# This post is part 2 of the Multiply Your Joy campaign by NTUC Membership. Multiply your joy with Savings over $1,000 as an NTUC member!

Using the NTUC card discount, I bought 2 full-priced adults tickets (at $25 each). It comes with one free child ticket (worth $20) - this promo ends 31 Dec 2014, so grab this chance to save on the entrance fees!

Using the Alive Museum online ticketing system, I saved 20% on one child ticket.

We reached Alive Museum at 10:30 am on a Friday morning, and there was already a small crowd inside. But that did not stop us from having fun with our poses. What's a blog post of the Alive Museum without pictures ya? So here are our top 10 photos, voted by the whole crew of Simply Lambchops. 

All hail the King!

Sensory play. 

A type of play that is as important and beneficial to our children as teaching them A-B-C. Children, as young as a newborn, receive a lot of sensory input every day. The sounds, lights, smells, surfaces they lie on, and tastes from everything they put into their mouths provide sensory input. The sensory input stimulates electrical signals and travel along neurones to the brain. The child processes the new information and develop his brain to understand the input. When a newborn hears his parent's voice, it stimulates his neurodevelopment - he gets all excited, and starts waving and kicking in the air. For a toddler or preschooler, the action of pouring, splashing and scooping materials allows him to learn pre-math concepts, language and even writing. Even as an adult, I find myself drawn to the calming effect when I run the material (be it sand, water, or something more icky) through my fingers. 

However, I was brought up in a traditional way where the concept of sensory play is not widely known to our Asian parents. Hence, I did not know much about sensory play when I became a mom. My sister and I did have our share of sensory play when we were allowed to run around the sandy beach, or lie on the ground full of cow's grass. Those activities provided the sensory play we needed. But in today's context, such play has become a precious commodity and many parents would prefer to pass an electronic device to the child to entertain them. Hence, it is even more important to create such play time intentionally. 

Playing with water beads

Ever since K's two pneumonia infections which landed her critically ill at the pediatric ICU this year, we hardly bring her out now, except to her doctor's appointments at the hospital. We even stopped all her therapies and early intervention program as more exposure out of house would mean a higher risk of getting a bug, and possibly another medical crisis for her.

This means she spends most of her time at home.



Games are one of the best ways of learning for a child, and it is true for K too. Games Nights are precious family time for us, as we love the interaction and family bonding while playing a game together. We also see the character of the kids through playing games and how they strategize to win. Naturally, I want to start K on a simple board game so that she can catch on the games-playing bug in the future.

Pamela from My First Games (a local mumpreneur who is passionate about board and card games and owns an online store of fantastic games suitable for families) introduced Go Away Monster to us a few years ago. This is a simple board game which even a two year old can understand the game play. It is fun and enjoyable to see how the little ones become so engrossed in the game.


About the game

Number of players:    2 to 4 players

Suggested age:           3 and above (publisher's suggestion)

Playing time:             10 minutes

How the game is played:

Each player reaches into the monster bag and draws out a puzzle piece to place on his bedroom game board. Older kids learn to strategize by feeling the shape and size of the furniture puzzle piece they want inside the bag. This also heightens their tactile perception and stimulates the brain function when they "look" for things with their fingers. When the player draws out a monster piece, he shoos it away and the game continues with the next player. The first player to complete his bedroom game board wins. 



As I mentioned, the rules are simple enough for K to understand after one round of the game. She waits patiently for us to prompt her when it is her turn. Sometimes she has difficulty pulling out just one puzzle piece, so we try and help her a little when that happens. The interaction she has with us is immense as she uses her facial expression, babbles, hand signs and words to tell us that she enjoys the game. I'm happy with her progress, for she figured out where to place the teddy bear, bed and lamp on the game board today! A developmental milestone reached!



Go Away Monster encourages cooperative play too. K learns to give her puzzle piece to help complete our game board when she already has the same one on hers.

What is the best part of this game? It's seeing how K recognises the monsters pieces and shoos them away when we all shout "Go away, Monster!". She rewards us with her contagious smile and helps us throw the monster piece away. My heart just melts away when she does that.
My First Games does not carry this game now, but you can get Go Away Monster here (affiliate link attached). Unfortunately, this game is already out of print. My First Games carries many other fun and educational games, and I'll be looking out for more games for K! 
 

Before the start of every school year, I usually do what all parents have to do - prepare the books, stationery, lunch boxes and water bottles the children need for school, and labeling them. It is definitely a must to label the child's personal items that are brought to school, and the younger the children are, the more important this task is. It's amazing how often they can carelessly lose a file, a water-bottle or even shoes.

Yes. You heard me right. Shoes!
L ever came home from kindy with a different pair of shoes as his was taken by another friend.

