Memorable Birthday

It's Adrian's birthday today but he is spending it at the hospital. Like the nurse had said 'Memorable birthday, for the wrong reason'. No, Adrian's not hurt or anything. He's there with Louisa. My girl is warded for wheezing. She started having a cough on Thursday night. It got really bad last night when she coughed non-stop. The cough mixture Adrian fed her before bedtime didn't help. She started wheezing at 3am and we decided to bring her to the hospital's A&E. Due to her condition, she was looked at by the nurse promptly and to my great surprise, the paediatrician came down from the ward to check on her within minutes of our arrival, unlike past visits which took more than 1/2hr.

Anyway, her oxygen level in her body was low and her lungs were struggling to work properly. As a result, she was given 3 doses of ventolin (I think) on the neubilizer which helped opened up her airwaves. Though she wasn't wheezing as much and could breathe better, she had to be warded as her oxygen level was still low. She had to be on the neubilizer once every hour. At that point, I brought Lavigne home with me to pack some stuff and went back to the hospital again. Louisa was warded in a small room with another girl and when Lavigne arrived, she took off her socks and shoes, climbed up onto the bed and joined Louisa to have breakfast. She must have thought she was in a hotel. I was worried she'd disturb the other girl as she kept chatting non-stop. When I took her out of the room, she went around peeping through curtains and looking at the other young patients. I was really tired and Adrian suggested I bring Lavigne home for a rest.

We were both so sleepy we slept for 4 hours and upon waking up, I drove to Loon Fung in London to get some of those Chinese bread that Adrian loves and also 'dabao' Stir-fried Beef Hor Fun and Crispy Noodles for dinner. I bought a cake along the way and we had a mini celebration for Adrian at the ward with Daniel and Lydia. It was unfortunate he had to spend his birthday that way. But we are relieved that Louisa's going to be okay and will be able to come home tomorrow.

Sorry, love! I'd planned to bake you a cake and bring you out for dim sum today but things didn't turn out well. Hope you and Louisa rest well tonight.

Plan, plan, plan.....

I realised I'd better start listing down the places in Singapore for makan, things I want to eat, places I want to go, things I need/want to buy and people I want to meet.

• Places for makan

1. East Ocean Restaurant
2. Rice Table
3. Ajisen
4. Thai Restaurant in Sembawang Shopping Ctr
5. Chico & Charlie
6. Braised duck at Serangoon Gardens Hawker Ctr
7. Chomp Chomp
8. Tiong Bahru Hawker Ctr
9. Wisma Atria's new (to me) foodcourt
10. Marina's Sq new foodcourt
11. Bakerszin

• Things I want to eat/drink

1. Laksa
2. Nasi Lemak
3. Fishhead curry
4. Or Luak (Fried Oyster Omelette)
5. Vegetarian Bee Hoon
6. Bak Chor Mee
7. Sugar Cane drink
8. Chendol
9. Fried carrot cake
10. Char kway teow
11. Rojak
12. Fishball kway teow soup
13. Zhi char (any good recommendations?)
14. Wanton Noodle
15. Mee Hoon Kway
16. Chwee Kway
17. Popiah
18. Fried Fish Soup
19. Roti Prata
20. Fried Hokkien Mee
21. Japanese food
22. Seafood! Seafood! Seafood!

• Places I want to go

1. Our home which is rented out
2. Takashimaya (Adrian used to say that's my playground)
3. Kinokuniya (!!!!!)
4. Singapore Zoological Gardens
5. Botanical Gardens
6. Pasir Ris Park
7. Spotlight
8. Arab Street
9. Daiso

• People I want to catch up with

1. Relatives of course
2. Old school friends
3. Ex-neighbour
4. 'Mummy-friends'

Gosh! One whole month of food indulgence! That's my food craving for being away for 2 years. How to lose weight and stop piling more on? Go on diet now and after? I'm sure the list will get longer. Sigh! Kinokuniya....Spotlight.....Adrian will definitely set me on a budget.

Oh! I must also start planning on things to bring and gifts to buy home.

By the way, if you know of any great eateries, please let me know! TIA!

Clowning around

We went to Homebase to get a nightlight for the girls' room and dropped by next-door Halfords to checkout a helmet for Louisa since she's been cycling to school almost daily. She was so excited when she saw 'The Little Mermaid's' helmet and quickly asked me to put it on for her. Since she had one on her, Lavigne wanted one too. We didn't get it because it was too expensive (18pounds).

