Colours Of Nature: Deserted Island

Cerulean skies, white powdery sands, crystal clear waters with little fishes darting around, not afraid of human intruders. Lush overgrown woods with not a human soul in sight.

Silence. Pristine silence that lets us hear the diligent buzzing of bees and the whisperings of wild lallang that sways in the gentle breeze.

This is not a national park in a foreign land. Nor is it a beach paradise overseas. 

Instead, this is a little slice of paradise in Singapore - Lazarus Island. As part of hubby's and Big Bee's birthday celebrations, we had a bit of an escapade in Lazarus Island. We were far from the madding crowds of over-populated Singapore, and we could finally listen to the silence of nature.

We trudged in the luxuriant, deserted woods, occupied only by huge grasshoppers, crickets and swarms of angry, large red ants that freaked the girls out! 

We plunged straight into the spotlessly clear, unsullied waters and played with the teeming fish all around us. What untouched paradise is to be found just a stone's throw away indeed!

In the journey to the island, we also sailed past many of Singapore's Southern Islands. I find it sad that there are 63 islands in Singapore, yet the majority of Singaporeans had not touched foot on many of these quiet, uninhabited islands. 

After our little excursion, the girls were really curious about Singapore's offshore islands, and we spent a good afternoon exploring some of more popular offshore islands on the internet. Islands with fascinating legends and stories like Sisters Island, Kusu Island and Pulau Hantu. I wonder which island will we hop to next?

Pure Energy

My little darling turned 7 last December! Little Bee, thank you for being such a burst of brilliant sunshine. Thank you for being a sweet, understanding soul who always knows how to comfort me and makes me feel fuzzy, warm and beautiful. And thank you to all her close friends who spent her birthday with her! It was so memorable for her, and she was truly, truly elated!

I had never seen a little girl with such indefatigable spirits and such positive energy. You chatter incessantly and are always in a constant motion of energy. You are fearless - never hesitating to talk to complete strangers, even if they are adults. You have a curious soul, always asking questions endlessly. Most of all, you are always generous with your smiles, oh, how brilliant they are! 

With such energy flowing in Little Bee, it is only natural that she requested for a gym party....right at the same venue where she celebrated her 4th birthday - JWT Kids Gym! I know she relished the perpetual movements of vivacity and felicity - the pure freedom of carefree abandon. And that is just like my baby...sparkling, unfettered and buoyant, with nary a worry in her jubilant mind. 

Around 15 of her classmates celebrated her big day with her. The day that she is officially a big kid at 7 years old! They romped around in gym contraptions that I shudder to be in. 

They showed true physical resilience as their little bodies contorted, jiggled and boogied to loud, rambunctious music. They went through countless obstacle races, showing fine determination in the face of some heart-dropping challenges. Most of all, they giggled, guffawed, squealed and laughed together as if they had known each other forever. 

The goodies for her friends

The rock-climbing wall was a huge hit!

The start of the obstacle courses! 

Finally ended with an exhilarating flying fox to bring the kids to the dining area! 

The latest craze in her class right now...

Bubbles everywhere!!! 

Even Big Bee enjoyed herself thoroughly! 

It was a very gratifying evening for Little Bee indeed. She went home, basking in the warmth of her friendships, grinning ceaselessly. 

Happy 7th birthday to the most radiant angel in my life :) 

Marina Celebration

There is a place in Singapore that does not resemble frantic, urban Singapore. Where the pace is relaxed and halcyon. Where it reminds us of the origins of Singapore as a small island country with water all around us. And that is the place that we brought our parents there for their birthday celebrations a couple of weeks ago.

Raffles Marina is a charming place for dinner, especially on a day with a resplendent sunset - just like what we witnessed on the evening we brought our parents there for dinner. The sun was a bright tangerine orb hovering low in the horizon, and the sky was clear and cloudless. The dazzling sunset was nothing short of spectacular. Even the service staff commented that such sunsets will only appear a few times per year. How blessed we are!

Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant within Raffles Marina, but we almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves. So, it was a very warm yet private affair, where we could spend time bonding and joking with each other with all the privacy we wanted, yet chatted amiably with the very friendly service staff. Overall, it was a very homely experience with superb food at very reasonable prices.

The highlight of the gathering was the walk around the Marina after dinner. The breeze was balmy, the tide was placid and the night sky was so clear that we could decipher what could be Jupiter beside the Moon!

I was a little worried that Father could not walk for the entire perimeter of the Marina, but he was perfectly fine with our evening stroll, and we could admire the dark expanse of sea, looking across at the Tuas Checkpoint as well as pitch-dark land of Malaysia just across the straits. We also gazed with interest at the various yachts and boats around us, and spent a long time relaxing beside the alluring lighthouse of Raffles Marina, spotting fishes like barracuda and garoupa. The girls were thrilled with this fish-spotting activity, and my parents were delighted because of the extended time spent with their grandchildren. What an excellent way to wind down and leave behind the typical urban worries of a frenetic Singaporean lifestyle!

It was with reluctance that we left our dinner venue, but I can foresee us coming back soon!

Rock Star!

*Very backdated post!*

It is no surprise that Little Bee is a party queen. She would start planning different-themed birthday parties for herself way before her birthdays, and would never fail to impose her fussy opinions on my choices of goodie bags, cakes, party decor, etc.

Goodies for the party! 

For her 6th birthday party, she wanted a hip hop dance party with her kindy friends and cousins. We booked a studio and a hip hop dance instructor who was really good with kids, and just let Little Bee and her friends boogie the whole afternoon away!

A hip hop party was great to shake off the excess energy from highly excitable kindy kids, so that they were well-behaved and suitably subdued by cake-cutting time!

Little Bee had a wonderful time playing and bonding with her friends and cousins. As we watched them bid farewell to one another, I had a bittersweet feeling that these kindy friends whom she had been seeing daily for 3 years may not be meeting up that regularly once the hectic routines of primary school start. I pray fervently that she would retain her innocence, naivete and zest for life even in the next chapter of her life.

Happy 6th birthday, my little baby girl!

My April Baby

Today, I celebrate a full decade of being a parent.

Today, I think back to that fateful day 10 years ago when I first cast my eyes on a tiny newborn and was overwhelmed by the immensity of responsibility over another life.

Today, I want to thank my firstborn for paving the way for an unwitting plunge into parenthood - the myriad joys and bountiful love speckled with little moments of bittersweet anxieties.

Happy birthday, Big Bee - what an amazing and phenomenal journey the past 10 years had been with you.

Looking forward to more decades ahead :)

*****************

Dearest Big Bee,

The short verse above was written in Facebook on your birthday. Was it just months ago when I first missed my period, and waited anxiously for the pregnancy indicator on that magic stick, only to be shell-shocked that I was pregnant with you - less than a year into your Papa's and my marriage? Was it just days ago when I saw you emerge from my swollen stomach, stunned, overwhelmed, my normally dry eyes brimming with dampness? Was it just moments ago when chubby you celebrated your first birthday, and started to walk? Was it just seconds ago that I could carry you in my arms wherever I went?

And now. Now. Look at you. A strapping young lady almost reaching my height. Instead of arms to lift you into my embraces, my arms surround you in a shoulder hug. Instead of a lap offered to a crawling you as a respite from all your large motor movements, we now sit in comfortable silence side-by-side, our hands - almost similar in size - in each other's laps. Instead of listening to your early evening colic cries, I now turn a listening ear to your daily gossips about school, teachers and friends. Instead of singing lullabies to you, I now chat with you as an adult, an equal, my friend.

Ten whole years.

These are uncountable seconds of boundless joy, love and happiness. Of course, there are also minutes draped in anxiety, in frustration, in tears, in anger. But most of all, these are hours that are indicative of a lifetime of eternal felicity with you, my first born.

An entire decade.

These are days of teaching me to be a first-time parent. For showing the way to nurture my (lack of) patience. For cultivating responsibility in a formerly bohemian me. For demonstrating to me what selfless love really is.

