The Anti-List for the holidays

The exams are finally, finally over for the twins. Jordan finished much earlier but Evan's drudgery only ended yesterday. Coincidentally, I was asked to write a piece about holidays activities. I thought about it and Packrat and I are pretty much of the opinion that JED, having relatively busy school days should be allowed to do nothing during the holidays. There is a great amount of value in giving them time to be bored.

So our default is to let them come up with their own games , read, go to the library, hang out and go downstairs to muck about or to explore new parks. And oh! Evan has asked for us to go back to Willing Hearts to do some work there. That, we'll definitely do at some point this June.

There. Done.

But I don't think that was what I was asked to write about though.

And honestly, there have been times where we've needed to park the kids somewhere so as to not drive their care-givers crazy while we were away or because they really wanted to learn something new.

So, the list that I'm sharing is of places that JED have tried before and have had quite a bit of fun with.

a. Art camps
A big hit even at this point with the twins being 10. There's always joy in mucking about with paint and creating something from it. We have excellent pieces on our walls courtesy of these art camps and it brings JED so much joy from being able to see their work on the walls.

We've done a few and some are better than others. We did one where I was told the kids weren't listening to instructions and painting it as they were told. We never went back there again even though it was close by us. We have however gone to heART Studio many times over even though it's further away. Their holiday programmes are by the day so it's great if you want them occupied for a couple of hours; though I'm tempted to sign Muffin up for the 2 day Dinosaur one.

b. Science camps.
I've heard that the BASF Science Labs for June are all filled up already and science camps are a whole lot of experimenty fun. The one that we really liked and we sent them to while we were away was a Discovery Vacation Camp which was a 5 day full day camp where they did experiments, went on field trips and actually learnt stuff they remember till today. The only thing about that was that Jordan said she felt homesick. Because it was longer than the typical school day. But that said, she remembers it fondly and they went as a big group of friends so it was a lot of fun.

c. Writing camps
Though only the twins have gone for writing camps, Muffin remembers fondly the time he sat in one with the twins. This was Monsters Under the Bed's Monsters HuntINK camp a few years back. I think at that point, they were still too young for it but they talk about the hydra and the medusa that they learnt about during that workshop. And then, there was the workshop they did last year, where they wrote and published their own book.

They would be happy if I sent them back to any of the ones above but what they really really want to go for is a building workshop where they learn coding and creating games because that's often what is on their minds these days. Evan got his hands on a flyer for the Tink Tank one and has cancelled off the ones that he's learnt in school like Scratch and decided that he wanted to do the MBot and Sphero one. Muffin is keen because he knows that Sphero built the BB-8 we have rolling around the house, though I cautioned him that it wasn't what he was going to build in 2 hours there. Jordan was torn between that and another workshop called Little Bits where you learnt to work with circuitry but Packrat said if they were going, they were ALL going to the same workshop.

There. A list. Of what I would do, what they could do if I gave them the chance to and what they really really want to do. 

All I can say is, I don't really care what we're going to do. I'm just ecstatic that the exams are over and we can do everything we want to or choose to do absolutely nothing.

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Experiment 3: Making fire

Because it's been crazy hot, we've been staying indoors.

But an off the cuff remark sent us all out of the house, into the sweltering afternoon, to make fire.

The heat led us to comment that it was how bush fires were made.

JED did not believe us.

At the same time, Jordan was brandishing a magnifying glass, muttering something about looking for clues.

Packrat then took the magnifying glass from her, braved the sweltering heat (he, especially, melts into a puddle within seconds) and gathered up some crinkled leaves, angled the sunbeams onto it and made fire.

The kids' jaws dropped in unison as the leaf crackled and smoked.

Each got a chance to do it and because it was blazing, it really didn't take much skill.

Man make fire

Son follows suit.

Leaf has big hole in it.

They wanted to make a bonfire but they were becoming Olaf in the summer. So they got shephereded in to have a shower.

While it was fun while it lasted, I still think we need to move to colder climates. 

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An Ad Campaign

One of the series of books that JED have been incredibly enthralled by is Judy Blume's Fudge series. The dad in the book is in advertising (this series was obviously written in a different era) and there are references to advertisements, jingles and selling products in the book.

At the same time, I've been meaning to make some insect repellent out of essential oils. Today, I sat down and did it while they were doing their homework. Naturally, JED wanted to know what I was doing and wanted to help. While doing that, I asked if they wanted to come up with a name for the repellent I was making. That was how it started. JED, Jordan and Evan especially, wanted to 'invent' a new product to sell (In one of the books, Fudge as a pre-schooler obsesses about how he can make money). So we started talking about how to go about doing that.

With my sketchy knowledge about advertising, I talked them through the 3 phases.
1. Create the product.
2. Market the product.
3.  Sell the product.

