peer assessment

]

It’s time for Day’s school’s outlandish school concert once more.

I only took three snaps (including the one above) though: The school hired a professional videographer and photographer and exhorted all the parents before the concert – akin to those “switch off your mobile phones” announcements – to NOT photograph or record the kids.

Because the ones in front will block all the rest from seeing anything, and if the younger kids saw their parents they would break down and start yelling to come off the stage. It’s a proven fish market.

So.

I made a huge discovery, though. Huge.

It was after the entire concert was over.

Walking towards the carpark with Day’s classmate and her father, I called out to Day to wait up for me.

Me: “David, stop!”
The Other Father (looking over to Day in front and peering at him): “Wait. That’s David?”
Me: “Er, yes.”
TOF: “Oh I see.”
Me: “See what?”
TOF: “My daughter always tells us David’s the good-looking one.”
Me: “WHAT?! YOU’RE KIDDING.”
TOF: “No I’m not kidding. She talks about her classmates. She always says David is the good-looking one.”

We always have labels for our friends, mean or otherwise. The brain, the nerd, the loser, the leader, the mouse.

Day’s got his first label and he’s the PRETTY FACE? Not that I mind, but my first thoughts are:

* I have never known what his peers think of him. This is the first time.
* Aren’t they a little young to form such opinions? Or am I a dinosaur?
* Does this mean Day has ideas about who pretty and who is not?
* My son is good-looking? Yes, objectively speaking, he has nice even features but a girl his age thinks he’s cute?

Oh, man. Oh, boy. Suddenly I have visions of him dating and I. Have. A. Great. Deal. Of. Trouble. With. That.

KK is tickled to the max and while it troubles me, that some girl thinks my boy is cute, it doesn’t trouble him.

KK says, sagely: “I would be worried if it were a boy who thinks he’s good-looking.”

flying high

Every time we head onto the ECP, every time we go up the Sheares Bridge, Dee goes: “Singapore Flyer! Singapore Flyer!”

So we went up the Singapore Flyer. I mean, it’s the sort of thing you’ve got to do at least (and probably at most) once.

It was perfectly pleasant. On a sunny Friday morning, we had the whole capsule to ourselves. There were no queues. We had to check in like we were checking into an airport – with a detection gate which “beeps” and our bags getting scanned.

And when you’re actually getting on it, you realize it’s moving faster than it appears to be (stationary) when you are looking at it from the ECP. We get onto a curved platform, which follows the curve of the Flyer, and sort of hop on as it’s moving.



Dee preferred to stick to her pram through half the ride. The other half, we played “Where’s The” games, mostly revolving around different coloured cars on the expressway. (“Where’s the red lorry?”)

She appeared not-too-impressed.



Day hung onto the earphones with commentary through half the ride, pressing buttons on the hand-held audio player and referring to a map which shows you what to look for. He was looking down most of the time, not outside.



Lu, she did her usual standing-up-against-the-seat routine.

KK was most enthusiastic. He gleefully pinned his eyes on his worksite, ooh-ing and aah-ing as we got higher and higher, taking lots of bird’s-eye view photos for his work.

I was most enthusiastic. Probably the most. I bounced from side to side, alternating between taking photos, playing “Where’s The” games with the kids and looking out at the incredible Gardens By The Bay / IR site straddling the expressway.

Mostly, I bugged KK with questions about his site. “Are those the earth mounds? What are those white pyramids with steps? Why is there a football field in the middle of the sea?”

The 30 minutes was over pretty soon. At $2 per minute (it cost us $60 to go up), it was alright. But never again.

If I may say, the kids seemed even more chuffed when we, lunching at Millenia Walk, brought them to the water floors. Which are free for use.

Lu was in seventh heaven, as we “walked” her on the slick tiles and let her sit down to pat the water. (yes possibly very dirty but that’s us)



Day ran all over the tiles, even as we yelled at him repeatedly not to as he might fall. Dee very carefully picked up her skirt and gingerly took a few token steps. She is very good at protecting herself, in more ways than one.

