Celebrate Your Kid's First Milestones!

Celebrate your kid's first milestones with Raffles Medical Group.  Stand a chance to win up to $700 worth of prizes with a photo or short video of your kid's milestone. 

Simply tag your photos or short video (of not more than 2 minutes) to ‪#‎RHkidsfirst‬ & #KFRH13922 when you upload them here or email your photo in jpeg format to healthnews@rafflesmedical.com.
 
Entries with the best moment captured and most number of ‘likes’ win!

Closing date for submission: Wed 6 Nov 2013

Here's our entry, of Aiden's first taste of tomato ketchup!

喜怒哀乐

Life has been a roller coaster ride in recent years, and in recent weeks, it took quite an unpleasant turn. The weekends seem so short, and I found myself spending very little time with Aiden during the weekdays due to work commitments. Frustrations crept in more easily than usual, and I feel tired most of the time. Didn't help too that I gave Aiden a scolding last week when he wouldn't behave himself, and he subsequently gave me the cold shoulder for a few days.  This boy knows what emotional blackmail is all about.

Anyway, I thought I had better move on to happier things and snap out of this grumpiness soon.  Instinctively, I flicked through the photo gallery of my iPhone for an 'instant lift'.  Didn't take long to find one!

We took these pictures while in a lift (we were on our way to a birthday party).  Check out our impromptu rendition of 喜怒哀乐!  It has been quite some time since we played this, so I was surprised to see that Aiden has expanded his repertoire of facial expressions.  I think he must have secretly picked up some new expressions from me.  Last Sunday, I had my secondary school classmates come over to our place and we were browsing through an album of old photos from almost 20 years ago.  Incredibly, Aiden could recognise me in the photos!  Mind you, these were from the 1990s when I was very skinny and very tanned, and er hmmm, much less handsome than I am now.

My friends explained that I did not actually become more handsome since 1994 but that is of course utter rubbish!  My own theory is that my expressions have not changed much since then.  I do see alot of myself in Aiden in the 喜怒哀乐 photos.  What a handsome chap! :D

Cooler, or colder?

As Mummy Cher moves into the 30th week of her pregnancy, I realised that I have been much more nonchalant compared to when she was pregnant with Aiden.  This was quite normal, according to most people I spoke to.  It's a case of 'been there done that', they say.  But on some days, I wonder why I am so 'cold'.  Where's the equal and unbiased love that I proudly proclaimed when Mummy Cher asked if I would love our second child less?

I think it is more of a mixture of worrying about how we can cope with two kids and keep both of them as happy as Aiden is, and also acknowledging that there is always a slight possibility, touchwood, that things outside our control can happen.  Just before this pregnancy, Mummy Cher and I were still recovering from an early miscarriage.  It was with surprise and trepidation that I received the good news, and even now, I am taking it one day at a time.

Forest Gump's mum was probably sugar-coating it when she told her son that life is like a box of chocolates.  It is actually also filled with other stuff that are hard to stomach.  She did get the part about not knowing what you will get right though.  Last month, a good friend of mine had to deal with the pain of losing his newborn to an infection.  I also heard news from Mummy Cher about her colleague's baby Neira suffering from a rare form of disease.  Thankfully, in the case of the latter, baby Neira's battle for survival was picked up in the social media and the last I heard, donations are pouring in and she also did well in recent operations.

These two pieces of bad news affected me greatly, and reminded me of how fragile and precious life is.  Perhaps I am not colder, but cooler?  I will do my best to raise Ava in a loving and happy environment when she finally arrives.  But for now, I am going to keep Aiden happy, one day at a time.

Sawadee-kap! To The Land Of Shopping & Massages

I decided it was now or never, I had to go on a short break to indulge in good food, relaxing massages, and non-rushed shopping.

Though at 25 weeks pregnant, there isn't a lot of clothes I can fit in, especially in Bangkok where you find the tiniest free size apparel, having all the time to myself (too little time in fact) and browsing leisurely is pure joy. I contemplated buying a few pieces which I can't fit now, to motivate myself to get back in shape, but I guess I better slim down and make a trip back!

We stayed at Glow Pratunam and its location is great if you are planning to visit the wholesale market at Pratunam (opens from 6am) and the wholesale centre, Platinum Mall. Rooms are spacious especially their bathrooms, but doesn't come with a bathtub for the room we booked. Beds are very comfy, or we were too tired after an entire day of walking - you literally sink right into the sheets. Will recommend this to serious shoppers.

Glow, a relatively new hotel opposite Platinum Mall

Our spacious room for the next 2 nights

View from the room

All I could think of in the weeks leading to the trip, were all the food we can stomach! With the slightly rainy season, some of our plans were shelved as it would be tough eating at the roadside seafood stalls in the rain. We ate most of our meals at our favourite Platinum Mall food court. Breakfast, lunch, tea breaks - I had to have my mango sticky rice every day.

