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Oh! this is like so many other run-of-the-mill vids posted at youtube - your kid singing twinkle twinkle little star! But its memorable for ME not because well, I am the mum (that counts too) but because I saw how he progressed until he sang this fully at 21 months old. He has been singing as early as 12 mths, doing his tuneless little tunes and progressing to recognisable tunes with unrecognisable words, to gaps with some recognisable words and some unrecognisable words to this! What a work in progress!

Then from the vid, you can see a blackened wound at the back of his left hand. He burnt his hand from I-dunno-where! (see him checking out the wound in the midst of singing). We think he must have tried to touch the soup pot in the kitchen and gotten the huge blister! OUCH! What really bothered me was that no one noticed the blister until I got home from work and saw the blister! The helper said she remembered a particular loud session of wailing right after lunch but did not see anything amiss! The grandmother who was at home also did not noticed anything! I guess an accident is an accident and there is no one to blame but honestly this again just reminded me there will be no one who is as sensitive and careful and alert as a mother, even a scatterbrained mother!

To be very honest, I have not visited any museum in Singapore before. But the few weekends in May, there were some activities for kids going on in the various musuems in Singapore in conjunction with International Musuem Day so we trooped down to National Musuem on Saturday.

First up, there was a large velcro stick-em up play-installation where kids could freely decorate only limited by their creativity. The two children needed no prompting to dash right in and started re-arranging stuff!

Talia observing how a jiejie is playing

The little boy alternated between rearranging and playing with the building blocks on the ground.

Eyeing the lizard the angmo gor gor is holding on to!

And dashing back and forth sending items from one end to the other end!

What he didn’t quite enjoy was the dressing up by us!

We left this and walked around the museum a bit and chanced upon another rearranging play-installation, this time magnetic!

The children had fun putting up their own composition!

After that we stepped out into the hot afternoon sun onto Stamford Green where a mini carnival was going on. There was a duo from Australia “The dustbin People” amusing the kids with their gig of cleaning up and sent the children into peals of laughter. We queued for a unique cat balloon for the girl!

Meow!

There was a story-telling session at 2.30pm so we decided to go for that. Before that we strolled into a part of the musuem that allowed free access and and some fun looking at old ice kachang machine and kueh tutu cart. The rest of the musuem need a ticket to get in and we didn’t bothered to.

The story-telling was pretty interesting but after half an hr, the boy started getting restless. We lasted the 45 mins and it was time for us to leave.

While waiting for the daddy to get the car, Tubby the robot strolled by! It’s actually a man dressed as a robot! Cute!

The afternoon was well spent with fun and varied activities and specially worth mentioning, enjoyed in air-con comfort! Ha!

Thaddeus: “mummy! bao bao!” (struggling to climb into my lap while I am eating at the dining table)

Me: (after ignoring him for a while) “wait didi! mummy is eating now, carry you later okie?”

Thaddeus: (not giving up) “MUMMY! BAO BAO!”

Me: *chomp chomp chomp* (makes necessary soothing sounds while wolfing down lunch)

Then he said the most shocking thing to me!

Thaddeus: (in a half sob) “why mummy don’t love me anymore?”

I was so shocked I didn’t know how to respond! How do you explain to a 22-mth old that refusing his demands doesn’t mean I don’t love him anymore?

Day 3 was going to be the only free and theme park-less day. We started the morning with tim sum at a Chinese Restaurant near to our hotel and it was pretty yummy!

and we strolled towards the Avenue of Stars. The boy has not been the most cooperative the last couple of days, refusing to poo in the mornings and then pooing in his diapers 2 or 3 times throughout the day and I have to scramble to find toilets and wash his butt singlehandedly. This morning I was particularly pleased as the deed was done and perhaps I would be spared all the heaving and balancing to get his butt wash.

The picture will give an indication as to just how polluted Hong Kong actually is.

Before we descended from the overhead bridge, we let the children fool around for a while. Just a simple game of catching got them laughing so hard!

It was actually quite nice to just walk along the water front! There was a slight breeze but as it was also almost noon, the sun was also out! We hid the girl into the stroller and told them they had to lead the way by consulting the maps they have!

The children deciding which way to go!

The duo got out of the stroller and we tried to take the two of them together. It was virtually mission impossible, with little Miss Bossy insisting that it must be done this way and that way and Mr Itchy-Backside itching to get away at every juncture!

Stayyyy didi!

