Chinese New Year

This past weekend, we have celebrated our first Chinese New Year in Asia. The best thing about it has been a 4 day weekend, it has been great having 4 days of family time. Alex had a celebration of Chinese New Year at kindy on Friday. Instead of his normal sports uniform they all dressed up in special clothes which were either their countries National dress or Chinese outfits. We decided against the National outfit and went for the simple red outfit that had a Chinese flavour thanks to our friend Mona. Actually the photo above of Tara is not in CNY dress - just a fun outfit we picked up for Tara.


These are some of the other kids in Alex's class. Ji Wong is in traditional Korean dress.



On Sunday we went to Sentosa for the first time. I can't believe we haven't been there before now. Actually we did attempt to go there one weekend, but the queue was ridiculous so we canned that idea then. We went with Alex's friend Lilah and her family. Alex was very excited to be spending the day with Lilah and they had a fun time together. We went to Underwater World which is the Singapore Aquarium. Firstly we went to see the Dolphin Show and then went around looking at various fish etc. You know the day's a hit when your 2 year old walks around saying "WOW". He had a fun time.




Yesterday we went to discover a new playground just down the road for us. It is an 'adventure' playground, probably better for older kids, but Alex had a ball exploring and running around. Tara enjoyed it too - she flaked out on our journey home.

Alex has decided - with no parental consultation :) that he is giving up his afternoon nap. For the past week, he hasn't napped at all, except for when he is taken out in his stroller after nap time. I don't know if this is a conscious decision on his part but it does seem to be. I am not ready for him to give this up so we are persevering with it a little longer. If he does give it up, we will have quiet time every day. Tara on the other hand seems to have turned a corner with her daytime sleeps. We can now put her in her cot and close the door and she takes herself off to sleep. What a result. Hard to believe that a few weeks ago, Gary and I were taking it in turns to walk her around the carpark here to get her to sleep.

Alex is doing pretty well with his potty training. Accidents are reasonably few now and he seems to have embraced this new phase which I am grateful for! He does like being a 'big boy' and I wonder if this has something to do with the refusal to nap.

We have booked a long weekend to Bangkok to go to visit Gary's uncle and aunt who live there. We are excited about going to see Neville & Ann as we haven't seem them for 3 years - I was 15 weeks pregnant with Alex last time we were there. It seems like an eternity ago! We will just have 2 nights in Bangkok so a short visit but hopefully the kids will do well with this.

Now, the ironic thing about this is that as I've been writing this, Alex has been in his bedroom and for the first time in more than a week, has actually gone to sleep in his bed in the afternoon. That is good news!! Tara woke after 45 minutes, cried a little, didn't get any attention so gave up and went back to sleep. Ah, loving the serenity.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone - here's to the year of the Tiger.....