Scaling new heights

The husband and I enjoy rock-climbing. We used to have more of a regular routine; where we did - for a period of time - climb on a weekly basis, like this past occassion. We enjoyed the sun (more before than now, I admit. It's age, I tell you), the exertion, the satisfaction in scaling a wall - the full works. 

It's been yonks since we last climbed - in Krabi - and we have only done it on a handful of occasions in the past year. 

Last weekend, we brought the kids. Not to our regular haunt, but one where kids were allowed to partake in this activity too. We did not enroll them for any lessons of sort, but rented a child's harness that fit them.

Kate went first - harnessing up

Getting hooked up

Off she went. A rather lovely shot of her pretty, bright & cheery Skechers shoes I may add!

Looking every bit like a pro!

The encouraging brother cheering her on

She made it halfway

Then she got frightened... and requested to come down. But the poor girl felt so insecure she refused to let go of the wall and ... ended up weeping as she wanted to come down but couldn't as she refused to let go of the wall - oh, irony and drama. It took a while of us coaxing her before she finally came down.

The little boy - though very little - was keen to try too so of course, we allowed him to.

All excited!

Getting ready for the wall - a special mention to the trustworthy belayer of all our lifetime

And off he goes!

Limbs being not long enough to reach properly for the stubs, he started moving away from the wall.

And pretty much ended up swinging more than climbing

Attempt to help him get back on the wall

Not a perfect climb at all, but at least he is extremely enthusiastic and willing to go again!

We did let him try again but it was futile because he was really not strong enough nor were his limbs long enough to climb properly but gotta praise his enthusiasm. 

The little girl requested to go again and I am happy that she did not shy away from trying again despite being slightly afraid (of the descent) previously. 

As always, the enthusiastic cheerleader from the ground

I think we all enjoyed ourselves and it was a great first try for both kids. They have both been commenting that they wish to go again and I hope that we can introduce to them this skill that both the husband and I enjoy.

Love

Surprise finds in your bag

Spot that crushed Kiss? Gross. 

It's been sitting in my bag for 4 days! Probably when the kids dumped a whole bunch of candy into my handbag after last Saturday's birthday party that we attended, with their piñata loot. 

Thank goodness it did not explode in my bag and destroy everything else in my bag - phew!

Brings a smile to my face though, with such finds - and I'm counting the hours until I'm home with them again. 

Shape Run 2014

Some months back, I received an email from Shape, notifying me that the registration for Shape Run 2014 has begun! Recalling the experience from last year, I wanted to do it again but was tossing between the 10km run on my own, or the fun run. The interesting twist this year for the fun category was the introduction of a 1.8km fun run with your mini me!

Now, after doing the run with Jake last year (uh, not that he ran), I was extremely keen to try this year's run with Kate. It's only fair  - truth of juggling two children - plus 1.8km would be a relatively easy start for this little girl.

While I was still in contemplation, I received news that one of the sponsors of the run, Skechers, actually carried matchy-match type of shoes in their collection which would be perfect accompaniment to carry us through the finishing line! I've since been reading up more on the product that's the number two top-selling brand of sportwear in USA and am very excited to pick up my own pair of Skechers.

I've since been signed up to the Shape Run Fun Category - thank you Skechers! - and I'm looking forward! With the run being less than a month away, it's also a great goal for me to work towards and re-start my running since my lacklustre training the past two months.

Let's go!

Disclaimer: Skechers has kindly sponsored the run entry for my girl and I. All opinions are on my own.

National Day Parade 2014 - rehearsal

Up till yesterday, I was still planning that perhaps this weekend, we could check out another spot to catch what we could as part of NDP, like what we did last week. Then suddenly! One of the husband's friends offered some tickets and it was such a thrill for us! I was extremely excited to introduce the parade to Kate again, knowing how she enjoyed it before; and especially so to bring J to his first parade. He's such a boy's boy and loves trucks, planes and all things that pretty much is noise so I knew that he would enjoy the parade a lot! He already loves watching the Red Lions on youtube - but this is one regret that I feel because while we made it to the rehearsal today (yay!) we were late and missed that whole warm-up segment (oops).

So anyhow, we are still thankful for the tickets and here are some pictures from this lovely tiny family session of fun in celebration of this safe nation that we live in.

Little K with her beloved Grandma

Excitement at being at the parade

He got into the hang of waving the Singapore flag with no difficulty

Me, my little cousin and K

Another great shot of J waving the flag very proudly

Singing along

Traditional anthem moment - felt so proud!

Family

And as always, we were enraptured...

Fireworks!

