On Stage

This morning, the whole family - Hubby, my mum, Little Bee and me - trooped to Big Bee's school for their primary one drama concert with the theme "Stories That Teach". I was really excited and bursting with anticipation as usual. 

We started preparing 2 weeks ago with my helper sewing innumerable brown feathers onto a light brown T-shirt for Big Bee's role as an emu in a zoo! Her class performed a short play called "Edwina the Emu", and Big Bee is Edwina the emu :) She was the main protagonist in this play and I was proud she can remember all those lines and rattled them off with ease in front of hundreds of people. I would have been rather nervous! 

Backstage in her simple emu costume with feathers plucked from an old-fashioned feather duster!

She was also chosen to be one of two comperes for the one-hour concert, and we were only informed about it last Thursday. As usual, I was the anxious parent, looking through the compere script and asking her to pronounce this word or that word. But she was cool and composed about it, and I was bursting with pride as I listened to her steady rendition of the script on stage.

 

A snapshot just before the show started, with her other compere partner

Saying their first few lines on stage, with their class waiting to start, on the right side of the stage

I am not sure what others thought of her performance, but to me as a parent, I thought she performed to perfection :)

More importantly, I thought all the girls performed beautifully. They resembled new spring flowers that are beginning to blossom - soft yet vibrant, shy yet valorous, nervous yet exhilarated that they are on stage, with hundreds of eyes on them. This is certainly a first step towards bigger things to come for them.  

 

Striking a pose with her pals and Little Bee, who was fussed over so endearingly by all the big jie-jies in Big Bee's class! 

Evening Landscapes

On evenings when the Bees are restless and overflowing with energy, I would take out our trustworthy and reliable poster paints and brushes, complete with a drawing board, and just let them expend their inexhaustible energies into painting. 

It does wonders in keeping them occupied, quiet and productive for almost an hour! Sometimes I will join in and give them ideas on what to draw (although usually they are not very good ideas!). At other times, they will just unleash their creativity and inner thoughts, and just paint to their hearts' content!  

Here was what we had done about a month back on a cosy evening after dinner.

"Rain and blossom" by Big Bee

"Two lone trees on a sunny day" by Big Bee

"Abstract red" by Little Bee

"A for apple" by Little Bee

 

Erm, "Strange juxtaposed weather of storm and sun" by Mummy. The Bees were bewildered by my painting...bad example! 

Solitary Afternoon

In the midst of all these warm and fuzzy mothering, I also had to rush to complete my very very long overdue dissertation. Which is almost impossible to finish if I am at home with the kids. By their bedtime, I am deadbeat and all I want to do is to chill out with Hubby, watching a home movie or something. 

Which is why this afternoon, I opted not to go for lunch with the family and the in-laws. So that I can have some time poring over those thick research and hitting the keyboard real hard. 

It is a stillness and tranquillity I had not experienced in my own home for a long long time - in bright daylight! Sitting at the desk in front of the window, ears tuned to the sounds of chirping birds hidden within the luxuriant leaves of the many overhanging trees, with the occasional jarring yet soothing rhythmic sounds of the grass cutting machine and feeling the gentle caress of the warm afternoon breeze on my face...it certainly is quite an afternoon delight! 

Sometimes, we just need to have some totally solitary me-time, not needing to talk aloud, just conversing silently with those thoughts in our minds. So rejuvenating!

Now, back to more academic drudgery again.... 

Perfect Moments Like These

Motherhood and constant fatigue are synonymous. So is motherhood and happiness. Having 2 kids with a large age gap between them (4.5 years between the Bees) gives a new dimension to juggling 2 completely different schedules with totally different activities between the Bees. 

When it is time for homework for Big Bee, Little Bee will demand that I leave Big Bee's desk to play with her. When it is dinner for Little Bee and I have to feed her, Big Bee will ask me why she has to follow her mei-mei to watch "silly Hi-5" (feeding Little Bee is usually done in front of a TV, unfortunately, as I could not waste precious time for her to self feed, unless Big Bee's in school!).

When it is time for Little Bee's afternoon nap, Big Bee will be just back from school and there will be utmost excitement between the 2 girls, overstimulating Little Bee who will then only sleep late in the afternoon! When it is bedtime for Big Bee, Little Bee would be active like a nocturnal hamster, having had a satisfying 2-hour afternoon nap. The polarised list goes on, stretching my day into a 19-hour marathon from 6am to 1am!

