Winchester City Museum

Class was cancelled today and you should have heard us cheer in the classroom. It didn't sound like a class of mature, post-graduate students, LOL. Even our lecturer called us b*stards (in good faith, of course)!

It was really a nice surprise because we've been in class from 9am-5pm, Mondays to Thursdays and 9am-12pm on Fridays. After 4 weeks of this, no wonder we sounded like a rave party when class was cancelled. Never before have I been so glad to hear of someone being stuck in really bad traffic. (My lecturer had been stuck for over an hour and couldn't get to us in time.)

Woot!

So what do you do when life suddenly presents you with a free day? :)

I decided to just amble about in town, and I stumbled into the Winchester City Museum by accident. And it was a good thing too, because I discovered how child-friendly it was.

"The museum welcomes families with children of any age. Don't worry too much about your toddler's noise; we're not the cathedral, you don't have to whisper! Try to relax about your children touching things. If objects shouldn't be touched they are safely out of harm's way."

http://www.winchester.gov.uk/Documents/Museums/Under%205s%20guide%20for%20web.pdf

And it's FREE. (So this is where some of their 40% income taxes go!)

A special exhibition on the Vikings just started. They cleverly used museum theatre and it was fun to see some ancient characters come to life. On one floor there was a soldier telling everyone about his chainmail, helmet and shield. The kids even got to try on helmets and carry shields. They couldn't wear the chainmail though, because (in the words of the soldier), "The chainmail's so heavy that after wearing it, you will have arms like a gibbon." LOL.

On another floor, there was a lady telling stories.

DN might still be a bit too young for these activities, but there were these little tables and chairs peppered all over the museum. If you look closely, you can see crayons and colouring paper for little ones to colour on.

I hope DN will like it here.

DN's Report Card #3

This is my mom's report card for the last day DN was with her.

"DN has taught me some mandarin words.

* xi shou = wash your hands
* shui = water
* kai = open
* xie xie = of course I know this

But, DN's greatest achievement was teaching me how to use your camera!!! Just now, I was looking through the photos with him. When I got to the photo with the fish, he kept saying, "Fish move!" and waved his hands. I moved onto the next photo but he kept on saying, "Fish move!" We went back and forth a few times. Finally, he said ,"Me PRESS!" So he did. And it was a video!

(I'd taken a video of some fish swimming when we went to the Botanic Gardens in September.)

He kept laughing when he heard you saying, "No no no."

(We were at the edge of the pond as I was taking the video and DN had actually lifted his foot and was suspending it over the water!)

We laughed a lot when we got to the picture of the Yew Kwai (his exact words) Thief.

(Yew char kway thief. Read previous post)

He had his bath at 8.30pm and was as fragrant as freshly washed laundry. Soon PF came. There was a plate of sliced pears (5 slices) meant for PF. DN put his fingers together and asked for a little. So I gave him half. Then he asked for a 'BIG' one. He got it too. Next he asked for a last one. This time I put my foot down and told him that it was meant for others. In typical DN style, he offered everybody a slice.

One for Cho Cho - "Cho Cho eat"
One for Papa - "Papa eat"
One for me - "Ah Ma eat"

I was thinking, "Such a nice kid. Respecting others so much and being so considerate." Then I realised DN 's craving will only stop if the dish is empty.

He really lit up our weekend and I don't mind him spending more weekends with me."

Awww, thanks Mom! :) Great! Now PF and I can take little weekend holidays!!!!! HAHAHAHA...

DN's Report Card #2

This is part 2 (of 3) of the "report cards" from DN's grandma. She looked after him for 3 days.

"We went to Tiong Bahru market this morning and a lady approached me and said he recognised the bag I was carrying (that's DN's diaper bag). It's June's! She told me she was Reubern's mom. At that moment, DN knocked down a bowl of soya bean. Mama and I were so engrossed with cleaning the mess I forgot to take a picture and worst of all, I couldn't find the tissue paper in your famous bag.

