Days Without Daddy

Fortunately, TT doesn't fly for business very often. The last time he was away, Isaac was still small. This time he's off to London for about 6 days. I was a little worried that Isaac would be crying for him as he's quite attached to Daddy. I remember when Cheryl was Isaac's age, she would be crying her eyes out during bedtime looking for Daddy. Now that she's older, she understands and even tries to convince Isaac not to be sad that Daddy's not around. Not that Isaac needed any convincing or pacifying anyway. Since the first night Daddy was away, he hadn't really asked for Daddy and allowed me or my mum to put him to bed without too much fuss (usually TT and I would each handle one child during bedtime). Even when I accidentally asked him where Daddy was, he would answer: "Take airplane" and point his hand up like a plane taking off. Keeping them busy with activities so that they don't miss Daddy too much.

Sun, 29 Oct - Public Trip to Nowhere
We had a delicious "ta pao" lunch of chicken rice bought from this halal chicken rice stall called Evertop Chicken Rice at Tanglin Halt Road. It's run by chinese but has muslim helpers. It is my and my mum's favourite chicken rice stall. TT prefers the famous Maxwell Market stall.

After lunch the kids were bugging me to take a bus ride. Not just any bus ride, but must be a double-decker bus! So we decided to take Bus 51 to Jurong East Interchange. This bus takes a "round-the-world" route (actually all SBS buses do!ha).So the five of us (me, my mum, my maid, Cheryl & Isaac) trouped to the bus stop and as we approached it, bus 51 arrived, so we all ran! No way we were gonna wait for @#%min for the next one. This bus is notorious for long waiting times (wait a minute... so do all the other buses! ha! ok enough of SBS bashing!) True enough, about three-quarter way to our destination, Cheryl fell asleep! What's more she had originally wanted to take the bus back home, but luckily on the home trip she wisened up and agreed to take the MRT back. Isaac surprisingly managed to stay awake, enjoying the sights along the way. I wanted to browse a bit at Popular bookstore at Jurong East Station but ended up staying there for less than 15min. The kids were bored and wanted to take the MRT back! Hiyah, these children! My maid had a more fruitful trip... in less than 15min, she managed to pick out several cheap blouses from a TOP100 bargain shop just beside Popular.

Isaac slept on the way back home on the MRT. Fortunately my maid was around to help me carry him home because he we did not bring a pram with us. While he was asleep, I helped Cheryl do this keychain for Daddy. She also coloured some pictures of flowers to be given to her beloved Daddy.

For the keychain, I bought this transparency-looking thing from Daiso, drew on it with a permanent black marker, then I let Cheryl colour in with coloured markers. Then I use a normal papaer hole puncher to make a hole. After that I have to put it in the oven toaster for a couple of minutes for it to shrink to about 20% of the original size as seen in the pic.

I drew these flowers for Cheryl so that she could colour them. Subsequently she drew another one (below) all by herself.


Personal Favourites
FOOD
Evertop Chicken Rice. Coffee shop at Tanglin Halt Road - Be prepared to wait for 15 to 30 min when crowded.

Thu, 2 Nov - Cheryl's School Concert
I rushed back from work to attend Cheryl's concert which was held this evening at 7.30pm. It was held in the church hall of the kindergarten. The hall was quite big, but still there are really alot of parents because the kindergarten population is quite big. Not quite ideal to hold the concert there because the seats are all on a flat level, so people at the back had to strain or crank their necks to see the performances. Needless to say, it was difficult for me to get any good shots ... on top of that, I was equipped with my old, not-so-powerful digital camera. Anyway I've already ordered 10 4R photos with Cheryl inside taken by the professional school photographers at a princely sum of $1 a piece!

Since TT was not around, my mum attended in his place. We brought Isaac along but he got bored after one hour and we had our maid take him home. The guest-of-honour happened to be the Dean of NTU's School of Computer Engineering who used to lecture us in Computer Graphics during my undergraduate days in 1993. Apparently he is also a deacon in the this church and member of the kindergarten's board of directors. Wow, I wonder if he still remembers me.

Some of the performances were rather draggy and the concert ended around 10pm, 30 min later than scheduled. I'm sure the children were all tired, and probably hungry as well! Cheryl's performance was OK but she must have been very shy or intimidated by the crowd because she kept hiding behind another girl!

