37 :)

I turned 37 today :)

... It's a prime number! Oops...

Sito was on leave on 14 Dec and went out on his own as I had a prior appointment. That evening, he asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said, no need to get me anything. Then he told me he got me something already! As he was rocking Yu, he told me to look behind his pants. But I couldn't find anything behind his pyjamas pants. Then he sent me out of the room and dug around himself, baby in arms. When he was ready, I stepped in and saw...

A new diaper bag!

(Yes, I kind of knew when I saw the package!)

I should have looked behind his work pants *.* He said I couldn't exchange it even if I didn't like it coz it was at 50% discount. But I like! This husband of mine, very good at getting - and hiding - presents. I had been using my four-year-old Samantha as a diaper bag for about a week prior to this new bag so I don't have to keep repacking stuff for weekdays for Yu and weekends for three kids. But the faux leather was fraying badly. I didn't mind - I just wrapped the handles with two of those silk ties and decided to keep using it until it 寿终正寝!

My poor Samantha

But my husband decided otherwise so....

Kate with a charm from Samantha

Actually, this is our first diaper bag. The brown Fion bag we've been using is just a normal bag with a huge cavity that I used to bring to work. Think I bought it in 2007/8 - it's leather canvas a la LV and super durable. I was googling for a diaper bag four years ago but I refused to buy one when I saw most priced over $100! So I bought two $3 diaper bag inserts from Qoo10 :p I've only recently dumped the green one coz it broke and started using the pink one.

I think I'll retire the brown bag upon the end of my maternity leave and use only Kate since I'll only need one bag for all three and the brown bag is starting to fray at the edges. Hopefully by then, Yang is also fully potty trained so the bag is really just full of Yu's baby stuff.

So this morning, I told the verbal boys that it's my birthday. I asked Kai to wish me happy birthday - demanding mama! He said NO! Grrrr... But he said I should have a present and he would make me a present. Soon he sang me happy birthday in both English and Mandarin :) As for Yang, he shyly said happy birthday to me :) A short while later, Kai gave me the presents - a jail (?!?!?) and another structure both built from his Lego blocks. He clarified that we were both policemen who guarded the jail - phew!

I didn't ask Yu for anything - perhaps that he would sleep through the night soon?? - but he gave me something yellow..... Yup, he pooped two big ones! Nothing unusual but the first time, I might or might not have got some poop liquid on my brand new Mi Band 2; the second time, I definitely got some poop on it *.*

Our latest gadgets which arrived on Saturday

The bands have got nothing to do with my birthday btw haha!

Today, we implemented the regular Sunday routine, i.e. spending the afternoon at Mum's place. We had cake for tea, courtesy of Ah Yee, and went out for dinner, thanks to Mum. I'm so full now!!

Happy birthday to me? :)

*gasp* I have scary arms which are bigger than Sito's!!!! But my dear husband said I had it pressed against my torso hence... Sobs anyway...

Kai enjoying sweet and sour pork

Yu having his fill while I had mine

And Yang liked almond pudding!

It has been a pretty uneventful birthday. But uneventful is good. There is beauty in the simplicity of life :) Let's see what my 38th year has in store for me!

Yang's school work and potty training progress

Yang brought back a jotter book one day. A jotter book leh!! Gosh, I haven't seen one in years and would have forgotten such an existence if not for this! It was a plain one with lots of his colourful scratches. When I next went to Popular, I happened to chance upon a whole tower of them jotter books - there were plain ones and lined ones with various widths. I lugged back a pack of 10 - from Bedok :p

Yang's jotter book

"It's skeleton!"

X for xylophone - he once took two chopsticks to form an X at dinner time

We practised saying the various colours in Mandarin and English

"蚂蚁"

I like how he names insects in Mandarin. "It's 蜜蜂 - not beeeee!" Um, ok... He had a very good Chinese teacher last year who also doted on him lots. But it's getting more apparent that his language skills are veering towards English, sighs...

