My everyday mission

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Is to make Angel laugh.

One way is to copy everything that she does. Be it talking, singing, dancing, or just just some simple hand gestures, it never fails to get a laughter out of her.

But more often than not, Angel likes to bully me. She likes to order me around, pull my hand, make me carry her, make me go her direction, rub her hands on my face, kick me, pull my hair, slide down my legs, make me piggyback her, put toys on my head while I sleep, and push me down the bed, repeatedly.

That's ok though. If there's only one person in this world that Angel can bully to make her laugh, I'd gladly be the one.

She spotted me

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Angel has just changed to a new school. A rather big change for her - new environment, new teachers, new friends, longer hours at school, and she now has to take the school bus on her own. It has not been easy for her.

On her 5th day her school was having a Chinese new year celebration and performance, I decided to drop by and take some pictures. I waited outside the glass window when I spotted her holding her teacher's hand and slowly walking down the stairs. Angel spends most of her time with us, so it's quite an incredible feeling seeing her trying to blend in with others on her own, I can't help but smiled big time.

She's still extremely shy, her teacher had to hold and comfort her the whole time. She was looking emotionless. When they let the parents go in, I quickly went in and sat as near as I could to her.

She spotted me.

I waved to her, and she gave me the faintest of smile! This totally melts my heart, knowing that she was pleasantly surprised to see me there. During the entire performance Angel would often turn her head towards me and check on me.

I love this girl so much.

A little push of help

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We brought Angel to Paragon's playground and let her run loose, and boy, did she run loose. She was literally jumping all over the place and playing everything available. One time we saw her pushing a kid down the slide so that she can have a go, we thought she was being bad again. I wasn't too happy.. then a while later I saw something amazing.

Angel was climbing up the steps and going down the slide repeatedly. At one point, she stopped at the steps for some reason, probably to count the steps. Then she turned around and saw a small little toddler boy behind her trying to climb up, with his mum holding him. Realizing that she's blocking the way, Angel quickly climbed up to the platform and waited for him. While on the platform, Angel kept looking at the boy and pointing her finger to the slide, as though to cheer him up and lead him the way. The little boy struggled to climb up with his hands, Angel then kneel down, grabbed his arms and attempted to pull him up. He eventually made it, Angel let him walk to the slide first, then followed him behind. The boy didn't know how to slide down, so Angel gave him a little push. It's then I realized it wasn't a push of selfishness, it was a push of help.

Angel normally doesn't get along with other kids, so it's really heartwarming to this.

How we spent Christmas

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We braced the weather and headed to Angel's favorite hang out place - Sengkang Riverside Park and Sengkang Wetland. I started to cycle her to this park about a year ago, initially we would just hang around the pond area. But with her explorer nature, we started to venture further, and we are still slowly discovering how vast this place really is.

Angel has kind of worked out her favorite routes:

  • We start at the pond area where she picks leaves and throws it to the fishes and tortoises.
  • Then we walk to the grass steps where she tries her balancing walk.
  • I have to wait for the "where bicycle?" voice when I would then carry her back to the bicycle.
  • We then cycle to the wetland where she does her usual running and exploring around the bridge.
  • Her running normally leads us to Sengkang Sports Complex, where we would go to the outdoor gym. This is where she calls the sky walk machine a "swing" and she would try her hands on the monkey bars too.
  • After that we walk up to a huge road bridge. We only just ventured to this bridge not long ago, so she's still slowly learning about this area.
  • The bridge leads us back to the park, from here on it's piggyback all the way back to the wetland to get the bicycle.
  • Sometimes we cycle to McDonald's to have dinner or drive through to get her a corn cup.

Normally this trip takes about 1 to 2 hours.

Why I pick her up every friday

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Had a blast at my office Christmas party at Raffles Place, I haven't been to this vibrant part of town for a while now. After the party I felt like staying on with friends and continue partying, but I had to pick up my daughter.

On the way I kept thinking why, why do I not stay on and have fun? Why do I bring her home and spend the rest of my night taking care of her? I was still wondering that when I reached grandma's place, and as I turned the corner to face the door I got my answer within one second.

A simple "Daddy"! Followed by Angel running to the kitchen to look for grandma to open the gate. Grandma was in the shower, so Angel came back and tried to open the gate herself. She tried to climb up and reach the lock, she pushed and pulled the gate, she tried to figure out the workings of the gate. Unsuccessful, she ran back to look for grandma.

After the 4th try running to the kitchen, she finally managed to get grandma. As soon as the gate was opened, she ran up my to arms with shoes on her hands, ready to go home.

That's the reason why I bring her home.