Happy French Mother's Day

While we were having brunch with Rhona and Peter, someone rang.

It was a delivery of flowers from my two boys for the French Mother's Day.

In came in a box shaped like a huge book, filled with roses.

Really sweet and totally unexpected as I already had a surprise on Mother's Day (that time it was the German day).

As Rhona pointed out, does this mean I will always have two Mother's Days: the French and the German one?

Thank you Oskar and Wolfram!

Future Packaging Engineer

Surprise

Now I know why Oskar insisted on getting us out of bed by 5am. He needed the space and some time to prepare the surprise.

Thanks to the Papa as well who helped a bit.

Canard de bain XXL

It's different

It's different to travel with a baby.

Before for a four-day weekend, I would have packed a trolley and no more. After all beside swimming suits and flip flops, what else do you need?

Now we packed a 34kg suitcase with all the things that we need for Oskar. The baby cot is provided by the hotel so no need to carry that one, but everything else: yes!

Before upon arrival, I would drop the bag, change in swimming suit and hit the beach or the pool. After all it was all about getting as much sun as possible in so little time.

Now we made sure we had the suite before Oskar's next meal and nap. We unpacked everything so that we would be ready to feed, change, entertain him.

Before we would go to happy hours for a few cocktails then have dinner.

Now we are amongst the first ones in the restaurant (together with the other families with small kids) trying to eat before baby has to go to sleep or eat courses before and after putting him down.

Don't ask about after dinner drinks, now we are just too tired for that. 

Scaringly, breakfast starts at 7am and I wondered what are we going to do if we are hungry before 7am? Around 6am...

Yet seeing Oskar stepping (with help) towards the water wanting to try it out is worth all the other changes. Tomorrow we are getting him in a swimming suit. I'm curious to see how this goes. 

Fusion

Take a combinaison of Swedish and Thai massages with a touch of aromatherapy. That's fusion or 90min of relaxation and release of tensions.

I might have fallen asleep during part of it (but who wouldn't after a wake up call from Oskar at 5am) but it doesn't matter because I felt so good afterwards.

Now let's see how the hot stones massage is tomorrow. 

And yes, no shame in getting a massage everyday while we are in Bintan. I need to catch up for all those I missed during the pregnancy and beyond. 

Nothing to see

Today we found the courage to get out of the house despite the heat (and the exhaustion) and took a taxi to Mount Faber.

"One of the oldest parks in Singapore, Mount Faber Park is a popular tourist destination. From this park, you can take a cable car to Sentosa Island or enjoy the panoramic view of the southern part of Singapore and the southern islands."

That's how the park is described. We should have known that if it is a popular tourist destination it cannot be good.
Mount Faber is 105m high and that's pretty high for Singapore. This "hill" is as good as a "mountain" in Singapore.  In theory it should offer indeed a nice view on the sea and the city.
Except, all around the view point, there are trees. Full size trees. Trees that are so tall that you cannot see anything beyond them.
So when you are standing at the view point in the direction that's indicated as "Bangkok", the only thing in that direction: trees.
Same for the full 360 degrees of the hill. Except for a small portion that offers an amazing view on... HDBs.

While it was good to get out of the house, the absence of any view (not even asking for a great view there) made it not worth the sweat or the mosquito bites.

Next time we will try something less touristic and maybe get luckier.

PS: Mount Faber park is also the first "not kid friendly" place we've been in Singapore. The park is full of steps to take you up and down the hill. Rarely a ramp available wich makes it hard to walk around when you have to carry the stroller every five minutes.

Rice consumption

When we moved to Singapore, I recall we had to search in the supermarket to find small bags of rice. Given our yearly rice consumption, buying more than 2kg at a time was not making sense.

That was before Tess.

Tess' diet is rice based. When we rely on bread, she does on rice. When we can eat bread every day, so can she eat rice. Slowly but surely, we are also eating rice more often especially when she is cooking for us.
This lead us to this:

Now, when we buy rice, we buy 5kg at a time. But only because we don't have space to store more. Otherwise Tess would encourage us to buy the 10kg bag, simply because it's a better deal.

No doubt there, we are living in Asia and our eating habits are following the locals. 

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

At day he is the cutest little boy delighting us with millions of smiles, funny faces and discoveries.

At night... when he is showing his teeth, you know that you are in trouble and that it will be a very very very very very long night.
A night that will leave you with a feeling of relief when the sun rises again.

Sleepless in Singapore

Since Easter Oskar has been waking up several times at night. After several months of him nicely sleeping at least until 7am, this is not exactly delighting the parents.

First we thought it was teething but then found out he was actually sick. 

Once Roseola was cured, he didn't get back to his normal sleeping habit. The first tooth did come out so it might have been teething after all.

But after two weeks of sleepless nights, I wonder what else can it be.

A quick search on our good friend Google gave me several options: teething, development milestone, separation anxiety, night terror, environmental conditions, and many more. It seems there are lots of reasons for a 7-month baby to wake up at night although he was not doing it before.

What's the solution to that? All the expert advice inevitably end up in the same place: once you've fixed everything that's fixable, hold tight and wait until this phase passes. It should not last longer than four weeks.

That's reassuring. Only two more weeks to go :(