"drrrrrreeeee dollars"

bedtime

Once upon a time I insisted on 830pm bedtimes for the kids for their own good.

Now I insist on - well, not 830pm - but perhaps 9pm or 930pm bedtimes for the kids for MY own good.

Paradigm shift here.

I cannot live with allowing my kids to stay up till 11pm, even midnight, which is the case for lots of people I know.

It's not for their well being.

Most times I am tempted to just let them go to bed when they want to. It's so damn difficult putting Dee to sleep that most times I get so fed up I just want to let her go on and on and on. I know she can well sleep later than me. That's like 1 or 2 am.

Problem is, I cannot do a thing if they (specifically, she) is up.

If I wanted to go jogging, Dee would scream to follow me. If I wanted to sit at the computer and write my articles or liase with gig clients, Dee would insist on sitting on my lap and making me surf over to Youtube so she can watch The Wiggles.

She is Little Miss Sticky and if I have a particularly busy week with loads of things to do, I really want to pack her off early.

Is she sleepy? Probably. Lots of eye rubbing, yawning and crankiness. But she's a stubborn wench.

Day doesn't bother me at all, but Day is generally an early sleeper and early riser. Dee has the sleep patterns of a night-clubbing teen.

I wonder, for parents who let their kids who sleep really late, does the same happen to them? Are the kids trouble-free? Do the maids take over? Or even if the kids are sticky it doesn't matter because night-time (for working parents) is devoted to kids?

family day failure

I believe, amongst all the fantasies that parents have, is that of taking part in all sorts of fun and games with their offspring: Three-legged races, potato sack races, tug-of-war, soccer. It’s these lovely laughing Kodak moments that are frozen in memory.

The perfect opportunity came up when Day’s school organized a Healthy Family Day – a chance for all the school kids to come together, with their folks, for a fun day out at East Coast Park.

Lu, whom we brought along, was clearly going to be hanging along. Dee, our darling Madam Mope, I didn’t expect anything from her and true to form, she refused to come out of the pram.



But Day, it was his day to shine.

Instead, it poured.



He literally shed a downpour of tears, and in an uncharacteristic tantrum, stormed off and KK had to escort him home at the start of the games while I stayed back with Dee.

What happened?

I don’t quite know. It could be a lack of sleep, it could be that he scraped his knee early on. He started out cheerily chasing his classmates up and down the cycle tracks.



I would pinpoint the exact turning point to be when the kickboxing instructors – who had been invited to give a demonstration and lead some simple moves – asked everyone to get up and follow them.



KK got up and, like all the other parents, followed in the jump-shuffling. I don’t quite know how to describe the move, but I suspect the kids would find it hard to co-ordinate.

Day, who had enjoyed the demonstration, suddenly went into Distress mode. KK asked him nicely to give the steps a try, Day refused to.

The instructors took out padded cushions for the kids to try punching. Day refused to. Then he flat out burst into tears.

It could be – and KK might well disagree with me – that Day doesn’t want to let his papa down if he doesn’t perform well.

The rest of the morning, I gently nudged him to try the three-legged race with the rest of the papa-son teams. He refused. He plonked himself in Lu’s pram and flung the sarong over the pram so he was shielded from the rest of the world.

I said I’d go with him. He very petulantly shouted “O-KAY!!!”.

Then Dee started screaming. She would not let me go with Day. He, in tears, started screaming frantically that he wanted to go home.

I can’t quite remember the rest of the nightmare. Except that KK, carrying Lu, walked Day away from the fun and games and fetched him home. The boy missed his entire school telematch.

Fundamentally, we could not help being disappointed. All the other kids took part, none of them behaved the way Day did.

Of course we didn’t show our disappointment, though I did ask him when he was happier, why. He mumbled something to the effect of “Only one parent should be there, my two sisters should not be there,” something or other.

I stayed the rest of the morning with immobile Dee while I cheered on and took photos of other children and their parents.

A happier picture of Lu with Day's art teacher May (in sunglasses) and Teacher Carol, an ex-air stewardess who's decided she would rather clean out shitty diapers than serve asshole customers on board - something which she had done for (an incredible) 16 years.

jog

To recover myself post-kids, I jog.

