March 2011 Hols

A friend shared recently her notes from a session at church. The topic was on how to find time, and the sharing was given by Dr Tan Soo Inn.

As I find myself entering the second quarter of the year and feeling somewhat unprepared for it, I gave the notes a long hard look to see where the pointers applied to me. And there were a few.

I was struck by how I keep getting my priorities mixed up. The speaker touched on the importance of recognising what our roles in life are, and the priorities we should allocate to each. I quote (Thanks Mei for the notes!):

2) Recognising our Roles
List the roles you have and then allocate time to each of them.
How much time are you spending on each of these roles? Should you spend more or less time on each of these roles.

Some KEY roles in our life;
1) Member of Christ's body, the church (Rom 12:4-8)
2) Parent (Colossians 3:21)
3) Child (Col 3:20)
4) Spouse (Eph 5:21-33)
5) Worker (Col 3:22-4L1)
6) Friend (Proverbs 18:24)
7) Citizen (Romans 13:1-7) - often left out - pray for the nations

The role of a worker appears at number 5.

But as a working mom, I realise that I spend most of my hours in a weekday at work (7.15am - 6pm = 11hours 45 min) or thinking about work. As a result, I often neglect my other roles or do not allocate sufficient time to them.

What bums me out is that even then, I spend my waking hours often consumed by the issues I need to resolve at work, and feel like I'm not being efficient enough.

Well, the first step to addressing this imbalance was to take 3 days off from work to spend with the kids.

It being the March hols, we both tried to catch up on lost time building our relationship with the boys.

On Monday, took D to see The Gingerbread Man show at Alliance Francais. Got to spend quality time with G at Aunty L's apartment with Aunty B.

Tuesday saw us at Pasir Ris playground - the kids loved the open space and lots of equipment to jump and climb on, and having Aunty Mei and J there with us.

This morning, we headed out to Jacob Ballas.

Some pics:

At the bottom of Tree House Slide


Love the grin on our 19-month-old:


Nice to see the eldest boy "taking care" of his little brother:


And really taking care of his brother:


Other cute photos of our two boys:

What is Your Nest Egg Wish?

Finally I find myself awake at this late hour, actually up to the task of writing an update on this long inactive blog.

What woke me from this super long "blog slumber" was an email from CPF InTouch inviting CPF members to contribute their retirement wish in return for a chance at winning an ipad.

Here's what I wrote:

"I wish for a retirement busy with activities that would make me happy.

Right now, that would mean the following:

1. Volunteering in church
2. Singing in a choir
3. Organising monthly book club meets - exchanging ideas and ruminations from the latest literary bestseller with like-minded book readers
4. Keeping active - playing golf/ tennis twice a week, and yoga twice a day (like Singapore's centenarian Teresa Hsu!)
5. Mentoring at least one young person each year

Last but not least: family. To be grandmother to the children of my children, should God so bless us with any.

And when each day ends, to end the day holding the hand of the man I married to sleep each night."

What's your nest egg wish?

KSS Sports Day 2010

Apologies for the long long absence from updating the blog. This year seems extraordinarily busy!

Thanks to the husband who uploaded all the photos from his phone, I guess a good place as any to jumpstart this blog back into life again, is with the KSS Sports Day on Sunday.

This is our first ever KSS Sports Day. In fact, this is first time we are joining the Sunday School bunch from church in an outing of this nature. And it's a first for Dylan too.

Initially planned for East Coast Park, the Sunday School teachers made the call the change the venue to Katong Park, after the oil spill last Thursday saw stretches of the beach coated in crude oil.

We reached the park at quarter past nine, and the sky was overcast, with rain clouds overhead and the slightest drizzle.

But uncle Danny gathered the whole bunch of us and prayed that God would clear the rain clouds and give us sun. And that's exactly what we got! After a short drizzle, the clouds parted revealing a clear blue sky. Amen!

The teachers grouped the 30 plus kids into Green, Orange, Yellow, Pink and Blue teams by tying the colored ribbons around each child's wrists, and commenced the team games.

Game Number #1 was treasure hunt - kiddies had to search the park for 20 colored ping pong balls, and the first team to return with the most balls won.

Game Number #2 was a passing the ball game.

Game Number #3 was Ping Pong Ball and Spoon. The first team to have all members walk the length of the track and back with the ball in the spoon won. Our Dylan didn't do too badly, as you can see!



Game Number #4 was all about filling up the bucket across the field with as much water as your sponge would hold!



