Bangkok!

I have to write about this trip before I forget all the details. It was a pretty last minute thing, DaddyCool had to head there for work, and we thought Daphne and I could join him for a quick holiday. I was a little nervous about travelling alone with her, but it was a short flight (2 hours plus) and as it turns out she was no trouble at all. Once we got there, the one rule we had was to use the train systems for everything – Bangkok traffic is notorious, and you really only use the roads to/from the airport. This worked out really well, Daphne found the trains to be fun, and the Thais seem to love children, so there were always people smiling and giving up their seats for us. Besides that, we planned a very loose trip, having a rough idea of where we wanted to go, but open to changing plans. Here’s the lowdown on what we did:

Day 1:
We flew there via MAS, which luckily enough was having a promo so the tickets were cheaper than Air Asia and the likes. Good thing too, since KLIA is a bit easier with a kid in tow. Service wise as well, the stewardesses were friendly and filled up Daphne’s water bottle promptly when asked; and she got her kid’s meal way before mine arrived. The pizza looked wonky but hey, she loved the Ribena so it was all good. I took snacks along for the journey, and a colouring book. Those and Rio playing on the tiny screen kept her happy throughought the journey.
DaddyCool was put up at the Westin and we loved it. Daphne thought it was “so beautiful”. Super convenient location with a BTS station outside and one of the newer malls, Terminal 21, right across the street. We had dinner at the foodcourt there and walked about a bit, visiting the toilets (a tip from my sister, each floor has a different “theme” and it’s quite fun) before calling it a night.

Day 2:
We hit the Jim Thompson House, caught a tour, did some shopping and had amazing food at the restaurant (still thinking about that pomelo salad!). It was pretty kid friendly, the guide handed Daphne an origami crane, and although the tour got a little hot at times – it’s a bit humid there – we managed it fine. The gardens are open for you to wander around, and there are fish and turtles to keep the little ones happy.
We head back to the hotel, checked out, and headed to the Citadines, our home for the next 2 nights. I got a pretty good deal for the studio apartment at only RM200 per night. This place wasn’t as “nice” as the Westin of course, but it was clean and comfortable, and also close to a BTS stop, about a 5 minute walk away. The hotel provides a tuk tuk service though, and Daphne really loved riding on it.

That evening we headed to Asiatique. The wait for the free boat ride was pretty long, it was Friday night after all; and we got a bit tired but it was still worth going. Lots of restaurants to choose from, and a huge number of shops. We left a bit early, and thankfully the wait was a bit shorter this time. I wouldn’t recommend staying past 10:30pm, seeing at the last boat is at 11:00pm. Unless of course you didn’t have a toddler’s bedtime to worry about, and wouldn’t mind taking a cab back instead.

Day 3:
The Chatuchak market! Everyone wondered how we’d manage this with Daphne, but it wasn’t too bad. We just had to be conscious of her limits, and got out of there in time for lunch, which we did back at Terminal 21 (with air conditioning!). You can get really hot and bothered wondering the lanes here, and there isn’t very much to keep a child entertained. We happened to come across a stall selling loads of stuffed elephants and I quickly picked one up, so that tided her over for a while. We also got her coconut ice cream and promised a second helping… We shopped a bit, and so I think markets are doable with little kids, but I’d play it by ear.

We kept things simple for dinner, heading to another food court, at Siam Paragon. We’d shopped plenty by then, and since it had already been a long day, decided to head back early and skip the crowds heading towards the Central World/Platinum malls.

Day 4:
There wasn’t much time for anything except a foot massage after breakfast! We packed up and headed to the DMK airport; had a quick lunch at Starbucks, Daphne made friends with the kind ladies at the Jim Thompson boutique (who made her a paper fish!) and headed home.

Farm In the City

We visited in December, taking advantage of my year end break. I was actually thinking of hitting the zoo, but some friends suggested this place and so off we went. First of all, this wasn’t in the city at all; thank goodness for GPS or we’d have gotten hopelessly lost. It wasn’t too far though, took us around 40 minutes and we’d probably get there sooner next time since we have an idea where it is now.

Daphne wasn’t sure where/what was going on at first and then… we went in an met a turtle. She was hooked there on end.

We were there just as they opened at 10:00am so it wasn’t very hot, but we slathered on sunscreen anyway and plopped that hat on her head. The place was clean, the animals seemed happy and healthy, and the staff were all friendly. The highlight for me would be the aviary – the “Bird Man” was full of info and the peacock was stunning. We had a non stop supply of bird seed for the ducks and parakeets. Daphne wouldn’t hold her hand out for the birds, but she quite happily threw the seeds into the pond for the ducks.

The highlight for Daphne on the other hand, would undoubtedly be feeding the guinea pigs and rabbits. In fact, I think this was the highlight for all the kids! The keepers had bunches of vegetables on hand, and they just kept asking for more:

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised. Besides the birds and rabbits, there were chickens, a cow, a goat that ate pants, horses… you get the gist. Also funky things like skunks and porcupines. Everyone had a good time; we might even head back there again!

