a spot of singapore

RVP spotted at the opening of Madagascar: A Crate Adventure

May 17, 2011

Universal Studios opened its new ride Madagascar: A Crate Adventure yesterday and we were there for a test run with the kids. I have several guiding principles in life and one of them is never to turn down an invite to a theme park. Unless that theme park is Haw Par Villa, then it’s literally over my dead body, which incidentally would fit right in with the place (the dead body, I mean).

Truett was very excited to be going to “newsal studios to see the big, giant ball with a lot of smoke” and he was even more excited to find out that there was a lot more to newsal studios than the giant ball, which you technically could see for free at the entrance. His first ride on the Madagascar Crate Adventure was like an epiphanic moment for him. The whole time, he sat looking like it was the most awesome experience in his life and after we were done, he made us go on another 3 more times.

I’m not going to spoil it for you, but suffice to say, it’s going to be a hit with the kids. And adults who don’t like the death-defying drops. Previously, they had only been on the carousel and teacup rides, which is basically like running on the spot, except with nice music and colorful animals.

This was their first proper theme park ride, with all the magic of themed characters, adventurous sets and a real moving boat. In short, they loved it.

In fact, it was so fun that Van Persie was there to try out the ride because obviously, Arsenal players have better things to do than lose matches now that Manchester United has taken the league. Sorry Arsenal fans, couldn’t resist.

Also, thanks to the folks at Universal, we had a very nice lunch at Casa del Wild. This is probably where I show you pictures of the food but my food photography sucks so here’s a shot of the entrance.

As usual, the rest of the park was lovely. Truett was tall enough to go on his first roller coaster ride and he went on that 4 times as well. I asked him if it was scary and even though he was all “It’s not scary, just FUN”, I had a really good time seeing the look of pure terror on his face during the drop.

I’m not very good at posing for pictures so left to my own devices, this is what I usually do. The husband kept saying it was boring and I should try out some new moves.

Fortunately for me, there were all these people with wonderful ideas on how to take a proper photograph and all I had to do was to watch and learn. What do you think?

Baby girl had some pretty awesome moves of her own so she showed me a couple of good ones. I’m probably going to leave the posing to her from now on.

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Kidspeak

Sugar, oh honey honey

May 16, 2011

So guess what? I don’t know if it’s because she’s entering a phase of self-actualization or that my baby girl is actually not the docile, sweet little sugarmuffin we all thought she was but she’s recently started to develop an OPINION on everything.

Not that I have anything against having an opinion because hey, I’ve got lots of those in case you haven’t already noticed. One time, I had to eat an entire raw carrot because of an opinion that turned out to be rather erroneous so let’s just say that I don’t get judgey on opinionated people.  No, it’s because my mild-mannered child has taken to screaming those opinions at the top of her lungs. Usually at me.

See, there once was a time where she would smile and accommodate all the demands of her big brother. She was the perfect complement to her brother’s rather more angsty personality, the yin to his yang. She was momma’s easy baby.

Not anymore though.

At first, I thought it was still part of her Terrible Two phase, but she’s since outgrown those unreasonable screaming fits that cannot be pacified. These days, she puts up a very convincing argument of why she needs to have things her way. In place of all that frustration is a sort of confident understanding that she’s entitled to an opinion and is determined to flaunt it to the world.

Part of asserting her independence requires her to be in a constant state of disagreeableness.

“Sweetie, it’s time to bathe!”

“NO!”

“Mei mei want to play trains with me?”

“NO!”

“Give mommy a kiss?”

“I SAID NO!”

“Want ice-cream?”

“NO…um, yes.” (very reluctantly and only because ice-cream is as of right now, the object of her heart’s greatest desire)

She’s learning to tell her brother off in typical wannabe-big-sister fashion. “NAUGHTY BOY KOR KOR, YOU MUST PICK UP THE TOYS. U WANT NAUGHTY CORNER???”

She’s coming up with increasingly peculiar demands like I’m not supposed to put her soup in the orange bowl, it’s got to be the pink one. She has to feed herself and walk around drinking from a proper cup even though she spills about 78% of the water on my living room floor. “I WANT THE CUPPPPPPPP”, she’d yell and should I decide to challenge her autonomy, she goes into gorilla-face mode and lets out the mother of all screams. Which she stops promptly the moment she gets her way.

In a way, I’m glad that she’s listening to reason but I’ve since come to realize that an-almost-two-year-old’s idea of reasoning involves a very bizarre set of rules that mostly involve them getting their way BECAUSE I WANT IT NOW.

It’s a little tough to argue with that.

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side effects of motherhood, travelling

Lessons from the aquarium

May 12, 2011

During our visit to the the KLCC aquarium last week, I took the chance to sneak in a little science lesson for Tru so it would be both FUN AND EDUCATIONAL YAYYY! Except that I wasn’t very good at marine biology so I had to first learn them myself before I could impart those pearls of wisdom (how’s that for a marine metaphor?) to my son.

I usually don’t pay much attention to those descriptive write ups next to the animal exhibits because I’d much rather be making faces at them but as it turns out, learning can be so much fun and we both came back a little smarter.

I’ll even share some with you so you can skip the trip down and go straight to the learning bit. Unless you want to go down to make faces at the fish, then I highly recommend that you do that.

1. Tru and I have the same favorite marine animal – sea turtles.

2. Male horseshoe crabs can remain attached to the female for weeks just because being together is so much better than being apart.

3. Question: What do I have in common with piranhas? We’re both cute and love meat. True story.

4. Sand Tiger Sharks can keep growing teeth to replace broken or chipped ones. They will literally never run out of teeth.

5. The only thing more gross than a regular frog is an albino one. Being translucent sort of makes it worse.

6. DON’T EVER PEE ON A JELLYFISH STING. I don’t care what you learnt from watching Friends. Don’t do it.

7. Tru’s fish motto: Fish are friends, not food.

8. My fish motto: Fish are food. Very tasty and nutritious food.

 

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