Tasmania & Sydney Trip in 2013 (Part 1)

We brought Inez for her first overseas trip to Tasmania and Sydney in 2013 and it was nearing the tail end of the winter season. It was quite an experience for her, being the first time she took the plane and we weren’t sure how she will react to it although we had a prep talk session with her.

We flew by Qantas and it was a night flight at around 945pm. Her usual bedtime was 9pm so she was getting tired by the time we boarded but yet she cannot sleep as the plane was noisy. She was scared, cried, refused to buckle up for take-off and we have to keep assuring her that everything is going to be okay.

When she tried sleeping, they serve food and she was once again distracted. She was not hungry and was just interested to see what they were serving. Apart from the few bites of the pasta, bread and sips of Milo, she do not touch her plate anymore as she’s more interested in the in-flight entertainment. When she finally fell asleep, she lay down and slept on my legs and by the end of the flight, I was “stone” and a zombie.

Hub’s BFF although a Singaporean but has obtained PR in Australia many years back, so our accommodation was taken care in Tassie.

 

Can you see how wide and empty the road is? You won’t even know if your neighbor is at home.

 

This is their house which we stayed with them and last year, they have shifted to another area near Blackman Bay, which was even more awesome. We took it slow the first day and kind of rested and we only went to explore the surroundings and went grocery shopping to see and experience the Aussie way of living.

Inez couldn’t get used to the cold weather and the temperature was hovering between 5 degree and even hit 0 degree at night. She had to borrow Yana’s winter wear clothing to serve as another layer of protection.

Freezing in the cold!

 

We went to explore Salamanca Market. More than 300 stallholders selling fresh and gourmet produce, arts & crafts here and is rated as one of the most rated attraction in Hobart. Too bad we were there on a weekday, so not much activities were going around but we did had some scenic vie.

One thing I always remember about Tassie was it reminded me of God’s promise because I see rainbows almost every other day.

 

How not to love the view when you wake up every morning to this beautiful creation of God?

Leaving you with a picture of Inez enjoying her hot chocolate!

Must go night market in Bangkok

This is a super duper late post which has been delayed by 5 months, oh well, better late than never. I am so so so blessed with a trip this January that one of my close friend paid for, she blessed me with an air ticket to Bangkok and I must say that this trip came so timely for me to recharge myself.

We all know how hard we MUMMIES work!

I’m sure many of us have been to Bangkok and I shall not bore you with the usual shopping and food. This is my 3rd time to this place and I decide to make it slightly different from the usual makan and shopping. I want to share with you the experience that I had at Talat Rot Fai Train Market, the Maeklong Railway Market and the Floating Market.

Talat Rot Fai Train Market

 

At first from the outlook of it, we thought that it was a bar or something but it turn out to be like a “museum” of all the vintage cars/lorries and diesel pumps. I love things that are of vintage retro as there is just something about this era.

If you Google about it, you will find lots of other pictures that I am not doing justice to it.

I highly recommend coming to this night market, if you only have one night to spend for night market, this is the MUST COME! I did not regret the cab ride of almost 45 minutes due to jam.

Maeklong Railway Market

This is pretty awesome. TripAdvisor says this is the most dangerous yet interesting market. When the train is not in service yet, the hawkers will lay down their produce for sale but once they hear the bells signaling, they will quickly pack up and push their carts back to allow the train to pass by. One must experience to have the “FEEL”!!!

Floating Market

I shall let the pictures do the talking.

My lovely noodles from the aunty on the left. She was also very friendly and though may not speak English, she kept talking to my friend and I and we even use sign and body language.

The Hub say he Must Must Must go to the night market and feels so jealous on what he has missed out. Sorry dear, it was a girls trip.

Our P1 registration experience

If the current Primary 1 registration scheme stays as it is for the next few years, this will probably be the only post that I will be documenting down for memory sake. The 2 boys will be “auto-registered” under the Siblings Scheme since Jie Jie got a place now.

Thousands of anxious parents need to make that major decision of where to send their kid to for formal education. Every parent has their own sets of criteria or preferences. Some prefer to send to “branded” or prestigious schools, some goes back to their alma mater to carry on the tradition, some for convenience sake…whatever it is, there is no right or wrong.

For us, we go for convenience as we don’t want the poor kid to wake up at 530am just to wait for school bus. We go for holistic as we feel that their mini world is not just made up of pure study & grades, scoring 100% does not equate to them being successful in future; there are other more important factors besides grades.

