“This one not worm”

We pass by this friendly snake decoration on most days during our after dinner walks. We tell Sophia that’s a snake and she responds with the above captioned line (trust me, I’m working on undoing the Singlish, its hard). Should I be concerned that she’s more familiar with worm than snake? I guess not. Its cute! And then she goes on to tell us things like birds eat worm and other stuff she knows (like this one not snake 100 times) I’m going to miss this stage when she grows up to become “I’m smarter than thou”.

Model girl

Sometimes its amazing what a large empty space does to a child’s mood. We brought Sophia to Cathay and she was so happily dashing around, waving her arms.

 

She was so relaxed that she decided it was a good idea to pose in front of this giant poster stand thinggy.

 

Daddy hence decided to train her to do a few more poses:

 

 

Model training in progress! I think I need to get a better teacher, this one is not very good at the girly poses.

Cafe Melba

I chanced upon this blog in French, Active Mummy in Singapore, which mentioned Cafe Melba and, based on the photo, it seemed like the perfect place to bring Sophia for weekend breakfast. So when we woke up on Saturday morning with no plans for the first half of the day, I suggested that we head there and texted Cousin Samuel’s parents asking if they would like to join us. And they did!

The cafe setting setting did not disappoint. The Teak & Mahogany furniture amid a generally wooden setting creates a leisurely feel. Even the typically Singaporean me did not once think of sitting in the inside area.

Alfresco dining area

 

They even provided activity sheets and coloured pencils for the children. Its an easy way to help parents gain precious 15 minutes of eating time and all restaurants should consider doing it – doesn’t cost them much anyway.

Sophia saw the sheets and immediately started to scribble

Samuel adopted the more Montessori method of playing with the coloured pencils and the container, taking them out, tipping the box over, fiddling with the pencils etc, which intrigued Sophia. That’s her “I need to process this information” look. I think.

Next to the restaurant was a large pebble pit (which I wasn’t quite sure whether was meant for play or for some activity conducted by the Goodman Arts Center but in any case the children decided it was for play.

The other feature was a small bouncy castle, which Sophia and Samuel had great fun on.

Don’t they look like they are conspiring to do something cheeky?

Maybe the conspiracy was this – sending Sophia to touch the witch in the moon.

 

The closest Sophia gets to jumping is bouncing on the bouncy castle, since she doesn’t lift off the ground when she tries on flat ground.

Other kids came to join them. The younger girl was very sweet! She asked if Sophia was my baby and told me she would take care of her so she won’t get hurt. Awww…

Towards the end Sophia was so tired she often fell backwards and rested. Samuel’s face shows how much fun they are having.

All in all, I do like this place. Anywhere that gets my Sophia giggling like she did is a good place. Even though service was a little bit patchy (we had to ask 3 times before they provided us the activity sheets), it wasn’t as bad as the reviews on hungrygowhere made it seem. Food was not fantastic but pretty decent. I loved the roasted cherry tomatoes in the full melba breakfast set.

Grown up pleasures

As Sophia grows older, she’s been indulging in more grown up pleasures, like reading:

Or rather, being read to,but when she’s in the mood she reads along at bits of it that she remembers and when she hands us a book she’ll recite bits of it that she remembers, like “almost spring” when she hands us a book of the same title. And IF she thinks we’re not looking she may even read bits of it aloud. On sunday she turned to the first page of the book “moo, baa, la la la” and read “cow… moo!”

Another grown up interest is helping with household chores. Sweeping with the magic mop is of course one that has been mentioned a few times but a new one is picking out vegetables with grandma. Of course, she typically tears it into very small pieces like she did when she was feeding the baby turtles. May have been our fault since we taught her to break up the veges like that for the turtles and still haven’t quite been able to explain to her that we’re many times bigger than those turtles so can handle much bigger pieces.

Vegetables picking time

 

Papa’s graduation ceremony

This is long overdue but I’ve just been lazy in transferring photos from my DSLR to my laptop.. oops… not a very responsible blogger, have been leaving you guys with only photos from my iPhone mainly.

Sophia all dressed up an excited about daddy’s graduation

 

Never happy in the carseat

That’s the most elaborate hairdo I have time for with child in tow.

 

Sophia can’t resist taking the balloons lining the purple carpets

 

Climbing the 2 storey high flight of stairs with Sophia takes a loooong time. In the background is Sophia’s Tomodachi – Tomo-kun – sleeping.