Game Number #5 taught the children how to quickly get your wet laundry pegged up on the clothesline.



Game Number #6, after the kids (and adults too!) took a water break, the game turned its focus on "Sabo-ing" the parents. This mommy had to somehow wade through the sea of children in blind-fold to identify her son. You can see Aunty PS "ba-kat-ing" with the boy on how to call out to Mommy!


"Hey, Aunty Ch-Ee, no peeking!"

"Dylan - call out to your mommy, ok?"

Clearly, everyone had a great time, many thanks to the tireless Sunday School aunties and uncles who took great pains to make sure that it was the case. Through the games, I also got to watch my little boy learn to play by the rules, stand in line and wait patiently for the game, and cheer his teammates on.



Seeing that Dylan was learning indeed to follow the rules and respond to instruction was reassuring. Especially since just that Tuesday, at the Nursery Teacher-Meet-Parent, his teacher alerted me to her observation that he really is "beyond active" and may need to be sent for assessment.

What makes the day memorable, for me, was also the fact that all of us - Daddy, Gareth, Dylan and I - got to spend quality family time with God's people. I couldn't be more thankful!

It's been 20 years.

The year was 1990.

The class?

A bunch of lively twelve-year-old tweens from class 6C at Henry Park Primary School.

Form teacher was Mrs Anna Tan.

It's been twenty years.

In one week's time, I'll be seeing some faces I've not seen in twenty years, I kid you not.

An old classmate has rounded up some of us on facebook and is organizing a class reunion. I've not been to one of these for a long time. Twenty years is a record.

A little anxious, and excited at the same time.

The children grow

Phew, finally got some pictures up from my phone.

The year must seem to have been off to a super slow start, if this blog is anything to go by. But really, that is hardly the case.

Three months have passed in a flash, and I find I'm staring the end of March right in the eye. So much has happened between me going back to work, Dylan starting at nursery, E starting in JB, and G starting on solids.

Where do I even begin?

A good place to start, I suppose, is where the boys are right now.

Gareth's now almost 7 months, happy and healthy. Not just that, he'g got a hale and hearty appetite for rice and oat cereal, potato, sweet potato, and strawberries too.

Here's the picture to prove it:



A happy little chap, even at bedtime:



In January, Dylan went for his first-ever "friend's birthday party" at Kids Amaze@ Safra Toa Payoh - a nursery playmate who turned 4. And here I am still thinking of my little tyke as a wee tot who's just seen the other side of 3.

In February, we ushered in the Year of the Tiger in a new way as a family. We took our first ever family trip up north to Segamat, Malaysia - my Dad's hometown - to spend CNY there. Segamat is a small town some 90km north of JB, and even though it was Dylan's second trip there (we went when he was a mere 3-mth old babe), this was the first time the daddy and number two paid the town - and the extended Chen family - a visit.

We put up in a little roach-ridden motel, but what made it all worth it was having the two young'uns spend time with the maternal grandparents, getting to know the extended Chen family and uncles and aunties, and playing with the cousins.

For the little tyke, the icing on the cake came from seeing fireworks at night and real fire-crackers leave behind its trail of red paper all over the ground the following day.

And a real lion dance troupe performing right in front of him.

Over at the country club, he had a fair bit of fun in the playground swings too.

With cousins Sophia, Christy & Sara:


With cousin Sara:


Another first for Dylan this year - at the tennis dinner at Keppel, the cheeky boy showed off his singing and dancing talent by out-singing and out-dancing the other kiddies on stage. To the amusement of the audience, he sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in its entirety, not once, but twice!



Now that Elroy has his passport back, he's been coming home more regularly from JB, at least every weekend if not twice a week. Have to say, compared to the last half a year with him over in Australia, I'm really enjoying having Daddy around more often again.

What do I enjoy?

I enjoy returning from work, taking time to have dinner as a complete family around the table. I enjoy seeing Dylan eat his dinner because he wants to grow big and strong, "just like Daddy".

After dinner, I enjoy the family activity of taking the stroller out, plonking the 15kg boy in it, having little Gareth snug in his baby sling, and walking out to Siglap Centre and back. Daddy will talk about the psychiatric hospital he's placed at, what's happening in the course; his observations of Malaysian life through the lens of a homegrown Singaporean an endearing quirk for me, a half-blood Singaporean who has a Malaysian father. On the way home, we'd grab an ice-cream sundae from MacDonalds.

