HFMD hits home

An angry red rash which appeared all over Balqis gave us a real scare. It was followed by high fever which fluctuates between 38 to 38.5 degrees. When an NEA officer came to inspect my mom's house for any potential Aedes mosquitoes breeding ground and he also informed us that there was a few dengue fever cases at the next block. I was worried that Balqis might be down with Dengue fever. Hubs took her to the PD the very next day and we were told that it might not be dengue as she had no vommiting or any loss of appetite. The PD attributed the rash to her throat infection.
However, the Hubs developed some kind of blisters on his feet and some red spots on his hands along with high fever. Not to mention the unbearable sore throat. Then, I followed suit, with high fever and a blister on my left foot.
HFMD came to mind and the 3 of us headed to the polyclinic to confirm. Indeed, we were all infected with HFMD. Both hubs and I contracted it from Balqis and by the way she had developed more red spots and blisters on her hands. The unbearable sore throat which we had resulted from the ulercs in our throat. Mind you, it was so painful that we could not even swallow anything.
Hubs was given 5 days off work and all of us were to go to the polyclinic again for review on 24/12.
There you go, all 3 of us were stuck at home and we had to send poor Ilyasak to my mom's again. We cloud not trace where Balqis contracted the disease from and the only place we could think of was the airport. Balqis played at a few indoor playgrounds so it could be from any one of them.
Till then, we are home bound and ahd to find activities to entertain ourselves. It was kind of a blessing in disguise as both hubs and I can rest fully as we did not really have a chance to rest after our Hajj trip.

Here are some pictures of Hubs feet and hands with the scary looking blisters.

A track of his own

Finally, Ilyasak succeeded in constructing his own train track without any help from Abi. He had been trying this for quite a while. It may look easy to construct but mind you, it takes creativity and persistence to actually design the track along with all its accessories. The hubs often took over an hour just to design the track. As it is, our choice of tracks available and its accessories were very much limited.


It can be seen here that he still need to be much more observant in his choice of a particular track. Here he was unaware that he needd to build an extension when he used a diversion track.

Well done! Ilyasak keep trying to design more varieties of train tracks.

Young parents cover baby of the year casting

Balqis was invited to do casting on Thursday 28th of October by Young Parents magazine. Eventhough it was just a 15 minutes affair, everyone was pretty excited about it. She was scheduled to go in at 10 in the morning. As usual, we were a little late. My mom accompanied us for her casting. The session went pretty well, I must say. We managed to see her smile showing off her pearly whites. I must say that she responded well to the camera. The lady in charge was busy snapping her pictures using digital camera while we (both mom and I) tried our best to do all sorts to get her to smile. I really hope she got nice shots of Balqis. Good luck Balqis! All of us are rooting for you.

Ilyasak's little friend

Ilyasak has found a new interest for a certain creepy crawly- garden snails to be exact.. Weird isn't it? It's not some fluffy kitten, a furry hamster or a colorful guppy but a GARDEN SNAIL. Yucks! at just the thought of it.
Well its not entirely his own genuine interest I must say. I did introduce him to this slimy creature a few months back when I introduced him to the concept of 'Habitat'. I picked the garden snail in particular and taught him all about it. He became interested as he could see and observe the snails 'live' in action. Garden snails are easy to find- everyone will agree to that. We even borrowed a book about it and 'googled' it on the Internet to find more information about them. It was a learning experience for me as well. The daddy caught a snail once and placed it in his observation jar for half a day so that he could locate where their eyes were and other body parts- it was interesting. The 'snail mania' in him died down soon after we released the snail back to it's habitat.
However, just a few days ago, the 'snail mania' came back to him. This time, he was brave enough to pick them up with his bare hands! I he knew I could not do that for him. If he wants those yucky snails, he had to fo it on his own. He braved himself up and last Saturday, he picked up not one but two on our way to my mom's place. He had then been picking up snails eversince till we had to coax him to return it back- telling him that it was cruel to let them stay in our house as it is not their home.
Just last Sunday, he pleaded with me to go to the field and grass to look for snails. Armed with a plastic container, he picked up two snails and took it back. He was ogling at it and even held on to the container which watching his msgic school bus DVDs. How gross is that? We coaxed him to return in back when we are about to go out.
During his outdoor playtime in the evening, he would call out 'snail where are you? Please cone out'. As soon ashe sees one, he will glady pick it up and place it in his bicycle basket. I had to remind him upteenth time to return them back to where it belong.
I hope he will outgrow his 'snail picking' habit soon.

