Happy Easter weekend!

We were supposed to have a play date on Good Friday afternoon, with CY and DL. But all of us had sick kids so it was called off to avoid cross contamination.

So what should we do with the kids?? I woke with a bright idea - go to farms! But reality check - Google Maps show a 20-minute walk from the goat farm to the cow farm, i.e. 30 minutes with the kids, in the hot wilderness of the Lim Chu Kang area. Um, no thanks.

We took a taxi to the goat farm. Yu was quite curious and patient - the goats were just about to be ushered away and a new batch was coming in. He watched it all with a running commentary from me. His brothers were pinching their nose and whining to go away, argh!

After we watched the goats getting milked for a short while ("妈妈奶奶"!!), we left to go deeper into the farm to feed baby goats. The two whining boys were still unhappy with the smell but feeding animals? Yes!

Yang was pinching his nose while feeding

A few years back, Kai was kissed by a goat. This time, Yang was licked on his fringe! He was quite amused by it :p

Yu was a little apprehensive though he kept saying he wanted to feed animals

The goats were all quite friendly and let us pat them. Yu also did that after I demonstrated and he smiled his little boy smile :)

Sito and I suspect he feeds us vitamins like we are little animals... Anyways! Btw we didn't buy any goat feed - I told them to pick up the loose bits on the ground coz there was so much of them!

We went to wash hands and buy some goat milk to try. I was afraid they might not like the taste so got the chocolate one for them to share. Glad they liked it!

We wondered about the coz farm but decided it was really too much. Sito tried to get a taxi. We thought if that was not possible, we would take the bus - I had looked out for public transport options on the way in and there was a bus stop just outside the small road leading to the farm. But that ride would take an hour including waiting time so I ushered Yu to the toilet.

While we were finishing up, Sito got a cab, yeah! Turned out the driver happened to drop a family off here. Phew!

Summing up the trip, it was 20 min on the cab each way, and no more than 30 min in the farm, including the pee break. With all that whining, worth it? :p

Relatively quiet boys coz they had Sito's phone while he waited for our lunch

It's mostly these two playing

Coz Yu was still eating, we let Kai and Yang go up first. But when we were on our way up the escalator, they were just coming down! Apparently, they had gone up but Yang wanted to find me so they came back down. Gosh, these kids.

All our shoes (except the work pairs) had Milo on them, thanks to lunch

Coz it was Good Friday, we did a little egg hunt! It took Kai seconds to find one, and I gave hints to the other two so they got theirs quickly too. It took a little bit longer for me to remember why I hadn't got them Kinder eggs for a while - all the complaints about their toy being not fun and the other toy being more fun *.*

Opening up their eggs

"I cannot!"

Enjoying the chocolate :)

He was very pleased to be able to dig up the biscuit ball himself

Saturday was a normal day, except that there was no music lesson and I let the boys go down to play ball in the morning. I went down shortly on my way to the supermarket and Yu decided to follow me. He stuck to my sole condition - to walk and not ask to be carried, yeah!

Sito took out his army gear - that was Yang :)

Yang did very well on the monkey bar!

Crowding in the Peppa Pig kiddy ride at BPP

And a new ride!

Easter Sunday was the usual. Pool time with Yu throwing in his goggles and jumping in after them, Kai and Yang chasing after a ball, lesson time. Then we went to Mum's place where they enjoyed a long game of football in the comfort of the air-conditioned living room.

A quiet train ride made possible by the eating game again

Football time!

Yu said, "All the best! All the best!"

Sito will be going for reservist from Wednesday. A little apprehensive given the high correlation between that and kiddy illness! And Yang had a bit of a croupy cough just on Friday... May we all stay healthy and strong!

Mixed feelings at work

For the first time, I received four bouquets of flowers within days. I sent a photo of the first to Sito, and told him they were from a secret admirer. He didn’t buy it.

Sito: Cannot be coz secret admirer has been busy.
mf: Eh I cannot have other secret admirers??
Sito: Can! 3! They always look for you at night!

