December 15, 2012
Covering an area of only 710 km2, Singapore now has over 5 million people – slightly more than 1.5x more people since I left home more than 7 years ago.
I thought that there were already too many people in the tiny city when we were slightly less than 4 million occupants, and looking at the recent pictures posted by friends on FB, I am convinced that the city is now just super-overcrowded.
The crowd, as captured in the images below are pretty insane. With the majority of the population being extremely dependent on public transport to commute to work, I cannot imagine having to battle through this crowd day-in, day-out.
Imagine standing bum-to-bum, face-to-bum or head-under-someone’s-smelly-sweaty-armpit…or if you are a parent, battling through this crowd with young children, bags and stroller in tow. With such a crowd, molesters, perverts and pick-pockets can easily get away with murder.
Singapore’s (used-to-be-efficient) infrastructure is bursting at the seam. This is just not funny.
December 15, 2012
Every time we take Spud to a playground, it amazes us as to how eager and how quickly Spud finds herself a play mate. If there are other kids around, she would already be playing with one or two (usually older) other kids and chasing each other around. It is not like they knew each other before, but somehow they just clicked.
They played together, they helped each other, and they waited on one another for the next big slide with no care in the world. Such a joy to see them play and interact.
And when it was time for us to go, we would often encourage Spud to say goodbye personally to whom she was playing with, after which she says her byes with a parting “see you later!”
Such is the sweet innocence of young children.
And as Silver Bullet and I discussed our observations, we can’t help but ponder at what point do kids become discriminatory. When do they start being judgmental and at what point do they start to discriminate other kids? That being said, how much of those behavior is a function of parenting and what they have been exposed to within their immediate environment.
One thing I learnt though, kids certainly teach us about living in the moment. As adults, we seem to lose that ability.
December 14, 2012
At barely 2.5 years old, Spud has recently been upgraded to a big bed – a super single to say the least as it was the only “smaller” bed size the apartment has provided.While we were in no hurry to move her to a big bed since the last transition from cot to toddler bed, we soon found it necessary because:
- she was getting too tall for her toddler bed
- her brother’s cot bed, in the meantime was getting a little narrow for him
Needless to say, Spud was quite reluctant when we first planted the idea in her head. For several days, she insisted on sleeping in her cot bed – perhaps mainly for familiarity – even though we placed the big bed right next to her toddler bed.
It was only after her toddler’s bed was removed completely out of her sight did she become more receptive of the new arrangement. To convince her to sleep in her new bed, we made it fun for her by telling her that not only we all could cuddle up together in bed, all three of us, with her in between as we read her bedtime stories – something which was not possible before – we also told her that there is a bigger space for her to jump about and roll around! The latter being the deal clincher.
With that, the transition to such a big bed was not as difficult as we thought it would be. She took to it quite easily and we were again pleasantly surprised.
Such a small girl in a such a massive bed. When we found her sleeping her usual froggy style with her favourite bear right next to her, we can’t help but line up all her other favourite companions along side each other and took a picture of it.
My little girl is growing so fast.
