Birthday celebration with family

It was a cloudy and yet hot day on 22 November 2009 with Oliver turning three today. I took a shoot of the Singapore Flyer which Oliver loves to look at everytime we drove past the Benjamin Sheares Bridge.
Today, Oliver was simply not interested to look at the Flyer. He had eyes only for his new muse, Thomas. He looked at Thomas almost thoughout the journey.

Heidi, on the other hand, could not be bothered with Oliver. She was enjoying her power nap.

This morning, we were heading towards East Coast Park to join Boon Heng's family at Waraku Japanese Dinning Restaurant. We choose the place as they had private room for reservation.
As usual, we were the last to arrive no matter how early we tried to leave the house, but still on time lah (me being a punctual freak).

Too bad, Oliver's grandpa could not join us. We should perhap not bring along Oliver's train station as he was totally submerged in his Thomas' world and was not interacting. It was only when the server bought in the birthday cake that he tuned in to the real world. Green tea cake again this year, but without the train. Unlike in school and at home where Oliver belt out the birthday song, today he was enjoying everyone's singing as he sang happily and in a softer tone to himself. We witnessed moments of shyness in him as everyone sang and celebrated his birthday. Oliver, however, wasted no time when it came to blowing the candles making sure he beat his cousin to it. Earlier, Oliver's gu gu and cousin were teasing him about not letting him blow his candles as he blew the birthday candles before his cousin could during her birthday.

Proudly cutting his cake.

Oliver's grandma endearingly placed her hand on Oliver's hand so that he can cut his cake.

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)

Nate's Birthday Party

Nate has been Oliver's friend since they were four months old. Being just three days apart from birth, they share many similarities in their development. They used to be closer when both of them were in still in the infant section. Although Nate does not attend school full-time like Oliver, both have an affinity with each other evidently from the way they stick to each other at Nate's birthday party. Probably because there were no other kids around their age, these two kids "N-ate" followed by "O-liver" copied each other in whatever they do.


Squeezing into the chair, both blew the party whistle like no tommorrow.

Nate has the most amazing birthday cake. Not too sure if it is the contact of Maye or Terence, both of them are professional photographers with AP and ST. Their photographs always turned out to be so sharp and clear. Although these photographs were probably not taken by them, there were always other pro who took good pictures. I wish I could capture such moments as sharp as these.

Oliver clearly overwhelmed by the biggest ever Thomas the train to date.

Oliver seemed quite chubby here compared to Nate.

I love Oliver's gleaming face.

Found a shot of us looking at Oliver celebrating Nate's 3 years old birthday.

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....