Christmas Playdate

This is the second year the April '13 mummies group gathered for Christmas.

Last year, our bubs were still crawling around but this year, they are RUNNING about.

B received a train set which he absolutely adores. We waited till he went to bed and set it up so that he could be surprised the next morning. Well, suffice to say, the look on his face the next morning was absolutely priceless.

Lucky B!

Second Meeting with Beanie - Oscar Scan

We had been looking forward to Christmas eve, not exactly because of the festive holidays, but because we were going to meet beanie!

We were scheduled to do the Oscar scan on Christmas eve so DH and I have been counting down to this day. The last time we did a scan I was about 6w3d and beanie was only a, well, a bean. Yesterday, at 11w3d, we saw beanie's arms and legs and cute little nose, it was so touching. And having DH and B in the ultrasound room with me made everything so special.

Beanie is definitely more cooperative than B was when we did the Oscar. The scan was completed in 10 minutes and we headed back up to see Dr W. Gave her and her clinic assistants their Christmas gifts and they seemed genuinely surprised. The results of the scan will probably be out soon and may expect to hear from Dr W tomorrow. Frankly, I'm not at all bothered with the scan nor the results because we have decided termination of the pregnancy is not an option even if the baby has Downs.

Next visit, hopefully we will be able to tell beanie's gender! CANNOT wait!

And my tummy seemed to have grown overnight. Is that possible?!

December Staycation

Before we found out I was expecting beanie, we made family plans to do a road trip by chartering a private coach to Sunway Lagoon. The last time we traveled as a family was to Malacca and that was at least 4 years ago. Then some of us couldn't make it, so the plan changed to flying up to Penang since I haven't been. And then the kiasi me found out about the pregnancy and decided to can the trip because I don't want to travel in the first trimester.

Anyway, long story short, we didn't make it overseas, and DH and I thought we could have our own little family staycation in town, by splurging a little more on a nice hotel with a good room. So I went on to do a research. The dates coincide with the Christmas festive season so we had in mind to let B stay up later to experience the Orchard Christmas lighting. Most of the Orchard hotels were to "hotelsy" for me and we finally decided on Goodwood Park and book ourselves a nice little suite.

The hotel and rooms are no doubt dated, but the size of the room compensated everything. The moment we entered our room, B who was initially wary as usual, broke into a grin and jumped down the floor and started exploring the room. Of course, the sliding doors would appeal to him most, he spent a lot of time in and out the wardrobe. Let's just say the room and bathroom were massive and we were completely contented just staying indoors.

The problem with sitting on the post for so long is you tend to forget what you want to write about. In short, it was an incredible holiday, I was not bothered by morning sickness too much (hopefully that has subsided), B had a ball of a time and that made us super happy too. Spending time as a family especially now that DH is on leave makes me so happy.

Really, I'm just happy that there's someone to relieve me of taking care of Bradley. :p

LA Madison Preview [Sponsored]

A couple of Saturdays back  we had an invitation to attend a blogger preview for LA Madison Marine Parade. It is an enrichment centre that combines montessori and Reggio Emilia approach in early childhood education in their programmes for children 18 months to 6 years old.

Whilst I have more or less confirmed B's kindergarten (that's a post for another day), I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn what LA Madison has to offer. And since I'm not sending B to school until 2016, this could be an option for him before kindergarten starts.

Some background information about LA Madison:

Their vision is "to be the leader and innovator in early childhood education" by providing happy and safe environment where children can achieve their fullest potential before embarking on their compulsory education.

They have 4 primary programmes for children age 18 months to 6 years old:

Happy Feet - 18 months to 3 years old

• Focuses on development of functional independency and important sensorial and cognitive skills 

Explorer  - 3 to 4 years old

• Focuses on the learning of phonics and language through activities such as dramatisation and role playing, concept of math and planning and implementation of simple scientific investigations

Thinker - 4 to 5 years old

• Children will be exposed to different learning possibilities to challenge their logical and critical thinking skill and understanding of math and science concepts

Enlighter - 5 to 6 years old

• Focus on the development of greater independence and self-control of the children

As you may know, B has never been exposed to a school environment and I always had the intention to let him experience it sooner rather than later so that it will be less traumatic for him when the time comes for him to go to school. Suffice to say, it was an eye opener for me as well to see how B would react in such an environment. Of course, in the beginning, he clung on tightly to me, but when he saw the play area, he simply couldn't resist.

There's water and there's sand, of course he couldn't resist. Somehow, I felt a strange tinge seeing him play amongst other kids.

