Papa's running again this year and he promised to better his previous timing. So early morning, once again JY & me became his runspirator. Togged out in our ipanema sandals, we set off to East Coast Park at 7+ in the morning. We met my heavily pregnant sister there who also joined in the fun of cheering the runners on.
JY trying to spot Wenjun among the runners, most of the runners were smiling to see her along the road, shouting "Papa!"
Finally, she sighted Papa and she's so excited!
It was a different experience, as i had participated in 2 marathons in 2005 & 2006, which was basically a torture. Then subsequent years i was runspirator for my friends in 07 & 08 (or 09?), i'm back in 2010 with JY to support WJ. I hope i have the stamina and endurance to keep exposing my children to various aspects of sports and joy it brings :)
I have heard about it and by the time i tried booking, the tickets were all sold out. By a stroke of luck, Aunt Shireen has an extra pair of tickets and she gave it to JY & me, so we took a trip down to Esplanade with Tashi & her to see this concert tailored for little ones!
As it is for children below 6 yrs old, they don't have to stay quiet or in their seats, they are allowed to move, clap and be what toddlers are! She was checking out the stage and was a bit subdued in the beginning in her seat. Then the concert began, introducing the different musical instruments and different sounds they made. Children were encouraged to sway, march, dance to the symphonies of orchestra. JY would clap loudly and YAY everytime the music ends, i was so amused at her enthusiasm.
At the end, children took turns to get on stage and interact with the musicians and their instruments, someone handed JY this trombone (?? or trumpet) and she was so shy handling it. I am so proud of her as she doesn't jostle like the other children did, but she waited patiently to climb up the stairs.
The 2 little tikes then ran around Esplanade and scrambled around joyfully, checking about everything.
I think i have mentioned Evelyn, my sister's friend before. She buys the most exciting toys for Jingyi and even me & my sister would be so impressed by her selection of toys. She has bought a magnet zoo, a detachable birthday cake (into 6 slices complete with candles & decorations), vacuum & broom set, Barney book on Going to Dentist, small toy pram, colourful necklace & bracelet. JY never fail to marvel at play with these toys everytime and endears herself to Auntie Evelyn.
She loves all the toys, esp the pram & vacuum. She'll strap her toys in the pram and sling the bag over the handle (no one teaches her that, she just did it one day!) and started pushing around the house.
As for the necklace, JY doesnt it hanging around her neck, she wears it on her head as a band and allowed it max 1 minute before yanking it off completely. This are some rare pictures of her posing so nicely with her necklace.
And the most exciting toy to date I purchase is this kitchen set, which me & my sister queued during a Toys' R' Us sale, though i hated queueing and any sales of any sorts, this is one item i didnt regret. It's so fun w its caserole corningware, teflon saucepan, mitten, plates, oven, basket of vegetables.
This offers JY hours and hours of fun, cooking for everyone in the family.
This was quite amazing as JY can identify each article of clothes belongs to which member of the family. She has since evolved into our little helper, who loves to carry letters and placed in the respective rooms. She will help to throw rubbish in the dustbin, papers for recycling.
For a period of time, I was fortunate to have JY always waiting for me to come back from work, she's either with my mum/ sister at the MRT, void deck or in the vicinity. I love to see her bright face searching for me amidst the crowd (somehow she always manage to spot me) or sometimes she'll shout "Mama!" (of course, mum/sis spotted me first then prompted her to do that) , then Mama (me) miraculously appeared in front of her. She'll be so elated to see me and have me a tight hug each time.
She was dashing towards me as WJ gave me a lift home instead of me taking the MRT
Morning send-off entourage and she look like a little midget amidst the adults in the lift.
My sis and her walking towards the MRT to welcome me home.
Jingyi has a love for ladybirds, big or small and regardless of colours.
She can spot a ladybird anywhere in a book, no matter how small, and i discover that young children's authors/ artists love to incorporate them in their books. She can identify them when she turns one and is constantly fascinated by them when she spotted them around. The funny thing is even when we visited the Pet Safari, she will definitely do a tour to the puppies' corner, then fishes....then to this spot.....she spotted this dog's brush in a ladybird shape. My mum and me were so tempted to buy one for her on several occasions.
Her last stop will be at the rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters. She love the Pet Safari so much so insisted my mum bring her to this place daily.
JY loves to open up cupboards and drawers at my mom's place.We'll always teach her not to open up so many, and place the stuff back. Well, we always try....
So there is this particular morning, she went to the kitchen drawer and pull out a towel with a bear and tottered away holding the towel...then as i was reading the papers, she past me by again heading towards to the kitchen. I gave a grunt and a stern warning without looking at her "Jingyi, NO" as i knew she is yet again pulling open the drawers.
Then as i turn my head towards her innocent face, i realised she was trying to stuff the towel back to the drawer. Aww, i was so guilty stricken, i went up to her and gave her a hug, praising her of her good behaviour of putting back the towel to the original place.
