Hamburger shirt

   
Titus wore a cheeky singlet with a HUGE hamburger (he calls it his “hamburger shirt”) to the track two days ago. He was so cute to be bobbling around the track in his cheeky singlet. He giggled very happily whenever we pretended to “eat” the hamburger off his stomach.

My Family Journal

K has to bring a family journal to school next week. Even though it’s very easy for me to create a nice journal with scrapblog or smilebox, I decided that since he’s in K1 this year, he has to do his homework on his own. So I printed some photos for him, bought construction paper/glue/tape and provided him instructions to …

… cut the photos, cut the cute animal printouts, cut the construction paper, paste the photos/printouts, and write the title page for his book (he copied off what I wrote for him on another piece of paper).

It took him one hour yesterday and one hour today to complete these!

After he went to bed just now, I stapled everything together and tadaa, we have completed the book! The writing is a bit messy, pictures are not cut perfectly, glue is not spread evenly, and pages are jagged. But then again he’s a 5 year old, so this is already a very nice piece of work. And I’m guessing that he’ll be so proud of his work when he sharres it in class next week because he’s invested so much effort in it! He did tell me (a few times) that he liked doing this piece of homework.

Learning to draw a star

Was teaching K to draw a star just now by combining two triangles together. The green and pink triangles belong to me while everything else on the paper were drawn by him. There’s lots of Letterland characters like Sammy Snake, Annie Apple, Oscar Orange etc, and there are also two transformers (the two things that look like spaceships) sitting on the grass patch.

Chinese New Year 2012

Reunion dinner: Boys having their dinner in front of the TV. They were thrilled to catch Toy Story 1 and 2 at the grandparents’ place that evening.

Reunion dinner: I wolfed down half of this box of cakes after dinner because it was so yummy!

Lunar New Year Day 1: K made these cards for my parents during breakfast time so that they can have good health and happiness in the year ahead.

   
Lunar New Year Day 1: Boys in the family dressed in matchy clothes … on the way to visit both sets grandparents to 拜年.

Lunar New Year Day 2: Boys in matchy clothes again … bonding with a 7-year-old cousin from KL’s side of the family over iPad games!

Bird Park with the cousins

Over the long weekend, the boys visited the Bird Park with their fav cousins. They had free tickets and wanted to check out the new waterplay area. My mum and her helper went with them. As for me, I slept really late till 11am that day cos there was no disturbance at home, ha!

Happy Chinese New Year!

   
王泰泽祝大家富贵吉祥! 王楷泽祝大家心想事成!

Rainbows on 21 Jan 12

Spotted two rainbows from our living room window just minutes ago! It’s my first time seeing two rainbows appear together =)

Self portraits made with paper plates

Self portraits that the N1 class made today made use of paper plates, paint, brush, yarn, glue. T’s plate is the one with the little blue ribbon twist. I assume that the other two plates which come with red ribbons in the hair belong to his female classmates.

Combi stacking toy

   
T tried his hand at stacking yesterday. When he received very specific instructions from me on which piece to stack on top of which piece, his structure turned out neat and nice like a tall cone. But of course I also left him alone to stack anyway he wanted because it’s fun to stack any-o-how and this was the result that ensued!

Check out these pictures of K playing with the same toy three and a half years ago back in the kitchen of our old house.

Lunch with friends

After the dental visit, KL met three friends from his old lab for lunch so K tagged along too.

Today’s lunch was to celebrate these these two pretty ladies and the photographer finally submitting their PhD theses! Congrats!

Another failed visit to the dentist

I managed to bring forward the National Dental Centre (NDC) appointment so KL took the day off to bring K to visit the centre today. It was another failed visit again. Dentist managed to spot at least 4 – 5 cavities but the moment he stuck a mirror in, K started crying. Today’s visit cost $37 with no procedures done.

I think the boys just cannot manage on their own. We made a follow up appointment to the NDC two weeks later, and this time I’ll be bringing K there instead of the father. The main cause of the cavities is likely to be the fruit juices that he’s constantly drinking — apple, orange, powerberries, carrot, mango, etc. Advice that I’ve received from a dentist who treats young patients … moving forward, I have to strictly ration the amount of fruit juice the boys drink to maybe two times a week, dilute the juice if I remember to and get them to rinse their mouth after drinking whenever its convenient to do so.

PS: Grandparents, do take note of the juice pointers too!

Stuck in the net!