Farm In The City (Fb page)
Lot 40187-40188, Jalan Prima Tropika Barat,
Bandar Putra Permai, Seri Kembangan, 43300, Selangor
Tel: +603 8941 2099/3099

Eeeps!

So I blinked again and Christmas went by and we’re smack in the middle of Chinese New Year. We did a bunch of things that I should have blogged about – visit The Farm in the City, head to Ipoh for Christmas, the gift haul which really got me thinking about how much STUFF we buy kids these days, celebrating New Years… phew. Let me try to get my thoughts in order, and I think I really do have to put up a post on the farm trip at least!

Hope you all had a great start to 2013, or if not, a great start to the Snake year!

The Big Bad Wolf Sale 2012

It’s taken me more than a week to put this post up – we went for the sale last Monday! So let’s get down to it. I think this is the best the Wolf and gang have done so far. The venue is a bit out there, but it’s not hard to get too and there’s lots of parking space. The hall itself is huge, quite like the one last year, but seemed better organised this time. Plenty of room to walk around and wheel your trolley too (bring trolleys people, boxes make your arms ache).

The books were better sorted as well, and while I heard/read that the crowd at their 60 hour marathon the weekend before left the place in quite a mess, they had cleaned up pretty well before reopening their doors.

Here’s the haul:

75 books in all, and once again, mostly from the children’s section. Really good buys as you would expect; and this time I spent some time checking out the Activity books, and picked up some colouring and sticker books for a steal (RM3?! for ANY book is cheap, much less one that comes with stickers!).

I would have filled up the trolley a third time if we’d been there any longer. 2 hours felt about right though… Big hurrahs for the BBW sale!

December!

Doesn’t it feel like we just blinked and it’s time for Christmas already? The days are long but the years are short – rings ever so true when there’s a kid involved! We’ve been a busy bunch lately; dinners here and there, trying to get laundry in order (always!), learning new words and phrases (mangosteen, “I not naughty, I good girl”), making sure we get all the Lego cars on sale at Shell, obsessing over jigsaw puzzles… I’m really looking forward to my annual year end break, it has been a crazy couple of weeks.

I’ve almost sorted out my gift shopping too, which has to be a new record. A visit to the Big Bad Wolf booksale next week and the last bunch of names should get crossed out. After that it’ll be time to chill with my toddler and sit back and wait till Christmas! Hope you guys are starting to get into the holiday groove as well – see you again soon!

Stickers

On our trip to Singapore, we were at loose ends one day and my sis in law suggested a trip to ToTT. I loved it! Loads and loads of kitchen stuff and I managed to pick up some cookie cutters (wayyyyy cheaper than the ones I’d been eyeing from Cuisinart!) as well as popsicle and jelly moulds. On our way out I spotted a range of kids party themeware; cards, plates, cupcake kits, party bags and…  wall stickers! Gosh, I was really excited. There were only around 5 options or so, but I was drawn to the Petter Rabbit and Animal Parade ones and in the end we let Daphne decide, and she chose the animals.

We talked about wall decals ages ago, but DaddyCool and I could never really agree on them. These we both liked, and they didn’t cost an arm and a leg either. Daphne “helped” me put them up last month and I must say, it turned out better than I expected.

I did some Googling and found out that Meri Meri is a pretty popular stationery brand from the UK and they have a really large range of party themes beyond those carried by ToTT. The stickers are removable of course, and one of the trees is actually a chalkboard one, which is a nice touch. I’ve had my heart set on the decals from Pop & Lolli for yonks now, but with the exchange rate and cost of shipping, all I ever got was raised eyebrows from DaddyCool, so these guys will be here to stay, for a while at least.

The Singapore Zoo

We took a trip to Singapore in August, and the highlight was undoubtedly, Daphne’s first visit to the zoo. By a random stroke of luck, I spotted an ad and they happened to be having  a promotion for Malaysian tourists, offering a 50% discount of the entrance fee. We had to take advantage of that for sure!

When we reached Singapore, the weather turned out to be really rainy. On the morning of our planned visit, it poured cats and dogs and I thought we’d have to just stay in. Then my cousin who lived closer to the zoo area called to say it was clearing up on their side of the island. With that, we waited a bit and then packed umbrellas and just decided to go for it. Turns out that a bit of rain is really a good thing! The air was much cooler and I don’t think we wold have stayed as long as we did if the sun was up. A bit of drizzle never hurt anyone anyway.

We get there and I immediately think that we should head towards the elephant show; but we see loads on the way of course and by the time we get there it’s almost over. And then Daphne decides that she doesn’t really like elephants after all. She wouldn’t go near them and flat out refused to let DaddyCool and I out of her sight to go feed them either. Sigh.

Moving on, we took shelter and caught another show featuring animals of the rainforest and that seemed to cheer her up considerably. She was happy enough to wander about after that, and it happened to be feeding time for some of the animals so there was a bit more “action” going on. We ended up in the queue to feed the giraffes by another stroke of randomness and caught the rhinos fighting over some grass.

