MY BABY FOOTSTEPS

23 Sept 2012

Went to Merchant Court Hotel for buffet dinner last weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversaries… and saw so much activity outside along the Singapore River! So we took our own sweet time to enjoy the feast… and then moved out to walk out all those calories… and viola! What a nice surprise!

There were lighted floats of mid autumn theme on the river…

And lighted lanterns and doorways etc along the whole stretch from Riverside Point all the way to Central (Clark Quay MRT).

There were so many people that my little koala bear felt a bit scared and grabbed on to her daddy for most of the night.  (Either that or she was really upset with the mommy for asking her to keep smiling just so to get a better shot with less background “crowd/noise”)

And then look what we found!

“Love locks”! Made famous by all those kdrama scenes… The girl obviously quite amused and wanted me to “unlock” them.

We were also in time to catch a performance in celebration of the upcoming mid-autumn festival by some china tribal group (i suppose)…

… before we decided to walk back to appreciate all the bazaar stalls of the little knick-knacks, such as this handmade dough figurines… and others such as “lantern riddle”… games stalls etc… We walked away with one musical angry bird piggy bank which the daddy was thinking of improvising into a lantern itself.

And along the way back to the car park, we passed by hong lim park where there were more lighted lanterns and even the whole “journey to the west” figures… My girl, familiar with the characters went, “Mama LOOK! The Monkey God!“

That’s what you get when Channel 8 had a whole drama serial of “Journey to the West” for months…

Late, tired but still happy and excited (though the little one refused to walk anymore)… we made our way back home in preparation for someone’s birthday party the next day…

After bathing, the girl refused to lie down to wear her clothes. So in between nagging her, I whacked her butt lightly to get her to cooperate… and that’s when she said,

“Mama, you hit my butt butt. I’m going to tell Daddy.”

And shortly after she lay down still to finally let me do my job, she took the toy phone which was lying nearby, put to her ear and said,

“Hello Daddy, Mama hit my butt butt”…

Woah… Where did she learn to tattertale like that?

Upon entering the car after it was baked in the hot sun…

Me: Arhh… My hands are burning!
She: Mama, why are your hands burning?
Me: Because the steering wheel is very hot…
Me (muttered under my breath): Don’t ask me where’s the fire…
She: Where’s the fire?
Me: There’s no fire! It’s burning cos the sun is shining on Mama’s hands…
*silent acknowledgement… and suddenly when the sun rays entered through the windows and hit on her hands…*
She: Arh… My hands are burning too! 

We were walking home when it started drizzling…

She: OH OH!!! 下雨了!!!
Me:  Oh oh… 怎么办?
She: (without missing a beat) WE NEED A MOUSE-KE-TOOL! … OH TOODLES!!!!!  

Gone are the days when mommy was the “Fix-It-All”…

pic from http://mickeyclub.wikia.com/wiki/Toodles

And really only cos the girl has been asking for it for weeks!!! So we decided to bring her down as part of the lead-up to her birthday one week later…

So we packed our bags and headed to the zoo early morning!

Look! The signage now has the newest kids on the block – Jia Jia & Kai Kai (the pandas) welcoming us too! Guess we’ll be back again after December when the River Safari opens…
 

One of the first few animals out to greet us! Lemurs and monkeys (Siamang) etc…

And she was so familiar with the place that she was guiding the daddy where to go and what to see… “Look Daddy! An alligator!!!” … And then she burst out in song/chant: 

“5 little monkeys, swinging on a tree!
Teasing Mr Alligator you can’t catch me!
Along came Mr Alligator quiet as can be…
And SNAP!
4 little monkeys, swinging on a tree!” … etc

Haha… Funny how she remembered this when she saw the Siamang and the False Gharial (“Monkey and Alligator”) simultaneously.

Oh yeah… Someone is REALLY happy to be visiting the zoo again… And her joy is absolutely infectious!

We: Where do you want to go now?
She: I want to see the kangaroos!

And that’s why we rushed & hopped down to the Australian Outback section… where she saw kangaroos crossing right in front of her!!!  

… And making their way to the feeding area! Quite the pro now, she sat down very still while feeding the two…

 … And occassionally talking to them like “Kangaroo, is it yummy?”… and “There’s a bit more! Finish it!”

“Daddy, I want to go this way!!!” … And the poor man was led against his will according to his daughter’s wishes.

