Congrats to Kai! :)

I was so happy when I saw just one letter from MOE back in December - it means Edusave award! But I wasn't wearing glasses and misread the name at first *.*

Anyway, we read out the letter to the boys. At first Kai wasn't impressed by an award. Then he heard the $150 cash reward. Eyes bright bright! Haha!

But first, I must set up PayNow with his IC. Had to do that at the bank personally so I did it for all three kids. Second, we must attend the award ceremony, and that, we nearly missed!

After sending the kids up the bus on Friday, 12 Jan, I opened the letterbox and saw a letter from PA. I was shocked to see that the ceremony was scheduled for 4 pm the next day and we had missed the RSVP deadline! Fast fingers quickly RVSP-ed online and when it was office hours, called the office. Heng we could just show up and even though the letter said three guests per awardee, all five of us could attend.

There was no pre-fixed seating arrangement. We were shown to seats according to when we registered at the counter. Kai was #21 out of maybe 40-50. Seats were arranged in fours so someone brought us a fifth chair.

It was a cosy affair compared to my time. I still remember sitting on my own with many other students; parents were all seated in another section behind. Every year, we waited long long long time for the MP - mine was current PM - to show up, and more time for the hundreds of students to finish getting their cheques. Yes, cheques.

Now, after years of organising meetings involving ministers, I realised that these people were never late - PA must have got attendees to get seated far too early. This is thankfully no longer the case. We only had to register 15min before the ceremony time.

Anyway, our MP, who also happens to be Minister for Education, said that was his 13th session that day *.* Towards the end of the ceremony, we heard the emcee on the other side of the separator wall starting to address the attendees of the next session. And when we came back from dinner, we still saw kids in uniform coming out of the CC! 

Congrats on your Good Progress!

There were refreshments and various booths after the ceremony. The kids had fun with yo-yo. Someone asked Sito to volunteer at the CC or something. Think he escaped :p There was also balloon sculpting but we spent all our time at the yo-yo booth until it was time for dinner.

So proud of this boy. Kai is the most conscientious of the three, knowing when he had to do his work. He worked especially hard last year, with Sito pushing him more than I did. So happy that he finally saw tangible outcomes for his effort :)

Yang and Yu also wanted an award. Told them to work harder this year. But after the ceremony, Yang said he didn't want it anymore coz he was shy about collecting it *.*

Anyway, this is PSLE year. Time for Kai to show his very best in primary school. May this award motivate him to reach his potential and more :)

Off to school, without Mama...

From Monday this week, Yang and Yu started going to school on their own.

I send them to the bus stop, remind them to find a seat quickly and wave bye. When it rains, I shelter them up the bus so they don't get wet. 

When they get school, it's a short walk from the bus stop. If it rains heavily, they can use their brolly between bus and bus stop. If it's not too heavy, just step off and take the sheltered bridge route to their classroom.

There will be days when Yang would not go to school, e.g. HBL for his level. Then I'll send Yu. 

But I will miss seeing this!

I went through various what-ifs with them on Sunday. More will come, when we eventually let them come home on their own. For now, Sito still fetches them home, coz these two keep talking and talking! 

Last time, Kai would make a beeline for the bus stop, not much talk. So it was ok to let him and Yang go home together from the start of his P4 year. In fact, I let the two go to school on their own in the middle of Kai's P3 year, when Yang was only in P1.

With Kai going to tuition on his own, we bought another SIM card so we could stalk Kai on tuition days, and Yang and Yu daily. Track for this year first... Our kids are growing in independence! :)

Domestic god

If I'm a domestic goddess, Sito must be a domestic god.

When he was working, it was just wiping the dining table after some meals on weekends and the occasional repair - usually the wifi, the washer tap and whacking roaches... In the past year, he has been doing more and more at home.

