All About Bubs

A round up of all the activities that Bubs have been enjoying for the past couple of weeks. Still in denial that he's going to be in primary school next year, where did all those years of clinging tightly to me, slipping that once chubby hand of his into mine, that sweet lilting voice go to?

My Dad is hates drawing attention to himself - so it's definitely love for his grandson that allows him to get over this to let Bubs sing Happy Birthday loudly in a restaurant complete with candle blowing and cutting the cake.

These Magna Tiles have been one of our best buys. They are insanely heavy and the closest place that stocks them in a retail outlet is Singapore so I have been relying on the kindness of some folks to cart back a few sets of the 32 piece ones for us. Bubs got frustrated with them when he was much younger because these are more fiddly than Lego but when his fine motor skills got better, he liked them more.

Houses and vehicles for his dolls action figures. I love eavesdropping whenever he plays with his toys, he puts on different (but always gruff) voices for each character.

He likes sketching colourful robots and ninjas.

His school has a list of birthday children in its monthly newsletter so we make birthday cards for each of them to practise his handwriting.

Crafting with cupcake liners. Thank you, Google, for being filled with so many cool ideas for us to borrow.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to try this sensory activity. I got a few packets of Daiso's water beads for plants and since I didn't use up all of them, I handed over a tub to Bubs with strict instructions not to eat them, a bowl of shaving cream, a bowl of ice cubes and some scoops. He had so much fun with them! These bounce like crazy on the floor so be careful not to drop them, they also break if you step on them plus the clear ones are virtually invisible once they get mixed into a tub of water.

New Toys

A handful of Bub's and my new toys :) 

My cousin Jean sent Bubs this very amazing robotic animal kit that made him deliriously happy. Since he's pretty adept with Lego, we left him to fixing it by himself ... which was mistake #1. Mistake # 2 was not keeping 6 x AAA batteries at home. Oppps.

It wasn't until Bubs completed the pterodactyl that Hubs realised the kit requires batteries. And to fit the batteries in, you need to semi-demolish the robotic animal. We were scrabbling about at 10pm trying to find enough AAA batteries that we stripped the cordless phone and air-con remote for to make the pterodactyl flap its wings.

Bubs absolutely loves this kit and is already trying out more models which are so cool with their colourful "skins". It's a great step towards fostering a love of tinkering and robotics.

I've set my sights on these MNG black pointed low heels for a while and the moment I saw them on sale, I immediately marched over to the cashier with them. They also come in a hot pink version that i deliberated over but decided that stains on the fabric would be hell to get off. 

Blush pink Miss Selfridge asymmetrical crop top and Melissa + Jason Wu flats. With all the crop tops that I've been getting lately, I kinda wish that 70s style high waist jeans will come back in season soon. These Melissa flats are a bit of a splurge for me (even though they were on sale at Zalora) but they are so comfy plus its jelly-like material means that Hubs I can wash stains off them easily. 

Taking another step deeper into aunty-hood, my lunch buddies and I have started keeping indoor gardens in small containers. Daiso water beads in lieu of soil for this pot of pennywort.

I've tried (and failed miserably) terrariums so I've shifted my attention to air plants which are fuss-free and look so cute in mini landscapes. I'm also trying my luck with succulents in a large pot and praying frantically that they don't die. For some reason, cacti are hardier and I can never seem to gauge the correct amount of water for succulents. 

Wake me up when September Ends

September has been the best month of the year so far and I'm grumpy now because it's ending all too fast :( There were 3 public holidays plus Hubs and I took some additional days off work to stretch the weekends even longer for Bub's 5th birthday and his school's lantern festival.

The Big Bad Wolf book sale is back again in Penang for the 2nd time this year, woo hoo! On the very first day, my friends and I went sans kids just so we could focus on books without having to worry about losing little ones in the crowd. It always gets crazy during the first day and if you're not fast enough, you could get stuck queuing up for hours just to make payment.

This was my haul on the first day *sheepish grin* In my defense, the Roald Dahl books were absolute bargains at RM10 and RM8 each. I can't quite be sure but I think it might be even cheaper than the box set at Book Excess that Fairy Godma and I had been eyeing for quite a while. I'm just missing copies of the Witches and Matilda. A friend's niece pointed out these Enid Blyton Adventure Series and I can't believe that I'd not read them before as a child so I was very excited about getting these, also RM10 each. The Archie comics were also good steals; Bubs still can't believe that they have been around since Grandpa was young and we all grew up reading them.

