islandhippy

Fed up with Daddy’s criticism of her Chinese singing, Olive invites Daddy to sing the song instead. Well done Olive!

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Olive: Leo is a … [thinks hard] … triceratops.
Daddy: Really? What’s Olive?
Olive: I am a … [thinks hard] … diplodocus.
Daddy: What am I?
Olive: You are a … [thinks hard] … stegosaurus.
Daddy: What’s Mummy?
Olive (without hesitation): Oh, Mummy is a T-Rex!

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#1 We force Olive to finish her fruit before she has any ‘fun’ food.
Olive (offering Sandy a pretend cake): Mummy, would you like to have some cake?
Sandy: Yes, please.
Olive (withdrawing pretend cake): Then you must eat your strawberries first.
#2 Biscuits are a luxury.
Sandy (watching Olive eat a packet of raisins): Olive, do you like your [...]

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Dear Antoine et familie
Thank you very much for my new clothes. Finally, I have some decent gear to wear when I’m out on the town. I look so smart!
Love
Leo 森 Tatham

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Olive and Leo form a new band “The Cheeky Chops”.

The Cheeky Chops duo getting pissed and causing mayhem in the Colbar while roadie Mummy tries to limit the damage.

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A belated Merry Christmas to all.
This year we celebrated Christmas with Sandy’s family up in Kuala Lumpur and avoided the whole turkey palaver by going out for Christmas lunch. Stick-in-the-mud traditionalist Phil still insisted on ordering a Christmas turkey platter with all the trimmings, while everybody else wisely chose pasta or all-day breakfast. (”Hey, [...]

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An almost perfect evening: singing Christmas carols with the kids at Fort Canning Park over a picnic dinner of baguettes and duck liver paté. (A bottle of wine and it would have been perfect.)

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Olive in action at her preschool, Carpe Diem Kidz (sic).

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Singapore has a farmers’ market! Not bad considering we don’t have any farmers. That might explain why there wasn’t a huge amount of fresh produce on offer when we dropped by in November but it was great fun all the same and we’ll certainly attend future markets. I must go back to try the fabulous [...]

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Sandy: What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor?
Olive: No, a pussycat.

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Sandy recently introduced the naughty chair as a kind of time-out to discipline Olive if she’s behaved badly (to discipline me too, if I’m lucky). It was pretty effective to begin with: we send Olive to the naughty chair, which is a small chair placed out of the way, and Olive has a chance to [...]

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This evening I took Olive shopping for a Christmas present for Sandy. After Olive chose something, I explained to her that the present was to be a surprise for Christmas so she shouldn’t tell Mummy what it was. Sandy then spent the rest of the evening trying to make Olive tell her what she’d bought [...]

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I told Olive I was flying up to KL on business and her parting words were: “Do you have a belt, Daddy? Otherwise your pants will fall down.” Er, thanks, kiddo. I’ll bear that in mind.

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When do we get our life back? With no family to help take the kids at night once in a while, Sandy and I take turns going out! On Thursday, Sandy went out for dinner; on Friday, I went to the opera. Sandy can bring me back a doggy bag of goodies but I can’t [...]

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The best thing about having a nipper in preschool is all the homework I get. This weekend I had to build a car. Materials used: 1 lightbulb box, 1 skin-glue box, 8 tea-light candles, 2 straws and 2 whittled-down chopsticks.
“Is it a lorry?” Sandy.

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Yesterday we attended our first parent–teacher meeting at Olive’s school — I know, I know, she’s not even two and half yet — and we were presented with the first of many school reports. The whole experience was rather surreal. Three teachers sat round a hobbit table and all spoke at the same time, in [...]

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Sandy: Olive, this weekend is Halloween. Who’s coming to visit?
Olive: The witch!
Sandy: No, Po Po is staying in KL, only Gong Gong, Yi Yi and Xiao Yi are coming down.
Tsk, tsk, such an unfilial daughter …

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Not only is the Vivo City Christmas tree garish, it’s also rather ghoulish. While walking past today I saw a human head hanging from the tree.

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Daddy [reading a book to Olive]: Olive, look. Tess the sheepdog is talking to her puppy, Sam. I wonder what she’s saying?
Olive: I know, I know. I know what Tess is saying to Sam.
Daddy: What is she saying?
Olive: Woof!

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[Olive wearing a daisy chain made by Daddy]
My daughter is sooooo cute! Last night Olive kicked up a bit of a fuss because she didn’t want to have a bath … fair enough, I do the same thing even now. She was eventually persuaded to brush her teeth and bathe and after she put on [...]

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This morning Sandy disturbed a two-metre-long equatorial black spitting cobra at the foot of the steps to our flat, underneath Olive’s buggy. We used to see cobras several times a month but we haven’t seen any for ages, probably because our nature-loving neighbours kill all snakes on sight. Sandy shooed this snake into the garden [...]

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Sandy took Olive and Leo to a local playground this afternoon only to be met by three teenage delinquents sitting on the climbing frame. Sporting facial studs and dragging on cigarettes, this scary trio were obviously gangbangers. This being her turf, though, Olive decided to confront them immediately. She walked up to the climbing frame [...]

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Good news. Olive has decided to skip the potty stage of toilet training and now happily uses the loo with a toilet training seat on top. She obviously didn’t appreciate out efforts to sit her down on the potty four months ago and decided instead to embrace change in her own sweet time.
Olive has also [...]

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Sandy was changing Leo in Olive’s room the other day when she spotted Olive sitting in bed reading Jack and the Beanstalk but turning the page with her eyes tightly closed. When asked what she was doing, Olive replied that she didn’t want to see the monster. She knows on which pages the ogre appears [...]

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