children – miyagi.sg

Arc Children’s Centre

We were very happy to support Arc Children’s Centre during the run of Hossan-Ah: Celebrating 20 Leong Years.

If you didn’t manage to catch the show, Arc Children’s Centre provides a safe environment for children suffering from terminal illnesses and who cannot attend regular school or activities like other healthy kids.

They have a 2000sf place in Balestier where these kids are provided with activities and education. The children’s families are also provided with support – especially if they’re from non-English/Mandarin speaking backgrounds.

Do check them out and learn more about what they do. And if you’re able to in any capacity, help them out.

What Kai does when you give him 20 cents

I guess you could say we’ve taught our son a couple of good things.

This was shot at Basement 1 of Paragon. To be fair, if it were at the fifth floor, the money would have gone towards a Barney ride.

Milestones

Kai pooped in his potty. Not once, but twice and almost three times.

He missed his hattrick only because I was busy putting the dishes in the sink and he went in his diaper before I could sit him down.

Then there’s the reading. About a week ago, he started reading the letters on his alphabet biscuits completely unprompted. He doesn’t get every letter right, and insists on calling the letter “O” a “zero”. We’ll fix that later.

And, unlike his famously monolingual father, he’s learned to count in Mandarin and English. And unlike his famously sinophobic father, he counts better in Mandarin.

Then there’s his teaching Grandma how to play Angry Birds. She can’t get over how well this 22 month old boy manipulates the iPad.

And when it’s time for bed, he carries his two favourite soft-toy friends – a monkey (which he calls Tarting) and a dinosaur (Didotaur) – says goodnight, and then walks to his room and to his cot, waiting to be carried into it.

We are so proud. But we also did ask him one night before giving him Tarting and Didotaur, to stay a baby for a while more, and not grow up so quickly.

Underground children’s apparel mall

We’re in an underground mall that holds several hundred shops selling all manner of kids’ clothes.

If you don’t hear from us again, tell the others.

Useful Christmas Gifts #5: Walking With Dinosaurs

When he heard there was a show called Walking With Dinosaurs, a wiseacre I know said, “Hey, isn’t that when you join the entourage of a PAP MP election walkabout?”

I didn’t have much high hopes for it to be an entertainment highlight of our weekend either, but if you were to have seen our baby boy’s delight in watching what he calls “Didotaur” in action, you might just feel that the price of admission is worth it. (Tickets range from $38 – $148 for this 100min show).

Kai even sat in his seat through intermission, chanting, “Didotaur” for the whole 15 minutes. We had to go and buy him a Didotaur soft toy later because he kept signing (we taught him sign) for “more” after we left the arena.

So if you know of anyone with kids who don’t know what to do this weekend, buy them tickets.