Renovation: Window and Balcony Restrictors

I love space. Living in a tightly packed city, space is a real luxury. When we picked our new house, we look for ideal units with unblocked view as this gives a sense of space. However, when you have young children in the house, their safety takes priority.

Parents with young children should consider putting in some form of restrictions at the windows and balcony. This is to prevent young children from climbing out of the windows or over the balcony. The most basic would be Window Grille made of metal materials like aluminum or wrought iron.

Image from Pang Giap Enterprise (88) Pte Ltd

Aluminum is probably the most popular choice due to the economical price. It serves more like a deterrent. However, if your windows are along the corridor, you might want to consider stronger material like wrought iron. The disadvantage is maintenance to prevent rust from setting in. 

I see some other sites offering wrought aluminum which it says offer the strength of wrought iron without the worry of rust. You may wish to find out more. There are also other considerations like whether are the grille powder coated or anodized.

Many do not like the look of grille as they feel caged up and loses the sense of space. The other alternative is using invisible grille. But it comes at a higher cost.

Image from CSA Invisible Grille

The idea behind invisible grille is using thin stainless steel cables to restrict access while doing away with the caged up look. It is gaining popularity now as it offers safety with a much lesser compromise on the lost of spaciousness. There are quite a number of options for window ranging from fixed to casement to sliding. 

Image from CSA Invisible Grille

This is also a very popular option for balcony. In fact, we installed invisible grille for our balcony from CSA Invisible Grille. Do find out more about the materials the different companies are using and to check the reviews of others who have installed from the different companies. 

For our window, our ID Tom did propose something different. He showed us a kind of vinyl blinds for the window which looks very nice. These blinds are heavy to lift up, hence the idea is to keep it lowered and to hide the strings away from the children. Hence they will not be able to lift them up.

The children are able to turn the direction of the blinds, either to allow more light and ventilation in or close the blind. The gaps also allow us to open and close the window with ease. We bought the idea. However, as I am afraid that the boys could still somehow get past the blind (from the side or by crawling under), I have also installed window restrictors.

Basically its a cable system that restricts how much you can open the windows by. The advantages are that you do not have the caged up look and you can unlock it to open the windows fully if you need to. The disadvantage is because you restrict how much you can open the window by, you restrict the amount of wind or ventilation coming in from the windows. They do not seems to be readily available locally, hence I bought them from eBay UK.

Lastly, Daiso sells a balcony door restrictor that a number of neighbours find useful. It limits the opening of your sliding door. I believe it can be used for sliding window too.

Credit Cards For The Family Man

I have always view credit cards as just another means of payment and a way of redeeming shopping vouchers with points accumulated from using the card. So I have always tried to concentrate spending on one or two cards and have not signed up new cards for a few years.

Recently, however, I signed up two cards in one week. I feel these two cards, together with some cards I have existing, are useful for The Family Man, Daddies. The big game changer for me is cash/bill rebates.

Before you read on, this is on condition that you too view credit cards as just another means of making payments and you fully pay off all credit card spending every month. Paying minimum amount and letting credit card bills snowball would be a very silly thing to do.

First on the list is the Maybank Family and Friends Platinum Mastercard. This is a must have for all families, at least up to 31 December 2013. Why so? Because it offers 5% cash rebates on all spending on NTUC and Cold Storage, Guardian & Unity NTUC Healthcare, Popular Bookshop, Toys "R" Us &Yamaha Music, among other outlets, cap at $600 per calendar year.

The first two covers almost all groceries needs of all families. Use the NTUC link card at NTUC and the Passion Card at Cold Storage together with this credit card to maximise reward accumulation. And if I remember correctly, it pays the rebate from first dollar up. Must have.

Next is the OCBC Frank Card. This is another must have if you are into online shopping. And I know many parents do a number of online shopping as its usually cheaper or have a larger variety. This card gives you 6% cash rebates for all online shopping payments, as long as you spend at least $500 on that month. The cap is $60 rebate per month so that works out to be $1,000 online shopping per month with rebates. Check out my "Online Shopping Encore" post for online shopping ideas.

