Samuel starting pushing himself to sitting position, but he still tends to topple forward, the back is not strong enough yet.
On 25 April 2014, a day short of his 6th month, we started him on rice cereal mixed with breast-milk.
Everyone fed him a little. He ate up the whole of that in the first photo above, and had another half more!
Esther and David had an evening to play and we started on Bloodbowl (2nd edition) which was the set and rules that YowCH played with his friends in his teenage years.
YowCH brought home a rubber mouse-pad (Acer) from office, and we stuck it to the cajon to make is a non-slip seat-pad. Much nicer to sit on now.
Joseph helped peel the 3M double-side foam tape.
This is probably the last thing we add to the cajon. We had also bought a sports duffel bag (medium large) for the cajon at $27.
On 18 April 2014 evening (Good Friday), we joined the Leongs for the church 24-7 Prayer Rally from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.
This was followed by a dinner at their place.
When we got home and parked the car, we took a stroll along the newly opened Rumah Tinggi Eco-park behind the carpark. Click on photos below to go to the dedicated page.
The next day (Saturday) we went again for in-line skating.
Here are some updates on Samuel:
He can hold his milk bottle on his own now:
He can sit like a king:
But he will take off his sock and suck his toes:
For YowCH’s Facebook “Close Friends”, you can watch this video of Joseph, Esther, David and YowCH doing “Let It Go” from “Frozen” under the direction of Grace.
We had a Saturday photo shoot outing to Botanic Gardens on Saturday morning organised by the TYLin Staff Club, with YowCH as one of the instructors. Clink on the link below for the dedicated page:
Esther went for Maths Olympiad and David went for Chinese class, so only the two younger boys went along, and this is Samuel’s first trip to the Botanic Gardens.
For the West Coast GRC and Pioneer Constituency “Community Sports Festival @ West Coast Cluster 2014″, YowCH brought the 3 boys to Jurong West Stadium on Sunday morning. Grace had work from 7.00am to 3:30pm and Esther was away on an overnight camp under Church.
The kick-off was taken by Adviser to Telok Blangah GROs Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade & Industry, and David was the goal keeper for this kick-off.
David played in several matches, and played well.
Joseph was too young, but he did get to play in 1 match, and got to meet the ASEAN Games mascot.
This is the team photo:
And another photo with one other team (taken by the event organisers).
Having played in the sun from 8:30am to 12:00pm, the boys were spent.
We got to church after the event, picked Esther at 12.30pm and went for lunch at Thai Express.
The cajon we built has a rather weak snare sound (the tsk-tsk-tsk of drum), and we bought a piece of $15 snare (cheap one for basic snare drum) to improve it.
1. We cut the snare into 2 across the middle.
2. The tapa (front tapping board) was removed.
3. The 2 new pieces of snares were added and the original displaced.
4. David mounted the snares.
Here’s the finished product, a much richer sound with more snare, but the bass (thom-thom sound) is now mixed with more snare (tsk-tsk sound).
We gave David a Cajon (pronounced “car-horn”, Peru beat-drum) for his birthday, and got it last Wednesday (when stock arrived at Swee Lee). He had learnt to play it from Church friends and plays it pretty well. The good news: it is branded, a Meinl, and cheap at $70. The bad news: we must assemble it on our own (well, we also see this as good news for DIY practice and bonding time).
Ready made cajons are generally from $150 to $800. This piece costs $70, plus another $15 for brackets (YowCH’s idea), screws, white glue, brush, wood stain, lacquer spray and sandpaper. We also needed a drill, screw drivers, wood file, G-clamps, pencil and ruler.
Step-by-step:
1. Apply white glue to the boards and assemble them.
2. Screw in the brackets (for additional strength and stiffness, not in the included instructions).
3. Hammer the boards into place neatly.
4. Apply white glue to mount the back-board (with hole).
5. Put some weight to press the back-board while the glue dries.
6. Glue the timber batons and clamp into place.
7. All batons clamped for glue-drying.
8. Mark out the drill holes on the front panel (the drumming part).
9. Assemble the snare (for the ‘tsk-tsk’ sound).
10. Mount the snare into place with white glue and clamp to set.
11. Screw the front panel in place, 4 corners first to fix the position.
12. Drill the front panels other screw holes. All screws installed after this.
13. Sand down the edges and make any roughness smooth.
14. Clean up after sanding.
15. YowCH showing David how to apply the black wood-stain.
16. David applies the stain. He chose black.
17. Esther helped, too. Total of 2 coats for the front (lighter colour), and 4-5 coats for the rest (darker).
18. After the stain dried (with help of a hot air from a hair-dryer), lacquer was sprayed-on.
19. Screw the rubber footings onto the bottom of the cajon.
20. All rubber footings installed, cajon completed.
In truth, there was much adult supervision needed for the handling of tools and brush or spray painting, but a child of 10 should be able to follow the instructions and complete 80% of the work.
Here’s David playing the completed cajon. The completed cajon sounds good! It is a Meinl after all.
Here are some rare photos of Esther during her ballet lessons. The teacher helped take these photos.
After church, we had dinner with the Tans at Fat Boy’s (Pasir Panjang Road), with really huge and tasty burgers.
Joseph can make the Fat Boy’s angry face:
At the Association of Consulting Engineers, Singapore (ACES) 43rd Anniversary Dinner on 27 March 2014, YowCH received the Young Consulting Engineer of the Year 2014 Award for Civil Engineering (one of 5 winners of 2014 of various categories). He received the award from ACES Vice-president Er. Ling. “Young” is defined as ‘under the age of 40′, which is almost at the limit for YowCH.
Among the 5 winners include his friend and colleague, Er. Yong Fen Leong for the Structural Engineering category, standing next to him in this group photo of winners.
His boss, Er. Dr. Tan Guan won the Lifetime Achievement Award, making it a hat-trick of awards for T.Y.Lin this year.
This is a photo of the certificate, and the present, a Sheaffer fountain pen with the Award and Recipient engraved.
Thank God for the recognition given to YowCH by ACES for his work and contributions to the construction industry.
