I brought the girl to observe a swimming lesson on Tuesday evening, after our dinner. I had googled and managed to find out that there are lessons on Tuesdays at 7pm and 8pm as well as on Wednesdays. As the girl has art lessons on Wednesdays, Tuesdays would make a better choice.

On top of swimming, the girl has also asked for piano lessons. Wahhh....where got time? Mind you, she has not said to stop going for any of her other classes. Although she does say at times she doesn't want to go for ballet, but after attending the day's lessons, she cleans forgets about the earlier self-doubt. Times when she doesn't want to go are times when she is feeling lazy.

When she was about 5ish, she would say no whenever I suggested sending her for any lesson and it always ends up with her liking them. It got to the point where I was quite fed-up, because I am impatient, and told her I will not ask her next time and she will just need to follow because she will end up enjoying the classes. But then again, with busy Saturdays like now, I dropped the idea of any other additional classes.

That is until our dear little friend asked for swimming and music lessons. 

Having 4 more months left of this year, (WHATTTT?!?!?!) I figured heck, just send. Let her swim for the next 4 months, then stop for primary 1. If she decides that she can still manage the evening lessons after school, she will let me know if she is still keen. As for music, I will arrange for a trial at a school that her classmate is attending and see how she likes it.

My only thought is if I should have start her off before she turned 5. Now? It's like there is not enough time!

So we received 'good news' today:

But, we are withdrawing her from that school and transferring her to one that is nearer to home. One that is beside her childcare centre, one that is within walking distance from home and most importantly one, that the student care we are sending her to is able to pick her up from.

After her classes on Saturday, the hubs and I sat down with the owner/teacher of the enrichment centre that K attends her HYPY and abacus classes at. I think I can speak for the hubs when I say, we do value the advise that the owner/abacus teacher gives us. She briefly spoke to the hubs about their student care program and fees last Saturday and asked that we both come in again to discuss about K's primary 1 student care plans. 

Having attended abacus since beginning of the year, followed by HYPY for quite a number of months now, we like how they guide the kids. Well, the enrichment setting is more intimate...I am not familiar yet with the student care setting. However, in the package, 2 hours of tuition is provided for English, Math and Chinese on 3 separate days and of course the usual homework supervision, lunch, tea breaks etc. Although the school itself have allocated space for privately run student cares, we are comfortable with the current place to prefer that the girl goes there. 

Furthermore, they have quite a few students from the school that they are willing to go and pick them up from, which makes us also want to transfer the girl there. Otherwise, we would have to arrange for a 1-way school transport for the girl to the student care after school hours. 

Initially, I was really skeptical on transferring the girl because I really have the impression that demographics is a factor on the make-up of a school. However, the owner assures me that both schools are almost on par and in fact, she has been impressed by the PSLE results that the nearer school has had for the recent 2 years. And, importantly, the parent factor comes into play. I am not for sending K to an elite school simply because when she is stress, we as parents feel the stress too. The NIL spends at least $1k on tuition alone! 

Anyhow, pray that our change of decision is blest by God. Only he will know the future.

Phase 2C Supplementary has closed and this morning's results were:

Over-registered by 8 children, an increase of 5 since yesterday!

And after tabulation when I checked at 4pm, results are:

Yay...we do not have to go through another round of anxiety, having been relegated to this phase after failing the earlier one. 

This was actually my 1st school of choice somehow but I can't remember how the hubs and I decided to try for a 'better rated' school. And now it seems we are showed the way back to it. Perhaps it is indeed good to plan for a stroll to the school this weekend?

So we had to repeat the registration for primary 1 again after being unsuccessful in the earlier application. 

The girl's ex-childcare mate's mum asked if we regretted not registering the girl when we could in the earlier phases of our alumni, namely the hubs' alumni and both our answers were no. As long as we do not do injustice to the girl's life by sending her to a horrible school but then again, there aren't much of those around these days right? Every teacher, principal and school has a kpi to meet.

