Yee Sinn learnt a new word recently - Gundam

We were surprised when she first mentioned "Gundam" and insisted her Papa to let her play with his toy model that he has been fixing. She has been pointing to them occasionally at it and saying "Gun Damm! Gun Damn!" "Bang! Bang!" since then.

We were taken aback when we brought her to the toy section at Kiddy Palace yesterday. She was playing with the usual Fisher Price toys that were on display for awhile before wondering towards the toy modelling section. There, she recognised the Gundams sets and exclaimed very excitely "Gun Damn" a couple of times. Before we knew it, she removed a few boxes to reach out for a very expensive model, which I think her papa wouldn't mind buying if there was a discount.

My hubby had a smile on his face every since and I'm sure he was darn proud that his little girl has shown some interest in his hobbies. Sigh.

It has been a busy week and I'll be even busier this week with meetings at work. Sigh. Sometime I wish we'll have more long weekends. I just love spending my time with hubby and our little girl. We have endless ideas of what to do during the weekends.... but so little time.

Just yesterday, as we were heading towards Grandma Chang's place, we decided really last minute to swing by the Saddle Club to check out the horses. It was really a last minute decision cos we were already on the expressway and almost heading past Eng Neo exit. And guess what? we really enjoyed ourselves there.

We got really up, close and personal with a particular horse while we were there. It's actually an Irish Cob, a really people friendly breed. The owner was kind and patient to explain to us about his horse's personality and habits. We even got to pet it.

We were there for quite a while before rushing to Grandma Chang's place. I had to be there before 11.30am cos I promised to prepare roast chicken for lunch and Yee Sinn's Ah Yee needed to leave by 12.30pm. We're pretty sure we'll be back at the Saddle Club very soon.

While at Grandma Chang's place, we decided to get a bit creative after our lunch and naps. There were some some old alphabet mats from work that the department wanted to discard and I thought Yee Sinn could play with it since they looked quite new still. So over the week, we got them washed and cleaned. We decided to leave them at Grandma Chang's place so that Yee Sinn's cousins could play with them too. So here she is, creating her "house" with her papa's help.

Before heading back home, Hubby had cravings for good Mee Rebus. So we decided to swing by Botanic Garden for his Mee Rebus fix. We brought some stale bread with us so that Yee Sinn could feed the greedy fishes there. It was drizzling a little so we let her wear her papa's hat. We folded it a little so that it'll fit just nicely on her. Thought she looked really adorable with the hat and that excited look on her face.

No prizes for guessing where we went over the weekend. Yes, we booked at room at Crowne Plaza at Changi Airport for a night. We find it difficult and troublesome to travel abroad with our little girl so we decided to do a "Staycation" instead.

Well, we felt it was a good decision cos Yee Sinn was very fascinated with view that our room came with. It faceed the airport runway with the skytrains running parrallel below. We wanted to show her the actual size and scale of an aeroplane and we managed to do just that. So now, she knows that an aeroplane is huge and makes a booming sound when taking off. Many times, she would exclaim excitedly "来了来了来了！！" whenever there's a plane taking off or the skytrain coming past. She can't pronounce the letter "L" and "R" very well yet so she'll just point and say "Air pain" or "Thain"

Over at terminal 3, Changi Airport was one of the main sponsor for next year's Youth Olympics 2010. There were game booths set up so we gamely participated in some. We walked off with some cash vouchers which were used to pay for our lunch at the airport. Our little girl had fun jumping on the inflatable castles as well as dancing to the music on the podium.

The airport was quite a child friendly place. They have constructed an indoor play area for the kids. There were some interactive exhibits where the children could draw and colour on some block prints. We also went swimming at the hotel pool in the late evening. Strangely though, the water was very cold. We didn't stay long before we called it a day.



When we got home on Sunday, we rested awhile before heading down to Toa Payoh Central for a walk. We came upon a stall whereby we could rent battery operated cars for $3 for 15 mins. For the younger kids, they have remote controlled battery operated cars!! We thought Yee Sinn would be interested so we gave it a try. Guess it ended up with Hubby enjoying himself more. The best part? The business owner was so creative to come with with a loyalty card - Buy 10 rides and get 1 free. Guess we'll be going back there more often now. Hee Hee.

I just love long weekends... who doesn't? I realised I've not been blogging for about 2 weeks already. I was too busy with the work and we were shifting office (again!). So now that most things have been settled, I was looking forward to the much awaited 3-days National Day break.

My national day break started much earlier... I took the afternoon off on Friday. Hubby had half day of school in the morning and we actually intended to catch Harry Potter at the cinema. Our plan didn't materialized eventually cos of the odd screening time. Instead, we went back home and took Grandma Lee and Yee Sinn out to Orchard road to chill and of course, to check out the "National Day Sale" that so many departmental stalls had.

We were at the Takashimaya toy fair and walked away with a $25 kitchen set. It's quite a good buy cos it kept Yee Sinn busy for the next few days. We also went down to OG to get some household items before calling it a day.

I managed to get the corporate Sentosa passes so we headed down to Sentosa on Saturday afternoon. This time, we were more prepared. We brought Yee Sinn arm floats, swimming costumes, sand castle set, her milk and sunblock. And my oh my.. she sure had loads of fun by the beach.

Yee Sinn liked having the waves splashing against her, though she was still somewhat careful not to venture out too much in the sea without holding on to her Papa or Mama.


Our little girl was also more comfortable playing with the sand compared to the last time we were there. She kept herself busy digging up sand and filling up the cartoon moulds for her Papa. We'll teach her how to build sand castles when she gets older.... in the meantime, we'll just let her practise digging and filling up. Hee.

