Happy Bday Popo

Popo turns 59 YO yday. I am thankful that she’s healthy. Though she drives me crazy on so many occasions and I know many more to come, I am grateful that she looks after the kids when I am at work. She is also a great help in ferrying the kids to classes, since cloning myself is impossible. I am looking forward to Lil Isaac attending primary school and after school care. Though healthy, age is catching up and I am sure she appreciates the extra rest. The kids, especially Lil Isaac definitely zaps her of her energy, like totally. 

On Deepavali, we had a family meal together. It was a simple Hi-Tea at the Ramada hotel. The spread wasn't fanciful and it wasn't vegetarian but I could see how secretly please she is. Brownie points.

Yday, I was in Orchard for a half-day seminar. I had wanted to get a cake for Popo to celebrate her big day. I was struggling about buying a cake from Orchard. I wasn't sure if I could protect the cake while jostling with the peak hour MRT crowd. I am afterall an amateur peak-hour-MRT-rider. I contemplated alighting at JP on the way home. At the eleventh hour, I saw Twelve Cupcakes and bought half a dozen of pretty cupcakes. They even have candles to offer. Yeah! I also bought Gerett popcorns, Popo loves that.

It was the right choice. The peak hour crowd is no joke. I could join a circus if I could handle my bag, laptop, high heels and protect a cake. The jerky ride added on the woes of my darn high heels. I have one hand clinging to the bar for my dear life, yet I insisted on swiping my mobile like all of rest of the commuters with my other hand. I was pretty worried that I would fall and crush somebody but figured out that it was almost impossible to fall in that sardine packed cabin. 

Buying the cupcakes at Orchard was a fantastic choice. By the time the train was pulling into Jurong East station, I had angry my feet. I was so glad that I was able to walk in them and arrived home safely. 

Lil Isaac didn't get to see the pretty cupcakes bcos he had to go for his phonics class. Popo refused to use the candles and there was no cake cutting or picture taking ceremony too. However, I am quite sure Popo was pleased bcos I saw a missing cupcake after shower and saw her munching on the popcorns. Double brownie points for me. Additionally, I have a late night call and she didn't give me any hell despite disrupting her routine. Hohoho.

Mummy Lim

Once Again...

How long has it been since we last set foot into a club? Long enough for me not to remember the last occasion. Of course, old age must have played a part too. There are too many things to accomplish on weekends to risk spending a night painting the town. Nevertheless, when the time is right, the aunty clubbers strike.

This time round, J joined us. Bcos we party so infrequently, we struggled with the question of “where”. Where is popular enough to have a crowd and not just any crowd but one that is matured enough so that we don't get singled out? We sought Google help and even contemplated asking FB for advice. Eventually, it was decided that we would hit Velvet Underground. It is iconic, there were guest DJs spinning and most importantly, a minimum age requirement to keep the little children out. Hehe. It is also a good opportunity to leave our footprint before Zouk shifts. Selfie when I still looked fresh and good. 

We met only at 11pm having learnt previously that clubs are ghost towns before midnight. It was quite embarrassing when we arrived. I have visited Zouk only 2x in my entire life. I have no recollection of where is the entrance or the configuration. The rest of the aunties weren’t any better. We stood around awkwardly, trying to figure out where to get the tickets yet refusing to ask. J must had panicked. She had thought that we are season clubbers. Lol.

Hopefully without looking too stupid, we finally found the sign that says Zouk still works the same way, i.e., one entrance fee to all the 3 clubs – Zouk, Velvet and Phuture. We also followed some other clubbers and bought our ticket to Velvet. 1st sense of accomplishment. Lol. Come to think of it, we should have just pretended to be some foreigners and asked. I think we can pass off as Taiwaneses, Hong Kongers or Filipinos? 

As expected, it was a ghost town when we entered the club at 11pm. We took time to tour the club and headed for Velvet to discover that it is a smaller and cozier room as compared to Zouk. We are so mountain tortoise. I totally felt comfortable at Velvet bcos there were 2 other tables of matured people. They were obviously much more matured than we are. Lol. I love matured crowd. When they clubbed, it is not to impress others but truly to enjoy themselves. I must be speaking for myself. Haha. It must be 1am before we saw different groups of young clubbers come and go. They are probably into club hopping. I wonder again why do youngsters only start clubbing after 12mn now. They took a nap before that? We used to start at 8pm. Haha. Times are so different now.

