Best of April :p

Started this post at the beginning of April but there's no specific theme to it. So maybe I'll do monthly posts of our dailies.

April started with Easter weekend. But less known is 清明节 which also fell on that weekend this year. Due to COVID-19, there was no extended family gathering again :(

Yu had a nice celebration in school

This is becoming a thing - going to Yakun and playing games, in PJs no less!

That morning, I came back to fix our new drying rack. Kai and Yang helped a bit by fetching rods and holding them in place while I hammered them in with my hand. I felt some pain in my hand after a while - think I burst a vein in my right thumb and bruised the base of same thumb *.*

Sito came out of the shower just as I was preparing to fix the wheels so one on each wheel!

We've been using it so much that I now find it surprising that we got it only in April! Also goes to show how much I personally use it, even though I have a helper....

New game of sticks - love it when they play nicely together

Check out their cuteness and matching shirts!

The baby also wanted to climb everywhere now

I wrote him a note to congratulate him for not coming to my bed at night three nights in a row!

But he came in every night after that *.* Usually, he slept through on Friday nights - maybe coz it's the first night with his brothers after the last weekend? Awww... 

Kai stopped coming in at 3yo; Yang maybe 4yo. But this baby does not need to give way to a younger sibling so he's still coming in some nights... Sometimes, I woke in the middle of the night to find him nestled close to me and my arm wrapped around him. How, I don't know! :p

Yang got 5/5 for his second spelling test!

His first test got me worried. He got 1/5 during practices and he could spell a word correctly and then wrongly the next time. By the morning of the actual test, he finally passed: 3/5 while on the bus! I was pleasantly surprised to hear that he got 4/5 in the end. 

Of course, Kai was very yaya papaya about it coz he got full marks almost every time the past two years :p

The second time, I was busy with Kai so got Sito to teach Yang instead as we were on leave to settle remortgage that day. And Yang learnt quickly! Sighs, I'm not a good teacher :(

Anyway, I was worried coz when he reads, he tends to just read some words wrongly, e.g. the/a and in/on. I wondered if he was dyslexic. But then again, he did pretty well for his Chinese spelling which has both Chinese characters and hanyu pinyin. His hanyu pinyin didn't start out too well but now I think he's getting the hang of it. And if he can do hanyu pinyin, surely he can do spelling?!

Ah well, maybe he's too relaxed. He told me he 被罚站 in Chinese class coz he was sloughed over his desk *.* And he tends to do that at home too, when reading or even writing! Have to nag at him to sit up straight...

Anyway, one month on, I think he's getting better, can learn the words more quickly now. I even did a whole round of phonics with him this week. Hope it can help...

Yang writes me love letters, many many love letters, sometimes with envelopes :)

Poor Sito had to sleep on my legs coz no space on the sofa at Mum's place, hoho!

Came out of the bathroom to find this sweet scene!!! :)))

Don't know what they were looking at :p

I thought this is cute!

Was leave 22 Apr, came home at 7.30 am after sending Kai and Yang to find Yu still sleeping and in my bed!

Sito forgot to set his alarm that morning so he was sleeping too :p I happily took photos before waking them up. Was nice to spend some time having breakfast with Yu. Also showed him pictures of his ultrasounds and videos of Yang and him moving in my belly!

Enjoying a meatloaf muffin

I'm very frustrated at dinner time coz Yang eats very slowly! I get him and Kai to start at 5.30 pm while I'm fetching Yu. But he would still be eating after Yu has pooped and showered and finished his food! So I now send him to eat on his own in the kitchen. He can join us at the dining table for fruits when he's done with dinner. If he wants to eat slowly, I'll clear when it's bedtime. So far, he has been able to finish by 6.45 pm-ish - faster than before!

"Handsome booooy!"

Only short of Kai - don't know where he was while these two were playing with my phone...

All of them wanted Papa to carry them!!!

The younger ones first - both look so big already!

Gosh, this one is even bigger!

Do re mi watching people play Pokemon - so interesting meh?

儿子的背影 :)

So after the helper incident on Wednesday, I had A send Kai and Yang while I sent Yu on Thursday. Yang wasn't too happy coz he wanted me to be with him :( Since I was on leave (emptied out a whole cabinet to put school supplies!), I went to fetch them :)

And since I fetched them, we ate outside :p

That day, I also dug out a Superman cape. I thought Sito bought this while Kai was young but the tag said Six Flags - gosh, that would have been Evanston?!

Yang was halfway through wearing clothes and decided to be a Superboy

Kai is also a Superboy!

