WA - Perth (Jan 2009)

Dearest Phoebe,

Just last week, we spent a couple of days in the beautiful city of Perth, in Western Australia. We stayed in the heart of the CBD and we got around via public transport. This was our first overseas holiday as a family and it was planned by both Mummy and Daddy.

We went to many places of interests and probably every one of them was your favourite! If I were to pick one from the heap, I guess I would go with Caversham Wildlife Park, hands down! You were having a ball feeding the free ranging kangaroos in the park! You jumped with joy after one of the kangaroos gobbled up all the food pellets from your palm.

From marsupials to sea creatures, you were also fascinated by the jellyfishes we saw at AQWA. The highlight of AQWA was the walk-through aquarium that is the largest in Australia. The close encounters with the marine life were simply breath taking!

Our evenings were spent shopping for groceries and preparing for dinner. Mummy whipped up sumptuous dinners of pan-fried pasta with vegetables, grilled pizza bread, boiled sausages and oven baked meat pies! Yum, my appetite's whetted just writing about it!

Fun aside; I would like to thank Mummy for planning for the trip. Hats off to you for behaving yourself whilst in transit and on the ground! I still remember how worried Mummy was about you during our flight to Perth from Singapore. You felt discomfort during the flight due to the pressurised cabin but you just seek comfort in Mummy's arms, just like a baby koala!

The flight back was less worrisome but you were busy visiting the loo to relieve yourself as you drank a lot of water during the flight. When we landed in Singapore, it was already past ten. You fell into a deep sleep during the cab ride back home. You were probably still dreaming of kangaroos, koalas and Kings Park!

Be good and smile pretty,
Daddy Dearest

Can you kick it?

Dearest Phoebe,

Mummy has beaten Daddy to the draw in writing the first entry for your blog for the new year.
Nevertheless, this is my first entry to your blog for the year 2009.

I remember Mummy asking me about some of my entries and she questioned some of the topics I broached in them. Basically, she was asking what the unifying theme in the entries was. I must admit that I was stumped. After some hemming and hawing on my part, Mummy gave up pressing for an answer.

A few days ago, an answer popped into my head and I would want to share it with you. "Lest you should forget"; that is the grand unifying theme of my blog entries. My entries contains snippets of pop culture, daily happenings and plus a smattering of Daddy's thoughts and emotions put down in prose. Hopefully, they serve to remind you of your younger days when you were just too busy growing up to remember.

PS: I have put together a slideshow of photos of your daily activities. They involved visits to the Singapore Flyer (Gulp...) and the Marina Barrage, where you perfected your wind-in-my-hair strut. It also comprises some of your art and craft activities, including your drawing which looks like a Cubism intrepretation of the human face. One of your favourite activites was playing with Playdoh and mashing them into different shapes with the playset tools!

Be good and smile pretty,
Daddy Dearest

The 100th Day of School

Mummy loves these two photos of you taken at your childcare. You looked a little lost in one of the photos while in the other, you pretended to be a "turn turtle".

Last Saturday, we brought you back to your childcare [note: You have not gone to school for over a week as you are having a bad cough.] to collect your graduation photo plus other admin work. Mummy was pleasantly surprised to see how confident you were in moving around the school, such as going to the toilet, bringing out the montessori materials, rolling and keeping the montessori mat and sitting with your legs crossed! Mummy remembered how when you first started school in the first few days, you did not know how to roll the montessori mat and you refused to sit with your legs crossed. As we were about to leave the centre after chatting with your teachers, you even asked to eat your lunch in school and that was about 11.30am. Hahha.
Mummy hopes you will continue to enjoy school and making new friends all the time. Love mummy.

p/s: The 100th Day of School is the title of a new book by Scholastic which you have and come to think of it, you have been attending school for almost 100 days (minus away all the 'no-shows'!)

