Another Un-Fulfilled Trip?

On a sms exchange with Wae Shuen's mommy, I learnt that her family and her friend's had also cancelled their trip plans to the Australia(not sure when is theirs). Why also? 'Cos we had also been thinking along the same line initially, for the June holidays(dunno why we never seem to be able to finalise going there, hmmm). But now with the swine flu, plus daddy's indefinite schedule, it's very likely that the trip's bound towards the 'storeroom' of my mind, :).

Anyway, let's just hope this epidemic will be over SOON with no more new cases, anywhere in the world...

Eve of PH

Seeing my sisters' new haircut reminded me that I needed a trim myself, especially when lately, the reflection of my longer than chin length hair was just enough to make me feel warm all over, hahaha.

Confirming with Janice that we won't be having a cuppa today(since we've done that on Tues), I quickly booked an appointment with my hairstylist. And before I went over, I did a quick surf over the net for some short hairstyles references and when I chanced upon the infamous Victoria Beckam's, I didn't think I would give it a try given that I'm not so keen in having that short a hair now(cos I've had a really short hair cut after the birth of Renee and never been able to keep longer hair for long since). However, upon a quick discussioin with my h/stylist, a normal trim would be boring so I left it to her on the style selection. Never did I know that the style she chose would be similar to VB's but with mine just a tad longer(say 1, 2cm?) and with a deliberate 'inbalance' cut(on both sides, though not very obvious, in case I can't accept it, hahaha) to stir the style up. Hmmm, I quite like it, for a change, :D. But most of all, I feel much cooler and that's enough to Hurray!(well, not forgetting the benefit of getting to renew the package with the lower price charged for short/medium length hair):D

After school, we went over to Hougang Mall('cos it's nearer to Eileen's and I need to pick up the pork and pandan leaves I've asked her to buy for me) amd at the Popular bookstore, I found a wonderful book of fairy tales and had almost bought it when I remembered the bookspree I've joined, phew...

'Refunded' Stars?

Renee had indeed asked to exchange her 10 stars for daddy to sleep beside her last night and although I had wanted her to just keep them, daddy decided that she could have 5 for falling asleep fast, hahaha. Ok, I could go along with that and so today, when Renee took the card for me to cross out the stars for the exchange, I gave her the 5 daddy had rewarded her and she grinned, :).

"Mommy, You Forgot to Cook My Food?"

Eileen did her marketing today and I was actually thinking of preparing Renee's meal(to be taken at school) with the fresh foodstock but as I didn't have to pick her up from the market('cos my BIL went with her), I've forgotten to cook Renee's food! And to think that I've actually woken up earlier today, haiz...It was only when we were about to leave home for school that I remembered.

Having no choice, I drove to the coffee shop near my sis', packed char-siew rice and requested my sis to bring the foodstock down to me...

At the school, I have to try and shred the char-siew to smaller pieces(luckily the uncle was nice to slice them thinner for me)at the waiting section and re-packed them into the Thermos container I've brought along...*phew*.

It was raining when I was sending Renee to school and I took the opportunity and 'used' the rain-water to wipe my car of its dust but when it's dried, it didn't look very clean either. So, after our lunch at home, I wet the cloth again and with Renee sitting on the front seat listening to her school's CD, I gave it another wipe all over, at least now it looks alot cleaner, lolz(well, it at least could 'tong' til the next time daddy bring it to the manual car wash).

It's a good thing that we went back to wipe my car, as we found the 'little bunny' charm(must have dropped from the bag when I carried the sleeping Renee home earlier) Eileen gave to Renee, on the way to the carpark! :)

"I Don't Want to go to School"

To my very surprise, this was what Renee told me this morning when I asked her to get ready for school!

I asked her for the reason to which she told me that "we draw something and Mrs Ong asked what is it, but I don't know and she's very angry". To find out more, I decided to speak to the teacher. The children were still in the assembly hall when we arrived and I took the opportunity to speak to Mrs Ong. She said she was also waiting for an opportunity to have a word with me about this. This was what happened:

'The current theme engages them in the play of 'tools' and whilst Mrs Ong was telling her the names of the tools she's selected(each was to select his/her tools for drawing/colouring) but seeing her friends whom had already gone through that earlier and moved-0n to the play corner(with the tools), she couldn't concentrate. Mrs Ong decided to let her go on but test her later. Obviously this girl didn't pass the test and out of panic, she gave the tool a name(something which the teacher couldn't catch) and claimed that it was something I've taught her! It was a spanner and with it being that, the teacher has correctly assumed that I wouldn't have taught her so, especially when it's given a wrong name. The teacher added that she normally doesn't have to 'scold' Renee as she 'picked up' things fast but it was the 'lie' that made her angry(we are too!) and so she chided her. Out of fear, she cried and blurted : "I want mommy, I'm not feeling well, I want to go home, I want to practice my violin"(arrh! This explains why Mrs Ong asked yesterday if she's learning violin). She was then led for a face-wash and lesson continued...'

So, that explains why she hadn't want to explain to me why she's told her teacher about her learning the violin and perhaps also why 1 of her classmates, Jun Wei had suddenly rushed to give her a small pack of rasins at the gate at dismissal(probably 'cos that's the 1st time they've seen she cried).

After the talk with the teacher, I had wanted to speak with Renee but thought it's best to leave it till we got home after school. With the approach of the celebrated Vesak Day, I brought her to the Buddhist Welfare Temple for the 'Yu Fuo' and when we got back, this is the conversation I've re-enforced with her :

Me : "Renee, come, I need to talk to you"

Renee : "yes mommy"

Me : "why did you lie to the teacher in school?"

