The Bub in the Belly

Last month, we met up with Ryan's preschool teachers for a parent-teacher conference, to discuss his progress and things like that. He's doing great. The teachers said that he gets along with everyone; he's really easygoing and he is comfortable hanging out with anyone. He reads well, writes well. He likes to draw a lot. His Mandarin, including his Hanyu Pinyin, is good enough such that his Mandarin teacher assumed that we coached him at home (we don't).


In particular, the teachers mentioned a project in which Ryan took the lead. The children were discussing plans to make a charitable donation and they were deciding which charity to donate to. Ryan took the lead: helping to document and tally the votes, writing a letter to the school office to inform the office of the final choice, leading a group of classmates to the office to deliver the letter and explain its message and even using a camera to take photos of the whole thing. I thought that was quite impressive.


Ryan is doing golf as an extra-curricular school activity; something which I think he has a love-hate relationship with. According to the instructors, he is quite good, and when I talk to him about golf, he's happy and enthusiastic. On the other hand, whenever I remind him that he has a lesson, he will tell me that he doesn't want to go (too late though as I'd already paid for the term). I know that he enjoys himself during the lesson (I sit and watch him from the sidelines) so I was a little perplexed at his reluctance. Recently, I realised the reason - the golf lesson is conducted under the hot sun and I know that he really doesn't like being in the sun. When he actually goes for the lesson, he always has a good time and forgets about the heat, but when he's at home and we dissect it, he definitely remembers the discomfort!

Ryan is still taking swimming lessons once a week. Apart from golf and swimming, he doesn't do any classes. I have a feeling we won't do golf next term though! Haha!


Ryan's modelling/acting life is pretty busy. He had a casting call on Friday, followed by an audition on Monday (yesterday) and he has another casting call later this week. Keeping our fingers crossed that he'll be selected for one or more of the roles.


These photos were taken last Sunday at the beach near Parkland Green. We'd finished our meal and Ryan and I ventured out for a walk, while Richard minded babydoll who had fallen asleep. Ryan headed straight for the beach. I was surprised because I thought he wanted to ride his scooter along the path. What surprised me even more was how at ease he was with the sand and the surf, even taking off his shoes unprompted. When he was much younger, he was not a fan of the beach at all - he hated having sand between his toes and he was very uneasy with the surf. Now, he's a pro. I told Richard that it must be because of all the training he got when we went to Bali and to Mauritius!


Ok, that's all!

Ryan spent two days last week on set for his latest project - a television commercial. That's one of his co-stars, Cana, who is supposed to be his sister in the commercial. They look alike, don't they? We are pretty excited about this project and are eagerly anticipating seeing it on air!

Interestingly, Ryan's screen daddy (Hoong) and screen mummy (Shu Qian) were the same actors who played his parents in a print commercial that he did about two years ago. What an unexpected reunion!

Another wholly unexpected encounter was when, Randall, the representative from the ad agency recognised Ryan as Ryan from this blog! It was a very happy moment for me, especially when he told me that he/his wife have been reading our blog for years and that he/his wife have found inspiration in our posts. That is amazingly awesome and I don't know what to say except thank you, thank you. I feel so grateful.

When I spoke to him, I had not posted for two weeks but our conversation inspired and motivated me to get back to blogging! Haha! There has been quite a lot happening in our household recently, which is why the blog has been on the backburner. I'll update you as we go along, yeah?

We are shooting a new television commercial tomorrow - will update!

This edition of "Some sweetness for the weekend" is brought to you by Dancing Ryan.

Ryan is working on a shoot today, which should be fun judging by the stuff that he was asked to do at the audition for this job. As usual, I'll update you all when the final cut is released.

Ryan was supposed to have a picnic with his classmates in school today but it looks like some sacrifices have to be made. Actually, not really. Ryan is very happy to be out of school. His nanny asked him if he was going to school tomorrow and he protested, "I'm on holiday!"



 

Babydoll's hair is curly, curly, curly. I'm looking forward to seeing it go past her shoulders - I'm sure it will be gorgeous.






Richard and I had a peaceful and satisfying dinner at Crab in da Bag at Big Splash. This was after our parent teacher conference at Ryan's preschool last week and before we went to fetch the kids from the nanny. It was our first time at this restaurant and it was good - we'll be back!.

I'll tell you more about the parent teacher conference in another post. For now, let's focus on the crab! This is the "before" photo.


And this is the "after" photo. As you may notice, we don't eat the crab roe so next time we'll ask for the male crab.



When we got back to the party, the kids were already in the pool. Ryan had a blast there! He was the absolute last person to leave the pool and only because he thought we were leaving without him (actually we were just walking back to the bowling area to find his shoes). It was a fabulous party - Happy 5th birthday to Leila!


On Sunday, we overslept and missed Rachel's Shichida class, while Ryan barely made it for swimming. For lunch, we visited the farmer's market at Pasarbella at The Grandstand. After a disappointing experience at the farmer's market at Dempsey, I was looking forward to much better offerings and this time, I was not disappointed. Worth the trip - do go if you can. We ate at Oceans of Seafood which is towards the back. It serves a wide Japanese seafood menu (the sashimi is supposedly very good) and a limited but good Western seafood menu (go for the fish and chips).



And yes, it was Rachel who spotted it before any of us did. She pointed to it and said "papa". Errr... she doesn't know how to say "Ryan" or "korkor" (big brother) yet, so we'll accept that! If you see Ryan's poster in Cold Storage, give it a secret wink, won't you?

That's all!