Welcoming 2013

I believe many, parent or not, feel the same and that is, Time flies!

It seemed like not too long ago, our Renee was just entering P1 and today, she's attended her 1st day of P2!

 

There had been excitements, adjustments, new friends and even 'experiments' and at the end of the year, although I hadn't the time nor energy to coach Renee with her work, I was still alittle disappointed that she didn't get to the top 3 or 10 within just her class, but with her 90+ mark for all her subjects(though there was a 80+ for her Chinese during the 1st term), I'm contented.  Then suddenly one day, I received a Certficate of Academic Achievement from the MOE, for being in the top 25% in terms of academic performance in the level and course and good conduct in school!  This came in as a really pleasant surprise to me and I hope this would help boost her confidence('cos she's been feeling kinda sad that she didn't come in 1st 3 in the class/school).

Anyway, P1 level is known to be easy and there are going to be new and perhaps tougher challenges which I hope she'd be able to cope well and that, this new year will bring her more learning opportunities, both academically and in the music region.

No Time To Unpack

Oh geez, I've only just begun my unpacking of the luggages/loot when hubby reminded me of the gathering his client has organised for us(he said this meetup will not materialise if papa's not present) this evening... And then, with an almost empty refrigerator, what can I do?  I had to stop my 'work' so we could go to the supermart to get some food stuffs and before we knew it, it's time to get ready to go to the client's house.

 

Tonight, I finally get to put a face to the names hubby had mentioned to me numerous times, including an acquaintance with their wives, :).

 

Renee even had great fun after befriending 1 of the clients' daughters! lolz.

These bottles were left around on the table, with nothing to do, Rachel went to arrange them neatly! 

Ta Da! 

Hello, bear

 

Now, what are you doing, going so close to the bear, Rachel? 

 

Oh! hahaha

 

On our way home, we saw many firemen along the road and as we drove past, we see big clouds of smoke coming out/up from a nearby warehouse/factory. Oh my, it's soooo near our premise!  As we were entering our building's carpark, we saw a fire engine driving out of our compound too...  Geez, this piece of news would surely be reported since it seemed to be quite a big fire...

Pre-Birthday Outing I - An Unpleasant Encounter

School ends early at 10:30am today and I asked if papa's ok that we all go fetch Renee from school(instead of her coming back on school bus) and we went for a brunch , :).

We had wanted a Macdonald's breakfast(Renee refused tim sum) but as we were late from running some work errands, we had to do with an early lunch instead.

2 'not so nice' incidents occurred thereafter..  1st, Renee almost lost her mobile phone!  Fortunately, we managed to recover it - an old nice couple had found it and answered the call we made to its number, phew...

We were heading back from Bukit Timah Plaza(where we usually go to buy our groceries) when the 2nd unpleasant incident occurred.  A Caucasian lady wanted to enter the elevator we were on, just as the door was about to close.  Although there was still enough space for her and her trolley, it would nevertheless, be very cramp for everyone.  I moved in as much as I could, whilst pressing onto the button to hold the door for her.  But my, this was one rude lady!  She obviously had seen our trolley, 'cos she paused, just that mere seconds before she decided to burge in regardlessly.  She pushed her trolley harshly in and it hit Rachel's legs!  Without a simple thanks to me for holding the door, she didn't even apologise to us when she knew that her trolley had hit Rachel(her facial expression told us that she knew!)!  It was only after papa and I had uttered "my goodness" that she said, unapologetically, "sorry legs", GEEZ!  You call this an apology?  You bet, anyone would be angry at that!  Anyway, guess what she did?...

Rude Lady : "I didn't see her", *period*

Papa(upset): "You can't see her? are you blind?"

Rude Lady : "Well, she seems ok, isn't she?"

Papa          : "She's only a baby, you should have been more careful.  What if I banged onto your tummy and say sorry tummy?"

