Let's make muffins!

Yu has been wanting to make muffins, so we did!

Yu helped to measure out the flour

Kai wished he could eat the chocolate chips right away!

Every boy had a go at the chocolate chips

And must take picture, ok...

They were watching TV so I mixed the wet ingredients myself. More importantly, there were only two eggs so I couldn't let them all crack eggs :p

They filled up the muffin cups

I like these muffin cups. Yes, they're disposable but the silicon ones are so hard to wash that I wonder about the impact of using all that water and soap on them! These muffin cups can stand on their own so I don't need to us muffin trays at all, which limits the number of muffins I can throw into the oven.

See how well they turned out!

All boxed up

Yang and Yu like the muffins. Yang brought a muffin to school yesterday but had only the top coz he dropped the bottom when opening up the cup. Today, he asked for a muffin again and I opened up the cup for him first. Our formula containers are now repurposed to house muffins :)

Kai isn't much of a fan but I coaxed him to have one that afternoon since (a) he made them, and (b) biscuits were out of bounds for tea that day. In the end, he had two and laughed sheepishly when I asked him...

It was quite nice to have them help. Yes, it was quite messy - flour on the table, muffin dough everywhere, sticky hands. But I think it made the muffins tastier? Haha! And in the debrief, I spoke to them about maths and science. What if we added too much flour? Not enough baking powder?

Kai and Yang used to make omelette or scrambled eggs in HV when the kitchen was a lot more open with more space for more to stand together. Now it's quite a squeeze. That's why we had to do the muffins at the dining table. Hope can get them more involved in the kitchen :)

It's the left foot now

I took leave on Wednesday. I meant to just nua the morning away and go fetch Yang, go for tea and return to fetch Kai from CCA. 

Well, I did all that but with a bandage on my left foot :(

Monday night, or Tuesday early morning about 3 am, I heard thunder and Yu came in - I don't know which came first :p After sending Yu back, I thought I should close the living room balcony door. I walked out but one sofa away from the door, I slipped on water and fell!

Landed on my left. Didn't feel like a hard fall though. I can't remember coz sleepy haha! Anyway, I went to close the door and went to clean up myself before going back to bed. But when I lay down, I felt a pain in my left foot. It didn't feel like a sprain - certainly not like my last sprain - but I couldn't turn it to the sides.

I thought of waking Sito up to help check my ankle and maybe get him to send the kids the next day. But I decided to try to sooth my foot first. Somehow, rubbing my calf helped and I was able to go back to sleep. Um, I sleep easily :p

I sent the kids to school on Tuesday. No pain in my foot. Still couldn't turn my foot though - that hurt. Later in the afternoon, it started feeling a bit numb. I also felt a little pain in the ribs on my left. I thought I would see a sinseh but gosh, don't know where! Got a contact from Joyce but he could make it only 11 am the next day. I decided to go to Ma Kuang at Teck Whye.

Managed to settle the kids somewhat before 7 pm, and left the house. Thankfully, it had finally stopped raining - less risk of me slipping again? :p Three bus stops later, I found the clinic. Luckily, there was only one guy ahead of me and he was just leaving.

So I pulled a tendon. The doctor rubbed it and put a plaster on for me. We couldn't find the pain in the ribs anymore.. Interestingly, she asked if I was going to claim insurance and when I said no, she said then she wouldn't give me too much treatment or medicine. Ok.. Eh, wait.. Huh??? Made me think of how my delivery fees went from $2k for Kai to $4k for Yang after I asked the doc to sign an insurance form...!

Anyway, she also gave me medicine for my weak pulse. Strengthen me up, she said. Ok. I'm always open to that!

The moment I realised that I would have to take off the bandage before I could remove my Uniqlo tights!

Yang called me when I was on the bus to ask me when I was coming back. I told him to go to bed first. He asked for a kiss over the phone, awww.... It would have been 8.10 pm when I got back, but that meant Kai and Yang would come out of their room! So I decided to have a drink downstairs and go up after they had slept!

When I went up, Kai and Yang had indeed gone to dreamland. When I was getting a plastic bag from the kitchen, A told me Yu watched TV in my room. Ok, I had given him permission to sleep in my bed, else he wouldn't easily go down alone in his bed, away from his brothers on a school night. But when I went to my room, I found the light on and a little boy fiddling with the stuff on the table! Got him to lie down while I showered. Water got into the plastic bag anyway, argh!

When I came out, I sat next to him with a hand on him until he dozed off. Sweet boy :)

Then I dried my hair and dug into an egg tart! There was an old-school bakery next to the clinic and I had only $8 on me! Could only get a peanut cake and two egg tarts. Luckily I had enough for a teh tarik later :p

Sito came home later and carried Yu back to his bed. But when I woke this morning, I found my door ajar. Then I saw the kid wedged in the space between Sito and me. Didn't know when he got there *.* I decided at the last minute to have A send Kai and Yang to school while I lay down more with Yu. But he woke before his brothers left and didn't sleep anymore :(

After breakfast, Yu spotted my medicine on the dining table. He recognised 司 from his name, and surprised me when he showed me 河马的马！Then he went to pull out an old book and pointed to the seahorses. Um, that's 海马 :)

Got him to pose for me :)

As I felt muscle ache on my back, I booked a massage at noon. The uncle was very powerful. I was very painful! Despite the immediate relief, I felt the muscle ache coming back shortly after. And the parts where the uncle pressed were also quite painful. But I like this kind of pain, haha!

