It's a.....

GIRL!!! :) found out last Thursday, the same day the whole of Britain went to vote... and we still don't know who's moving into No. 10... duh.

But onto more exciting news - yes, it's a girl... I knew it was a girl from the moment we found out we were pregnant (same as when we were preg with G I knew we were having a boy)... so it's great to know that at least my instincts are in tuned!

The radiographer was 98% sure - that's good enough for me!

Everything was perfectly formed - the 10 fingers (counted them), arms, legs, the heart, the cerebellum (it apparently looks like dumb-bells...hm), the spine, spacing between the eyes, the lip (no cleft lip - thankfully), the nose...

And this time round my cravings/diet's been quite different too - drinking more milk and eating more 'cream sauce' based foods; more asian-y food (cooked Mee Siam, Mee Rebus?!?!)... and not much into chocs and cakes!! this girl is putting me on a diet already!!

Pam x

What is an enrichment class?

So, I was having a chat with a Singaporean girlfriend who's been in the UK as long as I've been and is actually heading back to Singapore for an initial 6 months whilst her British husband's working out there. She's had to frantically locate some nurseries/playschools for her 4 year old and her 2 year old.

She reports that it's really quite expensive (even though we complain enough over here in the UK that for fulltime nursery daycare, it costs us nearly £800/month), she's going to be paying something like S$1500/10 weeks (£600-700/10 weeks?) for 3 hours of care per week. That's ALOT of money, given that that's only for 3 hours of daycare!!! hm. And apparently, if she wanted 'enrichment' classes, she'll have to pay extra. Apparently enrichment = art/music/singing/dance classes.

My question: Why is it that such classes are deemed 'enrichment'? Why aren't they part and parcel of the early-years curriculum? We're talking about a 2 year old and a 4 year old for goodness sakes. We're not talking about having to deprieve a school going child of his math classes just so that he can do a bit of drummming, or a bit of painting!!! Shouldn't this be offered anyway? not necessarily every day, or even every week but surely they could do it??

At G's nursery, he comes home with a report sheet everyday. Apart from recording his poos and wees, his naps and what he's eaten, we also get a record of what he's done. They tend to include singing, painting (they were making some collages, painting the hungry caterpillar), 'investigative' work (they found a spider and looked at it under the magnifying class, outdoor play, dancing, home economics (he makes his own puddings of biscuits, banana-choco, fairy cakes - yes, he helps to measure out the ingredients).... and so on. It's exhaustive! and that's NORMAL curriculum.

hmm.

MoE boo boo

I haven't decided if I should be gracious and accept that large organisations (even bureaucratic, 'well-run', 'cannot fail' types like the Ministry of Education in Singapore can make mistakes, or I should be cynical and suggest that the only reason they've apologised is because they've been 'caught out' (opps!). In this big bad world of the world wide web, one can no longer hide... for long!!!

The background: There's a conference for teachers happening in Sept 2010 organised in Singapore. They've invited one of the best teachers of the year from America and then within a week, retracted the invite coz she's 'deaf'. right, you read right. She's deaf. They've since said that the reason why the misunderstanding arose was because they thought she'd need interpreters (and well, Singaporean Deaf people can't act as interpreters???!! we don't have sign language experts??), and because they thought she only taught Primary School kids (and are primary school kids that unimportant that even if she did only teach such children, the fact that she's been nominated 'teacher of the year' is surely something to shout about and surely she's got tips and ideas to pass on and share?!?!?!).

In my opinion, what a load of Bull.
px

Dear Pamela

I refer to your email to Minister. Thank you for your feedback.

The withdrawal of our invitation to Ms Susan Elliot was a mistake on our part. It arose from our misunderstanding about the need for interpreters and her professional experience. The chairman of the Organising Committee has since contacted Ms Elliot and spoken to her personally to convey our sincere apologies. We should have clarified these matters before making the decision. Ms Elliot has accepted our apology and the Organising Committee is delighted that she will participate at the Teachers' Conference in September. We look forward to her contributions in making the Conference a success.


