What do you really want?

Last night the boys and I had an interesting chat before they went to bed. It all started with me asking them if they wanted a baby sister or a baby brother. Oh, don't get me wrong! I am not the least planning for number 5! Though it would be dishonest of me to say that this thought didn't cross my mind. It did many times flash across my mind...especially so during this year being the year of the Dragon.

In fact on the eve of Chinese New Year, I jokingly told PaPa that maybe we should consider a Dragon Boy. He said (stroking Aaron's head) in Chinese, "老鼠也好吗?"

Ok back to my conversation I had with the boys. It went like this:

Me: Boys, would you prefer a Mei Mei (Chinese for "sister") or a Di Di (Chinese for "brother")?

Theodore: I want a Mei Mei!

Joshua: Mei Mei!

Lucas: Mei Mei!

Aaron: No! I want a Di Di!

Me: Theodore, why do you want a Mei Mei?

Theodore: Because I have (courting the brothers) eh...1,2,3 I have 3 brothers already!

Me: Joshua? Why Mei Mei?

Joshua: I like Mei Mei!

Me: Lucas, why do you want Mei Mei?

Lucas: I love Mei Mei!

Me: Aaron, why do you want Di Di?

Aaron: I don't like Mei Mei!

Theodore: If you have another baby, then I have to sit in front of the car.

Me: Why do you have to sit in front?

Theodore: The baby sit in my seat, Joshua sits in his seat, Lucas sits in his seat and Aaron sits in his seat. TiTa (our helper) sits in the middle.

Me: Then, where should I sit if Pa Pa is driving?

Theodore: Oh! Ah! I sit on Mummy's lap!

Aaron: I also want to sit on Mummy's lap!

Me: If we have another baby, we will change to a bigger car

Theodore: Alphad?

Me: Yes, Alphad!

Theodore: Yeah! Lucas, Mummy said we will change car to Alphad!

Lucas: Yeah! Alphad!

Theodore: Mummy, I will help you take care of Mei Mei because I am the Kor Kor (Chinese for "big brother)

Me: That's very sweet! But you can also help me take care of Di Di.

Theodore: No! Di Di will fight! Mei Mei cannot fight because boys cannot fight with girls. (pointing at Lucas) Huh, Lucas? Remember boys cannot fight with girls!

Me: Ok, Theodore.

Theodore: Oh Guys! We must pray for Mummy to have a Mei Mei!

Me: Huh? No need! This kind of prayer cannot anyhow pray.

Theodore: Why?

Me: Because I want a baby but I don't think I have the energy to look after

Theodore: I will help you look after!

Me: No so easy. Need to feed her milk and put her to sleep

Theodore: I will feed her. I help you! (Getting frustrated) MUMMY! You tell me ok! Do you really want a baby or not??

Me: I really don't know. Eh..can I discuss with PaPa first? This kind of thing must involve PaPa. Let's talk about this another time

Theodore: Huh! (folding his arms)

I am very pleased with Theodore because he is always so thoughtful and considerate. As for me, it is still question mark!!

Yeo family reflections for 2011

Note: This post is written by the man of the household, PaPa.

The year started with Aaron's brush with Kawasaki Disease, which is supposedly a rare autoimmune disease. The fact that it was diagnosed at Day 9 is already a blessing, thanks to the astute doctors at KinderClinic, as the symptoms are quite typical and permanent damage to the heart can take place after Day 10. The treatment involved a series of transfusions and a night stay at the hospital. As I spent the nights with Aaron at Gleneagles Hospital, I could not help but think but to a similar stay with the triplets, when they were hospitalized for bronchiolitis. Thankfully, the treatment for Aaron went smoothly and he was relatively cheerful throughout the stay! Aaron also started pre-nursery this year and thankfully did not cry at all!

Joshua (for now) is our most academically inclined child – he concentrates well in his reading and writing. His slow physical growth continues to be a source of concern for us though – as he is still the smallest of the 3 triplets despite his large appetite…we always wonder where does all the food he eats disappear to? He also won an award during vacation bible school for the bible verse challenge.

Lucas was discharged from speech therapy this year and has shown improvement in his speech. We pray that he will continue to grow in confidence in his speech. We are also very conscious that as the 2nd triplet, he is really the "middle child", so we will need to show more attention to him in this area.

Theodore continues to mature as the designated oldest brother of the gang of 4. Thankfully, his emotionally nature is such that he cares for other people's feelings which does help in his sense of responsibility. He has also performed well in his swimming and cycling (now on 2 wheels) but we pray that he will be more diligent in his academics and/or we will be able to find a better way to interest him in academic related activities. In school, he surprised us all by winning the Gold Medal for Chinese (Joshua & Lucas received Bronze Medals). He has also started roller blading classes and has impressed us by his persistence in literally picking himself up and trying again.

The boys also started their piano lessons late this year, thanks to Hwee Ling, who lent us her piano. Thank God for a wonderful teacher who is also our neighbour!

This year, we also had our first driving trip since we got back from America 2 years ago. We went on our first church camp in Malacca. It was a great time learning God's words and fellowshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our new helper, Davina, whom we are very thankful for, also had a chance to meet new friends from her home country.

Elsa had (what seems to be) a successful bunion operation for her left foot. We pray that her foot will continue to heal well and the bunion and discomfort never returns.

