1st proper swim coaching for Ryan

It has been a long wish of mine to teach Ryan how to swim, ever since I became a swim coach.

Ryan never really took to the water, and was even slightly water phobic, thus I had been receiving non-stop questions along the line of "you are a swim coach, your son must be a good swimmer too"

Pool sessions in the past were mostly confined to the pool at Sis's condo, usually when all the kids will be crowding around me to play, and Ryan will shy away at one corner to play with his water gun.

Even the previous 1-1 session at Pasir Ris swimming complex didn't went well, simply due to the fact that Ryan still wasn't mentally resilient enough to put in enough effort and tenacity to learn a difficult life skill, which requires a long period of learning, rather than something that he can pick up in a minute or 2.

After about 4 months of classes with People Impact, I can tell the obvious improvement in Ryan's behaviour on accepting challenges and not easily giving up when asked to.

So, I took some time off this afternoon to pick up Ryan earlier from school to go for a 1-1 swim coaching session at SAFRA Yishun, when the pool isn't crowded.

Concepts on coaching adults to swim can be adapted and used on kids as well.
The fundamental flow is still similar, even with the TI method, though the basics have to be even more elaborate, explicit and abridged, since kids will not be able to understand complex concepts.

Instead of jumping straight into learning strokes, which most swim coaches will do, I focused on getting Ryan more confident and comfortable in water first.

He is a timid and cautious boy when it comes to physical activities, thus will require a fair bit of prompting and experimentation, before he is willing to adopt and learn new subskills.

Today's curriculum:

• Basic prone flutter kick (no cycling kick)
• Bubbling out underwater in upright position
• Bouncing Bear
• Crab Walk

Part of these are probably part of the old CSA curriculum that I had previously taught, but honestly I don't have much recollection of what was in the curriculum. These were by experience and gut feel on what will help Ryan to gain water confidence through play, rather than over focus on achieving a perfect flutter kick or breaststroke kick.

I was pleasantly surprised that Ryan eventually managed to do all of the above and even took the initiative to practice more at the end of the session when I asked him to leave the pool.

Gotta spend more time with the boy and get him to be able to swim a simple breaststroke before end of 2018

Fantastic Holiday @ Bali

Just returned from a 4D3N holiday at Bali with Ryan, Dear and MIL.
It was a fantastic holiday especially for Ryan. He was super happy throughout the entire trip (except during the flight back home)

Thinking back of my previous trip to Bali, which was done about 5 years ago, for my wedding shoot, when Dear and I still had the time to go for white water rafting and surfing, this time it was more subdued and relaxed, with a focus to go much slower than what we did years ago.

I guess MIL was the 2nd most happy person for this trip (after Ryan boy). She was so fascinated and happy with all the foodstuff and clothings that she could buy from the local markets at extreme low prices. It was after a while then I started to understand that nice & expensive stuff is not what makes her happy. It is the joy of getting extreme value for money (read: ULTRA CHEAP buys aka SUPER BIG DISCOUNTS) that makes her happy. My mum does the same too. Probably our mothers' generation are too used to scrimping and saving for their whole life, that is why they derive so much joy from amazingly low priced discovery. So I just played along and kept emphasizing to her on how cheap the food is at the restaurants that we ate at, compared to the price that we will pay for the same thing back in SG.
$4.70 for a chicken Ravioli, $10 for a Risotto, $10 for a huge chilli crab with fries, $9 for a medium sized red snapper, $2 for gelato, etc.

Obviously the small boy is the happiest one in the group. From the moment he stepped into the villa, he just kept running around, in and out of each room, laughing all the time. And he continued doing that for all 4 days that we stayed there. He was very cooperative and well behaved (except during meal time) for the entire trip.

Best part of the trip for me was when I left Dear and MIL at the foot massage centre for a 1 hour massage, and I brought Ryan together with me back to Legian beach for a walk. After carrying him on the hip seat for most part of the day (and he didn't complain much), I thought it will be nice for him to be able to walk on the sandy beach after seeing other older kids running around freely where he wasn't allowed to. So after telling him that he had to hold on to my hand after I placed him on the ground, he got extremely excited and elated, and started to pull me along to run on the beach.