Phase 1- Create the product.
1. We talked about the important features of what we were doing. We were going to create insect repellent. It would be made from essential oils. It would keep away mosquitoes and bugs. We needed a name for it. They came up with Monster Bug Spray and put it to a vote. It was a unanimous decision (Unanimous, a word they learnt from the book)

Here's the recipe.
- 14 oz of witch hazel
- 15 drops of citronella oil
- 12 drops of lavender oil
- 15 drops of lemongrass oil
- 15 drops of tea tree oil

They were little apothecaries. They dripped the oils with a little pipette and Muffin helped me pour the mixture into smaller bottles. They loved the smells of the oils wafting. They loved being the testers as I smeared overflowed drops onto them. Muffin made labels for the bottles carefully including a picture of a monster on each one before sticking them on.

Once we were done, Jordan and Evan insisted we start trying to sell it.

Phase 2- Market it.

I told them that people would only buy a product if they knew about it. So they had to advertise it and convince people that they needed it and how their lives would be much worse if they didn't. Jordan suggested making a poster to place outside our house (print media). Evan suggested making a video and posting it on Facebook (audio-visual and social media) so people knew about it.

 

(Watch till the end where there's even a wink!)

They wrote out the ad so that they wouldn't forget the lines. I added suggestions.
1. Speak in short sentences.
2. Make it catchy.
3. Have a slogan. (I had to explain what a slogan was so I showed them Nike's Just Do It and MacD's I'm lovin' it! slogans)

I give them credit for trying to incorporate all that into the script including a slogan at the end.
"Monster Bug Spray! Keeps the bugs away!"

Then they set up the scene for the advertisement. They moved in chairs and turned on the lights. Jordan wore a For Sale T-shirt and a wink. Evan, more introverted, gamely played her assistant but chimed in with a smile here and a word there. All I had to do was video it. So I did, trying my best not to let my giggles wobble the phone too much.

Phase 3- Sell it.

This is where we're at currently. Jordan's poster advertised that our current promotion was "Buy 1, Get 2 Free" whittled down from "Buy 1, Get 3 Free" which I told them would make us no money and we'd probably lose money that way.

We're going to put up the poster on our main door to attract customers apparently. Its attraction is that it's natural and home made by the family. I'm to put the video on FB (They've learnt of the existence of FB) so that the people who don't live around us will know about it and come from all over the world to buy it. (Fat hope.)

I'm not sure how many bottles we'll sell if any. I told JED that we'd have to trial it first to make sure it did indeed keep the bugs away (otherwise our advertisements would be lying) and the Health authorities would probably want to check that we didn't put anything bad in it. But whatever it is, we have a Beta version now.

Their first product and ad campaign, Monster Bug Spray ©️JED coming to a chemist near you, all in a day's work. I don't think we'll win a Clio Award though.

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Snail Mail

Some time back, we were part of this sticker club thing for the kids which was a little bit of a chain where we got an email invitation to send a packet of stickers to a child and then send on the email with your own kid's name in it to 6 kids who would then do the same thing. It was meant to allow our kids to experience receiving mail, in this day and age where for most part, nothing fun comes in the mail anymore.

Recently, I noticed that Jordan and the neighbours, less so Evan because he can't be bothered to write long rambling letters, have started sending letters to each other.

First, we found them in their school bags. They were passing letters to each other during recess. Then we started seeing pieces of paper slipped under our doors. The problem was that the girls would use recycled letters to write to one another and we often thought they were scraps lying around or junk mail and we would toss them out.

After a lot of indignation on their part and a lot of feigned blame on ours ("You shouldn't leave them lying around!"), the girls came up with the idea of making their own mail boxes and sticking it the front doors. That way, the seemingly ignorant mommies wouldn't toss their precious letters into the bin.

Unlike our regular post, this postal service seems to be very active in the evenings and on the weekends. That's probably when the girls see the least of each other. 

It's provided our front doors decoration and it is indeed a cheering sight to come home to a happy envelope on the door. They take it seriously and when they receive a letter, they read it and race off to pen a reply and slip out to drop it off. If only our local mail was so efficient.

It's funny how they implore each other to write and occasionally resort to using emotional blackmail.

We found a letter sometime ago and with permission, I've posted a fragment for posterity here. The rest of the letter was a plea to write to her because she had been grounded by her mother. The mothers routinely take photos of found letters and sent it around amongst us. We have laughed about it though maintaining a straight face and pretending to take the girls and the mail route seriously.

We'll see how long it lasts. I remember doing it when I was a bit older than they were. But because that was also part of the 'collect letter paper' phase of my life, I regretfully used fancy letter paper to write these letters.

Evan, on the other hand, totally enthralled by Potter world, thinks that Owl mail is the way to go and has recently asked for one. On account of there not being an Owl post network and his friends not having owls plus the fact that they poop indiscriminately and leave regurgitated, half eaten rats everywhere, I'm inclined to say no to that one.

