Oliver's 3! Birthday Celebration in School

This is the final selection by Oliver after browsing through the various cake design on Thomas & Friends' series. He loves long train!

In Anticipation of the Birthday Cake

Striking a pose with Teachers Ms Grace, Ms Azura and Chen Laoshi

Oliver celebrating his birthday in a photoshot not too perfect, but this picture perfectly epitomise his reckless 3-year old personality in his blue-black eye injury.

"Finally, I can have my cake and eat it." Oliver's first bite of cake in school. He ate a total of four slices to make up for his 'loss'.

Boon Heng and I forgot to inform his school that Oliver could eat egg now. Almost when Oliver was 20 months old, I told school not to give Oliver any egg and poor Oliver has eversince being deprived of eating cakes in school. We only know it today when the Auntie, aka, chef of the school, asked if Oliver could eat the cake we bought. Alas...we only realise it now after so long. This is a clear sign of busy parents neglecting their kid.. and we felt so bad about it.


Oliver, being a good brother, fed the chocolate cake to Heidi.

That goes the 3 years old birthday celebration in school.
Come Sunday, we shall have another birthday celebration with Oliver's Grandparents.

Baby Massage

We went for the baby massage a few months ago, but has since stopped for a while. This is quite a popular place that most parents who believe in TCM would have heard of, and you can find some reviews of them at some baby forums. And judging by the long queues and limited car park facility, the place seems pretty popular for babies with minor ailments.

For the last couple of weeks, both Oliver and Heidi have been coughing very badly in the middle of the night. Nothing too serious I guess but they seems to have a lot of phlegm and occasionally, the prolonged and persistent coughing made them throw out their food all over the bed.

So last Monday, we brought them back again just to seek some relief.

Surprisingly, Oliver took on to the massage and masseur very well. He wasted no time jumping into the bed and just let the masseur do her job.

But Heidi as usual needs a bit of distraction and coaxing. And the biscuit Sophia brought along came in handy.

Celebrating 3 year old birthday at Rasa Sentosa

Oliver will soon be turning three years old on the coming Sunday, 22 November 2009. We celebrated his birthday one week earlier at Rasa Sentosa Resort, which I had intially planned for Heidi's first years old.

The weather over the weekend was simply out of Singapore. We felt almost overseas with the beautiful weather. The sky had poured just the day before leaving Saturday with not too much sun and a light breeze at the resort. I booked the resort that very day, in case one of our kids fell ill, or the sky poured, or Boon heng and I were too tired. Glad that none of that happened and off we went - a holiday across the island which was about 15 minutes drive away from home.

Fantasic view from 10th storey foyer area of Rasa Sentosa Resort

I booked online for the Deal of the Day and a room with hillview cost me around $270 for a night with breakfast for two adults. I also tried my luck requesting a complimentary birthday cake as I found it too cumbersome to bring a cake there. It was a nice little chocolate mousse that we had and with guilt, we did not even finished eating it.

Cake complimentary of Rasa Sentosa

"Happy Birthday to me!" sang Oliver

In case you are wondering why was Oliver clad in pink. That's not some psychotic parents' abusing their child. Oliver insisted on wearing my pink cardigan after spotting me wearing it. Well, we could not upset the birthday boy's special day.

Boon Heng took this picture at the children pool. Heidi was very possessive of her rhino float and would not let it go. Oliver preferred to sit in his fighter get which was smaller than Rhino's size float. They had such splashing good time that I wished we could have went for such "holiday" earlier. We also invited the Charming Pan family to join us. Jia Jun and Jia En wasted no time to dip into the pool. The pool was quite shallow and the kids could walk on it, including little Heidi who could not wait to get her feet on it. My arms' muscles is still aching even now due to my constant attempts to hold her while she walked courageously around the pool.

