The Tanglin Tree

Yes, I'm alive, and no, my fingers did not rot and fall off. My excuse dear friends, for totally falling out of the  blogosphere, starts with "work" and ends with "crap". Whoops, I just meant "work".

Sigh. It's been pretty crazy since April. I've hardly had time to go to the toilet, let alone blog! Mornings are spent leaping out of bed (late, no less), sterilising pump parts and bottles, deciding on an outfit, getting dressed, changing mind about outfit, getting dressed (again), feeding DS, packing bags (mine and DN's), getting DN dressed, sending him to school and then myself to school before class starts. Nights are spent harvesting my pumpkins on Farmville in Facebook preparing for the next day's class. 

I hope things will be better in this new school term. :) It probably will - I've moved the Facebook app on my iPhone to the last page and have sworn off Facebook. It's the damn farming that's been a pure waste of time! Wish me luck... and will power.

So many things have happened since my last post about the kiddos - DN outgrowing his milk allergy (woot!), DS sprouting teeth, DN's trip to the theatre where he spent 40 minutes sitting ON THE FLOOR and DS's transformation from baby to toilet brush. Yes, toilet brush. But more about that later this week. (Haven't downloaded the photos yet, haha!)

Today, I want to blog about the fun time we had meeting up with Sophie when she came back from New Zealand for a holiday. Sophie and DN have been hanging out since they were 8 months old and have gone to the zoo, the botanic gardens and even the theatre together. A whole bunch of us decided to meet up for breakfast at The Tanglin Tree one Sunday morning. DN had a swell time that day, playing with Jovann, Clarence and Sophie.

The Tanglin Tree has a pretty nice tree house out front and after about half an hour, we had to admit defeat and release the children into the sun... where they stayed for the next whole hour.

Jovann, Sophie and Clarence were thrilled with the water pit. There were also water and sand toys for the kids to play with. DN steered clear because he didn't want to get wet. He can be quite mak nenek (a grandmother) sometimes!

So while everyone else was splashing around, he entertained himself with the slides.

When we finally managed to drag the kiddos in, they headed for the books. Please don't ask me why I have such a stupid look on my face.

Sophie and DN, May 2010

DN and Sophie, March 2007

Updates soon... promise!

Meet "Chi Chi" the Mosquito.

Yes, I'm alive! Check back soon for an update. :)

WINNER! Raffle Wednesdays [#4 Little]

And the two lucky winners of a $50 voucher each are...

Congratulations you two! Please email me at junewee[at]gmail.com and I'll put you in touch with the wonderful mums at Little.

Baby, please email me by this Friday, 4 June, to collect your voucher before it expires!

Raffle Wednesdays [#4 Little]

Hooray, it's Raffle Wednesday again! I'm really excited about this raffle because the winnersss (yes, there's going to be more than one winner) will walk away with a $50 gift voucher. Each! *cheer and go crazy*

Here we go!

Introducing... Little! When I first saw the write-up on Little in Urban two Fridays ago, I squealed. And when I logged onto their website and saw this...

... I squealed some more (AND ran for my credit card, AND wished they made this in my size)!

I was never like this. Buying clothes for DN has been so boring and uninspiring. I mean, seriously, how far can you go from a jeans + t-shirt combo? The most fashionable thing I've bought for DN is... erm... hmm... ehh... *crickets chirping*

Dressing DN up is also so easy. All he needs is his jeans and a clean t-shirt. Well, actually that's me. According to DN, all he needs is Ben 10 underwear. -___-

Dressing DS up however... *faint*! You have skirts : mini, tiered, bubble; tops : puff, flutter, sleeveless; dresses : a-line, pinafore, overalls; and the accessories... oh my! At the rate I'm going, I'm going to have to talk to someone about refinancing schemes. And maybe a marriage counsellor because PF just doesn't understand why his daughter takes half an hour to get dressed.

Can you understand now, why I squealed after checking out Little's website?

I love this kimono top! Can't decide which colour I like better though. There's even a version for little boys. :)

Little was started by two moms - Rebecca and Rachel - who wanted to make happy clothes for little people, with an oriental twist. And because of my keen investigative nose, I have found out a little more about Rebecca and Rachel and their new business venture.

