Amazed...

I can't help but be amazed at what Cayden says sometimes... he makes me laugh...

Yesterday, he had a bit of runny nose, so I wanted to wipe his nose for him. He was on the floor playing with his truck and cars. For the first time, he obliged me and attempted to blow his nose. Then I wanted him to do it again, just to be sure that its clean. He got irritated because I was interupting his game so he told me "Mama! Sit on the chair and watch TV!". After that he returned to his game.

Today, he wanted to pee pee, so my mom's maid, Dewi, wanted to help him. He refused and wanted me to help him instead. Maybe its because i do it differently. I went, pulled down his pants, positioned him to aim properly. While he peed, he told Dewi "Its like this, Dewi!".

My boy is so funny...

Love the Look

Love the look of Katie Holmes recently - hair and makeup. Every time I see a look that I like, I feel the impulse to go out and buy makeup or have a hair cut! Since recently I chopped off most of my hair, all I can do is to buy makeup. haha!


Love the look and dress...






Because of this look, I went to town and bought a new nude / coral colour lip gloss from Christian Dior today! Lipstick has always been one of my weakness...

Afternoon in Town

Sent Cayden to school today and thankfully, he has stopped to fuss. Keeping my fingers crossed that he will continue this good behaviour from now on. I was told by Teacher Kelly that Cayden was happy and well behaved even during the transition from Playgroup to Music workshop. Playgroup starts at 9am and end at 11am from Monday to Thursday. Every Wednesday, Cayden will attend music workshop which starts st 11.15am for 1 hour. During the 15 min break, the teacher will keep an eye out for Cayden and bring him into the class when it starts. When I picked him up at 12.15pm, he was happy and looked like he enjoyed his class.

After class, I brought Cayden & my mom to town, because I wanted to take some pictures of the Xmas decorations on Orchard Road. We went to Mandarin Hotel's Chatterbox to have chicken rice for lunch!!! It was yummy-delicious, but VERY pricey. It was $21.50 before tax! I was taken aback by the price, and decided to splurge since we don't have it often.



Picture of Chatterbox Chicken Rice Set




Cayden happily tucking in...





Actually, this trip back, I realised that prices in general have risen, quite substantially. I had a conversation with one of my girlfriend earlier and both of us made the same observation. When we shop for clothes, I realised that most items costs around $59 or $69, even for a simple top! This morning, I stopped by This Fashion (a shop which supposedly offers cheap clothes) and saw that 1 simple cotton short sleeved shirt costs $30! In my mind, I thought it should be about $15? Am I getting more stingy? haha?

Did not get a chance to take pictures of the Xmas decorations because it started pouring!!!! Only managed to get a shot of the huge Xmas tree at Ngee Ann City. No pics of Cayden too because he was sleeping! Have to make another attempt next week.


Xmas Tree at Ngee Ann City

Fun At MacDonalds

After Cayden woke up from his nap today, my mom & I decided to bring him to the MacDonald's near my parent's house. We could have our lattes and he could play at the playground. PERFECT! It turned out to be a great decision, because Cayden had a good time.

Initally, he was quite resistant in entering the playground. He just hovered around, taking his time to observe the place. I could see that he wanted to go, but he was apprehensive at the same time. I decided to step back and let him take his time. After a while, we could see him inching forward by the minute. After a good 20 minutes, I thought he just needed a tiny push. I stepped into the playground area, turned around and asked him to join me. He needed no more persuasion. Immediately he jumped to me and entered the tunnels. haha! Took many pictures.

Great place for a quite afternoon hang out.










Cayden trying to copy Ronald's pose





Hugging Ronald



Me & Cayden

Friends?

Feeling quite disappointed with some friends this trip home. Ok, I have to admit that it is not easy for me to make friends. I think its because I can be quite anti social in nature. But I do treasure all the few friends I have.

