the boy with mature tastes

cos it's the school holidays, we've taken the kids out a bit more lately. in particularly, we've visited the nearby cafe cartel a couple times after 9pm cos pastas are one-for-one and with the 2 pasta monsters we're raising, that's one heck of a deal!

and that's where jeremy was introduced to the concept of dipping bread in olive oil.

after trying bread with butter and later with olive oil, jem pronounced that he liked the olive oil one better. and when asked why, he said "because it tastes and smells nicer!"

recently, i bought a package of smoked salmon. jem lapped it up! every now and then, when he sees me rooting around in the fridge, he'll ask if there's more smoked salmon he could have...

i played a nice jazz cd earlier today. guess what? jeremy came and told me that he liked the music cos "it's very pretty".

all this coming from a 3+ year old. ha!

well i guess i should've known that jem's got "atas" taste. i still vividly remember an incident that took place when he was about 8 months old.

jeremy was (and sometimes still is) a terror to feed cos he didn't really like to eat. on this occasion, we were over at my mom's for dinner. he had turned his nose up at the porridge we had brought - a tasty salmon porridge cooked with ikan bilis and carrot stock - and refused to take a bite. upon seeing her precious grandson determined to "fast", my mom decided to cook him some porridge. using some of the abalone chicken soup we were gonna have for dinner!

jeremy devoured every last grain of that porridge and wanted seconds. unbelievable!

carissa's album cover?

jia took the kids out to the nearby field the other day and snapped this pic. at the risk of sounding immodest, doesn't this look like one of those music album covers?:oP

perhaps, just for laughs, i should record one of carissa's birthday song renditions and make an album with this pic as the cover...

birthday song

carissa recently learnt to sing the birthday song and she's been repeating it over and over lately. perhaps she knows her birthday is just round the corner? :o)

anyway, she's been inserting *everyone*'s name in the song. and when she ran out of names after singing for the umpteenth time in a row, she gave me a pleasant surprise by replacing the name with "happy birthday", just like in those generic birthday song tracks! i wonder where she got the idea...

too hot!

what should we do when we want to go kite-flying but the sun is too blazing hot?

jem's solution: fly the kite from the car with the aircon on.

and here's a pic from a day when it *wasn't* too hot to go kite-flying taken by jia... do you see the 3 "dots" in the sky behind jeremy? those are kites! :o)

passport problems

the ILs' helper, also our former helper, returned to philippines for her home leave. and on her return, she encountered some passport issues that held her up at SG's customs. when she finally got back, jeremy said this to her:

"Lina jie jie, how come you cannot come out of the airport? Your passport spoil? I cannot pick you up from the airport cos I don't have passport!"

sometimes i really wonder how the boy's mind works...

carissa & the moon

we were in the car, on the way home from my mom's place when carissa exclaimed "moon there!!"

jem couldn't see the moon cos of where he was seated and asked "where? where??"

carissa pointed to the moon in her view and said, "there!!!"

this exchange was repeated another 2 or 3 times before jeremy said, "but i can't see it!!"

carissa responded, resignedly, "ok..."

just then, the car turned and the moon was out of carissa's sight.

suddenly bereft, carissa let out a plaintive, "moon?? where are you????"

at this point, it was all i could do to try to stifle my giggles.

something that struck me from this exchange: carissa knows how to "appease" her bro. i'm referring to jeremy's repeated "where??" and how carissa decided to let it go and say something so jeremy would let it go too. the start of diplomacy? ;o)

mime

carissa tried to tell me that she was upset earlier today. for some reason, i couldn't make out that she was trying to say "upset". i thought she meant upstairs or understand. finally, she pointed to her face, said "like this!" and pulled her lower lip out.

well that sure worked. i got it in one.

carissa & potty training

a video taken shortly after the prayer one.

