Elisabeth celebrated her 11th birthday this week. She wanted to invite a few friends from school home for a sleepover party on Friday, and that was just what she got to do. I got to meet Alyssa, Tyra and Isabel for the first time. And guess what I realised? Alyssa is a PR from the Philippines; Tyra is also a PR whose parents are from India. She's lived in Hong Kong her whole life before moving to Singapore about 3 years ago. Isabel is a shy girl who transferred into the school just a year ago. Bella, who couldn't come to the sleepover, has lived overseas as well, and may be leaving again for another stint abroad.

Talk about birds of a feather flocking together! The girls all spoke with faint accents - remnants from their past lives on foreign soil. It is heartwarming to see Lisa happy at school and with her group of friends. The Lord provides in every way.

They had a wild time that evening. They watched (what else?) High School Musical 3, and sang all the songs at the top of their lungs. They giggled, whispered, and played with the Wii till way past midnight. It was a happy birthday.   kw

Dan's Sunday School teacher wrote Jon and me an email to tell us about something Dan said in her class last week:

The lesson that week was: Jesus gives us new life. For craft, the kids made 3-D butterflies. During worship, they prayed and thanked Jesus for giving us new life. She then tried to compare our transformation to that of butterflies from caterpillars.

She said, "Before the caterpillar can become a butterfly, it has to sleep and wait in its cocoon for God to bring it through a..." And while she tried to think of a simpler word to replace the word 'transformation', Dan piped in and offered the word "...Puberty!"

The teachers in the room got a good laugh. That's what you get when you have two older sisters at home going through, er, transformation.   :D  kw

I was watching Dan the other day as he dashed around at the playground like a pinball in a pinball machine. He came to me after a while, panting and dripping with sweat.

"Just what were you up to, Dan, zipping around like that?" I asked.
"Oh, I was running out of power, so I was just recharging my batteries!"
I couldn't fight logic from another galaxy, so I just sighed and let him continue recharging his batteries.

The next day, I witnessed Dan zipping around again.
"Are you recharging your batteries again?" I sighed.
"No I'm not! I'm testing out my speed limit!"
Ah! How silly of me not to have noticed the difference...  kw

Dan (out of the blue): Mommy, I don't think you can imagine how tough it is to be me.
Me (flabbergusted): You're right, I can't imagine. How tough IS it to be you?

Dan (very seriously): First of all, I have to be packing up my toys ALL THE TIME!
Me (equally seriously): Well, maybe that's because you're making a mess of the house ALL THE TIME.

Dan (ignoring me): Second of all, everybody gets to be the boss of me! I HATE being bossed around.
Me (I'm thinking: ok, valid reason.. I hate being bossed around too..)

Dan (he goes on): I can't wait to grow up to be a big man. Big men don't get bossed around.
Me: Eh, some big men go to work and continue to get bossed around by their bosses at work.

Dan: Oh! OK, then I can't wait to grow up to become a YehYeh (translation: grandfather)
Me: What's so great about becoming a YehYeh?

Dan: YehYehs just sit around. Nobody bosses THEM around.
Me: Eh, you better go poll all the YehYehs to see if that's true. But first, go put these toys away...   kw

It all started when Dan heard Barry Manilow's Copacabana being sung during last week's episode of Don't Forget the Lyrics. He made me sing it over and over, and even had me google the rest of the words I couldn't remember. I think his interest was pricked when he realized the song told a story.

But there were many things about the story that stumped his 5 year-old brain:
"So is Lola's boyfriend Tony or Rico?"
"How did Lola and Tony fall in love?"
"So wearing a diamond makes you a gangster?"
"Why did Tony and Rico get into a fight?"
"SO WHO SHOT WHO, Mommy?"
"You mean Tony DIED? But Tony's the one that Lola likes."
"What does 'lost your mind' mean?"
"DON'T fall in love?!? But I WANT to fall in love... YOU did!"

His conclusion?
"OK, I've decided that I don't like this song... Why? Coz ti makes me scared. Promise me you'll never sing this song to me again, even when I ask you to sing it again tomorrow. OK, Mommy?"

And what did he do as he walked away? He was singing, "Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl..."   kw

Today is Saturday. Jon's at the office and Rachel's at church sitting through Confirmation Class. That leaves me at home with Lisa and Dan and they were bored. I agreed to play our favourite family game: Apples to Apples (Junior 9+).