Yet, there are little moments that warm my heart. Moments like the Bees bathing together, cheering loudly when I ask "Who wants to bath together?!" And they would jump up and down excitedly, screaming "YESSSSSS!" in a super cheerleader way. Then they will have a contented (and quiet!) time playing with water harmoniously. 

Or these moments below which really infused contentment into my being. Big Bee teaching Little Bee how to write - in total patience, cheeriness and camaraderie. No yelling at each other for once. No sibling frustration, screams or tears. Just love, support and strong espirit de corps. 

Big Bee explaining the intricacies of writing "G" to Little Bee. Mind you, her instructions are way better than mine! Perhaps it is the generation gap...

Big Bee encouraging Little Bee with every stroke and every curl that she wrote, with Little Bee in full concentration.

If Little Bee writes correctly, there will be such a loud and warm sisterly cheer and applause from Big Bee! 

It is during moments like these that I think everything is just more than perfect. Simply wonderful. 

Family Portraits

Here are 2 family portraits drawn from the Bees' perspectives :) 

Drawn by Big Bee on a quiet and warm weekend afternoon on a new drawing block and she presented this proudly to me after drawing it :) 

Scribbled by Little Bee all of a sudden in her weekend school library. She first drew Papa and Jie Jie and told me who they are. I was pleasantly surprised and asked her to complete the family portrait with herself and me. I also like how she allocated different sizes to each of us :) 

Learning At Home: Animals Theme

Last week, Little Bee's homeschooling theme was on farm and zoo animals. She really loved this theme, as the output of her craft works were more fun to her than colours, numbers or alphabets! 

I dug up all the books I had on farms and zoos and read to her every morning and night. Until this week, when the theme is different, she was still asking for "cow book" or "farm book"! 

I taught her to make comical animal sounds. We sang all kinds of animal songs like "Old MacDonald's" and "We're going to the zoo". I had to do a fair amount of research into songs on zoo as I was not very familiar with any zoo song! 

We playacted as animals for music and movement - flapping our elbows like silly chickens, waving our arms like elephants' trunks, quacking away noisily like ducks and roaring ferociously like lions and tigers! But every so often, she would put on a scary grimacing face with 2 clawed hands and chased after me with a fearsome snarl, pretending to be a monster, which was her favourite "animal"!

I steered away from teaching her formal alphabets and numbers as I just wanted her to have a fantastic time last week. So, we made plenty of craftwork instead.

We created a cow mask, which she still plays with everyday till now! I cut out the cow's face from a paper plate, edged out the eyes and stuck on the ears. And she did everything else! From sticking black patches and nostrils onto the face, colouring the pink nose, scribbling some black hair and drawing a cynical-looking mouth! She loves it to bits and treats it as a prized possession now, telling everyone that she made it! I am just lacking an elastic band to tie it around her face. 

Who's the cow?

I drew a mock zoo as a matching game, getting her to stick matching animals onto the different zoo enclosures, learning casually about the spelling of Z-O-O, sticking the alphabets onto her mock zoo, and creating a mini Little Bee who walked about the zoo! And she kept insisting Z is "N"! I guess they looked a bit similar huh? 

1 and 2: Before she stuck on her matching animals and ZOO words

3 and 4: A zoo with pairs of animals, complete with a mini Little Bee!

We also did other craftwork like creating a chicken laying eggs using coloured paper and a black lamb with stuck-on cotton wool. In the end, she was so tickled with the concept of eggs coming from hens that she made me cut a dozen eggs for her to stick all around the hen! And whenever she sees a cow picture, she will proudly yell out "Milk from cow!!!" Hm, I think she had conveniently forgotten that milk comes from mummies too! 

Intense concentration when applying glue to an egg. Eventually, there were 8-9 eggs stuck around the base of the hen! 

She stuck on the different coloured parts of the hen by referring to the craftbook's picture herself, with just a little guidance from me.

Of course, this theme culminated with an inevitable trip to the zoo last weekend where we took along her mock zoo "map" for her to identify the animals in the real zoo!