Some so called brand name schools are nothing but a meeting point where the rich compete. Some brand name schools claim that they focus on holistic education which really means they are not academically inclined. And one thing they have in common is a nice name not named after some neighbourhood. 

Being very practical and I daresay chillax although sometimes the tiger instinct appears, proximity is very important to us, although I had to do some convincing to the hubs. I hated the travelling I had to do in primary and secondary school. So we are back to my initial 1st choice again before we decided to go ahead for the better rated one, which we will still put the girl on waitlist. 

And the results as of yesterday:

Over registered by 3. And we still have the whole of today! Well, let's see....let's see where God will lead us.

Monday morning was a busy one for me. 

We had to consult the Dr the evening before because the hubs was feeling like crap since the morning and then started having fever of 38.5 so we decided to go. I was pretty much left alone with the girl while the hubs slept the day away. Somehow, she wasn't in any mood to eat, which was so unlike her! I even had to make her finish up the filet 'o fish from Macs.

Despite her not having an appetite, she could still cycle. We were out for an hour and when we came back, she had a quick rinse and I told her to lie on the bed while I take my shower. She appeared sleepy too but I wasn't sure so I told her to just lie on bed and she do not have to close her eyes if she doesn't want to nap. When I got out from the shower, she was asleep.

I was feeling bored with 2 of them asleep. I had planned to take a walk to the next school option to gauge the proximity but nope, didn't happen. I was just lying around on the girl's pull-out bed and answering messages from the girl's ex-childcare mate's mum.

So long story cut short, the hubs was diagnosed with Influenza A, very likely contracted from the girl's ex-classmate's sister who had it just 2 weeks ago and was still coughing when we went to the bird park on Friday. The girl was feeling feverish when she got up and was whining so I decided to bring her to the Doc as well. Her temperature was 38.5 too but thankfully, she didn't have to go through the same test for Influenza as her father. The test involved pushing a long cotton bud like stick into the back of the nose. Damn, it hurt because the hubs actually had to get the Dr to stop twice? The girl, on the other hand, had slightly inflamed tonsils.

So back to Monday morning, the girl still felt feverish and I gave her a dose of paracetamol. With old and young down, there's no way I can go to work so I decided to lie down for a bit more. But who would to know, the girl didn't want to lie down and could even take her ukelele out to play. So I decided I do not have the luxury of leave days and decided to bring her to school and then go off to work. And boy was I efficient. We were out of the house slightly before 9am and I reached work before 10am. Which surprised my boss because I had  informed her earlier that I wasn't going in. Phew, 1 leave day saved!

After lunch, I had to repeat the registration process for the girl yet again and then at about 3pm, met a buyer from carousell who bought over the Rapunzel banner and a pack of Rapunzel balloons left over from the girl's birthday. Glad I manage to offload them!

We celebrated National Day at the Victor's with the White mom and daughter. Since it was pot-luck, my safest bet was shepherd's pie with a mix of potato and cauliflower since I couldn't decide. The Victor dad picked us up at the train station below the White's block and we all went to the Victor's together.

This is a rare time I get to sit down and enjoy the entire segment of the parade. We have been doing it at our home for past years and because I needed to 'entertain', I never really had a chance to sit down undisturbed. And since none of my other brothers were going to Jerry's when his wife sent out the invite, I didn't want to go either. Anyhow, it is a nice change.

And on the day after National Day, we had to take the day off because the childcare centre was closed. I made plans with the girl's ex-childcare mate and her family to visit the Bird Park. Since I thought we would have an extra 'ticket' with the hubs' corporate card, I decided to invite 1 of the girl's childcare mate along. She has been to our house twice or thrice and is fairly well-behaved. Since her parents don't seem to be able to afford much days off and on hearing that she will be going to the nanny's, I asked if she would like to join.

So, this was what happened:

Weather was nice, girls behaved and I think we all had fun especially the water-play that they were all looking forward to. They even had a chance to feed the lory birds and caught 2 bird-shows. But the poor hubs had to rush off for a 4pm meeting at the workplace.

