The Bub in the Belly

We are well into holiday mode. Losing track of days and planning only as far as our next meal. Ryan and Rachel have been spending lots of quality time with their cousins and Richard and I have been catching up on sleep plus squeezing in some shopping here and there.

Nothing much else to say, so enjoy the photos!

Rachel is starting to put on more weight, which is lovely. She is doing very well with all the new and exciting food that we have been giving her, although her main diet is still breastmilk. She is not as soft spoken as Ryan - she loves to shout out a greeting when she sees us! She will also call out loudly to us when she wants attention - that's when she uses a sharp "Hah!"

Finally, I saw her first tooth! It's difficult to spot because firstly, she just won't keep still long enough and second, she is not fond of people poking their fingers into her mouth to open it for a peek! She is having a bit of a runny nose which some mummies tell me is a teething symptom. She is still cheerful and doesn't seem bothered by the teething.


Tomorrow Rachel will be having her third Heguru class at the Eunos centre. At home, we are not doing much of anything. At this stage, I try to talk/sing to her, give her various things to touch/feel/taste, let her exercise as much as she wants to, and give her lots of cuddles and kisses. That's all. We are not even reading (I know that will probably shock some of you).

Anyway, speaking of kisses, Rachel surprised me the other day because she gave me raspberry kisses! (A raspberry kiss is a sloppy kiss where you blow, making a farting sound.) I thought it was accidental, but she kept doing it on my thigh and she had a cheeky smile on her face, so I know it was intentional.


Up till a few days ago, Rachel's nanny let her sit in a bouncer seat when Rachel was awake. With Ryan and another toddler running around in the living room, it was not the safest option to leave Rachel roaming about on the floor, plus her nanny didn't think that the floor was clean enough for a baby (she has much higher standards of cleanliness than I do). Anyway, her nanny observed that Rachel was leaning over the side of the bouncer to reach for toys that she had dropped on the floor so she grew concerned that Rachel would tumble out of her bouncer notwithstanding being strapped in. So her nanny got her a playpen. I would never use a playpen myself, in my own home, but in the circumstances, I was very happy to hear the news. I went out straightaway and bought a mattress for her playpen.

Not surprisingly, Rachel loves it! Compared to being strapped in a bouncer, it must be so liberating for her, plus she is queen of her own little castle. She crawls from corner to corner looking for her toys - her nanny teases her saying she is "digging for gold". She sleeps well when she is in it, turning onto her front which is her favourite sleep position. She even tries to pull herself up to a standing position while shouting "Hah!" at you through the mesh wall. Lots of opportunity to exercise and get those gross motor skills!

Ok, that's all for now. Have a lovely weekend!

From my previous posts and as my Facebook friends would know, Ryan has been telling me a story every night before we go to bed. We lie in bed and he dictates the story to me while I type it out on Facebook using my phone. He watches the screen as I type on my phone and is quick to point out if I spell something wrong or use the wrong word.

I started this ritual with the intention of giving him more opportunity to use language, to construct sentences, to think sequentially and consequentially, to think creatively, etc. I'm sure you can think of the various benefits. It's basically doing speech and drama at home.

I decided to try a different format to record his stories because I felt that some elements got lost in translation when I simply took down Ryan's dictation. I want to record not only his story but the way he tells his story, with all the cute expressions and actions. So, last night I told him to tell me the story while I filmed him with my phone.

So, this is Storytime with Ryan - Episode 1: "The digger and the man go to the pharmacy". The digger refers to the excavator used in construction. Ryan was looking at a picture of it earlier. Enjoy!

We got the food from various spots around the east. The stars of the feast were mee siam and laksa from Glory Catering. Then there was roast pork neck, tiny chicken wings and basil fried rice from Two Fat Men. We also picked up some beef rendang, curry chicken, chilli brinjal and ladies' fingers from Glory Catering. Still more - pork and lotus soup and sliced pork with spring onion, just in case the children needed something different.

Here's little Rachel sucking on a piece of pork neck, with bits of cucumber on her cheek. Yumz...




The letters had soft little sticks in them so the children ate them like lollipops!

Our very-soon-to-be four year old. Love him to bits.


It was a fun night, especially for the four four-year olds! It was also great to sit down with the adults and catch up with them. In particular, we hadn't seen Trevor and Florinda since their new addition came along, so it was wonderful to check in with them and know that they are doing well and enjoying life as parents of two beautiful girls.

Here's a family photo! Little Rachel was fussing about something, but stopped just long enough to open her eyes for the shot!

Here's Ryan's latest commercial! He is at 0:43-0:44 and 1:09-1:11 of the video!



This was the one that Ryan shot at Sentosa last month. Huge thanks again to everyone on set - from the crew at Veer Motion Graphics to Ryan's co-stars (Ashraff and Teresa). The commercial is really cute and sweet! I think it is not airing on TV at the moment, only on the internet, although it will be in circulation on the internet for quite some time (2 years). The company has a separate commercial on TV at the moment. Still they may also choose to crop parts of this commercial to make a shorter one for airing on TV, so let's hope they do and that Ryan's scene makes the cut!

Ryan had two auditions last week so we are crossing our fingers that he will get booked for more work!

Rachel attended her first Heguru class last weekend at Heguru Education Centre at Eunos.

To be honest, I had intended to start her on Shichida classes when she is much older. As long-time readers of this blog know, we have been a Shichida family since 2009, when we signed Ryan up for Shichida classes. I did a lot of reading and research on whole-brain training back then and the schools with the best reviews were Shichida and Heguru. Heguru did not have any schools in Singapore back in 2009, so Shichida it was. I do give credit to Shichida - Ryan enjoys his classes very much and I do see results.

Nevertheless, a part of me still wondered about Heguru. So when Heguru announced that they were setting up shop in Singapore starting January 2013, enrolling Rachel in Heguru was the perfect opportunity to find out more about it. So there we were on Saturday, in the good company of Teacher Paige and Assistant Teacher Marilyn.


There are three Heguru centres in Singapore now. Each centre is separately run, however. I signed up with the Eunos centre after checking out the teachers at all the three centres. I believe that the quality of the teachers is a major differentiating factor so I based my choice on that.

Although the Eunos centre is also the centre closest to home, proximity to home was not a consideration because we are not usually in the east on weekends. We are usually driving Ryan to his classes and all of Ryan's classes are not in the east.


Having attended the class, I do think that there are a few differences between Shichida and Heguru in terms of how the class is conducted, at least for Rachel's level. There are also a few differences in terms of the activities that are carried out in class. Nevertheless, the hallmarks of right-brain training are present - memory games, high-speed flashcards, intuition games and visualisation games.

Rachel was very active during the class, as she always is. She certainly did not sit down tamely on her little cushion for the whole one hour. Nevertheless, she didn't fall asleep - haha! She was constantly alert and constantly stimulated. That's what I concluded because she was completely spent after the class and immediately fell asleep when I strapped her into her car seat. She took a solid nap while I picked the boys up and she continued to sleep through our lunch!


Having practised Shichida for more than 3 years, there are a few things about Heguru that I need to adjust to. I still have the option of switching Rachel to Shichida if I decide I prefer Shichida for her but that decision can only be made after we have attended classes for a while. Who knows, maybe I'll end up switching Ryan to Heguru? I'm just keeping an open mind at the moment and so far, so good.

If you are curious about Heguru, the centre at Eunos is holding information sessions for parents this Saturday and next Saturday (12 and 19 January 2013) from 4:30 to 5:30 pm. Click here to register.