Bubs was upset that he didn't get to go so again, during the very next day *shopaholic alert*, Hubs and I brought him there.

He was so enamoured with the trolley that he tugged behind him and even begged Hubs to let him sit inside it like a wagon, LOL. Again our misgivings, we bought him the Mummies fact book that Bubs begged for. When he asked me to read it out aloud, there were SO many gruesome bits (ritual human sacrifices, detailed organ removals, etc) that I'd to censor. If that book didn't give him nightmares, it sure as heck gave ME nightmares *shudders*

We took a trip to Balik Pulau for the best laksa ever and spotted this intriguing street art. We may not have Banksy but we're not lacking in talented street artists here.

The roti canai stall at Transfer Road is somewhat of an institution in Penang. I had my first taste more than a decade ago with a bunch of college friends and since then, everyone that I've brought there has been hooked on it. It's a bit of dicing with danger; makeshift tablets are set up right next to the roadside - eating with buses roaring past you makes you appreciate life more - and you tend to close an eye towards the hygiene levels. All of these just melt away when you take a bite of that incredibly crispy, maybe a bit charred, roti dipped into a dish of spicy kuah daging. Perfection has never tasted better ...

 

Watching Bubs getting more creative with his play. He combined different sets from a garage, Ikea wooden trains and Jenga to form a massive traffic jam, of all things!

3 Things

My week in things that made me smile and wished that happy little moments like this lasted forever :)

I usually eschew McDonald's gimmicky toys, especially if you have to pay extra for them (shouldn't these be free with Happy Meals?!) but Siew and I were drawn to these like moths to a candle flame. We got Mr. Happy and Little Miss Giggles because they were so darn cute and I justified these purchases as educational aids because Bubs have some of the books and I can't wait to see the look on his face when he gets to hold these tiny stuffed toys while reading!

This pretty ink splattered skirt on loan from my cousin Jean who has been so generous with her wardrobe. So soft and comfy, it's almost like wearing pajamas to the office.

My own Mr. Happy made his very own bun at kindy complete with a crayon painted paper bag that he was oh so proud of. He told me that he filled the dough with raisins and seeds and shaped it like a ball.

Play Sand

Bubs adores the sandpit at his kindergarten and never fails to make a beeline for it everyday. The teachers tell me he wallows in it, make sandcastles, dig trenches and flood them with water. Part of the weekday laundry headache involves washing the sand thoroughly off his school clothes, that kid even smuggles home fistfuls of sand in his pockets!

So he was more than thrilled when his aunt gave him a 1kg packet of play sand. The texture of this is similar to moon/kinetic sand and I couldn't resist joining Bubs in messing around with it. It looks exactly like sand but instead of the grainy, coarse bits of it, it was soft, powdery and the fun part was that when you squeeze and pack the sand together, it actually holds its form. Never mind Bubs, I was obsessed with holding it up high and watch tiny bits of it fall down in little, fibrous looking clumps. It was such an interesting sensorial experience!

While play sand isn't as messy (and insect ridden as Hubs would be worried about) as real sand, this does still go around everywhere even though I nagged reminded Bubs to contain the mess only on the table. I placed an old, worn out bed sheet under the table so that helped with cleaning up. 

Bubs used most of his play dough toys - all the moulds, plastic knives and I added in a bunch of marbles, glass pebbles and seashells. He sat there for close to 2 hours, which translates to an eternity for kids! He'd have sat there even longer if it wasn't time for dinner.

He formed little mountains and valleys. He squashed, squished and made little superheroes (his latest obsession), squealed for help in a high pitched voice and answered back in a deep, manly superhero tone. Hubs and I stared at him in fascination; who knew that he had all that going on in his head!

My Weird Lil Bubs

I'm starting to truly realise how weird Bubs can be when it comes to Lego, or is that his creativity unleashed?

"Mummy, look at my Lego house!" Bubs exclaimed in excitement as he ran towards me carrying one of his creations.

I admired it from all angles, poked a few bricks and felt very smug. My baby built his own Lego house, he's bound to an architectural genius. He's bound to get an Aga Khan award for architecture someday.

