This is one of the most important competition for kindergarten kids that are into chess. It is similar to the National School Chess Championship where you played with opponents of the same age. In this competition, you will know where one stands compared to kids their age. Of course, there are exception cases where one may under-perform.... just like HIM!!!
Everyone was so confident that he will be among the top 5 and so when he didn't, everyone was very surprised. But then again, he is just a little kid who has his swings. He was so not himself in this competition. He was not able to focus on the games at all and only managed to win 3 out of 6 games. With this score, he was ranked 20 out of 35 players.
But nevertheless, he was still given a merit medal for his effort.
Spelling
We saw the biggest leap in his development this month as he started spelling his own name and simple words like "bus; ball; bell; no..." and 2 long words - his brother's name and the word "Banana". I was surprised when he spelled his brother's name as we had never spelled to him. Only after a few days later did it appeared to me that he must have learn it from this....
Their names were pasted on their room doors and so, I guessed he read it so many times till he remembered it.
For the word "banana", he told me that elephant taught him...! Nicholas said in WordWorld, the elephant taught the monkey and duck how to spell banana. In fact, he picked up all this words from WordWorld as we did not expect him to spell at this age.
Music
We were playing pretend games when he suddenly took a play-doh cake and sang "Happy Birthday"! Although his tune are out but yippee! All the words are there!
Prayer
He joined in our nightly prayer now too. He is able to prayer the entire prayer by himself without much prompting from me. After the fall, he added this sentence to his prayer..."pray that I don't fall
down again"
Bits and Pieces
When he was holding my ipad, I asked him a difficult question "You want mummy or ipad?" He held on to the iPad, eyes switch between the ipad and me, unable to decide. Then naughty me pretend to cry and mumbled that he wants iPad and not mummy. Poor boy then started to cry too! Naughty mummy!
He started to address me as "mum" now when he
decided to be cheeky. Ask where he learn this from, his reply "tor
tor"(nicholas)... That's remind me that Nicholas do call me mum sometimes when he
try to be funny.
One night while I was busy with the 2 girls and Nicholas is doing his work with grandma, Ryan suddenly came up to me and said this "Nobody wants me...nobody likes me..." in his super sad face and tone! hahaha...think he felt neglected that the adults are doing things with his siblings and no one was with him.
Handling him
Found a way to deal with him..although not sure if its the right approach...
He had been naughty these 2 days and I was a little angry with the
little fellow. He is not scared of anything/ anyone.
So I told him this "you naughty, I don't want to care about u anymore!" I
put him down and walk out of the house (to fetch the girls). When I got home with the girls, helper told me Ryan was sad and told her in his sad voice that mummy don't want him.
Although it seems quite mean of me, but for the rest of the day, he had been behaving himself and whenever I praise him, he would ask me "you want me?"
I was out sending the girls to school when it happen. By the time I got home, he had already stop crying and enjoying his breakfast. And from the way the helper had describe, I thought it was just a minor fall from the bottom of the steps till Nicholas shown personally where and how it happen...I was horrified!
The glass panel was shattered on Saturday and I had already blocked up the place and reminded the kids not to go near it.
The shattered glass panel...
But this little poor boy came out of his room this morning and walked towards the area where the glass panel used to be. Nicholas chased out to call him back but he thought Nicholas was playing with him and he squeeze through the gap and fell 1/2 mtr down with his head landing on the steps first and rolled down the remaining steps.
The height he fell from...
Nicholas was so shocked that he cried and screamed while helper dashed up to check what happen. Helper immediately carried Ryan and comfort him. She also boiled egg to "massage" Ryan. Beside the small "mountain" at the back of his head, he was okay. Since he is okay, I did not bring him to hospital but when his daddy found out, he persuaded me to send him to KK Hospital to have a complete check. So brought him there but was told by the nurse to go home and observe him instead...
For the next few days, he refuses to go near accident site.
Thank God for his protection over this little boy! The unthinkable outcome is frightening now when we think back...he could have fracture his skull, break his neck/spinal cord, paralyse, brain damage or even die!!!
Thank GOD for answering our nightly prayer!
After discussing with hubby, we decided to place Ryan on full day every Monday on top of his regular half day school. This is because Monday is the busiest day for me - work + ferrying the 2 girls around + grocery shopping.
So today was a trial day for him and I had told him in the morning that he will be sleep in school that afternoon. He did not say anything.
When I picked him up in the evening, his teacher said he was ok in the morning but cried in the afternoon after he wakes up looking for me. He also refuses to eat much for lunch and the teacher kept his lunch and fed him again after he wakes up. I carried him over asked him why he cried, he said in his pathetic voice "because I want you! I miss you!"...aiyo! This boy hor... really knows how to make me feel guilty!
This is the FIRST time we decided to bring the kids to check out the Singapore Air Show. The boys were excited to be able to see planes doing those aerobatic flying displays and thus I innocently brought the tickets for hubby and the 2 boys to get in there, not knowing that actually they can just watch the display too at Changi beach too! The girls were having competition and thus, its only "boys' outing".