Metro-UOB Platinum Card and OCBC Robinsons Visa Platinum are two cards good for getting toys and children stuff with discounts and rebates. I favour the Metro-UOB card as Metro has a excellent variety of Lego sets and they have those 20% sale almost every alternate month. Plus a 5% Metro$ rebate system, it is almost like getting Lego sets at 24% discount during sales period.

OCBC Robinson card has a cash rebate system and every now and then they have special bonus voucher events. Technically its better but their Lego collection are not as Metro's.

Lastly its the Standard Chartered Manhatten World credit card. It was my favourite card for big ticket purchases of between $3,000 to $4,000 on a particular month per quarter. For that, you get a 5% cash rebate of $150 to $200 per quarter. Sadly, I just received a letter late last month that they are reducing the cash rebate to 3%. Boo.

Do read the fine prints of the various cards before using and the above information may change as and when the banks want to. So do check the information with the bank.

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.

Bloggers Brunch with Julia Gabriel Centre - Raising the iPad Generation

I got an invitation to a bloggers brunch organised by Julia Gabriel Centre at Seb's Bristo and having enjoyed the previous Daddy Bloggers get together, I look forward to sharing ideas and thoughts on "Raising the iPad Generation".

The mummy bloggers couldn't turn up due to personal reasons and it was another daddy blogger session, unintentionally. The other bloggers present were Winston (Dear Xander & The Blogfather), Andy (Sengkang babies), Nick (nickpan) and Daddy M (Wacky Duo).

Before the gathering, I have personally banned Xavier from using both the iPad and iPhone. He is always asking to play the game Angry Bird. I have seen too many instances where parents use them as a tool to keep the kid occupied so they can do their own things. Or worse, the kid being so engrossed in the little screen during meal time and the poor parent have to feed the kid (instead of the kid eating on his own). While I know its inevitable that Xavier would use it eventually but I wanted to delay it till I figure out how to impose restrictions effectively.

During the gathering, I think all of us see iPad as a useful tool. It's interactive and it can be both educational and entertaining if correctly used. It is definitely better than television which is more like a passive tool. Daddy M's kid actually picked up ABC from iPad.

All the other bloggers actually allow and even encourage their children to use and explore the iPad. So how do some of them make use the iPad/iPhone were used correctly?

• Use/play together with them. This way, you can supervise their usage too. 
• Allowing them access might make them less likely to fear it. Also, they are less likely to get the "forbidden fruit is sweeter" feeling. As long as they balance it with doing other activities and exploring outdoors, it's fine.
• Setting an example yourself. If you can constantly checking your emails and facebook at the dinner table, asking your kid not to do the same is not going to work.

Should parents try to stay above of your kid in terms of the technology know-how? Not needed. Given their eventual exposure to technology, they will probably ahead of us.

Youtube seems to be a concern. Unlike websites which you can resist access, its not easy to restrict what videos they can stump onto when they are in youtube.

Nick shared with us a game app called Fashion Story which his elder daughter is currently playing. He and his wife actually uses it to instill entrepreneur ideas like the need to get stocks, taking note of factors that could affect business like the number of mirrors in store, the number of cashiers, etc. His wife is also thinking of bringing their daughter to Bangkok to do actual merchandiser shopping. Very interesting.

The gathering gave me interesting insights and has opened my mind to encourage Xavier to use the iPad under supervision. Let's see how it goes.

Second Kid Is Ever More Life Changing

I asked an old friend, who has 5 kids, how difficult is it to raise 5 kids. His reply was, "From one kid to two kids, it was tough, really tough. But the effort is quite similar for one to three, four or five kids."

His bottomline was the transition from managing one kid to managing two kids is two totally different ballgame. After 3 months with Xavier and Lucas, I totally agree. Here are some thoughts:

- No two kids are the same (even if they are twins). I had the expectation that all babies are similar in their first few months. That expectation grew into frustration for me, as I kept asking why Lucas is not doing this and that like Xavier. So the earlier you recognise this point, the less frustrated you would be.

