Happy Singapore National Day!

Today, August 9th is Singapore's National Day (today Singapore is 47 years old - crazy isn't it - such a young country). Noah dressed up in red and white for school and came back with a Singapore flag tattooed on his cheek (along with other Singapore paraphernalia).  The flag (Noah kept making silly faces and singing "Singapura" while over articulating... makes for some interesting pics).

Our little Singaporean boy!

Finally a smile!

Noah's First Sentence

When my brother and I were kids, we had this school book to teach us to read. I don't remember much about it except that it had very simple and inane sentences.  Of those, I only remember one. So, while Seth was ordering the Kaya Toast this morning, I wrote it down on a piece of paper and asked Noah what it said. After quickly identifying the letters of the first word, he put the sounds together and read "Toto" then "a" and then "ri": "Toto a ri." (Toto laughed). He read his first sentence! I am not sure he understood it as Toto is not really a common name but he read the words.

Chicken Pox Days: Crafts 'n Things

Chicken Pox Days are officially over. Noah got the green light from his doc to go back to school on Tuesday afternoon (the 7th of August) after 12 days of confinement. In addition to the running around (see previous post on olympic courses), we also watched many videos and did many craft projects. Below are a few of such projects.

For some reason, I had started stockpiling toilet paper tubes with the idea that they could be useful for crafts projects. First we made a plane with a toilet paper tube, some paint, some paper, some cardboard and an egg crate (I got the idea from the internet). Here Noah painting the plane's wing.

Painting the plane's mainframe.

Putting things together.

The finished product!

Noah playing with his plane - takeoff...

And landing....

 We follow a few friends' blogs and in one of them there was a picture of a stick figure a kid about a month older than Noah had drawn. So I wondered whether Noah could draw a stick figure - I drew one and asked him if he knew how - and this was the result (he drew it entirely on his own)... 

Then he decided it was winter and snowing out so we added glitter....

 Our neighbors were great during our 12 day seclusion and brought us books and toys and stickers and activities... here is Noah sowing a finger puppet together from a kit a neighbor gave us.

Noah is still very much into food and cooking. Now that he has a kitchenette, he always wants to prepare "meals" for us but it is always hard to know what is available. So we decided to make a menu. Noah chose his restaurants name and wrote it down and designed the logo.

We came up with a menu and I started writing it up (here the breakfast options) when Noah decided he wanted to write the menu out - so the "salade de fruits" is all his (I spelled it for him of course though his is starting to get good at sounding out basic words like "DE" or even "SALADE").

The main dishes are a bit limited but they include his two favorite dishes - crepes and chicken rice (both also written by Noah).

 

After the successful menu endeavor, Noah decided to make a portrait of Joanne, our fish to put by her bowl...

The plane was fun but only used one tube of toilet paper... so this time we went for a whole village of toilet paper tube houses... Noah painting one of the houses.

The houses in progress. Noah enjoyed all the painting and he drew all the windows and doors on the houses.

The final product... a snowy town.

Overall, these 12 days were a lot of fun - it is rare that we get to spend that much time just the two of us (Seth was away when Noah first got sick and then was working during the day) and I really enjoyed it. That said - I was ready for him to go back to school and for us to resume our playdates when the doc gave him the green light.

Chicken Pox Days: Olympic Courses

As we have been at home in confinement for the last five days (well I got out for a walk at night but Noah has not been out for five days), we have had to find ways to exercise at home. We started out by doing very simple courses. Noah would race from the living room to his room and back and I counted how long it took him. He ran over and over and over to beat his score. The next day, the course became a loop - living room to bedroom to kitchen and back. And the next day, we started adding props. On this this day, Noah first had to jump over the cushions - below Noah in action over the course of his different tries.

He's flying.

Last cushion...

By the end, we had added a ball and he went through the course holding a ball which he had to throw to me at the end.

After jumping over the cushions, he had to crawl under the chair....

Then climb on top of another chair and jump off to get to his room. 

Then run to the back wall of his room.

Transfer a "cookie" with his cooking tweezers.

Run to the dining room and throw the globe ball from behind the line...

Between the goal posts...

Then run to the kitchen, high five the fridge and jump 10 times then run back to the starting point. After a good many runs of the course he was ready to plop down and rest!

So yesterday we repeated the operation with a slightly different course... He started by running around the table twice then jumping from one "rock" to another (if he fell in between, the green crocodile would eat him).

Then he crawled under the step stool. Then picked up some objects from the ground and transferred them to a bowl and then back in their original positions.

Then climb on the chair like last course, run into his room and throw the basketballs into the basket (we have a basket hoop set up in one of the closets). Then run to the kitchen and jump 20 times then run back to the beginning and put a piece of the puzzle. 

That worked well also to get him going - to be repeated another day!

Chicken Pox Days: Mr Pocky

Noah and I have been at home for the last five days - and it has been surprisingly pleasant. He is in good spirits and apart for the spots on his body looks and acts normal. We have been doing plenty of fun activities and games (pics to come in later Chicken Pox Days posts) and are very much enjoying this time together (with of course usual toddler moments when he just has to try to write on his leap frog "ipad" to see what happens or has to go see how the the dvd player works but those little incidents have been few and far between). We are also lucky to have some great sets of neighbors who brought us some books and activity books and stickers and a cute bus and a puppet making kit and some great homemade cards.

We finally got a few pics of Noah and his pox - He did not want us to take pictures the first few days but then decided it was ok after all.  

Making silly faces at the camera (and Daddy).

Our little "Pocky" as his Aunt Suza affectionately calls him.

Not too bad... a few more days and the spots should be dried out and our little guy no longer contagious.