As I tracked back this journey, I simply thank God for His guidance. It’s nothing short of amazing at how God works. So here goes the story…

We were previously staying in the North area (my parents stay in central area while my in-laws stay in the central west area) and our heart was always to sell the house after 5 years and shift somewhere nearer my in-laws. The reason was mainly for the children’s schooling needs and hopefully to do away with domestic maid. We kind of set our heart to want them to be in Hub’s alma mater, reason being it was just 10 minutes from my in-laws house and the older cousins are studying there also.

I remembered it was somewhere in May or early June last year when I suddenly just thought of looking at past years P1 registration statistics and google it. I was a little surprised to learn that the school we wanted needed balloting for 2A2. Hub and I had a discussion and we decided that we should just pay the $150 to be alumni member to qualify for 2A1. We download the form, make copies of the necessary documents and was about to mail it out but I had the prompting to check If there were any cut off dates to be in alumni for P1 registration and to my shock & horror, it was 30 Jun 2014 and we were like 2 days to the end of June.

Hub decide to take time off the next day to drop off the form instead of mailing it out. Even after he handed the form, we were still puzzled as we didn’t know the cut off date refers to the day they received the application or after they processed and confirmed. We could only pray and hope for the best then until we finally received a confirmation from them that we MADE IT!!! U can’t imagine the sigh of relief we both had.

We have 3 kids and our logic is very simple, one time “xiong xiong” and it will secure the kids formal education for at least 10 years since the primary school and secondary school is together and they get some cut off points for secondary school. Shortly after that, we also manage to sell our house and bought our current place which really didn’t take too long and that was another amazing act of God again.

I  am thankful to God for guiding and directing us, if not for Him, I cannot imagine the stress we may need to go through. I know there are still many worried parents out there hoping that their kid can get a slot in their desired school and I pray that your heart’s desires will come to pass. All the best!!!

Now I need to plan out the schedule to get the uniform, school books, school shoes, teaching my girl about time, money matters. My best bet is to refer to all my mummy bloggers for tips and advice.

Bittersweet endings with a dash of expectancy for a fresh beginning

Last Friday marks the end of my almost 4 years stay with SBL. It has been a journey of ups and downs, we have gone through 3 rounds of change in HOD, not to mention the countless changes that was made & introduced by our business partners and who can forget our “daily arguments and disagreement with the sales folks”. Always feel that change is the only constant in life.

I have learned so much, grown and develop into a better person because of each and everyone in SBL. My greatest attribute will be my dearest team, it’s been a great privilege to be able to be your team manager. I thank God for the opportunity to lead, guide, teach and even mentor some of you. I pray that you will all fulfill your own destiny. In the process of searching what it will be, I pray that you will enjoy the process. It’s not about the destination sometimes but rather the journey. Thank you for the farewell lunches & gifts, I know I’m blessed and thank you for loving me. Thank you for being part of my life’s journey.

As I embark a new move in my own career, I continue to pray for wisdom, favour of God & men to be on me. I pray that I will continue to excel as well & suceed in the tasks given to me. More than that, I pray that I can continue to make a difference and inspire others.

Kids passport

I remember when I was young, I did not had my own passport. Most of the kids who grew up in my generation usually had their passport tagged to the mummy. Mine was tagged to my mummy when I was few months old.

I can’t remember when exactly it started that kids can begin to have their own passport. I know some parents to submission of passport for their kids as young as few months old & I know some have even traveled to de places even before they one year old.

My firstborn had her passport when she was 3 yrs old & it was simply because daddy mummy are going for cell group outing to Malaysia & we needed to bring her along. I remember we were so full of faith that we bought the coach ticket before she even had her passport. The funniest part was we only collected her passport 1 day before the trip. Lesson learnt here is “don’t assume that you will definitely get it”.

Now, my number 2 has also made his passport because we are bringing them to KL this weekend all because I wanted to go for a quick getaway before I start a new role.

My kids are not so fortunate as their passports are made because of a “need to” basis not a “want to” basis. We shall see if number 3 passport will also be under the same situaiton which I think highly likely.

What about you when you decide to let your kids have their passport? Is it a norm? Or am I being too weird? Share with me your thoughts.

Milk Milk, which to choose?

