more pretend swimming! - and he was much happier.

This photograph was taken at lunch before Ryan's Gymboree class today. The previous customer had left behind a balloon at the table so we introduced Ryan to it. He wasn't very impressed nor interested.


As you can see from this photograph, Ryan wasn't very impressed nor interested with his Gymboree session today either, which prompted the teacher to promote him to level 3 so he can do more challenging stuff. Level 3 is for toddlers of 10 to 16 months. Well done, son!

I stitched this little lion together last Sunday, using a pattern from a book. Ryan pulled the tail off twice so now it lives in my office.

Terri is in Singapore this week on business and we met up for dinner this evening. She brought some lovely gifts for Ryan. Terri is a dear dear friend and we love meeting up with her to catch up.

Today, after Ryan's Shichida class, we went to the inaugural Alfresco Art Fair at Clifford Square, an initiative by fill your walls, aimed at deepening the community interest in the appreciation and enjoyment of art.

I like this one a lot - can you believe it was handpainted?