My Little Elf

Dearest Phoebe,

To add on to daddy's entry, although we didnt have any party this year, we had fun together as a family. Daddy and mummy looked at you in awe as you slurped the Udon at sakae sushi and the chawamushi. By the way, we always order two bowls of chawamushi for you so that by the time you finish the first bowl, the second one will be not piping hot. Each time we see you enjoying the steam egg, mummy would exclaim how we should make our own steam egg..but till now it has not happened :-)

We headed off to Swensens to meet Er Yi for desserts. Mummy ordered a "Mr Big Smile" icecream for you comprising half a banana, a scoop of choc icecream and some hundreds and thousands bits. You didnt really like it. Guess you still prefer the Gelare type of icecream which you had a few times. We invited Er Yi and Cindy jie jie to our house where you played with them. We did some art and craft too. Lately, you have been really obsessed with the colour red. Other than red attire, you want everything in red. Red bottle cap for your milk bottle, red crayons, red balloons, red caterpillar (??), red sun (??) and red shoes. You even told mummy that when you "become an adult", you want to carry a red bag and drive a red lorry! Anyway we were so tired following the morning to afternoon's activities that we slept from 4pm to 8pm on Christmas Day. We didnt even know what time Er Yi left our house. So much about hospitality!

Little girl, sometimes you may hear mummy grumbling or lamenting how tiring it is to bring you up. As what some of my friends say, Mummy makes a lousy ambassador for motherhood. But deep down, I just can't describe how rewarding it is to see you growing everyday and how much love you have given to us. Love you always, mummy.

So this is Christmas and what have you done?

Dearest Phoebe,

we have just celebrated Xmas and the New Year is just around the corner. This is always a time for recollection and introspection. We didn't have our yearly Xmas party this time round because most of us are in a sombre and austere mood, mostly brought on by the economic uncertainty in the days ahead. Plus, we don't have a formal religion but thankfully, Daddy and Mummy are not atheists but I guess I can safely say we are both agnostic to a certain degree.

Mummy and Daddy would leave it up to you to pick your formal religion when you turn 21, so don't sweat it. In my opinion, religion is a moral compass for the human soul. It gives a person strength in times of trails and tribulations. Most importantly, it will govern his way of life.

We had a Xmas day celebration lunch with Er Yi and Cindy Jie Jie. In the afternoon, we spent time opening up presents from Auntie Constance and Auntie Michelle. Auntie Jiahui gave you your Xmas present way before the Xmas carols were playing over the PA systems at the shopping centres. So a really big thank you to them for your Xmas goodies. Mummy and Daddy didn't get you a present though. No particular reason but we probably felt that you already have a lot of presents.

Recently, I had a chat with one of a family acquaintance of sorts. She's an Australian of Eastern European descent (I guess?) and naturally, our discussion centred around you. She was delighted when I mentioned you and she said; in her thick slurry accent, "She don't belong to Mummy and Daddy, she belong to public" [sic]. She went on to explain that she sees great potential in you and your future contributions to society.

In my opinion, most people in our obsessively meritocratic society are worried about getting ahead in their careers or academic standing. Sadly, our accepted societal yardsticks of success are the contents of one's wallet and the type of one's "humble" abode. of course we would wish that you would have outstanding academic results and an illustrious career.

However, if you have the good fortune to measure up to society's yardsticks, Mummy and Daddy would hope that you would give it back to society in kind, based on the strength of your merits. "Paying it forward for the greater good", I say.

Hence, I feel that Mummy and I are custodians with heavy responsibilities, making sure you get the right education and to top it off would be our good ole Tender Loving Care (TLC)! I would look forward to day when we sit around the coffee table and I would ask you, "So this is Xmas, what have you done for our society?".

Be good and smile pretty,
Daddy Dearest

PS: You moulded this piece of Playdoh and was going round the table, attempting to scare Ah Ma, Er Yi and Cindy jie jie with your yellow "snake". Silly! We just finished our lunch outing with them and were chilling out at Ah Kun coffeeshop.