With jie-jie just outside the zoo

I had fantastic fun planning for this theme! And we were so excited to share our work with Big Bee every time she was back from school :) 

Teacher For A Day

Big Bee's zany classmates!

This is a salute to all teachers, especially primary school teachers. I never knew teaching could be such a draining job until I became a parent volunteer for Big Bee's school yesterday. I reached home and lay flat on the bed after the event, delirious and worn out. I only managed to recover my flagging spirits somewhere around 5pm, but by 10.30pm, I was a lost soul again, having to ask Hubby to help me prepare Little Bee for bedtime and put her to bed. 

I had been a parent volunteer umpteen times in Big Bee's preschool, bringing small little kids out on field trips. Yet, those incidents never made me half as fatigued as yesterday! 

Big Bee's primary school has this wonderful day organised solely by parents, where we take over the entire primary school for one day, so that the teachers can all focus on consolidating their mid year exam results. All activities are planned painstakingly by parents. All child minding and "teaching" on that day are taken charge by mummies and daddies. 

I was being tasked to be a class chaperone, which means that I need to plan for games and activities to keep a class of 30 boisterous 7-year-old kids well entertained and suitably occupied for about 1.5 hour! Quite a challenge, I must say.

Hence, I spent a good part of this week researching for fun games to amuse the girls. Pressure came from Big Bee too. She was elated and excited that I will be her "class teacher" for one day, and kept anticipating for the day to arrive. She warned me to concoct really fun games so that her classmates will not think I am a boring teacher. For she told me they are very critical and brutally honest. This puts more stress on my planning. But she did help significantly by conducting a casual "poll" with her friends and suggesting to me what they would love to play. 

On that morning, she even "censored" my dressing, telling me not to wear "ugly clothes", in her words. *Faint* She finally agreed to a loose dress that I chose, but sadly, 2 of her friends asked her if her mummy is pregnant. Urgh!! 

There were 2 class chaperones - another mummy, G, and me. We decided through emails on the following games to entertain the kids:

1) Draw-a-girl relay game

2) Dance and freeze

3) Hot potato

4) Musical chairs

5) Duck duck goose (suggested by the majority of the girls in high spirits)

When we asked them if they would like to play games, everyone screamed and said "YESSS!!!" Their enthusiasm really spurred the 2 mummies on. 

Girls with so much energy and zest! 

However, as some of these games were competitive in nature, slowly, we saw the nastier and "kiasu" sides of some girls. One girl simply sat on the floor, motionless, pouting and made some kicking actions when we went to ask her what was wrong. I was rather shocked at her behaviour. Another group of girls sulked in a corner and refused to play any more games just because they had been eliminated in the musical chairs game. 

Yet, most of the time, the eliminated girls never failed to argue their case and persuaded us that they sat in the chair first, or was not the last one with the hot potato. My goodness! What happened to the meek, submissive pupils who were us many decades ago, when arguing back to a figure of authority is tantamount to immediate punishment!? 

Cheeky but delightful kiddos

Throughout the class activity session, G and I had to mediate fights between the girls, listened with sympathy and empathy when some girls said who-and-who scolded them for what-and-what, calmed down crying girls and tried to talk sense to the more domineering, stubborn ones. But everything was worth it when a little girl, Teri, walked to me and softly handed me an origami with some drawing on it, smiled to me and said, "Teacher, this is for you." I gave her a tight, thankful hug.

Wow! Now I know why teachers need to be firm and fierce! It really is a jungle of survival of the fittest in primary school! There was really so much group dynamics going on at such a young age! 

However, I am glad to notice that Big Bee was a very accommodating person, very giving and helpful. It warms my heart to see her so well-liked by many girls, both the domineering and the more subdued girls. 

That being said, I had fantastic fun, leading a group of 9 girls which include Big Bee, through a taxing race a la Amazing Race after the class activities, where we had to rush between different stations, overcoming different challenges and obstacles under the hot noon sun! 

Exhausted but happy girls after a highly challenging game "Alien Attack" where the whole group had to cross from point A to B with only 5 legs!

We were ALL elated when their class won the Amazing Race-like competition! To see Big Bee jumping high in mid air and screaming with joy with her classmates when their class was announced as the champions made my heart swell - seeing her imbued with a strong community spirit, knowing that she has a little world outside the warm cosmos in our home. 