The kids were given time to warm up a little with the sand and water play in this little playroom next to the classroom. It worked but when the time came to proceed to class, we had to pry B off, and even when class started, he kept wanting to escape the room and get back to the play area.

So the parents were given a preview of how classes would be conducted. Typically, lessons are conducted in Mandarin or English during the entire 2 hour session per day and rotated daily. But since this was a preview for the parents, we got to experience both during the 2 hours we were there. 

It started off with Mandarin class, exploring the underwater world and various types of sea creatures, a short tea break where sandwiches were served and then back to class with English lessons. There was quite a bit of singing and dancing which the older kids participated in, B, didn't really know what was going on and was only really interested in the bubble machine.

I like how the teachers were flexible with B. When they were supposed to paste some pictures on a designated wall with instructions, B was oblivious and in his own world, the Chinese teacher suggested he paste them on the wall nearer to him instead, and this worked out perfectly for him. He liked the activity and kept going forward to get more fish to paste on the wall.

The last picture above is of the class making a crab. B was only interested in those plastic eyes and the teachers were also flexible to let him play with it and were even playing along with him. So, that I was rather impressed despite my initial thoughts of them being disorganised. Quite understandably though, since that day was their very first class and they were probably relying on the previewers to provide them with some feedback.

If you are interested in finding out more about LA Madison, they are having an open house on 20th December, you should check it out:

LA Madison Open House

Date: 20 December 2014, Saturday

Time: 930am to 12pm

Venue: 1 Marine Parade Central, #04-07 Parkway Centre (same building as MacDonalds)

You can RSVP for the programme talks and preview by calling 82004052 or email: enquiry@la-madison.com. 

For more information, please like their Facebook page and share with your friends and other parents who might be interested.

And.... LA Madison is kind enough to offer my readers a special package if you sign up at their open house!

All you need to do is quote my blog when you register your child during the Open House and get extra classes for the first month. Sign up for their daily programme (5 days/week) and get additional 4 Saturdays of free classes, or sign up for their 3 day/week programme and get additional 2 Saturdays of classes for free.

My suggestion is go and have a look and feel at the centre and hear what they have to offer - it might just be something you have been looking for or perhaps give you an idea of what to expect. Have fun at the Open House!

Day 3 and counting

Ok...ay. ...

So yesterday seemed to be fine too.. though there was still some slight nausea. Today, so far so good, we'll see.

DH came home last night after being away for 4 nights. He had wanted to take the day off today to spend time with B, but there's too much work to do before he travels again on Monday, then it's his time off. He will be on about 2 weeks leave and it will be a blast for B! We had originally planned on the family trip to Penang but because of a few other reasons,  that had been canned. Our little family of 3, plus little beanie of course, will be doing a staycation in Orchard so B can experience the Xmas lighting. Hopefully by the time I pass my first trimester, we can tag along with daddy on one of his business trips.. he has so many coming up.

There's so much to do before beanie arrives. I know that's not till July but given the way we procrastinate, it will be here before we know it. The next big project, converting our dressing room into baby room and getting our carpenter build a wardrobe for our room.

Exciting!

Finally Normal... Or Not?

After what felt like forever, today, I felt normal.

I finally felt normal enough to bring B to the playground. It has been sooooo long since we last went down and he had such a great time on the slides. I felt so guilty.

The last 2 weeks was a disaster. There was no fixed time for the morning sickness to set in. Sometimes it starts right after I wake and I know that day will be a bad day. Some day I feel alive and fully functional until late afternoon where I'll be completely miserable. On my bad days, I've tried all the supposedly tested ways to curb morning sickness, from taking small meals, to sipping ginger or peppermint tea, to using the Sea-band which works on your nei-guan pressure points to relieve nausea, to using essential oils, basically everything, they all do not work. What did work was to really let it go, i.e. throw up. So I had been busy burying my head in the toilet bowl. Sighs.

I have not cooked for the family for a while. Poor B has been porridge if it was just me and him at home. Thankfully I have my mum cook for him, so at least he gets some variety. I am out-of-this-world thankful for this little trooper who has been nothing but cooperative. Just 2 days back, I was vomiting my gut out in the bathroom and I heard him come up behind me, closing and opening the toilet door. Then he stepped in, which I couldn't stop him but say, "Bradley please don't come in, mummy's sick". You wouldn't believe what the boy did next. After I flushed, he came right up to me while I was still squating on the floor, and buried his head in my chest like how he would when I ask him to "sayang" mummy. I broke down in tears and hugged him so tight. Then he pushed me away after 2 seconds.

What have I done to deserve this sweet little thing? Oh I could cry again.

Sorry, I blame it on the raging hormones.

Hope to be back real soon!