PaPa's Birthday

This year, ah Lou has to work on his birthday and we decided to celebrate in advance on Sunday evening by having a good dinner at Earle's Swensens in T3. Honestly we planned to do dinner at Coffee Club instead but realised that they took off a few of our fav dishes from the menu in that outlet and we had to hunt high and low for the next best alternative without having to queue for 40 minutes to get a table  (crazy that these days, our usual quiet hangouts got crowded unexpectedly).

The main course came along with the salad bar buffet which carries some xmas cold dishes during this period. So the overall food quality was rather worth the value paid and the boys had sufficient options for their choice of dinner.



At Earle's

reading the message on the gift card

I got a cake for ah lou this evening right after work and we had to blow out 11 candles this year. Since my mum-in-law shares the same birthday as ah lou, Ethan asked his grandma if she's 11 years old this year (actually he didn't realise that it's 3 big candles and 8 small ones).

 

Ah lou will have a good start in his worklife come 2013.. so all the best to him and definitely Mummy will stand to benefit from the switch! (can't wait)

 

 

Ethan's 5th Birthday

 

 

We have scheduled Ethan's birthday celebration over 2 days, from saturday evening to the following day as we didn't hold any family gathering this round, and no party to mark his 5th birthday.

On Sat night, we drove to Nex to have the boys' fav food at DTF (they just can't get sick of these xiao long baos!) and it was quite a good feast since it has been some time we had our last meal at DTF. Cosy evening as it was raining heavily outside so the view from within the restuarant on the downpour seemed to have brought us to the feeling of being overseas. We brought the boys to Isetan to pick Ethan's present and he happily got his beyblade as expected.

After the lessons on Sunday, we went to Nex again for chinese dim sum at Crystal Kitchen (since mummy has to be on strict diet with instructions from TCM sinseh). The food was good as usual and we also got the birthday cake to be taken at night.  Ethan loitered at Kiddy palace again this time round and I realised that he had his eyes glued on Mr Moon plush toy (which has been marked down to a single-digit price tag) so I decided to get one for him - that small gift brightened up his day..

At Crystal (as usual, full house on a weekend)


At night, after dinner, we arranged for the cake cutting.

Excited with his mango cake

 

Caden gave a helping hand

The boys deciding who's getting which fruits during the cake distribution

 

It was a cosy and quiet affair, with his grandma's presence. Ethan being a cool child, refused to pack party packs for his school mates and we left him as such. Perhaps, he inherited his dad's genes for being a low profile man. He has been treating his Mr Moon toy as his next best friend besides tiger.

 

My Trial day at home

On one of the Mondays, I did a trial run, for being a SAHM, just for a day. It wasn't quite a real trial for me as Caden had to be in school earlier yesterday morning and I benefitted from having 2.5 hours free being alone at home - catching up on some stuff that I have missed out doing the last few months and resting on the couch, partly from the medication effect (suay that I can even fall ill on my off day)...

Nonetheless, the action got started the moment I picked Ethan up from school. On an impromtu basis, I decided to bring Ethan to the MacDonald's nearby Punggol Plaza upon his request. He was so happy with his treat of Happy meal and finished his whole meal without too much difficulty. On our way back home, he asked if I can be at home everyday for him, right after school.. that's a comforting assurance that at least he will appreciate my presence at home (at this point in time).

At Mac's

Evening play!

Contrary to what most people at my work place has been telling me, that my own children may find it stressful when the mum is 24/7 at home, being the caregiver, and relationships may be strained. I hold the belief that kids may benefit with their mum around at home to nurture them, especially when they are at their early stage of school lives. However, I do recognise that this is not going to be any easy role to play, as patience and trust has to be given to them to make this arrangement beneficial to both the children and mummy who has sacrificed all to be a SAHM.

Nonetheless, I enjoy being at home with the children, getting more self-achievements than what I would have gathered at work..

It's now probably a matter of time when I will do a career switch.

Lantern Festival - 30th Sep

This year's lantern festival fell on a Sunday, which is a perfect day for most families - for the first year since my boys were born, this is the year that I didn't have to rush back from office or pre-celebrate in advance in fear that I cannot make it back home on time.