Later I picked her up from her class and together with our neighbour, Sean & his parents, walked back home together. Sean is graduating from K2 this year. This is a pic of Sean and Cheryl after the school concert. After changing to her PJs, eating some bread and drinking a cup of milk, Cheryl went to bed. Could see from her eyes she was quite tired. Isaac, who had been eagerly waiting for his sister to return home from the concert, also slept soon after.

Fri, 3 Nov - Daddy's Back!
Really thankful the kids coped well with Daddy away. I caught the cough and sore throat from Cheryl a few days ago. Thought with my vitamin C intake I would be invincible, but also kena... Had some problems trying to read stories to Cheryl during bedtime because my throat was so hoarse. Somemore Isaac wanted me to sing along with the nursery rhyme book that comes with those buttons emitting electronic music! And Cheryl had to choose those books with so many words! These kids are so relentless!

After work around 6pm, I drove the car from my office at Jurong East to Changi Airport Terminal 1 using the PIE. With peak hour traffic, it took me about 45min. TT's flight arrived at 6.15pm and I reached at the arrival belt just in time to see him and his colleague collect their luggage and come out of the gate. TT was longing for some local food after a week long of western food, so we drove to Beach Road's Food Centre opposite Golden Mile complex (I can't remember what it's called but it has lots of good food!) to have Hokkien Mee from this popular stall at the basement. Waited almost half and hour for the food to arrive. But it was delicious. Then we had our mandatory cup of teh tarik which was really satisfying, especially for TT.

We reached home about 8.30pm and of course the kids were delighted to finally see their Daddy! Stuff at in England isn't very cheap so Daddy didn't get much stuff. He bought Isaac the toy London red double decker bus and London cab and several postcards of the London Flyer, a gigantic Ferris Wheel. He also got lots of chocolate and some fridge magnets to add to our collection.

Unfortunately the Canon camera's memory card got corrupted and some pictures he took of the Tower Bridge could not be retrieved. We're still trying to use some software to try to recover these pics.

Personal Favourites
FOOD
Beach Road Hokkien Mee. Can't remember the name of the stall nor the name of the hawker centre. You know lah, it's that place that sell all the army stuff. Such a good foodie I am hor. Just walk down to the basement using the main central staircase and it's the hokkien mee stall on the left.

Thursday, July 27 - Black Pepper Crabs

Took leave from work on Thursday, Jul 27, so that we could celebrate Cheryl's actual birthday with her classmates at school. Packed 20 or so goody bags the night before. After my breakfast of chee cheong fun (see Personal Favourites in my previous blog) at Alexandra Village, we picked Cheryl up and went to Tiong Bahru Plaza to get a cake. We wanted to redeem our Bengawan Solo 1st month cake cards given to us by our friends. Cheryl chose a blackforest cake.

After the celebration at school, TT & I had teochew porridge for lunch at a Henderson coffee shop. Wah, the heat was terrible! Then TT dropped me off at IKEA because I wanted to check out sale (nothing much though). In the evening, my sister's kids popped by for a swim while we adults went to have a meal black pepper crabs. It was also to celebrate my birthday which is on July 31. We went to the famous crab place... Eng Seng Restaurant located at the junction of Still Road and Joo Chiat Place. TT went ahead first to get a table and order the food first because we could only reach there at 6.20pm. (Go there early to avoid queueing or waiting. 5pm if you can, or else 5.30 to 6pm). This is our favourite spot for black pepper crab. It didn't disappoint! The other food was so-so. If you intend to try the crabs, please read this other blog for a comprehensive guide on this place (it's written by someone also called Karen also, but it's not me, and I don't know her). And contrary to newspaper reports, the boss who served us was very polite (maybe because we were settling the bill).

Later we had teh tarik at the muslim shop opposite... bleah... quite tasteless...

Personal Favourites
FOOD
Black Pepper Crabs (First Grade Seafood Place at Eng Seng Restaurant)

Sunday, July 23 - The Day After ...

Phew! The party's finally over! I'm quite happy things went according to plan and there was enough food... It's all thanks to me... the best Mummy in the World! a.k.a The Super Anal Organizer Mummy! HaHa...

