The Apple Does Not Fall Far From Its Tree

I was observing my girl in her many mannerisms one day and I thought to myself, "hey that's very familiar... where have I seen that before?" And then suddenly I realised, "Omg... that's me!"

We were waiting for our food at Dome (next to Isetan Scotts) when I subconsciously put my hand under my chin and tapped the table with my fingers. I looked over at my girl and she was doing the exact same thing yet I did not immediately connect the dots! I thought it was really funny =)

Children are really like your mirror. You have to be the best person you can be simply because your children are a reflection of you.

Linking Up With:

 

Jolly Lollibox

Received a package at the door from Lollibox!

Girl can't wait to open the box!

The cheerful and brightly coloured Lollibox is full of crafts for children 3-7 years old and this month's theme was Itsy Bitsy Bugs.

Itsy Bitsy Bugs

A super cute button with every box; collect them all! =)

There are different crafts revolving around the bugs theme found inside the box and packaged neatly into different bags (you know me, neat is always good :P).

Different activities in different bags

We decided to work on the firefly first, simply because we thought it was cool! =)

Fun With Firefly

Detailed instructions manual

I like that the instructions manual came with pictures in full colour so that even if you were too lazy to read the words, you could easily put the craft together. Following the instructions, I helped my girl to attach the legs of the firefly on the green bottle. Her job was simple: press down the clear tape after I had positioned it in place.. no problem =)

Attaching the legs of the firefly

Next, it was the sticking of the eyes and side decorations with glue. Although she was too clumsy to stick them on by herself (as they were pretty tiny), she was able to help me with the dispensing of the glue.

Squeezing the glue onto the eyes

I wanted her to be as involved in the project as possible so I got her to choose where she wanted the pieces of decoration to go. And after we attached the wings, our firefly was completed!

Yay, I do one!
(Singlish for "I did this")

Close up on her finished firefly

And the coolest part of this whole project, it can actually glow in the dark! Way cool!

Effect done by breaking a light stick and inserting it into the bottle

What's a firefly if it can't glow in the dark right? =)

So far so good, we really like the crafts. It was bright, cheery, cute and creative. The materials provided were also of good quality. We didn't have time to finish the rest so I decided to keep them for another boring day at home =)

If you like what you see, you may want to subscribe to their 3, 6 or 12 months subscription and receive a welcome kit absolutely free!

Welcome kit which includes a Kids Scissors and Kids PVA craft glue

I used them and can assure you that they are of very good quality. The craft glue in particular held the pieces of plastic to the bottle really well after it was given adequate time to dry, which to me was not easy to accomplish with any ordinary glue.

If you would like to give LolliBox a try, great news! LolliBox is giving ONE lucky reader one free box!

All you need to do is:
1) Like MadPsychMum on Facebook, if you have not already
2) Leave a comment on this post on the activities you like to do with your child

Hurry! This giveaway ends on 10th Feb 2013 (Sunday) and is only applicable to readers living in Singapore. Good luck! =)


UPDATE:
Sorry for the delay! We've finally picked a winner..

Drew lots the old-fashioned way as usual

Our winner!! =)

Congrats! LolliBox will be contacting you soon.


Disclosure: A complimentary LolliBox was received from LolliBox Singapore for the purposes of this review and giveaway. No monetary compensation was received; all opinions are my own.

Of Bridesmaids & Flower Girls

The day I've been looking forward to has finally come.. my BFF's wedding!

To make sure that we were not late for her big day (we had to arrive at her place at 4am!), some of us stayed over at her house the day before.

The next morning all of us actually managed to wake up, despite having only slept for 3.5 hours.

The bride & her bridesmaids, all looking pretty at 6am in the morning! =)

The mother of the bride was a great host to us, preparing sumptuous breakfast to start us off for the busy day ahead. Breakfast is served!

Lovingly prepared by the mother of the bride and her helper

The bride specifically asked for a classy gate-crash, which meant no weird concoctions that could give the groom and his entourage a stomachache and definitely no obscenity. We agreed as we wanted to put as little effort into the preparation as possible. So we ended up with some song and dance number since the groom is tone deaf & has two left feet. Should be challenging enough for him right? ;P

Preparation of the shakers for the song and dance

For those of you who are not familiar with Chinese matrimonial customs, it is customary that before the groom picks the bride from her home, he is to go through a series of "tests" set by the bridesmaids to test his determination and sincerity in marrying the bride. At each stage, he will also be pestered to give many ang pao (red packets) to show his sincerity.

