The Bub in the Belly

It was quite a fun meet up and we got to meet some familiar faces (from previous meet ups) and some new ones too.

The next day, Ryan's friends, Brayden and Rou Ern, came over to play. Of course, their families came too!

Richard and I spent the earlier part of the day at the cinema (watching The Hobbit) and at the supermarket and deli picking up stuff for the gathering.

The gathering was, as always, a ball of fun for the kids. There was miniature tree-trimming for the three toddlers.


An impromptu puppet show about the story of the birth of Jesus.


Some fooling around with Shann, which sent the kids into peals of laughter as they chased her up and down the place.


There was food of course. Simple fare, given that there were only six adults among us. Richard whipped up our long-time specialty, fried instant noodles, and I tossed some spaghetti. We picked up some pork knuckle and rotisserie chicken from the deli (and I made a simple gravy for that), while Chris and Alicia brought the ham. There was chicken alphabet soup for the kids and I made some trifle for dessert. Shann brought a fruit cake, although we didn't get around to eating it.


Rachel yummed some of the spaghetti, together with the rocket and cherry tomatoes.




Not forgetting these two lovely cards from Brayden and Rou Ern which came for Ryan!



Christmas Day was another quiet day at home. We were quite tired from all the festivities and I'm still a little under the weather.

Ok, that's all from us. We are off to KL tonight! It's a spur of the moment decision! Yesterday, I was just telling a friend, Geraldine, that we didn't have any plans to travel during this time, and this afternoon, Richard said to me, let's pack up and go! Looks like I have to eat my words! We'll be back on Tuesday. Enjoy the last weekend of 2012!  

Hello! How was your Christmas? We had a quiet but somehow quite busy Christmas! I'll update another day. For today, I want to share this video of our babydoll, Rachel, having her first taste of solid food!

We were at Cafe Melba at the Goodman Arts Centre last Saturday for brunch/lunch. I passed her a cooked cherry tomato. She took a lick and then she chomped down on it! It exploded and spilt its juiciness everywhere! There was no stopping her after that. She sucked and slurped up every last drop! She tried some more food after that and, at dinner, her taste adventure continued with gusto. She was 6 months and 4 days that day. Have a look! The video is about 4.5 minutes long.

 

Music is "Hang on little tomato" by Pink Martini and "That's amore" by Dean Martin.

I wanted to check out Heguru because, from what I understand, its philosophy and approach are very similar to Shichida's. According to stuff I've read here and there in the past, which may or may not be accurate, the Heguru founders previously operated a Shichida school in Tokyo but later withdrew from the franchise to set up Heguru. There are a few differences between the two methods but, by and large, the two methods are based on the same theories and it would be pointless to measure one against the other. Each has its strengths and, in any event, results largely depend on a culmination of factors, including home environment and parental involvement.


Whatever its origins, Heguru has evolved into a brandname in its own right and is well-established in Japan for right-brain training and early childhood education. In particular, its students are well known in Japan for being able to do wave-reading (Hado reading). It is utterly amazing to watch the students perform wave-reading and watching them, you really start to wonder about the latent potential in all of us which can be realised with the correct training. Personally, I don't need my children to be able to do Hado reading but the fact that the Heguru students are capable of doing this is, to me, a sign that the method is on the right track when it comes to training the right brain. In any case, I understand that the focus of the programme that Heguru is presently offering in Singapore will not be on Hado reading, but rather, on helping the child build a strong foundation for learning in the future.

I mentioned in a previous post that there are three Heguru schools opening up in Singapore in January 2013. These are located in the west, east and central part of Singapore, respectively. Each one is independent of the other and they each have slightly different names, so if you are looking for information on a particular centre, you will need to go directly to that centre.

The centre nearest to us is the one at Eunos, which is having an open house this Saturday (22 December 2012) and another one next Saturday (29 December 2012). You can get the details on their website here. Also on the website, you can watch a video of the students doing Hado reading.

I had the opportunity to speak with the principal and the teachers from the Eunos centre and they are really lovely and warm people, all very keen and interested in right-brain training and early childhood education.

That's Ryan and me this morning. We'd just woken up. Actually, I think I'm still half asleep in this photo.

People still haven't made up their minds whether Ryan looks like me or his daddy. Neither can I, actually. For sure, he gets his curly hair from me, but that's the only thing that's for sure. Everything else is up for discussion. Even when I showed this photo around, people had different opinions about whether he resembles Richard or me. Remember this post? Yeah, I'm always trying to find some resemblance between us because I find it hard to believe that this little cutie has my DNA.


Anyway, today I'm blogging to record something simple but significant that happened two nights ago when I was eating some nuggets for dinner. Ryan asked for one and so I gave him one. He then asked for a nugget for Richard:

Ryan to me: Please can I have Papa nugget?
Me: Yes. (hands him a nugget)
Ryan to Richard: Here you go. (hands Richard the nugget)
Richard: Thank you.
Ryan: You're welcome.