Daphne still talks about the animals and all we saw and did that day. It was a really great outing for us and we spent more time there than we thought we would. Here are a few things I picked up:

1. You don’t have to see every part of the zoo! There’s really A LOT to see, and we skipped quite a few like the entire reptile and critters area; and also the Kidzworld bit.
2. Animals on TV/books look a lot smaller than they do in real life and can be a wee bit scary. Elephants are pretty huge from a toddler’s point of view; and one of the lions let out some pretty impressive roars that rattled me a little as well.
3. Tigers sitting about and looking bored are really not that exciting for a 2 year old. Buttons that you can press to make different sounds are way more fun (watch out for those!)
4. The shows are a good place to take shelter, have a snack and give little legs a rest.
5. Get the unlimited tram rides up front, you really don’t see much when you’re on them (I actually commented to DaddyCool that they seemed pretty pointless), but kids kinda love trams. Also comes in handy when you’re just plain tired of walking.

Choice Phrases

Daphne is talking miles a minute and half the time I can hardly figure what she’s saying. Yesterday she just babbled away in the car for a good 10 minutes over who knows what and then yelled “THE END!” When asked, she said “story bout bus, Mummy”. Umm… Okay.

Now when it comes to food things get a bit more interesting. She’ll happily try a bun and then when she gets to the cream bits make a face and hand it back to me with a very stern “I don laike”. Same thing happened with some avocado last week, and she used to love it just 2 months ago. She won’t give in either, we’ll try all manner of things to tempt her, but just our luck, we have a kid that won’t be bribed.

If we’re having a conversation and she’s not a part of it; she’ll suddenly pipe up “What you talking bout?”. And she’s picked up this habit from her father where she ends her questions with an affirmation – “Yellow truck, right?”

Last but not least we have the shushing. ” Shhhh… Don’t make noise, giraffe sleeping”. Fingers to lips and everything!

Letter: 28 Months

Dear Booboo,

You’ve turned 2! So much has happened I hardly know where to start.

Let’s begin with your birthday party. We prepped you for weeks, singing Happy Birthday, and then mimicking blowing out the candles and cutting the cake. You even knew that you were getting an elephant cake. At one point you got a little confused, because your grandmother was the one who started it all so you kept saying “Hap Berday Popo!” each time. And when the day did come around, you were totally overwhelmed by so many people singing to you that you forgot to blow out the candles. You had a total blast throughout, running all over the place and hardly keeping still for a minute.

You say new things almost daily now and have mastered quite a few nursery rhymes – Baa Baa Black Sheep, One Two Buckle My Shoe, Jack and Jill… the list goes on. Your favourite at the moment is Old MacDonald and you also know your ABCs! You have Elmo to thank for that one. We have quite jolly time singing all the way home in the car everyday and you’ve made up words to some songs as well – “See Saw RAH RAH RAHHHHHH”. Our songs get frequently interrupted though, because you have to point out every BUS! and TAXI! that you see along the way. One day you yelled out CHICKEN! and there it was, on one of the signboards overhead; so now whenever you yell out something we make sure to look because you really do spot the oddest things.

———–

I wrote the bits above about a week after you turned two, and it’s been 4 months since. First off, the number of songs you can rattle off now astounds me sometimes. Lately you’ve been on a bit of a Barney cycle, so of course, you can do what we now call “The Barney Song.” Then we have your new most favouritest CD of all time for the car –  a sing-a-long Praise & Worship one that Popo picked up for you last month. All other CDs have been relegated to the “Not this oneeee” zone since then; and you know most of the words to the songs or make them up when you don’t. Sing Hosanna & My Good Is So Big/Strong/Mighty are your top picks. You really do love to sing. You hum away and Daddy and I frequently catch you singing to yourself while you play. You even know some Mandarin songs, and neither of us has a clue what you’re saying most of the time, but it’s still really fun to watch and hear.

You love dancing too! There’s a really funny one you do now where you say “Swimming Swimming, Crocodile, Crocodile” and dance out the actions. We haven’t a clue where you picked this up but it’s so silly we can’t help but join in. There’s quite a lot of silliness going around, like when you and Daddy pretend to fall asleep when I’m out of the room, and you’re so bad at pretending that you keep giggling; but I have to tickle you to end the game anyway. Then there’s playing catch, which makes you screech with laughter every time.

We can hold conversations with you now and it makes us smile a lot. You get really shy around people though, so everyone says you’re quiet but Daddy and I know better! You love it when we go out, and frequently charm people  - waving at salespeople, smiling at the waitresses… but you do have naughty moments as well, when you refuse to eat, or cry when you don’t get your way. It’s all part of being a toddler though, so we’ll let them slide for now with semi stern looks and warnings.

I’ll eat you up I love you so. And Daphne said “No!”

Love,
Mummy

It’s My Birthday…

Well it was yesterday, and would you believe Daphne simply would not sing me the Birthday song! Very very strange behaviour. We thought maybe cake would make it all feel a bit more Birthdayish, and here we are:

She still wouldn’t cooperate so I had to sing to myself, but at least she could fill in the blanks correctly – Happy Birthday to…? Mummy! And then we clapped and ate cake!