The dance floor was also shared with different clutters of matured people. I like. A crowd of 4 other males shared our table and started befriending us and eventually treating us to some drinks. Apparently we still have our charms leh. I wasn't too concern with drinks. As I aged, I enjoy clubbing sober so that I can people watch too. Ended up, J and I exchanged our drink coupons for cokes and orange juices – aren’t they expensive?

Velvet played a variety of hip hop remix. After a while, I did get bored. People dance about the same way and my feet were killing me. I started envying those who came clubbing with flats. If we have another opportunity to hit Velvet, I must be sure to dress comfortable. Unlike some of the other clubs that we been, not many dress to kill in Velvet. I double like. 

We left at 2.30am. The girls get to share a cab home and I was a lone ranger. The con of staying far, far away. My feet hurt so badly that I walked home barefooted after getting off the cab. I made it to bed at 3.15am and set 3 alarms so that I can wake up at 8am the next morning to bring the little boy for his TWD grading test. 

Coffee was my best friend the next day. My second cup.

I was fairly zombified the whole day and boy, it did take me many more nights to recover. Still, it was worth it. When is the next round? Hehe.

Mummy Lim

Ice Skating 30

I am always looking forward to Lil Shauna’s ice skating class and I am probably more enthusiastic than the little girl. Maybe I should really sign up for the core lessons and invest in a proper pair of skates. New year resolution 2016 it shall be. 

After 2 weeks, we went back to the same ice skating lesson routine. We practice the usual. Lil Shauna is definitely getting better but her jumps are still so very tiny. I haven’t figured out if she didn't have the strength to jump, not using the right technic or simple scared. We have knee pads and padded pants at home but she simply refused to wear them bcos they are not pretty. Win already, scare of falling yet not wanted to be protected. Zzzz…. We spent some time on her spiral as well and it seems like she’s almost there when I am by her side rooting for her.

She didn't learn new moves during class but had the chance to show off her salchow jump. I am super proud of that one. It is supposed to be one of the easiest edge jumps (according to one of the youtube videos) but it looked so super complicated to me and Lil Shauna got it. She demonstrated her spiral too but didn't do as well. Maybe I should go to class with her. Zzzzz.

Mummy Lim

Holidays

School holidays are 2 weeks away. I have an emotion struggle with the holidays now. It is scary to have to return home to kids who had been cooped up the whole day - imagine chickens running freely and wildly. But the school holidays also mean the coming of our sweet winter holidays in Korea. In my head, I can already see the perfect picture of us all bundled up and standing in the snow now, exactly like how it looked like on one of those travel agency posters promoting winter holidays. Hohoho. Would there be Korean- actor-lookalike Santa Clause running on the streets? I wish.

I have touched base again with the travel agency who would be bringing us around for 3 out of the 9 days. The drafted itinerary was drafted up after many changes, requested by yours truly. But it again didn't seem quite right now. I think I will constantly be in this mode until after we are back from Korea. I pity the guide who is working on our itinerary. 

For the past few months, I had been happily shopping for winter clothing and accessories. Taobao definitely helped me to save a lot but I didn't stop at just online shopping. It is always the case that a particular piece here seems particularly good for winter and another piece will appear at another time and another time. It never stops. When I had the opportunity to gather all the loots, I am surprised at the pile. I will not attempt to compile the $$ spent lest I suffer a heart attack. It is even more amazing that when I attempted to put a stop to this crazy winter shopping, every other winter clothing shop is waving big discounts at me. Not that they are any cheaper than what I got from Taobao, but a sales is a sale. By the way, let me try and let you know if heat-tech really works.

The kids are excited too. We had been talking about this Korea holiday so frequently, especially when I am too lazy to engage the kids, I launched into this “let-me-tell-you-our-Korea-itinerary” topic. Hohoho. While gathering the loot the other day, Lil Shauna became my model, all in our tiny bedroom and 30 degrees. She was screaming hot after a while and I asked her to stand in front of the fan. Haha.

I am so excited.

Mummy Lim   

Search Again

Daddy Lim and I were on leave on Wednesday. He was idling at the Joo Koon mall and even enjoyed a message before picking me from work at lunch time. He sure knows how to enjoy. Lol. Well, hard work started thereafter. We had so much on our list to accomplish.

