And so we celebrated Jun's 4th birthday at Marzuki. A quiet small affair with the extended family who simply adored all the kids. Jun chose a Paw Patrol cake from Bengawan Solo. Had wanted him to buy the smaller cakes (1kg cost $40!) but he insisted on having this design and the minimum weight required was 2 kg.
So we ended with a lot of surplus and all the aunties and we had to bring a box of cake home to eat.
Jun, you had been a joy to the family. Just signed him up for the PCF kindy at 226 Pending Road. Arise just informed us recently that they would be converting into a childcare eventually so they would only be offering an AM session next year and there would be various options in 2021 for the childcare. Nay...we would just go the PM session in the PCF kindy (bonus: it cost $170 per month vs $1095 for 10 weeks in Arise)
Xiaoshu made use of the kids in his WhatsApp profile pic. He said it was a good starter conversation for new clients for they would always ask if all the kids were his. 4 kor poh said we should charge him for the usage.
On a cool balmy Sunday afternoon...mei was all nestled up and cosy in papa's chest while listening to the soothing sermon from the pastor
yeah and papa was dozing too..haha
Went to the pool at Bukit Panjang CC on a PSLE marking day (aka school holiday) only to find out that it was undergoing renovation. Ha, we bumped into Coach Alex!
Brought Jun to Jurong East to check out if the Singtel shops there carried free phones for recontracted plans...well, he really liked the pandas and requested for the photos
hereby, this place was christened the panda place whenever I wanted to let him know where we were heading to...
Went to gor gor's school for his drama performance. Gor was not too keen on dancing, but oh he could narrate really beautifully. He was not given any role except to read in the background with all the rest, so it seemed like he was not super enthusiastic.
Ha, all the penguins looked alike. The other time, Jie acted as a ghost and was in black and white with similar make up too!
Our precious bundle of joy. She would be really sticky to mama when we were at home at times. However, she would be content with playing alone when we were at Wai po's house so Wai po commented that she was really easy to look after.
Hmmm...why did the kids behave so beautifully at Wai po's house but got all cranky and whiny at home? Grrrrrr.
We went to Wild Wild Wet during the Deepavali holiday. Ha, even Mei Mei got to enjoy playing in the water playground with Jun and at the water sprinklers!
It was a really good deal. I bought a promotional booklet for $27 and $6 for an extra child ticket for Jun from Carousell. The normal peak hour tickets would have cost us $136! ha I was such a savvy shopper. The kids enjoyed themselves so much that they asked to come again.
It was also unfortunate that it started raining 2 hours into the adventure.
The big ones had only taken a few slides as the queues were long.
Well, at least they got to go in the lazy river.
Mei was so quiet and contented to be in papa's bosom.
Was glad that they had a whale of a time.
Serendipitously, there was a Royal Sporting House sale at Downtown East so mama had a rollicking time buying heavily discounted goods ($5 Zaxy shoes for mei mei). Papa also scored a pair of white Sperry shoes at $29. Xun bought two pairs of Ipanema slippers. Poor tong and Jun had nothing to show for the shopping jaunt though. hahahaa.
Ta da - mei mei's shoe collection. I actually missed out one pair which was bought at the sale. They looked so cute eh? Could not wait to see her pitter-pattering in those adorable shoes.
She could bear her weight on her two stocky legs very well. I believed it would not be a long time before she was scooting everywhere.
Jun was tasked to bring the laundry from the bathroom every day. He was very sharp and considerate. When he noticed that I did not leave my Pjs on the floor for him to take away, he would always check with me if I had changed and needed him to bring away the clothes. I liked such initiative. He would do very well in the service industry.
I always talked with Papa about how different all of you were, that you were born with a certain bent. Jie - the achiever who wanted to excel for the sake of feeling good at being good. Intrinsically motivated. A goody two shoe...quite indifferent at times, being engrossed in her books mostly, but we were teaching her to be empathetic and to take more initiative in showing care for the younger ones.
Tong - Driven by external benefits. displayed dogged determination when he yearned for something (he badgered the rest into sharing the cost of the new Beyblade arena. Ya all of you were so taken by the beyblads, that you had more than 10 blades and would be acquiring more! Afternoons were spent battling...well, at least you truly enjoyed playing together. Tong would make a shrewd businessman (he once made Xun trade all her pokemons for the single Jiggly Puff he had in his collection.) Audacious, money-conscious, shrewd...a nose for bargaining..haha but we were teaching you to read people's reactions so that you knew when you should step off before you annoyed us till we snapped. ha...your performance during the recent soccer matches was lackluster. You had chosen to drop out of the Alpha Team and was in the Bravo team competing in division 3. But it seemed like you just sank to being the average wherever you found yourself. Perhaps team sports were not suitable for you as you liked to be a big fish in a small pond and you liked personal glory. Well mama promised that you could get 3 free pokemon games if you scored or assisted a goal and you had been on fire since. Ha
Jun - endearing and pleasing...mostly soft-spoken and very mild-mannered. I bet you would do well in the service industry, being the people-oriented person that you were.
Mei mei - our cutest littlest bundle. You were very responsive and could read people very well too. There was once when papa reprimanded you for crying a lot while mama bathed and you dared not even meet his gaze. You yelped in joy and crawled towards Ah gong when he brought the older ones to Wai po's house...you were easier to look after, Ah Gong could pat you to sleep too. You only wanted Ah Ma to carry you at Marzuki, giving ah Gong the cold shoulder. In fact, when Ah Gong approached you, you would give a blank gaze, looked past him, or looked at the floor to avoid eye contact, much to the amusement of the adults. At a tender age of 7 months, you knew how to pretend to look beyond a person and pretend that he was invisible?