Yee Sinn saw some kids at the water fountain area and she wanted to be there too. We were there for quite sometime while our girl kept "grabbing" the water with her hands or putting her foot above the water point to stop the water from flowing out. As expected, she was knocked out to slumberland the moment we put her in the car seat for home.

Sunday was the usual- At Grandma Chang's place. We decided to bring the kitchen set that we bought at the Takashimay Toy Fair to Grandma Chang's place. We actually intended to leave it there so that Yee Sinn and her cousins will have something interesting to play with during our weekly visits. However, since we'll not be visiting Grandma Chang next week, Grandma Chang insisted that we bring it home so that Yee Sinn can play with it for the next few days. Yee Sinn was pretty much occupied with her new toy most of the time. She has been "cooking" and "feeding" for almost everyone at home.

And yes, she has been role playing quite a bit too. On Monday morning, I saw her "feeding" her soft toy some food. She told us "Dog Dog eat nah nah" - Dog dog is eating banana. Hahahah. Guess my little princess is growing up pretty fast. I'm already looking forward to the next weekend.

Was on leave again today. Brought Hubby to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for his routine eye check up. Thank goodness all went well.... there's nothing more I could ask for in terms of the health of his eyes. He has very high myopia since he was a child and we hope he'll maintain his condition as long as he can. Apparently, the doctor mentioned that he is starting to have cataracts but thankfully, it'll take about another 10 years or so before he is required to change his lenses.

I scooted off to meet my friend L for lunch at Ion after seeing hubby back home. Ion IS impressive. Shops below level 1 catered more to mainstream crowd... but nevertheless, even shops like Charles & Keith looked really posh. Level 1 and above had very high-end brands such as LV, YSL and other "un-pronounceable" brands. L and I agreed that the more un-pronounceable they are, the more expensive the stuffs they sell. Hee hee. Oh yes, we did check out the famous loo as well. It's just bascially very bright with lots of mirrors and very clean. I like the nursing area cos they come with hot and cool water for mothers to make their formula milk.

My favourite part of the entire place would be the Market Place at level 5 (I think). The supermarket has a very impressive delicatessen, a wide range of dairy and organics products and very friendly staff. I bought myself a bottle of craneberry juice, bush honey yogurt and a pack of organic baby oats for Yee Sinn.

We headed down to Hort Park with our neighbour J (not really a neighbour but she lives at the next block) and her 2 kids in the late afternoon. Though it was freakinly hot, the kids had lots of fun at hortpark checking out the different thematic gardens and playing ball. I'm sure the kids were exhausted at the end of the day.

We brought Yee Sinn for her 18th month injection as well as her check up this morning. Dr Heng commented that Yee Sinn was growing up very well in terms of her physical, motor and social skills. She can easily walked up stairs un-assisted and say quite a few words, such as "Bird bird eat 米" much to Dr Heng's surprise. What suprised us was Dr Heng had to do a double take when measuring her height. She couldn't believe her eyes when she saw that Yee Sinn is now 80cm. Think there was a growth spurt since her last check up 6 months ago. Our little girl is now 5cm away from needing to pay for her own fares when taking MRT or the public buses now. Happy problem? Well, I guess.... considering both hubby and I are on the tall side and she's growing well.

Hubby and I spent some couple time together in the afternoon. We managed to catch a movie before heading down to the Ion to pack dinner home. We saw "Frozen Flowers". A Korean R21 movie about a gay emperor who had to ask his lover, his royal bodyguard, to impregnant his queen as he had to produce a heir. Sounded a bit risqué but it's storyline was actually quite tragic - somewhat between Romeo & Juliet and King Authur's. The scenes were tastefully done... much better than Lust, Caution.

We didn't have much time at Ion because we had to bring dinner home. We'll be back another time though.. maybe with Yee Sinn and Grandma Lee.

Yee Sinn turned 18 months today. To mark this little milestone, we decided to bring her for her first bus ride. She was so fascinated with the road scenes while in the bus... kept pointing to the things she saw and naming them. We took bus 56 from Toa Payoh Central to Marina Square. So when approaching the last stop, I let her pressed the door bell, after which she said "Deem Dong...Mama... Deem Dong...." indicating she wanted to press the bell again. Hubby and I are can't wait to bring her onboard a double decker bus the next time!

At Marina Square, Yee Sinn attended her free trial session at The Little Gym. The place was offering a free trial for the month of July as they were newly opened. Since it was free, hubby and I thought why not? (Hee. We're a sucker for freebies).

It was a parent accompanied class and the class that she attended was meant for children between 10-19 months. Honestly, we felt that our little girl was a bit too old for the class. Unlike Yee Sinn, the majority of the kids were either crawling or just learning to walk. We also found out she was the only one in class talking to the teacher - she kept telling the teacher "NO! No! no!" when she tried to pick Yee Sinn for the exercise bar. She was also unhappy with the teacher for picking her up without asking her for permission when doing the forward roll. She just literally walked off after her tumble. She got bored after awhile and was more keen to explore the place on her own, which we let her. She had fun climbing the balancing bars and bascially, playing catching with her Papa and Mama. think we parents enjoyed the session more than our kid. Our verdict? We didn't sign Yee Sinn up in the end... keeping it free is good. :-)

Before the class started, Yee Sinn saw a man setting up his kiddy ride booth nearby. She wanted quite badly to ride on the green elephant. We told her very nicely that the uncle was still not ready for business and we would return after the class ended. She actually remembered what we told her and immediately after the gym class, we put on her shoes and she walked out towards the elephant. As a treat and keeping our promise to her, we paid $2 for a 5 min ride around the mall. Guess what happened? Hubby was taking her around the mall when the 5 mins was up. He ended up having to push our little girl and the green elephant back. Hahahhaha. My little girl is really daddy's princess.