the only times we go to USS are if we get free/discounted tickets, and the organisation’s Family Day this year afforded the opportunity to do so.
Shrek & Fiona with their offspring
finally got to ride the battlestar galactica human & cyclon, and while going on the two rides consecutively left us a little jelly-legged, we thought the rides at gold coast’s movie world were more thrilling in comparison. BUT! the Transformers Ultimate 3D ride definitely beat the rest, hands down – it was AWESOME, and this coming from a rides-junkie. it was a very realistic, in-your-face experience, all that swiveling, smashing, shuddering, sucked-into-a-vortex, and free-falling effects keeping you gasping and shrieking throughout. it was so good, aniq and i sneaked away from the rest to queue up 30mins for it again. the boy is turning out to be a rides-junkie like me. unlike my brother, who could never stomach a ride, even the kiddy Dragon one at Far, Far Away, which left him looking quite pale, teehehee.
anda mudah berasa mual?
after each ride, aniq and his cousin adam would check with each other: “are you all right?” so cute.
i’d listed out my wish list for Mothers’ Day to the children the day before – it was either a gold necklace from T&Co. (which they said they didn’t have enough money for, go figure! sheesh), or to go out and leave me in peace at home (which they agreed was easy for them to do).
well, neither wish came true.
so i woke up yesterday to a mug of cold soya bean shoved in my face, with the instruction to drink up, unbrushed teeth and all, from the kids who had the (very Western – thanks, TV shows) idea that mummies MUST be served breakfast in bed on Mothers’ Day. after a series of rolling around on our bed (while i gulped down my cold soya bean), they pushed their daddy off to the kitchen to insist he help them make the rest of my breakfast. within minutes, they shoved a plate of scrambled eggs and turkey bacon strips in my face, still on my bed, teeth still unbrushed. and because the Asian me is not completely enamoured with the idea of crumbs and grease on my bedsheet, and inviting scavenging ants and other insects into my room, i shooed them out, kids, scrambled eggs and turkey bacon strips all, to the dining table, where food should rightly be served.
no chance of precious alone time at home because we brought their oma out to Singtel to cancel her Mio subscription, and thanks to her (very influential and techno-savvy :p) son-in-law, got an iPad for her internet-surfing/Youtube-browsing pleasure. since she refused to let me pay for it, i settled for paying her monthly wifi subscription instead. persuaded her to open up a facebook account, but only because i don’t have one myself so no chance of her adding me as a friend ha ha ha. happy mothers’ day, mom. even *i* don’t own an iPad, sheesh.
well, i did get some cake and ice-cream. mum said she has long stopped enjoying sweet treats like these since her own kids have grown, and i might be on my way there because i can only take a few spoonfuls and prefer to watch (or rather grimace at) the kids devouring them like the deprived little cave children that they are.
have i mentioned how much she LOVES Charlie & Lola? yes, i’m quite sure i have. i almost wanted to do a Charlie & Lola theme party for her birthday but couldn’t find the stuff in time, so err, maybe next round…? (nooo!)
aaanyway, just found out that there’s a stage production coming to the DBS Arts Centre at the end of the month till june, and i hate to admit it but i was the one who got excited. :p
we were nibbling on fish and fries at long john silver’s last weekend, mulling over the wisdom of holding yet another birthday party for the girl, at such short notice.
“princess theme? fairy theme? ballerina theme? princess-fairy-ballerina combo/hybrid/mutant?” we mulled and nibbled, nibbled and mulled.
“how about mermaid? Ariel IS technically a princess…”
“hmm, mermaid… fishes… seafood… mmm…” a quick call to Fish & Co. to make a reservation for the guests, who were concurrently texted, and we were good to go.
can you tell by now that the highlight of a party for me is filling up goody bags for the kids? it was, erm, unfortunate that i could not fill glitter-glued goody bags with, oh-i-don’t-know, shell necklaces, sparkly combs, diamante stickers, The Little Mermaid dvds… because 80% of our little guests were boys, who would surely declare the contents as “lame!” and proceed to stomp the bags into a glittery pulp.
on the other hand, no one can say no to a cute, friendly crab.
my favorite item – these came in a box of 3 different titles which i unpacked to give out individually, so a family with 3 kids would get a complete set. plus, they glittered. without being… girly.
i ended up hanging around the aisle of toys ‘r’ us for half an hour playing with this. i knew the kids would like it because: a) it is a toy, b) it is not a book, c) it will keep them occupied for a while, d) it will never run out of battery, e) it will never get spoilt, f) their parents will want to play with it too. (well, i did.)
