Fatten us up!

I had 3 persons coming up to me in the last 3 days to let me know that I have lost weight. I decided to take my weight test last night to see if this is true and indeed I have shed almost 2 kg in the last 3 months although I did not deliberately work on any weight loss diet or exercise to achieve this. It's quite worrying if one loses weight for no reason.. which may imply that some disease has already started attacking you.. but then again, my loss may be a temporary issue since I have worked fairly late in the last 2 months over year end closing.

Caden on the other hand, probably has inherited the genes from his PaPa. He is not a picky eater and is adventurous to try out all types of food. We are fairly amazed with the amount of food he is able to consume at one meal - sometimes he can gobble up 6 xiao long baos + noodles + fried rice from Ding Tai Fung, or 3 slices of pizza + wings + garlic bread, or a chicken burger + chicken tenders + fries at BK. Despite the amount of food he takes, plus 3 cups of milk a day, he is still considered a very lean boy at his age. Ethan is showing the opposite behaviour, he turned out to be a very fussy eater, refusing to finish his usual meals, still a sucker for his milk.. sigh.. and obviously, his built is really small compared to other children of the same age..

must think of a safe and healthy way to fatten all of us up (including the father)..

2011 Chinese New Year

The four days of Chinese New Year has passed quickly this year, although the fortunate thing about this year is that we get an exceptional long weekend. Caden and Ethan had more motivation to bai nian this year as they knew the concept of money, ie, the money can be used to pay for their favorite toys. It was a fairly tiring weekend for us as we spent a lot of time travelling on the road and the weather has become hotter these days (we missed all the rainy cool nights).

On day 5 of CNY, we visited the River Hongbao at Marina, PaPa is usually keen to bring the kids down to river hongbao and this is our 3rd consecutive year going together. There were not many activities for the children so it was a quick touch and go viewing on our part.

The Year of Rabbit

With the God of Wealth (so hopefully we get lots of windfall this year!)

Ethan's chinese zodiac sign

Caden's chinese zodiac sign

The most impressive display on the event

Discipline

I have started Caden on daily homework since last year and has further enhanced by instilling responsibility on his part. I gave Caden a little diary which will outline what he is suppose to complete each day and we will check his work once we are back in the night.

He has been disciplined enough to regurgitate his tasks whenever I rang him near 3plus in the afternoon to find out if he knows what he needs to do (which shows that he did check his little diary). So far my ah lou told me that he has completed his work most of the times.

We noticed that Caden thrives on our attention when he does his homework. So lately I have modified his homework regime to have his father to sit through some exercises with him on some nights and it works quite well. These days, as we kept away his favorite toys, he will give his father a call in the late afternoon to ask to get them when he finished his assignments.

This is what he did last night on his english assignment with his Dad (the drawings are done by him as he learnt the prepositions):


While we are now fairly comfortable with Caden's progression, we will be starting to place our focus on Ethan once he turns 4 end of this year..

Caden is on 2 wheels

Finally Caden is able to cast away his back wheels and cycle on 2 wheels before he turns 6 this year. Both Caden and Ethan get to cycle fairly often these days in the afternoons when grandma brings them down for a treat after homework is done. They are so into cycling that they have also asked us to bring them down for a ride on weekends when we are at home..

Worry

Lately I realised I became a worry queen. I worry for Caden and Ethan almost everyday if their journey to school is safe. I worry for my ah lou if his road trip to work and back home is safe. I worry for my mother-in-law at times and hope that she doesn't have another fall again. I think the older I become, the more worries I tend to cummulate, which is not helping me.. I concluded the less sleep I have, the more worries I would start to generate.

3 weeks on

Ethan has been in LSK for 3 full weeks. He didn't want to go back to school after Day 1 and it took us quite a lot of effort to get him dress up each morning (one day he wasn't wearing his school uniform!). Since Ethan has been having night terrors on the first week as well, on week 2, I decided to go to the Guan Yin temple near my office to hope for the best. My sis-in-law also counsel Ethan on the same week and told him to guai guai be a good boy and go to school and in return she will get a new toy for him if this is done.

Miraculously, the night terrors stopped and Ethan did not have too much trouble then on.. to be honest, I did not know which actually helped but the objective has been met so let's hope it stay as it is.

Ethan's first day of school at LSK

Today is Ethan's official first day of school at LSK. The comforting thing is that Caden is currently in K2 this year and can accompany him on the bus ride to and fro. Ethan has been looking forward to this day since the Dec holidays.

We were fairly worried for Ethan as he had trouble settling down at Tots House last year. It took him almost 1 full semester (3 months) to stop crying or fussing before his lessons. Today we both took half a day's leave to watch over his adaption in school (in discreet).

We didn't have too much of a problem getting the boys ready on time. Ethan was fine in the morning and happily walk towards to pick-up point. We went off in our own car and reached the school earlier than their bus so we hid in a corner to wait for their arrival.

Ethan shown signs of worry during the assembly. Caden obviously was happy to see his friends back at school on the first day (and forgot to watch over his brother). Throughout the 1.5 hours in class, Ethan did not settle in well, he started to look worried and upset, and burst out crying upon spotting us in a corner. He hang on to us and refused to join back the class although we assured him that we will be by his side.

It took us a while for him to get back into the class (unwillingly). Thankfully the day ended with only 1.5 hours as part of the orientation programme for the school so Ethan was not traumatised for too long.

Hopefully we don't get too much problem getting him dressed up in uniform again the next few days.