It's a card game where the judge (a chosen player) draws a "Green Apple" Card with an adjective printed on it. The rest of the players choose from their hand of five "Red Apple" Noun Cards the word/card which best matches the adjective at play. The judge's decision is completely subjective, and may choose the winner based on the match which is "the most creative, humorous or interesting".

Today, when faced with the adjective AWFUL, Dan placed the noun CHINA, which I picked as the winning noun.
Dan said, "Yey! I win! I knew Mommy would pick CHINA, because China is AWFUL. They put melamine in their milk."

Another adjective that came up was the word TRUSTWORTHY, which Dan had difficulty reading. I helped him sound it out.
"What does it mean?" he muttered to himself before going on to read on the card, "Dependable and honest."
He then looked at his handful of Noun Cards and said, "Nope. I don't have the right card. None of these cards say, 'JESUS'."

Hee. We had fun.   kw

It happened so fast. Dan went, "AHH!" in alarm and there was the sound of rubber being crunched and chewed up. The next thing we knew, Dan was looking up at me with a shoeless left foot.

We were riding the escalator at the mall, right after watching High School Musical 3. Dan had a blast. He already knew all the words to a lot of the songs. (You would too, if you had two older sisters who were both HSM fanatics) He wasn't monkeying around on the escalator step... I nag him about that and he was holding my hand and staying put. But he did something else which I've told him repeatedly not to do: let his Crocs slide against the side of the escalator. 

I had shown him the newspaper article and scared him with the photo of a little girl's toeless foot. Apparently he had to test out my theory that escalators eat up Crocs. I thank God every time I think about it: how his Crocs came right off his foot and left it without so much as a scratch or a bruise. It happened so fast that I didn't notice anything was amiss - not until I heard his shout and the crunching of rubber. The sound of crunching bones would have been too horrible to imagine. Ugh!

We had two very kind young 'angmoh' men standing in front of us. They were just as shocked and puzzled that Dan's shoe could disappear from plain sight. They tried in vain to locate it and could not believe that it had vanished! No more Crocs for you, Buddy. Not for trips to the mall anyways.    kw 

Dan turned 5 on August 6. Here we are posing with his Ben Ten birthday cake from Smiling Orchid. Ben Ten is a Japanese cartoon (I think) of a boy alien who can transform himself into ten different kinds of monsters with a twist of a dial on his watch. That sounds so silly, doesn't it? But Dan's in love with Ben Ten. He calls himself Dan Ten. I find that really hilarious!

Ben Ten fights a lot of bad guys. So does Dan Ten. Sometimes, his sisters are the bad guys *sigh*

I craved eating cake from Smiling Orchid while we were in the US. Smiling Orchid cakes have the same butter cream icing that covered my childhood birthday cakes from Balmoral Bakery at Holland Village. The icing must be so lethal it'll stop the heart. But I'll die happy (oops). At the party, Dawn and I fought for the corners - they had the most icing!

So the truth is out: I fooled Dan into thinking it was his cake by having his favourite toys figurines put on it. But it was actually mine.. the corners, especially  ;p

Happy Birthday, Dan. Thank you, friends for coming to the party. I wish our apartment could hold everyone we wanted to invite. Dan loves his Ben Ten OmniTrix, and has fixed all his Bionicals - all by himself. Richard, you take the best photos!        kw

We got to have a short family vacation during the month-long school vacations in June - although Rachel didn't end up coming along. She went to the church camp of Light of Christ (our previous parish).

We went with Jon's parents to Bintan island in Indonesia, which is less than an hour's ferry ride from Singapore, and stayed at the Nirwana Beach Resort.

We had lots of fun in the sun, spending the whole time by the pool and at the beach. We built sandcastles at high tide, and waded around the tidal pools at low tide. There were lots of sea creatures - we were thrilled. Jon got stung by a jellyfish while dipping waist deep in the sea. It was jellyfish season. The resort had vinegar at hand to douse over any wounds. We saw a young girl at breakfast who had whipped welts all over both her legs. ouch. Good thing the rest of us didn't get stung.

Jon's dad knew the Indonesian owner of the resort, (who ended up picking up our tab for the rooms) AND the Indonesian owner of the car rental company (so we got free use of a car plus chauffeur). What a blessing! His Christian network spreads far and wide, and we often reap the benefits. We had a seafood dinner on a kelong, and Jon and I enjoyed a 90 minute Javanese massage in the town. Shiok! kw

It's been a while since I last blogged. I've been waiting for Jon to upload our photos from his camera. Here's one showing Dan's first attempt at writing a sentence on his new white board some 2 months ago. I'll interpret (hee): "What is 4 equal 5?" He meant to ask "What does 4 plus 5 equal?"