We went to watch the elephant show for a while… But got such a bad seat that the girl lost interest and we left early and headed towards the Ele-fun Area! It was definitely great with the crowd distracted at the elephants’ performance, leaving this attic playground just for us. Here’s the girl pretending to be a Baby African Elephant.  

And us quite amazed at how gigantically big the molars of the elephants were. “Look Mama, it’s the same size as my foot!”

We then moved off to the Rainforest Fights Back show… where the peacock fanned out for us during the performance! (I’ve seen this show for the 3rd or 4th time… and this was the FIRST time this peacock displayed his feathers for us. What a treat!)

And the orang-utan swinging by on top of us… And cos we got such a great seat (cos we left the elephant show early and headed here in wait for about 30 minutes), the girl was just 4 rows away from everything that’s happening! She saw the long yellow snake swim… the orang-utan peel a coconut… the ducks swimming in the pool… the raccoon running around… etc. No wonder she’s so happy. (oh, and not to forget she was munching on pocky biscuits and KFC popcorn chicken too. )

After the show… Next stop, the Giant Tortoise encounter!

 First time feeding the Giant Tortoise… “Say Ahhhh….”

 “… Ummm… Yummy?”

Her thought in mind (??): “I may be feeding a Giant Tortoise 20 times my age… maybe more than 5 times my size.. and many times my weight… but I still need to pose stylo while pretending to be a zoo-keeper for a day…” (I can’t think of why else she would lean on the daddy and cross her legs like that while feeding THE GIANT TORTOISE?!?!?)

“Hey, let go of the stick!” … When the tortoise finished the last slice of apple and grabbed the stick along with it.

After hanging around a bit more for her to touch the shell and stroke the neck, she went on to tell me that the tortoise’s shell is smooth and hard… but the neck is very rough…

Her new best friend now.

“Daddy, this is how you talk to a penguin… Woo ahh ahh ahh…” (Don’t ask me why)

“You keep quiet. I’m talking to the baby sea lion”

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How many baby orang-utans do you see in this picture above? (Decide on an answer before you see the picture below…….)

ANSWER: Count the number of hands on the rope. There’s a mommy orang-utan… and two babies! Apparently they are 1.5 years old, and only one of them was born from this mommy. The other one was adopted. Imagine the “Awww….” moment when the mommy caught the sugar-cane from the zoo-keeper, bit it and tore it into smaller pieces to give to the young ones.

Been to the zoo several times… and this is the first time we walked into the Tropical Crops area. Interesting patch where we saw brinjal plants… soy beans… long beans… chilli padi… aloe vera… etc… There is even an orchid garden too!

And then the girl said “Mommy, I want to see the long-nosed monkey”…

And that’s exactly where we ended up (thankfully it was quite near). The mommy proboscis monkey was priming the little baby.  (If only my girl would sit so still when I tie/cut her hair or trim her nails etc)

A final stop at the Fragile Forest… which brought us many close encounters with the animals including the blue crowned pigeon, mandarin ducks, iguanas, mousedeer, lemurs… and even butterflies which somehow took a liking to Yahn’s stroller and rested on our waterbottles.

 AND BATS TOO! These freaked me out. Don’t they bite? *shivers…* 

 
Stayed all the way till about 4.30pm when the skies started dripping, and decided to make our way back… with a final photo op with the orang utan family. A very long… exhausting 6+ hours at the zoo…

… little wonder the daddy and the daughter totally concussed along the way back.

So the pre-birthday mini-excursion to the zoo completed… now i’m stressed about the ACTUAL birthday celebrations! *ARH… I’ve not even bought a cake!!!*

I did this once with my girl at a fun-fair…

It’s creating a re-useable sticker from paint. And cos she liked it so much I decided to buy the stock for home too. *SPOTLIGHT, HERE I COME!!!*

Sat her down with her Ikea mirror…

Drew simple outlines for her to paint within…

Here’s her concentrating real hard (cos it’s actually quite tough to squeeze the paint out from the bottles). But the little one was so eager to “do something” that she kept trying regardless until I came in to help..

And at the end of it, we made a few simple small “stickers”.

Brought them out to the car during one of the rides and she kept herself entertained with sticking and removing from the windows… Until somehow she started sticking them on her mouth! Was she so chatty that the teachers in school made her “tape” up her mouth?!?

Nonetheless, after all the yucky saliva, I threw the homemade stickers away. Well, I do have all these paint left so perhaps another day…