Cannot believe how quickly time flies, since our last rehearsal.
So proud to be celebrating the nation's birthday again at the parade with such style and fun and it is truly special this year because we were surprised very pleasantly with the tickets plus it's the first time we were there as a family. All four of us.

Reminder to self - Cheer up!

Look at those faces of unfiltered joy

The pic was taken a few days back when the kids were at the playground. It's such a joyful picture that it definitely helps to bring a smile to my lips, which have been doing nothing much good but nag and nag this morning. It's the start of the long weekend so really, I ought to snap out of my cranky mood and be thankful for the days of fun and play ahead with my loved ones. 

So.. here's my turning point to be nothing but happy and cheerful and enjoy precious moments together with our loved ones. 

Smile!

PS: & one of the reasons I was horrified this morning was... discovering J playing with his turd. He'd done a mis-dump in the bedroom and I walked in on him (alone) rolling it on the bottom of his feet. HAHAHA Ok, it's actually quite funny now that I'm recounting this silly episode. HAHAHHA

An hour of quiet contentment

My little artistes

Kate's masterpiece!

Celebrating National Day, family and love

This year, we didn't manage to score tickets to the National Day Parade. Boo. I'm disappointed because both kids are of suitable age to enjoy the parade, but last Saturday, we randomly made an impromptu decision to head out to catch what we could of the rehearsals without tickets.

Excitement over spotting the giant flag

Priceless

My beautiful baby

Happiness in a safe nation

While we could only view some aircraft, the signature giant flag and the fireworks (partially blocked from the Marina Barrage), I'm still thankful that we have the option of celebrating from the off-side; alongside fellow Singaporeans who were much more prepared than we were - picnic (food and mats), games (balls, kites, dogs) - and feel extremely happy in the beautiful weather we enjoyed that day along with the sometimes-taken-for-granted safety and comfort of this place we call, home with my family who mean the world to me. 

Sometimes, it's these unplanned sessions that warrant the most satisfaction and fun, just because.

Midnight struggles & little victories

The air hasn't been great lately. I'm fighting a sore throat that feels like there's a golf ball inside and last night was rough. The kids have been snorty and sniffly and all sorts of mucus from the past weeks and I hope we all sail through this as painlessly as possible. Needless to say, we've all had pretty poor sleep through this half-state-of-unwellness. I can hear the boy coughing his phlegmy cough from the other room, sometimes. The poor girl has been struggling with her nose being stuffy yet leaky and uncomfortable; waking up to pee - all very unpleasant.

Last night, we had another similar episode - probably the 3rd in two weeks? She was awakened by the warm weather as I'd switched the aircon off after she'd fallen asleep. I didn't wish to spread my germs to her and by sleeping in such close proximity didn't help but since I couldn't not sleep with her, I figured the next best option was to allow some clean air to swish about the room.

She started whining, and being teary and perhaps it was the still of the night; perhaps it was my lack-of-strength to react as I'm unwell but I bit my tongue and tried my d*rnest to speak with her in a tone as level as ground.

She sniffled. She peed. She flopped around in bed.
I held my tongue and laid beside her. I hugged her. I applied oils to help soothe her.

At one point, after repeatedly asking her "why are you crying?" she managed to pull out a weepy "I don't know"

I felt so much for her then. I myself was struggling with my throat-ache and I know she's not feeling great. And for her to articulate that she had no idea why she was feeling so awful, reminded me of how little this girl still is.

We headed to the kitchen together after a synced pee visit and we took some honey each. It was to soothe my throat; she just enjoyed taking it. When I handed her her cup of water afterwards, she said to me, "thank you Mommy"

My heart broke a little. I banished all my evil monsters within that felt resentment that she was disrupting my sleep, I gave up struggling to "feel better so that my work life can resume tomorrow", I heaved a sigh of relief that I didn't lose my cool with her - when what she needed was Mommy.

I'm not the most patient person and more often than not, I allow my frustrations to unleash with little thought or restraint if I'm pressed for time or distracted. I have demons within that lurk and yell more often than I like or care to admit. But last night, I was Mommy with heart and I feel ashamed to say that I'm not always Mommy with heart.

I've read of The Orange Rhino Challenge but never actioned on it. It's never left my mind though and I do wish to become the Mother that my children will come to when they have problems; I need to remind myself that I'm only as good as what they see me and not the rest of the world.

Little steps, one day, one moment at a time.

Reflections over a cuppa

Bye bye, Seoul - Day 8

Our flight home was at midnight, so truly, we had a full day to burn on this final day of the holiday. Some key milestones in our time of the day were the hotel check-out time (2pm), and then the flight check-in time (10pm).

First things first, to fill our tummies. 