On the first day of school this year, we sent him to school wearing underwear instead of diapers. His current Chinese teacher told us to do so as he was not wetting his diapers already. And this morning, he woke with a dry diaper. So happy! That's earlier than Kai. To think that last weekend at home, he was still peeing through his underwear in the day and filling his diaper at night, which sometimes overflows or leaks. We often had to wash his bedsheets and waterproof mattress protector. But potty training can regress so I'm keeping a close watch. Jia you, baby!

School work, strange names and a strange activity

Some of Kai's latest works:

Kai's meatball spaghetti - "fake one", he said, coz they also made a real one on a cookery day

Kai's colouring is so good now!

"These are dry now", Kai referring to the wool threads in his Baa Baa Black Sheep book which he glued on the page himself

Who is Zhneoki?!

And Zhoneaki?! This is a fish, btw...

And a jelly fish

And today, Kai brought this back

Kai and I had a good laugh over his new names but yes, baby, please learn how to spell your name!

Ok, not school work but make a guess what this is?

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I smeared peanut butter on a plate and asked him to tear and fold toilet paper to wipe the peanut butter off, taking care not to get peanut butter on his hand!! Yup, it's to prepare him to wipe his own bum after a poop! Learnt this online.. Killed plenty of trees already...

I think he's wiping himself in school already but we do find poop stains on his underwear sometimes. At home, we use the bidet on him - very clean but we don't let him do that himself as he would spray water all over the place and outside coz the door is left open. Sometimes, he will close it when he pees coz "you must not let others see your private parts"! Not sure why poop is different, haha!

Anyway, hope he gets it soon. Wiping your own arse is undoubtedly a very important skill!

Clearing leave

Sito was on leave the last two weeks of December. We cleared the house - threw, sold on Carousell, gave away on Facebook. We also went out a lot - mainly to eat :p

It has been therapeutic clearing house. Sito couldn't take the mess at the desk and took it upon himself to clean it up. I didn't like the mess too but we just have a lot of things!! So he got a box for temporary stuff, we sold the monitor since no one was using it, and we got N to clean up the various equipment and wires. Now it looks a lot better...

But we didn't stop there. He pulled out the desk and wardrobe drawers too. We sold a pair of sunglasses and old phones. Actually, we have sold only his iPhone 5 which didn't work too well. His Blackberry and my iPhone 3GS are pending collection. It was amazing that people are buying these old phones - I had a huge influx of messages after posting them on Carousell.

Made Sito wear his beng beng chain from his 20s for a pic before it's taken out

We went out for lunch almost every day. We had yummy Korean fried chicken in a butter sauce at Chir Chir in Bugis, Korean BBQ and hotpot at NEX, dim sum, udon, ramen... Didn't manage to do foot reflexology though - no slots for both of us on our two attempts...

Frying udon on the BBQ! And notice the onions? We used them to line the plate so meat didn't burn - trick from fellow diners :p

To remember the time when Yakun did not have eggs!!!

My husband's funny expression posing with Japanese condiments *heart*

With our udon set meals!

Sito also had time to goof around, disturbing Kai by wearing his shirt

Now one half of us is back to reality... But these few days, he was able to come back early enough to play with Kai. He'll be busier next week...

I'll be back to reality only in April. I'm taking all of my 16 weeks of maternity leave and clearing my 2015 and 2016 leave. So happy to have 28 days of leave every year!

Kai's first visit to the dentist

Just read LS's blog and realised I forgot to write about Kai's first visit to the dentist! That was the day before Yu was born. I brought him there on my own while Sito settled Yang before we met up for my Mother's birthday dinner.

Kai saw Sito and me at the dentist two years ago. We decided to go to this dentist near our place instead of our regular one at Clarke Quay as we wanted to bring Kai along for a familiarisation trip. The dentist was very nice to let him sit in and even gave him a little toy. But we didn't like her too much plus she was pretty expensive so we never went back.

