The kiddos are starting think that HBL is lots of fun! Morning exercise this morning was to play catching (me included) at the playground for 1 hour!! Tired die me!!! 😵
We owned the playground!! No one else was there! The rest of the kiddos were still in school.
The exercise area, on the other hand, was pretty crowded!! Virus 🦠 alert!!! 📣📣📣
Meanwhile… HBL can be lots of fun! Keep chill everyone!!
#hbl #covid_19
HBL here we come!! 💪🏼 The kiddos used their last HBL schedules as a reference and did up their new timetables for this round. It’s much easier this time as they’ve done it before.
Time management is a life skill. Kind of liking this home schooling thingy as I can add on more extra stuff. 😈😈
We’ve done our 1h swimming this morning. Slightly behind schedule but we will catch up! I noticed that the kiddos added a lot of buffer in the planning. There are lots of food breaks. 🤔 And SOMEONE certainly doesn’t take 30 mins for piano practice. More like 5 mins. 😓
Zaobao (早报) picked up on the news and we are on the news!! ok ok.. cheap thrill….
#hbl #covid_19 #zaobao #timetable #baobeis
2 bedraggled rats caught in the rain. 🤣🤣 They took these pictures with the GPS watch.
Today marks the first day that 8 yo 小小宝贝 is taking the mrt on his own, under the supervision of his sister. The lucky boy has his sister to show him the ropes until she goes to secondary school next year. This is to prepare him to take mrt home alone in Term 4 when (or if!!) his CCA starts. He’s luckier than his sister who was thrown into the deep end of the pool when she was in P2. He’s much older than her at that time as he’s born in Jan and she was born in Sep.
4 years ago, I gave 宝贝 the choice of forgoing CCA or going for CCA but coming home on her own on the mrt. She chose the latter.
I took time off (I was still working at that time) to bring her home on mrt twice, with her leading the way. The night before she was to go home alone, she cried, begging me to pick her up from school after CCA. I refused. #evilmomalert
The next day, I hid myself behind the bushes at the mrt station entrance. She called me with her GPS watch at the school exit and asked me if I were picking her up. I told her nope and I would be waiting for her at home and she needed to be brave and watch out for bad people and traffic when she crossed the road.
Resigned to her fate, she made her way to the mrt. I saw her approaching the mrt from behind the bushes. The little thing was looking all around her all the time. Probably checking for bad people 😅 I had to stop myself from revealing my hiding place to hug her as she looked so vulnerable.
She went down the escalator and I saw her scrutinising the map to confirm her stops. She boarded the train and a kind soul gave up her seat to her because she looked so little with her humongous bag.
I managed to trail her to interchange and then I lost her when she alighted with a big crowd of commuters. She was too short.
I panicked a little and started searching the station for her. I checked her GPS location and found it moving away from the station, so I boarded the train to the final station. Meanwhile I was frantically calling her on the phone. The sigina didn’t pick up the call.
I searched the final station platform again. This time I was really at my wit’s end. I called home and my Mom said she wasn’t home yet. I didn’t dare to tell her that I had lose my young daughter. I was imagining that some evil guy had kidnapped her.
I ran all the way home like an Olympic runner, and there she was. Safe and sound. My Mom told me that she appeared at the door after she hung up the phone.
That took 5 years off my life… And thus marked the beginning of her maiden solo mrt journey home from school at 8 years 1 month old and my close heart attack.
小小宝贝 : Mommy Mommy! See what Sherry made for me??
姐姐 ：Maybe she likes you??
小小宝贝 ：Of course! Or else, why would she make the friendship band for me?!
Someone is very confident siah… 😅
The first ePTM (parent teacher meeting) ever since he started primary school. We didn’t have one last year due to covid.
“I can’t believe it! 弟弟‘s teachers said he’s such a well behaved boy in class, very quiet (huh!!!) not a social butterfly (huh!!), very focused and attentive blah blah blah. His Chinese teacher even said he’s the most responsible 小组长 and can be entrusted with everything. When I told them he made friends with the boy standing behind him while queueing for chicken rice, they were totally surprised!”
姐姐-“Erm Mummy, did you remember to write his name as your nick when you joined the zoom meeting?”
“Hmm… I forgot. I used my own name.” “Maybe they thought you were another student’s Mummy and they were not referring to him. 🤷🏻♀️”
“Good point there!! There were talking about his classmate and not him!”
弟弟-“I’m a very good boy in school ok!!! 😡”
“Then why are you so naughty at home? I’m going to send your home videos to your teachers so that they can see your true colours!!”
“Nooo….!!!! 😭” #evilmom #siginna #devilathomeangelinschool
That’s his art homework (surrealism – incorporate a vegetable or fruit into drawing). A cucumber boat.
The trial Home Based Learning (HBL) which took place on a Wednesday just before the Circuit Break (CB) period went terribly. There were tantrums, crying, shouting from children and parent (yes, only 1 parent, because the other parent locked himself away in his study room, oblivious to the chaos.). When MOE announced school closures, I was horrified…If I were to put myself through that every single day, there would probably be a murder before the week even ended.
