A New Play Experience!!!

Like any other working mother out there, my cup runneth over from time to time with mommy guilt over not spending enough time with the kids and so I tend to compensate by going online shopping for new books to read at bedtime or buying more clothes for my budding fashionista (who is now obsessed with wearing only clothes with hearts on them) or by filling up our weekend calendar with various family friendly activities.

This is how I ended up paying SGD18 for each child (good for two hours play) to play in an indoor playground when there are tons of free outdoor playgrounds in Singapore.

In any case, I was intrigued by the SingKids PlaySystem and so I wanted the kids to try it out and not necessarily because I was wowed by the description of the playground on the company's website, which by the way I feel was quite liberal in their use of exclamation points. There should be a law against that! 

SingKids PlaySystem is unique and a brand new concept in indoor playgrounds! It's innovative and imaginative! Be wowed by bright and colorful soft play equipment and toys! Clean and safe, it's an exciting environment for the whole family! It's truly interactive play for kids and parents, not just parents sitting and watching their children!

SingKids® PlaySystem is stimulating and entertaining! Did we mention that it's fun? And a big bonus! It's open everyday so kids can play rain or shine, but we do require socks!

In any case, kids are fairly easy to please, I say throw some balloons around, have a couple of slides and climbing and jumping equipment and they're all set. Here's proof:

Lexi unsure which balloon to chase in the balloon enclosure 

 Trying to jump in this weird-looking fluorescent lit soft trampoline

Finding a nice place to sit

Going around this spinning contraption

Andi successfully not stabbing a bear with her chin 

 In the colorful ball pit, where Andi kept trying to sneak out balls. A little child saw her doing it and tried to grab it from her and bring it back to the pit but Andi successfully hypnotized one of the parents to bring the ball back to her. In fact, technically there's no shouting inside the playground but the attendants seemed to have gone deaf in her case and could not hear her screaming. This little girl has powers, I tell you.

Yay, Lexi looks like she's having fun!...but actually no, this was the look of alarm as she realized how unwieldy this ball seat was as she scrambled to stay on it, and fell after 5 seconds.

And so the kids had fun, mommy assuaged her guilt and all is well until mommy does overtime again and the cycle continues all over again.

Pirates of Changi Rise

My friend Nina had been inviting us over for the longest time to their condo - Changi Rise. She kept on telling me there was a pirate ship in their swimming pool and there was a beach in the condo complex. It seemed too fantastic to be true, but when we went there, we were amazed at the place.Yes, there is a pirate ship docked in a sandy pool and there's even a slide (she missed out that part). I can truly say this is the most kid-friendly resort condo I've been to in Singapore.

Of course upon alighting from the taxi and seeing the pool, my mermaid-in-a-former-life daughter immediately wanted to chuck off her clothes and put on her swim diaper. Um, wait, we have to say hello to our hosts first.

But eventually the kids made it to the pirate ship, and here are the pictures to prove it.
                                                                            

                                              

The pirate ship, which has two water slides and a tunnel. I wonder what other contraptions they have in other condos in Singapore though? Is there anything cooler and more awesome than a pirate ship in a sandy pool?

 

Lexi trying out the water slides

 

Yes, the water looks green (my husband says yellowish, but between the two of us, I would like to note that he's the one wearing glasses) and the bottom is actually sand

 

The water slide, though there wasn't enough water, and father and daughter tandem had to move their butts to get to the end

 

That was fun

 

Husband trying to catch up with a very spry little almost-three-year-old. 'Darn children move faster in water than a submarine!' 

 

Some of us decide to relax instead - here's Tita Zsa resting. Big night ahead of her, F1 events to go to.

Yes, it takes two people to get a squirmy little baby sunblocked and outfitted in full body swim gear

 Andi's turn to go into the pirate ship

 

This was Andi, the happy baby - before her older sister threw sand in her face. So yes,we got a bit of rough play and drama thrown in, but that's what you get when you have two kids.



 

Another new discovery, another reason to love living in the little red dot.

 





Weekend at Sentosa

We've been wanting to bring the kids to the beach for some time now and we finally got a chance to do that over the weekend. Lexi's first beach trip was actually to Bali but that was a dud since the beach we went to wasn't one of the main beaches and it was quite dirty. We wanted to make it up to her. It would also be my younger daughter Andi's first beach trip, so we wanted to do it right this time as well.

Woke up at 9am and got everyone ready, or rather, everyone was ready by the time I woke up at 9am. In fact, my daughter Lexi was so excited she slept in the clothes she was going to go out in.

Our first stop was Palawan Beach. We haven't really gone swimming there so it was our first time too. But I remember the water didn't look nice to swim in before. It's quite clean now. The weather was quite nice, not too cool and not too hot, and it wasn't too crowded either.

