Youtube Video – Citroen Transforms

I had featured this video in an earlier post, one of the boys’ favourites. Today I showed it to a group of preschoolers and they loved it too. We must have played it at least 4 or 5 times.

While searching for the video, I discovered that the video is actually a spoof of this Citroen TV ad. Fabulous!

Chess – Beaten by a 5-Year-Old!

We gave Athos a chess and checkers set for Christmas. I thought he might take to checkers more readily since the rules were simpler.

As usual, I underestimated the little fellow.

Not only does he remember how all pieces move (assuming we taught him the rules correctly!), now he wants to play chess all the time. I’ve never been very good at the game, so I manage the best I can. It’s been fine all this while – I’ll usually talk him through my moves, and alert him to the risks of his proposed moves.

Then yesterday happened. My little one, my cherubic firstborn, he who issued forth from my loins but 5 years ago, beat me at chess for the first time. My queen was taken 5 moves into the game, and not long after my king perished.

I thought this kind of thing would only happen when they hit primary school….

iFuture, I Like!

Last week, I brought the boys to the iFuture exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre. If you think the present is highly digital, the future looks to be even more so! The exhibition is interactive, educational, and a fascinating glimpse into what is already possible and what is to come. I highly recommend it

Some highlights:

• The exhibition begins with the Mechanical Cabaret Theatre, a wonderful collection of mechanical sculptures (called ‘automata’) from the UK. At a push of the button, these sculptures come to life, often humorous ways. Athos and Porthos were thoroughly intrigued. And so was I! Personal favourites include the Sheepshearer and Allegory of Love. I couldn’t get enough of these little mechanical wonders. You can see a virtual exhibition online here.
• Right past the automata section are several mini-arenas, each with a robot. Guides are onhand to teach you how to use the remote controls and Athos and Porthos had a go manoeuvering the robots. Athos, who is really into dinosaurs at the moment, loved the roboraptor (in fact I had to head off an argument over who should go first and for how long….). And there was another robot that can take your photo.
• Motion art – This is a screen which shows a digital, stylised and psychedelic version of you as you move in front of it. The kids had fun running up and down, doing jumping jacks, and just monkeying about, as you can see below.

• Segway – Oh that we were allowed to use these on public roads in Singapore! These electric personal mobility devices are surprisingly easy to use (and the guide told me kids master it much faster than adults), and visitors will get to try them out around a small indoor track.
• Digital koi pond – Lasers from the ceiling create the image of a koi pond. Touch the pond with your hand and watch the water ripple and fish swim away!

• ‘Minority Report‘ interface – In the movie, Tom Cruise and his team manipulate information just by ‘touching the air’. The kids got a chance to try this out. Very cool!
• Digital art table – We spent quite a lot of time here. It’s a table that functions like a PDA screen – you can write and draw using a pen-sized stylus, changing colours and stroke thickness as you please. When done, click the pushpin, and the picture is magically whisked from the table to the virtual corkboard! Here’s Athos drawing a picture of a car.

There was a lot more stuff than we had time to explore and the boys have made me promise to bring them back. The exhibition ends on 18 March and I think it’s well worth a second visit! Beyond just tickling their interest, it gave me a sense of what the future might look like – love it or hate it, we’re entering a digital age, and as a parent, the exhibition was a great reminder that our kids need to learn to master the medium, while not letting the medium master them.

Exhibition website here. Admission charges below (with a discount for Science Centre members), and includes admission to Science Centre.

ADULT	$9.00
CHILD (3-16yrs)	$7.00
FAMILY PACKAGE (2 Adults, 2 Children)	$28.80

Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken

Today, the current circumstances of my life led me to think about Robert Frost and this wonderful poem, so often quoted that it’s almost a cliche. Happily for a child, cliches are the stuff of many tomorrows. For now, I would submit these wise words of Frost for their reflection. – Pilgrim Mom

Cheap Toys, Priceless Fun

Fun doesn’t have to come with a high price tag.

For Christmas, Pilgrim Dad gave the boys a pack of plastic toy soldiers, policemen, and coybows and Indians – $3 a bag! He has fond memories playing with them as a kid, and thought it was time to initiate the boys in classic war games.

Here you see the weapons

Chinese New Year Comes To Island Creamery!

In a previous post, I mentioned reading that Island Creamery does a pineapple tart flavour around CNY. Well I am happy to confirm that the flavour has ARRIVED! Pilgrim Dad and I were just there tonight, and we tried it, and it was good. Chunks of pineapple, and unlike actual pineapple tarts it was light enough that I could imagine eating large quanitites without feeling like an overstuffed popiah.

Imagine a serving of that after Reunion Dinner!

Homemade Volcano – The Experiment Continues

After seeing the Big Version, the boys wanted to try it out. We finally did (in the safety of our bathroom), and here is what happened.

As you can hear, Athos was NOT impressed. (Would two Mentos would have worked better?) Anyway, I decided to post it as our little contribution to human knowledge and endeavour. It’s a dreadful waste so we’re unlikely to attempt this again soon. Let us know if you do, and whether two works better than one!

Digital Pollock

I discovered this very cool website by way of blogger Toddler Planet. I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about Jackson Pollock’s art. I love the energy, movement and colour of his ‘drip’ paintings, but wonder whether something created in minutes can qualify as truly masterful art.

In any case, the website http://www.jacksonpollock.org is lots of fun! Both Athos and Porthos had a go this afternoon and it kept Porthos in particular engaged for quite a while.