With Elsie after they had been awarded the first prize! 

Yet, those pleased little glances and quiet proud looks when her friends milled around me, telling me "Aunty, this" and "Aunty, that" made me so glad I could spend lovely time like this with her in her social world. No matter how tired I felt, I guess I should be volunteering for this event every year :) 

Bedtime Antics

Little Bee was a true owl yesterday evening. She skipped her afternoon nap, and at bedtime, still refused to sleep. She was chatting non-stop like a little monkey as jie-jie was snoozing off to Sleepy Land. 

These days, she was suddenly confused by the concept of "me" and "you", a common mistake that had Big Bee in disorientation when she was a toddler too. So, on her bed, this conversation went on at bedtime in hushed tones, for fear of waking Big Bee up.

Little Bee: "Bao bao you". 

Me: "No, it is bao bao 'me'!" 

A long suspicious look...

And then, Little Bee: "NO, bao bao you!" in a more forceful tone and big round eyes.

Me: "Bao bao me!" and pointed to her nose, indicating "me" is Little Bee

Little Bee (breaking into a cheeky beam): "You, me, you, me, you, me!!" 

I gawked at her, speechless. 

Little Bee then told me "I want read book!" I nearly fainted. Telling her no resulted in a long, hurt look with big watery eyes, followed by a torrential pouring of tears and loud wailing of disappointment. 

Afraid of waking Big Bee up from her sweet slumber, I quickly hoisted up a highly distressed Little Bee to the living room. It is really hard to enforce discipline at bedtime, not minding her loud cries, when you have 2 kids sleeping in one room. Now, Little Bee will think she had won the battle by crying, and this will be her tactic moving forward, I am certain of that! 

Her cries and tears came to an immediate halt right outside the bedroom door. Hmmmm....

Then, on the sofa, here was what I asked her:

Me: "What book do you want to read?"

Little Bee: "Farm book. Cow!" (Last week, I was reading an assortment of farm and zoo books to her because her homeschooling theme was on farm and zoo animals, and she loved them)

Me: "Oh, they are in jie-jie's room and jie-jie is sleeping now, so we cannot take them!"

Little Bee frowned and shot me a helpless look with a lost-sounding "huh??"

Little Bee: "I want fat stomach book!"

My turn to show her a hapless, lost look. "Huh? Fat stomach book?"

Little Bee (large grin on her face now, rubbing her stomach and indicating a big bulge): "Yeah, fat stomach Mama!"

Realisation dawned on me. 

Me: "Ohhhhh, you want the book with Mummy having a baby inside?"

Little Bee: "YEAH!!!!" 

We had been reading this book (see below) last week and it created a deep impression on Little Bee when I told her about how a baby lives inside Mummy's stomach, and how she and jie-jie used to live inside my stomach too. So, whenever I read the book and asked her, "What's inside Mummy's stomach in the book?", she will reply, "Baby!!!" And I will ask her, "Did Little Bee used to live inside Mummy's stomach too?" And she will pat my stomach and replied, "Yeah! Little Bee (sic) sleeping there!"

No - I am not pregnant again! :)

I bought this book to prepare Big Bee for a little sibling when she was 4 years old, in a bid to explain to her why Mummy's stomach was inflating that time. She loved it then. 

This is a delightful book in a perfect size for bedtime reading with attractive illustrations of everyday situations that will appeal to little readers and the appropriate amount of words. 

A Day Of Happiness And Joy!

The day that my family and I had been waiting for has finally arrived! My one and only younger brother is getting married! And I thought I would never see this day, after seeing him wade through the oceans of so many trials and tribulations. 

The celebration started the eve before the wedding, as per our family tradition, with my mum's sisters and brothers, together with my cousins and hence, the Bees' cousins, gathering at my mum's house, absorbing the pre-wedding day excitement and anticipation. The cousins (young and older!) had great fun bonding together as usual!

The troupe of cousins having a blast: (from left) Big Bee, Chloe, Little Bee and Val. 

The following morning, I dressed the Bees up enthusiastically - Big Bee in her long, white wedding-like dress and Little Bee in a long, red frilly halter dress. We then set forth to my mum's house to welcome the bridal party and the tea ceremony.

