Bubbling at AMK Hub

AMK Hub is having lots of Christmas activities. There's a Christmas area at B1, and where the decors are outside the mall, they have bubble and foamy 'snow' sessions,

Bubbles really work wonders at bringing out the smiles and laughter in children. All of them were so excited! P tried to chase some bubbles but they always pop before she reached them. I think she gave up after a while, and turned her attention to a girl beside her. She held out her hand for a handshake, went up close to the girl and babble some stuff, then proceeded to dance wildly in front of the girl. Funny and cute to watch!

Play area at B1

Her sense of humour

A post dedicated to my LOL baby. She has a weird sense of humour, haha.

Thomas and Friends Live Show

Today is the last run of Thomas and Friends live show at Takashimaya. Since hubby has soccer plans, I decided to bring P to check out the show. We arrived too early, and I decided to go search for a lunch place. Most of the eating places were crowded, and when I saw empty seats at Mignon's, I jumped at it. Unfortunately, they took pretty long to serve the food, and it wasn't fantastic. I still managed to finish 10 min before the show start, but when I rushed to the show area, I saw their staff holding up signs saying all seats have been taken. Awww!

Activated Plan B as I noticed the second floor is still relatively empty. And so we watched the show from L2. P refused to stand on her own and watch the show through the glass pane, so it was a painful 20 min or so for me, have to carry her and watch above the railing. Luckily, she enjoyed the show, dancing and clapping to the music. That makes the aching arms worth.

Cooking for her furry friends

Need I say more? P is having lots of fun with her Mother Garden Bento set. We often see her placing ingredients into the bowl, giving several hard stirs and sending ingredients flying across the room. She also found it very entertaining to 'feed' me and hubby, not only her play food, but it also extends to her puffs or yogi snacks.

Her appetite seems to be growing too. Take tonight for example. She was kind of grumpy and kept going to the kitchen at about 5.30pm, so I decided to warm a pouch of Super Salmon for her to eat. Hubby went out to get McDonald's while I fed her. Gave her a pack of organic juice after her meal, and she got distracted by hubby coming home, so she finished about half. While we ate our dinner, she insisted on having fries. Hubby gave her one after another that I believe she ate at least one-third of a packet. She must have been thirsty, so she finished up the rest of her juice. About an hour later, she started going to the kitchen again, and kept pointing to her fm tin. After several piteous cries, hubby made her a bottle of milk. We thought that was the end of it, but when I opened the fridge to get a drink, she went straight for her puffs, insisting that I pour some out for her. It took 2 servings before she finally stopped eating. Oh yeah, all that food has to go somewhere, and she soon let us know where, and a massive one at that.

I dunno how she can eat and eat non stop man. The bad thing about it is I caught her trying to consume her MG play food. Even after numerous reprimands, she still do it once I take my eyes off her. It sure looks good enough to eat eh?

Water playground Katong 112

I'll let the pics do most of the talking, but P didn't seem to like the sprays of water. It might be because the water's too cold for her comfort, so she shy away of the sprays and spend most of her time chasing a red ball in the non water area. I really like the place though, hope I can bring her back another time when she's much braver.

Surprise me!

Made plans to meet hubby at hub after work to do some grocery shopping. We were supposed to meet at B1 Pinsi for dinner, but I saw a flurry of children christmas activities at B1, and told myself P would surely like this and I should have asked hubby to bring her along. Guess who's waiting for me outside Pinsi? Yes, hubby and P! I really didn't expect him to bring her along, so it was truly a pleasant surprise.

Hubby decided on New York New York instead of Pinsi, and we got a seat hitch allows P to watch the small water fountains outside. She's really into these spurting jets of water, no matter where she sees it. Strangely though, she hates to have water on her face. Even with her shampoo shield, some water will still trickle down her face during her bath and she would scramble to get out of the tub.

