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For lunch today, Guan and I brought all three kids to meet up with the 7ners to celebrate Jo’s birthday. (I’ll do a separate post for this.)

On the drive home, Zayden wanted to play “I Spy”. What inspired this post was Reuel. He didn’t quite understand how the game is played.

Reuel: I spy with my eye… something red! No–purple! (short pause) It’s prune!
Me: Reuel, you have to choose something that we can see. Where’s the prune?
Reuel: Er–I don’t know?

Reuel: I spy with my eye… something blue! It’s my Crocs!
Me: (chuckles) You’re suppose to let everyone else guess first, Reuel!

Reuel: I spy with my eye… er, something orange!
Me: The ball!
Reuel: Nope! It’s orange!
Guan: Where’s the orange, Reuel?
Reuel: Er–at home!

Haiyo! This boy ah…

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I’m not a morning person. But I love to observe how the world wakes up.

I used to do that back in the days where I stayed out all night. It’s subtle, but it starts around after 5 in the morning. People start waking up, start leaving for work/school. The surroundings shift from the quiet night to the bustle of morning busy-ness. The air, so fresh and cool–it just rejuvenates me.

I like walking through the neighbourhoods and the heartlands experiencing how it all starts coming alive.

I’ve been taking the boys to school and I enjoy our walks because they will chatter away–usually comment about the vehicles that pass us by as we walk along the road.

Reuel: 222! Kor kor! Your favourite bus! But not double decker though.
Zayden: Yeah.

Or,

Reuel: 28 double decker! My favourite!

And this:

Both: Papa watch this show!

Both: Papa watch this show!

Anyway, earlier this morning, Reuel spotted Bus 14 and he went, “Forty-one!”

“The other way, Reuel,” I gently told him.

“ONETY-FOUR!”

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When Reuel began speaking, my sister wondered why he sounded strange. We then realize it was because he had a slightly monotonous way of talking. Now he has his injections of tone when trying to express vocally but I feel that it’s just his personality.

He was always observant–even as a baby. He would sit quietly and look, absorbing his surroundings. Sometimes he has this poker or deadpan face when talking. Like sometimes I’ll ask him: “Reuel, did you have fun at Grandma’s today?” “Yes,” he would reply me in a flat voice

As I picked him up from school this week, Mrs Yang (the school admin), mistook Reuel for Zayden and she was telling me how he tugged at his name tag and told her, “See? My name is here! It’s not Zayden!”

He is so much like me–not a morning person. He doesn’t jump out of bed like Zayden, all hyped up for school. Instead, he will mumble that he’s tired and would much rather prefer to head back to bed. I would usually wake the boys between 6.40 to 7.00 in the morning and make their breakfast drink of milk and Milo. After two weeks of school and early risings, he came into my room at 6.45 a.m. and before he could speak, I whispered that he shouldn’t talk so loudly lest he wakes Kaien. He said softly, “Mommy, I want my Milo.”

I sleepily brought him back to bed and told him to head back to bed since it was a Saturday

Anyway, I wanted to write this post because what happened at breakfast made me laugh out loud.

Reuel (spots the gems on MIL): Ah Ma! What is that?
MIL: Diamonds.
Reuel: Why you wear diamonds?
MIL: Ah Ma likes diamonds.
Reuel: Why you like diamonds?
MIL: I like diamonds. Do you like diamonds?
Reuel: No. I like circle.

(If you still don’t get it, feel free to ask )

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I have NO IDEA why Zayden likes to say anything that relates with the bottom–backside, poot, poop, da bian (passing motion in Chinese) are some examples. Of course, Reuel will follow his big brother in learning all the wrong things and have been saying the above words more often than I would like them to And they both like to giggle over those words like it’s the funniest thing on earth. (Is it a boys’ thing? )

Kaien is a funny baby (I know he’s a toddler now but he’s still the baby of the family ) and expert at picking up two syllable words. His first word was flower and was followed by thank you. We tried teaching him to say light, fan and please but he rather say cupcake, apple and nana (banana).

Anyway, MIL was bathing the boys last night when Zayden yelled out, “Backside!”

No points for guessing what happened next.

“Backside!” Kaien echoed

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I’m not sure whether this year is a bad or good year. I’ve had highest ups and lowest downs. I’m still struggling with many things and finding myself as well as my place here. I’m hoping that next year would be a better year.

