pulau ubin - forging friendship

RK thinks Bryan is funny and No. 1 at singing naughty songs - yep, certainly something I'm gonna be enormously proud of. 

Bryan says RK is his best friend in Singapore, while Ryan Krohne (incidentally also an RK!) is his best friend in Germany. OOOOOOOOh.... RK.... I didn't see that coming! It must be some magic these initials carry with them! 

Of course, Bryan also misses his other best budds like Aidan and Jake. 

I found it real hilarious that my son wants to have the same haircut as RK, while Ad hears the same thing from her son... 

Yep, it's the beginning of a new friendship and here's wishing these guys great adventures through thick and thin! 

P/S. I did tell RK not to stick out his tongue. 

the first alumni reunion...

WARNING: KIDS, THIS IS HOW YOU LOOK WHEN YOU WATCH TOO MUCH TV!!!! Not very pretty eh? 

Once upon a time, three families from different corners  of the world met in a tiny German city. Today, they all meet again in our corner of the world. By sheer coincidence, work has brought these families back together. And can you believe it? We are neighbours again too! :) 

I think the staff @ Carl Schurz will be proud to see this picture... ok, maybe not that proud, considering the zombie-faces. 

what a great day to start the week...

What do a Bolivian woman, a German woman, an Iranian woman and a Singaporean woman have in common? 

They all had lunch together at my place today! Hee... a UN food convention! Lunch was such a resounding success that it was discussed promptly when and where the UN delegates could reconvene. ;)

Our similarities, however, extend beyond our interest in food. We are all mommies, we all have at least one child in the American preschool here, we are all originally not from Frankfurt. 

Told ya, Frankfurt has such a huge international community. 

Though we talked about many things over lunch, some topics invariably came back to our kids but with a bit of twist. That's why I like these moms so much. 

So one of the moms recounted that one day she accidentally walked in when the teacher was giving some kids time-out. The teacher sort of gave a "glare" like "Don't talk to them, these guys are on time out here." She left quickly. By the way, the kids concerned here were actually our kids... and guess what? We had such a good time laughing and one of the moms even cheered: Yay, serve the fella (referring to her son) right! Ok, it's not my intention to portray her as the mean witch mom here. And I know for a fact that she loves her son dearly. But what she wants is a good structure in her son's preschool years and she hopes for harder discipline! Wow... completely different from moms from my part of the world. I'm full of respect for this mom! Imagine a Sg mom marching into the school and interrogate the teacher in front of the whole class, demanding "So what crime did my child commit? How could you this and that blah blah blah... Are you sure my child was the culprit?" 

Also, we didn't complain how much stress our kids are under, nor scared ourselves silly about sending our children to thousands of enrichment classes... although we did wish that our kids had more homework. Btw, our kids love homework here! Maybe it's the lack of it that make them crave for more. Recently we've been given some flash cards to help our kids sound out the words at home and then tick off a checklist... yes, that's all, so simple. No worksheets to complete, no spelling lists to memorise, nothing to count! So with this kind of attitude, our subject quickly returned to where we could take our kids out for fun, e.g. Lochmuehle, Taunus Wunderland, Disneyland or Legoland.... 

What a pity that this kind of stress-free school-life is almost at its last chaper for us now. Soon we'll be dumped back into the cauldron of stress, rat race and paper chase in Sg... sigh! 

Wait a minute, this post is supposed to have a positive tone... ok, I got to psych myself up again for the great week ahead of me. The kindergarten class has a field trip at the end of this week. I'm gonna convince the teacher to let me tag along to take pictures, yay! 

And talking about pictures, here are what we had for lunch... sorry just leftovers... we were too eager to start that we didn't take any pictures at all! 

Clockwise from top: Rendang... (blurred out coz it didn't look as good as the one in Lilian's), bee hoon and my favourite salad to go with the curry!

Again, yummy and pretty cakes from the famous Siesmayer Cafe in Frankfurt. Thanks, Mania! 

And little cupcakes made by Fatima's lovely boys! Thank you, little darlings! 

It would have looked so much better if I had a white teapot, teacup, saucer and plate... 

P/S Representatives from Moscow and London could not make it for lunch today. Their flights were cancelled... :( 

best friends and playdates

I had most part of the day off... the kids were in school till 4 pm today. Now most Fridays are probably going to be a long one (yippee) since Ryan's mom has requested for play dates with Bryan on Friday afternoon unless we have travelling plans. 