I have been wanting to write this for a long time…since my number 3 aka Reyez don’t like milk powder now. All 3 kids will be drinking fresh milk or should they be called UHT milk?

All my 3 kids were breastfed although with different duration (Inez was 5 months, Alvez 6 months and Reyez almost one year). After that, they all started with Nan, which I personally drank it when I was a baby. If the brand is still around after so many years, it should be a trusted and reliable brand and the other reason was it was one of the cheapest. Subsequently, I switched them to Dumex simply because of costs. Yeah, am a cheapo mama cos to me, the milk is mainly to supplement their calcium intake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Inez & Alvez stop liking milk powder when they were between 3.5 to 4.5 years old, I let them drink Marigold as that was what their previous childcare offered also. Since they like the taste, I just replaced the milk powder with it.

This was what was stated in their website:

“MARIGOLD UHT Milk is the ideal nutritious drink for everyone at all times of the day. Just 2 glasses a day gives you your daily recommended calcium intake.
What’s more, MARIGOLD UHT Milk is enriched with calcium, protein and MARIGOLD’s unique BonePlus formulation. It has no preservatives and is conveniently packed in Tetra-Pak packs, so one can drink it anytime, anywhere, chilled or non-chilled. MARIGOLD UHT Milk is available in a range of 4 choices – Full Cream, Chocolate, Strawberry and Low Fat.
MARIGOLD UHT Milk. Very Fresh, Very Good!”

Did I make a wise choice in giving them this without finding out more? I didn’t think too much about it until I read an article about the source of milk.

That’s when I started to look through the whole milk carton and I couldn’t find the source of the milk, i.e. where did the cows come from? Are they bred in Australia or New Zealand? Are the milk processed in Australia or Indonesia, Thailand or Malaysia?

Call me anal but I am very concerned over the source of the drinks and food we consume especially when I think we have more processed food now compared to the times when I was a toddler/pre-schooler. I do not want my kids to consume processed food and I have ever blog about some of the cooking stuff I used in my kitchen.

I tried giving them soya bean milk recently but only Inez likes it. The 2 boys just don’t like the taste and requested for their “fresh milk”. After numerous squatting up and down at NTUC, reading through almost every single milk carton of its ingredients and source, I finally decided to let the boys drink Marigold Fresh Milk.

 

The only ingredient shown was 100% fresh milk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am still determined to try switching the boys to soya milk though. While the quest is hard for now, here’s how satisfied they are with their milk by showing the “milky moustache”.

Two against One

I wonder how many parents who has 3 kids face the same issue as what I am currently observing. Does odd number really make the difference?

My kids are age 6, 5 and 3 and the eldest being a girl who has two younger brothers. For simplicity sake, I shall call them In, AL and Re in this blog and in their respective order of age. Due to the one year age gap between In and AL, they pretty much see each other as “competitors” especially In who is the eldest. They can CO-EXIST in HARMONY for 10 minutes and after that the arguments and the finger pointing starts.

The ironic thing is In and Re can play together and In can even entertain the youngest in the family by even talking “toddler language” with him. I have also noticed that Re seems to prefer playing with Jie Jie too. I conclude that firstly, In sees Re really as a “baby”, so she is not so calculative with him and secondly, he is not as irritating as AL.

In and Re

Sometimes I feel sorry for AL that his elder sister and younger brother don’t want to play with him and he will go into the tantrum mood where he whines and keep repeating, “No one wants to play with me”. Sometimes we do ask In and Re to play with him and this moment of the 3 playing together will only last 5 minutes. But sometimes I also feel that he “asked for it” that no one plays with him. AL simply loves to “disturb” them or in dialect, we call it “Zi Xiao”. For example, he just wanted to walk to the kitchen to put his cup into the basin and when he walked past his sister, he will pull her hair or he will purposely block his younger brother’s view of the TV.

AL back in 2013 where he was 3 years old, is he cheeky or not?

I asked the Hub who comes from a family of 3 boys if such thing has ever happened and he say he cannot remember. I honestly think that AL did not meant to always 100% purposefully disturb or irritate his sister and brother. I asked myself, “Is he seeking our attention”; “Is it his way of socializing with others”; Is it he has not come to that level of maturity and understanding”; “Is it because he is bullied in childcare, that’s why he comes back home to release his frustration”; Or is it because his classmates behaved like that”. Till now, I still do not have a clear answer. His many multiple repeated acts of disturbance has warrant the scolding from me & daddy as well as the cane.

