May days!

Why is 1 May called May Day? There are 31 days in May, no? :p

But naming this post May Days seems to have been a jinx coz this 五月还真是要命啊！

May Day hero - he saw photos of his brothers wearing it so he wanted it too

That was the first weekend after Sito left for KL. I didn't need to think about what to do coz lunch was out with the grands and they chose dinner - guess what? :p

Poor boy wanted to get out of his car seat - NOOOO!

They devoured this very quickly - proteins settled!

Running happily outside Capitol after lunch

There's a B6 in that building!

Came home to video call Papa :)

Macs (yes, our dinner :p) gave each of them an activity card - Kai was the first to present me with a bouquet for Mothers' Day :)

Second to done coz I helped :p

And my third bouquet :)

Gave them coins for kiddy rides too

All interested in Kai's online learning!

It was a short first week of May for me. Monday was school holiday, thanks to May Day falling on a Saturday. We went to Bouncy Paradise again and ate at Tenderbest next door again. This time, no one had to go toilet halfway, phew! And we stayed all the way until they told us to leave. I also bought onion rings coz the boys didn't have much breakfast. Only Kai and Yu ate though.

While waiting for the starting time - surprised they didn't ask for ice cream!

Yu wanted me to play the slides with him. I tried that last time and it was pretty fast for my weight! I told him I'd wait at the bottom. But he said he was brave, so I must be brave like him! Ok.... He went down first but I couldn't! So he came back to coax me down...

Yu waiting for me :)

I took leave on Wednesday for TCM in the morning and lunch with (ex-) colleagues. Wanted to buy some fruits and PJs from TPY central but forgot after getting some bakery stuff :p

Friday was half day for Yu. I don't know what came over me but I decided to fetch him AND his brothers! Very cute, very sweet but also very messy! 

A picture in front of his future school

The brothers crowded around him when they saw us. Think it was just novelty...

They held hands! They haven't done so for ages!

Kai must show Yu his paper weapons on the train

Tea time was prata!

Can't remember who needed to poop but I let Kai and Yu into the building first as Yang was still eating. I called home to alert A but no one picked up. As I walked back to Yang, I saw A ambling up the path and looking surprised at Yang sitting alone at the prata place. I quickly waved her to go up after the other two. Really cannot understand why she chose the time we were expected home to go NTUC.....

Yu came home with a Mothers' Day card for me :)

Now Yu can climb!

Last Saturday, I brought them to Ichiban on my own. They decided to draw when they hadn't done so for a while coz Papa entertained them with games on his phone.... This time, their sushi came quite late so they had it after their udon - no complaints about not being able to finish udon, yeah! 

Drawing while waiting for food

Mothers' Day cake! But that was Sito's SHN food, haha!

On Saturday night, I told the boys that the next day would be special. Before I could continue, one of them said, "I know! It's Mothers' Day!" Actually, I was going to say that AhMa was coming to fetch us to her place...  When the next day came about, no one remembered what day it was, hoho! 

Kai and Yang examining a new LEGO guitar and the accompanying app

After playing Monopoly on Hari Raya Puasa, they didn't have enough of it. We opened up the game twice on Saturday. They even skipped their usual morning TV!

Why can't they sit still?!

It was the last day of dining out. Somehow, Yu thought of xiao long bao - the little dragon... What's bao?? :p But there is no xlb nearby - I checked CCK and Woodlands too, sighs. Better limit exposure. So we decided to stay in BP.

I was concerned about people rushing to dine out for the last time and I was right. We left the playground in time to reach Ichiban at 515 pm but there were no seats for 30-45 min! Sighs... So we settled for our second fave - 18 Chefs. Kai had steak - his fave now! Yang and Yu shared a bolognese as usual while I had fish and chips and was reminded that their fish was quite tasteless... 

I didn't realise how bright they looked until we were at the playground :p

Yang just done catching his breath while playing catching with his brothers and three other boys

Went back to the playground on Sunday. Noticed that the coffeeshop tables and chairs were all stacked up. No more dining in!!! :( I left a pot of pasta to cook itself in the sauce in the covered Le Creuset, fire off, so we went back for dinner. While they showered, I piled the pasta with cheese and gave it a quick grill to melt and brown it. 

Less bright on Sunday and no catching

Kept Yu home on Monday and Tuesday for a cough. I managed to find xlb in NTUC, thanks to HL's recommendation! So we had that for lunch on Tuesday. 

