Honey Tree Family Day 2013

My Saturday Morning Snapshot post last weekend mentioned that Blake and I attended his school's family day for the first time. Here's what happened. Haha.

It was a super early start to the day, even earlier than his regular school hours. I also had Blake drink his milk before leaving the house because who knows when we'll get to eat, right? On normal school days, Blake will have his breakfast in school. I stopped giving him milk cos he regurgitated daily after every morning feed at one point.


So anyway, once that was all settled, we left home. The sky was beautiful that morning.


The initial plan was for me to drive my dad's car, and have it returned before he needs it later that morning. But to play safe, I messaged my dad the night before (close to midnight!) to ask if he could send us there instead, and we will make our own way home. I don't really enjoy being rushed for anything, you see. Haha.

So at 7.20am, my dad picked us up and drove us to the field near Blake's school, where the event was held. Blake slept throughout the journey. He was very tired!




My dad :)
We were one of the first few to reach, and the place has yet to be set up. Blake began to explore the place. He had found it rather strange that he woke up and saw a field rather than his school gates. Haha. It took him a while be aware of his surroundings, but soon, he was all over the place - running, jumping, climbing!






Grabbed him for a couple of shots before he couldn't take it. Haha!












Everyone was busy setting up while Blake was busy exploring the place
Close to an hour later, we were all gathered in the field for the morning warm up exercise, before the games begin.


We were asked to spread out to prevent hitting one another, but seems like only Blake and I did. Haha! We stood under the shade of trees! :P


Stretch your arms!


Now your shoulders!




Shake your hips!


Shake, Shake, Shake!
After the morning exercise was done, it was play time! But by this time, Blake was bored of the field already. We only managed to play one game before he decided it was time to go. Haha.


Blake demonstrated how to play this game with his teacher


After we left, we made a slow walk to the bus stop, where Blake stopped at every parked car along the road to call out the colours. It was really funny! We also saw a white crane in the big drain!

Soon, we were on the bus home and this was when Blake replenished himself with water, and rested. After we got off the bus, we went to the playground (empty!) and Blake continued playing.














After playing for about 30-45 minutes, I bribed him with a lollipop to go home. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to go home to rest! And so, that concludes our first school family day. Hopefully, we will be able to play more than one game next year! Haha!

Blake’s First Christmas Celebration in School

The day that Blake’s school celebrated Christmas was also the day Nakayla turned a month old, and ever since Nakayla was born, our baby boy seemed to be neglected. I decided to do something special for him, and decided to surprise him in school with a Christmas cake for everyone!

Prior to attending the Christmas party in school, I had prepared a gift for his class’ gift exchange.


It’s a Bear Coin Bank in there!
Every child was to bring a gift worth $5. The school even reminded us parents to avoid giving sweets and chocolates as gift. Turns out, the gift Blake chose had a bag of gummies attached to it. Looks like not all parent paid heed to the reminder. Blake was more than happy to receive the gummies though. He finished the gummies within two days.

Anyway, back to the school celebration! Haha.

After I had picked the cake up from my friend Nastash of Tash Bakes, I headed straight to Blake’s school.

Blake was surprised to see me, and for a moment, he appeared to be in a blur. He hugged me tightly, and kept trying to get me to walk out of the school. I had to explain to him that I was there to celebrate Christmas with him and his school mates. He was back to his normal chirpy self after a while, and began to play while waiting for the celebrations to start!




The t-shirt Blake wore was bought by my mom from USA about two years ago




A mandatory shot with me! Haha!
Soon, all the children gathered to listen to Christmas stories, but my boy sat with me at the side instead of joining his friends. Slowly, all his classmates were all over the place, carried by different teachers, while the older children sat through the two stories. I guess the attention span for children of my boy’s age is only that long. Haha.




This boy would rather play with mommy than join in the Christmas celebrations with his friends J
After storytelling, all the children got up to sing songs and play a game of puzzles.


After all the fun, it was lunch time!




Then they started to distribute some of the food that parents brought to contribute to their Christmas Pot Luck.




