A highlight during the holidays

Shortly after Christmas, I took the girls to two rural areas. We may think that there are no rural areas in Singapore, but there are, and they are rural areas that are different from Kranji, which has been somewhat touristified. The first place we went to was the Animal resort in seletar. The zoo it is not, but a run down little farmhouse with ducks, crowned cranes guinea pigs, and horses. The animals were not quite as free range as I had hoped, the guineas, for instance, were in cages, but the girls had a good time looking around.


The ducks: you can feed them, and the family animal lover was very excited to see them. They eat right off your hands





The crown cranes and the geese



The rabbits and guinea pigs



The girls were a little disappointed that the rabbits and guineas were caged and they couldnt touch them except through the bars. Perhaps an open air hutch for rabbits like they have in Langkawi zoo would be really nice. Then the children coould climb in with the animals.

One minute we were in the middle of HDB blocks and the next we were in roads that were narrow and without pavements. So when it rained, we had a good time with the streams and puddles.



We then went to Khatib to Oh farms. We had some difficulty finding the farm, and after getting caught in the rain twice and taking shelter under some blocks and going the wrong way twice, wee managed to find the narrow leading to nowhere road which had no pavement that led to a number of farms. There, we found the Oh hydroponic farm and butterfly garden, which was rather a feast to our eyes. We also bought six caterpillars home, 4 for us and two for Ramya. We thought it would be an interesting Science project to watch them turn into butterflies. Three of the caterpillars died in a couple of days, but two days after we had bought them, the fourth caterpillar, which was hanging started wiggling like mad and became a coccoon. If you have never seen a caterpillar turn into a cocoon before, I strongly recommend it, its one of the most fascinating pieces of metamorphosis around.







We are hoping that Mr butterfly will not come out when the kids are in school, and are expecting him out earliest on Friday

A playtime craft

Sophia wanted a princess castle for Christmas.



Introducing the princesses

Rapunzel on her tower


See her long hair



Ariel


Snowwhite, Jasmine and Beauty



Cinderella and the obligatory witch


Sophia wanted a witch when we made Rapunzel

All the dolls were made from wooden pegs, with yarn hair and the clothes from fabric scraps torn from the children's old clothes. Rapunzel is the fanciest, since I tore up some tulle from an old dress. Cincerlla could definitely be spruced up, but it will do for the moment. The castle was made from an old milk carton with kitchen roll towers.

Sophia, ofcourse, believes it is from Santy.

Sophia's first day at school

"This is the baby of mine", I sang, when Sophia asked me to carry her.

"Dont say she is not going to school!", said Sophia.

So the girl who has been pestering me about going to school since we registered her in April, and threw major tantrums is finally off to school. Anjali and I accompanied her this morning.

She has a new teacher, Ms Andrea, who is teaching for the first year. She was, apparently a student at Canossian convent herself. Talk about full circles.







Mikaela's sister and Gwen's brother were also joining N1, so I guess there is plenty of company



Sophia was sitting quietly until she got her hands on some blocks

Mostly about Anjali

I have not actively updated this blog for close to a month. There are several reasons for this, including an overload at work just prior to a scheduled two weeks leave. And one of my resolutions for this year is to go home as early as possible and to spend as much quality time as possible with the girls.

There are many things to record here, and it was a shock to me to see how much the girls were growing. Over the past couple of weeks at home, i have come to learn much about Anjali, which showed her morphing from a baby to a child.

There comes a time in the life of a parent when she realizes that her baby is not a baby anymore. Over the past two weeks I have come to realize that with Anjali. Here are some of the events that triggered this.

1. Transition to chapter books: I have been trying, time and again, to introduce Anjali to chapter books and she has never shown much interest, although she liked to hear and watch harry potter. But Harry Potter is so commercialized and the movies are se dumb, that I didnt want to encourage her love for the movies, although I used to tell her snippets from the book as conversation fillers. Then I started to tell the girls about the faraway tree and Anjali was very interested. She even began to make up lands and wanted to know more and when I read to her the faraway tree, she got through the whole book in about five sittings and now she asks for chapter books every evening and mostly at every meal. Sophia tries her best to sit and listen, but she still wants pictures in her books and finds the lack thereof quite disconceting

2. A sort of quietness. Anjali has always been quieter than Sophia but lately I find her getting more quieter. I know that her introvertedness comes from husband, and I am not quite sure if introvertedness is cause for concern. She is sociable enough, but still likes to keep her thoughts to herself. This seems to be a phase of her life when her character has gotten more defined. A high preference for sports, a much lower preference for crafts (imagine my disappointment as I like crafts so much), a very large love for animals (should we get a dog), including orangutans.