Round and round the playground

As usual, Ilyasak is off on Fridays and we decided to go to Pasir Ris park. I tried my best to get them ready real early and managed to get them out of the house by 10.30 pm. An improvement on my sude considering that I am dong it all by myself. Howvever, I sort of cheated because I did not cook for any of them.
We took a cab to teh park and reached there by 11am. The park is lovely with all the shady trees making is posssible for children to use some parts of the park at least when the sun is upright on our heads!
Ilyasak and Balqis clearly enjoyed running around the park. Both were quite independent-movig around by themselves to play. I had to be vigilant of course considering that Balqis develop a strong interest on slidesand were always climbing up the steps.

The downside of te trip was when Ilyasak threw up the minute he entered the cab. Lucky for him, I managed to pull him out just in time so that he could throw up in the drain to avoid durtying the cab and his clothes. I could not see the reason for his throwing up and only found out the cause of it when he told me that he had played too much of the merry-go-round and had develop a headache. Poor thing! I am sure to refrain him from over laying the merry-go-round in the future.

He had fish and chips for lunch where he polished almost all of the fisha nd left the fries and salad for me. Strange thing I observe about him, is that he developed a strong liing for 'outside food' which I am sure to discourage. I fed Balqis at the park- one mission was accomplished much earier.

Once done, we walked home. I gave both of them a good shower and they were ready for their naps. Both mummy kids napped well when they are fresh and clean. I had a good one hour rest before Balqis woke up which was normal as she generally do not do well in afternoon naps.

Gingerbreadman cookies

Ilyasak completed his read on 'the Gingerbreadman' story. He read the simpler ladybird reader and managed to read the entire book without much help from me. Well done my little boy! He has made good reading progress so far which I am totally proud of.
To tie in with the story, I decided to let him bake some gingerbread cookies. I was lucky to find a Pre mix for this gingerbread cookies which suits me perfectly because I am not much of a baker.
It was real easy as all we need are eggs, a tablespoon of butter, 2 teaspoons of water and of course the Pre mix flour. We are to mix all the ingredients together. Knead the dough and we are ready to cut the cookies. It was so convenient that the pack even provided us with a gingerbread cookie cutter.
We allowed the dough to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes before cutting it out using the cutter. Ilyasak was quite impatient while he waited for the dough to set. To make the wait bearable, I suggested that we try to complete the story book. He successfully completed his read after about 20 minutes.
I gave him a chance to have a go in rolling out the dough, cutting them out using the cutter, putting the M&Ms buttons and baking it. Of course, he popped in quite a few M&Ms into his mouth in the process. He was not so keen on the icing part as the squeezing of the tube demand some amount of strength. In the end, I had to complete all the icing activity myself while he napped.
I wasn't much of a baker and had to rebaked quite a few batches as it turned out to be soft after being out if the oven for quite a while. I guess I had to practice more aye!
Ilyasak gave some of his cookies to both his grandparents. Hope they enjoyed it. I did not have much of the cookies myself as I am not such a big fan of Ginger to start of with unlike the daddy who simply enjoys the taste if Ginger. Believe it or not, each time that we are in a coffeeshop, he never fails to order a cup of hot Ginger milk tea ( teh tarik .)

The Giving Tree

Ilyasak completed this book in about 4 days. I am extremely proud of him. He read about 2 or 3 pages a day and he will read more for pages with very few words. Of course, I had coax him and give him occasional nudges for him to perservere to complete the book.

Young Parents finalist

I was flipping through the Young Parents magazine September issue thinking of checking out the litte duckboat project which Ilyasak and the hubs sent in. Instead of that, I was surprise by a picture of Balqis in one of the pages. She was selected as one of teh 20 finalist for the cover baby contest 2010. Ilyasak was shocked too and told me excitedly, 'Umi , this is Balqis'

This was really a surprise for us as we did not even think that Balqis could make it to teh top 20 finalist. We even forgot about the contest. For a start, she refused to look at the camera and did not want to smile at all. We don't know of the existence of this particular photo which was taken. Anyhow, we were glad. Alhamdulillah, she still won something even if she did not make it to the top 3. It was already a big achievement for her and we were really happy for her. It will definitely be something for her to remember by when she grows up.

