Chinese New Year 2006 means 5 solid days of staying with the kids. Been chalking up my popularity polls with the kids. Lying by the playground slide with Matt, watching the clouds roll by. Chasing after mei mei for all the countless mischief she's up to.

Tried out disciplining Matthew using time out. Made him sit in corner to reflect wrong doings. Seems to be working as he is able to repeat 'Thou shalt not...punch meimei/kick/push/spit" mantra after time out (count 1 - 10) and before drifting off to sleep. To hand slapping and shouting, he just response in kind. better to win his heart.

Grandpa and Grandma visited chinatown to pay up for their cny vacation. Daddy and Mummy drops everyone off at chinatown point(ctp). Nice stroll for kids at ctp since it is single sloping lane all the way in the mall. No problem with kids rounding out of mummy's sight. After all the running and sloping, Matt fell asleep, while Victoria guzzle up all the ice drinks. She is a Ice Baby who will grow up into Ice Queen. (loves Ice).

CDROM - Review. Matthew's Thursday's itinarary. Wakes up from afternoon nap at 7pm. Eats dinner. Swimming at civil service club. Matt and Mummy the Dynamic Duo Demolished all evil monsters found at baby pool. Starts to rain. Checks out sega games. Rain stops. Feed the fish/loi. Checks out all 4 floors of club. Drew hand tatoos. Plays Dr Seuss Preschool. Sorted socks, matched numbers and alphabets. Stacked turtles. Sleep.

*wheew* All That in 3 hours which packs in more actitivities than Mummy's day job in 1 week.

Matthew the artist has produced yet another great artwork. He calls it the Great Space Adventure. Starring Alphabets, Bears, Hearts, lost in Space.

At the end of this Great Space Adventure, there was space dust everywhere in the living room. Some already go swept under the carpet, still some more coyly hidden under unsuspicious cushion of the sofa.

Boy, was it some Adventure. No Space Travel for Matthew for a while.

Its amazing what a few pieces of colored paper, a glue stick can come together for 1 hour of child's play. We made finger+footprints cutouts, pasted them on black paper. Matt used glue sticks to spread glue over his palms, sole, and voila - he is an alien with right green palm left blue palm. And then he is super man with wrist cuffs. In between all this fun and running around with new 'costume', he took a Okay Pocky snack.

In between retail therapy at Toa Payoh, I also visited the library. You can really do wonderful stuff with premium membership ($20 per year) . I had mine and matthew's card bumbed up to premium. Hubby carries his and victoria's card. We signed them up for lib membersip as soon as they are born.

Kudos and v. generous to Library to ramp up twice the limit during Nov 1 05 to 21 Jan 06. Means, between mine and matthew's card, i can borrow up to 16 CDROMS!!! That is all i borrowed actually. Matt don't read books (yet), all his toddler learning is from cdroms.

its a hit or miss when checking out titles. here is a sample:
-IQ eng lang games (ng)
-2 oxford reading tree sw (ok, but for older kids)
-seasame street art workshop (ok, for art palette)
-seasame street create n draw
-disney's winnie the pooh animated story (ok,not for short attention span)
-disney's mickey mouse toddler (nice graphics, i recommend)
-magic 3d coloring book
-mega puzzle pack
-early essentials - dos graphics and sound. nice concept but lost on outdated graphics
-sticky bear's kindergarten activities (ok, teaches coutersey for kids, like do not jump on furniture)
-kidstime delux (ng)
-abc and 123 (recommended for a kids starting to learn about ABC and 123, like matthew) its fun and not too tacky with animation
-spider in the kitchen (teaches about sequence - how to make a sandwich, behind, under etc, find the spider) recommended for someone like matt. this one got his attention.
-creation corner
-dr seus preshcool. nice collection of story with interaction to solve problems. matt played this one.

Recommend:

Magic Ball. Matt's fav. He actually knows how to catch the ball in priority over catching other bonus drops. Initially, he catch only the bonus drops but not catch the ball so it will die. The little sheeps or cows or penguins makes a sound and flies into the air when they are hit by the ball. Which is very funny to a 3 year old.
Matt takes over the shooting part after catching the gun bonus. I play it when there is no shooting.
Oh yeah, out of the level 49 (still more to go), Matt knows how to look for a specific layout and play it. Tests his memory and locating a game layout. He especially like the CAR or TRAIN layout. or with cows for reasons mentioned above.

Feeding Frenzy - Matt's Fav. Matt love being a shark.

Half a month into 2006 already.

Victoria is staying at Jurong. Matthew at Jalan Rajah this week. I went for retail therapy over the weekend and splurge $65 at toa payoh popular bookstore. Mostly art and craft items to entertain Matt and Vic on rainy days or in car or at resturants. Here is what i got:-

-scrapbook kit with stickers and colorful papers
-finger painting kit
-lots of stickers (matt can say 'sticker book')
-winnie the pooh stencil set (most expensive of today's buy $12.90)
-glitter gel pens x 4 (i try to pick up hand tattoo)
-1 stencil for tatto
-color paper (nice to get cut up by little hands)
-blank paper (nice to get mounted on for art work)
-glitter shapes
-glue stick
-double sided tape
-kindergarten workbook by chinese publisher (only 2.90!, a thick colored workbook too!)
resisted the urge to buy anymore puzzles. even though there is a hugh lot of them (winnie the pooh) at popular at a obscure corner most bottom shelf.

The last time I splurged >$100 at Borders on sticker books and crafts. Much cheaper to shop at popular i think.

Came home and opened the winnie the pooh stencil set and did a grand total of 15 mins of his attention. mostly i stencil while he sticks and jumping around with stenciled paper to make the 'butterfly' fly around.

then he promptly went back to playing Ricochet - a Magic Ball , variation. Maybe i will post a picture of what computer games Matt is playing at the moment. :)

mei mei & ee ee at conrad hotel, matt's 3rd birthday

games logistics

matt : "cake?"

matt: "BLOW!"

Choo Choo Train on the way

cut cake, cut cake

mum mum, good cake!

*sticks out tongue*

mummy matt ee ee

grandma

ee ee's unite

blue tongue attack

the return of the blue tongue attack

It is 2006! We just celebrated Matthew's 3rd bday at Conrad hotel (grandma's 1st prize lucky draw during xmas eve line dance party). Got a Centennial Suite with breakfast for 2 at oscar's thrown in. Played games - Thanks to Ee Ee (GameMaster), we pulled off the whole event with so much fun and blue tongue and all.

Matt is 14.5 kg, 1 m tall. He can type 'MATT' on to the computer high score games and login id. :D *proud* parents. :) i guess its the sign of the times. A 3 yr old can TYPE his name first before writing it. He knows computer jagon like 'download', 'install', 'hang', 'cd-rom' etc. He has also weaned off pacifier since

Victoria is at in-law grandma and grandpa's house in Jurong from 11-13 Jan. Matthew at Jalan Rajah as he has to attend playgroup at Whampoa CC - Talent Plus. Victoria has taken to crying every other hour. While Matthew crave for Milk-Milk at 11pm, 4am, 6am. Talk about sleep deprevation.