So, marking their personal belonging is necessary. It is a tedious process, and I rely heavily on my boring label maker to ease the pain. And to label their socks and clothes, I have no choice but to scribble their names in black permanent marker with my best possible handwriting.

Just when I was thinking of a way to label L's shoes for his graduation performance, I received an invite to review some stickers by Stickerkid! What a timely invite!

I've read so much about these stickers from various bloggers, and all of them rave about the good quality and how long-lasting they are. I can see why too.

Screen shot from http://www.stickerkid.sg/sg_en/

Here are my reasons for liking the Stickerkid personalised name labels:

The stickers are of high quality. No doubt about that. 
Once I peeled the stickers out of the paper backing, I could feel the difference between these stickers and the usual ones we get from pushcarts etc. Stickerkid stickers are more flexible, and even when I removed one of the small stickers a few times to adjust the position of it on Ch's water bottle, the sticker held on firmly. It didn't have the usual creases I would find when a sticker is peeled off too many times. Trapped air bubbles under the stickers are also easily squeezed out and flattened.

And out of fun, I rolled one small sticker into a ball just like what Angie's children from Simply Mommie did. I was happy to confirm that the sticker still stuck on firmly and without any crease after straightening out. There were only a few small bubbles at the corners as seen from the picture below.

Oh, and did I mention that they are manufactured in Switzerland?



You will be spoilt for choice when customising your own stickers. 
There are many font styles, colours and cute picture logos to choose from. You can even use Chinese words in your text. Ch had fun picking the most suitable logo for L's stickers.

Screen shot from http://www.stickerkid.sg/sg_en/

You can label your shoes! 
With both rounded and square sides, these shoe stickers fit easily inside any shoes. There are three lines of text for you to include your child's info, and space for a cute logo. L's graduation performance shoes are properly labelled now, and I won't have to worry that they will be taken by mistake.

How ugly the insoles looked with the washi tape stuck on. Now, they are beautifully labeled with Stickerkid shoe stickers!

No more writing on clothes and socks!
With the iron-on clothing labels, it will be easier to identify the kids' clothing from their friends'. They can also be removed easily if you want. Just go over the label again with a heated iron. Do take note that you will need to protect the label with baking paper before ironing the sticker onto the fabric.

Stickerkid guarantees that the clothing stickers will withstand 45 machine washes at a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius. These labels are also washing machine and tumble dryer resistant (yay!).

Stickerkid offers three types of clothing stickers:

Screen shot from http://www.stickerkid.sg/sg_en/

So, all in all, we love the vibrancy of these high quality stickers! Since Christmas is nearing, why not personalise some stickers as gifts for your favorite children?

Stickerkid is now offering a 10% discount to readers of Simply Lambchops on all Stickerkid products, valid from 1 Dec to 17 Dec 2014. Just quote the promo code below during checkout:


Have fun customising your own name stickers!

Disclaimer: We were given a pack of Stickerkid stickers for the purpose of this review. Names on the stickers were edited for privacy reasons. No monetary compensation was given and all opinion are ours.

School holidays have started! Have you made plans on how you will be spending this precious time with your children?

I have identified a list of places I would like to bring my Simply Lambchops clan to this school holiday! Want to join me? And if you are an NTUC member, you get to enjoy extra savings by presenting your NTUC card!


1  iFly Singapore

Photo credit

Imagine yourself flying in mid-air? Experience true free-fall skydiving conditions, only at iFly Singapore. Under the keen supervision of skilled instructors who are certified by the International Bodyflight Association, your skydives will be a safe and exhilarating experience. Be ready for a 2h experience, complete with preparatory briefing, and the necessary gearing up before the actual flight. Note that you need to be at least 7 years old in order to fly. Read Simply Mommie's review here.

NTUC Member perk:

10% off First Timer Challenge Package (comes with 2 skydives)

when you present your NTUC card and NRIC upon purchasing your tickets on-site. Do take note that this promotion is NOT applicable for online booking. Offer ends on 31st December 2014. For more info, click here.
2  Alive Museum Singapore

Location Suntec City Mall #03-372 (between Towers 3 & 4) Opening hours 10am to 10pm daily (last admission at 9pm) Tickets Adults $25 | Children (3-12 yrs) $20

Photo credit

Be a part of the artistic masterpieces here at Alive Museum! This is no traditional art gallery exhibition. You are promised a laughter-filled visit, complete with hand-painted art pieces uniquely drawn using techniques such as 3D Art, Digital Art, Object Art and Experimental Art. With more than 80 masterpieces, 9 of them are locally themed and unique to Singapore! There is also free wifi for you to upload the pictures taken immediately!