However, this trip back, I feel like I have been let down by one specific girlfriend, whom I thought I was close to. Despite many of my invites and suggestions to meet up since I returned 9 weeks ago, we have not met up. Yes, I do understand that she has recently started a new job and have been travelling, but I feel that she is not making the effort. What really pissed me off is on one night, she called me. I was happy to see her name flashing on my mobile phone. But after a while of talking to her, I realised that she is only calling me because she just had an argument with her hubby and needed to rant at someone. After she has finished her rantings, it was obvious that she wasn't paying any attention to what I am saying anymore coz all she said was "huh,huh" at appropriate pauses and she sounded distracted.

She told me its too bad that we can't meet up as she was going on a 2 week holiday in 2 days time and she would be very busy at work until she left for her hols. I mentioned that I may extend my stay in Singapore til Xmas. I don't even think she heard me because she had no reaction. Or maybe she did hear me but pretended not to. I don't know. All I know is I am done reaching out to her. Its her turn. If she does not contact me, I won't.

Still trying to settle in...

Cayden is trying to settle in class. In the mornings, he is still putting up a struggle when we send him to school.

On his third day at school, I did not walk into the classroom with him but stood outside by the door. When the class started, the teachers closed the doors and he started wailing! It was so loud that I could hear him at the waiting area for parents.

Ethan (the boy with the show off grandma) came with his mother and maternal grandma that day. Ethan was also quite upset that his mother could not stay with him in the classroom and started crying. When his maternal grandma saw from the outside that Ethan started crying, she blamed Cayden for crying and thus affected Ethan. She kept saying "That boy is crying, that's why Ethan cry" without knowing that I am Cayden's mother. After she repeated this comment twice, I looked at her and said "That is my son". I wanted her to know that so that she would not say more things that might upset me even more and cause me to argue with her. After that, she stopped making that comment. Yes, i am very protective of my child.

On his fourth day at school, Cayden also fussed when I left him in the classroom and he wailed when the teachers closed the doors. But this time, he cried for a much shorter time.

I hope things will get better next week.

Where are my pictures????

I am getting so frustrated with Blogger. I have not been able to upload any pictures for 1 week now, and I finally managed to upload some via Picasa this morning. Now they are all GONE!!!!

Does anyone else have this problem????

Second Day at School

Today is Cayden's second day at Learning Horizon. I think he enjoyed the program better than yesterday. Once we arrive at the school, I followed him to the classroom but slowly made my retreat to outside the classroom. Initially he was doing very well, playing with friends and teacher, without needing my company. Then the boy with the "show-off" grandmother arrived. The boy whined a little, wanting the grandmother to stay with him in the classroom and she did. Once Cayden saw that, he started to look for me and ran outside the classroom to pull me into the room.

I took quite a while to convince Cayden to stay in the classroom to play with his friends and teachers without me. I left the classroom and after a long while, I heard him wailing. I decided not to go into the classroom and see if he will stop shortly. True enough he did. After 10 minutes, I peeped in the class and he was playing happily, colour Santa Clauz picture.

When the session ended, he came out of the classroom and told me excitedly on all the things he did in class. :)

Tomorrow will be another tough day, because from tomorrow onwards, no parents are allowed anymore in the class, so I am expecting more crying...

More update tomorrow.

Good weekend :)

We had a good weekend. Hubby stopped by Singapore for a few days. He is on his way back to Mongolia from a meeting in Bangkok. He arrived on Friday so Cayden & I went to pick him up at the airport.

Before we saw hubby, I was wondering what Cayden's reaction would be when he sees daddy, someone he has not seen for 6 weeks. Surprisingly, he recognized hubby and called "Da-da" right away. But when hubby picked him up, he was VERY quiet, almost shy. Anyway, it took them less than 5 minutes for them to warm up. Now he is so attached to Da-Da. He wants Da-Da to go upstairs together when he is supposed to bath and sleep. He wants Da-Da to put him to sleep and willingly wave me away with a "Bye, mama! I love you!"

Hurmp! Obviously I have dropped in ranks from his favourite people list. When Da-Da is not around, I am No.1. Now Da-Da is here, I am No.2! Oh well. I am grateful that hubby is such a hands-on daddy. He takes care of Cayden and both of them enjoy each others so much!