I think one of the things I’d like to share about 2014 was about having my boys featured in the newspapers You can check out the article here. (Okay, after reading the article I feel a little embarrassed as to how I came up with Kaien’s name. BUT I would like to clarify that Kaien wasn’t named after the BLEACH character after all. It’s actually the combination of Kaito and Ian.)

I came across this post and decided that I would like to share my dreams for 2015

What do you want the overarching theme for your 2015 to be?
Patience. I know it sounds odd, but I feel like I never learnt patience since I was young. Having kids (especially young tantrum-y kids) really tested my patience and I feel like I failed as a mother on this area (along with like a thousand other things).

What do you want to see, discover, explore?
(Oh wow. These questions are harder than I thought. I admit I didn’t read them until copying and pasting the questions onto this post.)
I would like to delve into cooking and baking. I can’t cook for nuts. At most I can whip up porridge for my kids or make pancake from the pre-mix. Sometimes make french toast, scrambled and fried eggs (not fantastic tasting though). Hoping that once I move into my own home (whoots!) I can magically have the dormat skills to cook activated

Who do you want to spend more time with in 2015?
Both my family and friends. I’m adding family here because I feel obliged to (Can’t blame me–I’m with my kids 24/7! :thumbs:) Friends because I feel like even though I’ve made cool friends this year, (online, but they are really awesome!) I feel like after stepping back from some things to spend more time in real life made me neglect them. Old friends as well. I guess it can’t be helped since I have a very sticky baby. But hoping that things would change as he grows older

What skills do you want to learn, improve or master?
I stopped writing a few years ago. I blame it on the lack of time or the lack of inspiration. I would like to start journaling again in order to print the memories that I can’t hold onto with my memory (as my mom says, the faintest ink is better than the strongest memory). And that means blogging more often as well

Which personal quality do you want to develop or strengthen?
Wow. I’m really stumped on this one. Maybe I’ll revisit this later

What do you want your everyday life to be like?
Filled with activities. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to handle it but I would love to be able to bring the kids out to play, go swimming, learn to ride a bike or skate or do some sports.

Which habits do you want to change, cultivate or get rid of?
LOL. This is going to be REALLY embarrassing–I need to stop biting my nails once and for all! I tried many times and failed. Hoping this final attempt would be successful!

What do you want to achieve career-wise?
Since my job is being a mom (that sounds a little sad because being a mom shouldn’t be a job), I want to be able to bring up my kids the way that I’ve always wanted to. My current living situation makes it extremely difficult to discipline them without causing friction in the household so I’m holding out my big plans for the kids.

How do you want to remember the year 2015 when you look back on it 10/20/50 years from now?
I want to remember it as a year of new beginnings. Reuel will be starting school, Zayden will be in his final year of kindergarten before he starts primary school (WHY SO FAST?! :o), and we will be moving into our new home (WHEEEEEEEEE~)

What is your number one goal for 2015?
To be able to handle finances BETTER. Guan and I both suck at this but I have to step up and handle these dreadful stuff because we are going to have a LOT of bills to pay on a monthly basis. Ganbatte!

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Last week, I decided it was time for Reuel to finally have his first hair cut. It was sort of a big deal because I have never sent my boys to the hair salon until it was time for nursery. I usually trim their fringes to keep their hair from poking into their eyes. And, I tend to have many older folks “nagging” at me about letting Reuel keep his hair, that he looks like a girl or he’s suffering due to the hot and humid weather

He is such a sweet lad. Whenever strangers mistake him for a girl and calls him “mei mei”, he would tell them in that innocently surprised voice: “But I’m a boy!” It really melts my heart

Before shots:

A front shot

A front shot

Look at Reuel's waves

Look at Reuel’s waves

Reuel was eager and volunteered to have his turn first. When Zayden was his age, I had to “bribe” him with candy and a short play time at the playground after his hair cut I’m pretty glad I don’t need to struggle for future trips to the hair salon!

Fresh faces

Fresh faces

Lookalikes from the back

Lookalikes from the back

The problem with them having the same hairstyle is that we tend to call Reuel “Zayden” instead. It’s really uncanny how alike they are (from the back). I feel that Reuel looks better with long hair! I will most certainly miss his old look.

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On Saturday, we had free entry to the zoo thanks to Guan’s cousin-in-law. Personally, animal captivity makes me really sad (now that I’m older) but it brings so much excitement to the kids for them to have a chance to see animals closer without having to go all out into the wild. I didn’t take much photos because we had four kids under 6 years of age–one couldn’t walk, one was learning how to walk and two who only knew how to run

But here’s picture of Kaien

Just woke up from his nap

Just woke up from his nap