Zethan's Superb Six Part II

What is a complete birthday celebration if there isn't any with school friends right. The preparations for the school celebration started much earlier which did surprise me too since I was not so well known in this department of early preparations. Sourcing of his birthday goodie bag go as far as few months back. The practicality virus strike once again and crack my head thinking of an age appropriate gift. Found this gift set of watch and wallet which would be of use come next year when all the children go to primary school. May I praise myself for being so thoughtful, I hope.

Next his 2nd cake for this year's birthday. His choice goes to a 'doggie' cake from Bengawan Solo, Pluto and a puppy. The children are so overly excited looking at the cake and all swarmed close to it. Had a hard time trying to clear them off in order to take some photos. This class of his is extremely active and can go out of control easily. The birthday boy is grinning from ear to ear when all his friends sang the birthday song, the look on his face is priceless, honestly.

Cake cutting, children served their cake which they enjoyed loads. Followed by photo taking time. Typical trait of Jan 2009 children, lots more boys than girls. In fact very lopsided at 15 ~ 7. As usual, the gifts will be distributed to the friends upon class dismissal. We left shortly while the birthday boy continued his lesson in class till dismissal, at his request of course.

Zethan's Superb Six Part I

Pretty determined this time round to be a little more hardworking in keeping my blog dated, rather furiously update the backdated post. Trying out Blogger app for the first time with this post, hoping to throw out my lazy excuse of laptop unavailability. We shall see how far the enthusiasm will last, crossed fingers and toes.

And so the dilemma reignite once again on birthday celebrations and parties. You might not have remembered but I did promised the daddy some years back that we will stopped this party thingy altogether. Well in actual fact it did for a good few years. My decision was shaken upon seeing his friends having party this year and speaking to the mummy friends, kind of make sense. You see, this will be the last year they could celebrate their birthday in school and before their next major milestone of going to primary school. It feels like no more Funtime and time to get serious with academic and all. So I tried my very best to convince the daddy with this very reason and top it up with "he will feel disappointed attending friend's party while he does not have one himself". Okay this is just a crappy excuse hoping can pull through. The daddy knew jolly well for every one reason he cited, it would be shot down with 10 so wisely he did not have any violent objection.

Preparations started at lightning speed as we were badly rushed for time. Somehow with tighter timeline, I appear to work much more efficiently, me bad! Consulted the birthday boy on his preferences. Before I even can blink, his choice is out, bowling again. Quite a no brainer in terms of location, back to Chevron once again. Called the centre for booking, call the cafe for menu, decide on food and viola, we are good to go. Invitations begin which was not too tough since we are keeping it a small affair with a few close friends and family members. The next critical item - CAKE. Was really relieved the boy is open to the idea of buying a ready made cake and planting his Lego figurines as toppers. He specifically requested to have to same cake as daddy's. 

On the Sunday, the children basically hogged both lanes and they are left on their own to decide how to manage their turns to bowl. It was a close and enjoyable celebration, pretty much fuss free and we have more than ample time to catch up with everyone. No fanciful cake, no fanciful decorations, no balloons (sign of growing up?!!). As for the birthday boy, he had so much fun with all his requests met, definitely no chance for any complain. 

Ultimately so long as the child is happy, we are happy. Affirmative the last birthday party celebration for him! Enjoy the photos....

02 Jan 2015

2015 new school term is rather special. My thoughts before the first day of school.....

 

"Preparing (bracing) myself to a highly probable emotional day tmr.Our chilli padi is going to school. Memories of korkor going to school for the first time came flooding back, only difference is she is in my tummy then.

 

COnfident that korkor will adapt to the new environment readily though I have urged him to speak about his emotions be it good or not so good.

 

As for the chilli padi, chances are she will wailed once we stepped away. Of course positively hoping that she will prove us wrong but yes she will do well!

 

Another milestone ticked"

 

One of the great benefit of Facebook, enable documenting these details which act as a backup for photos as well. Otherwise not much chance I would be able to do a throwback posts for as long as 9 months back.

The chilli padi did surprised me on her 1st day of school, much tougher and braver than I thought. Upon reaching school, I went in with her while watching her at a distance, not intervening teacher's instructions. Stayed in a corner smiling at her and encouraging her to participate in class activities. Judging by gut feel that she appear to be adapting well, said my goodbye after 20mins assuring her of my return later to fetch her.

She sailed through the next hour smoothly, not even a whimper or a drop of tear! SO proud of my little baobei, well done young lady! Secretly peeped in on her without her noticing and she is doing extremely well, moving with the flow. No sign of anxiety totally.

To the daddy, she proved him wrong as he is very very certain she will cry her eyes out upon leaving her alone in class thus the scaredy cat daddy happily excuse himself, not even applying leave to accompany his little girl's first day of school.

 

The next day she was dropped off at the entrance with "bye, see you later". Dry eyes, both of us that is and as they always say, the rest are history.

 

Other significance of this special day, our 7th wedding anniversary. Why did we not foresee having to deal with the children's new school term yearly on this day? Next year will be another major milestone, for the korkor, starting a new phase in primary school.

Going through the draining day, we have kept the celebration simple with no fanciful celebration by taobaoing nice food from our favourite place to enjoy as a family in the comfort of our home. The cool weather further enable us to enjoy our food especially the messy affair or crabbing!

December 2014

And so the year is drawing to an end, amazingly fast how each and every year whizzed us by, a reminder of how fast the children are growing and how we are getting 'wiser' by the days, months and years.

