Playing dressing-up

My boy can be vain - he likes taking out his shirts and come to me to say "mama change" or put it on his body and stand infront of the mirror and say "Will so handsome"! Now he even added "dad-dad so handsome" and "mama so pretty"! hur hur!

Playdate @ a shop

Met up with Chantille's mommy to catch up at a mall. While the mommies were browsing the shops, the children created fun for themselves - from shop to shop!   

My little helper - plucking the stalk of grapes

He is becoming more of my little helper in the kitchen nowadays...:-)

Airport run

My boy loves the Changi Airport. Last sunday, he told his dad-dad to bring us to airport. To encourage his usage of language, we complied mostly to his requests (that are reasonable, of course), hoping this will give him the notion that by verbalising his intentions, people will understand what he needs and wants.

As usual, the spacious hall is like the boundless sky, allowing him to spread his wings and fly...

3 year 3 months old

Happy to record this - Will is almost potty--trained! He is diaperless at home since 3 weeks ago and only puts on pull-up pants during naps, bedtime and when we are out and about.

He has little accidents (*glad*). And when his pants are slightly wet, he immediately comes to me and said "cannot wet the floor, must pee pee in the potty" *eye rolled*! Well, at least that says he knows what he is supposed to do, perhaps just a little too late to rush to the right place to release! However, these two days he is able to tell me he needs to go - "must tell mama I want to pee-pee". But when it comes to poo-poo, he still wants his pull up pants. He will hold his bowel movement if I don't give it to him. Will have to take it slowly since he's not yet ready for his 'big business'.

There seems to be a language spurt in him that I have noticed recently. On top of being able to use "I" to refer to self, he is able to respond better to us when we ask him questions.

We have also enrolled him into AAS special school and he needs to queue for a year to get in for their EIPIC!

He can now fix 40 to 60-pieces jigsaw puzzles. He can do the 40 pieces on his own (any new set), and after facilitating him for a few times on the 60-pieces, he is able to play on his own. I think he has inherited both hubby and my interest - we both love thousands-pieces kind of puzzles! 

A catch-up lunch

Not forgetting to play cassanova...

Met up a friend who's my ex-colleague twelve years ago over lunch at Ma Maison @ Bugis Junction. The japanese-western cuisine is as usual very delicious. But what made me really happy about is that my friend commented that Will looks very 'typical' to her. And I know that's because Will has finally able to use the pronoun "I" rather than "Will" when expressing his wants, and able to say "I don't want" when I tried to feed him some cheese pasta. 3 weeks ago, he wasn't able to do all these. He also took simple instructions quite well, and sat there without fussing much throughout our near 2hr girly catch-up session!

I'm happy to see him taking his baby steps towards reaching his developmental milestone.

Aiqi, Will and me

Catch our 1st CHRISTMAS SALE!!!

SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE

With so much to do and so little time, I just have to learn to juggle within my 24 hours or even reduce responsibilities that can be strike out. My Lady Nic's handmade jewellery site may just be one of them.


For so long, my jewellery site has never held any sale. As I'm a jewellery wearer myself, I don't mind keeping them if they can't be sold off. BUT, I cannot wear them out until I can be sure that no one is buying them.


Since I am toying with the idea of closing the site down, I thought of having a first ever sale and see how it goes. This way I am able to keep and wear those that are not sold off.


I'm not sure when I'll have the time to make new items. The process from designing, sourcing for materials and creation is very time consuming. Not to forget the final steps of photo taking, posting and description writing (I'm still accepting custom-making orders as that devoid of the need of posting on my site). And I'm not about to sacrifice my sleep to do this like in the past. No, not anymore. I guess I'll just go with the flow.


So do take a look at Muse by Lady Nic's for some gift ideas or for your own wearing. 95% of my items are marked down. Bear in mind that handmade items are unique and one of a kind - you won't see a repetition on the street!

Why is English so hard?

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?


Extracted from the original "Why is English So Hard" passage. Isn't the reasoning all very reasonable? But frankly, if you ask me if the English language or the Chinese language is more difficult, I would think the latter. English words can be spelt out by trial and error as long as one knows how to pronounce the word. But one can't write a Chinese word using the same method. If one has forgotten the strokes, one simply can't write it. Anyway, I'm not about to give a discourse in this matter as I'm not a linguist myself. Just posted the above passage as it is so fun to read!

If you see me on the road (behind wheels), say 'Hi'!

YES! YES! YESSSSSSSSHHHH! I DID IT!

Actually I didn't sleep quite well last night. It was a mixture of excitement - knowing that the test may accord me the right to manoeuvre my hubby's 'metal horse' - and nervousness - the pressure of having to pass it at first attempt so that we don't have to dig into our pockets further.

The whole night my mind was tuned to 'mind-simulation driving mode' and running through procedures of parallel and vertical parking - "turn the steering wheel two times to the left, see the poles from the side mirror, then turn one turn back to the right...oh wait, vertical parking needs to turn back one turn, parallel is two turns...". How do you expect such an active mind to rest? And the more I reminded myself that I needed to sleep, the more I couldn't. Of course there's also an anticipating worry of "what if I fail"? Hubby's wallet is gonna hurt.