It must have been the throng of people walking past the restaurant that captured P's attention, not to mention the attention that staff at NYNY were lavishing on her, that we managed to have our dinner peacefully. She did try to climb out of her highchair once or twice, but compared that to constant escape thoughts during most of our meals, this is considered good behaviour already.

Our routine at hub will surely include a kiddy ride on the 3rd floor outside DBS bank, so off we go after dinner. P chose to ride with Oscar from Sesame Street. I'm glad P is not at the age whereby she asks for more rides yet. Once the vehicle stops moving, she will ask to be carried out of it, sometimes even gesturing 'no more' with her hands.

During the dinner, we have noticed that the pair of sandals that P is wearing is already too small for her. Her toes were peeking beyond the sole. My bad, this pair of sandals (Size 4 from Fox Baby) has been left with my in laws for their use when P is over at their place. I knew that her feet is growing super quickly, but didn't occur to me to check on the shoes at in law's place. We headed to Cerisi and got P a new pair of sandals, with plenty of room for her feet to grow, and yet secured enough so that it doesn't fall out (like the other pair we bought). By the way, Cerisi really sells decent shoes at affordable prices, plus they are having 20% off right now. I really have no reason not to buy, $13.50 for a pair of sandals, I hardly see that anywhere already. Kid shoes are so expensive today, costing even more than adult shoes, ugh!

Last stop is NTUC to do our grocery shopping. The aisle entering from the entrance is another toy heaven. Rows and shelves of toys which P took delight on touching. She tried to see what a girl (probably about 5-6 years old) was doing with a microphone, and was snubbed with "不要动啊". I brought her attention to another machine, but she saw a row of toy dogs which warrant more attention. The sales staff came over, switched on the toy dog and placed it on the floor. The dog started to bark and move forward, then wagged its tail at P. P was delighted and kept waving to the dog, but she soon realised that the dog was coming too close to her and she started retreating. Hubby and I looked at each other, and we laughed. P was very intrigued by the dog and after the sales staff shut it off and passed to P, she refused to let go. Hubby surprised me by asking whether we should get it for her (he usually dislikes my toy exploits and threaten to throw them out), and of coz I agreed *grin*.

The 'lil one insisted on holding her 'dog' till we reached home.

Mother Garden

Following up on my previous post, I finally had time last night to unpack 1 of the Mother Garden sets.

This is the Japanese Bento Set, looks good eh?

Took me 20 min to clean the pieces and 5 min to arrange them nicely

And Typhoon P took 2s to destroy my arrangement

Mom took P to City Square Mall to watch the Chuggington show today. She told me that the show wasn't very interesting and P got fussy after a while. Mom then saw a shuttle bus going to Novena MRT, and decided to bring P to United Square next. There, she watched the Barney live show and was much happier. In fact, the show was going on while my parents were having dinner, and she kept disrupting the dinner and ask grandpa to bring her out to watch the show. I can just imagine my parents stuffing food down their throats so they can fulfil their granddaughter's wish, haha.

Highlight of the day - P lost 1 of her shoe somewhere at City Square Mall. I was kind of surprside because P would always point to her legs if something's not right with her shoes. Like that time in the car when the front of her sandals were not wrapping her foot, she kept fidgeting and I told her sternly to sit down and stop moving. She then pointed to her foot, and I realised something's wrong with her shoes. This happened so many times after that incident, that I became very sure she's super particular about her shoes and feet. So when my mom told me P lost her shoe, I didn't quite believe that could happen. Mom said she only started pointing to her leg when she was drinking milk at the nursery, and my mom backtracked after they are done, but they couldn't find the shoe anymore.

Weekend plans: We're heading to Katong 112 tomorrow. I booked a dental checkup nearby and we'll go for dimsum and the water playground thereafter.

Catching up with hubby

It was a night without P, and hubby decided to cook steak for the both of us. Here's what he did, and it's yummy!

