The Original Juice

Sunday 12th Mar 2011

Yesterday was cleaning day so today is Cooking day. While Tufeil was out, I managed to make the usual Meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

It was about 5.30pm, and to fill in the time till bath, dinner and sleep routine time, I decided to let Tufeil handle some cooking material while I made my brownie.

Dough, water, oil and colouring.

Fri, 11th March 2011.

Click here and here for past entries on Hanis Montessori.

As planned from last month, I paid a visit to Hanis Montessori. It's just behind Fuchun Community Center near to American School. We took a cab there though.

The children were having an End of Term party which means not much studying and a lot of eating. But the principal did show me around before we get down to business.

She showed me the 2-year old corners for sensorial, maths, languages, art & culture. I guess at this particular moment, I don't have any preference as to what kind of curriculum I want for Tufeil. Montessori or otherwise. Except that this one is very individualistic, not much interaction with other kids such as sharing during "study" time. But i guess they should be plenty of other opportunities for that.

What amazed me more was the kids were so.... obedient. They sat down at their own mats for exploration with their own kits. I raised my concern that T might not be able to sit in a room for too long let alone on one spot! the principal explaind that in the beginning, they do tend to wander around but after awhile, they will follow suit as the rest of the clan.

During snack time, they queued for food, sat in the circle marked on the floor and ate quietly. I expressed my worry to Mdm nor that T still doesnt fully know how to eat on his own. Fortunately, the teachers DO feed the younger ones.

I mentioned to Mdm Nor that on tuesdays, my mum attends a class and won't reach home till about 1pm. This could be a problem since the morning session that T's going to starts from 8.30 - 11.30am. I was prepared to not send him to school on tuesdays but the teacher said "oh no problem! He can stay at school till your mum reaches here." At no extra cost. Can you believe it??? I heard childcare centers will penalise parents/guardians for picking up the kids late by 5mins. This is super nice!


I already brought all the docs needed and signed up straight away starting 1st April!!! No point waiting, I suppose. I'd hafta take a few days leave again to accompany him on the first week of school! Can't wait!!

Thursday, 10th March 2011

We sent my parents to the airport the previous night. They were going for Umrah for 10 days, and I applied 5 days childcare leave to have some quality time with T at home. Or out, that is.

We met with Mummy Nan & Husainy today. Tufeil was excited kept saying, "Kita nak jumpa Usainy." We took the train with minimum fuss as it was a short 10min journey to Yishun.

The plan was to play at the Wet Playground area but Husainy was asleep. While waiting for him to wake, T played at the dry area first.

He finally got to drive a "real" tractor instead of just a mini toy one

He was also amused by the smiling cow.

He pointed to the tree and said, "Apple tree"
It was coincidentally true.


Ohhh there's a hole under the tree!

Crawling baby on the floor...

O Oh tufeil can't wait any longer and pressed me to let him go to the water.

Tufeil also refused to wear his swimsuit.

I guess he knew it was gonna be hot if he did

It looked a bit silly that only a trickle of water was coming out.

It took about 10min for us to finally get the security guard who told us we had to place our hands on the sensor (the red mini pole).

Ah... there you go...

Another girl in diaper too! Hah~

Turned out Husainy wasn't in the mood to play in the wet area yet. Oh well, that way Tufeil became the Big Brother of the 'Ground. LOL

Just for safekeeping

Lunch at Sakura Thai.

Only managed to take picture towards the end as T was ravenous and I cldn't stop feeding him.

Babies shared Chicken Mui Fan (that's basically like Hor Fun sauce in Rice)

We had a nice booth with padded benches kind so both babies sat comfortably on opposite side of each other. And here, they warmed up to each other as they played with the other's toys. Thank god I remembered to bring a pair of vehicles too.

Luckily, the place wasn't so crowded, so the boys had fun roaming around.

Sampai terbaring2 si Tufeil.

Lunch over = Naptime.

and naptime = shopping time. Although for me it was mostly FOOD. Couldn't miss DOUGH CULTURE's You Tiao! POWER tO THE MAX! and it's only $.80 whereas one piece of fried banana fritter is $1.40 RIDICULOUs!