While waiting, I had such wonderful time catching up and chatting with my uncles, aunts and cousins from both sides of the family. Family ties are very important in my family and I had grown up with close bonds with most of my cousins.

 

Tada!! The arrival of the gorgeous bride and groom, together with their entire wedding party! 

My brother and sister-in-law looked radiant and positively beaming with pure beatitude. My sister-in-law glowed with happiness and looked so beautiful in her bridal dress and "kua". 

There was a touching moment when my sister-in-law shed tears as my mum presented her with the "four pieces of gold" in Teochew tradition. The entire family just stared on in moved silence. 

I guess in Chinese tradition, there is little or no privacy during festive events like this! Relatives were opening the door to the bridal chamber at all times, or milling outside their bedroom door, gawking at the bride and groom unashamedly. :)

Mum, Dad and the newly weds for the tea ceremony

Little Bee's turn to "serve" jiu-jiu virtual tea and to get her ang pow from the couple! 

Big Bee and Jiu-Ma in her beautiful Chinese tradition costume "kua"

We had a slight reprieve in the afternoon where we rested for a little while before dressing up and headed towards Orchard Parade Hotel for the wedding dinner. The Bees were decked to the nines with Big Bee in a enthralling red and white dress with a sash and rose petals in the chiffon layers of her dress. Little Bee wore a similar (but shorter) dress, in pretty pink and with similar red rose petals sprinkled in the loose layers of the dress. 

Big Bee told me, "Mummy, the funnest part of dinners is dressing up. I looooovvve to dress up in beautiful dresses!" And Little Bee kept telling me, "I want wear nice nice!" Goodness, the stress of having 2 vain little girls! 

Little Bee had a terrible two moment, just before leaving the house, by deciding adamantly on wearing her weekend sandals with her dinner dress! Throughout the entire dinner, we could not sway her mind away from her sandals, which she claimed fervently to me, "Nice nice shoes!!!" with a pout. 

Stage entertainment for the night :)

Hubby and I were the emcees for the wedding and I had written a script with some sisterly tidbits of information that I hope would add a bit more meaning to the wedding. Hence, I was really super excited the entire day! However, on hindsight, I really enjoyed hosting my brother's wedding :) 

Cake cutting - happiness forever! 

The wedding dinner buzz was intoxicating, with so many extended family members whom I had not seen in a long time. Hubby and I were on stage most of the time at the start of the dinner. It was so fulfilling to see the fruition of all my brother's and sister-in-law's planning, and everything flowed with perfect precision and glorious emotions.

Dramatic entrance in the bride's dazzling evening gown with the stunning head piece!

Confetti galore! 

My brother gave a stirring speech, thanking almost everyone in his life and making my mum cry (again!). Not just my mum cried, but also some of our aunties in the dinner! Wedding speeches are indeed emotive and heart-rending. 

Mum dabbing tears of joy

My sister-in-law read him a beautiful poem about love - with tears trickling from her eyes and voice quivering. We were all entranced by this poignant display of unabashed love. 

Looking at them reaffirms my belief that love can indeed transcend everything - race, religion and many other barriers. Theirs is a love with much challenges from the beginning, and it certainly fills my heart, knowing that they are now united in a marriage made in heaven :) 

A phrase that my brother told me in their early days together is indelible from my mind. He told me then, "I had never felt so happy with any one before!" And with her, he smiles more, laughs more. This is the true repercussion of love! 

PS: Living in this era of digital photography is mind-boggling. Every significant moment (like tea ceremony, entrance of couple, etc) was captured by a plethora of different digital cameras by all the wedding guests, so unlike my time! Hence, it was fantastic to see photo angles from different guests and different perspectives. Thanks to all my cousins for taking many photos and posting them on their blogs and Facebook!

And a special thanks to my cousin Tan Zexun whose photographs are featured in this blog entry. He makes a wonderful photographer! You can see more of his photos on the wedding in his blog here. 

And you can see Candice's blog on the wedding here as well :) 

Thanks cuzzies! 

Reward After The Toil

Celebrating her 7th birthday at home last month

Big Bee's exams were over yesterday! Yippee! We both felt relieved and relaxed - for her, she can play non-stop without having the worry of exams at the back of her mind. For me, I can finally relax without having to juggle with forcing Big Bee to do mock exams at home, marking her work, revising through her corrections and entertaining Little Bee who also wants to be part of the study party! 