- Communication is key. As the saying goes, "Assumption is the mother of all f*** ups." or "You think, I thought, who confirm?". Communicate with your spouse what you expect of each other, how you want to split your tasks on hand. Do not assume your partner knows what you have in mind.

- Pay more attention to the older kid. Or at least try. The older kid had all your attention before the newborn comes along so the suddenly need to share your attention will affect him/her. Xavier is fairly good so far as he doesn't show "ill-jealousy" (the kind that involves hitting and bullying) but that doesn't mean he do not try to seek as much attention from us as possible. Like shoving a toy in your face asking you to look at it when you are carrying the newborn, or asking if you can put the newborn down and play with him.

- You would really have close to zero time to yourself. If you thought you are managing your time well with one kid and having some of your own "me" time, be prepared for no more of that and ever lesser sleep. In fact I do not even have much time to blog nowadays, preferring sleep.

Right now I'm just grinding my teeth and hoping time pass faster and they grow up faster so we can pass this phrase, though I would probably miss this stage later on. But its really really tough now. So if you are planning for a second kid, be prepared. Be Very Prepared!

Should We Really Be So Kiasu?

How many of us flash cards to our babies before age 1? Or bring them to extra classes by age 2? I'm sure many parents in Singapore do. It's become second nature to us to be kiasu for our children, trying to give them what we perceived as advantage.

I'm guilty of this myself. So when a friend linked this blog post call What Should a 4 Year Old Know? by A Magical Childhood on Facebook recently, it felt like someone hitting my head on the back saying, "What the hell were you thinking?".

I have re-posted it as it such a good read for parents, especially Singapore parents. We live in this society that is so competitive that it consumes us. It seem inevitable that we as parents behave this way. So sometimes its good to just take a step back, take a deep breath and have a look at what's going on.

I believe that every kid has their own learning pace and it is important to let do them do things or learn at their own speed. Right now I'm just concentrating on teaching him the rights values. Just today when Lilian was trying to apply moisturizer to his feet, he used my name to reject Lilian. He actually said, "My daddy say cannot put cream." I was right outside and came in after hearing it, gave him a very hard stare and told him off.

Anyway if you are a parent of a young kid, I strongly encourage you to have a read at the blog post.

Grilling it up...

I have always resisted installing window grilles. The sight of grilles makes the house looked caged. Plus my living room has almost full length windows, so it seems down right ugly to install grilles on them.

But alas the time have come to sacrifice for our boys, again. While it was manageable for two of us to watch over Xavier like a hawk to make sure he doesn't do silly things like attempting to climb onto a chair and look out of the window, its impossible to keep an eye on two boys 24/7. So I reluctantly agreed to Grill It Up, for safety reason and Lilian's piece of mind.

I got quotations from three companies. One of the companies, Legate, offers a "invisible grille" concept. Its actually very thin stainless steel wires which looks almost invincible thus you still get the view and the protection. However it's alot more expensive compared to the traditional grilles. I would definitely consider them if its for our new place next time.

The quotes from other two companies were similar and we settled for Pang Giap since I seen good reviews from the forums. And it so happen our shower screen glass doors of both toilets broke down and we got them to install new shower screens as well.

The installation was surprisingly fast and alot quieter than we had anticipated. And there you have it, Grilles...

Daddy Bloggers Get Together Organised by Julia Gabriel Centre

I got a surprised facebook friend's request recently from my university's course-mate's sister. It's surprising because we haven't kept in touch since year 2000 when she went to visit her sister in Sydney.

Actually she found me by chance as she was looking to invite daddies who blogs about parenting to a Daddy Bloggers Get Together organised by Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning. I said yes but didn't really know what to expect as I have never been to such get togethers before. I even had thoughts that it was for Julie Gabriel to promote their services since their principal director Fiona Walker will be there.

It turned out to be a great, informal and very relaxed sharing session about parenting. Andy (Sengkangbabies), Kelvin (Daddy NiVleK) and Pete (Aussie Pete) were the other bloggers who attended and together with Fiona and William from Julie Gabriel, we talked about a number of things from reading (to children) to sneaky kids who will melt your hearts (just before they get punished).