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Playing with Possibilities at the Playeum

I have an eight year old who is obsessed with the right answer. We didn't teach it but there's an inherent need to make sure the answer is right. So we try our best to send across the message that getting things wrong is okay and it's part of learning. Part of it is inherent, the other part of it is bred by our school system where there is always a right way, right answer and attaining that is highly rewarded. That's good for some things. But not so good for others.

In such a system, some things fall by the way side. Divergent Thinking is one of them. Divergent Thinking is the ability to see many answers to the same question. Not entirely the same thing as creativity but where new ideas and new ways of doing things come from. This idea, I learnt from Ken Robinson and is something that we struggle to make known to the twins, especially, who are already entrenched in this culture of right and wrong.

How do we do try to do that? We don't dictate how they play. When they ask what they ought to do next, we ask them to go figure it out for themselves. We find toys and opportunities for play that are open-ended.

One of the opportunities that was given to us recently was an invitation to  Playeum; The Children's Centre for Creativity at Gillman Barracks. Unlike most indoor play areas, there aren't set ways to play. The closest I've seen to this is Kaboodle Kids, a play gym entirely made out of foam blocks. But Playeum worked on a theme (The Art of Speed) rather than a particular type of play.

The entire centre was broken up into different spaces where you could do different things. The theme of speed basically meant that there were a lot of wheels associated with the play. Along side the wheels were troughs and troughs of Lego and play pieces for the children to assemble what they felt might work on the various ramps. 

And that, was the great testament to divergent play. No one knew what was the perfect way to build a contraption that would survive the steep ramp without an explosion of Lego all over the place. Every child, including mine, went back again and again, adapting their vehicles trying to figure out what worked better. Eventually Evan worked out that it was all in the wheels. The black wheels with threads offered too much traction and it didn't gain enough speed down the ramp; that meant it couldn't jump the divide between ramps and his creations often crashed and burned in what we started to fondly refer to as The Valley of Broken Dreams.

When he figured it out, he taught it to Muffin and Muffin ended up creating a zoom-worthy vehicle that ended up as a blur no matter how many shots we tried to take of it. It was interesting to note also that despite the fact that Evan told Muffin how to build his vehicle, their vehicles looked markedly different and while Muffin watched how Evan built his, he went off to create his own.

 

We were late to family lunch because we stayed longer that we'd expected to at the Playeum and while regaling what JED did there, a question that surfaced was "So what did Jordan do since it was all Lego and cars?" My instinctive retort that needed to be suppressed was "Who says girls can't play with cars (and Lego)?".

Because that was precisely what Jordan did for most part of it; play with the cars and later on with Lego and marbles. I had expected her to be at the Workshop table where there was a buffet of recyclable materials, fabrics, glue, markers etc. And that in itself was a terrible assumption on my part. She didn't even venture there because she was busy trying to race cars down another set of tracks; in this space, you could adapt the tracks as well as create the vehicles. She twisted, propped up, laid flat, looped and curled the track, watched how her car responded to it and adjusted it accordingly. We have a million pictures of her building a mini roller coaster for her car without it going off the rails and none of the Workshop area, unfortunately.

She can't look!

An interesting observation was that despite the number of times their cars crashed, broke into a million pieces, the kids just went back the drawing board and tried again, always adjusting, always swoping out parts and using different things to see if it worked better.

Jordan and Evan also tried their hands at building their own marble runs while taking a break from the ramps and cars. Even with this, they used ribbons, straightened and twisted paper clips to 'tie' the 'tracks'. Tracks here being old tubes of cardboard or plastic pipes or tubing. Evan got a bit frustrated when his creations wouldn't hold but there was a gleam of satisfaction every time he dropped a marble in and it came out at the bottom.

So they ended up with a morning of play which wasn't dictated by anyone. It was just theirs. When asked which section they liked the most, they were unanimous in their vagueness. They all liked 'building the stuff', which was really all they did.

There were other areas as well though JED didn't spend a lot of time there. It wasn't as if they weren't as fun. In fact, the Dark Room was one of my favourite areas  because I love shadows and making pictures or shadows. There was also the Workshop space I mentioned earlier where we could make whatever it is we wanted with the available tools. Packrat spent much of his time building cars to try and outdo the boys. I don't know if he succeeded though.



At the end of the day, one thing Ken Robinson had said resounded "if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original" and it had truly been a morning of their coming up with their own original creations and where there was no right or wrong way to do it. Any place that does that is good for anyone's soul.

Details of how to get to Playeum and other nitty gritty but important pieces information. 

Location:
Blk 47 Malan Road
Gillman Barracks #01-21/23

It's near the Hort Park and it quite far into the barracks so be prepared to trek and clock steps or drive.

Mon to Fri from 7:00am to 5:00pm

First Hour Free Parking

$0.50 per 30 min for the Second hour

$3.00 per hour for the Third hour onwards or part thereof

Saturdays from 7:00am to 11:00am

Free Parking from 11:00am to 7:00pm

$0.50 per 30 min

Mon to Fri from 5:00pm to 7:00am (next day)

Saturdays from 7:00pm to 7:00am (next day)

$0.50 per 30min (capped at $2.00)

Parking is free on Sundays so that was great. 

