Weekend activities

Brought Randall to National Museum to see "A Banquet in Stone" last Saturday. The exhibition features about 50 dishes like shark's fin soup, "Buddha Jumps over the Wall" etc. made up of rare strones. They also feature a stone that has a natural aroma of chocolate. Randall was particularly interested in the "Fried Rice". Well, he got his wishes as he had fried rice for dinner at Raffles City's Din Tai Fung.

On Sunday morning, we brought Randall to cycle at East Coast Park again. Halfway through, one of Daryl's bicycle tyres punctured and we had a hard time taking turns to cycle back with the punctured tyre, with Randall on it, going "bom bom.. bom bomm" at the rhythm of the bumpy tyre. Only when we reached the bicycle store did we realise that we could just call up and their staff would bring a new bicycle to us in exchange! Oh shucks... well, at least we had our workout for the day :P Randall must've picked up his cycling skill from East Coast Park too, as we just found out yesterday that he actually knows how to peddle his tricycle, straight ahead without turning for now, that is. Bravo!

Story Telling

Brought Randall to his first story telling session for toddlers 1-3yo at the library @ West Mall yesterday afternoon. He walked up to all the kids and shook hands with them graciously when the lady asked them to. I was pleasantly surprised as he would never do that in the past. Randall showed keen interest when the lady started off with the first story about farm animals. I had to stop him from going up to touch the book constantly since he would block the rest of the kids. In the half hour, we listened to 3 stories ("The Very Happy Hen", "Peek-a-boo Who?" & "Just Like Mr Croc") and sang songs at each interval. At the end of the session, Randall said he liked the story about Mr Croc best. It was a pretty enjoyable session for him and myself. I think I'll bring him to the next session which was scheduled on the third Tuesday of even months. One of the songs we learnt from the session-
(To the tune of "Are You Sleeping")
Peek-a-boo Peek-a-boo
I see you I see you
I see your button nose
I see your tiny toes
I see you I see you

Daryl's "words of wisdom": Life is not a box of chocolate. We don't always get our way. There is always a choice
- to get negative, complain and whine about it; or be positive (or at least act positive).

Father's Day

On bahalf of Randall, I bought a Lamy pen from Takashimaya for Daryl as a Father's Day gift. It's not expensive but it's the thought that counts eh. As for Randall, he was more excited than Daryl and insisted tearing off the wrapper.

A tribute to hubby

Everytime when I'm down & out, Daryl will remind me of the bigger things in life and appreciate what we have. I really need reminders like that 'cos I tend to take many things for granted. He will come up with some "words of wisdom" which are like a wake-up call to me. So when I'm all fumed up or when I'm upset abouth how some things go, I like to talk to him to soothe and calm myself down. Like this morning, he emailed and reminded me that "we can go thru life worrying about what others are talking or thinking (or perceive to be thinking) about us and end up being paranoid OR we can just ignore them and be happy... remember we can not control how others think of us and we can never satisfy everyone around us". Nothing new, really. But it hits the nail on the head when he said it.

Boy or gal?

Does Randall look like a girl? Cos it's been a couple of times that toddlers of his age call him "Che Che" / "Mei Mei". Just last Tuesday, we were in the lift of West Mall when we saw this boy whom was just old enough to start talking. He stared at Randall, then his dad asked him to call. He blurted, "Che che!" My parents & I gasped and then started laughing, while Randall smiled and exclaimed, "Eh?". I think that boy's dad was rather embarrassed and proclaimed that he called everyone Che che. Haha..
When Randall was less than a year old, a neighbour's boy who was about 3yo then had also identified him as "Mei Mei" too. Is it cos his hair was not short short? Or simply because he has a pair of pretty eyes? ;)

Happy Car, Sad Car

Ever since Daryl borrowed this book on cars from the library for Randall, he started to attach emotions to cars, be it on the book, in the carpark, or on the road. To him, certain cars are happy, some sad, some quiet, some fierce etc. We made a few hypotheses on his labelling. Could he be labelling the cars' emotions based on the colour? Or is it the shape of the headlights? The shape of the metal grill between the headlights? Finally, we concluded that he doesn't label them based on anything. Probably just based on his gut feeling and his mood. Oh well.

