Joash's 3rd Birthday

Joash's birthday falls on the 8th of November and since Joshua would be away on reservist that day, we decided to celebrate it on the Sunday before it as per our family tradition. This morning, Joash requested to wear his favorite Thomas the Train T-shirt which was something that did not happen very often. I obliged even though I already planned for all of us to be decked in yellow.

We took off to the Escape Theme Park in the morning and were really glad for the cloudy weather and the lack of the usual expected crowd on a weekend. The first ride Joash requested to take was the ferris wheel. He seemed to enjoy the bird's eye view of the park and during our many rides in the carriage, mildly swaying in the wind, I enjoyed his imaginative description of what he saw. There, apparently, was a train that caught fire, a flag that fell from the rooftop, a bird that flew away and perhaps an airplane that crashed into the park.

Joash's maiden "voyage"

Joash was busy describing the scenery

Meanwhile, our dear princess was very much occupied with the kiddy rides available at the central pavilion. She was not very impressed with the regular rides and did not indicate any desire to take them at all.

She was so delighted when she sat on the kiddy rides.

My Mum-in-law who graciously

helped us look after our barangs

while we were taking the rides

After that, instead of taking my suggestion to take the Choo-Choo Train, Joash kept wanting to go for the roller-coaster which looked like a more appealing train to him. I wanted to indulge him on his birthday so I agreed to ride with him. As I suspected, he was shocked at the speed and the thrill of the ride. The moment the ride ended, he scrambled to climb out of his seat saying, "I want to get out. I don't want the fast fast train!" I'm proud of the fact that despite his obvious fear, he did not even once scream or cry during or after the ride. He simply rejected going on the roller-coaster again and went on to try the "slow slow" train, making slow-motion movements as he described to me what he wanted.

Joash's favorite Choo-Choo Train

This is the only ride that Jayna joined in especially because Joash took the ride soooo many times that we totally lost count. He simply loved it! And thus it was rather boring for Jayna to simply watch her brother enjoy himself. She discovered that it actually wasn't half-bad. Heh heh...

A little apprehensive at first...

... but started smiling half-way through. :)

Joash loves the engine seat the most

because he could pull the lever to ring the bell!

I thought that Joash would also like the airplane ride but he seemed happy to ride it only four times in a row and then refused to go on it ever again. Not sure why though...

Enjoying the view and the breeze

A close runner-up would be the kiddy cars. A pity he could not coordinate steering the wheel at the same time as stepping on the accelerator pedal. Thus, Joshua and I took turns to help him shift the vehicle whenever he got stuck. It was tiring work!

Watch the following video to see what I mean.

The red racer car

Joash had fun pressing the buttons of this car

to produce honking sounds and music

Sadly, Jayna did not survive well the heat out in the open and had an eczema flare up. We brought her to the air-conditioned Burger King, took off her pretty blue pinafold, put slabs of moisturizer on her rashes, "water-paraded" her and fanned her using a piece of paper. For that half an hour, all three adults fussed over her while Joash quietly drank his tea-break milk.

So much happier after all the TLC and air-con!

Jayna is truly feminine without anyone teaching her. Joash always asks for my earrings to play with but he has never once wanted to put them on himself. Jayna, however, loves to try on my accessories since a few months old. As she hasn't had her ears pierced, I hung them on her ears instead. She was was very careful not to displace them and giggled gleefully when we praised her for being pretty.

Doesn't she look cute wearing them?

A close-up to see how they were hung on her ears

Joash had so much fun at the theme park that he was absolutely exhausted by dinner time and dozed off. It was really unfortunate as we wanted to do the birthday cake after eating our meal. So when we woke him up for the candle-blowing and cake-eating, he was quite grouchy and refused to do either. He only had stomach for some more milk and completely "concussed" immediately after the bedtime routine when we reached home. (He usually will take about half an hour to sing himself to sleep or play with Henry the train till he drifts off to dreamland.)

Staring blankly at his birthday cake

while we sang the birthday song for him.

Poor dear...

At least, I'm really glad he enjoyed himself thoroughly at the Escape Theme Park. It was a trip all meant for him as the adults were working very hard to occupy and humor his bored and fussy sister while one of us parents accompanied him on his adventures around the place. Just the train rides alone had gotten back all our money's worth!