We felt that only having song and dance was probably letting the man off too easily so we concluded the 35min "games" with a final segment where he had to answer a few questions. If he got the answer wrong, they had to do a forfeit. If he got it right, they will receive 2 cubes, 1 of which might contain the key to her room.

Frozen coffee/ coke, one of which contained the key to the bride's room

We didn't give them the correct cup of course so that meant they had to finish all the "drinks" *laughs*. We were supposed to torture them with more but couldn't as we didn't have time since the groom had to meet the bride at a very specific auspicious hour (7.05am!).

After some phototaking with the gorgeous bride, it was time for the couple to head off for their traditional tea ceremony at the groom's place.

The pretty bride on her way to the groom's

In the meantime, the rest of us were on our way to the church to decorate the hall and the reception area.

I was the decor i/c as usual and the colour theme was orange and electric blue. The bride also wanted organic elements which were both pocket and environmentally friendly. We finally settled on oranges and rice dyed blue for the decor of the reception area and welcome table.

Left: Orange and blue rice centerpiece for individual tables
Right: Banner made by printing on and stringing up A4 paper =)

The welcome table

Arrangement of oranges done by the bride's mum to wish the couple happiness and prosperity

It's not what you will typically expect of wedding decor but it was fun, different and completely reflected the personality of the bride. The oranges were even brought home to be made into orange juice at the end of the day so that none of them were wasted! =)

Side table with the wedding photos

There were massive jams on the expressways as a result of the constant rain the whole morning hence the hubby arrived at the church later than expected. Nevertheless, baby girl was all excited to get started!

Our family photo inside the church

As the other flower girl had also arrived, the 2 of them rehearsed their walk one last time before the big march down the aisle. My instructions to my girl were clear: walk and throw!

The lovely bride and her flower girls

When it finally came time to walk down the aisle, my girl was surprisingly unafraid of the cheering crowd and ambled confidently while throwing a few petals as she went. Looks like all our practice really paid off! *laughs*

And after the exchange of vows and signing of the marriage certificates, they were finally officially husband and wife! Congratulations! =)

Introducing Mr & Mrs X

After the matrimony, we headed home to rest for a bit before heading out to Raffles Town Club for the dinner banquet. We recycled most of the decor in the day for the night to get more use out of it =)

Bridesmaids in charge of the welcome table

Centerpiece created from the flowers used to decorate the aisle of the church in the morning

Guestbook decorated by me! =)

After the couple and my girl had one last rehearsal in the restaurant, the bride bent down to speak to my girl at her level and she immediately followed suit. It was a really funny sight!

Flower girl see, flower girl do

And then it was time for the march in! This was only her 2nd time but she did it as if she has done it many times before (she's only 2.5 years old by the way)!

Other than being a little taken aback by the dry ice, she paved the way like a pro! Definitely one of my proudest moment as a mother yet! *exuberant beam*

We had a fun time at the dinner, eating, talking and even poking fun at the bride and groom. One of the bridesmaids and I even hosted a special segment where we asked the couple extremely personal questions and if they did not get the same answer, they were supposed to do a forfeit. Even though it was supposed to be very embarrassing, I could tell they had lots of fun =)

The starter dish

The bridesmaids, all colour coordinated for the evening =)

This was one wedding I'm sure all of us will remember for a while, especially me, who has not stopped replaying the video again and again and showing it off to everyone who would listen! *grin*

So... flower girl for your wedding anyone? =P

Of Potties, Love & Self Esteem

Taken with my iPhone, apologies for the blur image!

My girl has reached that age where she's too innocent to be cheeky but yet also too smart to be considered completely innocent. Some of the things she does, I'm not even sure if it was intentional to drive us crazy or because she really didn't know better. Most probably the former *laughs*

Potty

Three days of constipation later...

Girlee: "See mummy!!"
Me (lying on the bed): "What?"
Girlee (shoves a potty full of poop within 5 inches of my face and beams proudly): "I poo poo already!!!" *super exuberance*
Me: "Oh my God! What the hell!!!" *gags*

It's times like this when you seriously don't know whether to be relieved or traumatized.. >_<


Love

Girlee: "I love you daddy.. sooo much!"
Hubby: "How much?"
Girlee: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5..."
Me: "Liddat only ah?"