Ms Sucillia Sukiman
Secretary
Teachers' Conference 2010 Organising Committee
Ministry of Education • 51 Grange Road • Singapore 249564 • http://www.moe.gov.sg
Integrity the Foundation • People our Focus • Learning our Passion • Excellence our Pursuit


Dear Minister
I read with fascination and horror about the going ons of the Ministry of Education - and I must say, if any of this is even remotely true, then I am most disappointed in the decision that your ministry has chosen to take.

You may wish to have a look at this blog and perhaps correct me if this is completely misdirected and 'miscommunicated'.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/04/singapores_city_upon_a_hill.html

I await your reply, with interest.

Best wishes

Pamela Yeow Ph.D

heartbeat...

dum dum dum... I heard it for the first time yesterday (6th April 2010). I had my 16 week check at the midwife's at the doctor's surgery and I asked if we could try and locate a heart beat. And she found it almost immediately - which was reassuring to say the least!! :)

seeing that I've not really been paying much attention to the food intake (or rather, the type of food intake), I'm relieved that baby's still doing well in there (or I hope it is!).

onwards and upwards to the next scan, 6th May!
Pam x

BOB #2

so... baby #2 is on board!! :)

it's now week 15 (or 16 depending on whether we're counting based on scans, or based on period dates) and ETA is 16 or 22nd September 2010 which puts it as a Virgo-ean Tiger.

We've had pretty amazing scans and the blood test results are:
Trisomy21 (down's syndrome) is 1:5242
Trisomy13+18 is 1:43421
which is quite a relief since this is 2.5 years on from the time we had G. The nuchal fold measurement was also 1mm, which is great (G was 1.2mm).

Haven't really had the time to pay any attention to what I should or shouldn't eat this time round - which isn't great but there just isn't enough time in a day to work full time, have a toddler son, do housework (cook, clean and everything), let alone rub moisturisers into my belly (well endeavour to do that though!), on top of weekend stuff like swim classes, birthday parties to attend, food shopping to get in, and etcetc.

Next midwife's app is next tuesday 6th April when we'll hopefully be able to hear the heartbeat. And my next scan is 6th May which will put us smack in the middle of the pregnancy.

Pam xx

It's NOT about you....

it's the message damn it !
ahhh... just had this really stupid conversation with a secretary who seems to think that I was trying to get at her (was not). I rang her about an email that she had sent (to everyone). I thought it was a really silly message (not from her - she's the messenger) and I didn't think that it was a necessary problem. But...when I spoke to her, she kept reacting as if I was getting at her (Pam, if you're unhappy with the way I run these evaluation forms then please talk to X)... erm, no I'm not unhappy with the way you run these evaluation forms. I'm confused as to why there are new rules claiming to be standard rules which erm, we've not known about since I joined here 6 years ago!!!

And so I wrote her an 'apology' email saying that I really wasn't getting at her, and in the meantime, got an email from her line manager telling me why this was the rule (again, I didn't know there was such a rule).

what's wrong with these people...? It's not even a personal thing - she's bloody sensitive, overly I'd say!! these people really have nothing else to think about... grrrr, makes my blood boil.

Happy 2nd Birthday G!:)

so I'm abit late with this post - it's just been so hectic!! But we reached another milestone in our lives and G turned two on 18th of February 2010. Happy Birthday my dear son!!! :)

Celebrations started on the actual day itself with the nursery having a birthday cake and he celebrated it with all his little friends at the nursery. This time round he was much more aware that it was his special day and he absolutely enjoyed it - he also celebrated it in his bigger toddler's room - Snowdrops. It's amazing that he's been through 3 rooms (out of 4) at the nursery... he has definitely grown (and time has flown past and mummy has aged considerably!).

I was in attendance and I may post some photos here if I have the time - they are still on my phone!