Huggies Babe

A few weeks ago, on the 21st of August we headed down to Downtown east (D marquee). I signed both Ilyasak and Balqis for some kid's race. Ilyasak teamed up with the hubs for the race but Balqis was on her own. We had to wait for quite sometime before each of their race started. Ilyasak was in category E while Balqis in category C.

I was scouting around for the Huggies babes and dudes contest as mentioned in the flyer as it was an on-site registration. I was surprise when I learned that the queue which was developing at that point was indeed the huggies babes and dudes contest. I was hesitant whether to join the queue as it was limited to only first 50 participants and looking at the queue, I had doubts that I could safely be in the first 50. Nevertheless, I went ahead to queue hoping that I was lucky enough to be in the first 50. My sis was there to accompany me in the queue so I wasn't too bored. It took me close to an hour before it was Balqis pictures were taken.

It turned out to be fruitful for us indeed as Balqis was shortlisted as the 10 finalist out of the 50. It felt good to hear the MC announced her name. She was called up on stage later where the audience had to vote for the huggies final babe or dude. The winner, of course the one with the most number of votes. Alhamdullillah, Balqis was crowned the Huggies Babe. She won 4 large packs of Huggies diapers for herself which was a good saving for the hubs.

We were very happy for her. We did not win any of the race although I was pinning my hopes on Ilyasak and the hubs to win some kind of prize. Oh well, most importantly we were there for the fun so it doesn't matter.

Ferdinand

Ilyasak had just completed the book 'Fredinand' by Munro Leaf. An entertaining book about a bull who love flowers and simly uninterested to fight. He truly enjoyed the book. It took him about 3 days to complete the book with the umi of course contributibg to a few pages when he is tired to read some of the pages. I am truly impressed at how he had progressed in his reading. He still needs to improve on his attention span while reading and hopefully, he can managed a slightly longer reading time in one seating. It would make me most happy, if he can read for about 15 minutes in one seating. Currently he is reading out loud to me.

This book is a good read and it is equivalent to Level 4 of the P&J series. He is now reading The Giving Tree and hopefully he will get though that in another few days.

We are slowing down in his progress in the p&j series simply because I want him to be expose to other books and the p&j books can get pretty mundane. I am not giving up on that series though but just a temporary halt for the time being. No doubt about it, the series had done wonders to Ilyasak's reading ability.

Kite Flying

Our first attempt at kite flying turned out to be fun and we are planning to have another round before Ramadhan. Ehmmm! actually I am not really a fan of kite fying but it is just simply pure joy when I see my brood looking so happy running around exploring the area. I personally don't fancy straining my neck and looking up at the bright sky trying to get your kite up It's just not me. The atmosphere however, helped a lot when you see little kites flying around in the sky. He We went to Marina barrage by the way and it was pretty crowded today due to the long weekend (national day holiday)
My sis and her hubs joined us today so we got extra pairs or hands to help us with the kids. It was pure coindcidence that we bumped into them in the train and they decide to join us.
The hubs was one serious kite flyer. He took turns to fly the our kind of pathetic kite with my brother-in-law. Of course with Ilyasak running around them.

When Ilyasak had enough of running around in the heat and he was perspiring from top to bottom, mind you-he requested to us that he wanted to do some water play. We took him to the water play area and could not even wait a asecond longer when he was all geared in his swimming costume. It was the same with Balqis. Both siblings simply love havng water play. They went sloshing around in the 10 inches of water pool, entertaines by the various fountains. I mean you can't go around sloshing around at every water fountain right?

Both my children are truly simple children. They can be made most happy by just having simple inexpensive (in fact free)activity. Going to the park, playground, water play and the pool are their favourite activiies-simple, cheap and sometimes FOC.

Hope to do it again but with the hubs of course.

Balqis to the finals

We registered Balqis in another contest a couple of months back. Call me 'obsess', but I am so into paricipating in every baby contets available. It is probably due to our small win in a contest in a CC previously.

She was scheduled for a preliminary round on June 5th at KK hospital. Hope she through. Good luck Balqis!

Curious Ilyasak

Recently I introduced Ilyasak to the 'Curious George' series. He enjoys it very much-be it being read to or his usual daily 1 page reading practice.Although, he tends to mimmick the George the monkey's behaviour too which irritates me ever that much but still put a smile on my face at the end of each stunt which he pulled.
Sadly, the Peter and Jane series are long forgotten. Even the mummy temporarily stash the peter and jane series. Mummy has to get back him read Peter and Jane nevertheless.
When I get him to start reading one of the book in the series-Curious George flies a kite, I was filled with utmost sheer joy as I heard him reading to an almost fluent level. Who wouldn't? When one see your 3yrs 9 months old preschooler reading at such a level without any formal lessons in any phonics school/class. This makes the desire of extending my current SAHM status even longer. Ehmm...