I work better when I have a schedule and clarity of what is going to happen next. I decided that having schedules for every one (including myself) could preserve our (my…) sanity. There was an article which was aggressively forwarded on all social media to not impose a schedule on the children. I beg to differ on that.
So, on the day of the school closure announcement, I set the kids on a task – create their own schedules for a typical school day during CB. They needed to factor in time for HBL, time for extra work or enrichment class practice, exercise, meals, hobbies and of course PLAY! We used the Canva software to create it. Canva is so idiot-proof that my daughter was able to create an invitation card for her birthday party when she was 6.
They felt empowered and had a lot of fun doing up their schedules, choosing their own backgrounds, graphics etc. I had to tweak the timings a little. I simply couldn’t allow them to have meals as and when they please. What am I?! A Cafe arh?! Sheesh. And the HBL timings had to be staggered so they wouldn’t fight over the one laptop they shared.
They stuck their schedules at their study spaces, at eye level, literally smack in their faces.
So far, it has worked pretty well. Sometimes they finish their work earlier. They get more playtime, so that’s an incentive for them. But for slipshod work, they get playtime deducted. No more whining, pushing of boundaries, complaining la dee dah. Along the way, we have also worked in time for doing household chores and cooking. Meanwhile, 姐姐 is now the appointed IT officer for her brother whenever he runs into technical issues. Delegation, delegation…
So ya, scheduling has done wonders during this CB period and I have retained my sanity. With luck, they may even turn into junior masterchefs and spiffy cleaners before the CB ends… Keeping my fingers crossed. Looking forward to my days of kiao ka-ing when my minions can cook and clean the house!
He can play with almost ANYTHING under the sun. Leave him alone with a rubberband and he would find 101 ways to entertain himself with it. Yes, that includes shooting me with it and getting it confiscated.
He dug out some of his old toys. And built all sorts of things with them… watch, cup, box, car etc.
Before you scroll down to see the answer, what do you think he’s built??
I sent the picture to his father…
Me: check this out! Guess what he’s made!
Hub: hmmm…. Chun Li??
Me: 😑 no lah.
Hub: Princess Leia??
Me: 🤦🏻♀️ NO! Why are you guessing all the female characters??
Hub: cinnamon rolls…
Me: sigh… they are headphones.
Hub: then why aren’t they at his ears??
Me: eh… not enough building blocks…
I have always wanted to make sauerkraut, but as usual, procrastination set in and before I knew it, it’s year 2020! I bought an organic cabbage yesterday. It cost a bomb… seriously. I have never paid so much for vegetables before… Maybe I should start growing cabbages at home. *ponder*
There it sat on my counter, staring at me, daring me to let it rot. I couldn’t stare it down, so I moved my ass and chopped it down. Ha da! And it’s actually surprisingly easy to do! So all of you out there, if you are still thinking (for the longest time ever) of starting but not, JUST DO IT!
Cabbage (Organic if possible. Or else you will need to use vegetable wash to clean pesticide and yuckies off and also kill off the natural bacteria needed for fermentation)
Salt (I used Himalayan Pink Salt. That’s what I have at home anyway. You can use other mineral rich salts. I draw the line at refined salt.)
Before you start, make sure you have all the tools and containers ready. Wash them down with soap. Sterilise them if it makes you feel better.
Fermentation jar (I use the Lock&Lock Fermentation Jar that comes with a one-way air lock. I prefer to use food grade glass jars due to the high acidity of the ferment and it’s going to stay in it for a while.)
A long stick or spoon (for packing the cabbage into the jar)
Mixing bowl
A weight (to make sure your cabbages stay under the brine. I used a glass jar filled with water.)
1. Wash your organic cabbage under running water.
2. Pull out the biggest leaf. Cut it down so that it can cover the cabbage slices.
2. Finely slice the rest of the cabbage.
3. Add in some salt over the shredded cabbage. Massage it in with your fingers. (Oh yes, please wash your hands and the parts of your arms that will touch the cabbage, if you are making a big batch. But don’t use antibacterial soap which will interfere with the fermentation process.) Slowly you will see a puddle of liquid polling at the bottom of the pool. Speaking of which, it’s quite therapeutic to massage the cabbage. *lol*
4. Taste the cabbage. If you feel that it’s not salty enough, add in more salt. If the brine is still very little, add in more salt and massage until there’s enough brine to cover the cabbage. If it’s already VERY salty but still not enough brine to cover the cabbage, you can add some lemon juice. If you have shredded your cabbage finely enough, you will usually have enough brine.
5. Grab the cabbage and start stuffing them down the fermentation jar. As you do that, use your stick or spoon to push the bits down to make sure there aren’t any air pockets. This stick that I bought from Daiso to roll my pastry dough is just nice for the job.
6. Once you have filled your jar, put your big cabbage leaf or leaves over them and press down so that all the bits remain below the brine. I use a clean glass jar, filled with water, to weigh down the leaves. I am buying some glass weights from Amazon. Hope they come soon! Then I capped it with my air lock lid. If you do not have this, you can cover it with a cloth and snap a rubberband over the opening. Or you can just cover the lid loosely over so that air can escape.
