Hair.....

In some areas, I am less autocratic. I will let the girls choose whether they want their hair long or not. 

I asked Alyssa this morning: "Next year you're going to primary school already and need to wake up early. I don't want any fussing ya. Because I need to get both you and Nadya ready."

A: ok

Me: Are you ok if we cut your hair short so you don't need to tie it? Or would you still prefer to have long hair like now?

A: mmmm.....I think I still want long hair like now...

Me: ok, then you'll need to be cooperative ya.

Handling 2 girls in the mornings next year...and having to get both their hair settled at the same time. Ok, it'll probably be just simple ponytails all the way lol....No time for braids or anything more complicated than a ponytail....

If it were my mum, or my MIL, both girls would probably be in super short bobs with super short bangs lol....

backside itchy

As a reminder to K to stick to original plans in his work endeavours....laoniang wrote 2 notes for him and he stuck them on his computer monitor. 

One reads "STICK TO THE PLAN!"

The other reads "DON'T KAR CHNG JIONH!"

In other words, the latter reads as "Don't backside itchy!" when translated from Hokkien. 

Nadya recently noticed this note and asked K how to read it....and so....she was prancing around the house yesterday evening singing "Don't kar chng jionh! Don't kar chng jionh!" ...

*face palm* parenting moment. 

I reminded her not to sing this or proclaim this out loud when she's out of the house....I erm...hope she remembers this....

Where's my blanket?

Woken up by Nadya at 4:44am this morning. 

N: Mama, I cannot find my blanket. I searched everywhere in the room and on the bed. 

Me: urgh..mm?....arllhhmm...?  ! zzzz...........

Slithered out of bed and helped her find it...but couldn't find it either. Turned out that she didn't even go to bed with it. Her blanket was left outside in the living room the night before when she was using it as a "tudung" during her dress-up play session with Alyssa. K found it and passed it to her. 

Went back to bed after that 5-min "fiasco" and when the alarm rang at 615am...I was still so sleepy...

But still, I am thankful that this doesn't occur often. More a rarity than a regular. :)

Ganbatte for the day ahead!!

The Self

Current projects/activities in the pipeline...

• self-managed learning of Korean through Coursera
• brush calligraphy workshop and self-managed learning thereafter
• finishing up half-read books and comics
• continuing with the walks and getting back to a more frequent routine...a little lax lately ever since I fell sick 3 weeks back. 

Parenting...and....growing up

We shifted here in June 2014. 

And for the first time in almost 7 years, our kitchen is steriliser-and-milk-bottle-free. 

We've gotten rid of the last of Alyssa's Dr Brown milk bottles, and permanently stored away the Avent steriliser which has served us for a good number of years. Stored it away because our helper wants to send it back to the Philippines for her relative to use. We told her it was a very old (and worn out) appliance but she still wanted it so we let her have it. 

Managed to wean Alyssa off quite quickly and easily compared to Nadya. The remaining milk tins will be donated or sold off. 

With P1 registrations coming up, with Alyssa entering Singapore's formal education school system next year, with Nadya already in P3 next year, with us donating away the playmat we bought in end 2013/early 2014, with me clearing away more clothes that both girls have outgrown...it seems our parenting journey is transitioning to another phase. 

Bittersweet to be honest. I really miss those times they were chubby and tottering around the house. Miss the babbles and gurgles. Yet, I'm also excited to see them growing into little ladies. 

It's ok Mama

For the last 2-3 evenings, I've been helping Alyssa plan, conceptualise and finally work on her craft piece for her school. She's supposed to use various materials provided by the school and whatever we have on hand at home to create a 扇子, a Chinese fan. 

Nadya helped out here and there as well. 

Yesterday evening, I realised I made a mistake in my calculation and cut a piece of paper with the wronbg proportion. I muttered "Aiyah, I mistake. Aiyah...I hope I can salvage this."

Alyssa was so sweet and responded with a ......

"It's ok Mama. Everybody makes mistakes. I also make mistakes sometimes too."

Lol....so cute. 

Granny

11 April was Granny's 7th death anniversary. 

It being a Sunday, I didn't have much chance to ruminate much about her and "talk" to her. Only found some time to do so in the few minutes before bed. 

While I think I'm handling things better in the recent couple of years already, content touching on grandparents still gets to me.

Anyway, I love you Mama. I found a pic of you the other day when I was clearing my old stuff. It was from my Sec 1 project titled "My Family". The photo must have been in the late 1930s or 40s. Posting it here for posterity....

> One Year

So fast. I've been working from home for a year and 3 weeks already. I still remember 21 Mar 2020 was physically my "last day"  in the office. 

Various highs and lows. From work and job scope changes, to handling both kids during their home-based learning days, to being able to lunch out much more with K, to handling shitty work stuff brought about by an increase in malicious activities online, to experimenting with recipes, to being able to do more walking, etc...

Time zips by....

Work

Not quite looking forward to going back to office, even if it's a "3 days in office" type of arrangement. 

Not sure how it's gonna be as yet. While the over-arching policy has been announced by the organisation, at the team/group level, we're still waiting for the announcement by our Executive Director. 

80-90% of my own team have indicated to me that they still prefer to be 100% WFH. That includes me. 4.5 out of 5 of my team. One of the ladies is half-half. 

Tmr's the announcement. I hope alot of flexibility is given.....

Monitor

Nadya was made class monitor for this term, together with another boy.

She has a badge to pin on her T-shirt everyday now and she's pretty proud of it. :)

We're proud of you too sweetie...Keep it up!

She's set her sight on a junior leader position in the future. I think it's something like a junior prefect but I'm not sure of the duties this role carries. Will leave it to her to navigate and figure out herself how to get there. 

Just one or two things that I hope she can tweak though. Her whininess and tendency to complain about anything and everything, whether it's a good or not-so-good situation, she'll find something to whine or complain about. We've spoken to her on a few occasions and reminded her from time to time on this as well. It's slightly better but she still needs to work on it. Let's see how this goes...

Soft

I'm soft. 

Have always been. Softer than the so-called strawberries of the generation that just came out into the workforce. Maybe that's why certain things in my life turned out the way they did. Maybe that's why I have anxiety too..

Maybe I have too much emphathy? Maybe I just dislike conflicts too much? Maybe I am too ham ji and bo ji.