Blake liked this custard cake that a mother baked. Time for me to look for a similar recipe!
I noticed that Blake enjoys eating custard cream lately!
The school had intended to keep the cake I brought for tea time, but I had planned to bring Blake home after lunch as I still had to settle some things for Nakayla’s full month celebrations, which was the very next day. I spoke to the principal about it and she said it was not a problem, but she’ll only distribute the cake among his class. The other children will have to wait till tea time.


The very cute and yummilicious cake by Tash Bakes
It's Red Velvet Cake with Lemon Cream and Chocolate Ganache. Absolutely delicious!
When the principal opened the cake box, a few of them who saw it first exclaimed how pretty and beautiful the caked looked. The principal then said she will show all the other children the cake first before distributing. After showing all the children the cake, and they wowed non-stop, all the cameras came out. A couple of teachers wanted a photo of the cake before it was ‘destroyed’. Haha. After that was done, we contemplated on where we should cut the cake cos the cake looked too pretty! We finally settled on doing away with the trees first since it was right at the bottom. Haha.






After all the yum yums were finished, it was time for the children to shower. I decided to let Blake shower before heading home. He was in a complete mess after all the food. I don’t want to have to carry a sticky boy home!




Whilst waiting for his turn to shower, Blake took some toys out to play. When it was time for him to shower, he surprised me by keeping all the toys before following his teachers to the bathroom! Why is he not like this at home? Why?! Sigh.

After his shower, we said our goodbyes to his teachers and headed home.
To have a happy boy over the Christmas weekend? Checked!

Note: Sean had gone to the pediatrician’s clinic with Nakayla to get her vaccination done, so only I showed up at Blake’s school.

Blake's First Parent-Teacher Meeting

Over the weekend, Blake's school held a Parent-Teacher Meeting. Sean and I attended, along with Blake.

When we arrived at the school, the first immediate reaction from Blake was  to cry and struggle. I guess he didn't quite like the idea of going to school on weekends. Haha. So Sean stayed within the school's playground with Blake, while I went in to wait our turn. Sean had tried to bring Blake in a couple of times, but the boy wouldn't have it. He struggled and kept saying, "Bye! See you!" to all his teachers. In the end, Sean had no choice but to bring him out of the school compound, and to playgrounds in the surrounding neighbourhood.

While waiting for my turn to meet with Blake's teachers, the school principal, Ms Elle, handed me a marker a big white plastic ball. It was the wishing sphere for Marina Bay's 2013 New Year wishes.

Here's what I wrote (and yes, I realized that there's no plural in positivity... there should be though!):

My first meeting was with Blake's English teacher, Mrs Teo. She told me that while Blake is improving well, his overall learning development in school is slower than the rest of his classmates. He is able to recite random letters from the alphabets, but is not able to recognize them. As for numbers, he doesn't seem to be very interested in them. He hasn't started to speak in sentences yet - that's one of her concerns, but she's sure Blake will start very soon. He also likes puzzle games and ball games a lot, but his attention span is relatively short. And as compared to when he first arrived and would run around the whole school like it's his giant playground, he has started to sit still during lesson time. She also noticed that how Blake responds in class depends very largely on his mood that day. If he's in a good mood, he will be the model student. But when he's in a bad mood, all hell break loose. This boy of mine...

After meeting with Mrs Teo, I met with Teacher Meng - Blake's Chinese teacher. Her ultimate concern for Blake was speech and temper. My boy has a bad, bad temper, but it's not always that he will throw tantrums. It's just that when he does, it scares the people around. She did, however, mention that it is clear that Blake is really intelligent and very expressive. He will never allow himself to get hurt in the process of throwing tantrums. According to her, it can sometimes be a hilarious sight, cos while most children will just go into tantrum fits, Blake will take a while to get himself into position (laying on the floor) before starting. He is able to express himself very well with gestures, body language, single words, and sound effects - something apparently not many of his classmates are able to do. Blake is also more active in her class, always finding the chance to run, a total opposite compared to English lessons.

My general take-back from this Parent-Teacher Meeting is that I need to teach Blake how to control his temper, motivate him to learn the alphabets and numbers, and to encourage him to start speaking in sentences (Teacher Meng say, chances are, he will be a very talkative boy the moment he speaks in sentences. Oh my....).

