Happy Birthday Uncle Warren

Birthdays in the Lee family are ALWAYS celebrated. I mean ALWAYS. Ever since young, all our birthdays have been celebrated. My mum would either organise a birthday party for us, with either relatives or friends and/or my dad would bring us out for dinner on the actual day. Another thing, there is ALWAYS a cake. I mean, what's a birthday without a birthday cake. All in all, our birthdays were and are always special.

So in January, we celebrated my brother's birthday; now that we are old older, it's usually a family dinner and of course, a birthday cake. And if it were up to Aeryn to dictate what cake we had to buy, we would be having chocolate cakes for every single birthday.

Another thing Aeryn loves about having a birthday cake ..... are the candles. For some reason, she loves blowing out the flame .. as with majority of the kids in the world. And if given the opportunity, she would have had it lighted again and again so that she could blow it out again and again. Fortunately, the waitress didn't leave a lighter at our table or my dad would have surely obliged to Aeryn's demands.

                                                    

So Aeryn had to settle for the next best thing - her imagination.

First time in plaits

The plus point in having a girl is that you get to dress them up in pretty dresses and give them different hair-styles. That's why most women love to have girls. Baby girls clothes are so, so cute. Sad to say, besides the dressing up bit, I haven't had much opportunity to tie up Aeryn's hair. She simply wouldn't let me.

But after our frequent trips to Perth (She lets my cousins tie up her hair), she has become bit more obliging in this aspect. And finally, earlier this month, I got to satisfy my urge. Perhaps she was in a good mood that day. But whatever the reason, she was super obliging and even let me do 2 plaits for her. Knowing the plaits wouldn't last very long on her, I rushed to get a picture taken. :)

And I was right. They didn't last very long. They were gone within 10 minutes; which is actually a big improvement over her usual 'rip-it-off' immediately. So we are making progress. Anyhow, I'm super glad I managed to get a shot of this.

Me thinks Aeryn looks like a replica of my sis, at that age.

Precious, precious weekends

Been trying to make it a point to do something 'special' with Aeryn each weekend, be it going to the park, the zoo, beach, playground, party .. etc. Why? My hours this year, so far, has been crazy. Each morning, I drop Aeryn off at 7am. It is my mum who ferries her to and from school every morning, feeds her lunch, gives her her bath, ensures she has her nap and plays with her till I come after work. And for most days, that has been 6-7 pm in the evenings. Really, I do not know what I would do without my mum.

So essentially I am an 'absent' mum during the week. But I do try my best to spend as much time as I can with the little one. As soon as I can get off work, I do. I don't do lunches/teas/go shopping and if I ever, ever do any of the above, Aeryn is more often then not, there with me. Despite this, the guilt of being away from my baby gnaws at me the entire week. So weekends for me are dedicated to Aeryn. And I have been trying to do something 'special' with Aeryn each weekend.

For the first weekend of 2010, we had a picnic at Botanics, with some ex-HOComm members from Sheares Hall and several new inclusions.

It was great fun. Thanks Wen for organising!

Weekend No.2 was spent at the Singapore Zoo! And we HAD to bring my sis along cos she was the holder of her co.'s Friends of the Zoo pass. The Zoo management FINALLY realised that perhaps the pass was being abused and passed around friends and family members of staff so a circular was sent out to all companies, that to enter the zoo on the company zoo pass, one needed to show 'evidence' that he/she works at the company... hence, I HAD to bring my sis along.

I have been to the zoo so many times, especially in the past 3 years that I know it at the back of my hand. Yet, it was fun to see how amazed Aeryn still is, when she sees the animals.

Also, at the last visit, she has taken to feeding the animals at the zoo. On our way there, she said she wanted to feed 2 animals - the giraffe (which she has fed before) and the elephant (she chickened out the last time). Well, I figured since it cost $5 per plate of feed, why not? Afterall, we didn't need to pay for our entry.

So I handed $5 to the elephant keeper, ..... guess what ..... the minute Aeryn saw the elephant's trunk coming her way, she freaked out. I was tempted to keep the apples and bananas for personal consumption, rather than to feed these animals who would simply poop it out 5 minutes later. Of course, the operative word being tempted.

There went my first $5.

I wondered if I was going to be have to 'donate' another $5 later at the giraffes. But still went ahead with it cos Aeryn had fed the giraffes the last time we were there. However, little did I realise, the zoo had changed the setting of the feeding session. Previously, we could just feed the giraffe without any pomp. But since they decided to attempt to make more money by having a photographer take your picture while you feed the giraffe, you are no longer able to take your time. Or if you do, you  will have to bear with the many, many pairs of eyes staring daggers at you from outside the barricade.

Also, we now need to have our backs to the giraffes while we are feeding them. When you think about it, it can actually be very scary, especially for a kid, to have these 2 animals with long purple tongues surrounding you. You can't really have your eyes on both of them at the same time so I guess it was kind of threatening for Aeryn. So I ended up having to feed the giraffes as well. Oooh, how fun! -_-

After $10 gone down the drain, I learnt an invaluable lesson: In future if I have $5, the only thing I should feed at the zoo is ....

Cos it's also $5 for a single scoop at Ben & Jerry's.

A song about Papa

After almost 3 weeks in school, I'm relieved to say that Aeryn is finally adjusting to the new environment and more importantly, the new language.

Officially a Pre-Nursery Student

Despite being absent without reason on the first day of school, we didn't get expelled. Whew ...

So Aeryn is now officially a student at Nanyang Kindergarten.

