Ace Got Invited To The Chingay Parade

When we were at the cafe, KP said she has 4 tickets to attend CHingay.. so if I dont mind, I could drop Ace with her and they can bring him along as it will be nice for L to have some company...

Ace said he wanted to go since he has never been to one before and I thought since it is SG50, should be quite special lah.. so said ok lor..

And since I was bz and Max will be sending him there, I requested that Ace go over in the afternoon so that the boys can have a play date first.

According to Ace, he had an awesome time:) hahahaa..

They played for the whole afternoon and then took a bus to suntec, ate mac donald there and walked to the chingay place...

My son very cute lor.. told me that he walked a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way.. I asked Max what was the route they took, Max said.. "Just from suntec to where the chingay was held lah.." Wah lau eh, like tat called walk long way.. weak leh, Ace.. next time how to do NS?

Anyway, Aunty KP said when she was at Mac D with Ace at Suntec, she suddenly realized that this was the place where she first met Ace!! :)

We had a gathering there and I brought Ace along. "So now almost 10 years later, I bring him here to eat Mac Donalds.. the feeling is so surreal.." She said.. Hahaha..

Anyway, KP said Ace was very good company for L and a good gor gor.. keeping L company and entertained throughout the whole thing... I think L was also great company for Ace lah..

The boys declared that their favourite part of Chingay are the guys from star wars.. and so they took lots of photos there:)

Many thanks to Aunty KP and Uncle J for inviting Ace and taking good care of him  :)  Ace said he had an EPIC time:)

Previous Post: Eat Play Love

Eat Play Love

The other day, me and my friends wanted to arrange a gathering.. we havent been gathering much since I got back as we are all bz... KP suggested that we go to Eat, Play, Love as there is a craft corner. She will be bringing her son L along and so I brought Ace along as they are great friends:)

Though it was not really to get there (had to walk a long long way), but it was a rather quaint little place. THe food is not too bad and if you paid $5, they gave you a packet of stuff to do art and craft for two hours.. they also provided lots of recycled materials for you to do whatever you like..

It was like paradise for Ace, the master JUNK recycler since he likes to make guns and other weapons out of recycled materials!:)


Here are some things the boys made...

This is a rocket cum gun...

Posing with their hand made "weapons"...

I was glad the boys had fun lah and more importantly, glad I had time to talk to my girlfriends and CHILL:)

Anyway, the EPL staff came to take picture of the boys to post on their website too:) The robot was made by a 7 year old boy with the help of his mother. Cool right?

Previous Post: Homework

Homework

I think as a parent... I am blessed.

When we were in Dubai, Ace never had any homework except reading story books together with me....

By time time we returned to Singapore, he is old enough to want to complete his homework on time and he actually does most of his homework by himself and comes to me for some help when he needs it. That's all.

I don't even need to vomit blood and teach him chinese anymore cos he has Chinese remedial lessons:) hahahaha...

But I think as it is.... we seem to be still doing fine with the Singaporean educational system without tuition and I think Ace has a pretty decent line up of after school activities... Most of them a result of his own choice... Me and Max gave ourselves a pat on the back for not becoming the kiasu singaporean parents we thought we might become:) hahaaha...

For the 5 weekdays... he has something on every day.... Chinese remedial, science club, guitar lessons, swimming lessons and floor ball. So hor, he doent really have time for tuition but he seems to be coping well.

He is not scoring like above 90 for all subjects and be Class 1 calibre... but I am happy that he is enjoying his education and looks forward to going to school and learning everyday:)

Even when he has say guitar class and we have plans to go visit Laoma after that, he knows to bring his homework and complete them there before we go :)

The other day, while we were in the car, Ace made some comments about the educational system and environment in Singapore.

 He says that he feels the teachers here are mostly too fierce.

