Visit to the park

A visit to the park with Katarina's family

Halloween 2009

Ryo's kindergarten hosted a Halloween party , and so Ryo was dressed up for it.

This little mouse costume was bought a year ago, so I let him wear for Halloween, and not waste more money on costumes.

Some impossible requests

When your child starts speaking in complete sentences, what accompany is a series of impossible requests.

• I want the hippo to reveal itself from the water
• papa please don't go to work
• I want to talk to MacDonald's uncle (for home delivery). Papa wants the big burger, mama wants the big burger and Yo-yo wants the small burger
• i want to fly up high (when the helium balloon is tied to him)

and the list goes on.

Ryo goes to school

He started his first day of kindergarten yesterday.

His feeling must be FRIGHTENING. My feelings were JITTERY, my hands were shaking when the teacher carried him away from me. I expected him to cry badly for 1 week.

BUT! His peformance for his first day was excellent. He cried a bit before he spotted toys in his classroom, and so he sort of calmed down. We were able to watch him from home through the school video (but then mine has some technical problem so i couldn't watch him). Isaac called me to say he wasn't crying anymore. I couldn't be more happy. He exceeded my anticipation.

I fetched him back at noontime, and he wept again when he saw me, and again when he saw the driver, and again when he saw our maid.

Today on his second day, he cried a few times in class, and needed more teacher comforting. It was funny to see the teacher feeding him his drinks and food, because he can jolly well do that himself. I did asked the teacher to let him complete his tasks himself once he gets more settled down.

Ryo in blue&white shirt, sitting on teacher's lap

Ryo in blue & white, cries and teacher goes forward to comfort him

There are 3 teachers to his classes, but at feeding times, I would see about 5 teachers, so that is probably good.

Drive to Inner Mongolia

August 2009, we drove a good 10 hours from Tianjin to Inner Mongolia. Well, actually it's the most southern tip of Inner Mongolia. Ryo's grandparents went with us too, so i had a good chance to use my camera. Because a DSLR and a small kid doesn't really go well together.

The place was wonderful, you can see the horizon, with no tall buildings. We see lots of cattle, which Ryo got really excited about and kept him occupied in the car

On our return trip, we visited 承德避暑山庄, 外八庙 and Beijing, 怀柔.

Picking fruits at Huairou

He's a serious picker.

I wept...

By chance, I came across this website, of a little girl who has cancer. The website reveals her mother's pain and journey in trying to save her daughter. You may like to read it.

I only read a few entries and everyone would brings tears to my eyes. I guess being in a mother's shoe would I know( or half-know) the pain that is going through. And the words of the little girl is heart-wrenching.

He is three!

Ryo is now a big boy and he enjoys his birthday as well as other birthdays, cos he can blow out the candles.

Preschool stage

Ryo will turn 3 in a week's time, and boy there is a long list of amazing things he can do now, as compared to the last time I updated his development.

Language - Average

1. He can speak in quite complete sentence, eg: 妈妈， 我自己炒菜吧！He likes to add 吧 at the end of his sentence.
2. He is only beginning to sing complete songs, other kids can do it long ago. But then better late than never

Mobility - Advanced, top of the cream

Did I ever mention he is very well suited to be sent to Shaolin monastry to learn kungfu, and he won't find it tough?

1. He can run faster and further than most adults
2. He can jump off the ground at 18 months, 5 months early.
3. If I sit on the bed, he can leap up and sit on my shoulder, legs around my neck. And do it about 30 times. Hope I can video it later.

Social and emotional - average

1. Stranger anxiety - still have but he won't cry, he just lowers his head or hides behind me.
2. Koala bear syndrome - so much better, sometimes he can just play alone
3. Crying - still at baby stage. He cries for toys, attention and almost everything else and all day long - help. He even cries when he wakes up after nap, everyday, without fail, can you believe it for a boy?
4. Housework - he likes to do housework (housemess for me). He can sweep, mop, wash veges and milk bottles and even cook.

Milk feeding - Way bottom

1. Day feeds - I am pretty much amazed that Ryo can have many growth spurts. Often he wants milk every 2 hours, 180ml you know.
2. Night feeds - You must be laughing at me for still noting this at age 3. But I like to inform you for the last 3x365 days (minus a few weeks when grandpa helped me) I have not slept a night throughout. Ryo still wakes up for night feed, sometimes 2 times a night.

Even though he drinks milk so frequently, I don't know where it all went. He's only slightly below average built. Maybe he has my genes.

Potty training - Slightly better than average

He's been day-time diaperless since 26 months, and night-time diaperless when he was 2 years 9 months. He still pee at night though. I had to get him up to pee in potty.

3 is a number I don't like to add

In just one week, there are 3 funerals, the deceased are not related to each other anyway, but they are all related to me.

Condolences to the family who lost the husband and father so young.

2 funerals

I flew back with Ryo to Singapore, to attend 2 funerals.

One is for my Ah Ma, she passed away peacefully at age 92. I hope she keeps on smiling in heaven.

Another is for Isaac's uncle.

The funerals are consecutive of each other, but I realised if you are doing it for your loved ones, you won't feel one bit tired. Nor the scorching hot tarmac road even if you wear thin white socks.
Anyway that's the way life is. And life goes on.

Blogs denied

If you are wondering why I am so quiet these days, it's because I cannot access blogs from China.

And Flicker, and youtube. I am still lucky to still have Facebook.

I hope it wont last for long. So till then, I am still around.

Meteor shower?

I named this "Meteor shower" cos it looked like one

And this reminded me of Aladin's lamp

It's pretty interesting what you can create to make a photograph. These two photos were created by me, I used the led light on a mouse to create the effect, though you can't see my hand moving, while using long exposure on my camera. I've seen much better works than mine. Well, pretty satisfying for a first time.