Rude Lady : "Well, I apologised, didn't I? Are you gonna just stand here and shout or you wanna move on" (mind, we didn't even raise our voice, let alone 'shout' as she'd claimed)

Wah, that was really too much!  I really almost flared : "your apology wasn't sincere at all! you're such a rude person!" and she retorted, facing me she said "you could have moved in more" and papa told her it was already so cramp and I reminded her "I was trying to hold the door for you!".  At this point, she just kept quiet but showed us a very unhappy face and acted all high almighty, like she's the queen and we were the ones in the wrong, my goodness.

Papa muttered, but still audible(that's the purpose anyway) "all these angmos... so uncultured" and I quickly added "exactly, wonder why they're here".  Now, such incidents really tell us, it's not why we Singaporeans do not welcome foreigners(whichever country they come from), it's them who made it difficult for us to accept them.  Just look at their attitude, their behaviour towards us and we are the lawful/rightful citizens of this country!  Even after we gave way to them, gracefully...  Honestly, if they're unhappy about not getting their hauty way here, we would all be much happier if they do not stay...

No More Climbing

Finally, the gates are up today.

We've got this safety gate over the weekend actually but as papa didn't get the actual measurement prior, we had to wait til today, for him to find some time to get it changed to the correct size.

As he was fixing it just now, Rachel saw, pointed to it and "eh eh" in a questioning tone, then she started shaking her head, hahaha. She must have known that this gate's to prevent her from climbing the steps, hahaha.

Rachel's Passport

Yes, we've finally collected Rachel's 1st passport!

As usual, our trip planning has to be 'postponed' as Rachel doesn't have a passport and by the time we've got it applied, I've kinda lost the interest and Papa's certainly not keen anymore...

Papa needed to attend to his work and to avoid waste of time rushing home to pick us, he decided to drop us off somewhere nearby.  We had a quick lunch at KFC and again, Renee, remembering the Lego roadshow(is it called 'roadshow'?...), asked to go there again and thus, we've wasted a good 45mins there - before Papa came back for us.

After picking up Rachel's passport, we headed down to Vivo City, in search of Renee's flowergirl shoes(failed to find again, no size!) and again, we ended up dining at Sushi Tei... This has been the 4th time at least, that we've dined at Sushi Tei during this school holiday!

Just a few days ago, suddenly recalling our wedding anniversary, I told Papa that since we've missed our ROM date(which I had thought was 13 May), we could celebrate our wedding date(sometime in June) since it's been a looooong time we've 'celebrated' our anniversary.  However, again, I've remembered the dates wrongly and retrieving our certificate for a check, papa told me that he was right, it is today! hahaha. Anyway, we've also forgotten to 'celebrate' it today, hahaha.

Lego and New Friends

I had planned to stay home today but with such hot weather(we had to have the air-conditioner switched on the whole day yesterday! - and I took the opportunity to do my ironing, heee!), I decided to take the kids out! heee.

With papa dropping us off, we chose Raffles City and when we arrived there, we spotted Lego's promotional roadshow(for LegoLand) upstairs and Renee insisted on going over.  She's always been ok playing alone by herself and so, seeing that there weren't much people around still, I left her to roam around some of the shops, nurse Rachel, whilst she entertained herself with the Lego blocks.  When I went back to her, she's already made friends with an American girl who came with her Singaporean mummy.  The mummy was very friendly too and soon, we were chatting away as well, :).  We even exchanged mobile numbers before we parted, :).  They told us the date of their trip to the upcoming Lego Land and extended their invitation for us to join them on the same day, we'll see.  I hope we could join them(and their friends) but as usual, we'll have to depend on Papa's schedule...

Maidless and an Empty School

Just a couple of days working for us and the replacement maid had already shown us her true colours!  Geez, request after request and she even showed me her displeasure outright when I chided her for her repeated mistakes! She didn't bother to try and remember the daily chores' routine(would even 'change'  my instructions), didn't sterilise my baby's drinking bottles(which led me to wonder if she's really wash them clean) and even left me to doing it myself in the end, etc etc etc.  The worst being that I have to be her walking alarm - twice on one same morning after being told/explained a week ago(she did that on her 2nd day with us!) that she cannot resume sleep after she's switched the alarm off - she thought she could sleep in as late as us on days that Renee need not go to school, geez!