Ticketing:
Child (1-12): $20 (It's a non-profit organisation but they have to keep putting out resources and pay for utilities!)
Accompanying adult: You play for free.
Not open on Mondays and Christmas meaning Haze days are a great time to visit them.

We are most thankful to Playeum for the the time and space to create, tinker and make without instruction manuals!

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Comic Drawing: The new past time

Part of JED's reading diet consists of my entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes as well as science comics. I'm not averse to letting them read comics though I have had people 'tsk!' me and tell me that they ought to be reading 'proper' books.

They love comics. They love Calvin. They want to get up to the same sort of shenanigans that Calvin gets up to like bathing in the toilet bowl (No.) . I remember all those years in college chuckling at Calvin and Hobbes and love that they derive such joy from it, though I suspect they don't get everything at this point.

Anyway, they all try to draw comics. It can't be that hard to write a story in a few panels, they think. They succeed to varying degrees but only Jordan will let me photograph them.

Then I find this link that provides blank comic templates. They have panels with speech/ thought bubbles and they have some with more panels and some with less. I print a stack and bring them home.

There is silence for 30 minutes with a lot of sniggering and Jordan produces this. Evan produces a self-deprecating one with his last panel ending off with a stick boy thinking "Scrap!" and cannot stop chuckling. But he crushes it up and throws it away, promising me a more coherent one soon. They beg for more comic paper.

I teach them to sign their names at the bottom of the strip like Watterson did. And I tell them how much I enjoy reading their comics, because I genuinely do.

And the best part is that they are each other's biggest fans. They wait anxiously for each other to finish and grab it from under the pen to read it. They chuckle, they laugh, they discuss how to make it funnier and that makes them laugh some more (it is often toilet humour, but I pretend not to hear it.)

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Exams are over and it's PLAY time! - A review for Kaboodle Kids-

The exams are finally over! Finally. We don't know how they did and we won't know for a while but for now, it's time to go a little bit berserk. The house is flooded with Young Scientists magazines and there is Lego and Magformers strewn all over. The noise level is also decibels higher.

But they deserve the break.

As a treat, I packed them all off one afternoon Kaboodle Kids one afternoon. It's an indoor play gym at Big Splash. Actually, I wanted to go more than they did. I was curious about it because it was a play gym unlike any other and that in itself piqued my interest. Here are 5 ways it was different.

1. It was all blue. Unlike other play gyms that are a cacophony of colours which sometimes assault your senses, this just had blue bits. Lots of blue bits.

2. And they truly were just bits. No ready made structures. There were no slides or ball pits (though you could technically build your own ball pit). All the bits fit and connected to each other. So it was up to JED and their friends how they were going to build stuff. That way, they built their own fun.

3. Everything was foam. Giant foam noodles, blocks, wheels, balls, everything. That meant they were light and the noodles were malleable but at the same time they were heavy enough (especially after it was built) to stand on its own. And if the entire structure collapsed onto anyone, everyone else laughed because it was comical and it didn't really hurt at all. In Muffin's words after his entire marble run collapsed onto him "Not pain!"

4. There was no set way to play. Evan spent a lot of his time building a giant spider or what I saw as a contraption a mad scientist would use to suck up your brain juices. Jordan and her friends, built a fort that became their castle and Muffin loved that the walls of the castle connected into a huge room length marble run.

5. The entire room was as messy or as built up as the children wanted it to be. At one point when Evan and the girls had concentrated all their efforts on building their structures, Muffin was racing back and forth, slip-sliding around in his socks because there was just so much space for him to do so.

We were there for a good 2 hours and it would have been longer if it wasn't closing time. The only way I managed to drag them out of there was to promise that they could go look for the chickens that roosted near the beach. I also had to promise that we would come back again.

I loved the place. Simple as that.

Primarily because
1. It was a play gym that subscribed to the same play philosophy as I do. Don't tell them what to do, just let them figure it out, do it play how they want to.

2. I could play too. I could build stuff too, me-sized and JED were thrilled because in most play gyms, Mommy's too big to follow them around inside not that Mommy would want to.

3. It was bright. There were windows all along the side which meant there was a lot of light. But that's just me. I have a thing for natural light.

4. It wasn't an entirely huge area that I lost sight of JED but big enough for them to lose each other and that meant lots of fun playing Hide and Seek.

5. It was near the beach. Anything near the beach makes me feel like I am home. That's what happens when you grow up in the East. Take the girl out of the East but never quite take the beach out of the girl.

Stalking the chickens barefoot, to be quieter. No chicken was fooled. 

The only issue I think I had with it was that there was a lot of unhappiness when other kids who had also paid to play came over and inadvertently destroyed what JED were doing. And when they got tired towards the later part of the day, the unhappiness turned into sullen moodiness. But then again, my message to them was suck it up and play with others or accept that your structures might get destroyed.