Once I've met with both his teachers, I left to look for Sean and Blake to head to our next destination. While I went to run some errands, Sean took Blake to even more playgrounds to play at, and we met up again to have lunch before heading home. We took a stroll through the park connector to get home, after getting off the bus. Blake couldn't be happier, but he was also very tired by then. Haha. After all, he had been playing non-stop from the moment we left home!

Ending off this post with a few photos taken at the park connector.

It's been a while since we last took a family photo! J

Blake's posing in this photo. Haha.

Blake’s First School Excursion

*Super long post ahead!*

On the morning of 25 October 2012, I woke up earlier than usual. I was too excited! It was Blake’s first ever school excursion, and we are going to Jurong Bird Park!

We quickly rushed out of the house, as we had to be in school earlier than usual, and my dad was already waiting for us downstairs, along with my mom and sister.

Blake knew that there was something special going on that day, and he was excited to get to school! Perhaps it was all the talk I have been giving him days leading up to 25th. I kept telling him about a place we were going to see a lot of beautiful and colourful birds! I had given him his school’s excursion backpack to carry around, and he got even more excited. Hehe. In his little backpack were his raincoat, my disposable poncho, and a set of his clothes.


When we reached his school, Blake could not sit still. He wouldn’t sit to have his breakfast, and was in a “why am I waiting?” kind of mood. He was restless. He kept saying, “Bye! See you!” , throughout the time in school, while we waited for all the other children and their parents to arrive. During this period, the teachers and kitchen staff were all busy packing our lunches too.


When we were finally lining up in the school’s front yard, waiting for the buses to arrive, Blake got even more excited, and rushed towards the gates.


He really couldn't wait any longer. Hehe.
But it was a while before we boarded the bus, as we took the second bus, and were the last to board. So in the midst of all the waiting, photo-taking time! J



Blake’s teacher took this shot for us. Hehe.
Finally, we boarded the bus, and we’re off! Blake was so excited, he wow-ed at everything he saw outside the window. Hehe. Lucky bugger got the window seat.



Halfway through the journey, Blake got bored and he started to play with the curtains on the bus. He was playing peek-a-boo with the world outside the windows. That entertained him for quite some time, and before we knew it, we’ve reached the bird park! J



While waiting for the school’s principal to get all our tickets, everyone lined up to take photos with ‘Birds of Play’ signboard. According to one teacher, “This is proof that we came to Jurong Bird Park!” Haha. It was quite funny.


The littlest of the lot. Hehe.

With their form teacher, Teacher Meng


Me and my baby! J
When the principal returned with our tickets, the whole school was more than ready to invade the bird park in their sunshine school uniforms! Hehe.

First stop, the penguins!



Blake saying, “Hi!” to the penguins

Teacher Meng was so-called assigned to assist me whenever I needed help cos of my heavily pregnant belly.
We then moved onto the owls. Blake refused to walk on his own through his section, not cos it was dark, but because he couldn’t see the owls! I was wondering why he asked me to carry him all of a sudden! I had thought it was the darkness and eeriness of the place, but he was doing fine when we were at the penguins’. But the moment I picked him up, he turned to where the owls were at, pointed at them, and went, “Wow!”. Haha. That’s when I knew.



After two cooling attractions at the start of our bird park outing, we braved the sun and heat to look at the other birds.


Yup, being carried cos he couldn’t see the birds. Haha.
When we reached this particular section, Blake struggled to get down.


And the reason behind the struggle to get down? He could see the birds clearer, and freely, when he’s on the ground. Haha! He was so excited at this attraction that he ran up and down, left and right, yelling, "BIRD!"


After this, the children were starting to be a little tired and hungry. So we headed over to Pools Amphitheatre, where everyone can sit down and have their lunch, while waiting for the show to start.



With his trusty water bottle, patiently waiting for something to happen


Snacking away from the goodies the school packed. And yes, silly mommy forgot to remove his backpack until halfway through the show.
I didn’t take any photos of the show as I was too busy attending to Blake, and feeding myself. Haha. I was initially gearing myself up to struggle with a crying toddler (the last time we went to an animal show in the zoo, Blake cried so badly we had to leave), but Blake surprised me when he sat through the whole show, enjoying every moment of it! He let out cries of, “Wow!” when the birds flew past us, and clapping whenever the crowd clapped. I was thoroughly amazed, and proud of my little boy. Hehe.

