What's been happening...

Weather

The weather for the past week had been lovely with plenty of sunshine. I was just telling my sis the other day that our summer clothes didn't get enough mileage this year. Then the temperature went up (mid 20s)....pretty hot for this time of the year. Anyway, we're not complaining. The girls got to go out lots and we could forget about cardis at the moment. So for this week, we went to Legoland thrice (4X actually but I turned around after seeing a long queue into the carpark) and to parks and playgrounds everyday. Barney was at Legoland yesterday. Other than the purple dino, there was Snoopy and a whole lot of other performances for the day. Needless to say, the live concerts attracted a huge turnout. So huge the park ran out of carpark spaces and had to turn people away. We were one of them. Well, the park was closed to cars but not visitors. They advised people to park at Windsor and get a ride on a bus into the park (that would take ages). Or we could find somewhere else to park and then a long walk uphill to the park entrance. They even refused to let Adrian drop us off at the entrance. On our way out, Adrian found a spot and parked there before we made our way up to the park. Thankfully halfway on the hill, a minibus from Legoland stopped to give people a lift. We just managed to make it. The Barney performance was OK. It was almost the same as last year's. But the girls enjoyed themselves. That was the whole point of it.

Adrian's away again

Adrian left for Italy this morning and won't be back till Saturday. We'd wanted to go with him but this time round, he'll be staying on the campus so there won't be room for the 3 of us. But we'll be going to Devon in 2 weeks and hopefully Belgium in November. Daniel's here till Wednesday so we'll be fine. Lydia was here for the weekend too so I had a little breather as she's good with the girls.

Badminton

I've been playing badminton for the past 2 months with Adrian and his friends. I'd not played for 5-6 years and it's nice to be playing the sport again. Adrian's friend, Hoon Wei books the courts every other week and the whole family will go. I started playing badminton since I was 11. To be able to play it now after having the girls, I feel young once more. It's good workout for me too!

Potty Training

I'd been trying to get Lavigne to poo and wee in the potty for a while now. We wanted to get her trained before it turns cold again. It's been quite unsuccessful until the past few days. On the first day when I started potty training, she wee into the potty on her 2nd attempt and I thought to myself 'that was easy!'. But that was the one and only time. Previously, she'd wee and then tell me. Then, she'd tell me she wanted to 'shee shee' before actually weeing and I'd rush to get her to sit on the potty but there weren't any output. We'd resorted to offering sweeties as rewards but without any results. Then for the past few days, she'd managed to wee in the potty a several times. In fact, there were some occasions when she said she wanted to 'shee shee', not in the potty but on the training seat in the toilet. As we don't have a toilet downstairs, she'd have to climb up the stairs to get to the toilet. I was afraid she'd not make it there in time. But I'd realised that she's more comfortable with the idea of sitting on the training seat than the potty. The reason being that the moment she sits on it, there'll be output, rather than the potty which I'd to repeatedly get her to sit and she'd get up to walk around, get her to sit and she'd wonder off again before she'd finally wee. It's also difficult to toilet train her now that we're going out everyday. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of letting her go out diaperless when she's not really trained yet. A friend taught me to stay home one whole week to potty train Louisa some years back. Sounds logical but we won't be getting much good weather soon. Hopefully, she'd be trained before she turns 2, which is very soon.

Chatterbox

I'm just amazed with how well Lavigne could speak now. She'd been called a chatterbox by ladies in the shops. I guess the reason why she speaks well is because she repeats everything that Louisa says. Quite like a parrots actually. Very fun to hear her speak.

She's now toilet training her doll as well. The other day I heard her saying to her doll 'Shee shee potty give sweet sweet'. She'd also put the doll on the toilet bowl in the dollhouse and go 'shee shee shee shee'.

She'll also ask me things like 'What's meimei eating?', trying to be independent and wants to do things herself by saying 'I can do my own'. I should videotape her speaking.

Louisa going to Reception

Louisa will be starting her new term on 21st September (awfully late). She'll attend school from 9-12 everyday, 1/2 hr more than at nursery. In January, she'd attend full days from 9-3. She could wear whatever she'd fancy in nursery. But now, she'll have to put on a set of uniform. I'm not looking forward to that. The other day I took her out to buy her school uniform and everything that I showed her, she'd go 'so ugly', 'I don't want to wear that'. I had to force her to try them on. In the end, I just bought items without letting her try them on. I just love the return policy here. Extremely flexible. Talking about school uniforms in UK, they aren't very uniform at all. Well, you see, any shops sell uniforms in all sorts of designs. You just buy anything you like in the colour your school designates. Louisa's school colours are grey and blue. I got her a grey pinafore and skirt, white knee high socks, grey tights, plimsolls for PE and blue tops. The only thing that would make her part of the school is a jumper with it's crest on it. Singapore is so easy. You just buy uniforms of a particular school. Here in UK, a grey skirt is not just a grey skirt. You can choose between pleated ones, A-line ones or those with pockets etc etc etc. So the students do not look that 'uniform' at all.

OK, will read a magazine and sleep early tonight!