1st, we headed to the student care centers in GWPS’ vicinity. Last year, we visited 3 and found Dstar to be the most apt. None were fantastic and Dstar was slightly better than the others. We eventually decided to keep Lil Shauna at home bcos P1s are in the afternoon session. There is no point dragging her out of bed early to send her to the center for a couple of hours. Next year, Lil Shauna will be in the morning session and we needed to better utilize her time in the afternoon. Keeping her at home would probably mean hours and hours of TV. 

On Wednesday, we visited 4 centers including Dstar. They are all located in some basement bomb shelter and have about the same configuration – classrooms, eating area in the basement and bathrooms on the 1st floor. The fees are all about $300 per month and they have about the same program structure. This year, it is the same situation. Dstar isn't fantastic but the rest are worse. The 1st one seems to have a case of overcrowding. I have the feeling that the center is trying to pack in as many children and classrooms as possible. There is a narrow walkway connecting to the lunch area and bathrooms. Overall – very bad. 

The 2nd one is comparable to Dstar. In fact, their bathrooms are clean and bright. The center also invested in the bathroom area floor to make it non-slip. However, it is a little far from the school, about 5 mins walk and there is a big road between the center and the school.

The last one is in the midst of being set up. There are now 2 students on the list. The center doubled up as a tuition center in the evening. This is a stone throw from the school. However, there aren’t other furniture other than the classrooms, tables and chairs and we cannot tell how the eventual center would look like. Too risky.

Dstar is located 2 blocks from the school. The in charge is pleasant and we saw her interacting with the kids coming into the center. She just earned brownie points. I didn't quite like the bathrooms though. They are a little dark and smell funny. Well, at least shower is optional. It looks like Dstar is the one. We have told Lil Shauna yday evening when we picked her up from school. Let me sit on the idea for a few more days.

Yday, Lil Shauna brought home a notice from school to inform that a new student care center would be operational wef 2 Jan 16. As a start, they would be taking in 30 P1 kids and 30 P2 kids. Eligible students will receive separate notice. I wonder what does that mean. I would be super keen to enroll Lil Shauna in the in house student center. It is newly set up, so I supposed the facilities would definitely be better than the ones that we saw. The kiasu-ism in me just well up. I shall email her form teacher for more details than to wait.

We left the vicinity at 2ish and headed to JP, hoping to catch a movie. I had been dying to watch Our Times. 

It is totally my kind of movie even though I know that the storyline is totally predicable. If I wasn't able to catch it on the big screen, I was intending to buy the DVD or hoping catch it on the flight to Korea. Daddy Lim was super accommodating, probably also bcos there weren’t interesting movies at that time slot. Lol. I had big smiles. Happiness!

It was a great movie. I love it as I expected myself to. Thankfully, Daddy Lim enjoyed the movie too. He found it comical. The movie was set in the 80s and it brought back sweet memories of the growing up years. Thank you bb for catching the movie with me. Happy, happy, happy!

Mummy Lim

Practice

Bcos Lil Shauna didn't get the chance to practice on Saturday, we headed to the rink on Sunday. The timing was just perfect – it was the last day of her student pass (before expiry), the last weekend that I had to utilize the Groupon vouchers and Lil Isaac was away for his TWD make-up class. Lil Isaac gladly let Daddy Lim sent him to class bcos he had to take the public transport if Mummy was to send him. Clever choice.

Apparently the rink’s compressor was still down. The rink was closed for maintenance from 2.45pm to 4pm. We exchanged for our tickets very early to avoid the q and also tickets selling out. Good move bcos it was indeed super crowded at 4pm. Qs were formed not only to purchase tickets but also to enter the rink and then we had to q again to rent the skates. I had been harboring the thought of buying a pair of skates but dread the idea of having to lug the skates everywhere on Saturdays when I ferry the kids for classes. 

We had the opportunity to practice the jumps and spin before the crowd built up. Lil Shauna is getting so much better with her Waltz jumps. Practice really makes perfect. Her spin is improving too. I saw 3.5 revolutions at one point. We also practice on her Salchow jump and I was very pleasantly surprised that she could do it! Her Salchow jumps were super mini but she jumped nevertheless. She said that the Youtube video helped and she followed the steps that she saw on the video. Youtube is indeed our best friend when it comes to ice skating. Lol.

We couldn't do much when the crowd started building up and there were really so many people. The ice becomes super wet and we saw plenty of fallen skaters gliding on the wet ice. We left the rink about an hour later but it was a good practice. I am so excited for her to show off her Salchow jump to Teacher Raymond on coming Saturday. Haha.

