National Day 2011

We've never really thought to do anything special for National Day in the past years as the children were too young to understand much and Joshua and I don't really fancy even watching the NDP on TV. I have even less impetus this year due to my exhaustion from the pregnancy.

However, the children have learnt many national day songs from the school and Joash has been asking me about National Day for the past one week. Thus, I decided to put in the effort to make it a meaningful day for them.

Jayna counting her fingers for me.

Joash's latest fad: Winking

Dressed in the national colors, we headed down to IMM for a McDonald's breakfast (We've not been to Macs for a very long time.) The children loved the bread with grape jam from my big breakfast meal, the hash browns and the orange juice. After the meal, we roamed the mall. The kids kept pulling us to the various pastry shops to admire the colorful and pretty cakes on display.

They were very intrigued by

the sweets deco at one of the stalls.

Then, we went to Giant to get some groceries. Thankfully, Joash likes to sit in the trolley seat while Jayna prefers to be in the trolley itself so there wasn't any arguments at all. Phew!

The princess treatment

Happy with the view from his vantage point

We lunched at Secret Recipe and went for a joy ride with the children napping along the way. (I was pretty surprised that Joash liked the cream of broccoli soup more than the mushroom soup.) The moment we reached home, Joash asked for the jelly which I promised him in the morning.

I had not been able to cook during my pregnancy since I can't stand stationary for more than 5 min without fainting. So it was a difficult choice for me to decide to make the healthy red dates jelly. Since I don't allow the children to eat the commercial type of jelly, they would be deprived of one of their favorite snack if I don't put in the effort to make the home-made (no sugar added) ones. I had to take multiple breaks in the cooking process but the result was worth it. They enjoyed the jelly so much, especially those heart-shaped ones, that it was all gone in a matter of minutes, which explains why there weren't any photos taken.

After some down time reading books and drawing on the magnetic boards, we had pizza hut dinner delivery. I was kinda disappointed that the kids didn't fancy the stuffed crust which I ordered specifically for them. Instead, they ate the chicken diplets which were meant for Joshua. Ah well...

Soon it was time for the National Day Parade on TV!!! I bought them the Singapore flags to wave around while we watched the live telecast. They were curiously quiet when the National anthem or the National Day song came on despite singing them enthusiastically for the past one week. They only sang along with the song "Singapura, Oh Singapura".

On the whole, Joash could appreciate the show much better than Jayna. Halfway through, she simply wanted her Daddy to carry her. Poor Joshua... Towards the end of the program, I switched off the lights so that we could all better admire the fireworks and the city lights. The children had so much fun that they BOTH threw major tantrums when it was time for bed. We knew they were really tired so Joshua had to manhandle them through most part of their bath in spite of their loud screaming. After all that protest against going to bed, they fell asleep the very moment their heads hit the pillow!

Wow, look at the flags fly!

Free tattoo stickers from Guardian Pharmacy
on Joash's hand...

...and Jayna's arm!

All in all, despite being totally tired out making the day happy and meaningful for the children, I was glad I pushed myself to do it. Perhaps next year I can do even more when I can function at my full capacity. *grin*

Here's a video of them waving the flags vigorously during the singing of the National anthem.