"They just keep scolding and threatening us. So in the end, the subject they teach becomes less fun and less interesting....  I mean... there are some teachers who try to make things fun.... In Dubai, we play games and have competitions with each other (think weekly math champion quizes and math games like SPLAT) and everyone in Dubai will be enthusiastic to take part and think it is fun... But in Singapore, when the teachers do that, there are people who actually dun want to take part cos they think it is not fun. They just want to study, study, study... so boring!"


Once and again, I am so so glad Horizon School gave him such a great experience and foundation. Many thanks to Mrs Sinclair, Ms Black, Ms Roberts, Ms O'Donnel, Mr Malangar and the many other teachers who have shaped or helped Ace in one way or another.


I do think that there are things that our system can learn from the british educational system. However, I think it will take time to also turn the mindsets of the teachers, students and parents around. But I am hopeful that the younger parents,  teachers and principals are also pushing for a more holistic education and in time to come, a wave of change will totally overtake this current situation and it will get better for our future generation.


PS: On a unrelated note.. I still cannot understand why Ace needs to bring this HUGE pencil case to school.... I remembered I can survive with a slim pencil case.. but I dunno why my so needs to lug so many things to school...

He will bring at least 8 pens... blue and black for homework.. red for dunno what.. green for corrections...

On top of that need to bring scissors, staple, staplets... highlighter... 

Aiyoh.. cannot understand. Anyway, he says his favourite shopping place is POPULAR bookstore (After toysRus of cos) ! Wahahahaah...

Previous Post: Special Pen

Special Pen

Ace said he scored well for his spelling.. and so, when he asked me to sign the paper, he insisted that I have to use "the nice nice pen that Ganma Karen bought for you..."

Cos Godma Karen bought me this really nice Hello Kitty pen for christmas and from then on, whenever Ace wants me to sign something, if the it is something that he did well, he will insist that I use the nice pen to sign :)

Anyway, he had his mid end of term mini test the other day. I must say hor, he did not really prepare for it other than just completing and handing in his work on time...  and maybe practice the TING XIE for the chinese words he needs to learn.

With so little preparation, he very happily informed us that he scored:
30/50 for Chinese  (exactly the goal that I set him)
10/10 for Math
18/20 for Science (cos he did not manage to finish one question when time was up)

For english, it was a listening test and he says he wasnt informed of his results.

I guess not too bad lah.. hope he keeps this going till the mid year exams..

Previous Post: Our 11th Wedding Anniversary

Our 11th Wedding Anniversary

That is us, 11 years ago at our ROM..

 And so, February is supposed to be a sweet time... cos it is our ROM anniversary...

Since so much has happened, I was thinking we will likely not have much chance to celebrate that...

But leh, life is what you make of it ;) So.. in between running errands and doing this and tat.. we TRY to celebrate lah:)

 THat is us 11 years later.. wahahaha... one with more fats and less hair:)

And that is us eating Thai food when running errand in Golden Mile and so we decided we will take this as our anniversary cum V day celebration:) wahahha..

 Ordered the usual but was curious about wat is salted egg salad and so we ordered.. is just salted egg with spicy sauce..

Sweet thing was that my son said he made something for us.. he made this using some ipad APP. Thanks son:)

But of course, being a really sweet hubby... when the new year holidays were over and Ace went to school, Max said let's do belated celebration and  said he will bring me somewhere special...

 He did not want to tell me where we are going...

 And we ended up here ;)

 What a beautiful place:)

 I say take photo and I dunno why my hubby things the watch is more important.. wahahha:)

 Love the decor here...

 I had ginger ale...

 And Max had coffee...

 Decided to try eggs benedict cos I always hear people talking about it but never tried it before:)

 Max did the ommlette with cheese and mushroom...

THe food was yummilicious!

 Then we decided to go take a walk around the place...

 Nice hor.. this big ship is like a mini hotel for small group of people..

And so, that marked the end of the celebration of our 11th ROM anniversary..

Previous Post: It Never Rains But It Pours

Quiet New Year

This Chinese New Year has been rather quiet for our family.

