MY BABY FOOTSTEPS

Another of those keep-her-busy (albeit for a very short while) activity.

Step 1: Draw the grass
Step 2: Draw the stems
Step 3: Add the glue
Step 4: Stick the flowers and the leaves etc. (A pack of flower + heart + leaves from Giant at $2)

Pretty? The yellow heart is the sun up in the sky… and well, she insisted on pasting the green heart on the stems too cos she has seen heart-shaped leaves during our walks in the parks!

With no help from the mommy except to turn the leaves in the right orientation. Somehow she stuck them all with the pointy tip on the stem.

I guess I need to bring her out for another outdoor park lesson before our next repeat attempt.

This is our latest artwork. Salt Art. Saw it here, and here and thought it a great activity with my girl who has recently decided she really wants to be kept busy.

“Mama… let’s make something.”

“Mama… what are we going to make today?”

“Mama… what is Yahn going to make?”

I think that’s a big hint to mommy that she’s bored. So Mommy has been busy surfing around for worksheets and craft ideas to keep the energizer bunny occupied. Most are quickies that are fast, easy and *cough cough* not very presentable so those are shoved away from this online diary. Others like our salt art piece can get some limelight.

Step 1: Squeeze glue all over the paper… Free play. Easy and fun.

Step 2: Spread salt over the glue… and then shake off the excess. *Note* All these were done in a huge container so I didnt’ have to sweep runaway salt after this.

And fantastic waste use of salt cos I seldom add salt in my cooking, so this small pot of salt has been in my shelf for at least a full year and in no sign of finishing.

Step 3: Add water colours onto the salt, and watch the colours “run”.

I used ice-cube trays to mix my water colors (leftover from her toddler days after I stopped ice-cube-freezing broccoli / carrots / meat for her first foods)… and I used disposable eye-drops to “pipette” the colours cos… well, no point buying several pipettes for just one activity when i have tons of about-to-expire disposable eye-drops at home right?

We sucked up the water colours into each eye drop, and she would squeeze them out gently onto the salted-glue-paper. And I thought this was also much better cos it limited the quantity of water colour at each squeeze so we wouldn’t go overboard and flood the whole paper.

And this was the immediate product after we dripped the colours onto the salt. Quite nice right? My only regret was I used drawing paper which turned out to be too thin for this watery activity. Maybe thicker, waterproof paper next time?

But after the whole paper dried, it does look really nice with all the coloured salt crystals.

And again, someone was so proud of her work that when Daddy came home that day, she carried the whole artwork (still in the container) and shouted, “Look Papa, my picture!”

“Yes baby… and it’s a really pretty picture. ”

Happy Mother’s Day!

The thing about being a SAHM who’s doing dedicated home-schooling (for now) is… you kindof have to get your girl to make a card for yourself. But still…. that doesn’t make it any less precious.

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms and grand-moms!

BEFORE:
Just after mommy cleaned up her playroom…

AFTER:
After the daughter “tornado-ed” through…

…. or maybe it’d be more fun to play “Spot the Similarities”…

We were in Liang Court some days back when they had a fun-fair. If you spend $120, they’ll give you a samurai sword-umbrella… and 3 coupons for you to play the traditional japanese games at the fair. They had the traditional paper fish-net to catch marbles (in place of goldfishes), shoot-a-prize, and even Dance Dance Revolution (how retro )! But for a 2.5+ year old girl, the best booth would be the “1000 Strings” game.

So they have 1000 strings (I’m taking their word for it cos I didn’t count). You get to pick a string, pull it, and your prize will be whatever’s at the end of the string!

And these were what she got! Stencil-rulers.

At first I thought these were probably still too advanced for her… Many times I see them in shops but I thought “Maybe next time…” But how do you tell my stubborn mule that she cannot play with them cos she probably doesn’t know how to?

If anything, the stubborn mule will probably deliberately do it right, just to prove me wrong.

And sometimes, this mommy is very happy when the girl does prove me wrong and shows me nothing is beyond her.

We read a Dr Seuss’ book to her – “Hop on Pop”…

and this is the outcome…

Lesson learnt. Must always filter the books she reads and the movies she watches. This girl is too impressionable.

Thank goodness the daddy is strong enough to withstand her monkey antics.

“Look Mama! I made a turtle on my hand!!”

There was once my girl flipped through a book and asked me to buy a house for her.

*SHOCKED*. Who wouldn’t. Let’s just ignore the fact that property prices in Singapore are skyrocketing to insane values that the average Singaporean couldn’t even afford a decent 4-room flat, let alone a house! She’s just 2.5 years old and she’s starting to shop by flipping though catalogues?! Maybe I really do need to go back to work to boost our family income to sustain her shopping habits.

But being a mom that hates to disappoint, I started wondering what I could buy/give instead. (I know, I could have just ignored this whole episode and pretended it never happened… so why do I torture myself so…) *sigh* So I decided instead of a “HOUSE”… she’ll get a “TOY-HOUSE”. But even so, these are not cheap. Some nice ones can go up to hundreds! And the not so nice ones… why bother?

Unless its home-made.

Bought this set of castle themed wood board to make photo albums from Spotlight (gosh I love this place). You could just, you know, stick craft paper to beautify it… then stick your photos on them… decorate them… and bind them together to form a nice photo album.

