The kids in numbers

Measured the boys last week:

1. Kai: 177cm / 59.3kg
2. Yang: 164.5cm / 56.8kg
3. Yu: 142cm / 40.7kg

Kai seemed taller when standing against the measuring tape sticker on the wall, maybe coz he doesn't stand straight normally?! He grew 2cm since the last measurement in June so his feathers were all puffed up hoho! I don't know if I was accurate though Sito said I held the box quite level on their head..

Simi box?? I used a small box to level on their head, with one side touching the measuring tape.

"Did I grow taller?" Yes, you did, my boy! He grew just over 2cm. He seems to be growing more quickly. Maybe coz he has supper all the time... And recently, he has been having two cups of milk at tea and at supper!

Yu exclaimed, "Why am I still short?!" Well, he grew only 1cm but he hasn't been eating as much as before this year. But he still eats a lot sometimes - at Swensen's last Saturday, he finished a bowl of soup, the whole cornflake chicken, a bit of my sausage and a bit of fries. His parents could only eat kids' meals or be stuffed to the brim!

Weight-wise, it's really hard to fatten Kai up. I've been giving him a good breakfast this whole year but he's still skinny. Sito says he needs to exercise.

So Yang is catching up with Kai while Yu crossed the 40kg mark. But I should remind myself that I weighed them right after lunch so the weight might be inflated... Still, a significant increase from two months back.

Another measurement is their foot length.

Two Sundays ago, I realised that Yang was outgrowing his crocs after just six months. I measured their feet again. Strangely, Kai's feet shrank instead of grew?? Anyway, I bought bigger crocs for everyone. Yang can wear his new crocs before the other two who could still fit well into their current crocs. 

School shoes are fine though. Maybe coz they were rather big to begin with. Think Yang chose 42/43! But I need to get new shoes for Yu - both pairs are holey! Kai has a pair of holey shoes too but his other pair is going strong and since he doesn't get his shoes as dirty anymore, maybe I'll just stick to one pair for him.

And talking about shoes, I must share something funny.

Yang is very proud of his big feet *.* So last week at tuition, there was a girl sitting in front of him who was in his class for a make-up so he had never met her. He found her quite tall and wow, her feet quite big! So this boy pointed to her feet and asked her how big her feet were. The girl slapped his hand away and ignored him. We had such a laugh when he recounted this!

Sito told him that maybe the girl was sensitive or she wanted to focus on the lesson. And hello, I had big feet as a kid and it was very hard to find shoes! Thank goodness it's much easier now. I think I would have been quite pissed and/or embarrassed to have a boy point out my feet!

Anyway, I expect to be the one with the smallest feet by next year.. Yu also has meaty feet and they're not much smaller than mine now!

The boys in matching outfits from the grands

That was Saturday. It is now harder to get matching outfits for them - have to find Kai's from the adult section. In any case, he prefers plain stuff - he often chooses plain tees or polo tees when he's alone for tuition class or chess tournaments. And he's such a grown boy now. Maybe matching outfits are getting too kiddish... Maybe family outfits for CNY ok :)

Walk and chat and eat and shop

Sito and I tried to take walks sometimes. We walked to Ikea for brunch and shopping some weeks ago. Yesterday, we walked to Kent Ridge, passing a few schools and a bit of NUS, and took the train to Vivo for lunch. Obviously this is not a venture to lose weight coz we definitely ate a lot on those occasions!

It is just... nice :) 

When we're home, we're usually busy with various stuff and the kids, or there are distractions like, oops, drama even when kids are not around... When we're walking, there's only us :)

Brunch at Ikea 5 August

See the chilli crab sauce with mantou? Coz National Day was round the corner...

Five minutes away from the edge of NUS

Notice my bag? It's a sling bag that I usually carry on my right shoulder, or cross body on the left shoulder. But on long walks, a backpack can better distribute the weight on both shoulders. I was too lazy to pack my things into a backpack so I lengthened the strap of this bag to carry it like a backpack ✌️

The final lap

Yang's PSLE oral exams reminded us that we had moved back to HV for three years already. I remember coz the boys had no school on the two days after moving day and were just walking around the boxes and busy parents.