We'll probably go back again at some point and in truth, we think it'd be a great place to hold birthday parties because you get to book out the whole place and build and play to their heart's content.

If you pop by at Kaboodle Kids and mention you came by them through our blog (the Diaperblog), you'll get 10 % off regular admission rates  till the end of June.

Here's to lots of fun and lots of building.

Postscript: We are thankful for Kaboodle Kids sponsoring JED's visit and everything written here is our own two cents' worth. 

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Sailing, sailing home

Evan didn't have much of a March break. He spent 4 out of 5 days of the break in Sembawang. Boondocks, Singapore style.

He was there sailing. After the fiasco with his CCA selection and not getting into the sailing CCA, we promised that he could try out sailing for himself during the holidays.

So we went the distance, literally, and signed him up for a kiddy sailing camp that the SAF Yacht Club offered.

We barely saw him those 4 days. He left after breakfast and came home for dinner and being inebriated by the sea air and sun, he would fall asleep soon after.

But he had fun.

Highlights for him:
1. Being thrown into the sea and made to swim 50 m to shore. He imagined sharks and swamp things lurking in the water.

2. Playing with sand while he waited for his friends to return.

3. Actually being on the water and sailing.

4. Learning all the different parts of the boat. The easiest way to piss him off was to go "the left side of the boat" or the "front of the boat". That would elicit an irritated hiss, "It's the PORT side, MOMMY!" or "It's the BOW of the BOAT!"

5. Being able to master the knots he was taught.

Things he didn't like but we thought built character:

1. Theory lessons about the weather, clouds, reading the current from the waves and knot tying.

2. Being hit one too many times on the head by the boom. He learned pretty quick that he had to duck.We console him and tell him at least he didn't get hit by the boom and end up in the water like another of his course mates.

3. Sailing around in circles, literally. He got annoyed at the wind getting in the way of the direction he was meant to head. (There's a life lesson in that somewhere)

4. Getting sea sick because the patrolling power boats rocked the bath tubs they were in.

5. Having to eat chicken every day for lunch or going hungry. (He has a strange aversion toward chicken right now)

By the end of it, he was browned to a crisp and definitely had more than the FDA recommended amount of Vitamin D.

 Can he sail? According to the coaches, he sailed decently and could get the boat going the direction they were supposed to head. Will he do the next course? We don't know yet. We're hedging because it's really far. He'd hedging because he worries about being sea sick (telling him that upchucking in the sea was ok and a great way to see fish up close and personal didn't seem to appeal much to him).

We'll revisit it before the next course begins.

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Opti-Muffin

Muffin is into Transformers now, the same way he was into Star Wars last year. He spends his days playing with his toys, looking at pictures of them and trying to draw them. Obviously, his favourite Transformers character is Optimus Prime and he obsesses about how to draw the Autobot sign, how to turn himself into Optimus Prime and everything that was ever written about him.

So, today, he flips to a Transformers Manga comic that Evan borrowed from the library and asked for arms like Optimus.

Short of buying the costume (which will inevitably end up being too hot for him), he wasn't in possession of Optimus arms. He had used the long plastic container that contained CNY  love letters but insisted we cut out the base of it out, but it wasn't ideal because we wanted to put stuff in it, it would have sharp bits if we cut it and it didn't have smoke stacks.

Smoke stacks. Information that take up precious memory brain cells in my mind.

Anyway, he wanted arms. So we made arms with a box.

Things needed:
1. One Bata shoe box (Need not be Bata)
2. Scissors
3. Lots of thick tape
4. Cardboard strips to make the bracket to hold the smoke stacks (I can't say smoke stacks without rolling my eyes).
5. Marker pen
6. Toy golf sticks, recorders, anything long and can pass off as a smoke stack.
7.  Symbol of Autobot to copy. If only we could have traced them then Muffin wouldn't accuse Mommy of drawing uneven Autobots on his arms.

Instructions for those who have Opti-Muffin type kids,

1. Cut the box and tape them into triangles and make sure the arms can go through.

2. Create little brackets for the smoke stacks so that they won't fall through or move about. 

3. Draw signs

4. Use remaining shoe box to make breast plates because Optimus has breast plates. If you have time, you can paint them Optimus colours; red and blue. 

So half an hour and a lot of scotch tape later, we have Opti-Muffin who can transform at will. 

That ought to keep him busy for the morning plus he's got stuff to bring to school for Show and Tell. The other Optimus arm he tells me, is for his friend who is also Optimus Prime. 

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Countdown to March Hols! A Kids Fiesta giveaway

We've passed Week 5 and that means we're half way through the term to the holidays. Every time JED complain about school and waking up early, I tell them I hate it as much and I wish as much that it were the holidays. They're amused at the concept that Mom hates school as much as they do. For me, I just want to sleep in. Last year, I made friends with moms from the twins' class and all of us would sit around, sleepy-eyed commiserating about how much they needed a sleep holiday. We would express great envy at those who were sneaking off for 'sleep vacations'.

