Grandpa’s gift

So this little tyke turned six recently. Our very own little Bat-girl.

Our per our family tradition, we don’t throw large parties for the girls’ birthdays. But I realised she had 3 small ‘parties’ this year! One with our immediate family (including grandparents on both sides), one at her Sunday School class, and one at her school (photo above).

A while ago, I asked grandpa T to help us bring this back, when he travelled to the U.S.  Lego is much cheaper there, and I thought the girls would like this, since the ‘flying aeroplanes’ are one of their favourite theme park rides. And they did enjoy putting this together, and twirling it around… This is my idea of a great gift, haha.

But through the years, we have come to realise, that grandpa K’s birthday gifts are the most jaw-dropping. There was the year he bought her a little drum set (complete with foot pedal and stool), and the year he bought B a tent-and-tunnel playset. This year, he completely dwarfed my ‘flying aeroplane’ by getting B this. The girls were screaming with excitement when they opened it, since their own parents had told them that it was far too extravagant, and it was certainly out of the question for us to buy them the whole ‘amusement park’, which was obviously prominently displayed at the toy section of shopping malls.

They spent a long time just ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the box, and the many joys the images promised.

Almost every day in the week after that, the girls opened one pack a day (there were about 8 packs inside), and slowly constructed their dream amusement park. Was quite proud of B, who steadily learnt how to follow instructions and assemble some packs all by herself.

It really is quite a delightful set, and the girls can spend hours playing with their Lego. The roller coaster even features a ‘light-brick’, and when a mini-fig is put into the front carriage, it lights up cos a circuit is closed. Very funky. I later realised that this Lego Friends set won the 2017 Toy of the Year award too.

The ferris wheel (below) is also designed such that when there is a mini-fig weight in one, it will move downwards. Really quite a feat of engineering, the way the individual gondolas rotate to stay ‘upright’ as the ferris wheel turns (the neon blue knob facilitates that).

Indulgent grandpas really buy the best gifts. The girls are very fortunate to have two doting grandpas. Both my grandpas passed away before I was born, so I never had the chance to be spoiled like that! (But I was quite fortunate myself in the area of delightful gifts, even though we were never well-to-do.) In fact, my grandpas passed away when my parents were in their teens/early twenties, so they didn’t have their dads with them for very long either.

So here’s to small birthdays that are made momentous with that one gift that sparks absolute delight, and to grandpas who give so much of their time and unconditional love to making sure that their grandchildren are well taken care of, and have wonderful memories of childhood. Which is a time that seems to pass too quickly, especially in this city-state.