We worked very hard with Yang on both English and Chinese oral, with Chinese starting much earlier using Kai's Wang Laoshi materials - there was oral practice every week! I also attended a Mindstretcher zoom lesson on Chinese oral and collated loads of material. In the end, I summarised all the techniques in a 4x6" card for him to bring with him. 

During our practices, we reminded him of various experiences in both languages - how he thought of AhMa and brought her a cake（关爱老人）, the teen who took up three seats on the train （好公民，为人着想）, riding a bicycle （克服困难，一家人）, sharing at dinner time（家庭和谐）, local ND and mid autumn festival celebrations （社区活动）, and even an imaginary neighbour's parcel（邻里守望相助）!

Nearer the oral exams, the kids somehow found Crime Watch on YouTube. They've always been interested in it and would want to watch it if they happen to catch it on TV. So they watched old episodes whenever they could. The evening before the oral exams, Yang was at tuition when Yu watched an episode on burglary.

Now, there were English and Chinese oral exams on both days, and Yang happened to be assigned to English on day one. If he were to take Chinese on day one, I would be so upset he missed that burglary episode coz the Chinese video was a burglary! 

As usual, we didn't ask questions when he came home. Best to just focus on the next one. So it was Mandarin all the way that day. Even got them to watch Crime Watch in Mandarin, and a Tuesday Report on voluntary work since Talking Point doesn't come in Mandarin...

Prelims started the week after PSLE orals. Learning from our experience with Kai, we decided to just revise rather than do a last paper on the day before each paper. Too tiring for the kid. 

I didn't manage to go through our entire Chinese word bank. Only covered P6-P3, no time for P1-P2. The MCQ will more likely test P5-P6 words but he needs the rest for compo and comprehension... Ah well, we finished up after the prelims, and I'll probably do another round starting from P1 for the PSLE.

After his last paper, we brought him to Macs for lunch. A little treat to celebrate his efforts so far and also to motivate him for the next four weeks 💪💪💪

Relaxing after his Maths paper last Friday

Aside - yes, the sofa is new. Arrived 18 August, i.e. our old sofas lasted almost exactly three years. In fact, Kai's and Yu's individual sofas were long gone. Yang's was dented beyond words coz jumping. The parents' two-seater was kind of flat... Hope these old-school sofa - which came in through the windows! - can last...

A quick thought on the NDR

I missed most of the NDR as we were on our way home from the grands' and there were evening and bedtime duties etc... I sat down only when PM was talking about integration of foreigners in Singapore. But Sito said the government was going to give out loads of money.

This morning, I read the news. Finally, support for parenthood, not incentives!

We started on the support narrative way back but Baby Bonus - which I dislike - was by then so ingrained that it was tough to shift the idea from incentives to support. Doing away with Baby Bonus is very loud and clear - we're not giving parents a bonus for having a kid. Naming the new one "child support" puts it across plainly - we're supporting child raising.

I'm also pleased with the leave even though I have nothing to do with leave anymore. If anything, I don't get leave! Giving parents eight to 12 days of leave a year is great, coz mandatory child care centre closing days (the dreaded CCCC!) are already six days! 

If the kids don't fall ill (they shouldn't after a while coz immunity :p), that leaves parents with two to six days to really spend time with the kids on their own schedule, rather than on the centre's schedule, especially for those with older kids who can only go on holidays during MOE term breaks. My experience was that CCCCs did not happen during MOE term breaks *.*

The lower preschool fees are very welcome too even though once again, they've got nothing to do with me. But I cannot forget that for a period of time, with two kids in child care and one in infant care, half of my pay went to the centre 😭 It was more expensive than uni! I wonder how the non-anchor operators will cope with the competition... Ah well...

And finally, the BTO chances. Just on Thursday, Sito was jokingly saying, give two BTO to large families! I said no way that's going to happen, but higher chances at the ballot possible. Really! I'm good. Hahahaha! Oh, and bigger flats please! Well, nothing to do with me coz I'm NOT moving! 

I also read comments on social media. The dissent was mostly about those without kids having to cover for parents at work given the more days of leave.

Actually, before I had kids, I covered my direct boss not once but twice when she went on maternity leave two years apart. I didn't mind coz it gave me more opportunities to do things that I otherwise would just happily leave it to the boss to do! But I can't say for those who have to cover a peer. Maybe that would be more work... In the end, it's a give and take? I used to go on long vacations before kids and my colleagues with kids had to cover :p

Covering for maternity leave is harder - probably need a temp or intern... More opportunities for youngsters to learn?

