I was talking to my ex colleague a few days ago. Naturally, the centre of our conversation revolved around the kids. Since both the husband and wife happens to be very athletic people, I was curious to know if their 3 years old Erica is as sporty as them and how they manage to keep an active kid out of danger.

The wise words from my friend was, better let the kid runs around, hurts herself a bit and get use to falling down. It will be much harder to train the older kids to conquer the fear of falling down.

Oh well, it sounds so simple, but it never occurs to me in that light. Many parents, myself included, are protective parents, but we do agree to not to be over protective and let the children get some knocks and bruises, so that the children will learn that the particular action is dangerous and will not attempt it again.

Now, let me see if I can conquer my own fear of letting the kid falls down more often.

This is actually way overdue. We were at Hay Dairies with the other playgroup mates two weeks ago.

The place was extrememly friendly to visitors. Just enter the goat farm and we were able to roam around the designated areas for visitors without anyone bugging us. The children were all very excited about the goats which tried to sniff some food out of them. They could touch, pet, feed the goats freely.

We had just returned home from Paris the day before, and at that point of time, Yauyau was still suffering from some anxiety attack whenever little children approached her. You see, during our holiday, she was “attacked” by a very passionate boy who ran after her, trying to hug and kiss her, and this girl of mine dislike both acts. So as I expected, she kept herself away from all the other children in the begining. It was an amusing sight, she rather engaged herself with the animals then human beings.

We were at Bukit Timah hill yesterday. The father is away, and Indah had her off day, I was left all alone with the kid. The idea of having her all to myself for the whole day sort of terrified. I wouldn’t know what to do to keep her entertained all the time.

Going to do some “mountain climbing” will at least fill up 2 hours or so of the time. So off we went, and having been not excersing since Yauyau birth, it was indeed tiring for me. First, the begining part is steep, and secondly, I have to carry her because of the steepness. My brother said I was like carrying a sack of 10kg rice up hill. Much worse, I could have dragged a sack of rice but not her.

Thank goodness this kid always enjoy walking and she managed to walk half of the way. Should be a very good workout for all of us. We were so tired after that we all slept for 3 hours in the afternoon, and the afternnon just past without any sweat. Children always surprises me with their physical ability and stamina. I saw many children there running and jumping around and didn’t looked breathless like the adults did. Maybe more of such physical training for the kid when she grows older.

Great improvement is shown today, I think she is getting more comfortable to have strangers around lately.

The technician and plumbers were here this morning, three big men whom I am sure will make her burst into her tears and cling on to me like a koala. Well, they did made her cried during their last visit three weeks ago. Even the technician guy was surprise she didn’t cry or tried to run away, but stood around them and watched what they were doing.

Then, I was told that she was not afraid of my sis’s ang moh boyfriend anymore. Yes, Yauyau was terrified of him and always cried when he visited, and refuse to be near him. Maybe after visiting Paris, she is less upset of having them around her now.

She is also showing signs of trying to interact with the neighbour’s children. She used to like just stood far far away and watched them play, or moved away when they neared her. Nowadays, she tried to join them or baby talked with them.

Good signs, I hope she is getting more sociable.

She is very enthusiatic about her newfound skill of jumping lately. I guess it must be rather exciting for her to be able to life both legs above the ground and feel the thrill of floating in the air for that split of a second.

No more bending of legs and and trying very hard to bounce herself off the ground uncessfully. Yeah, she could only imitate us bending our legs and then straightened her body, without any uplifting as her legs seem to be firmly glued to the ground.

Children on TV programmes, movies or cartoon skip around and I used to question that. But it is true, she has been skipping around rather frequently like that too. Let’s see when she can hop on one leg.

We are back! In fact, we have returned many days ago, since last Wednesday. We should be heading towards Loire Valley and Bordeaux for a week, but had to change our plan and came home earlier to settle some pressing matter.

It wasn’t totally a letdown not beening able to stay longer. James and I were not very enthusiatic holiday makers. All we want is to find some place away from home, relax and laze around without the usual daily routine. I think a beach resort will suit us better. Secondly, I was begining to suffer from withdrawal sydrome. No, not missing those home food like fried kway tiao or plain white rice, but really miss playing my online game. We have wifi in our hotel, the connection was excellent, but our notebook simply cannot make it, too slow.