Renee : "because she asked me but I don't know and I'm afraid"

Me : "it's ok that you don't know, you just have to pay attention in class, listen and learn. It is very bad to lie. Do Not lie again. Mommy and Papa had always told you not to lie. It's ok to make mistake and not to know something, just don't tell lies"

Renee : "ok mommy, I will remember that. I'm sorry..."

Me : "This is not the first time I'm telling you this, so please don't let me hear that you've lied again"

Renee : "ok mommy"

Me : (repeating to make sure the message gets through again) : "remember ok, never lie. If you've done something wrong and papa/mommy asked you, you must say so. We may scold you, yes But, if we caught you telling lies, we'll cane you, do you understand?"

Renee : "yes, mommy..."

Well, I hope this 'small matter' will help to teach/help her learn more about not lying and she'll not use a lie to cover up her fear again or anymore.

Malls, Stars, TV

Times are bad and retailers are trying their best to 'keep' their customers. For the past couple of years, the malls here have been upgrading themselves and recently the NTUC Fairprice at Rivervale Mall had been fully renovated and it's now very nice. Today, the Cold Storage @ Compass Point has almost finalised with its re-arranged layout, which also look alot better! They even played soft jazz music for the shoppers, lolz.

On the homefront, we've found Renee's getting too hooked on the TV lately(she could even have it on whilst playing with her toys) and that's not good. Not wanting her to cultivate a lazy mind(which already beginning to, hahaha), we decided to 'cut off' her TV watching. We've told her so yesterday after she lazily tried to shorten her violin practice(just 5 mins) and she willingly agreed. We've expected that she'd put up a protest today but surprisingly, she went on the whole day(well, almost the whole day except the 1/2 hr when I needed her to drink her barley water then I switched it on to distract her abit) without much protest - she did request for her VCDs with the reason that VCD ain't TV programme, hahaha. Wanted to cancel off the children tvs from our SVC package but there isn't any interesting one that I could replace it with, so I told daddy to just leave it and we could just let her watch occasionally OR on Saturdays/Holidays. Let's hope we could all work-on/stick-to this arrangement on a long term basis...

PX came abit later today and only finished her chores at ard 8pm. However, she still stayed and played with Renee for a good 45mins and her reason was that she's always find Renee's very 'creative' in her plays and she's enjoyed it. It is nice of her, really, but then again, I hope it won't happen too often, 'cos it's pretty disruptive for me when Renee's time/routine is jumbled up like this, :D... Good thing Renee still managed to go to bed by 11pm(and not any later!).

Talking about 'sleep'... Renee has, for the past week til now, accumulated 9 stars for her violin practices and I was wondering why she hasn't requested for any exchange. Today, when I told her that it's her 9th star she's getting and

she exclaimed excitedly : "Oh, 9 stars! Papa promised that he'll sleep with me when I have 10 stars!"

Puzzled, I asked : "are you sure you want to exchange your stars for papa to sleep with you?"

Renee : "yes"

Me : "......"

Renee : "but 10 stars means 10 days, so long....."

Awww, I'm going to tell daddy about this, since this is what he's promised, he would have to fulfil it but I'll just allow her to keep her stars for her exchange, just that she can only insist for her papa to sleep beside her when she's got 10 stars(wonder if she'll really keep to that, she still wakes up at night occasionally and shouted across for him to go over, hahaha).

We went to Ikea this evening as daddy needed some stationeries from their store and we had our dinner at Courts' 'Box Bistro' before we went to take a look at the foldable garments racks...Haiz, not what we were looking for... good thing we didn't make a trip purposely to check them out.

Oh ya, as promised, here're a couple of pics of her in e denim shorts, :D :

Renee also loves to play with the 'fridge magnets' and yesterday, whilst I was cooking, she re-arranged the smilies and said "mommy, look, it's a car", hahaha:

2nd Sunday Violin Lesson

Indeed, as feared, Renee didn't have enough rest(even though she didn't wake up as early) and so she was a little grouchy during her lesson. Luckily we still managed to get her to play a few more times on the songs, *phew* but it's still rather tiring, especially for me.

Her nap in the car on the short detour to pack our lunch proved her restless-ness but when she's back home, she didn't want her nap after her lunch even though her eyebags are quite obvious - her reason is, she could nap in the car later on our way out! hahaha.

We'd be skipping lesson again next week as Ms Mok would be away on a short holiday...and I hope we'd be able to get a favourable response to our request to try out 1 Sat afternoon(if proved ok for Renee, we'll hope to fix it on Sats instead).

Family Holiday?

During our family gathering at my mom's today, the topic of a 'Family Holiday' came up. It has been more than 10 years since the last one we had with the WHOOOOLE family = literally everyone, :D. I'm sure many of us look forward to our next one, but with the difficulty for most of us to find a suitable time slot, I think it's quite hard that this could materialise in the near future... Well, guess we'll just have to take this matter further if we are all really keen about it, :).

Renee's lesson for this week still remains at the same time tomorrow but daddy still decided to have a short mahjong session with the rest and thus, we only got home at 10pm tonight. Renee had gone to bed after 11:30pm, so I hope she'll have enough rest, but with the super warm weather today(no wind even), will she be able to sleep in longer? For that, I've decided to switch the air-condition on so that Renee could sleep better but when I turned it on, she went "mommy, why you On the air-con? Wait I sick how?", hahaha... Oh geez, I hope not man!

But it's surprising why we're not feeling the 'warmth' now after our supper, it was only after our showers that we were both perspiring like mad *???*...