So we can't wait till March though, thank goodness we have CNY next week as sort of a mid term break. And JED are already talking about what they would like to do during the March break. Being in relatively affluent schools, they are inundated by information about people who travel during all sorts of break and occasionally come home asking if we were too. Our usual response as with the response when Evan requested for another cruise vacation "You think we print money?!" or its derivative "Do you think money grows on trees?"

And we launch into this diatribe about how there is lots to do in Singapore during the holidays and there is no real need to travel.

Evan's more realistic requests have been to go to a water park, to go sailing and also the Night Safari. Muffin has no concept of the holidays and just wants to stay home with his toys. Jordan has asked to go rock climbing, sailing with Evan and play with their friends.

We'll probably accede to the play with their friends thing and the Night Safari. Probably let Evan go sailing because if there are any requests we actually pay attention to, they are the ones that the resemble a dog with a bone. We aren't sure if we'll send Jordan with him because she probably wants to do it because he's doing it and to us, that isn't a good enough reason.

Perhaps, the rock-climbing for her. Especially since the organisers of Kids Fiesta sent me information about their event during the March break. Jordan saw me look through the email and the 'bad' thing being able to read is that they read over your shoulder and are massively susceptible to marketing.

And these were what she saw. The words, "FREE CANDY FLOSS" and "PIRATE SHIP" and "LASER MAZE" caught her attention before I could close the posters and she was sold. Part of the English programme that they do in school now teaches them to effectively pull out information presented in brochures and flyers. So, the date "13 to 15 March" registered with her as well.

Note to self: I should not open files and layer them one above the other because when I close them, there are files underneath and she saw the picture of the Climb Asia promotion where there were two girls happily scaling the rock wall.

Now we have a 7 1/2 year old who seems to have caught the climbing bug from the aforementioned cruise holiday bugging us to go to the event because she gets to rock climb there.

I told her I'll think about it but it's a pretty tempting event to go for because she can rock climb for $10 at the Fiesta. On top of that, she's announced to her brothers that there's the Laser Maze (Evan has a big thing for mazes) and many bouncy items. So now, it isn't just her that bugging me though she remains the more insistent one.

It might be worth a day's trip. At this point, FUNTASY Passports (that's what you need to get in) are $20 instead of $25 here (Till the 27th of February) and that sets the kids loose onto the Laser Maze, the Orbitor (which looks like a bumper car sort of thing) as well as balloon sculpting, face painting and glitter tattoos.

There are other things too that she said she was interested in:
1. A dance performance by Dancepointe
2. A music performance by Cristofori
3. A booth by Genius R Us where you can pay for kids can bake and decorate and shape their baked goods.

Plus I forgot, the free candy floss and ice cream.

We'll see about it but right now, it's down on our list of things to do during the March break.

I know this is Jordan's 'dog with bone' event and she's going to bug me to death about it so I'm trying to figure out what deal to strike with her to 'earn' this.

Though, actually in truth, I would actually just like a sleeping holiday!

And for those who are thinking of going away and even for those who are not but need ideas to entertain the kids at restaurants, long train or bus rides or generally at home on a sick/ rainy day, we're giving away 3 sets of the following gifts, thanks to the kind organisers of Kids Fiesta.

1. Airport IQ Game (for ages 8+) worth $40 

and 

2. Either Suncoat Girl Natural Nail Salon Kit worth $26.90 OR 1 x Kids Fiesta FUNTASY Passport worth $25

So all you have to do is
1. Leave a comment in the blog answering this question "What would you or your kids' favourite item be at Kids Fiesta 2015: FUNTASY Adventure?" Please leave your email address so that we can inform you when you win! You have till 18 February to do this!

2. Visit the Kids Fiesta FB page and like it if you haven't.

3. It's not a must but if you want to be nice to us, share this post on your FB wall and let us know you've done so by leaving the link of your post in our FB post's comment section.

Terms and conditions:
- This contest is open to Singaporeans and permanent residents only.
- Prizes are not refundable or exchangeable for cash or prizes of any kind.
- Kids Fiesta reserves the right to replace the prizes with other items of the same value.
- Winners will be notified by email and all prizes will be collected from the Kids Fiesta organisers.
- The judges' decision on the winners are final and no correspondence will be entered into.

So, either way, we're set for some sort of break or reprieve. Now, to make it through to the end of term.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by Diaperbag for Kids Fiesta. The giveaway is sponsored by Kids Fiesta. The images are provided by Kids Fiesta. This giveaway is neither  sponsored, endorsed or administrated by, nor associated with Facebook.

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Muffin bakes cheese buns

It's the 3rd week of the school term and I've finally got enough of my bearings working to actually start baking again for JED. The twins have been going to school with sandwiches, fruit or Pocky. While they don't mind, I'm not quite sure my conscience allows me to let them bring Pocky every day.