3. A sense of modesty, arising from wanting a towel at the pool, wanting to close the bathroom door when there are friends around

4. A sense of privacy, with her closing the toyroom door when she wants to play by herself.

5. Improved observation and arguments. She tends to argue more about things, especially stuff that I mentioned to her and says things like a Promise is a Promise. When she doesnt like a game, she moves back to observe (this sometimes causes me concern), and when she likes a game, she takes the lead.

Neuroscience 101 and Princesses

Me: Anjali, why did you hit patti when you were fighting with her?   

Anjali: Mummy, My amygdala told my prefrontal cortex to hit patti

===============

Two daya ago, I caught Sophia putting beads under the mattress. Apparently she was testing to see if she could sleep despite the beads and was wondering if she didnt, would a prince come to marry her?

Upon being told that she was too young to get married she now want to know if she could get married when she goes to school.

Anjali's letter to Santa

Anjali wrote to Santa this morning

I had returned late from work yesterday and the girls had decorated half the Christmas tree and had left the upper half for when I got back. Anjali woke up, turned on the lights of the tree and seemed to realise that CHristmas was just around the corner.

Here is what she wrote. i got most of the spelling correct, I think

"From Anjali
Dear Santr
I want a paint chart
"

She put it in an envelope and we posted it

It has to be a magical paint chart. Will the crayola color with water ones be fine?

My first guest post

I hav a guest post up at STYYC: So you think you are crafty - a blog I have been following for about a year since I discovered a tutorial there fore making felt and velcro weekly schedule charts and adapted them for the girls. I have posted a tutorial on making a scratch book for the kids. Sophia still plays with her's though it is all mostly scratched out. I am contemplating making a couple more for the busy bags

Here is the tutorial

New story

"Mummy, we will thyow away our fake pyide yock", said Sophia, as we were riding on the bike

"You are done with the story? ", I asked, torn between relief, amusement and nostalgia

"Yes. I am dont with the stoie", she said gravely "We will do a new fake scene"

"What fake scene?", I asked

"We will doo a whole new world fake scene", she said. "That will be good. We will have a jasmine, and an aladdin and a Jafar"

"Right. Do you ant them to be on Pride Rock?"

"No. Pyide yock is for the lion king show. We must have a castle. Jasmine always lives in a castle"

"A castle"

"Yes. And we must have birds in the castle for Jasmine to set free, and some water for her to look into. What will we do for the water mummy?"

Now the gears in my head are turning

Toothbrushing battles

Sophia starts school in January and there is one thing that I dread when it comes to sending her to school.

Can I send her to school without brushing her teeth?

I will promise on a lot of things that I will make sure that her teeth are brushed when she gets home.

I need to battle with Sophia for half an hour every morning to brush her teeth

A typical conversation goes like this

Me: Sophia, after you brush your teeth, you can feed the snails
Sophia makes a beeline to the snails and tags husband
Sophia: Daddy, I want to feed the snails
Me: Sophia, I said after you brush your teeth
Sophia: Daddy, can you open the door, I must get leaves from the gayden to feed the snails.

My choices are as follows: a. Stop the snail feeding and get her to brush her teeth or b. Let her brush her teeth after she feeds the snails.

Wimpy confront avoiding mother that i am, I choose the second option.

The snail feeding goes on for fifteen minutes.

Then the kid follows me to the bathroom

Sophia: Mummy, can I take a bath with you?
Me: You havent brushed your teeth yet
Sophia: Mummy, can you take off my dyess?
Me: Are you going to brush your teeth after taking a bath?
Sophia: Mummy, dont wash my hair okay? Wash onuly my body okay?

I have heard of selective attention, but I have never seen it manifest at this level

Another fifteen minutes

I lose patience.

Me: Sophia. Brush your teeth.
I settle on the bed and settle her with me
Sophia: I am climbing on you

Selective attention again

Me: Right, now about that teeth, if you dont brush, you cant have milo
Sophia: But I want milo now!
Me: Then brush your teeth now!
Sophia: But I am very very hungy!
Me: Well, if you had brushed your teeth five minutes ago, then you would have had Milo before you were vei vei hungy!

I get her brush. Sophia does a very elaborate circus of wanting to brush for herself and then getting toothpaste all over the mattress and my hair and everywhere else besides her teeth.

Then she grabs the toothbrush (sans toothpaste) and shoves it into her mouth for ten minutes.

"DONE!" she says

"Can I see your teeth?"

"AAAAAA"

"There is a brown spot over there!"

"WHERE!!"

"This corner"

She pushes her toothbrush into the corner and scrubs it a couple of times.