It was Papa's birthday today. Wow, I last blogged in February about Mei's birthday, and in a blink of an eye, we were already in August.
It had been and still was a trying period. The world was struck by this mysterious virus that sprang out from a market in China and this pandemic had radically changed the way we worked, played and lived.
Singapore's government implemented an 8-week circuit breaker (aka lockdown) and most people had to work from home and students were doing home-based learning. Mama did not teach for 6 weeks but went on to teach online classes and then hybrid classes when the circuit breaker period ended and Singapore entered Phase 2, with most businesses being allowed to open.
During the CB, we could not go out, unless one had essential errands to run, for example buying groceries, seeing the doctor. Tong stayed at home and did not step out of the house at all for almost 6 weeks! Mummy was really stumped by his ability to be content with staying at home. For me, I went out once a week on the weekend to take a breather or grab some groceries while papa stayed at home with the kids. As Papa belonged to the essential services, he got to work in the office (which was a relief to us, since he was away most of the time when everyone was cooped up at home).
How did we get through the CB? It felt impossible then. Yet, the days came and passed. How did Mum survive teaching online lessons? I often felt feverish on the eve of teaching days because I was so stressed and worried. I overcame that. How did the children survive the arduous home-based learning? Lots of time spent on SLS and uploading of completed work. The school year was so disrupted by home-based learning and an extra week of hols in July...It felt like a wasted year. Yet in view of eternity, this one year was just a blip on the horizon. What did we learn from this? The human spirit is tenacious and strong. The human spirit is adaptable. With no end of the pandemic in sight, we had embraced the new normal - wearing masks everywhere we go and checking in and out of every place we visited. Well, we relished and appreciated some of the things we had taken for granted - the freedom to eat at eateries, visit friends and hold gatherings (5 visitors, gosh, our family had already exceeded that), the the freedom to go around without masks...I wondered if we could have the annual Christmas gathering at Marzuki...
Collection of photos from my phone - I was always puzzled by the storing system in the iphone. The photos never came out in chronological order and I was too lazy to sort them out.
Well, the football academy wanted to do the profile write-up of their players, so we had to take these "mug shots". haha
When her hair was shorter...and she totally looked like a boy
The signature cheeky look
Mama was forever cleaning up after her. She was a darling and a terror. A darling - she was so mature and in control of her emotions. She would wave bye to me when I left for work and she did not whimper and make a fuss like what her brothers used to do. She understood many of the things we said, though she was not speaking much at this point of time.
In the morning, she would go to the box next to my bed to get my spectacles for me. When she heard the "beep" from the visitor buzzer or my handphone tone, she would get very excited. She would go to the door to wait and see who was visiting us (often, the grab delivery men) and bring the phone to me. She would say a chirpy "hi" to Ah gong whenever he came over.
We were bored during the CB. There were many free resources. We tried one of those - you could have virtual animals in the house!
Tried to cook different things - like this omelette ham wrap
An old photo of the older two
Mei knew how to stack the thimbles at 14 months! She was just playing with them one day and mama showed her how they could be stacked and she mastered it after a free tries! We did think that she was rather intelligent, seemingly more so than the other siblings.
The girls loved to snuggle.
Wanted to win a prize on some IG contest, so we made rain shakers.
Did they look alike?
Tong had to do some homework about sea creatures so Jun pretended to be a hermit crab with different shells. ha
Papa loved to cuddle with this squishy pie.
Papa commented that mei's face was bigger than Jun's.
Check out her cute shoes. Coincidentally, this was the Zodiac Year of the Rat.
Could not remember why she was crying outside the toilet...was this picture taken by Tong? Talking about Tong, he loved to use my phone to text people, like Er Yi, Bei Kor Po, and he would say good night or that he missed them. Well, sometimes he made boo boos, like forwarding "Good night, Ah Gong" to the others...ah, so insincere to forward messages hor?
We had Burger and Lobster on one of the weekends. Yum...very expensive meal. oh Papa bought two boxes of frozen lobsters. Mama cooked one box of lobsters that day and Tong liked it. I read somewhere that lobsters were like the cockroaches of the sea. That day, I mentioned this and asked if they would eat cockroaches. The well-read Tong/Xun mentioned that cockroaches were very nutritious. We concluded we would consider eating them, if they were grounded into powder and we could not see their forms in the food. HA
She loved wearing this dress gifted by San Yi. She had a mind of her own, often choosing her own clothes, and shaking her pretty head when she did not want to oblige with what we asked her to do.
Oh...and she had this naughty habit of eating things halfway. There was once when she bit half of every grape in the bowl! One day, I asked her to feed grapes to the siblings and she tried sneakily to give her half-bitten one away. haha...I told her off and she meekly continued to eat her own grape.
Jun was very protective of his little sister. When asked if Mei could stay over with Ah Ma, he always answered with an adamant "NO"!
Tong used one of the old phones to take this photo. It was really cute so I took a shot of the photo.
During the CB, we were allowed to go out to exercise. So we went to the Treetop walk. We got a rude shock when we found out that it was way harder and longer than the Sugnei Buloh walk. We thought we would NEVER make it to the bridge, it felt impossible, yet we did. We went to Sugnei Buloh on another day and saw more animals like the crocodiles and bats. Trekking there was a breeze compared to the hike to the treetop walk.
Well, we conquered this tedious climb!
Xiao Gege had to practise his handwriting and letters...he was picking up reading steadily...his speech was also improving as we had been working on his c, k, g, j, f sounds.
The signature cringed-nose look
Mama caught up with godma to celebrate her birthday. Thank God for best friends.
Jun had grown more self-conscious recently. He used to take the stroller with Mei and would hop off just before we reached his classroom. Nowadays, he did not ask to sit in the pram most of the time. heh
Ah, for Mei's birthday, she chose the pen and book...hmmm a bookworm like her sister? Recently, she had taken to watching videos of children songs on the iPad. Papa had put the car seat too and she would gestured to the TV, asking for the videos to be played.
The brave little lass could climb up the stairs and go down the slide all on her own!
We got quite a few treats during the CB. Papa's friends sent food to our place.
The old drying rack finally broke so we installed a new one with heat and UV functions! Fancy.
Mac announced that it would close for sometime after a few of its staff contracted the COVID-19 virus. Ah... luckily mama had a chocolate pie to savour...
Working hard together...
Jun's declaration of love for Mama and Mei Mei
On a car ride to Ah Gong's house, our little Friday weekly routine...Mei Mei was easier to take care of now, so Ah Gong needed not 4 Kor Poh to come to Waipo's house to pick Mei mei. She just needed to go to Marzuki to wait for the kids. Bei Kor and Grand Uncle Brian would be there usually too as they missed the kids dearly and did not want to violate the "5 visitors rule"!
Ok, I had completed part of the update... Would do more tomorrow...