We eventually reach Harbour City shopping center, apparently the biggest shopping mall in the city with about 800 shops inside. We were there barely for 10 mins and Thaddeus fell asleep in the stroller. We then brought Talia shopping at the many children shops and she bought some toys and paid for them herself!

Here’s the money!

We went for lunch at one of the cafes there when the little guy woke and had western fare like salmon, baked rice and pizza for lunch.

After lunch, it was the little girl’s turn to snooze and time for Thaddues to run amok! We went to this little quaint shopping corner and he had a wild time checking out the mechandise.

Hellooooo!

Feeling gungho, we decided to brave the crowds at mongkok and ladies street to let the children have a feel of the vibrancy of Hong Kong. It was good that the actual ladies street was not crowded at all, but getting there was scary.

Boy ergo-ed and girl pram-ed to brave Mongkok!

We shopped for about an hr and then we even went for a foot massage. (Thaddeus was entertained with my iphone and the Talia played with her doll while waiting for us!)

We got back to the hotel at around 10pm. It was tedious going round and round the MTR station trying to find the gate which is bigger so that the stroller can get in and not to mention the lift, Hong Kong isn’t child-friendly at all!

The next morning, we set off for Disneyland by cab and reached Disneyland Hotel at around 10am. We couldn’t check-in as yet so we left our luggage at the concierge and were preparing to head towards the shuttle bus stop to catch our bus to the theme park when a princess suddenly appeared in the hotel lobby. The children couldn’t take their eyes off her! While daddy queued so that they could have a shot with her, they sat on the floor just admiring her! Finally it was their turn.

Hi princess!

After that, we headed out to Disneyland! First up, the children saw Mickey and Minnie at the main pavillion for photo taking and didn’t want to go anywhere else. As usual, daddy went to queue and I stationed myself behind the don’t-want-to-go-anywhere children. Mickey was actually quice nice, he came by twice to pat the children on their heads and they were so thrilled!

I managed to lure them away when we saw in the distance Donald and Daisy making an appearance. A queue immediately formed and we didn’t want to queue.

So the children went back to their post by the Mickey and Minnie pavillion. I managed to lure them away to check out the shops for a while and to chase after goofy when he walked by!

and then it was back to their post again! Finally after 25 mins, it was their turn to take a shot with the mousey pair! and since we waited so long, it has to be one shot with the girl…

one shot with the boy…

The street parade was at 3pm and we wanted both children to be awake then to enjoy it. Kev ergo-ed didi and pretty soon he was fast asleep. We fed Talia milk and she fell asleep in the stroller very soon after as well. We then had our lunch of grilled meats at the Main Banquet Hall. Then we decided we should quickly go survey the mechandise with all the children sleeping. At about 2.40, we walked out heading towards the main street, looking for a shady spot to sit and wait for the parade to start. By 3pm, the little guys were all up and ready and totally enjoyed the parade with its colourful floats, exuberant dancers and catchy music!

After that, we went to catch a couple of shows. The one the children enjoyed the most was the 3D Fantasia show. The “specs” given were too big for them so Kev and I spent the whole show hanging on to them for the children. It was so enjoyable that we simply just stayed back when it ended and watched it a second time!

As for the rides, the children’s eyes were wide as saucer when we took the Pooh Bear ride and the Small Small World ride. There were simply just too many things to take in all at one go! In between that, we caught Pooh Bear as well.

After we took the Safari boat ride, we decided to just have some chinese food at the Safari Restaurant right beside, turns out the food was pretty decent!

It was almost 7pm when we finished our dinner. The fireworks display was at 7.30 pm and so we tried to catch a few more rides like the flying jumbo (they wouldn’t let us up as it was too late they say) and the rotating cup! I had to leave all these to the daddy as I can’t abide all these rotating rides at all!

The fireworks display was great although not so great for our arms as the chidren had to be carried throughout. After that we headed out and thought we would take a stroll back to the hotel instead of squeezing in the shuttle bus. The stroll was wonderful! No crowds, beautiful strains of music accompanied us as we walk, lovely pavement and greenery and fountains tops it for us. The walk was perhaps 20 mins. We then checked in and had an early night!

The next morning, which is also our last day in Hong Kong, we were going to have breakfast in the Enchanted Garden with Mickey and friends.

Before we could even start eating, Daisy came by!

and teased the little boy, who suddenly became shy!

The buffet spread was not bad and they had the cutest mickey-shaped pancakes and stuff for the children!

