Last long child care centre closure!

Every year since 2019, the centre has a three-day closure for training in May. With primary school kids, we couldn't go anywhere pre-COVID, much less now. And this year, it had been raining almost daily since March (?!) so I was also in a fix about what to do...

As expected, it rained on Wednesday. We went to Yakun for breakfast, and came back to watch TV (Yu) and do housework (me). It was a pretty normal day otherwise, as I still had to work with Kai on his last paper for mid year exams on Thursday.

We got lucky the next day though. The forecast said rain. The skies said lovely. I decided to trust the skies - had told Yu that I would try to bring him to Bukit Timah Summit one of these three days. He said he wanted to go when I brought Yang and then both Kai and Yang. But now, he was concerned. After some querying, I realised that he was afraid that he would need to climb with hands and feet, you know, 爬山！

He had some milk before we set off while I had a bite of a hotdog bun in case I got dizzy like the second time... We alighted one bus stop earlier *.* but it was a pleasant enough walk. And I could remove my mask! He didn't want to...

Reading signs along the way

The log that looks like a face!

I said the leaves were the eyes and the two yellow dots were 鼻孔 :p Yu said no, the leaves were eyebrows when the man was angry and the dots were eyes coz people must have eyes!

On our way down, Yu found a leave...

... and gave the face a nose! Ok I can agree with Yu now :p

We took the steps to the top and walked down the slope. This time, we walked down this side trail that says "Quarry Road (200m)". Turned out it led to a lookout point overseeing the quarry from high up. But it was mostly blocked by trees.

Yu: What's a quarry?

Mama: I'll show you...

Yu at the top!

Let Yu had the hotdog bun at the visitor centre before we carried on to Hindhede park just off the visitor centre. He saw the arrow to the promised playground but I whisked him off to the other direction first coz I wanted to see the quarry!

So nice!

I remember visiting a quarry in secondary school or so, with Jo. We were kind of standing at an edge overseeing the quarry... Not sure which quarry though!

Look at the roots of the trees next to the quarry!

Ok, let's go to the playground! :p But it was a deserted playground. Few people know about it for one. The structures were also not terribly fun. 

He said it was boring...

But we still played there for quite a while *.* He had fun in a bucket swing - I had to carry him in and out. So heavy! Actually he could barely fit in already. Big boy!

Enjoying his swing!

Prata brunch!

Then we went to cut his hair. He finally agreed to cutting it coz of some reason I didn't catch well. He also said F likes to touch his botak head so I think the latter is a good enough reason coz I also like to sayang his spiky head :p

I had wanted to go for a foot massage but I guess that was not to be with this monkey in tow! In any case, I was so tired! He was still energetic though! 

Pre-swimming lesson

I took the chance to soak in the jacuzzi pool, nice :)

But I also waddled quite a bit with them after the lesson. My legs are very sore now! And worse, my nose is dripping :( Guess it was hot but not hot enough?

On the third day, Yu wanted to bake a butter cake. But I just made that a couple of weeks ago. And Sito wanted cookies so we baked cookies!

Yu helped to measure out the flour and sugar

I had never tried this recipe before so I read out the full recipe. Ended up he wouldn't let me reduce the sugar level!

These are huge cookies!

Mum came over to drop some Swiss rolls, and had a cookie while Yu had lunch. Yu had the same lunch as Wednesday - char siew bun and two sticks of chicken meatballs. 

When the brothers came home, we went to town. Got bigger school tees for Kai but didn't manage to get shoes for him. He has only one pair now coz the other pair broke - very rough use *.*

Made them all bring something for the trip to relieve me

Besides kaypoh-ing Yang, Yu also read a bit on his own, shoes off of course!

These are new shoes we bought before we came home the day before. His shoes broke on Tuesday. He couldn't fit into his two pairs of sneakers. But we found an old pair of sandals that belonged to Kai?? But he kind of scrapped his toe in the playground and it hurt to wear the sandals. In any case, the sandals were cracked on one side. He wanted to keep them but I threw them away later :p

Kai somehow spotted GuGu in Ion!

Kai carrying his baby Yang, who was in the midst of scissors paper stone with Yu, hoho!

XLB time!

And fried rice for Kai who forgot that he liked the yummy noodles too

I gave him some noodles too, since his brothers couldn't finish anyway. And then he couldn't finish his fried rice so I had that, heh! The fried rice is also yummy :)

Decided to bus home but it was a long wait and we couldn't get on that bus. The next bus came pretty soon and we all had seats upstairs, albeit separated until towards the end. Still settled down pretty early though. Happy!

