Making Progress.

The husband seems to have turned a corner and is on the mend; he helped with dinner last night and was well enough to do a little gardening today, a great sign considering he was in bed for a lot of the weekend. He's still not 100% but will be headed back to work tomorrow. He remarked that the last time he was this unwell was in 2016 when we came to New Zealand for a recce trip.

It's Book Week in school for the bigs, and the school has organised daily activities and a readathon throughout the week. The week finishes off with Book Character day where children get to dress up in a favourite book character for the day. My children have complete faith in my ability to put together their costumes. Me, not so much. The costumes are coming along... Slowly. 

Along Tamaki Drive.

While the husband rested at home, the children and I went for a little trip along the waterfront, the bigs on rollerblades and the littlies on their bikes. A few rules and a buddy system made for a smooth journey, but I remember imploring the boys' guardian angels to keep an eye on them at a couple of points! 

Sisters. 

At a few points, our big girl raised her hands and exclaimed, "Look, no hands!" The little lady just had to copy her sister in lifting her hands in the air too! You do need your hands, dear girl! 

The little lady would get distracted by the littlest things, motorbikes, cars, pigeons... you can tell when her handlebars start turning off course, and I look up to find her looking back over her shoulder. 🤦‍♀️ Her flitting attention reminds me of our neighbours' four month old puppy! These babies and their similarities. 

Our little man did really well over the 2km ride. He showed excellent control of the bike even when he had to navigate around other pedestrians while remembering to stay behind his brother at all times. 

Needless to say, they were well and truly knackered from the trip. 

Big girl: I think I've almost used up all my energy. 

A stop by the ice cream parlour was a sweet treat to round off the afternoon, and they savoured their cones on the drive home. 

Big Boy on the rocks.

New Zealand, you're a beautiful country.

Kitchen Fun and an Unwell Husband.

I tried my hand at making my own chicken nuggets (recipe here). Freshly cooked, it's yum. To get to a point where it's good eaten cold, I think I'll need to tweak the flour to chicken ratio. Work in progress, but it was empowering to know frozen supermarket nuggets aren't the only option.

For tomorrow's lunchboxes, I've made lazy man's mini quiches with leftover flour tortillas. 

The husband's still testing negative but is in no shape to teach tomorrow. The sore throat and body aches are enforcing a much-needed rest. It feels like we're in a state of limbo and could go into isolation any day now. Whatever happens, we'll just roll with the evolving situation and be grateful for each day that we're well enough to be out and about.

Little man's before-bedtime thoughts:

"What colour is a turtle's poo?"

??? 

Potions, Painting and Carrots.

The littlies brewed potions this afternoon. Food dye and water, figuring out how colours mix. Their idea. 

That gave way to painting... Printing with bubble wrap. The little man decided that yellow prints looked like a beehive, and used fingerprints to create bees around his hive. It's interesting to see little minds at work! 

I made pasta soup for dinner. It was incredible to be able to harvest carrots to use in our meal... A real garden to table experience! Thanks husband, for growing these sweet purple dragons!

The husband is feeling under the weather and will be taking a sick day off work tomorrow. Its probably a result of how hard he's been pushing himself to get the timetabling matters sorted, but we will do another RAT test tomorrow to double check. 

A Full Day & School Fundraising.

It was a morning of checkups for our big girl and little man. They were champs and breezed through the checkups.

 some down time this morning.

The afternoon saw us meeting at the playground with the Turner family.

banana mini-muffins, quick after-school fuel

All 7 of them had a great time, with water play, no less, despite the chilly autumn breeze. We were here until almost dinner time, and then it was a dash home to whip up a chicken pasta for dinner.

The older children kickstarted their school Read-a-thon fundraising, and they're mighty excited. Thanks to technology, family back in Singapore can support the fundraising effort via a website link. Many thanks to their supportive and enthusiastic grandparents! :)

It's 1030pm. I'm writing this in bed and the little lady has launched an early invasion tonight. She's snug as a bug in a rug next to me.

Me: Do you like sleeping in our bed?

Her, quietly: yeah.

Papa: I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.

Zzzzz. 

The Anatomy of Change.

This morning, I heard myself ask our big boy a question that stayed with me all day:

"If we can't love him at his best and his worst, who will?" 

The bigs and I were having a sobering conversation about the little man before he woke up. He's been challenging everyone's patience over the last few weeks; selective listening, impulsively hitting or scratching, and being unpleasant company in general. It's especially frustrating to me because he can seem perfectly sensible when calm, but once he sees red, all reason flies out the door. My patience finally flew out the door yesterday and I lost my patience with him. 

Past experience and reflection are good friends. I remember our big boy going through a similar stage when he was that age. Papa also pointed out that our little man seems to be a bit of a black sheep at the moment because no one really wants to play with him. For good reason, given his behaviour, but it certainly can't make him feel good. 