Yang wanted a selfie at the window of TCC

And he posed when his mac and cheese arrived!

He even did some maths while waiting for his food - ya, I brought an assessment book along in case we had time :p He didn't like the chocolate milk shake after all so I poured my remaining coffee inside and had it - fat! 

It was raining when we reached Stevens Road so it was a pretty wet journey home after fetching Kai! In all, a happy day despite the unfortunate incident about my foot...

Work, work, work!

Not mine. The kids' :p

One evening, they decided to draw

Oh, I love you, Yang!

Kai was trying to convince Yang to sit with him on the bus :p

Yu wanted to work with Papa! So cute :)

Made these two sharpen their tools before school reopened!

But of course we missed out a lot in the school holidays. They rushed to do some work on Sunday after procrastinating on them the whole week. Sito and I took turns to help with Yang's book log (optional but he didn't know! :p) and Kai's zoologist badge thing.

Yu got a sand painting present from a friend - they loved it! I don't coz so messy!

The two went for round two in the afternoon and finished everything!

I give it to them for sitting there for quite a while to do this... Kai couldn't be bothered by then, haha! Think he was with Sito in the room, watching him play games....

听写 for Kai is getting harder these days. More long words and a 默写 sentence. He got full marks once last term, and teacher gave him bonus marks. He was very please. But also very yaya papaya that he got full marks despite studying for it just the day before. Hope he doesn't think it's easy to score or such last minute work is all that's needed. Your parents put in consistent efforts ok!!

Cooking and eating with the kids

Kai likes the cheesy chicken balls from Old Chang Kee. One day, he said he wanted to make them himself! So I told him to write a recipe.

And he did!

Full marks for thinking about it :) A couple of weeks later, we finally got down to doing it. He thought the minced pork looked disgusting *.* Anyway, we got the things together and got to work!

Mixing the meat and seasoning

Yang also wanted to help

Stuffing the cheese into the meatballs!

We were rolling meatballs together for a while. Then Kai decided to take pictures. Then Yang decided to take pictures too, leaving me to roll meatballs *.* But Kai came back to roll the last couple.

Taken by Yang

All baked!

Yup, I baked them coz didn't want an oily kitchen early in the morning. But as I half expected, the cheese mostly oozed out. The picture above looks clean coz I had transferred the meatballs to another tray to brown further. And when we ate them, they were tough :( Maybe should really fry next time...

We haven't been to Swensen's for while so we went there one Saturday!

Kai had three quarters of this big burger; I ate the remaining

Yang had half of his burger plus the entire top bun; Sito had the rest

Yu had three of four chicken strips - and kept running to check out the ice cream cake

And we shared ice cream!

I ordered a flavour for each of us: Vanilla for Papa, yam for Mama, chewy chocolate for Kai, cookies and cream for Yang, strawberry for Yu. Kai was saying he wouldn't eat the strawberry coz it was pink. Yu then said he didn't like pink but he liked strawberry - he used to like pink! :(

Papa: Why don't you like pink?

Kai: It's girl. My friends and I don't like pink.

Papa: You don't like girls?

Kai: Don't like.

Papa: But Mama is a girl!

Kai: But Mama is not a girl!

Papa: Then what is she?

Kai: A woman!

Papa: So you don't like girls; you like women!

:p

Kai and Yang had an argument at Mum's place. Yang was crying a lot. I brought him out to cheer him up.

Swinging monkey on our way out and back

Doughnut and hot chocolate for him - check out the size of his beverage!

大眼睛 and even bigger cup!

Brought them to Bukit Timah Summit on Tuesday of school holidays

I was dizzy and out of breath from the start. At the steps, someone asked after me and I said maybe my bag was too heavy. He helped me with it. But a few more steps, I realised it was not the bag. I asked him to carry on while I sat down. The kids came back for me and squatted next to me as I collapsed on my bag. Felt better lying down. A few more asked after me as they walked by. Someone told me to put my head between my knees. I felt much better after that and continued to the summit. Later, SZ said she experienced that before when she didn't have breakfast - oops, that's me that day!

Coz I wanted to eat prata for breakfast!

Kai said it would be sad if there was no curry in the world! :p I had to agree with him as we shared the plate of curry. We like it but don't need loads of it.

Yang didn't want the curry but was still pleased with his prata

The next day, we brought Yu to school together before heading to Orchard to get uniforms for Kai - he needs bigger shirts and bigger pants. His new pants this year turn out to be not that big after all....

Char siew bun! Sito often eats this at work too

Yam bun!

