All About Your Child

Are you wrecking your brains like me during every year-end school holidays; thinking how to keep your active kids occupied for so many hours each day? I prefer to bring my children out for fun to having fun at home. Thus, you can hardly find us at home during the 1 plus month school break.

Its my boys’ 6th day into the school holidays and we had already went to Singapore Changi Airport twice! Not to travel overseas, but was invited by Changi Airport Group (CAG) for the special extensive SpongeBob SquarePants-Themed Christimas experience.

On 16th November, with special passes, we were able to enter the transit area to admire the giant topiaries of stunning landmarks such as Italy’s Colosseum and Turkey’s Trojan Horse.

As stated in the photo below, this rule applies when you are in the transit area: Shoppers in the transit area can choose from all 6 SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends plush toys with a minimum spending of $150. While Stocks Last.

However, shoppers and diners in Changi Airport’s public areas can purchase each of the 6 plush toys (a new character launched each week) for S$3.00 when they spend a minimum of S$60 or S$120 in supermarkets. In addition, the first 1,000 Changi Rewards members who earned 1,200points during this promotion period can redeem a full set of 6 characters for FREE!

My boys had more fun at the Trojan Horse area because of the two ‘seashells‘ which allowed them to play SpongeBob SquarePants-Themed electronic games :

(Below) Kitkit was trying to make the tail of the horse move by rolling the ‘roller‘ as fast as his small hands could.

We missed out on the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Russia’s St Basil’s Cathedral because of issues with our special passes. So no photos on those. *pout* Oh well, spot those two in the transit area, if you are going overseas these two months. *wink*

More fun awaits at the public area of Singapore Changi Airport. From 15 November 2013 to 5 January 2014, located at the spot just before the Departure Immigration doors at Terminal 3, SpongeBob’s 11 metres tall Pineapple House has FREE giveaways during their 7 ‘Snow Times’ daily.

Spot the difference in their outfit between the photos above and the photos below? Yup, taken on two different days.

My boys had ‘Stickers Luck’. We went again today and they get stickers AGAIN during the lucky draw, instead of water bottle, slap watch, eye mask, etc. *laugh* I was really happy to see that the staffs were there this afternoon to make sure that people queue up to get the ‘lucky ball token’.  On Saturday, many did not know the golden rule : One Ball for Each Person (even though the signage had already said so), therefore, it was REALLY chaotic during our 1st visit. Thumbs up for the amendments made, its so orderly now.

From 21 November to 26 December, visitors will also be able to meet Santa Claus in his log house at this same location as the Pineapple house from 4pm to 10pm daily; where he will share his life story and his home country, Finland.

As for my kids, the HAPPIEST moment was to receive their goodies bag from CAG on Saturday. Thank you so much, you made my boys Super Happy!

The MOST EXCITING MOMENT, which they had been waiting for on Saturday, was to enter the Huge 9m tall SpongeBob inflatable bouncy playground located at Changi Airport Terminal 3’s Departure Hall Row 11. For the safety of children, the staff told me that only 10 children were allowed to enter at any one time and each batch of 10 kids has 10 minutes of playtime. Socks are not required but shoes are not allowed; which is a good thing in terms of keeping the playground clean. *smile*

To get your child on this giant bouncy playground, you would need to:~

Yet, because of other arrangements, we could not stay for it on Saturday and Kitkit and Binbin were very upset. So all that they could do on Saturday, 16th November 2013 was to take a photo with it before we left.

Well, disappointing kids is not my forte, so I had decided to thicken my skin, pluck up my courage and asked the CAG staffs if we could come on another day just for this bouncy playground and they said “YES!”.
Yeah!
*clap clap clap*
And so we went during noon today and the kids were overjoyed! Thank you CAG once again for making all the special arrangements for us. *hugs*

No photos can describe how happy they were this afternoon. Watch them at play on the huge inflatable SpongeBob SquarePants playground in the video below:~

If you love Christmas tunes, you would love the performance by award-winning Ministry of Bellz – Singapore’s only independent community hand-bell ensemble. On 21 December, they will attempt to make history in the Singapore Book of Records by delivering a non-stop 24-hour hand-bells performance.

With so much to expect from Singapore Changi Airport this Christmas 2013, you can definitely find some joy here, especially the kids with the bouncy playground! *laugh*

View ALL photos taken during our visit on Saturday and Today in the slideshow below:~

W Optics, Singapore’s largest vision care store, offering eye check services, solutions for better eye health and optical products, invited us to their place. From the eye care experts, I learned so much more about the latest myopia control options.

As most of you know, my myopia has hit the 1000 mark long ago and I was devastated when I found out that Kitkit’s myopia progression was pretty steep during his first year. Thus, when it comes to equipping myself with better knowledge on controlling myopia progression of my child, you bet I was ALL EARS! The 2 eye care experts, Mr Chew, Manager at W Optics  and Dr Gerard Nah, Medical Director at W Eye Clinic, gave me new insights into more ways of preventing the progression from shooting up too fast, especially for children.

