Alvez went for his vaccination at 15 months for MMR and chicken pox. I was so surprised that he didn’t cry at all when the needle poked through his arm. My little boy is so brave!
Did I mention that the difference in their weight between the 2 siblings is only 500 grams? Alvez’s weight is 10.1kg and Inez is 10.6kg. My little girl is really petite and small-sized, I think some of her peers weigh like 11 or 12kg.
Just hope that the 2 kids will grow up strong, healthy and happy.
It’s been 2 weeks that Inez is off the diaper during the day time and I must say I’m so proud of my girl. She will now say that she wants to go to the toilet/potty whenever she feels the urge to pee. Once she pee, she will exclaim, “WOW! Got water come out!” Then we will praise her for doing a good job and I think that really give her a boost in her confidence, making her more inclined to say when she wants to pee.
There was one morning that she even told my mum that she wants to go toilet first before going to the market with my mum. My girl has really grown up! Ain’t too sure how she will be if we remove the diaper at night but I guess for now, I will take things as it goes.
I am embarking on Project T that has just started 2 days ago. So far, no progress as Ms Inez still pee on the floor wherever she goes. Just this morning, I witness her peeing once in the kitchen and another time when I was about to leave home for work. I can only say sorry to my helper who will be the busiest moping the floor and washing her shorts & panties.
Yay, maybe some of you who are reading this post are proud parents where your kids are toilet-trained while I am only just starting out to train my 2 year old. Whatever la, I am still embarking on another milestone in her life and though I have lesser hands on experience in this Project T as I won’t be home most of the daytime and she will be in her diapers at night, I will still be proud of her when she’s finally toilet-trained and of course a BIG THANK YOU to my mum & helper who will get their hands “dirty” most of the time.
Pls say a little prayer for us and that Inez will be toilet-trained in a month’s time? Eh, am I being too ambitious?
Or maybe you like to share your experience in toilet-training your kids or tips that you can offer to get her to the loo… On a side note, mummy has explained and even demonstrated to her about going to the toilet. 
I’m sure my smart little girl will do just well!
There are times when I need to go home on my own after work as D has to work late. These are the times when I will take bus 969 from Tampines interchange to alight near Khatib and change another bus to reach home.
There is this unspoken culture at the bus stand of 969 at the interchange. There will be 2 kinds of queue – one is the official queue and the other is unofficial queue. When the bus approach, people in the official queue will move and board the bus but they will stop once they see that there are no more empty seats. Then the people in the unofficial queue will board the bus.
When I first took the bus, I was a little irritated at why the people in the official queue stop moving to board the bus and I have since figured out that it is an unspoken culture. Since then, I have joined the unofficial queue as I just wanted to get home asap and don’t mind standing through that 30 mins journey.
If you ever need to board this bus at Tampines interchange, don’t be surprised at the 2 queues.
In my household, Mummy is always the first person whom the kids turn to every time, even though I am probably also the one who disciplines them the most (because I spent more time with them as compared to the Dad).
This is especially true when it comes to Inez. She knows when I’m angry with her when she misbehaves or did something that I did not approve but she will still come crying and wanting me to hug her even while being disciplined. If I ignore her, she will cry even louder and climb up to me and insist that I hug her.
And in the daily mundane of life daily affairs, so long as I’m around, Inez will always that Mummy do this, Mummy do that – for example, Mummy go make milk, Mummy carry Inez to bed, Mummy bathe Inez, Mummy change diapers, Mummy take toys for Inez, etc, etc…
Whenever I reach home after work, my kids will rush to the door and both will reach out their hands and Inez will say “Mummy, you come home already, shake hand.” They basically just ignore the father. Once I entered in, they will both stretch out their hands for “bao bao”. I just love that feeling!
Alvez also just love to sit on my lap and he will use my hands and make clapping sound. Occasionally, he will tilt his face to look at me and give me a smile.