We could already see her incompetence on her 3rd day but the agency reminded us of the contract's stipulation that we have to use her for at least a month(we'd still have to pay her 1 mth's salary if we send her back earlier), so we thought perhaps we could try giving her another chance and maybe, just maybe, she might change.  However, laziness is something that's super hard to change and especially so when one's not putting an effort and thus, we decided to send her back earlier.  Unhappy with the situation we Singaporean employers have to put up with in such a situation(am 100% sure I'm not the only one and certainly not the 1st with such situation), I called up the MOM(which said that they can't help us and made me wondered why they take our monthly levy for?  Their policy has always been foreigners pro and our Singaporeans' feedbacks are not taken into serious consideration, etc...) and in the last resort, the agency itself.  It's only upon the desperate mention of my approaching an MP, did I finally get a compromise on the agency's part, for us to pay the lazy maid half a month's salary.  MOM was supposed to get back to me on this matter(also only upon my mentioning of getting the MP's help, did I get them to try and look into my case) but if I were to wait for their response, I think I would have gone crazy, plus I'm not sure what she, the maid, would be capable of doing- such rebellious maid is dangerous to be kept around, especially when we have young ones at home, So, we decided to send her back to the agent's office on Saturday. Although I may be depleted of the energy to even relate fully to you about the maid, but if you wish to know and if we do get to meet-up, I'll try to provide the info...

So, for the past 2 days, I'm totally bashed just doing the house-chores(worser now when the unit's bigger-we've decided that if we're going maidless, we'd need to get a smaller place in the future) whilst having to look after Rachel's needs and I have my hubby's eyes over the kids.(though he went out in the evening to watch soccer, leaving me alone at home with the kids - I had to tackle the chores and Renee was alone to watch over Rachel when I go for my shower!) I can't imagine those days/times when he's not home and I'm alone - it's sooooo hard to tackle the chores when Rachel refuses to sleep in her cot most of the times!

Today, already so tired and aching all over, Renee has to make us wake up early for nothing - because, there's no school today!  She must have been day-dreaming away or looking around in school and whatever she was doing, she certainly must have not paid attention 'cos how else would she have missed the information that there's no school today?  When will this girl learn to concentrate and pay attention,   She's the same when it comes to her music theory lessons, she'd try to copy down notes when the teacher is still talking/explaining, OMgosh, how is she going to cope when she goes higher level in her learning! Haiz...  Now they're all back to bed and I'm still awake - this is me, no matter how lack of it, I'm one who has difficulty in resuming my sleep after I'm awake.

Meanwhile, we have standby a selection of Indo maids and will have to decide if to give it another try when the agency confirms their availability...

Unplanned Visit

It's been 3 weeks since we last had our family gathering and certainly a much looooonger time since her aunty LiLi had visited us at our home(since we've moved out of the NE region).  Today Renee had a surprise visit from her and her aunt, armed with little gifts from her recent trip, made Renee very happy although Rachel cried like anything, hahaha(but she's ok when her aunt 'force-carried' her, :P).  Renee even managed to persuade her papa to let her go down for a swim practice and finally made her aunt to bring her down, hahaha.

In the evening, we went to the restaurant down my mom's place to have our dinner before we dropped her aunt at a nearby station so she need not travel too far back to home.

Although Renee really loves her aunt(s) to visit her more often at home but I think this wish of hers is not going to come true any time soon, for we might be staying put around this region since it's gonna be tough for her to get to school if we move too far out from this area, :(...