Must suck out the soup first :p

And then, HBL hit. I was lucky to be on leave for Yu's scheduled child care centre closure. I didn't manage to bake muffins in the first morning as planned coz was busy with HBL. But managed to do so in the afternoon so that settled our breakfast and tea break for two to three days!

Gave him HBL too on Thursday

Plenty of patterns

I'm so tired....

In the end, he chose to just watch TV *.* I let him do so in my room to avoid distracting Yang who was doing his HBL at my desk.

They spent considerable time reading Dog Man on Thursday, narrated (somewhat) by Kai

I made a chocolate fudge cake on Friday for tea!

Yu decided to make cards for the family on Friday

Left to right: Mama, Kai, Papa - I coloured the hearts and background

Left to right: Mama, Yang, Papa - I coloured the background

Left to right: Mama, Yu, Papa - Yu drew the hearts

Left to right: Mama and Papa - I chose green for my clothes and coloured the background; Yang coloured my clothes

Yu tried to present his card to his brothers but was sadly rejected! :( Kai didn't like all the purple - so girly! Yang didn't like his picture - is a baby! Yu was very sad and almost crying :( I told him I love the cards and would keep them forever! We also sent them to Papa. Yu asked in a voice message whether he liked his drawing. Papa said yes :)

That's Papa and Mama on our kimchi ramen date night :)

And Yu learnt to write his Chinese name by tracing but he refused to write without tracing

Playing kuti kuti early in the morning

After wholesome wanton noodles for dinner on Saturday, we switched to Macs on Sunday. These kids finished Macs in 15 min flat, vs. 1-2 hours for regular rice dishes on weekdays!

So Kai and Yang had time to play Monopoly while Yu played aeroplane chess on his own next to them

The second week of HBL seemed to zoom by. Then Sito was home!! I was sorting out the kitchen cabinets while the kids were playing Nintendo when I heard a crisp "hey boys!" :)

Yang wanted a wefie while resting on me after hurting two toes on the door when playing hide-and-seek

The boys were happy to have Papa in the pool with them :)

And to watch him play games!

Got them to sit down for Pictionary - they were telling Yu the word to draw while I - the team mate - stayed away

Papa took a break from work on Sunday afternoon to partner Yu

Yu guessed it correctly - ghost!

Yu is really good at guessing. He got my bear even before I finished with an outline of a bear head. Sito can draw better and Yu guessed his baby and candle (after saying wax for a long time!) too.

Steamboat to end May!

Oh oops, one more day to go. 

I remember I stopped sending the three of them to child care on Saturdays before Kai went to primary school, coz I thought Yang and Yu would not go when Kai left child care. I did not foresee the even greater difficulty of getting Yu to school when both his brothers got to primary school!

So Yu went to school today, very reluctantly. After two weeks at home, and seeing his brothers staying home, he kept saying he didn't want to go to school, he wanted to stay at home. And he dragged his feet to brush teeth, change clothes and wear shoes. I fear this is an everyday battle... But I'm going to make sure I win it every day!

End of term, yeah!

The double madness of WFH + HBL started the second week of HBL coz I needed to go back to work already. Decided to keep Yu at home so there was even more madness! 

Monday was very busy as I had a TCM appointment. Luckily there wasn't much offline work that day coz I found out on Tuesday afternoon that Yang did not do some offline work that morning! He also anyhow wrote an answer for art - anyhow like "hgdhiuwahfibifhauih"!!! Even though I don't expect him to be an artist and this is non-examinable, I do expect him to do his work properly. Sat him down to go through while Kai played Nintendo.

Also made a hat for English, strangely

Had him practise the words from Chinese lesson 10 and finally finished this exercise book from K1 time!

I thought it was very wasteful to throw it when it had many empty pages so I kept for them to draw and write. Didn't realise I kept this for two years already!

He could write so much back in K1

And his revision of lesson 5 - made him write and draw :)

For Kai, I mostly helped to upload stuff, like this cute picture :)

So lucky that it was Vesak Day on Wednesday, i.e. no HBL, and I had taken leave on Thursday and Friday coz originally it was early dismissal on Thursday and no school on Friday. So I was back to only HBL madness :p

Arts for Kids Hub time! First time for Yu :)

Kai's first dinosaur - full of add-ons

Kai's second dinosaur - even more add-ons!

Yang's first dinosaur - so cute!

Yang's second dinosaur with two big moles *.*

Yu's dinosaurs - mostly on his own!

It was super hot Monday and Tuesday. We went to level 5 at least once and seriously, I don't know how they could heck care and just play! Then I thought it was perfect for the pool so they wouldn't be cold. But Wednesday wasn't as hot *.* We went anyway! And for the first time in a very long time, I went in with them. Yu couldn't even remember the last time I went in with them.