i jinxed myself. after the breakthrough, carissa did pretty well, potty-training wise. but suddenly, she decided that visiting the toilet wasn't all it cracked up to be or something and reverted to wetting her pants. *sigh*

i know for sure that she understands wet pants are a no-no (see vid) but it sure hasn't stopped her! bleah!

carissa prays

this was taken early this month.



as with jeremy, we started getting carissa to repeat the words after us and a couple of days later she could do it all by herself. less than a week after she could say grace independently came the incident where she thanked God for her pretend meal. :o)

minutes before daddy's home

craned necks, boredom, finally elation at seeing daddy. plus a midnight snack at their next favourite guy's place, mcdee's that is. the kids were absolutely delighted to bits.

parents' day

with the lousy timing of YE's trip, he had to miss our first parents' day at jem's school yesterday. which is why i have so many pics of the event! ;o)

we parked the car at my mom's and made the short walk over to school together. for some reason, jeremy got an extra kick that day from the fact that his school is so near popo's house. perhaps the idea of walking to school was a novel one?

when we got there, he excitedly pointed his teachers and friends out to me. he showed me his displayed artwork.

here's one of a bug-eyed me. jeremy told me proudly that he specially selected the pink bow for me "cos you like pink".

but his stint as my tour guide ended very quickly cos it was way more fun to go play and chat with his friends! here jeremy's playing with his toy fire truck with rachel.

here's a friend of jeremy's, gabriel, hamming it up with him for the camera!

the photographer being photographed.

both boys finally taking a breather.

all his teachers said jeremy's doing great in school in pretty much all areas. they did note that we could to work on improving his attention span. (haha, good luck to us!)

all in all, i had a great day. it was good seeing jeremy so comfortable and happy in school. :o)

cakes!

speaking of birthdays, have i mentioned that YE's youngest sis is into cake-making? this is the cake she made for YE's early bday celebration - isn't it cute!?


check out jia en's other creations at her cake blog!

happy birthday daddy!

since we can't be with YE on his birthday, we've came up with the next-best option. the wonders of technology eh? :o)

yet another business trip

YE's off to australia tomorrow for a week. what sucks even more this time is he'll have to spend his birthday there. bleah!

i thought of hopping on a plane to surprise him on his birthday but his schedule's pretty packed and he'll be moving between states around the time of his birthday. so it'll be a logistics nightmare if i do go. that coupled with the ~$1K air tickets (even with budget airlines!) and the pricey accommodation (cos this is a low-budget trip and YE will have to share rooms with someone else in the delegation), i've pretty much given up on that idea.

the birthday boy(?) seems to have taken all this in his stride though. as YE put it, he's just growing a year older and 33's not one of those "milestone" birthdays... well if he says so. and it's the thought that counts right?

building, then ironing.

remember jeremy's "luggage"?

it's actually a construction set.

and this is what jem did with it (with some help from YE and the manual):

万事俱备，只欠东风

before i launch into this anecdote, here's some background info. carissa's seriously into play-cooking. which works great for us now that we're toy-sitting a kitchen set that we've gotten for the toddler's room at church which is being created.

we also have a little table where the kids can sit to do some craft and the like. it's a pretty lightweight table so the kids can shove it to any position they desire. it's generally kept a position that's a distance away from the toy kitchen.

today carissa pushed the kids' table closer to the kitchen all by herself so that she'd have more 'worktop space'. she moved her pots and pans to the table and proceeded to cook up a storm. when she was done, she moved everything to our coffee table.

she laid out her culinary creations, said grace (which i found so adorable!), proclaimed "吃!" and started to eat.

that's when she realised her spoon was missing and carissa exclaimed, perplexed, "spoon?? spoon where?!"

lamp switch

notwithstanding carissa's issues at bedtime, she switches off like a lamp too. just take the other day, carissa sang drunkenly for a rather long time in her car seat before she announced "mummy i tired!"

to which i replied, "ok, go to sleep then."

2 seconds later, i turned around and found her fast asleep.

if only that happens at home everyday, sans singing! :o)

if i can't go on vacation...