[Above] Mr Chew is a veteran in eye care with keen interest in the area of myopia control, while [Below] Dr Nah is a qualified eye surgeon with over 20 years of experience and also the founder of the Vision Performance Centre for the Singapore Armed Forces.

From them, I learned about which spectacles had proven to be effective in reducing the rate of myopia progress, special overnight lenses to wear, so that you can become glasses-free or lenses-free during the day, unique contact lenses that replace the natural shape of the corneas with a new refracting surface and the one-drop-per-eye-per-day eye drop called Atropine that had been around for some time already (which I did not know), that has proven to reduce myopia progression rate by 50-60%.

This last paragraph is so unlike me eh???
I am so used to telling EVERYTHING whenever I blog, so much so that people around me find me “Too Revealing” over here. *laugh*
Well, seriously, there are really too many things to share. So much information that I feel that you should hear from the eye care experts themselves.

W Optics is having a Myopia Forum at their premises this Saturday, 9th November 2013.

Suntec City Mall (Next to Convention Centre, Near to Watsons)
#01-400
Free admission and eye check for your child., but seats are limited.
To RSVP, you can visit their website at http://woptics.sg
Or you could call them at 6736 1303 to find out more.

Feel free to bring your children along for the session! As, they will be able to sit in for the talk or they could explore the colourful children’s corner in the store.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the team at W Optics for giving my boys the complimentary eye check and giving me a very comprehensive eye check that includes checking for:

• Dry eyes
• Cataract
• Retinal conditions
• Glaucoma
• Current Prescription suitability (my current spectacles)

The experience reminded me of my visit to a lasik clinic to check if I was suitable for lasik, with my sister, many years ago.
However, at W Optics, they did so much more!
The screening was so thorough and your eye condition could be presented through a photograph or video in W Optics.
They took a photograph of my eye ball and Mr Chew gave such detailed explanation as he examined the image. I was thrilled to know that for someone like me, with myopia of 1000, plus the late nights ‘working‘ on of my PC, my eye balls are actually REALLY HEALTHY!!!
Whoo-hoo!
The only thing that was on the down side (but Mr Chew said its not something that I should worry too much [because its not that serious]) is the Quantity and Quality of my tears. Quality was acceptable but Quantity was not enough, which explains why I get dry eyes so easily.
*pout*
From the 1.45hours of check, I realised that Mr Chew is truly a very patient man who is always ready to answer (many of my) questions and suggests simple solutions.

We take care of our teeth by brushing daily and when our teeth give problem, we go to a dentist.
We take care of our spine by having good postures and when our spine give problem, we go to a chiropractor.
Yet, it is so common that we do not really take care of our eyes and when our eyes have problem we go to a GP ?????!!
There was a new article recently on the Chinese Newspaper whereby an old lady was given a wrong diagnosis by a GP and almost caused her to be blind.

When our eyes have problem, we SHOULD go to an eye care expert, not GP!
I go for my body checkup every year, yet I did not know that I should also have a annual check up for my eyes.
I did not know that till now and I am so glad that I have found the place and the person.

Ok, too much on me, let’s go to my children.
The best age group to test for Myopia is 6 to 12 years old as researchers found out that the greatest acceleration happens when kids enter Primary 1.

So for Binbin, it was a simple eye check and the result was 50 for the left eye and 25 for the right.
I am happy to know that he can still do WITHOUT glasses. Yeah!
For Kitkit, as much as he gives me problem at home, he also gave the optician a hard time!!!
No matter how many ‘degrees‘ the optician added for Kitkit, he continued to give very WEIRD responses.
T, he said Y.
F, he said R.
C, he said S.

After changing different lenses many Many MANY times, Kitkit still gave very extreme answers, so much so that the optician had to call Mr Chew in to give a more detailed check to see if Kitkit’s eyes have other issues.
OMG! The time taken for Kitkit was triple the time taken for Binbin!
I was already losing patience as my anxiety level rose, yet, Mr Chew and the optician continued to smile and patiently examines Kitkit’s eyes.

After a long while, Kitkit’s result was FINALLY out, his eyes are fine but his myopia has increased. Right eye increased by another 75 and Left eye by another 25.
New glasses needed AGAIN!
*sigh*

Nonetheless, I was very happy that my rules of going outdoor daily under the warm evening sun and restricting 30mins limit on electronic devices have been confirmed by the eye care experts to be the right thing to do to help reduce myopia progression. *thumbs up for me*

So, if you are as concern about your child’s eyes as me, or you would like to know more on the latest myopia control options that are available and what type of spectacles will suit your child’s needs and preferences best, go on down to their Myopia Forum this Saturday. If you cannot make it on this Saturday, they do have another Myopia Forum 2 weeks later on 23 November 2013.

W Optics Myopia Forum:

Suntec City Mall (Next to Convention Centre, Near to Watsons)
#01-400
Free admission and eye check for your child.
Seats are limited.
RSVP:
at their website at http://woptics.sg
Or
call them at 6736 1303.

W Optics