YOG@Changi Airport

We went to the airport for dinner over the weekend and we saw that the airport had setup a small section to create publicity for YOG. There was a soccer corner, a boxing corner and a reverse bungy corner. The soccer and boxing corners were free for all to try whereas the reverse bungy required patrons to spend a certain amount at the airport to get a free jump.
Caleb was really excited when he saw the boxing and soccer corners, so we encouraged him to give it a try.

For the boxing corner, participants will put on a boxing glove and they will have to hit the target as hard as  they can. The machine will then measure the impact and give a scoring. If you can break the high score, you'll receive a medal. Caleb's too short to reach the boxing target so ND had to carry him and help him by swinging him towards the target. Well, obviously he didn't have enough strength to break any record. Even adults had difficulty breaking the existing record.


Now here's the hilarious one. Caleb was very excited about kicking the soccer ball and somehow when it was his turn, a crowd started gathering. I think there were at least 30 spectators gathering around watching him. And then... well, let's just say that my son needs to do more target practice.



If you turn up the volume, you can hear all the background laughter from the spectators. I'm not sure whether Caleb's aware that everybody's laughing at him but I thought he did look slightly embarrassed.
Regardless, I thought it was very brave of him to continue on even though he kept missing the ball.
Good job Caleb!

Squabbles Squabbles Squabbles

Now that Caleb and Sarah are growing up and Sarah's more vocal and able to hold her own conversation, having squabbles is becoming a daily affair. I do get frustrated with their daily squabbles and I'm constantly wondering how much, how often and when should I intervene. As of now, Sarah's the one who refuses to listen to Caleb or submit to his authority. She pretends not to hear him and ignores him and this frustrates him even more. And Caleb, not knowing how to handle his sister, ends up shouting or using brute force on her to try to get her to listen to him. Some days, I step in rather quickly to break up the fight. Other days, I pretend that I can't hear them fighting and hope very hard that they will resolve the issue themselves. Whatever it is, teaching both of them issues resolution is really quite difficult. I can only pray that God will give me and ND lots of wisdom, patience and perseverance in this area so that our kids can learn this very important life skill as they grow up.

On a lighter note, sometimes when they squabble, they can be really amusing. I decided to blog about these moments coz I think they are so precious in my kids' growing up years.

"Small" Squabble
I'm sending Caleb home from school and Caleb's sitting in the backseat with Sarah. I hear some commotion behind and then...
Sarah (shouting loudly): korkor! I want you to talk to me!
Caleb (whining): No! I don't want to talk to you! (then he complains to me) Mummy, I want to spend some time by myself and Sarah keeps disturbing me!
Mummy: Sarah, please leave kor kor alone. He wants to spend some time by himself.
Sarah: But Kor kor never spend time with me!! Hmmh! (and she continues to make the sound "Hmmh" and crosses her arms all the way home, while Caleb just ignores her.)

"Bigger" Squabble
A few days ago, I overheard this squabble between Caleb and Sarah. I don't know who irritated who or who hurt who but this was the commotion that I heard.
Caleb: Eh Sarah! Say sorry to me!
Sarah ignores Caleb.
Caleb: Hey! You must say sorry to me!
Sarah continues to ignore Caleb and pretends that he's not talking to her.
Caleb: (Very angry and upset now) Say sorry to me now! Otherwise next time I won't say sorry to you too! Do to others as you would have them do to you!

Me and ND laughed behind their backs when we heard Caleb say the last sentence coz he actually quoted a bible verse and used it to scold Sarah. This is a memory verse that we had memorised together as a family some time back and it's amazing that he's actually trying to apply it!
The verse is from Luke 6:31 ~ "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

