Blurred Perceptions

My heart-beat accelerated. I was mesmerized by the sight. My breath hitched in anticipation of what is to come.

 

Nope, that wasn't the start of the story of how I fell in love with a tall, dark, rebellious stranger - I already did that 18 years ago :p :p  Now, if you guys are done puking...It's the start of my rant against the awful smog which has been the hot topic of conversation these few days in our small smoggy (opps, I mean sunny) island.

 

What had started off innocently as a heat wave escalated quickly into a god-awful blanket of filth, ashes and soot covering our once fresh & green country. Now as I walk on the streets, I feel like a cast member of Freddie's Nightmare.  You know the one where an unsuspecting sucker walk on the streets alone at night and get pounced on by good ol' Freddie who suddenly leaps out of the mist. Not so much the sucker part but more the kind of fog involved. Strange analogy but hey, you try coming up with a better one after you have watched World War Z and had wierd dreams after that.

 

For days, the media was filled with news about everything haze-related. For me, I was more concerned about to how keep my family safe from the possible effects of the haze. I got a friend who was (thankfully) in Taiwan on holiday to buy up supplies of cloth face masks. When news announced that N95 masks were on sale,  I became a popper. As in pop in, "hello! Are the masks in stock yet?" pop out again when the answer was no. Repeat motion 3 more times. The Rascal, for the 4th time (possibly less) in his 36 months of life was permitted to sleep in his air conditioned room, for fear of breathing in too much yucky stuff. It should be mentioned that his room is the only unobstructed room in the house and it gets excellent wind conditions in usual days, hence our concern.

 

The Husband was not spared. His throat itches and he retreats to the air con comfort of our bedroom once he finishes his shower. Yet we are still unable to crack Level 147 of Candy Crush to date darn it!

 

It is truly an unpleasant time right now and I am hoping hard that no one in the family falls prey to the ill effects of the haze. Soldier on people!!

Happy Father's Day

First up, happy belated Father's Day to all the male folks out there who qualify for the job description! 

To kick off the special ocassion, Papa Yeow had a sweet treat in the middle of the night from Mama Yeow. It came in the form of.......bread and butter pudding. For those who are guilty of it, u can get your minds out of the gutter now. Papa Yeow for some strange reason, had taken a liking to the traditional British dessert and finding that it is actually quite an idiot-proof dish to make (for a decidedly non-domestically inclined me), I decided to christen my new multi-function Healsio oven with it. After packing the Rascal off to sleep at 10pm, I started getting down to making the pudding. All in all, the pudding turned out well albeit a little unsweetened. This was attributable to the fact that I do not owe weighing scales to measure the required amount of sugar needed and could only rely on estimation. The issue was compounded by the fact that Papa Yeow's sweet tooth was plucked out and flung out by the dentist eons before I met him.

We set out to explore Punggol Waterway on the morning of Fathers' day, the main highlight being a water play area for the Rascal to get wet in. Having parked in the extreme end of where the said water play area was NOT located, we landed up trekking from the car parking area (note that I did not term it a car park because it was not. It was more a roadside parking area on a flyover leading to goodness knows where) to our final destination. 

Now, it would have been a nice trek except for the small fact that our journey was fraught with caterpillars. Yes, you read me right - caterpillars. Our path was littered with bazillions of the disgusting creepy crawlies with the occasional millipede thrown in for good measure. Squished ones, living ones, half-squished ones, shrivelled ones: you name it, the path has it. Being deathly afraid of  the dammed critters, my hairs stood up and I had to keep my eyes peeled on the walkway to make sure that the cat pillars do not try out their hiking boots on my leg! The Husband was kept occupied giving his son Science lessons on the bug kingdom and trying not to laugh his head off at the sight of a freaked-out woman shrieking and yipping each time a live caterpillar crosses her path. As if things were not bad enough, there was a particular stretch under a bridge where all the caterpillars seem to have chosen as their final resting place (for squished or half-squished ones) or settlement area (for living ones). For the first time in as many years, I did the 100-metre sprint while simultaneously yelling my head off. For clarification purposes, this is not a dramatisation - I am just thankful that there weren't many people around to witness my strange behaviour. 

Having finally reached the water play area, we set T loose and sat down to scope out our immediate surroundings. The water play area was quite decent, save for the fact that there was a wading pool in the middle of the play area and due to the long term accumulation of water, the ground has turned slimed and algae-ish. This makes for kinda dangerous conditions for kiddies to run around in but thankfully, those kids who did slip when we were there treated it was part of the fun. Also in the immediate area was a sand pit which we did not have a chance to go cos a wet toddler + only 1 change of clothes + dry sand was not a good combination.

We ended our outing with a BBQ buffet lunch at Punggol Marina which was relatively decent but nothing to shout about. 

 

On Turning 3 - The Weekend Edition

For folks who has given feed-back that my blog entries are very sporadic and does not get updated on a regular basis, I now have a valid excuse for it. IT IS JUST SO FRIGGIN' HOT NOWADAYS!!

