so with all the hari raya preps and excitement, i forgot our 8th anniversary (!!) yesterday, which was hari raya itself, BUT i did remember his birthday today.
and i sacrificed one entire nutella roll aka kek tapak kuda to celebrate it. see what a good wife i am??
ok, so i made up for it with a proper dinner at a nice place. i swear, i did! (aptly enough, at aquamarine @ marina mandarin. talk about themes, right?)
oh, by the way, right after daddy’s song was sung, candles blown, and cake eaten, auni had to ask the question on every 3yo’s mind with regard to birthdays: “DADDY! where is your goody bag??”
happy 34th birthday, daddy. enjoy getting your own birthday present at the Comex tomorrow.
the last we had a baby shower was almost two years ago, and we predicted back then that the next in the group to have a baby would be lydia, and the theme would be ‘Lady Gaga’.
both came true….
the DELICIOUS treats and FABULOUS details on the dessert isle were lovingly planned and executed by Ola Lola! dayyym, we have such talented friends.
we wish our Lady, lydia, all the best for the last leg of her pregnancy, and we know baby LH will be showered with as much joy and love as her mummy is. here’s to a wonderful start to being a mum, indeed… (and thank you for the awesome party, at st. regis no less. best!)
and i’m afraid the rest of the pictures are a liiiittle too risque, as you would imagine a theme centred around a woman who’s perpetually half-naked would turn out.
but i’ll leave you with this visual:
the talented esah who did the gaga makeup for some of the girls, AND came up with her very own gaga get-up, which won her Best Dressed. wanna see?
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i’ve mentioned eric carle a few times in this blog e.g. when the kids went through a chameleon phase, and auni’s reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar . then i received an e-flyer from Act 3 on a theatre production of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Eric Carle’s Favourites, which included The Mixed-up Chameleon and Little Cloud, all of which the kids have in their collection and are familiar with. of course, i was curious, and it would be strange if i went to a children’s play alone, right? so of course, i had to bring actual children along… :p
and it was better than i expected. delightfully told through puppets, a black stage, and ultraviolet lights, with pretty music and beautiful props. they captured the little ones’ attention and they especially giggled in glee as the chameleon caught a fly with its sticky tongue, and when the caterpillar ate through the food and kicked them into the air with its tail.
i was pretty amazed at the way the whole thing was staged and choreographed, and i liked that the puppeteers came out and took questions from the kids at the end, and showed them the puppets and how they worked them on stage. even aniq stuck his hand up to ask a question (“how did the Little Cloud move?” – the puppeteers in full black outfit then showed had they danced the cloud around with a black pole).
good stuff from the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, who’ve been doing adaptations of children’s literature through puppetry for over 30 years. if you’ve missed the show, here’s a short clip:
recently on our awesome club med holiday, there’s one thing that stands out in my mind. maybe not one thing but more of a collective bunch of people. more commonly known as GOs or Gentils Organisateurs (Gracious/Nice Organizers) they assist the resort manager or chef de village in running of the resort and boy, they really do a pretty mean job! they make the guests, called GMs, or Gentils Membres (Gracious/Nice Guests/Members) feel really at home with their warm and ever so friendly and approachable personalities. they even join us for lunch and dinner at random!
other than having good hospitality skills, they posses an incredible wow factor – talent. some can sing, dance, act and the chef de village can memorise more than 60 different names in 20 minutes, no joke! and this guy below, yep the AYAM man, can mimic the crow of the rooster.
don’t believe me, take a listen below.
the GOs really do have one of the best jobs in the world!!
as part of the theme on ‘compassion’, the kids’ pre-school held a ‘charity drive’ where parents traded packs of powdered beverages and cereals for their kids’ pieces of work, and the items would then be donated to an old folks’ home, which the boy will be visiting tomorrow.
anyway, the boy’s teacher had been telling me about his storybook creations, and he’d given us a ‘summary’ of them earlier himself, so we were pret-ty curious.