P W - About a Girl

Dearest Phoebe,
the weekend before last was really fun because we had a night outing to the Singapore Flyer. It was Family Day that Saturday and Daddy's employer had kindly sponsored Flyer tickets for us.

Er Yi and Cindy Jie Jie were with us too. It was one of those rare nights when we would be out late. By the time we got home, you were so tired that you feel asleep in the very clothes you wore out!

The day after, you caught a chill and nursed a runny nose for the rest of the week. So Phoebe dearest, do remember to keep your chest warm by rubbing some Vicks Vapor Rub especially on cold nights OK?

The other morning, while we were bringing you to school, you insisted on carrying your Thomas school bag and trudged along in your red Neckermann sports shoes. Just when we were crossing a small slip road, you instinctively reached out your little hand and held Daddy's hand. Hence, the three of us were sort of strung out while crossing the road.

There was a sense of deja vu as I used to remark to Mummy when we were still a childless couple that I can picture the exact scene that played out that very morning. I'm not sure whether my writing can do justice to that distinct sense of deja vu I felt; however, your innocent little gesture really brought bright smiles to Mummy and Daddy.

As I am penning this entry, this beautiful, beautiful song titled "Beautiful Boy" by John Lennon came to mind and I have excerpted a part of its lyrics for your perusal and I hope its beautiful melody will one day add a touch of flavour to your life too.

Out on the ocean sailing away
I can hardly wait
To see you come of age
But i guess we'll both just have to be patient
'cause it's a long way to go
A hard row to hoe
Yes it's a long way to go
But in the meantime

Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans

"Beautiful Boy" (John Lennon, 1940 - 1980)

Be good and smile pretty, my beautiful girl
Daddy Dearest

PS: Dearest, you really like to eat chocolate gelato but Mummy looks on sternly for fear of your overdulgence! 8-)

She came back in her uniform

Dearest Phoebe,

when you were still attending childcare at CM, Mummy would give me daily afternoon updates. One of the statements she would write would be "She came back in her school uniform". Well, this meant that you didn't wet yourself in school that day.

Mummy started toilet training a couple of months back and there were misses; hence, in the process, you had to be changed out of your school uniform and into whatever spare clothes we had packed inside your school bag (BTW, you had a blue Thomas school bag coz you were really into Thomas & Friends).

What most people take for granted tasks as simple as easing yourself in the toilet was a daunting task for a toddler like you. Hence, coming back home in your school uniform was a sign that you have mature and are more aware of your bodily functions. Plus the fact that you are able to inform your teachers of your need to visit the toilet, I am glad that Mummy persisted with the toilet training at home and in school.

Phoebe, I am sure you would read about this incident in your history books but I would just like to highlight to you that last week, there was a young Singaporean lady who was killed in a senseless terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. She died of gunshot wounds and the press had a field day covering this tragic event.

Mummy and Daddy did agree that there were some reports that bordered on sensationalism; however, there was one journalist who wrote a touching commentary. In his attempt to make sense of the illogicalness of her death, he quoted from the Renaissance poet, John Donne. "..any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;...". He ended off the article by saying, "We are mankind and we are diminished".

We, human beings are social creatures, taking comfort in the masses but yet most of the time, we choose to build walls around ourselves. It probably takes a monstrous event to make us realise our interconnectivity; however, such social awakenings are usually short-lived and fleeting. Pretty soon, we are back behind our own walls. Our emotions are extremely powerful and can spur us into actions.

So if you happen to experience such a surge in your emotions, Daddy would like you to write about it. Write a simple prose, a poem or even a song! Mummy and I would definitely like to view it when it is done.

As for Daddy, I would just like to paraphrase one of the literary masters who had shown great wit and candour in capturing our emotions in his writings, William Shakespeare.

"I pray that Thy mercy is not strained;
from the heavens, droppeth the gentle rain.
To wash away my pain and sorrows,
of today and many, many morrows."

Be good and smile pretty,
Daddy Dearest