I love that photo of blogger Delphine from Life in the Wee Hours. Her expression is priceless! Makes me wanna go to Alive Museum and do some wacky poses for the pictures right away! Read her review here.

For interesting tips to survive the Alive Museum trip, read here.

NTUC Member perk:

Receive One FREE Child Ticket (worth $20) with purchase of 2 full-priced Adult Tickets

when you present your NTUC card upon purchasing your tickets. Offer ends on 31st December 2014 and is valid for up to two child tickets per NTUC Card at the ticketing counter. For more info, click here.

3  Port of Lost Wonder - Christmas Joy

Location	Palawan Beach, Sentosa
Date	21, 25 and 26 Dec 2014
Opening hours	10am to 9:30pm
Tickets	Children (below 12 yrs) $25 | Accompanying adult enters for free

Port Of Lost Wonder (POLW) is the first kids' club by the beach, and is best known for its signature pirate ship water play. With many fun activities to offer, children hardly have time to get bored. And for this Christmas, POLW will be transforming into Santa's village! Get your hands busy with baking gingerbread cookies, making your own snowman, and join in many other fun activities Santaville has to offer! Read Life's Tiny Miracles' review here.

NTUC Member perk:

10% off Child Admission (accompanying adults enter Free)

when you purchase tickets online. Enter promo code "NTUCChristmas" to enjoy the privilege. Offer ends on 26th December 2014. For more info, click here.

Photo credit

Chill by the beach and enjoy a mesmerising night show, accompanied by the latest multimedia effects, pyrotechnics, robotic water fountains and state-of-the-art lasers. Wings of Time tells the story of a mystical pre-historic bird who finds his way home with the help of two teens, Rachel and Felix. Be captivated by their journey which brings a multi-sensory experience to the viewer through majestic music and breath-taking landscapes like the African Savanna and the Mayan Pyramids. Read CheekieMonkie's review here.

NTUC Member perk:

Enjoy 10% off admission 

when you present your NTUC card upon purchasing your tickets. Offer ends on 31st December 2014 and is valid for Local Resident Rates for Normal Seats only. For more info, click here.
5  SingKids Playsystem

Location	Changi Airport Terminal 3 | Vivocity | United Square
Opening hours	Changi Airport T3 (11am - 11pm, last entry 10pm)
	VivoCity (10am - 10pm, last entry 9pm)
	United Square (10am - 9:30pm, last entry 8:30pm)
Tickets	Off peak period: $18 for TWO hours playtime
	Peak period: $18 for ONE hour playtime
	*admission includes one adult/guardian and one child

Photo credit

SingKids Playsystem is an indoor playground with features designed and built by a Japanese company in Osaka, Japan. With colourful and safe materials used, children can hang on to moving apparatus of the playing facilities and play to their heart's content here. Ch and L enjoyed themselves very much when they visited the VivoCity outlet with their cousin last year. For more info, visit the official website here.

NTUC Member perk:

FREE 2 hours of playtime with every purchase of 2 hours during Off-Peak periods /

FREE 1 hour of playtime with every purchase of 1 hour during Peak periods 

when you present your NTUC card upon purchasing your tickets. Offer ends on 31st December 2014 and is valid for one adult and one child only. For more info, click here.


So, there you go! Five places specially selected by us, for you to have fun with your children this school holiday.

And as a family of five, it is even more important for me to source for good promo discounts to save costs when the whole family goes out. With all these NTUC Members cost-saving perks, don't you think you will feel extra joyful this holiday?

Now tell me, which of these places would you want to bring your family to first?

# This post is a part of the Multiply Your Joy campaign by NTUC Membership. Multiply your joy with Savings over $1,000 as an NTUC member!

Click here for part 2 - Multiply Your Joy: The Alive Museum Singapore!

You can also check out the NTUC Membership Facebook page for more updates.

I love my toilet. 

It is not the most beautiful part of my house, and neither is it luxuriously fitted with polished water facets or high tech toilet bowls. Still, I love my toilet for a simple reason - it is my favourite hide-out. A space that belongs solely to me once I shut that door. I am allowed to be wrapped up in my small world. I can let go of my responsibilities temporarily to enjoy a few moments of peace to do what I need to do in a toilet. When the kids were younger and I did not have extra help at home, I had to leave my toilet door open in case I needed to rush out to attend to my motherhood duties. The times spent in the toilet were short and focussed on the task. Now that they are older, I can afford to spend more time in my toilet and my children can definitely attest to that. 

My toilet is also the place I go to when I need to cry and let loose of my emotions. It is where I can concentrate most on releasing the anger or sadness in me, and after a good cry, I find peace and move on. The privacy has helped me to have a clear mind and that is where my creativity is at its best. Many home project ideas were sparked off in this small space, and many lesson plans were crafted here too.