 

My blog time is spent in front of the desktop computer with only a floor fan for company (we ditched the room air-con last year). It is fine and dandy under normal weather conditions but when Singapore gets hit by heat-waves like the ones we have been experiencing recently, I break out in sweat just sitting still. My instincts tell me to get the blog out ASAP so that I can escape to the cool comfort of my sleeping sanctuary. Anyway, I digress...

 

1. Dinner With the Ah Ma on Saturday

 

The Saturday celebration was a relatively calm one, with a quiet dinner with my mother in law and brother in law. The food was good, the Rascal was talkative and the ever-adoring Ah Ma almost had her ears yakked off with his incessant patter. The Husband and I sat back and got to enjoy a brief respite.

 

 

2. Joint Celebration With 'Girlfriend' on Sunday

 

T shares the same birthday with his 'girlfriend' Renee (nice coincidence eh?). This year, it was a triple celebration as we welcomed the latest addition to our May-Fruits (how else would you term the offspring of May-flowerians? It's lame but scientifically accurate!) - Mr Seah Junyi, the youngest progeny of Ms See.

 

The baby shower was a good opportunity for all of us to gather and had a joint celebration. As we all became more and more occupied with having to juggle family, personal and work life, the time we have had to meet up became proportionately lesser. As the stork is expected to bring in more bundles, I foresee that the occasions for meeting will dip even further. Even if we do manage to meet, there won't be much time for girl talk as our immediate vicinity will be a mad-cap playground of children.

 

Anyway,I will end this very brief entry with the only decent photo captured of the May-fruits that day....

 

Happy birthday to Tristan and Renee!

 

 

P/S: Am going to bask in the air-con goodness of my room now. Bliss!

 

 

 

 

 

On Turning 3 - The Weekday Celebrations

The Rascal's birthday fell on a Sunday this year. But, why stop at one celebration when you can get four?

1. At the Nanny's On Thursday

To kick-start the festivities, T had his first party at his nanny's house, where all kiddos under her care get a mini birthday celebration on their special day. This signifies a yummy treat where the kids get to stuff their gullets with chicken nuggets, fish balls and the whole smorgasbord of junk food which they are otherwise 'forbidden' to eat on normal days.

T was the only June baby in the house so he got a customised cake all for himself. And a hug-ass cake it was too...

The huge-ass cake, reminiscent of the cakes that we used to get on our first birthdays

Taking a deeeeeeep breath

Surrounded by people who love him...(when he is not busy bullying them)

Surrounded by parents who love him...(when he is not busy yakking their ears off)

2. At His School On Friday

Before T started childcare in November last year (01 Nov 2012), I was very much against having celebrations in school. To me, it felt like a Mafia operation where you are pressurized to have a celebration just because another kiddo has invited you to his party and you feel obliged to return the favour. And goodness knows T's class are populated with many kids. Friends tell me that I am wierd when I share this line of thinking with them - I don't deny this. Then again, I also have fewer friends now =P

To cut a long story short, I decided to give the cc celebration a try cos like they say: 'don't diss it till you try it'. The online sourcing of possible party favours (that's another concept I don't understand: why is the host supposed to give out door gifts when he should be getting burried in presents?) began and my brain goes into overdrive trying to decide on the party theme. Angry Birds was given a short respite from free-falling tower blocks and invited to T's birthday party in school for a while. 

Despite having very few pre-conceptions about what to expect in a cc party, I was completely unprepared for what I can only describe as the 'sterility' of the class atmosphere.  The celebration took place after the kiddies' afternoon naps and a handful of T's classmates were looking more than a littler zoned out when we arrived at the centre, including the birthday boy himself. He was sitting at a table on his own, possibly known as the Birthday Table, while his classmates were sitting at separate communal tables. Birthday songs were sung, cutesy photos were taken and Angry Birds were mutiliated into kid-sized pieces for kid-sized tummies. Throughout this whole episode, T's Chinese teacher and her aide were there to maintain law and order.

'Stand around the birthday boy!' 

'Let's start singing a song for T!' 

'Let's do the Chinese version too!'

'Say cheese!'  

'Go back to your seats now!'

'If anyone makes a sound, they will not get their cake!'

I'm not quite sure if I am the only one who feels this way but since it is a birthday celebration, shouldn't the kids be allowed to let down their baby-fine hair and just monkey around for the short duration of the party instead of being ordered around like robots? If I had wanted to have a party with such high levels of discipline, I would wait for when T turns 18 and throw him a bash in his Pulau Tekong canteen! Suffice to say that having experienced  the sterility of a cc party, T should not be expecting to have many cc celebrations in the immediate future. 
 

The party favours

3 different packagings

The sleepy birthday boy

 



Say 'cheese'!!

Picture perfect

Enjoying (hopefully) the Polar birthday cake

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?

 

 

 

On Turning 3 - The Present

The Rascal turned 3 over the weekend.