Did I tell you how much I like it when she wears her ice skating pants? She looks super pro in them and it shows off her long and skinny legs. 
Hehe.
Mummy Lim 

Graduation Concert

We went to Lil Isaac’s graduation concert on Saturday. It was kind of rush and fortunately for the Halloween event, I was made to book Lil Shauna’s lesson way in the morning or we had been stuck. Popo helped sent Lil Isaac to school. Lil Shauna went for her ice skating lesson, which ended at 9am and we took a cab down. We ended up at the very last row but just in time for the concert. Anyway, this is already my 5th CNL graduation concert. The performances are captured on CD eventually. Our presence is to show our support to the little boy after all the hard work and a broken head. He fell when returning to class after practicing in the hall. Lol.

Lil Isaac appeared right at the opening of the concert! He was asked to present flowers to the VIP with a girl classmate. I was surprised and fumbled for my phone to take picture. We were too far away for my lousy phone to take a good picture. It was super funny that after the concert, Lil Isaac asked me why he had to give flowers to that auntie. Lol. The VIP is only an auntie in his eyes. At least he was smiling nicely during the flowers presentation.

We had to wait for a long time before he came back on stage. His 1st performance was for the Chinese Enrichment class. He was so cute shaking his backside on stage.

Not long after, it was his performance for the Music and Movement enrichment class. He was partner with this K2 girl and I saw him being dragged around at some point. Haha. I must remind him not to date or marry an older girl in the future. Lol.

The last performance was with his class. He looked super smart.

Lil Shauna saw a few of her ex-classmates too. They were all there, like her, to support their siblings. She took pictures with one of her favorite ex-classmates. And had plenty of hugs with her ex-teachers as well.

The little boy was so well dressed for the event that I had to ask him to post for a proper picture after the concert. Cheeky boy. Somebody must have taught him to tug at the suspender when taking pictures.

I asked him to keep his hands in his pocket and he ended up looking so cool. Aiyo, he just stole my heart. Lol. He looked so much like Daddy Lim, no wonder I am in love with his father. Hehe. 

Mummy Lim

Ice Skating 29

Lil Shauna's ice skating was at 8.30am on Saturday again bcos of the Halloween event. There weren't many other skaters and she could use the whole rink for practice. Maybe bcos it was really cold or simply lack of people on the ice, it was so misty. Lil Shauna was somewhere in the background, hidden by the mist.

She did fairly well for the jumps except for the salchow, which Teacher Raymond didn't revise with her. She also improved on her spins. She has understood the technique of how to spin, now it is about practice and practice.

Her spiral is horrible. She is so super inflexible and Teacher Raymond also helped her on a backward spiral. Doing a forward spiral already CMI, so you can imagine how bad the backward one turned out. Haha. She learned this Shoot the Duck too. It is to squat as low as possible then stretch one leg out in front and glide. I can't do that. I can't even squat with both my feet touching the ground. Luckily the little girl could at least squat properly. We just have to work on that leg. Lol.

Teacher Raymond asked us to practice at home. Yes, we don't live in the rink and don't have time to go more than once a week, so off ice practice is useful. To help, I just bought this skate spinner for Lil Shauna. This will help her to balance her spins and supposed to help with some of the jumps that involve spinning.

I am very surprised how such a simple piece of plastic can actually make one spin on hard surface. And it really makes u spin as fast as on ice! Not only Lil Shauna uses it. All of us tried and it is quite fun. Haha. But it is actually quite dangerous if not careful and fall off while spinning. Lil Isaac did plenty of negative demonstration. Zzzzz.

I am not sure if Lil Shauna's improved spins had anything to do with this skate spinner but we will continue to utilise this expensive piece of plastic and hopefully it does help.

Mummy Lim

The Ouchie

It has been almost 2 weeks since Lil Isaac fell and hurt his head. I had expected him to tug or mess with the bandage but he was surprising disciplined. 

The tape came out about 3 days since the incident. We had been careful but had also been changing his bandage daily. Each time we do so, the tape gets a little tug. It wasn't sticking the best too bcos the wound was oozy. By the 3rd day, whatever discharged on the tape was somewhat dried up and it wasn't a nice sight. We checked the wound and saw that it was healing nicely and decided to remove the tape. However, we continued with the bandage to keep his fingers away from the wound. The bandage didn't irritate him much during the day. 