Seems like my little toddler is growing up and taking in this world better than i thought :)
Our flight is at night so we have the entire day before we leave for the airport at 7pm.
We while the day away by bringing the girls swimming at the villa pool from time to time. We had a happy lunch at the quaint Vienna cafe outside Uma Sapna where we are the only customers around.
WJ distracted JY by finding 2 slight wooden toy hockey and both of them started whacking a scrunched up paper around the spacious cafe. WJ & me found time to visit the spa called Jari Menari. We'll leave JY in the care of Rou & we found them napping together when we came back.
We were very happy with our villa, though it's populated by scores of lizards darting around on every exterior walls of the villa. Every morning, we ordered breakfast to be sent to Rou's Villa, Nautuna, recently renovated 1-bedroom Villa with pool. Then we'll take a 2-mins stroll from our villa (Krakatoa) to Nautuna, passing by a bamboo zen garden. JY enjoy the stroll as she explored, ran, march, walk, stretch and do whatever she wants.
While walking that particular morning, she started to stuck out her chin and do her popeye face and did a gangster swagger. We'll pack a few essential items to port over to Rou's villa, swimming diapers, swimsuit, milk bottle, few biscuits and her beloved stuffed zebra.
The adults will eat our breakfast leisurely in the alfresco setting and the girls will be running around in their swim diapers & swimwear, couldn't wait to jump into the water.
Entrance to Nautuna, a glance at the alfresco dining area. 2 girls playing in the Room, rummaging through our stuff and basically trying to get along. JY started by moving the furniture around, shifting the rattan stool. Caitlyn followed suite and a game of pushing the furniture was on!
A very tired JY who was so hot even after an afternoon swim, she took the toy Zebra and fell asleep immediately, the best part of the trip is when she goes to sleep everytime after a milk-feed, without much help from us.
Though a tiring trip for the parents amidst the hot hot weather, it was a fun-filled trip with our cousins and our 2 little ones :)
The aftermath of the Wedding was mild, except for a headache for WJ. It was a relaxing morning after a hectic and exciting night. WJ couldn't remembered 1-2 things he did the night before, it was quite hilarious to recount what he did and he was perplexed as to why he did that. We concluded that most of the guests underestimated the alcohol content of the red wine as i remembered taking a sip and the wine was stronger than in Sg.
The rest of the day was spent lazing by the pool, planning for our next meal, basically just enjoyed the Estate to the fullest and made used of the Butler Services.
The next day, we reluctantly check-out of Kayangan Estate and shifted to Uma Sapna in Seminyak with my sister (KT had to go back to Sg for work), Colin's family (with Caitlyn & Caroline) and our family...i was so excited to explore Seminyak with them.
The first evening, we went to an Italian restaurant and JY took her biggest intake of dinner since we arrived in Bali, she devoured several breadsticks, to our delight, all of us took photos of the momentous meal.
Again, the pool was the favourite hang-out place for the babes and adults. JY even went skinny-dipping as she ran out of swimming diapers the last day.
JY reading a map of Seminyak.
As any tri-ps, our walks are centered around food & where to eat. There is this Delicious Onion cafe, open by this Malaysian. They serve quite decent food, and surprisingly JY also ate her share of food (albeit puree baby food) and nip a few mouthful of our fried rice, crispy calamari skin.
As all Bali restaurants, they either do not believe in aircon or for a few of those who do, their air-con do not work at all, blowing warm air at us all the time. That resulted in us being very hot flustered parents wih sticky clothes all the time and the toddlers have rosy cheeks all day long.
Gave her a kiss for her good attempt at lunch.
The mobile explorer then got busy checking the nooks and cranny of the cafe, loving her reflection while little Caitlyn so sweetly stayed on the bench and ate up her food, take big sips at her water, and just behave nicely like a little lady should! This scenario just repeats itself at every meal time.
Sweet little Caitlyn
So heart-warming to see the interaction between the 2nd generation cousins.
During that period of time, JY learnt to play peek-a-boo with the fan, posing with a head tilt.
After a hot and full lunch, we took the cool comfort of our private van to Tanah Lot, which is near Canggu, further up north of Seminyak. Woah, i didn't expect it to be so commercialised with stalls and stalls of useless tourist peripherals and souvenirs. Even a bat was on showcase, nibbling on a cob of corn!
We witness the high tide, that covers the outlying island of the temple and water circled the island, separating it from the mainland. Curious tourists and devotees will then wait for low tide to walk up to the temple and give their offerings.
We lingered and snapped a few photos, on the way back. we bought a few bottles of cold pocari and the 2 girls loved it. We round the day up by stopping by the stretch of shops to look at some toddlers/children clothes and little JY ran amok in the shop and really browse through the clothes with appreciation.
