Ethan's 8th birthday celebration

This is an overdue post... had been kept so busy with school's stuff for the last 2 months..

Ethan turned 8 in October. He didn't want to have any mini-party we used to have with Brian's family this round, nor distributing goodie bags to his classmates. Somehow I think he likes to keep things in very low profile (just like us).

On the actual day, we brought him to Swenson's for dinner (it was my teaching day unfortunately so no activities after his lessons). The big highlight for him was their ice-cream! He specifically said that he didn't want any birthday cake too!

Some pictures as part of his 8th birthday celebration for his record..

The brother was more excited than Ethan who it comes to food.. he can be a very good poster boy!

Can't wait to dig in!

 

This is quite a quiet celebration for him =) Hopefully he'll remember this day next time!

Reading in winter

I have a boy who perspires alot and another boy who feels cold easily.  On a night when 3 of us are doing our respective work in the study room, Ethan wrapped himself up like a little newborn baby to read in the air-conditioned room. So cute....

Ethan's favourite authors

 

Ethan has cultivated the love of reading since young. It was lately that his thirst for books somehow exploded. He would ask not to do my assignments during weekdays and seek permission to read instead. Given that reading is a good hobby to build on, I would usually agree to his proposal.

 

He used to love Geronimo Stilton books at Primary 1 and we have already spent lots of $ buying them for our boys. He never gets tired of reading this series:

 

Then I encouraged him to touch on Roald Dahl books, which I loved when I was young. He started with the shorter stories like, The Twits, Esio Trot, George's marvellous medicine. Caden used to love Roald Dahl when he was in P2 as well. Ethan has covered most in this collection, except for 2-3.

I have also got them to read books by Judy Blume, which is very readable for his age and he enjoyed them as well.

 

 

 

At one point, he was so addicted to Captain Underpants series and finished reading the entire collection as well..

As I ran out of series for him to read, beyond Roald Dahl, Stilton and Blume books, I decided to start on books by Enid Blyton. I was a bit apprehensive at the beginning. I wasn't sure if he would enjoy books by Enid Blyton as much as I did when I was young (I read only Amelia Jane and Nancy Drew series). So I asked him to try this Famous Five book which happens to be brand new from the library.

Ah, he enjoyed it thoroughly! He even shared with me that it has an interesting plot and as they tried to uncover treasure in an island. After he finished with this book, he asked me to look for more Famous Five in the library for him :) I am happy with his new found love, as there will be a lot more books to complete before I run out of ideas!

SAHM - 2nd year and counting

Technically I have been a SAHM for almost 2 years. It all started in Dec 2013...

Dec 2013 - 3 months sabbatical leave
Mar- Oct 2014 - Part-time half day arrangement
Oct 2014 - End of part time half day employment
Jan 2015 to present - Start of part time lecturer role

 

I remembered I once blogged about how tough it was to be a SAHM (given the fact that I was still partially employed then .. ). My present role allows me to have more breaks given that I don't need to be in school during school term breaks (which works out to be only 26 weeks assignment for 1 year). After going through 1+ semesters, I am finally more settled with the present lifestyle, I think it helps me to be much healthier as I am hardly sick these days (touchwood!)

Out of the 26 weeks assignment, I have opted to teach 2 days a week, so my children have been getting so much of my attention this year! Being at home for the kids is definitely beneficial, whether we are working on something constructive or even nothing constructive for them! I feel that its the emotional support that can be extended to them at all times. Often, they share what they do in school, or funny stuff that happened to them during school hours. I can also intervene promptly when there are arguments, hoping that sensible talks can help to infuse into their brains eventually.

As for my personal 'mental being', I still miss 'scolding' people, which I often get to do during my banking days =p. It's something that kept me going then. I actually did not thrive on scolding people at work, but rather, the ability to identify issues and resolve them (as a result, you 'scold' people when they were still resistant to changes or were not able to see your point).  Now, I exercise more patience with my students, and be empathetic to their learning paces.

Often, we are caught in a situation where we think about 'the other side' after we have taken our path. I still believe that I will continue to do well in my role in the bank if I had not decided to resign. So this is Life! We have to make hard decisions sometimes at different points. On a flip side, being there for my children with significant reduction in spending power is not so bad after all!

Honestly, if any of my friends are struggling with the decision to take the path of a SAHM, my advice for them will be - Go ahead!

Ethan's P2 Math test

Ethan came back from school mid this week and told me that he had scored full marks for the math test that was taken the day before. Caden has set this same achievement for his CA2 math test this time round and to my mind, I find it really unbelievable for Ethan to have done it too!

I am biased. I know. Ethan's cognitive skills are not as strong as his brother's. He has difficulties understanding the questions - what exactly is required. He has issues in grasping new concepts. He makes careless mistakes like simple addition and subtraction questions. He rushes through work MOST of the time, so this habit causes unnecessary errors included in any test or assignments ...

During the math revision period which I had planned for him, I almost, literally vomit blood every single day, so much so that I have to outsource some explanations to his PaPa to take over from me.. it was so hard and painful to work through and review the answers he came up with for every math question assigned to him. He lacks motivation to attempt questions that will have 3 to 4 steps of workings and just left them not attempted, citing the reason that he didn't know what the question was asking for. He lacks the determination to solve more challenging math problems.  have to break down the question into parts, and explain to him part by part before he can derive the answer. Questions like what is the dollar equivalent of Twenty 20cents? Forty 50 cents? I have to do so many drills with him on questions which he was weak in.