Kai was not sure about seeing the dentist at first. But he saw my fillings before so I used them to my advantage - you eat candy, right? So you need to see a dentist :p

I would being Kai to our regular dentist but he told us to just let the kids see a dentist when they hit primary school. So we went to the one at Buona Vista - the one that Yang went to for his knocked in tooth. It's quite a long time from the familiarisation trip though, oops...

Check out the photos below. In fact, view them very carefully - it's a pain to scroll back this far to dig these out of Google Photos!! :p Reminder to self to be up to date on my kiddy updates...

He sat down and opened his mouth immediately while staring at a cartoon on the ceiling

Playing with his toy while the dentist prepared...

The dentist used a camera to look at all his teeth before cleaning them. Before polishing his teeth, she showed him the polish and ran it a little on his finger to let him know what it might feel like on his teeth - I thought that was nice! Still, at one point, he was a little shocked and jerked a little. We calmed him down with words and he stayed still...

But he was still a little cautious as he curled his body...

All done! (Forgive the saliva!)

His next visit was supposed to be in six months but I think once a year is enough - he brushes his teeth three times a day on weekdays, after breakfast, after lunch and after dinner!

Yang started brushing teeth earlier than Kai and he had already been to the dentist so we would probably bring him for his first polishing with Kai at the end of this year. Hope the boys would have a better dental experience than me - I was never pleased to see the dentist in school!

Long festive weekends

Well, to be honest, long weekends (and even normal short ones) have long ceased to be a relaxing time. I mean, it's full-time child care!!! But they aren't without joy and cuteness...

Christmas weekend

All dressed up for party in school on Friday!

Kai didn't want to take this photo but his mama is very trigger happy so JUST DO IT! :p I didn't realise it but Na observed that Kai and Yang had expressions just like Sito and me respectively!

There was no school on Saturday as it was a scheduled closure. I don't know how but we managed to survive the morning! It was probably a very heavy dose of TV.... After nap time, we headed out to an indoor playground in Centrepoint. It cost $20 each after festive discounts - quite ex considering that it was such a small playground but the two big boys enjoyed it! Or rather, they enjoyed one small section of it - the fake sandpit. They were there for more than an hour!

"I'm like an excavator!"

Kai poured sand all over himself!

He also poured sand out of the pit. I made him scoop most of it back. And on this, the one staff in the playground was a really black-faced girl. I completely understand it must be a pain to have these kids scattering sand out of the sandpit as she had to scoop or sweep them back in. But hello, you're working in a playground... Missed the Happy Willow near us where the staff were always cheerful but they have ceased operations.

Dinner was at Aston. We ordered three mains for the adults as we thought the kids were unlikely to make the kid's meal worth it. In any case, there was a salad buffet bar, oops... I gave Kai and Yang part of my fried fish and french fries. They were very happily dipping stuff into ketchup...

That was either a french fry or an onion ring...

Yang's big bowl of ice cream! But he had only a few bites.

Kai wanted to me to take a pic of him saying so cold so cold so COLD!

This Yang was running all over the place! Had a hard time grabbing on to him when N had to go to the toilet. Once, I even grabbed a ear to stop him from dashing off into nowhere! As it was raining and we had no umbrella, we took the train back instead. Thankfully, the boys were sitting quite still in the train - no monkey bar, no running the length of the train, phew! But we still had to brave a little bit of rain downstairs...

And finally, Christmas Day! Kai and Yang had been eyeing their presents for two weeks! But Kai had earlier said they would open their presents at 10 am, so they had to have just that little bit more patience in the morning...

Three big ones from us and two small ones from school gift exchange

The Sito boys watching cartoons as per normal on a Sunday morning

Kai was so happy with his present!

So was Yang!

Dismantling Tobot D with the school present - sticker and watercolours - opened beside them

Fiddling with Tobot Y with school present - penguin - in front of him

Yu has no present but he gave me one - an ear mark! :p

Sito had a wedding lunch but he helped to pack lunch before leaving. Mum they all were away on holiday so it was me and N against three kids in the afternoon but we survived - N took Yang and I took Yu and Kai who napped in our bed. Time went by in a blur and we called it a day!

