Dance in A

This song brought tears to our eyes! So simple, yet beautiful.

How Bryan Started with Violin

It started with that fortuitous encounter with the children's string performance at Robertson Quay 2 christmases ago, when Bryan just finished playing at the indoor playground, and he was stopped in his tracks by the enchanting music delivered by the children of Wolfgang Violin studio. He was riveted, neither the lure of dinner after a completely exhausting run at Pollywogs, nor the insistent tugging of his mates to go run around the courtyard could unroot him from where he stood. He just gazed in amazement at the rendition of silent night as the harmonic sounds of mini violins just filled the courtyard, or at least to him they did.

That was a one-off event, Ade and I thought to myself, but months later, Bryan tried, "Mummy i want to buy a violin", and we thought, hmmm, the violin is a difficult instrument to master, one which probably requires lots of focus and commitment to pick up. We were apprehensive, for Bryan does have a record of having a short attention span to his toys, and we knew that the violin was quite a big commitment in terms of time and money, and not an anyhow 'masak - masak' kind of venture.

November last year, it was on the streets of Taiwan when Bryan chanced upon someone basking for school fees with his violin, and again, he grew roots to the ground, mouth gaping, eyes wide with wonder at the music emanating from the guy's instrument. When we came back to Singapore, Bryan asked Ade "mummy, it is already year end right?  I thought you said I can go for violin trial class if I asked at the end of the year?  Can?" And that was it, the next time he asked, we decided to bring him for a trial, just to test water. Straightaway the magic of last years christmas children violin performance floated into the cloud of our memory and we thought why not lets just bring him to the school that produced such child talents.

During Trial class, Bryan touched his first ever violin, and was guided by Mrs Annie Lee to produce beautify sounds from it. Raw, but melodious. Full notes, without the expected first time squeak which just rang of mucho mucho potential. We thought that it is only the duty of a parent not to vanquish the desire of a child to learn an instrument, but Bryan did more than that, he exhibited hunger at wanting to play it more, hence we bought the violin right away, and signed him up!

Now, this violin is an interesting piece. It wasn't brand new, but it was the very same violin he carried in to trial class, the violin which bowed up such beautiful sound, that one could have said that it chose him as much as he chose it. They were made for each other to begin this musical journey of his.

Carrot cake for NY2012

I was sitting on my couch reading when the smell of fresh orange juice wafted through the air, and strummed my cake nerves in advance. Hours later, the batches of carrot cake graced our dining table, ready to be dished out for our new years party with the kids tomorrow in the garden lounge.

Roasted crunchy walnuts disguised like rocks in an edible zen stone garden, or a pastry martian landscape, embedded gently onto zesty whips of orange flavored cream cheese.

Floor Christmas party bake

This year, level 3 of BlK 84 Lakeholmz had a floor party, utilizing the common corridor shared by 4 units, 4 nationalities, coming together to have a nice Christmas gathering, over a fusion potluck feast.

Conceived with the intention of neighborliness, friendly warmth and festive feelings, it was a superb night everybody had.

Adeline baked a tasty chocolate cake with a nice homely cottage sitting on it. Extends the comfortable, fuzzy feeling of home out to the common corridor.

She also whipped up a multi- tierm tray of cup cakes, splashed with candied multi color sugariness embedded into dollops of nutella, altogether an all-star Christmassy topping over chocolate cupcake bases. Wow, whets my appetite just reminiscing on them as I write.

Special day

Today is a special day.

Bryans 3

Bryan celebrated his 3rd birthday in school this year on 10th November. The cake above is made by Ade. Underneath the colorful creamy exterior depiction of a child's dream, is the tastiest chocolate cake with Oreo cream layer filings.

Ade researched, planned, sweat, scrambled, whipped and crafted rehearsals for this cake months before this occasion. Here's another close up. Bryan loves Thomas the train, and this cake is it's backdrop.




From this you can tell that even at close range before you shovel a forkful into your impatient mouth, the intricate piping patterns make this cake such a thing of beauty. It cost maybe over $200 to buy a cake like this from a professional, but it is priceless if mummy made this.

Bryan, when you read this next time, go give mummy another hug for it.





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Adeline made a beautiful black forest cake for me and my dad for our birthday celebration.  Usually, it does not matter if the cake tasted good or not, but it is the thought that counts. This cake however, was so good, i had a really special feeling eating it. My dad who is usually very careful about his diet went for second helpings. Decked a 3 storey pastry penthouse, sandwiching 2 layers of a mish mash of cream and fruit fillings, so good that one wouldn't know where to start eating the cake slice. Love you dear, for making the super cake.

Closure

Today Ade and myself discovered that our unborn child's heartbeat had stopped at about 8.5 weeks. It is heartwrenching, but somehow with the experience of a blighted ovum before (refer to early posts) and the gift of our now only son, we feel comforted and prepared for this.

Nothing of course prepares anyone for a whisper of life so delicate yet to be snuffed out so quickly. I wouldn't say this was unexpected. At 6.5 weeks, we found that the amniotic sac was small compared to the yolk sac, and our gynae raised concerns on the health of this pregnancy.

Back then, despite clinical advice that it wouldn't do much, and reading several reports online that it does help, ade started drinking at least 1.5 times as much water as she normally would, averaging 14 glasses/day.

Just last Saturday, our scan at 8 weeks 2 days showed not just a small foetus, but a vaguely unclear form compared to what should have been. Amniotic fluid didn't restore to normal levels, but it looked to us to have improved a teeny bit. However, the strong sounding heartbeat gave us the false psychological affirmation that our little one could have been a fighter and pushed through Our gynae pointed to 3 factors that suggested the contrary.

1 - absolute size was small (at 8wks 2d should have been about 15mm instead of 11mm)
2 - rate of growth was slowing, suggesting eventual stop
3 - shape wasn't distinct as it should be, suggesting complications should baby have survived this phase.

All Life is precious. We are reminded once again, that we are all lucky survivors, and should treasure the one/ones that we already have.


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