Caden's 7th Birthday

Yesterday was the day that Caden has officially turned 7 years old. As it falls on a Saturday, we took him out to have his favorite breakfast at Jalan Kayu - Roti Prata. On our way to the place, he asked to have 2 eggs and 2 kosong pratas as his treat! Obviously we knew that he can't possibly finish his requests and ordered our usual portions. Since it rained heavily an hour earlier in the morning, the prata shop wasn't as crowded as it usually does on a weekend morning. We had our breakfast leisurely and my dear boy enjoyed his morning treat as usual.

After our breakfast, we proceeded to his school as it happens to be having an open house. He wanted to go to the fund raising carnival so that he could play the games. But turned out that he felt a bit out of place because he wasn't wearing his school uniform as he thought that he ought to have done so. We didn't stay there for long as it was rather stuffy and Mummy already had her dizzy spells as usual given any lack of oxygen environment. At the school, Caden being the tour guide, showing us places like computer lab and his library

After lunch, we head off to swimming pool for his weekly afternoon swim lesson and Auntie Laifong graciously bought him a McDonald's happy meal as a treat for his birthday present. He was happy and excited in getting a toy from the happy meal treat.

Caden requested to have his xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung for his birthday dinner. He was torn between having dinner at Swensens and DTF but eventually the temptation of xian long bao helped to make the decision.

After dinner, we brought him to Ngee Ann City for the hokkaido ice-cream. Both him and Ethan gets to choose a flavour for the double-cup ice-cream and the boys picked coffee and mango after much deliberation..

Ethan offered to feed me with the ice-cream while I was helping to take some photos.

We accidentally stumbled upon a counter in Takashimaya basement 1 which was selling cakes that I used to like alot - The Patissier. We decided in getting one of these as the birthday cake for Caden. On our way back to the carpark, I was sharing with Caden that I ate a lot of the cakes from the Patissier when I was pregnant with him and he asked," Mummy, is this why I have so much hair when I was born?"..

The finale is to blow the candles and have a great dessert to end the night.

Passionfruit Meringue from The Patissier

The boys were waiting patiently for the candles to be placed onto the cake

The birthday boy

 Ethan helping his brother to cut the birthday cake while he's eyeing on that chocolate lips.. 

We truly hope that Caden will grow to become more sensible and throw fewer of his tantrums as he grows older.. He enjoyed his cake alot and asked for second serving (we finished the entire cake in just 15mins!)

Pillow talk

I'm currently addicted to the local produced drama serial - pillow talk. What got me started watching was a newspaper article which covered an interview with the veteran actress whom I have watched her during my growing up years. The show presented a range of issues that married couples go through on a day to day basis which I find myself relating to them in one way or another - e.g, staying with in-laws, children's education, etc. They have thrown issues on importance of communication, prioritisation of family values. What I like most was a statement made by the unreasonable mum who is slowly entering into a self-actualisation stage and she quoted: it takes years for 2 persons to come together and form a family with children but it will only take a significantly shorter period to shrink the size of a family should one make a wrong move..

How true..

I am always appreciative that my dear ah Lou has been playing his role of a hubby and father well. Despite the nature of my job, there is no single complaint from him on my time spent in the family these years coupled with the fact that he's very hands on with the boys studies and welfare. I must admit that the challenges are plentiful staying with in-laws given that I'm a strict parent and we have many differences on how my boys are to be brought up. Although I try not to intervene with how my mil spoils my boys but at times I do try to put an affirmative stand on the behaviour that should be discouraged. It's not easy. I don't want to put ah Lou in a difficult spot too so I will only intervene in extreme cases. I can't tell for sure whether I will turn out to be a doting grandma in future although my expectations on my boys were set high, as commented by a few of my closer galfriends. Nonetheless, we reap what we sow in life. There are always challenges in all phases of our life. What matters most is who do we choose to move these challenges along with you and I'm fortunate to find a good partner since I knew him 11 years ago..