Chris managed to spend the last several months in Singapore and we pray that he will continue to be able to spend more time in Singapore with the family.

Finally, we are also very thankful for having the opportunity to serve more with our church discipleship group, with Elsa leading the children's program and Chris starting to serve as a bible study leader.

Have a blessed 2012 everyone!

Celebrating the winter solstice festive

The winter solstice festival( 冬至 - Dōngzhi; literally "the Extreme of Winter")is an important event celebrated by Chinese around late December and happened before the Chinese New Year.

If mymum did not mention to me that today was the THE DAY, I would have missed it. She was also the one who did the previous celebration with the boys.

So this morning I went to the supermarket and got a packet of glutinous rice flour to make

tangyuan (湯圓) glutinous rice balls, which symbolize reunion. Traditionally, they are made in bright pink. But my kids love them in blue! We stuffed them with blocked sugar and cooked them in gingery syrup.

Aaron did not manage to make a rice ball. This was because he was so obsessive to get a perfect round ball that he kept rolling the same one till it dried up..and eventually cracked into pieces!

The boys, on the other hand, managed to finish rolling their allocated dough.

Here's the finished products where I added some white to the blue:

By the time the tangyuan were cooked, it was almost bedtime.But I managed to sneak a rice ball only to Theodore just before he brushed his teeth.

Next year we have to do it earlier so that the all the boys could have a taste of their sweet labor and more importantly a truly reunion where we feast together.

Recycling broken toys

Friends who visit our place always wonder what this art piece was.

This canvas piece was made last year with the the help of the boys. The boys selected the toys from the pile of broken toys that I kept away. Then I glued them on the canvas and had it painted in YELLOW acrylic. I chose the color because I was in the midst of teaching Aaron the primary colors. Sad to say, I never got around to do the RED and the BLUE. This could be one of my resolution for 2012 - to finish my unfinished business for 2011!

My good friend, Annabelle had a strange idea. She wanted to do the same but with broken arms and legs from her daughters' Barbie Dolls' collections! She told me when she got home, her daughter, Phobe wanted to break all her toys just so she could make a similar art piece.

My project

I finally found the time to do this art piece even since I read it years ago over at some arts blog.

This was made from melted oil pastels. I got the boys to select the bright colors and stick them on canvas with a double sided tape placed at the edge of the canvas.

Then I melted the oil pastels using heat from the hair dryer. Some oil pastels melted faster than others - which I later found out I got mixed up with crayons! I reckoned that crayons took a while to melt due to its content. Anyway, this was quickly resolved by replacing them with oil pastels.

PaPa quite not approving of this as some "toxic" was emitted in the air - you know the burning smell of wax. I continued the activity only when the boys went to bed and went I am done with my reading. That set me to 11.30pm! When I was done, it was almost 1am, I doubt I will do this again. Its just too time consuming and who knows, possible damage to my lungs?

Mini art exhibition

This evening I had some time to myself and finally decided to clean up the documents, paintings, files that the boys received from schools. I threw out some assignments that no longer relevant and also sorted they art works.

Since we had empty walls in the house (we still have not getting our act together to put up our family pictures! Ok, I am waiting for Ikea sale to get the photo frames.), I decided to put up their paintings that they had done over the 1 year.

I could not put up all as they were simply too many. But I will try to rotate them when I have the time. Can you guess who painted which pictures?

Our First Christmas Tree!

So we had moved to our own place since April 2010 and we never had a Christmas Tree to call our own (except that tiny tree we had in Evanston!). The storage of another big item just put me off.

Anyway, upon the advise of our dear friend, Rachel, we decided to get a tree this year. We got a tree from Carrefour's sale and dressed it up this evening.

Ornaments were courtesy from Rachel and some of them are crafts pieces made by the triplets during their vacation bible school at Kay Poh church. We also put up 2 pine cones that the boys picked up when we were in Evanston. This were recently painted in gold for their school Christmas celebration.

Well since the Christmasy atmosphere is in the air, I thought it would be nice to complement with an advent calendar. So couple of nights ago I made an advent calendar and slip of papers were placed in the envelopes.

The boys would take turn to open the envelope, something that they look forward to every morning. Today activity was "Decorate Christmas Tree"!

I also borrowed an advent storybook from the library to read to them every night. It was about a baby bear following the bright star and meeting interesting characters who were also following the star. The boys had a great time reciting the characters that we read before. At the end of each chapter, the mother bear would give some biblical advise to

the baby bear. It is indeed a rare find from our local library!

Halloween crafts and Jack O Lantern

This afternoon I got the kids to take out the Halloween crafts that we received from Chole's birthday's goody bags.

This was followed by a simple Halloween snack made of bat sandwiches.

I did not spend as much time on the snacks as I did last year and the year before.

Couple of days back, I made a trip to the supermarket and got us a small pumpkin. I was amazed the number of pumpkin that Cold Storage brought in for this festive. I got Aaron to take a picture since he never got the chance to visit a pumpkin festive like the triplets did in America.

Yesterday afternoon PaPa took out the craving tool that we were given to us by Adeela when we were living in Evanston.

Unfortunately, we craved it too early and by the time it was Halloween, the Jack O Lantern was covered with mould!

Such was the humid weather in Singapore! Next year we would crave it the night before Halloween and put it in the fridge.