The Bub in the Belly

This week and next week, Ryan is participating in the Julia Gabriel June Holiday Programme at Evans Road. In the afternoons from Monday to Thursday, Ryan attends a one and a half hour session of music, storytelling and outdoor activity. On Friday morning, the whole class gets to go on an excursion.  The excursion for Week 1 is to the Singapore Zoo (as the theme for the week is "Off to the Zoo").  We will be going to the beach at Sentosa in Week 2.

Richard and I take turns to take time off from work to attend the sessions. We send Ryan to the nanny in the morning while we go to work and then after lunch, I/Richard will fetch him to go to the centre in Evans Road. After that, Ryan usually hangs out with me at my office till we go home. It was my turn to go with Ryan to class on Monday and I was pleasantly surprised when Richard popped by at the class.  He said he wanted to be there on Ryan's first day of school.

Ryan seems to be enjoying himself in the class. Although he insists on sticking quite close to us (maintaining body contact) most of the time, I can see that he is fully focused on what is going on in the class. He really pays attention and he doesn't look around or wander off to do his own thing or fuss about. He enjoys bubble time the most, when the teachers blow soap bubbles into the air. Reminds me of when he was still doing classes at Gymboree -they also had bubble time and in fact, the same song is sung ("bye bye bubbles").

Yesterday was "swimming" day so there were two plastic pools filled with water and toys for the babies to sit in and play.  I led Ryan out to the pools and the moment he saw them, he let go of my hand and walked straight over. There were two babies in one pool and Ryan walked over and got into the other pool where there were no babies.  The teacher invited him to join the two babies in the first pool so I picked him up and put him in there. The funny thing is that he got up and climbed out and walked back to his private pool, haha!  In the end, the teacher and some other babies decided to join him in his pool.

Ryan was so happy splashing about and playing with the toys.  I was looking forward to seeing Ryan play with the other babies in the pool so it was slightly disappointing that none of the other babies/mommies seemed to share our enthusiasm for the water.  Two of the babies didn't even participate (didn't even change into their swimwear) and one baby got changed but refused to get into the water. As for the rest, their mommies put them into the water but held onto them the entire time, panicking and shrieking at every drop of water that landed on their babies' faces.  This puzzled me a little because it seemed to defeat the purpose of the activity and it actually "disturbs" other babies who are trying to enjoy the activity - Ryan was watching these mommies/babies the entire time with a very concerned look. Anyway, after about five minutes, these nervous mommies took their babies out and Ryan had the pool all to himself for the rest of the time allocated for the activity. Hopefully, next week's batch of mommies/babies will be more excited about the water.

With the babies gone, it was just Ryan, me and the teachers there. But of course we couldn't stay there forever, although I'm sure Ryan would have no objections to such a proposal. When Siti told Ryan, "two more minutes, Ryan", you could see his expression change immediately from very happy to very serious, which made Siti laugh. Anyway, at the end of the period, the teachers left and it was just Ryan and me so we had a little private time.

Friday's excursion is to the Singapore Zoo and both Richard and I will be accompanying Ryan on the trip.  We've decided to take the school bus with the teachers (instead of driving there ourselves) so that Ryan can have the full experience of a school excursion. I'm looking forward to it. All the soft toys and wooden/plastic animals that Ryan has are quite meaningless without a reference to the real thing so I think this will be really wonderful. Hopefully it doesn't rain!