Josh , DN and I waited in a corner whilst Mama went to get some vegetables. I was holding a plastic bag with some yew char kuay in it. DN was next to me. While waiting, and unknowing to me, DN had spotted the yew char kuay and bent down to take a bite of it straight out of the plastic bag! Josh caught the culprit on camera. I'll get PF to send you the picture.

He didn't sleep the whole afternoon. I did try to put him down for a nap. I dozed off and DN didn't. When I woke up, minutes later, I saw him holding a marker pen and drawing on the pillow. He had marks on his nose and hands. Of course I gave him a little slap on his wrist and he teared up like a hound. P I T I F U L.

He didn't sleep until 8pm. He got up at 9.45pm pleading to speak to "Papa". Well that didn't last long and he finally slept.

I confess, I denied him his beloved "NYAR NYAR" (that's what DN has christianed his pacifier). That's why he couldnt sleep.

"YOU WIN. Ah Ma gives up. Take it!"


The evidence was telling.

DN's Report Card #1

DN spent the day with his grandma (wee) and I got this "report card" from her via email. I just had to post it up here because it made me laugh out loud! 

"... Minutes before the PM nap, he asked for PF. He said, "Mama call Papa lai". He was in a state of distress so I called PF. He calmed down after that and slept because he was so tired.

I fed him when he got up and then we got changed and went to my colleague's daughter's 3rd birthday party. He was very talkative during the drive. Probably because he had enough sleep and his belly was full. As usual, I boogied to my fav tunes on the radio. (Yes, my mom is very hip!) He was very observant and said, "Mama drive" and nagged me every time my left hand touched the manual shift. He kept saying, "Mama drive". Many times I placed my hand on his knee (just to reassure him) and he would say, "No, mama drive". His regard for values and safety is well ingrained in him!

At the party, he took a while to warm up. He behaved very well and was kind, thoughtful and always aware of the consequences. I'm so proud of him. He enjoyed playing with the kitchen set, the supermarket trolley and the doll's house. He also pushed a toy stroller around and cuddled the baby so lovingly and gently. He didn't give way at times, but thankfully he didn't push other kids around.

I'm afraid he ate everything which you probably would not allow. His belly was so big, I got a bit scared. It was so huge. He looked pregnant.

I'll continue with part #2 tomorrow."

Thanks Mom, for the update. You're the best. ;)

The Little Foodie

Amazingly, I still remember the first time I had this thought, "Wah biang, this boy can really eat." It was Christmas 2007. We had a little X'mas gathering for the little ones and DN was eating eating eating non-stop for about 2 hours. Crackers, fruits, snacks... he kept asking everyone for food!

Well, our suspicions have been confirmed and DN has turned out to be a real little foodie. He loves food and he loves eating. I must say, we are very very lucky. It's quite easy feeding him and he eats almost anything - sea cucumber, bittergourd, leafy vegetables... the only things he can't eat are cheese, yoghurt and anything with milk in it.

But we didn't do anything to raise, or create, a little gourmet. And honestly, it's definitely NOT my cooking that did it. If anything, my cooking should reverse it!

Strangely enough, for the amount that he eats, DN is not chubby at all. In fact, he's still the smallest (and shortest -_-) amongst all his little friends. Okay okay... I know what you're thinking... Fine! I'll take the blame for the short part! Sadly, *sniff*sniff* I cannot take responsibility for the high-metabolic rate part. *sob*sob* When I eat apple crumble, I can feel the crust travel through my veins and to my ass. :(

Sorry, back to DN!

PF and DN were invited to Brenda's and Arianne's for dinner last night and B sent me this video this morning. So funny! I've watched it like twenty trillion times. :)

He misses me, he misses me not, he misses me, he ...


Since I got here, many people have been asking if DN misses me. Good question. I think the answer is, "Not really!" -___-

But I do know that he misses me some times, because...