Come weekends, we've started a tradition of going out for dinner, to some place Dylan might enjoy. e.g. Changi Village, where he gets to drive battery operated cars.



Or maybe Changi Airport. Don't ask why I decided to take a photo of the boys with old Ronald himself!



That's all for now.

When I do squeeze out more time to blog again, will try to fill in the gaps of some of the unexpected twists and turns of the year thus far.

Many of which, I thoroughly believe, have been allowed by God to happen, and are blessings in disguise. More on that later.

So much to catch up on, so little time

Looking through my phone and its growing store of photos, I realize that I've accumulated a humongous backlog of events and photos to transfer, sort, archive, and not least update on the blog.

Trouble is my phone doesn't seem to want to let me bluetooth its contents over to the computer.

Highly frustrating.

Till I figure out how to get the photos over, and in turn, this blog going again, akan datang.

Till then, here's what will be posted up soon:
1) Chinese New Year trip to Segamat
2) Gareth goes on solids!
3) The tot drives at Changi Village
4) Weekends with Daddy

Each a face and a name among the multitudes

Traveling along the PIE this afternoon in a cab I suddenly had a morbid turn of mind. It happens a lot these days, Elroy would tell you.

I thought, in the event of a horrific car accident - don't ask me why I always think of this when riding in a cab - how would bystanders act upon seeing my horribly wrangled body?

They'd have to search through my belongings and look for my NRIC or my civil service card, or my phone to find the contact number of my next of kin.

These are the items tagged to my person that would give them a name to a "Jane Doe". Without them, I'm just another statistic. Faceless, without identity, among a throng of Singaporeans.

Without these tags that tie me to social constructs of citizenship and personal worth, is the harsh reality that I am just a little better than roadkill?

What about the thousands who perished in the World Trade Centre September 11 attacks? All faceless victims, remembered and known only by their mothers, wives, sons and daughters.

In such multitudes, I wonder how it is that each of us truly counts and matters.

Yet the amazing truth is that in the eyes of God our Creator, no such physical tags are necessary for us to be numbered, named, and identified.

No scrolling down the phonebook is required for God to recognize who I am, even though I am only one in 6 billion living on this earth. Not to mention the billions who have since passed through this life and into the next.

So here I am gazing at my two sleeping babies.

So very young, and full of promise.

And I hope and pray that they will never ever experience a moment of doubt in life that they are just a nameless face in the crowd, no matter what circumstances they find themselves in.

Ironies

Wanted to post some pictures of the kids having a good time in Segamat with the maternal side of the family, but phone is refusing to successfully bluetooth the photos over, so I guess I'll save them for another post.

Will keep this one brief.

Found myself in two extremely uncomfortable positions all in one weekend. Firstly, we found money missing and I had to send our 5-month old helper back to the agency the very next morning. Second, a family tiff rended my heart almost in two on the night of CNY reunion dinner.

What stuck in my mind were these:

The T-shirt my helper wore when I sent her back to agency had the prints "Easy Come, Easy Go".

And the run-down, cigarette-smelling, cockroach-ridden motel that we stayed at in Segamat was called none other than "Harmony Hotel".

G is 5 months old!

I learnt today from Elroy who visited a psychiatric ward this morning, that there is such a thing as Post Partum Psychosis. A patient in that condition can totally lose touch with reality, and regress into an infant-like state.

He described this woman who gave birth in November last year. She returned to work and suddenly started speaking and behaving as though she was a toddler, becoming extremely child-like in her mannerisms.

While not as extreme, in some ways I've regressed into an infant-like state after going back to work in January too.

In that come 9.30pm every night, as I tuck the two boys into bed I find myself invariably succumbing to the thick ooze of sleep myself. Just so, so dead tired.

It seems between work, commuting to and from work, and the little snatches of time over dinner spent feeding the toddler and playing with the baby, there is just no more time and energy left to do other things.

What of weekends? Between the work weeks in January we've been shuttling between JB and Singapore to spend time with the Daddy who's based there this year.

So no more time to write too, for that matter - therefore why this blog's been inactive since Dec 09.

It's now Feb, and I think time to start regaining my wits about me... and not succumb to sleep and fatigue at the end of a long day. Hopefully will be more disciplined now to update the blog more often!

In the meantime, little G has grown and grown. While his big brother has started second year of school at BKK's nursery program.

At his recent vaccination, we found he is now 8.4kg and 66cm long, a whopping size compared to his brother at the same age!

Just look at this cutie!

