The Bub in the Belly

I've been a little quiet on the blog, I know. All for good reason!

I've been working on a craft project for Ryan and it's a real time-sucker. It's coming along, slowly but surely and I'll show it to you when it's finished. This is a goodie, I promise.

Other than that, I had a birthday! Yes, I turned a year older last Friday and my dear hubby checked our little family into a hotel for the weekend in celebration!

We chose to stay at one of the hotels in Resorts World Sentosa. They were selling a two day-one night package for S$298. It was a very short stay - the check-in time on Saturday was 3 pm and the check-out time on Sunday was 12 noon. Nevertheless, we decided to go for it!

On Saturday, Ryan skipped his Playclub class but we still had a few errands to run so we only checked in at about 4 pm. The first thing we did was to check out the swimming pool. We had heard that the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel was fabulous so we headed there and we certainly weren't disappointed!

There was a man-made beach at the swimming pool, complete with a patch of sand for beach volleyball!

There were numerous pools, including a jacuzzi and a pool for "serious" swimmers. There was also a waterplay area, with slide and water jets, for the children. Ryan had a rollicking good time!



After a bath it was time for dinner. We went to Chinois by Susur Lee. Very nice ambience, food was very good, service was attentive, we certainly don't mind going there again.

The hotel package that we bought included free tickets to the resident show at the resort - Voyage de la Vie. So, after dinner, we walked over to the theatre for the show. The show is a theatrical circus performance - there are acrobats, a contortionist, trapeze artists, a juggler, magicians, a sharpshooter and their performances are built into a storyline punctuated with songs sung by the main character. If you've watched Cirque du Soleil, just take away the big top, put it on a stage and you get the general idea.

The show lasted 90 minutes and there was no interval. The amazing thing was that Ryan watched the whole show with complete fascination. His attention was focused on the stage for the entire 90 minutes! He didn't say a single word throughout the show (but the minute the curtain came down, he started talking about it).

A funny thing was, for the first half of the show, Ryan was standing on my seat behind me with his hands on my shoulders peeking out at the stage! Haha! Actually, this was a good sign to me that he actually understood the tone and the emotion of the story that was being played out - the main character is unexpectedly taken on a fantastical journey where he meets all these (circus) characters. I would be very afraid if that suddenly happened to me!

Richard and I spent a good part of the show marvelling at Ryan's total immersion. Ryan took it all in, from start to finish. Isn't that the beauty of being a child? To be able to slip into a world of fantasy so seamlessly with complete acceptance, without a hint of judgment or jadedness? It was simply beautiful to witness.

After the show, we walked around the resort a little bit but we could tell that Ryan was a little tired so we headed back to our hotel room and we all had an early night (before 11 pm!).

The next morning, we got out of bed at about 10 am - what glorious sleep! After a quick trip to the toilet...

... we sang Happy Birthday and blew out the candle on my birthday cake! Happy Birthday to me!

After Richard and I devoured more than half of the cake (Ryan didn't want any), we rushed over to the pool at Hard Rock Hotel again for one last hurrah. We checked out at noon and rushed over to Springleaf Tower for Ryan's Shichida class at 12.15 pm.

Ryan surprised me today at Shichida because he aced the linking memory without any practice the week before! This is the first class of the term and we did not know what material the class would be using for this term's linking memory. So, basically, Ryan saw the cards for the first time in class. Despite that, he still managed to identify all of them without hesitation! Sensei was so impressed at his speed and she complimented him. Marvellous!

All in all, it was a great weekend. I had a happy and wonderful time with my little family - the best way to celebrate my birthday! Oh, by the way, there is a Part 2 for my birthday celebration coming up - will write about that in my next post!