It was a sunny Sunday morning and so I was looking forward to a great day ahead.

Seeing that Catherine has been couped up in the house over the past week, I suggested to bring Darius and her to Admiralty Park, a park near Woodlands MRT and beside Republic Polytechnic. Phase 2 of the park was recently opened, which consisted of some natural trails and mangrove swamps. I’ve almost always enjoyed walks in nature, with the exceptions of the outfield expeditions when national duty calls, so this was a good opportunity for us to experience nature again.

Checking the weather by looking out the windows, it was kinda sunny and hot but thinking that the vegetation in the park should help provide shade, we decided to go ahead with the activity. It was around 10am when we started to prepare for the trip and donning Darius in a new one-piece clothing from Cerisi. Wearing it on was not an easy task for Catherine but the ending result was a pleasantly looking Darius.

Darius in his new outfit!

Good moods on a Sunday morning

We then booked a cab and alighted at Causeway Point, wanting to have our breakfast before heading for the park. Furthermore, we needed to get some stuff from Kiddy Palace. Yearning for some japanese food, I suggested to Catherine that we have our brunch (breakfast + lunch) at a japanese restaurant we regularly patronise instead. As the restaurant only opens at 11am, we loittered a bit before heading in to become the first customers of the day.

While Darius continued to sleep soundly in his stroller, my order arrived first while we waited for Catherine’s order. She told me to start eating first in case Darius woke up and needed to be attended to, and so I did. When I was halfway through the meal, I saw something hairy in the rice. Picking the object up with my chopsticks, I discovered it to be some kind of (cooked) grasshopper in the bowl!

Not to say I’m used to such incidents, but seeing a (whole) grasshopper doesn’t freak me up as much as a partial-bodied bug or some kind of worm-like creature. After showing Catherine the ‘treasure’ I’ve uncovered from my bowl, I called for the supervisor.

Since we are regulars here (we will still want to return here for meals without feeling unwelcomed) and the restaurant’s service and food have always been up to standard, I did not want to make a big fuss of the incident. I simply requested for a change of dish after the supervisor had apologised.

My appetite was not affected much and I patiently waited for my replacement dish to arrive while Catherine started on her meal, which had just arrived. Thinking on the bright side, at least I get to taste two sets of dishes on the same visit… Little did I know though, that this was probably an omen to what was going to befall on us later in the day.

After the meal, the supervisor offered us some ice-cream free-of-charge as a compensation but as we needed to leave and feed Darius, she packed it as a takeaway instead. Not a bad offer as the japanese tea flavoured ice cream tasted nice.

In the Baby Room on the third floor, Darius had refused to drink further when he’s halfway through his feed. This has been going on for a few days already and we are still figuring what might have caused his recent change of feeding behaviour. Thinking that a possible cause could be due to the teat hole being too small and thus preventing him to suck properly, we walked over to Kiddy Palace and bought a pair of Silicone NUK teats with large holes (we only wanted to buy one but they always sell in pairs, and you will wonder why). We also bought a portable fan and sun cap in preparation for the nature trip later.

We then went back to the Baby Room to finish up Darius’ feed with the new teats. With no steriliser available, the best I could do was to clean it with the detergent we have brought along. We then tried to feed him with this new teat but the flow was apparently too fast for him such that milk kept oozing out of his mouth. Probably we should have bought the teats with medium-sized holes instead, which we didn’t because the last time we bought the medium-sized rubber teats, the flow was still slow when we tried it on Dairus. Looks like silicone teats work differently from their rubbery counterparts. And as in why we have changed from the rubber teats to silicone ones, it’s because the rubber teats tend to stick together after some use and Darius’ bite on the soft rubber teats was often too strong to block the milk’s passage.

Anyway Darius started getting cranky and we had to soothe him to sleep, while the promtion lady from Nestle watched us as we performed our rituals. We understand that it’s her job to be stationed there in the Baby Room to give out cereal samples but we still felt uneasy to be ‘monitored’ upon.

After Darius had finally settled down and fell asleep in his stroller, we bought a big cup of Slurpee drink from 7-Eleven and started to stroll towards the Admiralty Park, which is a stone’s throw away.

Little did we know then that we were heading towards a very eventful day ahead.

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