#16 Little Twinkle - 1st Day of Playgroup and The Perfect Bag

It's Little Twinkle's first day of (unaccompanied) playgroup - 25 Aug 2014 (Mon)!

 

First day of playgroup - "Little Twinkle" seems to be coping well and was oblivious to our departure, despite us trying our best to get her attention to say goodbye (wow!). However, after they cleared the toys, "Little Twinkle" started to look out of the door as though searching for us (i think...).

First day of playgroup - the real situation behind the scene...

Being first-time parents, we didn't know what are the essential things to bring. So we packed quite a fair bit into our adult backpack, and bring it to her preschool.  My thumb of rule: it's better to over-pack rather than realised that we miss out something and ended up she kick a big fuss.

 

At the preschool, we then realised all her classmates have their own kid bag. It's kind of a discipline for them to put their own bag into their own shelf. (some of the little boys even went to take their own bags and bring it to me to help them unzip, which they then take out their "treasure" aka cuddly toy to show me. Haha...)

 

So immediately after "Little Twinkle's" class (half day on 1st day to try out), we brought her to find her perfect bag at Takashimaya. :))))))

 

She fell asleep when we reached Takashimaya,  so we decided to look around for her bags first while she sleep. We found 4 bags based on her likes (animals and kitty), durability (i.e. it can last till K2), size (able to put in towel, clothes and water bottle - the necessities as advised by the preschool teacher).

The 4 bags that we have found for "Little Twinkle"...

When she woke up, we excitedly show her the 4 bags that we have found, thinking she would like them.... Haha...

 

Mummy: look, there's your favourite - owl! Do you like this owl bag? (excitedly pointing to skip hop bags)

"Little Twinkle":  ... ( hesitate in silence)

Daddy: how about the bee? It looks sooo cute! (Pointing to the bee bag, excitedly as well)

"Little Twinkle": hmm...

Daddy thought that "Little Twinkle" agrees, and proceeds to let her carry it on...

"Little Twinkle": (after wearing for 2 seconds)  不要.... (and she proceeds to take off the bag)

Mummy: how about the owl bag?

"Little Twinkle": no...

Mummy: hmm then how about elephant? ( leading "Little Twinkle" to see the 2nd bag that we found)

"Little Twinkle": (ponders for a while and...) no...

After a few rounds, Little Twinkle kept saying no despite the countless of time we tried to "hardsell" the bags.. and suddenly...

"Little Twinkle": this... (and she pulled out a bag that was totally not in our selection... it's a mini pink trolley bag...)

 

*our eyes roll...*

 

Mummy: You sure you don't want owl bag or kitty bag?

 

"Little Twinkle": this... (still pointing to her mini pink trolley bag)

 

We didn't really expect to buy her a trolley bag, because we thought it's cuter for little kid to have a mini backpack. Haha... so it's a bit "out of our acceptable range" or "out of the box" for us... we tried to introduce her to other backpack and she still insists on having her mini pink trolley bag. (she called it the duck bag even though we are not sure why it looks like duck to her. haha...)

 

"Little Twinkle" with the mini pink trolley bag that she has chosen - in which she called it the "duck" bag.

 

Thinking that perhaps she just prefer a trolley bag, we tried to introduce other trolley bags to her. She tested them out and still prefer her "duck" trolley bag. Really determined!!!

 

"Little Twinkle" testing out other trolley bag, and was still prefer her "duck" bag aka mini pink trolley bag.
Very determined to get her "duck" bag.

 

It's really interesting to us actually, we thought that she may not really know how to choose, but in the end she chose something totally on her own and stand by her own decision. So we decided to respect her opinion and wanted to buy the bag, but it happened to be the last piece at that moment and was covered with some wear-and-tear scratches. So the salesperson told us that the new stock will be coming in 2 weeks time and she will call us when it's here. So "Little Twinkle" shall continue to use our big bag before her "duck" bag arrives.

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Little Twinkle #16 - Playgroup confirmed

We have finally confirmed Little Twinkle's playgroup! Just made the deposit payment yesterday... Wow, suddenly feels that she's really growing fast.

The decision to put Little Twinkle at the playgroup is a last minute one. This resulted because the contract of our helper is expiring soon (beginning of Oct), thus we need someone to help to take care of Little Twinkle from the time our helper leaves until Little Twinkle starts pre-nursery at the church kindergarten.

