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If you haven’t already read my friends’ accounts of their firsts, here are the links:
Melody Chen tells of her first bungy jump. It would already have been memorable before even considering the fact she is terribly acrophobic, and that her first jump was filmed for a reality tv show, later broadcast to homes across the region. Actually, it was her blood curdling screams that most people remember Mel’s first jump for.
Randall Tan’s first pair of football boots — the magical pair that kicks the ball further, curls it into the imaginary net behind the keeper guarding the goal made from a pair of slippers, which were worn before we got our boots. Every kid in the 80s knows how it was like playing soccer in our slippers — if you could kiap your slippers while taking a free kick, you could do anything.
What firsts jog your memory? Have a think and check back here, maybe after checking out the Volkswagen Polo 1.2 TSI — released this weekend, and hopefully becoming several people’s memorable first cars.
The thing about being first time parents that always tugs at the heartstrings is the number of firsts you experience in a short span of time. I remember vividly the first time I mistook another person’s baby for ours, tapping at the nursery window in the hospital, promising to be the best dad ever, vowing to be a better person for five whole minutes before the maternity ward staff nurse wheeled out another bassinet with our actual son who was crying his lungs out because he was hungry.
I must have looked quite daft as I wheeled him to my wife’s hospital room, all my steely eyed, firm jawed conviction evaporated, and all I could think of was the hint of a smirk on the staff nurse’s smile.
It has come in quick succession, our son’s first solid meal, the first word (“Dog”), first unaided steps, first Halloween, first Christmas, first New Year’s, first birthday, first flight, first unaided kick-scooter ride, first ski lesson (followed by nine mountain ski descents), first first nursery class, first school bus ride, the first time he said a rude word because he heard one of the songs Papa wrote for work (Kow Peh Kow Bu).
It’s all a blur, but somehow, each one’s as memorable as the other. There’s been the anticipation, excitement, joy and pride, over and over again in the last three years and a bit, and we’re looking forward to the first skateboard ride, even though that’s a little way away while we look for a board that’s small enough for him.
Miss World Singapore, the pageant that gave Singapore the Boomzbalicious Ris Low in 2009, is looking for contestants who are “pan-Asian looking” for their 2012 event in the hope they’ll do better at the world Miss World. Apparently, the organizers say that previous years’ editions favored girls who answered questions well, “but the formula hasn’t worked”.
Ris really did answer questions well, huh?
Kai is making it very difficult for me to leave his room when I tuck him in to bed:
Me: Do you want to hug your pillow Kai?
Kai: Are you a pillow Papa?
Me: No. Why?
Kai: Cos I want to hug you, Papa!
Naomi and I have not consumed shark fin for several years now (and it goes without saying that Kai doesn’t either), and we’re still trying to convince some older members of our families to do the same. Conscientiously refusing to eat the dish when it is served as part of a banquet may be considered rude and disrespectful to your hosts, but we think slicing off the sharks’ fins while they’re alive and letting them bleed out and drown is even ruder and more disrespectful.
Read more at GreenKampong.com
Friday’s clear blue skies took me out of the office and onto the streets (for a nasi lemak and a beer). I took quite a few deep breaths and quite a few photos, some of which I posted on Instagram.
I stopped on South Bridge Road to take this shot:
Apparently, either a few minutes earlier or later, someone else stood under the same tree and took the same shot:
There has to be several strains of flu going around, and there has to be an epidemic with one or all of them. I cannot possibly be sick for so many weeks — getting better then getting sick again. My upper respiratory tract is having its own Groundhog Day.
GP clinic waiting rooms are packed, and not just on Sunday evenings and Monday mornings. Something is seriously up. MOH (more health alerts, fewer Ministers’ speeches please), what say you?
While the following info graphic is based on statistics in the U.S. (I spent SGD $59.90 at the clinic yesterday) — just agak a bit and you’ll still find it quite staggering:
Source: FrugalDad.com
I was inspired by this video I saw on FB the other day about nursing home patients who reacted very positively to music from their era and decided to try it out on my father who is convalescing in hospital.
The trouble with doing that was that my father was never known to like music of any form. But last Saturday when we brought Kai to visit his Gong Gong, I suddenly recalled the only song I’ve ever heard my father sing in my whole life: Quando Quando Quando. I quickly downloaded the Engelbert Humperdinck version from iTunes and played it on my iPhone, waiting for the same excited reaction from my father.
He frowned, looked suspiciously at the phone, then at me, then around the ward. Then when the song ended and I asked if he liked the song, he mumbled as much as his Parkinson’s-gripped vocal chords could muster: “No”, three times.
I felt strangely proud this morning when I drove Kai to preschool. The car stereo had yesterday switched to The Hossan Leong Show CD (in the CD changer since 2009). When I started the car after strapping him into his kiddie seat, this song started playing, and Kai was mesmerized, and when it ended, asked what song it was, who sang it, and whether I could play it again.
Later at home, he recalled and sang the chorus, some bits of verses, and asked if he could listen to it again.
It’s called “No Outside Food”, Uncle Hossan sang it and Papa made up the words.
I forgot to tell him music arranger extraordinaire Elaine Chan made the music and decided it should be a reggae piece (there’s a Cantopop ballad version).
I’m just not sure if he should sing it to his friends in preschool though.
Naomi made the most ingenious plans ever hatched in trying to keep two active but sick with flu kids (one 3 year old and one 4 year old) entertained throughout the Easter weekend.
Because they’ve been sick for a whole week, they weren’t able to socialize (Kai’s birthday party was cancelled), and we had no choice but to make do.
And make do Naomi did. I would never have thought of:
1. The Easter Bunny not visiting a house with crying kids.
2. Having to distract the kids by making them put a carrot (must be organic) outside the front door, so the Easter Bunny will feel welcome.
3. The Easter Bunny usually leaving Easter Eggs in the Condo’s common areas — so that the kids go hunt downstairs for half an hour while Naomi hides the eggs in the apartment, so the kids come back upstairs disappointed, and then elated that the Easter Bunny had snuck in while they were out and deposited a shitload of chocolate eggs all over the apartment.
All this in between having to dispense six kinds of medication three times a day to the kids, in between having to break up fights which occur every ten minutes between them, in between me having to visit my dad in hospital daily, in between having to do long overdue work, I’d say we’ve done pretty well as parents and babysitters this long week and weekend.
What is probably the more amazing thing is that we’ve enjoyed every mad moment of it. But that probably boils down to my wife being the most capable mother on the planet.
We robbed the Easter Bunny
We had a blessed Easter. Hope everyone else did too.