I don't know how Dan felt in January when he started kindergarten in Singapore, after he realized he was lagging behind in penmanship skills. He had just started learning how to hold a pencil when we left the US in November. Singapore kids start learning to write sooner (I had forgotten). I must say, though that he was pretty determined and self-motivated to catch up with his peers. I would constantly be picking up loose pieces of paper filled with number 5s or 8s or some other number he was trying to master writing. By April, he was writing out his own list of words that he can spell - he'd do this while I helped Elisabeth with HER list of spelling words for the week - and writing down his first sentence. He's growing up so fast. I miss my baby boy...   kw

I never got around to blogging about this. Here's a photo, taken in January, of my extended family from my mom's side. It's our family tradition to take a new family photo every Chinese New Year. This photo includes my grandma, her brother and his family, my mom, 6 of her 10 siblings, my cousins, and their children!

We usually celebrate Chinese New Year over 3 days. We'd all gather at my grandma's for breakfast on the first day, then proceed to visit our grand-uncles and aunts. Because there are so many of us, we joke that we're like a swarm of locusts. We descend upon the homes we visit and leave a trail of destruction behind us!

We took this photo in the home of my grand-uncle. The red glow behind Jon and me comes from the family altar. His family worships Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of Mercy. This room we are in is the main room of the apartment. The person taking this photo is standing on a stool right by the front door. There are 3 bedrooms at the far end of the room, where our backs are facing, and a kitchen beyond the right of this photo. You can imagine that when we show up, it's standing room only! I know it must be overwhelming for our hosts - they must brace themselves for our arrival each year, but we all have a great time!      kw

Here's a photo of the bob that some of you guys have been asking to see.

The first thing I did when we arrived back in Singapore, right after unpacking the 10 pieces of luggages, was to make an appointment to see Stephanie, our hair-stylist for the last, (um, let's see..), 2 decades! I missed her so much while we were away. Cost-Cutters just didn't cut it.

He finally did it. My kid brother tied the knot on March 28! About time too!

Congratulations, Leonard and Siok Peng. May God bless your marriage and your life together! We're so happy for you!

The kids have just returned to school after a week of school holidays. Schools here get a short break after each 10-week term. I suppose our March Break is equivalent to Spring Break in the US. It wasn't much of a break for the girls though. Each had to go to school for their respective holiday programmes 3 days out of the 7. That's life in Singapore for you. My mom and I took turns taking each girl out for a day of shopping and treats. The rest of the time was spent at home doing homework or vegging out.

Dan was bored out of his brains. I didn't blame him. He hates it when there's no school (Saturdays) and he misses having a yard to play in and neighbours to play with. I make sure I take him downstairs to the playground often, as soon as the afternoon sun dips a little and it's a little cooler. It's the easiest way for him to meet people and play outdoor. He was elated when school started up again on Monday. He got himself ready a whole hour before his school bus was due to arrive.

The kids are all doing great at school. It just goes to show how resilient kids can be. They've settled really nicely back to school here.. it was more than I dared to hope for. I'm very relieved and grateful. Both girls have been given approval for exemption from taking Chinese as a second language. Now that they needn't be stressed about getting a passing grade for it, they're showing a whole lot more interest in learning the language. We've hired a tuition teacher for them (she's from mainland China) so they can at least be proficient conversationally. Rachel's making good progress, and Dan's a sponge. Lisa's more nonchalant.

Lisa has the role of Assistant Class Monitor in her Primary 4 (4th Grade) class. She takes her responsibility very seriously, which according to her boils down to writing names on the board of those who talk when the teacher is not in the classroom! She also reports that nobody listens to her! hee. I'm glad she's a natural at Math, coz she may not be able to cope with Singapore Math otherwise. Jon says she's not used to it, but is learning and keeping pace. That's no small feat.

Rachel is blossoming nicely as she enters her teenage years. We're happy with how she's being responsible and trustworthy and how much she's enjoying school so far. She auditioned for and got into the school choir. She's made friends with the youth at our new parish and has started attending Youth meetings. Her latest preoccupation has been the goings-on in her mouth: she's in the process of getting braces fitted to straighten her teeth. So she's in constant discomfort at the moment, the poor kid.