This is her class-room which looks a little cramp cos of all mummies and daddies and in our case, mummy and granny. It was bright and airy and brand new. Everything in the room was new; down to the toys, which is probably why parents had to make a one-time contribution to the school-building fund.

As you can see, EVERYTHING in the room is in Chinese. And I mean EVERYTHING. They weren't kidding when they said it's a Chinese immersion programme for the students. Even when I spoke to the teacher, I was politely asked to speak in Mandarin. Somehow, I managed.

              

Anyway, the classrooms were already personalised before the kids came in. They had birthday charts up. The cubby-holes for their shoes, bags and water-bottles were labelled with their Mandarin names. So after the first week, Aeryn is able to recognise her Mandarin name. :)

Attendance for the day was taken by the Ye Lao-Shi singing a little song (of course, in Mandarin) and fishing their names one by one out of a bag. When called upon, the kids had to come up to get their name tags and 'mark' their attendance by pasting their names on an aeroplane. Obviously, Aeryn chose the orange plane. In fact, she was eagerly waiting for her name to be called as she was afraid that all the orange planes would be taken up. Fortunately, there was one for her. I can just imagine her peeling off someone else's name and replacing it with hers. And all the wailing that might ensue afterwards.

Before the kids could have breakfast, they were marched off to the washroom, to do their wees and wash their hands. If I'm not wrong, these are the only 4 girls in a class of 14. Good luck to the teachers!

Well Aeryn liked the washroom. For one, everything was of the 'right' height. It was so easy for her to get on and off the toilet bowl and off course, for the first time, she could reach the sink with no assistance at all.

Breakfast was supposed to be fried rice. It looked more like plain rice, with little bits of sausage and mixed vegetables inside. Though it didn't look too appetising (to me) and Aeryn normally doesn't have rice so early in the day, she finished the entire bowl all by herself, in one sitting. Guess she was famished.

Then, it was story-telling time. A real elaborate story telling, with props and all. Those in the teaching line, call this - A Performance (something which all teachers have to put up when there are visitors to the class). Whilst that was going on, Aeryn decided to mimic her teachers and put her new school shorts on her head. I think she was she poking fun at them and all the parents who were later made to volunteer to take up some character in the story.

Reindeer Food

Yes. There is such a thing a Reindeer Food. At least, that's what I found out when we were in Perth. I had never in my life heard about it, so it really goes to show that you can learn something new everyday. And do you know that you can actually make it yourself? It's simple really. All you need is :

Raw Oatmeal   

Glitter (Use a silver or gold base and mix red and green in with it)

Plastic lunch baggies

Ribbon

Paper or cardstock 

How To Make It

1. Pour about 1/8 cup of oatmeal in baggie. Add some glitter. Close baggie.
2. Attach with ribbon to the front of the baggie the following message.  

"On Christmas Eve, sprinkle this wonderful Reindeer Food on your lawn. The shiny glitter will sparkle in the moonlight and the smell of oats will guide Rudolph to your home.

"Yes. You need to do this if you want Santa to come to your house on Christmas.

Besides this, you must also put out Santa food, aka a snack for Santa, aka cookies and milk. Because delivering presents is a tiring job and Santa might be hungry when he comes to your house. Let him go hungry and he might decide to skip your house the following year, something you don't want to happen. Think of all the presents you would miss out on. Oh yah, before I forget, you must also leave him a letter and he will definitely reply.

Of course, you should leave our your stocking so that Santa has some place to put your presents. There's Aeryn's stocking on the far-right. And Santa doesn't just give 1 present. He is a generous, old man and if you are good, he will come and reward you on Christmas Day.

And deliver he did.

Maris and Aeryn were super excited on Christmas Day. Maris because Santa came and Aeryn, simply because she had presents. She didn't really care who they were from.

Showing off their spoils from Santa. He sure is a generous man. Maris got a Mario Wii game. Present No.1 from Santa: A Dora activity book. Evidence that Santa knows loads about Aeryn ... So she'd better watch out.

Present No.2 from Santa: A teddy bear puzzle.

So does Santa really exist? In a way, yes - in the form of really doting parents who go all out to make Christmas a real special time of the year for their children.

                                      

P.S. Elysse: Don't let Maris see this post!

Little truant

This little, cute, innocent girl might be labelled a truant by her teachers ... and it's all because of her mummy.

I seriously can't believe this has happened but it has.

We missed Aeryn's first day of school. (at her new Kindegarten)

Who on earth has ever heard of a mother mistakening the start of the school year. And to make things worse, I'm erm in the education line too ... This is so going to be the joke of the month .. no, of the year ... no, no, of Aeryn's life!

I'm never going to be able to live this boo-boo down.

I am so going to get dirty looks from the teachers, adminstrators, school cleaners tomorrow when I bring Aeryn to school tomorrow. I can just imagine fingers pointing at me and parents whispering to each other while they look at us from the corner of their eye.

While everyone will be nicely orientated to their new environment, it will be a foreign place to Aeryn. Already, she is saying she wants to go to Aunty Jean's school and not the new school .. did I just make the whole situation worse? Her Tong-Tong might even think I was trying to sabotage her whole Nanyang experience. So if you are reading this Dad, I cross my heart it was a pure over-sight. I seriously thought she was starting school on Thursday, not Wednesday.

.... Oh no .. will I be made to go see the Principal tomorrow? ... Eeeks ... that's a scary thought. NOW, I'm really nervous about Aeryn's first day at school.