Sunday 30th October 2016

i have to apportion my time, so now, Colin sleeps with me on Friday & Saturday nights. And we go out on Sundays (while the Papa brings Kiki to swim class, so he has to skip Grab, anyway, his android phone had cracked into two so he has no access to Grab App- for drivers, the App only works on Android. for passengers, any smartphones will do).

 it's an excursion even though it was just a bus ride to town for lunch and window shopping.
it was fun for the both of us.

 talkative boy sings to himself when happy =) 

 walked one round, i don't know what to select. 

ended up having udon and assorted tempura. 

 hi! (to Papa)

 smells so good

 dessert

 just the two of us

 you know, kuddos to the toy makers. they can extend the toys' product live cycles at so many levels. there could be minis of the original versions, they could have "baby" series of the Frozen characters (after the initial trends tapered). They could have the teen version of Dora (complete with longer hair and new friends). They simply could have endless extended lives, all the toys.

 i said we will get this for Christmas. 

 fooling around with baby sneakers. 

this one can fit. got to start buying for CNY... it's approaching.

To the playground we went

 not bad, lychee. short of martini.

 cheers!

Climbing activities

A bubble technician

Classmate's BD

Kiki bought a small gift for her classmate's birthday. We have turned down the party invitation because we have classes that Saturday.

Dice tricks 

Made from memory

 it was late at night. like.... what time? 9.57pm to be exact. (because I've given her an hour to play after our music practice)  while i was in the hall watching TV (Jaws 2-- which still managed to cough a gasp from me). Kiki made some pokeballs... wow, not bad. then she showed me a pokemon. i don't know which monster is that but well, made without reference, i think it does resemble some pokemon ba.

$1.50 from her school's bookshop

The Mother Is Not Wrong Either

"The Mother Is Not Wrong Either" - if they had this as the film's title, it will surely be a flop. 

So they had this chill film title "The Accountant". I chose this over Jack Reacher because I read that this film did unexpectedly well, coming from Ben Affleck, it was refreshing news. 

The story was about a boy (Christian Wolff)  with high performing autism but he didn't receive institutional help like his mother hoped for. Instead, his military father gave him psychotically tough trainings in his formative years and taught him not to expect society to treat him any better. His mother, under duress, left the family. 

Christian, with his self-taught, self-inflicting & self-controlling methods, learned to adapt to society and joined his father at the military. Years passed etc. etc. then the day came when his mother died
and Christian decided to visit his mother's funeral. However, things got out-of-hand at the mother's new family home and Christian's father was shot by accident and died. While in prison, Christian was befriended by an accountant who was previously working for the underworld but later came under witness protection. The old man imparted loads of information to Christian and that was how Christian had all the insider information and became an accountant himself after he broke out from prison to revenge the death of his elderly accountant friend. 

The gist of the movie, besides the action-packed scenes, was about how, we all or at least some of us, all we want is only to fit in. And some of us just hoped to leave a little of ourselves behind. 

Before the movie ends, it was revealed that Christian had been donating to the neuroscience institute that his mother had wanted for him to be rehabilitated when he was a boy. He had been keeping in-touch with the institute and as much as Christian was loyal to his father, he struggles with what could have been a more embracing, loving, natural and non-violent approach to  his condition, hence he has never hated his mother for leaving and he has also not hated his father's violent, cold-hearted approach to combat his violent autistic outburst.

I hoped I'm not depressed in anyway, I hope I'm, you know, just being a sensitive soul, because of late, many movies touched too much raw nerves and I find myself being overly-empathizing or overly-sympathizing. Either that or that the movies have gotten more sensitive-acute. Tear jerking movies besides this one were-- Kubo, Train to Busan, and almost every other movie.

one ticket on a tuesday night

Hello from the other side

i was calling the radio station for a holiday contest and had finally got through but they couldn't hear me!  so i sang to them - Hello from the other side, I must have called a thousand times....
i talked to myself for 3 mins before i finally hung up.......

next time, i hope they will hear me.

no, no. i mean next time i hope i could hear them and they would respond. 

来自上海的手信

来自上海的手信

my cousin Janice recently went Shanghai, to evaluate a pilot programme between our SGH & the hospital in Shanghai and she brought back some tidbits for me. 