The husband and I set a course for a fresh approach and spoke to the older children this morning. Our new path entails accepting the current developmental stage he's at and understanding that it will pass. It involves holding him accountable for hurtful behaviour, but also seeing the little person behind the behaviour. It also means reminding ourselves that as family, we need to love each other, for the good and the bad.

It has been a good first day. I saw the bigs, especially our big boy, purposefully including the little man in group huddles and play. I also saw more effort put into communicating with each other. There was less yelling, more clarifying and explaining. I found myself calmer and more patient too, knowing the children and I were on the same page. There were way fewer fights to break up. 

"Best buddies," they said of each other. At the trampoline park today. 

Interestingly, I saw the little man respond in kind. He has no knowledge of what we're doing. He was still angsty at times but he also seemed calmer than usual and spent more time playing than fighting.

Of course, this is just day 1 and I'm sure tougher days lie ahead. Our resolve to love will be tested but with some grace we will grow in love together.

Liggy sent me this yesterday, before all this conversation happened. It was very timely, and made for powerful reflection. 

With grace, this will be an imperfect parenting moment that becomes a gift. 

Fruitful Saturday.

Today was an exercise in being deliberate about how I spent my time. I'd usually be stationed in the kitchen for hours on weekends preparing meals and baking for the week. That's a habit that's been changing of late though. 

This morning, I sat. I sat and watched my busy children creating stories with Lego bricks. Weekends are their time to unwind from the week, to be absorbed in play, and be together. So precious. 

By putting in a little more thought to the day, I managed to read a chapter aloud to the children at breakfast (we are currently reading Mary Poppins by PL Travers), roughhouse with the younger three in the morning, and do chores with the big girl in the afternoon. That, in addition to cooking, laundry, a nap (wow!) and exercise. It's been a fruitful day.

It's amazing to watch the children's imaginations at work. I'm not much use when it comes to Lego and can only admire the way they manipulate the bricks to bring their imaginations to reality, while I struggle to put together a simple house. 

Our big boy built a massive ball run spanning the doll house.. Incredible stuff! 

I ended the day finding four little bottles of nail polish in bed as I crawled under the covers for the night. The little lady wanted to paint her nails and took the bottles to bed with her for use tomorrow morning. Never a dull moment. 

Evolution.

Little man: I look like a schoolteacher like daddy!

Daddy had one of the most exhausting weeks in a long time; up to his eyeballs in exam timetabling. That's part of a new role he's taken up in school, which on its own is tricky, but throw teaching responsibilities into the mix and it gets a whole lot harder.

The weekend is here, though, and that's something to be thankful for.

This week, I worked on evolving our play space by paying attention to what the children have been most interested in recently and creating invitations to develop those areas. 

We put away the play kitchen and brought in a lego table. The doll house was sitting unused, upstairs, and I wondered if bringing it down might give it more play time... This time, sans dollhouse furniture so that options for play are blown wide open. 

It's a work in progress. Play is certainly serious business :) happy weekend! 

Soldiering On.

Our little man seems to be staying put in his own room so far. He was sad this morning when he realised his big sister was not going to be sharing a room with him; he didn't want anyone else but her. However, at night, he was happy to have a story read, be tucked in, and have me lie with him for awhile before I left him to fall asleep. Fingers crossed. Definitely new territory for us as both older ones were happy to stay in our bedroom for as long as they could. They certainly wouldn't have dreamt of being in a room on their own at four years of age.

Making use of the new Lego table Papa assembled. They were so keen to build lego that we were late for school! First time this year. 

Ups and Downs.

We go to shopping malls so infrequently that escalators, elevators and everything in between is novelty for the littlies. Our joyride up and down the mostly empty travelator three whole times drew smiles from other patrons. "At least it's free, it could be worse!" chuckled one lady.

We were on a mission today, a mission to procure a comfy (read:bouncy) new mattress for our little man in his new bed. It took a few phone calls, and a squash and a squeeze into the boot, but we made it. 

He's a very happy little man.

At least, he will be until he finds out that after he fell asleep, his big sister came down to me in tears. It turns out she missed her big brother and couldn't sleep. It probably had something to do with how she's not used to being the last one to fall asleep. She felt lonely with the little man asleep so quickly. 

She's back sharing room with her big brother now. This is a situation we will need to reassess in the morning. 

Out of Mum + Dad's Bedroom.

Our little man decided that he was ready to sleep in another bedroom today. He's claimed the top bunk in another bedroom, and his big sister has joined him on the bottom bunk. 

For the first time, he's not needed me to lie with him. His big sister lay with him instead and we left the curtains drawn open for a little light to enter the room. He fell asleep easily and seems to be sleeping well. 

This is a big moment, but I'm also readying myself for his return tomorrow after the novelty wears off. Parenthood is such a massive exercise in letting go, and in knowing when to do so... This one looks like he's needing me a little less as big boyhood beckons.

Helping with chocolate cornflake cookies this afternoon. 

Wheel Days.

Our little lady has found her wheels! Yesss! 