 

Preparations started for his birthday way waaaay beforehand as his parents (by that, I meant his mom) went through an evolution of thought processes in pursuit of the Perfect Present befitting the Rascal's ripe old age of three.

 

The initial idea sprung by Mum was to get him a scooter bike which seemed all the rage recently with young folks and old folks who are trying to act like young folks. That idea met with an untimely death when I shared it with the Husband and was shot down (pardon the pun) with the comment: "Your son does not have adequate motor coordination and muscles to ride that thing. He will probably ride it into a wall and crack his head."

 

Despite my urge to crack his head open with a frying pan for daring to point out non-existent inadequacies  in my flesh and blood (aren't all children super beings in the eyes of their  mums?), I dragged him to the Eden of Toys for children (also known as Toys R Us) to scoop out possible vehicular offerings.

 

As luck has it, the scooter bikes were on sale but looking at the real thing, it suddenly struck me as ridiculous. What does he learn from riding this? Is there a life skill that he can pick up from going mostly one-legged Davy Jones style? (go Google 'Pirates of the Caribbean' if you just crawled out of a rock!) 

 

Having seen the Light (no, I am not dying yet. The OTHER light), a flash of green caught my eye as I was mulling over my new revelation and the Husband is standing by the side with a imaginary thought bubble with the words 'Can we get out of this place before you start buying more toys to clutter the house now?'. It was a kiddie bike which was hung up on display. Upon closer inspection, we  (yes, me and that guy with the thought bubble) saw that it was missing its foot pedals.

 

Fast forward the copious amount of online research done on balance bikes, asking around of current owners of such bikes and discussions with the Husband (thank goodness there were no further untimely death of ideas), we finally decided on buying a JD Bug balance bike (in blue) with detachable pedals for the Rascal.

For all the late nights searching online for reviews on the various brands of balance bikes and models readily sold in Singapore (we only had a 2-week timeframe to get the bike before T's birthday came about so pre-ordering from Germany/USA was out of the question), our efforts (by that I meant mine) were rewarded with the simple words as the Rascal sat on his shiny new present:

"This is my favourite bicycle!"
(Ed's note: it's his only bicycle as well...)

Some Inspirations But So Little Energy

I have so many ideas for my next post but there is so little time and not a whole lot of energy at the end of a working day to sit down and give life to the words inside my mind.

 

It is the start of a crazy June and hopefully, there will be time enough between the mundane nightly housework and getting precious me time to finally satisfy all 2 of my ardent blog fans out there. May blogs come easier now that I have downloaded the Blogger app on my mobile. Then again, things are in a very sorry state when the only time I have to blog is on the 1 hour daily bus ride!

 

Later!!

 

- mindless ramblings of a stoned blogger who is only half awake right now

Sickly May

It has been a month of trips down to the doctor, medical certificates and generally, a Mardi Gras of viruses going on in the Hougang household. 

 

The 'festival' started with YSY coming down with the sniffles shortly after a round of night classes. Being afflicted with the Male Syndrome, he refused to visit the doc despite being wrecked with fatigue and the Usain Bolt of running noses for a couple of days. His wife finally had to tweak him by his ear and dragged him to the clinic for some medical help. (Note: no husband was harmed in the making of this trip). The man is happily recovered the next day.    

 

There was that. Shortly after the husband-ly (my blog, my corruption of the English language!) bout of sickness, a strange prickly sensation appeared in my nose and before I knew what hit me, I started having body aches and the Usain Bolt virus had made its merry way to my immune system (or lack thereof). This coincided with the same time where the Rascal started sprouting eye boogers like nobody's business and becoming whiny and tantrum-ish. At that time, we didn't think that it was a problem as he did not come down with any fever (the most common signal that something was brewing) and life went on.

 

To cut a long story short, Mum went to the doc, Mum took medication and Mum barely recovered. Monday came and in the morning when I was preparing the rascal for school, I noticed that his left eye was pretty red but attributed that to some eye-rubbing. Fast forward to 2 hours later: we found ourselves back at the doc when the rascal has been ejected by the cc. To cut the story short again, Rascal saw the doctor, Rascal was diagnosed with an eye infection (it is unclear at the time of publication if this was contracted at the cc or due to being in some other unfortunate place where he contracted the germ/bacteria/virus), Rascal got well again.

 

Shortly after T has recovered from his eye infection, his mum felt a familiar prickly sensation. Not in the nose this time; but in her left eye. It was bloodshot and swollen, not unlike Captain Hook sans eye-patch. This warranted a trip to a 24-hour clinic AGAIN - the 4th time in as many weeks. In retrospect, I should have asked MOH/NHG if I can get a VIP card for being so supportive of the physicians under its Medical Register. A free visit for every 3 paid trips to the doc's would have been nice...that last visit blew a $75 hole in my wallet!

 

Still awake after reading my ramblings? <3

 

 

PS: I just learnt that new '<3' symbol above. Pls lemme know if it doesn't represent a heart; wouldn't wanna be called up by the Censorship Board for (unintentionally) using a vulgar sign!