Dan will start music lessons at Yamaha in April. He'll learn to read notes and play the keyboard and be trained in perfect pitching. We're both excited about that. We inherited a keyboard over the Chinese New Year, and he's shown great interest and promise. My mom is sponsoring him for 2 terms of Montessori Math, after which I'm switching him to a 4-times-a-week after-school enrichment programme for Chinese for the second half of the year. We're getting sucked back to living the Singapore life!

The kids continue to grow at an alarming rate. Dan's grown so much I've had to retire a lot of the outfits I brought home with us from the US. And he's learning so much so quick it's scary. Though I'm proud to see his progress, I mourn that I'm fast losing my 'baby'. I've always referred to his baby fats as juice and called him juicy. He knows my favourite spot to kiss is the side of his mouth, where there's just enough lip with some spongy cheek thrown in as well! Just the other day, he said, "Mom, you better get your juice while I still have it. I'm not going to be juicy forever you know. I'm growing up." I cuddled him extra long that evening and kissed him extra much. I needed my daily dose of juice.   kw

I was surfing through my regular list of blogs today with Dan by my side watching TV. He got super excited when he noticed pictures of Ellie on the McDonald's blog. "Hey! THAT'S ELLIE!" he squealed, "And that's Ewan right next to her!" Ellie McDonald and Ewan Parker were Dan's classmates at kindergarten. They were fellow kids of seminarians whom we car-pooled with to go to Noah's Ark three times a week. Dan recognized the setting in the photo - it was their field trip to Reilley's Farm in the Spring.

But he grew really pensive quite immediately after the excitement of recognizing his friends. "I miss Ellie... and I miss Ewan." he lamented. "I miss America."

It broke my heart to see him so sad. He's such a happy kid that he always enjoys just living in the moment. It's normal for him these days to jump off the last step of the school bus bursting with happy news about his day at kindy in Singapore. It is a relief for me to see him settle so easily back to life in Singapore. He is happy to be here, and he says so often. But it doesn't mean that he doesn't miss his old life in America. To cheer him up, I scrolled down the page to show him more pictures of Ellie and Hannah Grace. It worked.

He then asked for more photos - of himself this time. I got onto our Flickr site and he spent a good half hour laughing at all the good times he had. He especially enjoyed the photos taken during the camping trip he and Jon went on with Mark, Noah and Daniel Hall. He went to bed content, I'm sure with happy thoughts of his time with his old buddies. He'll have good dreams tonight. So will I.     kw

Dan picked up a piece of card today, looked at it and said, "Hey, these are the colours on the flag of Germany."
I checked and he was right.
He added, "This RED at the bottom stands for the blood. And this YELLOW in the middle stands for the bacteria. And the BLACK at the top stands for the germs. When the germs and the bacteria get mixed up in the blood, you get Germany. That's why I don't ever want to go to Germany. I don't want to mix with all the sick people."

Eh, ok, Dan, we won't go to Germany.    kw

While riding in his granddad's car one say soon after we landed back in Singapore, Dan asked, "Why are we at the gas station? Did we run out of gas?"
His granddad muttered wryly, "In Singapore, it's called a Petrol Kiosk."
And that was the beginning of the process of de-Americanising DanDan!


The digital display of our apartment elevator wasn't functioning for a day or so. Instead of displaying the floor that the elevator was on, it showed 3 asterisks. 
On seeing this Dan said, "Oops. I guess this means that the elevator has run out of batteries."  :D


We were running a little late one morning. Not wanting to miss Dan's school bus, I asked him to get the elevator while I locked the front door. He said assuringly, "Mom, you can say 'lift'... I know what you mean."


Dan was being a boy and whacked into my shin one day while showing off his Power Ranger moves. 
"Ooww!" I whined.
With his American accent, Dan said, "Sorry, Mommy. I sayang you."
... Dan's first Malay word.


"Where are you, Dan?" I asked one day, swiveling my body around to look for him.
"I'm right here, Mommy! You're so blur." 
And THAT was Dan's first Singlish phrase. sigh. 
I'm bracing myself for the day when he will tell me, "Mummy, cannot like that one!"
I hope that day never comes. But with all the exposure to Singlish that he's getting in school now, he may say that to me tomorrow!


