Monthly Archives: March 2010

Admiralty Park

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I’ve been to Admiralty Park 3 times this year and I think it’s a great little park to visit because there’s so much to see there with the forested areas, the mangrove and the river running through the park. It’s perfect for teachers who want to do some fieldwork for the Natural Vegetation topic! There is a good website by Republic Polytechnic about the park that’s quite useful.

The west entrance to the park. There’s a Sakura restaurant at this entrance.

The forebay which traps sediments and rubbish so the water in Sungei Cina will be cleaner

The usual dos and don’ts

There are quite a few nipah palms in the park. They are really useful things! The fruits (when immature) are the attap chee that we always see in our desserts. The leaves are used to thatch roofs for attap huts and can be woven into mats and baskets. Young leaves can be used to roll cigarettes. The sap from the palm is made into gula melaka and can even be fermented for toddy. Amazing!


The leaves that can be seen above the nipah fruit are known as mile-a-minute weed. These grow really quickly, like up to 27mm a day, and climb all over other plants, preventing them from getting sunlight. In Admiralty Park, you can see some tall trees that are totally covered by this evil weed!

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Baby Slings & Carriers!

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selena with asher in ergo, me with anya in patapum (with sleeping hood over her head)
I’d been looking for a new baby carrier for a while. With Anya getting heavier everyday, it was getting really hard to carry her in my arms for long periods and the Baby Björn that had served me well for a long time was starting to kill my shoulders. My cousin Selena raved to me about her Ergo baby carrier which she managed to get second-hand from one of those baby forum sites. That woman is really good at finding cheap and good second-hand things!!! I’m nowhere near as resourceful and patient as she is and a new Ergo was a bit too expensive for my liking so I needed other options!

After a bit of Googling, I found Baby Slings & Carriers which has a shop at Square 2 @ Novena so we dropped by. The service there is amazing! I really love it when I go to shops where the owners are the ones selling the products and are clearly passionate about what they are selling. I go mad when I meet sales assistants that tell me silly things like “everything is the same, only the colour and the price are different”! So I got to try on many different carriers and they gave me recommendations based on my needs and pointed out the pros and cons of each carrier. They clearly knew what they were talking about and were very warm and patient. We got a Patapum in the end and now I’m using it very happily! Yay! It distributes the weight to the hips so I can carry Anya for long periods without feeling the strain which is great especially when I’m out alone with her. Anya sits very comfortably in it and usually falls asleep after a while.

Hang on. I had a point to this post. Oh yah, I have a card which gives 10% off another carrier at that shop. It expires 10 Sept so if anyone wants the card, just let me know!

Mario Mushroom

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We bought a bike for me and got a child seat for it. Adrian and I were hoping to go and cycle together with Anya behind me. Alas, she refuses to wear the helmet and spends the whole time trying to pull it off which is really unsafe!! The helmet fits her and I think it makes her look like a super mario mushroom. Hahaha. She really hates having anything on her head at this particular point of time. She won’t wear her hair clips, her sun hat and definitely won’t wear her bike helmet. SIGH. We’ll put it on hold and try again next month.

Birthday Party Logistics!

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This is mostly for my own reference but some of you may find the info useful too.

Party Location

I decided to use Scrumptious Cafe at Turf City for Anya’s birthday party because it’s relatively near my place. The last time I went to Scrumptious, the food was pretty good as well. I like the play area that they have. It’s big enough so kids can have enough space but small enough so it’s easy to keep an eye on your kid. It’s also more suitable for younger kids unlike some of the other places like Fidgets. Anya definitely had fun playing with the toys and bouncing around on the trampoline.

It was quite difficult trying to secure the place for the party though. They don’t have a website nor an email address listed anywhere. When I called and asked for info on their party packages, the lady who took down my name and email address never got back to me. I had to call again and explain want I wanted all over again to get the info sent to me. After looking at the packages, I decided to just reserve a table instead of getting a specific package because the packages didn’t really suit my needs and I wanted my guests to be able to order whatever they wanted from the menu. Scrumptious was fine with that and even said they would do the birthday deco for me. They also went out of the way to clear a space in their fridge for Anya’s ginormous cake which I thought was very nice of them.

Initially, they wanted to send me the menu and get my guests to pre-order so that they wouldn’t have to wait too long for the food on that day. Then they said the size was manageable and we didn’t need to pre-order. But 2 nights before the party, they sent me the menu and said they had another group reservation for that Saturday and thought it would be better if we pre-ordered. There was something wrong with the menu document they sent me and I replied and said I had problems reading it but they didn’t send me another one. Obviously, I couldn’t get my friends’ orders in advance with such short notice.