Yu hasn't discovered the cape yet else he's also a Superboy! Ok he just came to me and I sent him to find the cape :p

Another water issue!!!

Found this post in draft in early 2022... Decided to continue writing and date this in 2021:

Saturday, 2 Jan

After a whole day and night of light rain, I walked into the kids room in the morning to find the floor kind of damp. I thought it was moisturiser from my feet last night but nope - I found wet floor at the corner AGAIN!

Two years ago, the water went all the way to the matters just a metre from the wardrobe after heavy rains. This time, it was thankfully about a metre from the window. The issue was also at the corner, not along the longer length of the windows which was fixed only last year.

Water seeped up from under the parquet seams, hence the lines

I was so upset about it. I ended up googling the fengshui about this, haha! So turned out that while leaks are bad, water coming into the house is good... Some consolation!!!

Tuesday, 5 Jan

I was busy on the first day of school and forgot about it until the end of the day when I bumped into a neighbour who saw my post on Facebook about the issue. I realised I didn't get a reply on my email on the issue. He reminded me to go to the management office. So I went on Tuesday. Turned out that their email system was down!! Anyway, the manager wrote down my unit number on a board with many unit numbers *.*

Thankfully, it hasn't been raining much since Saturday!

Sunday, 10 Jan

So it rained the whole night. When I went into the room, I found more leaks and had to check every 10-30 min depending on how heavy the rain was. This time, the water came in from the window sill - four corners were affected.

A puddle!!!

The worst corner

Even the far corner - the curtain was damp at the bottom when I discovered it

The original corner - I killed many trees today

I stopped writing at this point in Jan 2021. Below are based on photo records.

Monday, 11 Jan

Contractors came to inspect the leak. Eventually they fixed things and even alerted to me that water had been leaking along the decal wall! Luckily it went away after they fixed the leak.

Apr 2021

Fast forward a few months. I discovered water spluttering into the same room - this time from both windows! Somehow, the seal was not tight. We opened and closed the windows a couple of times until water stopped coming in but the whole place was already very wet. It was a nightmare!

The contractors came to fix it but accidentally broke a window pane *.* But they managed to fix it in the end. 

A canvas over the hole

I am still paranoid about leaks. Must check whenever it rains :(

Milestone for Kai and Yang

Following the helper incident, I walked Kai and Yang to the bus stop this morning, and waited for them to board the bus before going home. First time going to school on their own! Big boys! :))))

We went through many what-if scenarios - what if there's a jam on the way (just stay on the bus), what is it starts to rain and the bus is super slow (just stay on the bus), what if you miss the bus stoo (walk back; Kai and I did this before). As I type, I realise I have a couple more - what if it is pouring when it's time to alight, what if the bus breaks down etc... Will talk to them more...

So anyway, I told helper last night that I would send the kids today. I didn't say to the bus stop. When I got back, the door was closed! By right, it should be open - we leave it open the whole day. I went in quietly and found that Yu just started on his breakfast - he woke late today, maybe coz he slept quite late last night. So I guess that usually she closed the door and left him alone when he woke early. Poor boy.

Yu and I played robots and tic-tac-toe etc for a while before I sent him to school. He's such a sweet boy :)

I was very busy with work. But back of my mind was - gosh, I hope they got to school alright! I suppose no news from teachers means good news? :p So it was with relief that I welcome them home! Still had helper fetch them coz they need to cross the road near their school... But of course, I had to hurry them to wash up and eat while I finished up work. I only finished when they were done with their afternoon snack :(

Yang had homework and then we started drawing! I happened to buy plain drawing paper of a good size - not too big or small - last week so Kai used that while Yang opened up his art class book.

Teacher is online!

Kai's Minecraft spider has little skulls on the face *.*

Yang's spider looks fierce!

Yang continued to draw another Minecraft thing while Kai made boomerangs

And now, they're playing Nintendo coz it's raining so no playground. I should go pick Yu early and have an early Friday :)

Child care centre, not helper!

Yu has been waking up early in the past couple of weeks. It coincided with Ramadan so I suspect he saw light in the early morning and thought it was time to wake.

On Tuesday, he woke before 6 am and didn't go back to bed. He was ready for school by the time Kai, Yang and I left at 6.30 am. I told helper to bring him down in 20 min since the school opens only at 7.00 am. But he checked into child care only at 7.40 am. The same thing happened on Wednesday and I remembered to ask helper when she came back - how come he was ready at 6.30 am but only got to school at 7.40 am? She just smiled and walked into the kitchen with groceries.

??

Maybe she didn't understand? There were many things that she didn't do as I asked... So I decided to ask Yu in the evening.

mf: You were carrying your bag when I left with your brothers. How come you didn't leave until much later?