These are months of seeing my beautiful baby gradually but steadily transforming to an adorable and plump toddler, a sprightly yet reserved kindergardener, a level-headed and organised yet fun-loving primary school big kid.

An unbelievable decennium.

So, in this very instance, we are almost equals. I may nag at times. You may rant sometimes. I may be those typical kiasu and petty mums once in a while. You may seethe about how I don't treat you like a young independent lady. I may behave like a crazy teenager at times. And you. Oh my. My grown-up little girl. At those times, you do behave like you are the mother and I am the silly daughter. You are so judicious and mature.

But I hope you will understand that I am just trying my very best to let go and give way. Yet maintaining a precious bond of eternal friendship that means so much to me. Those little giggles. Those wonderful long chats over our solo lunch dates. Those beautiful moments when we just connected over raucous guffaws and exhilarating laughter. 

And I hope we can be the best of friends, till eternity.

A very happy decade of friendship and love to my firstborn. And you are just lovely by being no one but yourself. 

Big Bee from day 1 in her life to 10 years old. The numbers represent her ages through the years :) 

My Family, My Best Friends

Poor Big Bee had to go to school on her birthday, so I brought her for lunch in MacDonald's after school, together with a nice ice-cream session in another cafe. We then had a merry cake-cutting session with a delectable blackforest cake in the evening.

Being with a big girl is really wonderful - it felt like we are friends, and recently, we had been gossiping a whole lot. During our alone-time during my Saturday enrichment class cum lunch with her. During her little birthday lunch with me. At home in her bedroom. And she would gabble on about her friends, politics in class, teachers and the little pressures she faces in her studies. It felt just....marvelous that I had reached this amazing stage in my life when all I could do was sit back, relax with my daughter and just yak about everything under the sun.

Little Bee is fast approaching that stage too - she is now beginning to tell me more things about her school life and friends, being the chatty little girl that she is. But they are still child-like narratives - nothing like the 2-way conversations that Big Bee and I have. However, on one hand, I am faithfully counting down to the day when I could gossip with both my girls, yet, on the other hand, Hubby and I are reluctant to see Little Bee, our youngest baby, grow up. Life is full of strange, bittersweet dilemmas, isn't it?

With the Bees being big girls and able to chill out on their own, Hubby and I had been taking brief 15 to 20 minutes walk in the evenings, so we could hang out with each other, have a little private time and get in touch with ourselves again. What was most heartening in one of the walks was when he uttered that I am his best friend :)


Daughters - my good buddies. Hubby - my best friend. I hope this heartwarming stage of life will be perpetual...

April Delights

Life had been inexplicably hectic at work recently - with me averaging about 3 to 5 hours of sleep nightly. It is getting harder to juggle motherhood and working life, but I refused to be daunted. Furthermore, there are little blessings in life this month - for it is both Hubby's and Big Bee's birthdays!

As we grow older, we prefer to keep our birthday celebrations more and more simple. And this is the same for Big Bee too. When I asked her how she would like to celebrate her birthday this year, she said she would rather spend a quiet birthday with us, and not involve her friends, unlike her big bash last year.

So, we woke up bright and early on Hubby's birthday to have a simple yet heartwarming breakfast by the pool. As the Bees grow older, we find it so easy to just sit back, relax and observe the little interactions of our 2 big girls, letting them run the show, leaving Hubby and I in the backseat. Today's breakfast comprised of scrumptious soon kueh and mouth-watering fa-gao. We munched on good food, observed the shimmering ripples of the pool and admired the verdant greenery around us. Lovely quality family time.

Breakfast by the pool with the Bees

We then plunged into the pool for a little swim, before hurrying off to The Line at Shangri-La Hotel with Hubby's family for an overwhelming buffet lunch. The food in The Line was just.too.much! And I thought it was crazily expensive and not worth its value. However, Big Bee had been bugging me to go there for its chocolate fountain, after reading about it in someone's blog, so I thought this would be a wonderful chance to bond over food with Hubby's family as well.

They were hardly away from this chocolate fountain for long!

