Eat, drink and be married!

How could we the fans of gardens miss out on their Children's Festival? I did not intend to visit it so many times but we made a total of 3 trips to finish the attractions we wanted to visit. Talk about hardcore and the toddler is increasingly unwilling when it comes to posing for photos.


Children's Festival had Enid Blyton as the focus, bringing across her classics in different arenas and there were a combination of complimentary and paid attractions.



Shimmery Wonders was one of the free attractions where we got to enter a room similar to Trick Eye Museum.





Asshole parenting in progress.


The other room had kaleidescopes and lights.





Which then prompted me to get tickets for the other attractions as well. Being a friend of the Gardens scored us $2 off the $12 price tag.



There was an open area with inflatables strewn and a couple of see-saws...





:) These bright smiles always make these outings so worth while.







He squealed excitedly and ran towards 'melon' and started jumping happily.





Us on a lollipop.



Even the toadstools were inviting.




Candy Party was hollering at us since it was just right smack next to the inflatables.





Turns out we had to find the blue foam to redeem for a shot at the gacha gacha machine!







Momma seems to be more excited actually.





Into the enchanting world of mirrors and dressing up as a wizard!





 



   

 Mascot sighting was also a highlight and this scaredy cat was only interested in chasing them and not posing with them.

   

 The roving balloonist however, was his favourite! Here's him and his banana balloon.

   
Toy Fort somehow had the most number of people queueing all the time. We returned twice just to complete this! And it was just a shooting game with balls. Talk about over anticipation.


 

The sweaty boys.

All in this was cheap fun and worth three weekends worth - so there! I'm a fan.

Aviva Fundae 2018 was our first encounter and thanks to all the good reviews from fellow mummy friends, I thought we'd go have some good fun. It was scorching at 3pm and boo for not taking note of that.


There were two different entrances, one for goodie bag collection and another unofficial one near The Meadow's carpark.







Branding everywhere.





So our tickets entitled us to 1 free beer or juice unchilled which was just...urgh. Better than nothing in the scorching sun.





There were loads of game stations but the catch is, which ones suited an under 2 year old.





So the boys did a lot of running under the sun, loading up the Vit D!





And when we found a game we thought the boys would be interested in - at least the men were for the free beer if they got their boys into these donuts and were willing to be dragged around.







Turns out Cyrus had other plans and wanted to drag his father in it. =_=" Ended up nobody got anywhere and we still scored beer anyway!





We chanced upon this crowd puller - BUBBLES. And no simple ones, they were huge and kinda magical.





Daddies to the rescue for catching those large and floaty bubbles!





One of them in action....and it's sucha pity they popped so early.


Would I be back next year? Probably not....until he is ready to take on water play and all the rides on his own perhaps and when he can sit down for a proper movie under the stars. With the exception of icecreams, everything else was chargeable.


Aviva Fundae 2018, done and dusted!

This was us last week, watching over the poor boy who started coughing in his sleep and then spotting a fever of 38 degrees. He slept the whole of the first day after being diagnosed with an inflamed throat and missed dinner, super unusual for his greedy self. Skipped his shower even and continued napping. When the doctor asked us what we fed him to get sucha inflamed throat, I was so puzzled. He was on homecooked food and his food was mainly slowcooked and baked very occasionally.


Second day, I checked his throat and discovered a carpet of ulcers. Got him diagnosed for herpangina and bam! There goes the whole week of school and child care leave to take. The crankiness peaked on day 3 when he could neither eat nor drink and every time he attempted, he would stick his fingers in and wail non stop. :(


Herpangina is a variant of HFMD and it's usually detected through mouth ulcers and a fever. No blisters are sighted.


If he could he wanted to be hugged all day long and sigh, what I would do to make you feel better. The 4 day ordeal was horrifying with the rude looking ulcers flaring up and he refused almost all his favourite food - watching him cry was no joke. And all the time he didn't want to be confined at home triggering off unreasonable tantrums and never ending teary high octane screeching episodes.


Finally, the day came where he took milk from the bottle without wincing and even asked for more.


Herpangina 0, Cyrus 1. We won this battle of herpangina. Fingers crossed.


I wish I can offer any form of advice apart from wishing for the best and offering as much liquids as possible - I was syringing him milk at some point, 5ml at a time. :( The usual icecream and jelly did not work its magic as it did for HFMD. I'd say this herpangina is a curse and I detest it way more than HFMD.

As we approach the terrible twos, the frequency of the tantrums have definitely increased and the patience testing games have started.

• He's gotten a lot more vocal and by means of vocal includes being heard in a play that requires silence and church when the pastor was preaching.
• "Where we going?" He asked in the most earnest and adult like fashion one weekend. I was trying hard not to laugh. Will these why questions start soon?
• His favourite breakfast item is now cereal and vegetables (refers to this vegetable snack we got off iherb and decided it was too tasty to eat on its own, so why not mix in with baby cereal which we stocked so much off!)
• We attended our first play with Act3, Aviva fundae, Children's Festival...argh, the backlog! He's at an age where all these still intrigue him so yay for us.
• The persistence is AMAZING. He wailed for a good 20 minutes outside the house just because we did not allow dirty slippers in the house - say what? He went to school in slippers too all because, shoes suddenly became the arch enemy.
• His first taste of croissant when we the asshole parents decided to have high tea one garang weekend and had to cave into stuffing him with food.
• Trains and dinosaurs are the hottest toys.
• He uses English and Chinese quite interchangeably, preferring to say 喝水 instead of drink water. 

And with that, we are gonna turn 2 so soon! GASP.