Then we went home and at 6pm, went out to the train station to pick up his Aunty J who'd come all the way from Manchester!! We went out for a birthday celebration at our neighbourhood pub restaurant with our close friends C and N and daddy joined us about an hour later.

We had a lovely meal and G had ice cream as part of his celebrations with a little candle!

On Saturday, we held his birthday party at Snappy's and his grandparents from up north came down - and together with 8 of his mates, had a big blast! He received many presents and it took him till the following Wednesday to finally open them all.

That evening we went out with the grandparents to dinner at the Whitstable Oyster Company where I had half a lobster and potato salad which was absolutely divine and everyone else (including G!) had fish and chips (which was yummys too!).

The next day the grandparents went home, and we went to see Thomas the tank engine at Tenterden - it was raining really heavily but G had an absolutely brilliant day out with Euan, and his parents (and his Aunty J of course) riding Thomas and all the trains that were in attendance. We came home frozen but it was great day out.

Monday - back to work.... hm.

Pam x

The twelve days of christmas...

what really happened.... http://www.kraftmstr.com/christmas/humor/12days-h.html

it's really funny.

It's Christmas Eve! Time's flown past... we're waiting for my cousin Jill and Tom to arrive, and G's having his nap. It's quiet and peaceful. Dan's made the turkey gravy (yums!) courtesy of a Jamie Oliver recipe, and he's also just made the Jamie Oliver Killer Chocolate Mousse so it'll be a yummy christmas.

Just weighed G last night after a long time not weighing him because the weighing machine's battery died, and he's 12.7kg..which equates to him being somewhere between the 50-75 percentile - excellent stuff. Now we need to measure his height and I'll be happy. It sounds like he's putting on more weight now (he was always hovering around the 50%ile or just below), which is not surprising since he's been eating quite a lot recently (whether that's a growth spurt or whatever...I don't know).

He's taken to eating Olives whole (!?) and spicy food too. he's even had wasabi peas! I think we're pretty blessed to have a toddler who seems to like his food.

Happy Christmas!!

p x

working from home...

today.

It's such a lovely thing to do - don't get me wrong; we still work up at the same time, George still went to nursery at the same time - but the joy of not having to go into work is unbelievably sweet. After dropping the little one off, I went off to the supermarket and did some food shopping, nappy shopping. got home, unpacked the stuff, went and did some washing, and then started to work.

Attacked the emails first, replied to those that I had to, sent out emails to those that needed some attention. Then sat down and decided to blog - ahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... no really.

I figured I've done alot of overtime lately. Was in London last thursday for an MBA gala evening which resulted in me coming home at 1am (and G not being too impressed given that he cried his face off, threw up and then cried himself to sleep - first time in a very long time). And also working every saturday in the last few weeks. So I think I can take 10 minutes off to blog.

Work's been quite hectic - as usual. Just finished a week of intensive MBA teaching which went really well - we'd revamped things, so it was more fun - but always intensive.

George's doing a danceathon in aid of Cystic Fibrosis Trust. If you wish to sponsor him for this activity next Thursday 26th Nov, please sponsor him at www.justgiving.com/Georgesdanceathon

ok - gotta get back to work now..!
xx

the name is Allen...

George Allen! :)

This picture of G is most priceless. Looking quite debonaire don't you think? :)

G's all dressed up because we had a wedding to attend at the Ritz in London and well, we had to dress up. We ended up staying over at this serviced apartments (got a really good deal) and so we didn't really have to rush about. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and my speech on behalf of the groom went down well I think!

Sunday, we met up with Ange and had lovely dim sum at Lido - good service, good food, reasonable prices. What more do you want?! (didn't realise this but having just googled Lido, it turns out that alot of other people think the dimsum at Lido's lovely too!)

We went home pretty happy...!

Singapore...

We've come back from Singapore 3 weeks now (which means I've been back at work 3 weeks now! boo hoo!)...