Self-Esteem

Girlee (proudly): "Mummy, I pretty not?"
Me: "Always pretty!"
Girlee (shouts to 奶奶/ paternal grandmother): "Mummy says I'm pretty!"

The next day..

奶奶: "I pretty or not?"
Girlee: "Always pretty!"

Linking Up With:

Oh, You Can Print the Vaccination Record Online?

Just one of those things it would have been good to know before I made a trip to the polyclinic, parked our car and took a queue number.

The child care centre told us that we needed to get the vaccination record from the clinic for registration purposes so we made our way there one Saturday morning. When I arrived, the nurse then informed me that I could print it online and promptly stamped my girl's health booklet.

To print immunisation certificate, please go to: http://www.nir.hpb.gov.sg/

All you need is your IC number, Singpass password and child's identifying information (such as ID number).

It was really frustrating for 2 reasons:
1) the polyclinic could have stamped it on our first visit so that we knew!
2) the child care centre should have also informed us!

So anyway, it was a wasted trip after all and I thought I should let other parents know in case they are like me and don't. Although I'm quite sure your clinics/ child care centres should be more informative than ours.

P.S: In the end I couldn't print the immunisation certificate as apparently she has not completed all her vaccinations yet. I told the child care and they were like, "Oh is it? Nevermind then." I was like, "??" *sigh*

Update: I tried to print the certificate again and this time I was able to download the summary and print. I think I just lost precious minutes of my life with all the inefficiencies (-_-^)

Linking Up With:

My Girl's First Week of School

It's the day I wasn't all too excited about after the year turned 2013, my girl's first day at school alone!

And when I say "day", I really meant week as it was a long and heartbreaking process..

Day 1: 1st Day at Child Care (CC)

My mum-in-law was tasked with the job of bringing her to the child care centre because I thought I should catch up with work having been on medical leave for the last 2 days. I thought that since she would be accompanying my girl there, she should be ok. Bad move =(

It turned out that when all the other children were wailing their lungs out, it scared my girl so much that she started sobbing too. Her grandmother stayed with her for as long as she could and went home only during nap time after my girl has fallen asleep, exhausted from all the crying. When she returned 2 hours later, my girl had stopped crying and was so excited to go home!

I thought, "Well, that's that. Hopefully it will be better from now on." I was wrong of course.

Day 2: 1st Day at Preschool

Since she will be going to child care this year, we switched her weekday classes at the preschool that she has been attending twice a week for almost half a year to weekend instead. This is an independent class so parents were not allowed to be present.

I told her frankly that I was going to leave her there with the teacher, stay outside and then come back only after the class. Initially she had no response but then when it slowly dawned on her that she was going to be alone in the room, she started sobbing hysterically. I shook my head firmly, left the room and prayed that she will stop!

It was heartbreaking to hear her cries from outside the classroom but I knew that I had to let go so that she can learn how to be independent. The hubby and I hung around the mall but as I was too anxious to see how she was doing, we returned to her classroom 15 minutes before the class was scheduled to end. She had stopped crying by then and was all smiles. We were so proud of her and gave her an ice-cream as a treat =)

Day 3-4: 2nd & 3rd Day at CC

My mum-in-law called me and was literally in tears as she describe how she left my girl there and she started bawling her eyes out until it was red and swollen. She couldn't bear it and finally took our advice to go home. I finally decided to seek my supervisor's permission to work from home the following day as I feel I will do a better job of easing her in.

Day 5: 4th Day at CC

I'm working from home today so that I can send my girl to school personally and check in on her every 3 hours to make sure that she is ok. When she saw me in my shorts and T-shirt, she said, "Are we going gai gai (shopping)?" because that's how I dress during the weekends. I replied, "No. Mummy is bringing you to school today."

When we bade goodbye to her grandmother at the road, she thought we were going to her usual preschool. But when I informed her that I was taking her to her child care just across the road, she became very silent. The moment we walked through the gates of the CC, she immediately started crying. I was firm with her as usual, telling her to remove her shoes and show me where she puts her bag.

She stopped crying for a while when she saw that I entered the CC with her but started tearing up again when I said I was going to leave soon.

Finally I said to her, "Alright, last hug and last kiss. See you later, bye!" She burst into tears but managed to give me a weak wave as I walked out.

When I returned during lunch to check on her, she had stopped crying already and was actually laughing with her friends.

Later she got an ice cream as a treat again as promised =)

And Days After That..

