Preparations for new home!

I have been very busy the last couple of weeks! Any of you who have moved house will probably agree that it's something tedious. The last we shifted was 1 year after Alphonse and I was married. We really enjoyed the time designing and putting together our love nest.

However, it's rather different now. With Elric around, I can't concentrate with designing and selecting of our household items. :( So I am pretty happy to have engaged an interior designer (ID) to help us sort our the most difficult part. DESIGN!

My current home at Seng Kang is 5-room flat with an area of 110sq ft. My new home in Tampines is a 4I flat at 84 sq ft. This means that the amount of space we have to play with is much lesser, and we need to maximise whatever space we have.

My ID is Melvin from Ideal House ID. His office is located at 780 Upper Serangoon Road #01-02 Choon Kim House. (It's very close to Serangoon Shopping Centre) Melvin is a very down to earth ID who understands our needs. As much as we want our house to look good, we need the designs to be functional and the choice of materials should be durable. He has so far provided us with many good advise and we really appreciate them. I certainly hope that the final product will be just as good!


Let me show you a few of the 3D drawing he did for us! :D

 We decided to knock down a piece of wall between the kitchen an living room. That will help to make the place look bigger.

 The kitchen colour matches the living room. Tiffany blue and white. I have built-in cabinets on both sides of the kitchen. It's not reflected in this image though. :)

I must say this is Alphonse and my favourite. lol.
We are planning to buy korean beddings and sleep on the floor. Hence we choose to use laminate flooring so that it will not as cold compared to ceramic tiles.
I would certainly want my built-in wardrobe to be BIGGER, but due to space constrain, I will have to bear with it.

 This is my VERY SMALL master toilet. :(  It's TOO SMALL.
This is a total change from my current toilet where I have space for a vanity cabinet and a full height mirror. Again, I will just have to bear with it lah.
Alphonse wants his toilet to be green. So I chose this green+white tiles for one of the walls. It's quite refreshing. :)

Here's the study room. Similar to the toilet, I chose a lime green for a refreshing look.


You may have noticed that the colour theme are close to the nature. I tried to incorporate the colour of the sky, the sea, the earth and greens into our design.

The coming 2 months will continue to be tiring for Alphonse and I. 
We will have to hand over our keys to our buy by end of March, but our new home will only be ready in in April. Therefore we will have to store all our barangs in a warehouse and stay over at my MIL's home for a month. I'm just hoping all will be well. 

Can't wait to shift over!!!

The Talking Ginger Mobile App

Hi Mummies out there! 

I was surfing the net looking for some educational activities for Elric and came across this mobile app which you may find useful.

The Talking Ginger mobile application. 

You may be familiar with the Talking Tom Cat app. It was very popular for a period of time. In fact, this app is very similar and with a few child friendly features. 

Ginger is a cat... a ginger cat to be exactly.

(yes. bear with my cold jokes! muahahahahah)

The storyline is that it's bedtime and Ginger needs to shower and dry, brush his teeth and go potty. Your child is supposed to help him do that. Each time the child get him read for bed, he unlocks a new piece of Ginger's dreams. 

You can give Ginger a shower!

And you blow him dry!

This is how it looks after blowdry!
 Cute right? hahaha...

 This is the potty section. You are supposed to swipe down the roll of toilet paper as quickly as possible. 

Elric likes this. I'm quite worried that he will do that to our toilet rolls actually. :X 

Finally, you can brush its teeth.

What I especially like is the toothbrush timer. 

It shows Ginger brushing his teeth and there is a 1:30min timer. This will encourage your to brush his teeth thoroughly! So far Elric has been pretty coorporative with brushing his teeth when I on this app, although he did try pressing the (X) button to stop.

So after completing the bedtime routine, he will a 1-2 pieces of the puzzle, showing Ginger's dream! Could this be a mud monster?

:D Just like the Talking Tom Cat, it also repeats everything you say. You can sing and talk, and record into a video. There is also an option for you to share it on your social media platforms. 

You can also tickle and pet Ginger. I kind of prefer Ginger's version as it's not as aggresive. No punching, kicking and fainting like the Tom Cat. Only 'violent' thing you could do it to pinch it's cheeks.

When you pet Ginger.

He's a happy cat...

 Here's when you tickle him!

Pinching him. (hahaha...)

Overall, I like this app a lot. There is even a child mode to prevent you child from recording and sharing the videos. It's a pretty neat function.  

Then again, avoid letting your child use your mobile devices for too long. (sorry but I am naggy.) It's not healthy for children to indulge in electronic devices. I believe this is a useful app if you use it appropriately.