1. Love love love the Little clothes! Do you have formal training in fashion and dressmaking?

Thank you, we're so pleased! No, neither Rachel nor I have any training in fashion or dressmaking. My formal training is in Architecture, so that coupled with a general interest in art and design definitely helps when creating our collections. Rachel works in an insurance consultancy and her corporate background means she's very well-organised. We work on the collections together and she keeps everything in line!

2. How long does it take for a dress to go from design on paper to being sold in your online store?

From the point that we begin sketching our designs to the moment the clothes are packed and ready for sale, it's about 4 months.

3. It's boring dressing boys up. Is there life beyond the t-shirt and jeans ensemble?

Definitely! In our tropical climate, we think singlets and shorts are seriously underrated. Think surfer-style singlets and funky boardshorts. Throw on some flip flops and cool sunglasses (if you can get them to stay on!) and your little boy can be relaxed and beat the heat at the same time! 

4. How do you juggle work, children, couple time and me time?

With a sense of humour and great difficulty, at times! Seriously though, I think sticking to some sort of structure is key. Early bedtimes are strictly enforced (despite howling, bargaining and other monstrous behaviour) to ensure I can get some work done in the evening. Rachel is fortunate to have her husband and in-laws to help care for her 6-month old baby boy when she needs to work on Little, be at the office or travel for work.

5. What's the best thing about motherhood?

Rachel's immediate response was "boobs!". Can't say I disagree! Otherwise, I also feel quite warm and fuzzy when my 4-year old tells me earnestly, "sometimes you wear me out but I love you anyway". How many people are ever going to tell you that??

So, back to the raffle. Up for grabs are two $50 gift vouchers for two lucky lucky mummies. How do you win? Simple.


1. Just go to Little, choose a favourite item and tell me which it is by leaving a comment here.


2. For a second chance to win, check out Little's  Facebook page here, "click on 'like it' and leave me another comment.

3. For a third chance to win, blog or tweet about this giveaway and leave me a comment with your twitter account or blog link.

Please leave me a new comment for every task you complete because I'm going to use a random number generator to pick a winner. So if you only leave 1 comment even after completing all 3 tasks, it will still register as only 1 chance. So comment away okay! The raffle closes a month from now, Friday, 21 May 2010. You don't have to complete all tasks to enter this raffle. But the more tasks you complete, the higher your chances of winning!

Good luck everyone!

I love my brother/sister

I love it when I find random photos like these in my phone. :)

DN's still not very good (okay fine, he's crap!) with the camera as you can see, but occasionally, I find photos like these in my phone. He's still quite enamoured with his sister and loves to take photos of her. Sometimes he ends up taking photos of the floor / ceiling / tree outside the window / his finger, but sometimes the planets are aligned and he actually manages to get his sister in the frame. Yay!

I love watching these two interact with each other. DN loves to makes his sister laugh and frankly, his success rate is way higher than anyone else's. He could just go "boo!" at her and she will laugh. She makes him laugh too. When she farts. Oh, that just sets him off.

The other day, we moved DN's car seat to the back (and that means I've been promoted to the passenger seat, heh). When he got into the seat, he started wailing. I sort of expected that because now he couldn't see the whole road laid out in front of him. But no! That's not why he started wailing.

"Wail! Wail! Wail! I cannot see mei mei! I cannot touch mei mei!"

Hee hee hee!

You see, DS's car seat has got pretty high sides, so unless DN cranes his neck, he won't be able to see her. And of course, he can't touch her because his arms are just too short to reach across! But do you know what? They figured it out. After a while, I turned around and saw two little hands touching. Yup, both of them reached out of their car seats to hold hands.

Now tell me your heart isn't melting!

Baking A Diaper Cake

When I first heard the term diaper cake, I was like, "diaper wha...???". And my first thought was, "Why would anyone make a cake in the shape of a diaper???" Mention "diaper" and I think "poop", "pee" and (god forbid) "leaking". The last thing I want to do is eat something that looks toxic.

Of course, I soon found out that you don't eat a diaper cake. You give it, yes sir-ree. And they are all the rage in the mothering world right now. I didn't know because they don't have those under the rock where I come from. 

So when my good friend got pregnant (we've known each other since we were 6... that's 29 20 years ago!), I knew straight away that I had to welcome her into this crazy world they call parenthood with a diaper cake. Never will her life be sane / normal / the same again. Hopefully the said diaper cake will get her so excited she'll forget that once she gives birth, there are no exchanges, and definitely no refunds.

