Monday, 26 October 2015

Training

Sean is away on a work trip and Rachel began talking about him being on holiday. I quickly corrected her, telling her that 'Daddy is not on holiday, he's working, he's gone to Hanoi to teach people, and that's called "training".'

She commented, 'Oh, like training a dog right?'

I didn't think it would be quite correct to reply with a resounding 'Yes!', so I just repeated that he would be training people, and they would be using computers.

She said, 'Yes I know, training, like when you're training dogs and cats.'

Cats! I gave up.

Sunday, 25 October 2015

Sorry?

Andrew clambered onto Rachel who was sitting on a floor cushion.

Sophie said to him, 'Say sorry to Rachel!'

Andrew retorted adamantly, 'No sorry Rachel!'

Then he turned to Rachel and said, 'Sorry Rachel.'

Friday, 25 September 2015

My Son Of Singapore

One of Andrew's favourite phrases these days:

"Stop it.... LAH!!"

And he'll say it over and over again when he's particularly displeased, to the verge of tears if it happens to be a case of him not getting what he wants.

The songs he asks for at bedtime now are:

1. Bicycle Som (songngngng!) a.k.a." Bicycle Race" by Queen
2. Dye-soar Som a.k.a. "Walking In Your Footsteps" by The Police
3. Gott Low a.k.a. "I Want To Break Free" by Queen

I love my samsengkiah!

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Put To Bed

Halfway putting Andrew to bed after his shower, Sean and I had to leave to pick Rachel up from her Chinese enrichment class at Beijing Language Centre at Punggol Plaza, as we were running late.

I had already put his diaper on him but he was still not dressed, and still drinking milk from his bottle. The three older ones were with him and we left them to say prayers together, dress him, get his bottle and towel out of the room after he's done, hang up his waterproof rubber mat, lay him down, switch off the light, slide the door shut and hook on the latch.

When we got back I asked Sarah how it went and she said he was pretty good. She said he said something about 'chicken.' After laying him down, he tried to get out of the room, but she put him back and quickly turned off the light, and he settled down. As she left the room she heard him say, "Thank youm, Jiejie.'

Awww!

Monday, 14 September 2015

Post Paci

We're trying to get Andrew off the pacifier now that he's nearly two and a half.

First try, I said to him, 'Does Daddy suck pacifier? No! Does Korkor suck pacifier? No! Does Jiejie suck pacifier? No! So, Andrew doesn't need pacifier, ok? You're a big boy now!' And I took the pacifier away and left the room. He didn't protest while I was still there, but in a little while I could hear him weeping in the room! Gosh. I went in and found him lying on his back in bed, tears streaming down his face to his ears. Couldn't bear it so I gave him his pacifier back and he promptly went to sleep.

Next try, it was a Saturday afternoon and Sean convinced Andrew to throw his pacifier away after his afternoon nap. That night, no tears, but there was an hour of singing and talking to himself that we could hear through his door! When he woke up the next morning, he rushed out of his room to look in the wastepaper basket where he had thrown the pacifier. Haha. We had kept it aside of course. Just in case.

Following night, singing again, but not as long. So, looks like he's done!

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

The Kindness Of A Stranger

At IKEA last night, a man noticed Rachel and asked about her. We talked about her condition for a while, and agreed to his offer to pray over her. After he had done so, he asked Rachel if she could feel anything. She nodded. "What did she feel?" "Kindness" was her answer. That, to me, is more inspired and powerful than any physical healing.

Monday, 7 September 2015

Zhoke

The kids were having porridge for dinner one night (while Sean and I went out to Alforno's at East Coast Road for grilled rack of lamb and crabmeat farfalle in tomato cream sauce with chilli padi - haha).

Before we left, I looked over to see how Rachel was doing. She told me that when she had porridge for lunch in school, her school aunty put bread in the porridge. 

I thought, 'Bread? In porridge?' Ah! Croutons! So I asked Rachel, 'Oh, you mean like little cubes of toast?'

She replied, 'No, it's like the skin of the bread. And it's round.'

Gosh, of course, yu zhar kway! 

Sunday, 6 September 2015

She floats!

Today, Rachel finally was able to float in the swimming pool with her arm floats on without holding on to anyone! She has been physically capable of doing it for some time now, but was just never confident enough. After practising a bit by herself in the baby pool where she could easily put her feet down on the floor anytime she wanted to, just letting herself drift in prone position, she actually entered the big pool by herself and swam to me! Six years and nearly four months old. 