For our move, he fixed a lot of furniture and cleaned the house with me. After moving, he took on duties for all the window panes and frames while I dust off the grilles. I'm happy coz some windows do not have grilles :p

Wiping the windows from the corridor

He also takes on various repair work, like epoxy on cracked tiles (!), and sealing gaps to seal off insects. Two nights ago, he even dismantled our aircon casing to get to an ant nest! But it was inside so we just killed and cleaned what we could see.

Sealing the last edge of our 5m of kitchen cabinet

On a daily basis, he sets up the dining table and washes the water bottles. While I wake early to prepare the boys for school, he fetches them home, which frees me up to prepare a better lunch for them. When I'm out with friends or sending a kid for tuition, he takes on a simple lunch for the other two.

And the most important of all, he took on kiddy duty, specifically tuition! Kai has improved a lot :) He also sorts out the exam papers to give to the kids regularly. In past years, I only gave them papers during exam time - I think I brought them to the playground more often? :p

It's more difficult to settle the kids' revision now that all three are in formal schooling. So it's great that Sito is here! But it's still two against three so for now, we just let Yu do simple things or even just reading. We'll see how when he gets to P3 when there will be exams...

My domestic god will be taking on more duties in the coming week! Details later... Jia you, my dear!

44

Sei sup sei! (Cantonese)

I have a thing for so-called unlucky numbers :p

Birthdays happen every year. I didn't bother with my birthday past my mid 20s - just needed to have a cake coz as a kid, birthdays were the only time we got a nice whole cake with cream and decoration. 

Then kids arrived, and it's really nice to have them celebrate birthdays!

It is also a reminder of my mortality, to treasure time with my lovely boys, young and old.

After a few weeks of hawker food for our weekly outside breakfast, we checked out Toast Box at the new mall on Saturday. The usual for the kids, mee goreng for me, and cake and barley for Sito. They seem cheaper than Yakun and gosh, I love those local dishes! 

Kids weren't used to having less toast, as this chain doesn't cut each slice of bread in half like Yakun. They also thought Yakun was crispier. Hope to turn them around to Toast Box...

My arm is not long enough to capture my whole face :p

Or, my face is too big? Haha!

They finally got to play with this! Not crowded in the morning, just wet so couldn't sit

As usual, we must go to Swensen's on birthdays. I signed up for their membership which requires Telegram. To my horror, as I learnt later, that my contacts would know I started using Telegram coz they were asked to message me!!

Menu is also very fun to read

Birthday sundae :)

Nothing to do with my birthday but we decided that we would finish up the tang yuan in the freezer on Sunday while the kids had their usual pizza. Sito patiently panfried the little balls. I think the Spring Home brand panfries better than the Fairprice house brand - holds the shape better.

And they come with a packet of crushed peanuts!

Happy birthday to Mama!

Kai must make some funny / weird expression at every photo, sighs... Think he was pinching an invisible double chin here!

As we got the cake slices - pistachio raspberry with a fish on top (LNY!) and yuzu osmanthus - and some Mister Donuts at Bishan on Saturday, we decided to do the cake thing on Sunday instead of Monday after school - eat them fresh!

On Monday, while the kids were in school, Sito and I had a nice breakfast at Makan@Jen. This was our second time there, first time being dinner with the kids. We are sold. They have a wide selection and the food is yummy!

Just us :)

Sito telling me all about croque monsieur

mf: A what?

Sito: Croque monsieur (proceeds to read off Wikipedia)

mf: Oh, ham and cheese sandwich!

My hub really cracks me up sometimes :)

He had to make one!

I'm happy when he's happy :)

Next was shopping! Ah Yee gifted us a Tangs gift card when we moved house. We bought some Corelle serving bowls previously - they have been giving us wonderful steamed dishes! 

This time, we got better tongs and scissors for the kitchen - my old tongs were plastic from Daiso and I hesitated to use them apart from grabbing toaster sandwiches, and my old scissors were "tai lang tai buay si" in my Mother's words! 

