Category: The Kids Say

KURIOS : Cabinet of Curiosities by Cirque du Soleil – Reviewed Together with My 4 Year Old

Since my first experience with Cirque du Soleil a couple of years back, I have been to every performance they hold in Singapore. The first time I brought my toddler was when he was 2. Now that he is slightly older, he starts to share what he thinks about the performance and I must say, 4 years old is a great age to start bringing your child if he/she likes such performances.

Last week when I told him that we will be going to watch Kurios, he has been asking me every day how many more days to the event. He could not contain his excitement when the day finally came. He napped for 2 hours in the noon so he could stay up for the show without being tired and cranky. In fact, he got up even without me asking him to.

When we arrived, we took some mandatory photos at the entrance and he immediately ran in to check out all the merchandise.

We could not stop laughing when the artists teased the audience while waiting for the show to begin.

11:09 – The Stage before the show started.

We entered the cabinet of curiosities at 11:11 and the little one was impressed by the colourful costumes and make up the performers had on. It took him a while to realise that music and singing was done by a live band. When he did, he was in awe. I asked him if he could sing like the singer, he said “Her voice is so beautiful. If I sing, later they laugh at me you know.” But a couple of times during the show, he mimicked her by clasping his hands together in front of his chest and pretended to mouth her singing.

In order to enjoy the show thoroughly, we barely took photos unless he said “Take a photo of this, I want to show daddy.” since daddy did not join us.

There are 13 acts in total for Kurios and my two favourites were the Acro Net and Upside Down World. Acro Net is when the artists performed acrobatic moves while bouncing to such great heights on a huge net which Isaac said was to catch fish because it looked like a gigantic fishing net. Upside Down World is an upside-down and a right-side up performance featuring two acrobats balancing on a series of chairs.

Upside Down World

Isaac’s favourite act is Rola Bola. In his words “the pilot who flew the plane until the propeller stopped working”. That is a balancing performance on tubes while being suspended in the air. I recall holding my breath through out the aviator’s performance. Did not manage to capture a picture since my eyes were glued to the stage. When I asked Isaac why was he not afraid if the pilot will lose his balance, he said to me “Why are you afraid? He practiced very hard and is very good at this. He is not afraid of heights like my daddy and daddy pig (from peppa pig)”. ROFL. Is he really a 4 year old or a 40 year old?

He also enjoyed the Invisible Circus and had a good laugh when the invisible lion ran away.

I also heard him gasped when he saw the human pyramids as he whispered to me “wah so soft the bones”.

When the show ended, he asked if we can watch again tomorrow.

The Absolutely Amazing Team

I went home with a very happy aviator last night.

While I thought he would have gotten over the excitement after last night, I was so wrong. This morning he asked if we can watch the show with daddy again tonight. When I explained to him that it is expensive to watch it again he said “I have money in the bank remember? I can buy tickets for you, daddy and myself”. Well, I guess the Kurios experience was that fantastic to him that it is worth his every penny.

The show has not even ended and we are already looking forward to the next Cirque du Soleil in 2020!

Conversations with Mister I – Episode 1

As Mister I continues to grow ever so quickly, there are things he’d say that sometimes catch me by surprise. By that, I am not referring to the “naughty words” he had picked up mostly from his dad and myself (yes, we are not saints. We sometimes forget his presence and make exclamations like “oh Sxxxt!” which he immediately picks up). What I am referring to, are moments that he’d tell me what he thinks about certain things that makes me go “WOW! where did that come from?!” Hence, I decided perhaps I should jot down the things he says, that has somewhat created an impact on me. This could also be one of the ways for me to learn to be a better parent.

28th May 2018, Thursday

The husband was expected to be at work earlier than usual and we were rushing to get out of the house. I remember we were running late that day because Mister I could not wake up in time and was reluctant to get out of bed. On usual days like these, I tend to be a lot more patient with the flexibility of time I get at work. However on that particular day, I had a meeting at 9am which I cannot be late for. I started to get pretty annoyed at how slowly he was getting about with the teeth brushing and changing. I kept telling him to stand properly so I can put on this pants but he kept fidgeting. Then I lost it. I raised my voice and told him to stand properly or I am walking out of the room. The boy was calm. He obeyed immediately but what he said next stunned me.

“ok, I will stand properly. Can you stop being angry? Like daddy, always angry me?”

This. The action which I took to get him to stand properly actually meant more to him than I had imagined. In his response, the keywords that caught my attention were “always angry”. Was this true? Is this really what he felt?

This got me thinking and honestly, that pang of guilt that hit me right away was beyond description. I explained to him in a nicer tone that I am not really mad at him. I just needed to get things done at a quicker pace so we can all go to work/school on time. Before we sent him to school, we made sure he knew we loved him more than anything else in this world and we’re sorry if he feels like we are constantly mad at him. We will try to work on this as long as he promises to behave as well.

While on the way to work, I thought about the series of events and how it could have been avoided. I realised that actually the way things were done that morning was exactly the same as the other days when we were not in a rush to get to work. There was only a change which led to this unfortunate event in the morning just because we needed to be at work earlier that particular morning. How could I have expected Mister I to have known if we did not tell him prior that we needed to leave earlier? His actions were consistent throughout, ours weren’t. He probably did not even know what that fuss was all about in the first place.

Ah well, lesson learnt.