and boy, was i impressed – with ALL the K2 kids’ storybooks!
they were SO CUTE. i was practically squealing in delight at every one of them, scrawly writings and all.
look, there was even a pop-up book! with a happy ending! (“after some time, they got a baby. they lived happily ever after.” – obviously, written by a girl, and i gotta say, i really liked the ones written by the girls.)
like this one, by qaisara. the storyline and language were simple (a girl deals with her baby sister who always wants her things, by repeatedly denying them from her – until the final page when the baby wanted a hug and she accedes), but tugged at my heartstring the few seconds it took me to read it. (i am a wuss I KNOW IT.)
(postnote: his teacher told me that the baby is actually an imaginary one because the author is the youngest in the family, and i thought that just adds another dimension to the story – a girl’s longing for a baby sister. awww?)
ouh check out the ‘super tornado’ book – more pop-ups! and if you know me, you’d know i’m crazy for pop-ups. (never mind that this is hardly sophisticated paper-engineering – but still! love it.)
the boy’s two books weren’t pop-ups, though. (darn!) both use a similar technique as the ant book above, with cut-outs and lamination. (more on that in the next blog post.)
i really have to hand it to their teachers for what i imagine must’ve been a tremendous task, of planning and helping every kid to generate ideas and come up with drafts for stories and illustrations, to the actual creative execution of each book (with its bindings and pasting and laminating, etc). i like that the kids experience and explore such outlets of creativity in pre-school, at the same time weaving in elements of literacy and a dash of fun.
and the sense of pride you see in their faces when they hold up their own creations or show them to their parents, is.. well yeah, priceless.
oh, the little ones were not left out – the girl’s playgroup class made some musical instruments out of recycled materials. very cute… but i like the storybooks better. (i think she liked them better too. )
owls often symbolise intelligence, wisdom, knowledge – plus, they’re REALLY cute. (and ok yeah, there’s a literary reference too: Owl Babies is one of my favourite children’s book makes me teary every time, sniff.)
pink (her favourite) and black (my favourite) hoot loot. well, i had to compromise.
treated the kids to a stay at royal plaza on scotts over the weekend, and had close family members over for high tea at carousel.
just a commoner… ;p
cake compliments of Carousel.
the brother who still refers to his sister as “my baby”.
the coincidentally colour-coordinated grandparents, hmm…
many eligible princes.
the maids-in-waiting.
yes, even he likes to squeeeeeze her. a lot.
the royal plaza people were so kind as to help set up some chairs and a table at the pool side for a small party in the evening.
night owls.
sleeping beauty was forced to wake up from her slumber power nap to blow out the candles…
and pose for insufferably many pictures.
the mommies.
the chewren.
kate middleton she may not be, but marry a prince… who knows??
happy turning terrible terrific three, my owl baby.
our yearly dental affair, and i was the one who could hardly wait for the appointment date to arrive. was dying to get aniq’s teeth polished and be assured that his teeth dropping off at the beginning of 5 years old is not TOO early. paranoid much?
the boy went through the motions – open mouth, spit, gargle, open mouth, spit, gargle, choose toy from box (although this ‘painstaking’ toy selection process took up more time from the doc than the entire teeth cleaning process). nothing much we can do to keep away stains other than regular visits to polish them, but on the upside, he has low chances of cavities. two of his bottom teeth have dropped (one he valiantly plucked out himself), and one permanent tooth has emerged from his gums. doc said something about his ‘dental age’ being more mature than his, er, ‘chronological age’, but it has nothing to do with nutrition. i always thought he was somehow… ‘old’-ish ever since he was a baby, but wait… this doesn’t mean he’ll reach puberty earlier too, i hope…?? O_O
but OH HOW i wish for his behaviour to be more mature than his chronological age….
it was the girl’s second time, and this time round we’d prepped her with books on visits to dentists, so she readily climbed up the seat and opened up her BIG BIG (in more ways than one) mouth.
checked the number of teeth and cleaned out some food stuck between gaps, coz while her brother’s teeth have always been gappy with plenty of space for new teeth to grow, hers are close together.
he’d been looking forward to “10 december” for some time, but we were on the plane back from brisbane on that day, so with the ‘jet-lag’ (ha ha) and all-round laziness that usually ensues after a trip, “10 december” only happened the day after, with a proper birthday present…
and a proper birthday cake…
this year’s theme inadvertently turned out to be wheels-related this time – from the box of hot wheels i got him in australia, to a ferarri car garage his uncles got him, to the bicycle from his daddy, to the Cars cake he chose at swensen’s. (didn’t i say i love themes? even totally unplanned ones!)
happy fifth, firstborn. may your ride through life always be an adventurous and exciting one. (but be safe and NO MOTORBIKES when you’re older, ya hear?!)
in a fit of nostalgia, i’d raided mum’s photo albums this evening, which made up mostly of badly-taken photos of our family travels throughout the years. every time i look through them, i’d lament at how awful the photos were, and worse, how awful i looked in ALL of them. (which is why i’m thankful mum keeps them in a cupboard, out of sight from visitors. :p)
i wonder if some day in the future, my kids will look at the gazillion photos we took of them and think the same. i can imagine the conversation now.
adult daughter: “mummy, WHY did you make me wear those awful crocs when i was small? what’s with those awful dresses and tights? how could you let me keep that awful hairstyle? why wasn’t i wearing make up?? HOW AWFUL.”
aged me: -____-’
so my first plane trip happened when i was about two years old, visiting a relative in Perth. of course i don’t remember anything of it, if not for the photos. but i think the camera must’ve hated toddler-me, or vice-versa, because i couldn’t find a full picture of my face anywhere.
evidence below.
partially hidden by giant panda (can you see the auni resemblance?):
partially hidden by ferry bench (my late dad in his corporate tee or whuuuut, heh):
partially hidden by hand (check out the cool stroller-thingy circa ’79, looks more like a lawn-mower):
skip a few years ahead, and we find ourselves on our first visit to brisbane and gold coast. why did i surface these? well, it’s 22 years later now and whaddaya know, we’re flying off tomorrow to the same destination… but more on that later.
so, gladly, these photos were taken from afar. i’d entered the awkward tween years. urgh.
we headed there again in ’91 to visit an aunt who’d started staying there. by then, i’d entered the awkward teen years, coupled with myopia. double urgh. but i did find this sweet photo of my parents in a very rare display of ACTUAL PHYSICAL CONTACT. ha ha.
in ’93, the said aunt gave birth to, back then, the most gorgeously grumpy but adorable half-matsaleh baby i’d ever seen, so we went to visit, this time with my grandparents. trivia 1: my grandma and i each have a mole above the right upper lip, and my mum has one on her left upper lip. i’d hoped auni would inherit a mole like her grandma, just to, ya know, form an awesome genetic pattern or something, but unfortunately it’s not meant to be. (… unless moles appear later in life?) trivia 2: this tub of chub (the baby! not me) is now a 17-year-old babe. i’ll be seeing her on this coming trip, and she’ll be babysitting MY babies this time.
as i’d mentioned in an earlier post, i’d bought tickets to watch U2 live in concert on my birthday (!! – yes, still not believing it), so i simply had to dig these up, from circa ’96 and ’98 (NEVER MIND HOW AWFUL I LOOKED)…
(notice how bono had ‘moved’ further away from touching distance the second time i visited him, tsk.)
okaaayyy, so it was his wax figure that i was ogling/fondling at london’s madame tussauds lah, whatever, that ‘bulu’ on his arm felt Even Better Than The Real Thing heh heh.
anyway, our bags are packed, we’ll be BNE-bound at 3.15pm, and how apt is it to end this post with this video?
see you guys in two weeks…
“you’ve been all over… and it’s been all over you”
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