Ikea II

It's been a long time ever since we buy furnishing from Ikea prior to the toys shelf previously. I recalled for our matrimony home, it's practically Ikea showroom. 50% Ikea and 50% Picket & Rail. One thing you just have to give them credit, their products are usually very user friendly and it's basically pretty much fuss free when it comes to self installation. In fact I do find it quite fun to fix up Ikea furnishing and we pretty much done so for a handful of items including a 3 door wardrobe years back.

It have been weighing on my mind to find bedding for Zethan since it's high time he should be trained to sleep on his own bed. Baby step before progressing to sleeping on his own. We are a little late in this aspect as most of the time peeps of his age would have been able to sleep in their own room long ago.

Just so happen during our previous trip to Ikea, I spotted the bed we have shortlisted going at a fraction of the original price, the reversible bed. Tried their website but apparently the discounted price was not reflected and I do not wish to make a wasted trip. Tried calling the customer service but in vain, it's as good as nothing telling me the price from the website. Come on as if I could not surf the website myself. Explained myself further while she still do not appear to get my point telling me that if it's displayed such price then it should be valid. Anyhow after great effort in straightening out my query, she offer to help to TRY and check it out. The good thing is she really did and revert subsequently.

And so we make our way to Ikea Alexandra and this time with Zethan in tow, well take it as sort of making up to him for leaving him out the last trip. It was a chop chop kind of thing, head straight to the children department, express interest to purchase, invoice printed in 2 minutes and Viola done! After payment it was a short wait for the item to be picked from the warehouse and we had to face a nonchalant guy who do not answer as asked. Another interesting point about Ikea products, it is absolutely very compact and to the point of unbelievable. I have my suspicions that there is for sure some parts lacking or maybe I am just thinking too much into it. We went into negotiation mode as the boy requested to sleep on the upper bunk but request was rejected till he turned 6 years old, for now it's lower bunk.

He tried to excitedly nag the daddy into fixing it up for the night but it was clearly impossible for the major setup to be completed in a matter of hours ready for bedtime. Poor daddy had to start working on it the next day despite being unwell and on medical leave. I chipped in some help and by dinner time it's all ready! I had to threaten the boy that if he is not going to sleep on it then we will call Ikea to fetch it back. Lame excuse I know but still supposedly work. There you have it his new bed, hers too in time to come. Hope the excitement linger on for long, crossing my fingers and toes when it come to this boy!

Model

My little model is so cheeky and full of poses everytime we try to snap a picture of her. She is full of character as she would always rather looked elsewhere than to look at the camera or phone for that matter. Evidences as follows: -

Ikea

Had to be on child care leave to mind the girl because my mum was unwell few weeks back. Decide that it will be really tough for her to have some good quality rest as the girl will definitely be disturbing her for sure so we make our way out. Indecisive to go for Ikea Tampines or Alexandra but settled for the latter while driving out.

Seriously it is a great place for children because of the numerous toys and fixtures they have for kids to keep them occupied for a good while. Just as we stepped into the store, she was attracted immediately and refused to budge.Why do they have to set up the kids stuff at the man entrance?!

 It took me some effort to distract her away from here after almost 20 minutes. How can we come to Ikea and not step into the cafe! Near to impossible right. It was tough to ferry food to the cashier for payment and to our seats as this silly mummy forgot to get themselves the food trolley which would make it a breeze. As you can see here, Zelyn is much more of a junkie compared to Zethan. At this age previously, Zethan do not even like french fries which is really weird for a toddler! She saw me dipping the nuggets into chili sauce and imitate the same. Warn her that it's spicy but she still attempt to try so I did not stop her. Aftermath - she taste a tiny bit and started asking for water. Classic sight!

 Following a good tea break we went to walk around the store. Correction, Zelyn got to test out more toys and kiddie furniture. This girl is so oblivious to me walking away and she will continue walking her way at own time own target or purposely run off in the opposite direction. Such as total opposite as compared to her korkor, I am expecting to have my hands full very soon. Headache!

 It was then we saw an attractive deal for the shelves or whatever they call it, decide to purchase it to organize the toys which is always in a huge mess, worst than any tornado hit area. But we would have to wait for daddy to be here otherwise there is no way I could handle ferrying the purchase to the car and there's a high chance my tiny car will not be able to accommodate it.

Zethan was mad at me when we reached home for not waiting for him to be back from school. However his anger was easily appeased when he saw the package daddy brought home. He nagged through dinner time to have it fixed it and well his nagging worked because the daddy worked on it after dinner. He was all ready to help and because of his helpfulness, resulted in delayed getting the shelf up and working.

There you have it, before and after. He have been warned that if toys are still seen strewn around, it goes to the bin.  

Vesek Day

A public holiday and why let it go to waste right. So we planned with the 2 Godmas for some activity, why did I say 'some activity'? Because we only firmed up plans on what we are going to do a day before! Interestingly plans switched from kite flying at Marina Barrage to picnic at Botanic Garden to picnic at East Coast Park to swimming! What did I warn about 3 mummies coming together, typical of a female rather 3 females?! Well the good thing is we are creative and suggestive right!

