next week is my ex-haagen dazs colleague Eileen's daughter Ellyson's 1 year old birthday(that's a mouthful!) i love buying presents for children, even though they probably won't appreciate gifts at their tender age.
guess what i bought?
isnt this damn sweet!!
it's $93
made of wood, not made in china. safe!!
6 of us sharing, so can afford, otherwise, no way man!
Hope the little princess will love playing with it and pass down to her next generation(i'm asking for too much as usual).
the past week had been 99% stressfree and relaxing. this week is also my last week of fantasizing. it's back to the books in less than 5 days!
After the doctor's appointment at gleneagles today, Jude and I went orchard! it's a rare trip for us. i just wanted to go for a walk and have lunch there. Lunch was nice at Taka foodcourt and Jude loved the char siew horfun, a real treat for him, as he seldom eats out with me. last sunday we went to bukit timah food centre, where i ordered a small cup of milo for him. he was so delighted. poor kid, have i deprived him? i hope not. haha...!
i bought him a drum set today. it was an unplanned purchase; it was too cheap to resist! only $12!! there were a lot of other toys at very low prices, i had to remind myself 'one toy at a time'.
needless to say, he loveslovesloves it. wouldn't stop playing on it until i could stand it no longer and lock the drums in the study.
can't believe i am blogging something as uninteresting as a water bottle, but really, this simple and innocent thing caused me much irritation, frustration and money over the past 2 years and 187 days - yup eversince jude was born.
For myself, i simply recycle mineral water bottles. For Jude, he needs to constantly change his water bottles according to his swallowing developments. from a teat bottle to a sip bottle to finally, a straw bottle. he started using the sip bottle when he was approaching the terrible twos. since then i have a hate-relationship with sip bottles. i lost count of how many bottles he had used. most of them suffer the same fate - badly bitten rubber straws - and i was stupid enough to buy those without replacement straws so got to throw those bottles away. when i finally became smarter and bought a bottle that comes with replacement straws, Jude threw that bottle out of the window one day because he didn't want to drink any water. Some sip bottles are so poorly made(cos Made in C****) and Jude wouldn't drink from those bottles.
Today, i woke up feeling determined to find the perfect water bottle and headed to Bugis BHG after kicking the boy over to his Fan Club. yes i found it. Rubbermaid. Branded. Good. No replacement straws available for sale, but the mouthpiece is hard plastic, so can't be bitten off. Good. Easy to suck. Good. Doesn't slip off his tiny palms. Good. Cheap. SO GOOD!!
those stupid dunnowat department should have displayed this item at the kids department, not householdware department!
to conclude, brandless bottles with cute cartoons are useless leaking things and make mummies pek chek.
Jude had his first boy fight with another kid today. i know i am weird, but i really thought it was hilarious. the way they rolled around the floor with their arms wrapped around each other, trying to bite each other, hitting each other with cushions.. i stopped them only when they started to get even more violent.
what really amused me about their fight, was the look on their face. i don't think they really hated each other. the other boy started irritating Jude and Jude thought it was a good time to show off his kungfu skills. In fact, they looked as though they were having fun fighting.
they fought a few times and ended up saying sorry to each other after a stern warning from both mummies. after that, they played like old friends! Kids!!
here's why:
today jude was running towards the lift to press the lift button, when one of his shoes flew off. i laughed and helped him put it back on. While i was doing that, he blabbered in his 'half bucket' English Language about him being a princess and dropping his shoe. i was like 'huh' for a second and quickly realised what he was talking about. He thought he was Cinderella! The shoe-dropping part in this fairytale has left such a deep impression on him.
I'm glad i introduced books and reading to Jude. It has helped him in at least one way - imagination - and that's so important for a child.
Jude and i are having a great weekend. Yesterday, after his nap, we took off to our favourite playground - Jacob Ballas Children's Garden! There, he can act out his gardening fantasies(watering plants) and i can stone by the side and watch how other parents fuss over their little ones.
When Jude (miraculously) announced that he was ready to go, I already had in mind what to have for our saturday night dinner - Sushi Tei! Jude had a bit of biscuits after his waterplay but was still hungry. i was totally famished. luckily there was a straight bus from the gardens to Holland Village.
Dinner was great. Jude learnt how to dip his sushi into the shoyu and he loved the salty taste.
Jude's vocab has improved tremendously over the past 3 months, making full sentences most of the time. i congratulate myself for being able to witness and be part of this milestone in his life. With Jude being able to speak, this mother-son relationship refreshes and also goes a step further, as i can have a proper full conversation with him. I can tell him about the big bungalows i passed by while jogging and he can tell me about how the plane and the MRT crashed and the egg broke(?!?! you are not expected to understand this). And of course, he can command me around, like “你去洗碗”.
For the second quarter of 2008,
1) Jude will learn the bicycle with training wheels! just bought him a small(but lousy) bike from carrefour and he's very excited. so am i!
2) Jude will attend morning daycare for 3 days a week at the nearby church childcare.
3) the childcare will help Jude learn self feeding. I very very much look forward to that!
4) I am working towards a stronger body and a healthier diet - jogging as often as i can. have been jogging every other morning and i feel the difference.
Fans of Jude, stay tuned!
He just learnt how to ride the tricycle!!
come on son! learn to ride the bicycle and to rollerblade soon and both of us can go ECP to rollerblade. Weekend mornings will never be boring again!!
every sunday is Jude's favourite day becos he gets to meet his cousin, Owen gor gor. today, we brought them to Jacob Ballas Children Garden and they were on high for the whole of 1 hour spent there.
so... so.... so... happy
i was so excited about Katrina's farewell get-together and i made an effort to be all prepared so that once Jude wakes up from his noon nap, we can go straightaway. when we were getting ready to leave, i checked my handphone and saw that the date was 19th Jan. Wait! wasnt' the invite for 20th Jan! ....*&^%$....
so changed into casual clothes and i had to think of plan b. the weather was too nice to stay at home. i told Jude, let's go Ikea! i had to return something anyway.
At Ikea, Jude saw the ballroom which he loved so much. i always tell him he can go in once he's tall enough. but i decided it was time to tell him the truth. i've seen with my own eyes, a little girl peeing in the ballroom, it's damn disgusting! and have heard many kids catching fever or flu from such a playground. and Jude understood! he told me he wasn't interested anymore becos someone shhshh inside. Cool!
at home, it was just me and him for this weekend. so boring. i wish i can skip dinner but Jude can't do without one. so i made grilled honey salmon for him and tested (for the 3rd time!!) this Chicken Souvlaki recipe.
I thought my third attempt was quite good, but it's very unsingaporean. The white sauce that goes with the chicken is called Tzatziki (sat-ziki) sauce. i felt it's something different for a BBQ, if i have a chance to organize one. Jude likes both the chicken and salmon. Good on you Jude! we had baked potato fries too , but too pathetic to be pictured :p
then after dinner... i made Jude strip and took pics of him. the funny boy, when he was left with just his undies, he did that mocca advert (the one of the muscular man who was showing off his apartment). it was damn funny!
