The Bub in the Belly

Thank you all for your helpful and generous comments on my "Mama, are you there?" dilemma. It looks like there's no other way other than to get Richard on the task, huh? Heh heh - dear hubs, I hope you are reading this! This needs immediate action!

I do feel that this is an issue that needs to be addressed before time robs us of the chance. There are so many moments that I share with my lovelies, which I and only I, remember, and my memory isn't going to last forever. A related issue is - taking photos of the family. We have practically zero presentable photos. On his first day of school, Ryan had to bring a photo of his family. We hunted through our massive database of photos and came up with ... nothing. He ended up going to school with one of our "tourist" photos - the one which I wrote about here, and which I said was NOT going to take pride of place on our shelf. Famous last words.

On that note, I think it's time I arranged a professional photoshoot for the family!

Now that we've gotten that sorted out, let's get back to the lovelies. Updates on Ryan today!

Now that Ryan has gone up to kindergarten, his school day ends at 3 pm. He goes to his nanny after that. He refuses to go down for a nap but he does have his quiet time there. As a result, he's been sleeping quite early at night. Usually we get home close to 9 pm, he gets a bottle of milk, lounges around a bit, and then it's off to bed around 10 plus. Some nights he even falls asleep in the car on the way home and sleeps through till the next day.

On weekends, when we have particularly busy days, there is a risk that he will fall asleep on the way out for dinner. If he does then, depending on where we plan to go, we either turn back or carry on with our dinner plans and let him sleep through.

Look, can you spot a little sleeping boy?



In relation to school, Ryan has been enjoying his new kindergarten class. He has a new set of teachers and some of his classmates are new to him (they regrouped the nursery classes). Happily, his class is in the same classroom as his ex-nursery class, so that was one less thing to adjust too.

We have signed him up for sports after school with Shaws Little League, once a week. We were actually thinking of dance or drama class. After speaking to his kindergarten teacher, we decided on sports because she told me that he loves his PE sessions - he's always asking for ten minutes more!


Temperament - hmm, let's see. Still an easygoing chap. But boy oh boy, does he have his "OCD" moments! For instance, I presented him with socks for school the other morning and he said, "These socks are dirty!" Richard went, "Huh?" and I rolled my eyes (behind Ryan's back). The socks were perfectly clean, they looked a little tatty because they'd been through the laundry a few times. I told Ryan, "They're clean, they just came out of the laundry." So the next morning, faced with a fresh (but not new) pair of socks, my little man started asking just as skeptically as before, "Are these socks clean? Did they just come out of the laundry?"

Sigh. Maybe he's trying to tell me that he needs new socks.

Here he is, trying on Rachel's fairy accessories, which was a free gift when we bought her sandals from Clarks. As you can see, Ryan enjoys them quite a bit. Last Sunday, after swimming, he put on a baseball cap and on top of the cap, he slipped on the hoodie from the jacket he was wearing, and then, the piece de resistance, the fairy headband. Did I hear you say, "Fashion Forward"?

Something interesting to note - Ryan subscribes to absolutely none of the gender stereotypes. Sometimes he tells me he wants to try on a skirt that he saw. He likes Dora the Explorer just as much as he likes Pocoyo. He has no problem with pink, blue or any colour. He is just as likely to try on one of my hair clips as he is to try on a pair of fairy wings.


Ryan does love dressing up, and he loves costumes. His favourite is the superhero capes (of which, his absolute favourite is Super Ryan). The other night, after his bath, he asked for his "Chinese costume". He wore it to sleep and refused to take it off the next day. Off he went to school in it!


We have been doing some math activities for our home learning. I am starting over from (almost) the beginning with him, for reasons I will explain in another post.

Ok, that's it. Till tomorrow!

I have been sewing a lot more recently and I thought I'd sneak some words here and there about the pieces I worked on. Today I'm showcasing Rachel's yellow top with pink butterflies! You may recognise it from our trip to Legoland earlier this month. I used the Ice Cream Dress sewing pattern from Oliver + S, which was excellent. I made the top version (instead of the dress version) in the 12-18 months size and without the notch at the neckline. The fabric is a 100% cotton from Spotlight. I had just enough left over after I cut out a circle skirt for Shann's daughter, Rou Ern sometime ago. I think Rachel appreciated the ease of movement and the lightness of the fabric. She looked very comfortable and happy in it.

