It's official...I'm lazy. It's been exactly a month since my last post. I have so many things I wanted to say but I just didn't get round to it, giving one lame excuse after another.
Today is the first day of school for Ryan. Hubby sent the kids to school - Xavier after a 2 week break, Keane after a super long weekend of fun and Ryan for the first time. We decided not to use the school bus service because it was not worth it for 3 kids. S$130 each per month works out to be S$390 per month for us. This is more than what the hubby spends on petrol each month! So he agreed to be the chauffeur.
Keane behaved like it was the first day of school for him. The change of routine, from school bus to daddy driven car, had a huge impact on him. He thought that they were going out this morning instead of going to school. Given that he is already 3.5 years old, it was difficult to accept his behaviour. Especially when Xavier didn't behave this way when he was the same age. I kind of suspected this would happen but didn't want to voice out against the good intentions of cost cutting. We're giving it another day. If he still throws a tantrum, I'm sending him to school. The funny thing is that he was having a whale of a time when his dad went to pick him up.
I heard that Ryan was enjoying himself in school and wasn't reliant on the help who was on standby in school. But when his daddy picked him up, he grumbled a bit. I guess he didn't the attention. Xavier said he enjoyed himself in school. I guess he missed his friends over the holidays.
Some stories....
Xavier recalled something from a long time ago accurately and I praised him for his superb memory. He said "I'm an elephant". On another incident, he forgot something and he said "I'm a tiger today, not an elephant".
We have Japanese food regularly because it is one of Xavier's favourite food. He can eat 2 pieces of Tamago sushi (egg sushi), 2 pieces of Kani sushi (crabstick sushi), 3 pieces of Tamago senzai (egg sushi without the rice), 2 pieces of Kani Mayo maki (crabstick seaweed roll with mayonnaise) and 1 California temaki (California handroll) by himself. It's a good thing that sushi is healthy. Keane would attack the chocolate ice cream even before he has his rice. The guy can finish one Chicken Katsu Don (Chicken chop with egg on rice) by himself. Keane is a typical Chinese guy, must have rice or noodles and doesn't eat bread at all.
I took some leave during Christmas week and went back to work for one day before taking another break before the New Year. On the day I was in office, Xavier called and asked me when I was going home. I said I had work to do and will not be home so early. He said "Can you do your work faster? Then come home earlier." He made me feel so inefficient! He definitely has the potential of being a tyrannical boss.
The last month was full of activities. A trip to the zoo, a trip to the bird park, a trip to Downtown East (indoor playground) interspersed with outings to the shopping malls. The kids had a lot of fun and it is evident.
Keane has started to sleep with us recently. Together with Xavier. I know it may be strange to some that we have 2 of our kids sleeping with us. Trust me, it's not something that I wanted. I'm paying the price for some convenience which I enjoyed when Xavier was a baby. We started putting him to sleep on our bed when he was 4 months old because I found it very inconvenient to get out of bed and carry him from the baby cot to feed him at night. That convenience turned out to be very expensive. He has been sleeping on our bed since then - it's been 5 years. And now, we have Keane joining us. I feel Keane decided to join us because he wanted the attention as well. He is starting to develop his personality and asserting himself. I suspect he thinks we have a lot of fun after he goes to bed previously. So he decided to join us and have some of the fun as well.
Keane has super sixth sense. He knows when we have plans to do something, like having supper, after the kids are asleep. So he will refuse to go to bed. He will hang around the living room and play until we give up. We will either bring him along with us, if we are extremely hungry, or we will abandon our plans and go to sleep with him after he gives up, which is typically after a couple of hours.
Ryan has started to show his personality. He is a very vivacious boy. Loves having good fun and would try to snatch toys from his siblings. He can scurry away very quickly if he meets with objections. He's intelligent in that way. That's what they say about kids born in the year of the Rat. Xavier can attest to that. He recounted part of the story where the Rat jumped off the Ox and the Ox came in second in the race to be the animals on the Chinese horoscope. My son, the Rat, jumped off me, the Ox and I became second. Such comforting thoughts.
I look forward to 2010 and will try to make it better than 2009......