I was greeted with the sweetest and cheeriest of smiles when I picked Big Bee up from school yesterday. She told me a classmate of hers was caught for copying from a spelling book. Lots of drama unfolded with the form teacher and the 2 vice-principals while they were in their second half of the paper. But I am glad the school took pains in inculcating the right values by enforcing such strict discipline. I really love hearing such school gossip from Big Bee everyday!

As for Little Bee, she was so excited about the whole fetching jie-jie episode that she woke at 6.30am just to follow us to school, and refused to nap at noon because she wanted to follow us to fetch jie-jie home from school! She told me "I want 'Hello Jie Jie' in school!" which meant she wanted to fetch jie-jie and say hello to her. Hmph. She seemed to know how to take note of time by milestone events, eg, after lunch means fetching jie-jie from school. 

When Little Bee was napping in the afternoon (finally!), I brought Big Bee to remove her stitches and rewarded her with a sweet treat (she picked a gorgeous strawberry shortcake) at Borders, as well as 3 story books from her favourite "Rainbow Magic" series. It was a wonderful time spent alone with her, chitter chattering about school and friends and rejoicing in the fact that exams are over!

Some old photos of her eye which had since healed, except for a reddish scar. We are applying a scar cream to prevent permanent scarring.

Trotting on Blaze, the horse who went cantering then galloping, thus resulting in her fall without stirrups

Learning At Home: Red

As I will be at home for 1.5 months and as Little Bee is not attending school yet, I took this opportunity to homeschool Little Bee in the mornings, when Big Bee is away in school. 

I usually try to have a different theme each day whenever she has "lessons", and she lapped up the rare individualised attention very well. 

The lessons are usually about 2 hours long, with a lot of free expression, and I usually have different activities to entertain her daily because Little Bee's attention span is very short. 

For the first day, the theme was "Red" and I let her dabbled in red scribblings and red paint. We created a red bus, and went hunting around my estate and playground for red things.

All ready for a red painting session!

And on another day when the sky was brewing with a thunderstorm, I decided to adapt that morning's lesson to the weather, so we learned about "rainy days". I read an online book about rain drops to her, explained where rain came from, and I cut out big clouds for her to paste onto a drawing paper and got her to draw a rainy day picture. Oh, and we sang a couple of rain-related songs for music and movement - "The Raindrop Song" and "Rain rain, go away"!

It's pretty fun and I am glad to have this time alone, together with her!

Little Bee's creations

1. Free play - red scribblings before her "red" lesson began. She has a fetish about drawing faces and claimed the long tube-like thing in the picture is a snake. 

2. I cut out a red bus from spongy red paper and drew the door. She pasted the windows and wheels onto the bus all by herself, and was playing with the bus for a pretty long time!

3. Red painting done completely by Little Bee. She also has a fixation with the letter "A", so you see a couple of "As" and a balloon face in the painting.

4. Rainy day picture. I cut out the blue clouds which she pasted onto a drawing paper. She drew blue and red (!?) raindrops as well as a walking man and her usual "A". She told me she drew an umbrella which was that strange-looking thing beside the man. 

The Calm Before The Storm

This long weekend was a taxing yet halcyon one. A strange juxtaposition, I know. It was taxing because I forced the family to stay home with no programmes as it will be Big Bee's first mid-year exams this week. So, I need to devote plenty of free time and energy for revision. 

Hence, Big Bee had her plate all full with mock exam papers, assessment books and homework, on top of revising through her corrections. These days, the primary one work is no longer like the elementary stuff in our time. The vocabulary, grammar, mathematical sums and Mandarin words are rather profound.

Yet, we took this opportunity to spend a restful weekend with the Bees with minimal distraction. Hubby bought a pair of baby hamsters for them, much to Big Bee's delight. She named them Jerry and Nibbles, after the Tom & Jerry cartoon show. 

I took the opportunity to experiment with Western-style dishes, which are never my forte. For Saturday's dinner, instead of the usual stir-fried dishes and double-boiled soups, I decided to whip up a dinner of hearty rib-eyed steak with mushroom soup and fries. It was a hit with Hubby, Big Bee and my helper, but I do not really fancy meaty meals!