Grrr...

A cheery surprise in office

My T team didn't want to go for the long service award and promotion ceremony on 2 April so they got flowers for me in advance.

Post-ceremony kopi with colleague and bouquet #2 from a sweet colleague who showed up at the ceremony with a box of flowers for people

Bouquet #3 from the division - loved ruffling the big bunch of small flowers in front!

Found bouquet #4 in my mug the following morning, a lovely homemade bunch

Too bad I didn't dry them well - most turned ugly. I managed to save some and popped them into an old milk bottle camouflaged with lilac paper.

The second flower arrangement in my life; first was a disaster in sec school!

Flowers are lovely indeed. The congratulatory messages and gestures are certainly appreciated. But amid the smiles and thanks were worries and fears. And these worries and fears were not unfounded - a conversation and a meeting with my incoming boss in the past week made it very clear to me what my life might look like when the re-org is done.

Half of me wants to seek other opportunities, and I did - I spoke with an old friend and ex-colleague of mine, primarily coz his org HQ is so near home ha! Also trawled various career websites for jobs and shortlisted some. But half of me wants to stick it out and see what happens - after all, I do like the job mostly; I just don't fancy the workload.

I need to balance myself a bit. So I decided not to bring my laptop home all the time. In fact, that should be the norm, not the exception considering that I start work between 7.30 am and 7.45 am, and leave at 5.30 pm, with no lunch break coz I eat a really hearty breakfast while checking emails in the morning. I did that for perhaps three days and my body decided that it could slow down - ended up with a cold!

Luckily I'm on long-term nasal spray so the running nose symptoms were quite mild compared to the past. But the multiple sneezes kept coming so I took MC. That night, when Sito was not in Singapore, I dreamt I saw a ghost in the lift in HQ - I was due to be there the following morning. Crap.

My dinner on 9 April when I was on MC - comfort food for the nose and the soul

A weekend of outings and slightly grown kids

It was a more unusual weekend for us coz we went out late on Saturday. Since we moved to BP, we very seldom went out of the neighbourhood on Saturdays. But let me start from the top...

While the rest of us are fine with bread for breakfast every day, Yu won't have it. Looks like I have to be more hardworking with baking... So after Yang's music lesson yesterday, I make two types of muffin and oatmeal flapjack.

Cutting up his muffin at breakfast

And I found him perched on the kitchen stool getting apple slices

In the evening, Kai and Yang wanted to play football. Yu wanted to read at my suggestion (coz he could hardly compete with his brothers for the ball!) so we went to the reading room. And we found some old books!

We read this CDIS book!

The kids had company

Changed the sweaty boys and headed for dinner in town coz cousin SH was in town. By the time we left town, it was just past 8 pm. The kids were so tired that Kai and Yang fell asleep in the car while Yu stayed very quiet... I asked him if he was tired, and he only nodded - so poor thing!!! Think they are very used to sleeping early, though Yang could sleep pretty late if he had his afternoon nap.

Standard lower lip jutting out look - but just before dozing off instead of being defiant or angry :p

Happy with some toys at dinner!

And perhaps his last time on a high chair. He hadn't been on one for a long time before this. Usually, he would just stand to feed himself, or sit down and be fed. I think he's also getting a tad big for this high chair.

Yang made a big structure!

Kai caught me taking a photo so...!

I let them have their 3-min video each after their shower. They guai guai went to bed after that and fell asleep soon enough.

So happy to see this boy still asleep though the sun was up!

It was not N's off day and we had a playdate arranged but she wanted to go vote so we agreed that she would go in the morning and come back immediately. Turned out that playdate was cancelled due to coughing kids. Anyway, that was replaced by the parents going out..

Breakfast at Ya Kun

With the boy who claimed he wanted toast when he didn't

We almost forgot to take away our little bag of leftover toast if not for Yang! Then we must take a trip to the supermarket, and of course buy a little something. This time, it was flavoured milk.

Monkeys in the aisle

The kids watched Alice in Wonderland back home. A neighbour with older kids recently gave us a whole bag of DVDs. More things to keep them occupied!