George had a whale of a time back home, with grandparents spoiling him to bits, meeting so many children and having so many to play with (the neighbours' kids, the kids from the neighbourhood, kids whilst we were on holiday and of course, his own cousins)..! It was amazing. He wasn't so much interested in kids younger than him (apart from his own cousin!) but he absolutely loved being with the older kids, following them around on his trike, going swimming and hanging out at the zoo!

We went to the zoo (with Dawn and her parents), and had a lovely time at the kidzworld water park (definitely recommend it!). We also went to Bintan (again!) and had a fantastic massage/facial and George absolutely loved the pool (and enjoyed socialising with the kids there). We celebrated dad's 70th birthday party with a huge party at Furama hotel (who were very professional) and as dad jokingly said to G, 'you stole gong-gong's limelight!!'...

Amongst the food G ate, he had chapatti and curry, chilli crab, chwee kway, macaroni chicken soup, coconut juice, lots of other juices, lots of fruit (watermelon, honeydew, apples, grapes - ate them whole, to my dad's dismay), chicken rice (loved that), udon, sushi and loads more. yums!

Some photos...

"George, where's your..."

Metatarsal?"

And G will point to his foot. :) Cool huh?? lol. In case we're in any doubt where our metatarsus is, click on the word.

We went up north to visit his other grandparents over a long weekend, and fantastically, G got on really well with everyone. He even went to the shops with his grandad, without me or D coming along! Grandad was on his way to the shops when I suggested that G might want to go along, and G said 'shoe' (and we put them on him) and he went off with Grandad, hand in hand, without turning back! That was great. He also played really well with all his cousins and they absolutely loved him.

Think he cottoned on really quickly that these people were people he could trust, and so settled down really quickly. I hope he'll be the same with the Singapore family when we see them in 3 weeks!

G says...

'bless you'! :) it's funny... we've always said 'bless you' when ever someone sneezes. And now, so does G. he shouts it across the room too, if he happens to hear a sneeze. It sounds suspiciously like ''sue' (tissue) which is about right too!

I celebrated my 36th birthday yesterday... OMG - how time flies.

The weekend started off well, with D and G going off to the supermarket to do the weekly shop whilst I stayed at home and hung about (read a few pages of my book, and basically did the laundry!)... Then we went to BlueWater shopping mall (big big place) and I managed to get some clothes (just as the shops were closing really) and had nice food - 'Leon's http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/ and spanish tapas in the evening http://www.latasca.co.uk/

Then on sunday, we went to church but were slightly late as D and G were busy baking a birthday cake for me! It's hilarious - will post some pics up here soon. Turned out ok though after alittle bit of a boo boo (daddy turning on the grill rather than the oven!). Hurried to church (G loves sticking his hand in the holy water and crossing himself - he sometimes drenches himself!), and then had lunch at Wagamama's where he finished quite a significant amount of my fried rice and some of Dan's curry!

Off to the park where he played in the labyrinth and the slides, and then back home where he crashed out (as did I) and Dan got on with decorating my cake. We then headed off to a surprise dinner where my friends gathered (Paola, Jesse, Victor, Chris, Nat, Chris, Lorraine and Euan) at a new chinese restaurant! It was yums and everyone agreed it was good food.

I received an acupuncture treatment from D and G, a lovely top and earrings (which I need to locate!) from PJV, and two pampering sets from CN and CLE. thank you everyone! :)

G's hair cut...

official first hair cut, took place last friday, 26th June 2009. His fringe is no more!!! will post photos soon. He was very good though, sat quietly in his own seat (boosted) and let Jodi get on with cutting his hair. ... He looks like a little boy now, and not my baby!

Prata...