Before getting wet

They were very happy!

I finally thought of something to revive our old drawing board - Pictionary! We oh-ah-beh-som (sound it out :p) to split teams. Kai and Yang were a team and took turns to draw. Yu wanted to draw all the time until he, um, found me quite lousy in guessing so we switched and he was very good at guessing! :p

Yu did the Monopoly dinosaur on his own after I helped him fill in the letters between M and Y in the word below :p

Kai drew a..... boy!

Yang drew a... candy!

Yang drew an... owl!

We were having a lot of fun but it was too slow and taxing to keep switching teams, deciding who to draw, bringing the marker everywhere and inking everything, jumping on the sofa during prep time, clicking "next word" on the word generator and switching between safari and timer! Now that took a while to type out!

So we switched to me drawing for them to guess - first to 10 points wins. But soon after we started, Kai shoved Yu roughly to the ground for blocking his view so I banned him for one round. He couldn't stop complaining and was finally kicked out of the game. Yang also had a go to draw for Yu and me to guess - Yu could really guess very well! Yup, I lost :p

As this was the last week of school, it was also time for PTM. The first PTM call was on Tuesday with Yang's art teacher. The rest were on Thursday and Friday.

All of Kai's teachers said the same of him - lively, bubbly, participative.

All of Yang's teachers said the same of him - reserved, not participative.

Well, Yang is pretty loud at home... But as I think more about it, actually I shouldn't be surprised. He was like this at Chengzhu years ago. Maybe he's not as comfortable as he was in preschool where it was more like a home environment. I'm glad to hear from both him and his teachers that he had friends in school. One of his form teachers said they would suggest topics for the kids to chat about over recess. So cute :)

Work wise, generally no worries for both, even for Yang's spelling. His English teacher said his handwriting could be improved - oh yes, so big and messy! His Chinese teacher thought he could be better at 听读写；说 is ok. The 听 part is the "best" - his teacher had to walk up to him (he sits at the back of the class) to call him before he would respond *.*

Kai is so good that his PE teacher thought he loves PE when he hates it *.* Oh wait, he couldn't hide that he isn't too passionate about art though :p His former teacher gave a lot of details for his English, which I appreciate; need to work through AFIs with Kai in the coming month. 

Kai's Chinese teacher told me hilarious things. At first, it was all 很棒 coz his grades were the same as her students from the top level - there are four levels of Chinese for P2 to P4 or something, and Kai is in the second level; there is no top level kids in his class. So I said I think he could do the written stuff but he doesn't speak the language. Then she told me YES! He doesn't speak Mandarin in her class. But:

1. He is very yaya papaya, and said things like, "So easy!" or "What? You mean you don't know?!"
2. He even corrected her! So she said 司徒先生，那我可以继续了吗？His reply? "Caaan!"

She didn't give me details on #2 but I finally asked Kai last night. He felt embarrassed and refused to say until I threatened coaxed it out of him, even getting his brothers out of the room since he didn't want themt o know. It's still pretty sketchy but it's something like this...

So there's this word 量 in a lesson. The kids were to write the word and its hanyu pinyin in their notebook. Teacher gave the hanyu pinyin as liáng. Kai said it was liàng. Actually both were right. But the lesson introduced the term as a verb, hence liáng; liàng is for the noun. Thing is, I don't think his teacher explained the difference to him.

I told him that he was right! Just that the teacher probably wanted them to use the word as used in the lesson. He said he would just shut his mouth in future. My poor boy. That was when I recalled an article that I recently reread - empathise, don't sympathise.

So I said I totally understand, especially when he was right that the word could be pronounced liàng as well. And I encouraged him to continue speaking up. This was where my amazing albeit selective memory came in useful :p I told him that something similar happened to me when I was 10 years older than he was. He didn't want to listen coz he was feeling embarrassed but I again threatened persuaded him to.

When we were reviewing the results of my physics prelim science exam, I found that the teacher counted my marks wrongly, and - here, my memory was really sketchy but I had this impression - that one question was not marked. So I went up to the teacher at the front of the lecture theatre and asked for my marks. I went from 60+ to 79 or something like that. Mr Q gave me a look and a nod before I happily went back to my seat. A difference between an A and a B!

Kai was looking interested by this point and stopped covering his eyes and ears etc from being embarrassed. I took that as a good thing and didn't say any more. Hope he learnt something besides keeping his mouth shut!