On a separate note, notice that there are no photos of me with the children on the blog lately. For whatever reason, Richard doesn't take photos of me. He will take photos of the children, but not when I am with them. He will photograph me only if I ask him to (and I rarely do), but if so, it will be a "smile at the camera" kind of shot - the kind of photos you would take with a relative you see twice a year, those that have little memory of the moment other than "we were here". I wish that I had more photos of me and the children just sharing our little moments, doing our things, photojournalist style. I don't often write about myself in terms of what I do with the children and I guess I expect Richard to appreciate the beauty in those moments and shoulder the responsibility for documenting them. I know different people think differently. Not every person reaches for the camera as often as I do and not every person has the same "photographic eye". But still.

It is a real problem. Looking through the blog, I am annoyed that I seem to be missing from my children's lives. I am annoyed that I come across as an observer and a reporter, but not a participant, which is ironic because, as between Richard and I, he is more of an observer/reporter. I am annoyed that I am documenting every memorable moment, yet the ones that involve me are lost to my children. I am annoyed that someone, long ago, assumed that this blog was written by Richard. Yes, I am annoyed with Richard - I've mentioned this to him before and nothing has changed and I hate to repeat myself (because my philosophy is that if I have to repeat myself, it's a sign that you're not bothered). I have to figure this one out because so many moments have been lost already plus if, God forbid, something should happen to part my children from me, they will not remember what I look like! Any ideas?

Just photos today - babydoll "werking" it! Enjoy and have a good weekend!

To be honest, I haven't got many photos of Ryan to share at the moment, just some stray shots here and there. Having said that, I have lots of videos of him! Ryan has become so expressive now and it's so entertaining!

So today, I'm sharing a video of Ryan. This is a Youtube video and it's about five and a half minutes long. I haven't been sharing the videos because I usually want to subtitle them and the subtitles take forever to do so I keep putting that off. Fortunately, this video doesn't need subtitles, plus I felt that the subtitles would distract the viewer from watching Ryan and it's such a joy to watch him in this video.

Before I show you the video, I want to explain how it came about. It was completely impromptu and was done in our bedroom, during one of our bedtime story sessions. Ryan had been playing with his Montessori blue geometric solids so I asked him to talk about shapes. I told him that he could explain the 2D shapes and then talk about the 3D shapes and I would film him. I helped him to set up the "set", reminded him to introduce himself and got the camera going. That's all I did. He took over from there. I did not give Ryan a script - he came up with everything himself. We did not rehearse this at all, so this is the one and only take.

When I watch this video, I am not looking to see if he knows his shapes. What impresses me, and what the exercise was really about, was how he could script everything himself and take on the role so confidently. He understood what it means to give a presentation and he even built in some audience participation! He actually said, "Have a nice day!" at the end, which I did not capture as I stopped the camera too early.

Okay, enough from me. I'll hand you over to Professor Ryan. Let's learn about shapes!

This photo was shot by one of the daddies

It was our first time at Hokey Pokey, and actually it was also Rachel's first time at one of these play areas. She has been to Singkids a few times, but Singkids is more of a gym. Hokey Pokey caters for younger children and there are lots of toys for them to explore and play with.


Look at these photos! I thought this was pretty amusing - she was stacking balls in the ball pit!




Did you notice that she picked out only the pink balls?

You made it this far - here's the video!

I keep watching this video over and over again because it shows Rachel in her fearless and fun mode. My little 14 month old was diving around the ball pit as if she were in a mosh pit at a rock concert! She's definitely not one to sit in one spot and just throw balls around. She wants to be in the thick of action! I was happy to see her unafraid of the people there as well - she was jiving with the older children without any apprehension. Oh, and again, I noticed that she picked up balls of matching colours - first two white ones and then two yellow ones. Hmm, maybe I should start giving her some colour matching activities at home?

Please forgive the dirty T-shirt. She was touching the cars, including the wheels. And yes, I let her, after checking that the cars were not hot.

Oh yes, if you're curious about what Rachel is munching on in the first two photos - it's a chicken wing! Check out that pincer grasp! We usually toss her the wing tip to chew on and sometimes the mid-wing, after wiping off as much oil as we can. Richard, our resident chicken connoisseur, is very proud.

All right. So we got to the beach safe and sound, after using the pedestrian crossing at a couple of big roads and one overhead bridge. The beach was buzzing with activity. Lots of people and lots to see. We made our way to a fast food restaurant for a quick pick-me-up before heading back.


Ryan was searching high and low for a playground, to no avail. He ended up at one of the fitness spots dotted along the park connector. He tried out each and every apparatus before he was willing to go.


Babydoll hadn't slept much all day so she was falling asleep at the wheel on the way back. Luckily her backup transport was ever ready.



Ryan took the opportunity to climb into the buggy for a bit. He still likes it very much, although he also likes the "big boy" feel of the kick scooter.

A pretty good way to end the weekend.