Thanks Ibu Nan for the advance bday present of Chuggington Puzzle. Tufeil totally digs it. I hope the pieces won't get lost too soon now. LOL

Monday, 7th March,

Following the late Karaoke session, Ash and I came home to an empty house. Mum and dad were out for class and Ly volunteered to help look after Tufeil. And because Mum was gonna send him there also the next morning, she thought T should just spend the night at her place.

I was elated and nervous at the same time! This would be the first time in his lifetime for tufeil to be away from me for a WHOLE night. Actually, I'm not so worried for HIM but more for my sister. I mean can he handle it if Tufeil cries uncontrollable when he doesn't get BM? Or when he wakes up every 2 hours?

My initial intention was to sleep over at her house and go to work from there. But because I reached home like 11pm, and would need another hour or so to settle down and pack my bag, i thought, why dont I give it a shot?

The next day I found out that my concerns were non-existent! He played and played and played with his cousin Syifaa' and they didn't get to bed till almost 11pm. Ly reported that he only asked "Mana Nenek?" and "mana Mummy?" a couple of times and when told that Nenek went for class and Mummy at work, he accepted it. He just played with Ly's iPhone and before she knew it, he was asleep.

And the next time Tufeil came awake was at 7am and he just played w the iPhone somemore and fell right back to sleep. that's like a solid 8 hours straight! MIRACULOUS!! I suspect that he prolly came awake during the light sleep cycle a few times, but because I wasn't there and he cldn't see Ly who was on the floor while he was on the bed, he fell right back to sleep. This is only in theory.

the next day, he slept another 3 hours at noon. WOW.

Er... can I put him there the entire week and he came back weaned? That way, I don't really hafta spend money to travel for a week for the same mission ie trying to get him off BF.

Wishful thinking on my part. So since mum and dad are going for Umrah and I'd be home for 10 straight days with T, I decided to start the training then. At least, I wouldn't bother and be bothered if T cries for long. Shall report it soon, insya'Allah. Pray it wouldn't be too hard for me, my friends.

Mon, 7th march 2011

Luckily, I remembered that we had KBox voucher as door gifts from Mambo GIAmbo Night. It was actually only $5 per person but the rest of my colleagues relinquished their rights to me. So I had a grand total of $30.

Ordinarily $30 won't even cover you for 2hours worth at KBox... However every Monday nights, there is an $8nett promo for members. I asked my colleagues but one got class, the other on leave, another wanted to watch Love on tv at 7pm, the other need a Chinese partner to sing with.. So in the end, I called my sis and two cousins to come along. Just us then.

Total for the 4 of us is only $32.05 for 3 hours worth of singing! Power or what?

I was actually a bit nervous to try out the new KBox at Scapes since I've only been to the one at Cineleisure and it was quite old.. although not as old as Cash Studio. But luckily, I stumbled upon this blog when googling for pictures and it looked very nice.

True enough, the room was as nice as the picture looked. I don't know whether I lost my mojo that night or the sound system was too advanced... But we were all not too happy with the new system.

Basically, instead of a TV screen and a remote control to choose your songs, they have an iPad like screen. And although, there was another panel of buttons on the wall behind the seats, we felt the loss of the remote control deeply.

We also couldn't fiddle with the volume and music or bass yada yada ourselves.. They were mic volume buttons up and down, music volume up and down, Key up and down, that's it. There were some pretty unnecessary Cheers, Whistles buttons too. But the main gripe is, we couldn't get the right balance out of it that made us sing kinda off.

Sat, 5th March 2011.

We went to visit our Grandpa with an ulterior motive. We want to use the condo's swimming pool before they move to another condo with smaller pool! Now I can put Tufeil's new swimming outfit to good use.

Syifaa's Muslimah girl swimming attire

Ok T's all ready complete with swimming diaper and a "swimming trunk" inside

Ly said it looked like a SpiderMan costume.

Playing Hanging upside down.

