Quiet Times

I'm in Dubai International Airport transiting to Nice, France as I am keying this blog entry. I'm really lousy that I need to have a break like this in order that I can find time to post something. Its slightly more than a month I last wrote here but so many things seems to have happened. We went Kota Tinggi during the long weekend in JB where Malaysia celebrated their National Day. Sometimes feel that such times together as a family can feel so blissful. Of course not forgetting all the good food in JB too over that few days.

We even went to the beach after the JB trip and they really love playing the sand and looking for seashells.

We then went Airport with my parents the following weekend as well as for Grandma's birthday... Josiah always wants to go Airport and he simply loves it so much. They will tell me the list of things they wants to do such as "See Aeroplane", "Take SkyTrain" and "Find Stroller", etc...
Whenever I asked him where he likes to go on weekend, his first word will be "Airport". Maybe when he's older, he will work something related to Aeroplanes. Maybe Pilot? : )

I always want to hightlight to my boys that our Ah Ma is a wonderful lady who helped took care of their daddy when I'm young and let them know how blessed they are that they still have their great grandmother around. Just want to take as many pictures of them with Ah Ma whenever there is an opportunity. Will surely invite her again for the boys Birthday next Jan. Hope she will still be strong and alert by then.

The boys are certainly growing and getting cheeky by days. They do not follow instructions blindly now with negative answers being given quite often. Eg, if we asked them to pick up toys, they may say "No". When I asked if they are good boys, they may say "No". When I asked them to get changed, they will run around and struggle with us to get the diaper worn. Its not exactly getting easier but they ability to respond make things interesting as well.

Joshua is developing fast on his speech and language and he always surprises us with his vocabulary. Felin and I are thinking whether to bring him for extra enrichment classes to build on his strength.

Josiah is obedient and normally follows what we says and follows our instructions most of the times. He sometimes lead and gave Joshua confident in doing certain things. For Example, he was brave to go thru the hair cut without crying and it gave Joshua the confident to go thru the hair cut together. He also is the first to wear his own shoes and his own clothes before Joshua follows him.

I am quietly worried about Josiah's development academically as he seems to lag behind children of his age. He don't seems to be able to identify numbers and alphabets and his level of focus is quite weak. He needs control his emotions whenever he is not able to get what he wants and vent this frustration by action whenever he is unable to express what he wants. Felin says he is doing fine but I think he might be just like me, " Always a step behind whenever we try to learn somethings" But if he is like me, he shall be hardworking and will catch up eventually. We must build up his confidence and not let him always compare himself with Joshua as he has his strength on his own too.

Love the boys always and I'll be thinking through what I want in life like career and family during this short few days without kids in France. Also a good time to think through the "Child Dedication" class that we went through recently and how I should lead them into Godliness in future too.

Singapore 52nd Birthday

Its my 3rd year celebrating National Day with the boys. Its the day where I will be filled with such patriotic feeling that I must do the best for my country so that my future generations will have a future. I always remembered what our late late fouding father Mr Lee Kwan Yew said that we can easily fall into a mediocre country in years down the road if we are not careful. Sometimes I can't help worrying about our future. I can't really see whats ahead of me in 20 years and I can't imagine the boys in the next 60 years. They are the ones who are crucial in making our SG100 a great one.

Brought the boys out as usual on a public holiday. We went to our Sports Hub just to Jalan Jalan. They were surprising me and Felin every single day with the new things they learnt in school. I saw Josiah dancing with the tune of the National Day songs and Joshua able to tell us that he heard before some of the songs that was played while we were in the Kallang Wave Mall. Both of them shouting "Jia You" while watching people doing rock climbing in the mall. There was hundred and one things that I always wanted to record but forgotten shortly when I failed to write in my blog.

Just some of the updates on our other family events as well such as our visit to my old Secondary School "Hai Sing Catholic School". Sometimes do have a wish that they study there just like me in the next 10 years or so where they can proudly tell their classmates that my Daddy used to be the first batch of boys in the school. It was quite nice to reminisce my old school memories. We even went to the SEA Aquarium with Mum and Dad in late July where the boys really enjoyed themselves.

They boys are now quite cheeky at times knowing when to give us unexpected answers. The boys still like to whine quite a bit to demand what they wants or to protest what the brother get and the latter didn't. Josiah sometimes like to stand and pose in front of the mirror when we dressed him differently like a new cap. They have their own idea on what shoe to wear and have their sleepy moments when they refused to go school or to drink milk. So many things to write that I think I just can't remember. Hopefully, I can prioritise a bit and write here in future before I forgets all the wonderful moments.

3 months update

There are always 1001 things to do before I dropped in here to post something. I always wanted to update the things the boys are surprising me but something else always took away my time to do so. I just decided that I must write today...

The boys are communicating to each other now. For example...

Background - Josiah just had a fall....
Josiah - Pain Pain
Joshua - So How?
Joshua - Rub Rub?
Josiah - No!!!