With Yeye and Laoma in hospital, our lives have been revolving around swinging in and out of hospital to visit them and take care of them. Thank goodness both of the are staying in the same hospital.

Because  my sis will be hosting reunion dinner with her husband's family, we had a early celebration..

On New Years Eve, the doctors called us and told us that Yeye can be discharged and we were all really happy that he could be doing New Years Eve reunion dinner with us at home. However, as he hasnt been eating, he was really weak. Nevertheless it was just great that he is back home.

First day of CNY, Yeye could not go visiting and so we decided that Nainai will stay home to take care of him while we, the younger generation will do home visitation on his part.

Alas, I have been so busy that I havent been able to buy Ace any new year clothes except a jeans bermudas we bought way beyond anyone went into hospital. Thank goodness that our friend Jackie, bought Ace new clothes, new shoe, new hats and new pants!:) And so at least Ace was in new gear. As for me and Max... shhh.. I just took out my newest piece of clothing which I had worn once before (thank Karen Ganma for the thoughtful gift) and just wear lah.

The the time we are done visiting, lunch time.. went to my in laws place for a late lunch and when we went home, I decided to rest.. since I started sneezing a little and felt really tired.

Day two, me and Max were tasked with taking care of Yeye while Nainai and Shushu went home visiting. So we dropped Ace with my mum (there was a gathering at her place with my cousins) and went over to Nainai's house. Alas, my good husband came home dead drunk at 6am in the morning and so, all he could really do was SLEEP....  Not much help at all lor...

Yeye did not have many needs but i think he is shy to share his wants. So I think I was a little awkward and so was he... We had a short chat when he was up watching tv and he talked about how he grew up in the void deck of his rich relative's mansion cos his parents passed away when he was very young.. Really admire Yeye lor.. despite not really being treated right, he was never filled with hatred but instead is a very loving, generous person.

Then leh, I had to wake Max up cos it was time to do Grandma duty. Grandma has been in hospital for a long time and because it was tough on the maid to be beside her and working with her 24 hours, we broke the time up into slots and I was doing this slot cos no one else other than my uncle offered to do it and as grandma is not yet familiar with him, my aunty asked if I could also be there.

While I am sad that my grandma and FIL are both down and unwell, I am thankful that they are at least still alive... I am also very thankful that we are all back here in Singapore and can be near the to help take care of them. Another thing that I am really thankful for is that it was a great chance to get closer to my grandma and my FIL.

Dunno how long more I can hold her hand... Anyway, I think Laoma likes it when we hold her hand.

She looks so cute like that right?

Eating... a rare moment where she says she wants  to feed herself;)

Grandma after her hip operation.

While taking care of grandma or keeping her company... thought she has ALheizmer and cannot remember things, she will actually do and say alot of things that surprise me.. hahahaa

Once she started talking to me in cantonese out of nowhere... another time, she was sleeping and so I took out my phone to look at it... and when she woke and opened her eyes, she asked me if a smile, "Shall we throw this away?" Hahahaah..

And while we think she has not much memory, when asked about her children and whether she remembers so and so, she will reply.. "Aiyah, XX doesnt visit me one... XX only comes once in the blue moon.."

When we shifted her to the community hospital, when the nurse asked her if she knew her own name.. she said "I don't remember..." But when the nurse called out her name right after.. and asked her, who is Ng XX? She asked the nurse, "How come you know my name?" And gave a brilliant smile.. happy that she is being remembered.:)

Anyway, we just ended up doing little visiting throughout the 15 days of the new year but Ace still got quite a bit of ang pow. So that just sums up our new year..

PS: Because we were spending time with Laoma, I also had to make sure we spend some time with Zeng Popo so she doesnt get upset or jealous:) wahahahaha..

  A 春联Ace made during the Mother Tongue Festival in school.

Previous Post: It Never Rains But It Pours