爸爸。。一路顺风 and My New “SM”

Finally Adrian left for his one month oversea work detachment today.

As his flight departing around 2pm and he would need to be at the airport around 11.30am for his check in. we decided that we will not go to the airport for his departure flight.

Not that we do not want to go but today being a working day and studying day, it is hard to arrange and also would not be good for Anthea to miss her lessons.

This morning Adrian bid Anthea good bye and said he will see her in a month time. He will be home during her 1 week school holiday.

Then I left for work and we said the same Good Bye and see you soon.

By now we are quite used to this yearly event and our routine still goes on as normal.

Wishing daddy a safe journey and a smooth working trip.

My New Sandwich Maker

Yes, this thing has been on my mind for the longest time. The reason why I had not bought it is because I had a toaster at home and it works almost the same. I thought.

Recently, Anthea has been asking me to prepare snack box for her recess as she said she was getting a bit sick of buying the canteen food. So I thought to myself – it’s time to get a sandwich maker. Anthea love sandwiches, especially Ham & Cheese.

So with this in mind, I contacted my ex-colleague to check if there is any special sale for a sandwich maker. She told me no and advised to wait till National Day, they may have a ND Sale.

Then on Tuesday, I received her email about some NTUC Card promotion and the discount was going at 30%. So immediately, I got her help and bought a sandwich maker. As Adrian was on leave for these few days, he collected the sandwich maker yesterday.

This morning, I had my 1st trial at doing a sandwich toast and they turned out very good. I made a few sets of sandwiches. We had ham & cheese, egg mayo and tune sandwiches. I packed a set for Anthea to bring for her snack.

With this new sandwich maker, I can try different sandwich recipes. : )

Friendly Game

Ever since we started on our daily exercise routine, Anthea is now quite hooked onto badminton. She will request to play the game everyday…: )

I am glad that she is enjoying the game so much. Badminton seems to be a family thing. I knew Adrian through the same game and in our wedding album; we even brought in our badminton gears for the wedding shoot. It brought back a lot of wonderful memories.

Every evening around 5pm, I would bring Anthea downstairs. Next to our block, there is an open space area with a few BBQ Pits. Usually in the evening, we will see children playing soccer and riding bicycles around the open space.

We would play our game at the open space too as there are some railings and we used them as our “NET”..haha.

The 1st week that we played, the other children whom were playing around the area also came and joined us. Most of them are seniors of Anthea, except for 1 or 2 whom are from other primary schools.

Anthea had enjoyed her sessions with her fellow school mates and I can see that her skill is improving as she plays and practice daily.

At times while she was playing her games with her new found friends, I would go to the childcare to fetch Anders. He would come in to join us for some fun too. As the normal badminton racket is a bit too long for him to handle. I bought him a junior racket and now he can serve quite well…haha.

It’s always good to see children enjoying themselves at games and it trains them to become better player and better loser too. We have been telling Anthea, in life you will not always win the match. Some time you win and some time you lose.

Through the game, I had also the chance to see Anthea mingle with children of different ages and races. She is interacting well with them and learning more about another life long skill – socializing.

My father always comment that Anthea take after my good genes of being friendly and sociable..hee : )

I hope she will find true friends out of the many aquaintances she has, just like me.

种族和谐日

On Tuesday, Anthea School celebrated the Racial Harmony day. Seem like schools these days had much more occasion to call for celebrations. During my days, we only had Children day and Teacher’s day…haha.

Last week, Anthea told me about the day and her Form Teacher has informed them that they can go to school in their Traditional Clothing. If the child does not own a set of such clothing, she/he will go to school in their school uniforms.

I was having headache as to what should I let her wear as she said she wanted to Dress for the occasion. I took a look at her closet and saw the few Chinese New Year dresses that she had and a few of them are in “Cheong Sam” style. So I thought it would fit the dress code.

So I told her to try the few set of clothing….衣服本来是刚刚好，么现在穿不上？？ Due to her recent "growth spur", most of the dresses “shrunk” and she can’t fit into any one of them... : P

There is another new set of CNY clothing and it was a top with a pant, which she could wear. But our little Miss Vanity insisted that she wants to wear a DRESS, because all her girls classmates will be in DRESS…aiyo…so young, already start comparing…伤脑筋！！

In order to fulfill her vanity quest, we went for advance CNY shopping spree on last Friday. We had dinner at Hog Breath in Toa Payoh. Then we went to Kiddy Palace to shop for a Cheong Sam Dress. To our disappointment, KP didn’t have any cheongsam dress because it’s not Chinese New Year Yet.

