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!

Hope you have exciting plans for the weekend! We are going away for a short holiday - Ryan is very excited about it and Richard and I are looking forward to a good break. Hope your weekend is looking good too.

I've mentioned our *very tiny* swimming pool before, so I thought I'd show you some photos of it today.

It is long enough to fit both Richard and I sitting stretched out, one at each end, with plenty of space leftover between and beside us for the kids to romp around. Of course, it's not meant for adults to swim - if we wanted to do that, we would go down to the proper swimming pool at the condo. For us adults, this is meant to be a chill-out place where the kids can also have fun. Richard and I usually have long and meaningful conversations in the pool, even with the kids splashing about around us, because we are so relaxed and comfortable.


We've been using it once a week, almost every week, and usually, it's the four of us in the pool at the same time. The kids absolutely love it.


A side note on babydoll's water skills. Babydoll is not doing any swimming lessons yet, but she does have a lot of water time. She goes swimming in the public pool with her nanny's family once every fortnight (one of her nanny's daughters is a swimming instructor) and she has lots of water play at home. As you can see from the photos, she has a lot of water confidence and, although not a swimmer, she is independent in this pool.

We made some inquiries last year with Aquaducks to enrol her in a time slot near Ryan's lesson time, but didn't have any luck. Our plans for the family's routine this year are still a little uncertain, so we are holding off for now. We do still hold the view that swimming is a critical life skill to have, so that is definitely on the cards for babydoll in the near future.

If you're wondering, Ryan started lessons when he was one year old, mainly because we did not have access to a swimming pool at that time. I didn't expect him to learn to swim at that age; I simply wanted to ensure that he retained his water confidence. Now, four years later, he can swim pretty well. I am forever grateful that we did expose him to the water at a young age because there's been so many occasions where he's been able to go into the water independently - birthday parties at swimming pools, trips to water parks like Waterbom Bali, holidays with swimming at the beach or in the hotel pools, etc. Quite apart from the fact that I don't worry (too much) about him, he also gets to enjoy himself and have fun, instead of stressing about being in the water.

 

We've been very busy lately. March has been an eventful month for our little family, full of big and small events. Ryan has been attending a birthday party almost every weekend and his work schedule was also fairly busy. Babydoll has been having an exciting month too - she's had a few interesting experiences.

Since the start of this year, we've had a new weekend routine. On Saturday mornings, babydoll goes for her Bilingual Playclub class at Julia Gabriel, which is two hours long. Richard usually accompanies her while I stay with Ryan. The two littles have Shichida in the afternoon so if Ryan has a linking memory test or poem recitation that day, I will spend about ten to fifteen minutes practising with him before we go outdoors to play (Rachel has nothing to prepare). I might also take some time to tidy the house, while Ryan works on some of his own projects. I usually rush through all this because I want to get to the part that both of us look forward to - getting outdoors!




We spend most of the two hours outdoors and that is the best part of those two hours. Actually one of my resolutions for 2014 is to spend more time outdoors so this is a perfect pocket of time to do it. I treasure this time with Ryan very much. We take his kick scooter out and head for either the beach or the playground. He is always happy and we always have a great time chatting and connecting.


Sometimes Ryan and I will eat lunch on our own before Richard and babydoll get out of class. Otherwise, we all eat together at home. After lunch, Ryan will have a shower while babydoll goes down for her nap. We all leave for Shichida together around 1 pm. The rest of Saturday is free and we usually spend it splashing about in our new and *very tiny* swimming pool.




On Sunday, we all go out for breakfast (usually prata) before Ryan's swimming class in the morning. When he's in the pool, either Richard or I will bring babydoll somewhere. The first time, I brought her to the Botanic Gardens while Richard stayed poolside. Since then, Richard has been her companion and they usually visit the art museums or art galleries around Dempsey Hill. The rest of Sunday is free.

We switched the kids over to the Shichida branch at Toa Payoh this term. At the Springleaf branch, they were closing Ryan's class (there were going to be less than four students in the class) and they were also going to change the teacher for Rachel's class, so we took the opportunity to get them into matching time slots which, as it turned out, was only possible at Toa Payoh. It's a little further for us to get to Toa Payoh but having the two kids go into class at the same time is such a time-saver and parking is so convenient. The disadvantage of having matching time slots is that, when one of the parents can't make it, then both of the kids can't go for class. This happened a few times when Richard had to take a meeting on Saturday. We skipped class and I stayed home with the two littles.


For next term, our schedule will change again, as Ryan's Shichida class is, again, closing. We've switched the two kids over to Sunday afternoon in matching time slots, still at Toa Payoh. Actually, I wanted to withdraw babydoll from the programme but the school said that it was too late into the term and I would have to forfeit my deposit if I withdrew her then. Since we'd already signed Ryan up for next term, we decided to let babydoll continue as well. I'll share my reasons and thoughts on withdrawing from the programme another time.

So I hope you enjoyed this peek into our weekend routine. All the photos were shot during Mama-and-Ryan time on Saturday mornings over the last few months.

These next three photos are from Florinda. Ryan had a fabulous time in the water with Brayden - the two boys were absolutely thrilled to be playing and swimming in the water. Chris (Brayden's dad) looked after the two of them when they were swimming in the deeper pool - thanks Chris! Ryan adores "Uncle Chris" and listens to him.




After the water fun, the children continued the party with bubble wands. Ryan is terrible with these - when the bubbles appear, he gets so excited and, in the course of going "wow" at the bubbles, he forgets that he's holding the tube of bubble solution in the other hand and he will invariably turn the tube and spill everything! No photos of that - because the whole thing was over before the camera could appear, haha.


After dinner, there was the cake-cutting and the cake-eating. Then the children went to burn off more calories at the playground, no matter that it was already pretty dark by then. The adults sat around and chatted and it was great to meet some new friends.

You can read about the party on Florinda's blog - click here! Little Kate is growing up so lovely - happy birthday little one!