and WHICH KID DOES NOT LIKE STICKERS? please tell me.
the obligatory mix of foodstuff. because you have to feed kids at parties or they’ll cry foul and complain to the Association of Universal Goody Bags.
and now this has nothing to do with the goody bags, but it was the only thing that had an ACTUAL mermaid on it. and it definitely made the girl (and all the boys) happy, because it was sooo cold and yummy. :D
probably the worst-looking fish tank ever in the name of pet ownership.
the boy had brought back a whole bunch of longkang fishes from his school trip to the kids’ kampung some time back.
at least 95% got seasick on the way back / died of natural causes and went to fish heaven / refused to live without slimy longkang water / committed mass suicide as a revolt against poor living conditions / thought they were tributes in the Hunger Games. in very Capitol-like manner, we all had a morbid time watching and guessing how many would be dead by the end of the day. 2 eventually survived. i should have named them Peeta and Katniss. (no, do not call them PeeNiss.)
then the daddy indulged his children by buying a proper tank, an air pump, a vial of fish food AND 3 new colourful fishes from an actual pet shop. 1 of the longkang fish quickly went afloat. after some fishy observation, i concluded that the reason why the sole longkang survivor lived was because he was one aggressive fish – he promptly pecked at the new fishes to show that he’s the boss. oh the lessons we should learn from animals.
anyway, yeah. so we have fishes in a tank. all 4 are still, miraculously, alive.
(and this is actually a preamble to what’s happening on saturday…)
a few april birthdays in the family. (thanks for the treat, big bro. err, it WAS a treat, right…? :p never mind, next month’s universal studios trip is on me.)
guess who else has been counting down the months (yes, she does know the names of the months after all) and going “I CAN’T WAIT FOR APRIL!”?
no one is happier than me now that the school holiday week has arrived. well, ok, aniq is also happy, of course. we’ve survived the first three months of the school year, unscathed.
one whole week of not having to be woken by our respective alarm clocks beeping at 5.30am, and going through the motions of getting ready and out of the door by 6am. one whole week of not having to breathe down his neck on those damned spelling lists. one whole week of not having to shoo and nag and bark at him to be in bed before 9pm.
but oh. one whole week of thinking up of exciting things to do to keep them occupied. them, because it’s only fair that the sister too gets the week off. besides, what else is a second child for if not to keep the first child company… right??! -_-
*********
we’d started off the week with my idea of fun – dragging everyone on a bookstore trail. (sorry kids, this is mummy’s version of retail therapy.)
a tasteful little shop with picture books and quirky knick-knacks. i wish it were more reading-friendly, though. but i guess it’s not really meant for children to sit comfortably to browse the pristine copies on the sparsely-displayed shelves…
next stop: Centrepoint. i’d totally forgotten there was a children’s fairytale event thingy going on there, and we met a friendly face from, by far my favourite children’s bookstore, Bookaburra. :)
last stop: Harris Planerds, where i could finally use my Popular card to good use ha ha. rows of tempting fiction and droolsome graphic novels and beautiful classics and even graphic novels OF classics (i saw comic book versions of ‘Emma’ and ‘Sense & Sensibility’). i also went wild and treated aniq to yet another issue of Geronimo Stilton which he’s been attempting to collect (roll eyes). we went in Times the Bookshoop earlier (not counted in my bookstore trail, just because) and i’d refused to buy it for him there because “we can get discount at Popular!”. (i hate that Geronimo rodent.)
speaking of rodents, found the classic Maus for almost half-price…. i’d also only recently discovered graphic novels at the public library. it was like striking a goldmine.
the kids are having a sleepover with their cousins at their grandma’s tonight, and we were supposed to spend this no-children time wisely by going for a movie, like Hugo or something, but…. maybe I should read the book first…
i was initially a bit iffy about spending $xx per ticket for a one-hour stage production with the kids, but i figured if i could spend $xxx on one ticket to watch a music concert, then it’s only fair that i do the same for them. you know, for the sake of, er, The Arts and such… (and you can tell from the over-fussing of little ‘sweethearts’ and ‘darlings’, chanel/prada-toting ‘patrons of the arts’ in the audience that they could afford plenty more ‘culture’ than me.)
i’ve only recently warmed up to Julia Donaldson’s children’s books, having previously always resisted the ubiquitous (somewhat ‘over-commercialised’) The Gruffalo. i really can’t explain the resistance, except that i was suspicious that the eponymous creature so resembled the ones in Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are, and therefore, a derivative, i.e. Not Original. (i can be such a snoot.)