Background - Both in the car at night and very dark
Josiah - Scare scare
Joshua - I pray for you
Josiah - Okay
Joshua - Jesus Lord... Jesus Lord!!!
Both start laughing...

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They are still fighting almost everyday usually for attention or for toys. Joshua's always refuses to say sorry and Josiah say sorry so easily that it seems no meaning to him. I sometimes have no choice but to take the ruler to punish them. Of course, they will cry cry and cry... Discipline is a new issue at this stage and my temperament makes it difficult for myself to be angry at times where I nearly burst out laughing while punishing them.

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They are able to feed them better now but they are not motivated to do so. They prefer to wait to be fed or they will pick what they wanted to eat from the bowl. Its still tough to feed them and they seems to be full after a few mouthful of food. When we tried feeding them more, they will eat the food but will vomit them out after a while. Something that really make mummy angry...

Josiah is not as articulate as Joshua and he seems to be fearful of doing some things which seems simple and we can't understand why he is fearful. Eg, walking to the car. He also don't like to do simple tasks like wearing his own shoes. He also have a strange problem of constantly blinking his eyes. The same problem I have when I'm young.

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Have been very busy lately and missed the sleeping hours with them. I haven't been telling them the bed-time stories during weekdays for nearly 2-3 weeks and they started to be attached to mummy again. They will shout for "Mummy Mummy" every night or every first thing in the morning. They seldom will ask for "Daddy". Weekends are always the precious moments where we spend quality time together. Always try to bring them out to enjoy the nature, the sun and to see the sky. Really enjoy all these weekends.

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Last week, we had Father's Day celebration in their school and we had breakfast with them. The next day, their teachers updated us about how they are doing in school, etc... On Sunday, we then went for an event at Mediacorp Campus for a Father's Day celebration. We had lots of fun indeed... Okay, just post some pictures to see how they had changed over the past 3 months.

Mummy Overseas for work

Its been a while last blogged. I always wanted to record some new stuffs that the boys did but ended up forgetting what I want to write the very next moment. There seems to be no urgency and hence keep forgetting. Felin is now in KL for an audit and I will have more time with the boys.

 

Brought Joshua to Airport today and he was so happy to be with us early in the morning. He seems to miss Felin and he is aware that Mummy will be outstation for a while. They boys always seems to adapt quite well with absence from any of us. He is quite intelligent and seems to know a lot of things. He can speak sentence of 5 to 6 words now and rather cheeky that make us laugh at times. Few nights ago, Felin shared with me that she threatened him that he will go next room to sleep if he keep making noise and he simply took his pillow and ask Felin to open the door and let him out of the room. Is he trying to rebel against Felin? Sometimes really keep us wondering.

 

Josiah is still as sociable and lovely. He speaks better now and is able to control his temper much better. There are no more complains of biting and fighting now and he always the boy who surprises us. He speak lesser and we sometimes thought he does not know things around him but we are very wrong about it. He is certainly no less intelligent as Joshua.

 

Both boys are still active but fight lesser now. I now use the ruler to beat them if they are naughty. I will show my discontent by raising my voice if they do anything wrong. If its not too wrong, I'll apply timeout. But if it involve biting and fighting, I'll use the ruler to discipline them. I think they are old enough to know what is punishment by now.

 

Okay. Hope next few days will be peaceful and I'll not die due to lack of sleep. All the best to myself...

  

 

The 17 days without Domestic Helper

As I am writing this post, I'm waiting for the arrival of my domestic helper back from Philippines who was away from Singapore since 10th February afternoon. We had officially survived the past 17 days without helper. Think we did quite well...

The first 2 days are adaptation period and the boys surprising did not miss Ann a single bit even though Josiah co-share a room with her for more probably the past 18 months. Both boys slept in the same room but it resulted in Felin having almost totally no sleep as she is easily awaken by both boys unlike me who is more resistent to noises.

As Joshua is currently very stickly to Felin, we had decided that I shall sleep in the other room with Josiah. It works better as Josiah moves quite a lot during sleep and I, being the deeper sleeper seems to have a easier time with him.

The first weekdays from 13th to 17th Feb was at the Royal Carribean Cruise. We had a scare initially because Joshua's fever shot up to 38.9C on the night before we travel but dropped to 37.1 just before we left. FIL accidentally damaged the thermometer just before we left for Cruise and we urgently borrowed one from neighbour.

The Days at Cruise wasn't all smooth sailing. Joshua's fever went up on the evening on the first day onboard and the thermometer that we borrowed from neighbour shown 41.2C that made us panicky that we decided to call for the doctor onboard. My suspect that the thermometer wasn't accurate is true as he measured only 38.8C when we went down to the medical centre.

Joshua remained cranky from Day 1 onwards and we have problems with both of them onboard in the sense that they refuse to eat and yet refuse to let us eat as they kept wanting attention or to be down from the baby chair to run. They can't drink their milk well without the rice powder which they are so used to over the past years. They also are not keen with the shows onboard and resulting us having to skip them. Yet we need to keep to the nap and bedtime which resulted that we have little time for ourselves. As Joshua was sick, we also have to ensure he receive more rest and usual.