7. I put my precious jar in a dark corner of my kitchen. The best temperature for fermentation is between 20-24 degree C. So that the cabbage has time to ferment nicely and not turn out to be too tart.
How do you know if it’s done? Typically, it’s done if it reaches 4.6pH or lower. I keep a stack of ph paper at home to test for new ferments. Usually for old ferments, I would know the estimated amount of time. Alternatively, do the eye-taste-smell-touch test, which I usually do!
Eye – should look a little yellowish
Taste – nicely sour and a little picklelike (if there’s such a word), but not to the extent of becoming vinegar….
Smell – Sour
Touch – firm or slightly soft but not slimy. Slimy = bad news
Once you feel that the ferment is ready, you can bottle them and keep them in the fridge to hibernate the bacteria so that you can stop the fermentation process.
The best thing is – it puts good microbes into your body which boosts your immune system which is extremely important during times like this. Take that, Coronavirus!!! AND most importantly, you will have some food at home and you don’t have to fight with the long queues of hoarders at the supermarkets!! Right now, the supermarkets are the most dangerous places in Singapore – what with the long queues and close proximity to dunno-who-is-already-infected.
Besides, I’m trying to work in more fermented food into our diets as these prove to be beneficial to my 宝贝 who is battling the eczema monster!!
I just came back from my holiday (yet to put the photos together – will publish on my ailing travel blog when I get my act together, if ever…). During the trip, my travel mates were shocked to know that I ditched my kids in Singapore and came on a holiday without them and worse, one of them was having her exams while I was gallivanting in China.
“Huh! She’s having her exams and you are here? Don’t you need to be there with her?”
“For what? She’s the one taking the exams, not me! I can’t take her exams on her behalf leh!”
“To do last minute revision lah! To give moral support!!”
“Aiya, last minute revision no use wan lah… Already revised with her! Her fate is in her own hands!! Plus she doesn’t even like the taste of chicken essence… ”
Even during the “supposedly” revision period, she was happily playing with her brother at the playground with a few equally “bo chap” friends while her peers were caged up at home. Well, that’s provided that she’s finished whatever she was assigned to do.
Some parents argued that the pressure put on the students was exerted by the school, the society and well, they themselves and that they had no choice. I attended a camp by T. Harv Eker and this was something that he said, “Everyone has a choice, even at gunpoint. It’s just that some choices are more difficult to make than others, if a man points a gun at you and wants you to hand over your money, you have a choice. Either you hand over your money or you can choose not to hand it over and face the consequences.”
I believe that children take the cue from their parents. I admit that I am a very result driven person. I do try very hard to curb that instinct, whenever she presents me with her exam papers. Instead of focusing on the results, I am trying very hard (yes, trying extremely hard, I’m getting better at it now) to focus more on the process of learning, which I believe that once she acquires the skill, it will follow her through her entire life. Who even uses modelling schemes to calculate stuff when they are working? I used zero calculations that I learnt in Uni in the course of work (think triple integration… strength of materials.. duh!!), you just punch in a string of numbers and some software will automatically churn out the answers for you.
And, in the future, who knows what kind of new industries the world will have? Who’d ever thought that being a blogger, or influencer (not influenza) now would make a decent buck? My parents probably would have said, “Simi lai eh! Go and be a doctor/lawyer/engineer!!”
Yeah yeah, i know. Some of you are saying,” Hah! You are not at the PSLE stage yet! Now you yaya papaya!” Well, who knows. In 2 years’ time, I may sing a different tune when I come face to face with the terrifying PSLE! (According to 小小宝贝, it’s Please Stop Learning English… sigh. 😑). As of now, as long as she finishes whatever she’s supposed to do, she is free to explore activities that she loves doing. Right now, she’s crazy over table tennis, and her “aspiration” is to play table tennis with her equally table tennis frenzied friends everyday.
And if, she isn’t able to do the 3 difficult Maths questions during the PSLE, I just have to accept that she doesn’t belong to the top 1% of the brilliant kids who are meant to be mathematicians in future! I doubt it will traumatise her for life. I hope that my daughter is a lot more resilient than that! (Sorry, just can’t resist taking a swipe at the kiasu Mom who wrote an open letter to the MOE for traumatising her son because the Maths paper was too difficult. Being catty here! 😜)
Our favourite pastime is to play around with snapchat. So bimbotic! 😘😜
Parent Teacher Meeting…
All the usual niceties about him being a good boy in school (the teachers wouldn’t believe that he’s a tyrant at home. ?)
Teacher : By the way, is it possible to tell him to use other colours besides orange for his work?
Me : Oh, orange is his favourite colour. (Yes… for the longest time ever, orange as his fav colour seems to be sticking. His other colour fetish before orange)
Teacher : Yes, yes, we know. He uses orange colour pencils for writing and orange crayons for colouring everything. The problem is, other children (his gang of boys of whom he’s the Lao da) see him doing it and they are all doing the same thing… ??♀️ so… we are running out of orange pencils and crayons in the centre…
Me : ok… let me speak to him.. he likes red too. That’s his 2nd favourite colour!
Teacher : we know… that’s the 2nd colour running out…
Ooops!
