Hungry little boy

From mid August or perhaps earlier, Yang became a hungry little caterpillar boy.

At first, he was hungry at bedtime but decided to go to bed anyway as he had brushed his teeth. But from mid August, he finally decided that he had to eat.

Peanut butter sandwich and milk for supper

Other options are Weetabix, Swiss roll slices and muffins, depending on availability. Once, he had dinner, followed immediately by a muffin and a peanut butter sandwich! And at bedtime, he had a slice of Swiss roll!

Really as if he was going to become a pupa...

I remember Kai eating a lot in P5 as well but it was just three to five (!) packets of three lemon biscuits during tea time. Yang also has two packets of three Oreo biscuits during tea time so he is eating substantially more.

Let's look at growth - 21 June to 1 September:

• Kai: 170cm / 50kg to 171cm / 54.5kg
• Yang: 151cm / 40kg to 153cm / 44.9kg
• Yu: 134cm / 31kg to 135cm / 33.7kg

All of them put on 3-5kg in about two months. Yang put on the most weight. I can’t see where it goes on Kai - perhaps the height. But Yang is visibly meatier despite also growing 1cm. Yu put on weight but not height so Sito said he put on marks instead haha!

So, Yang, when will you become a butterfly? :)

The fun before exam stress

I had wanted to write about the term break but found a lot more photos that hadn't been posted so, let's start from after National Day...

Sito learnt that our fave Japanese BBQ restaurant was closing down by end August so we made a trip there. It happened to be a PSLE oral exam day so Yang and Yu had no school. Kai joined us there directly from school. We had a great time there! 

Thanks for the memories, Kintan!

Our induction hob broke down in August. It started one Friday morning in July, when it suddenly couldn't detect my stainless steel pot I was using for barley water. Called for servicing but cancelled it coz I managed to get it to work. Then this happened on and off. I had to bring out our portable hob for hotpot to cook. Eventually, I could no longer get it to work :(

Called for servicing again. Uncle changed the circuit board for a whooping $390, and told us to keep the shelf below open to better dissipate heat and use pans with flat AND even bottoms, not those with circles. So that Saturday, we made a trip to Ikea to shop for new pans. But we're still using some of our old pans coz there are just no alternatives with even bottoms! I really cannot live without my four-hole egg pan...

We had been talking about going to Ikea at Alexander for some time but never got down to it. Finally, we packed our bags and set off! It was a nice walk to Ikea. Yes, we took the rail corridor and walked all the way!

Kai happened to walk alongside me and we had a good chat about school, his feelings towards school, our thoughts after PSLE results and after we saw how he's thriving in secondary school. It had been a long time since we had such a nice chat :)

We left the rail corridor to take a shorter route along the road to Ikea. The kids saw a black bag at the foot of an overhead bridge and said we should report it! I must say national education in school works. Ads also works btw - they keep telling us about random products haha! Anyway, I reported it on the SG Secure app 👍

The kids enjoyed Ikea as usual. We had an early dinner and walked through all the showrooms. The kids just liked to try everything! Also bumped into Kai's classmate. 

But the lower floor was harder coz no showrooms. We told the kids to stay in a safe spot and play games on Kai's phone. So Sito and I walked on and picked up our shopping. Then I texted Kai to follow the arrows to the next section, where they played games again while we shopped! This happened a few times until we got to the cashier.

Wanted to take a picture of them playing games - squatting! But no chance

Recently they started playing LEGO beyblades again. Made a mess whenever they wanted to "upgrade" their beyblades. Worse, we found broken grout! This contractor already did a lousy job with the grout. So what did not happened back in the old house after months of beyblade, happened here after just days. I must be zen.... Already extracted a promise from them to dismantle once they got Yu's birthday present from the grands - actual beyblades.

Cannot mop!

One day, Yang came home after tuition to say that he wanted to try the coffeeshop near the centre coz it smelled so good when he passed by! And so we went one day.

It was indeed very good! We were spoilt for choice but the boys had the same old - pork cutlet fried rice for Kai and char siew noodles for the brothers. Sito had the JB fried beehoon and I had duck noodles. And I added Indian rojak which was the cheapest I'd ever had!

Nowadays they get to use Kai's phone after dinner outside

Ah, term break coming... But first, Teachers' Day! Kai wrote a google review for his tuition centre 🤔 Yu decided to write cards. I gave him some coloured cards and stickers, and he did a great job making cards for all his teachers! Yang had some "diamonds" in his school locker which he gave his teachers.

Adding the finishing touches

My hub is very funny. He gets lots of food info from his social media feeds. And this time, it was a free burger from Macs. So he went to get it. The boys were very excited to see a burger for afternoon snack! But each had only a quarter, haha! I had some of Sito's - quite yummy! But Yang thought it was spicy...

