Bawling

Little Lydia is dd's classmate ..
Perpetually crying when we see her in class. But the minute her mommy appears, her tears magically disappear and she's as happy as can be. She can speak very well too. Absolutely charming li'l girl. Kids are really amazing.

Today we sent dd to school as usual and Lydia was bawling her lungs out. It being a Monday, half the class was howling. Lydia clung on to my hand and refused to let go and followed me around as I tried to distract her with food / toys. DD tried to help out too by patting Lydia gently on the back. DD quietly ate up her porridge (provided by the school) by herself while dh and I tried to help out as best as we can with the other crying children.

Fair

What is Chinese new year without thronging pasar malams with loud chingchong songs and makeshift toyrides and cheap hawker food?

This year's mega pasar malam (see tents above) is one of the largest I have ever come across. It is so huge, I thought the tents were a permanent structure and not the makeshift type. It even has a stage with live singing, 2 huge areas of bouncy castles, a super large area of amusement rides, an active auction area and of course stall after stall of clothes, food, CDs, knickknacks etc. Some of the food stalls must be pretty good, judging from the long Qs for their food. Naturally, dd was very intrigued- by the festive atmosphere and all the games and fun. We will try and let her visit again.

Pee

Late for school again.

Where did all my classmates go to?

Today dd had her first mishap. A few days back, she told us that she almost couldn't hold her pee because there were too many children using the toilet and it was time to go back to class before she could get her turn.

We were rather worried after hearing her say this.

True enough, today she pee-ed in her pants while waiting for her turn to use the toilet. The teacher had to clean her up and put on a clean set for her. We didn't rebuke her because we knew she had warned us before, but still we reminded her it was wrong to pee in her pants.

Memories

After dropping dd off at school today, dh asked me to choose between Jim Thompson restaurant or Kuishin Bo for lunch. I chose the latter.

We got our seats and I was all excited to load my plate at the buffet line when dh stopped me and told me solemnly " Happy anniversary!"

I was SO stumped I gaped. Yikes!! I had completely forgotten! Apparently he had waited one week but I still showed no sign of recalling our wedding anniversary (which was last week). *Good grief!*

I felt really sorry, and for a moment there, was really glad that I was a woman and not a man =P. Men are not forgiven for forgetting these dates right ? =P=P

Looking back at our wedding, there were quite a few memorable moments. These are some of them: As with all weddings, the day started super early with the make up artiste getting down to work

Yuki, one of my 8 bridemaids for the day - they were the real stars The groom gets ragged before he gets the bride

Our walk down the aisleOur wedding banquet at the grand ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel. The guests arriving that evening kept increasing and every extra table that could be squeezed into the ballroom had already been squeezed in. In the end, our organising team of friends volunteered to give up their seats as a table and split themselves up into the single seats available at random tables. Even then there were barely enough seats and they had to add extra chairs per table. If not for their quick thinking, there would have been chaos. DH delivering a spectacular wedding speech that had everyone in stitches. I laughed so hard I had to hold the pulpit for support. He had many people asking for his speech draft later that evening =P. A toast to our life together and many more memories to come!

Classes

Now that dd is clearly into the '3 yr old' age band (she turns 3 this year), there seems to be a whole new plethora of enrichment courses just grabbing our attention.

And classes for 3 year olds, also mean 'drop-off' classes now *hooray!* Except for sm of course =P. Weekdays she's occupied with kindy and I refuse to let her be too swamped within a day. So that leaves only the weekend and it also means we have to be extra selective about what courses to sign her up for, otherwise there doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day. We really don't want to burn our weekend by sending her for classes, if we can help it.
Totally leaves us in a dilemma. Can't imagine when she gets into primary school =P

Stories

Its been quite a luxury to drop dd off at kindy and have the next 3 hours 'free' to do as we pleased =P. We do look forward to picking her up again when she would regale us with her tales of kindy life which is often recounted in topsy fashion. She knows 4 of her classmates' names by now : Jordan, Zion, Katelyn (she calls 'cat-the-lin) and Ashley (she calls 'as-ser-lin'). So her stories get more detailed these days =P.

An essential part of pre schooling we learnt was to 'identify your own property.' So we got these iron on labels from Australia and they work perfectly! We even stuck one onto her sjck bag. We printed one set with dd's name and another set with her name and my mobile number. No excuse for finder to feign ignorance hopefully! Too bad we can't tag her hair clips. Incidentally, we were pretty lucky to find the hair clip that we thought she had 'lost' last week. Apparently a classmate had taken and worn the hairclip home. *Phew* .. glad to have it back, not the cost of the hairclip (about $8) that matters but just that its one of my favorites and I don't know where to buy a replacement from.

Review

Glad to report that dd has passed her first 8 days of school life with flying colors.
She even found out one classmate's name (thats a start) . After class, she will tell us what she did in school, what toys she played and what food she ate. She even told us how she got pushed and how her classmate monopolised the sand toy so that she couldn't get a chance to play.
We noticed some kids (usually the same ones) still bawling badly and between yesterday and today, we witnessed 2 kids throwing up on the floor after a bout of serious crying. For those kids who are prone to crying, we suggest not feeding them milk just before class as they are more susceptible to throwing up.

No major comments about the school so far. Everything seem organised and well planned. The admin staff take turns to stand in the hot sun to do car park duty-making sure all the cars that show up at its carpark are authorised with decals. We have a car decal that allows us to park in the carpark. The teachers are mostly locals and their working hours are roughly 8am-3pm. Lunch for the staff is from 1115am-145pm and provided by the school. Time table for the week is : gym, water play, language and math activities, etc. They also have a kindermusik module during the school hours, provided 75% of the class opts for it. Keeping my fingers crossed that dd gets the kindermusik module during school hours as I have heard that the kids enjoy the module.