Yu: *a little coy* Kakak sleeping.

mf: Huh? Then where were you? What were you doing?

Yu: *super coy* I don't know.... You'll scold me!

mf: I won't scold you. I just want to make sure you're safe. Just tell me, please?

Yu: I play game on Kakak's phone...

Wa, I was livid. I don't mind if she wants to sleep. There's time to nap in my household. But to give Yu her phone to play some game that Yu couldn't even describe, I was very pissed! I don't even let them play known games on their own phones!

I confronted her and demanded to see the game. She immediately said she had deleted the game. Of course I didn't believe it but no point pushing it. I told her no more such thing. Just go straight to school. I told her I know exactly when the kid reached school coz the check-in photos get sent to my phone.

Immediately, I told Sito. Sito worried if she had scolded or hit Yu before. I asked Yu - thankfully, no. I also checked with Yang whether she let him play games on her phone last year. He said no. With previous helper, they got to school at about 7-7.10 am except on the rare occasions when one or both kid slept in or decided to nua in bed. With this helper, timing suddenly became consistently 7.40 am onwards. I thought she was just slow. But maybe she has been sleeping in all this while but last year, Yang and Yu could play together so there was no need to give them a gadget. 

I also told JY who said she would sack her immediately. I wanted to. But I'm still working. Sito is in Malaysia. Agent - I also messaged him - said it would take a month nowadays to get a helper. I'm very much stuck.

Our original plan is to keep her until March or April when I quit (after PB! :p) if she is ok to stay. If she wants to take home leave at the end of the two years this December, we would just terminate. We could get a part-timer in for a few months before I take over the household full-time. It looks like no point changing at this moment too. 

So I decided on a 权宜之计 - let her send Kai and Yang while I send Yu. Very safe. 

But Yang wasn't very pleased. He said he doesn't like kakak. I think he felt that I was ditching him for Yu :( I had to remind him that on Tuesday, I was already discussing with them about whether they could go to school on their own. Both could. But Yang said cheekily that they would fight on the bus! So no go. But I never saw them fight - just chatting or quietly sitting there. Anyway, this thing came about and I had to transit quickly instead of gradually.

So this morning, helper sent Kai and Yang while I sent Yu. But when Yang was changing, he told me that he wanted to go to school on his own tomorrow morning. Ok! Will go through details with them later today.

Yu was ready by 6.30 am again but he knew I was home so he didn't hurry to get his bag. He brought out toys and an activity booklet. I prepared bread and butter pudding (need to modify recipe) while he was drawing on the booklet. Then we played toys a bit before going to school. 

He wanted me to take pictures :)

On retrospect, I'm so grateful for that piece of work on institutional child care back in 2007-2008, which made me decide to send kids to infant care rather than hand over to a helper. More ex, more viruses, but so much peace of mind with more eyes on the kid and fellow carers, social interaction with other kids and general immunity by primary school! :p

TCM for nose, round 2

Back in September 2009, a colleague recommended her TCM to me for gastric problems. I ended up seeing her for my allergy. By our wedding in December that year, I was off nasal spray and did little to manage my allergy.

Then Evanston happened and my nose didn't take well to the cold. Then kid and I couldn't go back to the nasal spray. I only restarted the nasal spray in December 2018 after a particularly nasty bout of allergy/cold. Then this happened so I decided to go back to TCM to 治根 instead of relying on nasal spray forever.

My first appointment was on 8 April. I had reduced the dose of my nasal spray for a couple of weeks by then and I was suffering quite a bit just before my appointment so I was really looking forward to it. The medicine seemed a little different - spicy and taken only once in the morning instead of morning and evening. 

For the first week, I was sweating at night despite the aircon. In the second week, my symptoms got worse. I think the nasal spray had totally left my system. Sometimes I couldn't sneeze. Sometimes I sneezed madly. Early morning and late evening onwards, my nose dripped madly and was badly blocked. The rest of the day was manageable. 

I had my second appointment yesterday. Did acupuncture. I lost count but I think there were around 20 needles all over me - head, belly, limbs. I tried to stay awake but of course I dozed off! Thankfully, I woke in the same position :p Last night, I didn't drip as badly. But I'm still drippy now. The medicine seemed a little different. 

It is early days. I think it might take another month or so to feel significantly better as I'm probably still suffering from withdrawal of the nasal spray. I must persevere!