With that, we have only two more centre closure days before Yu leaves kindy!

Let's recycle!

Somehow, Monday is recycling day in our household. Maybe it's because the kids are home a lot more on weekends and drink milk like it's water *.* Every week, we drain three to five 2L cartons of this milk.

Seems that recycling is quite big these days? Keep seeing the CNA green plan on TV. Well, Auntie started when I was a kid in the early 1990s ok, with the "I'm a young environmentalist" badge, woohoo!

Then in my uni days, when I discovered that my lawyer friends printed their cases on only one side of the paper for ease of reference, I took their discarded printouts to use the other side to do my maths tutorials instead of using fresh paper.

In my master's year, I rented a room in a house instead of a college community space, and found that the town council provided free recycling boxes so I wrote in to get one for our kerb side :) And that summer, I was in Germany and found recycling bins everywhere. Back then, they weren't as common in Singapore. I was happy to see more and more of them in the past 10-20 years!

Now, there are those big blue recycling bins in every estate. We used to only bring down cardboards and boxes on an ad hoc basis, and worksheets etc at the end of the school year. After I took over household management when we gave up the helper, I bought a recycling bin. So started our Monday recycling.

Truth be told - I was looking for a rubbish bin coz the old one was really gross... And I found these Hållbar bins in Ikea:

10L rubbish bin stacked on 22L recycling bin

Regular NTUC Fairprice bags can fit into the 10L. I fill one or two bags every day, for a household of two adults and three kids. A rectangular ring holds the bag in place very well - in the past five months, I only had to clean the inside of the bin once coz the kids dump pencil shavings all over such that they fell in when I removed the bag *.* 

I prefer this to our old step pedal. I just leave the lid open the whole time since rubbish gets dumped daily so there's no smell. The stacking seems to help prevent pests - no ants or lizards (!) in our rubbish bins for five months now!

I don't use a bag for the 22L bin because recycled stuff should be dry! I let milk bottles air dry on top (where the rubbish bag sits in the picture above) after rinsing them. This size can fit four 2L milk cartons, with space left for other things like a 10-egg egg tray and trash mail. 

There are two lids for this side - I can slide the milk cartons in through the half lid (hidden by the rubbish bag!) instead of removing the 10L to open the full lid. There's also a handle which makes it easier to carry the box downstairs or just shift it to clean the floor.

I first saw these in white but when I was ready to buy, they had phased out the white. But these grey bins also look very nice! :)

Shall end this with two tips:

1. Pack small stuff together in a bag or old envelop to make it easier to move them from your own bin to the blue recycling bin
2. Look here to learn what can be recycled (and what not!) in Singapore - remember, trash belongs to the green bins, not the blue recycling bins!

Have fun recycling! :)

A more relaxed and spacious April

This is a good month. COVID restrictions have been reduced. We finally ate as a family in the hurt-my-knee coffeeshop - can't remember the last time we did that! Sito went to KL twice and when he came back, there was no need to go do a supervised ART. Legoland is beckoning hoho! But vaccination for kids first...

Looking at taxis outside - he knows what the red and green tops mean now

Went for his first jog!

That was Yang's tee at the 2017 StanChart kids dash. I forgot to register Yu in 2019 until it was too late - no more tickets! And then COVID hit. Poor Yu missed out on his own tee and medal! :(

But this boy is so used to handmedowns that he asked me if he would get Yang's pants - which he likes - when Yang becomes too big :p Yes, I said, and he was so pleased! :)

Check out his hair

He is still refusing to cut his hair! I call it 鸟窝头 and joke that the birds are coming! But nope, he would not cut his hair!

He likes to play with the calculator. Actually, all of them like to take it out to punch in some numbers. I used to do that too haha! So glad to have bought this - so much more tactile satisfaction compared to the calculator app in the phone.

Interrupt cuteness with yumminess

We had a lunch date at Wolfgang's Steakhouse on the Wednesday during Sito's one week in SG this month. Ordered two set lunches - so full! It was all very yummy. I was only disappointed that I didn't manage to eat the cream on Sito's plate - the wait staff cleared it while I was distracted... Ok, save me from the calories....!

We can take off our mask outdoors, woohoo!