So we had no choice but to go around the shop area and see what can we find that’s suitable.

Finally, I saw a TOP which is similar to a cheongsam design. As it was an adult top, so it was long enough to be a dress for her. The sale girl recommended a short dress to match with the top and it fitted perfectly. Yes, she is wearing Adult TOP…haha. I was telling Adrian after she wore for the occasion; I can use it for CNY..So this top “kills 2 birds in a stone.” No a bad idea.

Anthea was very happy with the red top and black mini skirt and tried them in the shop. She looks good and would be better without the 小肚腩。。。嘻嘻 !!

Anyway, that was the best match that we can find with such limited time. Since she was happy, we are happy.

On Tuesday morning, she was very excited and changed into the new clothing immediately after her wash up.

I even put a flower pin on the top to make it look even nicer. She loves the flower pin.

The morning when we reached the school gate, I saw many children dressed in their ethnic costume and the sight was very colorful. There were Chinese, India, Malays, Korean, Philippines and others.

This is indeed what we called a Racial Harmony Day!

Tourist @ Orchard

On Saturday evening, my In-laws had arranged dinner at Teochew City @ Centrepoint. After consulting with the children, we decided to travel by MRT.

Usually when we had the opportunity to travel by Public transports, I would encourage them to do so. Reason being-we would not own a family car for long and when the time come, they will suffer if they are pampered too much now..hee : P

The other reason is I want them to learn to be more streetwise about going around on public transports and learnt more about public transports. Then only they can relate it to the classroom teachings. For Anders, he is now learning about 地铁，巴士 and红绿灯 in his Chinese lessons.

Orchard road is undergoing a major facelift and we could see construction works along the whole stretched from Somerset to Orchard road.

We hardly or seldom go to Orchard road, simply because, I don’t like crowded area and we are a non-shopping family. So unless we have an agenda, if not, we will avoid it as much as we can.

So last Saturday was our once a “Blue Moon” visit to orchard road, with an agenda…hee.

We were so surprised to see so many new shopping malls along Somerset. Directly opposite Centrepoint was a new mall – orchard central shopping and from the outside, it looks HUGE. Just next to this mall, there is another mall still under construction – 313 @ Somerset and it also looks promising.

Adrian passed a quick comment: “I feel like a tourist now in Orchard Road.” I agreed. With all the new building upcoming, I think soon we will be like the tourists, asking for direction to this mall or that malls…haha. : P

So after dinner, we decided to take a slow stroll down to Orchard road. Along the way, we saw our Courtesy Mascot – Singa and he (she) was wearing a mask. Both Anthea and Anders were so exciting that there wanted to take a photo with it. I told them: “now both of you are real tourists, taking photos in orchard road.”

We enjoyed our after dinner walk along Orchard road and we can feel the energy level up, especially outside of Takashimaya where all the streets buskers were performing. of course we caught a glimpse of ION – the mall that house all the branded goods. Saw LV store and all the “security guards cum sales person” standing outside of the store waiting for customers… : P

Finally we ended up at Macdonald @ Shaw Centre for an Ice cream & Sundae treat for the children. Then we took a bus from Orchard road back to home. Anthea said that “it was a fun ride on the bus.”

I am glad that they are enjoying all the simple things in life.

钱不够用!!

I gave Anthea $5 for her weekly allowance. This means that each day for recess, she has a $1 to use. so far she has been a thrifty spender and by the end of the week, I can see balance coins in her wallet.

This week on Monday morning, I did the same and put $5 into her wallet. Yesterday, I did a random check with her wallet and I saw there was a balance of 30¢. I was shocked and questioned her about her spending this week. After some prompting, she told me that she bought a pencil and an eraser for $1 on Wednesday. So that was why she was only left with 30¢ on Thursday.

I was very angry and told her that I had been telling her that she SHOULD not buy stationery without my permission. At home, we had so many pencils & erasers from all her previous gift, so there is no reason for her to buy more. I told her she was wasting her own monies and also this would mean that she has no pocket monies on Friday.
If I had not checked her wallet, she would have to go without food at recess.

