Currently, Nat’s favourite bedtime activity went from storytelling about Cars or Toy Story to stories “about me”.

So we have been re-living our trips to Hk & Bali, and fun activities such as NDP parade staycation and recently, we added the YOG men’s diving prelims to the story bank.

We enjoyed ourselves at the Diving prelims. We cheered for the Singapore diver. Even Nat went “Go Singapore!”

And of course, the funniest thing was when he shouted out: He’s wearing red underwear!  (the red speedos worn by one of the divers….)

I’m not a sports-person but when the YOG rolled around, I found myself watching the news highlights on YOG News Channel every night and was really impressed by the youths’ determination and their sporting efforts. Which really deserved to be commended and supported.

Even Nat was rather enthralled and he will go “Watch Olympics!” when we switch channels.

Ask him about this favourite sports & he will say : Boxing and that kicking one.

He meant taekwondo. Erh…ok.

As usual, by the time we thought of getting the tickets to some of the games, the tickets were kinda sold out. Thanks to DC family who gave us their diving tickets as they were double-booked for another event, we had the chance to be at an Olympics games.Which is quite an experience, don’t you think?

I was telling Nat, at bedtime just now while telling the Oylmpics story , that the (Youth)Olympics happens every four years. And that he will be 7 years old at the next one and it won’t be held in Singapore and we can only watch the games on TV…

For the closing ceremony, we timed our drive home back from my mum’s, took a longer detour and was rewarded with the fireworks bursting out in front of us overhead over the Sheares Bridge. Traffic was crawling, but we didn’t mind.

Now, if you ask Nat about the Olympics games, he will tell you “No more Olympics!”

Just this evening, it poured. Nat told me “Rain”. I went to close the windows.

Then he told me “Good job”!

Haha, I guess I’ve been saying that to him quite often.

I read somewhere that children praised for effort, rather than intellect, tend to put in more effort instead of thinking that they are clever and need not try or put in any effort. True or not, I don’t know. But I kinda believe in the theory. No harm in trying to practise this. Of course, I do let slip a few “So clever!”. It’s so hard not to, when your child can do certain things for the first time.

Recently, we bought a “where’s wally? kinda book but it’s Cars-themed.

This morning, we were flipping through the book and trying to solve each puzzle. Nat could point out most of the items on every quiz, to my surprise and delight. He’s got a keen eye.

At one particular picture, he couldn’t find an item and he said “Dont have”. I looked through the picture and couldn’t find the item too.

I thought there was a production mistake and told nat ” So clever! It’s really not there!”

When tehpeng came home,  I told him what happened and showed him the picture. But tehpeng kinda found the ‘missing item’. It was small and hidden away.

Nat then looked at me and said “HAVE!!!!” and pointed at the item.

Lilsnooze :: Nat is clever, but daddy is more clever. Only mummy is silly!

We all had a good  laugh over this. Precious memories these are.

Nat gets all excited and curious whenever an ambulance, police car or fire engine  is in sight.

So, when I happened to walk past the Central Fire Station and noticed the sign ‘Open House, Sat, 9 am to 11 am” I thought it would make an exciting trip for Nat. I realised every fire station is open to public every Sat morning. And so, it was a date with Edgar and Noah (and parents) last Saturday.

We arrived almost on the dot and there was already a long Q of parents and their boys.

It was really like a tour – we had a friendly SCDF officer showing us around, presenting the (very heavy) tools they use and demo-ing their work for us. And letting us explore the insides of their vehicles.

Quite educational but of course, all words were lost on the boys. They wanna see action!

And action they had. They had a go at the hose!

The ladder went up up up. And the men came down down down the pole. It was infotainment in front of our eyes.

And we had more than we bargained for, when there was a real fire call (video uploaded by silver_crv) and all the men and engines had to be deployed. I was really worried we were in their way, but the men were certainly very pro and we witnessed what goes on behind the big-firestation-door-before-it-opens.

Sadly, this also meant there’s nothing (left) to see but surely, this being our first time, it won’t be our last.

Just the other day, I was musing to tehpeng if he remembered how Nat was, when he was not talking. He said no.

Indeed, our little boy is quite a talker these days. Frequent words heard in yveonloft these days – ‘mummmmmmm” and “dadddddy”. Not that we are complaining, as we used to be really worried that he wasn’t talking much (beyond the few words we could count on 1 hand, less than 5) just a few months ago. As it turned out, the big bang happened and from saying one word, he was progressing to stringing a few words together (just the nouns, thus making the sentence really funny to hear).