1. ... there was once he was playing in the room and he heard the sound of high-heeled footsteps in the corridor. Immediately, he looked up and said very loudly, "MAMA!" (awww...)
2. ... we were supposed to meet 'online' via MSN video-conferencing last Friday. To cut a long story short, I had problems connecting my laptop to the school' s wifi so that went out the blasted window. My sis-in-law was telling him all evening that "Mama is going to be on the computer" and he was really looking forward to that. He kept wanting to look at the computer (we'd video-conferenced the week before) and kept wanting to sit on my sis-in-law's lap at the computer desk. In fact, he refused to go to bed because he wanted to see me "on the computer". It was only after I spoke to him on the phone and told him that my computer was spoilt and I couldn't be "on the computer" that he finally went to bed. (double awww...)
3. ... when we finally video-conferenced today, he was SO HAPPY to see me. Oh, the grin on his face and the joy in his voice when he shouted, "MAMA"! Sorry, it was more like, "MAMAAA!!!!!!!!!!" (triple awww...)
4. ... before we hung up just now, my sis-in-law asked him to give me a kiss. DN blew a few flying kisses my way, then he leaned down and kissed the computer screen. :) (awww... to the power of infinity!)

Oh, I love that little bub.

An Overdue Hot Date (!)

Once you have kids, your social life just goes to the dogs. They ravage it like a piece of meat, throwing it into the air, blood splattering all over the ground as they rip it to pieces, swallowing it hungrily like starving beasts. Me? Bitter? Noooooooooo...

My sister gave me a voucher for a birthday dinner at Pierside Kitchen LAST YEAR because she knew that PF and I stopped "going out". We finally snatched some time away last week. We had no choice because I was set to leave in a few days and the voucher was going to expire in December! (There's nothing like an expiring voucher to get a Singaporean off her butt eh?)

I'm glad we got our butts moving because we had a wonderful time laughing, cam-whoring and basically being mountain tortoises. I think our last nice dinner (alone) was 2 years ago, at Kuriya, the day before I gave birth. If only I had known eh? ;) Kuriya would have had to drag me, with legs kicking no less, out of the restaurant.

Anyway, I would recommend the Pierside Kitchen for a nice "reasonable" dinner. We shared a set dinner for $100 and ordered an extra main. The set included an appetiser, starter, main and a dessert. Look!


Before dinner started, we were welcomed with one of these. I've forgotten what they're called. It was crab meat with romaine lettuce, cheese and a slice of, erm, crispy bread!

Parma ham with fig and walnut toast, sweet onion and wild rocket, apricot and tomato chutney

Maine lobster linguini aglio olio with sweet basil and chili


(PF's main)
Slow roasted Tasmanian rack of lamb with Jerusalem artichokes, toasted walnuts and crispy shallots, confit of kohrabi
(My main)
Oven roasted miso cod with minted pea puree

Red plum and water apple strudel with bourbon vanilla ice cream and sour prune sorbet (seng buay!)


PF + June cam-whoring

We were so full, we rolled out of the restaurant. Full, but happy, and holding hands. :)

A Hotel (un)Adventure

PF had a voucher for a free night's stay in a hotel so we packed the family up and headed off for an adventure. Humph, except for the 45 minutes we spent in the pool, there wasn't much adventure in our little getaway. There's nothing to do in a hotel! And we weren't in town, so there was no chance of getting out to do a little shopping. It was a bit of a let down.

As we were getting ready to check out, DN pottered about the room, looking for things to do. He was very contented sitting in the drawers.



After checking out, we went to Centrepoint, had breakfast at Long John Silver's and shopped at Robinsons. DN likes Bob The Builder, but there are hardly any BTB toys. (PHEW!)







Later that afternoon, we met Sophie, Arianne and Jovann at Fidgets. It was quite different from the first time we brought DN there.

It was a madhouse! There were little bodies running, jumping and hurtling everywhere. CRAZY! After 5 minutes in the war zone 'big kids' playground, we admitted defeat and retreated to the 'little kids' playground.

If you want to go to Fidgets, go at 5pm. It empties at 5pm and it's almost immediate. One minute you can hear fighting, screaming and crying, and then, suddenly, silence. Bliss!

Brenda's theory is that the expat housewives have to go home to prepare dinner. Yay! And that's when the Singaporeans have the whole 'big kids' playground to themselves, and proceed to playplayplay until 6.15pm and make the Fidgets staff wait for them to close up. Oops, did I just say that?