Frolicking in the sand

The kids and I decided to head to East Coast Park today. Ilyasak is off on Fridays so I usually planned some kind of outing on this day. I decide to take them for some sand playing since they had not had a chance to play the sand along with the associated sand-playing toys for the longest time. We did went to East Coast Park some 3 weeks ago but that was for prawning and they didn't get to play with the sand.
Since it was sunny in the morning and wasn't showing any signs of any form of downpour so I figured it was a good time to hit the beach.

We were late as usual and only reached the beach at 11.15pm despite choosing taxi as our mode of transport. It got really warm and lucky for us there was a quite a big spot that was shadowed by a pretty short tree. I didn't like the overwhelming sprouting of the tree roots though (not knowing what creepy crawlies might lurk out of there)but I guess we were not given much of a choice given the blazing sunshine.

Both of them enjoyed it nevertheless- scooping, shovelling, raking and digging the soft sand. Ilyasak was so engrossed in playing the dump truck considering that he didn't see the truck for the longest sand. It was enjoyable to see Balqis fully engaged with the sand toys and playing the sand. She has definitely blossomed and can now appreciate outdoor playing very much.



I managed to explain to Ilyasak where tide pools can be form, showed him a supposedly crab's burrow and the breakwater. Finally get to explain with a live view of what a coast is. Thw word 'coast' appeared far too often when he is reading books on crabs and other sea creatures. This is useful to him since he is working on a lapbook about 'A house for hermit crab'.

Meal time monster

B was unwell over the CNY holidays. We didn't go out that much over the long holidays beacuse of her being under the weather. She was throwing up anything that goes into her body and she turned into such a fussy eater. She would cover her mouth with her ten little fingers and turned away. To feed her in this state caused all the avalable energy in you to be used up.
Thankfully, she recovered but not her attitude during meal times. Porridge which used to be such an easy meal to feed turned into such a pain just to get it down her throat. I figured she was tired of having porridge all the time so I decided to give her what her brother eats (minus the salt content). Boy! was I wrong, she even refused such menu. She would store the food for a over five minutes in her mouth and she will fake somekind of nauseous expression. Mealtimes has since become a battle between B and me. It has not been any better since then. On occasions, it will take me a fast half an hour for mealtime to be over but on 'not so' good days, it will stretched for over the half hour mark and it is depressing enough for me and her with the occasional spitting, crying and stern scolding ( I lost my cool sometimes. Even the TV, don't do its magic like it used to be in the past. I just hope that its just a phase which she is going through and it will be over before I even realize it and I pray for the strength to go through this phase with her.

my mealtime monster

The double wheel skate scooter queen

My princess has finally acquired the skill of using the skate scooter.She is simply amazing I must say. She mastered it after approximately 2 months or less ,I can't remember exactly but it is defintely under 2 months. Of course, at the initial stages, she simply loved to drag the skate scooter around That's the advantage of being the 2nd child of the family. She gets a slightly more experienced mommy and daddy who just gave her the skate scooter at the age of 20 months without any fear of her falling and getting scratches on her suple skin. In addition to that, she had a life model to model from- her elder brother who is wheezing here and there like a pro. We don't have to do much teaching, she simply just pick up the skill. All we have to do is to give let her to correctly hold on to the handles and constantly remind her, ' Balqis, put only one foot on the skate scooter'

Now, she is trying out her brother's skate scooter which is a 2 wheeler. She is on the way to mastering the technique of wheezing around on the 2 wheeler skate scooter.