Daddy Matters: Why It Matters

I did an earlier post introducing Daddy Matters and what the community is about. Today I want to blog about why it matters to have this community.

Life is full of ups and downs. This goes for life of a Daddy too. A positive mindset is essential to positive parenting. But with the stress of our day job plus night job (as an active daddy), being positive all the time is impossible (for me at least). There are times when the little ones do unexpected things that tug my heart strings but there are also times when I feel like I turn into an Incredible Hulk filled with rage and anger, or the grumpy old man from the movie Up.

This is when a positive community can help, by offering a listening ear, providing alternate views and basically letting you know that you are not alone. Not too long ago, I had a bad case of negative thoughts. It clouded my mind that I literally stop blogging totally. It went on for awhile.

Then Winston call me out for a kopi session and I told him everything. He said he totally understand why I felt this way. It was a good session and helped to unwind some of those negative thoughts. Soon after, I saw Daddy M's post about daddy bloggers and it cleared my mind why I blogged in the first place. Which is why a positive community of active daddies is very important as we would positively influence each other, knowingly and unknowingly.

Then there is the part on knowledge sharing. Sure there are heaps of information online about parenting, but not all are suitable for our local context. Having a local community would mean more localised information and methods that might be more suitable.

One of the advice I remember giving Winston during one of our kopi session is, no two kids (even if they are twins) are the same. The sooner you let this sink into your head, the easier it is to handle two and more children. I made the mistake thinking I had experience with Xavier and hence handling Lucas would be a breeze. Well I got hit by a typhoon instead, as Lucas behave very different from Xavier. What I learned from handling Xavier do not work on Lucas. So there is a lot of trial and error to see what works and what does not. But with a community, you could gain better hit rates as everyone shares knowledge and workable solutions.

I wished we had this community earlier when Xavier was born and when I was a greenhorn to fatherhood. But nonetheless I'm glad it happened now, as fatherhood is a journey of lifetime learning. See you around at Daddy Matters.

Daddy Matters

Today marks the day Daddy Matters goes live! I strongly urge all active daddies, all active daddies wanna-be join us our online community. Of course if you are a mummy looking to see what's on the mind of your other half, or you are still single but believes active fatherhood is important, you are more than welcome to join us too.

Website: www.daddymatters.sg
Facebook: Daddy Matters

When you are a parent, you know very well that things often do not happen as planned. This applies even to April Fool jokes. Winston knows this all too well. He had initially posted a prank online about forming a group of daddy bloggers call Singapore Man Bloggers, I think partly because it had the same acronym as Singapore Mom Bloggers, just to create some confusion.

A number of daddy bloggers took it for real and were game for it. So what was started as an innocent joke snowballed into 2 days of serious discussion and at the end of it, Daddy Matters was a go-ahead.

Daddy Matters is a community formed by eleven active daddies who are not experts ourselves, but believes in sharing and learning from each other in the community about active fatherhood and how to be a better daddy. We hope you can join us in this never ending quest, because Daddy Matters, says one father to another.

Below are the daddies:

Andy Lee - sengkangbabies.com

Christopher Vu - christophervu.com

Daddy M - thewackyduo.com

Edmund Tay - edunloaded.com

Isaiah Kuan - jbabiesdad.blogspot.sg

Kelvin Ang - daddy.nivlek.per.sg

Kelvin Ang - cheekiemonkie.net

Nick Pan - nickpan.com

Patrick Pang - patrickpang.com

Winston Tay - blogfather.sg & dear.xander.sg

and me.

Profile of the eleven daddies that started Daddy Matters can be found here.

Something is brewing...

RWS Staycation 2013 - Day 2: Universal Studio Singapore

Our RWS staycation package comes with two adult free passes to Universal Studio Singapore (USS). Two years ago, I said I would not be coming to USS for a very very long time. Time files and I'm back here again.

On the way to USS, we pass by some unique flower decorations in the form of a green and a red snake to usher in the year of the Snake. There is also a huge golden dragon hanging near the bottom of the flight of stairs.

Photo time with the famous Universal Studio icon, the rotating globe.

What's different this time round is that USS added two rides. One is the highly recommended Transformers The Ride and another the opening-soon Sesame Street Spaghetti Space Chase. The latter is a slow ride targeted at young kids. I was initially disappoint that it will only open a few days later. Surprisingly they were having soft launch that day so I went with Xavier to try the ride.