Look at this lovely sight, of him with his mini him.

And my lovely girl, enjoying her meal.

Just a bit about the food in Korea. They serve a lot of rice, and it suits the husband because he likes filling his tummy with solid food in the morning, like the pics from above. I much prefer a lighter type of breakfast of coffee and pastry. And this particular spot was a place that we ate at a total of three times. It was just around the corner from our hotel, it served rice & noodles, dumplings and was a quick, fuss-free option that met its objective of filling our tummies. 

After the meal, we headed back to the hotel to finish packing so we could check out and it was also about now that the boy started fussing. The husband and I played tag to complete some last-minute shopping + put him to sleep and I'm aware that it sounds simple and uncomplicated, but it was really trying. The boy would not sleep, was extremely cranky, and that made it very hard for us to function like regular people. I know I was pretty strung out. 

While the husband was trying to put J to nap, I started shuffling luggages to check out/ store in baggage and basically try to make our time stay on routine (2pm check out!).. when we finally were done, we had a family of 4 that were pretty grumpy sitting at the lobby of the hotel. 

Trying to smile amidst feeling grumpy

The time was about 2pm, and we had a whole afternoon to kill. Unfortunately, the boy had still not napped and was still extremely grumpy and pretty much not open to anything at all. He really just.needed.to.nap. I'd some hope of going to run some last bit of activity, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen.

Instead, the husband and I divide and conquered for him to try to put Jake to sleep; and I brought K on a little walk. We ended up going to do some window shopping and I just wanted to take a breather by walking about.

We headed to the mall just opposite our hotel and it was a nice, short walk where we both had something to see/do and I'd remembered this interactive piece that we'd seen before but hadn't had time to stop for.

Plucking the balls into the egg cartons

She went up and down at least 10times

It was a simple piece - on the walls were egg cartons and they provided little flurry balls in rainbow colours that people could play/create art in. We also chanced upon a staircase of musical keys; it produced actual music (notes) when you stepped on it and K had a fun time just hopping about on it.

By the time we headed back to the hotel in a bit, the boy still had not slept. It was already nearly 4pm by then and he was still so cranky! 

So I continued to walk the streets with Kate and because she started complaining that she was hungry, plus she was such a good girl, I allowed her to have ice-cream.

Simple happiness

At some point between happiness over ice-cream and too-late-a-nap-later, the boy, finally slept.

I felt exhausted for him, who struggled to stay awake till 4pm

We were all properly hungry by then, so we headed out to seek for food. It was a pretty late lunch. We decided on a little Korean restaurant on a second level of a shophouse and it was a decent meal - we had ginseng chicken, some fried chicken salad, noodles and rice.

And proof that my husband is like, really strong. Sleeping baby inside!

At this point after the meal, the baby woke up. We had bought pastries to fill him up (he'd had milk) and we waited for our ride to Incheon Airport.

The little girl, starting to wind down after being hyper all day

Finally, a happy boy, post-nap!

While the husband and K napped, this boy was chirpy so I spent the hour-long ride with him looking out the window, pointing out things that would interest him. 

And we arrive

Owning the airport, with his pink (how man!) little trolley bag

We had several hours to kill and the check-in counter hadn't even opened yet because our flight was at midnight. We spent the time clearing our tax refund matters, walking about, weighing our luggage, eating snacks... when the check in counter opened, we were the first few in line.

With lesser luggage to lug about, we headed for dinner. Then post-dinner activities - play!

Indoor playground at the playground

Why lie down? ... but then again, why not?

After allowing them to tire themselves, it was past 10pm. We headed to freshen ourselves before the flight - teeth were brushed, bodies were wiped down and we changed to comfy pyjama-type clothes.

The flight back was pretty bearable, details here.

Tired boy with angelic face

Tired girl with angelic face

These pics of them above were taken when we'd to prepare for touchdown. So we've had to raise their seats upright, and have them sleep sitting up - and they did.

Touchdown on home ground

Just before customs

And just like that, our holiday had ended. To read about our previous day of the holiday, click here.

Home sweet home

It's been a pretty awesome holiday and I'm so thankful that we did it as a family unit. This holiday had started out to be meant for a couple holiday to the USA, then we had tossed about so many options of where to go with/without kids - but I knew that time as a family would be great and that can never be wrong. We'd spent 24/7 with the kids on our own, something that wouldn't happen even if we were in Singapore; we'd exposed the kids to new sights, tastes and experiences and that's something that is just invaluable.

I think I wish to do a highlights-of-the-trip kinda entry, just to sum up the best bits of holiday; let's see if I get around to doing that.

To our next holiday - hopefully soon!