 Andi feels the sand for the first time

Andi spent 5 minutes in the water before she decided 

she had had enough and burst out crying  

 Brand new beach accessories for the bargain price of SGD4!

Pail, rake, shovel, watering can and sand castle molds

 Lexi mixing sand and water

Lexi getting water from the beach 

Father and daughter going back and forth for more water 

 Lexi at the beach tram stop

After about an hour, we decided to move onto our next destination which is the Port of Lost Wonder, touted as the first kids' beach club in Sentosa. We took the tram there and paid SGD15 for Lexi's entrance, everyone else, us adults, got in free. The place though was quite packed with tons of kids running around. The main attraction was this pirate ship with lots of water fountains and cannons and water slides. At first I just let Lexi go inside the water play area with her Dada since the rules said that only 1 adult allowed per 1 child, but later on I saw some other parents with their kids so I just stayed with them. Such a strange rule though, I understand there may be concerns with overcrowding but how can you expect parents to enjoy the attractions if they can't enjoy them as a family. In any case, our time there seemed so short. We didn't even have time to go to the bubble machine area. Lexi didn't even feel hungry come lunchtime. We had to drag her away from the water play area to have a quick pizza lunch before heading on home. All in all it was quite a fun trip and we can't wait to go back again.

Changi City Point Playground

Another one of Singapore's wonderful wet playgrounds, this one's at Changi City Point at Level 2 beside Koufu Food Court. This one's a bit bigger than the Tampines wet playground and had the usual water features such as a wading area, some water fountains, a water jet area that you can run through and it would spray mist from all sides and water guns for the older kids.

Lexi had a great time jumping up and down, walking around and just submerging herself in the wading pool. 

She also tried to make friends, that's her in one of the pictures below, offering up some dried leaves as a nice-to-meet-you gesture to her new playground friend.

And this is Lexi running back and forth through the water jets.

Another great place to go if you have young kids. Makes me wish there were wet playgrounds near central Singapore but hey, it's still just a bus + train ride away so definitely worth another visit.

Rooftop Playground at Tampines1

More than anything my daughter loves to swim and even though we have a pool in our condo and I make it a point to have swim time with her 2-3x a week, I still want her to experience going to water parks and wet playgrounds so she can have fun with other kids.

Thank goodness there's a new wet playground in town. We read about the playground in the Straits Times and saw the reviews from a few mommy/daddy blogs. It only opened last weekend (March 10) but I felt it would be too crowded so we went on a weekday instead.

Here are a few pics from our playground jaunt...







I think the place is another great venue to bring your kids to and it's free! However, please note that it is a rooftop area and can get windy at times so if you bring your kids in the late afternoon, they shouldn't stay too long as they'll be freezing cold after awhile. I'm sure they won't notice this and complain as they'll be too busy running around the different water spouts so as a parent you'll have to be watchful.

Another thing, though most areas are made of a padded material and therefore safe, there is one area (see middle pictures, the one on the left) where they have pretend rocks (or could be actual rocks) which I think are a bit dangerous as children kept stepping on these things and could possibly slip and hit their head. I was worried especially as this was where my daughter wanted to stay and so we just had to be extra careful.

Still, despite these, it was a great new space for kids, we had an absolutely wonderful time and will surely be back soon!

What to do with kids in Singapore

When we were in Manila I was at a loss about what child-friendly activities I could do with my 2 year old daughter that wouldn't cost too much. We mostly went to Gymboree in Greenbelt 5 where she could run, climb, jump and have fun without me worrying too much that she would hurt herself. However, at P260 per hour (member's rate), those Gymboree visits do add up after some time.

It's a good thing here in Singapore, there are a lot of child-friendly malls. Child-friendly meaning there are usually dedicated baby changing / nursing rooms and play areas or play courts that are free for children's use. One such child-friendly mall that I love going to is Vivocity. It has a large outdoor play court which has several features such as a waterspout area where kids can run and play with shooting jets of water as well as tunnels, slides, merry-go-round, and swings. You can also rent motorized cars for the little ones.

But mostly kids love the waterspout area. In fact, parents with kids who go to the area end up spontaneously buying swim gear from a shop conveniently located across the playcourt as kids tend to strip down and start running around getting wet when they see the water. Good thing we came prepared (rashguard. check. sunblock. check. towel. check.) though that didn't stop my little one from stripping down when she saw her new friends were running around in their underwear or in regular diapers. And yes, it's extremely difficult to try to put a rashguard back on a child when the child in question is not only naked and wet but squirming all over the place but hey, that just adds up to the fun.

 Water fun @ Vivocity!