Christmas tree at home in Singapore

We bought a synthetic Xmas tree that looked like the real tree from Carrefour five years ago. Carrefour is no longer in Singapore.
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We also bought ornaments for adorning the shoots and leaves. However, we have never got anything to decorate the apex of our Xmas tree.
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Our first Xmas with the tree was when we had our daughter. She was 1 yo then and couldn't yet appreciate the tree. We had the tree out every Xmas since.
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This year, our girl is going to 4 yo. She was very excited when I got the Xmas tree out. She helped mummy decorated the tree. We had everything except the ornament/star at the apex.
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Getting a decent and beautiful star from shops is easy, we wanted to try something that will be more meaningful. We helped our girl to DIY the star for our Xmas tree.
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She was excited and helped to color the star. When it was placed at the top of the tree, she was so proud of herself. Most importantly, she was ecstatic.
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Here is her work.
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DIY Star for the apex of our Xmas tree

Noisy foldable bathroom door wakes baby

Foldable plastic door that you slide to open and close in the bathroom has a "clickable" catch, i.e. spring catch (I called it springy latch). It is used to fasten the foldable door in place and it makes a clicking loud noise that startle my baby.
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Going to the bathroom will have a fail-proof baby-waking effect in our household, especially when our baby sleeps in the master bedroom with a bathroom.
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There are different types of spring catch out there, with some that comes like ball bearing. I think they make clicking sounds too but I'm not sure how subtle these better quality designs are.
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The easiest to fix way would be to do away with the door catch. I removed two of them (bottom and upper ones). These catches will not affect the locking mechanism of the foldable door.
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It is much better now with the catches gone. The only difference to the door is that if you don't lock the door, a strong wind/draft will move the door.

Game: Sorting beans and relativity

Sorting beans and relativity

How this game is played? First, have four types of beans (or more), and then count the number of each type, e.g. Adzuki bean (red in colour) at 5 beans, mung bean (green in colour) at 10 beans, black turtle bean (black) at 15 beans, soy bean (yellow) at 30 beans, or other beans of different shapes and sizes.

Mix these beans together and put in in a plate or a flat surface. Allow your kid to sort out the beans as according to appearance. Once this is done, as him/her to show which cluster has the least beans and which has the most beans.

Adzuki bean (wikipedia)

Mung bean (wikipedia)

Soy bean (Danielstrading.com)

Black turtle bean (wikipedia)

Dengue alert in the neighbourhood

Recently, it has been hot and rainy and surely a pleasant time for mosquitoes to breed. Not all mosquitoes are bad, but the ones that carry pathogens that can harm people should be avoided.

For example, mosquitoes that carry the parasite that causes malaria belongs to the genera Culex, Anopheles, Culiseta, Mansonia, and Aedes could act as Plasmodium carriers (Wikipedia).

Physical appearance of the mosquitoes belonging to the genera Culex, Anopheles, Culiseta, and Mansonia. The Aedes mosquito is not shown. A mosquito pest control company has a site with a comprehensive description of mosquitoes and the corresponding pathogens, "Mosquito control - Mosquitoes in Malaysia" (JamesWhiteAnt).

Mosquito that carries the Dengue virus belongs to Aedes. For further information about the mode of transmission (and a brief introduction), read "Dengue transmission" (Nature) and "dengue control" (WHO).

Aedes aegypti mosquito (sourced VectorBase).

 In Singapore, active cluster of dengue outbreak can be referred to "Location of Active clusters" by DengueGovSg. Bishan and Tanah Merah currently in the red alert (with more dengue cases reported there).

Mine is at yellow alert. The National Environment Agency (NEA) officer came to visit my home recently to advise on removing probable mosquito breeding grounds, e.g. flower pots, plate, pail, slots for hanging poles outside to dry clothes, bathroom and toilet area.

The advisory note on Dengue had three important key points

1. Remove mosquito breeding ground
2. Kill the mosquito larvae and adults with insecticide
3. Avoid getting bitten (Aedes mosquitoes bite at certain time and by avoiding outdoor activities around that time would be advisable)

Dengue alert - Take immediate action advisory note from NEA. Key points are highlighted.

For now, I guess if I am to bring my children out, I should at least use/wear the mosquito repellent on them. In addition, I should avoid bringing them out to sit at park's bench (and tempt mosquitoes to feast on us). I'm a B+ blood group and my kids are AB+. I'm not sure about the association between blood group and mosquito bites, but I can say that if I am among friends, I'm a "mosquito magnet". My kids are more prone to bites than me (so I can't shield them from bites by attracting mosquitoes to me instead).

Note that once an individual has been infected by dengue virus, that individual is immune against the virus. However, there are four types (or serotypes) of the virus. Immune against one doesn't preclude infection by the other three types. Also, if an individual is infected by one type followed by another at a short period of time, this individual could experience a severe immune response (due to the body memorizing the first attack and primed to give "all out" response to the second one - aka dengue shock syndrome (DSS)).

Summary

• Identify the type of mosquito that carries the Dengue virus.
• Check the information pertaining to where (or which alert level) the Dengue outbreak in my residential area is (DengueGovSg)
• What to do to prevent breeding of the mosquito.
• Protect ourselves by usage of insecticide and repellents.