Over at Clinton Cards, Adrian and Louisa were having fun putting on masks and witches' hats. Halloween is a big thing here!

Foggy Saturday

This morning was so foggy. I went out to buy the papers and realised that visibility was low, I couldn't see beyond 100m. Hazy Singapore, foggy UK.

5 Things I wouldn't have done if I was in Singapore

1. Let Lavigne self-feed since one year old. (I can eat in relative peace and at the same time with her as compared to Louisa when she was the same age)
2. Let both girls sleep in one room, Adrian and I in another. (Most likely to co-sleep in Singapore)
3. Put the girls to bed by 7.30pm. (Best advice I heeded in UK)
4. Drill holes myself and doing all the DIYs. (No handyman, Ah Koon)
5. Gardening. (Flowers, glorious flowers which thrive in the weather here)

Dress-up, Biscuits and A Kind Soul

We were invited to Louisa's schoolmate's (Ella) house for play and dinner today. What I really like about these invitations is the girls don't need much of my attention as they have other playmates and I don't have to worry about the mess they'll create though we do help to tidy up. What's even better today is I don't have to cook! Eating out is common and cheap in Singapore. That is something I used to take for granted. We'd eat out or drop by my parents if I didn't feel like cooking. Now, I don't really have a choice. Eating out and takeaways are way too expensive. So even if I'm not in the mood to cook, I have to force myself to. So it's nice when someone asks us over for a meal or when we have the odd meals out.

I have come to the conclusion that all girls in UK have a dress-up trunk. Why I say that? When Louisa went over to Lilian's house, she had one and they played dress-up. Today at Ella's, I was amazed by the number of princess costumes she has in her trunk and of course the girls played dress-up too. Lilian came over to play 2 weeks ago and she asked if she could play dress-up. I had to tell the disappointed girl she couldn't as I didn't have any costumes (other than the one I made for Louisa and Lavigne's Snow White's). Perhaps I should start collecting stuff if I ever want Louisa's friends to like coming over. Bracelets, necklaces, other trinkets, fairy wings, tiaras, dresses etc. Simple things like that can keep them occupied for ages. Will keep a lookout the next time I go to car boot sale.

Alex, Ella's sister, is really matured (and tall) for her tender age of 6. She went round the house with Lavigne and looked after her really well. Oh! Lavigne loves their toilet too. She kept wanting to pee. What's with others' toilets?

Besides dressing up, the girls decorated bicuits. Lavigne, instead of placing the marshmallows and candies on her biscuit, nicked the marshmallows and put them straight into her mouth.

Tracy, Ella and Alex's mummy had kindly offered to babysit the girls for me while Adrian and I attend his department's dinner in 2 weeks when she learnt that we couldn't find anyone to do it. We don't know each other that well so it's really nice that she offers her help. People like her certainly makes this world a better place to live in.

Homeward Bound

Yah, you see it right. I've placed a countdown clock to show me the days remaining before I fly home to Singapore for a holiday. We'll be back for a month from 7th Dec to 8th Jan and there are so many things I want to do and so many people I want to catch up with. Plenty of mixed feelings for this anticipated trip. Really wish to go on a short trip with Adrian alone but he's told me before he's not very keen. I hope all things will go well during this trip.

Louisa's Art Gallery

This is the wall of artwork I created for Louisa sometime back. Bought the wood panels from DIY shop, painted them and stuck them to the wall. I would have loved to make a backing but it's too much work. Right now, I just use Blu-tac to stick her artwork onto the wall.

Especially for Qi

This blogskin is for you, Qi. Who says I can't come up with a non-floral layout? :p

DIY 'Mania'

I get bored with the arrangement of my furnitures easily. So I do a lot of re-arrangements. Recently, I changed the position of the furnitures in the girls' room (again!) and didn't get the chance to move Louisa's 'Art Gallery'. Today, I was itching to do a bit of redecoration in their room and got round to shifting the 'Art Gallery'. I bought some fleece decorations from a shop while holidaying in Disney Paris. They were finally put to good use.

My quickest ever LO

Bouncy Castle....*boing boing boing*

After we came back from church today, Tiffany rang me to ask if we have any plans for the afternoon. We had none and so she invited us over to her house as she's got a bouncy castle. Louisa has always wanted to go onto one so you can imagine her joy when I told her about it. Tiffany's son, Chun Wei, is the same age as Louisa and she loves going over to play as he has really lots of toys. I don't know why but Lavigne loves their toilet very much. She kept telling me she needs the loo every so often when we were there. Today, the girls made a new friend -Joshua. He's a couple of months older than Louisa and Chun Wei but towers over them. The kids had so much fun bouncing on the castle, playing on the slide and making giant bubbles.

Mid-Autumn Festival

I know we're one day late but it's better late than never. My sister, Jean, bought lots of lantern from Singapore for the girls to celebrate Mid-autumn festival here. We meant to do it last night whilst Joanne was still here. The original plan was to go over to Emily and Gerald's to have Indian takeaway and the girls could play the lanterns in their garden. But Adrian was down with a very bad cold and I requested them to come over instead. However by the time they arrived, it was almost 9pm and way past the girls' bedtime. So we had to postpone it to today.

Hoon Wei came over to watch football with Adrian in the evening and Jean decided to go back to London tomorrow morning instead of today so that she could play lanterns with the girls. We also rang Fenni and Geong Sen to come join in the fun. So there were quite a few of us. Our friends were delighted when they saw mooncakes (Thanks to Cat for bringing and my aunties for buying!). It was quite cold and I realised there were frost when I saw the uploaded photograhps.

Lavigne was frightened of this lantern when it cast funny shadows on the ground

Fresh Flowers

I've always dreamed of snipping fresh flowers from my garden and putting them in a vase to be placed in the house. Well, that dream is fulfilled. I was hanging out the laundry in the garden when I realised there's so many of these flowers it's just a waste not to bring them into the house. Whenever I buy flowers from the supermarket, Adrian would frown, saying it's a waste of money. So here they are, fresh cut flowers from my garden and the other half didn't complain. They certainly bring some cheer into the rooms and don't they look pretty?

Happy 2nd Birthday, Lavigne!

Lavigne turns 2 today. We went to Cafe Uno for dinner and the food there was great! Louisa had Pizza while Lavigne had Penne Carbonara. Adrian and I shared Fruitti Calamari and Linguine Marinara as he had a dinner appointment. The kid's meal comes with ice-cream and that was a treat for the girls. Happy birthday, Lavigne! May you always be cheerful and bright! Love, Daddy, Mummy and Checheh Louisa.

Looking at the waiter suspiciously

My delicious plate of pasta

Lavigne's Birthday Celebration

We held a very small scale birthday party for Lavigne today (as compared to Louisa's). Other than Louisa, the only other child present was my neighbour's son who is 1. It was that pathetic. The rest of the guests were my sisters, brother-in-law and friends of ours. It looked more like a get-together for us adults than a child's party. Oh well, once she starts going to school, she'll have her own friends and then we can invite them over next year.

I made her the birthday cake. It was much simpler than Louisa's. I wanted to get some Minnie Mouse figurines but couldn't find anywhere. I'm sure I could get some from the Disney Store but I didn't want to travel all the way to Guildford. Then I found some Dora, Pooh and Fifi figurines. I settled on Pooh since she knows the characters well. Yesterday while shopping at Marks and Spencer, I came across some Pooh lollies and sweeties. I thought they cost so much cheaper and are better for decorations (plus they can be eaten!) so I bought them. The cake is chocolate sponge with fresh chocolate cream filled with Hazelnut, Almond and Maltezers. For some reasons, the pipings started bleeding halfway through decoration and the Pooh icing started to go soft. I quickly took the icing off and decided to put them on before cake cutting session. So I'm actually quite disappointed with the final product.

As the party was held at Adrian's office coffee room, we only went there just before the party started. I prepared ribbons and balloons. Upon reaching there, I was going to decorate the place when my sisters and Adrian said 'Don't need lah!'. So the room didn't have any party atmosphere, there wasn't any children games and there was not a big spread of food (I only fried noodles and grilled chicken wings, the rest were finger food bought from supermarket).

We tried to get her to nap before going to the party but she refused to. So what happened during the party? She slept a good part of it. I only have photos taken at home after the party. Am still waiting for my sister to send me the party photos.

Lavigne was doing this pose and I quickly got Cat to pose next to her.