So I trawled the internet and found the perfect diaper cake. Read : cheap and good. I pitched this idea to Funny Bee (who has also known Good Friend for like, forever) and she promptly said, "Since I am crazy and you are crazy and we have nothing else better to do... Let's make it!" And I said, "We are mad! Hokay!"

All this took place about 4 months into my friend's pregnancy. And what does that mean? It means, dear friends, that Funny Bee and I had 6 months to learn how to make a diaper cake. And what do we do? Of course, squat.

*sigh*

I soon came to realise that making a diaper cake consisted only of two parts. Part one was buying the ingredients. Part two was making The Darn Thing. Part one was easy and quite fun. Part two? Erm, excuse me... Need. To. Tighten. This. Loose. Screw. In. My. Head.

Fast forward to a week before Good Friend's due date. By this time, Funny Bee and I are shaking in our underpants, totally flummoxed by the gargantuan task ahead of us and preparing ourselves for the worst (i.e. presenting Good Friend with a plastic bag full of baby items that were supposed to be in a diaper cake). Each one of us had done the obligatory google search on diaper cakes, but nothing more than that. Funny Bee even found out that a cousin of hers MADE them to sell. Now, if only she lived in SINGAPORE! Grrr!

Finally, we decided to bite the bullet and just make The Darn Thing. No guts no glory, I say! So I found this video and gave everyone (we roped in another brave friend) strict instructions to literally, watch and learn. My morale was further boosted by another website that said I could make one in only 30 minutes. "Hokay!" I said to myself, "We're educated females. We're Singaporean. We can follow instructions. We can do this! Roar!"

And we did! *smug*

In 30 minutes 3 hours! *snort*

Looks simple enough right? Well, it took us about 1.5 hours of squabbling, rolling, unrolling, tying, squabbling, rolling, unrolling and squishing to get to this stage. That's the bottom tier and we've got a receiving blanket tied around it.

Why 1.5 hours? Well, let's just say we had grand plans that had to be scaled down. Our original base had like 20 rolled diapers in it. Too bad it was SQUARE! After much scratching of heads, we finally decided to be realistic and go with a 2-tier cake. And that meant that 35 of the 50 diapers didn't make it into the cake. Sorry fellas.

Presenting... our top tier! Another reason why it took us 3 hours to make The Darn Thing? We were so tickled by this we spent like 15 minutes taking pictures of it, and with it.

We wrapped the top tier in a onesie and a pair of pants to hide the diapers. As you can see, we went with a puppy theme and stuck with blues and browns. Yup, it's a boy. :)

We then filled the space between tiers with argyle babylegs in the same blue-brown combo and a set of travel-size toiletries for baby (diaper cream, shampoo, body wash, powder).

Finally, we added some toppers - a pair of baby socks, a stuffed toy-cum-blankie and a card. Ta-dah! Besides tears and sweat, it cost us about $97 for the entire cake, including leftovers (35 diapers, 1 onesie, 1 bath mitt, 1 babylegs). We probably could have gotten a nicer, professional-looking one for slightly less than that, but we had good quality stuff in ours. Plus, it was a ton of fun. ;)

I'm happy to report that Good Friend was very pleased and quite impressed with our efforts. Or at least, that's the impression she gave us!

Update : Good Friend has since given birth to a happy and healthy baby boy who, so far, is doing a pretty good job of turning her life upside down.

Crawling Adventures

She's growing up too fast!

Happy Easter!

I don't know about you, but when I see these animal ear headbands in the store, goddammit, I just want to put them on and start barking / meowing / hopping / trumpeting around the shop. Sometimes I give in to my desires which causes PF to suddenly look at the ceiling and start inching away from me, but most times I just Bite. My. Lip. And. Walk. Away.

When I saw these bunny ones however, all decorum (and shame!) flew out of the window. I descended upon them hungrily, plonked DS into my Dad's arms, adjusted the headband on her head, started hopping up and down to make her laugh (and when that didn't work, started making crazy, high-pitched noises) and snapped away. PF was nowhere to be found as usual. As I snapped, I thought about the 500 other people who wore the headband before DS and that slowed me down a bit.

A bit.

Looking at these photos, I think DS might have inherited my passion to be half-human-half-furry-animal. She seems happy enough!

Happy Easter!