Sew Good.

Our big ones completed their first sewing project today! They wanted to learn to sew a pillow, and began this yesterday, Sunday afternoon.

They'd learned the running stitch before and were introduced to the back stitch this time as a sturdier alternative. I'm surprised by how quickly they got the hang of it.

It was very satisfying to turn the piece inside out, fill it with scraps of cloth, and complete the final stitching.

These guys were so pleased with their handiwork. Well done, y'all. 

Their next goal: to learn to use the sewing machine. 

Changing Gears.

It has been awhile since I've written about kindergarten; that's because we've quit kindy. It was hard to hear the little man's teary resistance to being left there. "I cry because you leave me at kindy," was his teary refrain each evening. I dug deep and realised that it IS okay for a 3 year old to want to be with mum. As a slightly more seasoned parent, I've come to realise that they will separate comfortably when they're ready to, and not before. They just need time. 

So, no kindergarten. Instead, we've joined Play Centre. It's just down the street from us and fits our needs quite nicely. It's two mornings a week, which gives us time to create our own adventures on the other days. It's basically an early childhood centre run by parents: parents form the main educators for the children (I will be taking up free Play Centre courses to equip myself for the role), and play/teach/learn alongside their children. As an added bonus, it's a little community of parents and children that we become a part of. We've had three visits so far and the people have been welcoming and down-to-earth so far. 

Our little lady and little man have enjoyed our visits there. They interact freely with other children their age, have access to a wide range of toys and resources, and get to be together all the time. We start proper next week, and I'm looking forward to the journey.

Up Mount Wellington We Go!

Our little man has always been intrigued by Mount Wellington, our nearest and most prominent volcanic peak. He's quick to point it out when he spots it and has of late been asking to climb it.

Today, we did that. It was an overcast and windy morning but that didn't dampen our spirits!

We stopped for lunch midway before carrying on to the summit. Our little man was eager and energetic, and we chatted the whole journey while our little lady slept in the front carrier after lunch. 

It was a 1.5 hour adventure that made our day special.

This evening, our big girl made a racing car out of scrap materials and instructions from a school reader. She's excited to take that to school with her tomorrow! 

Freedommmmm.

It's been a rock-hunting, swimming sort of weekend. More than anything, though, it's the first free weekend we've after birthday season and it feels great to not have anything to rush for. 

We went to Wairua Park to look for painted rocks. Enthusiasts paint rocks and hide them for others to find. The idea is to find them and rehide them. And maybe paint our own to add to the fun.

 Rehiding.

We went swimming this afternoon at the pools. Our big girl was excited to show off the skills she's picked up from her swimming lessons. It's so good to see the sense of mastery and confidence radiating from her.

Our cheeky three year old can now hold a conversation with his grandparents, and very entertaining ones at that.

Grandpa: Your hair looks nice and very neat. Who cut it for you?

Him: ME! 

Grandpa asks a few times to be sure and he maintains the same answer. Cheeky rascal.

Grandpa: Who's your best friend?

Him: I like cookies.

Grandpa: What do you like about him? 

Him: I like chocolate chips.

🤷‍♀️

    "You can't see me, grandpa!" 

Autumn.

With cooling temperatures and crackly leaves blanketing the ground, it's clear that autumn is well and truly upon us. We went rock hunting with friends this morning and enjoyed being outdoors. 

    The real feijoa monster. 

Homemade char siew baos for breakfast/lunch/tea tomorrow. 

Also, this evening, my first time being away from the older children at bedtime as I attended an information session for an early childhood centre nearby. Our littlest one accompanied me, whilst Papa put the rest to bed at home. I got home at 9.30pm, thoroughly exhausted. What a day it's been. 

Slow Down.

It being one of two months in a year dedicated to Mother Mary, we have been praying a decade of the rosary each evening.

The children have taken to it better than I thought they would. I was slightly nervous about introducing it because I wanted to do this beautiful prayer justice. 

We take turns leading the prayers and the children's favourite prayer to lead is the Glory Be. There is usually ongoing competition around who would get to lead it each evening.

This particular evening, the Glory Be would have fallen to our big boy to lead. He surprised all of us when he gently told our big girl that she could lead the Glory Be, and he took the last Hail Mary instead. In her surprise, she didn't say much, but we all appreciated his generous gesture and told him as much.

Our big girl was home with a cold today. We painted butterflies which she stuck on the wall to create a butterfly family.

Following the success of our big boy's party on Saturday, I've been resting and recovering from the bustle of the past month or so. Taking time to do normal mum stuff is good for now. 

A Cold Morning & Great Neighbours!

On one of the coldest mornings so far, our littlies decided they wanted to play on the beach. I don't get it. 

We found a crimson jellyfish (harmless to humans) and put it in a box to observe before releasing it. Fascinating!

Back home, hot showers and hot chocolate (with extra marshmallows) were in order. The doorbell rang and there stood our neighbour with some food. 

