Light at the end of the tunnel

Matthew and Mia are at an age where they are playing well with each other on a more regular basis. This is so wonderful to witness and I'm constantly pinching myself to see if this is a dream. Of course, it's not always peaceful play, but I'm still amazed. Finally, I can walk away and get things done for short bursts while they play.

Matthew is growing up fast. He's playing trump cards with racing cars, he loves rockets, space shuttles and just recently, volcanoes. He just moved out of his toddler car bed into an Ikea wooden bed (of course with bed sheets imprinted with colourful rockets). We also just took the training wheels of his bicycle and tried it last week. As long as he pedaled and went straight, he was fine. However, this would only last a few seconds and when he realised that we weren't holding on, he would glance up, grin proudly and forget to pedal.

Mia is also maturing fast. Her vocab has exploded and it's so cute when toddlers are learning to say new words. She's generally better at understanding and following instructions than her brother at this age, however, she has an independent will that her mostly compliant brother does not possess. During those times, depending on how cute she is, I either give in with a smile or send her to her 'naughty spot'. I know, I know, I should be more consistent....

Wei-Han has been busy at work and has spent some time travelling also. The kids miss him when he's away, especially Matthew.

My work is slowly picking up and I'm seeing the patients that I want to see, namely babies and children. Despite working only 2 mornings a week, I'm quite surprised at the impact of that on me and the family. Just things like the emotional tension at leaving my children in the care of others, wanting to rush back in time to pick Matthew up from school (which isn't possible anyway), wanting to be around especially when Wei-Han is travelling, needing to get errands done,...etc. But it does feel good to get back to work and use my skills and knowledge to help others.

We have noticed more expats moving to Singapore, and we have met some new families in our area. Of course, given our stage of life, I'm meeting mostly mums with young children, and that's fun. Meanwhile we're enjoying our routine of meeting friends at the playground in the evenings (a number of Matthew's school mates hang out at the playground too), and hanging out at the Wilson's who live in a spacious unit nearby. They have 3 older boys and a baby girl, and they all play nicely with Matthew and Mia, so I always find my time there a welcomed distraction, especially since I love being with Wendy, their mum.

Kids playing together....

A Break in Phuket

We spent a 4 days in Phuket with the Song family 2 weeks ago at the JW Marriot resort. It was a family friendly place, and the 2 bedroom villa we were in was fantastic. Plenty for the kids to do though we certainly did miss being close to good, cheap restaurants and shops. But we wouldn't have done much of that anyway as it turned out that I came down with some serious food or water poisoning for half the time we were there. Wei-Han did a great job looking after the kids, cooking for them and caring for me, while I got a good rest. I spent much of the time in bed either sleeping or playing card games or with cars with Matthew or letting Mia roll all around me. The kids bonded more strongly to Wei-Han as a result of me not doing much, which was special.

The Song family stayed next door to us and since they have 2 year old triplets (Jonathan, Natalie and Caitlyn), they were always busy to say the least. Matthew loved being able to run next door to play with them - it made me dream about living in a community or village of some sort where it would be entirely acceptable and safe to do that.