Our first 30 days back in SG!

Our first weekend in SG when we celebrated the Mooncake Festival - a first time for Ry who wanted to carry the same traditional paper lantern as his cousin and did not want the beautiful electric motor lantern that my mother in law bought for him.

I went back to work 2 weeks ago and I guessed my boys are adjusting well without my presence since daddy is still not working and is enjoying himself thoroughly as a Stay At Home Daddy (SAHD); so much so that my elder boy, Ry now only looks for daddy most of the time and only wants daddy to sleep with him and refusing to let me enter his own room at bedtime. Sigh!

The little boy, on the other hand, went on milk strike the first 2 days that I was at work, refusing to take any bottles of breastpumped milk / formula and only ate solids like cheerios and porridge in addition to the constant crying in his futile search for me. However, by the third day, he has accepted the reality and started taking small amounts of milk in the day at my mother-in-law's place but would stick by my side and crawled and wailed after me when I returned home from work, afraid that I would disappear again. We are really glad that we made the decision to send Ry to childcare in the day so that my mil can just concentrate on attending to little Br alone.

Little Br had started to crawl on all fours for about 2 weeks and is now getting on his gor gor's nerves since he can now crawl after him and has access to his toys!

Ry has adjusted to the childcare system pretty well, although he still cries a little in the morning when daddy sends him off to the classroom. However, we figured that Ry was just trying to "drama" only to test whether we would pull him out of the system. According to the childcare educators there, Ry stopped crying immediately as soon as K left the room and proceeded to play with the toys and his friends. Yesterday evening in our car ride to and fro to Woodlands, Ry was humming to the nursery rhyme, Old Macdonald and kept pestering me to sing along with him and his requests of including different animals. K commented that probably Ry had learned the song in the childcare center and we were really glad that he had enjoyed his lessons there. The only problem we have is his constant refusal of lunch served to him at the childcare center except fried rice since he does not eat noodles, bee hoon, bread etc. So, Ry had been surviving on one proper meal a day after he came back from childcare and snacks and fresh milk throughout the whole day. But, Ry is still growing well and in fact, had put on some weight and grown taller. So, I guessed I do not have to worry too much about his eating habits.

Ry's daily attire to school / chidcare center! This was his first day so he had no idea what was waiting for him, which thus explained his happy face!

Yes, we had not converted to the Singaporean way of serving formula milk to toddlers and parents around us often gasped and wondered in surprise at our habits of serving cold milk to kids. For non-Singaporean's info, in Singapore, we have so many different concotions and brands of formula milk for kids up to the age of adults. There's also different types of milk powder for pregnant women, adults and aged people. In fact, it is more troublesome to serve fresh milk and we find ourselves constantly going to supermarkets to buy cartons of fresh milk since they do not come in big gallon sizes.


So, our usual weekday routine starts at around 630 am when we woke up from bed, while I get ready for work and K changes the boys out of their pyjamas. I usually leaves the apt at around 725 am and board the 730 condo shuttle to Bedok MRT station and K will pushed the two boys and cross over to my mil's place in the double stroller where he has his breakfast there too. It was really a good choice that we chose to rent the apt so near to my mil's place now that we saved a lot of time in travel. K would then send Ry to child care center later at 840 am and fetched him back at around 430 pm. In the meanwhile, K would sometimes spend some time at our own apt so that he can concentrate on his own work and tidy up the house while little Br is over with my mil. I would then return from work and reach my mil's place at 710 pm for dinner and after a quick dinner, we would whisk our kids back to our own apt at around 8 pm. By then, the boys are already ready for bedtime and it is another round of bathing, changing, feeding and reading to them. They would usually fall asleep by 930 pm. I do find myself interacting very little with Ry since I would be occupied with attending to baby Br in the night, which probably explains why now he only looks to daddy for comfort. So now, I really appreciate the weekend time when I could spend more time with Ry . I wondered how much of this routine would change when K starts working too.

I brought Ry cycling around our condo pool on a Saturday morning in the Kettler tricycle we shipped back from the States - my attempt at bonding with him!

3 Weeks in SG!

It is already 3 weeks that we are back in SG! Over the 3 weeks, we have found a 2 bed room condo apartment to rent that is just a stone throw away from my mother-in-law's place, found a new car, gotten the citizenship papers for baby Br and started Ry in preschool / child care for the past week. Not to mention, catching up with our family members, friends and savoring some long-missed local food delicacies like fried prawn mee, fried bee hoon and roti prata.

Having family members around us also mean that we can sometimes offload our kids to their care while hubby and I can have some private time together and could accomplish some tasks quicker without the kids' interruption. While I'm writing this blog, my older boy, Ry is out with his cousin, aunt and ah ma to Vivo City and we are home alone with baby Br waiting to take over the rented apt from its owner. This also means that I have to learn to let go of the caretaking duties of my two dear boys to others and learn to trust the caretakers wholeheartedlly. It is definitely easier to say then done since the two boys have always been around me every second of their waking hours for the past one and a half years. While typing this now, I'm already starting to wonder what is Ry doing now and is he eating his lunch.

Ry has started child care for one whole week and he has transited from a eager child to a crying child by the end of the week ever since he realised that the child care arrangement is permanent. It does break my heart to see him crying at the door and I often wondered at my decision whether it is right or wrong to send him away from home to the care of total strangers at such a young age. Baby Br is getting naughtier but stronger everyday. He had started crawling on fours a week ago and is now getting into fights with Ry since he likes to snatch the toys from his gor gor. We have been trying to bottle feed Br but had failed terribly and he rather wailed and starved himself while I'm away.

Updated vital stats of the boys:

Ry's weight: 13.1 kg (residing at 75th percentile according to SG weight chart)

Br's weight: 9.1 kg (residing at 90th percentile according to SG weight chart)