I love balloons!

B's current favourite are balloons. That is the one item she will look for once she wakes up. She would sashay around the house with balloons on sticks which her doting grandpa has put. Its a wonder that such a simple item could create such a strong interest in a toddler.
On some days, you would see her with 3 balloon sticks in her hands. This pretty much occupy the availability of her hands and you would see her trying to scoop up her snacks using her mouth. Her obsession for balloons forbids her from letting go of either one in her hands.

My little linguist

My little linguist is churning more and more words which are not in the dictionary. They are just made up according to his interest. His recent new word 'legorry'
'You wait and see, I will 'legorry' you'
For a while, it got me thinking, is he using the sand threatening technique I use on him each time he keeps his food in his mouth. Oh ya... In case if you are wondering, feeding is still my No. 1 problem with him.

The 2 wheeler

Ilyasak has graduated from his tricycle to a 2 wheeler- thanks to my parents. They conducted 'sort of' an intensive cycling workshop for him last Saturday when he was there. My father strongly believed that he was ready and asked my mom to remove his pair of little wheels. He had 2 intensive practice sessions with my parents- one in the morning and another in d evening.
I was totally surprised when he told me,
"Umi, I can ride on 2 wheels now"
He has progress so well, I must say. His psychomotor skills are so much better than mine. I definitely can't ride a 2 wheeler at 3 yrs 9 months. According to my mom, it was easy for him because of his frequent practice on his 2 wheeler skate scooter which train him to balance very well.
Well done Ilyasak, you just need to put in more strength to press on your brakes. You definitely must eat more in order to have the strength to do that.

Appreciating nature

Ever since I had children of my own, going to parks has become my favourite activity. I try my very best to minimise trips to shopping malls which deemed to be quite meaningless to children I think. Don't get me wrong, they do need to have some kind of shopping experience but in my opinion, fresh air , the sun and nature by far are more meaningful to children.

We set off for Jacobs Ballas in the late morning of Sunday. Well A and I always plan to set off early but si far, we have never succeeded (still trying though)with the kids around. Yup, we reached the park in the afternoon and it was pretty warm but hey! it is no joke getting a preschooler and a toddler ready with homemade packed meals! Thumbs up for me...Yee!Ha!

As usual, we need to feed the Ilyasak and B lunch. Feeding time is time consuming and it did not help when both Ilyasak and B are picky eaters. Basially, when it comes to food, it has to be force down their throats. Yup! Sounds bad but we have no choice given the nature of their feeding patterns. We thought we wanted them to enjoy the park while they were having lunch only to realize that we invite strange stares from the park goers. Ehmmm! strange I thought but I ignored it. It finally made sense to us when the park ranger told us that no food was to be comsumed in the park. Gosh! we were so embarrassed.

We won!

We won! Technically my kids won.The win took us by surprise. We were not expecting any, well we hope to get at least some consolation though. Alhamdulillah, by god's grace they won 1st runner up in the Most Photogenic Siblings Contest. A was happy that he received some kind of return of investment. The contest fee was not cheap. He had to pay an amount which is a little less than $50 for the two categories which we signed the kids for. The freebies which came with it was worthwhile- received a sling Fila bag ( I like it very much and its definitely handy), 2 cans of Similac stage 2 milk (successfully sold them off since Balqis was in need none of it as she was on total breastfeeding still), large XL Drypers nappy ( successfully sold it off too as we predict that Balqis will not reach an XL size based on our experience with Ilyasak) and XL Drperes drypants (waiting for a buyer still).

Based on all the freebies sold off (total sale of $31.50), the kids managed to earn $90.50 ($15.50 top up to the $75 prize money they received)each. A good sum I must say. They also received a $100 Delphin voucher which is yet to be redeem. Woohoo! I was the one which was excited and it took me a week for the victory to sink in.




We took part in 2 contest, Most Photogenic Siblings and Most Sporty Baby (for Balqis only)and wanted to signed up for Most Healthiest Baby but Balqis was overaged. Balqis was unable to perform the task for the Sporty baby contest as she was unable to place all the rings onto the cone- she was in her own world immersed in her own set of activities. I guess she was too young for it also as the other competiors were much older and mature than her- the oldest being 24 months and she was just 1 year and a week old.