"Don't let GeGe take my pink one!"

After lunch, I did four online assignments with Kai. He isn't too familiar with the laptop yet, this being his second time. Need to familiarise him with it so I won't need to sit with him soon! Also did a successful keyboard practice with Yang - some competition with Kai was good. And when Mum they all arrived, the performing streak emerged for both of them. Good, I say!

Sito and I went out with Mum to fix our backs. Sito's muscle ache didn't go away after a week. My perpetual backache from carrying Yu was getting worse. Sito exclaimed out loud in the midst of his treatment, which gave me a scare! Hope we all get well after this..

Check out the salmon vending machine outside the clinic!!

This weekend, I realised something - our kids are really growing up. We haven't been to the restaurant we went to on Saturday for some time. I recall the last time, Yu was running about uncontrollably. This time, he went to see the fish a couple of times, and mostly stayed around our table. Kai and Yang went about on their own; we didn't need to chase.

We also haven't been to Ya Kun for a while as well. The last time, I had to chase Yu madly, and Kai and Yang couldn't stay in their seats much too. This time, all three stayed on their seats except for Yu who walked over to his brothers' side at the end and only at the end.

During pool time, Kai and Yang were doing their usual and Sito was swimming leisurely while Yu jumped into the pool, climbed out and jumped in again and again. I was happily watching them, taking photos, surfing internet, until Yang needed to poop - I'm still needed after all, haha!

It feels good but certainly we're not at a less tiring stage yet - I'm still feeling sleepy as I type... But wow, our future weekends are promising :)

Monkeys and the things they say

Just another Sunday, with a few fun things.

Got them to pose and them jump in!

Kai and Yang are now very comfortable. Yu is just fearless, perhaps he sees his brothers doing it all the time. But he's also fearless la :p

And cute - he calls StandUp Stacey Humpty Dumpty!

Just now at bedtime, Kai was lamenting about the lack of holidays. I told him as a student, I liked holidays too when I didn't have to wake so early. He said I could sleep 24 hours. No la, I woke at maybe 8 or 9 pm, when it got bright. And things took an interesting turn from there..

Kai: Papa can sleep for 24 hours.
mf: No, he will wake he's hungry, maybe about 10 am.
Kai: His tummy is so big. It's not easy to get hungry.

!!!

Then I went to get Yang and Yu to bed. Yu kept singing - he woke from his nap at 4.30 pm! So I turned to Yang who was lying down on my other side. Three of use squeezed lengthwise on a super single. I hugged him until he dozed off.

Suddenly, Yu stopped his nth rendition of daddy finger, and patted my shoulder, "Mama, look at me!" So I turned around to hug him instead.

Yang said something too but he looked so cute that I kept looking at him and forgot what he said haha! But I remember something he said last Saturday when I let him play a game machine after music class, and told him not to tell Kai. "I'm a not-telling boy!" And he smiled his lovely smile! It's the eyes, I'm sure, those big fluttering eyes with long eyelashes.

Childcare reunion!

Got a message from the mum of Kai's best friend in his first childcare centre on Monday, and we were off for a catch-up on Saturday!

I thought we might have to skip this coz Sito wasn't well but he was well enough and he had to work at home anyway. So I took Kai and Yang out while Yu was napping, oops..

Three on two seats

We changed bus at the primary school, to get to Far East Plaza where we changed to another bus to get to Furama Riverfront. Yes, we were going to Waka Waka!

Afternoon snack while waiting at Far East Plaza bus stop

Not the full group but it was so hard to get them all!

While the kids played, the parents sat down to chit chat about primary school and gossip about the old - and existing for some of us - childcare centre. A parent got a Milo tower for the kids - I was very impressed. That would make a very popular station at any party!

That's Kai's best friend when we were leaving

These two chaps knew each other before they could flip over. I really like the old childcare centre with its open space but well, we had to move. Anyway, they were quite business-like towards the end, with lots of expansion. The current childcare centre is cozier and the Chinese standard is better, haha!