So pictures that we took over the weekend:

Cheeky picture taken at lunch


Taken at the fountain at Bugis Junction


With Daddy


He loved the fountain!




Swimming at Temasek Club

First Day

Cayden started his first day of school in Singapore. No, this is not a permanent situation. We have been here in Singapore for the past month, to escape the harsh Mongolian winter. While we are here, I thought its a good idea to let Cayden join a playgroup that allows him to interact with other children. We couldn't get a place in the school with the regular program, as the class is full, so I have registered him for the holiday program instead! Its a 4 week program that is on from Monday to Thursday every week, 2 hours a session.

Today is his first day. When we arrived in school, some children were there already and 2 of the girls were already wailing away. I have to say it disrupted the class quite a bit. I mean, seriously, the girls were crying for a full 2 hours! The parents/guardian of the girls just left them in the class and went away. Cayden was somewhat affected by the crying and he started to fuss too. He became super-sticky to me and wanted me to go everywhere in the classroom with him. He also became quite sensitive - when a boy, Jonas, pushed him away from the alphabet board, he started wailing, which is a really unusual thing for him to do.

The teachers were telling me that Cayden did pretty well, taking into consideration that it was his first day in an unfamiliar enviroment and all.

One of Cayden's classmates was brought to school by his grandparents. This boy is new to the school, as he is regularly attending another pre-school but that school does not have any holiday programs, so the boy's parents enrolled him at Learning Horizon for this holiday program. The grandmother stayed in class with the boy, but after a while, she started showing everyone (including me and the teachers) a video clip on her mobile phone. It was a video of her grandson performing in his school concert. He was holding pom-poms and dancing. Nothing spectacular. She said that this current class is not advanced enough for her grandson. He is already doing to things that other children here cannot do, so the grandson is bored. I was amused and thought that she was quite a show-off. I wonder if she will withdraw the boy from this program?

This reminds me of a conversation that my friend Shareen & I had earlier. We said that parents are normally more humble when talking about their children, but grandparents are more vocal & proud. They often singing praises for their own grandkids, not shy at all.

To sum it all, Cayden wasn't terribly happy in school. Fingers crossed, he will enjoy school better.

Below are some photos I took in school:

Taken right before we left for school...

Strutting confidently to the car


During the crafts session of the class


Teacher Anna helping Cayden




Aha! I caught the ball!


Daddy & Cayden having a word...

To work or not to work?

Not that I have a choice now, since we are living in Mongolia long term... but I have been thinking alot about this issue recently. To work or not to work? I have been weighing the pros and cons of this issue in my mind, and I ended with this list:

Pros:
1) Financial independence - I can buy all the bags / shoes / clothes I want. I can also spoil Cayden a little more. I do not have to put up with hubby's nagging on how and where I spend money.

2) Contact with the 'real' world.

3) Sense of satisfaction when you see your fruits of labour. Sense of power. Feeling useful. Feeling like I am making full use of my day.

4) Being able to spend more quality time with Cayden. Currently, I have not been spending enough quality time with him, since I am with him all day. I take it for granted. I spend long hours with him, but they are not necessary quality time.

Cons:
1) Miss being with Cayden all day long.

2) No more stress free days.

3) Having to delegate the care taking of Cayden to someone else and they might not do everything to your liking, especially with discipline.

4) No financial independence. Having to account for every dollar spent.

5) I feel like I am so cut off from the rest of the adult world. My world consists of kids stuff, receipes, cooking. They all seem so trival. On some days, I feel like I am wasting my days away.

I am not even sure if I am making sense now.

Finally Migrated Here!

Ok, I spent most of this afternoon cutting & pasting the content of my earlier blogs from Wordpress. When I first started to blog, I started with Blogger, but I "itchy backside" so I decided to migrate to Wordpress. That was easy enough. But after using it for a few months, I decided that it wasn't as user friendly as Blogger, so I decided to return to Blogger. However, Blogger does not have a import function like Wordpress. Tried to explore other options but it seems like the best thing to do is to do the manual "cut and paste". Which is what I did. Now I am staying put with Blogger.