G had 1 whole roti prata (well, except for maybe 2 bites?) for breakfast yesterday morning. Talk about big appetite! :) He also likes chicken rice, pasta with corguette and pancetta, tortellini, yoghurt, , shreddies/cheerios/rice crispies, juice (diluted with water!), ice cream, and chocolate. He also eats grapes by the punnet, blueberries (at one point he was finishing a whole punnet by himself), cherries and rice cakes. He loves fish (absolutely loves grilled salmon with oyster sauce and garlic), cod fish and chips (doesn't quite like the chips), mixed vege of carrots, brocolli, corn, peas. He's had onion bahji, toast.

Typical day:
Breakfast: Shreddies/cheerios/rice crispies/weetabix with milk. Sometimes with Toast.
Mid-morning snack: rice cakes, fruit, biscuits
Lunch: Pasta (tuna pasta bake, or pasta with corguette and pancetta, tortellini), fish and chips, chicken with rice and vege. + yoghurt, ice cream, cookie.
Mid-afternoon snack: rice cakes, fruit, biscuits.
Dinner: the same as lunch or anything else really.

Is that a diet for a 16 month old?!?! I think he'll have a bit of feast when we go back to Singapore for our summer hols!

More words...

George is a rather chatty toddler - except when he's confronted by the phone (and that's when he gets stage fright and doesn't speak - but still waves and blows kisses). Some of his words include "what's that?" (wahh zat), "hiya", "no... nono", "yes", oh doh", "duck", "dog" (woof woof) and the cutest one..."WOW WOW!" (when he's shown/given something he desperately wants).

His favourite books are 'The Gruffalo', 'The Gruffalo's Child', 'Going on a Bear Hunt' and any other book he can get his hands on. He loves books. When asked to show us where the X is, he knows where they are. He points to the Gruffalo, the mouse, the bear, the dog.. the monkey, the giraffe...

I'm sure he says other words too, but I can't remember them. But we sure do understand him...!

this brought tears...

to my eyes...

Sent to me by my old old friend since we were 4 years old.
She writes...
"What struck me was the mom knew about the Trisomy 18 diagnosis before baby was born and he attitude was:

"We knew from day to day that we had that day," Ginny says. "I would tell Matt a lot: 'I'll be sad later. I'm going to enjoy every second now.' So even though his diagnosis never changed, we just decided we were going to enjoy every second that we had."
http://www.oprah.com/media/20081001_tows_99balloons

Building Lego...

apparently G loves building with his lego/duplo blocks. Which is great. We've got photos of G doing that in nursery. His nursery teacher Paula thinks it's fab. We think so too... Paula then said, "aren't you impressed?"... we said.."sure"... she said, "no, you should be very impressed... building towers of more than 3/5 (I can't remember) is something babies of 30-50 months old do!"...

cogs starting moving... "oh really??!".. and G, bless him, is only 16 months old! hehehe...

Dan thinks G builder-meister of construction now - and of course, G got them building genes from him!

OMG...

this is such a sad story.... if you can help, do so... go to http://ourfeistyprincess.blogspot.com - I tried linking it on my sidebar, but I'm not good at such things so it may not appear. Go look... now.

G's nursery's been taken over...

by a Singaporean company!! OMG...

we got a letter a few days back saying that Busy Bees (used to be owned by ABC learning centres - an Australian co?) has been bought out by Knowledge Universe which is a Singaporean company! wow - apparently the Australians were in some financial trouble and had to hive off Busy Bees and they finally found this company to buy them out. Curious to know who/what Knowledge Universe is, I googled them (what did we do before Google?! - a question asked by one of my MBA students) and found out that they also run Pat's Schoolhouse!

Now, I hold Pat's Schoolhouse in great esteem as I know at least one of my friend's children is enrolled there, so I'm quite pleased that it's the same company with hopefully similar high standards..

well well, Singapore isn't all that small after all! Or maybe Singapore is physically a small island, but hey, its reach is far greater! Let's hope they don't change things too much, or if they do, they'll be for the better! Maybe they'll introduce Mandarin as one of their languages... hehehe