So, this morning, I baked. Or rather, Muffin baked. JED all love playing with flour and dough so to Muffin, this was nothing more than an extended play dough session. He saw me get out the flour and asked immediately to play with dough. Since he is soon to be 5, I figured it could be a collaborative effort to bake 40 minute cheese buns.

I prepped all the ingredients and kneaded the dough.

He proceeded to roll, flatten or rather pound the dough and then spooned the cheese onto the dough.  He wanted to seal it together by gathering all the ends and crush it shut.

And that's when I had to step in.

I told him it wasn't a good idea so I pinched it shut and he did the egg wash and the cheese garnishing.

Then we waited.

But what fun he had and how chuffed he was to be able to make cheese buns for Kor Kor. Evan loves, loves, loves cheese and what an act of love on the part of Muffin when he spooned a mountain of cheese onto the dough. When I told him it was too much, he told me that Kor Kor loved cheese and it wasn't too much for Kor Kor.

True that.

10 minutes later the buns came out smelling divine and oozy. Muffin, who had earlier elected to bring Nutella rolls to school (same bread recipe essentially!) changed his mind, took out his Nutella rolls and carefully stuffed an oversized cheese bun into his lunch box.

The only thing I want to right is to get the buns smooth rather than little erupted volcanoes. But that's just me. The little people eating them wouldn't really give two hoots about how it looks. In fact, if it had lava of cheese flowing out from it, Evan would not stop eating it!

Yet another reason to love The Domestic Goddess Wannabe   because a recipe doesn't get anymore dummy proof than a 5 year old succeeding in using it to make cheese buns for his beloved big brother. All in 40 minutes with enough time to shower, change, put said bun into his bag and get onto the school bus!

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Grandpa's 70th: The Gift

Grandpa turned 70 on Boxing Day and it was going to be a big do. The celebrations began at the beginning of December when we all went off on the cruise. It was Grandpa's way of celebrating his birthday with the family; all of us on the ship with him.

In between coming back from that and Christmas, we decided that we needed to get a present done for Grandpa. Something large enough to be presented to him at dinner. When Sher-maine blogged about the gift she gave to her kids' pre-school, we decided that would be perfect for a 70 year old who pretty much has everything.

We spent the entire Saturday morning at the Mosaic Workshop and some of the afternoon doing it. The first thing was to decide what we wanted on the mosaic.  That wasn't difficult. It would be the cruise we were just on and we would have the word "US" emblazoned onto the hull and stones representing Grandpa, Grandma and JED (though if you count carefully, there are more stones than there are people!). Jordan, our resident artist sketched out the ship on the ocean from a photograph we had. Packrat transferred it onto a 2 ft x 1 ft plank and the rest of us descended on it.

It took a lot of patience and it was very repetitive, placing one tile after another. It was pretty much, slather the glue and place the tiles, rinse and repeat a couple of thousand times. Thankfully, it moved quite quickly and even Muffin did a significant bit of it. They all lay claim to different parts of the mosaic. Muffin did all the cabins. Evan did all the sun, some of the cloud and sky. Jordan did the ocean and the different shades of it. Packrat and I just filled it where ever we needed to. 

 The owner, Nanette and her assistant Nerissa chipped in to help as well. Nanette made some suggestions, like leaving a blank space on the hull of the ship so that we could actually stick a photograph of us onto it. About 5 hours, with lunch in between, later, it was pretty much done though there was grouting and wiping to be done.

Nanette very helpfully tiled the edges and touched it up for us while we dragged 3 very exhausted and cranky children home. It wasn't the physical exhaustion but the mental exhaustion that came from focusing and tiling that killed them. Packrat and I actually found it very therapeutic though after hours of staring at it, when we closed our eyes, we were still seeing in mosaic. 

We loved the gradated ocean floor, the rainbow coloured "US" and the sun. I think if I did it again, the only thing I would change is to grout it in a darker colour but even as is, it was pretty awesome. 

Unfortunately, we don't actually have any pictures of JED presenting it to Grandpa. Everyone was focussed on making sure the hefty piece didn't drop on anyone's toes. 

But it did look plenty gorgeous and Grandpa's already figured out where to hang it in the house.

We were totally in love with the place and what I would give to actually have a work table totally tiled in mosaic. Now I'm itching to go back and do one in hydrangeas or irises for my mom but to be able to find a pocket of time to do that is another story.

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Party by kids

Sometime in October, the twins came home announcing that they were going to have a Christmas party. It was one of their club activities. It was going to be on December 23 from 6.30pm to 830 pm and it was going to be a dance party.

I didn't think they were serious about it. After all, they are a bunch of 7-8 year olds. But in November, our helper got approached to make pizza for the party by Kate, the apparent head of the club. And I kept finding invitations written on scraps of paper to friends, inviting them to the party.

The few days before December 23 saw the twins disappearing regularly to Kate's house (down the corridor) to make decorations and Kate's mom set up a chat group to discuss food for the party. So it was truly happening.

I think they were more excited about this than they were about Christmas. It was, after all, they idea in the first place.

