The Bub in the Belly

I mentioned previously that my mother stayed over in the last week of July. A week after she left, we had my cousin sister stay over for about 2.5 weeks (she just left a couple of days ago). She was on an informal internship with me at my firm so she went with me to work everyday.

To be honest, before this visit, my cousin and I had hardly spent any time getting to know each other. We are almost 20 years apart in age and we see each other only once a year, during Chinese New Year. So it was wonderful to be able to spend some time with her, to get to know her and to share a bit of our life with her.

With a house guest, we did have to make some adjustments - we didn't do many activities with Ryan (whether at home or outside) and we didn't go for children-centric activities/venues. Actually, this is always what happens when we have guests - we try not to do activities which would make our guests feel like outsiders. On balance, we probably give our guests a very different impression of what we normally do, but that can’t really be helped.

I wasn't a very good host for the first week, because I was feeling extreme fatigue from the pregnancy. Every night after work and after dinner I would just crawl into bed and leave everyone to their own devices. Blogging was definitely not on the cards. After I had the evacuation done, our evenings were spent sitting around in the living room. Ryan would play with his train set and his Lego, which are kept in the living room. Ryan also got a lot of DVD time (and I really mean A LOT) so he certainly had no complaints. He still wanted to have his reading-time every night though.

On the weekends, we spent a lot of time out and about, going around some of the tourist attractions with my cousin and watching performances (Voca People at Max Pavilion at the Expo, The Lion King at Marina Bay Sands Theatre).

Don't worry, this isn't going to be yet another post with no photos - here they come!

We brought my cousin for a go on the Singapore Flyer. This is the view from one of the capsules.

We took her up to the Skypark at Marina Bay Sands. Almost the same view.



We showed her how to fly a kite at Marina Barrage.








[All iPhone photos were taken by Richard, plus some of the pictures at Marina Barrage. The rest were shot by me.]

Swimming on Sunday was a little uncomfortable - the water was warmer than usual which made it feel heavier. The chlorine content was higher than usual, I could smell it coming off the water and Ryan was rubbing his eyes after each time he went under. I could still smell the chlorine on my skin after the post-class shower. Hope they'll adjust it back to normal next week.

This week, Ryan needed no coaxing at sticker time - he willingly left the pool to collect his reward stickers at the end of the class. Usually he lingers at the poolside and I have to get out of the pool and lead him to it.

After swimming, we swung by Liang Court for lunch and a short session at Royce Kid's Gym. We tried to go last week but our timing was off - they were just about to do a clean-up - so we thought that we'd try again this week. We weren't much earlier this week but they offered to let us in for about 30 mins, so we said yes. We haven't visited the place since we signed Ryan up and they will be increasing their rates starting April 2011 so we thought we try to squeeze as much value out of his membership! Anyway, as it turned out, 30 minutes was enough for Ryan. He was perfectly happy to leave when his session expired. I think he hadn't had enough sleep/rest and was a little tired. We visited the Meidi-ya Supermarket at the basement and then took a short walk along Clarke Quay to clock in some outdoor time. We headed home after that.

There was no Shichida class as Ryan's sensei was on leave so, after a nap, we joined some friends at Marina Barrage for a picnic, some kite flying and some games for the children (mainly involving bubbles). It was quite cloudy and the wind was down (hardly any kites were up) so I didn't bother to take any photos. When the wind finally picked up, it was already dark but we were so excited that we went ahead and got our kites up anyway! The kites flew pretty easily and it was good fun until it started drizzling and we had to pack up and leave. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable outing and we had a nice time catching up with everyone.

Ryan didn't last long upon our return home. He fell asleep before 10 pm. All in all, I think he had a good weekend.

Richard flying our little blue kite!

Me, not doing a good job of kite flying

Ryan hooked up with two brothers for some football