It was the same routine: Tell her it's time for school, silence on the way there, crying at separation but was able to let go and wave goodbye.

On the bright side, crying at separation is actually good from a psychology perspective as it means she has developed a strong bond to her caregivers.

I suppose I will miss this clingy-ness one day when she tells me she doesn't need me anymore. Sigh.. The dilemma of motherhood.

An Unfortunate Encounter With a Swindler

My colleague recently share her story with me over lunch and I've invited her to share it here with everyone so that hopefully none of us will fall prey to similar scams in future. Stay safe everyone!

Photo credit: caddymob via photopin cc

Hi, I’m a colleague of Madeline and was asked to share about my personal experience with a suspected scam incident.

It was 12.30am; I had just finished killing zombies in the arcade and was "shooed" out of the building to the car park. After my usual search for the car, I drove out of Tampines Mall and saw a man walking down the exit slope. Wanting to avoid him, I manoeuvered the car away from him to allow him sufficient space to walk. However, I heard a loud bang at the back of the car but did not see the man when I checked my mirrors.

My friend, who was on the passenger seat, was completely oblivious to the presence of the man at this point. After alighting and checking the back of my car, I found the thin and frail man lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. The driver from the car behind mine came out to help and suggested that I informed the police but I thought the ambulance would be more appropriate since a police report would be made at the hospital anyway.

While speaking to the staff over the emergency hotline, the man suddenly spoke and requested for a lift to the nearest clinic. Thinking it would definitely be quicker for me to drive him to the hospital than to wait for an ambulance, I informed the staff on the line that I’ll drive the man to the A&E instead.

At this point, I was only worried for his safety and was afraid of touching him in case of any broken bones. Besides, he was also groaning in pain and looked really frail. I rejected his request to be taken to the nearest clinic as there wouldn’t be an x-ray machine and drove him to Changi General Hospital instead.

Then, my phone died and I felt lost, not knowing what to do. Thankfully, my friend had a hint of battery life on her phone and called one of our mutual friends, who was a doctor, over to help. Looking at the state of pain he was in, we requested for the nurses to attend to him as soon as they could as we were extremely worried that he could have serious injuries.

But right before his turn into the triage, he whispered to me, “Miss, can you please don’t say that you knocked me over but that I fell? I don’t want a police report and a scenario where we end up suing each other? Just pay for my medical bills and compensate me will do."

I told him not to worry and that I'll be honest with the doctors and nurses. Although I was worried that I’ll get demerit points and all but more than that, I was worried for his safety and blamed myself for being negligent.

His turn to the triage came quickly and he immediately requested for painkillers. Then, there came a dead giveaway. The senior nurse looked at him and commented, “This isn’t your first time here right?” to which he acknowledged.

Denser than iridium, I still did not understand what that meant. As we walked back to the waiting area, my doctor friend arrived. When the man found out that my friend was a doctor, he suddenly stood up from the wheelchair that he was sitting on and said he felt a lot better. Moreover, he vehemently refused to get an x-ray, insisting that he had gotten “professional opinion” that he did not have a fracture and that an x-ray would kill his cells. Obviously by "professional opinion" he meant my doctor friend but I swear, my friend said nothing of that sort!

He continued to refuse an X-ray even after much persuasion and asked for a specific brand of painkillers instead. It was about 3am in the morning so I wasn’t paying attention and did not catch the name of the painkiller. However the doctor rejected his request, stating that he did not need it and gave him an alternative painkiller instead.

At this point, I finally begun to realise what was really happening.

During payment, the man did not want me to pay the hospital directly and instead wanted me to pass the cash to him. Confused, we asked for his rationale. He explained that it was in case he required follow-ups at the polyclinics and wanted me to pay for all the follow-ups.

Having being to the polyclinics and A&E a few times for work and personal injuries, I knew that the polyclinic would require him to get an X-ray before treatment. Holding to our ground, we persuaded him to go for an x-ray at the hospital rather than the polyclinic as it would incur additional costs. He repeatedly refused while we repeatedly insisted.

Finally, after talking further to my doctor friend, he agreed to not hold me responsible for any future follow-up and that I only need to pay for the damages that day (my wise doctor friend even made the man sign an agreement that he wrote on a sheet of paper).

But as I was heading to the cashier to pay, the man stopped me and once again requested for cash. He then admitted that he was under MSW and could claim for the treatment so he wanted money. Anger struck me; I rejected his request, paid the cashier directly and demanded for copies of the receipts in order to get his details.