Under his playgym:


Tummy time (an old photo of G, then 4-months old!)


During the weekend road-trips up to JB, the little angel sits quietly and contentedly in his infant car seat, enjoying the views:




May this mommy endeavor to be less sleepy and more productive in recording down how her babies are growing!

A Look Back on 2009

We've reached the close of another year. And what a year 2009 has been.

To echo how another friend had described his year, this year has been a game of two halves. One half was played in a little town 160km east of Melbourne city, Australia. And the other half played out here at home, in Singapore.

I think it's worthwhile to look back on the things we've achieved, reflect on the events that have shaped this family, and give thanks for the rich blessings we've received that testify to the Lord's goodness in our lives.

10th January
After spending a month with us in Australia, little D's paternal grandparents were treated to a nice dinner at Dorbo's, a Malaysian-Chinese restaurant near Uncle K's place, before returning to Singapore. At dinner, we announced to Grandpa and Grandma that the trouble is about to double. ("Trouble" is the nickname we affectionately give to our little tyke. Heh.)

They did a double-take, and laughed and told little D to prepare to be a good big brother.

7 February

This was a day that we won't soon forget. We were warned well ahead to expect scorching weather with temperatures rising to 46 degrees Celsius, and woke to news that bushfires had started raging close to home.

The severity and the casualty from those fires made international headlines, and put Gippsland on the map for many people who didn't know where it was before.

I remember how the morning blue sky soon turned to a dusky orangey night when the Gippsland fires became so widespread it covered the sky in its smog. We learnt later that our friends the Hardings lost their home in South Traralgon, and we grieved with them.

Through the ordeal, they thanked God for keeping their lives intact and are now well on their way to having their beautiful home rebuilt. We're ever so inspired by their faith.

May 2009

My year on no-pay leave winds to an end, and we spend many happy hours saying our teary farewells to new-found friends in Australia. Even now, D will look at the pictures we took at Wilsons' Prom, in Sydney, at playgroup, with friends and tell me what a good time he had in Australia.

I miss my friends Audrey, Mei, Suryani, and Melissa just to name a few. And little D misses Moncidel, Ayla and other little ones at Gymbaroo, swimming class, and playgroup.

I'm thankful for the chance to be a stay-home mom, learning to cook dinner every day, and thinking up ingenious ways to keep very lively toddler engaged - including making a card-board dump truck for his playgroup's dress-up day, and making home-made playdough of both the edible and inedible varieties.

We pack up, and depart for Singapore. Little G is 24 weeks inside my ever expanding tummy.

Little D goes through a turbulent two months back in Singapore, adjusting to having mommy return to the workplace, daddy not being around, and mommy's ever expanding tummy.

30 August

Woke up at 5a.m. with strong and frequent contractions. Made it to the hospital in time - just 2cm dilated - and asked for epidural immediately.

Little G S Koh arrived at 10.50am, a big bundle of joy at 52cm and 3.5kg. We are so thankful to God for entrusting us to be parents of another little boy.

I begin my maternity leave utterly grateful that I delivered not just a healthy baby, but also 90 days of active service during which I completed a draft report on infusing literacy in Primary 3 Science lessons. =)

30 October

E and I are five years old as husband and wife. What a ride! I am so thankful that God's given me a husband who knows when to indulge me and pamper me, at the same time who knows when not to take my nonsense because he expects better of me.

Even though we are apart and I miss him so, it just makes him coming home and spending time with me ever so precious. We thank God for news that he received a year-long hospital placement in JB next year. It means Daddy gets to be home every weekend!

19, 24, 25 Decemeber

Probably my best decision during maternity leave is to serve in the church's christmas outreach performance aptly titled "The Great Big Christmas Giveaway".

Even though it meant night after night of tireless rehearsals, and fighting off the flu bug to sing, the experience of ministering to pre-believers through song is unparalleled.

After one of our performances, the four of us (C, Joy, Jill & I) stood outside, just praying and thanking God. When suddenly, we were awash in His presence, an ineffably sweet, sweet presence that left us all speechless.

I suddenly understood that the mystery behind Christmas is, truly, the BIGGEST, and the GREATEST GIVEAWAY of all. Note the pun on the word Giveaway. The same gift to mankind - a little babe lying in a manger - also reveals the greatest secret of all: that through this spotless lamb we can have eternal life, for he was born to pay to price for all our sins.

26 December

Our eldest turns three.