"Bubs, what are these?"

"Oh, their heads." He shrugged nonchalantly. 

"Whaaaa?!"

"And see, Mummy, this man has 4 arms!"

Okay, that is one very weird kid ;)

3 Things

There were 3 things for the week that definitely made me feel awesome :)

My love of anything and everything green tea has expanded to these packs of green tea Kit Kats and Oreos I found at Jusco. Each time I see a green tea Kit Kat, it reminds me of the time where Hubs went to Japan for a business trip. Bubs and I were supposed to tag along but we didn't manage to get Bub's passport and visa done in time so Hubs went by himself. I requested for green tea Kit Kats, he said he couldn't find any and I told him to go look harder.

Then the huge earthquake of 2011 happened and Hubs was stranded there. When he managed to get a flight out and reached Penang, I literally flung myself (and Bubs as well, since he was a tiny baby and I was carrying him) into his arms, sobbed tears of joy that he was back ... people in the airport were all staring at me like I was a nutter ... when I calmed down, my first question was "Did you get me green tea Kit Kats?"

*face palm moment for Hubs*

Fairy Godma loaned me the best book I've read all year - John Green's The Fault in our Stars. Don't let the young adult label put you off, this is very well written with brilliant dialogue and some intensely heart wrenching scenes. I think I was already sobbing uncontrollably about a quarter into the book. I got a bunch of his other books at 30% off from Popular and slowly savouring them.

Toys R Us finally had the minifigures from the Lego movie and the Simpsons in and one of the staff was kind enough to help me feel through the blind bags to find the Panda Guy. I was a little amused to see grown men standing at the counter and feeling their way through the blind bags methodically while most of the kids weren't interested in them! I'm really hoping to find Mr. Burns - all rounder evil dude - and Ralph Wiggum (Me fail English? That's un-possible). Too bad they didn't release an Edna Krabappel or Sideshow Bob minifigure. Bubs have been given strict instructions that these are Mummy's toys and he'll inherit them when Mummy's reallllllly old ;)

The Lego World

Bubs is recently into a Lego kick and we've been lucky to have family that buy some sets for him as gifts. Seriously, Lego and Duplo are the best investments ever - they never lose their playability factor and the quality of these just lasts forever. My bestie still has her 20 year old Lego set and apart from the white bricks yellowing, they are still as good as new.

I like how Bubs merges both his Lego and Duplo bricks with his other toys. I marveled at how swiftly he formed towns and arches, complete with Hot Wheels cars zipping along.

And of course, your friendly neighbourhood dragon wrecking havoc on the people of Legoville.

Life's good when you are the creator of your own little empire :) Never grow out of that brilliant and fearless creativity that all children are born with, Bubs, and the world will be your oyster.

Bubs Speak

My sweet little baby is becoming more and more grown up to the point that every time he gets annoyed with me, he tells me firmly "mummy, you go work, I'm playing now, okay?"

Whenever Bubs mispronounces a word, I shriek like a banshee to stop Hubs from correcting him and destroying what's left of his baby-hood.

Bubs' talk: Pink-kaboo
What he means: Peekaboo

Bubs' talk: No-thing
What he means: Nothing

Bubs' talk: Efferfesser
What he means: Professor

When he gets excited, he goes "Oh wow oh wow oh wowww!"

Once he bawled for no reason and why I asked him why, he spluttered out "My tongue bit my teeth!" :D

And the most heartbreaking one during bedtime "Mummy, you don't need to pat me to sleep, I'm a big boy now" :( Where did that infant with the soft, milky breath and squishy nom-able thighs disappear to?

Magna Tiles Madness

I am eternally grateful to Sue and my boss for lugging back two heavy sets of Magna Tiles for me all the way from the US. Magna Tiles have quickly become one of Bub's favourite play things. They snap together very easily and you can form all kinds of 2D and 3D structures with them.

I've been using Magna Tiles to teach Bubs about shapes, pattern formation and basic math. Bubs is on a building kick at the moment and has been building castle-garage hybrids.

 Plus the jewel toned shades look awfully pretty as well :p I left Hubs alone with Bubs and when I came back, I found this in the living room. Hubs swore that Bubs built this all by himself though I still am very doubtful. Hmmm ...

