All About Your Child

Today, thanks to my eldest niece’s (C.H.) suggestion, my boys had a chance to visit SengKang Swimming Complex.

As usual, on every Sunday, we will meet at my in-law’s place. After lunch, the sky was turning terribly grey and my MIL, as always, a wet blanket, started to pour cold water before the sky even start pouring rain.

“It will be a wasted trip. Look at the sky. Its going to rain. Spend so much money go into the swimming pool and sit inside to wait? Waste money.”

Her house and SengKang Swimming Complex is some distance away and with 6 kids are all excited about this swimming trip, we decide to go there anyway.

Somehow, I feel that its menopause at work. Hormonal imbalance is causing my MIL to react very differently these couple of years. So different from the day I met her more than 13 years ago. Somehow, she just find it difficult to accept that OTHERS can live better than her or have more fun without her.

Oh well, let’s get back to the Real Fun.

I liked almost everything about SengKang Swimming Complex except for this lady and one other thing.

I know there are rules to follow in all swimming complex for the safety of everyone. However, if the rules are so important, they should put it up on a sign board and not allow this lady to keep using her ‘loud speaker’ to go on and on, spoiling everyone’s mood.

“This area (Jacuzzi) is not for children to swim inside.”
“Please get up. (to a pregnant woman) You cannot wear this (t-shirt) to the Jacuzzi.”
No matter how the husband of the pregnant woman argued with her, that this is NOT the first time they are doing this, this lifeguard still refused to listen.

By the way, there are more than one lifeguard nearby and none said anything! She is the one who is yelling away. The most annoying thing is, the people whom she is directing at, are just 5 to 10 feets away from her. Do you REALLY need to use that speaker???!
*shake head*

“Hey you!!!(to a boy about 4 years old, whose parents are just sitting in the Jacuzzi right in front of the boy) Stop playing here. Sit down.”

I was thinking, “What?! A boy of his age to sit down in a pool?!” *double shake head*

Furthermore, there was no signboard saying anything about playing in the Jacuzzi. The only signboard said “Children under 10 must be accompanied by Adults”

Ok, enough about the spoilsport.

In my view, the highlight of SengKang Swimming Complex has to be its slides!!!

To me, it is very sad that my youngest niece refused to go on any slide, not even the shortest one. I am someone who strongly believe that one should try all things, before one can say yes or no to anything.

Without trying, how do you know that you are not suitable for it. Without trying, how do you know it is not fun? Without trying, how do you know you will not benefit from it? Without trying, how do you know you will not love it?

Somehow, her upbringing has given her the mindset of “Saying No to new things”. It has been proven on many different occasions already. *sigh*

So all she did was stand there and look at her sister and cousins enjoying the short slides.

Then, my adventurous boy, Keatkeat wanted to try the medium slide after he found out that he passed the minimum height criteria. But NO ONE DARED TO GO WITH HIM!
*laugh*

Yet, after Keatkeat landed safely and started ‘promoting’ the medium slide to the other 5 kids, my younger son and my eldest niece went for it.

So left with the two sisters standing there watching them laugh and giggle after each slide….

Did you notice that the sky has changed since our arrival?

Thank goodness the kids get to play a little before it started raining cats and dogs.

But that did not dampen their spirits, the kids wanted to sit and wait, hoping that the rain will stop soon.

So while they wait, I bought McDonalds for them to munch to kill their boredom.

Yes, this is the ‘one other thing’ I mentioned earlier, which I don’t like. There are no eateries in the swimming complex. I understand why too. For cleanliness of the swimming pool obviously. I think it is a great move.

However, when my SILs and I tried to explain to the staff guarding the entrance/exit, that we need to get some food from McDonalds, he said “Only 10 mins strictly.”

What?! The queue itself would take up 10mins already!
I would not even be able to order a single thing then, if I had to run back to the entrance in 10mins!

Anyway, I promised my little nephew to buy french fries for him and I am going to keep my promise, even if it means I have to pay another $2.00 for re-entry.

I was late by 2 mins. But my two SILs had been bugging the staff to give me more time. When I reached the entrance, I can tell that the staff was pretty pissed off. *laugh* Ooops! Anyway, thanks to my 2nd SIL, I managed to get that extra 2mins and re-enter for free.