Back to the kids :p Coz our life revolve around them now. Laugh or cry? :p

I had wanted to bring the kids to the hawker centre for prata. We hadn't been there since COVID hit! But it was raining so plan B - Macs! They hadn't had Macs breakfast for YEARS so they didn't remember much except that they didn't like the pancakes. 

This time, all of them were very happy: Kai with his sausage and egg McMuffin, Yang with his chicken and egg McMuffin, Yu with his big breakfast less the eggs (which I ate). Of course, they also had hashbrowns and milo. And no, we didn't touch the chilli - why do they give chilli?!

Then they followed me to the supermarket. Kai held the basket while Yang and Yu took turns to place items inside.

Trying to lift the watermelon!

Kai passed me his bag and tried to assess the weight of his brothers' bags instead *.*

We would be out on Easter Sunday so we had our egg hunt on Good Friday! They had been waiting for a few weeks since we bought 10 Kinder Surprise eggs on a weekend out. The recent recall did not affect our eggs, heng!

I wrote riddles on little cards and got them to guess the riddle in order to find their eggs. Each boy got three eggs and a pack of fruit and veggie juice.

Kai's eggs were near the printer, in the laundry basket and in the fridge

Yang found one in the microwave, one behind the dictionary and one in my vanity cabinet

Yu's eggs were behind the Real Pigeons books, under his pillow and in the toaster

All ready to dig in!

Older ones playing chess while youngest did some maths; Mama lepak :p

Time for homework!

This plate with petroleum jelly is hanging at our doorway as I type, trying to attract dust *.*

Cai fan at the coffeeshop

This time, Sito and I left the kids at the playground and went to order food together. No need to keep a close watch on Yu anymore, woohoo! The auntie saw two of us and must have been bewildered that I kept ordering and ordering. Think we had some seven or eight dishes in the end. But all for two pax so it was all good :)

Surprisingly, all we got was a mild "no fried rice?" from Kai. No other complaints from kids! Why, then, do they complain whenever we pack cai fan to eat at home?! They finished quickly enough and went back to the playground for round 2. I wonder if they would eat this fast at home if I promise the playground....?

Kai had oral exams on the third Monday and Tuesday. I went to fetch Yang and we had lunch together. Monday was just Macs downstairs. Tuesday, we went to Beauty World. Yang changed his mind about xiaolongbao when he saw the hawker centre - not what he imagined? Or he was used to XLB in restaurants??

So we went to the cafe at the basement and he decided on the braised chicken leg with rice. He was surprised that it was such a big plate! It was yummy anyway and fed both of us very well. Then we bought him a croissant at the bakery at level 1 and went home.

Wednesday was also an early dismissal day as other levels were still having oral exams. Three of us checked out the new grill downstairs. Ordered a steak for Kai, a bolognese for Yang and a mixed grill for myself. They took most of my meat *.* But I ate quite a bit of Yang's spaghetti. They also exchanged food to try, which is rare! No complaints about saliva :p No picture but good times :)

I was feeling adventurous so decided to bring them to Bishan-AMK Park last Saturday while Sito was away, before dinner at WaiPo's place. Yang and Yu were happy to take the train while Kai wanted me to drive. Turned out that Kai didn't realise the car isn't always here!

Anyway, told them we would take the LRT to change at CCK. Along the way, I told Yang and Yu that we would alight at Woodlands. Yang said we could have taken 960 - he's right! Heh :p 

But as we went further north, we saw darker clouds. I checked and found that the park area was raining already. Sighs, so I said we would go straight to AMK. 

But Yu didn't get this memo. He stepped out when the trained stopped at Woodlands! Yang and I called him back and he ran back, surprised. Explained to him about the rain. So sad. No park.

It was rather early so brought them to AMK Hub in search of a snack. Mango desserts were a no. So we headed to A&W next door. There was a queue of three families in front of us but Yang and Yu wanted to queue. Kai grudgingly queued.

Kai even massaged my back while we were queueing :)

Kai and Yang shared an ice cream waffle while Yu chose onion rings

Wanted to take a shot of Yu's funny expression then Yang decided he wanted in too

The fingers were something to do about Waluigi. Um, whatever. Good that they were very happy with their snack. Kai who wasn't terribly keen on the waffle also thought it was better than expected.

Went around the atrium to look see and bought some nyonya kueh. Then as the rain had stopped, I decided to stick return to our original itinerary and go to the 409 market.