A&E again!

Barely two weeks passed, and we were back to the A&E! This time, it was for Sito.

It was about 5.15 am yesterday morning. I woke somehow, to see at least Yu and Kai were in our bed. Sito was clutching his leg. I thought a kid kicked him. Then he went out. I found him in Kai's room. He was having some pain around his ribs and was clutching his legs coz it felt better.

I left him to sleep but I couldn't. What goes across the whole body that could be painful? Diaphragm? I googled and gosh, diaphragm tear. Not serious on its own but he could have had blunt injury from the kids.

When morning came, his pain was more on his right. We decided to skip Yang's music class, leave the three monkeys at home and head for A&E. Took the train coz no cab.

As expected, it was quite deserted at the adult A&E; few chao keng cases on a Saturday! The children A&E was more crowded but less so than weekdays, probably fewer school injuries??

Anyway, we didn't wait long to see the doctor who did a physical examination before ordering a blood test and an x-ray. Waiting for the results took about an hour. Turned out everything looked fine, phew! Probably a muscle strain then.

I googled for injuries due to co-sleeping and SIDS etc came up. You mean parents don't get hurt from co-sleeping? Not much time to google coz we also got medicine in record time. Got back to BP in time to get lunch for the kids.

We chose NUH again though it wasn't the nearest hospital. We are more familiar with it. We thought when we're old, we should stay somewhere near a hospital. Really 大吉利是 but seriously, we were glad we were in Holland when Yang's febrile fits happened!

Also, I realised it's scarier to see Sito than the kids go to A&E. At least I know what to do with fever, febrile fits and sore eyes. But Sito's causes are all so internal I couldn't! May everyone stay healthy and happy....

Doing his best with the kids today :)

No more school bus!

Some time in February, we decided to quit the school bus. Kai was evidently picking up things from the older kids. Things were on a routine so N could go fetch Kai. We would save a lot on transport.

When I told Kai about this, he just shrugged it off. Later he told me that some kids bullied him. But I couldn't tell whether it was joking bully or real bully coz he was smiling and coy about it. In any case, his last day was end March.

That day, I totally forgot to remind him to return his token to the driver. The kids had to tap in at every trip. But this boy remembered! So proud of him.

I think the driver called the office when Kai gave him the token, and the person-in-charge called me to confirm withdrawal - she forgot that we spoke in February *.* I dropped the driver a thank-you note, and he said Kai was a good boy and he would miss him. Awww...

He sent me a picture :)

So I worked from home on 1 April, and brought N to fetch Kai. We were too early! And it was drizzling but we didn't have an umbrella coz it was bright and cheery at BP!

The security let us go to the clock tower due to the drizzle. We waited. And waited. And the kids started coming. And more came out! And there he was! He found us in one glance and looked so happy :)

Waiting for our bus home

Coz of the walk to the bus stop and the wait, we got home somewhat later than his usual time.

I took leave for the afternoon. So we had lunch at the prata place - he chose that over Macs! - and finished up with some ice cream - went to Macs after all, hoho! - before taking a slow walk home.

After washing up, we started playing dominos. Actually, I had planned to teach him how to use his laptop and read a book on solstice. But I was so sleepy that I kept dozing off when playing dominos! Why, when I could be wide awake at that hour at work?! Was it the lunch?!

By the time the sleeping bug went away, it was almost 5 pm! We played more dominos and then it was time for me to fetch his brothers. Kai went with me and helped with the stroller :)

The next day, I worked from home again to bring N to school. She managed to recognise where to alight - great! This time, we weren't allowed to go into the school compound. Kai stood at the edge of the clock tower and we spotted each other. He came down, not pleased. We had to explain to him that we couldn't go in. He bought it only coz he didn't see other parents/helpers at the clock tower. Bah, don't believe me!!

In case of heavy rain in future, I brought them to take the train home instead. Must teach N while I could. But I didn't go home with them. I had to go back to work! Kai wasn't pleased. He becomes displeased rather easily...