End of Term 3 Party

This has been a busy week for both Faith and I -- Faith having to attend 4 classes and me busy being a chauffeur-mom. Its the last week of the term for both Little Gym and Julia Gabriel. We needed to make-up a class for Little Gym, hence, the additional day of lesson on top of the 3 classes that Faith goes to weekly.

Friday marks the end of the Term 3 party at JG. I had no idea what to expect of the party since it was my first time but I signed up to bring some home-made eggless chocolate and banana mini muffins for the party. Turned out that there were lots of food at the end -- the kids don't eat that much really :)

It is also the last day for Sugita, the teacher in Faith's class, as she has resigned from the school. Even though we'd only attended 5 classes towards the tail-end of the term, I really liked and enjoyed Sugita's classes. She obviously loves all the kids, is extremely perky, very patient, fun-loving and a great and interesting story-teller to boot, making her classes a great deal of fun.

The children were told to dress in their party clothes, which I gather to mean to dress up. The teachers were all togged up in their best gears too, instead of the usual JG t-shirts. The big nice toys were all hauled in to provide lots of indoor fun play, followed by some welcome songs, party snacks, more play and then out to the playground.

Having taught Faith to shoot the hoop with a round ball, Faith had a blast dunking all sorts and sizes of balls into the basketball hoop. She also had a turn riding her favourite toy car and also pushing Ria (the other girl in the picture) in the same car later.

As Faith seems to settle more comfortably to the routine, environment and new playmates at JG, I'm also starting to enjoy myself too. I too have made friends with a few of the mothers there.

In fact, two of them remarked to me on separate occasions that they were "envious" that Faith is such a well-behaved and calm girl in class. Hahaha.... yeah.... my little one takes on a slightly different persona in class, especially the way she eats.

At home, give her some biscuits and crackers and she would be busy stuffing them into her face like there's no tomorrow. Yet, for the last few snack time at JG, while all the other kids would similarly be cramming their biscuits into their already filled mouth, Faith would take dainty little bites out of hers. She would slowly and patiently finish each biscuit, wait a while or take a sip of drink before she takes another one. Eating it with the same exact slowness.

She would be one of the early ones to arrive at the table for snacks and yet, the last to leave -- taking her time to "savour" the snacks. The funniest thing is that when all the kids and moms have left the table, she would surreptitiously cram a few biscuits into her mouth!

Give her another few more classes at JG and perhaps, she might show more of the exuberant behaviour that she exhibits at home.

A troubling incident

This little incident troubled me a great deal.

Evening time, we brought Faith out for a swim at the SAFRA Yishun pool before dinner. I was with Faith in the changing room to clean her up after her swim.

As we were finishing, a maid walked in with her charge, a little girl that looked to be around 2 years old, plus minus some. She immediately proceeded to remove the girl's clothes and diapers, telling her repeatedly not to pee and to let her know if she needed to "shh-shh".

Out came the clothes and diapers and as the maid was digging in her bag for the swimming diapers and costume, the little girl let loose with a volley of pee. She peed some onto her shoes (which the maid had yet to remove) and a little onto the bag as it was very close to her.

The maid immediately exclaimed loudly, starting to scold and smack the girl on the feet, all the while saying "You naughty girl! I told you not to shh-shh... if you want to shh-shh, must tell me!".

As I contemplated telling her off for smacking the girl, she finished dressing the girl in her swimming costume and headed out of the toilet.

I passed Faith to Louis, who was waiting outside, and headed to shower and change myself. All the time, I was pondering in my mind about the little incident that I had just witnessed.

After I was done, I left the toilet and took a peek at the pool area to see if I could spot the girl and the maid. I saw her and the maid, together with what must be both the girls' parents. The mom was pregnant and both the mom and dad were already in their swimming costumes.

As I continued with my internal debate whether to approach the parents, I decided to ask Louis for his opinions. In the end, we decided to leave things alone. Becos they didn't witness the incident, we wouldn't know how the parents would interpret the situation even if we had recount it factually to them. We wouldn't know how they would handle the issue with the maid either.

What troubled me a great deal was that the maid was so quick to smack the girl for something that wasn't even a behavioural transgression. Why didn't the maid prepared the swimming diapers readily on hand when she took out the normal ones out? Why didn't the mom went in with the maid? Does the maid have a habit of smacking the girl for little wrong-doings, warranted or otherwise? Would the little girl be able to articulate to her parents if the maid hits or smacks her too hard?

To give the maid the benefit of the doubt, I have no idea how well-trained or untrained the girl was in toilet training. She might not be aware either that the ability for bladder control requires certain maturity of physical development in the child.

It would be so easy to dismiss the entire incident and say not to ever leave your kids with a maid. Yet, I know that there are some maids who are the kindest and most loving care-givers to their charges. For some, a maid is an indispensable help or even part of the family.

This incident highlights yet another reason why I'm ever thankful that I am a SAHM and fortunate enough that both sets of Faith's grandparents are more than willing to help out with the caring of Faith too.

I hope for the little girl's sake that this was one of the rare occasions that the maid lifted her hands to smack her and that there would not be many situations in which the parents would leave the girl alone with the maid.

And I hope too that I did not make a wrong decision in not telling the parents.

Having fun learning

While waiting for Louis to knock off from work, I happened to see this cute posters at the ground floor of UE Square Shopping Centre.

I've been meaning to get Faith some posters. Partly to conscientiously remind myself to teach her things - be it alphabets, numbers, body parts, animals etc - and also to spruce up and brighten the room.