We were also lucky that there was a roaming balloon sculptor who created a cute little flower for Little Bee and an amazingly impressive bouquet of balloon flowers - complete with a bow! - for Big Bee, whose birthday was imminent!

We ended off a rather long day with a lazy and peaceful dinner at our favourite Italian restaurant in a charming area, a relaxing trip to the library and completed the day with Hubby blowing his (all-too-many) candles on his cake!

I really love weekends like these :)

Birthday Chronicle

As Little Bee's 5th birthday approaches next month, she has beautiful memories of her birthday party with her best friends and has stopped asking me what else I have planned for her 5th birthday. 

A couple of days after her birthday party, she wrote a sweet-sounding journal entry in her diary, and I thought it encapsulated all that she felt, minus all those bombastic vocabulary words that adults use - which makes her little entry all the more endearing. 

In case the image is not clear, here was what she had written, with spelling help from me. 

"Today, I had my 5th birthday party. All my friends from my class came. My favourite part is putting make-up on my face. I am very happy because I have lots of presents."

She experimented with using some squiggly decorative fonts and cursive handwriting, hence some parts may be illegible. She drew the large, twirling and twinkling disco ball, the long catwalk runway, her birthday cake and her friends in her diary.  

As she approaches her 5th year in life, I could also sense her gradual maturity and cynicism, much like Big Bee now. This is evident in a conversation with Little Bee today: 

Little Bee: Mummy, who gives us all those presents under the Christmas tree? (she refers to all the anonymous presents under the tree that I always claimed were from Santa Claus, haha)

Me (looks at her with big, quizzical eyes): You should know the answer to that, right?

Little Bee: Is it Santa Claus?

Me: (nodded hesitantly, wondering if I should tell her the truth right now!)

Little Bee: (looking cynically at me) But, Mummy, there is no Santa Claus, right? Is he real?

Me: (dumbfounded and still undecided if I should tell her the truth, so decided to throw the question back to her!) What do you think?

Little Bee: NOOooooo....he is not real, he is just a fantasy! 

Me: (decided not to pull her leg anymore) Yes...you are right, Santa Claus is a fantasy figure!

I do miss my sweet, little innocent and naive babes :( 

However, that being said, the girls (even Big Bee!) still enjoy the thrill of receiving presents from "Santa Claus" - they will usually each receive a couple of mysteriously wrapped presents with unfamiliar handwriting of their names on the presents, and the sign-off of "S" - hmmm, I wonder who that would be? ;) 

A Diva's Party

After Little Bee's 4th birthday party last year, with all her childhood playmates and cousins around her, she told me she wanted a 5th birthday party with all her best friends from school. Throughout the year, she would give me suggestions on the type of birthday party she wanted, and the 2 topmost on her list was: 1) a party with a gigantic bouncy castle, after seeing her jie-jie's 8th birthday party or 2) a fashion party! 

I thought a fashion party would be really fun for someone vivacious like Little Bee, after attending a similar party that Big Bee's friend organised when they were 6. 

Which was why we decided on a fashion party fit for a diva to celebrate Little Bee's 5th birthday. And we organised it a month earlier because we wanted to catch all the little kids before school closes for the holidays.

All ready to rock and roll! 

 

Party touches - no prizes for guessing the party theme, which was decided by Little Bee!

So, on November 6, we threw a bash alongside the great folks from Curly and Spike with a glamorous makeover party. All the girls from Little Bee's class were thrilled!

The transformation of Little Bee...

However, the 2 boys who turned up were a wee bit bored, although they could still get their hair done up. On hindsight, I should have organised more activities for the boys like racetrack building and lego assembling etc. 

The scene from outside the salon was one of organised chaos - 12 kindergarten kids sitting in different makeover stations, having their nails painted, their faces made up prettily with lashes drenched in smouldering mascaras, their hair curled into the latest princess fashions and or styled in a hip colour like green or red for the boys! 

There was also an art and craft table for the kids to work on woodblock decorations while waiting for their turns, although I would appreciate more attention from a party coordinator for this (I had to eventually turn craft teacher for the kids, and had to ask Big Bee to be my assistant!).