I brought out a bottle of our wedding wine, and it really completes the dinner. It's been slightly more than 2 years since our wedding, and we still have quite a few bottles of our wedding wine in the cupboard.

We caught up on my work day, his stay-at-home day, talk about Christmas dinner with his friends, plan our next vacation, watch a scheming Korea drama. It's cool to be without a 15 month old sometimes.

Toys Galore

Christmas is a season for toys!

Mom came to fetch P yesterday, and brought over a huge bag of Mother Garden toys. Mother Garden is a series of wooden playsets from Japan, and is great for pretend play. I had come across a Christmas sale from MumyAtHome on their facebook page, and since it's just 2 blocks from my mom's place, I sent her to check it out. Mom ended up calling me while I was having lunch at Underwater World, and went "Wow, all the toys are so pretty! How, which one should I get? There is this kitchen set that is so so pretty!" She spoke Chinese, so it's definitely 2x louder and more animated than you imagine. This gushing continued for 2 minutes before I could get a word in to tell her to get 2 sets for P (1 for my house, and 1 for her house). Guess what? She bought 5 sets (3 for my house and 2 for her house).

Moral of the story - Do not send a doting grandmother to such sales.

I shall post more pics after I've unpacked them

I was looking through my phone, and came across a video of P taken last week. It showed her stacking blocks on top of a remote control, blocks meant for her shape sorter.

Kids are seriously unpredictable. I have been showing her how to stack up those blocks for ages, and all she's interested in is to destroy knock them down. Just when you give up trying to teach her, she suddenly shows you what you have been teaching her all along. 

I opened the Duplo set she got for her birthday, and tried to teach her to fix the blocks together. All she did was to snatch the newly assembled block, and proceed to take them apart. I told her that This process repeats itself for a good 2-3 months, and I gave up. Hubby also gave up and we decided she's not ready for it yet, so the Duplo set went into the storeroom. 2 days ago, I left P in her playroom while I did my things, and went in to check on her later. Guess what? She had 3 Duplo blocks (an overlook on hubby's part when clearing them up to go into the storeroom) in her hands and was in the process of fixing them together. Upon completion, she turned and saw me looking and gave a super smug grin, as if this was so easy peasy and I didn't have to make so much effort teaching her.

The toughest nut to crack, however, turned out to be her favorite shape sorter. She is good to bang the blocks together, empty the sorter, put blocks into the uncovered sorter etc, but when the lid is closed and she wants to put in the blocks (through the shapes), that's the beginning of a meltdown. I have been pointing out colors and shapes to her, and telling and showing her what goes where, but she can't associate them yet. She would try to stuff an oval into a square hole and become very frustrated when it wouldn't go in. After 3 (or less) tries, she will be in a big fuming tantrum. The thing about P is that she refuses to let you guide her hands, and if you try to help her put the blocks through the right shape, she will scream and push your hands away. Sigh, really no success with the shape sorter so far. I wonder when she will surprise me like the 2 incidents above.

Underwater World & Bay Hotel Staycation

We're back from our staycation at Bay Hotel! Saturday morning started with a trip to Underwater World Sentosa. We arrived just when they open, so the crowd wasn't that bad yet. P didn't seem to know what to make of the swimming creatures. She was brought around with a dazed look, not an ounce of excitement at all. At 11am, we went for the Dolphins and Sea Lion show, and that's when P started to warm up a bit, clapping and dancing to the music. After the show, we headed to the tunnel and made 4 rounds to look at the fishes. At the last round, P conked out. We had planned lunch at Vivocity, but with a sleeping baby and starving hubby, we had lunch at a restaurant next to the Underwater World gift shop instead.

Waiting for the Dolphin and Sea Lion show to start

Show ended

Family pic!