The serenity in the toilet allows me to catch up with the world. I often bring my phone into the toilet and spend miiiinuuuuutesssss there, looking through articles shared online, friends' posts and emails. My BFFs often update our whereabouts with this emoticon when we chat on the phone. 

Outside home, luxurious-looking toilets found in good hotel rooms and clean public toilets with unique features make me feel like a queen. The toilet is definitely one of the first areas I check out when we stay in any hotel, and a well-decorated and fresh-smelling one makes the stay so much more pleasant.  

Taken from Terminal21 at Bangkok, Thailand

However, do you know that 

• 2.5 billion people - around one in three of the world's population - don't have a safe, clean, private toilet.
• Around 500,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation - that's almost 1,400 children a day.
• Every year, around 60 million children are born into homes without access to sanitation.
• More people in the world have a mobile phone than a toilet.

Source

Hard to believe, isn't it? These facts were unknown to me until I did an online search on this topic. Many of us have probably taken our proper sanitation facilities for granted. And that explains why the World Toilet Organisation was founded since 2001, and 19 November has been adopted by the UN as World Toilet Day. It sounds absurd and amusing that an organisation is set up solely to advocate for toilets, but the matter is more than just that. There are issues related to a lack of proper sanitation - health, dignity and well-being - and World Toilet Day draws attention to them and serves as a reminder that there is more we can do to change this situation. 



This year's campaign is centered around the theme of Equality and Dignity because

around one billion people in our world today face the indignity of defecating in the open. Lack of clean and safe toilets at schools lead to higher dropouts among girls once they reach puberty (Source)

I am thankful that my children (especially the girls) are able to enjoy the privacy and safety of a toilet when they need to relieve themselves in public, and that they do not have to do so in an undignified manner in the open. I am thankful that the facilities in our public toilets have improved and now, there are even family toilets where the whole family can be in the same cubicle, including the infant. Although our public toilets have not made their way to the list of Top 10 Toilets in the World, many of them are well-maintained and clean. 

Source

We are also blessed that there is more awareness about toilet needs for those with special needs, and we see toilets reserved for their use in most public buildings. Oh, try not to abuse that toilet, will you? We all love the roomy space that comes with it, but for a person with special needs, that cubicle is probably the only toilet he can use with ease. Everyone deserves that space, but some certainly deserve the space more. 



So what can you do after reading this? You can raise awareness of these sanitation issues among your friends. Share this post on your social media platform. Join The Urgent Run, a 5km fun run event that will take place on 9th Nov, Sun at the East Coast Park (registration closes on 8th Nov, 8pm and onsite registration on 9th Nov closes at 8am). There are many more ways in which you can help. It just takes a creativity spark and the sky's your limit. 

Let us celebrate and be reminded of the importance of that little toilet in our homes. Let's give thanks for being blessed with proper sanitation in our country so that our health, dignity and well-being are protected. 

October is Down Syndrome (DS) Awareness Month in the United States, and I just want to take this opportunity to mention it here today. I am a part of a support group of parents who have children with DS. This group is amazing as we have a mentee-mentor relationship where the mentee is a new parent with a newborn with DS. Even though we hardly know each other, we bond through conversations about our little ones with DS and our other children too. So, a friend was wondering why there have been less mentees lately. The explanation she was given was that there have been less referrals from hospitals and that could be due to more abortions of unhealthy foetuses. This info is not yet verified, but oh, I felt so sad when I heard it. I am praying for all those foetuses that this is not true! And for all the parents whose foetuses are suspected to have DS, I pray that you will have faith and carry on your pregnancy!

Dear Friend, if you have reached this post because:

you were searching for more info on parenting a child with Down Syndrome, 

you are looking for a support group for parents of children with Down Syndrome in Singapore, 

you need some hope and encouragement in your parenting journey of your child with Down Syndrome, 

these are a few of the support groups (that I know of) that you can join in Singapore:

1. Down Syndrome Association of Singapore - DSA aims to provide support to families and caregivers, help a person with Down Syndrome to lead a normal life and contribute to the society, and help integrate a person with Down Syndrome into mainstream society. You can also visit their Facebook page. 

2. Singapore for Down Syndrome, a closed group on Facebook - This is a FB closed group for parents of children with Down Syndrome in Singapore. Please email Grace at squirrelwee@gmail.com if you wish to join the group.

3. a close-knitted Whatsapp group chat for Mommies of children with Down Syndrome - Entry to this group is by invitation and recommendation. You can email me at simplylambchops@gmail.com to find out more.