Surprise Surprise!

Randall loves Pooh & friends so much he's always mimicking the characters in this Pooh Bear VCD which my bro bought for him. He was at it again last evening. He hid his toy dumper in his hands and told Daryl, "I've something for you." Then he gave Daryl the dumper and exclaimed, "Surprise!" oohhh... that's so sweet!

Violence & Death

I was playing elmo and cookie monster small soft toys with Randall yesterday and he suggested they fight. He chose elmo and handed me cookie monster. I used cookie monster to "punch" elmo a couple of times. Then he brought his elmo further away from cookie monster and "seat" him in a cringing position. As his elmo was out of my reach, I told Randall to put it nearer so they can continue "fighting". He looked up and told me a matter-of-factly, "Elmo die already." Ahh.. violence & death.. thanks to Daryl's WOW.

Regression

It's so tiring for mil and us, and I'm sure, for Randall himself, to go through his regression phase. It's like he's becoming a baby all over again, except that he's like, about double the weight now. He wants to be carried all the time, even in the middle of the night. He'll ask me to carry him and starts crying if I don't. He cries easily at a slight hint of our displeasure against him. Every morning, I dread it when he asks me (without fail), "We go where?" When I reply, "Mah-mah's house" or "Bukit Batok", he will start crying, whining, throwing tantrums and all. Then the cycle repeats itself every morning. With an almost 14 kg wriggly worm in my arms, it's hard not to get frustrated after a while. I think he dreads going there. But then again, we dread going to work as much. His temper is getting very erratic. He can be fine one day and throw tantrums the whole of next day. We just cross our fingers and hope that he'll get over this phase quickly!

Dental Visit

Randall went for his first dental check-up last Saturday. Wasn't really a success but I guess it was a good start. He was all happy until he entered the confined dentist room. The lady dentist, together with her 4-5 year old daughter, told him a Dentist story with him seated on my lap on the dentist chair. The book was pretty interesting. It shows the dentist chair moving up and down, a boy opening his mouth while the dentist checks his teeth with a scaler etc. When it was Randall's turn to sit on the dentist chair, he kicked a fuss and insisted on exiting. I had to demonstrate and show him how I sit on the dentist chair and open my mouth wide while the dentist counted my teeth. After some persuasion, he was willing to open his mouth a bit, but not wide enough to show his teeth. He was also reluctant to polish his teeth. The dentist polish his thumb just to show him how it felt during polishing. I think he found it quite interesting cos he stuck out his other finger for the dentist to polish after she finished polishing his thumb. Finally, the dentist managed to polish one of his front teeth. So we left the dental clinic, spending 20 bucks for his 2 polished nails and 1 polished tooth. Well, at least Daryl & I learnt something out of it - that kids have 20 teeth in total. 10 on top, 10 below. We also learnt that our second set of teeth were already hiding in our gums when we first had our milk teeth. Well, at least he had his treat after the dental visit - You Tiao for breakfast.

Mine!

I'm quite happy that Randall is getting more assertive nowadays. He has been quite meek & shy with strangers and he would just stare at me in shock when other kids snatched toys away from him. At Daryl's relative's house last night, his cousin, a 3yo gal, snatched her motorised aeroplane which he was holding and playing with. She then placed it in the balcony for it to run by itself and went away. Randall came complaining to me, "Jie Jie take my plane!" Well, I could only tell him that it was ok, that the aeroplane belonged to Jie Jie anyway, but if he really wanted it, he could go take it from the balcony since no one was playing with it. He went to the balcony and took the plane. Immediately, the gal snatched it away from him again, which made him pretty upset. He decided to snatch it back and hand it over to Daryl, telling him, "Dad Dad, switch off!" Haha... and the plane was just left on the table, untouched by either party after that.