Dry Ice

Been hving ice-cream craze lately and bought a tub of macadamia nut ice-cream from Swensen's just now.  When I saw them packing the dry ice into the paper bag, I thought, I should let Renee try touching the dry ice!  But, remembering how it had hurt my hand the last time I did that, I decided against it(she needs to play the violin...), heee.

Slapped With GST!

With the intention to save shipping cost and the trouble of having to place orders frequently, I've placed an larger quantity order of skinscare(from USA) last week.  The parcel should have arrived earlier this week but today, I received a letter in the mail from Singapore Post instead.  It's an notification for payment of GST and/or Duty, aiyoh!...  Suddenly, I recalled those times when I read from the forum that this is the reason why spree-organisers were splitting their orders!

No time to collect the items myself today, hopefully soon, so I can know for sure if it's only the GST that I'd have to pay 'cos based on the purchase amount, it would be more cost effective for me to split the order, pay for the international shipping cost twice as compared to having to pay for the GST.  So, it'd be more 'costly' for me if I'm charged with anything else!  Terrible, why must we be charged with GST on goods purchased from overseas!

Where's My Baby?!

I've got a big shock today when I came back to meeting hubby at the school's lobby after sending Renee up to her theory class.

We were running abit late and on such occasions, I'd normally rush up to the class with Renee and will meet hubby and baby at the lobby thereafter.  Today, somehow, it just didn't cross hubby's mind that in such rush, I wouldn't have the time to unbuckle Rachel from the car seat and then carry her up and rush jie jie up to the class - well, if that's feasible, why hadn't I done that before, correct?

Anyway, after rushing Renee to the class, I came out of the elevator and saw hubby standing casually outside the door, looking relaxed, alone...  I looked around him, but there's no sign of baby Rachel nor her stroller and my eyes went wide!   He saw the look on my face and asked me where's baby?  OMG, my heart nearly dropped!  We both rushed back to the car and thankfully, it had only been a very short while that he's left her in the car and she was still sleeping, GEEZ!

Air Fryer

We've wanted to give the Philips Air Fryer a try some time ago but losing faith in their products, we decided to get this instead(what's more, it rotates as it air fries, so the heat distribution is more even) :

Going to give it a try finally today...

The Play Corner

Finally, hubby's got the 'internal' movers(they have this group of movers stationed at the condo premise) to remove our own sofa from this home - 'cos we can't have the existing ones removed :( but ours look alot nicer! haiz...And, within the same vicnity we have to pay S$30 for them to move it???  What's more, they might be hving it for own use, aiyoh, tsk tsk tsk...  Who asked him to delay?  Earlier, the community members had indicated that they might wanna have it for use at the club house, now he got the movers to do it instead...anyway... I don't care, I just want the space to put up the playmat and play-yard for my girls! :)

Play-yard with a touch of music(cot mobile, :D)

Baby Monitor

The baby monitor we've bought from Philips had conked out on us again!

A few days ago, the baby monitor screen started to blur out and then it went blank.  Today, we brought it back to Philips consumer centre and this time round, we did not let them talk us into 'delivering' a new set to us in 4-7days' time.  That was what they've promised the 1st time the monitor blanked out on us within a week from its purchase but, they gave us a much inferior set as standby(which was totally useless) and did not deliver when it's done.  They simply sent us a text on the mobile to tell us that it's ready and even made us wait.

Finally, after a long wait due to their inefficiency, we collected another new set.  Hopefully, this will serve us well, else we're going to demand a product return.  Ridiculous, every set just didn't work!

Days Without the Maid

The maid's gone for about 3 days and I've lost about 1kg already!(but no worries, at the rate I'm eating, I'd soon put it back on, heee)

Yesterday, the 1st full day without the maid and with the husband being away golfing, was the worst.  A little bit better today though, with some of the earlier chores taken care of and hubby's around to watch over Rachel, at least Renee got to do her practice abit whilst I busied about.

It was busy washing, cleaning, sterislising, preparing and cooking lunch for all(including bb's) in the morning, then it's laundry and ironing which I had to stop midway as hubby came back and told us that we needed to go home viewing...

