Monthly Archives

March 2014

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IMAGINE – the best kind of fun

From time to time, the husband makes up wacky games to play with the kids and one of their all-time favourite games is called the Super Awesome Imagination Chamber, where their entire playroom is turned into a space/time travel machine. It’s a fairly simple game that lends itself to all kinds of silliness and sometimes awesomeness.

We close the curtains, dim the lights and put 2 special Captain’s Chairs in the middle of the room. They’ll strap down (one needs to be safe even while pretending) and take turns to decide which space planet to visit.

Often, they’ll describe what they imagine to be the coolest, funnest places in the whole universe and we’ll have imaginary parties in their chosen planets. Interestingly enough, Captain Truett’s travels will usually include epic hostile alien battles while Captain Kirsten takes us to colourful fairy rainbow planets with lots of dancing and tea parties.

When I heard about IMAGINE by Changi Airport’s Project Jewel, I had a feeling they’d be thrilled to take part.

jewel1

Project Jewel_Photo 2e

Ok, back up a little. Project Jewel will be the new lifestyle destination at Changi Airport offering retail offerings and unique leisure attractions, including a large-scale, lush indoor garden with a huge 40-metre central waterfall. Scheduled to open in 2018, it will be THE new awesome attraction in Singapore.

imagine

With the IMAGINE contest, Project Jewel is getting all of us, including the little ones aged 5 to 12, to share our vision for the iconic development. It’s a brilliant move because when it comes to creating fun places, kids often have the most amazing ideas. The contest is open to anyone aged 5 years and above and residing in Singapore. All you need to do is submit a 2-dimensional artwork (like a photograph, sketch or painting) on what you imagine Project Jewel to be. It doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the airport, so let your imagination go crazy.

I gave Truett and Kirsten a piece of drawing block each and told them to draw a planet they’d love to visit the most and here’s what they came up with. No prizes for guessing who came up with what.

Dancing Fairy Planet, where fairies have flowers for hands and dance all day.

kirsten's artwork-2

Alien Battle Planet, with hostile aliens and a swirling vortex of terror. And also an ice angry bird.

Truett's artwork-2

Sometimes, I look at their art creations and think they’re a little high but hey, we can all afford to have a little high in our lives once in a while.

For the contest, a total of fifteen winners will be selected to win the following prizes in the respective categories:

  • Top 10 from Open category (13 years old and above) – $1,000 Changi Vouchers each
  • Top 5 from Junior category (5-12 years old) – $500 Changi Vouchers each

Even if you don’t win the vouchers, the real prize is that there’s a chance for your artwork to displayed as a larger-than-life creative interpretation and reproduced as art on Project Jewel’s 800-metres of hoarding during its construction. Some of them may also be developed into art exhibits for display in Changi Airport itself, or produced into memorabilia.

Contest ends on 31 March 2014 so there’s still plenty of time to submit your masterpiece here. For more information, visit the Project Jewel website.

pregnancy

3 boys and a girl

I’ll admit that I’ve been in a state of semi-denial since my last ultrasound scan. I suppose I already knew then that it was a boy but with this being my last baby and I had all these dreams of having 2 girls that I wasn’t ready to give up just yet, I thought I’d hold on to hope for as long as I could.

Well, that hope is all gone now because it’s most definitely a boy.

During my prenatal scan this morning, I asked the lady (I’m not sure if she was a doctor or nurse or lab tech person so I’m just going to refer to her as the lady with the impressive-looking ultrasound machine) who was doing my detailed scan if it was definitive and she gave me a look like I was questioning her scanning abilities so for dramatic effect, she magnified the image of my baby’s man parts several times then said “Trust me, that’s not a finger” followed by “Congratulations, you’re having a boy.”

I thought I’d be devastated but I’d describe this feeling as mild panic mixed with severe panic. And maybe a little bit thrilled because 3 boys? That’s serious street cred.

I’m doing 2 things today, which are to pack up my stash of baby girl dresses to give away (sad face) and settle on a boy’s name (happy face). And then if I have time leftover, I will build a secret girl’s hideout for us outnumbered girls to retreat to the moment we get overrun with testosterone.

Upon hearing the news, these were the kids’ reactions. They’re probably best described in pictures.

truett

kirsten

finn

Speaking of names, I asked Truett & Kirsten what they wanted to name their newest baby brother and they unanimously picked…Olaf.