I love my 2 babies!!! They make any day a lot brighter with their smile and laughter! They make me feel that nothing is too difficult and every time I can see this phrase “Nothing is impossible for God” from their lives.
These are in random order…
“Mummy, you come back already?”
“I cannot open.”
“I want to wear my shoes.”
“What happened? Why?”
“Mummy, where u going?”
“I don’t want…I don’t want to eat rice…”
“Go away, I don’t want u.”
“This is mine.”
There are still other sentences but I can’t really remember as I blog. She’s really a chatty girl & I think she is highly likely to be a I & C personality.
We took Alvez for his first haircut last week as it’s growing too long especially the side near his ears. He still didn’t know what lies ahead of him while on the way to the salon. We wanted to bring him to the salon but they don’t cut hair for babies. In the end, we brought him to the malay barber instead.
As he was not tall enough yet to sit in the chair, I had to sit on the chair and carry him on my lap. He cried throughout the haircut, he stop occasionally when he hear the sound of the hair dryer. Thank God the barber was seasoned and the whole ordeal ended in 5-10mins. BUT all his hair that was cut fell onto me… I wonder who’s the one who’s having a haircut? 
My handsome boy after the haircut.
Seeing how traumtised he was, we took him to the playground for a short while and that’s how he enjoyed himself.
Look like a toddler now instead of baby.. How fast he has grown!
One of D’s usher leaders saw a deal online to visit Johor Premium Outlet and asked if we were like to go. So we thought, why not? We bought the deal for $29.90 – the cost of the coach and lunch was provided. In the end, 13 of us went together yesterday since it was a PH.
Johor Premium Outlets is a collection of 80 designer and name brand outlet stores featuring saving of 25% to 65% every day. The center is held by "Genting Simon Sdn Bhd" (GSSB), a wholly owned subsidiary of Simon Genting Ltd ("SGL"). SGL in turn is a 50:50 joint venture between Azzon Ltd ("Azzon"), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Genting Plantations Bhd, and Premium Outlets®, the outlet division of Simon Property Group. (source from the website)
We left Singapore at 11am. There was slight jam as we approached Tuas link way, thank God we were on package tour and took the bus lane for coaches, so we were not stuck in the jam, unlike those who drove in yesterday. After clearing both customs, we finally arrived at the restaurant around 120pm for lunch. We waited a while for them to serve lunch – the dishes included shark fin soup, braised meat aka kong ba bao, sambal mixed vegetables of long beans, lady’s fingers & brinjal, steamed fish, fried beancurd skin with broccoli, cereal prawns, yam ring and fruits.
Personally, I find the soup a bit too salty and it smell a little fishy, the braised meat is too salty and must mix it with rice to eat. I don’t like the sambal vegetables as I don’t take spicy food and I don’t take long beans, lady’s finger and brinjal. The fish was good – it was fresh and tasted just nice, something to compensate my taste buds. The cereal prawns looked as if there was not enough cereals and it tasted like a mix between cereals and curry powder. The yam ring was nice – just that it didn’t had celery. I guess there must be a reason that package tours have to throw in more dishes for lunch or dinner as the food may not be that fantastic.
Finally, we proceeded to JPO, which was a 5-10 mins drive from where we had lunch. It was SUPER CROWDED!!! Being a PH for us in Singapore, many Singaporeans flock to this place. Along the way, the tour guide was telling us that the car park can hold a capacity of 600 cars but while we driving in, we can see many many cars parked along the 2 sides of the road. OMG!!!
There was CROWD everywhere, you need to queue even just to pay your parking charges and the queue was like 20+ people long. Every shop is crowded and there were many family who brought the old and the young along.
Though I have 2 kids but seriously, I will not bring them to this place cos they will not enjoy it as there’s nothing to attract the kids attention. There is only one pathetic playground that is the size of those we can find below our HDB blocks. So many kids vying to play there, ok, it was probably due to the public holiday that there’s so much human traffic. I see some elderly Ah Ma and Ah Gong queuing for their kids or maybe grandkids outside the store, which I thought that it was so mean. If you bring the elderly folks, isn’t it suppose to be an excursion for them? Why make them queue for you when you are young and have the energy?