It’s not easy parenting 3 kids who has 3 different personalities and every step that I take requires wisdom from God, tried and tested trial and failure/success method and lots of love and communication to them that we love them despite of…

What about you? I would love to hear from you especially if you have 3 kids too.

Jan & Elly: Mini Me and Free Trial Class Experience

Thanks to Mumseword that I won a free Mini Me Series and two free trial class at Jan & Elly. When I was participating in the giveaway, it was purely out of curiosity to see if my soon to be 6 year old will be equipped for Primary One next year.

When we arrived at the branch at Greenwich V for the Mini Me Series, my first thought was the staff were very warmth. They made every kid and parent feel very welcome and I sense their passion in what they were doing.

How did they get started? I read and extracted the below from their website and I highly recommend you to visit the website to get more details.

When Elly Sim had her daughter Sara, she sought out a fun, safe, loving educational environment for her to build her language skills in English, develop a love of learning, and interact socially with other children. She found Singapore lacked the kind of educational environment she envisioned for Sara, and developed her own curriculum based on the latest child development and psychology standards of the day. The Jan & Elly school began to specialize in teaching the English language, with a heavy emphasis on phonics to facilitate quicker reading and better pronunciation; they focus on showing children that learning is lots of fun, with interactive games that involve lots of motion and engagement.

Photo Credit: Jan & Elly

While the kids were whisked off for their Mini Me Series, the parents were invited to a talk conducted by two guest speakers from Dyslexia Association of Singapore. The talk was informative and it open up my understanding of what dyslexia is about.

I had the opportunity to catch how they conducted the Mini Me Series and I must say it was sure FUN!!! My daughter told me she enjoyed it very much and I like it that they are interactive and it is not the usual boring style of sitting in class and absorbing whatever the teacher says.

The kids were taken in and out from the classroom, many a times forming a “Choo Choo” train. The pictures speaks a thousand words, how not to love going for classes when it’s FUN and INTERACTIVE, involving actions, songs and perhaps a little drama.

After the series, they had prepared light snacks for the children, which my girl gladly gobbled them up.

They also did an assessment for my girl, which confirmed my suspicion where she remember words by memory and not so much on blending of words. She is excellent in speaking just by listening to what we say; but to get her to spell it out will be tough and that was one of my concern.  No doubt that her childcare centre teaches phonics but they do not offer it as an enrichment program. She took up speech and drama during her Nursery Two and K1 stage, now she is enrolled in Creative Writing in K2. My concern is if she cannot read, how can she write? I don’t want her to remember purely by memory. So, the teacher suggested for her to go for the Phonics Intermediate Class.

So last Sunday, Inez went for a first free trial class at the Bukit Timah Branch. It was a smaller branch compared to the one at Greenwich V but it was the nearest to us. I like the fact that the class is small. There were only about 6 students and I always feel that smaller class means that the teacher can give more attention to each kid. I did not had the opportunity to take photos of this branch as I had the boys with me.

She seemed to enjoy the class and was eager to complete the worksheet that she brought back for next week. When I asked her if she would like to continue it after the trial classes are over, she said YES.

Let’s just say that I am someone who believes in speaking proper and good English and am ever quick to correct them when I hear the “La, Loh, Leh”. I believe in good articulation and pronunciation of words and I can be a little “anal” over it, so the Hub has long decided that the kids English and Chinese language are my “babies” while he will tackle the Maths and Science.

Thank you Jan & Elly for making the experience a pleasant one and it’s comforting to know that there are schools like yours who place a great emphasis on speaking good proper English. Thank you Teacher Elly for sharing with me some of your tips.

What the man has taught me

On this Black Sunday, I gathered enough courage to pen my thoughts for the Founding Father of this place I call HOME – SINGAPORE. Throughout, I glued myself to the TV from 8pm till 11pm. I only studied history in my lower secondary school life and I feel so ashamed of myself on how little I know about Singapore and her history and how informed and educated I have been during this 7 days.

Photo Credit: PMO

1. Sticking by our conviction

If not for him sticking and standing by his conviction on what he thinks suit Singapore best, our little red dot’s history would have become very different. He never believe in a one size fits all theory.

2. Commitment

His commitment and loyalty to his wife is never wavering and as I read about their love story. Tears flowed down uncontrollably. In the society that we live in nowadays, the big “D” word is commonly heard. I do hope that many will begin to see marriage and commitment in a new light after hearing about theirs. One of the scene that cause my tears to flow was the one when he bade Mrs Lee farewell and gave her his last kiss, it was just so heart-wrenching.

Photo Credit: Sunday Times

3. Love

1 Cor 13:13 “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love”.

Because of his love for this country, he poured out his whole life, serving the nation and her people. Some may call him hungry for power, ruthless, autocratic but beneath that is a man who has changed Singapore for the better. And perhaps Singapore needed someone like him then to run the country; someone who dares to be different; someone who will not stick to convention; someone who loves and willing to take that risk.

“I have spent my life, so much of it, building up this country. There’s nothing more that I need to do. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life,” is a quote from Mr Lee in 2011.

Even as we grieved and moan this entire week on the demise of the late Mr Lee, I pray and believe that his legacy will continue and Singaporeans will continue to be resilient and tough. The world will begin to see how we will survive but I believe the works that he has done, the foundations that he has laid will not go in vain. We have seen the best of humanity this week throughout the queues at Padang; the State Funeral live stream; the thousands of kind souls out there who are just helping out one another with one common agenda; how our hearts are knitted and tugged together all because of the Founding Father.

Photo Credit: Vulcan Post and Singapolitics

Photo Credit: ST

I like to think that he is in heaven watching over this little red dot. The following picture may be 5 years ago but it speaks of God’s blessing and protection over our country and we are definitely in His plan.

Thank you Sir for laying down your life. Because of what you did, we can have a roof over our heads; clean drinking water; walking late at night is safe; my kids can have a good education and we can have the opportunity to create a legacy that we want to leave for the generations to come. May you rest in peace and be reunite with Mrs Lee. May the peace of God brings comfort to your family. 

One of the many desires & dreams for this year

Recently, there has been some contention regarding SAHM, FTWM…and may I add, there is also WAHM, PTWM.

I believe most know what the acronym stands for but just in case you don’t, let me educate you:

• SAHM – Stay At Home Mum
• FTWM – Full Time Working Mum
• WAHM – Work At Home Mum
• PTWM – Part Time Working Mum

Does it matter which acronym one labels us as? If you who are reading the blog often has this habit of labeling us also, may we say that we appreciate most if you call us by our names…And to us, We are all mums 24/7…Period…

As a mum to 3 kids, sometimes I ask myself how to I define if I have been a successful mum…Till date, I have no concrete answer to this question and I just know that I will always be continuing doing whatever it requires from me to be able to lead, teach, guide, inspire, encourage my children.

From the beginning of this year, I felt that this year will be a different season for me; I can’t quite explain what it really entails but I just know that I need to continue walking on with God and partnership with the Holy Spirit in this exciting journey. I felt as if God has breathed in new life unto me once again.

At the beginning of this year, I had a desire to start my own business (I am happy working for someone and has never thought of being a boss) but somehow this idea starts to take root in my heart. I have only a vague picture of what it is going to be but the technical know-how of getting there,sorry, I ain’t no idea.

All parents with children in childcare centre would have enrolled their children in the enrichment classes that are offered and the common ones will be speech & drama, phonics, creative writing, gym, computer lessons. I’m sure there are a lot more that I do not know of. But I wanted to set up a business that offers childcare centre only music and creative arts; you get to choose either or kind. God is Elohim God and I always feel that music and arts brings out the creative juices in us and how we express ourselves. With our education system, I think our children are so “soaked up” in the meritocracy that they have neglected this creativity that has always been in them.

I do know of many parents who will send their children go music/arts classes during the weekends and the fees are not cheap. I felt that if I can be a bridge by offering them in childcare centre at a reasonable fee, does it mean that parents do not need to send their kids on weekends anymore? And the families can have better quality time on weekends together rather than letting the time be wasted on traveling here and there + the waiting time for classes to end.

Ideally if this can take flight and fetch a decent monthly income for me, I would actually consider quitting my corporate job. That will allow me to have more quality time with my children. When I shared with the Hub this idea/plan/desire, he felt that it was too ideal…But no one ever said that you need to pay a price to dream, right?

I trust my God who supplies all my needs.

What about you? When was the last time you had dreams or desires? Or has this been any dreams or desires that you want to re-ignite again?