His Mandarin class

Hubby and the extended family (especially my in-laws) have been voicing out a lot of concerns concerning my 2.5 yo's inability to converse with Mandarin. So I have actually been looking for Mandarin classes at various schools since last year. However, the classes that suit us (location and timing) are always packed and I'm real fed up of being put on the waiting list. I finally managed to get him a place at Julia Gabriel and the hubs accompanied him there. But we did not enrol him there as hubby felt that the fees are too exorbitant (SGD40 for a 1 hour class which in actual fact is only 45-50 minutes due to 10-15 minutes of free play).

Thus, when Lexuan, a Chinese Language School opened its doors at the mall opposite our condominium, I enrolled Joshie there. Three trial classes for $110. Comes to nearly $40 a class but it's a 90 minute lesson. He started his first lesson last week. It's a parent-accompanied class.

Only student in class. Since they are newly opened, they are still busy advertising for more students.

Joshie and his teacher.

Actually I was quite horrified to see the way Joshie behaved in class. I have not accompanied him for classes since Jan this year and thus, I do not know how he behaves in school. Last year, he used to stick to me and would obediently listen to teacher. However, this time, he was only quiet for the first 10-15 minutes. After that, he didn't want to sit still. He was walking, running and dancing around the room. Pulled the paper wall deco off the wall too. Didn't really listen to teacher and when she asked him to repeat a chinese word, he would say "ju ju" cheekily. Even stuck out his tongue at her. Gosh!!!

Cheekiness aside, I seriously don't think my son would enjoy this class. I don't agree with the teacher's method of teaching. She is too strict and doesn't give my son freedom of choice. She expects my son to sit still on the chair for the whole 90 minutes. Only sang 1 song throughout the entire class and there were no actions to accompany the song. A lot of flash cards. No interesting activities or craft. I know my son. He wouldn't enjoy this method of teaching. That's why he was restless and wouldn't concentrate.

Thus, we are not going back there anymore. Just gonna wait till January 2012 when I enrol him into LeapSchoolHouse for a 5-day week, whereby Tues and Thurs lessons are purely in Mandarin. Joshie enjoys the teaching method there and I have seen how much he has learnt through his thrice weekly English sessions there.

One of the most stressful moments for a mom.........

............is when her child is sick. Agree?

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my little boy was sick. Started with runny nose and cough, followed by fever. I was already planning to bring him to see the paed the next day when his fever hovered around 38.5 - 39C. However, we ended up in the A&E of the hospital that very evening because he had a febrile seizure. It was the most frightening moment of my life, watching my precious son's eyeballs rolling backwards and arms twitching. I got even more worried when his lips turned blue due to the lack of oxygen. Truthfully I don't know how long it lasted, although I'd think it was less than 5 minutes. So off we went to the hospital as soon as his seizure ended.

Joshie being examined by the doctor on duty. He was given the oxygen mask as well. His fever was 39.6C!!!!! That's not the highest temperature he's had though.

Called paed on duty to examine him. According to the paed, the possibility of another seizure within the next 24 hours is high, so he wanted Joshie to be admitted. Blood and urine test done upon admission. In the picture above, the nurse was checking his blood pressure while the cheeky was engrossed with his iPad.

Fever still spiked the next day. So doctor advised to stay another night. I requested for a baby cot. The night before, we were both sleeping on the same bed and I sprained my neck as a result of that. Unfortunately fever continued to spike, and he had to be given Voltaren for the 3rd time since admission.

On the morning of Day 3, doctor discovered white dots at his throat. Diagnosed as tonsillitis. So that's the cause of the high fever!!!! Cheeky being fed more medicine. It was scary seeing the amount of meds given to him during his hospital stay. Every 4 hourly he had to take 3-4 different types of medicine. Doctor advised to stay another 2 days. Went home to bring cheeky more toys as I didn't want him to face the iPad the whole day.

Day 4. Mummy requested for discharge. Temperature has been normal so doctor agreed =) Cheeky was delighted too. He was so so so bored of the hospital.

Took him a week plus to recover fully. No more fever since day 3 but throat was still red so I had to watch what he ate. Anyway, I am real glad this is over. I'll hafta be really careful the next time he has a fever as the possibility of another febrile seizure is there. According to paed, he will only outgrow this at the age of 6-7 years old.

I had a good laugh

Poor boy was trying very hard to blow the balloon......

And bad mummy had a good laugh.......hahahahahaha. You will soon be able to blow a balloon, my dear boy.

His new playmate

So Oscar has gone back to Australia for more than a month already. And I am quite amazed that Joshie seems to understand that Oscar is no longer in Singapore and he can't play with him anymore. My mom and MIL were a tad worried about the cheeky losing a close friend. However, I have assured them that he is fine and has found another close friend as his playmate.

This is his new playmate, Gaspar who lives in the same condo =) They even go to school together thrice a week. According to teacher, they are very close. They love to sit next to each other and dance/sing together. BUT they also fight....haha. Pinching, shoving and hitting.

The boys drumming.

Their make-believe train. Their train brings them to many places..........Ca-li-li-li-fornia and Hong Kong disney are the two main places.

Fun outing. Both were singing in the stroller when we brought them to Sentosa beach recently.

Kids are really so adaptable. Say goodbye to old friends and hello to new friends easily huh?

Random pictures of the little boy at school

Sorting according to colours.

Story time. Children are so engrossed with the story.

Teacher Winnie teaching the kids how to introduce themselves.

Game time.