 

And on Sunday, we took the Bees out for a long lunch and coffee. These days, the Bees will chatter loads, so when we were eating, Hubby and I could truly sit back and listen to the Bees yak non-stop about everything under the sun. We usually have a warm and fuzzy feeling in our hearts, seeing them so chirpy and happy.

 

It was truly enjoyable and relaxing, before we are back to the grind of exam preparation. I must say Big Bee took to the revisions very well, and was game to complete her work. Like I kept telling her, after this week, she can play for all she wants! Gosh, I do sound like my parents these days :)

A Grill Party

When in Singapore, do as the Singaporeans do. Which is eat. And that was what we did in sizzling style 2 Saturdays ago, with a grill party at our place. YL and SB brought their entire brood of children over, so we had a total of 6 girls and 1 little boy in this merry little party!  

The men were the chefs that night, hovering over our outdoor grill in the balcony, concocting heavenly seared delights for us. Hubby and I went to Huber's Butchery earlier in the day to grab some succulent meats for this home BBQ, and we weren't disappointed. Their meats were wonderfully marinated with perfect cuts and divine textures. Yum! 

The menu was a mouthwatering, luscious treat: we had mutton satays, hamburgers with the juiciest beef patties, springy cuttlefish balls and enticing corn on the cob. We also prepared fried bee hoon and red-hot nonya chicken curry, which were largely consumed by the hungry, gossiping mummies while the daddies were hard at work in the sweltering balcony! The satays and hamburgers were a hit with the kids. Finally, we washed down all the piquant cuisine with a bottle of satisfying and mellow Sauvignon Blanc. 

We were stuffed full with such delectable foods! 

The kids were happier than the adults. We could see two distinct cliques - the older gang, comprising of Big Bee, Joanne and Jeslyn, who played so well together, giggling, chatting and hanging out on the upper deck of the Bee's double-decked bed. 

Big Bee hanging out with Joanne. With Little Bee trying to join their big-girl gang at some points. 

And the younger gang, consisting of Little Bee, Sherilyn, Joleen and Marcus. They played alongside each other with all the Bees' toys and got along really harmoniously. 

1. Little Charlie's Angels - Little Bee, Sherilyn, Joleen. Aren't they adorable? 2. The 4 little kids - Little Bee, Joleen, Sherilyn and Marcus - playing with Thomas the Train. 3. Big Bee, Joanne and Jeslyn playing a fool on the double decked bed! 

We planned to have such get-togethers more often, as it was really so enjoyable and comfortable, ensconced in our home, away from the crowds outside, especially in these uncertain times. 

Goodbye, Galaxy

Our first family hamster, Galaxy, passed on this morning. Our helper discovered it under the staircase in the basement of its enclosure, deathly still and lifeless, yet serene. I observed Galaxy in her resting posture for a long time, silently bading farewell to her and thankful that she seemed to depart in a peaceful and painless mien. 

She came into our family around April 12 last year, as a present for Big Bee's 6th birthday. She grew fatter and fatter with each passing month. She was still gargantuan, like a hulking matriarch, a couple of months back, when Big Bee and I observed that she could barely fit into her little hamster tower. 

Yet, in the past month, I started noticing her gradual reduction in size. She became scrawnier, less active. No more of the nocturnal squeaky sounds emitting from her hamster wheel that accompanied me when I was on the computer until late at night. Her usually thick, fluffy and hale creamy fur became more unkempt and thinner. Soon, her gaunt self became alarming and just on Sunday night, I noticed that she had difficulty climbing up the stairs to the second level of her house. 

I started warning Big Bee that the end is nigh for Galaxy, as she is getting old. She accepted this with sadness and quiet resignation, and was hence not overly distraught when she discovered Galaxy's death after school.

Once pets age, that downhill process will be rapid. I had 2 beloved dogs, Vicki and Boy Boy, whose elderly selves were mere diluted shadows of their glorious and vivacious youth. Peace be with them now. And to Galaxy too.

In the meantime, Pebbles Junior, that stray hamster whom we adopted early this year, is healthy and well. It is putting on weight now (I could not decipher if it is a male or female hamster) and becoming more and more active. I always stare at it in wonder, amazed at how a single act of easy help can save it from the clutches of possible fatality.