Claire loves to draw

This is Claire's drawing done on LOTS. She told me that this is the 'boomerang bird' in angry bird. Don't ask me why she wrote Chace's name below though. :)

Getting back into the hang of things

I realised over the past couple of days the reasons why I blogged so infrequently in the last two years... 

1) I barely turned on the computer since I got my hands on the ipad since it practically does everything I need to do. The only times I had the turn on the computer was because some pages did not load properly on the ipad (namely those that were running adobe flash content though there ARE ways to get around that problem).

2) I suffer from insomnia only when I am pregnant and my creative juices only flow in the middle of the night when all is quiet (like now!)

3) Facebook has made it much easier to share updates and photos with
iPhones/iPads

So that explains why I have blogged more in the past two months than the entire of last year! :P and I suppose that means you will be reading more frequent updates on us for the next four months at least!

Another reason would also be that I've downloaded the blogger app on my iphone and ipad and that allows me to upload a photo and blog almost instantly - Hurray for technology advancement!

School Dental Health

Claire getting her two front teeth fixed by the dentist last week - but the filling on one of her tooth came off the same night coz she kept playing with it. Anyway, the dentist said that the 'cavity' is too small (to do the filling and) to be of a concern as long as we pay attention and brush them clean daily.

Learning to Spell

Claire has been doing spelling since the start of this year - are there specific methods to learn to spell? I teach her to recite the letters and then the word as she writes them so that they 'register' in her brain. Is this a good method?

cold & coughing away

I always know its trouble - when the OTHER family falls ill. Though we do not meet often (once every two weeks, maybe - even that is too much), there is a 'carrier' who will bring the germs and viruses over to my household. It normally starts with the children and then DH... and I'm usually the last to get hit. But since I am pregnant now (there are many articles explaining why pregnant women get sick more easily - just google it), I got infected before DH and I'm glad to say *touch wood* that the children got a much milder version.

It started last week - with a horrible feeling in the throat and before I knew it, I lost my voice *almost completely* - conversations were reduced to whispers and I bet the children were glad that I couldn't SHOUT at them when they did something dangerous! I started off with laryngitis and then, drippy nose - I've got my voice back now but now the throat is always itchy, the nose is stuffy and the phlegm is greenish. *YUCKS* but I guess that means I'm on the way to recovery. But I hate it, really, really hate it. Hope I recover before we leave for our cruise this weekend... :{ I am actually looking forward to the trip - though we have cruised before many times, this will be the first time we go on a Royal Caribbean cruise and obviously, its a first for the kids - Claire is excited as its a early birthday trip for her. We can't cruise any later, partly because there are not many cruises scheduled from now to her birthday and also because women beyond 24 weeks are not allowed on board - How silly, isn't it? Considering that airlines do permit flying up to 32 weeks or something, with a DR's certification. And oh, the OTHER (copycat) family is also going to go on a cruise after this - I really wonder why she find so much joy 'copying' what we do.

primary school registration

Recently, there has been a furore among parents with young children over plans by the education ministry to 'review' the current primary school registration process as the current system gives priority to certain groups of people, much to the chagrin of others.

I belong to a group who has some 'slight advantage' over others as I graduated from one of the local top schools - that 'automatically' qualifies Claire for a place for the school. Never mind that we stay a good 30 - 40 mins drive away from the school. However, being a single gender school, we will need to seek alternative schools for the boys, adding to our logistics woe in the future. Our current residence is in a private estate and the nearest school is 1.3km away. We have started looking at properties nearer to school for Claire, which means that we will have to move out of our comfort zone in the east. To make matters worse, property prices have escalated to ridiculous levels with suburban properties going above S$1,000 psf - meaning a 1,000 sq ft private apartment would easily cost S$1m!

Thus, I am advocating a complete scrap of the current system and replacing with the following:

Phase 1 - citizen families with 3 or more kids get to select the school of their choice. this has multiple benefits, namely boosting our declining birth rate and eventually, reducing  our dependence on FOREIGN TALENT and simply more reasonable logistically since parents will only need to choose 1 school for their children (if they have children of both genders).

Phase 2 - citizen families with 2 kids (as above)

Phase 3 - citizen families with 1 kid to ballot if required (i.e. demand more than supply), otherwise automatic enrollment as well; if there is a need to differentiate between locally born and bred citizens, then one more ballot for those whose fathers have served their NS obligations since it is a sacrifice that our men has undertaken.

Phase 4 - remaining spaces open for balloting for PRs then foreigners.

