Recently, MOS Halimah Yacob's recommended that employers should provide off day every week for maids. This stirred some intense debate over the various platforms and forums especially by the employers. Our fellow church journalist friend was doing a follow up on this report and through our CGL, we seemed to be a good fit for his report. So, this time, the whole family is on the news - The New Paper except the lead is our dear helper, Tess. The full recount can be found here.

In summary, we do give our helper off days (either once or twice a mth) but we do not agree think it's necessary to lay the legislation of one off day per week. It depends on family situation, maid's attitude and many other factors.  I certainly cannot imagine how am I going to cope if my helper is given off day every week!

Sky dropped his first tooth on that fateful 23 Jun. And Shan happened to drop her 5th tooth at the same time. Talk about coincidences!

It's been some time since we last visited Science Centre. Actually not very long ago, we just visited Science Centre during last Dec but mainly for the CSI experience and Shan was not feeling very well that time and missed the water play. Since hols were ending soon, I thought it's a good to visit and let the kids enjoy the water play again.

First, the kids watched a fire tornado that was on exhibit. See how cool hot it is.

"wow" by the spiralling fire tower.




We toured around and went for a balloon science talk show.




Carried on with a IMAX show at Omni Theatre. Since Sky is so into dinosaurs, we chose to watch Sea Rex. To the kids' dismay, they did not get to enjoy water play again as by the time they finished watching the show at Omni Theatre, Daddy was already here to pick us up! Sky was grumbling throughout the journey!

Seth had been attending Shichida for a year already and he has been enjoying it to the bits. Along the learning journey, he acquired ESP, image training, linking memory skills and many more. He had come far from when he first started (when he was about 15mths) and he was then not able to sit still while teacher was doing flash card. After Term 1, he was able to sit still throughout the flashcard session. Term 3 onwards, he was able to remember and recognize some of the linking memory cards until at Term 4, he was mostly correct. I'm so proud of him!! There's one thing that remained unchanged though. From day 1, Seth simply do not want to sit by himself. So, he had been siting on my or Daddy's lap while attending lesson.

It was actually very sad to end his Shichida class and Teacher Marge too can't bear to see him go. However, Shichida's schedule kinda conflicts with Sky and Shan's schedule and their holidays break are always outside of the school's holidays. Hence, we decided that a year was good enough. Mummy would have to be more hardworking to flash to Seth and do some linking memory stuff at home then. Cross fingers!

Seth's two other classmates were absent that day :(  Seth with Jerraine and Katie

Of the many Saturday mornings, quite a number of them were spent in our nearby Multi Level carpark and to be more precise, 5th floor of the carpark.

Daddy made a pact that this year, he die die must make sure that Shan and Sky mastered the art of cycling! We failed last year and left it as that and only recently, Daddy decided the kids should re-learn this skill. And Viola, God prompted him that he could use the carpark as the learning ground since the 5th floor is rather unused. Perhaps, a year older, a year wiser and a year more steady for the kids, they picked up within two sessions of practice! Sky in fact picked up on the first session! Guess what, he consoled jie jie who was sulking away with these exact words "Jie Jie, it's ok, boys have better motor skills la" Made us burst out laughing.

Since both are now rather competent with cycling, Daddy bought a new 20in mountain bike as Shan seems to be too tall for the 14in bike. Daddy enjoyed riding the new bike too! He has used it a number of times to ferry Sky to his enrichment classes!





Whereas for Seth, it would be his workout aka running cum silly face making time!

Ok..it's been ages since i last toilet trained the elder 2 and I seriously was not sure how to start for Seth. Since he turned 2, I have attempted to toilet train him.

First attempt: Brought Seth to potty every 15 - 30 mins. Didn't work out as he resisted and ran away before i could pull down his pants!

Second attempt: Asked if he wants to go toilet and he often gave a outright "NO".

Third attempt: One fine day, he grabbed his "you know where" and whoosh, i quickly brought him to toilet. In a bid of time, i made him stand at the toilet and pee just like how his gor gor did. I guess I had not realised that he's actually tall enough (with some support from me and him tip-toeing) to stand in front of the toilet to pee. Now, this actually saved us time and effort to wash the potty! And, Seth must had suddenly felt like a little man and so proud that he could pee the way just like his gor gor does. Since then, it's a breeze.

At 2yo 3mths, Seth's toilet trained (day). Congrats, my ego young man!

We regularly hang out at Alice's place. While the adults fellowship and often look forward to a nice meal at the end of the day, the kids enjoy wii-ing, swiming and Seth's all time favourite actitivity,  feeding the fishes.