Spending Time with Trenyce: Tales on SMRT Trains

I havent been spending much time with Trenyce eversince Kaden arrives and I feel really guilty about this. I guess Trenyce can feel that I have neglected her too. I tried to 'salvage' our relationship by bringing her out, just the two of us, whenever I can. Be it simply a marketing trip to the supermarket or merely going downstairs to collect the letters from the mailbox. I also tried to make it a point to join her for her Saturday music class at Yamaha if possible. She is currently attending Music Wonderland, a course designed for those aged between 3.5 to 4yo kiddies.

Trenyce was especially bored this June holidays. Besides the weekly music class, there wasnt any activity arranged for her. It was the 1st time, after so long, she didnt have a proper holiday during the school holiday season. We all know why it was so. I wanted to bring her to Zoo initially but didnt manage to get the free tix from company and its not worth to spend ten over dollars for a place we been to so frequently...then there is the Bird Park which I managed to get hold of the tix but didnt go afterall cos of the distance. Luckily, a few days just before the school holidays was about to end...SMRT had organised a special event,‘Tales on SMRT Trains’, to go along with their environment friendly theme "Go Green with SMRT".

I specially took leave from work to bring her on a ride on the MRT to participate in the one-hour activity. It was the first time Trenyce listened to stories from professional storyteller, and listening to the stories onboard a train makes it an even interesting experience for her.

Trenyce waiting for the bus at the bus-stop.

Little gal waiting inside the MRT station.

Little gal waited till sian already. Imagine we "reported" at the station at 2.30pm when the event is to start at 3.00pm.

This is Auntie Rose (hope I spelled correctly :p)
The storytellers were decked in green attire to complement the storytelling theme.



I was observing my girl throughout the entire journey from Ang Mo Kio to Tiong Bahru MRT stations. She was very attentive and response whenever the storyteller, aka auntie Rose, asked questions. I can see that she throughly enjoyed herself with the Earth Tales, poems and rhymes. She simply loves it and has already requested me for more of such activities! haha....




After the event ended, we alighted at Tiong Bahru for some snacks. We had Macdonalds upon Trenyce's request. *WOW* After the makan, we headed back to the MRT station and went home. It was nice bonding with Trenyce....something which I havent been able to do for a long time. I hope I will be able to do so more often with my happy gal.

Dinner at Swensen - 18th Dec 2007

Got some vouchers from company today and decided to "reward" hubby for being a stay-at-home dad today :p

We had quite a feast - spagetti, fish baked rice, cheese sticks (finger food), salad and an ice cream fondue....wow yummy yum yum....we enjoy the food and so does Trenyce.

Look who's the pussy cat here?

Attacking the fondue...

Prata Feast!

We brought Trenyce to Upper Pierce reservoir sometime in June. We dropped by the prata shop nearby as well. See Trenyce enjoying her prata feast!

Build a Bear (Do-It-Yourself)

Have you tried building a bear before? We didnt and this was our first. We brought Trenyce to Vivocity sometime last month when we went to get the coach tickets for PILs to KL, and saw this really interesting shop. Its called "Build-A-Bear-Workdshop". We went in empty handed and came out with this little cute furry thing....


Yes, this is happy feet! PILs bought this for Trenyce but it didnt look like this in the beginning....you had to bring it to a machine to stuff the cotton inside to make it puffy. This is the machine....



The motto of the shop....


At the end of the whole thing, we even had to register the "birth cert" for this little furry thing which we decided to all it "Mumble" as the movie.


Unfortunately, we are unable to fulfil what the board has advised us to...as the last trip back to Labis during the national day long weekend...we found out that Mumble actually can drop its "feathers" and that sort of block Trenyce's nose. We are worried that Mumble will cause asthma to Trenyce and decided to keep it in Labis' storeroom...So poor little Mumble is all alone looking after the Labis house now...sobsob.. (ps: shhh..better dun remind Trenyce of this)

A day cruising the Singapore River

We brought Trenyce to Esplanade on 4th Aug. Nothing special. Hubby just feel like taking ride there to take a look at the National Day Parade event place. We took a riverboat ride along the Singapore river. It's our first and Trenyce enjoyed herself...the breeze and the beautiful surroundings around her.

The colourful part is the audience seating area. Look at the flyer wheel! It will be ready 1st qtr 2008!

This is the "floating" performing stage.

Our iconic symbol, the merlion.

The fullerton Hotel. It was the headquarter of Singapore Post Office. Look at the tall office builings around. Looks beautiful isnt it!

Another iconic structure in Singapore, the "Durian", Esplanade. Didnt really do justice to the building...not a very nice shot :p

This is how our boat looks like.

And finally, Trenyce enjoying her boat ride!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

One of our favourite activity over the weekend is to drive up to Upper Pierce Reservoir to watch the little monkeys (Trenyce's favourite!) and also to enjoy a nice nature walk around the place. We have brought Trenyce there to cycle and fishing as well and she enjoyed it tremendously.

Ermm, we do not really fish like the way the professional does lah, all we use was a simple fish net and a DIY "fish-tank". See picture on left, this photo was taken somewhere in May06 when we first took Trenyce to fish. See how excited she was! Well, being young and inexperienced, she didnt catch anything lor. It ended up with the mummy busy catching fishes for her and I managed to get 2 tiny little fishes for her (haha!).

On our recent visit to the reservoir (just last week), the timing was pretty bad as Trenyce fell asleep when we were just about to turn in to the road leading to the reservoir. I was like "O-oh". Usually it was quite difficult to wake her up so I was like trying my luck to wake her up when the car parked near the location where we could see the monkeys. Mission failed the first time, she vividly opened her eyes and closed them again, hanging her head in the air ( I thought she was awake and let her sit up, so can imagine how her sleepy head hanging in the air). Hubby then drove up to this location where there were several more monkeys than the previous location and I tried to wake her up again, telling her there were many monkeys outside the window.Just when I was about to declare the failure of mission 2 and was going to tell hubby to turn out as Trenyce was too simply too sleepy to even ioen her eyes. Then all of a sudden, she became very alert and shouted excitedly, pointing at the windows "See, so many monkeys, so cute! monkeys so cute!" Her reaction changed so fast that I was totally amused by it :)

Oct 2006 KaiKai Trips I - Jurong Bird Park

Jurong Bird Park - 15th Oct 2006

We had wanted to bring Trenyce to Jurong Bird Park for quite some time already. However, whenever we plan to go, we will chance upon either the bird flu or the hazy haze...so finally when all's over, we set the date to JBP. We almost couldnt make it on the day cos its hazy haze again! The PSI (In Spore, this helps us to monitor how 'safe' our air is) reads between 60-90...hmm..

Hubby, not wanting to disappoint Trenyce and mummy (that's me! :p) gave the green light at around 1pm and so happily we went to JBP! hehehe....

This is the entrance.
This is the stage. I personally prefer the animal performance at JBP than the Zoo. I find the performance more interesting and fun, and most importantly the performance is much longer than the 15mins at Zoo :p

The performance...

See, Trenyce is so engrossed with the birds' performance!

The most fascinating part of this visit is this Bird Viewing Gallery where we got to feed the birds at close proximity.

Visit to Botanic Garden

We took Trenyce and PIL to Singapore Botanice Gardens on the 19th Aug06. I suppose this is my first trip back to garden after 20 years at least? I read from the papers they have just renovated the garden and variety at the food garden (aka food court lah) was good. it was a sunny day, a good day if you decide to have a picnic at the garden.

I want to share with you this very cool video clip I took from my digicam. It captured the moments when the swans flipped its wings! How often you manage to get this on your cam! hehe :D Hope you enjoyed it cos Trenyce and myself were!



Following are some of the pics we took at the garden. I will like to comment on pic 4. It was a strange looking plant and I have no idea what its called. It looked identical to something (hmmm....for you to figure out yourself hehe :p), quite obscene actually. Dont you think so?

2006 NDP Fireworks

We took Trenyce and PIL to Fullerton One on eve of Singapore National Day (8th Aug 06) to view the fireworks. It was the first time that all of us went down to join the crowd viewing the fireworks. It was a fantastic view except that there is this stupid lamp post and palm tree blocking part of our magnificant view. You would understand what I am saying when you looked at the clip (Yippie, I finally figured out the way to show it here!).





While watching the fireworks, an interesting encounter caught my attention. This family of 5 (father, mother with a infant girl & a toddler boy and their maid)were standing in front of us. The father was carrying the son so he could have a better view as it was simply too crowded already whereas the maid was carrying the infant girl, probably abt 13-17mths old. Initially, Trenyce was enjoying the fireworks with us until this little girl who, upon hearing all the loud bangs from the fireworks started crying, she too also joined her in the crying battle. It was so bad that FIL had to eventually took her away to somewhere that she wouldnt see the fireworks in order to pacify her. As for the infant gal, she was not as lucky as Trenyce. Her cries was getting more and more intense as the fireworks continued to burst in the air. The maid was like not knowing what to do. She was trying very hard to coax the infant gal but it didnt help a single bit. The worst thing is the mother aka mom was simply bochap and continue to enjoy the view. She turned her head to calm the gal a few times but when the fire shots went up the sky, she would quickly turn away and continue where she stopped. This happened probably twice but still she didnt give instructions to the maid, so the poor maid didnt dare move away otherwise she would likly get ticked off by them. If its not so crowded, I am quite sure the maid will move away to somewhere quieter to clam the baby gal. The poor maid continued coaxing the infant gal who was crying until her face turned purple and was grabbing anyone that she could grab (she was grabbing my shirt when the maid moved near me) while the parents were enjoying the fireworks. I find this whole thing very ridiculous. How could one mother turn a deaf ear to her crying child? Was it because the place was too noisy that she cant hear her child? Or was it because she thought her child was cheering at the fireworks too? Or was it because the fireworks were so mignaficant that it totally captivated her mind & soul that she forgotten abt her young child who may not be comfortable with the fireworks.

At the instance when the infant girl was grabbing my shirt, I was so heartpain. I felt like carrying her and took her away. She looked terrified at the sight of the fireworks and probably also the sea of strangers around her. Hubby who saw the whole incident too, said to me:"such an irresponsible mother.Fireworks more important than the child. So poor thing, cried till face turned purpled already" Yah, I felt so too. I dont think I will ever allow anything to take over my child's place in my heart.