BabyBug

Brought P for a trial at Artbug at Waterloo Street today. The program is called BabyBug, and obviously meant for babies. I see it as a make-a-total-mess session, and hope that P would like it, but it was not to be.

My 'lil one is such a clean freak that I'm quite disappointed. I rubbed some paint on the soles of her feet and that sent her into a panic attack. She freaked out and started clambering on me. She got some paint on her fingertips and started whimpering, asking me to wipe it off for her. While her peers were really engaged in the paintwork, she was just trying to get herself cleaned up. Sigh, so much for trying to get her interested in art.

Next steps is probably to set up such a scene in my bathroom one day, and get her used to playing with finger-paints. Some pics of P in action, taken by my mom who isn't very adept with the iPhone camera.


Taken on the Circle Line otw to class

 

A group pic!

At Citilink after class

Get rid of the caregiver!

My MIL's maid comes over every morning to bring P for a walk before heading back to their place. P was doing great for a period of time when it's time for her to separate from us (well, it's more from me than hubby). However, this has regressed recently and each separation episode always conclude with large scale crying and big drops of tears.

This morning, we decided to leave with them and reduce the time that P's away from me. We entered the lift to go down, but some screw up in the elevator actually got us separated from MIL's maid. P was super duper ecstatic! I mean, I can't even describe her shrieks of happiness. It's like "Yes, we got rid of MIL's maid! I can be with mama!! Whee!!!"

P's happiness obviously did not last long. We convened at the 2nd floor and handed her over to MIL's maid, and the whole crying episode starts again. Nevertheless, hubby and I really had a good laugh at her mindset. 

Captured when she was sleeping. How long more will her hands stay this small?



Separation Anxiety

P's separation anxiety seems to have reached a new peak lately. I swear her most hated sentence is "妈妈去pong pong". The moment that sentence pops out from my mouth, she starts clambering on me and is determined to stay on/around me.

When hubby is around, she is still ok to let me go, albeit reluctantly. In absence of hubby, I have no choice but to leave her crying outside the bathroom, unless I can convince myself to bathe only after she sleeps. I try to leave the door open when I bathe, so she can see me through the glass shower screen. That didn't ease her anxiety though. She was so so angry with me just now when her repeated banging on the shower screen did not make me appear next to her. In her anger (and my horror), she took my towel (hanging on the shower screen bar) and ran out of the bathroom. OMG! She appeared a short while later outside the bathroom and gave me dagger stares, as if saying "I said no bathing right? How dare you go and bathe? HOW DARE you go and bathe?" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

And yeah, it took me a lot of convincing before she finally returned the towel to a fresh from shower naked woman.

Royce Kids Gym

After the school visit yesterday, mom and I brought P to Royce Kids Gym (RKG) at Liang Court. It's a toy heaven and I think practically all the toys can be found here. Shall let the pics do the talking.

It's pretty similar to Hokey Pokey (HP), and I can't help comparing. RKG has a larger offering/variety of toys and is probably slightly larger than HP. RKG also has several swings hanging from the ceiling which HP does not. There is also a roller coaster at RKG that P enjoys a lot. However, in terms of pricing, RKG is really expensive because they have a time limit. I paid a whopping $36 for myself, mom and P to enter for an hour, which I thought was really steep. A 1 hour play costs $26 and grants entry to 1 child and 1 adult. Then, additional adults costs $10/pax, which I couldn't justify. HP charges $5 per additional adult and I thought that was already expensive, but RKG really top it. I guess I'm too used to entering explorerkid at $2, or even just $1 if I have the right card with me.

Where P is concerned, she seems to do much better at HP. The offerings at RKG is quite overwhelming for her and she spent a good part of the 1 hour walking around to assess what is worth playing. It wasn't as constructive as her play at HP. The moment the speaker went "Pearlin Tan, time's up", I knew it will probably be our last time there. The next time P needs some toy stimulation, we're heading back to good old Hokey Pokey.