I picked up a number of useful tips and insights from the night. Here are some of them:
- Reading to your child is important, even when they can read on their own. Its a different skill set to read and to listen and often, reading to them allows them to enjoy the story more and let their imagination run while they listen to you read.

William's tip: Continue to read till they don't want you to read to them anymore. NLB has been running a program call 10,000 & More Fathers Reading and this year marks the 5th anniversary.

- Jealousy among siblings are quite common and Andy's experience is that it affects all four of his kids, usually at different periods.

Andy's tip: Explain the privileges of being older or bigger and to empower the older kid with responsibilities so he/she feels important.

- Raising a bilingual is not easy. I find it hard to consistently speak Mandarin to Xavier, even though I came from a Mandarin speaking family. Xavier only replies in English and after a few sentences, I would unknowingly reply back in English too.

Fiona says it takes a whole lot of persistency and the success stories she sees usually involves one parent speaking to the child solely in one language and the other speaking in a second language.   

Fiona's tip: Set a specific time each day (e.g. dinner time) where we would only converse in the particular language.

I totally enjoyed the session and hope I can join more of such informal sharing sessions.

Lucas's Delivery is a Different Experience

As a second-time parent, I thought I am fairly experienced and prepared to welcome Lucas. I had my hospital bag packed and ready, my mindset tuned for sleepless nights ahead and more chores to be done. But it's different this time, very different.

Lucas was delivered via voluntary C-section (Caesarean section) as recommended by our gynae (gynaecologist) for valid reasons. This also meant we can choose the date and timing we like to welcome Lucas. This sort of took away the surprise element, and waiting time, that natural birth has. It's really fast but not as "fun" (to me).

Then after birth, the PD (pediatrician) explained he wants to put Lucas under NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) for observation as he seem to be grunting. When the PD tells you something like that right after birth, almost all parents would just go with whatever the PD says. Thankfully Lucas went back to the nursery after half a day as they found he seems okay after observation.

Then came the news that Lucas has G6PD deficiency. While people with G6PD deficiency can lead a normal life as long as they avoid the ban list food and medication, newborn with  G6PD deficiency and jaundice are usually treated with extra care. I heard stories of friends who are only allowed to bring their newborns home after 1-2 weeks in hospital doing the photo treatment, for fear that the deadly combo can lead to Kernicterus.

So we were fairly surprised when the PD allowed us to discharge Lucas after two days of photo treatment, with no need to continue the treatment at home (like the case of Xavier). We were to go back to the clinic for a follow-up check 4 days later and if the "yellowing" becomes serious we should bring him back earlier.

When we went back for the follow-up check, his jaundice level shot up higher than norm and he was admitted back to the nursery again for photo treatment for another 2 days. Thankfully again we was able to be discharge after a 2 days stay.

Next shock was when I got all the bills together and how much more this delivery and hospital bill this was and compared to Xavier's delivery. Most of the increase was the doctor fee of our gynae, the NICU 1/2 day stay and the additional two days re-admitted.

But when you see your baby smile, you would feel that all the effort (and money) was worth it.

Here are some tips to help you "fight" and save on the bills:
1) Choose a gynae wisely: The gynae you choose usually determines the hospital you will deliver in. Also check on her likely fee for check-ups and scans before delivery as well as the fee for delivery. Some clinics do have package which was generally cheaper than pay per visit.

2) Choose your ward wisely: This would determine the cost of your bills. Some actually charge higher for the same item/treatment received/done when you are at higher ward. There are also other restrictions like if the daddy wants to stay by the wife during the whole stay (as a lodger), it is only allowed if they take a single bed ward.

3) Choose your hospital wisely: We should have done that when Lucas was re-admitted for photo treatment. The nurse from our usual PD told us that we could actually admit Lucas to a less expensive hospital for the same treatment, given that the PD attending to Lucas also goes to the other less expensive hospital.