When I cheered for her, Sophie said, 'I could also do that what.' I reminded Sophie that she could do that when she was about four years old, but it has taken Rachel this long to do it. Did she want her never to?

Sophie has a great propensity to be jealous of Rachel. Similarly, Sarah has this thing about Sophie where she must always chime in with something derogatory about her whenever we are admonishing Sophie. 

I hope when we look back on this, we will one day laugh about it and see how well they have come to love each other and grown out of their childish jealousies.

Sunday, 23 August 2015

The Kid's Speech

As we were finishing lunch, Andrew suddenly said, 'Rachel, want, play, Andrew, ice cream?' We knew immediately that he was asking Rachel if she wanted to play with him the ice cream stacking game that he likes.

He says 'Ridena' for 'Ribena;' 'Raddit' for 'Rabbit.' He can perfectly pronounce 'Ri,' 'Be,' and 'Na' separately, and 'Ra' and 'Bit,' but say them together correctly he cannot.

He calls Sarah 'Rahrah.'

Sophie he also calls 'Rahrah;' when corrected he'll say 'Iffy.'

Rachel is 'Chehcheh;' Matt is 'Korkor.'

He has no problems with Daddy, Mommy and Aunty.

He'll frown, cross his short chubby arms and give an emphatic 'Hmp!' if he can't get what he wants.



Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Andrew's first song request

In the car, Andrew actually cried, 'I want "Bi...cycle"!'

He was referring to Queen's 'Bicycle Race,' a favourite with the kids.

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Breakfast Boy

Andrew keeps me healthy! Every morning, he and Sean come back just in time after sending Sarah and Sophie to school to see Rachel onto her school bus. Matthew would have left much earlier to go to school by train and bus, leaving the little boy alone with his parents for the next hour or two.

We often walk about the estate, stopping to play at one of the two neighbouring playgrounds. He can climb a ladder by himself now, and go up the steps and across the bridge to the highest slide that he comes swiftly down, without the slightest hesitation.

When we get home again, sometimes I feel lazy and want to crawl back to bed or just laze about. Andrew, without fail, will ask for 'egg!' 'bread!' 'tea!' I feel bad to refuse, so I get myself into the kitchen to pop a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, scramble an egg in the microwave, and drown tea leaves with hot water in a teacup.

It's cosy and sociable having breakfast by the floor-length windows of our sixteenth floor apartment. I tear small pieces of toast for Andrew and butter each piece before putting it into his little bowl. He's getting better at eating scrambled egg with a spoon every day, in his highchair next to me, while I slip him a spoonful of sweetened tea or coffee every now and then.

It's a real privilege to have mornings with Andrew. In a way I hope it makes up for the fact that he will have twelve years less of my time than Matthew, assuming that I should leave this earth before either of them.

Sunday, 28 June 2015

Cambodia 21-24 June 2015

At first we had wanted to go to Scotland because I fell in love with the scenery watching an episode of Downton Abbey set there. Then we found that June is the hatching of the Highland midges, bloodsucking biting insects that I will certainly not be fond of. So we thought we might go earlier in April, since May is full of the children's birthdays as well as mid-year exams and this is an important academic year for Sarah taking the Primary School Leaving Examinations. But April would be way too cold for tropical me. Shelving Scotland for another time, we thought, let's just do a cheaper nearby thing. We have been going to Malacca a few times already, so I suggested visiting Angkor Wat, something I was sure Sean would like. Before I knew it, he had booked the flights and sussed out a really nice hotel! So we went.

Sean's beautiful photos are in his facebook album.

We stayed at a lovely quiet spa resort. Navutu Dreams is about ten minutes from Siem Reap's town centre by tuk-tuk, and 25 minutes away from the Angkor Archaeological Park. Our three-day park pass was fully utilized, and if we had had more time I would have wanted to see more temples. 

It was much better than I had expected! I was prepared for a terribly sweaty, itchy, possibly soggy and unpleasant time, but the ruins were truly impressive and awesome. Some were simply huge and grand (Angkor Wat), others felt tensely ominous (Bayon); Ta Prohm nestled within the trees' embrace as if it had grown itself out of the ground, and Preah Khan was a veritable labyrinth of concentric ever-expanding and contracting squares of doorways, corridors and chambers.