Talia tucking in!

but the boy needed help to have his portion cut up first!

And even while eating, the children’s eyes would be darting here and there to check out where the disney characters are! Then, didi’s favourite, Mickey Mouse descended on them!

When Pluto came by, Talia was amazed at the size of his paws!

and goofy was so tall!

The characters make their way systematically to all the tables and made efforts to play with the children so it was all quite nice! The Enchanted Garden was also quite beautiful, so I was glad we paid a little bit more to stay at the Disneyland Hotel to enjoy this.

Enchanting Enchanted Garden!

After breakfast, we made our way out to the gardens outside and there was a mini maze there which Talia and her brother trailing behind had fun with!

The hotel was quite beautiful! Not just outside, the inside was quite amazing too!

We walked around a bit and then we chanced upon the children’s room and the children spent some time inside drawing and colouring.

After that we took the shuttle to Disneyland again and took the Buzz Lightyear ride, did some shopping and then headed to City Gate for lunch and some shopping!

A few last shots with the castle in disneyland and its tata!

We took the Disney train to Tung Chung station where City Gate is.

City gate is a mall of discounted outlet shopping but we were rather disappointed with the prices and save for some clothes for the children, we did not buy much. At about 4pm, we took a cab back to the hotel to retrieve our luggage and sped straight to the airport to catch our 6.30pm flight back to Singapore.

I think we achieved our purpose of having this trip geared towards the kids because they really enjoyed themselves so much! The parents were totally peng san-ed and after church the next day, slept the entire afternoon away to recuperate!

I have been to Hong Kong a number of times, for both business and leisure. But this time round, we wanted to do a trip really just for the kids and we thought HK, with Disneyland and Ocean Park should be a good choice. SQ also had quite a good 2-to-go promotion and Disneyland hotel had a promotion for Citibank cards with 2 free breakfast at the Enchanted Garden thrown in. We also found online a pretty nice boutique hotel called Butterfly on Prat near to Tsim Sha Tsui MTR with numerous good reviews. And with that we were really to fly.

The boy saying goodbye to Singapore!

Our flight was in the afternoon and although the flight time was only 3.5 hrs, we were so blessed to have the little boy napping for almost 2.5 hrs in the bassinet. The air stewardess was initially hesitant to set it up for us after taking a look at the boy (muahaha!), but we assured her that he is only 13kg and will not exceed the bassinet’s maximum load of 16kg! In the meantime, the little girl was watching TV and enjoying her childmeal that has so much food she didn’t know which one to eat first.

When the boy woke, we were also offered bottled baby food for him which he always never did quite mind eating.

Kev’s cousin Patrick’s family came to fetch us at the airport and after checking in to our hotel, we dropped by his place at Tsim Sha Tsui to see his new baby Dave. The children wasted no time in ransacking their place and helping themselves to all the crayons and colour pencils!

After that we walked over to Kev’s aunt’s place for dinner. There were 2 toddlers and 2 babies there and are cousins whom Talia and Thaddeus have never met. The children had a blast playing together there and took turns to serenade Kev’s aunt with songs! At about 10pm, we said goodbye and strolled back to our hotel which is about 10 mins away.

Butterfly on Prat is a small boutique hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui which is pretty new. We were quite happy with what we saw. Plenty of table top room for all our clutter, a huge bathroom (by HK standards) so we could shower both children together, a shower spray which is hard and furious and has fabulous hot water! It was also clean and furnishings were new. The bathroom had a see through window though so if you are not travelling with family, it would be a bit of a hassle though hehe!

The children eventually slept really late at 11pm but regardless what time he sleeps, our little guy will still wake up at 7am. The morning routine of drinking milk, poo-pooing, brushing teeth, changing clothes took us 2 hrs and we were out of the room at 9am.

We decided to have Kev’s favourite beef noodles at 源记 for breakfast and top it up with a 波罗包!

The target was to go Ocean Park today if the weather is good. So we decided we will take a nice leisurely stroll towards Star Ferry and en route, we passed by The Peninsular, and this really nice conserved compound called the 1881 Heritage.

The Star Ferry has got to be one of the world’s cheapest “cruise” to have a view of the city, albeit a short one.

A grinning boy!

Hazy hazy Hong Kong!

Enjoying the breeze!

Once we got over, it was just a short walk over to the bus which will take us to Ocean Park. The bus ride was about 30 mins and the little boy fell asleep just as we were reaching at about 11am.