In a year, little D has learnt to swim with floats on, say all kinds of precocious and unexpected things like "The husky took it! Naughty husky!".

He is also starting to learn to sing in tune, and loves to sing himself to sleep at night. He has gained quite a repertoire of children's hits too. His favorites include:
- Incy Wincy Spider
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- Do- A Deer A Female Deer
- Steve Green's Do Not Be Overcome By Evil
- When I am Afraid I will Trust in Him
- "And BINGO was his name O!"
- Meatball Song
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow
- Spongebob Squarepants Theme Song
- The Best Day Ever by SpongeBob Squarepants
- From the Rising of the Sun
- Bob the Builder Theme Song
- Polly Put the Kettle On

Here's to more adventures next year!

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Hard to believe that three years ago today I was lying in my Class A ward in KK, dazed and amazed that I was now a mother of a little baby boy.

That little Boxing Day baby is now THREE years old, and quite capable of singing himself his birthday song, and telling everyone around him what a big boy Dylan is now.

As usual, the Daddy beat me to posting about it, so no point in me re-inventing the wheel. Pictures and the story of D's 3rd birthday are found in his blog, in a post titled "The Best Day Ever".

Other November Highlights

Today, little G officially turns 3 months old. Brought him to KK for a hearing check, and everything is A-OK. I couldn't resist asking the nurse to take his measurements. Little G is growing well -
at 7.5kg and 62cm long.

At the close of November, as Americans tuck into their thanksgiving turkey, here in Singapore I'm finding so many things to be thankful for.

Chiefly, dearest Med Student Hubby completed his 2nd year exams, and is back at home for a month for a breather before third year commences.

Looking back on the things we accomplished this month, I'm just very grateful for having time to spend with the boys, even if for a period D was ill and gave me a hard time.

Act3 performed two Saturdays ago at area B in East Coast Park, a short skit entitled Little Kite. The weather held, a motley group of parents and little ones gathered on the open grass patch, and little D watched his first play ever. Of course he did a bit of beach-walking and tree climbing first:




The Performer and the Spectator - which is which?


Little D is learning - very slowly learning - that playing is more fun with friends. Here he is with friend E from Aida Street:



And with cousins:

Jacob Ballas Children's Garden

This maternity leave, I'm overjoyed to discover that places to go and things to do for little tots are aplenty in Singapore. In fact, some of the best places are free of charge.

Jacob Ballas Children's Garden - so named after a Jewish-Singaporean stockbroker and philanthropist - is a veritable garden paradise for little ones, tucked away at one corner of the Botanic Gardens.

It has designated areas for water and sand play, a tree-house structure with slides, a garden maze, a hanging bridge, and lots of thingamajigs that arouse wonder and curiosity about nature in children.

I loved how, in spite of its tropical setting, each area and walkway in the garden is framed by shady arbors - tall trees with spreading leafy branches that allow the morning sun to filter through, and channel a cooling breeze throughout.

I brought the two boys for the first time last weekend, and we couldn't resist making a second trip again when we saw how fine the weather was on Saturday.

Here are the scenes from the 2 weekends.

"A-Hiking We Will Go!"


Up the ladder and down the big orange slides at the tree-house:





Love the glee on his face!


Walking across the swinging bridge... whoa!


By turning the crank, the light comes on...



"Phew - this is back-breaking work!"



And guess who couldn't resist stripping down to just his pants and getting wet and wild!



Finally, time for a break before heading back home... little brother is already fast asleep in his stroller!

First Trip to the Dentist

A month to go before D turns 3, I decided a visit to the dentist's was long overdue.

Naturally, I was worried that he'd flip out, but it helped that while we waited to go in there were a couple of children's illustrated books beautifully explaining what goes on when you sit on a dentist's chair.

I read it aloud to him, pointing out to him all the quirky and exciting things he'd find in the dentist's office, like the special chair he will be sitting on, the sink like the one in Finding Nemo in which Nemo escaped back into the sea...

So when his turn to go in came, little D was quite the eager beaver, and hopped on the chair like he was getting ready to blast off in his special space shuttle seat.

Our little trooper was also very cooperative - quite unlike his usual self! - and did as he was told. I'm proud of my little trooper. =)

Here he is donning batman shades and checking out the Doctor Dentist's many gadgets and gizmos.

Love Never Fails?

I subscribe to a weekly e-newsletter called "Upwords with Max Lucado" - an established christian author whose reflections on biblical concepts are refreshing and easy to read.