Back home, I made the 2 girls take a nap, which surprisingly they did and for at least an hour. I made dinner for the girl and I because her classmate's mum was going to cook. 

We had quite a rushed dinner and then went for her replacement HYPY class, only to see that the centre's door was shut! Yes, the hubs had mistakenly informed me when the replacement class is actually on next Friday!

And today, after ballet, we went straight to M's home to celebrate her 79th birthday! We were all present except for the eldest brother and his family. We had dinner at the coffee shop below her block then proceeded upstairs for cake-cutting. 

Another busy weekend, make it a busy long weekend.

This little fellow came into the house yesterday. I was retrieving my towel from the balcony when I spotted something black despite it being dark outside. I had thought it was a moth initially and I sort of flung the part when it was clinging on and it landed on the balcony floor. And who would to know, when I switch on the balcony light, it was a baby bat!

The hubs was clueless, as always, what to do with it, how to handle it. And I needed to bathe desperately after yesterday's workout. So I said I would settle it after my shower. Just as I got into the bathroom, I heard the girl scream and then moments later, I heard the master bedroom door closed and then more sounds coming from the dining room. The hubs is out there, I will not go out. Let him handle whatever is going on out there.

After I came out from the shower, I saw the girl crouched on my bed, terrified. And the hubs came in to say the bat was flying around but he has lost track of it. Well, he said it flew to the the side of the shoe cabinet and 'disappeared'. So the very brave but also very emo me, such an oxymoron, took aside the bag of items meant to be donated when the next donation drive comes around from beside the shoe cabinet and found the little thing huddled in the small gap beside the cabinet and a stool.

The hubs, having watched too much tv, shone his torch continuously on the bat, claiming that they are afraid of light. Eventually I used his shoe horn to move it out of the main door through the gate. And then it flew off before we could even open the gate to take a video of it. Such drama...lol...especially from the girl who was screaming almost hysterically.

On another note, a sian note.....we did not get a slot in the school of our choice for the girl's Primary 1 balloting. This pushes us to the last phase for Singaporeans. We were already at the last phase. Now we are the supporting last.

Nevertheless, we are going to put her on waitlist in the same school and another. And the registration process starts again on Monday. Hiazzz....

The phase for the Primary 1 registration for us has ended yesterday. And the results are:

Today's news makes it more bleak but we shall have faith and continue to pray.

In comparison, the girl's ex-childcare mate's mother is stressing herself out because of the over-subscription of 10 in HER school of choice. I caps her because her husband is so chill, whichever school the girls get into.

We are back from our staycation!

Before we even started on it on Monday, we had to register the girl for Primary 1 on-line and then we had to drop by the hubs' office, had lunch there and then grabbed to Vivo to catch the monorail into Sentosa. Thankfully, we opened our mouths to ask and got free tickets because we have a hotel booking in there. Otherwise we would have to pay $4 each for the monorail ride just to enter Sentosa when walking in would otherwise be free.

Since this staycation is our first without the car, I suggested packing our stuff and carrying them in our own havas-sack instead of the usual trolley bag. And because I was waiting for a letter from work, I had to bring my laptop along and thankfully, nothing came until I reached home after checking-out.

This time, I got us unlimited rides on the cable car as we had promised the girl we would take it 'one day'. We tried to take as many rides as we could, lol, to make the 1-day pass 'worth it'. 

We also went up the merlion and caught the show 'Wings of Time'. As usual, we went to the luge, which is in my opinion, not to be missed. Although I had a list of 'free' things to do, we only managed 1 because 'not enough time'. And it was drizzling intermittently as well. It rained the first day, drizzled intermittently on the 2nd and last days. But we had fun.

It is still very fun to have a staycation in Sentosa, especially when we have it complimentary. We do not know if we will still be eligible next year so this could perhaps be our last. oh well, always enjoy the moments!