Thanks to Godma Ophelia for offering her place for a swimming session. We did potluck and everyone bring a little food each and geez we did ended up with quite a spread! No evidence shown as we were all hungry for lunch and can't wait to eat and swim!

Although weather look like it might not hold, we still dashed to change for the pool. Wise choice as all the kids had a whale of time. The best thing was even pool toys are provided! Once the Nerf and water guns are out, everyone go wet and wild!

It was all too soon we had to shoo the children out of the pool for a quick shower and all the boys insisted on showering together! Poor Sue Lin had to shower 4 kids at one go! Post shower came movie time with a cup of hot milo and some fruits to go along. My little girl picked up a word from the movie! Di-na-shaw! Cute to the max, repeating non-stop while watching the movie.

In a nutshell, it's a great meetup. Once in a while it's really nice for kids of the same or close to age group to interact with each other and certainly so for the boys whom have been friends since babies till now! Looked forward to another on real soon!

Cool De Sac

Indoor playgrounds are quite the savior for burning out their energy as well as refuge in the madness hot weather. Ideally it is will be one safe enough to use only eye power on them otherwise it is even more exhausting going after them, rather stay at home then.

Heard and seen Cool De Sac at Suntec City for a while. We passed by the place several times and peep in once. From the entrance we peep in, it appear to be really a small place but how wrong are we! In actual fact the area stretch all the way in which is pretty much out of sight from the entrance. 

Our exploration to Cool De Sac was a real quick and impromptu one, ponder about where to go, check details, change and GO! We took a train down again so the daddy could fetch us later and we met someone nice on the train who gave up his seat for Zethan while the lady in the priority seat looked on and act blur. It was quite a big mistake as we got down on the wrong station and took a long walk to the convention tower. To make mater worst, major refurbishment is going on at Suntec City so we had to walk outside of it, safety compromised big time! 

Reaching the place, I had to warn Zethan that he would have to be left alone most of the time since Zelyn would be playing in the toddlers area which will be out of sight from the play gym area. Had to remind and assure him repeatedly that he is fine within the confined area but never ever walked out of the gate (main entrance) and never ever to follow any strangers. If anyone attempt to take him away, just shout loudly for help. Very paranoid mummy counting on last minute education here!

Honestly the place is rather cool almost like the name imply. It is made up of several play areas e.g. Arts, Blocks, Tots, Treehouse etc just to name a few. It is quite neat as the whole place carter to the different age group in the family and even parents could have a cuppa and relax while watching over the kids! Let's explore....

Tots play area was full of toys, fixture or movables included. It's meant for babies and toddlers under 2 years old if I'm right. Zethan could not help it but had some fun here despite my best trying to shoo him off since there are quite a handful of toddlers around. Zelyn was a little wary when I encourage her to climb the steps to the mini slide. Sliding down took a fair bit of encouragement too. However I spoke too soon, once she got the hang of it, she could hardly stop! Trust me, no exaggeration here if I say she climb and slide at least 30 times! I had to lure her away to try out the other play areas!

 The Arts and Blocks play areas are too cool to be missed. Simply love the way the bricks are kept, well organized and double up as fantastic wall decoration. If only we have the space at home to do so! There are lots of craft materials on the long table to promote creativity craft work. With some help, my young man created his very own monsters on stick! 

It's a shame that during our visit, the Treehouse was partially condoned off for maintenance thus we missed out on the suspension bridge, though it would be so fun. Since it is not functional, Treehouse is boring as they could only utilise certain section such as like climbing up the steps only having to come down the steps again. Zelyn had real fun though as her current fav is climbing up and down steps! 

There is a big carpeted area here with hula hoops for kids to run around with a flying fox at the side. One complain I have is that staff are only properly trained to handle kids. They ignore young children trying to climb the steps to flying fox, not judging if the children are of sufficient height to try out. I was at a distance but witness that the staff did not assist Zethan on the flying fox and he fell off mid air. Though the height is not that great, say roughly 1 metre, the staff did not even bother to check on him and asked if he is okay or hurt himself. I checked with Zethan and he did hurt himself on the bum, thankfully it's minor and no fracture. 

Tweens section where there are several Wii and Playstations for the older kids. Zethan was quite lost here and I had to ask the staff for help who apparently was not that helpful as well.

The Centrestage was supposed to be for role play with the costumes on the rack. There are face painting, manicure for the girls too. Zethan isn't big on the costumes and face painting so we gave it a miss. Zelyn on the other hand love the centre stage purely for her to climb up and down the steps, walk around, with her new found friend she brought everywhere she go.

Lastly the Play Area with slide and all for older kids. Zelyn tried once and was hooked but due to exhaustion, mine that is, I had to once again distract her off to other areas.

With that basically sum up our first trip to Cool De Sac but that is not all. How could we end the day without having a try on the food served by the Bistro. Ordered a kids meal of Chicken Nuggets for Zethan and he polish all of. Either it is really delicious or he must be hungry from all the running and climbing around. We shared a pizza, was it some chicken and bacon pizza which we like it thin crust but nothing to shout about. Truffles fries was also sold out so no luck on that.

Oh one major complain or disadvantage of the place. Washroom is only outside thus it's very inconvenient thus I had to put on shoes for Zelyn and lug her along with me to the washroom leaving Zethan alone in the playground which I do not feel good totally!