Caden and Ethan were looking forward to the night fall so they can venture out in the park playing with the candles and sparklers

Poor PaPa frantically trying to fix up the entangled lantern for Ethan

 Ethan in his usual victory pose

 

The sparklers added much fun for them on that night

The boys got emersed into the occasion totally on that night, along with other children in the neighbourhood. We ended their outdoor adventure by 830pm so that it left us sufficient time to enjoy the champagne truffle mooncakes.

The clinic assistant

I got a call from my clinic this Thurs morning and the conversation goes like this:

Clinic Assistant (CA): hello Miss Lim?
Me : yes speaking
CA : your test results are out
Me : oh, but I won't know how is it since Doc Eu is on leave this week right?
CA : not to worry! The test results only showed presence of bacteria.
Me : no blood trace?
CA: eh.... Hmm... (checking) .. Actually have..
Me: ( silent) *** faint****
CA: not to worry. U come on Monday and check with dr ok?

It certainly helped that the clinic assistant's voice is so assuring over the phone, I could temporary shelved this aside and peacefully enjoy this weekend before my meetup with doc on Monday. Seeing the CA in person will also cheer one up as she has a very cartoon face!

Fingers crossed

Brave

 

We caught the show Brave today since it has been a movie which I had looked forward to (being a Disney Pixar show), and heard a few good reviews.

 

The movie started with a short film 'La Luna' (aka Moon) which dictates how the crescent comes about. Interesting, they have told the story such that there was a team of 3 persons who were in charge of sweeping the moon each night. What they do is to sweep the shining stars which filled up the whole moon to one side of the moon and eventually a crescent is formed.. Ethan asked if this story is real during the short film.. This short film brings me back to the memories of reading one of the fairy tale stories.

 

Brave is a movie about the bonding between a Queen and her daughter (Merida). The Queen has been trying to groom her into a well-mannered princess while Merida is happy doing her archery on her horse. As the movie plot unfolds, Merida's mum turned into a bear due to a spell which Merida has asked a witch to do so and she eventually regrets her action. It was her repentance which eventually broke the spell and changed her mum back into human (together with her 3 other brothers).

 

Besides portraying the difference in expectations between parents and children, this show tells us about breaking the tradition, and being brave to change our destiny. One last quote from the movie is rather relevant in what I am going true now - 'Some say fate is beyond our command, but I know better.  Our destiny is within us.  You just have to be brave enough to see it'.

 

How true..

 

I have been trying not to think about the potential medical condition these days while waiting for my 2nd review to take place. What I'll probably need is the bravery to handle all that will happen when time comes.

 

 

Decisions

I realised that as I aged, the decision making process seems to have shortened. I grew up in a very independent environment since young. I made my own decision on which secondary school I wanted to attend after my PSLE exams, I made my choice of junior college after the O levels exams and made my choice of courses which I wanted to pursue in the university. Based on my impression, the decision making process seems to be done in a more conscientious manner when I made my first career choice upon graduation, before marriage, buying a house, planning the decor of the house, switching jobs, all during the period when I was in the twenties.

As I progressed now beyond mid-thirties, decisions tend to be done in a swift manner. I have shifted to the tendency of making decisions which goes with my heart, instead of being ruled by the head. Probably so, because, at this point of my life, I have learnt to accept that not all things have to fall into perfect place. There are times when things just don't happen the way you want them to and times when everything just works for you. What matters most, is whatever we choose, we hope to end up happier.

I have made up my mind on something in July and was still affirmative during the month of August. I had a moral obligation and hence decided to execute this task only in mid-Oct. A few incidents happened thereafter:
1) My recent health medical report had shown some negative indicators, which requires me to have a second review
2) personal environment was also pointing negatively to the execution idea

The recent chain of events seem to be signs for me to reconsider my earlier plan to change the route of my life. This point, I have to least have a clearance from the doctor on my current state of health, before making any changes.

Though, honestly, I was surprised with myself for being so decisive on my plan earlier, as it has been a lingering thought to do this for the last few years. There are now too many factors that seems to be stopping me and I will just have to shelf this idea aside for the next few months - next target date of execution will be scheduled to be in end March next year...