If without the support from my parents and inlaws, I will think this trip is there to kill us. No rest and lots of stress only. I hope life will be better in our next trip in future. Nevertheless, its a good experience and we still have some good time with the family.

The following week after cruise aren't easy as well. I returned home early to help with the housework. I realised that there are so much clothes to wash and fold daily. I also need to wash so many dishes, bottles, etc... I also need to sweep / mop the floow and make the beds every morning. There are also much work to be done to prepare the kids to school before sending them over.

Sales do got a bit of hit during the past 2 weeks when my time management skills did not improve. My personal assistant also chose to quit her job at this time which means my time spent in office are generally administrative and servicing work and not so much of sales and business.

But in contrary, I think my relationship with the boys got better with more time spent with them over the past 17 days. I slept with them, played with them in the evening and morning and I managed to prayed and read my bedtime stories. I do feel good for in this area though Sales was somehow affected. They are certainly not easy kids and pretty active. Joshua is super sticky to mother and kept whining for smallest problem and Josiah still have problem with biting and scratching classmates in school. We sometimes do lose our patience.

Okay. I ended my post at 1:57am on 27th Feb and my helper have still not called us though her flight landed at 1:06am. Hope she boarded the plane and is alright.

Chinese New Year and Childcare Updates

Its the boys 3rd week in Childcare Centre today. Let have an update of what happened.

The first week was all "Half Days" and it seems okay with Josiah seemingly enjoying himself in a new environment while Joshua will cry for a few minutes everytime he reached the centre. Felin accompanied the boys for the 1st few days and she can withdraw herself shortly.

For the 2nd week, we tried putting them for full day. Both of them are unable to fall asleep and making a lot of noises there. The teachers asked if we can bring them back and we brought them home in the early afternoon. On the 2nd day, we took their pillows along and they can sleep for less than an hour. That was an improvement. On the 3rd and 4th day, they took a break from school because of runny nose. On the 5th day which happens to be CNY eve, Josiah went alone and he was all good for the half day he went. He enjoyed himself without even notice Felin was not around.

The 3rd week is after CNY and Josiah suddenly had a sharp change towards school. He was very reluctant to go school. He resisted violently and insisted to be carried. He cried non stop and vomitted while in school. We do not know the reason for this sudden change of behaviour. He cried for probably an hour on Day 1 and was told be cried shorter on Day 2. Today as I am writing this, it was his Day 3 of week 3 and I need to monitor him closely. He continue to cry violently and just a mention of the word "School" at home, he will shout "no", shake his hand and resist it. I'm really at a loss when I brought him to school today as I'm worried if this is bad for him psychologically if such crying persist. Maybe on Day 1, he cried so much that he hated school. Maybe he was frightened by the firecrackers, fireworks and lion dances during the CNY period in Malaysia. It remains a mystery.

As for Joshua, its not all plain sailing as well. He had chronic constipation which we need to pay attention on. He resisted passing motion which resulted in his stool getting harder and more painful to pass out. We are feeding him with stool softener twice daily and adjusting his diet. He still resist sitting on the potty and will cry violent about it.

New year and birthday party...

We had our countdown for 2017 at our new place in JB as a family. The fireworks was unforgettable as its the most beautiful I ever seen in my life. Its not a single fireworks but 10 to 20 fireworks all happening at the same time across the horizon at all different angles. The sound of fireworks was also all over and all these lasted more than 30 minutes. Too bad the boys are not able to appreciate all these yet.

The boys are growing very fast. Joshua is now able to talk in sentences such as "Can I close door? Ask Auntie Ann, Mummy, Daddy, Ye ye, Nai nai." They are very aware of what we tell them such as when I told Josiah that he is going for a haircut, he will give me a straight "No" answer. They are now in midst of the Terrible Two period and really quite difficult to tell them to do something. Eg, they refuse to let me hold their hands to walk, they will purposely not drink milk if I tell them so. They want to show their independence and in control of things. Maybe this is a sign of their future leadership and not simply submit to every instruction.

They celebrated their birthday on the 7th Jan in the function room and we invited just our family. Brother can't make it though. We didn't have any special fanfare but blew plenty of balloons for them to stay busy. They are simply crazy for balloons.

 Felin decorated the birthday cake for the boys.

 

 When we told them to hug each other, they did it without hesitation. How I wish they will be so close in future.

 

 Ah Ma came for the celebration as well and she was so happy.

 

Our group photo and the simple backdrop that I had decorated 

After singing the birthday song, they were having fun with the cream. 

Taking turns to feed each other...

On the 12th Jan, we had another simple celebration with 2 pieces of small cakes. Its our family tradition that we must blow candle on our actual birthday. No exception to both of them in future too.
Anyway, we purchased school bags for them to prepare them for school on the 16th Jan...

Will talk more about their Childcare experience in my next post. Hopefully it will be a positive one after 1 week.