Well, obviously I didn't take any pictures at the pool itself as everyone of us were in. The first part, Ayah took Tufeil to baby pool while me and Syifaa' at the 1m deep pool. With the help of the noodle, i probably swam like 8 half laps doing Frog style.

I think I should buy that floating jacket for Tufeil lah cos he doesn't like the standard buoy around the waist kind. But it's soooo pricey.. I think $60-80??? Aiyooo

The water was not as cold as the one at Sengkang or other public pools. I'm not sure whether it was because the sun was shining bright (we were there from 10.30 to 12nn) or they really had heater.

Afterwards, we were treated to some rice and assorted dishes for lunch.

Not to mention the kids get to play with their young aunties' and uncles' toys like this one:

He slept on the ride home in the car that day minus the Susu.

As a baby, Tufeil couldn't stand story books. He would always flip the pages ahead and then toss it aside. The only thing that he COULD manage was picture book such as this:

It was no use, i think. Tufeil didn't care much for it. The only thing he was looking at were the cows.

This morning when he woke up, Tufeil immediately took my iPhone to play, even as Ayah was playing the Wheels on the bus DVD. It made me forget to slip my phone into my bag and i'm totally handphone / internet-less today =( BOOHOOHOO...

Anyway, normally I can retrieve back my iPhone simply by slipping T his iPod but now his iPod is history! It started like this...

I was trying to down a tab of antibiotics when it got stuck in my throat. I was desperately trying to gulp it when it started to melt and was EXTREMELY BITTER I WANTED TO DIE that I didn't think I just spew everything out of my mouth onto the table.

I ran to the sink to wash my tongue and then ran to grab some chocolate milk, then brownie to get rid of that ATROCIOUS TASTE!! By the time I cooled down, Tufeil was trying to get my attention.

Probably an hour or two later, I realised the iPod was swimming in water that I spilt on the table.

*DEAD*

Maybe this is an excuse for me to buy a new phone for myself so Tufeil can use the iPhone? hahahahahaha. But hafta wait till april ah now pocket's seriously tight. Before that I will just ask them if its still repairable and how much. AIyoooo

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UPDATE:: OK I just googled for some solution if i dropped iPod in water. I was supposed to stick it in a bowl of rice and leave it overnight. I wonder if it would still work now after 3 days. But then again, they also said not to charge it but i did thinking it was just flat battery when it refused to start. DANG IT!

23 months old.

Tufeil, I would say, is a Fruits kind a guy not a vege kinda guy. I'm neither fruit nor vege kinda gal. haha

He LOVES BANANAS, Grapes, papaya and now it seems... Orange. But he would spill it out if you peel it for him. He wants to eat it himself. See for yourself.

Adjusting his hold on the orange slice

First suck.

Can I eat the skin too?

Distracted by American Idol for awhile

Yes I can finish this whole slice on my own.

With his dirty hands and cheeks, he touched his clothes and everyone. Had to briefly shower and change him again before bedtime.

Weirdly, he doesn't like apple. Too hard, maybe.

Them just a few days ago.

1. As opposed to parroting, he can now answer simple questions like "Tufeil dah makan?" (have you eaten?) "makan apa?" (What did you eat?)
2. He knows singular and plural usages like 1 car 2 cars, although not always applied correctly, "So many bedakS" LOL (Bedak is Malay word for baby powder/talc)
3. Favourite phrases of the month "Ini apa tu?" (This what's that?) and "Kita nak..." (We want...) The Kita is something like a royal We, but in Malay, kids use it to refer to themself. But me I'm still stuck with Kita and awak with my Besties. hahahaha

I've recently ressurected an attempt to get his interest to reading story books as opposed to picture books and it worked. But only on certain books. I'm gonna write about what books Tufeil like in another post.

And also in previous post, I've already written about how Tufeil can already climb the ladder on the playground on his own.

Another thing I've noticed is I no longer had to correct him when identifying genders. He can rightly say: Itu Uncle. Aunty Lah. Eh Kakak. Hello Abang. That kinda stuffs.