This is essentially a 'Singaporeans First' policy. I have to stress that I am NOT against foreign immigrants - I am, however, against freeloaders. There are ample reports on the internet about migrants who make plans to give up their PR status (or even citizenship since some countries have a U-turn policies for those who gave up their citizenship earlier) once their offsprings are due for NS or when they find greener pastures in other countries. Since we are born and bred here, as with our children, in a way, we have no other choices. PRs and foreigners on the other hand, can opt for international schools, an option not available to us. Many of them opt for local schools simply because of the cost.

A registration process like I suggested will even out the playing field for every citizen - no more alumni/old boy/old girl priority, no issues of property prices escalating further around popular schools, no more exploiting poor parents' precious time doing meaningless, mundane tasks as parent volunteers.

The downside, however, would be for couples who have trouble conceiving - these groups may feel marginalized though its no fault of theirs. For these individuals, the govt. can do more to help them with fertility treatment since these are people who are willing to have more children but are unable to. However, it must be noted that there has to be a cut-off age for such help since it is medically proven that egg quality deteriorates as women ages. This may in turn encourage more couples to get married and start their family at a younger age.

not very successful

I guess its pretty obvious that I'm not able to blog as often as I'd like to even though its what I set out to do. Between shuttling the children to and fro school, catching up with work in the office and occasionally cooking a meal or two, I can barely find time to do anything else. It doesn't help that I need more sleep than normal now or that I'm not very good at managing my time. :|

Just for the record, Chace at 30 months, only has 19 teeth and is still not potty trained. I'm a believer that the child will achieve a milestone when he/she is ready and thus I'm not worried. The grandmas, on the other hand, have been bugging me to toilet train him particularly because Claire was off diapers in the day when she was about 18 months. However, he is way before schedule for other milestones e.g. speech and motor skills so that, in itself, really isn't a cause for concern.

As for Claire, she is starting to realize that school is not all fun and play. Other than having to bring back 'homework' (this term's theme is on plants so she had to bring back some seedlings to grow), preparing for 'Speech & Tell' bi-weekly and spelling every week. Fortunately, the feedback from the teacher has been good so far. She is also continuing with her music lessons as its appears up to now, that she truly enjoys them. We are also thinking of starting her on golf lessons and maybe at some point, some self-defence classes as well now that she will be up against 2 brothers in the future. :P

#3 is also progressive well in general though some red flags have been raised - I'm choose to be positive about the situation since many of my friends have had false scares in their most recent pregnancies.

new year, new schedule - 2012

Another 6 months has gone by and I've barely blogged - I shall attempt to blog more often this year with my reshuffled schedule. Both children will go to school from 11am - 3pm for the first six months, though Chace will only go in 3 times a week (since Claire only went 3 times a week the whole of last year). On the days that he doesn't go to school, he will get to spend some quality time with his grandma when Claire is in school. On Sat mornings, grandma has decided that they need to spend some time with God so she will take them to attend the kids programme in her church.

This schedule will allow me to do lunch appointments on weekdays in an attempt to clear my production for the year in 6 months since I'm due end June/early July and most likely will have to take the rest of the year off to care for the newborn.

2011 wasn't very significant - but we did manage to take our first vacation alone without the kids since Claire first came into our lives in 2007. I did two 10km runs in Jul and Dec and managed to improve my timing. Obviously taking part in runs will not be very likely this year so running will have to take a hiatus. I will, however, do more swimming and also take up aqua-aerobics again to stay active. Hopefully with some exercise, I will be able to keep within the 8 - 10kg weight range that I will need to put on for the pregnancy.


Developmentally, Claire has become a little more assertive - she used to walk away whenever another child comes along to 'snatch away' whatever she was playing with; this year, she actually retaliated by biting the other child. Obviously this is not a behaviour that I agree with but I did warn the child before the incident happened that she should leave Claire alone as Claire did not want to play with her. The little girl did not listen to me and continued to pester Claire so I'm sorry to say 'serve her right!'. However, I did explain to Claire after the incident that there were other ways that she could deal with such situations instead of biting (she learnt the biting from Chace, by the way!). Chace has also progressed from biting to other forms of retaliation like shouting/pushing. Again, behaviours that I do not agree with but at least some improvement. In this new year, I resolve to help them learn better ways of standing firm. In the 2nd half of this year, they will welcome a new sibling so it will be ever more important to set them right in their behaviour so that #3 does not learn things that he/she should not learn!

Here's wishing everyone a fabulous 2012 - may you achieve all that you set out to this year and more importantly, continue to enjoy good health and happiness all through the year!