Seriously, 10mins is really too short. 15mins would be good enough to get things done and not having the risk of being abused.

After waiting for more than 45mins, the rain continued to pour. No sign of changing to drizzle at all.

So we left with a broken record, “Mummy, can we come here again? Pleasssseee…..”

*laugh*

Have your child been to SengKang Swimming Complex?

SengKang Swimming Complex

Singapore Jurong Bird Park

We went to Singapore Jurong Bird Park for the very first time as a family today. It was fun, Fun, FUN!

The ‘Birds n Buddies Show‘ was so good! I, the big kid, insisted on watching the performance twice; once at 11.00am and the other at 3.00pm. So do not be surprised to see photos of the show taken from different angles below:

Everything about the show was so entertaining. The most engaging item for the children had to be the battle between the two parrots. My boys were cheering so loudly for their White Parrot ‘Sunny‘ !

Well, we went for the other show too, ‘Kings of the Skies‘. Though Allan loves eagles and I love vultures, which are the stars in this show, we were not as captivated to the way the show was presented as compared to the Birds n Buddies Show.

But all of these were not as fun as FEEDING THE BIRDS!!! There were a few funny moments during the feeding time, but sadly they were not caught on the videos below. *sad*

They fed the Ostriches!
But before they got near to the mouths of the Fastest Running Birds in the whole world, they had a chance to hold their eggs. *smile*

Binbin had a shock at the strength of the female ostrich, when she ‘snatched‘ the banana from his hand. His facial expression was so funny! It was as if a giantic poo landed at his feet! *huge laugh* After that, he dare not feed the ostriches anymore… So sad, his funny expression was not caught on tape… *pout*

Check out the steady-boom-beep-beep Keatkeat feeding the male ostrich in the video below:

They fed the Pelicans too!
Keatkeat took many steps back and did the Javelin-Throw for his last fish in his packet.
He was so cool!
Too bad, I ended my video-recording too soon, hoping to save my video-phone battery life… which in the end, still died earlier than our time spent in the Singapore Jurong Bird Park. *sigh*
So that awesome Javelin-Throw was not captured in the video below too… *pout*

There was also another place where the kids could feed smaller birds, but they did not want to because the birds were TOO INTIMATE! *laugh*

The birds were all over the bodies of whoever that holds the cup of watery bird food. Even when there were no food on the lady’s head (below), the bird still stood on it. *giggle*

The kids did not want that to happen, lest the bird leaves a smelly souvenir on their head. *laugh*

So my kids merely stood a distance away from the ‘loving‘ birds for some photos-taking.

"My Soft Toy Parrot wants to Talk To You!"

Just like the Singapore Zoological Gardens, the Singapore Jurong Bird Park now has a water-playground too! The Singapore Jurong Bird Park calls it the ‘Birdz of Play‘.

What disappointed me was the price for the ‘Lunch with Parrots‘. Yes, I was expecting it to be on the high side, but I did not expect it to be that high:

We were definitely not ready to spend $68 for a lunch, so the boys ended up with a $5.50 hotdog bun as their noon meal.

We did not visit every section of the Singapore Jurong Bird Park because there were occasions when we were ‘hiding‘ away from the rain and the kids were so engrossed with the fake fossils discovery. They had so much fun sweeping the sand, we ended up resting under that shelter for many minutes.

The Ostrich was Peeping at Them while They were Busy Sweeping Sand.

Other birds we saw at the Singapore Jurong Bird Park which halted our footsteps:

What made my heart took flight in the Singapore Jurong Bird Park was my children’s willingness to hold bags, without complaining about tiredness, nor complaining about getting wet in the rain, nor complaining about melting in their perspiration. *Thumbs Up*

We remembered the last time we brought them to the Singapore Zoological Gardens, Binbin was still so young and he fell asleep when our exploration trip was not done yet, and Allan had to carry him and walked under the hot sun….

So to reward them, we grabbed the Buy One Get One Free promotion and bought two sets of $15 per set Soft Toys for my 6 year old and 8 year old. *smile*

Keatkeat's

BinBin's

Will we go back to Singapore Jurong Bird Park again? High Chance! But not in the near future that is….*wink*
Singapore Jurong Bird Park