She had made beef rendang the night before and brought a portion over for my lunch. It was delicious! And very much appreciated. I'm grateful for generous neighbours who enjoy food as much as we do.

Twister from granny and grandpa had everyone in knots this evening. Our big girl is still not tall enough to comfortably reach all the colours but she was very game to play and twist herself in all shapes to reach the right circles. This was a good workout all right!

It's not a great feeling to see the situation in Singapore moving steadily toward another circuit breaker. I'm hoping the recent tightening of restrictions will be sufficient to get things under control, avoiding a full-on circuit breaker. 

Another Indoor Playground & My Imperfect Life.

Indoor playgrounds seem to be the flavour of the week; we visited another today! The following photos alone are worth the entry fees we paid:

When parenthood gets hard, get a velcro wall. Stick 'em up, walk away. The boys wriggled themselves off the wall and onto the trampoline below. Our little bumblebee, on the other hand, was well and truly stuck.

It was a great place to chill out and relax for awhile. (Those velcro suits came in adult sizes too, go figure.) 

Once home, there was work to be done on the last birthday cake for awhile, our big boy's. Now, this looked different in my head, so naturally I was a little surprised when this happened:

That top colour must be some pink shade of purple but hey, gender reveal party anyone?

I had every intention of scraping off the icing, buying more cream cheese, making more icing and giving the cake a do over.

Then I went back to have a second look and I thought, "this isn't half bad." I think that cake grew on me, my family liked what they saw and frankly, that's what matters. My life doesn't have to be picture perfect for me to embrace all of it.

 She who sleeps last wins first taste.

Temperatures are supposed to dip to a chilly 7 degrees tonight, so I'm gonna snuggle up right about now and catch some Zs. 

8 Years A Mother.

 The picture of our big boy, pink-cheeked and sweaty-faced, hair drenched in perspiration, grinning widely, is etched in my memory of today. It being his birthday, he took a day off from school to go to Chipmunks, an indoor playground. He generously extended an invitation to his sister, one she was all too happy to accept. 

For an idea of how much fun they had -- we spent five hours there and they were still reluctant to leave when I finally herded everyone out at close to 3pm. 

It was evident that the four siblings thoroughly enjoyed each others' company. They explored together, played together and looked out for one another. It was easy to lose the littler ones in the maze of a climbing structure, which happened once, but then they learned to call out as they ran inside and keep eyes on the little ones. A day well spent with these little guys, and as Val recently remarked, they do seem to have quite a special bond.

Almost as soon as we arrived home, our big girl had to change and leave for her weekly swimming lesson. Papa took her today. She was thrilled to have him watch her swim. She came back glowing, and was effusive in sharing her excitement about how she is progressing. It was heartening to see her so excited about swimming and loving being in the water. She can't wait for us to take her to the pools soon so she can show off what she has learned. :)

After a full day out, it was a relief not to have had to cook; the birthday boy requested KFC for dinner so he could have his favourite mashed potatoes in gravy and popcorn chicken. 

 Ice cream and macarons: These are a few of his favourite things. 

The children have had an incredible day, and fell asleep easily after all that running about. One more cake to plan and create...one more party to orchestrate. We've got this.

Happy birthday, big boy. Thanks for making me a mum. 

Food, Food, Food!

It's been a day to catch up on the laundry and prepare food for the week. And catch up with Pokemon on the Nintendo, of course. 

From the kitchen, I could hear Papa and his three pokemon trainer wannabes engaged in lively conversation about battle tactics, pokemon evolution and other pokemon technicalities that were far beyond me. Every so often, a child would wander into the kitchen and get roped in to crack an egg or two for a recipe or mix up some batter. They'd usually be rewarded with a taste of something cooking for their efforts so they were pretty happy to help. 

I made a batch of pandan waffles to freeze and curried beef mince/potato pasties for the husband's weekday lunches. 

Hokkien mee for dinner. We've missed this familiar hawker dish and the prep that goes into it was certainly worth it.

The children's godma, Ligna, sent us macarons and cupcakes for the bigs' birthdays. Food is the way to our hearts for sure, but these guys have a huge soft spot for macarons and desserts. Look at those faces:

It's been a day of much needed rest (I napped!) and catching up on chores. A new week beckons, and just ONE more week of birthday on the brain! 

Birthday Party.

As the last party guest left, I felt a wave of relief and surprisingly, a slight emptiness. The emotional investment of party preparation had fueled a frenetic momentum that stopped short as soon as the party ended. 

That being said, I'm glad it's over. I'm glad to have an evening to unwind and hopefully watch The Bad Batch that dropped on Disney+ early last week. 

The party was a success. Our big girl and a few friends went to a ceramics painting studio to get creative. They each picked out a blank piece to paint and personalise. They will get to take it home in about a week, once it has been put through the kiln on site. 