Its a slow dark ride where you join Elmo and Super Grover in a journey to outer space to look for the villain who stole the Spaghetti. Strangely Xavier seems visually unhappy after the ride. When I asked him why, he says he don't like the sesame street friends. Mummy on the other hand is all smiles with Elmo beside her.

I then went to try out the Transformers the Ride myself. To me, this is THE best ride of USS. Its a 3D ride with hydraulic vehicles name EVAC to simulate the various movement and speed. Would have gone for more of it if not for the long queue time.

Right beside this attraction, we found a little machine that seems fun to play. It has large lever where you can turn to "Press A Penny". What it does is for $2, it will press a penny with design of your choice as you turn the lever. We did some when we were overseas in Disneyland but those where just a button press and the machines will automatically press one for you. These ones where you turn the lever manually to press the penny seems more fun. Xavier and even Lucas are fighting with us to turn the lever.

Here are our Press A Penny collection. The 2 rows of pennies on the left are from USS and those 2 rows on the right are from overseas. I love the newly pressed Elmo and Cookie Monster pennies. Although you can't see it clearly in the photo, the detailing on the fur looks very good on the pennies.

The next area is Xavier's favourite, Madagascar. It has the King Julien's Beach Party-Go-Round that both boys can't get enough of. It also has a slow dark ride call Madagascar: A Crate Adventure that you sit on a boat. Somehow Xavier loves this ride and request to go for it again.Well guess he likes Madagascar more than Sesame Street.

How can holiday be complete without shopping? Both Lilian and I went mad in the Sesame Street shop. The merchandise are so cute even Lucas was taking down all the cookie tins and lining them on the floor. I bought also almost all the sesame street character fridge magnets. So irresistible Xavier took the group photo for us, well done boy.

Sadly Xavier is still scare of mascots so he didn't have any photos taken with mascots. Lilian and I both spare no chance getting close to the mascots. We love Kungffffuuuuuu...

Well at least they are okay as long as the object do not move, like this giant Hershey's Chocolate syrup bottle.

Overall it was a pretty fun staycation. Although day 1 we felt like pulling our hair out and Xavier fell off the bed and hit his head on the first night sort of dampen my mood a little. But we are definitely not ready to bring the boys out on a holiday, not if we wanna enjoy it ourselves.

See the visit to S.E.A. Aquarium on Day 1.

RWS Staycation 2013 - Day 1: S.E.A. Aquarium

Both Lilian and I felt deprived of a good holiday, but we were not confident in bring both boys on an overseas one yet. So we decided to go for a staycation, just to test water and see how the boys react. Plus I really want to bring the boys to visit the newly opened S.E.A. Aquarium.

The S.E.A. Aquarium shares the same building as The Maritime Experiential Museum, so you actually need to enter the museum and walk all the way to the end before you reach the aquarium entrance at B1. The museum does have some interesting exhibits like the full-sized replica of the bow of Admiral Zheng He’s treasure ship (Bao Chuan) Marvel, and the many stories the various exhibits tell.

We were pretty excited about the aquarium. There was a big display on the left of the entrance with what look like a submerged shipwreck to wow us.

As you walk through the clear tunnel, take a moment to look around as there are many different fishes of all colours, shapes and patterns swimming and dancing around. There is also a puppeteer who would engage visitors with different fish puppets to give you more information about the various fishes and encourage you to look for them.

Next up is a glass floor where you can look down to see those fishes that loves swimming close to the seabed. Our curious Lucas think nothing about walking or even jumping on that glass floor just to gain a closer look of what is underneath.

There are a number of huge tanks with countless colour fishes that are so pretty to see. Look at the height of this tank. Venture further in and you would be amazed by the super gigantic tank...

Behold, the Open Ocean zone. I have only seen this sort of display previous in photos or on television. To be able to see this sight in person is awesome. We spent like a good 20 mins just here watching the graceful manta rays glide through the water.

That manta ray you see in the middle of the previous photo is the "star" of this zone. It glides around the tank with a school of small fishes in front all the time. No other manta rays in the tank had that.

Maybe something for this school of rays to inspire to be. Don't you agree they look like they are flying?

Here's a video of the Open Ocean zone.

The following are the close-up shots of the various marine life. I love the colours and the mesmerising movement of the jellyfish.
This is probably the one attraction that I would consider an annual pass. If you haven't been there yet, you are missing something awesome.

Continue to Day 2 USS adventures.