A Sweet Tribute to Tolkien (and Peter Jackson)

This is one of the top posts on WordPress.com right now – a guy and his kin recreate The Battle of Helm’s Deep, a scene from Tolkien’s/Jackson’s Two Towers. I thought I was a Tolkien fan until this. A labour of sweet, sweet love.

A preview of the sugary salute below. Click here to see the post in its full psychedelic glory.

The Worst of Times

The worst is over. Although coughs and runny noses persists, the boys are no longer feverish. I can finally get back to a semi-decent sleep pattern. But just as an indication of the madness that is a household of sick people:

Conversation Starters for Preschoolers

It’s a guy thing. Here’s the routine:

“How was school today?”

“Good.”

“So, what happened at school?”

“Nothing.”

Maddening! Anyway, I discovered an article today on the Scholastic website for parents which lists 10 questions to ask a child. You would think that having a conversation with your own child should be the most natural thing in the world. But I’ll be the first to admit I could use some help! Here they are:

1. Tell me about the best part of your day.
2. What was the hardest thing you had to do today?
3. Did any of your classmates do anything funny?
4. Tell me about what you read in class.
5. Who did you play with today? What did you play?
6. Do you think math [or any subject] is too easy or too hard?
7. What’s the biggest difference between this year and last year?
8. What rules are different at school than our rules at home? Do you think they’re fair?
9. Who did you sit with at lunch?
10. Can you show me something you learned (or did) today?

Incidentally, the website has a lot of other useful information too. Worth checking out.

Christina Rossetti: The Rainbow

I don’t remember much about Rossetti except her famous Goblin Market, a poem which is ostensibly about two children but was taught to me as R-rated verse! Here, though, is Rossetti at her innocent best, without any of that allusion and complex layering (as far as I can tell anyway). Nothing like a child’s poem to lift the tired spirit.

In Sickness and In Health

Totally exhausted.

The boys have been falling sick one by one – symptoms include some combination of high fever, phlegmy cough, stomachache, headache, dizziness and runny nose. According to the doctor and several colleagues with children, there’s a nasty virus going around which causes long and high fevers (5-7 days of erratic temperatures going as high as 40 degrees), causing much havoc and misery. We even brought Athos for a blood test….

Life has been an endless cycle of temperature-taking, medicating, cold compresses, feeding, hydrating and soothing. I don’t mind so much in the daytime, but in the night it is torture. Aramis is the latest to fall ill, and he wants to be carried all the time, even at night. I’ve taken to sleeping semi-upright, with him against my chest.

Now Pilgrim Dad is sick too…. And me, I feel the walking dead. I was talking to Athos just now and actually fell asleep mid-sentence!

Being a parent is hard enough work in health. But it’s in sickness that parental love meets its challenger, and by God’s grace, finds its deepest expression.

Aramis Pulls To Standing

Another threshold is crossed. Aramis can now pull himself from a sitting position into a steady stand. I’m pretty sure he’ll be an early walker – it’s just written all over his face when he sees the rest of us moving about him!

The Training Wheels Are Off!

Last week, we brought the boys to West Coast Park to cycle. Athos still uses training wheels but one of them came loose so Pilgrim Dad decided to remove it altogether. So Athos figured out how to cycle with just one training wheel – you could see the thrill of achievement all over his face!

Yesterday, Pilgrim Dad removed the second training wheel. Athos was nervous at first, and to be honest, so were we. But Pilgrim Dad, ever the braveheart, clutched on to his handlebars and ran alongside him for a few rounds. Soon he was holding Athos just by his shirt. And about half an hour into it, Athos had worked up enough speed (and courage!) to travel straight without any help.

Somehow it felt like such a major milestone. And my little boy continues to grow up….

G.K Chesterton: The Donkey

I’ve read his wonderful Father Brown stories but I had no idea Chesterton also wrote poetry. A wonderful discovery for next Easter! – Pilgrim Mom

The Donkey

Ogden Nash: Celery

Ah, Nash again. A good reminder that poetry isn’t always about flights of fantasy. This is about as factual as a rhyme can get! That all our textbooks were written so memorably…. – Pilgrim Mom
Celery

Ogden Nash: Animals

Such a master of rhyming wit is Nash. Here are some of my favourite light verses on animals. I read “The Cow” to Athos last night and he laughed – Pilgrim Mom

The Cow

Emily Dickinson : Hope is the thing with feathers

New category on one of my forgotten passions – poetry. Though I think of it mostly as an adult pursuit, there’s no reason why kids cannot appreciate rhyme, metaphor and other poetic features from a young age. To kick things off, here is a delightful poem by Dickinson about that which springs eternal in the human heart. – Pilgrim Mom

Crying Over Spilt Milk

Pre-motherhood, I used to wonder about the idiom “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” It didn’t make sense to me because, for heaven’s sake, why would anyone cry over spilt milk? Unless you lived in crushing poverty, just wipe it up, get a new glass, or drink OJ….

Of course, that was then. When Athos was born, I experienced huge difficulties with breastfeeding. One night, during a period when my milk supply was very low, Athos woke up in the middle of the night to be fed. To give me some rest, Pilgrim Dad did the honours. He went to the kitchen, warmed up some expressed breastmilk, brought it to the bedroom, whereupon in his bleary half-awake state he knocked over the bottle and spilled half the contents. When I saw the precious stuff all over the floor, I promptly burst into tears. And Pilgrim Dad, the dear (barely awake) man, responded “Don’t cry over spilt milk. Haha.”

Suffice to say he will eternally regret the joke.

Anyway, all this is simply to say I now have an intimate and intuitive understanding of the idiom. And I’m also starting a new category called “Spilt Milk” for about the travails of motherhood. We read to know we are not alone.