Excursion to the Science Centre

We haven't used our rediscover vouchers. Yang had been saying he wanted to go to the Science Centre with his brothers so ok, let's go! But turned out that we could get only packages using the vouchers so we ended up buying just the regular tickets without using the vouchers... Anyway, it's only $24 for five of us, way cheaper than cable car or flyer or zoo.

Watching our home choo choo away at the back of the LRT

We left past 1 pm coz of Nintendo, but the train route turned out to be quite fast so we arrived just past 2 pm and could maximise our 3-hour slot there! And this was despite various distractions along the walk from the train station - ice cream man, playground and an outdoor fountain near the Science Centre which reminded me of the time when Yu fell into the water at our staycation in November; he was wearing the same shirt that day!

Yang started his tour guide duty here

He was excited to have spotted this "hypnotising circle"!

Yang had many photos here - his third time now!

Yu could barely peek through

I later saw him tiptoe :p

Yummy Kai begging not to be eaten?!

The giant chair illusion didn't work well for three kids...

Can see Yang walk into the ghost pianist room :p

Let's flush in!

Of course the kids dashed ahead. They never stopped to read anything. I wanted to examine some poo poo but had to go after them, heh :p

King of poo poo coz he's always using “大便” during our Chinese revision *.*

King of no 大便 coz he's always constipated... But he did a big one that evening, woohoo!

Simply, king of 大便 coz he can go all the time and takes his own sweet time!

They spent some time at this game

Oh, oops - that's me :p

Kai and Yang managed to reach a cylinder together by adjusting the length of ropes in their hands!

Creating things for the wind table

Kai did a random one, followed by a really good one after spotting a sample :)

Yu wasn't pleased when told that the tape holder would not fly..!

Mirror maze!

I was wondering how Yang could spend almost the whole day there before COVID-19 shortened each slot to only three hours. But the place is huge. And you can play one thing repeatedly, like the mirror maze and the cannon ball. We also spent time experiencing earthquakes, shooting cannon balls, playing with sand and other random things. By the time we left, we hadn't even gone to the second floor!

And we left just before 5 pm coz the kids were hungry. We had our usual porridge for lunch, and the snack I brought turned out to be quite tiny. We still took time to reach the exit coz too many distractions inside :p

Bear bear family says bye to the Science Centre!

Dinner was Astons coz the boys kept asking for "seared gourmet steak", no thanks to Zelda!! Kai said he has many of those in Zelda. Come, boy - time for some real meat instead of virtual!

The last time we went to Jurong East, we also had Astons but this time, we got a seat by the ice rink, yeah! They didn't spend as much time looking at people iceskating though.

We ordered a medium ribeye among others. Kai liked it. Yu had some but his main was half a burger. Yang didn't like it and ate Sito's fries and sausages coz his pasta was late; still had quite a bit of pasta coz hungry! I had a mix of steak - Sito's NY strip and the tougher parts from the ribeye, haha! - and leftover burger. Yup, mum's life :p

The kids wanted ice cream so we got a hot fudge sundae from Macs and a chocolate block in a cup from the ice cream man outside. I got a bag of roasted chestnuts too - so yummy!

My chestnut and me :p

This time, Yu seemed to need less supervision at this playground - 又长大了！ We just stood nearby and made sure they were all sighted. We left after getting some bubble tea. This time, we took the train instead of taxi, and it was really quite fast!

The kids were tired by then and all were knocked out by 9 pm, yeah! We had supper - noodles and chestnuts - and two cups of bubble tea :)

$5.50 in all, cheaper than a large Koi! And there was a free third cup thanks to a voucher.

It's so good to do something together like this, different from our usual playground and dinner routine now that Sito's Saturday work is less frequent. Now I'm thinking what we can do next weekend :)

They made me smile :)

Two things made me happy yesterday.

After dropping a spoonful of chilli onto my noodles, I wanted to dig for a piece of green chilli. Then I caught a look from Sito, who was sitting across from me. We had an agreement that he would watch my chilli intake coz I almost always ended Sundays at Mum's place with a stomachache. I was thinking green chilli would not be so bad...? I guiltily covered the chilli jug anyway.

Later, I really had a bad stomachache before we went home. Could have been worse if I had had more chilli. Thank goodness for Sito!

We went home later than usual coz we started dinner later and Yu had to poop during his dinner. It was 8.25 pm by the time we got in bed. I had Kai and Yang down quickly, and went to settle Yu. He pulled his blanket around himself and stared into space for a while, making this cute little face with his upper lip pulling over his upper teeth - probably itchy nose. Then, he blinked a few times. And he was out. 

I lay right next to him watching him fall asleep. It was a most beautiful sight. Couldn't help but give him a few kisses before leaving his room...

Yup, these two :)

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...