We made it to the track again today. No one was playing frisbee on the field this week so the boys had the whole field to themselves. They kicked the ball while I ran 6 rounds again.  15 min 34 sec — almost the same timing as last week.

   
The funniest thing that happened today was watching our little brother get himself stuck in the goal post net and trying (unsuccessfully) to squirm his way out!

Tree to play iPhone

Only a child living in this era will be able to imagine how the tree, which was once for climbing, can now be a place to play iPhone. It wasn’t written on his artwork but K told me that he imagined T on the tree using an iPad to watch gummy bears (an irritating video that T likes on youtube).

Off diapers in school!

So happy to share that T has gone off diapers in school! He still wears a diaper at nap time though, and today he pooed in the diaper after bath/lunch. He hasn’t tried pooing in the toilet bowl in school yet.

Prior to going off diapers in school, he actually had more than a few months of training to pee in a potty at my mum’s house and at our own house. He’s gone diaper-less for five car rides so far (less than 20 minutes) and so far so good, we’ve not had any pee accidents yet.

Rocket that can blast off

   
Boys pretended that this ultra big box is a rocket that can blast off. Before the rocket blasts off, all the sides have to be closed properly, but somehow T’s clumsy legs always get stuck. So K took it upon himself to lift T’s knees/legs inside so that everything first nicely within the box. Before blasting off, I also heard T saying he was “putting on seat belt”. The whole thing was quite funny to watch!

Dinosaur eating an ostrich

Part of our plan to jazz up the boys’ room last August was to decorate their walls with decals. The cheapo dinosaur set (think it cost me $3 or $5 for the entire set) from Cotton On made one of their walls really cute to look at but unfortunately the dinosaurs have been unable to stick properly for long. See how it measures against a normal ostrich (non decal) sticker?

Anyway, the plan to make their room attractive enough for them to want to sleep there has been working well since August/September last year. Initially they would take turns to cry sporadically in the middle of night (maybe once a week or once a fortnight) and ask to crawl into my bed to sleep with me. But that stopped somewhere in November. Currently they still wake up at night to pee (for K) and to drink milk (for T). But at least they’re sleeping in their own rooms 100% of the time so that improves the quality of my sleep infinitely.

Smelly, sweaty and happy on 15 Jan 12

   
Boys were smelly, sweaty and happy on 15 Jan 12 because they visited the playground so many times today. I like the first picture, using it as my phone’s wallpaper now.

Longer and warmer days

   
Our days seem to be getting longer because the sun is setting later between 7.15pm – 7.30pm. Our days are getting warmer too. Pictures above were taken last Thursday when KL drove us to school/work. Can’t remember why T was upset on the way to school.

Fruity picture

Picture was drawn at grandparents’ house today. Lots of strawberries, cherries, pears and some robots. K said that the yellow coloured objects are there to teach the younger brother how to tell the colour, ie by getting him to match the yellow ones to the yellow ones.

Magic cards

KL is redoing his study room – buying a new study table, replacing shelves, clearing out things etc – in preparation for going back to school in August this year. He found three big boxes of Magic: The Gathering cards while he was clearing his things. These have not been played for years and K was only more than happy to inherit everything from the father.

   
Here’s a card that K thought was really nice. In addition to the cards, he also inherited two medieval figurines and went to bed very happy last night.

Practical life skills for 2 – 3 year olds

In case you’re wondering what these skills are when you read the post title, the practical life skills for 2 – 3 year olds are pegging, pouring, scooping, cutting dough. And I think that puzzles and activities related to math are included too.

Timetable for N1 in 2012

Thoughts that ran through my head as I looked through the timetable …

1. A lot less Chinese lessons that the older brother.
2. Letterland! This is something that T already likes (Clever Cat is his fav this week) so I’m sure he’ll enjoy learning about the characters in class.
3. Lunch is really early at 10.30am … I’ve checked with his teacher and she said that most of them are already hungry by then.
4. Science lab at three year old? K really likes his science classes but I think it’s too early to sign T up this year because he’ll only be three towards the end of the year.

 

Cute little hoodie

It was a chilly morning so I helped T put on a jacket before we walked into school. He looks soooooooooo cute. Blast from the past … check out K wearing the same jacket way back in June 2010 and November 2009. Somehow he doesn’t ooze as much cuteness as his little brother.

