Breaths of our sweet lives - Wayne and Amanda!: W's 5th year

Showing posts with label W's 5th year. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2015

The start of his bo-geh days

This was one post I wanted to get done despite it being a few months late. About Wayne's......... teeth. Oki nothing exciting but well, it's one of those growing up milestones worthy of being recorded down on this blog.

Actually, it was more than that.

You see, in January this year, we found out that Wayne is one of the lucky few who has an extra tooth.

Tooth 1 - bottom right

It started normally enough, his bottom right tooth have been wobbling for quite some time. Four days into the new year, I was having breakfast with him at Boomarang when I realized 'woah his tooth was hanging on to his gums by a thread' and by afternoon, it was out. No pain, hardly any blood. I remember both Wayne and I were quite ecstatic, feeling like that was some major accomplishment. We were shouting "Yay yay, the tooth is out!" or some sort. Haha. And, it was just a day after our family photo shoot, I remember thinking how very timely it was to start his days of being 'bo-geh'.

First tooth keepsake.

Tooth 2 - bottom left

His second tooth - bottom left - dropped within weeks of the first. In school - we assume. Cos he left home for school that morning with his bottom left tooth in tact and came home without it. He didn't know it had dropped off, had no clue where or when it happened, so it could jolly well have been part of his lunch or tea snack. No pain, no blood and no keepsake this time too.

Tooth 3 - upper right

Then came the turn of the third upper right tooth. It had been wobbling for quite some time, even before tooth number two dropped off. We didn't know that there was a normal sequence when it came to the dropping of the milk teeth. But what happened was that instead of dropping off pretty soon as the other two bottom ones did, his tooth started growing sideways. Again, ignorant us thought it was a normal thing to happen before it dropped, being pushed by the out coming permanent tooth. Thankfully we decided on a visit to the dentist not too long after. Immediately the dentist suspected that things were not so normal and ordered an X-ray which revealed his extra tooth.

The extra tooth, we learnt, was positioned in between his milk and permanent tooth, and was pushing its way out resulting in his upper right tooth being wobbly and pushed to the side. The advice was to first remove the milk tooth then extract the extra tooth so that it will not hamper the growth of the permanent tooth.

The milk tooth having no roots could be easily removed. It was the extra tooth which would require an extraction. There were two ways. One, the normal process adults go through which is to first have an injection to numb the area before the extraction takes place. Second, under GA. The second option really because there was no way Wayne would be able to sit still with mouth open after he goes through the pain of the injection. Or so we think....

Now here is where I should elaborate on how terrified this boy is of going to the dentist. There has in fact, never been a successful dental visit where we managed to get his teeth cleaned. Any sight of those scary dental instruments and he'd be screaming his head off. The last time we needed to get the X-ray done he embarrassingly spat at the dentist to my horror of horrors. We pinned him down, shoved the X-ray camera into his mouth just to get a snapshot of his teeth.

So prepping Wayne for the removal of his milk tooth, we had such a surprise when it came to the moment. He totally wowed us with his bravery. It took us weeks of psychoing him, credit to the daddy. The procedure was over before we knew it and there was zero fussing.

Not for the faint hearted, a video of the extraction.

Based on this experience we are wondering if he'd be able to go through the extraction process? We haven't quite decided on next steps. Though the dentist recommends the immediate removal of the extra tooth, we are worried that after doing so, the permanent tooth for some reason decides to stay where it is (gasp!). Hence we are inclined to wait till it shows signs of growing out before deciding to extract the extra tooth. That means a risk of the permanent tooth growing out less than perfectly straight, but we can live with that. After all there's Invasalign these days!

So yep that's the long story of his teeth and..... just for the record, milk tooth number four has just started to wobble now!

Monday, April 13, 2015

Wayne's best buddies in school

You know your child has grown up when... he starts to have outings with his friends without us parents being around.

It was his best bud, Jung's, birthday and his mommy was so kind to bring the boys over to her place for a day of fun. These selected boys, "best buddies" in school, had such a treat to be off school from lunch and played together all the way until 10pm.. can you believe it?! Haha 10pm curfews at 5yo! And if the boys had their way, they would have had very much preferred us mommies and daddies to come even later!

They swam, played superheroes, went to the playground, ate yummy food and watched a movie. They had such a blast, that Wayne who normally was not too comfortable swimming, insisted on jumping into the pool to have fun with his friends. The power of peer pressure. Jung's mommy even brought them to Toys R Us to choose a present each, so each boy came home with a gun, which of course left them extremely delighted.

Felt so happy looking at the photos that Jung's mommy sent throughout the day updating us parents on the kids. I sure will miss them when they all move on to primary school next year. Hopefully the kids will somehow still keep in touch! After four years together in school, they are after all Wayne's first set of real friends. Even mommy is feeling quite sentimental at the thought of the kids separated and moving on to the next phase of their lives! They will miss each other aplenty!

Happy happy birthday Jung!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Classes - Just how many is too many?

Are all Singaporean kids plagued with endless enrichment classes?

It looks like we have joined the bandwagon.

In just a matter of a week, we have got Wayne signed up on 3 (three!) classes. Art, chess and swimming.

I actually feel a bit bad for him. I hope I'm not turning out to be a Tiger Mom. But to be fair, two out of the three were requested by him. The last - swimming- was with much reluctance on his part (but essential). Our problem now is how best to manage the scheduling, such that he doesn't get too tired and our weekends are not entirely filled with his classes, leaving us with no time to have fun as a family. It is tough! Ideally, he should attend some of these classes on weekdays after his school, but with us both working, it is hard. I was just trying to arrange a playdate meet up with some friends and their kids, and realised all our schedules revolved around our kids' classes. Oh boy.

Anyway, last Saturday, Wayne went for his first art class and he loved it. He had been bugging us to send him for art classes for a long time now, so finally! Our budding artist! He dabbled with different materials on a silk screen, and was amazed at how his work could be transferred to a paper. In between, he'd tell me this class is 'so fun' and he'd beam each time he saw his final work being produced. I could tell he really enjoyed his time there. And I, personally, really liked the art studio. It felt homely, the teachers seemed genuinely interested in art and were very patient with the kids. I thought it was really nice that each term the kids would also go for an excursion depending on the theme for that term, and their excursion experience translated into art back in the studio. Thank you Uncle KC for the recommendation.

As for Amanda...... no don't worry, she doesn't have any! Yet! ;)

Sportiness : genetic or nurtured?

I have never been very sporty from young. I can't cycle well, have no ball sense and till today, can't even swim. Nevermind the fact that I used to be in the cross-country team in secondary school and even represented the school in the national cross-country meet (How did that happen?!).

So naturally, after the hubs realized that I had next to zero of an athletic bone in me, I have conveniently become the reason for Wayne's lack of sportiness. Our dear boy, you see, would very much prefer to spend hours building up his Lego collections at home than to spend the morning outdoors basking in the sunshine. But before we go to that, is sportiness even genetically passed down? The whole nature vs nurture debate. I don't know, but well since Wayne is a boy and he isn't really showing much inclination for sports, I guess we just have to put in that additional effort to nurture to make up for the lack of nature (if any).

Hence, our weekends have been lined up with more scooting, cycling and swimming sessions. The kids go downstairs, perspire and have their fancy milk treat, which is really nothing more than getting to go to 7-eleven and choosing a milk of their liking, such a thrill for the kids. It has been on-going for quite a while now, and the extra sunshine and perspiration has been doing much good for everyone, inside and out!