Finally visited Universal Studios

We finally visited Universal Studios at Sentosa last month when hubby's best friend was in town. I tell you, it was 2 days of continuous fun for our cheeky boy, Lion King followed by Universal Studios the following day. However, the downside was that he was too tired to enjoy Universal Studios to the max, having slept close to midnight and still waking up at 7am the next morning.

Us at the entrance =)

And mummy with cheeky before his first roller coaster ride. He met the height requirement and we just decided to let him try. Before we lined up, we brought him aside, showed him the actual ride and asked him if he would like to go on it. Not knowing anything, he said yes, I think he was kinda excited seeing the roller coaster go so fast.

So I sat with him and I held his hands firmly. This mummy was a bit paranoid that he might get "blown off" since he's so small.......hahahaha. He was quiet throughout the ride. When the roller coaster finally slowed down, he told me "finish" and I asked him if he wanted another ride to which he replied "no"!!!

The weather was really hot and we left at 2ish pm. Hubby covered most of the rides while I took care of cheeky. The park is small, so can definitely cover all in less than a day.

Joshua @ 2.5 year old

He turned 2.5 years old 2 weeks ago and I forgot to update my blog. Have been really lazy lately and prefer to curl up on my bed with a Jodi Picoult novel. The hubs has also been bugging me to blog but well, I'm just not in the mood.

OK, back to Joshie. He's grown a lot (physically i mean). We were at the doctor's recently and thus, he was weighed and measured for his height. At 2.5 years old, he's 16kg and 99cm tall. Really tall for his age, thanks to mummy n daddy for the "tall" genes =)

He's been to school for 3 months already and he's loving it although he sometimes tells me "mummy, not going school" in the morning. However, he speaks excitedly about school and gives me a brief outline of what they do in school. No regrets sending him to school as I feel that he has learnt a lot. He has learnt to identify numbers and many letters from the alphabet. Moreover, his speech has improved by leaps and bounds. He speaks in proper sentences quite often and his vocabulary is amazing. Kudos to the teachers at LeapSchoolHouse =)

About a month ago, I taught him how to use the scissors. Previously I tried teaching him before, using the PlayDoh scissors to cut playdough but he wasn't interested. Preferred to use the plastic knife again. However, this time he was really keen and picked it up really fast. He was really excited and started to snip bits and pieces of paper onto the floor.

And look what happened one day when ah ma (grandmother in the Hokkien dialect) was taking care of him but also talking to me at the same time. The cheeky snipped off some of his hair. Luckily it wasn't obvious and it did not make him ugly.

Another thing that I just discovered. He seems to have quite good control of the marker, although his grip is wrong. I have been teaching him to draw horizontal and vertical lines and also circles. He can do all that quite well. I happened to turn away to check an SMS on my phone and when I turned back, he had already drawn this (picture below). I asked him what it was and he replied "Teacher Winnie". So I guess that's the outline of his teacher's hair.

Oh, and the day before, he drew a dinosaur (picture below). Told me it was a dinosaur and proceeded to draw the eyes and nose as well.

He's still a shy boy who would keep quiet in the company of strangers. I have been trying to get him to greet uncle/auntie and to say his "please" and "thank you" but he doesn't always follow. When he doesn't open his mouth in the company of others, he'd tell me "Joshie shy" when we have walked away.

The hubs and I are enjoying all his cheeky antics. He's now so cute at this age and he always makes us laugh. The hubs especially appreciates and loves all his antics after a hard and stressful day at work. He can be really manja to us too, being an only child.

The Lion King musical

Last weekend, hubby's best friend came down to Singapore with his wife for a short holiday. One of their pre-planned itinerary was to watch the Lion King musical. We had already decided to tag along and even bought a ticket for Joshua as well even though the musical is recommended for children 7 years and above. My only worry was that the cheeky might not sit through the 2 hour musical, especially since it'll be during his bedtime.

Here is a picture of cheeky with Uncle Kim Hock in the theatre, before the musical commenced. He brought along his Lion King storybook. And daddy bought him the Zazu soft toy.

The musical started at 8pm and there was a 15 minute break in between before it ended at 10:30pm. The costumes were spectacular and we enjoyed the singing and dancing. Joshie was so excited and I was amazed that recognized the characters. He kept on pointing towards the stage and telling me what was going on (his version, which was quite accurate most of the time since I've already read him the story). What amazed us was that the little cheeky sat through the entire musical without any fuss. He was sleepy and a bit restless after the interval but he still sat through. Uncle Kim Hock even said that Joshie enjoyed the musical the most. =) Haha.....so the money spent on his ticket was so worth it!!!

Disney on Ice

OK, this is the best photo that I managed to take. It was a good camera, so please blame it on my photography skills. My husband is going to nod his head in agreement, right hubby?

Two Saturdays ago, I brought Joshie to watch Disney on Ice at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Went with two of his friends, Haley and Rion. Besides Mickey and Friends, the kids also saw The Little Mermaid, Lion King and Tinkerbell. However, all three of them were most excited to see Mickey and Friends, mainly because they didn't know the other characters well enough. Oh, and we were glad that we bought Category 1 tickets, otherwise the kids would be sitting too far back to enjoy the show.

After the musical, we headed to the taxi stand but the queue was just too long. Called for a cab but couldn't get through. So we walked with the kids to the nearest MRT station.

Two wobbly toddlers trying to steady themselves in the moving train.

Rion who only slept at midnight the night before was tired, hungry and cranky. Thus she was crying and Motomi had to carry her. We were shocked that nobody stood up to offer her a seat!!!!