Due to the fact that grandma is away for holiday with the elder child, obviously I would need to be on leave to care for the girl. It so happened that the hubs were forced to clear his annual leaves and while we were lazing around at home, an idea struck out of the blue. Why should we waste our leaves staying at home when we could venture out for a short road trip on our own as well! Naturally the same old nearest destination come to mind, Melaka like again. With the attractive rate at an awesome hotel and 2 hours drive away, the choice is ideal. Everything fall in place real quick, checking out availability, emailing the reservation department and we are almost all set to go. No response on the email so called out to hotel directly, booked and the luggage is out for packing. This has got to be the most impromptu trip by far, booked today and set off tomorrow. Not very much my style since I do not do travel arrangements last minute and usually put in huge efforts in planning and researching.

The trip was great, relaxing with just one child in tow, everything was simply carried out with ease without any major objection of whatsoever. All the activities are ad-hoc, carried out at whim and fancy and we actually achieved more than the last trip.

Took the river cruise which was supposedly over the 1st trip but accidents happen so did not. The only upsetting aspect is Zethan did not managed to enjoy the river cruise to which Zelyn enjoyed herself loads. Walked back to the hotel and decide to dash across a busy 4 carriage lane expressway for yummilicious award winning nonya food (spotted last trip but great resistance prevented us from venturing there).

Babies prom 2014 concert together with the Chiams family. Zelyn enjoyed much better this time and was attentive and focus through the whole concert, well done lady! Upon reaching the venue, hubs car gave problem thus had to return home to swap car before picking up the kit for Standard Chartered Kids Dash 2014 at Singapore expo.

Next day being Standard Chartered Kids Dash, in fact it is Zethan's very first marathon / kids run, how very exciting right. At the very last minute in the morning, we decided to bring Zelyn along and no prize for guessing right who put up the most resistancy for this decision, as usual the daddy. Giving thousand and one excuses of weather too hot, too crowded, not easy to get around etc. It was a very sunny and humid morning as we reached Esplanade meeting up with the Chiams. Daddies and elder children get to the flag off point while the mummies and younger child were trying to locate a good location to catch the children in action. Unfortunately by the time we managed to approach the finish point, the children are very likely to finish their dash, too late. Zelyn is rather moody perspiring buckets, totally not in the mood to snap a picture or smile for that matter. Next tedious task would be to meet up the children again at a favourable location which prove to be an uphill challenge having to manoeuvre the stroller among the humongous crowd. The daddies complained of the horrifying management of the dash with no proper crowd control and flag off. Sound like no more next time.

All time favourite festival for the children ~ Christmas. Our first party are with the July babies and this should be our 2nd year running held at our Lao Di Fang. Quite a fair amount of efforts put in by the organizing committee with finances and logistic issues, kudos! Not an easy task for gift exchanging arrangements too and all are ware in advance who they should be buying the gift for.  Children are too young for any games but they sure do enjoyed with sticker tattoos, spray snow and gifts exchange while the mummies had a great time catching up with each other. All of us had a whale of time, no doubts with great company, nice food and lots of pressies for the children as well as mummy.

My 2nd Christmas party were the company's, nothing much to shout about, interesting venue, reasonable food, nothing fantastic games but awesome drinks they have. Could not even recall when is the last time I drink and was glad to make the wise choice of not driving thus no worries on alcohol intake.

Winter Solstice, bought the dough to make our Tang Yuan for the children to have a feel of the nearly extinct traditional festival Dongzhi. The saying goes that everyone have to taste the tang yuan which signify turning a year older. Guess I have not turned a year older since probably 20 years old, that s how long I have not had any tang yuan on Dongzhi especially the homemade ones. It looked simple but it is not as the right texture needed to be achieved with the dough before one can get the little tang yuan in shape. Too dry and it fall apart into crumbs while attempting to shape them into balls while too wet will get all sticky. Nonetheless we had a fun time and managed some tang yuans fit for consumption.

 Christmas eve were special this year as we had a family potluck party, can be considered as a first so far. We hosted the party with homecooked curry chicken, popiah party and soup for the children. It was pretty much hard work preparing the ingredients; cutting up the raw ingredients made my hands sore which had to be ready a day in advance. The response for popiah party was not very good as most of them are simply too lazy to roll their own, all the spoilsports! The other reason being most of them do not know how to roll one properly which make me looked like a popiah master among all!

What is Christmas without pressies and the joy of ripping the wrappers to reveal the surprises! The children get the joy of unwrapping their Christmas gifts on Christmas day and boy they sure are excited and elated with the gifts they received. Zelyn got to unwrap some of the birthday gifts too. Yes we had kept them away for a good 5 months, without her knowledge of course. 

Snow, something we could never ever get to experience locally, at least not the real ones. The closest we could get are the projected foam made believed to be snow, manmade snow. To enable the children to experience it, we head to Changi Airport where they have several snowing timing. Closest to dinner time sound ideal since we could have out dinner after.

Non stop of feasting for the month does not stop after Christmas as it is daddy's birthday next! Decide on a fuss free simple celebration with a simple dinner nearby and a cake to end the day. Our favourite haunt these day would be Three Chefs near Sin Ming as the food is very reasonably priced and taste as good, no crowd battling experience too.

Soon after we are approaching end of the year, spent some time with the children and ensure that preparations for new school term are in term. Thus the last few days are spent on last minute purchases for school reopen. One more year had passed and 2015 will be an exciting year ahead!