The craziest shop was COACH – it limited a certain number of people into the shop and I heard you have to queue for at least 30 mins before you can enter. But the goods offered are all past seasons and they aren’t that cheap. If you get someone to get from US factory outlet, I think it’s way cheaper than getting from JPO.
Out of the 80 shops, I only visited Adidas, Armani, Cotton On, Espirit, Gap, La Senza, Lacoste, Levi’s, Nike, Poney, Puma, Raoul, Timberland, Pedro, Vincci and City Chain. It was really NOTHING MUCH. The stocks are old, D cannot find his size and it ain’t cheap. After touring 2 rounds, I was ready to call it a day and go Starbucks or Coffee Bean to “stone”. But I can’t even enter in to Starbucks as it was so crowded. It was the same with Coffee Bean. In the end, we went to the food court, only to realize that most of them also were there.
My conclusion: It’s not worth going JPO unless you are super free or wants an excursion trip. If not, it’s better to visit the premium outlets in US. For that kind of price in JPO, one can afford to wait till GSS to get that same item for a cheaper price. Not forgetting that JPO is new, there are bound to be lots of crowd at least for the next few months. Once the fad dies off, one may consider visiting if you really have nothing to do in SG.
Inez first candlelight svc in 2009. See how small she was then at 3 months old.
Inez second & Alvez first candlelight. Alvez really go in the flow of “Sleep in heavenly peace”.
Finally, some decent and nice pictures (thanks to the ushers friends) for 2011.
This post is really dedicated to my members to tell your the fun that your missed out and hopefully, we can all go for next year’s retreat.
Upon reaching the hotel, we had ice-breakers, led by Kheen Teen and he’s good, very GOOD!!! All 3 ice-breakers broke the ice and there is always a learning point behind every ice breaker and the learning point links back to our Zone Retreat’s theme – CONNECT. In essence, we want everybody to CONNECT to God, CONNECT to one another, CONNECT to oneself.
Can you guess what we were trying to do?
The second ice-breaker that we had was to build the longest standing tower using 8 pieces of newspaper and we only had a scissor and a scotch tape. Remember we did that in CG few weeks ago only but using straws?
After building that tower, we are supposed to make as many connections with the other teams (there will 12 teams) and we need to take a photo first before we can make connection with the other team. After the picture, we need to use rafia string to tie our tower to their tower. It was quite interesting and you can hear lots of shouts, cheers and sense the excitement in the air.
After the ice-breakers, we break for lunch and check in to our rooms and had some free time. Andreas shared the Word during the evening around 5pm and after that, we had dinner by the pool. BUT the sky was not co-operating. After just taking 4 spoonfuls of food, it POURED!!! All of us drop everything and cheong to the shelter. So, in the end, we had dinner under the shelter and was entertained by the musicians and singers.
They not only sang oldies for the older folks, evergreen songs, they even sang Xmas Carols at our request. The best part was they even know how to sing that theme song “Wo Meng Tian” of that Taiwan soap opera that Channel 8 was showing.
We also celebrated some of the members’ birthday in November & December.
After dinner, some members went for massage, others went to have a game of pool and bowling. For me, I was so tired that I can KO while watching them play bowling. So I actually went to bed at 1030pm as super tired.
The next day, we had the sharing of the Word by Agnes. After that, we break for lunch, had some free and easy time before gathering back again in the function rooms to announce the best cheer and some prize giving and appreciation. Then we check out and headed for the jetty.
All in all, it was a fun, balanced, spiritual trip…Just that we all felt that it’s too short. So guys, we are planning that for next year, we should go for a 3D2N retreat. Even if it means that we may need to take leave to go for the retreat, shall we all go together? Your don’t know how “lonely” I was without my members. Haha…