But for this mommy who’s out looking for alternatives for a doll house, this would have to do for now. Glued the edges together so the whole castle structure could stand upright on its own. Then got the girl to paint it cos… well, you have to put in some effort if you want to claim the castle for yourself right?

And now, this castle stands tall and proud and yellow… but somehow, instead of a house for her dolls, she turned it into a parking garage! She’d gather all her trains and cars and push them through the doorway. It’s kindof cute really… cos if they’re too tall, she’ll scream “oh-oh, stuck! Thomas is too tall!”… and if they do pass through, like the Elmo car, she’ll give a huge cheer of jubilation.

I love how easy it is to cheer my girl up. No need for money… no need for big toys… just simplicity and our time and she’ll be the happiest girl I know.

Picked the Daddy up from work last Friday in super high spirits, in anticipation of an early happy weekend for the family… only to realise none of us actually thought about where to go until he’s in the car.

Me: So where are we going?
He: Huh? Thought you going to think about it?
Me: No? Thought you were?
He: Err… nope. No idea.
Me: …

So we started brainstorming while the car was already moving off the driveway. Holland Village? West Coast Plaza? Dempsey? The nice korean place that has a playground inside it? … And then I remembered there’s this place I’ve always read about but never been to.

Me: How about Rochester?
He: Rochester? Well, it’s SUPER near so you can just make a U-turn and we’ve reached.

!!! So that’s decided… And so we headed off to…

Seb’s Bistro. With The Playhouse (indoor playground).

Before we ordered our dinner, we had to settle the girl (who has already eaten her dinner before we left the house). Brought her into The Playhouse which charges:

Weekday: $7 for 1st hour. $7 for subsequent hour. Or you can choose to pay for 2 hour upfront payment of $12, or unlimited playtime $15.

Weekend & PH: $10 for 2 hours, or $18 for unlimited playtime.

We signed her up immediately for 2 hour upfront thinking we could enjoy a nice twosome dinner and then join her an hour later to play together.

After telling her we’ll be outside having dinner while she plays by herself, and reminding her we’ll be back after we finish our dinner, we headed out for a nice dinner, kid-free.

Parked ourselves at a table near The Playhouse door and ordered our food – duck confit and linguine… There was a yummy kids’ menu too but since she has eaten this time round, maybe next time. And then as all gan-jiong (nervous) parents do, we kept peeping in to make sure all was well and good while waiting for the food to come.

Here she was, playing nicely by herself at the Ikea Kitchen set at The Playhouse…

… And riding / bouncing on the Rubber Donkey around the place…

All while the parents sat outside having a nice time to themselves, enjoying the ambience of the place. And then I got reminded that it has been a long long time since the two of us went out for a nice dinner without worrying about the girl… Cos when we usually go out by ourselves, I’d be overridden with guilt having “abandoned” her… but not this time!  In fact, we were commenting how proud we were of her that she would let us go off as she stayed by herself in the playground.

The ambience was great… Dinner was yummy (not cheap though but I guess all good things come at a price)… But the biggest satisfaction was to be able to eat in peace without having to scream at the girl to eat / keep quiet / stay in her chair etc.

I even had time to enjoy the place – which was really a colonial bungalow that was converted to be a nice restaurant (Seb’s Bistro) and an indoor playground (The Playhouse) which is a gated playarea for kids of most ages. The first floor is a play area, and older kids can even go to the 2nd floor to play Wii! There’s even an outdoor area with a 10ft trampoline (not for night though)!

After we finished our dinner, we moved in to join our girl for fun. Here the daddy and the girl playing on the see-saw…

“Look Mama, it’s Thomas Train!”

The daddy having as much fun as the girl playing with all the toys.

And then we asked about their party packages – always on the lookout for great party venues in preparation for the girl’s 3rd year birthday party. It’s never too early to start planning. They brought us up to the 2nd floor to have a look… and the staircase blew me away. If I ever lived in a house, I’m going to get an artist to help draw on my walls to give it a super artistic feel.

And then the party room was WOW! A whole wall filled with mirrors (my dream come true), and another wall with a backdrop that you can choose from their various themes. This was their jungle safari theme for a recent birthday party.

Of course my girl was bored. There weren’t toys here! So after we finished the quick walkabout, we all moved down for the last few minutes of our playtime. Does this Fisher Price House look familiar to anyone? (c.f. goodbye toys)

And of course, the ballpit. How could I have missed talking about the ballpit (her favourite pitstop). I’m just super happy she could pull herself away to explore the rest of the place too.

Sitting on a swing, insisting that she wants to “do it all by myself!”… Which of course only resulted in her moving her butt and shaking the whole structure but not exactly getting it to swing. So we had to literally help her behind her back.

And when The Playhouse finally closed at 9.30pm, we adjourned out back to the restaurant area to see if the little girl wanted some snacks. Cakes? Fries? Milkshake? Nope… she was more tired than she was hungry, exhausted from 2 hours of play. So we all headed home, happy to have had a great start to a great weekend!

Will we be back? DEFINITELY! The husband and I can enjoy a romantic dinner for two without any feeling of guilt, and the girl having a great time playing? How could anyone say no…