Toast monster :p

Met Joyce for lunch after uniforms. The kids at wantan noodles while I had claypot rice at Malaysia Chiak at Centrepoint. Had a good catch up - so good to see other adults haha!

The boys had their heads together over games while the adults chatted

Watched Raya and the Last Dragon the next day - each of them had a bag of popcorn and a cup of milo!

I treated myself to taro milk tea after that, yum!

That day, I panfried some mackerel - they liked it! :)

The last date night, I bought some old-school snacks - the floury 大福饼 (didn't know it was called that!) and the sugary twisty biscuits.

Yang likes this :)

These two had their first western food experience at the coffee shop near hurt-my-knee playground

The rest of us had fishball noodles and bah chor mee. They were kind of disappointed that the playground was wet and they couldn't play much.

From mid week of the last week of last term, I gave up on lunch for Kai and Yang - they took a looong time to eat and Yang would even say he wasn't hungry. Then dinner became another struggle. So I decided to just give them meaty/veggie snacks instead of a full lunch. Seems to be working so far - they finished the food way faster and we had more time to do work after that.

Homemade sausage rolls - I made them super big this time :p Great for freezing and heating up to eat with ketchup.

Last Sunday, I also baked macaroni. This time, I cooked the macaroni in the sauce instead of separately. Turned out really well!

Everyone adds pepper to their macaroni, including this baby!

Yu had the last 大福饼 this morning while I had peanut cake and egg tart from another old-school bakery

Wow, I didn't realise I have so many pictures on food! Heh, love to see them eat more and well :)

How the boys have grown!

Now that I'm functional, I need to talk about my babies :)

Playing games on Papa's phone in our fave restaurant

And then they continued to sit together while Sito and I sat together, woohoo!

Kai taught Yu how to write 道 and Yu followed

This Kai is quite yaya papaya - "he can't even spell [insert big word]". Yes, my big boy, you can spell that but your brothers are still young! He's really a big boy now. He seems to have put on quite a bit of meat lately. And he's almost at my shoulders, gosh...

What happens when you give a kid pocket money and he discovers the bookshop...

Yang said the blue one was from a friend. The following were also from his friends: a 5,000 rupiah note, a book and a tooth! And this week, he gave the second pen to a friend. I don't know what all this gifting is about...

In other news, Yang did his first poop in school on Tuesday - his previous poo was the previous Monday! I guess he couldn't hold it anymore and had to go. Great! But he still had poop when he came back. Hope his constipation gets well over time...

Found some old cards that I made for Kai but never got down to using

Yang finished arranging quickly, as expected

Yang is becoming quite the poser these days! Good to have someone pose for trigger-happy me :)

Oops for b and d - he also had to change out the m when he couldn't find w :)

Done too!

Poser - he wanted me to send photos of him cleaning up to his teachers!

元宵 was a Friday. We decided on steamboat for dinner on Saturday. And while Sito and I were happily cooking and eating, the boys watched a Chinese Ultraman movie.

Yang held his Ultraman toy while watching Ultraman 😂

Got Yu a new bag

I've had enough of his trolley bag bringing back germs from outside... Shall save that for holidays, when they happen... This Xiaomi bag is so nice that I bought two more for his brothers - they're great for half days!

I found a bag on the Decathlon website too. Thought I could get it at the Holland branch just in time for their half day the next day but couldn't find. In any case, I thought the Decathlon bag might be too big at 17L compared to this 10L. So I bought more Xiaomi bags online instead.

Sito and I found 天天酸奶 at HV MRT stations - pricey but quite yummy

Yu claimed to be hungry after having toast so he had a little snack - saving the crumbs!

Brought them out for breakfast this morning

Yang had one more toast square that he couldn't finish and gave it to Kai.

Kai: You don't want this anymore?

Yang: "Shakes head"

Kai: Oh, you still want it.

Yang: No....

Kai: But you shake your head. If you don't want it, you should nod.

I had to explain that Kai had asked a negative question which could be confusing for children. And immediately, Yu at my side said loudly, "Cannot confuse people!" And he gave a very 大人样！

I was so shocked. But I agreed with him, yes let's not confuse people. You see, my office just announced something on Friday. Throughout our engagements before that, people kept saying it would be confusing. The media was also seeking clarifications yesterday. So I was super amused by Yu's statement. So amused I had him do it again and I took a video to send to my bosses :p

Been working long hours the past two weeks. No enough time to guide Kai and Yang after school. This morning, Kai let me sight and sign his work which he brought back on Thursday.

And I spotted this gem:

Yes, I recently cleared the plant shelf of its dead plants! So funny that Kai had to point that out. And even funnier for the teacher to respond to his after-thought in a bracket! But very empathetic, I like.

Yu has been writing a lot of Chinese words lately - numbers and simple words like 大, 木 and even 只 which I taught him on my hand one night in bed. This morning, we completed 1-10 in Chinese, and went on to write his Chinese name.

He was so pleased :)

Then we took turns to play 大雄；妈妈 would go：“这是什么？！”

Please, don't be 大雄!!!