Wind in the willow

Or rather it should be the "willow in the wind" that is making my cough ever so bad.

My cough started when Ryo had his last bronchitis, that was like 3 weeks ago. It was about to get better when I had a sniff of the Beijing air at the airport, and heck I was coughing really bad again. And now I am allergic to every dust, willow seeds or pollens in the air.

So I am forced to wear a mask whenever I am out, at this unfortunate swine flu period, I think I am a monster people choose to avoid.

The Big Birthday

That's the reason we came back Singapore for - to celebrate Ryo's great grandparents birthday.

Red

Ryo particularly likes red nowadays. If he wears red, he has to make the rest wear red as well.

And he handpicked which red shirt to wear for Ah gong and papa.

Bronchitis again!

Ryo is suffering from bronchitis again, this is the 4th time for the past half year, and the many more timeth since he was born.

He got it cos he jumped into the swimming pool soon after a rain... i think it's ridiculous when I heard it.

And now he has to take another course of antibiotics. The doctor recommended some preventive measures, like taking cod liver oil and the medicine Zaditen to take everyday!!!

Sometimes things like that made me regret coming back. Is it worth the while?

Mix up

Sometimes we tell Ryo it is a GUN,
sometimes we tell him 枪.
Now he calls it GIANG.

Tianjin 海河

As the name would suggest, this river in Tianjin meets with sea water. I've featured it previously but it looked different. There is a ferris wheel on the far left.



This few days, we can see the moon in broad daylight.

A visit from grand aunt

A grand aunt visited us in Tianjin, and Ryo was smitten by her. Day 1 he played with her and sat beside her during lunch. If you know Ryo, he must be in a super good mood to do this with anyone he haven't met before.


Day 2, as we were dressing up to go eat lunch with grand aunt again, Ryo told me he wanted to spray perfume. Ha ha this little fella is quite vain. At the restaurant he even asked grand aunt to smell his shirt.


If he can be this warm to everyone else.



* I found this photo of Ryo when he was about 8 months old. I think he looked super cute as compared to now... hahaha.

My little blue helper

Ryo helps me out when chen-jie is not around

He pays attention to the under-the-sofas

He's now so efficient that he just uses one hand for mopping

Polar coordinates

Here's what I learnt and put to test today. It's the Polar Coordinate function in Photoshop. We can create our very own planet. Mine's a very rough one. I'll try something more exciting next time.

How many photos do you take per week?

Me? An average of 500 per week.

If we go to the zoo or someplace interesting I might hit about 800.

If we have a boring week and stayed mostly at home, I'll only have 200-300.

Did I hear you gasp? Out of these hundreds, only a handful of 10 to 20 gets to stay permantly on my computer. The rest are thrashed.

I'm a fanatic.

Ah gong's birthday

Well, ah gong spent his birthday this year in Tianjin, so we brought him to his favourite restaurant

Ryo 干杯, plain water that is

We bought him an ice-cream cake from Haagen Dazs

while chatting on MSN with the family in Singapore. I took a shot of Lankston and Brexton in the MSN window. They too are having ice-cream, together with us... haha. All thanks to technology, it brings us closer to home.

I baked a cake

Really, I can bake a cake. With a premix cake mixture that is... hahaha.

And since Ah gong's birthday is just round the corner, we sung him a song. Well the cake looks hideous but tasted quite ok. I should have taken home economics instead of arts when I was in Nanyang.

The future is worrying

It's kind of worrying, to read from the news that water levels are predicted to rise about 1m by year 2100. I quickly did a search, and found that except Bukit Timah hill, the rest of Singapore lies less than 2m above sea level.



What if the ice bergs decided to speed up its melting process? What if the prediction were underscored? What if by year 2050 it has started flooding and I am forced to swim all day long at age 70?



Although we stay in high rise flats, can u imagine your void decks flooded? Or can we make our way to the banks to get cash to buy food? Or your baby son walking knee deep to school, but still has clean water to drink from cos we can still afford water. Or the worst scenario of the whole island disappearing except the highest flats around, where are our children going to move to?



Today we use water to mop the floor, wash the clothes etc EVERYDAY. Tomorrow we'll be thankful for even a clean bottle of water.

A month of separation

These 2 buddies playing together after a month of separation.

It's March, spring time, but we still have to wear like it's winter

Katherina being a good model

While Ryo is not being cooperative for the photo shots

If I am this good

I came across these pictures on Flicker, and gosh! Singapore can look this good through his lenses. And his zoo pictures really put mine to shame... urgh. I have to practise more.

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/francisg/sets/72157607950017311/

Singapore zoo 2009

Well, I must say, that with Facebook around, it's much easier to dump my photos for upload there. But still our life stories are best presented through blogs. So here are what I have been delaying. Good news is, I have got a new camera.

Yes a new Canon dslr. Which means the quality of the pictures will be so much better, hopefully. And I got my good chance when we went to the zoo.

This is my favourite photo. I managed to capture water droplets.

Brexton getting all wet at the Kidzworld.

They spent more time at the Kidzworld than seeing the animals

And when they do see animals, they become curious at what's down under

Giraffes comparing their heights

The stubborn zebra who refuse to turn around for shots

A wanton lioness

A sleepy elephant

And the white tiger who might have tasted one of our kind.

White tiger says," He jumped into our enclosure, he volunteered, i am innocent."

You see, I only bring the long lens to the zoo, and it allowed me to captured up close and personal.

Probosis monkey says," The zoo must not allow any long lens or zoom lens, it is an outrage of my modesty."

A parrot who can read?