With the party out of the way, I can now look forward to a relaxing Sunday. While the kids were having their own breakfast and watching PlayHouse Disney with our domestic helper, TT and I sneaked away for a quick breakfast at Alexandra Village food centre. We both had the Depot Road Claypot laksa, which was delicious with all the harmful "harm" (cockles)! Unhealthy and yummy!

Then it was off to Botanic Gardens, our favourite park, with the kids... Weather was pretty good - cloudy and not too sunny. Still, it was hot and humid. We did our favourite activity, which was to feed the fishes and turtles with all the leftover bread "donated" by my sister. Thereafter TT played badminton with Cheryl, while Isaac played with his ball. I took the opportunity to exercise our new Canon IXUS 800is camera, taking macro shots of flowers and insects and also closeup shots of the kids.

Back home in the afternoon, while Isaac was taking a nap, I finally found some time to patch the grouting of our floor, and Cheryl even helped me for a while. But somehow the colour of the grouting appears lighter... I dunno, got a feeling it'll start to disintegrate soon, if Isaac and Cheryl continues scouring the house with the trike and scooter. (Update 1 week later: As expected, grouting has all come off already)

Isaac woke up in the late afternoon, and he had an early dinner of porridge. Then we set off to the National Library to return the books we borrowed three weeks earlier, but decided to have our dinner first instead. We ended up at a restauarant called Mint Cafe, along Seah Street which was situated at the basement of the Mint Museum of Toys. I had mushroom penne in cream sauce while TT had seafood ariabiata, and Cheryl had kid's spaggetti. Food was good (even Cheryl said so), serving staff was very friendly and the place was very cosy, though I don't know how they can survive with so little tables. I figured the place must be pretty new, because Isaac was the first baby to use their brand new Mothercare high chair! The kids had lots of fun at the large cosy lounging area with comfy designer sofas and also clammering up and down the white stairs leading up to the street level. They also provided activity sheets and crayons for the kids (but probably should invest in better crayons).

After dinner we walked back to the Library. We had less than an hour before closing time at 9pm. It was Cheryl's third time there, but Isaac's first, and he loved the open spaces and the children's area. He played hide and seek with the rows of bookshelves and it was really difficult to control his delighted giggles and laughter. On the other hand, Cheryl was the model library goer, reading a Madeline book with Daddy. They had designer plastic chairs (called Troili designed by Eero Aarnio) which TT thought was really ingenious. You can use the chair at 2 heights and also use it as a rocking toy. I wish I had brought my camera to take pictures, but you can see them here anyway. It costs ₤95 each! We borrowed a couple of Madeline, Eric Carle and other books. We couldn't find any Harold and the Purple Crayon books which we had returned earlier (thinking we could find them again later... without paying renewal charges of 50cents... cheapskate right?).

Personal Favourites
FOOD
(All 3 stalls mentioned below are located at the outermost column nearer to DBS Bank at Alexandra Food Centre)
Depot Road Zhen Shan Mei Claypot Laksa.
Mee Pok (1st corner stall facing Bt Merah Rd). TT likes this stall.
Teng Yu Chee Cheong Fun. I like this stall's handmade chee cheong fun with fillings of prawns or char siew. Sauce and chilli is also unique. May need to wait sometimes because it is made only when ordered.

PLACES TO GO
Botanic Gardens. Shady and cool even on sunny days because of all the big trees in the park. Lots of fishes and turtles to feed. Bring lots of leftover bread. Some people even bring fresh loaves though I think it's rather wasteful. Parking at the visitor centre can be a nightmare.

National Library. I love the open spaces there, though the central borrowing area at B1 is a little crammed when crowded. Children's area is pretty cosy but lack non-fiction & information books compared to say, Queenstown
Library (the other library I frequent). Or maybe I just haven't got time to explore the place, having to keep an eye on Isaac most of the time. I haven't really explored the rest of National Library yet but anything new is nice! Love the clean toilets too!