P spends a LOT of time on this Thomas ride-on

Grandma having a blast too

For someone who hates her pram, she sure likes this one

Preschool mania

I've been taken down by a strong flu bug recently. One day I was good, and the next day I felt like dying. Usually these bugs hit me gradually, over a couple of days, but this one took over within 1 night and left me with runny nose, cough, fever and an aching body. P was having runny nose 2 days before, so I suspected I got it from her, so we are now both having the same symptoms.

Yesterday was an eventful day. I brought P to a kindergarten school visit, and we really like what we see. A huge school compound resembling a mini primary school, plenty of outdoor playing space and charts-lined walls in the classrooms. My mom helped with P while the principal brought us round the school. We stopped at where the prenursery students were having lessons and I asked some questions. In the meantime, P didn't wait by my side to listen to our conversation. Instead, she saw the PN engaging in some play at the playground and joined them without batting an eyelid. From the corner of my eye, I could see her going up the slide stairs with my mom's and one of the teacher's help, then slid down with glee. I have a good feeling she will do fine, and this will be my first choice of school for her. There are several phases of registration and I hope P can get in.

Her preschool search hasn't been an easy one. For the most part, I couldn't decide what's best for her. I started the journey looking for a full day childcare, but stumble halfway when I started asking myself why I wanted to do that when I have more than enough caregivers for P. Even if she gets in, does that mean we are depriving another FTWP from placing their child in the cc? Strike 1.

After speaking to my mil, she suggested we can look at half day cc since the other half of the day is mainly used for napping. Before I did the research, I thought half day cc would be significantly cheaper than full day, if not a 50% cost differential. Research came up to be only a $100 difference per month, and taking into account the subsidies, it the cost difference is minimal. Strike 2.

The next possibility I explored was playgroup which she could enter at 18 months, then when it's time to enter the mainstream kindergarten, she can do so. The main criteria was that the playgroup has to be near my place, so my MIL's maid can pick her up easily after the 2hr session. Just nice, there was 1 just next to my block. I wrote in to ask, and alas, they can only accept her when she turns 2 years old in August 2013. If I were to go down this route, she will be in pg for only 5 months before transiting to the kindergarten. Costs wise, paying for uniforms and misc just to attend for 5 months don't make much sense. Besides, I was concerned whether she can adapt to her kindy when transition time comes. Strike 3.

Next, I looked at playgroups that run only on weekends. There is one at AMK hub, and runs on Sundays for about 1.5 hours. This might be good to let her learn some stuff before she goes to kindy. Unfortunately, I learnt recently that they have moved the enrichment classes to AMK Jubilee, which isn't as convenient as hub, so plans are shelved till further notice. Strike 4.

Hence for now, the plan is just to send P to the school of our choice next year (year she turns 3). I will need to mark the registration date down on my calendar and make sure the 'lil one gets a slot. Phew, crazy parenting business!

I'm high on Starbucks!

OMS

Brought P for her 2nd lesson at Our Music Studio today. I didn't get the name of the teacher, but P seems to prefer the teacher during her first lesson. I find this teacher very warm and friendly though, so the class was fun. P should be one of the older babies in the class, and she carried herself well during the activities. I'm quite proud of her.

After the lesson, we went to the Big is Beautiful Motherswork store on L2 to check out a Storksak bag. I've been wanting to get a diaper bag for some time already. I have 2 existing ones, one from Carters which has deteriorated to broken threads and tags condition, and another one that is so big I could probably pack the contents of my storeroom into. Good diaper bags don't come cheap, easily about $100. What's good about Storksak is that it looks like a working bag, which you can bring to office without looking like a fashion disaster, and has many compartments to fit baby items unlike normal work bags. I broached the topic with hubby this morning, and was pleasantly surprised when he told me to go ahead.

I had a voucher that gives 30% discount on selected models, but it turned out the 30% was already applied even without the voucher. There were 4 bags on discount and we quickly short listed the 2 black ones. Eventually, I got the cheaper (and better looking) of the 2 at $175 after discount. I'm a happy mama!