Coincidentally, the officer that took picture with the boys shared the same name as Nicholas! Nicholas was so excited that he told his daddy that he wants to be like the officer too when he grows up!
Anyway, the 3 "man" enjoyed the flying displays most!
Nicholas's preschool Chinese teacher is doing a very good job in teaching them the Chinese character writing and reading. As compared to his sisters when they were in kindergarten, he is speaking very good complete sentence and thus, it didn't cross my mind in sending him for any enrichment classes.
However, after hearing from friends their testimony about this enrichment center, decided to just send him there to enrich him further. And it is indeed very good. Even the girls commented that Nicholas is so lucky to have a good preschool teacher and now a good interesting enrichment center!
In the center, they learned Chinese idioms every week in a fun way and he was so excited with what he had learned after the first lesson.
He was so eager to show me what he had learned and we had this conversation...
Nicholas : mummy, you know how what is the meaning of "人山人海"?!
Me : hmm...let me think... is it "people mountain people sea" ?
Nicholas: hahaha...I know you will say that! No, it means there is a lot of people, very crowded!
The page that he read in the video was taught by the center and he was able to read it without any help after going through with him once at home.
Hope he will develop an interest in Chinese and will not struggle with it when he enters Primary school.
After a long break from the last competition, I was surprised by his played today. He was very focus on his games and thus, did super well, winning even some tough players who were 2 years older than him. Maybe the bait to watch Transformer really work on him. I have promised to bring him to USS to get up close with the Transformers if he win this competition. He is had his eyes on these tall trophies...
Its the FIRST time his name is in the 1st box - playing board 1!
His this opponent is very strong and he lost. Nicholas did not managed to recover from it and so lost the rest of the 3 matches.
Luckily, we have a pair of cupids to cheer him up. They gave him a chocolate and that is enough to make him smile again.
He scored 4 out of 7 games played. He was the Champion in the Under 6 category but because his point, he was also 6th place in the U8 Open section. Since only one prize per player, he was awarded under the U8 -OPEN category.
Not knowing that the McWings are spicy, I gave one to him. He took a bite and said, "Hot! Burn my tongue! This one not nice, French Fries nice!"
After dinner, the 3 big ones each grab a handful of M&M as treats for eating their food fast. He saw me throwing the empty packet of M&M into the garbage bag, he then took it out and complain to helper "jiejie Rachel eats, jiejie Charmaine eats, koror eats, I don't have" in his pathetic voice! Aiyo!
We were in the cinema and he started climbing down and wants to walk to the front. When I asked him why, he told me "one people block me! I cannot see!"
Got him to do some colouring with pencil, after a while, he told me this "you colour for me. I'm busy."
When he sees or read something funny or unrealistic, he will comment , "How can it be?!" and laugh in his cheeky way.
He saw that I had a little cut on my foot and said this to me "mommy, I call ambulance!"
Once I asked him "Are you mommy's baby?" He replied: "No. I'm mommy's big boy!"
Didn't capture the first part. This was what happen...
We were playing ball (small light plastic ones) throwing in the room when one of them hit him on his head. His immediate reaction was to pretend to faint. We laughed ourselves silly when he kept on doing it... taking a ball and knocking on his own head and pretend to faint!
I redeemed the Sentosa Play Passwith HSBC credit card's reward points and brought the 3 babies and my SIL down to Sentosa for a day of fun. Charmaine couldn't join us in the morning as school is a school day. Rachel's school as usual, gave them an extra day off and thus, she was able to join us in the morning.
Hubby fetch us down to Mount Faber in the morning and we took a cable car to Sentosa. The cable car ride is included in the Play Pass and taking a cable car in means we do not need to pay for the Sentosa admission fee. The first thing we did when we got there was to redeem the return cable car tickets. Although the cable car is available till 10pm, but the Play Pass redemption is only till 7pm.
We did the less thrill stuff in the morning, leaving the thrill attractions in the afternoon when Charmaine & hubby joined us.
We took the Tiger Sky Tower, a thing that we will not bother trying if its not included in the Play Pass as its super boring.
Next, we proceeded to the Butterfly Park & Insect Kingdom.The kids, except my SIL who ran away every time a butterfly got near her, enjoyed looking at the beautiful butterflies.
Next, we took the free Sentosa shutter bus down to Resort World where the Maritime Museum is located. Its quite an experience in there and had fun in the multi-sensory Typhoon Theatre!
By the time we are done with the Museum, its lunch time and we went to the Malaysian Food Street near the entrance of USS.
There was a long queue and we were half-hearted to join. But Rachel said the queue was moving fast and when she peeked in, there were lots of empty seats. Food we ordered there:
Penang Lim Brothers’ Char Koay Teow
Penang Ah Mei Hokkien Prawn Mee
KL Jalan Alor Hokkien Mee
KL Wanton Mee
and how can we miss the Famous Penang Cendol!
We took the monorail down to Palawan Beach where Charmaine and hubby met up with us. With all united, they 4 big ones tried the Segway Eco ride in the enclosed area.
The 3 girls went for the Flying Trapeze too. Here a video of Charmaine doing it.
Next, we visited the Images of Singapore. We spend a good time there looking at the exhibits.