Ryan and Bryan's friendship had pretty rough beginnings 2 years ago, simply because their names were too similar and for a start, people in the school weren't quite sure who's who. Even adults make that kind of mistakes sometimes. So you can imagine the commotion in the class of 3 years old, especially when speech wasn't quite the clearest then. 

Of course,  their similarities didn't stop at the names. They both like to talk, a lot! They both like to win (hey, who doesn't? ) Or should I say they both dislike to lose? They are both very bright. They both always have stories to tell... While similarities are good, these two guys, however, couldn't see eye to eye. They didn't think they could turn their similarities into a special connection. Instead, they got into squabbles with each other to the extent that one even asked the other to change his name. Hee... cute right? Anyhow, both sets of parents were kept informed, just about how tickled the teachers were whenever they heard an argument between these two guys. Harmless... we all laughed it off. It didn't take long for these two boys to finally realize that they were after all good companions. Just two months into preschool, they were best of friends. Phew! 

Ryan's parents sent Bryan home tonight after a play date. Obviously the boys have missed each other - the long summer break is one reason. But the other main reason is Ryan attending another school. The boys don't get to play with each other on a daily basis anymore. 

When it's time for us to return to Singapore, I know it will be hard for Bryan to say goodbye to his dear friend. It will be tough for him to adjust to a whole new life back home, without any friends. Just like how he started off here two years back: defensive and apprehensive... but given his talkative nature, he'll eventually find someone he enjoys talking to. 

my little linguist?

We had a play date at our home today. Bryan's new found buddy in class, Daniel, came over with his mom and sister after school. As usual, the kids had fun: 2 gals and 2 boys, while mommies had tea. :) 

When it was time to say goodbye, Alan was very tickled by what Bryan said. Yep, it's a rare occasion that he's already home. But it was huge traffic congestions everywhere on the highways. So by the time he got into Frankfurt it was well past 6 pm. Ok, I digressed... So Bryan said without a thought in one single breath, "Bye Daniel! Tschuess Lisa!" 

To Bryan, Daniel speaks only English, while Lisa (Daniel's sister) can only understand German. Actually, Lisa can understand English very well too, but she prefers to speak German  - that Bryan didn't know. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I learnt from another mom today that my son was telling two of his classmates that he would teach them Chinese. 

Ha, my son teaching Chinese??? 

I was pretty curious about what he might want to teach them, so I asked him. 

"I can teach them to count in Chinese. I can also teach them to say the 12 Chinese zodiac signs." I suppose that would be quite a lot for him to deal with for now.

good-bye, Yui, sayonara!

Yui is a little pretty Japanese girl in Bryan's class. Today's her last day in Carl Schurz. She'll be moving back to Tokyo with her parents tomorrow. It's a rather sad day in the 3's class and the children all bade their precious friend from the Far East farewell.

I'm not too sure if Bryan really understood the matter of bidding farewell to someone. Last night when I told him he would not see Yui again after today, he quickly told me he wanted to make her a card. Of course, that delighted me coz 1) that was exactly what I had in mind to do with him, 2) he thought of presenting his friend with a little memento.

Hong Ying...

another new friend for Bryan
Daddy was catching up with the former Centre Director of Frankfurt, while his son was toasting his new friend silly with Sake... no lah, plain water in Yakult cups.
酒逢知己千杯少！

friends at last...

Bryan had company for lunch today. He ate well: Steamed egg, Chinese cabbage & carrot soup, carrot sticks, apples and fried wantons with prawns!
Jacqueline and Lawrence are from Taiwan. They've been in Frankfurt since August last year, 3 months before us. Jacqueline attends the American school where Bryan goes to twice a week for day-care. Bryan can relate well to her because of similar language background. Bryan must be thinking," Finally someone who speaks English, Mandarin, a bit of Hokkien like me! No more eins, zwei, drei and funny German words that I don't know." Actually, we speak more Teochew than Hokkien. But there's not much of a difference there.
It really is a good idea to have the children over for lunch and play. At least her Mommy and I can rest and relax a little, while the children entertain themselves with toys. Actually, not much time to relax. I had to read three books to them, one of which had encore!
There'll be craft work the next time we meet. Now I need to scramble some materials for art & craft. Got to start collecting stuffs for some sticking fun :)