Then he mumbled something about his phone getting damaged in the incident and wanting compensation for it. I was already quite angry at that point so I took his phone and went to the nearest 7-11 (thank goodness my other friend knew where it was) to buy to exact model. He then mumbled about how he lost his Hi-card in the incident and wanted a compensation of $27, the value he claimed was in it. I refused and only gave the man $15, the cost of a typical Hi-card, only because 7-11 ran out of cards.

Then came the most ridiculous part. As we had his home address, we offered to send him home but he refused, claiming that he had to meet his friend as he lives alone and had nobody to look after him. We then offered to drive him to Tampines Mall since he had earlier claimed that he was on his way to meet his friend at the car park. But he rejected that as well and instead demanded that we drive him to Geylang Lorong 6. Even though it was close to 5 AM and we were all tired, we knew what that really meant. Already annoyed by the whole incident, I passed him $10, which was just enough for him to go home, and sent him off in a cab.

Having gone through so many things, the reality that this could be a scam didn’t strike me and I sat, crying till close to 7am with my friend, feeling guilty and angry at my recent spate of many events. It was only after analyzing the situation logically that my friend convinced me that I was not at fault.

Not wanting this event to occur again and wanting the social worker of this man to be informed, I made a police report the following day. Every single police officer at the station suspected it was a scam (imagine my relief) and as he did not manage to get much money from me, they could not lodged it as a cheating case. Not having the ability to contact his social worker as well, I’m sharing this story here hopefully to warn others and create awareness about such incidences.

~~~~~~~

Thanks Amber for sharing your story. That was a terrible experience indeed and I don't think I would have reacted as calmly as she did if it were me. I'm sure that such scams happen more often than we think so we should be on our guard in case it ever happens to us.

Organising Small Things

Small things are sometimes the hardest to organise. They are tiny so if you keep them too well, you either lose them or forget where you put them. On the other hand, not keeping them meant that they will cause a mess in your house, which you do not want either. So how do you organise small things?

Here's sharing my Top 3 Budget-Friendly Tips for organising smalls:

#1: Stackable Storage Boxes
I absolutely love the $2 boxes from Daiso! I use it to store everything from jewellery to nail polish to plasters because it is so handy to carry around and fits nicely into any drawer or shelf.

Top: Jewellery packed into individual zip-lock bags and partitioned neatly using cardboard
Bottom: Small first-aid box containing plasters, oils, etc.

Clockwise from left: Boxes of office supplies on our computer table; boxes of CDs & DVDs;
More boxes of jewellery, hairbands/ hair clips & sunglasses in my wardrobe

The transparency of the boxes also make it easier for you to immediately identify its contents without having to dig through it. If however you require bigger boxes which are not available at Daiso, you can get them at Japan Home for between $2.50-$15.

We got them for only $3.90 each =)

It's great for putting her Mega Blocs and Lego bricks, blue for the former and pink for the latter (it's me.. of course it's colour-coordinated *laughs*).

Just nice for her Lego bricks

Aren't they useful? =)

#2: Lots of Drawers
We bought IKEA's Trofast storage system for my girl's toys and love it for its easy functionality! It's exactly my girl's height so she can easily access her toys and put them back.

IKEA's Trofast system

One of the green trays used to contain my girl's growing collection of Play-Doh

This is her favourite tray to carry to the room and play with. To keep the individual items neatly, we bought (yet another) pink box from Daiso to put her little Play-Doh pieces. The other green box came with the Play-Doh set I bought, which contained moulds to make all kinds of food.

Packed neatly into the box!

Seeing how much my girl loves to play with this set, I'm thinking of buying all the sets in this series as the boxes can be stacked up! I know.. it's an addiction! *laughs*

#3: Get Creative & Recycle
And if you don't want to spend a cent, you can recycle whatever materials you have at home with just a little bit of creativity! We bought mooncakes from Bakerzin last year that came in really cute boxes with small compartments. I felt it was such a waste to throw them away and thought it would be great for storing my brooches! =)

Box with the cover on (left) and the cover off (right)

It's stackable too, just like a Japanese bento box!

Ingenious right? Sometimes the best ideas are simple and free! =)

How do you store your smalls?

Linking Up With:

*This post is part of my series on The Madeline Standard of Organisation. 

Read on for more of my practical and sometimes extreme tips for organising your life! =)