BUT. i did eventually pick it up (out of curiosity at its overwhelming popularity), and then her other works (The Gruffalo’s Child, etc), and what can i say – they really ARE quite brilliant. AND oh-so-English. i think what works especially well are her clever, clever rhymes, the adventurous streak of the protagonists, and the story lines with a twist that somehow always ends with just the right rhyming word without seeming too contrived. (and btw, The Gruffalo has none of the dark undertones like in Where The Wild Things Are, i.e. Not Unoriginal).
i guess you’ll know a good book when your kids spout random lines from it, memorise the plot sequence, and notice minute details in the illustrations – which was what happened with auni after readings of Stick Man. and to see a well-loved book come to life on theatre is to complete her experience (in 4D, no less).
thankfully, the stage adaptation of Stick Man we saw had enough humour to appeal to both children and adults (and is oh-so-English!), so hmm, ok i didn’t feel too bad about that burnt hole in me pocket.
they seem to fly through one milestone after another in a flurry, as if in a hurry to grow up and be less reliant on us…
was it not just yesterday that we reached that exciting milestone that is peeing in a potty?
no no, i’m not complaining, not at all. in fact, please, keep growing. i’d even petition for you to skip the whole dreaded business of teenagehood and go straight on to mature adulthood if i could. but i suppose that’s why milestones are necessary in the first place, to prepare them for that full bloom ahead…
++++++
and so, here he is, one of the 38,600 children this week to reach that exciting milestone that is P1.
as you can probably tell, he was VERY psyched to start his P1 life. being in a new environment and making new friends and having access to ‘big children’ – these things have always thrilled him. (what’s that? studying? meh, that’s just a distraction…)
at the school, we were quite impressed that there were hardly any display of first-day jitters or anxiety or nervousness or clinginess or tearfulness normally associated with first-days (i’m talking about the children AND parents here). we reckon that’s the upside of having already been to pre-school. another thing we observed, they were such a well-behaved, orderly bunch. (for now.) and oh-so-cute. (for now.)
the first thing he asked after he alighted from his school bus and met me by the canteen was: “can i buy something?” i think to him, primary school is a kind of ‘freedom’ – getting to hold on to his own money, having the autonomy to choose and decide for himself what to buy without mummy perpetually nagging or ordering him at his side. (instead, he had a P5 buddy to do that, ha ha. nahhh, he was very nice and all big-brotherly. we didn’t have to worry at all.)
“don’t worry,” assured one of the teachers to a bunch of parents peering from behind the barricade surrounding the canteen during recess time, all their eyes searching the blue sea of little uniforms for a glimpse of their kid.
“i’m not worried; i’m just CURIOUS,” i muttered, chuckling at how preposterous we parents must seem, waving at our kids like mad visitors at a zoo.
some, like me, got promptly IGNORED.
LOL.
oh well.
+++++
as soon as i got home, i smothered the girl with kisses and inhaled her heady sweet-sour scent all over her body. “i’ve got one more,” i rejoiced. maybe it’s a last child/only daughter thing, but i got sentimental imagining her first day of primary school in the future, in her oversized uniform and oversized school bag, coz obviously, she too will be as tiny as i was back then.
(like this tiny:)
yes, i’m afraid with the girl, i’d prefer the growing up to go juuuustt a teeny little bit slower. (although her streak of independence, while totally charming now, is quite a force to be reckoned with…!)
on the way to the Page One warehouse sale, working up a frenzy at the prospect of “up to 90%” sale, declaring it as “like being in heaven”, and attempted to explain to the boy a consumerist’s concept of a 90% sale.
me: “let’s say a sweet is $1, 90% off means you only pay 10cts! and let’s say a book costs $10, 90% off means you only pay -*pause for quick mental calculation ha ha* – $1!”
A: *impressed* “that IS cheap.”
me: “so, now you know why I say it’s like being in heaven? since I like books so much?”
A: “no, but if you’re in heaven, you don’t need to buy the books – it’s all FREE.”
me: *damn* -_-
+++++++++
fine, scrap the heaven part – there’s an unbelievably long queue outside the warehouse and it’s hot as hell.
+++++++++
still in queue. a guy just walked past triumphantly clutching onto big plastic bags of books, proclaiming “HANG IN THERE PEOPLE! It’s worth it!”
looks like this was also someone else’s idea of heaven. heh.
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