We've been to this childcare 3 times. On the 3rd visit, we decided to place Little Twinkle in the playgroup but there was no vacancy then. And just happened they have 1 slot currently, which is very lucky for us. :)))

Things we like about this childcare:

• Big outdoor playground - as usual we think it's important for toddlers to run around and have fun, instead of sitting around indoors. 
• Bilingual - they have 1 English teacher and 1 chinese teacher for every class. Both will always be around to speak to the kids in respective language. Thought this is better for toddlers to learn the language through their daily interaction, instead of just 1 hour chinese lesson everyday. 
• Cozy setup: teachers and principal seems to know the kids well
• Variety in kid's lunch menu: I'm rather impressed with their lunch menu which sounds sooo yummy, even for me. Each meal includes protein, carb, fibre. Another childcare that we visited last week offered 3-in-1 milo for all breakfast/lunch with nuggets/ butter cake/ soon kuey / steamed bun etc.
• Near our house: 8 mins car ride

Things that made us reconsider for this childcare:

• Close by 6.30pm latest: not very ideal for dual working parents as most workplace end at 6-6.30pm. This also assumes that one can leave on the dot everyday, which seems unrealistic in our society. And I was told that the kids in Little Twinkle's class mostly leave by 3pm, so most likely Little Twinkle will be without friends from 3pm onwards. I still feel that childcares should operate until 7 or 7.30pm so that working parents have sufficient time to pick up the child after work.
• Inconvenient location: the childcare is about 600+ meters from thr MRT station based on street directory. So it means I have to walk 1.2km (600 m back and fro) to fetch Little Twinkle. So I will walk 2.4km everyday. And I have to walk fast enough to be able to catch her before 6.30pm which means I need to leave my workplace early by 5.30pm assuming I need 30 mins to travel via mrt and 30 mins to walk. Sigh.... 

We have considered putting Little Twinkle at the childcare opposite my workplace, which will be super convenient for me. But the quality is really substandard and the price is more expensive.... 

• Cramped place: like a small office setup
• No outdoor playground
• High teacher-to-student ratio: 1 young teacher to 9 students 
• Unconducive language learning environment: they have only 1 teacher currently and who speaks only singlish to the kids (we do speak singlish as well, but I don't expect a teacher to do that since she's supposed to educate the young kids.) 
• Not ideal lunch menu: the lunch menu is the one I have described earlier with the 3-in-1 milo and nuggets etc.

So my colleagues were saying it's better that the parents suffer (walked 2.4km daily), rather than kids suffer (un-conducive environment). I guess they are right. Hopefully Little Twinkle will be happy in this childcare that we have painstakingly decided. Haha...

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Little Twinkle #12 - Doc Visit at 19 months old

Brought little Twinkle to her supposedly 18 months old vaccination (we went 1 month late... oops!). Hooray, this will be the last compulsory one before she goes primary school. Although Doc Darryl Lim did asked us to consider giving her the vaccination for hepatitis A.

 

Doc Lim was friendly as usual, with his ultra kid - friendly and cheerful top. He's the only doc in the clinic that wears the cheerful top we realized,  guess it's to make kids feel at ease when they see him.

 

He asked how many words can Little Twinkle say...I didn't really count before, so i just gave an estimate and said maybe about 30.

 

Her current vocabulary includes both Chinese and English because different people speak different language to her... those that I can remember are:

1. Mama
2. Papa
3. 奶奶
4. 爷爷
5. 公公
6. Ah ma (for her maternal grandma)
7. 婆婆  (should be 太婆 actually)
8. 姑姑
9. Su Su (for her 叔叔, she's not very good with her  "S" pronunciation)
10. 姨
11. 舅舅
12. Kar kart (Little Twinkle called our helper "sister" in malay because my mum kept referring to our helper as "sister" to Little Twinkle, and our helper was fine with being called the "sister" as well.)
13. giu giu (her version of "thank you" which she pronounced the "you"
14. 谢谢
15. Hi
16. Bye bye
17. Placee (her "please")
18. 好
19. More
20. 不要 (to her grandparents)
21. No (to parents and helper)
22. Mai ("no" in Teochew to my relatives from my mum's side)
23. Milk milk
24. Car
25. Tree
26. Apple
27. Ball
28. Bear
29. Miao miao (she means "cat", she prefers to use miao miao even though she can say "cat" as well)
30. Dog  (to parents and helper)
31. 狗狗  (to grandparents)
32. Full (to parents and helper)
33. 饱饱
34. Two (she skipped "one" and moved to "two" direct)
35. Four
36. Eight
39. Nine
40. Nose
41. Eyes
42. Mouth
43. Ears
44. Head
45. Leg (to parents and helper)
46. 脚 (to grandparents)
47. Poo poo
48. 开
49. Pull
50. Box
51. Out
52. Up
53. roll
54. Go
55. Night night