I also think at some point, there also has to be greater support given to caregivers of elderly parents, besides parents who care for kids. It's how our population is heading - old...

And then some wondered about the cost of the package. Sito did a search and told me that back when I was working, IRAS collected $30b in taxes; last year, they collected almost $90b. So just the tax alone can more than pay for the annual cost of the new package, which is about 40,000 kids x 16 cohorts x $2,000 + 30,000 newborns x $25,000 = $2b

Based on the $70,000 support per kid from birth to 17yo, the package estimates that each kid will return more than that in taxes as an adult. Assuming 40y of working, $70,000 of taxes mean under $2,000 a year, which is very low and so hence the returns are almost guaranteed. 

But of course, this is beyond the money. It's "existential".

I heard a bit on the part about Singaporeans remaining the majority and integrating foreign-borns. I thought it is helpful to put it out there - births not looking promising but we'll support parenthood AND we'll need to continue to import people while ensuring Singaporeans this 👆 I talked about new citizens being newfound births before.

Ok, very hot in the study and Yu is 虎视眈眈-ing my laptop as he wants to read my holiday posts so I'll end here.

Ask and it shall be given?

Some months back when a lot at HV MRT was vacated, Sito wrote in to Luckin to suggest an outlet here. The lot was vacant for a while. And a few weeks back, we saw the lot boarded up with the signature blue of Luckin! Woohoo!

So we must support, right?

Yesterday was a very hot day so something iced, please! But I prefer their hot coffee. The iced coffee was too milky for me.

We sat there for maybe 30min plus. Saw many ACS International kids coming to get drinks; a generation ago, I used to see these kids grabbing Starbucks but now Starbucks is sited in the mall away from the main road. Towards the end of our stay, the lunch crowd from nearby offices started appearing. So it appears that business is brisk! 

Happy National Day!

And a very busy one, which started with Kai waking up at 530am to report to school on Friday as he was part of the school parade - can see pictures here. 

Yang and Yu brought loads of goodies back - the ND gift from school was a 12" LCD tablet which I also like, hahaha! Yang also had a care pack for PSLE 💪💪💪 I think he finished the pack of Ribena gummies that day; I closed two eyes...

And of course ND tattoos! Yu gave me Ang Ku Kueh Girl, which is still on my left hand as I type. Yang couldn't bear to part with any *.*

After about one whole year of talking about baking class, I finally signed Yu up for one! But he said he was nervous about it coz he wasn't sure if he could do it. No worries, my baby, I'll be with you!

We were the first to arrive and assigned to right next to the chef and the hob. It was a good spot as we had first turn on everything. It was a small class of six settings. Kids below 10 could attend free - that's Yu!

First, we folded the parchment paper to fit the moulds and wrote our names on a corner. Then, we measured out the chocolate, added the pre-measured butter, and measured and heated the cream. Yu asked me to heat and pour the cream out coz it was hot. Yes, dangerous so over to you, Mama...!

Mixing hot cream with chocolate and butter

Our mixture was lumpy so asked the chef to microwave it a bit :p Yu: Smells so good!

Pouring chocolate into his mould

The chef put all the chocolate into a blast freezer and went on to the next step: folding the gift boxes! It's like we were getting chocolate from Royce :p After folding the boxes, the chef brought out some chocolate from the morning class to share with us - so yummy!

Yu did it all by himself :)

The next step was tricky. We had to cut each moulded block into 16 bite-size pieces. Yu decided to use a glove while I thought nay, no need. Then we flipped out the block and started cutting with a bench scraper. This boy measured so nicely (divide by two a few times) and after the first cut, discovered he couldn't lift the scraper off the chocolate. 

~help~

Hello, boy, use your gloved hand to press the chocolate down...

Then, I helped him invert the chocolate back into the mould and peel off the parchment. Now the chocolate pieces were sitting nicely in the mould!

Must dust with cocoa powder

After dusting, we used the bench scraper to gently cut through the dust to show the pieces clearly. Then we wiped the perimeter of the mould, covered it with a clear cover, popped it into a foil bag and pushed it into the paper box.

Yu and his box of nama chocolate!