"Scary" Squabble
It's bedtime and Sarah doesn't want to go to sleep and decides to irritate her korkor instead. She gets out of her bed, picks up her cup to drink some water and then slowly saunters pass Caleb's bed. And as she's doing this, she keeps coughing at Caleb.
Caleb: Eh! Stop coughing at me! Cover your mouth when you cough!
Sarah: (Slowly crawling on all fours onto her bed. She crawls right next to Caleb's face, coughing away all this while and says in a rather nonchalant tone ...) I'm not coughing... I'm just choking on my water!
Caleb's rather irritated with her and tries to shield his face from her. He clears his throat while doing that and then...the princess reacts and flings her arm at him as though to shoo him away...
Sarah: Korkor! Cover your mouth! Don't cough at me! You got phelgm!
Caleb: I'm just clearing my throat! You mean everytime I clear my throat I must cover my mouth?!
Sarah: Yes! You must cover your mouth! You've got virus!
Then she haughtily turns around and settles down to go to bed (Yup, she's met her objective and she left her korkor speechless and feeling very irritated with her.)
I call this the "scary" squabble coz I was watching the whole scene from the other end of the room and I was  horrified at what a chilli padi my daughter is. As for my son, I need to pray real hard that he can learn to manage and control this sister of his.

Even though there's been daily squabbles between Caleb and Sarah, the house is not exactly a warzone.They still love each other a lot and enjoy each other's company tremendously and they do have their very loving moments like these...

I just need to put on the earplugs when the squabbles start...

Sophia Turns 10 Months Old!

I haven't blogged much about my little one. I think it's about time I gave her a little bit of airtime. So today she turns 10 months old and here's what she's growing up to be like.

When she's home, she's one cheeky, playful baby, always looking for people to play with her. Nothing delights her more than to have the company of yours truly, followed by kor kor, che che and Daddy. When she's left alone at home, woe to our helper coz she'll be one super unhappy baby. She can't be left alone to play and she needs to be carried all the time. But the minute we come home and she sees any of us, the excitement and the big, bright smile that you get from her, is priceless.

But to the typical stranger, Sophia will put on the Lee family frown and eye them up and down.

For the longest time, my dear Sophia has been "Bo-geh" (No Teeth) and "Bo-tak" (No hair). Really, she's the "slowest" in this area amongst my kids and she has the least hair. Caleb's first tooth came out at 3 months and Sarah's was at 6 months. Well at 8 months, we finally saw Sophia's first tooth sprouting out. Now she has her 2 bottom teeth and 1 tooth on top. Unfortunately, she's still "bo-tak". I think it'll take her a couple more months before we'll see more hair on her. Apparently I was very botak as a baby too and my mum was so worried that she resorted to trying out the old wives tale of rubbing alcohol on my head to make my hair grow. Not sure whether it really works, I certainly have a lot of hair now but I'm not about to try that out on Sophia.


Not very obvious in this photo but you can see hints of her bottom two teeth sprouting out... and her few strands of hair that's growing slightly longer.

So what tricks has my baby learnt in the past 2 months? Well, it has been rather exciting actually coz she's reached the stage where she's picking up things really fast and she's amusing us each day with her new antics.

First, she started crawling at lighting speed. Then, she moved on to holding on to furniture and pulling herself up to stand. And nowadays, she's cruising a bit. Sometimes we put her on the walker to roam around a little but she usually doesn't last long in there. She likes to be FREE and not constrained by anything.

She found her other hand recently and takes great pleasure clapping them together. It's even better if we sing her some songs. She'll clap along and she'll even throw in a dance when she's in the mood. I think she does enjoy listening to music quite a bit. 
When she hears music and she's sitting down, she'll start to sway her body back and forth. If she's standing, you can tell she puts in a fair bit of effort to bounce along with the music.
I've got a video of her trying to dance even though she can't stand without support.


One other thing that she's been doing recently that we find amusing, is when she says NO. She can't talk but she'll shake her head vigorously and laugh. She thinks it's very funny herself. We'll ask her "Sophia, do you want to bathe?" and she'll shake her head and body and laugh. Or when ND asks to carry her from my arms, sometimes, she'll shake her head and she'll have this cheeky grin on her face.
Here's a video of her saying No. I took out her favourite biscuit for her to eat. Somehow she doesn't want to pick it up from my hand and feed herself, but she wants me to put it into her mouth for her.


She's a funny girl, very enjoyable at this age, and certainly very well loved and adored by everybody at home.
Happy 10th month old Sophia! We love you so much!