She asked me to packed ham & cheese bread for her this morning. I did it for her and asked her : “did you count how much monies you have before buying the pencil & eraser?” she said : “No.”

I told her that next time before she buys anything, she must learn to count how much she has balance in her wallet and to plan her spending wisely.

I know the temptation to buy from the school bookshop is great but I want to make sure she does not make it a habit and find the easy way out when she misuse her dollar & cents.

I want her to learn the value of money from young and this is a good chance and I hope she will keep this lesson in life for a long, long time.

Stocking UP

In exactly 2 weeks time, Adrian will be leaving for his 1 month plus oversea detachment.

We are not new to him working oversea for 1 – 3 months as we had the experienced of it last year. However, this year, things will be a little different as compared to last year.

Anthea has started Primary school and I had also embarked on a ½ working routine. So far, things are working fine and we are functioning normally.

Before Adrian departs for his work, I decided that we needed to Stock up a few main HEAVY items for the household…hee : P

We bought a packet of 10 KG rice. Yup, now that I am officially a cooking mama, I need to cook rice from Monday to Thursday, so this is a must for the 1 month survival.

Then we also bought the 5 KG Persil washing powder. Yes, I hand washes Anthea and Anders clothing daily, so I need to have the washing powder ever ready.

Then also we bought 2 tins of 1.8 KG milk powder for Anders as there was a promotion at NTUC.

The rest of the small items, I will buy them as and when we need them since NTUC Xtra is just walking distance from our home.

Logistic wise, we will still work the same, the only difference is I will need to bring Anthea for her tuition classes on Monday & Thursday. Usually Anders will stay home with Adrian while I fetched Anthea, so next time he may need to tag along. I will adjust along the way.

I am going to miss my weekends jogging when Adrian is away, guess I will have to be hardworking during weekdays: P

Another challenge ahead of being home alone with the children. I know it’s not going to be easy but I know I will manage it.

我们做运动 ！

Last week, Anthea brought back her health book from school. She just got her immunization for Measles / mumps/rubella 1st booster.

I took a browse through her health assessment summary record. All is well until I read her weight comment – “BORDERLINE OVERWEIGHT.”

All her 6 growing years, she was skinny and at times – underweight. Little did I expect to see such remark..haha. : P

I looked through the health book for her idea height / weight. She is about 4 – 5 kg above the guideline.

For the past 6 months, people who had known her before had been saying that she had put on weight and when I saw her photo on day 1 of school, compared to now, I know “she had put on some good weight”.

I told her in a serious tone that from now onwards, she will need to lose some of the weight.

Since last week, we started on a daily exercise routine. She is into badminton and knowing she has keen interest in it. I brought her downstairs in the evening for a game. Usually before we played, we would jog around the court for a few rounds as a warm up sessions.

On weekends, she also asked me to bring her down for badminton, which I did, amid my busy household chores routine. I wanted to keep her momentum and ensure she does as much running as possible.

As for her diet, I am also cutting down on certain of her intakes. She used to have her milk serving in the afternoon before her nap, now I told her she should not drink it anymore in the afternoon. Also for her lunches, I would buy lesser of those hi-carbo meals for her… : P

Hopefully, with all these small “hard” work, she can lose some weights and reach her idea weight. Otherwise she may be asked to join the “胖胖俱乐部“ soon…haha.

Now we should start shopping for a new weighing machine…: P

Our NEW Tingkat Dinner

Since Jiale decided to stop their dinner delivery to my area, I went on a search mode to gather some information on the current tingkat dinner companies.

Based on a very informative Tingkat Dinner Delivery review website, I decided to do a 5 days trial dinner with Kim’s Kitchen last week. As usual I ordered the 3 dishes + 1 soup menu. On Monday, the food was delivered around 4.30pm, about the same timing as Jia Le.

The dishes and soup were sufficient for our family of 2 adults and 2 children.

The main “JUDGES” – Anthea and Anders seem to be fine with the new caterer food and finished up their dinner. No complaint on any of the dishes.

Personally, I like their dishes and it’s even closer to home cooked. Their vegetables are very green and cut to the finest. Meats are usually boneless and fishes are fresh. Soups varieties are good and healthy.

