Body Art and indoor play

This was done sometime in January when the kids and I would frequent Explorer Kids every other Monday except. The only reason we were there was simply because of the low entrance fee of $4 per entry per child for unlimited play time. Ilyasak and Balqis would play to their hearts content. Not to mention, that the playground was not as crowded given a schooling day. Although, it was not much of a rest for me, I could not sit down like any other mamas because Balqis still need my supervision when she;s out ther doing her rough and tumble. In time to come, I envision myself sitting down with my book while they play haha!! I will be back to work by then- no time fro playground on a weekday.

There happen to be a lady offering free body and face painting to kids. I was even more thrilled to know that the service was FOC. I urged Balqis to try it. She was well the more adventurous type unlike her brother who would not even let anyone draw even a tiny spider on the arm.

So, there she was sitting obediently trying her best not to make too much movement (whch is so unlike her). She was glowing with happiness looking at the finished art on her arm. Sadly, she was the last girl to have her arm painted so we could not request for more.

Playing in the rain and puddles

I took them out to play the rain. Thanks to Ilyasak, it was only drizzling by the time we reached the field. As usual, he was taking an awfully long time to finish his lunch. They had their raincoats on and I am armed with my umbrella. They went sloshing and jumping about in every puddle they saw. Strange though there were not much puddle for them to play with. Nevertheless, they had fun and kept asking when can they play in the rain again each time it rains.

Potty Trained princess

My princess is potty trained. We had successfuly trained her and she is off diapers when she is awake. We do put diapers on her when she took naps though. I am too tired to clean up mess- as it is I am forever cleaning up daily mess created by my kids. She did well, she can tell us that she wants to pee and poo more than a month before her second birthday.
She did have accidents though but they were not massive. Probably because she is a girl and her urine production is not as much as a boy's. I remembered cleaning up Ilyasak's big pee mass everywhere around the house and its definitely taxing and stressful. Being a girl and wearing panties instead of briefs helped a lot where her poo were contained in her panties instead of be9ng scattered around the house.
With the diaper wearing hours pretty much shorten to during naps and night sleep, her rash which had been bugging her since she was young had pretty much not go away. Having sensitive bums, had practically put a 'no-no' to cheap diapers. To be potty trained early, gave us the parents nuch savings on the diapers part.
All I can say is that, I did not have a difficult time potty training her. Well done! Balqis. We can now buy start to buy cute pink panties ya!!!

'THE' purple dinosaur

B was introduced to Barney about a month back when I played one of the VCDs for her. Since then, this purple dinosaur has found her heart somehow. It is definitely a clear obsession which she had for Barney. She will look for her 2 (big and small) Barney soft toy the minute a new day greeted her. Those two soft toys will also be her constant companion when she fell into her deep slumber or her short naps even! A barney knapsack will be strapped to her back the minute she is out of the house eventhough there was nothing in there.
The brother used to be fond of Barney also but not to this extent. It can be somewhat entertaining when you see her eyes glow and her hands pointing excitedly at the sight of any Barney (even when it is someone else's bag)shi shouting 'Bajin, bajin'-oh ya !that is how she pronounces Barney by the way. The 2 barney books in our home library are her current favourites and she will request anyone to read it to her at any storybook session we had with her.
Well, I don't know exactly how long this new found affection of hers will last but we somehow enjoyed feeding to her obsession. Ha!Ha!

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.