The painful part came in the night when we had to change his bandage. The wound is right smacked in his eyebrow. Each time we removed the bandage, along came quite some of his hair and eyebrow. Poor boy. This was taken some days ago after the tape had been removed. 

At the beginning of this week, the wound looked good enough for him to be bandage free. A scab was formed and on the same night, after some violent play, the scab dropped. Now, the wound is slightly visible in a lighter shade of pink.

I supposed it would leave a slight scar at the end of the day. I don't mind actually. I can always use that as a reminder when he gets too violently active. Haha.

Mummy Lim

Ice Skating 28

The rink was closed for Halloween event on Friday and Saturday. Actually, there weren’t anything much, just some Halloween decoration at one end and a big inflatable Halloween centerpiece. 

Maybe more people would dress up in the night?? Anyway, student pass and groupon voucher cannot be redeemed and we had to pay $18 each for entry, which is more expensive than usual entry. 

As a result, Lil Shauna’s class was at 8.30am on Saturday and we didn't practice after that. I had wanted to bring Lil Shauna to the rink earlier to practice but couldn't wake up and reached the rink with like 10 mins before class for her to warm up. Oops. Mummy also refused to pay extra $$ to use the rink for practice. We saw C – a regular ice skater and she told us that one of the compressor was down and the ice was bad. The rink would be restricting the number of skaters per session. Lil Shauna didn't felt much given that there weren’t many skaters and so the ice was great. Additionally, she had the opportunity to practice the entire rink, instead of the usual 1/3.

Most of Saturday class was spent practicing the moves that she already know and to try to correct some of the bad habits for her waltz jump. Then the remaining time was spent on her salchow jump. We had watched some youtube prior to class and practice jumping off ice. Lil Shauna gets the idea of how the salchow jump works off ice but back on ice, she was simply fearful of falling down. Nevertheless, she made little progresses. The rest of the Saturday morning was spent at MacDonalds savoring nice bfast and reading. Ahh.. life..  

I had actually wanted to practice with Lil Shauna on one of the weekdays before her class but realized that the rink had been closing early on weekdays. Maybe it had to do with the broken down compressor. So we decided to go ice skating on Sunday instead. Lil Isaac benefited. He was exciting to go ice skate. 

Lil Shauna had class until 3.30pm. We were thinking of going for the 3 to 5pm session actually. When we were at the rink at 2ish, the ice was bad and very wet, probably due to the malfunction compressor. Daddy Lim was hesitant about Lil Isaac ice skating. The wet ice would mean that it would be super slippery and we could already imagine Lil Isaac gliding on the ice when he falls. Daddy Lim almost wanted to bring the boy for a movie instead but there was no children friendly movies screening. Then we realized that the 3pm session was sold off. I supposed bcos the rink restricted the number of skaters. We eventually bought the 5.15pm session with our groupon vouchers.

Lil Isaac was super excited to go onto the ice. 

We got him a seal at $15, thinking that it would help him to fall less. It had been a while since he went ice skating thought the last time, he was fairly stable. 

Somebody benefitted from his seal bcos he used it for less than 5 mins and decided that he would do without the seal. Waste my $$. Daddy Lim skated very much with the little boy while I practice with Lil Shauna. Lil Isaac could skate fairly well and Daddy Lim seemed to had a good time skating with him. We spent a lot of time trying to make her Waltz jump higher and further. We tried Salchow too and Lil Shauna ended with a wet butt bcos the ice was very wet. Then we tried spinning too. 

The ice was indeed wet. You could glide very far and fast without using much effort. The little boy continued to fall and was quite wet. But at least he didn't think so much of wanting to perform tricks this time. The only trick that he did was to line his skates together. I don't know if his balance improved or the heelys helped but he was fairly stable on ice this time and could even navigate his way in between skaters. He also learnt from the very pro skaters and kept his arms on his back. I didn't even dare do that, I need my hands to balance or grab something if I lose my balance or break my fall in the worst case. The boy is just fearless. And he looked quite good. Lol.

I am tempted. I think he might be able to do better than jiejie if he really does start ice skating bcos he has no fear and his desire to want to do tricks and to go fast. However, there is only 1 me. I cant tear myself into 2 to practice with the kids. I asked Lil Isaac if he would choose TWD or ice skating. He said TWD now and after he complete, he wanted to do ice skating. Haha. We all had a great time.

Mummy Lim