Eskimo Boy's First Holiday at 5 Months

Dear Aidan,

I forgot to log in your first holiday on planet Earth. You were 5 months and we plonked you in Papa's car, Dukie, and drove ourselves to Singapore. A journey that would normally take 3.5-4 hours, took us almost 8! And yup, it was the milk stops.

Wake me when we get there o'right?

I'll tell you, though, that you almost, maybe, got kidnapped. We were at one of the stops in Johor Bahru, a state down south. Mama had just fed you milk. Papa had gone to the toilet. An elderly Indian couple who sat at the table next to ours, turned around when I got up to burp you. They said a few words in Tamil to each other and then the lady just took you straight out of my arms. She carried you, started cooing to you and began walking away. I had to raise my voice twice and put my hands on you before she would give you up.

Now, that was scary.

Meanwhile, journey-wise, you were good in that you slept most of the way. Once we got into Singapore where there were loads of traffic stops, you near took our ear drums out! So, we get it:

NO STOPS, MAMA/PAPA. JUST KEEP GOING, EVEN IF IT MEANS WE KILL OURSELVES IN A HORRIFIC CAR ACCIDENT.

As the official bed-tester, I say...PASS.

Our 5 days in Singapore was lovely. We had come down to attend Papa's friend's wedding. So the night we had to be at the dinner, your cousin Dillon's help, Fran, popped over to our hotel room to look after you for a few hours.

We also visited HMV (or rather, your Papa visited HMV and we had no choice but to follow), had coffee at Spinelli's and lunch at Border's.

What are those green and brown things above my head?

One afternoon, we had lunch at Pierside with Uncle Khin, Aunty Swee Lin and Dillon. On another night, we had dinner with Uncle Thomas and Aunty Elise at Valentino's, a cosy little Italian restaurant near Clementi.

These parent grips are...amazingly tight

Papa,  has Mama told you you're a clown?

Hey, where's my food?

I really just want to play with that fountain

Talk to the jeans, thanks

Mama can't remember much of the ride home except that you were really bawling with hunger by the time we arrived back at our condominium. So while Papa unloaded, Mama placed you in the middle of the double bed in your room and quickly dashed off to make a bottle of milk.

And then, horror of horrors. You screamed your lungs out.

When Papa and Mama rushed to see what had happened, we found you on the floor! I guess you're early in many ways - rolling over, included.

You must believe me when I say that I cried more and longer than you did. In fact, you stopped after 3 minutes to look at Mama crying. I can only thank God now that the bed-frame is pretty low and close to the ground.

Not the best ending to your first trip ever, I must say. But lessons are learnt via pain. In this case, I learnt through your pain not to take things (or you, rather) for granted. Safety is really more important than a bit of hunger.