Monday was a public holiday - gosh... And it turned out to be a TV fest for the older kids. In between, they played with their new toys and baby brother.

The bolster is longer than baby didi!

"Tobot D is a baby..."

Yang ignored his Tobot Y and played with available toys and even cabinet trays

As mentioned in an earlier post, Kai napped in our bed again, but with Papa. I propped Yu up against the sofa, placed my arm across and chatted with him randomly. But I was so tired and dozed off at some point only to wake up suddenly - glad to find my baby still safely on the sofa!!

Sito and N took the bigger boys to the playground at 4 pm. They were supposed to be gone for about 30 minutes but they came back nearer to 5 pm. The moment the boys saw me, they shouted that they had 马蹄水!

Sweaty and enjoying their shared cup of goodness

At the end of the day and weekend, Sito and I rewarded ourselves with a Magnum - we've survived!!

New Year weekend

Ok, the second consecutive long weekend... Breathe...

With the older boys safely in school on Saturday, I went out to catch up with CY and buy stuff for their tea time. They were having lunch when I came back. And after their nap, we had cake before heading to CW's place.

Yu fell asleep in the car

Kai claimed he forgot about V whom he last met in May but he was excited about the trip coz he wanted to know who was taller. Eventually we didn't make them stand side by side. I told him to eat and sleep well consistently if he wanted to grow tall.

Happy dinner time with his found-again friend

It was a good dinner - we were impressed with their helper who can cook! I didn't mention earlier but ours cannot cook well unless I give specific instructions. Anyway... Yu cried a lot on the way back; probably tired but couldn't doze off. Yang fell asleep. Even Kai was sleepy. We put Yang straight to bed but he woke as N started to change his diaper so we showered him. Luckily, he went down quite quickly despite the wash. On the other hand, Kai wanted to play after showering! But it was way past his bedtime so there was a lot of crying as we sent him to bed..

Sunday morning was fun. I even managed to join them in a sword fight using toy golf clubs! Of course I always lost *.* Then there were the usual cartoons. Lunch was a simple porridge and then Sito was off to another wedding...

mf: Who gets married on such days??
Na: Apparently you know them all!
mf: Not me. Sito!

Kai teaching Yang how to build the big robot

Mum came back so we headed out for dinner together at the usual Chinese restaurant at J Cube. On the way back, I suddenly felt claustrophobic between Jurong and Clementi - I had never felt that before! It was worse than being on a full flight. I could hardly move. One leg was super numb. I felt like, if there were an accident, I wouldn't fly but it also would not be easy to pull me out! Fear gripped me and I had to use my hands to push against the sides of the car to lift my butt up so that I could shift my weight to the other leg to relieve the numb one. Yu's crying distracted me a little, thankfully...

Looking up from the car seat - my baby! :)

It's "Sunday protocol" today. It felt like Sunday minus the regular cartoons on Sunday! The kids were not too impressed... And unlike the previous Monday, there was no Thomas on TV. So they played toys. We had wanted to get them to open the last wrapped present - a Tritan! - today but since they would be getting holiday toys this afternoon, we decided to hold the present until later... So they were playing the big robot and their swords etc. I also bought The Cat in the Hat for them to read on the iPad - it was US$2.99 well spent!

The boys were fighting over the toy polar bear on Sunday. It was supposed to be Yang's but he was too young so Kai took it :p Since it's been imprinted, I diverted Yang's attention to another white toy of similar size - the little sheep. Then today, he brought out the big sheep and the little sheep and started playing mummy and baby with them - it was so cute!!! I had wanted to throw the mummy away coz it was getting not so white but now I couldn't bear to..

"Who is bigger/taller? Baby meh meh! No, Mummy meh meh!"

We spent the afternoon at Mum's place. I spent some time chatting with Kai and Yang while watching TV with them. Yu was somewhere :p It was a manageable long weekend. I didn't feel the need to eat ice cream tonight haha!

Well, another long festive weekend over Lunar New Year - good luck!