His memory is short too. For past topics which were covered in Terms 1 and 2, if we don't cover them during revision period before Term 3 test, he couldn't remember how to attempt them (typically the school will include past topics taught in 1st half of the year as the year progressed).  Thus, when I planned the schedule for his math revision, I will set aside 2 to 3 sessions which will include questions from past topics.

I suppose after all these years, I have already come into realisation that each child learns at a different pace. Although both brothers were put into the same routine since young, Ethan turns out to be much weaker. The best way to overcome his performance is Patience, Patience and Patience!

Although I have not seen the hard copy paper back from school as yet, I believe in my son's claim on his achievements.. Hopefully we can continue to maintain this good momentum :) I am definitely not asking for full marks results from him but a better learning attitude to be demonstrated by him which will be more sustainable.

 I

SG50 Golden Jubilee weekend - 10th Aug 2015

We started our last day of this nationwide Golden Jubilee holidays in Sentosa.. it was hard for us to get out of bed after the day we spent at the Sports Hub.

Again, the crowds were massive. I heard from Brian and Winnie that the monorail station at Harbourfront station had long queues with hundreds of people waiting in line to board the monorail. We drove into the island and had to wait for a while to get into the carpark. This time round, the indoor carpark had reached its maximum capacity and we were ushered to park at a sandy patch outside beach station.

There was no tram service on Monday so we had to travel by foot to Siloso Beach where the Sands of Time exhibit was located... there were many people so it was a long, hot walk...

Highlights of the 100m long sculptures (text of each sculpture was adapted from Sentosa website) :

A Day to Remember Singaporeans in a Kopitiam watching the press conference where Mr Lee Kuan Yew announced Singapore’s separation from the Malaysian Federation

Lifelike creation

First National Day Parade 1966Singapore’s first National Day Parade on 9 August 1966 with the Armed Forces marching pass the former Supreme Court.

 

On a little street of SingaporeA typical street market in Singapore back in the 60s and 70s showcasing the multicultural aspects of Singapore with the local flavours of Chinese, Malay and Indian street food.

So Singapore Illustrating that time is precious and finite, this Centrepiece honours the past and celebrates the present. Backing the idea of time are the iconic quirks that make up the Singaporean DNA.

 

Our HeartlandsA typical scene of our heartlands with HDB flats, playground and MRT train in the background, to showcase where Singaporeans live and play homes.

 

 

 

Our HomeThis final scene depicts the metropolis that Singapore has become today out of mudflats. It shows modern Singapore with the skyline of the financial district, and a couple from the Pioneer Generation who have been instrumental to Singapore’s success story.

 

While waiting for Brian's family to reach, the boys played with sand and raced on the beach..

By the time they came, it started to drizzle....

Spot the man!

We spent some time in the pavilion to play the games stations. It wasn't as crowded as what we experienced in Sports Hub but we did spend some time queuing up to play the games..

 

 

Generally, the boys had fun.. and I think it was a good outing for them to soak in the sunshine and play with the sand. Whether do they appreciate the sand sculpture? hmm... I don't think so! hahahaa

SG50 Golden Jubilee weekend - 9th Aug 2015

 

We decided to spend our National Day at Singapore Sports Hub as there was a SG50 carnival event. Given the array of activities that we could cover (as shown below), we thought it's enough to keep us occupied for the whole afternoon till 8pm when we can catch the fireworks display.

 



We parked our car at Mountbatten and took the circle line train to Stadium. Haha, we thought it was going to be easy and smooth but we were shocked to see the massive crowds inside the train cabins and we had difficulties boarding the trains at Dakota. To my mind, I was thinking maybe these people are heading towards promenade station to watch the fireworks display at night.. so happened that there was a rather empty train that came along after a while (because it wasn't meant to allow passengers onto board), we went onto it, hoping that it will open at Stadium.

So we reached the Sports Hub and met up with Brian's family. There were many games stations outside the stadium but the more popular ones like MegaBounce and Kids Peddle boat had a queue which requires us to stand in line for 60 minutes. As the weather was hot and humid, we only got the boys to play those oldie games and they didn't seem to have much fun..

Throwing the top:

 

 

As we head towards Aquatic Centre, we saw this soccer game table and decided to have a go.. it was fun (but not free!)

 

 

The 4 boys spent a fair bit of time playing with the kick scooters that Brian and Winnie had brought along. Ethan suggested to the rest of the boys to do a 400m race and he managed to beat all others and reached the finishing line first!

 

 

Big victory!



totally exhausted

Second to reach, while Aidan followed closely behind

After dinner, we watched the fireworks display with many many others around but we felt that the view there in Sports hub was not spectacular. We once had an experience at Esplanade and were so close to the fireworks display and that was spectacular (with the accompanying sound effects). So we are not going to watch fireworks display in town again, unless we can get nearer to the parade venue.

 



picture taken by caden

I guessed the boys had fun playing with kick scooters and on the soccer table game but that was all...
we managed to beat the massive crowd and catch a train back to Dakota right before the end of the NDP show. Honestly, it is definitely more cosy and comfortable watching NDP at home with good food..  :)