Here’s a bunch of random photos and videos of our boy during September 2018.
Goofing around after taekwondo with his friend Howie:
Struttin’ in his swimsuit:
One last batch of pictures:
Monthly Archives: October 2018
Things Boys Do at Sleepovers
Even though Jayden has moved away, we’re still getting the boys together for regular sleepovers. Here’s a look at some of the recent shenanigans they got up to.
They eat, they read, they goof around:
What’s a sleepover without science? Here they are carefully measuring the finger of Jayden’s daddy.
Here are the two pals, chatting and catching up by the pool at the start of a sleepover:
And yes, sometimes there are movies to watch.
Finally, after all this fun… it’s time to cuddle up in bed.
Nyan Thomas, Water Baby
Okay, no longer a baby. But definitely loving the water more and more. Check out these videos.
Into the pool on a brilliant weekend afternoon:
Shark attack:
Practicing his strokes during a swimming lesson:
Off the wall:
Chasing the shark:
We love our GoPro:
As ever, finishing a swimming lesson with a few tosses:
September Moments, Part Two
Second in our two-part series about little moments and events that took place in September.
On Thursday afternoons, after school and before taekwondo, Nyan took part in an art class held at his friend Nadia’s apartment, just across the swimming pool from us. It was one instructor, seven girls and Nyan. He was a little worried at first, we think, what with being the old boy there, but he quickly got over that and had a blast.
Over the summer, we saw The Lion King (the movie) for the first time, as well as a short live-action version of it at Hong Kong Disneyland. When we heard that the musical version was coming here, we snapped up tickets. No pictures of the performance itself, but here’s our hero (and his peeps) before the show. He loved it, by the way.
We were sad to see Jayden and his family move away in August, but one small consolation prize was inheriting their electric piano. Daddy’s had fun playing it, and Nyan has fun pounding the keys. We’re hoping it’ll spark some interest in actually learning to play. But for now, we have this.
Fun at the Skatepark
We’ve seen before how Nyan sometimes hangs out at the local skatepark while bestie Jayden has a Sunday morning skateboarding lesson. But what exactly does Nyan *do* while hanging out there? Let’s see.
There’s a big undeveloped plot of land right next door – several trees and big swathes of grass. It’s a popular hangout and picnic spot on Sundays. It’s also a lot of fun for Nyan and Jonnie (Jayden’s little brother) to run around in.
Sometimes we pop over across the street to a shopping mall, where there’s a Starbucks that makes hot chocolate just the way Nyan likes it.
After Jayden finishes his lesson, he often joins in the fun at the grassy field next door:
Finally, one more video of boys being boys.
September Moments, Part One
September was full of little moments and events. Let’s take a look at some of them.
One Sunday morning, we found ourselves on Orchard Road, the high-end shopping district in Singapore. Apple recently opened a new store there, and it was supposed to be pretty cool. So we checked it out. Sure enough: nice place.
Nyan’s school hosted “Science Week” in September, which our budding scientist was of course very into. One day, the kids were invited to dress up as their favorite scientist or scientific concept. Some kids chose Einstein, or a generic mad scientist. Nyan, though, decided to dress up as a bolt of electricity. Nice look!
Remember how our neighborhood Italian bistro allowed Nyan to go behind the pizza counter to do some cooking? Apparently that’s now a thing: we went back and he got another invite. He’s getting pretty good…
We also paid a quick visit to the Maritime Museum, the free museum along the waterfront that’s sponsored by the local shipping industry. It’s all about cargo shipping, mostly, and features tons of models of ships, oil rigs and the like, plus a gigantic computerized ship simulator where you can pretend to captain a cargo ship around the Straits of Singapore. Pretty cool.
There’s also a little exhibit where kids can pretend to be stacking shipping containers onto a ship. Pretty basic, but it’s a little entertaining:
And there is a big room that they use for temporary exhibits and the like. The day we were there, there were no temporary exhibits, so the room was empty. Good place for an energetic boy to run around and burn some energy:
Checking In at the New School
As we’ve said before, Nyan has settled in quite well to his new school, Eton House Broadrick. Never ever a word of complaint about going to school; we think he’d probably stay there til bedtime if he could!
We got to see some of his class in action in September when his teacher, Ms Rashmi, hosted an “open lesson” where parents could come in and stand quietly at the back of the class, watching. To set the scene, here’s the lovely and tropical view out his classroom window:
We got to see him take part in some group work:
He was very good at listening, and at raising his hand when he knew the answer.
Here are a couple examples of his writing from the start of the year. One is the start of a short story, featuring two characters named Jayden and Jonnie…the other is a bit about our boy.
We also got to attend a school assembly in September. A couple of big things happened. First off, Nyan’s class put on a skit about nouns and verbs etc. Check out this (unfortunately rather shaky) video; jump to about 1:25 if you just want to see our boy talk about the difference between common nouns and proper nouns,.
They also sang a song about it being a beautiful day.
The real treat, though, for us at least, was when they started handing out Certificates of Achievement for students who had been doing an outstanding job in school recently. And, yep, our boy got one – for being an “active and enthusiastic participant in class and making valuable contributions.”
Yeah, another shaky video. Sorry about that. But you can see him looking straight at the camera, meaning he sees Mommy and Daddy in the crowd, and he shows an almost-imperceptible flash of a proud smile. Yeah. That’s our boy!
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