 

Cheers! 
Mummy Kaye

The story of Aunty Grumpy, Stitch and Elric

I know I am supposed to work on Elric's birthday post but I couldn't resist writing about this instead.  

I was taught some good lessons and I thought it worthwhile penning it down. 

Bear with me as I explain the background of what happened. 

Aunty Grumpy 

We've been staying in Seng Kang for 5 years and the nearest place we can purchase our meals, is from Compasspoint shopping centre. The Kopitiam food court is by default where we buy our food.
 

There is this popular stall which sells carrot cake and fried kuey tiao. We always have to queue for quite awhile but Alphonse thinks it's worth the while.

 

At the stall is an aunty who takes the order. Let's call her Aunty Grumpy. That's how she often look. She gets impatient easily and always put on a grumpy face. I never liked Aunty Grumpy as she took my orders wrongly quite a few times. I continued patronising the stall only because Alphonse loves their dishes. I would show her my grumpy face when at her stall. 

 

Alphonse didn't like her either but would still bring Elric over to take away his lunch.

Elric Meets Aunty Grouchy

Elric met Aunty Grumpy when he was almost a year old. Elric was very friendly and responsive towards her. No more grumpy face! She smiled happily at Elric! Miracle! 

Gradually, Aunty Grumpy remembered Elric and would tell her customers in the queue that Elric is very a cute and obedient boy. There was once she even pulled her colleagues out from the kitchen exclaiming, 'There!!! This is the boy I told you about! Very cute right?'

A month without Fried Kuey Tiao

It was the flu season last month. Alphonse and I were not spared from the viruses spreading around. Hence the food from the stall was not suitable for us. 

Just yesterday, Alphonse decided to have his favourite dish again. Alphonse said that Aunty Grumpy was SO happy at seeing Elric from afar. She quickly asked Alphonse to go over. 'Ah Boy ah! Auntie bought something for you! Finally you are here!'

Alphonse was puzzled and tried to decline her kind gesture when she insisted and explained why she bought it for Elric...

 

Here's the little gift from Aunty Grumpy. A Stitch Keychain.  

Elric bullied at the foodcourt

As I mentioned earlier, it's always a long queue at Aunty Grumpy's stall, Alphonse would sit Elric at the nearest empty chair while waiting for his order to be ready.

Last month, when Elric was seated down, he saw two girls on the next table having a Stitch plush each. He was curious and tried reaching the plush toys placed on the table.

The two girls, about 4-6 years old, quickly hid their precious plushies from Elric, folded their arms and stucked their tongue at Elric.

 

I was sitting right next to Elric when all these happened. Although I knew it wasn't a pleasant experience for Elric, I felt it's alright for Elric to that in life, he won't always get what he want. But it's ok.

Apparently, Aunty Grumpy was observing all that was happening right from her stall. She got very upset with the two girls and probably thought in her mind 'Ah Boy, Nevermind! Aunty will buy for you!'

She told Alphonse that she bought the gift a month ago and carried it in her bag everyday, hoping to pass it to Elric. That's why she was overjoyed to see Elric. 

This Stitch keychain was purchased from Kiddy Palace. He likes it a lot. :)

Indeed, as the Chinese saying goes, 礼轻情谊重. The gift is not something expensive, but we know it's filled with love. Besides, her salary is not high. This $8.90 keychain isn't considered a cheap gift to her. 

Lesson for Mummy

This was a humbling episode for Mummy Kaye. I was completely surprised that Aunty Grumpy would buy something for Elric just because he was bullied. I'm sure she cares for Elric a lot to have done that. It seems to me that Elric has melted a mountain of ice. Aunty Grumpy becomes Aunty Friendly when he's around. 

Initially, I got Elric to greet Aunty Grumpy, simply because of politeness. I believe my child should respect and greet the people he meets. If Elric chose to ignore Aunty Grumpy initially, this mountain of ice would never have melted.  

I guess my boy has taught me a great lesson. Or should I say, God through Elric, taught me a great lesson of love. Love those who seems unloveable. Surely, there are times when I put a grumpy face and isn't 'loveable' either.

Do not judge. Aunty Grumpy used her way to protect my son when he was bullied by the two girls. She may be grumpy simply because she is unhappy with work. Not everybody is fortunate to land in a nice working environment. She is only trying to earn a living. I should not have judged her. 

The first thing I'll do when I go to her stall next time, will be to thank her for her gift. :)

Alright. Thanks for reading my post. 

Have a great weekend!

XOXO, 

Mummy Kaye