It didn't help that my instructor seemed to be having 'PMS-equivalent' this morning. He kept snapping at me when I practised for the first time at BBDC's circuit (as I am a private student, I have never used the actual circuit at BBDC but my instructor's). He pointed out my 'mistakes' that weren't mistakes before today. Hubby reckoned that he had purposely amplified my mistakes so I would be extra alert during the test.

Tension filled the air of the waiting room. Everyone looked so tensed up, nobody smiled even when gazes met. I counted and gathered there were 9 females and 8 males taking the test at the same time slot as me. Our names were called one by one. My heart started to skip beats. I hypnotised myself with "I am a good driver" and tried to psycho myself that the tester was my instrutor. Nonetheless, the stern look and the "refrigerator tone"of my tester didn't spell "relaxation". I just kept chanting "I am a good driver...I am just going for a ride".

My parking of both parallel and vertical were smooth. Phew. 'S' and 'crank' courses were gone through without mounting kerb too. Another phew. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn my steering wheel at the right time (don't know what's wrong with my moronic brain at that time!) when I was doing the 'changing of direction' course and ended up being too close to my left kerb and thus 'scraped' it when turning out. Sigh.

Then he asked me to get out of the circuit. It suddenly became thunderous. Pitter-patter starting to drum on my windscreen.

OH MANNNNNN!!!

I can't be this unlucky!?! I have heard many stories about the propensity of failing driving test increases with wet weather!

I tried to turn on the wipers and didn't know how to (very silly) and fumbled about the switch.

It was smooth sailing on the road. I remembered to check my blind spots exaggeratedly; I braked well at red lights; I switched back to the left lane spontaneously; I stopped at 'stop line'; I turned on the appropriate signals and I gave way.

When I heard him tell me to go back into BBDC, I felt so relieved. It had finally come to an end.

If waiting to be tested was stressful, waiting for the result would be 'double stressful'.

We were now all waiting in another portion of the waiting room. This time round, those cold strangers' faces became more expressive (including mine). We exchanged our experiences.

Finally my 'almighty' tester came to me.

"First time, huh?" "You hit kerb you know?" "Just now arrow flickering you still turn, CANNNNNOT! How can you turn when it's going to be amber?" etc etc while I tried to explain meekly why I went ahead. He ended my anxiety with "Must drive carefully, huh? Borderline you know? Now go downstairs and watch the video then come back to the counter to get your licence".

"You mean, I PASSED???" I asked gingerly with excitement under control.

"YOU WANT FAIL? OK RETURN THE PAPER TO ME I LET YOU FAIL!!!"

I shook his hand euphorically while saying "thank you sir" several times!!! I laughed like I had striked 4D!

Really. Testers are formidable. You don't want to annoy them. Act like a cat even though you are actually a tiger. Period.

As all the 'passers' from my time slot entered the video viewing room, I realised I was the ONLY female who had passed, with 5 other males.

If I say, I didn't feel proud of myself, I hadn't been truthful :-)

Pitas for Will?

Mother and son have been eating pitas for lunch these two days. Other than wanting a break from extensive cooking, we actually love eating them. When I asked Will if he wanted rice or pita on the second day, he replied wanting the latter, fervently ;-)

So we had wholemeal pitas with fried tuna with oninons or salmon mayo, top with avocado and romaine lettuce. The combi really tastes good...and healthy too!

Hair lost with blue tac

He looked queer as he stepped into the kitchen. With his hand carressing his hair, he squatted down next to the fridge to play with the magnets. I immediately smelt a rat and walked over.

AIYO!!! ALAMAK!!!

He had stuck two balls of bluetac on his hair and they formed into two separate clumps!!!

I was so busy getting the meal cooked and now I had to split my attention while the food threatened to burn! That made me quite mad at him for his 'silly' act!

I tried my best to help detangle, and even thought of washing his hair, but reckoned that might make matter worse! I held on to the root of his hair and tried to pull as much bluetac out as possible. I kept hearing the sound of hair "snapping" and I supposed it must have been painful. But Will has a high threshold for pain and squatted quietly while I did the rescue work. I kept scolding him in the midst of all these.

Then, suddenly I thought of this: Where did he get the bluetac from?

AH.

Obviously it was my negligence. I remembered a poster had dropped from the wall this morning but couldn't find the time to paste it back yet. So he had picked some bluetac from the wall.

Sigh. So much to do, so little time. And I blamed him for something that wouldn't have happened if not for me.

After about 15 minutes, I decided to just snip off that two clumps of 'hair stuck in bluetac'.

And yes, the top of his head sits a clump of hair that measures only 1.5 inches long.

All in a day

It's always nice to chat with Bhante Sorbitha when he comes back for visit. Will is very familiar with him - particularly his voice since the days he was in my womb! Wish he will have a chance to listen to the discourse by this wise monk!

We went to Bras Basah, a place that I used to frequent many years ago! Though it's an unusal place to bring a kid, it's s great place to get 2nd hand and new children books at grrreat price! I'm very happy with my purchase and hubby found the book he's been looking for! If I ever have the time to go this place alone again, I will surely spend more time at each of the shop! Just fancy that unique "Bras Basah" ambience.

A 'Halloween car'! See that spooky spider on the rear windscreen? If he was out to scare, I think he was successful - I did gasp at first glance! Haha!