That's a pretty significant conversation to me because Ryan showed that he understands the use of 'please', 'thank you' and even 'you're welcome'. I would even say that his 'Here you go' is a significant step forward in terms interacting and engaging with others. It was not long ago that he was refusing to say 'hello' or any sort of greeting or acknowledgment. Now he rolls off phrases like 'excuse me', 'good night' and 'thanks' without missing a beat (his 'thanks' is 'fanks'). That's mighty good progress, son!

"Dear Ryan, you have always shown constant betterment in memory games! You are becoming very responsive this term too! I like!! ;) Besides that, you enjoyed reciting monthly poems and do the actions with great excitement and confidence! You are able to grab new learning concepts like spotting differences between pictures, distinguishing odd one out items, counting numbers from 1 to 100 and do well in literacy activities too! ;)
You are a super child, Ryan! :) Love you! ;)"

Rachel is six months old today. We are feeling blessed and very lucky to have her. She is our little babydoll, our little ray of sunshine, and our "sugar and spice and everything nice". She completes our family. This morning, Richard grabbed both the littles in his arms and told me with a huge grin on his face, "These two fellas are mine." What joy they have brought to our life, just by being in it and by being who they are.


We love you, darling Rachel. You bring us happiness every single day.

I'm finding it a little difficult to write this post because my thoughts are stuck on Friday's events at Sandy Hook. As a parent and simply as a human being, I'm shocked, saddened and sickened by the senseless tragedy. I don't have anything constructive to say. I just want to hug my children as tight as I can and keep them close for as long as I can.

This is after he finished the outside track. After this, he added some landscape features, like a tunnel and some buildings, but I didn't get a photo of that.


Ok, so this is me signing off, have a good weekend everyone!

In the afternoon, we went to a party hosted by one of Ryan's classmates. Yes, the fun never stops. It was a "tree-trimming" party, although most of the kids were not interested in the tree and the few kids who were interested probably spent two minutes on the tree. They were more happy to be playing with all the toys in the place.

The grown-ups mingled and chatted without being tied to their children and there was a comfortable vibe all around. We were quite a large group and we filled up the space but there was a warm communal feeling. It was a lovely affair.


Ryan started feeling unwell towards the end of the party. He was really good though - he didn't fuss or cry or make any demands. He just climbed into my lap and when I asked him whether he wanted to stay, he just whispered, "I want to go home." So we went home and we let him sleep it off.


It's mid-week already! Time is going by so quickly and I still have tons that I want to get done in the next couple of weeks both at work and outside of work. I'm planning to have a quiet day in the office today to tackle a good part of my to-do list!

As mentioned in the previous post, Ryan had a film shoot yesterday. He was in two shots - one close-up shot and one wide shot and both were done on the beach in Sentosa under the hot sun.

We arrived at about half-past ten in the morning and Ryan was happy to play on the beach. Unfortunately, he only got to roll after lunch by which time, he had been out in the sun for too long. The heat made him cranky and tired.


They started with the close-up but Ryan was not cooperative so they couldn't get the shot. They gave up and went on to the wide shot. By that time, the clouds started to gather and it began to cool down. Ryan got into a much better mood and delivered the wide shot. After that, I asked the director, Jake, if he still wanted the close-up. He asked me whether I thought Ryan could do it. He thought that Ryan was uncomfortable with the camera being so close. I knew that was not the case because Ryan has done plenty of close camera work before and, knowing that Ryan was feeling better, I said, let's do it. So they set up the close-up again and, sure enough, Ryan rose to the occasion and got the close-up done. In fact, the director said that he had more than enough usable footage. We wrapped the shoot right on time.


So, another good experience and another job well done! Everyone on set was amazing, from the crew (from Veer Motion Graphics) to his co-stars (Ashraff and Teresa). They plodded on patiently and cheerfully and accommodated Ryan in every way. A big thank you to everyone!

Child modelling/acting is an intensive venture for both the parent and the child. The parents are very much involved as they are the ones who know best how to handle the child and how best to get the child to respond. Many times we are actually right next to Ryan just outside the frame. Certainly at today's shoot, Richard and I were right there with Ryan under the hot sun. As a souvenir and a reward, I ended the session with rosy sunkissed cheeks! Look, this is me with no make up after I showered... ahh... if only I could have these cheeks all the time!


Yes, I know you don't want to see photos of me, so here are some of Ryan taken just before bedtime! I asked him to model his T-shirt for me. It's an old one. It has an image of a very irate Batman and it says, "@! I AM BATMAN!! why I can't fly?" (yes, the grammar is completely Singlish).