... then i'll just have to make believe!

is this boy obsessed with luggage or what?

boy i'm glad i don't live in NYC!

came across the following article today. scary ain't it? US$20K per annum for preschool? i'm pretty sure my university education cost less.

Is Nursery School Harder To Get Into Than Harvard?

While peering through the glass of a hospital nursery, Tony Pratofiorito carefully watched his newborn daughter Juliana. He'd been waiting nine months for her to arrive, and he couldn't have been happier. But, that moment of elation turned into concern when someone standing behind him asked about his daughter's nursery school prospects--twice.

The question may seem odd to a parent outside of New York City, but it's a serious one for Gothamites like Pratofiorito. The documentary Nursery University tells the story of five couples--each with different backgrounds and economic circumstances--anxiously scrambling to place their toddlers in exclusive New York City preschools with limited space and price tags upwards of $20,000 a year.

The admissions process alone would give anyone heart palpitations. Some parents are willing to go the distance to get their little darlings into these Ivy League "feeder schools" no matter what the cost.

In Nursery University, the Upper West Side Pratofioritos; Ivy League-educated Roderick and Heidi Moon; Greenwich Village residents Wyatt and Sneha Sprague; Harlem bartender Kris Ashton and his wife Kim; and single parent Aleta St. James all played the admissions game fair and square, speed-dialing the Big Apple's top-notch nursery schools the day after Labor Day for a chance at obtaining the limited applications. They were most often met by a busy signal on the other end.

To help them prepare, some hired high-priced consultants ($4,000 for seven sessions) to assist in navigating the six-month-long admissions process and face-to-face interviews. Others could only cross their fingers and pray they made a good impression.

In a city where the number of children under age five has increased 30 percent since 2000, the admissions process can truly be compared to the stresses of gaining admission to the Ivy League. The nursery program at the highly sought-after Mandell School has an admission rate of 10 percent, compared to Harvard's 7 percent--but unlike Harvard, Mandell puts a cap on the number of applications it will accept. They will only look at 120 applications for 12 available spots. In 2009, Harvard received 29,112 applications and admitted 2,046 students. It's a tough world out there, and the little ones are getting a taste of it at a pretty early age!

As admission rates decrease at top-notch colleges, getting into a prime nursery program becomes much more important. As their kids grow up in a culture driven by pressure and success, it's understandable that parents will do whatever it takes to ensure their children receive the best education possible. Can you blame them?

Of course, not every mother has to jump through hoops to get her child into a good nursery program, but sometimes it does require a little sacrifice. Even though the admissions process wasn't as tough twentysomething years ago, my mother still stood in line at 6 a.m. with other moms vying for a spot into the best nursery school in town.

Have you gone out of your way to get your child into nursery school? If so, leave a comment and tell us about it.Nursery University premieres Sunday, May 10, 2009 on Showtime. Check your local listings for show times.

Christine Petrozzo Associate Producer, Momtourage

carissa's midnight mischief

carissa has the tendency to give us problems at bedtime ever since she was born. that's how we get videos taken at midnight like this one.

generally she does one of these 3 things:

• refuse to go to bed

• sleep for a bit, wake up & hang out with us if we're up (she's a great power napper - i remember how our US cell group friends would say how great it was that she'd sleep during CG only to be told that carissa would be wide awake by the time we got home at about 10 or 11pm!)

• or she'd pull the stunt she did last night

last night she pushed open our door and squinted at the light. she looked at me and had the audacity to grin. she pushed the door open all the way, tottered over to our bed, climbed in and made herself comfortable. THEN she hid her face in my pillow to avoid looking at me.

to prevent such incidents, we've tried shutting our door. all we got in return were "don't close the door all the way!!" howls from *both* kids. for some weird reason, they've got this thing about not wanting us to shut our door. *sigh*

does anyone know how we can deal with this?! i hate waking up to elbows and knees jabbed in my back!