Today's article was on 1 Corinthian's 13: 8 - "Love Never Fails." In a nutshell, Lucado reflects on the truth that unfailing love is only accomplished by God alone.

It made me think about the quality of my love as a mother. People like to generalize and say that parents' love for their children is unconditional.

In some ways, yes - loving one's own flesh and blood is probably the closest approximation of this thing we call unconditional love.

But is it really unconditional?

Then explain to me how it is that when I see my child reject his dinner and abjectly refuse to behave in the way I want to him to, an anger wells up inside of me that I never thought I was capable of feeling?

And when I receive his end-of-year progress report book from his nursery teacher, why I should allow an inexplicable sense of disappointment to creep in at the column marked "Needs Improvement" for "Child is able to share toys" or "Knows his shapes/ numbers".

The truth is, in my fallen state, I am not able to love unconditionally, as Christ does.

It's easier to love my child when he is lovable - obedient, well-mannered, clever, articulate.

When he is acting in an unlovable manner... it gets admittedly more challenging. It's as though he's broken the unwritten covenant between mother and child, tearing down the natural authority I have in his life, breaking the deep-seated expectations that I never even realized were there.

In times like these I realize in the same way, I have utterly and abjectly disappointed God in the many sinful thoughts and prideful choices I've made in my life, and wonder how it is possible that His love is so great to see past it.

It disturbs me that in extreme situations and circumstances, my love for my children can indeed fail. I am disconsolate, and filled with dismay about my limits.

Yet, I'm still going to strive for a perfect love in this life. If my child is to see in me the quality of God's unfailing love in our lives, I desparately need to grow closer and closer in my walk with Him, and understand Him more and more.

There is a powerful lesson in rearing children for parents, I think.

When God gazes down on each and everyone of us, what he sees is a perfect creation, his own handiwork, a lovable soul with whom he wants to share eternity with. This is possible only because of what Christ has accomplished on the cross!

In Love's gaze, we are washed whiter than snow, and made perfect even in our broken, damaged state.

When I gaze on these two lovely forms before me, may I see them as God sees them too - imperfect, but unfailingly loved by God.

May my life demonstrate the gratitude of this truth.

You Will Never Walk Alone

One other thing occupying some of my maternity leave is preparing for our church's upcoming christmas presentation. Check out this website to find out more about THE GREAT BIG CHRISTMAS GIVE-AWAY... book your tickets early to avoid disappointment. =)



Here you see 6 of us singing Point of Grace's song, You Will Never Walk Alone, recorded during our rehearsal for last Sunday's preview at church. It's about the assurance that in this life, while we may face long and difficult roads, we will always have our Lord walking beside us all the way.

Fun @ Kids Amaze, Safra Toa Payoh

People wonder what moms do during their maternity leave - now that the government's upped it to 16 weeks.

I'm loving the lazy mornings, enjoying a slow breakfast with the little one, reading the papers. I'm loving the afternoon naps, and the free time I use to catch up on reading or the latest episode of House on Surfthechannel.com.

What I love most is having daylight hours to bring D to places where I know he can stretch his little toddler legs, running, jumping, and performing all kinds of stunts that tots are intrinsically experts at.

Over the weekend, we did just that. I had intended to bring D to the indoor play area at Downtown East, but after checking out the website I was pretty turned off by the exorbitant admission fees.

"What?! Even the adults have to pay to go in?!"

So a good friend recommended Kids Amaze at Toa Payoh, SAFRA instead. Good value at $7 per entry, a third of the price I'd have to pay at Downtown East.

It's not a big area, but the indoor two-storey play structure was big enough for my 3-year-old to work up a sweat within minutes.

Unlike Fidgets where adults could also enter the play areas, parents and caregivers were not allowed inside the enclosure, which meant that D had to muster enough courage by himself to exploit the structure.

Which he did, to my delight! Without instruction or encouragement, he discovered how to slide down the fireman's pole - that's my boy. =)





"Ta-Da Mommy!"

Little G is still too little to enjoy the facilities of course, so while gor gor exploited every nook and cranny the baby slept in his stroller.



He also attracted the attention of a group of older girls - aged around 5 or 6 - who started chasing him all around the play area. One girl was so riveted by him she could hardly keep her hands off his face!





I look at my boy, and suddenly realized how big he is becoming, just over month shy of turning three...

Now that he's a bit more used to having baby brother around, the two have started becoming more buddy-buddy. They even match each others' moods - just check these out!

The cheeky face:


The more serious face: