Princess Jewellery Collection: A game the whole family can play!

When you have a 7yo daughter and a 4yo son, there are many moments when they don’t play together. It’s usually just a matter of preference and interest. There are of course a few common ‘spaces’, like Lego – though she tends to want to make gardens and houses while he prefers trucks and construction sites. Playing ‘masak-masak’ or restaurant/kitchen/home is another – again, she’s older and prefers more structured play from providing menus and customer service to cooking elaborate dishes, while he just wants to stack cups and plates and potter around the kitchen doing stuff randomly. You can imagine the bossing around that happens with these scenario. And then, of course, there are board games – which isn’t always ideal since the 3+ year age gap creates some chaos that game rules do not cater for. 

That’s why today was extra special. After dinner, when I suggested to them to pick out something they could play together, for some inexplicable reason, they decided to settle for this: Audrey’s Princess Jewellery Collection game!

It’s a simple little game. Players spin the wheel and move their tokens around the board and collect the specified piece of jewellery in their own colour. There are some penalties as with any game. The winner is the one who completes their set first.

 

They must have played at least 10 rounds, having a good laugh with each and adding variations to the game to keep it roaringly funny. And they each had their turns winning. They were game to put everything on… and let me take pictures!!! Here are their Crowning Victory photos with the works: crown, earrings, bracelet, necklace, ring… I think I got them all?

It was just precious seeing them have such a fun together over such an unlikely game!

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Politics, Plain & Simple…..

General Elections is no laughing business, we are told. Well, there certainly wasn’t much to laugh at for my kids, though I had a good chuckle over this. I’m tempted to call it POLITICS 101: Why Politicians need to listen to The Little People…..

ME, listening to news radio in the car and the Big Announcement of the day: "Oh, May 7 is Polling Day!"

DAUGHTER: "What does that mean?"

ME: "We vote for a new government..blah blah blah."

DAUGHTER (very excited): "So teachers have to vote too? Is it a holiday?"

ME: "Yes, it should be a holiday.. but it may be a Saturday, so I guess it really doesn't matter."

DAUGHTER: "(WAIL) So bad! Why did they choose Saturday... the government is so bad, I hope no one votes for them!"

SON (who was listening intently and is in the echo-whatever-Big-Sister-says stage of life): "Yes, no one will vote for them, so bad!"

Now I can’t wait for Polling Day and the GE2011 results...!!!

 

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Toothless!

Audrey finally developed a loose tooth and it dropped today. I guess it was just a matter of time.

Her first 3 teeth – 1 on top, 2 at the bottom – were surgically removed when she was 4. We had consulted our paediatric dentist early on and she spotted several areas that were decay-prone, most likely the result of slow milk-drinking using the bottle. It was a very hard decision to put a 4yo under general anaesthesia for surgery and but we did, figuring it would be the best thing to prevent unnecessary pain or discomfort over the coming few years. She came out of the surgery very well and quite oblivious.  

Her two bottom primary teeth replaced quietly over the last year, like clockwork – it would happen the year she turns 6 or 7, the dentist had said. We were waiting for the top teeth to pop out. So she’s not had any real experience with dropping her teeth ‘naturally’….until now. 

Over the weekend, she started feeling a strange sensation with her top front tooth. She kept wiggling it, moving it back and forth, “Mom, this is really quite annoying!” She was excited and scared all at the same time. She wanted it to drop quickly and in the next breath, wanted it to stay forever. Next thing you know, she would have a finger back on her tooth.

Out the blue, she also asked, “So is there really a Tooth Fairy who will leave you $10?…It’s the Mommy and Daddy right?” Who’s been telling her these things. To soothe her fears and make this rite of passage easier to accept, I told her yes, she would get a tooth reward.

At dinner at my parents’ place, the shaking tooth finally let go. Slipped out whilst she was chewing her food. Painless but she shed a few tears at its sudden departure. She decided she wanted the Tooth Fairy to grant her an iPhone game – talk about Generation Z. 

Guess we’ve come to another ‘monumental’ milestone of growing up. Slowly but surely, she’s replacing the ‘baby’ bits. All I can think of is.. my baby girl is growing up so fast.

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Skate with me, my friend!

"Don't walk in front of me; I might not follow. Don't walk behind me; I might not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend."  ---Albert Camus

Whilst we were staycationing at Marina Bay Sands Hotel earlier this week, Audrey and her best friend Rachel decided they wanted to try out skating. “It’s the same as rollerblading. We want to try it!” they insisted. I was frankly quite surprised that they were so eager… and fearless! 

Before they could get started though, we had to go on a little scavenger hunt… for socks (yes, they’re mandatory). The ones sold at the rink were too big for Audrey’s dainty feet. Fortunately,  we didn’t have to go far. We managed to find them just upstairs at the Poney shop. We got the skates, which the girls quickly donned and off they went, onto the rink!

They started rather tentatively, holding on to the side rails and taking small steps. Balance came quite easily to them but they liked the security of having the rails well within reach. They skated maybe three rounds around the rink, keeping close to the side.

It wasn’t long before they ventured into the centre. They made it look all quite easy really even though they weren’t exactly whizzing around the rink. A few stumbles here and there, but they were just fine. 

They were moving, gliding around carefully but confidently. They even managed to fool around a little and had a very animated discussion and conversation balancing on their skates in the middle of the rink. We were too far away to know what they were chatting about, but they looked like they were having fun… and that’s all that mattered really!

Well done, you two – we’re so proud of you. We’ll be back again soon!

 

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Help! There’s a Zombie on my bed !!!

Last night, we heard strange Chomp-Chomp-Chomping noises and squeals of laughter coming from the bedroom. We looked in only to find this scene… right out of Plants vs Zombies! 

Anthony had made a funny discovery: His plastic toy pail fit perfectly on his head and this would turn him into one of the creepy Buckethead Zombies from the game (see the resemblance to the ‘real’ thing on the right!?!). He even took pains to ensure that the pail-handle fell in front of his face!

Audrey very gamely grabbed a bunch of flowers and became the sunflower that the Zombie would chomp up greedily!!

 Guess that’s probably a much better ending than this….

!!!!!!!!

 

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Audrey’s Hopping Happy in the Year of the Rabbit!

 

Just before Chinese New Year, Audrey lost her purse in school. Most likely dropped it when moving from class or canteen to her CCA venue.

It was a pretty pearly white purse, with a very cute rabbit on it. It was precious. We bought it whilst we were holidaying in Bangkok last November. She had hand-picked it from the hundreds of wallets that were on sale.

So quite heartbroken, she reported it lost at the General Office and prayed every night that she would find it. Nothing for the last 2 weeks.

Today, she decided to head to the General Office after dismissal, with a picture of the rabbit in hand. And lo and behold, the administrator recognised it immediately. Someone had found it and brought it to the office.

Happiness is finding your Rabbit purse! The bonus was all her money and little gift cards were intact. I’m glad she remembered to say “Thank you God for helping me find my wallet!”

It’s almost like this little Rabbit had found its way home, just in time to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit with Audrey!  

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The Making Of Our Very Own Junior CSI Team !

 

 

Meet our Junior CSIs: Audrey, Rachel, Jared, Aaron & Anthony (L-R)

Audrey and her schoolmates had an extra day of holiday today to celebrate the school’s 2010 PSLE and ‘O’ Level results. We decided, together with our friend Pei Hua, to bring the kids to the CSI exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre. As fans of the CSI TV series, we were pretty excited to see what was in store!

As we entered the exhibition, we were handed clipboards with our assignments. We were Level 1 CSIs, with our own unique Agent IDs. Our CSI experience started with a briefing from none other than Gil Grissom himself (via video!). We received instructions and a run-down of what to expect.

We would be investigating 3 cases. Case 1 was a car that crashed through a house; Case 2 was a dead woman in an alley; and Case 3 was a human skeleton found in the desert. The forms on the clipboard (pic on left) served as guides to help us with the investigations. Each case had its own task list and lab work to complete.

It followed a fairly straightforward process. Like every CSI episode, we started with a close scrutin of the crime scene. The case forms have a basic diagram of the crime scene and it was our job to observe and jot down notes of what we saw. 

When this was done, just like on TV, we headed to the lab. There were various lab stations, covering ballistics, blood splatter analysis, toxicology, forensics, fingerprinting and so on. We got to look through microscopes, check out real bullets and analyse DNA, tyre striation marks etc.

The exhibition had informative videos featuring CSIs from the TV series as well real-life CSIs. We continued to make notes on our forms as we examined the evidence and uncovered the identities of the victim and the suspects. The final stage was the autopsy by Dr. Robbins - he gave a concise summary of the injuries and cause of death for each case. With that, we completed our reports and got ready to hand them to Supervisor Grissom!

At the end of the entire experience, we received our CSI diplomas - signed by Grissom of course!

Overall, the CSI Experience was entertaining – good fun for an outing with the kids. As it targets a broad range of participants including younger school kids, most of the information was presented in a rather simplified manner and did not require much actual analysis to arrive at the correct answers. It would have been much more interesting for adults and older kids to have had at least one case that was challenging to work on. The crime scenes, while generally well thought through and assembled, were not quite as realistic as some of us who are used to the TV series would have expected or liked. For example, the dead bodies were obviously cloth dummies - we guessed this was probably needed so as to not scare off the kids!

After all, it was Grissom who said: “Amazing how the sight of blood can clear a room.” …The organisers wouldn’t have wanted that scenario for sure!

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Musings on The Art Stage

 

What a nice coincidence to be handed complimentary VIP passes to Art Stage on a weekend when we had some extra time on our hands!

We decided to bring our kids and make it a family outing to view this “exhibition of contemporary art galleries”. It promised “the best and most interesting from the Asia Pacific juxtaposed against and in a dialogue with carefully selected Western positions”. …. Hmmm..

Like its event description, the exhibits stretched our imaginations and gave use much to think about… and decipher.  Some installations seemed readily understood and appreciated. Others were plain puzzling, quite intriguing…. and somewhat bizarre. Audrey and Anthony’s reactions to the art we saw garnered many a chuckle. They were so full of curiousity and had no qualms getting up close and personal with some of the art pieces (sometimes too close for comfort though they managed for most part to keep their fingers off the art pieces!).

They asked gallery managers “How did the artist do this?”, “Why did they make it like this?”, “What does this mean?” and of course my all-time favourite: “What’s this?” Some gallery staff tried to explain, others just looked stumped, embarrassed. Quite hilarious. That’s art a for you.

Blend of Food & Art: Sushi?? Look closely, they’re vehicles – lorries, garbage trucks, cement mixers,….

 

Life Transformations: Pile of Dried Chilies meet Giant Chili Grinder…. From Girl to Old Woman (Anthony was trying to convince Audrey where she fits, just too funny!)

Art imitating life… or vice versa? ….Yes, the art installation on the right is a Mamak store… Audrey reading Life Stories in Letters & scrutinising “Singapore’s DNA”!

Green Art: Saving Our World… from Fish to Forests… Monster Machine…

  

Modern and whimsical Multimedia Art (L-R): Multi-screens depicting Echoes in the Mind… A video capturing Life in Motion… Crystal City – a marvellous display created by a moving light source against structures of transparent plastic boxes. 

 

Icons Intertwined : Portraits of LKY, Warhol, Marilyn – each made up of small prints of other icons…

 

Art of War & Terrorism: SIA kebayas meet Soldier’s camouflage… Holy Wars...  Boy & Machines…

 

Picasso was there too!

I saved these random few for last….Robot Mickeys, Humongous Knife, Backstabbing Chair….

 

….and finally, some Art that FLOORED us…

……and left lots for the Arty-Farty to think about!

Finally, it was time to sit back and reflect on it all… over a nice long drink !

 

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