She seems to like looking at them. Now, she's able to pinpoint more parts of her face e.g. teeth and tongue :)

24 Aug 2008

Today's my actual birthday. I woke up as usual to find that Louis has left for his weekly badminton session. Checking that Faith was still fast asleep, I tiptoed out of the room to prepare and start Faith's porridge in the slow cooker.

There sitting on the kitchen counter top -- where Louis knows it would be the first place I head to every morning -- was an envelope with a card.

A birthday card from him and Faith.

Its been such a long time since I've received a card from Louis. So long that I don't even remember when was the last time. Then again, Louis and I are fairly down-to-earth people, not given to romantic gestures. Still, its nice to receive a card. Especially when he has managed to get Faith to scrawl her "signature" too :)

Having turned on the slow cooker and read the card, I headed back to bed with a nice, warm fuzzy feeling.

The plan for the night was for the three of us to go for a semi-buffet dinner at Cafe 2000 @ M Hotel.

In the end, dinner was packed noodles (for Louis) and vermicelli (for me) from the coffeeshop downstairs :)

Hahaha... don't feel sorry for me. It was what I wanted.

Let me explain why...

After our usual routine of feeding Faith her lunch, we brought Faith over to my MIL's place, intending to leave her there for a few hours while Louis and I go have our lunch and perhaps catch a show. However, Faith didn't want to let go of the either of us when we reached my MIL's place. She insisted on holding either Louis' or my hand at all times.

My FIL suggested that they (my MIL, Faith and him) head to AMK hub along with us. While they bring Faith to the NTUC and distract her, Louis and I can then head off for lunch and movie. Louis and I decided against watching the show when we reached the Hub as was only half an hour left for us to queue for the tickets and eat our lunch. We rather have a leisurely lunch.

After lunch, my PIL called us to inform us that they were heading to Queensway Shopping Centre. My FIL wanted to buy a badminton racket to replace the one that he lost recently. We decided to go along too as it was near to Ikea and I had been meaning to buy some stuff from there but haven't had the time.

We spent quite a bit of time at Ikea. My MIL bought some kids' plastic bowls and utensils -- I believe some of them will end up being Faith's toys, stored in a section of the TV console that my MIL emptied just for her playthings.

I bought a plastic high chair for her, even though I already have one at home. I've been wanting to get Faith to learn to self-feed for the longest time but have always procrastinated becos I wasn't looking forward to getting the floor and her clothe-lined high chair smeared with whatever food that falls off her spoon or mouth. With the plastic high chair, I could simply line the surroundings with plastic and haul it to the toilet and spray with water when it gets dirty.

I also ended up buying an assortment of stuff that I didn't particular need but thought they would be useful for the home :)

By the time we were ready to head back home, it was past 5.30 pm.

Like the previous day, the sky kept up with a steady stream of rain since the early afternoon and I knew it was the kind of rain that wouldn't let up but would just pour non-stop till the night.

I didn't fancy rushing home to change, dress up and get drenched in the rain from our house to the open-air carpark. Hence, I had suggested to Louis on the trip to Ikea that we should just have something simple for dinner.

By the time we reached home, prepared and fed Faith her dinner, the prospect of buying up our dinner from the coffeeshop downstairs sounded most appealing.

So, while I didn't do anything that was "wow" worthy on my birthday, I actually enjoyed the simple and mundane things that I did today, especially when it was spent with my loved ones.

It is interesting to note that my perspective on what makes my birthday a good day changes with age.

It used to be that when I was younger, birthdays were a big thing that I would always look forward to. It was a day that I get to do what I want with the adults closing both their eyes to indulge me on this special day. It was a day where I get my birthday cake, red eggs, sweets and presents. It also signifies that I'm one year older and can thus get to do the things that I've been prohibited from doing the year before becos I was "still too young".

As one age, birthdays are not something that I look forward to as eagerly as I did in my youth. It hasn't yet come to the stage that its a day that I dread for fear of the creeping digits signalling that I'm way over my prime.

For the last few years, I deem my birthday to be a good one if I spent it doing simple things or even nothing as long as nothing bad happened to put me in a bad or lousy mood.

Who knows? Maybe in another 20-30 years from now, I might deem my birthday to be a good one if it was done with a big bang -- elaborate dinner, birthday cake, presents and having all my children (and maybe grandchildren) to pay homage to me on my special day ;)

Eve's Birthday :)

It was with little fanfare, but a lot of warmth that we celebrated Eve's birthday. While this isn't Eve's first birthday we are celebrating with Faith, this year, we mananged to get a shot in of Faith with mommy's birthday cake (thanks again to Astee for the yummy cake). Unfortunately, Adrian wasn't able to join us as he was overseas...Adrian - here are the blown-up pics of the family doing what we do best - eating and celebrating :)

Little Miss Helpful

Louis and I have given up on eating at our main dining table for the longest time. We typically prefer hauling the Ikea children round table in and out to the living room every time we have our meals. That way, we can keep Faith company while she's eating her meals and watch some TV programmes too.

Lately, Faith has been tickled with helping us to carry the round blue table in and out to the living room whenever Louis or myself are hauling it out.

She likes to help out the teachers too at Julia Gabriel... helping to hold part of the washable trays as the teachers brought them out to stack them together for disinfecting :)

Picture blog 2 - The many faces of Faith in class

We introduced Faith to her first class just after her first birthday. From learning how to climb down "feet first" from the bed (Little Gym), to clanking her two ringing bells in tune (KinderMusik), and just having fun dancing (Julia Gabriel), she has shown many of her sides in class. There is of course one side of Faith that reminds us that she is still a child at heart - just wanting to do whatever she wants - regardless of what everyone else is doing in class.