Last week we had this dish – chestnut chicken chop special (栗子鸡扒). It is so unique and tasty that we finished up the whole dish till the last drop of 汁 . Slurp!!

This week, they served a Fragrant Fish Delight 干香鱼 块and Anthea ate the whole lot of it and said – “mommy, next time you asked uncle to give us this fish everyday”…haha.

Anders enjoyed the Rendang Chicken that was served this week and he finished his bowl of rice in record time.

So with all these positive “Feedbacks”, we decided to continue our dinner order with Kim’s and I requested for the Tiffin containers. On Monday, Kim’s delivered our dinner but was in those microwavable containers. When I checked with them, they told me that they were out of stock for the Tiffin containers and waiting for the new stock to arrive.

The only “issue” that I have is – Kim’s does not provide rice, so this means that I have to cook our own rice for dinner. I am perfectly fine with cooking rice and as of this month – I am officially promoted to a “煮饭婆“。。嘻嘻！

I am glad that our dinner routine is back to the same and I must say – it just get better !!!

“Seeds not Ripe”

Last week because of Anthea, I had the chance to meet up with my 2nd SIL’s mother when I picked Anthea up from her home after work.

My SIL’s mother is a devoted Buddhist and she is also a vegetarian. Last week, I had the chance to enjoy her home cooked vegetarian dishes – mince “meat” noodle and vegetarian pizza. The dishes were delicious and she even gave me some vegetarian minced meat and sambal chilli to bring home.

While at my SIL’s home, I will have the chance to listen to her mother perspective on the religion. I am a Free-thinker in term of religion, so I enjoy listening to her teaching. Adrian always comments that Aunty (My SIL’s mother) is a very positive person. No matter is too difficult for her. I agree and when I am with her, I feel a natural calmness and positive energy surrounding me…hee : P

The other day while chatting, she was telling me about her temple’s event and I told her I would love to explore more, if not because of the family and time is so limited.

She said: “not to worry, your seed is not ripe yet. The time will come and when you will plant the seed.”

I understood a little of her words but put her teaching in my mind.

This week my closed friend, Linda, was on MSN and chatted a little with me. She knew that I am PT contract and wanted to find out a bit more on such contract. She mentioned that her temple is planning to get a PT person to do so simple tasks. While chatting, she mentioned to me about another close friend of mine going to the same temple as she does. Such a small world.

Then Linda mentioned something which was quite new to me: “all your friends are mostly Tibetan Buddhist, wonder if you are a Tibetan Buddhist in your previous life?”

I told her I am keen to find out too…hee. Then she also mentioned to me some very interesting parents workshop organized by the temple. I lamented and told her that if not because of my family commitment, I would surely make time to go to the temple to discover more.

Then she said: “Your seed is not ripe yet. Don’t worry, when the time comes, you will find your way to it.”

I was speechless.

After 2 encounters with the people of the same belief and both said the same to me. I know it’s a sign.

Time is not on my side yet but when it comes true, I want to find enlightenment in Life.

One day, I know I will find my WAY ….and grow this SEED!

看戏。吃饭。相聚

We had a very fun and fulfilling weekends and our weekends started from Friday evening. : P

Friday – ICE AGE 3

Anthea and Anders had seen the thriller on Cartoon Networks and had mentioned their interest to watch the movie. However, we had a main headache – this movie is shown in 2 versions – 2D and 3D. Anthea wanted very much to watch the 3D movie but Anders is not so used to 3D, so we had to get both consensuses. Luckily Anthea was agreeable to watch the normal 2D movie, so we booked a 10.15pm show at cineleisure @ AMK Hub.

As our home is walking distance to the cinema, so I told the children – they should change into the pyjamas, so that after the movie, they could go home and head straight to bed…since it would be near mid-nite by the time the movie ended.

The 1 ½ hour movie was very entertaining and we had good laughs throughout the movie. As usual the children enjoyed their Jumbo popcorn.

We are planning for our next movie – Transformer as Anders had requested for it. But I heard some negative feedbacks so now I am still hesitating if we should watch it or just wait for the DVD…: P

Saturday – Home cooked Chicken Rice

Last week at dinner, Anthea mentioned that she discovered a “new” way to eat chicken rice. She said “mommy, you must put dark sauce over the chicken rice and it becomes very yummy.”
I asked her how did she discover this way – she said she had it when my FIL ate it at TMFT on the day they departed for Club Med Bintan.