Bonus buy - a crossbody bag! I saw the ads for this bag often in the past year but never got down to feeling it. Bags, must feel it before buying. The last bag I bought was in early 2020 just before COVID hit - I passed by the shop n times and eventually went to the shop to feel it three times before buying it! And I just gave it away coz the seams were fraying and the strap was killing my shoulders with prolonged use.

Anyway, I felt the bag and tried it on. Looks easy to clean. I think I can fit all our water bottles or five brollies inside! Sito said he could carry it as well. Recently, he carried a flowery red and white backpack coz our old kiddy backpack broke after the last Legoland trip :p

I continued shopping while Sito went to fetch the kids. Must go to Daiso and check out Uniqlo for kiddy pants.

The kids were heartless though; Kai didn't even give me a birthday greeting *.* But after Papa's reminder, Yang drew me a card. I'm happy :)

Super sweet boy :)

And he has requests, haha!

"paypay" means 陪陪 at bedtime :)

Coming Sunday is 阿嬷家 day and we'll be having dinner downstairs - will post pictures later.

With some luck, this is the midpoint of my life? I must say it has been a charmed life so far, considering everything. Here I go, stepping into a hopefully peaceful second half of my life!

The monster in the mind

There are many scary things in this world - from wide-impact big things like terrorism and war, to personal big things like losing loved ones and daily stability, and to small things like lizards and cockroaches. 

The scariest of all is probably the monster in the mind. Mental illness is one such monster. And then there are those kiddy monsters.

As a kid, I was scared of the "woman with long white hair outside the kitchen window", whom my sister claimed to have seen. I did not but it was difficult for me to go to the toilet via a dark kitchen at night for many years. Watching those HK vampire movies on TV scared me, though I would still watch behind a blanket. But I could sleep.

So while I understand Yu's fear of white faceless masks he saw on TV, I cannot understand why he couldn't sleep.

We started watching 奔跑吧 on the last two days of last year, I think. It was a random episode I picked from YouTube. It was all fine until it got to the "mask room". Yu climbed onto me and held my hands on his eyes. Other parts, he was fine. We finished this episode over two days.

Then, on new year's eve, he woke past 11 pm to tell us he was scared. We let him sleep with us.

On 1 Jan, he came over once Yang was asleep. He couldn't sleep. We let him lie down while we watched drama, thinking we could carry him over later. But in the end, we just let him sleep the whole night there coz really 舍不得他长大...

Soon, I could smell French fries - he was one huge French fry coz he was so sweaty! We don't turn on the aircon in our room much these days, thanks to the cool weather. Later in the night, he kicked Sito and woke me to get water *.*

My sweet baby

The next day, he couldn't sleep again. But we couldn't have him in our bed again as there was school the next day - all of us needed good rest.

It took an hour and some tears before we convinced him to let us push his bed right next to Yang's. Then, he found that Yang was still far away. So we got him to sleep in Yang's bed. Yang was asleep by then and moved a little during the changeover. The next morning, Yang said he wouldn't let Yu sleep with him again.

Very sweet, my boys

We needed a solution.

Since it's a monster in his mind ("it's in my mind, I cannot close my eyes"), I decided to try a mind method.

When Yu came home from his first day of P2, I had him write a note to be brave, read it out and tore up another piece of paper with a drawing of a mask on one side and the word MASK on the other.

He said he was still scared. But he slept in his own bed that night! So proud of him! So proud of myself too haha!

Tearing up the "mask"

Now I wonder if I could do something similar about drinking soup coz he drinks soup by both grandmothers but pukes when he drinks mine! We think it's some psychological barrier as he was coughing once when he had soup and puked after that. 

I couldn't think of a suitable mind method for soup yet though so I may have to change the seasoning first to make it more like the gramps'? Ytd, I made soup again but skipped the dried scallops this time. He tried but he still couldn't take it - had to standby at toilet bowl for a while :( Sighs, hope to sort this out soon so he could enjoy the goodness of a warm bowl of soup!