Let's try a new burger!

On Teachers' Day itself, we met JY and family at Paradise Hotpot at Vivocity! We were the first in the reservations queue, yeah! We went earlier coz we didn't know the exact spot and 10 of us booked three tables - for five, four and one - as there wasn't another table for five. But the staff arranged it for us :)

Fat face in foreground :p

We decided to bring a term break activity forward since we were very near the destination - cycling at West Coast Park! But we passed by the library and the younger ones wanted to go in for a while.

Chinese Dog Man!

Took a train then a bus

Yu can finally ride a bike!

We had been working with Yang on his oral exams in the past week. He shared personal stories during the practices. I overheard "journey of brothers" when he was doing English with Sito. When I asked Sito, he said Kai coined the term when the three of them went cycling further away from us that day. So cute!!

The brothers

Decided to let them wear dark colours when going to AhMa's place coz they tend to drip ice cream on themselves there! All not focusing coz eyes on TV, body slouching etc.

There happened to be a bedsheets day during the term break. Instead of changing it, I decided to get them to change their own bedsheets. But I cut down the work - didn't wipe windows or desks that day, or even the bed frame. Just changed the bedsheets and pushed back the bed. 

These two happily brought their toys to the wash

Kai still has his toys in the cupboard so I don't wash much. He said they're for decoration. I read it as "cannot throw" :p

Last Saturday, we went to Swensen's - yes, again. Sito and I went again on Wednesday to redeem a free main course. We also have free buffet for two which we will redeem after all the exams.

Anyway, we spent enough to get a chance at a human claw machine! One chance so Sito went in. Told him not to grab any soft toys :p So he got chips and vouchers.

Looks like Super Mario!

Also got four tokens for the real claw machines. Kai asked about the chance of grabbing a toy. I gave a random 0.1%. It's really very low! Then he googled some and picked a machine, and voila!

"It's brains!"

The term break ended with the National Inter-school Team Chess Championship. Don't know how that's abbreviated to NST but anyway... Kai put his name down some months ago to form a team with some schoolmates. A parent registered for them. The team (and maybe more) met on Tuesday during the term break to discuss their games. 

Kai played board 2 and scored 4.5/6. The team won some and lost some. But we thought they did pretty well. It was a good experience. Think they're already talking about getting more in next year, as two team mates are sec 2 and wouldn't be playing with them in U14 category.

My not-so-little knight

While Sito was with Kai at Pasir Ris for the chess tournament, I was at Ah Yee's place with the brothers. They just hung out with JiuJiu before lunch. I promised them if they behaved well including eating well, I would let them play their phones after lunch. And so they were occupied while I chatted with relatives.

They ran ahead to the playground as I was packing up. But the playground was quiet... Then I saw Yang waving at me from beyond the playground - they were playing giant chess! Apparently the pieces were quite heavy. I stood there for 20min while they played - so tired coz I was carrying a lot of food! But ok la, they were very pleased :)

Yang won but both were happy :)

And with that, we're in term 4 now. Kai had listening compre and Chinese oral this week, and Yang English and Chinese oral. Kai's written exams will start next week. The brothers will have their starting the week after Kai has his last paper. And then there will be a short break before the primary school written exams, by when Kai would have started his term break.

Very short term. A lot to do. All the best to us all!

A different Legoland trip

So the cars we hired to Legoland all this while were illegal!!! 😱😱😱

Never knew coz so many websites offer such a service, and our usual drivers always showed a document to ICA officers on our way back.

I was very sad when I saw the news in July, and was only somewhat comforted that this happened only after our June trip.

What other options do we have now? 

1) Pure public transport

• Take train to Jurong East
• Ride a CW bus to Tuas link
• After JB immigrations, change to CW7L for Legoland
• Walk to AirBnB
• Repeat coming back

Total cost ~ $5 + $20 + $20 + $5 = $50 two-way

Duration ~ 30min + 1.5h = 2h one way

Way cheaper but troublesome. This had always been an option but we had not considered this in our past trips coz it's just too much work to lug a suitcase, two backpacks and three kids. Just put here for comparison.

2) Cross-border taxis - the legal type

• Book local cross-border taxis to pick us up from home, drop off at Larkin in JB. I found very little info online - Strides has only four-seaters which can take five of us but not enough seatbelts! It would also be a squeeze to put Yu on my lap now...  But main thing is the seatbelts... Having experienced scary taxi drivers, I prefer seatbelts for everyone. So need two taxis.
• Get Grab six-seater to Legoland. 