At the bus interchange, Yu said he was tall enough to climb on the railing all by himself :)

Again, Yang must join in the picture! Yu also welcomed him. Love their closeness :)

As we walked through the shops in the market area, I told them how I used to come here to buy things when I was about Kai's age. I led them to the rows with two bakeries which I used to patron. Of course, they were no longer there but there are more bakeries now and some still sell old-school cakes! Yang and Yu chose a box of cake slices for Sunday tea.

Then, we walked to WaiPo's place. Kai was asking why we couldn't take a bus *.* My ears were suffering, as they do every day...!

It was raining before that so we didn't go to the playground but headed straight up. It was still kind of early so they watched TV and chatted with AhYee while I sat in the kitchen as Mother cooked with her one stove and one cast iron wok, stirfried broccoli with himeji mushrooms and prawns, panfried salmon, fried eggs and of course, nuggets! The chicken soup was in the slow cooker and the braised pork cooked earlier in the day was heated up after the dishes were all done. 

Cartoons finished just in time so the boys had dinner at the dining table instead of the coffee table like last time. There was promise of ice cream and chocolate. In the end, Yang decided not to have the ice cream coz he was full. I declined the ice cream for durians instead - happy :)

I love this photo!

Yu was cooling down after dinner. I thought he looked funny with his long hair blown back. As I whipped out my camera, Yang jumped in yet again! 你是抢镜头还是不堪（弟弟）寂寞？？He had a yellow fan in his hand. Very hot meh? I didn't even sweat after the soup *.*

It was difficult to get a taxi that day. While I was on the phone, Kai was asking AhYee to guess riddles, Yang was watching TV and Yu was playing quietly on his own.

So glad to have a child who can play on his own :)

It was almost 8 pm when we got back. Quickly washed their bottles and put in the laundry while they showered and then we were off to bed! All fell asleep pretty quickly - guess they were tired. 

The Sunday that followed was muted; I could only be adventurous once in a weekend :p Only brought them to two new playgrounds nearby - new coz we'd never been there.

Three slides! But Kai didn't want to join in :(

Kai would rather hop into the frame...

Spot Yang?

Jail, they say...

When 26 April came, we were very pleased. Bluetooth can be turned off. We can walk in and out of the mall freely. No more narrow walkways outside Macs - the whole place looks so much more spacious! And less of a fire hazard! And as we approached Yu's school, he was very happy to find the side doors to that mall all open. Finally no need to make a big round to the main door if I want to go Sheng Siong or he needs to pee. When we first took the MRT route to the mall, Yu was very pleased and shouted "oh no need, no more!" (safe entry gantries) before dashing up the escalator.

Old toys brought new joy!

Then I joined them to build higher as there were still a few more blocks left. But it was too filmsy and everything collapsed! They found it fun to watch it collapse too :p

Decided to dine out on Friday. Kai, Yang and I went to fetch Yu and we went to Han's. Think the last time we went there was pre-pandemic! I only asked if they wanted noodles or rice. Then I ordered beef hor fun, HK fried noodles and sweet and sour fish. Turned out the fish came with rice but just as well coz Kai ate a lot of rice while waiting for his brothers to finish!

Finishing up the yummy food! But HK fried noodles are yummier...

Scooping rice bit by bit... It was quite yummy even on its own!

I was sad that they eventually went for Macs ice cream instead of cakes at Han's but ok la, they were very happy

And Papa came home that night! It was a hot Saturday so the laundry was manageable :p And it was a very good day for a swim! The kids were so happy to head for the pool, and even happier that both Sito and I were going in too!

His hair was so long it got swept back - so handsome!

Later, Kai and Yang also made the water sweep their hair back. Sito and I also had kid(s) on our back as we raced in the pool. Oh, I made Yu cry when I made him swim a bit *.* He didn't want to swim! But he could! Sighs... 

Anyway that was the only picture that day coz I was in the pool. Kai decided to carry me towards the end of our session. It was ok until he decided he had to carry me "more" and he lifted me from my knees! I managed a “老公救我！” just before I fell backwards into the water! Thank goodness Sito was near and I was saved! Never mind that the pool was 1.2m deep :p

With my hair wet, I decided to swim a bit. I managed to swim maybe 5m? :p Kai even lent me his goggles. My hamstrings were already sore from waddling through the pool. I think the swimming didn't help. Needed a massage at night and Yang and Yu obliged :)

Dinner was Macs - indeed a happy ending to April! :)