I brought a cooler bag with icepacks to keep the chocolate as we were going to have dinner at Le Shrimp. We ended earlier than expected though so we walked around a bit while waiting for the other three to join us. 

After dinner, we shopped at Japan Home, Redman (I had 10% discount thanks to the baking class!) and Cold Storage (running out of milk before delivery day), lugging over 10kg of goods home, which was fine for my laogong but but but... Yang had to cut hair at the salon on our way home - neater haircut for PSLE oral this week... So I took the load off Sito who accompanied him *.* Kai was already carrying one bag. By the time I got to the lift, I could hardly speak so Kai quietly took another bag off me 💕 

Guess which is his and which is mine?

Answer: His on his left. Yes, they look the same but the differentiation is important coz he's having his all to himself! The remaining four of us shared my box. Since everyone likes it, I'll make some since I bought more chocolate and cream :)

We signed up for the BV ND Observance Ceremony as usual. At first, we wondered if Yang should go, given his oral exams this week. He wanted to, so we said, ok, wear a mask. Then we forgot the mask *.*

All decked out in red!

This time, it was held at Blk 2 atrium. It was fun as usual, with games and snacks and performances! I think next year, I want to go near the front to see if I can grab a slice of cake :p

Eh, the hand very long, hahaha!

Yang didn't get a prize for this game and when he went back to try again, someone gave him the prize and he was happy!

Papa also played!

Yu very gamely answered a quiz again!

He could only remember three of the five stars, and a guy went over to whisper the answers into his ears :p Emcee couldn't get her hands on a prize immediately. She remembered us though but we left before she could find us again.

Fighter jet simulator!

Looks like the real deal for training, not a science centre ride

Sito said, yes, don't crash his tax money! Hahahah! But his sons very funny - Yang didn't manage to drop his bomb in time; Yu dropped it too early; Kai dropped it on himself!!?!?! We had a good laugh at the end of it :)

The anthem was played while we were in the queue for the jet simulator. I heard a loud booming voice singing nearby and spotted an angmoh on my right front singing his lungs out. On the other hand, my sons didn't open their mouth 🤦‍♀️ Don't kids sing anthem in school?! I sad and sian...

We went home to drop everything before heading for lunch at Oriental Food. Kids all enjoyed it so I guess we now have another option in the neighbourhood!

Yu and I left for his friend's birthday party in Chinatown after lunch. On the bus there, I told him I remembered two compositions in primary school and gave him the starting para of one of them and the gist of the other. He retold the former with kiddy details, and went on to spin a two-part story of the latter.

I really enjoyed the second one. Part one was about a boy who liked cheese. At the end of it, he became a mouse. Part two started in the first person. I wondered why, and then he went, "Oh, I forgot, I'm a mouse now so I can eat the rotten food!" So cool! Yes, gross content but his storytelling is so cool!

We were rather early, so he made me follow him to walk around. We ended up walking around People's Park Complex like three times... I enticed him with OCK and ok, he would follow me instead, haha! Took a walk to Chinatown point and went to OCK twice coz the first stick wasn't enough! Then I bought some plastic bags from Daiso before finding our way to the party venue.

Bye, boy. I'm going for a massage!

Spotted the massage place I wanted to go to when I was following Yu around People's Park Complex. Sito and I went there some 20y ago! And the prices were not much higher than 20y ago. I paid only $25 for an hour of foot massage, vs. $37 at HV. But I realised that night that the guy wasn't fantastic as I no longer felt anything by the end of the day :(

Bought a marshmallow snack which Yu said he wanted, and a rose bagel from Daily Artisan and Bakery. The latter was so pretty! But it was too much like bandung for me - I don't like bandung, hahah!

Anyway, went back to the party venue to find Yu still happily playing balloons after two hours of VR games. I sat for a while before I think the staff was ready to close the account... We took a bus to Vivocity to pack dinner - Jollibee!

It was still early by the time we got home. We managed to finish dinner before NDP started proper. Of course the adults had to clear up a bit more... But in the end, we all sat down to watch the parade and performances. Made them all stand for the anthem even if they didn't sing.

Again, we all said the NDP songs this year were no good. Two didn't feel like NDP songs at all. Only Sparkle was more upbeat. Anyway, I realised that this year, we didn't spend much time listening to NDP songs on YouTube - too busy with PSLE prep...

And so I guess that was our very busy National Day :)