On the day itself, we turned up on time but the tables were not arranged and there were no decorations yet. And the deco turned out to be a rather sad string of plastic party flags and a cardboard sign for the entrance. I know it’s good of them to do the deco even though we didn’t get a package but if I’d known that it was going to be so sparse, I would have brought my own deco to add to it. But the most disappointing part was that many, many items on the menu were not available or were sold out and whatever we did manage to order didn’t taste great. We also had to remind them of certain orders that didn’t get delivered to the table. When the bill came, some of the stuff we’d ordered but didn’t get because they were sold out were not taken off the bill so that was a pain as well.


I just feel that they should have been more prepared since they were dealing with the Saturday crowd and two group reservations. After all, there’s a Giant in Turf City, so if they were running low on ingredients, they could have restocked. I’ll probably go back to Scrumptious again just to hang out and let Anya play but won’t entrust another important party to them which is sad because I liked the place. :(

Still, I think the kids had fun and that’s the most important to me. I can’t wait to see the pictures that Joan took!! She’s so nice to come down and take photos for Anya’s party even though she’s so busy. Thanks, babe! I really appreciate it.

Birthday Cake

I got the cake from Smiling Orchid because I wanted something traditional, i.e. a big number ‘1’ without any 3D things on it. The cake was HUGEEEE and we barely made a dent in it!! I ordered vanilla sponge with chocolate chip filling and I thought it was quite nice and the cake was very pretty too!


Party Bag

I didn’t realise how challenging it would be trying to put together a party goody bag for a bunch of under-2s! If you look at all the party favours in the shops, they are for 3 years and above because of small parts! So this was what I come up with in the end:


That little ol’ shop in Holland V that is beside StanChart (or is it HSBC) has a lot of affordable party stuff. I got the bags ($2 for 12) and blowouts ($4 for 12) there. They have nice balloons too and I got one for Anya on her birthday. It’s still floating around my house!! The clappers were quite popular with the kids and those are from Centrepoint. The stuffed toy is just $1.50 and the bath squeeze toy is $9.95 for 4 (the other three being whale, hippo and crocodile). The kids really love the ladybird because it zips around and flips over. Those are $1.90 each from Great World City. The organic raisins are from Rail Mall and cost $7.20 for 18 mini boxes. And of course, the Baby Bites are $2.40 for a box of 24 from any supermarket.

Zoo!!

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We brought Anya to the Zoo again and this time around, we had so much more fun (especially because she wasn’t sick unlike the last time)!! Some photos from last Thursday!!

Anya LOVES animals. Whenever she sees a dog, she gets really excited

Her first ride on an elephant!

Family shot before the Splash performance

Kids

Anya having loads of fun at the water play area!

Reflections for Anya’s Twelfth Month

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Your 12th month passed in a flash! It didn’t start out so well because you were diagnosed with HFMD right before Chinese New Year. Thank God it was a very mild case and you didn’t have any painful ulcers in your mouth. You couldn’t go out visiting during the first few days of CNY and had to stay home which made you super miserable. You still managed to score loads of ang baos though, including quite a few from the shopkeepers around Clementi Central whom you know so well because of your frequent walks around the area!

you at our 团圆饭

your usual ladylike self

You have a new front tooth coming out from the top and from the looks of it, I think many more teeth are going to follow. As a result, you are always chewing on anything and everything and you are quite a drool machine!

brushing your 2½ teeth

You learnt more tricks this month! You can pretend to cry on demand and this emotional manipulation on your part disturbs your Auntie Debs greatly. You ‘exercise’ by rotating your trunk from side to side with your arms held up. You move your hands in circles when asked to 洗牌! You love making Red Indian sounds! You have also taken to pointing very specifically to demand that we turn on the tv or bring you out or feed you.

being Red Indians in church

You babble a lot more now and your most distinct sounds are those associated with food. You go “mum, mum, mum” when you want milk and can say something that sounds a lot like “eat!” You make a “keerrrrr” sound whenever you see an animal so it was quite strange when you did that on seeing Sophie for the first time. You like to imitate sounds especially when we make weird noises. You’re not walking yet but cruising a lot more and getting around very efficiently. You are super super active and full of energy!

You are really friendly towards strangers and make it a point to wave to as many people as possible when we’re out and about. You have a great sense of humour and love to laugh and to make others laugh. You are so much fun to be with and I look forward to spending time with you everyday.

laughing with daddy

Towards the end of the month, your Ah Ma brought you to her hairdresser who trimmed your fringe for free. I thought you looked quite toot after your haircut but it’s good that your fringe no longer gets into your eyes! You also visited Auntie Sharon and Baby Sophia in the hospital. I hope that you two become great friends!

with your fringe in your eyes, pre-haircut

saying “keerrrr” to Sophia

You celebrated your first birthday many times near the end of the month and this is you (and me) on 9 Mar 2010:

my little birthday girl

I thank God everyday for you. I look forward to the rest of the time with you but I already miss this one year that has passed. Just know this: you are loved very much!