First national competition

Our little boy took part in this year's CMA abacus national competition on Sunday. We were actually not keen to put him on this competition when we were invited by his centre to join. However,  mister lil E was so enthusiastic about the competition and asked us to sign him up. We were partly apprehensive about taking part because it was a whole day event and we were concerned that he will lose confidence if he doesn't do well..

The teachers helped to prep those kids taking part in the competition well (I think they put in effort to do so). Ethan seemed to be quite confident the night before as he told his brother that he thinks he will get to go up the stage.  He has been told for 1st to 3rd prize winners, the kids will receive their trophies on the stage. So he was setting himself such a high benchmark before the competition. We overheard the conversation between the brothers and were amazed with his aspirations. 

On Sunday, after registration,  Ethan kept telling me that he's very nervous.  Funny reaction from this cool (or rather bochap) kid of mine. Anyways I told him to treat this like normal lesson and enjoy the experience.  

The parents were ushered to another hall where we get to watch live feed of the competition.  It's an eye opener for me to see how much more enthusiasm other kids have displayed for abacus/mental calculation. 

We waited long for the results to be released.  And we were really really surprised to see Ethan coming in 2nd and 3rd for Abacus and Mental calculation segments respectively. Although we were proud of his results but dreaded the fact that we had to stay longer to wait for the prize giving ceremony (the consolation winners, 4th and 5th can picked up their prizes straight after the release of results)

2nd and 3rd prize trophies

Elder brother felt so much happy for his buddy

We hope he has gained more confidence in himself and puts in effort in every other thing that he's doing. 

My new little teapot

My hand got scalded by a stove kettle recently and my frugal ah lou bought an electric kettle to prevent the same incident from happening. . Such a sweet gesture

Not that I have not been using a stove kettle all these years.  I am a user for decades but probably I had been too preoccupied with stuff on my mind and held the stove kettle in a wrong angle..

It's good to have an electric kettle (bonus point is the colour of this model). Water gets boiled in less than a minute and we can get a cup of coffee with boiling water in just seconds! 

After exams...

Last Saturday, after our dine-out dinner, we dropped by Ikea to let the boys have their usual ball-dive game since exams were just over .. (while I go pick up small items from Ikea)

Caden has now reached their height limit and its probably his last time of getting into the play area..

So one shot of him with Ethan for souvenir, just in case he's denied from entry the next time we are there!

Our other little baby..

Lil Ethan is still petite in size. At P1, he looks as though he's still in kindergarten..

In his swim gear on Sat afternoon

looking more macho!

a sucker for ice-cream!

Our 9 year old baby..

For Caden's 9th year old birthday, we didn't throw him a party (although he has asked for a nerf war party again with his school classmates).

The sunday before his actual day, we invited Brian's family to our place for a usual get-together while the boys spent their time fixing up Caden's and Ethan's lego presents..

After dinner, before cake-cutting, Ethan was helping PaPa to put in the candles (while Caden was nowhere found)..

A few shots with all his all-time favourite playmates

Grandma giving out a birthday hongbao to him

Our rare family picture (which turns out to be a bit blurred)

Caden asked to cut the cake himself this year

On his actual day (Monday), we brought him (plus grandma) out to Nex for dinner - initially he asked to go for Jap dinner but changed his mind after seeing Ding Tai Fung..

In DTF that night, he gobbled up 10 xiao long baos all by himself (plus a bowl of noodles).. appetite has definitely grown so much bigger these days!

My wish for our 9 year old boy is to be more hardworking and humble and less complacent. Hopefully, very soon, he learns to be independent when it comes to his school work and puts in alot more effort in everything he does..

Gardens by the Bay

We made an arrangement to spend the Good Friday holiday with Brian's family at Gardens by the Bay. As we were pretty sleep deprived, we have agreed to meet up in the late morning (half past 10) but was shocked to see a big turnout in this attraction. The main car park entrance was filled with cars queuing to enter and by the time we reached the premise, it was already 11am.

The weather was good to us in fact, it was not too sunny but only humid. We headed straight to the sun pavilion first to let the boys have a view on the wide collection of cactus. It was such a eye-opener for us as I only got to see the various types of cactus there.

In the sun pavilion

The 4 boys spent most of their time playing in the Adventure Trail section.  In there, they have many slides, web-based obstacles and a multi-tiered playground. After an hour's of play, the parents got hot and sticky and decided to call it a day.

In the adventure trail

Perfect place to release their energy levels

Racing up the stairs for his next round of slide

Although there's a tulipmania exhibition happening in GBTB this period ( which I suspect that it is contributing to the massive turnout), we didn't spend the time to cover that area due to the long queues formed at the ticketing areas. We probably will revisit GBTB again next month or in June to cover the conservatories.

Last picture before we leave

New help at home

I have officially started my part-time work back in my company since mid-March and before doing so, I went on a mini shopping spree to support the chores to be done at home.

1) Philips Air Fryer
I should have gotten this earlier. Basically it helps to cook food without/with minimal oil and best part of this appliance is - the kitchen doesn't get oily at all (so eliminates the need to mop the kitchen floor everyday!)

 

2) OHM wireless vacuum
After recommendation from my SIL, I decided to give this a try. This replaces the magic clean wiper mop that I used everyday and now the house feels cleaner given that I only need to spend about 15mins to cover the whole house. The good thing about this vacuum is that it's super light weight (compared to the brands I see in Courts/Denki) and requires only a few hours of recharge every 3-4 days. And I get to see the amount of dust and hair in the transparent container (so effectively you know that the house is cleaned). Ever since I started using this, I have cut down the frequency of mopping from everyday to Tues, Thurs and Sat.

Travelling between workplace and back home every single weekday can be very tiring, especially on days that I carry my laptop back home to tidy up some of my work. Frankly, it is not easy to carry out a job which you work on half day everyday. I think it's easier to do 2 full days plus 1 half day ideally to fully maximise the time (in terms of arrangement of meetings) and travelling requirements. So after this 1 month, I have picked up the momentum, and well aware of the drop-dead time I need to leave office in order to reach the school on time to pick up the boys.

To me, every afternoon is like a battle against time. From 2-3pm, I will get the boys to shower, eat lunch, pack school bag and take break by allowing TV time. During this period, I will prepare the soup for dinner, eat my lunch, do a preliminary wash of the children's school uniforms, keep clothes, vacuum the place (where possible). From 3pm onwards, the kids will need my attention in their work, going through the errors with them, practising piano.. plus time in the playground. In between, I will try to steal pockets of time doing my office work. By 6pm, the boys get their free time while I spend the time in the kitchen getting dinner done. So usually, by Friday, my energy level will drop to almost zero and there won't be any home-cooked food for everyone :)

By now, I have a standard list of dishes that I prepare every week, and this makes weekend marketing tremendously easy (and quick). Honestly I don't cook vegetables well before I turned to a full time homemaker. After this period, I have ventured beyond my safe-haven broccoli to do these:

Nai Bai

snow peas with soy beans

Hei Bi Hiam long beans

plus garlic Xiao Bai Cai. I am glad that the boys have started to eat more vegetables (in fact all these vegetables) coupled with my pre-mix multigrain (brown/red/white) rice.
 
And I did these with the help of air-fryer:

honey wings

Fried Wantons

The boys missed these maki for their weekday lunch as I could barely rushed back on time to pick them up from the school in the afternoon. Probably I can make sushi lunch for them again during holidays or on weekends if I am not too worn out.

 

I believe my presence at home has certainly benefitted the boys.. so it's actually for me to balance my passion for work + time at home, in order to keep this arrangement sustainable.