New Toy

One of our neighbours runs the local Bike Hub. He recently reassembled a donated drift bike and generously gifted it to the children on our lane. They have been loving it! The youngest ones cannot quite reach the pedals yet so they hitch a ride from the older ones.

The little man figured out that he can shuffle up the end of the lane with his feet and freewheel slowly down the gentle slope on our lane. Wheeeee!

The bike is parked on our property at night but is free for all to use. 

Very grateful for community. 

A for Attitude.

Our youngest one comes with the most sass. She knows what she wants and gets away with SO much more. She's cute and she knows how to work it to her advantage. She decided she was going to stay in her PJs all day long, and she did. It's a "new" pretty pink Pokemon set that belonged to her sister. She adores it and would probably have worn it to bed again if we didn't put our foot down. 

PJs at the playground 

One of the most understated joys of having four (or more) children must be the incredible sibling dynamics that are constantly shifting and evolving. There is such a fierce love that exists between them. We love watching our older children teach their younger siblings, whether through creating simple worksheets for them, reading to them, or sagely advising them on how to manage annoying siblings. 

Big girl, to her little sister: If you trust yourself, you will know what he said is not true, and then you can just ignore him. 

 Helping hands at the library 

Our littlies learn so much from being around the older ones. The little man and I have been working on letters and numbers together and our little lady as a result has learned to write the letter "H", by quite literally grabbing my hand and insisting I guide her in writing too. At the tender age of 2 years and 4 months, she is the earliest of our four to turn her chicken scratchings into meaningful writing. She loves scrawling little Hs all over the driveway in colourful chalk. 

But then there are also the glorious fights and the awful contagion of poop talk (our little lady now addresses her nearest and dearest with a dignified "butt butt" at the end of their name. I am "mummy-butt-butt") that bring us back down to Earth! 

It has been an eventful week. I'm very glad to be done with birthdays for the year, save for the husband's later this year.  Thank goodness birthdays only come around once a year.

9 Years of Parenthood.

It was another 4am awakening for our biggest two, as a little sister shared in the excitement of her big brother's 9th birthday. They tiptoed downstairs and started their day hours before the rest of us did.

It's just as well that we were planning to let our big girl take a day off school too. She would have fallen asleep in class! We went to an indoor playground and had a super time. 

Our day in pictures:

Teaching his little brother to write "B-U-M" 🤦‍♀️

Ball pit!! 

 Snack break. 

    Pokeball Piñata 

Chocolate meringue pie

Happy birthday, my dear boy. You are the one who made us parents. This day means more to me than mother's day ever could.

The husband and I are preparing to consecrate our family to Saint Joseph (earthly father of Jesus), i.e spiritually place our family under the care of an important person in heaven. More and more, I see the wisdom in seeking the prayers of this Saint who is a light in the darkness of today's moral and spiritual famine.

9 years of parenthood have made us all too aware that this is not a journey we can undertake alone. We need the grace of God and as many spiritual weapons in heaven's arsenal as we can get to have a fighting chance. St Joseph is one such weapon. 

To whom shall we go? 

Ite ad Ioseph! (Go to Joseph!) 

Turning Seven.

Our big girl celebrated her birthday today. She was so excited that she was up at 4.30am this morning and had opened her presents with her brother before any of us were awake. (We have a practice of putting presents at the foot of the birthday child's bed for them to find when they wake). I arrived downstairs,sleepy-eyed, at 6.50am to find her rolling out to greet me in her brand new rollerblades. :)

The day in pictures:

Breakfast on wheels

Our big boy's pride and joy. It took us two days to make this! 

Princess of Jelly hearts (cheesecake).

She had been invited to a friend's birthday party today but declined the invitation to stay home and celebrate with us. I'm real glad she did. 

Of Skipped Skipping.

Carving out 15 minutes in a day to exercise has been harder than it seemed. I didn't make it yesterday, what with dinner prep and taking the children to the playground after school.

I made it today, and it worked only because I skipped in my neighbour's front yard while the little lady jumped on their trampoline. 

It's a commitment, indeed! Well, you win some, you lose some. 

we discovered a new playground today. 

Our littlest loves having her photo taken! 

Mini-Muffins and Munchie Money

I made pulled pork in the slow cooker overnight, and the aromas of barbecue sauce and cooking pork permeated my dreams and woke me several times! It's a strange, strange feeling. 

It was an outside kind of day today, as the littlies were constantly hankering to be outside. So baking moved outside with them. We made savoury mini-muffins for afternoon tea. They're getting pretty good at spooning batter into the muffin cups, although admittedly, our littlest one spends more time licking the spoon or eating batter than actually filling the tray! 

The Annoyed and the Annoyer. This is our everyday. 

Ham/Cheese mini muffins

In a bid to encourage our bigs to practise their times tables, we devised a system for them to earn munchie money (MM) while practising. They'd in turn be able to exchange MMs for snacks. 

I'm sure this will need to be tweaked once our big boy has a go at it with his eagle eyes, but if it doesn't give me a headache first, it should be fun.