The most patriotic member of the family this year has got to be Vanessa. She’s been bugging both me and Mummy: “Why we no Singapore flag?” “Why our car no Singapore flag?” “See, Singapore flag!” “Why we no Singapore flag?” “See, another Singapore flag!” “Where’s my Singapore flag?” (She got one from her child care centre.) “Why our car no Singapore flag?” ”Why we didn’t bring my Singapore flag”? Repeat and repeat, in various random sequences.
I went along with Vanessa for her school excursion a couple of days ago. Mummy did not come along this time. I think Vanessa quite enjoyed herself. I asked her at the end if she liked the trip, and she said yes. I asked if she would like to come to the same place again, and surprisingly, her answer was no. Hmm. I asked if she didn’t like the place? No, she didn’t. Okay, so she enjoyed the trip because I went along with her? Yes. Happy daddy 
Oh no, someone’s kid knows how to boot up a PC and use a mouse at the age of two. Vanessa is already three. It seems we are a little behind time. But she’s quite the expert using Nokia touchscreen smart phones, navigating to the music player, and listening to her favourite “Nobody, nobody but you” song. Quite impressive, I think. I’m not clear what exactly “running software” means, but it does sound like a significant achievement. Or, maybe it just means to launch Internet Explorer.
I told Vanessa on the second day of ICT, as I was preparing to head out: “Papa has to go army now.”
Vanessa looked at me, her face was painted in shock and disappointment: “Again???”
I told her, “Yes, and there will be many many more days.”
She asked, “But why you always go army?”
And I said, “Well, I also don’t want to go army you know. But the government wants me to go.”
Vanessa: “Why?” Yadda, yadda, yadda… “The government naughty?”
Yes, it’s ICT time again. This year with a slightly older Vanessa who can ask intelligent questions. Questions like: “Papa, you go army again?” Or: “Why need to go army?” On day one, she was amused that my No. 4 uniform is green like her child care centre’s uniform. She commented, “Green, green, same!” Yah, but army is so unlike going to child care centre eh. But anyway, on day two, I think she wasn’t very pleased that I had to go army, again. I told her it will be for many more days. She asked, “Why?”
I recently visited the Jurong Bird Park. Yah, such an unlikely place for anyone to visit. Isn’t there like the new IR at Sentosa to visit eh? Well, it’s an excursion organized by Vanessa’s child care centre. It’s for the kids. That’s why I was there, and that’s probably going to be the only reason for a long time that I would ever be going to the bird park. I cannot remember when was the last time I set foot inside the bird park, but it must be a really really long time ago.
See what I mean about Vanessa being a gym kind of person? I went to the “fitness corner” (it really is in a corner…) with Vanessa. There was a proper pull-up bar for me, and while I was doing my own pull-ups, Vanessa copied. No need for coaxing or any prompting. She just pulled up on some other bar that she could reach. Alright, she isn’t pulling yet, but she can hang from the bar and swing quite well.
Vanessa had her last dance class today. At least for now. We’re not continuing her class because she doesn’t seem very keen about it. In fact, most of the time, she simply doesn’t follow the class at all, except for the one or two activities which involve something that she likes. Running, and jumping, for example. Stomping her feet with her tap shoes too. But even then, she makes up her own variations of the routines. It’s a difficult time accompanying her for the class when she doesn’t want to listen.
As with most air travel to any distant destination, the first day is essentially spent on the plane or in the airport. So that’s basically how we spent day zero on our holiday trip to Hawaii. The flying time itself probably totaled not a lot more than 12 hours, but including the transit time, the early check-in at Changi Airport, it all adds up pretty quickly.
Just a simple MacDonald’s vanilla ice cream cone will make her really happy. There’s the more expensive Island Creamery next door, but Vanessa’s not really interested. Given the choice, she chose to go to MacDonald. Then in MacDonald, there are a variety of other ice cream choices like the sundaes or McFlurry. But all Vanessa wants is the simple 70 cent vanilla ice cream cone. Save the parents a lot of money huh.
I think we had 11 oysters each, from The Line restaurant at Shangri-la Hotel. It's a big buffet with plenty of food.
Lunch at Lerk Thai some weekends ago.