After the show, it was time for the activity that all the children were waiting for – Water play!

We made our way to the water playground, found a nice shady spot to put our things and get changed, and it was off to the waters!


The water was definitely a huge welcome on such a hot day, and with Blake so in love with water now, he couldn’t be happier to see the water playground!



The teachers were all pretty taken aback by Blake’s enthusiasm in water play. They came up to me, one by one, telling me how great it was to see Blake in his element. Hehe. At one point, a few of his teachers surrounded Blake, and begin to splash water on him. Blake was laughing non-stop!


The teachers kept egging Blake to run towards them, and to play with them. Blake happily obliged, and had so much fun with all the teachers!

Madam Teo (his class’s assisting teacher) had came to tell me that Blake was such a delight to have around, because he doesn’t splash water on anyone on purpose, not even when the other children attempted to provoke him into doing so, or when the teachers told him to splash back, in the name of fun! Haha. Definitely a proud mama moment for me there J

When children started to leave the water playground to wash up, Blake’s school principal, Ms Elle, came to me and asked if Blake had gone onto the slides. I told her I couldn’t bring him up as it was kind of dangerous for the both of us. The staircase leading up to the slides had been taped off, and the only other way up was to climb up a net structure – not exactly something a heavily pregnant woman with a toddler should be attempting.

Ms Elle then offered to take Blake up, while I waited at the bottom for him. She said it would be such a pity if Blake didn’t go on the slide at least once, seeing how much he enjoyed everything else at the water playground. I agreed readily, cos Blake had been trying to get me to bring him up the slides, but I kept dragging him away.

Blake was more than happy to have someone take him up to the slides, and with another teacher catching all the students at the bottom, I managed to take a video!


So glad Blake had so much fun, and so super happy that the teachers were all more than happy to get themselves all wet (none of the teachers brought any change of clothes!), just so all the children can have all the fun J

After Blake washed up, we played for a little bit at the dry playground.


Then, Teacher Meng approached us, and told me that there is a cooler spot to play, and that his classmates were all waiting there. So I picked Blake up and walked him over to the shaded area. He was super happy with this place, cos not only was it much cooler, but it had all his machine ride-ons! Haha.


There was even a mini arcade, which Blake kept trying to push the door open to get into. I let him in, only because there was air-con. Something we both very much needed. Hehe.

When everyone was done washing up, it was time for the tram ride. We waited to get a whole tram to ourselves, and we named the tram “The Honey Tree Tram”!

Blake started to become cranky at this point as it was time for his afternoon nap, so I popped his pacifier into his mouth, and carried him throughout the rest of the journey.



Tried to get everyone within the two rows in, but Blake was too low, and two of the children behind got blocked by me…
After the tram ride, everyone was exhausted, but we still had 30 minutes to go before we could leave. We had to wait for the buses to arrive.

I took this time to bring Blake to the souvenir shop, to get a little reward for him. He behaved so well, I was so proud of him! That and because, I cannot leave anywhere without buying anything, when I’m determined to buy something home. Haha.

I got Blake two soft toys (he chose them) in the form of a Toucan and a Cockatoo. I had planned to get only one for him, but this boy of mine liked these two so much, he wouldn’t let go and carried them all around the shop. He did put them down when I told him to, though. I had to find Teacher Meng before I can make any purchases, as she was carrying our bags (so sweet, right?). So as a bonus reward, for not struggling or throwing tantrums when I put the toys back and left the shop, I got them both for him. Haha.

While Teacher Meng watched him, I went into the shop quickly to make the purchase, and returned to surprise my boy.


Look at how smitten he is with the Toucan



Blake fell asleep shortly after he got hold of his new toy
Soon, the buses arrived, and we were on our way back to school.


Just before he laid down on my lap to rest on the journey back to school
When we were back in the school, Blake drank his milk while waiting for my dad to pick us up. When he was done, my dad called (perfect timing!), and we left for home.


Blake’s new feathered friends
Ending this super long post are more pictures of Blake with his new feathered friends, and his duckie, the morning after our first school excursion: