Beanie's music classes

"Mom, you want me to play your violin as a cello?"

Caveat: I am not musically inclined and I barely can play the violin.

I am the least qualified music teacher in the world to teach my daughter music. But she is only 14 months old and seriously, I am too cheapskate to pay a few hundred bucks a month to expose her to music in those chi-chi music lessons, where I can actually do the same at home.

Well.... I did learn the violin before. So I have the Suzuki Violin CDs level 1 and 2, which I play once a week to conduct these "music classes" with Beanie. Whenever I play the CDs, I would hold her in my arms and dance around the house, according to the rhythm of the music. 

Beanie enjoyed the whole dancing-to-the-rhythm exercise because she:

1) got the chance to be carried by me (I seldom carry her at home because I want her to learn to play independently)

2) we jiggled around the house and when the tempo got fast, I started to swing her in the air and she would scream with joy. That adrenaline junkie!

As for me, it would be a TOTAL work-out. Try carrying a 10 kg bag of rice and jiggle around the house for like 10 mins.

After that, we would sit on the floor and I would then clap my hands or snap my fingers according to the rhythm of the music. Beanie would sometimes imitate me by clapping along, or she would simply shake her bum-bum according to the music and dance.

Sometimes I would take out my violin to let her play with it, or I would play a simple song, usually Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars. 

The "music class" seldom last more than 15-20 mins. Her attention span is only that long. After that, she will either just wander around the house or go to her toy box to dig out her favorite toys. 

There, I just saved myself a few hundred bucks a month. Ha!

Little Picasso at work

To encourage creativity and to hone Beanie's fine motor skills, I stuck 2 pieces of mahjiong papers on the walls of my balcony to allow her to scribble and draw freely at her will.

I would first demonstrate by drawing apples and stars, sang happy songs to keep the session fun and interesting.

However, Beanie doesn't like to draw. She would either just stare at me blankly and then ran away to chase after Cookie for like the 100th times since 7 am in the morning, or she would just open my drawers and cupboards and proceed to empty them.

Nonetheless, I persisted. I continued with the "art class" weeks after weeks.

When I gave her crayons, she ended up using her little fingers to scrape and dig at the tips of the crayons.

When I gave her chalk, she had more fun breaking the chalk to small pieces and subsequently she tried to eat them!

When I gave her magic pens, she ended up drawing her hands, which I am ok with. At least she was drawing something!

But she has absolutely no interest in drawing on the mahjiong paper.

So one day, I bought water soluble paints and a brush and showed her how to paint.

Finally, she managed to keep herself busy for like 15 minutes! She was intrigued by the water changing color whenever she dipped the brush. She enjoyed splashing water all over the place and most importantly, she finally got the idea of holding the brush and begun to paint!

Yeah! That's an important milestone in my opinion!

If only the mess wasn't such a pain. Thankfully the helper could help me with the cleaning up!

Cycling at East Coast Park

We brought Beanie to East Coast park last friday and she had her very first bicycle ride. She absolutely loved cycling! She was rather apprehensive at the beginning when I strapped her to the baby seat but once Hub started paddling, she started grinning from ear to ear and even raised her arms to feel the breeze. It got to the point where she would actually protest when we stopped for a break or to adjust her little hat.

As you can see, the sky was grey so after 30 mins of cycling, it rained on us and so we had to take shelter. Thankfully the rain cleared within half and hour and we continued on. It was a friday and after the rain, the cycling tracks were totally deserted. We had East Coast Park to ourselves! ;)

I am now thinking of buying a bicycle so that I can cycle to Bishan Park with Beanie. Time to go bike shopping!

Beanie at MacRitchie's submerged boardwalk

woooo... water!

Yeah! I have the boardwalk all to myself!

Hello Mommy!

The deepest part of the boardwalk barely reached her ankles

We brought Beanie to MacRitchie Reservoir 2 weekends ago. The idea was to allow her to breathe some fresh air and get in touch with Mother Nature.

Unfortunately, it started to pour when we arrived, so we had to take shelter for about 30 mins or so. Luckily for Beanie, the rain cleared and we continued to explore the reservoir.

Before Beanie came along, we used to run at the MacRitchie reservoir almost every weekend. Hub would usually do the 11 km route, while I would just run the 5.5 km route. Ahhh... those were the days!

There was a new feature at the reservoir, which was the Submerged Boardwalk where water from the reservoir would.. hrm, submerge the boardwalk lah.

Since we were there just after the rain, there wasn't a single soul. So Beanie had the luxury of having the boardwalk all to herself!

Beanie, the water-baby was thrilled to splash around and I had come prepared with a change of clothes and diaper. So I just let her loose and she had a great time horsing around on the boardwalk.

But as you can see from the pictures, the boardwalk wasn't very interesting nor educational. In fact, I was very disappointed and had expected more from the boardwalk. Maybe partially submerged plants could line the sides of the boardwalk, with colorful signs and drawings that explained how these plants helped in the purification of the water?

Nonetheless, it was still very relaxing to breathe in the fresh air, with all the greenery around us and the view of the beautiful reservoir.

We will definitely be back!

Beanie at Bishan Park 1

Erm Mommy... what are these blocks?

Yeah! Water!!!

 Look Mommy, I'm crawling in a drain?!?!

Little whirlpools for children to play

We went to check out Bishan Park One (the one nearer to Seletar) with Little Beanie many weeks ago. Way before she was sick... yup, I have that many back-log posts to update?!

Anyway, we heard good things about the water playground at Bishan Park One and so decided to bring Beanie, the water baby to check it out and boy, did Beanie have lots of fun!

Instead of the usual water fountain style of playground (think Bugis junction's water fountain), Bishan Park One's water playground was so much more interactive and interesting.

There were many little "dams" that children could operate on to accumulate water to form ponds and reservoirs. And upon release of these "dams", children would then experience first-hand, the pressure of water that flowed fast and furious down the drains and whirlpools.

There were also many little "molehills"for chidden to climb and basically monkey about.

Beanie was too young to understand all these. She was just so thrill to see water and splashing around with older kids and running after them.

It was so so cute to watch!

I highly recommend this water playground to parents with young children. In fact, there were a few kids who were about 8-10 years old, and they too, seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

Do note that this water playground operates from 8 am - 11 am, 4 pm to 8 pm on WEEKENDS only. If you were to go on a weekday, no water will sprout out. Not even a drop!

Dr Beanie

Dr Beanie and her patient, Bernie

Yes, it's your turn now. Please come in.

Beanie was down with viral fever for the whole of last week. Her fever wasn't high, it hovered between 37.5 to 38.5 deg C but she had some ulcers in her mouth, and that made her extremely fussy.

Yup, ulcers in the mouth but no ulcers on her hand or foot or butt. Thus, it wasn't HFMD.

But the ulcers didn't allow her to eat nor sleep and a hungry-and-sleepy Beanie was a fussy Beanie.

She wouldn't eat anything except yogurt and some cereal, but yogurt and cereal couldn't fill her stomach, so she wanted to nurse every 3 hours.

Even at night.

Yup, back to the dark days where I had to breastfeed her every 3 hours again?!

And because she was in such a bad mood, every little thing could cause a melt down.

Tried to get her to drink water, CRY.

Didn't give her the pacifier, CRY. (She is only allowed to have her pacifier at nap or bed-time)

Carried her out of the bath tub because bath-time was over. CRY.

Wanted to change her poopy diapers, also CRY.

Woah.... Beanie was driving me crazy!!!

Luckily, my FDW was around to help out and I could sneak in some previous sleep. Or else, I would have left Beanie at the Recycle Bin near my block.

After 5 days of fussiness, Beanie has made a full recovery and she is now back to her usual chirpy self. And she is sleeping through the night once again.

Hurray!