With Thaddeus asleep in the stroller, we brought the little girl to see the absolutely CUTE panda bears!

and then it was panda bear overload with panda bear stuff toys

and panda bear hairband!

The little man woke just in time for lunch and we had a simple fare of spaghetti for the girl, bottled food for him and baked chicken legs for the adults from a kiosk outside the Panda Bear (what else!) restaurant.

There was a dressed-up panda for people to take pictures with and the children especially Thaddeus was enamoured with. He refused to go after having his picture taken.

and after Ms Panda was replaced with Mr Croc, even though he went forward also to hold his hand, he was still whining “I want panda bear!”

By this time, Talia is already napping in the stroller and the Thaddeus took the tutu train and the carousel with his daddy!

Round and round I go!

There are 2 ways to get to the other part of Ocean Park, the part that is on the mountain, by cable car or by this train which I supposed cuts right through the mountain. We took the train up and saw a spectacular view of the sea and small islands and the rides.

We then proceeded to the aquarium and even though I have been here before, I was still awed by the size of it (almost 3 storeys tall tank) and the sheer sizes of the fishes in it.

We rushed for the 5pm show and was slightly late so we stood at the last row to watch without a seat. By then Talia has just woke up and was amazed at the dolphins and seals performing.

Isn’t it beautiful that the sea is the backdrop for the stage?

The park closes at 6pm so we made our way to the cable car after the show ended at 5.25pm.

It was a very scenic cable car ride with views of the vast seas and mountains and not to mention wonderful breezes as well. Talia was even remarking that this cable car ride is better than the one she had in Genting!

After we got down, we decided to take one last look at the panda bears before leaving and it was having its dinner then.

Our trusty peg perego could even take 2 kids at the same time and whenever we need to walk for a short while, we will pack both kids in and tell them its the “stroller tutu train”

Time to leave! Bye bye Ocean park, bye bye panda bears!

We went to causeway bay to have dinner, steaks for us and packed porridge for the children, took the MTR back and reached the hotel at 10pm. That night both kids hugged their panda bear stuff toys to sleep, I am sure they must have dreamt about them as well!

I got to know from my online mummies friends that the Central Fire station is open to the public every Saturday from 9 to 11 am (Yeah to all my online contacts!) and when I told my other online mummies friends (yes! I have quite a bit of online friends if you have not already noticed! )…soon it culminated into a mini gathering!

We arranged to meet at the entrance of the fire station at hill street at 9am and when I arrived at slightly past 9, I saw a huge group of parents with little kids slowly making their way in! From afar, we saw Philson and his parents waving and we alighted first so that the daddy can go park his car somewhere.

As you walked in, you could see ambulances and fire engines parked along the road and I think the parents were more excited, exclaiming every so often “look! look! Fireeee enginneeeee!”

One of the fire engine were allowed free access to the children and everyone scrambled to climb in!

The boy having his turn!

It really was a huge turnout and the guys at the Fire Station seemed a bit at a loss and everything was rather disorganised.

We took turns to take pics with Philson’s family in front of the Red Rhinos!

Then we trooped over to another unoccupied Red Rhinos and had the kids ride it!

The boy was itching to touch everything!

It was a true blue Singaporean Saturday morning and by 9.30am, we were all drenched with sweat! Phew! and the children had it worst because they refused to take off the plastic fireman helmet given out as souvenirs!

We surreptitiously took them off and the arrival of Isabelle helped to distract them.

See the cool Belle compared to the sweat-drenched orangey kiddos!

This old fire station was built in 1908 and has a watchtower and a fireman pole (think bridget jones!) and some firemen were demonstrating sliding down from their 3rd storey quarters. Then the kids had the chance to try putting out some fires with the water hose (no fires actually, just some poor plants getting drowned). This must have been the highlight of the visit for many of the children.

The girl having her turn!

The boy had his turn too but I wasn’t able to inch in front of another over-zealous parent (you talking about me?) to get a shot as the erratic children were splashing their hoses everywhere!

I am not sure if it was meant to help with the heat or that it was part of the demonstration, the chaps at the station turned on the mist maker and boy! did the children have fun trying to run in front of it and not get wet!

Belle and Talia having a whale of a time!

Then the firemen gave a demonstration using their air guns/blasts whatever to knock down cones but good thing the kids were not afraid of the deafening sound.

Hold hands to look at the demonstration!

and then queue to get drinks at the vending machine?