Just 2 nights ago, before bedtime, he was holding onto the HardRock Cafe balloon and telling it “Don’t fly. Hold you.”.

I had to laugh out loud. 4 words, 1 sentence. He will be good at twitter, I tell you.

He has also gone beyond recognising the alphabet to verbalising them. Which is quite interesting. He will randomly sprout out letters, from signboards or whatnot he sees along the way. This is a good virtue to have, my boy. Mummy loves reading signs too.

But, he tends to only verbalise certain letters at times, and completely giving some a miss.

Just the other day, he was trying to read tehpeng’s slogan tee – “P-O-O”.

HAHA, Surely Mr Ralph Lauren will not be happy hearing that from him!

Not quite the spelling bee yet, but there’s no harm in trying. Somehow he knows how to spell his name (with help) but still won’t pronounce it. He calls himself ‘boy’, you see.

mummy :: how do you spell your name?

Nat :: N…..A……T (echoes after mummy) BOY!

HAHAHA.

After telling the same ole story of 3 cars racing for the Piston cup for a few nights (and alot more), this mummy has to think of other short stories! It’s hard to stay enthusiastic after repeats.

I realised Nat likes to have someone talking while he tries to doze off, as if to assure him that mummy or daddy is still around (and not sneaked off to the other room to watch tv or work…heehee).

So last few nights, I managed to pull out some tricks off my sleepy sleeve:

1) talk about the North line of the MRT, since trains are his other pet topic. So I rattle off each station from Raffles Place onwards and try to tell him accompanying little stories….“Orchard Station, mummy’s favourite stop. There’s Orchard Ion, Paragon, Takashimaya and we can go for dimsum!” etc etc.

2) count 1 to 100 and then in 2x table…hahaha!!

These are nights when he was good and just dozed off, letting mummy rattle off. There are some nights he simply won’t let go and would be trying his little tricks to stay awake. Claiming he’s thirsty, claiming his insect bite is ‘pain’ etc etc.There are nights when he would ask for another bottle of milk!

Just the other night, he got too much for me and I went in a stern voice “Are you going to sleep? If not, I send you outside and sleep with Kaizer!”

He immediately fell silent and fake-snored!

That made me laugh out loud and tehpeng (who was fake sleeping, in a bid to influence Nat) too! Hiyah.

Really wonder how (and where!) they learn such tricks to amuse us!

It’s increasingly hard to get into work mode on Monday morning (say only la, once I step into office, it’s full-on work and juggling to-do lists!) when we spend 2 full days with Nat, having fun together. And he knows it too – weekend is mummy and daddy time! He never ever sleeps during the weekend, preferring to play play play with us.

The weekend that passed, we did a few things which typically weren’t in our programme.

We started the weekend with a beach boys & a girl date at Sentosa. The tots had fun with the sand and at the waterplay area. Well, I never thought I would let my son play in a public water area (the logistics of cleaning up and all deters me)..but oh well, being a parent changes things. I even went in as well. Heh.

Then, tehpeng and I attended the High Scorers concert , in support of our church friend who was performing  the flute. I was wowed by the young talented ones on their musical instruments, playing their exam pieces. Again, I felt the pang of not being able to play any musical instrument. I suppose we must let Nat start young on this musical journey.

On Sunday, we went to the National Museum, for the Mummy exhibition.

Thankfully, there’s 50% off with Mastercard payment. 

The exhibit area was kinda dark but that didn’t stop Nat from exploring on his own (such a big boy!). Here he is, posing for mummy (me) with the ‘mummy’.

It was a good weekend and it didn’t involve any retail-element. Part of my ‘bring nat out,  try to avoid shopping centre’ plan which I just hatched up. Heh heh.

It was a last minute decision to bring Nat along for our farewell dinner for Ps Su & family. Ah well, after working from home the whole entire day and having pockets of time with him in between, I can’t bear to leave my boy behind at home!

So, we took the feeder bus to the train station and went on a train ride to Novena. It was a fun journey ! 

I think this is the first time I’ve brought him out alone on public transport (I know, I’m spoilt or rather, lazy to brave the crowds with a todd in tow). Now that he’s older and much less barang to bring out, it’s so much easier.

He was visibly enthralled by the whole experience. So suakoo hoh!

And I enjoyed it too, I was talking to him and showing him things throughout. Ok, I did take some pics at the bus stop while waiting and twittered la. Can’t help it, have to share leh.