Decor
So, there was decoration. Bunting, tinsel and a Christmas stocking. None of the adults had foldable tables and chairs so we used side tables for food and a big ground sheet for the kids to sit on. It gave it a very refugee camp feel to it especially when there were more than 10 kids sitting on it, plates on the ground and eating. But no one seemed to care.

Entertainment
At 8 pm, there was to be a talent show. Unfortunately, the only one who performed, multiple times, was Jordan. No one else wanted to though Evan gamely tried to participate as well.

10 kids on the corridor make a whole lot of noise especially when the boys decide to have an impromptu light sabre battle. We were concerned the neighbours would call in the authorities on account of disturbance. A crotchety old lady did appear to glare at the kids.

 

So we stepped in and suggested sparklers and catching downstairs.  Sparklers are always a hit and they would have finished all my boxes had it not been Kate who rounded everyone upstairs for the aforementioned talent show at 8 pm. 

All in, they had a great time and most of the food got rapidly polished off. The kids had a great glow to them. I suspect it was partially because they were hot and sweaty and flushed with excitement but also because they had planned it from scratch and it went off, almost without a hitch. They did forget to find a kid they left hiding during a game of Hide and Seek and it was only because we were doing a head count that we realised the littlest was still missing.

But apart from that, we've got a couple of party planners on our hands.

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Holiday Things to Do: Santa School (A Review)

When the twins went to The Giving Treehouse for their holiday camp, Muffin complained. He heard tales about lava lamps, kites and trampoline parks (though he was there for that bit) and wanted to know why he didn't have camp to go to. He's like I was as a child, I wanted to do everything my brothers did even though I wasn't old enough or ahem, I was a girl.

So when the opportunity for him to go to camp, he jumped at it. And better yet, it was a Christmas- Santa themed camp, by BlueTree Education, which thrilled him to bits. There were Christmas related songs, stories, make believe and most importantly, craft that kept him busy and happy.

The most fun bits for him were always the craft bits of the day. Over the five days, he made snow men, reindeer antlers, a reindeer that they then had to hunt for when they went reindeer hunting (for the sleigh not for food!) and eventually an impressive and beautiful snow globe.

He took a while to get used to the place. I suspect it had to do with being in a younger class where most kids had their parents there and I did the 'dump and go.' But as with all things Muffin, he was okay after a while.

For Muffin, a lot of processing happens internally so it's usually over a period of time that we see the full impact of anything. It was only on Day 3 of what he aptly termed as Santa School that we realised how much he'd internalised when he started giving me 'right-left- straight' instructions in the car (they learnt directions in order to guide the reindeers pulling Santa's sleigh) and ransacked our bookshelves for snowman books. We seem to be woefully short on that front. 

What tickled me most of all was when one of the teachers sent me a picture of Muffin being dressed up as a Christmas tree. When I asked him about it, he burst into gales of laughter and told me in sputters how he had to stand still while other children decorated him. He also added that he had a star grow out of his head but it wasn't there anymore because he bumped himself and the star dropped off, like the reindeer's antler, he added.

But in all seriousness, Santa School was really well thought out and the teachers were articulate, fun and played with the kids as if their own. They exuded confidence in dealing with the little ones and I knew that, despite Muffin's initial protests, he would be okay there. And when I came in to pick him up later the first day, he was chummy with "Snowman Sock Aunty" (Aunty Diana) and liked "Snowman Hairband Aunty" (Aunty Mabel).
And the craft! I've talked about the craft. But I can't stop talking about them because they were all oh-so-pretty. This year's Christmas tree is adorned with, not just the traditional baubles, but all the craft bits that JED have come home with and Santa School Christmas-ed up our house really nicely.



So was it a hit? I think it pretty much was, especially when he got to meet Santa and Santa gave him sweets. He did whisper to me that it wasn't the real Santa but that was okay by him. Did he want to go to Santa School again? Nope. Because Santa only comes once a year, at Christmas.

That's fair enough.

---
Santa School was run by BlueTree Eduction, a newly established enrichment centre, offering pre-primary and primary programmes. It's run by ex MOE teachers who want to create fun learning workshops during the holidays for preschoolers and primary school goers.

I had a look at the regular programmes that they run for the school going crowd as well and to be honest, I really wanted to do it too or teach it; a whole CSI episode to teach investigative writing? Complete with a dead Barbie doll, I wouldn't mind doing that even as an adult.  Anyway, for more of their programmes, keep an eye out on their Facebook page.

BlueTree Education is offering $50 off their regular programmes (for the first payment only) for all Diaperbag readers. Just let them know you came by through the Diaperbag.


Address: 271 Bukit Timah Road, Balmoral Plaza #02-15 Singapore 259708
Nearest MRT: Newton Bus Services
Balmoral Plaza Bus Stop): 48, 66, 67, 170R, 171, 700, 700A, 960
Contact number: +65 9106 4702
Website: http://bluetreeeducation.com

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