Janice is quite an unusual girl. she is quiet, persistent in a non-pushy way, questions everything (to herself), and is sort of an epitome of what we would like the 22nd century woman to be. recently turned 32, with her clients, she designs and evaluate public policies projects. (we are 3 years away from 22nd century, in case you're wondering).

my aunt Jessie raised Janice in the most nurturing ways i have seen among the other live examples within my family. however, my uncle would wished that Janice wasn't into social services but on the other hand he dotes on Janice way more so he more or less has gotten over it. 

anyway, i think i could take a leaf out of my aunt Jessie's parenting style; to be ever-nurturing, non-judging, non-imposing and patient.

Quotable Quotes

Batam One Day Catch up Date

my sis and Janice arranged for a catch-up session. you know we hadn't been seeing each other as often as we would like. so they thought maybe just go Batam for a day and catch-up along the way. what a nice idea.

we took the Majestic Batam Fast Ferry to Batam Centre (the other time we were at the other jetty- Harbour Bay). we left Singapore at 10.50am and returned around 8.30pm. Singapore time.

when we got there, we crossed the bridge to MEGA Mall (shopping mall) and first thing first, the two ladies want A&W for all its nostalgia's sake. the two of them didn't want rootbeer float, they find it too milky, but they sure miss the curly fries.

fish sandwich comes with bagadale (not sure of spelling), potato nuggets.

 then we made appointments at ESKA Wellness SPA for 3pm (local time) as we couldn't be having massages with a full stomach. we went shopping at Matahari Department Store and I bought some clothing for the kids and Bren, in preparation for CNY in January 2017.

 we had the 3-in-1 package, body massage, hair SPA, foot reflexology (2.5hours) for Rp. 400,000 (about SGD 40.00)  my sis had facial treatment instead of foot reflexology.   For me the best part was the Thai style back croaking twist, oh how my back croaked! it was music to my ears.

Saturday 22nd October 2016

 After dinner, we had one each as these are very sweet. 

actually, it is quite easy to satisfy Kiki. all she wants is to play reversi. and checkers. 

i am training her to flip the seeds from 四面八方. for now, she could look out for straights and sides, diagonals- she would remember to flip those onward diagonals but sometimes miss the backward diagonals. still need more exposure with flipping before i let her in on some strategies.

Deepavali Light Ups

we were at Little India two weeks ago after class on Saturday evening.
i wanted to introduce her the tomato soup that i had once loved. i said perhaps i ate this while i was pregnant with her, hence her penchant for tomato soup too.

 tandoori mutton biryani

(i couldn't finish it all, tar bow back for Bren)

vampire sucked neck 

 

 i had been having a pain at the chest area for about 3 weeks. it wasn't painful but when i arch forward, like when i was about to sit down on the toilet bowl seat, i felt pain at a certain spot on my chest. as it didn't go away, i had wanted to go see the doctor before i flew to Penang cos i was afraid i might not breath well when on the plane. (cos i felt a tad constricted with my breathing). however, my colleague suggest i go see my regular TCM physician (nearby office) and we hurried there during our office tea break. the physician was alarmed and annoyed that i had only gone to see her in this state. she said that my dunno arteries or veins? had blockage due to constricted Qi (blood circulation). wow, when she depressed her fingers on my veins from the neck to the chest, there was a channel that had spots that were acutely painful. she used acupuncture needle to poke holes in quick, swift successions and used cupping to draw out the stuck blood. she did this on five locations from the neck to the chest, immediately after, my breathing was relieved. she also prescribed to me five days worth of TMC medicine. and i am supposed to go review but i have not. 

Back to normal - school days and term 4 tests next week!

she saw two dogs when she went to the beach. can you spot both dogs?

 share share.

she says its a minecraft building.

term 4 tests next week.
the only thing i did was to send her to her chinese class as the centre has given two extra lessons.
other than that........ i didn't do any revision and i'm going to Batam with my sis & Janice this Sunday............ never mind lah har.... it's P1 niah.

Welcome Home, Mummy!

That night when I got home...

 Good Quality Luggage and pop-up smiley forms a Welcome Home greeting card.
Are girls more thoughtful?