Poppy is our firstborn. We had Calla almost 4 years after. Many times, Max and I practice the "divide and conquer" approach where we each take one child and give her all our attention. Sometimes we bring both kids out on our own, giving the other parent a breather. But most times, when we go out, it's as a family.
There are more occasions for us to be out with just Calla though, as Poppy goes to school, but it is with a very heavy heart that I confess that we've not had a Poppy-only day (as in with both parents) since Calla's been born. And she's almost 17 months old now.
I think it's because of the lack of caregivers, but also because of the whole breastfeeding thing. But now that Calla is older and easier to manage, we begged my parents to watch her for an afternoon while we spent some time with Poppy.
We didn't tell Poppy about it till the day itself, because you know how kids are - once you tell them about something, they pester and pester and pester and pester you about it till that day arrives. That is, if they haven't lost the excitement. In any case, we wanted to avoid any potential disappointment, if the plan didn't work, for whatever reason.
But it did. And we had a wonderful time.
The tricky bit was that we had several restrictions:
1) It couldn't be too far away since we only had a 3-hour block and didn't want to spend the bulk of that time travelling. So the Forest Adventure at Bedok Reservoir was out.
2) It had to be a budget friendly activity. So most things were out.
3) It had to be something that allowed us to bond. So movies were out.
4) No water activites since Poppy had recently fallen into a drain and her scratches were still healing. So no water park of any sort.
5) It should preferably be an activity that wasn't affected by weather.
6) We wanted something that we potentially couldn't do with the baby around. So yes we could bring Poppy to the beach and play with sandcastles, but we didn't want to be thinking "aww if Calla were also here, she'd be playing to".
So we thought about it and did some research, and finally decided on skating at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. I can't tell you how excited I was; the last time we went skating, I had to miss out on all the action because I was so heavily pregnant with Calla.
* the rink is closed from 5pm to 6pm for cleaning and prices are charged per hour, so make sure you start your session before 4pm, or you'll have to wait till after 6pm.
I'm so glad that we did it because it met all our requirements. It was budget friendly (we paid $29 for the 3 of us to skate for an hour), we bonded (and laughed so much because man, it was not easy!), it was easy to get to, there was no water involved, and we weren't affected by the weather. Plus, this was definitely something we couldn't do with Calla!
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| I was Speedy Gonzales, I was! (not) |
Notice that I have not mentioned it being an ice skating rink? Well it's not. It's a synthetic rink, made of plastic. Which worked out fine for us because that meant we didn't have to pack an extra set of clothes, nor bring gloves and woolies. And if we fell, we didn't have to rush to get up to avoid getting wet butts.
It's situated right next to the food court so basically you're paying to be dinner entertainment. Which was ok with us. I'm sure we were good entertainment.
But more importantly, did Poppy enjoy it? She sure did :)
The initial plan was to cross over to Marina Square for sushi since she loves it, but in a bid to save money and stretch our time, we ate at the food court, and spent the evening sitting on the floating bay outside MBS. The weather was perfect, there was a live band playing, and a cool breeze blowing. So we just sat there and talked, me with my firstborn leaning on me.
We had such a wonderful time. I held her hand so tight throughout. It was so joyous to see her wide smiles, to tuck her hair behind her ears, to just watch her and give her all my attention. I made it a point to keep my phone in my bag, which is why I didn't take any pictures (these were all from Max). It pains me to think that we did not do this sooner.
Some might snigger and say "Well if you only had one child, you wouldn't be in this predicament". Well, there is truth in that my friends, but if I only had one child, she would not know the love of a sister. And that is something that I am very grateful for.
One thing's for sure, we're going to put in more effort to have more Poppy Days.
And the baby? Oh she had loads of fun with the grandparents!
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