Anyone knows where can I find these locally?

Lego

When I first found out that Bubs was a boy during the pregnancy ultrasound, I remember wailing to Hubs that I wouldn't know how to play with boys. Boys live in a world filled with vehicles, spaceships and robots whereas I only know how to put pretty dresses on Barbie and make stuffed toys drink from dainty tea cups. Stereotyping, huh? ;) I've found a bridge between both worlds and I can't believe it took me so long to think of it: Lego!

I was nuts about Lego growing up and it kept me busy for hours. My parents gave away my old sets, which is such a pity, those things are meant to last forever but it's the perfect excuse for me to get new ones for Bubs! Hubs has never played with Lego growing up so he's re-discovering this childhood staple each time Bubs hounds him to build something together.

Bubs is slowly graduating from Duplo (he can easily build them now) to Lego (he fixes simple stuff based on pictures but needs a lot of help with fiddly bits). His favourite at the moment is the fire engine set my Dad got him for Christmas.

I've to admit, the first time I went to the Lego section at the toy shop with Bubs, I was shocked at the prices. I didn't expect it to cost that much and when we got home a set to play with, here are a few observations:

• Lego can beat Ikea in terms of frugality: you get x number of bricks to build the mode, the number is exactly down to a tee and you don't get any extra bricks
• Why have the base plates become so rare? I remember the sets that I got back in the 80s came with huge base plates included. I hardly see any base plates bundled with sets and the huge base plates are now sold separately - they don't come cheap either. 
• There is nearly a Lego set for each blockbuster movie and the new sets come with all kinds of specialised bricks, they hardly make use of the basic bricks. I turned my nose up at SpongeBob SquarePants and the Prince of Persia but was highly tempted by the Batcave and Lord of the Rings sets - Orc minifigures, anyone? 

Hubs is not so much of a Lego snob purist as me and has no qualms over getting a few sets of "inspired" bricks that are compatible with Lego's bricks. I've resorted to asking friends heading to the US to get me a couple of sets and have hidden them away for a rainy day. I'm not so much of a vehicle enthusiast as Bubs, I prefer constructing houses and Hubs enjoys building things like robots and spaceships. It's going to make for a very varied Lego collection, that's for sure!

Here's to a new family hobby together :)

Play at Home Activities Part 2

Remember when I mentioned that Hubs abhors bugs of any kind so he really frowns upon Bubs playing with messy stuff at home? I've finally found a sensorial activity that gets Hub's approval.

Tadaaaa - coloured salt. Cheap as ... well, salt and Hubs reasoned that since no insect in their right mind would feast on salt, it's a safe activity to play indoors.

It was so easy to make, I poured a pack of salt in a jar, asked Bubs to pick a colour, squeezed a few drops of food colouring into the salt. I scrunched the salt around with my hand to spread the colour evenly and wait for it to dry uncovered in a large tray. The more drops of colouring you use, the more vivid the colour of the salt will be and takes slightly longer to dry.

Bubs went crazy over this sensorial activity. We traced out letters with our fingers in the salt which was a good pre-writing exercise. I even found it soothing myself to just let my hands sift through the coloured salt.

I gave Bubs some seashells, matchbox cars and he had so much fun vroom-ing the cars over mini sand dunes. By adding some plastic cutlery and cupcake liners, he sat there intensely scooping the salt into cupcakes, carefully placing them into a muffin pan and pouring the salt over the buried cars repeatedly.

Imagination Tree has so many fantastic and easy ideas so I borrowed this straw blown painting activity.

All you need are diluted paints (can I wax lyrical about my love for Crayola again?) and a straw. I usually buy the cheapest drawing blocks I can find though I wished I'd purchased some thicker ones for this art activity. The watery paint was a bit too heavy for the paper and I'd to remind Bubs to be gentle as not to tear holes into it.

Bubs found it to be such a novel experience using his breath paint, instead of a paintbrush. Take a deep breath ... then pufffffffff! He experimented with short huffs and looooong, hard blows. There were dots of paint, splashes, streaks and beautiful trickles all over the paper.

Fairy Godma gave Bubs his very own Elmo CD player and my heart swells a little each time I see him run to get it out, pop a CD inside it and sit there listening contently to the music while nodding his head.