So with this in mind, Anthea told Adrian to cook his “signature dish” – home cook chicken rice on Saturday for lunch. This was also a refresher course for Adrian as he will be travelling soon for his one month plus work detachment.

Recently, I bought a new soup recipe book by the title “阿婆靓汤“and decided to try on one of them – Lean pork soup with Pear & dates (蜜枣雪梨瘦肉汤)

The soup tasted very nice and sweet and all of them loved it. I had tried 2 recipes and so far the responses were good. Next week, I am going to try another recipe.

Sunday – Catching Up

A few weeks back we borrowed some winter clothing from our Aunty SP. After collecting the clothing back from the laundry shop. We made a trip to her house on Sunday to return the basket of clothing.

As usual, Anthea and Anders had a great time playing around with Uncle Kiat. He has so many toys in the house.

At the same time, Aunty SP shared with me her concerns over Kiat’s school work. He’s in Primary 2 now and like any child. He is also careless in his studies and needed my aunty guidance in his school work.

She is working Full time and indicated that she will likely quit her job next year because Primary 3 is crucial and she wants Kiat to maintain his results in order to pass. She is also concerned about his Mother Tongue as there is no one at home that can guide him. My Uncle usually works long hours, so it’s hard for him to teach Kiat Mandarin.

Looking at her situation, I can empathize with her. I told I would encourage her to stop work, if my uncle can support the family financially. I believe the first few years are critical years for the child to build up their foundation. If they don’t get it right from the start, the child may eventually lose his/her confidence in the studies and that may lead to other set of problems.

Hopes that she can works up something that best fit her family. That’s why the Chinese say: “家家有本难念的经“

Serving LOA

Last Tuesday Adrian made a remark to me: “So far, Indonesia has no report of the H1N1 cases.” “Yeah.” I replied. It was with this in mind, my in-laws decided to go Bintan for a short break and also Anthea joined them.

On Wednesday, I received a call from Anthea’s form teacher checking on our travel history as we declared that we were travelling to Sydney, 8 – 12 June 2009. She asked about Anthea’s well-being and said she was ok to return to school on Monday.

On the same day, the ministries decided to issue LOA (Leave of Absence) to school going children who returned from holiday from the list of affected countries. Adrian told me that Indonesia was added to the list, together with Hong Kong.

I had a real shock and on Thursday, I called Anthea’s school to check if BINTAN is considered as affected countries. The administrator confirmed my worst fear – she said Bintan is in Indonesia and it’s considered affected country. I declared Anthea’s travel to Indonesia and the administrator said she would mail the LOA to our home.

With this LOA, Anthea would need to stay away from school for 7 days and by the calculation, she can only step into the school on Friday, 3 July. This meant she had another 4 days of extended “off days”.

On Thursday, after fetching my in-laws and Anthea from the ferry, I shared with them the “BAD News” and my in-laws was equally surprised about the new addition of Indonesia and Hong Kong to the list. Also Bintan is so near to Singapore and they didn’t even go on a flight…haha.

So we had to make new logistic arrangement for the extended leave for Anthea’s home care. To make it more challenging, my parents had left for their one month China holiday on Sunday, 28 June. So this means I cannot care her off to my mom.

After discussion with my in-laws, my FIL volunteered to take care of her for the morning half from Monday to Thursday. Also my 2nd SIL had kindly offered to prepare her lunches for Monday & Tuesday.

In the meantime, I had been in contact with Anthea’s form teacher to check with her the home-based learning material as I could not find them on the school portal. She called me on Tuesday and mentioned that she would mail them to me as well. I told her I could pick them up from the school, which is just a street away.

During the day while Anthea is with my FIL, he would guide her to do her home based studies and also other learning things. My FIL was a teacher before he retired.

Situations like these make me feel very Thankful to have supporting family’s members and all these extra hands really make it possible for me to cont’d working.

Today is the last day of her LOA and she will be back to school tomorrow. I am really glad that we will be going back to our old routine.

Let's hope this H1N1 virus will blow over soon and life can be back to normal again !!!