Anyway, we are back safe, sound and in one piece. Surprisingly, the kid didn’t suffer from any jet lag at all. Like our departing flight, she slept through most of the time and adjusted her biological cook accordingly. So I guess making her sleep as much as possible during flight time did help a great deal.

We brought along our trusted lightweight stroller for the trip. I couldn’t say Paris is a very stroller friendly place, but having it definitely saved us from strained arms.

We didn’t check in the stroller at the airport. I have heard stories about broken or lost parts due to improper handling and didn’t want to take the risk. Anyway, we could leave the stroller with the crew at the bridge and collect it again when we land, I believe the chance of retrieving a damaged stroller will be minimized.

On ground level, using a stroller posed not much of a problem. The walkways are wide. There is plenty of space to walk, well, except for Champs-Elysees, which is packed with tourist. There are plenty of pedestrian crossings, so we don’t have to worry about dashing across streets. However, I am still unsure about how their zebra crossings work. I noticed that most approaching vehicles didn’t stop at the zebra crossings (those without traffic lights) to allow pedestrians to cross. I usually wait for all the cars to clear before crossing, just to play safe.

Getting into the Metro or train stations gets more challenging with a stroller. It is a system built many years ago, so I guess it wasn’t designed with stroller or wheelchair in mind. Expect to fold the stroller and carry it up and down various stairs. Most stations aren’t fitted with lifts; those with lifts see hordes of commuters squeezing into them.

However, train commuters are very helpful towards the elderly or parents with infants. They readily give up their seats upon seeing those in need, almost immediate like reflex. Some even helped by holding the closing doors open so we don’t have to miss the train. These commuters, I assumed they were the locals, looks so cold and expressionless but were not hesitant to lend a helping hand.

Bringing along the stroller to places like museums, churches, palaces and gardens can be challenging too. The cobblestones roads are very bumpy, especially to those lightweight, small wheels models. Most of the gardens are paved with sands or small stones. Slightly bumpy and not too smooth, but not as bad as the cobblestones ones. We also skipped climbing up the churches, not wanting to carry the load of the stroller.

Not too sure about the other museums, but Musee d’Orsay isn’t stroller friendly too. The staff let me in without having to queue, but inside the museum, we were greeted with many steps. Not those long flight of stairs, just a few steps here and there, so we were able to carry the stroller around. We tried looking for the lift to bring us to the higher floors, but couldn’t find any. The escalators helped though.

After a week of wheeling it around, my new and well maintained stroller now look well seasoned. Though traveling with it was rather inconvenient at times, I am still glad to bring it with us. It was always very handy when the child became tired and refused to walk anymore or when she needed her nap badly.

The queue was so long that we skipped visiting the Grands Appartements and went straight into the garden.

Rocky road leading to Chateau de Versailles. So bumpy we couldn’t use the stroller.

Naked man resting beside the fountain, I meant the statue.
After the rocky road, we were greeted by stoney ones. Couldn’t really use the stroller too.

The fountains, garden, grand canal and the huge crowd of tourists.

 
The greener pasture and soft soft grass. Lawns nearer to the chateau are out of bound, whereas those around the grand canal welcome poeple onto them. A nice place to rest, let the kid play, look at the ducks and chew on the very very hard sandwiches (which btw, are yummy).

Wah! So grand and so many steps to climb.

Place du Terte is filled with portrait artists. We gave in to one in the end to do a portrait for Yauyau.
Keeping the kid still to get the portrait done was not easy. Obviously, I was bored.

Yauyau first portrait!
We have to admit that it doesn’t look like her. She looks like a baby without neck. Anyway, it was a nice souvenir. We thought of getting more of such portraits in future, maybe one of them will have a better resemblance.

No lack of baby food, I found a whole shelf of them in the supermarket. There is a large varieties of various kind of pre prepared food, that reassured me that the kid won’t have to go hungry or eat only bread for the whole trip. However, the selection of baby cereal and formula milk are lesser, probably because this is supermarket is not targetting the locals.