Looking at this pic makes me crave for the sweet yummy mango.

This was tea break - 5 course including mango sticky rice!

What a spread for three.

Massages are absolutely necessary after walking from 7am. It was pure bliss for me, having water retention and sore feet at the end of each day.

Foot massage at Blue Spa

Sneaked in some comfort food in between shopping

Kids apparel in Bangkok is limited and I got this for Aiden.

With the arrival of number 2, I wonder when I can go away like this again. Besides missing the family, I feel very bad to have to leave 2 young kids with my parents. See you soon Bangkok, I will have to shape up before I return. Let this be a motivation.

PriviKids @ City Square Mall (28 - 29 September)

We are heading back to City Square Mall for another flea market this weekend!  This time, it is with the organisers Flea For Good.

Look out for special discounts on our current range of designs and refresh your children's wardrobe over the weekend with plenty of money to spare, all in time for Children's Day!

See you at the Fountain Square at Basement 1 from 12pm to 9pm!  We were overwhelmed the last time with customers, so hopefully, the extended hours this time round would allow us to serve our customers better.

Lastly, did you know that we will be launching new designs every month, starting from October? Visit our website at www.privi-kids.com regularly and discover our unique, quality and stylish kidswear!

It's the Dinner & Dance season again!

As the end of the year approaches (already?!), most companies are again holding their annual Dinner & Dance event across the island.  It's funny why the event is called Dinner & Dance - most of the time there is too little dinner (or the ladies don't want to eat too much), and the dance floor doesn't call out to you anymore.  Not when your age and waistline are well in the 30s.  Besides, you don't really want to scare the interns away with your dance moves.  You still want them to respect you when Monday comes.

And then there's the dressing up part.  Dull & Demotivated would summarise my outfits for most years, but a couple of years ago, I had the bad fortune privilege of being arrowed selected to organise the company D&D.  I had no choice but to put in some effort on my outfits then, and I must say that I'm looking forward to dressing up ever since.  Afterall it's one day that we can get away with almost anything (unless you are ex-SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa, see picture below) and it's really a lot of fun!

The theme for the 2011 D&D was Unsung Heroes.  I did my due diligence at the costume shops and realised most people are going for the obvious super heroes look.  I thought every other person would end up wearing red underwear that night, so to stand out, I had to wear the red on my head.

Meet the best dressed unsung hero that night, the Samsui woman - building Singapore since way before independence.

The theme for the 2012 D&D was Once Upon a Time/Fairy Tales.  And this time, I managed to scam convince my friends into dressing up as a group!  To make sure our outfits were unique that night, we had to go for a Chinese fairytale.  Can you tell what we were up to?

Here's where I got my costumes from, and I highly recommend them for the wide range available.  Truly amazing selection.  There are child size costumes available as well!  If you can't find your costume here, you probably can't find it anywhere else!

http://number1costumecostume.com.sg/

http://www.masquerade.com.sg/index.html
http://www.globalmascot.com/

Hoping that Aiden would get invited to a costume party soon!

Life is a game... of choice

“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and spirit. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

We've all heard about the story/quote about juggling the five balls of life. Balls that represent Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit.  The way it is told and re-told may differ slightly but the message remains clear - work is something that you can drop, but the rest are so important that you really should focus on juggling them.  There is no alternative way to live your life.  Just drop the damn ball and not cause the rest to shatter!  That sounds very logical to most people, but I think we can take a fresh new look at these five balls of life from another perspective - the modern Singapore perspective.

A*Star researchers have found a negative correlation between COE prices and happiness of Singaporeans.

I suspect that for most Singaporeans, there is no rubber ball among the five.  In fact, we are really juggling five balls that are all made of glass.  Drop the work?  Unemployment/retrenchment is staring at your face and financial ruin awaits.  Drop your family?  Divorce and estranged relationships will eat you alive.  Drop your health?  The hospital bill could be scarier that the disease itself.  Drop your friends?  You lose an important source of support and companionship.  Drop your spirit?  Life becomes a suffering every waking moment.

The sad thing about our society today is that most of us would not be able to juggle all five glass balls.  There is at least one glass ball that would inevitably slip our hands and come crashing onto the floor.

Before you stop reading and start surfing for cheap houses in JB to retire in, there actually is a silver lining in all this.  That's because, if you can accept that it not possible to keep all five balls in the air, you will then learn to allow one or two balls to crack and shatter.  Most importantly, you will start to think about what is worth your while to protect, be it a great career, a good parent/spouse/sibling/son/daughter, a best friend, health or your high spirits.   It makes life a game of choice, and if you have chosen with your heart, there will not be a day that you live in regret.  The balls that you drop would be the ones that you don't mind dropping.  You will be happier, and people who matter to you will be too.

You can't please everyone, so why not just please yourself?  Keep juggling!