26 Feb 2012 - Passport renewal

Jerlene's passport has less than 6 months before expiry. As such, I took photo of Jerlene with white background and cropped it to the size of a passport photo.

With the below photo, Tracy did the renewal online. Time really flies as it seems like we have just collected Jerlene's first passport, which was about 4 years ago.

24 Feb 2012 - Visit to the Art's Museum

Jerlene has been very excited this morning as her class will be visiting the Art's Museum. She woke up quite early and started instructing my helper on what needs to be packed to school. She really made sure everything that teachers said are being followed.

During the visit, she learnt how to create a hand puppet, which is the one that she's holding in the above photo. Glad that she enjoyed the trip.

19 Feb 2012 - First dish from Happycall pot

The Happycall pot has been delivered to us for more than a week. Today, Tracy finally took it out and used it. The first dish that she tried is claypot rice. The taste was not too bad, though not fantastic. Hopefully she can find some highly recommended recipe from the net and try again.

19 Feb 2012 - Daddy is Jerlene's dedicated hairdresser now

Jerlene's hair is getting long, especially the front part where it almost covers both her eyes. As she wants to have long hair, it may not be worthwhile to bring her to a hairdresser just to cut the front part. So I decided to do it myself. Initially I was a bit cautious in cutting but after a while, I started to get used to it. The end result I guess was still ok. At least it still looks neat and not too short. :-)

18 Feb 2012 - 奶奶's birthday

Happy Birthday, 奶奶!

From Jerlene and Javier.

17 Feb 2012 - I want daddy tie my hair

For the past few morning, Jerlene suddenly wanted me to tie up her hair before we left home for childcare centre. I can only do the simple one (shown in the photo below). It's not very neat but I am slowly learning the skill. It looks simple but for first timer like me, I actually spend quite sometime to complete the task. I need some encouragement......hehe..... :P

15 Feb 2012 - Sigh.....四十没得找了

Yes. It's my birthday today. However, things were not going too smoothly. So much work to do and meeting to attend in office, and got to rush down to fetch my kids. Worse still, both my kids were having slight fever. It has been pretty lousy till Tracy bought a cake back home for me tonight. Let's hope all the "bad" things do not follow me into my 40th year. :-)

11 Feb 2012 - Chingay 2012 at Hougang

Chingay 2012 has come to Hougang this evening. Everyone is excited about the floats but how many people actually knows the origin of Chingay?

Extracted from Chingay 2012 website.....

"A dazzling extravaganza of colours and cultural diversity, Chingay Parade Singapore is known for its resplendent floats and multi-cultural local and international performances that are an insight to our festive traditions and delight the hearts of many Singaporeans and tourists.

The word Chingay is from the Hokkien dialect, of which the Mandarin equivalent is 妆艺, meaning "the art of masquerade". The festival began as a neighbourhood parade with only Chinese elements in 1973. Today, the Chingay Parade has evolved to be the grandest street and floats parade in Asia, showcasing the rich, vibrant multi-culturalism of Singapore and exciting cultures all over the world."

According to the notice, the road where the floats passed by will be closed from 7:15pm to 7:45pm. We went there about 7pm and it was already very crowded. As soon as the road was officially closed, people started walking on it.

The first float arrived at about 7:40pm. By that time, Javier had fell asleep. Yes he had missed it totally. Even the loud music did not wake him up. As for Jerlene, she did not seem to be interested at all. I think she's slightly overwhelmed by the crowd and the atmosphere.

I have taken some videos of the Chingay parade. Enjoy.......

8 Feb 2012 - Upcoming Superstar

Let's meet the new and upcoming Superstar, Javier Wong! Haha....that's not the main point in this post. Notice the three red spots on his forehead? Those are mosquito bites!!! It seems like the mosquitoes in the childcare centre have just found a new blood! Usually mosquito attacks the hand or leg. Not sure what's so attractive about Javier's forehead.......

6 Feb 2012 - Guess Javier has accepted it

This morning when Javier reached the childcare centre, he started frowning at me........but he did not cry. It seems like he had accepted the fact that from now on, he'll be spending his day time in the school. I guess this is a start and hopefully, he'll adapt to the environment and understand that learning is fun. 加油, Javier! :-)

2 Feb 2012 - Oh no, Javier wants to go 爷爷 house

As we were about to leave home today, Javier suddenly realized what's going to happen and he started saying "I want to go 爷爷 house". We finally managed to persuade him using a "sweet"......sigh....... After bringing him into the childcare centre, he started looking at me and when I said bye bye, he cried....... The teacher came over to consoled him and carried him away. Based on my past experience with Jerlene, I knew that I had to "harden" my feeling and walk away. Otherwise, I will never got to leave and Javier will not learn how to cope. Though it is really heart pain when I heard his cry, I had to keep telling myself, don't turn back, don't turn back...... I guess this will continue for the next few days. He will probably be ok after one week.

Javier, don't cry and enjoy your school life. You are a big boy now! :-)

1 Feb 2012 - Javier goes to school

Today marked the 1st day of Javier's school life. Jerlene is excited too as she now has a added responsibility to take care of 弟弟 in school. Javier was eager to go to school early this morning. Probably he still doesn't know what's going to happen for the rest of the day.

As Jerlene got a new backpack, Javier took over the trolley bag. And off we go......

Although the teacher had advised that for Javier's first day, it's best to let him be there just for half a day, we decided to let him try for full day as we had confidence in him. Furthermore, he has Jerlene with him if needed. The moment we stepped into the childcare centre, Javier straightaway went into the classroom and mixed with the other kids. We were all very surprised, including the teachers and aunties there. And when Tracy and I said bye bye to him, he just said bye bye and continued to mingle around the kids. Looking at that, the teacher too was convinced that Javier can prpbably cope with full day.

During lunch, as Tracy was nearby the school, she went over to the childcare centre and took a peek. The teacher said that Javier was taking his afternoon nap. It really seems like Javier was doing fine.

At night, Javier fell asleep very early. I remember when Jerlene first went to school, she was also very tired and slept early during the first few days. Probably the coping of a new environment is really "taxing" to a young kid. Anyway, let's hope Javier will continue to cope with school life, for the many years to come.