The Pan Family (Jia En, Jia Jun and Charles with Yvonne holding the camera)

Oh no, Monster is coming

These days, in order to convince Oliver to follow my instructions, I have resorted to using fear. Whenever he complained, I will cook a story and the main character will be Monster.

At bedtime, the story goes...

"Oliver, if you don'tsleep on your bed, the Monster will sleep on it and you will have no bed to sleep on."

"Oliver, we have to switch off the bedroom light so that the Monster cannot see us."

"Oliver, I cannot go outside (kitchen) to make milk for you as the Monster is outside. Mommy is scared." To prevent Oliver from potential milk overdose.

This week, another character emerged... the Ant

"Oliver, if you eat in the bedroom, the ant will crawl to your bed and bite you and you will be pain pain."

"Oliver, you must shower. Otherwise, the ant will bite you. Ants like to bite dirty boy."

"Oliver, you have poo and we have to wash you. Otherwise the ant will bite your backside as ant likes smelly boy."

As much as I hate to resort to using fear as a tactic, but they work somehow. Mmm, reminds me of the olden days when our parents always said that Police is coming to catch us, isn't it?

Christmas

Christmas is near and this year, the kids and teachers from Delcare put up a Christmas performance on 2 Nov at the atrium of the building, like 2 years ago. But this year's performance was way too early, almost 2 months before Christmas...

Vivian & Veron

Vera (2nd from left) The little sheperds & angels from N1
These are some pictures taken from a dad of a classmate of Oliver.

It seems just recently that Oliver performed at the Japanese Association as a piglet last year, yet also seems a long long time ago. This time round, the N1 boys were dressed up as sheperds (I think) and the girls as angels.

Oliver was in an orange robe, I guess the school noticed that his favourite colour might be orange like his dad.

After the final carol was sung by the older kids on stage, the N1 kids went round distributing cookies to the audience, with the help of the teachers and parents. Oliver, as always, wasn't too forthcoming in giving out the cookies to strangers and Sophia had to help him along. He must have been overwhelmed by the crowd and chaos.

Short weeknights and long weekends

I end work at 6pm on weekdays and weekends are free. Somehow, I feel that weeknights are too short and weekends too long. When we fetched Oliver and Heidi back home from their childcare centre, it was almost 745pm. I would heat up Heidi's dinner and Boon Heng would clear away their soiled clothes. While I fed Heidi, Boon Heng will busy around Oliver, meeting his constant request for food, be it banana, apple, bread, fresh milk, milk milk. After feeding Heidi, it would be shower time for Heidi. Oliver's showertime is determind by his poo time. After that, it would be washing our dishes or clothes. By that time, it would almost be around 930pm. And we would let the kids play a while before the clock hit 10am and it would be bedtime. Oliver and Heidi would take a while to sleep. Mostly Oliver would doze off first and Heidi would sleep just before 11pm. Right now, it is 23:48 and soon, I would need my forty winks. I usually try to sleep before the clock strike twelve. Well before my Heidi girl alarm clock rings"I need milk". Weeknight are just so short. But why do weekend seems so long? mmm....

Diaperless

A coupe of days ago, while fetching Oliver as usual from school, there was another paper bag of Oliver's unused diapers that Delcare returned to us.

After nearly 3 years, Oliver can now go diaper-free in school and at home. In fact, he's doing so well that they don't even need to put on his diaper during his naptime. However, we will still continue to do so at night and when we bring him out during weekends.

And for the last 2 nights he has been pooing in the potty after indicating to us he wanted to do so. He can even say "I want to pass motion". That should save us some money and free up some cupboard space.

Oliver can hum and sing many songs

Some of these songs (not sure of the titles) are:
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars
- London Bridge is falling down
- The Wheels on the Bus
- Incy Wincy Spider
- Happy Birthday to you
- Down by the Station
- Mary has a little lamb
- This Old Man
- One Two Buckle My Shoe
- Rain Rain Go Away
- Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
- Rain Rain are pouring
- some songs I really like but don't know the names