 

And she continues to surprise us with her expanding vocabulary... :)

 

(P.s: this was kept in my draft since 14-Mar-2014, and I just realised I have yet to post it. Haha... )

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Little Twinkle #11 - She says "Night night" :)

Every night Little Twinkle will religiously say goodnight to everyone in the family i.e. papa, 奶奶, 太婆, our helper before she heads into the bedroom with me for her bedtime. 

She tends to give "flying kiss" or hug or wave or say "bye bye" to indicate goodnight to each family member. 

But today she sprouted out "Night" to our helper, and followed on to say "Night night" to 奶奶. We were all pleasantly surprised - she said a new word again! Well done darling! :)

Hang on peeps! It's gonna be weekend soon!!

Little Twinkle #6 - She can walk on her own and some updates

Mr Nice Guy (MNG) wanted me to commemorate yesterday (11.10.2013) as the day in which he officially recognized that Little Twinkle can walk on her own (at 14 months)!!! He went back home earlier and saw Little Twinkle walking around the house on her own (without any support!!!). When he tried to hold her hands, she refused and insisted walking independently. Mr Nice Guy was so touched and lost for words by her courage and persistence that he kept asking me to remember this date on my blog - he has been reminding me about it repeatedly in case i forgotten or was too tired/lazy to blog.

To celebrate this big milestone of Little Twinkle, we decided to put together the various video clips of her learning steps towards independent walking. Both of us love the video clip but MNG find it a bit plain without any music, in which i do not know how to insert music at different intervals. LOL. Nevertheless I will just upload this "somewhat plain" video for us to remember this very day! :)

The weekend following our return from Europe trip was a busy one. We went to a colleague's housewarming party on Saturday's afternoon and the 3 nats met again (all the girls' name start with nat that even sometimes I get confused... haha). Coincidentally, it was Little Twinkle's afternoon nap time then. You can see in the first pic (of the 3 girls together), she was looking sooo tired when we just reached. Luckily the gracious host allows Little Twinkle to take a 1+ hour nap in her bedroom, and Little Twinkle was back to her happy self after her dutifully nap. :)

The 3 Nats

Little Twinkle sleeping soundly at the gracious host's bedroom

The girls found Little Twinkle sleeping, and was wondering whether to wake her up ;)

Thereafter, we went to a little boy's baby shower. Seeing how tiny a 1 month old baby is makes us realise that Little Twinkle is really growing fast! Mr Nice Guy used to be able to carry her in one arm, but nowadays he kept exclaiming that he's breathless after carrying Little Twinkle for a short distance. Haha... The elder brother Cyrus (about 5 months older than little Twinkle) was very friendly and wanted to hug Little Twinkle several times. Little Twinkle, on the other side, appears to be rather cool. haha...

Mr Nice Guy carrying the 1 month old baby in one arm easily.

Friendly Cyrus and Little Twinkle

On Sunday, my cousin and family came into Singapore to do some shopping and swing by our place to visit us. Below are pics of Little Twinkle and Yu Xuan (2-3 weeks older than Little Twinkle).

Yu Xuan and Little Twinkle

Little Twinkle also attended her first class, but we were prohibited to take any pictures during the class. Also visited a girlfriend who just gave birth to an adorable little boy Caleb, but we didn't take pictures then as we did not want to disturb Caleb who was sleeping.

On a side note, Mr Nice Guy and I have completed our first homework for Little Twinkle. We have made another step in parenthood! LOL. The task is basically to draw and colour 4 items starting with alphabet "A" and "B" respectively. See our great masterpiece below - drawing by MNG and coloring by me! :)

The first homework!

Lastly, this is a collage of Little Twinkle with her favourite scooter at the moment. Loves the rainbow dress that she's wearing - we got it from the Phuket trip in July. A little suntan beach babe :) (p.s: Little Twinkle has been quite tanned since the Phuket trip and most people don't dare to tell us that she's very tanned, so they normally ask us "did you all often bring her for swimming?" *chuckles* )

Little Twinkle with her favourite scooter

xoxo