Alexis trying out Medley Toddler class

Papa says we got to be fair. Lauren got to attend many fun classes when she was below 1 year old. Alexis, on the other hand has not attended any class.

Alexis was a preemie. I delivered her at 36weeks and I bed rested from 14 weeks all the way till I deliver. I took many medications and even had a cerclage surgery done at 14 weeks. Many times I asked myself if it is due to the fact that she was a preemie and also all the medications in the system, I find her slow in achieving the milestones. With social media nowadays, we can see what are kids around our child’s age progressing. I hate to admit but I do feel affected and stress certain times when I saw all the babies around Alexis’s age start to crawl and walk while Alexis is still trying very hard to sit on her own. I told myself as long as Alexis is healthy, I am fine to take things slow.

Alexis’s speech is better than her motor skills. She could call “Papa” at 6 months. Now she can say “Papa, Mama, Zei Zei, Apple”. I told myself her progress is different as her speech develops faster than her motor skills.

 

So for Alexis, I decided to let her try some classes. I know she is only 10 months old but like what Papa mentioned.  I need to be fair. Alexis also hardly gets to go out so to have a class will make it like a mandatory outing day for Alexis every week.

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As Lauren is having piano lesson at Medley Music School. I signed Alexis up for a trial class for Medley Toddlers. The class is meant for children aged 6 months to 2.5 years. A range of musical and social concepts are achieved in this programme using the Suzuki method.  Songs, spoken speech patterns and movement are combined with the playing of a variety of percussion instruments. Each activity is presented so that toddlers at various developmental stages can benefit.

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It was quite a full class and the children were all around 12 months to 18 months. Alexis was the youngest in class. 🙂 I felt so Kiasu.

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The class started with parents singing along with the teachers and walking around in circles. The teachers will also use different musical instruments when singing different songs. They will encourage the children to try the musical instruments by asking them to take turns to come to the front.

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Overall the class was alright, it feels like any class with music and movement. It does expose Alexis to music but I want to have a class with more activities.

 

For those who are keen to find out more. Medley is having 40% off for Medley Toddler class.

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Medley Music School is located at

SAFRA Toa Payoh

293 Toa Payoh Lorong 6

#02-02

Singapore 319387

Tel: 6353 4881

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Lauren lost her 1st milk tooth!

It started a week ago when Lauren came to me and told me one of her tooth was really shaky and her adult tooth was coming out.

A closer look, I saw her adult tooth behind her milk tooth. Initially I was a little worried as I heard a mother who told me that if you allow the child to keep playing with the shaky tooth. The socket will become bigger and that will affect the growth of the adult tooth. I went to approach my neighbour who happen to be a dentist. She assured me that it would be fine. The adult tooth will push out the milk tooth. She also assured me that even though the adult tooth seems to be misaligned now, it will gradually move to the front.

I did some googling and found out that most children start to lose their teeth between the age of 5-6. They will generally replace all their milk teeth with adult teeth by the age of 14.

Fast forward to today. The day where my precious Lauren’s milk tooth finally dropped!!! Lauren was very worried prior to that as she saw that her tooth was almost dropping. I told her to just gave it a tuck and pull it out. She did. The next thing, she was jumping around the room telling everyone that her tooth dropped and she pulled it out herself.

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Shortly I asked her did she throw her tooth away?  She led me to her cupboard and told me she kept it there. Hahahaha, I told her why don’t you put in inside an Ang Pow. She chose a cute red packet and told me the tooth fairy will take it tonight.

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10th Oct 2015, the day Lauren dropped her first tooth. 🙂

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Lauren’s Primary 1 Registration

 

This is probably one of the most stressful period every parent will experience. It is Lauren’s turn this year and we will be going in at phase 2B. We are hoping to get into Rosyth School and we know how competitive it will be, base on past years history. I have attached a history of Rosyth’s applicants based on years and phases.

P1 Registration

Year Vacancy Phase 1 Phase 2A Phase 2A2 Phase 2B Phase 2C No of pupils living withing 1kn took part in Phase 2c Balloting Remarks
2002 480 226 4 58 65 127 262 Balloting at Phase 2C
2003 440 224 9 54 66 88 221 BAlloting at Phase 2C
2004 420 190 9 44 48 129 191 Balloting at Phase 2C
2005 390 164 7 70 54 95 194 Balloting at Phase 2C
2006 390 234 11 62 42 41 181 Balloting at Phase 2B and 2C
2007 360 188 12 59 50 51 169 Balloting at Phase 2B and 2C
2008 360 156 14 74 56 58 153 Balloting at Phase 2C
2009 330 131 5 60 53 81 173 Balloting at Phase 2C
2010 330 137 14 66 57 56 163 Phase 2C
2011 300 168 13 70 25 24 108 Balloting at Phase 2B and 2C
2012 300 145 23 46 43 43 113 Balloting at Phase 2C and total applicants for Phase 2B=47
2013 300 144 27 67 31 31 120 Balloting at Phase 2B and 2C
2014 300 156 25 62 28 29 95 Balloting at Phase 2B and 2C

 

Monitoring the seats left daily since 2nd July (Phase 1), counting my chance. There were 37 seats left for phase 2B in Rosyth.  I had many sleepless nights.  Kelvin told me to relax as we had done all we could. Easier said than done, I called MOE up to check on what other options I have if my Plan A fails. I decided that if we cannot get a seat at phase 2B for Rosyth, we will not try phase 2C as it is crazy. Not lucky at 2B, I guess will be even harder to be lucky at 2C. We will try Paya Lebar Methodist Girls for 2C if we fail to secure a seat at Rosyth.