Congratulations Daddy!

Spotted himself in the yearbook!

I like Insead’s graduation, its very conversational, witty, and not at all boring like my own convocation.

VIP speech time and I did not once feel like nodding off.

These people are from the student union or equivalent, whatever they called themselves, the ‘cool’ people basically.

Probably the most serious part of the ceremony – student rep speech.

The proud graduates

Sophia enjoyed herself I think

Of course, the global business school’s graduation ceremony has to be attended in traditional national costumes.

Congratulations, daddy. Insead was so cool, it made me feel like going out and getting another piece of cert myself!

 

Mummy ride

Sophia is scared of moving kiddy rides. Yes, I know I’m the envy of parents around the world, or at least my part of the world where there is a kiddy ride waiting to coax that dollar coin out of parents’ wallets around every corner. Sophia wants to sit on the rides, for sure, but when we fish out our wallets to insert a coin she immediately pushes it away saying “no-no”. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to use all the adults in the family as kiddy rides though. And when she is riding on us she’s very happy to bounce up and down. There’s her bouncing on my tummy:

Bishan Park

Last weekend Sophia and us went for yet another of those breakfast at a park outing with cousin Samuel and his parents. The day started with both the mummies getting attacked by hoards of mosquitoes so out came the mozzie patches and sprays. Sophia loves being the official repellent sprayer. Here’s her looking for her victim:

I have a spray and I’m not afraid to use it

But not before ensuring she’s well protected herself:

Me first

Cousin Samuel wants some too:

Spray some on my arms please

Sophia’s happy to be of service:

 

Your legs need some protection too

This place looks quite popular among families with young children. This big sister came over to play with our toddlers:

 

Can I play with you please

Here she’s hugging and kissing Sophia. She even came to ask for our permission beforehand! What a well-behaved little girl.

Hugs and kisses for the mei mei

And of course every park ride these days involves some time on the tricycle

Playing together peacefully (for the moment)

Which inevitably ends with the children fighting over the one tricycle. So we adjourned to the stream in the middle of the park and after some strenuous exercise climbing up and down the terraces, Sophia decided to head into macdonalds and for some strange reason decided to climb, without help, onto the high chair that was standing by a wall.

Look mummy, I can do it all by myself.

Good one. I’m looking forward to the day when you will climb into your carseat all by yourself too.

Of course, the highlight of all park visits are the dogs:

 

Hello friendly doggy

And that’s what brought out the biggest smile in my favourite little girl:

 

I love dogs!

Swim date with cousin Samuel

Warming up before getting into the pool

Having the pool all to herself while Samuel gor gor negotiates against getting in with his dad because the water is way too cold!

Looks like the discussion is pretty one sided because gor gor gets carried in against his (initial) wishes but of course once in he’s the jovial chap he always is again.

Mummy complains that Daddy and Uncle John are always giving all their attention to Samuel gor gor to the exclusion of Sophia

And here’s further proof of it. Good thing Sophia’s perfectly happy playing with her toys.

That may not be a completely fair statement because there is an exception – when Sophia is holding the dangerous weapon in the form of the ducky water gun.

And the kids do play together sometimes and when they do then all 4 come together. The swim toys really help make the trip so much more fun, glad I got them at the ELC sale!

And after a nice swim that ended abruptly with rain, Sophia shares her favourite game with Samuel gor gor – dancing with mini Singapore flags.

Follow the big brother

I’m very glad the cousins are starting to play together. Although they are less than 2 months apart and roughly the same size, somehow they know among themselves that Samuel is the big brother and Sophia is the little sister. Samuel would hold Sophia’s hand and bring her towards toys. He would also hold her hand and bring her on a long walk, until he spotted a playground, that is, at which point he tried for half a second to drag her along as he dashed towards the playground but sensing that she is moving towards the playground with much less enthusiasm and speed, let go of the little sister and made a beeline for the playground himself.

Don’t you just love watching kids and their innocent and oh-so-adorable acts?

 

 

 

Daddy and baby time

Now that Daddy is back from the States and I have been so busy at work, the daddy has been spending more time with Sophia, leading to more heartwarming shots like these:

 

daddy and baby at work

Of course, when she’s on MY lap nobody thinks of taking a photo for us. Ever.