Lucas has G6PD deficiency

Lucas tanning in Mount Elizabeth to bring down the Jaundice level

Lucas is back in the hospital due to climbing Neonatal Jaundice level. It's actually very common for infants, especially Asian infants, to get Jaundice from Day 2 of birth. In layman terms, the baby's liver is not mature enough to remove all the bilirubin (yellow pigment that's created in the body during the normal recycling of old red blood cells) yet. This condition should peak on Day 5-9 and come down to safe level after that (as the liver matures).

Xavier doing the home photo bed treatment

Xavier also had Jaundice during his first week of birth and he was put on home treatment. We basically rent the photo bed home and "tan" him at every opportunity. The photo light will break down the bilirubin and the baby will just pee and poo it out. It's a painless process (except for the need to poke to baby's heel for blood to test the Jaundice level).

The main reason Lucas had to be hospitalised was because he also has a condition call Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, or G6PD deficiency in short. It's a inherited condition where the blood has low levels of the G6PD enzyme. So what will happen is the red blood cells can break down more easily and cause jaundice (yellow appearance of skin) and anaemia (lack of red blood cells) when exposed to certain medication, chemical or food. So G6PD deficiency plus Jaundice usually puts the doctor on high alert and they usually suggest treatment in hospital (and their machine is more powerful then the home rented ones, as it "tans" from both above and below).

People with the condition lead a normal healthy life, as long as they avoid the "ban list" (at the bottom of the page of the NUH site). The most common items were moth balls and fava beans (also known as broad beans).  Moth balls and fava beans to Lucas would be like kryptonite is to Superman. And he probably have to take a different malaria pill when he goes NS in future.

The G6PD Favism Association has a FAQ on how one gets the condition. We were interested to know as both Lilian and I do not have the condition and neither does Xavier. Read at your own pleasure.

Now I like to dedicate this song to Lucas. Get well and leave the blue world soon boy.

Xavier, 29 months on - Letting him draw his own lines...

This month is gonna mark a big change to Xavier's (and our) life as Xavier is gonna be promoted to Big Brother soon. He now stands at 97cm and weights 16.7kg.

We recently attended the LV's Parents and Teacher Conference where his form teacher and Chinese teacher updates us on Xavier's progress and development and what he has been up to in school. We were pleased with the positive comments. The teachers describe him as enthusiastic, fun-loving, a big brother his classmates, helpful and able to say complete sentences.


He does have his temper when he do not get his way (which I blame it on genes) and he gets excited very easily and would unintentionally harass his friends when he does that. We also need to speak and expose more Chinese to him. He usually replies in English to his Chinese teacher and his Mandarin has "kang-tang"  slang.

His form teacher discussed in details something she finds surprising about Xavier, that he seems to exhibit independent thinking. They had an activity where they have to piece the eyes, nose and mouth onto a face. The teacher demonstrated once where she starts from the eyes, followed by the nose and lastly the mouth. Xavier's classmate was next and she repeated the steps.

But when its Xavier's turn, he started with the mouth first, followed by the nose then the eyes. He seems to be able to picture the final goal and reach it by his own thinking, strategy and method. I found that interesting and began observing him a lot more nowadays.

Just the other day, he played with his numbers during his shower time where he would stick the numbers on the wall. And he did something I didn't think of before, stacking two numbers together and lining them up.

Just Friday I attended a children and newbie photography talk by Hart form Tomato Photo and one of his slide was that children are unpredictable. I couldn't agree more. We often heard of the saying "To think out of the box". I think kids are born with a blank canvas, they have no box to start with. Probably how big their canvas is is determined by genes and represents their full potential. To them, almost anything is possible. The box or boundaries on the canvas represents restrictions they have to work within and are due to our own values, social, political, financial and moral limitations.

Parenting tip: Often we are the ones who draw their box. We tell them dun do this, dun go there, dun climb, dun draw on the wall, stop running, stop lie down... etc. Sometimes it out of conveniences for us (I'm guilty of that) and unknowingly, we have draw a line or boundary on their canvas. Going forward I'm gonna let him explore more freely, as long as he is not endangering himself or others.

Tomato Photo Shoot - Part 1: Maternity Shoot

We signed up for a Maternity & Newborn photo shoot with Tomato Photo as Lilian like to keep some nice memories of her curves (since we both want to stop at 2). The first part of the shoot is more on Lilian and her glorious bump and the second part will be when the boy is born.