Cambodian food is the best Southeast Asian fare! Milder than Thai but richer than Vietnamese - a wonderful balance of flavour, spices and aromas. Sean and I have even indulged in the idea of starting a Cambodian restaurant in Singapore as there simply isn't one here at all, and it would be such fun to decorate it in the temple-ruin-style and classic Cambodian icons.

It's such a short hop away, a mere 2 hours by plane, I really do think that every Singaporean should visit. 

Friday, 19 June 2015

Realer Racing!!

'Open only to Singaporeans and Singapore residents, 200 rookies will be randomly selected by ballot for the Singapore GP Karting Training Programme. These successful candidates will be trained in the fundamentals of racing with specialised theory and practical workshops from 18 to 20 June. Participants who show potential will then test their mettle in the Singapore GP’s Karting Championship on 21 June.

The Championship winners for each category (14 - 17 years old and 18 - 21 years old) will win over S$14,000 worth of prizes each, including a year-long karting scholarship sponsored by KF1 Pte Ltd and Singapore GP Pte Ltd, consisting of practice sessions, race gear and entry to karting competitions in Singapore.'

Matthew is lucky enough to have been selected! Terribly excited for him. Some drama was involved as they had sent the selection notification to Matt's email instead of ours and he had not checked his email until the reply date was over! But they were good enough to still take him in, so now he's off and I hope he wins the championship!

Saturday, 6 June 2015

Real Racing

Watched a powerboat race on youtube with the kids and the spills and thrills were so extreme that Matt exclaimed, 'OK I'll stick to karting!!'

Sarah said, 'I'll stick to NOTHING!!'

That's because she had tried go-karting together with Matt and has subsequently often referred to it as the worst ten minutes of her life.

Monday, 6 April 2015

The Sleep Adventures of Andrew

This little boy is now too tall for his cot and so we have transitioned him to sleep on a mattress on the floor. He is rather younger than his older siblings when they did the same; he's not yet two.

The first day, at nap time, he didn't keep coming out of the room. Instead, he played quietly inside, taking all the clothes out of the wardrobe drawers, turning on the nightlight, fiddling with the toy kitchen set, and nobody knew. Helper found him sitting in the middle of a thrashed room, and Grandma helped fold back all the clothes while visiting us that afternoon.

Andrew particularly likes the wardrobe drawers, but he knows now that he is not to take the clothes out. So he merely keeps slamming them, if left alone and awake. The only thing is to stay in there with him until he falls asleep, and then creep quietly out. Sometimes I accidentally rattle the lock and he wakes up, so we have to start all over again, waiting for him to fall asleep once more. It's a very good time to pray the rosary!

The other morning, before sun up and when only our helper was awake and pottering about in the kitchen, she suddenly found Andrew there in the kitchen beside her! Quite a shock it was.

Another time, our helper had woken up and was on her way to the bathroom when she saw Andrew sitting quietly in the dark on a floor cushion in the living room. She led him to my room and I went back with him to lie down.

Once, in the middle of the night, I heard my bedroom door opening, followed by silence. I got up to investigate and found the door closed. Opening it, Andrew was standing outside in the dark corridor. I didn't feel like lying on the floor in his room, so I brought him to bed with me instead. I put him between his Daddy and me. Daddy was sleeping but suddenly sat up in the dark - he later told me Andrew was tickling him! Andrew also sat up, and to his Daddy he said, "Hullo!" We told him to lie down again and go to sleep, and he did.

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

Class 95 fm - "the best mix of music"

The girls are now Taylor Swift fans and Rachel was very happy to hear one of her songs on the radio in the car. This was followed by PM Dawn's "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss." After that, the DJ recited the usual Class 95fm tagline, "The Best Mix Of Music."

Rachel immediately went, 'It's not the best songs of music at all!"

She didn't like the PM Dawn song!

"Green" Building

I was quite excited to tell the children that I would be going for an excursion as part of my work, or what engineers call a technical visit. This would be to a "green" building that was built from 100% recycled materials, i.e., demolition rubble.

All of them were interested, and listened with attention. Rachel even asked, 'Is it light green or dark green?'

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Parents

We were gathered for bedtime prayers, and Rachel asked, 'Why do we have parents?'

Matthew answered, 'So that you can be born!'

And Rachel added, 'And play with you, and buy toys.'