It was this morning, during the pre-dawn hour when the girls get out of bed to get ready for school, and when Dan transfers himself from the pull-out third bunk of the kids' bunk bed into Jon's side of our bed to continue his sleep, that he muttered his lament, "I wish Che Che Wayo doesn't have to go to school today. I'm going to miss her." (Che Che is chinese for 'big sister', and Way-oh was how he pronounced Rachel when he started speaking at 8-10 months. Rachel has insisted that he doesn't change the way he addresses her... she likes hearing him say it.)
"Why are you going to miss her?" I muttered back. (Jon let's me sleep in while he sees to the girls - muah muah, honey!)
"I'm not going to have anybody to play with."
"I'LL play with you."
"It's not the same. Big people don't play well with small people. They don't see things the same way."
"That's true. I'm sorry."
"That's the trouble with big people..."
I didn't answer after that, and we slept on for 2 more hours.  : p    kw 

Last week was a whirlwind of first days. The girls were both back at school January 2nd. Rachel was feeling self-conscious and friendless on her first day. But she felt better after getting to know more girls during the 3D/2N overnight orientation programme that the school prefects organised for the Secondary 1 girls. Elisabeth now says she misses being homeschooled (she said she missed regular school while she was being homeschooled.. hmph!) She's feeling overwhelmed in Chinese class. The school had sent in an application to have her exempted from taking Chinese lessons, but the paper work (approval) hasn't come back yet.

Dan missed the school bus his first day of school. We ended up taking a taxi. It gave me a chance to see that he was very confident in his new surroundings. When I asked him what he liked about kindergarten later in the day, he said, "I like the toilets. They are very mini. They're just the right size!" He doesn't like his uniform though. After dressing himself, I heard him mutter, "Now let me see if I look geeky," as he rushed to look at himself in my mirror. He stood and stared at himself for a moment before proclaiming, "I don't like it." When I asked why not, he said, "Coz it's PINK!" I don't blame him!

Last week also saw Jon reporting to work at St Andrew's Community Chapel. Rev Tak Meng has a mean mechine running over there. Hospital chaplaincy will be new to us, coz our past experience has been in school chaplaincy. We attended our first services this weekend.  There are many people to get to know! Elisabeth and Dan fitted right in. They're used to going to different churches and joining in the different children's programmes. Rachel is willing to explore SACC's Youth Fellowship, although she feels deep attachment to the one at Light of Christ. Jon's scheduled to preach next week. We're off!

Dan asked last week, "Mommy... where's Daddy? Where did he go? He's been gone a really long time. When is he coming home? I miss him. I want him home now." He's used to having his dad home a lot in the US, even though his daddy's usually stuck behind a desk most part of the day (and night). I replied that daddy's at work, at the church office. "He's working? At the office? What's he studying?" Dan has no concept of Jon having a (paid) job... yet!... nor how long office hours can be. He'll just have to get used to not having daddy around so much any more. Back to reality!     kw 

It feels really nice to have the family complete again. We've missed Jon so much during the month that we were apart. Dan would often lie in bed and wish that Daddy was with him. "It's just not the same without Daddy. I even miss his pokey kisses," he'd say. We're thankful for Skype and Facebook which we used daily to keep connected. Thank God for modern technology.

The kids and I spent 6 days in Phuket (Pooh-ket), Thailand, at the Marriott Resort with Jon's parents, Jon's brother and his family. There were 11 of us in a two-bedroom suite, but the sleeping arrangements worked out, although it was a bit of a circus! The kids enjoyed their joint "sleepover". Jon's mom cooked non-stop, to the point that we didn't get to eat any Thai food (almost.. Tim treated us to a wonderful seafood dinner on a kelong our final evening there) We spent every morning by the pool, and enjoyed all the fabulous facilities that the resort offered. But like Dan said, it wasn't the same without Daddy.

Jon finally arrived home on Friday, just in time to celebrate Rachel's 13th birthday on Dec 23rd (she opted for an afternoon at the mall and a movie treat for herself, her cousin, her best friend and her sis. They watched the Disney movie Enchanted and had a great time) Cousins from my mother's side of the family hosted a lovely family reunion, which I thoroughly enjoyed. (Thanks Sue, thanks Cynthia!) Jon preached at the Christmas service at Light of Christ (our former parish). Rachel had an interview the next day (the 26th) and was confirmed a place at St Margaret's Secondary School. We left immediately after that for our Diocesean Clergy Family Retreat in Johore Bahru, Malaysia. It was there that we were told of our next parish posting: it is to St Andrew's Community Chapel in Simei. We're looking forward to meeting everyone there come January!   kw