If you are not aware who is eligible for each phase, I have attached a table below for your reference.

Eligibility Primary One Registration Phase Remarks
For children who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 1 For a child who has a sibling studying in the primary school of choice
For children who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 2A(1) (a) For a child whose parent is a former student of the primary school and who has joined the alumni association as a member not later than 30 June 2014.  (b) For a child whose parent is a member of the School Advisory / Management Committee
For children who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 2A(2) (a) For a child whose parent or sibling has studied in the primary school of choice.  (b) For a child whose parent is a staff member of the primary school of choice
For children who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 2B (a) For a child whose parent has joined the primary school as a parent volunteer not later than 1 July 2014 and has given at least 40 hours of voluntary service to the school by 30 June 2015. (b) For a child whose parent is a member endorsed by the church/clan directly connected with the primary school. (c) For a child whose parent is endorsed as an active community leader
For children who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 2C For all children who are eligible for Primary One in the following year and are not yet registered in a primary school
For children who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 2C Supplementary For a child who is not yet registered in a primary school after Phase 2C
For children who are not Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents Phase 3 For a child who is neither a Singapore Citizen nor a Singapore Permanent Resident

On the fateful day, 20th July, We sent Lauren to school as usual and set off to Roysth School. We reached at 9am and the security guards guided us to the Band Room. The walk to the Band Room gave us a little time to have a look at the school compound. Once we reached the Band Room, to our horror already 27 registered! We still have till 21st July 4.30pm.  Oh dear.. Looks like we will have to ballot for a seat. 🙁  It was really embarrassing as at that moment, every parent who walked into the room, we gave each other that “oh… you are my competitor” look. We can all understand this because we all know with each additional applicant, the success percentage of our child securing a seat becomes lower. I do not want to be so selfish, all of us in this phase put in a lot of time and effort. I do hope everyone gets in. I prayed hard that there will only be 37 applicants. Kelvin was even joking that maybe we should place a “Fully Taken Up” sign at the gate of Rosyth. LOL.

The next 2 days was really torturing, I refreshed the MOE website so often that my phone signalled a “Data Limit reached” reminder.  1st day of registration, 33 applicants. I know it is hard to expect only 4 applicants only for the 2nd day, I told Kelvin to be prepared that we may need to ballot for this phase. To my surprise, the 2nd day result came back with only 6 applicants! A total of 39 applicants for 2 days. Lauren has a good chance!

 

I called Rosyth the next morning and was informed that Lauren secured a seat without the need to ballot!!! I screamed with joy and the teacher who informed me laughed it off. I immediately sat down and cried. It was tears of relief and joy.. My concerned colleague thought I did not manage to secure a seat. LOL. So drama..

I called Kelvin to share the good news. We are both very thankful as we know how lucky we were. That evening, we shared the news with Lauren. She was ecstatic. We told her Papa and Mummy tried our best to help her into Rosyth, it will be up to her now to help herself.  Fighting Lauren!!! We believe in you.

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Kidzania Bangkok

It was my 1st visit to Kidzania, I have heard so much about it and finally I decided to combine a family trip, Guys can golf, Ladies can Shop and Kids go Kidzania!!!

 

A little background about Kidzania, They currently have 16 locations worldwide and there will be one coming to Singapore end of 2015! Every KidZania is themed as a child-sized replica of a real city, including buildings, shops and theaters, as well as vehicles and pedestrians moving along its streets. In this city, children aged 4 through 12, work in branded activities from bottling Coca Cola, working in a dentist office, working at a Mcdonalds restaurant, washing hands with P&G’s soap, and using airline tickets from AirAsia.

 

I have to say whoever that came out with this idea is a genius. Even myself is in awe of the whole concept. It’s like we always asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. The answer to this question is answered at a single venue.

Kidzania Bangkok is huge, there is 2 levels, (3 infact, as there is a small underground for 1 of the occupations). We arrived at Siam Paragon at 11am and there was already a long queue at the ticketing counter.  We bought our tickets online before the trip thinking that we can skip the queue. Sad to say, we still have to queue to collect the tickets. My advise is to just buy the tickets there to avoid all the hassle. We were all given a wrist tag, that is for security purpose where it is equipped with ID chip and frequency antenna.

 

kidzania map

 

The 1st thing we did is to go to the bank. 🙂 We were given a cheque of 50 Kidzos( Kidzania currency) where we have to cash it before we can start the journey. Lauren chose to be a policewoman at the 1st stop and earned herself 8 kidzos. Her role was to patrol the town and looked for suspicious character.

 

Her next stop was whichever position that had the shortest queue. Hahaha. She went on to be a pump attendant. pump attentant2 pump attentant

 

Next she signed up to be a doctor and she went around the city in an ambulance to treat someone who called for help.

 

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Lauren and Cayden explored the city, trying out different occupations like MTV VJ, Oishi factory worker, Stewardess and resting at a disco. 🙂oishi Stewardess disco

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All and all we spent 5 hours there and sad to say we did not manage to complete the city. We will definitely return to complete as I could see that it brought so much fun and joy to the kids.

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