BOOKS (Children)
Harold and the Purple Crayon (Crockett Johnson)
Magic Beach (Crockett Johnson)
Madeline Books (Ludwig Bemelmans)
Where are you Going? To See My Friend! (Eric Carle and Kazuo Iwamura)
Draw Me a Star (Eric Carle)

Saturday, July 22 - Cheryl's 5th Birthday Party

This is the backlog blog I was talking about... This one is about Cheryl's party held last Saturday, July 22. Cheryl actually turned 5 on Thursday, July 27, but we held her party earlier. I have been making preparations for the party weeks beforehand. You know, only mothers do this, and me being an organising freak on top of the compulsive packer ... Went to the Concourse the previous Saturday to get party stuff. There're lots of shops on the top level selling everything you'd need for a party, esp. all kinds of party favours. If you are giving out goody bags to all your kid's classmates in school, this the place to go. If there's one thing I'd like to recommend for a party, it's a 3-way partitioned plastic plate. I couldn't find this anywhere else. It's a plate with three partitions costing $9 for a set of 24, I think. They're not that cheap but you'll find it's made of sturdier plastic. Good if you have satay gravy, sauce or salad that you want to keep separated from other food. Snacks and sweets are not really cheaper there, so better get edible stuff from the supermarts.


I spent a few minutes late each night doing this cool overhead rainbow decoration. I used normal A4 coloured paper, trimmed each A4 piece into 4 strips, and joined the strips lengthwise. The linked rings decorations were made by Cheryl herself (can't really see them clearly in the photo). I bought a pack of coloured paper strips from Daiso at IMM. Somehow I can't find this anymore. The night before the party while everyone was asleep, I single-handedly put up the decorations, except for the balloons, which I put up the next morning. Where are the men when you need them? (ans: they only appear duringWorld Cup.)


We ordered a Swensen's ice cream cake a week ago and Cheryl chose a cake with a rainbow picture. That's where I got the inspiration to do an overhead rainbow, so at least there was some kind of a theme. I chose chocolate freckles (choc ice cream with choc chips) and cookies & cream, which was a pretty neat combination. If you are an NTUC Income Policy holder, you can also make use of the 20% discount coupon they send you near your birthday.

For the food, I got my sister to cook her mee siam. She's doing small-time catering, so if you're interested, you can check out this site (I designed the site for her, but it's not complete). We bought fishballs, otah and satay. We also made a fruit salad and a non-spicy fried bee hoon for the kids. For drinks, we made a fruit punch from a galon of wildberry juice mixed with F&N ice cream soda.

This is a blow-by-blow account of the day itself, just so that one day Cheryl realise how much trouble Mummy & Daddy went through for her party:
While Cheryl had her usual Chinese class at school in the morning, I did the final preparations for the party. TT was having a game of badminton with the junior team at the Sports School (by the way TT's team were trashed!). Then in the late morning, we had an unplanned little "excursion" on the MRT train. Isaac is currently crazy about trains and can stand by our window just watching trains go by the whole day. So myself, Cheryl, Isaac, our neighbour Sean and his dad Ryan took the train all the way to Changi Airport, took the skytrain from Terminal 2 to 1 and back again. We had lunch at Burger King before heading back home. Isaac slept on the train on the way back. By then TT was back home with the Tiong Bahru fishballs. He drove us to Clementi where I accompanied Cheryl for her music class at 3pm, then he went to Ghim Moh to buy the otah. When class ended he picked us up and we went to my sis place to collect the mee siam and her kids, Lauren and Olivia. My sister would be coming later on as she was still making some durian puffs. On the way back we popped by at Alexandra Village to collect the satay. Then we headed back home. TT brought the kids swimming while I continued to make preparations and do the fruit punch. My mum and maid had already fried the bee hoon. After swimming TT went to Holland Village tocollect the ice cream cake. After that, party went quite smoothly. And fortunately we could borrow our neighbour's fridge to store the drinks and ice cream cake!














Now thinking what to do for Isaac's 2nd birthday in September... :o(

Personal Favourites
FOOD
Peranakan Mee Siam (catered from my sister, who also does kueh pie tee)
Lee Wee & Brothers Otah (Ghim Moh Food Centre, Whampoa or other outlets)
Punggol Satay (Alexandra Village Food Centre, chinese stall - can order pork satay, gravy comes with pineapple paste)
Tiong Bahru Fishballs

PLACES TO GO
MRT Train ride to Changi Airport. Really cool station at the Airport Terminal 2. Isaac is at the age where boys get obsessed with transport vehicles, and now he's transfixed on trains and cable cars. I have taken more cable car rides this year than all the other years put together in my entire life.