As for the Most Photogenic siblings, we were in the studio for a mere 4 minutes I think. It was truly brief as compared to other participants. We were like, 'Huh! that's it! No other poses? Ilyasak and Balqis were cooperative though unlike their usual antics when a camera is placed before them.

We were all praying hard that we got lucky during the lucky draw but we received a much better gift and surprise.

Thanks Ilyasak for bearing with us to delay your 'Toilet 'time for your big business. It was worth it.

Balqis is one!!

My little pumpkin turns one. I could not believe it that my sweetie pie is one. How time flies. I still remember the time when I was in the labour ward waiting anxiously for her arrival. The baby who was so comfortable in my womb that she refused to come out to see me, her abi and bro. She was an overdue baby but despite all that she gave me an easy birth- labour was just under 4 hours (3hrs 50 mins) to be exact.
She has given so much joy to everyone around her especially to me, A and her bro and never fail to surprise us with her antics everyday. We love you so much Balqis. Happy Birthday to you!

Our good friday activity--cycling

Cycling it was. We decided to spend the Good Friday public holiday at East Coast Park cycling. It turned out to be an unwise decision. We saw more humans than the grass *laughs*
It took us by surprise that the kiosk where we often rent our bikes sort of ran out of bikes for rent-at least those bikes with child seats were not visible in that kiosk. So, we had to walked over to another kiosk to rent our bikes.
This time, I braved myself to take B with me. I was so nervous as I had not taken any of them on bike rides before. This task was usually assigned to A. I mean he is the better rider than me definitely. However, yesterday, I was thrown in a situation where I had to do it no matter what. I was left with not much of a choice It was either I sit in the heat and people watch while waiting for A to take each of them on rides or I joined him and escape the heat which means I had to take either one of them. B was my choice given her lighter mass.

I successfully took B on the bike ride without any accidents. Hooray! We even cycled to Bedok food center to enjoy some yummy barbequed chicken wings. There will be more rides in the future definitely!

Sand play

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to head to the beach for some sand play. The weather looked good, so off we head off to the train station. Of course, mummy went through some chaotic madness before the trip. It has been the usual routine that I have to go through before each outdoor trip we take which includes occasional screaming and chasing around after the two. Haha! tried to minimise that and still working on that.
We were greeted by the sunny weather. Ilyasak took out his sand toys and immediately started his play. B joined him too but not with the sand of course as she would probably just put all the grains into her tiny mouth. Then, the weather got a little on the warmer side. Ilyasak started to complain about the heat and requested to go home. I coaxed him to stay on for a while and encourage him to play with his toys (Ilyasak is still eating his lunch at that time). B was getting louder too as if protesting me to take her away from the heat.
Then, the weather took a total change and became cooler, I was delighted. The change spur me to stay on the beach longer when suddenly the RAIN just crash on us. We had to make a dash and the nearest shelter was the bicycle kiosk. We were soaked to the skin. Nevermind me, but the kids were soaked and boy! was I worried that they will get sick because of the rain. I quickly took out the towel and towelled their heads dry and change them into dry clothes.
Once dry, Ilyasak, was his usual self. He starts monkeying around and even went splashing around in the rain thinking he was paddington bear in boots. He even asked me,
' where is Ilyasak's boots?' There I stood worried but he was having so much fun in the rain and I thought I should just leave him in his wet clothes. B on the other hand was socialising with those around her who was seeking shelter as well.

The rain stopped after an hour or so and we made our way to te taxi stand and took a cab all the way home. There goes my intention of saving cost which is to stop at a train station to take a train home.

Nevertheless, we had great fun!

indoor playground

I managed to take I and B to this indoor playground despite the chaos start in the morning. Thumbs up for mummy for getting my 2 pumpkins ready and out by 3pm. Both managed to have a short nap too.
However, when we arrived, the sight of the indoor playground send a bulk of disappointment to me. It was really small to start of with and not much activties for I to play with. Nevertheless, I was obssessed with this fisher price ride on car and B was all over this colouful push cart, so I figured it was worth my $12 and my taxi fare after all. This is one indoor playground that we will not visit anymore as it is not worth the travelling ordeal that we have to go through.

She liked this wooden push cart a lot that she managed to climbed into the push cart herself.


In the pushcart already


He was so obsessed with this ride-on.


Almost drowned in the sea of balls.