Jason, Joshua and I are on our countdown to May 25 when I'm scheduled to deliver our much-awaited, much-anticipated, much-loved baby. We spend our days wrapped in bliss, relaxed, doing household chores and occasionally venturing out to discover new playgrounds like the Science Centre and the Jacob Ballas' Children's Garden. At night, we go around the neighboring HDB's where the playgrounds are newer with designs better than in the privately developed housing estates.
Joshua comes home from school one day and presents me with this card which makes me happier than happy indeed!
Hubby and I still continue our cooking experiments and I'm pleased with the burrito that I made but I botched up the next meal of tortellini. Botching up that dish turned out to be a blessing in disguise because instead of going to world-renowned Chef Mario Batali's Mozza, which I have been dreaming of for some time, I opted to go for hotpot because I don't want to see any Italian food for a while.
The problem is that I take my failures too seriously, sadly to the detriment of my own development. Instead of learning from Batali, I choose to temporarily avoid remembering my mistake. Instead of facing the heat in the kitchen, I choose to lie low for a while, rest and recuperate. If I was made of sterner stuff, I'd be whipping up the succeeding recipes with aplomb despite messing up.
The Jacob Ballas Children's Garden wonderfully blends nature with fun things for children. Everything's created for kids including the bathrooms.
My friend Ginger introduced us to the hotpot we've been missing, located at the Nex Mall in Serangoon, where it's ideal to combine pigging out with a shopping spree. I wish I can find beautiful pots like these for my Mom because they'd make the perfect Mother Day's gift since she's simply crazy about hotpots.
Malls and parks have comfort rooms designed to take advantage of the natural light, ventilation and the tropical location bringing the outdoors in -- something that we can do more of in our country.
At the top of the mall, we discover another generously stocked public library. Envy, envy, envy!!! How can this tiny country do such feats? We get the society we deserve and work for so we need to do a lot for the Philippines before we can get to this stage. Sigh.
I discover a beautifully illustrated book that's a Chinese translation of a French children's book, the gist of which I figured out with help from Jason. Called "The Meaning of Life," it's written by Oscar Brenifier and illustrated by Jacques Despres. After googling, I definitely want to get the English version of this plus their kiddie books on God, good and evil and other philosophical musings.
Upon further googling, it turns out that Brenifier's books have been translated into 20 languages except English! What a totally surprising and strange revelation. So I guess I have to get the books in Chinese and use this as an excuse to brush up on my Chinese, or else get them in French and use that as a reason to learn French or another language like Spanish or Arabic. Alternatively, I can also bug my friend who's studying French because she's going out with a French guy.
The library was not the only treat awaiting us on the roof deck of the mall. There was a free water park chock full of children squealing in glee as they rushed towards mist and water machines including one that poured a heavy bucket-full of water big like thunder. We didn't have a change of clothes for Joshua so I had to run down to the department store to get him an extra pair of shorts and towel. It's worth it to see the absolute joy of Joshua frolicking in the water as all children in the world should.
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