According to Kirsten, it’s the “cutest name in the whole world” and “it will be so cool because when I wake up every morning, I will say “GOOD MORNING OLAF!” and he will give me a hug.”

milestones & musings

Lessons from a rookie tooth fairy

HEY LOOK WHO LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH!!

Yeah, this guy. Who now has the cutest toothless grin I ever saw.

tru no tooth

His left front tooth started getting a little wobbly in school 2 days ago and he came home looking mighty proud of it, like “mom, look at my tooth it’s so gross”. And it was really gross, like some parts were dislodged while other parts were still dangling from the gums and I could see bits of gum flesh. Why are boys so fascinated with grossness?

I offered to yank it out but I immediately regretted my offer because ewww. It’s a good thing he objected violently to my suggestion anyway.

Then yesterday, while he was at my in-law’s place, the tooth did us all a favour and fell out on its own. Sort of. I asked him how it happened and he said there was a hair that got into his mouth (how??) which he couldn’t get out (why??) so he started rubbing his mouth and teeth (why would this work??) and next thing he knew, the tooth was in his hand (not sure what became of the offending hair but I didn’t ask). There was a bit of bleeding but apparently it didn’t hurt much so all things considered, it’s a yay, question mark?

I’m new to this whole tooth falling out territory but we wanted to make it special for him so I thought maybe we’d go all the way with the tooth fairy story and see where that takes us.

I told him to put the tooth under his pillow and at night while he slept, a tooth fairy will come and replace it with money. His eyes opened wide for just a moment and he was like “Really?? you mean…” then his voice trailed off as he realised the implausibility of it all.

But I was determined to give it a shot at least so I played along and wrote him a note from the tooth fairy while he slept. Not quite sure what the going rate for a tooth is these days so we settled on $2 and a coupon for an hour’s worth of PS3 gaming.

tooth fairy note-2

Two things about this tooth fairy business. 1. Putting a tooth under one’s pillow is borderline gross and unhygienic. 2. It’s impossible to locate a tiny tooth under a pillow in the dark, especially if the tooth shifted during the night and dropped under the bed.

After he fell asleep, I went in with my little fairy note and my iPhone torch to make the swap but his tooth was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t under his pillow or around his bed or in his hands. On retrospect, I should have put it into a pouch instead but these are the mistakes a rookie tooth fairy mom makes, we live and learn. I spent 5 minutes feeling around his bed looking for a tiny gross tooth in semi-darkness until he started stirring and I figured it’d be embarrassing to be caught in the act of pretending to be the tooth fairy. No tooth to be found but I decided to leave the note and money anyway.

This morning, I woke up to the happiest little toothless boy. “LOOK LOOK LOOK! THE TOOTH FAIRY CAME!!”

a visit by the tooth fairy

I gave him a giant hug and he whispered “Actually I know it’s you, thanks mom! Also, you forgot to take my tooth, it’s right here.”

Tooth fairy mission: FAIL.

Mommy mission: SMASHING SUCCESS.

coolest kids ever

Deliriously happy

So I was having a bit of a crummy day – you know, one of those days you wished would go faster so you could skip right to the end and not have to see it ever again.

But see, one of the benefits of working from home is being able to take 15 minutes to hang out with my baby. On a normal day, looking at this dude would have cheered my up considerably but it wasn’t a normal day. Turns out that it was one of those deliriously happy days for my baby and I got to see this.

That made me deliriously happy too and my crummy day got a whole lot less crummy all of a sudden.

finn in a tent

finn in a tent 3

finn in a tent 2

The end.

Finn

A case of cabin fever

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It looks like a certain someone has developed a severe case of cabin fever. I suspected this when my homebound little man started putting on his shoes and pressing his face against the gate, yelling “GO! GO!! GO!!!” at various points throughout the day.

I think he realised the yelling wasn’t working very well so he figured out a way to get himself some sun while being stuck at home. There’s this little space by the door where the sunlight comes in just right – he found a sweet spot, made himself all comfy and proceeded to work on a tan for his chubby calves.

I took a photo, went off to fix a drink and when I came back to check on him a few minutes later, he was still at it, looking rather pleased with his progress.

Nothing quite like a baby with gorgeously tanned calves.

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