Our only male invited guest remarked at some point, "There's too many girls!" 

At home, Papa prepared the "Daddy Meal", his version of the Happy Meal sans the copious amount of single-use packaging. Lunch was served during a screening of the movie, The Incredibles. 

Daddy Meal Cheeseburger

All too soon, it was time to sing the birthday song and cut the cake. The golden apple (requested by her and inspired by Crazy Delicious on Netflix) finally made its appearance.

We ended the day with teaching our children a beautiful Marian hymn, titled "As I Kneel Before You". Saint Augustine said that when we sing, we pray twice. The Spirit certainly moved amidst our prayer tonight. The children sang beautifully as Papa led us on the guitar. 

Ave Maria, Gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Benedicta tu.

Our Big Girl is 6!

The morning was spent picking up some last minute items for our big girl's birthday.

It was unbelievably tempting to go all out and buy more stuff to make her day more special. More than once, I had to remind myself that it isn't the stuff that maketh a birthday.

Sure enough, this evening:

Big girl: I had a great time celebrating my birthday today.

Me: I'm so glad to hear that! What made your day great?

Her: My friends!

Unlike her big brother who has already asked to spend his birthday home with us, our big girl thrives on being at school. She received a compilation of cards from her classmates and not one, but two birthday songs sung for her.

   Udon for dinner. I had a little helper. 

    We love you, my dear girl! 

I'm couldn't be more pleased that she had a lovely birthday. Now onward to tomorrow's party. 

Curveball.

Remember how I ended off my last post convinced today would be a little less exciting? Not everyone got the memo, it seems. 

We spent three hours at the clinic waiting to be seen and bouncing between various health professionals. It was an unexpected trip, made this morning after speaking to our big boy's form teacher about his sprain. He was not putting any weight on his foot and I couldn't see him getting through the day hopping precariously on one foot.

He got sent for an X-Ray that confirmed there was no fracture. He is now in a moon boot and crutches for the next few days. The entire visit cost us just $20 to cover the X-Ray. The crutches are to be returned when he no longer needs them (no deposit, honour-system style), and the moon boot, he keeps. Wow. 

In spite of complaining about the moon boot, he's now convinced of its benefits after half a day of wearing it. In the evening, to his delight, he discovered that he could put some weight on his ankle.

Plus, it's a definite attention-grabber too. In a small school like his, everyone notices. I got more than one question from his curious schoolmates, many of whom were also very eager to share their own experiences with sprains, fractures and cuts of all kinds. I got to see a few battle scars too. 

I was heartened to see two of his good friends shepherding him to a lunch spot, one of them beside him holding his lunch box while the other led the way.

For his patience, our little man earned himself a Happy Meal with a side of cartoons.

It's been such a hard day, but we've made it through. Our big girl turns 6 tomorrow and she is incredibly excited. She's got presents waiting for her when she wakes, a special hot lunch in school (that her brother will also enjoy), and birthday dinner. We hope she has the best day. 

Dentist Appointments & A Sprain.

It's been a busy but fulfilling day. Follow-up dental appointments for the older ones, who were all too pleased to be taken out of school in the middle of the day. I attended morning mass before returning to pick them up at 10.30am. We'd planned to go rock-climbing after the dentist appointments but that all went down the drain when our big boy stumbled and sprained his ankle whilst walking out of school. 

Our big girl being enveloped in a group hug before she left school. Gotta love these 5-year olds. 

Between hobbling, hopping and me carrying him, we managed to get him fitted for new school shoes at the school uniform shop and made it in one piece to the dental appointments. What a relief it was to get home at the end of it all. 

Motherhood certainly entails heaps of on-the-job learning. Sprains are completely new territory for me. I learned to apply a compression bandage to the ankle, from a 3-minute video on YouTube. I learned about RICE for sprain management from Ligna (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate) too. 

               Getting comfortable

Every mother needs a good little helper and that was our big girl -- she was more than happy to wait on our big boy and make sure he was comfortable. She's even offered to go to our big boy during morning tea and lunch at school tomorrow to take care of him and help him out. She is such a blessing. 

Our little man building a home for 'Snaily' while his sister watches on. 

Dinner: Beef enchiladas and garlic butter brussels sprouts

Our big boy launched into the mother of all meltdowns all thanks to the sprouts, probably combined with fatigue from the day. We were treated to a good 15 minutes of wailing and screaming, which left our big girl and little lady slightly traumatised. Big emotions neeeded to get out of his system, it seemed. He calmed down after and managed to eat a quarter of a brussels sprout. Papa made a talking puppet out of an oven mitt which had the children in stitches and it cheered our big boy up considerably.

Our big girl set up a hair salon for her two little siblings this evening. 

Later in the evening, our big boy helped me make buttercream for our big girl's birthday cake, which was a sweet end to the day. 

We're all pretty exhausted. Thankfully tomorrow is looking like a less exciting day.