400m

We made it to the track again yesterday! KL bought a ball along to play with the boys so they didn’t play with leaves yesterday. K was happy to jog along with me for 100m stretches. He did four stretches, and I’m quite sure that the 400m (even though he didn’t run it continuously) may be the most he’s ran in his life so far!

I finished 6 rounds in 15 min 33 sec. Quite a bad timing so if I’m going to be doing this on a weekly basis, I hope to shave off a few mins off this timing as the year progresses.

New way of storing moisturizer

K used to keep a tube of moisturizer in his bag so that he can moisturize himself after his bath in school, whenever he remembers to, that is. He brings Cetaphil lotion to school because that’s not as expensive as Physiogel and I won’t feel so heartpain if he unknowingly squirts too much out, which he is prone to do. Recently he’s been complaining that his moisturizer “need a lot of strength” to squeeze, ie moisturizer is running out from the tube.

Solution that I’m trying now is to replace the lotion from the tube with a dollop of cream in a little tub. Tub can be capped and it won’t leak in the school bag. Mummies who are reading this blog: Does this tub look familiar? It’s a Pigeon milk powder container, ha! I did tell K to let his classmates know that this is not edible.

Five transformers

Let me type this post quickly before I forget the details …

These are the five transformers that K made in the afternoon. Number 1 is a bird transformer that can shoot purple (something). Number 2 is a strong transformer that can boom out of earth. Number 3 is a stronger transformer that can shoot lightning. Number 4 is a snake transformer (can’t remember what else about it). Number 5 is the strongest transformer that can shoot purple laser.

Most of his creations are very fragile because he doesn’t snap on the parts hard enough. And he also likes to pile a lot of bricks on a very weak base so 99% of his creations cannot stand on their own. They’re cute as long as they last, ie before the little brother picks them up out of curiosity and *opps* drop them on the floor.

Father and son bonding day

The polyclinics in Singapore offer a vision test for 4 – 6 year old children. So I made an appointment for K to visit the one at Clementi this morning to test his eyes because he’s was blinking very frequently 2 -3  weeks back. It was the father who bought him to the clinic and both decided to wear matching clothes! After the visit to the clinic, father decided not to send him to school. Both had Macs for lunch, played computer games, napped (for father), played Lego (for son), played more computer games, read, and then came to drive us home.

Results for his vision is 6/9, which isn’t perfect but is not abnormal. He was found to be  developing normally based on the 4 – 6 year old assessment in the health booklet. His weight is 14.5kg (10th percentile) and his height is 102cm (25th percentile). We also received a referral that’s earlier than March, to visit the School Dental Centre to check out his tooth decay.

Allergic reaction from zoo biscuits

First major allergic reaction for 2012 came from this packet of cute biscuits. I got it from a colleague, checked, double checked that it didn’t have milk and offered it to the boys. About 5 – 7 biscuits later, K complained that his (left) eye was itchy. He rubbed, it turned red, there was pus. Luckily there were saline drops lying around at home that helped to ease the itch. Everything went back to normal within 2 hours.

T ate 2 biscuits but nothing happened to him. He really seems to be okay with milk, since he’s already taking cream based pasta in school. But we’re not eager to push him to consume milked based products on a regular basis because its so much more convenient to keep the boys on a similar diet at home. Besides, T is eating meat/carbs well so he won’t be missing out too much nutrients from not taking regular milk.

Farmer brown … does not want to go to school

K wrote and drew something related to farmer brown (whoever that is) today. He can’t read most words yet and definitely can’t spell so this passage was copied off a piece of paper that the teacher wrote for him. Though the writing’s neater than usual, he told me on the car ride home that he does not want to go to school tomorrow because the teacher “always gets me to do the same thing” (homework) everyday. There is less playtime now in K1 and he’s not very used to the routine yet. He also has this nagging fear that he’ll be the last to finish writing because he makes mistakes, has to erase, write again etc … and his classmates will be going off to play without him after they’ve finished their work.

He was last to finish today, and he did his part to sweep the eraser scraps off the desk before we left the school.

Words that can trip a two year old tongue

For the longest time, T has been unable to pronounce egg yolk, and calls it “egg milk” instead. Recently, we’ve been trying to correct how he says mailman because it comes out as “rail man” instead. He can say “Fusionopolis” nicely now, but still has some problems with “Tyrannosaurus Rex”. Thought this post would go nicely with the picture above where he looks slightly perplexed after having woke up from his afternoon nap.