Thursday, February 24, 2011

My 17mo


My 17mo boy is slowly creeping towards the dreaded terrible-two stage.

He is no longer a baby, though I still think of him as such. He is definitely his own person, and he lets us know that ALL the time.

When I tell him it's time to leave the playground, he throws a tantrum. When I tell him it's time to come up from the pool, he slaps my face (!). When his biscuit gets knocked out of his hand, he looks everywhere for it. When his older brother takes his toys away from him, he asks us to take it back for him. He knows that Kai's spectacles is not a toy, and hands it back to me when I asked him to.

But of all the wonderful things he does, my favorite is when he kisses me. :-)

Starstruck

I have a confession to make.

For thirty-something years of my life, I have never felt starstruck before. I have met many famous CEOs of multinational companies and interviewed them during my years as an IT journalist.

But I was NEVER, EVER awestruck. Until I met Eric Khoo during a recent interview.

Yes, THAT Eric Khoo who has put tiny Singapore on the world stage in the film industry. I've watched some of his movies: his debut film "Mee Pok Man"; "12 Storeys"; and "Be With Me". I've read about him in the news. I've seen his pictures, which were taken with gorgeous celebrities at the Festival de Cannes.

So when I was told I would get to interview the man himself for a client of mine, I thought: "Wow."

Then "Wow." turned into this strange feeling in my stomach when I finally met Eric. He has always come across as very serious, very dark, and very stern in his photographs. So for the first time in my life as a reporter, I was nervous. Oh dear, what if I asked questions that he thought was stupid (though I have put in hours of research before the interview)? What if he asked me something about his film/s and all he gets is this blank stare from me. What if all I got were moody, monosyllabic replies. What if. What if?

Then the interview started, and what a relief! He is very serious about his work but he is such a wonderful person to talk to. None of the stereotypical star-attitude that some celebrities gave reporters. Eric gave lots of interesting quotes, he is very passionate about his work, and he is very down to earth.

Whew. What a relief.

I never told Terence that I asked to take a photograph with Eric. (He'll find out for the first time from this blog!) I'll get teased to death. He'll think I'm going through some strange phase. No. No. No. I was just starstruck from meeting a truly talented man.

P/S: But all the high I experienced from meeting a celebrity quickly dissipated when I sat down to write the story for my client. With so many great quotes, it became a massive exercise to squeeze them into a specific word count.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Taunting the waves

As you can see, me and the boys spend quite a lot of time at the beach. :-D

I took this sequence (using my iPhone) of Kai playing with the waves at the beach. After I looked at the sequence again on the computer, I realized something. While capturing people's faces is a great way of telling a story in photographs, great stories can still be told even if the face cannot be seen. I wish I could bottle up his happiness for eternity.

Happy weekend everyone. :-)



Wednesday, February 09, 2011

No hat, no play

There isn't a lot of emphasis in Singapore about skin damage caused by the sun. Before I had Kai, I couldn't care less about putting on sunblock daily or donning a hat at the beach or in the boat (while wakeboarding). But a few years back, while having lunch in a hawker center, I sat next to an old man with skin cancer ON HIS FACE.

That scared the s***t out of me.

I now have a rule for the boys: No hat, no play. And the one place where they absolutely have to wear the hat is at the beach.

Well, you know how young toddlers and babies HATE wearing hats. Or at least, both my boys hated wearing hats when they were babies. But I kept pulling it down on their head, which works out in the end. Now Kai wears his hat dutifully at the beach or wherever else I ask him to. Kit? He is still a hat-wearer-in-training. But whether he likes it or not, he'd get there!

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

The force is strong with this one

Cookies! Om-nom-nom.

合家欢乐!

These days, you never know when you'd chance upon a water play area in Singapore. You can find it right smack in front of a shopping center, which is ok because you can always walk into any of the shops to buy a whole new outfit for two soaked-to-the-skin boys. (Ahh... a ploy by the shopping center management to help boost sales?)

But when you chance upon it at Resorts World Sentosa, then you face the dilemma of leaving your kids in their wet clothes for the rest of the evening or walk a long way to buy a t-shirt from a souvenir store.

Lucky I still carry a spare change of clothes for Kit. Damage to the pocket was minimized.

That aside, the boys had great fun and we all had a good laugh on the third day of the lunar new year. So here's wishing everyone: 新春愉快, 合家欢乐! (Happy new year; Felicity of whole family)

Friday, February 04, 2011

On the second day of CNY

After nine straight tiring hours of visiting loved ones on the first day of Chinese New Year (CNY), we decided to stay in on the second day and just chill... all except for Kit.

After his brekkie, he flipped through Style Magazine to keep himself up to date on SS11 fashion trends.

He wanted to reorganize our wardrobe.

Then take out the trash from his room.

He thought it'd be a good time to organize daddy's namecard drawer and...

Remind mummy to update her it bag.

He finally settled down for 5 min of Scooby Doo with Kai.

Happy Lunar New Year everyone!

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Weekly routine: Off to the beach

Once a week, after I pack Kai off to school, I'll bring Kit to the beach.

For maybe 5-10 minutes, my hyperactive 16.5mo would be content to sit on the beach and try to scope sand into a bucket.

Then 5-10 minutes later, he'd be off chasing the waves for another 20 minutes.

Then I clean him up and wheel him around in his stroller with a snack for another 10 minutes before we head home. He'd take his bath and settle down for his 1 hour nap.

Boring as it sounds, I think this routine has been pretty exciting for the baby. After all, the beach is where he learned how to stand up and finetuned his walking skills. I wonder what's new after this?

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