It was a genuine moment of bliss.

We ran and ran and ran, and Ryan just pulled me along, looking back at me at times and giving me his most sunshine, boyish and happy smile. Ryan melted daddy's heart just like that.


Although I did not get to do any of the water sports stuff which I'd have loved to do on Bali's famed beaches, the run with Ryan was rewarding enough for me for this entire trip.

Of course Dear will have enjoyed the trip much as well. It is a long awaited break away from work, and an even longer wait to return to the much anticipated Ultimo Italian restaurant that we dined at 5 years ago. The only downside is that we walked a little too much for her. Carrying a heavy tummy ain't easy.

Next holiday: Cebu Philippines in July/Aug 2015.

Happy weekend and Ryan is 2 years old!

Celebrated Ryan's 2th birthday with a simple home buffet party at MIL's place during the previous Sunday.
Kept it relatively simple and low key this time with just relatives.
Ryan was still recovering from his fever so he probably didn't enjoy it as much as he should.

Celebrations in his child care center was done on Tuesday afternoon.
Pretty nice to see Ryan do the handing out of the goodie bags to his classmates, even though he didn't really look too excited when doing so.

Guess his behaviour takes after me when I was at his age; not that excited or super sociable when with huge crowds.

Ryan subsequently recovered and we managed to bring him out for some quality family time after a month-long disruption with him, dear and me taking turns to fall sick.

He was significantly happier when we brought him out to visit Marina Sq, Suntec, Marina barrage. It was a long time since he was smiling throughout the day and being super cooperative.

Sunday was a simple cycling affair at ECP but guess he didn't enjoy it as much as dear could not cycle with us. Ryan prefers to have daddy and mummy spending time together with him!

More happy weekends for Ryan ahead!



And, I still miss my Ah Di.
He will have turned 17 years old last Friday.
I know he will be watching over the family spiritually.

Cutie Ryan

It just gets better.

It was a moment of cuteness overload and sweetness this morning.

After changing into his school uniform, he just ran in and out of the bedroom, and at one point, hid behind the wall from our view, only showing his hand and saying "No More".

Ryan was learning how to play hide and seek with us.

So sweet......

Now I understand the term "Terrible Two"

Seems like Ryan is throwing tantrums more frequently nowadays for no reason.

He had always been pretty strong willed, in the sense that he doesn't take instructions and will melt down if he is forced to do something that he doesn't fancy.

Ryan's teacher commented that he doesn't mix with other kids at school and doesn't follow instructions.
And his usual contempt for whomever is feeding him his food, coupled with frequent tantrums for almost every single issue, and his refusal to address any of his caretakers apart from papa and mummy, really got me worried Ryan may be getting out of control if nobody is going to discipline him and teach him what is right/wrong.

He had another meltdown on Wednesday night again when I was trying to guide him out of the bathroom after his bath, by holding his hands and gently pulling him in the direction out of the toilet. And he started to cry. After he lost his temper again while I was trying to get him dressed up.

I was pretty upset with how Ryan was behaving recently, and thought that he needed someone to discipline him. So I thought that since he was inconsolable, I will hold him in the same spot and let him to cry his heart out and learn how to calm down in a controlled manner, rather than letting him has his own way all the time just by throwing tantrums.
Eventually Ryan got tired after his 40 minutes long tantrum and started to scale down his cries, then I brought him out to see mummy and claim his bed time milk.


What I did was probably very hard old school style.
I'm not sure if this is effective, or whether Ryan is still too young for hardline discipline methods.
While I had the best intentions for Ryan in doing so, it really pains my heart to have to see him getting ultra upset for that 40 mins.

Did a lot of reading today on terrible twos and inconsolable tantrums, and finally came across an article which gave a good scientific explanation on terrible two and how to best address it.
Hopefully I'll improve my parenting skills and Ryan will quickly learn and ride out of the TT stage.

Ryan is my precious.
I must make sure that he grows up to be a well balanced and healthy person.
That's the best gift that I can give to him