We chose Tomato as our previous session with him was very enjoyable. Xavier was totally under his spell and we had some very good shots. This time was no different. Although Xavier is a lot more active and cheeky now, somehow Hart is still able to "control" him even better than we could. That's a priceless skill and it made our session so relax and enjoyable.

Below are most of the shots from the shoot. Its in contact sheet format so probably you guys need to click on it to enlarge it for better viewing.

Once again, thanks Hart for the wonderful shots. So looking forward to the newborn shoot.

Xavier, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Green Monster and The Skeleton Dance

Xavier pick up things like sponge these days and flood us with things he learn in school. And it left us scratching our head figuring out what he was trying to say or do while he feels frustrated (at us not knowing what he is trying to expressing).

So it's good to know what the school is teaching so that you can relate with your kid when he tries to express to you what he has learnt, be it by singing or dancing or trying to tell you the story he learnt.

Image from Wikipedia

I heard of this very famous children book call "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. And I have seen this big book at Xavier's classroom and it seems like his teacher is using it to teach the kids as I see artworks of eggs on leaves, butterflies and hanging cocoons.

Classroom artwork with eggs on the leave, hanging cocoons and butterflies

Then when we went Kinokuniya, Xavier grew very excited about this same series of caterpillar books, showing us the various food the caterpillar has been eating and amazingly, he can rattle off the different food the caterpillar eat in exact sequence. We decided to get him his own book.


What's interesting about this book is that it has holes in some of the pages where the food are illustrated. And the kids can wiggle the tip of their finger thru them as if the caterpillar was eating them.


And this is the clip where can list the food the caterpillar eats followed by the stomach-ache acting. In case you are wondering what he is blabbing about, "One chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one cheese, one salami, one lollipop, one cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, one watermelon. Tummy-ache!" This book also teaches counting and how caterpillar can turn into a cocoon and finally into a butterfly.


Xavier is crazy about this song now and want us to sing it again and again and again. I told him if he is scare and anythign else, like Kungfu Panda, just sing "Kungfu Panda Go Away!".


Xavier has also been doing this dance sequence while trying to sing the tune but we had no idea what he was doing until I chance upon (so lucky) the Skeleton Dance clip. He was sitting on my lap and when I played the clip for the first time (for me), and he was rushing to get off my lap. I thought he was scared and wanted to run away but he actually wants to get down and dance!

Psst... Where is the Y.O.G.?

Lilian reminded me that I should shall this tip on the blog.

Xavier is better at expressing himself now and understands most of the things we tell him (although sometimes he chooses to ignore us).

There are instances when we do not want him to know what we are talking about, we would use codes or spell the word out. Actually it was my mum who started it first and we found it very useful.

For example, "Psst... Can you take the Y.O.G. (yoghurt) out of the fridge?" or "Put the A.P.P. (apple) on the table first." If we were to use normal words, he would demand to have it immediately. By spell out the word or the first few alphabets, he still has no idea what we are talking about. *snicker*

Xavier Starts Toilet Training

Xavier starts toilet training today at his school. His form teacher called Lilian to let her know that Xavier is very enthusiastic about it.

Image from Amazon.com

We been gearing Xavier toward toilet training by reading the book "Big Boy Potty", getting him two potties (one the usual potty and one that enables him to sat at the normal toilet bowl) as well as asking him to tell us when he wants to pee or poo.

But we didn't get any success as he doesn't like to use the potty and usually keeps silent about his poo, even denying he had poo when I smelled it and ask him. 

The book is an interesting read as it tries to relate Michael, the kid in the book, to your boy.

Let's hope he is fully trained by mid of this year.

Update 31 Mar 11: Xavier seems to be progressing well. He is able to hold his pee and ask us to bring him to the toilet to pee when nature calls.

Happy 2nd Birthday Xavier!

Xavier was all excited about celebrating his 2nd birthday. He would grin from cheek to cheek at the mere mention of birthday cake, clapping his hands trying to sing "Happy Birthday" and ending with blowing the invisible candle and then turning to us and ask "Cut cake?"