Found a great place to take photos - behind Carpark of Underwater World

We finished lunch and realised we are still early for the hotel check in, so we headed to Vivocity to see if we can do some Christmas shopping for our family. P was super hyper at Vivo, totally out of control. She insisted on going to the water play area despite our distractions. Brought her to ELC hoping to distract her with toys, but she stood at their back door (facing the water play area) and stared longingly at the kids there. Luckily, 2pm soon came and we hurried out of Vivo.

Our car turned into the carpark entrance of Bay Hotel and we were greeted with cones and a sign that said "do not park, only for in house guests". Not knowing what to do, we just entered the car park and it was the smallest hotel car park I've ever seen. We didn't expect to see any slots, but there was one. The car coming in behind us got stuck at the gantry coz there wasn't any more parking. Hubby wasn't pleased, and said that's the last time he's coming here.

Hotel lobby is at the 3rd floor, and check in didn't take long. We were given a room on the second floor facing the main road. The room was very small, and walking space for only 1 person at a time. There was no way to accommodate any baby cot. Thus, this room is good for couples and not so suitable for families. The rain pretty much thwarted our swimming plans for the day. By the time the rain stopped, P was in deep nap, all the way till 6plus in the evening.

Complimentary minibar

We took a 3 min walk to reach Vivocity for dinner. Settled on Botejyu and they only had outdoor seating due to the crowd. It turned out to be a good choice because there's plenty for P to see - the view of Sentosa island across the 'sea', boats sailing on the 'sea' and a train ride that takes children for $6 per ride. P had some of my Ajisen seafood ramen and rice from hubby's seafood combo. After dinner, we decided to grant P's wish to play at the waterplay area. She splatter through the puddles and did a lot of hit-and-run-back-to-papa with the jets of water.

We cleaned her up and made our way to Cold Storage to get some snacks. That's when P discovered teddy bears on sale. She loves to cuddle soft toys. I looked away for a moment and found her sprawled on the floor with teddy below her, having a cuddle of her life. This brought some laughter to a family standing near us. And yes, it took me so long to convince her to give up those teddy bears.

The next morning, we awoke to the sight of Standard Chartered Marathon runners outside our window.

Rise and shine with heavily tousled hair.

Bay Hotel serves an international spread for breakfast, but I find that they only did well on the local dishes. I really enjoyed their fried bee hoon and nasi lemak, and even had second helpings. Hubby didn't like their pastries, kinda hard and had a rubbery texture. P had some congee with scrambled eggs, and she really loves the watermelon and papaya that hubby brought back from the buffet spread.

We managed to do a morning swim at their pool on the 6th floor. There wasn't any children's pool, just a 1.2m pool. Water was cold and P didn't like it. She preferred to stay at the edge of the pool and watch the water enter the 'drain'. She also refused to stay in her float, so we stayed at the edge with her most of the time. About 20 min later, a family with 3 kids joined us at the pool and we finally managed to convince P to go into her float. She just sat in her float and watch the children play. They had balls and some water toys with them, and they did plenty of jumps into the pool, which excited P.

P conked out after her bath, and we started to pack up to leave. Bay Hotel has a strange lift system. There are 2 lifts, but only 1 leads to the basement carpark. You need to tap your room keycard in the lift to access certain floors. With P asleep, hubby decided to make 1 trip to the car to load up some of our stuff first, but he found that he has forgotten the car key. And with the room keycard in our room, he wasn't able to get back to our level (no card to tap in the lift). I had to leave P in the room and go rescue him. He then had to send me back to the room before going to his car. P has started to stir, but I risked another trip to rescue him after he was done with the loading. We got back to our room and to our dismay, the keycard wouldn't open the room door!! We panicked and I send hubby to the reception to look for help. While standing at the door, all I could think off was P waking up to see no one and start to cry, and I even imagine her falling off the bed (which was quite high from the ground). The wait felt like 50 minutes. Hubby came back with another keycard and we found P still blissfully asleep. We roused her and got ourselves out of there before another unfortunate incident.

That sums up our staycation at Bay Hotel. And no, we won't be going back again.