By 10am, the stifling heat was driving everyone to the adjacent Civil Defence Heritage Gallery for its cool aircon comfort! It was quite a nice little museum with old fire trucks on display. On the second level, there were more exhibits and some little interative segments that the children can have some fun with.

We left at 11am to search for Hock Lam beef noodles (the preggie in our midst wanted to have beef noodles, who are we to say no?) and had to drive to 3 different locations before we found one which is open at China Square.

The children playing at a mini fountain while on the way to the car park.

The kids reached home and the boy napped 4 hours while the girl napped 3 hours. That should tell you how tired out they were!

DO this!

Today’s Friday! *lets out a loud whoop*

Not so whoop-worthy was that the little boy also woke up at 6am to ask for milk. After he refused to go back to sleep and wanted to wander around the room to play. All that ruckus woke his sister up at 6.30am so by 7am, she’s all poo-ed, and brushed, and combed and dressed up to go to school.

So the whole ginggang decided to go to the little playground to play before Talia’s bus arrived at 7.25am.

We had fun at the slides and admiring the flowers and listening to the birds chirping! We woke the resident playground cat from his slumber and the little boy even wanted to follow it when it ran away from all the ding we were making!

hey! check out our little flowers!

As usual the little guy cried badly when his sister went up the school bus and we had to reassure him that he will get up that same bus next year when he goes to pre-nursery.

After getting home, it was another 30 mins of reading books and building blocks before I dashed upstairs at 8am to shower to get ready to go to work!

It certainly didn’t feel like 8am to me!

…with a bucketloader, a shovel or broom?

This is one of Thaddeus boy’s favourite book and he always refers to them as the dinosaur books as we have 4 of these with different titles.

Just a couple of days back, he took one of the books, and said “how does a dinosaur clean his room” and wanted me to read it! That has to be the longest sentence I have heard from him yet and I was amazed. But I turned the book over and realised it was actually “how does a dinosaur learn to count” instead! muahaha!

His stubborn streak has recently reared its ugly head as well. He would refused to say sorry after doing something wrong. Even when we banished him to a corner as punishment and he would be crying, he would still shake his head vigourously and refused to say sorry. Talia says sorry easily, in fact, when she says sorry, she would start crying already. I am really not sure how to deal with this stubborn streak? What I have done is to let him cry for a little more and then try to let him know the benefits of saying sorry by telling him that mummy is going to do this or that (like read a book or play a toy with him) if he says sorry. The process is long drawn and he doesn’t give in so easily. I don’t think either me or Kev are stubborn so I really don’t know where did this stubborn streak come from?

I went a bit over the board (read: crazy) recently and bought 4 sets of matching outfits for the children. Well, they are not exactly like completely the same but its in the same style. (Psst! incidentally these outfits are marketed as pjs but they are oh so cute and completely presentable outside of the bedroom, so there you go, I let the kids wear them out as play wear!)

Kids monkeying around!

It was a Saturday and we brought the kids to a place called Royce Gym at Liang Court. I can’t think of a better term to describe this place except to say its a toy heaven! There was even a mini roller coaster that little children can roll down in a car before crashing into a great big pillow!

Thaddeus was fascinated with a wooden toy train set that we could hardly tear him away from.

Trains!

We eventually was able to lure him to where all the kitchen sets were and there he and his sister starting cooking up a storm!

Chefs at work!

After which Talia wondered away to play at the slides and to climb all over while the boy was attracted to this other toy car garage. He observed how all the other older boys were playing and tried to imitate them.

Vroom!

The following Saturday, all decked in matching outfits, Miss Ladybug and Mr Bee went to visit the fish at Qianhu Aquarium.

ooh! look at that…

Hey! Black and yellow fishes…why do these colours sound so familiar to me?

I just love seeing how they are fascinated with God’s little creations! How amazed they are when they see how even little fishes are all beautiful masterpieces in His hands.

Let’s count…

After Qianhu, thought we will drop by Philson’s since he live so near and the children assisted in the creation of the “tornado-ran-through-the-house” effect together with Philson and his brother!

Together with these 4 outfits, I also bought 2 sets of long-sleeves/long pants as pjs proper for the girl with cute little Paul Frank monkeys motif (gasp! did I really buy 6 sets altogether !?!). Hey, but they were a bargain at only $14.50 per set and perhaps I could use them all again in next year’s halloween parties and maybe even before that, I would dress them up during this year’s Christmas parties! (Need to go re-read my Confessions of a Shopaholic to get more ideas to justify the buy!)