I seldom spend much time with Gar, but since I can work from home today, I decided to spend a little more time with him. In the morning, he woke up pretty early.
At around ten in the morning, I played with him and he took his books to my room. We went through sounds made by alligators, monkeys, and elephants. There was another book with pandas and snow leopards and how we can help to conserve them.
He climbed up to my bed, and took my handphone to play. He likes to play the keyboard app, so he made me play a few notes after he played some. He had his bath already, but when I showed him a picture of him and his brother in the bath tub, he suddenly decided he wanted to bathe again.
Immediately, he started trying to remove his shirt. When that failed, he moved towards the part of the bed where we would remove his clothes to get him ready for the bath. When I refused to do that, he jumped off the bed and went to the bathroom and pulled the plastic bathtub out. The shower area had glass panels, so he just kept trying to push the bathtub in, without realising he had to slant it a little to get it in.
For the next minute, he was screaming ‘Mimi’ and whining, and slamming the bathtub into the glass panels. Finally, he gave up and then found interest in my keys. He played with that for a while, ran out of the room, ran back in, and headed to the wardrobe. He insisted on opening the wardrobe, so I did that and lifted him up. He spotted his yellow Barney polo t-shirt, and yanked the clothes hanger off the hook. He insisted on changing his clothes, so I did. He was happy as a lark at that moment.
In the late afternoon, I felt like taking him out to the playground. He took his penguin bag with him, something he did whenever he could go out. I thought of going to a sand playground in AMK, but when I reached that area, rain started to fall, so I took him to AMK Hub instead.
He spotted the kiddy rides, and we spent half the time at various rides, such as Garfield and Barney. Initially he refused to leave the first ride he was on, but after some time, I was able to coax him to go away.
Then he spotted a Barney ride. He spent some time there. I got him to say ‘bye’ and he was able to understand the concept and he left willingly. When we went up the escalators, he spotted more kiddy rides, and thank goodness he did not kick up a big fuss when a boy was hogging Barney.
When we went to the opposite end, a mother asked whether Gar wanted to share a Hi-5 ride as she was going to put the coin in for her daughter. Gar only wanted to sit in a car with a steering wheel, so we left. That same kid from the Barney ride jumped up the revolving ride. So fast, where did he come from?
After that, we went down to shop and I bought a pair of socks with cars on them for him. There were cute bagpacks for children, and he wanted to touch every single one. He saw a black toy coach and shouted ‘bus’ and was very interested in it, but I did not let him get it.
We walked past a football merchandise shop, and we went in to see. I wanted to get him a small ball, so that he would not fight with his brother over it at my parents’ place. However, there were only Liverpool and Chelsea balls. I would not buy any other club’s footballs. I am already facing the fact that there is a Manchester City ball in my house, courtesy of Gar’s uncle. Oh well.
When we left the shop, Gar spotted the Barney ride at the level above us, and he dragged me there again. This time round, there was nobody at that ride, so I let him play there for a while.
I was getting bored, so I decided to show him his next favourite things – buses. AMK Hub is connected to the bus interchange, so we watched passengers queue up in the lines, and then go out of the air-conditioned mall onto the bus. He kept saying ‘bye bye’ to the passengers, but everyone looked down or straight, and he was too soft anyway. We walked by here twice, so the second time he was here, he just ran straight to the door to watch. I guess I should take him on a bus ride one of these days.
We also looked at the MRT trains since the MRT station was just opposite the shopping mall, and the overhead train tracks allowed Gar to spot the trains. Earlier on our way, he was attracted by the trains in the depot too.
Finally, I decided to head home. He refused to be strapped initially. It took me some time to convince him to go back where he could meet his brother. I ought to really spend more time with him before he grows up.