Total cost ~ $80x2x2 + $30x2 = $380 two-way

Duration ~ 1h + 30min = 1h 30min one way

I explored taking a Malaysian taxi at Ban Ban St to drop us off at the AirBnB directly but (a) that would require us to lug a suitcase to town, and (b) I don't know if I can just pick a Malaysian taxi if the first taxi in line is a local one; some more, probably need two taxis...

Actually, I don't get the cross-border taxis. They are not door-to-door so need to make a local transfer for every ride. Besides the restricted pick-up/drop-off points, the key issue is the size. Four-seaters don't fully serve the needs of larger families, families with young children (I used to bring portable car seats and stroller along on top of suitcase), families with mobility challenges. 

And local transfers. I had thought Grab in Malaysia would be cheaper but ytd, it cost S$30 for us to Grab from CIQ to Legoland and similarly back due to surge pricing! In that case, it doesn't matter where we do the local transfer. 

If we take this route, would need to check the taxis at Larkin - easy to get Singapore taxis? If not, for the return trip, I'd call for Malaysian taxi to pick us up at the AirBnB, drop off at Ban Ban and cab home.

Troublesome too.

3) Partially illegal...!

I checked in with my usual driver contact. Suffice to say they're very gung-ho... He suggested that if we're concerned, we could find our way to JB ourselves and take their door-to-door home. Hmmm... Now with the news all over the place, I cannot claim ignorance hoho!

Driving is not an option for us so it looks like we can do only day trips for now.. Just that the kids prefer an extended stay, and we can't go to the water park on a day trip coz too many things to bring and lug around. 

But day trips are better than no trips, my boys!

And so that was what we did ytd - left home at 8 am, reached CIQ before 10 am, but had to get to a Grab pickup point, and the ride cost S$30 thanks to surge pricing! These cars were just nearby - our ride arrived within a minute...

Kai brought his phone to play along the way

At the playground with memories of potty accidents...

All my loved ones here :)

Made Kai sit up straight and Yu had to strain laugh 😂

On 1 September, my boys measured as follows:

• Kai: 171cm / 54.5kg
• Yang: 153cm / 44.9kg
• Yu: 135cm / 33.7kg

So Yu is a good 40cm shorter. Sometimes when they play, Kai would carry Yu or let Yu sit on him. Sweet to see but it's very scary to see a kid carry a kid precariously!

Yu finally rode the VR roller coaster!

Not a good shot as I screenshot it from a video. Yu said he pretended to be dead coz it was so scary haha!

There's a new Singapore miniland. Thought we could refresh our family shot on Sito's phone lock screen but I didn't bring my tripod stand.

Just the boys then :)

Yang took this photo - well taken, my boy!

It started drizzling during our lunch at Jubilee Nanyang Coffee. But we still managed to take a few rides. Then it suddenly started pouring while the kids were in a sheltered playground. That was our cue to go. But of course must go via Sea Life as they needed to "paint it black" - they filled the colouring room with black fish 😭

It continued to pour so the Grab ride back to the CIQ area remained high. Another S$30. We had wanted to wait it out since it was still early but when the younger boys learnt the cost and were willing to wait despite being bored, Sito decided that the lesson had been learnt and paid the school fees :p Btw, car also arrived within a minute. So many cars, still so ex.

Kai not bored coz phone

Boys were hungry enough so we went for dinner first. Yang has often been hungry these days. At lunch, he had pasta, two half boiled eggs and half portion of kaya butter toast. At dinner, he had two tamago sushi, two unagi sushi (achievement unlocked!) and six tamago maki on top of beef udon. Think he also had some karaage. Kai can always eat. So can Yu though he overdid it again and was still feeling full at lunch today!

Boy with ebi tempura ate too much - again

Did some shopping too, starting with the supermarket at Medini Mall - must always get them candy. So Sito and I got ourselves some chocolate :) Got some buns for breakfast today, and Ming Ang confectionery for our supper after the kids had their dessert at Macs.

The journey home was smooth. The kids got through the auto gates at CIQ easily. The bus to Woodlands checkpoint was surprisingly fast despite the queue extending all the way to the bottom of the escalator coming down from immigrations. This time, Sito and I didn't use QR code at Woodlands as the kids don't have individual ones. 

And unlike last time, we went for the 160/170 queues instead of the 950 queue at Woodlands - so much faster! We reached Kranji MRT in no time and took the train home. They reached home by 9 pm and I followed shortly as I did a quick grocery run - I need eggs at home to feel secure haha!

So tired. Our legs were aching after clocking 17k steps. But it was a nice trip with theme park, shopping and dining all checked. If we couldn't get door-to-door rides to Legoland, we could at least make day trips. 

But I really wish we could have the door-to-door rides again!