Big Bee didn't look too pleased at having to babysit so many little kids, but she did a great job that day!

Big Bee, being the cool tween, only got her nails painted and spent the whole party being the official photographer, just like her daddy! It was also an excellent opportunity for her to get to know her little sister's good friends, just like how her sister had gotten to know many of her friends!  

The highlight of the party was definitely the sizzling photoshoot with solo photos for individual fashionistas and an enamoring group photo as well as a dreamy fashion parade. The photoshoot was straightforward, with the stylists honing the photographic modelling skills of the kids - they each had to pose in different mannerisms in front of their gleeful classmates but all of them excelled in the art of photographic modelling!

I was absolutely delighted with the enchanting fashion parade! I opted for a slow-tempo music, and once the quixotic music wafted through the speakers, the lights dimmed, the disco ball overhead threw chimerical and bewitching fairy lights all around the room and the runway lit up with enthralling spotlights! 

The parents of all the kids were imbued with much excitement, and were so busy snapping photos of their strutting kids on the runway that we resembled the ubiquitous paparazzi on red carpets in show business!

Being the birthday girl, Little Bee had the opportunity to sashay down the runway multiple times, partnering each of her little guests. She looked shy yet bold, demure and daring. Being the convivial girl that she is, she was probably adoring all the lavish attention on her! 

All in all, Little Bee and her friends were really thrilled and elated with the party. The girls were posing and swaggering like superstars, and the boys - albeit a wee tad more shy - were displaying really cool stances during the photoshoots! I heard from the parents thereafter that they had difficulty getting their girls to wash off their curls and makeup! 

Best friends forever??

More importantly, Little Bee was surrounded by all the little kids who are her best friends - pals whom she spends every day in school with, over the past 2 years. I hope she will find this birthday party as memorable as it is for me :) 

The divas belting out the birthday song

My Little Baker

July 30 marked the first of many consecutive weekend birthday parties that the girls would be attending - all the way till end August! On this day, Little Bee was invited to a baking party - her first! - for her classmate HY's birthday. 

With birthday girl HY

My 2 girls relish in making homemade cards for their friends, and here is one for HY! 

Little Bee, being the gregarious creature that she is, had been looking forward to this good friend's party the entire week! So, it was no wonder that she was hopping about excitedly, with zealous anticipation, the entire morning before the party. 

I love baking parties because typically, parents would not be allowed into the premises during the initial process for hygiene reasons. Hence, I was able to go for more an hour's shopping around the premises, while waiting for Hubby and Big Bee to join us after her usual classes. 

Eventually, I went to peep at Little Bee, and was proud to see her meandering around different friends and the baking instructor in full confidence and ease. I guess I could throw this little girl anywhere and she could survive on her own! 

With her best friend, Sara, and her beloved jie-jie

It was truly gratifying and a wee bit bittersweet to see my little one giggling and chuckling with her friends, frowning in concentration when it was time to ice the cupcakes, munching away on snacks while fooling around with good friends, and singing the birthday song heartily in her booming loud voice. 

With her 2nd best friend (in her own words) Chloe

My little one has indeed grown up, ready to join the ranks of her big sister...and now where would that leave me? Sigh. 

Hard at work lathering the icing on the cupcakes

Big Bee joined her little sister and provided her with some help during the icing of the cupcakes. It was beautiful to stand aside and observe the dynamics between the 2 of them - their teamwork, their mentor-student relationship, their cute little chats, and their little scuffles now and then! 

It was amusing to see Little Bee totally ignorant to the baking instructor's directions when helping to decorate her friend's birthday cake, and sprinkled rainbow rice and sugared hearts on the cake a few more times than was allowed. I guess it would take her some time to learn and understand the rules of establishment, being the maverick that she is now. 

In any case, it was a novel and meaningful idea for the kids to take turns decorating the main birthday cake with little sugared trinkets and rainbow rice. 

In all, we had a fun-filled afternoon in the party, and certainly looked forward to more of such parties to come! 

I must say these cupcakes were absolutely delicious!!!