And so we celebrated his 2nd birthday today in a day filled with events (more on that later).We invited just the immediate family members for a cosy celebration but the "mini" buffet for 10 pax from Mum's Kitchen was enough to feed 20! So we called Gabriel and his family over for the celebration.

As it was the Chinese New Year (CNY) period, the buffet was a CNY set. Lilian replaced the Yu Sheng with Kweh Pie Ti as my mum will be preparing a plate of home-made Yu Sheng to toss. Anyway more food is a happy problem.

When everybody's stomachs are filled, its the moment Xavier's been waiting for, to cut cake. I made the mistake of opening the cake box in front of the kids as it became chaotic with the kids (especially Xavier) all wanting to grab the Sesame Street characters. So a tip for parents, if you want to take nice photos of the cake (in peace), do it in the kitchen before presenting the cake to your kid. We were pleased with how pretty the cake was decorated. Thanks Aunty Yochana.

I totally forgot to get someone to shoot a video when we sang Xavier the birthday song. So happy Gareth took the following video with Winney's iPhone.

Xavier definitely enjoys his 2nd birthday more than his 1st as he knows what's happening around him. He is able to clap and sing along, cut the cake and pose for "cheeky" smile photos. More photos available at my Flickr.

Dealing with Kid's Demands

Xavier will be turning two next month and he is already starting to ask for things. And he is also getting more whinny and his fake cry acting is getting more polished. There was once when he was crying and whining about wanting to play with my remote control car and when I finally agree, his face changed 180 degree from crying to beaming.

As parents, we have to stand firm. I've been drilling into him that crying gets him nowhere. If he wants something, he has to ask nicely and he may get it. If he cry, we would not be able to hear what he wants so he gets nothing.

The other thing I learnt is to stop his crying first then reason with him. He usually cry after I pick him up and ask him to stop crying. If I try to reason with him while he is crying, nothing goes into his head. He would crying louder and I would usually lose my cool.

And both parents need to work with each other. Sometimes when Lilian see that I'm losing or lost my cool, she takes over and vice-verse. One very important thing to note is both parents stand must be the same. If its different, do not express it or intervene in front of the kid. Do it away from him. Kids are very smart. If you were to do in front of him, he knows the "authority" can be challenged.

If you have other parenting tips, please share them. :)

The good things about Childcare Center

Xavier has been attending infant and childcare classes since he was five months old. Being almost two years old now, we see the merits of putting him in a good centre. Like today, we were watching TV in the living room and it was showing a programme with butterflies in it. I engaged Xavier by telling him that's a butterfly. To my surprise he did the following:


Lilian and I didn't teach him that so he probably learnt that from school. His school also recent gave us a file of his artwork that he does in class. There is a bear made from toilet roll cardboard, a caterpillar from egg carton, a sheep with shredded tissue and many others. Pretty interesting.

We also get constant positive remarks about how Xavier loves interacting with strangers (after some warm up), listens to instructions (at times), independent and generally well behaved (only in the presence of outsiders). Being in school parts a part and peer pressure also helps to bring them up the curve earlier. We are happy with Xavier's progress so far.

But there is always a price to pay and being sick often tops the list. There were times when Xavier catches another bug before he recovers from his existing bug and we had thoughts of pulling him out school. Let's hope this year Xavier is stronger and more resistant to sickness.

Thank you Dads for Life!!!

Christmas came early for us. I joined The Joy of Being There contest organised by Dads for Life and my entry won both Ikea and Crystal Jade vouchers. The Ikea vouchers were from the pick of the week for week 2 which was chosen by the Dads for Life panel. When I picked up the vouchers, a staff from Dads for Life said she liked my ending "I'm still learning the ropes on how to be a better father but whatever happens, I will always be there for him, for better or for worst."

And the Crystal Jade vouchers were from being one of the top 15 highest voted entry. Like to give a BIG thank you to all those who voted for us on Facebook and Dads for Life for organising the contest. Xavier couldn't be happier. THANK YOU!