Another unit at Hillview Green but it seems like the condition of the homes at this place is rather bad(so far, the few we've seen are of about the same condition) and though I quite like the unit at Hazel Park, but what we would be paying for, are more for the facilities which we would most likely be not using., so we're still looking around...

Sooo Sleepy...

Back with Breakfast

As requested, Papa came home this morning with Mac's breakfast for us, :)

Being first to wake up(errm should be baby Rachel, hahaha), I had wanted to wake Renee up but was stopped by hubby whom wanted to give the former a surprise.  She was caught indeed, hahaha, she had even thought that she was woken up by papa in her dreams, hahaha.

Papa's got to attend to some work and after he's collected the baby monitor(they were supposed to deliver!), he came home to take us out.  We have to go to the maid agency to re-select another maid(3rd selection already, why they always can't contact their maids!!!) and hopefully, this shall be the last we have to do so...

A Nice Day

We have postponed our meet up to today and after a short chit-chat at home(whilst Renee was fooling around with her practice, haiz...), we headed out to United Square.

With 2 vehicles idly parked at home, I told Vicki to take the V and thus we saved the time on hailing a cab to and fro :).

After our quick dinner(we wanted to go to mouth restaurant but Renee wanted Mac, aiyoh...), we went to Thomson Plaza to get our groceries 'cos we weren't able to find nice vegetables from the Cold Storage.  With the detour, we had to forego our intended drive to Orchard Road to see the Christmas light-up and Renee was unhappy, aiyoh, it's still 1 1/2 mth more to X'mas, we'd have plenty of time to do that!

Back home, she played with Vicki's Ipad again(that makes me feel like getting one, heeee) and kept requesting her to stay later and leave her Ipad behind, hahaha.  In the end, forgetting about the insurance part, we've asked Vicki to take the V back since I've transferred the booster seat back to the other vehicle, so that she could drive it to the airport when she resumes work on Thursday(just nice she's on AM shift and hubby's coming back in the early hours that day, so he said it'd be good if Vicki could take it to the airport for him).   In any case, let's just hope all goes well so we need not worry about the insurance matter...

Papa's Away

Yes, hubby's gone overseas again...

Although he doesn't travel as much as before(the last being in Feb/March this year) and even though I'm staying home, his beloved girl Renee cried....

Last night, just hours before he left home, I teased her about grabbing the opportunity to snuggle up to him and she teared whilst doing so.  Then, as he bid us all goodbye, she stayed put at the sofa, pretending to concentrate on the tv show 'Xi You Ji'.  The minute I returned to the same spot after sending Papa off at the door, she looked at me sadly and teared, Omigosh!  I wonder what would happen if I had really brought meimei and went along with Papa - though she said she'd want to go to aunty PC's home if that's the case, when I teased her about it, hahaha.

Renee's wanted to sleep with me but as baby has been waking up in the wee hours lately regurgitating milk/phlegm after her feed, I didn't allow her to do so, for fear that her sleep/rest would be disturbed by such incidents.  Of course, she wasn't happy but I promised that she'd be allowed to sleep with me after her theory exam today and she'd also be skipping school for the next few days til Papa's back... 

Baby Monitor

Less than 2 weeks and our new baby monitor has conked out on me!

With hubby's going away tonight, I told him to quickly bring the set down to its repair centre but unable to fix the item on the spot, they loaned us another set - one without the monitoring screen!  I'm upset.  Why do they give us an inferior set when we've paid more for something much better/more useful?  It certainly isn't fair.  We needed the screen to monitor the movement of our baby in the cot whilst we're out of the room, if we had wanted something with just sound monitoring, why do we bother to pay higher for one with the screen.  Even the music produced don't sound as nice and do not play continuously like the set we've bought.  This is sooo irrirtating.

With the added-on frustrations I've got from a recent email exchange with their office told me to think twice about buying their products again in the near future...