Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

As parents, I feel we all are in need of good and positive parenting-related reminders.

Well at least I know I do.

There’s still so much that I need to learn and I’m always happy to read (or hear from others) about such constructive inputs.

With that in mind, I plan to post regular parenting tips and thoughts that I myself find useful (to remember and apply), especially as I go through my daily adventures as parents to my two little ones.

These inputs may come from the books / sites I’ve read, sermons I’ve heard, or simply from my own personal thoughts that I’d like to share.

And of course, do feel free to comment, leave your own thoughts and tips too on the comment section yeah!

Last march I shared an article which I wrote for the Finder magazine – it was on birthday party planning tips and ideas.

This month, as part of their school holiday theme, I share a list of local places that families can visit together!

Click here to read the article.

Anyway, the June issue is out! And with this issue, you’ll get a supplementary ‘Just 4 Kidz’ little booklet too!

Go go … and grab your free copy!

Like most Asians, I eat rice every single day. Like, about once or twice a day.

And so do my kids. For obvious reasons.

AND frankly, however silly it may sound, I can’t help but feel they haven’t eaten a filling and ‘proper’ meal IF they haven’t had any rice for their lunch or dinner!

[As a parent, do you feel that way btw? Just curious about how other parents feel about this ‘rice’ thing]

Anyway. I recently decided to try something different.

We had SALAD for lunch.

Yes. JUST salad.

Before Anya started eating she even asked, ‘Mommy, is this IT?’, to which I enthusiastically replied, ‘YUP! Nice and healthy vegetables!’

Each of us had a bowl of broccoli and corn (lightly boiled), lettuce, tomatoes and eggs, with a little bit of mayonnaise.

Anyway. The kids ate without complaints. They managed to finish only about 80% of what’s in their bowl though.

Not a bad start to eating more greens on a regular basis, I reckon.

Oh btw, you may want to check these links out to read more on putting more greens on our table:

> The Green Parent

> Easy salad recipes

> Salad – the cook’s thesaurus

The weather was warm, but as it’s still the school holiday, we decided to brave ourselves under the scorching sun and went to Sentosa’s Palawan beach today. Together with quite a few  determined-to-have-fun moms and kids.

We bought the monorail tickets from Vivo City, level 3 (S$3 / person, and kids under 3yo are free), and from Sentosa island (we all got off at ‘Beach station’), we took a 1-minute shuttle bus to Palawan Beach.

There’s a food court there (Koufu), which was fantastic because it made lunch time arrangements for us and the kids MUCH easier. And as it has some waterplay area too, I feel Palawan Beach is somewhat better than Siloso Beach. I guess it’s because Palawan Beach is simply more catered to ‘families’ with young kids.

Anyway, we had fun and went home with a nice TAN!

If you’ve never been to Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden (part of the Singapore Botanic Gardens), then you may want to check this place out with your kids.

Though the whole area itself is not that big, every time the kids visit the place, they always enjoy their waterplay there.

[Oh fyi, they’ve removed the three metal water pumps – for safety reason perhaps? – as well as the ‘shower head’ that used to be between the sand and waterplay area. And instead, they now provide a few green plastic watering cans for the kids to play with]

Oh anyway. We were there yesterday from 10.30am till 2pm (and yes, I think we all went home with a nice sun tan!)

They have a little cafe near the entrance and so we all had our lunch there (the kids had their packed meals, and I tried out its sausage spaghetti – which was surprisingly quite nice)

And oh, we checked out their treehouse as well.

Other than sandplay (note: not that much of it there though), the kids had fun going up and down the slides!

Yup, it was another nice day out!

* As you can tell, I’m SO enjoying this school holiday! Heh. *

I still remember the day when I had to say goodbye to all my friends in Jakarta and went with my Mom to Perth.

I was only 14 then and I was NOT happy about going to an Australian all-girls school. The thought of leaving my friends behind and going to a foreign country was just beyond what I’ve ever imagined at the time.

After some time, things turned out differently though, and I ended up enjoying 9 years of my stay there.

Going through high school and university days. Making lots of friends. Having fun. Being silly. Growing up.

And oh, it’s where my hubby and I got hooked on each other too. Heh.

…

Now it’s been more than 9 years since we left Perth for good. And when Wilson went to Perth last week for a pre-wedding photo shoot, he came back with lots of shots and stories of the city.

How it’s now SO different compared to the time when we both were still there. How it’s a much busier city now with lots of developments going on too.

Just looking at his photos made me miss the city all over again.

Walking down its white sand beach. Taking my dogs out for our daily walk at a nearby park. Eating Vietnamese ‘broken rice’ along William Street. Hanging out near the ‘Post Office’ on Hay Street. Driving out to Mandurah at midnight together with our friends for our fishing and crabbing trips.

And for some reasons, I even miss looking right up to its clear blue sky.

Ah. I so want to go back.

And when that time comes, it’ll be with our two little ones running along ahead of us.

That’ll be refreshing!

[Photo info]
From the top: Perth CBD, North Bridge, Sorrento Quay and its seagulls, Cottesloe Beach. All taken by Wilson.