The first time I perspired in a long long time – I think I started a couple of months ago – I was deliriously happy.

The next few weeks, I realized that the short little jogs bought me an extra hour or two of wakefulness each day. Energy boost.

Now, weekdays, I try to jog three times a week, 20 minutes each time, at 10pm when all 3 kids are down. Always the same circuit, I am not trying to take part in a marathon, I just want to sweat.

Weekends, I try very hard to swim once. I cycle to a friend’s condo and borrow the pool. It doesn’t always work because weekends always make a mess of routine.

What I’ve learnt:

* That exercise for me is only possible late at night. The tendency for mums to want to push their bedtime later and later (because that’s the only time they have for themselves) applies fully to me and I have tried – and found it impossible – to wake up at 6am. Not when I sleep at 1am or 2am the night before.

* That jogging is the only exercise I can afford. It’s short, it’s sharp, it’s effective. Ideally, I should hit the gym for resistance-type muscle and bone-building exercise. But would I be able to finish in 20 minutes? And would I be able to leave the kids at 10pm and be back by 1020pm? No way. Walking? No sweat, not in 20 minutes anyway.

Results:

* Loads more energy. I need that wakefulness, it’s marvelous what 20 minutes three times a week can do for one’s energy levels.

* I think I look skinnier, though my weight remains at 43kg. Jogging always has that effect. I HATE IT. But like I say, it’s the best I can do for now.

* I feel less brittle, less frail and stronger, like I have a stronger core. My back doesn’t ache, I have more stamina when I take the kids out and I generally feel very preppy – apart from the skinny-ness.

Ideal:

I am quite certain my ideal exercise is NOT jogging. Like I said, I should hit the gym with a personal trainer for resistance and bone-building exercises, with a tiny bit of cardio throw in, and some flexibility exercises like swimming / yoga / pilates.

To be frank, I feel best after I swim, completely refreshed.

My ideals, however, will have to wait for when … all the kids go to school? Good God.

* On that note, KK has stopped cycling. He couldn’t summon the energy to wake up at 6am. Now he calls going to the driving range “Exercise”. I can’t help but notice that his paunch and mine are the same size (but he hasn’t been pregnant 3 times).

8 months of lu

The sweetie turns 8 months today.

She has become - dare I say it? - easier.

Food-wise, she opens and swallows. It's a big deal. A bowl of porridge a day, with pork or chicken and any odd vegetable I find to throw in, she finishes it. Then a slice of fruit. I enjoy feeding her now. (But when it comes to feeding, ultimate honour still goes to baby Dee who would tip her head back and open her mouth like a gaping hole)

Sleep-wise, she is sort of easier to put to sleep, instead of screaming she is more willing to be soothed into slumber. Seems to have a bit more sense in her little head.

Play-wise, she is still very independent. In other words, can be ignored. She's doing this cruising thing, hanging on to the table, moving around, moving to the chair. I, er, largely ignore her even when she does this. I have permitted things into her mouth - balloon skins, paper, tissue - which everyone else tut-tuts over. Oh well, you're not the one who has to keep 24-hour watch so shut up.

Oh and she loves me, loves me, loves me. She's reached the stage whereby she'd have no one else in the whole wide world but me, a stage her sister is regrettably still stuck at. Meaning the girls fight endlessly for me the whole day.

I carry Lu, Dee screams. I put Lu down and pick Dee up, Lu screams.

On paper, it's really nice to be the centre of their world. I'll leave it at that.

family photo

Ah! Finally, a family photo.

It's the second one we have managed to take. The first being a photo taken by the newspaper photog, which accompanied the article I did, but Lulu can hardly been seen there.

Now she's clearly visible!

Here's me with Lu. Me very up, she very down and forlorn. She's severely sleep-deprived and our lugging her to Sentosa was just about the last straw.



The event: KK's ex-windsurfing buddy-turned-F16 fighter pilot friend Steven's wedding ceremony, at a very remote villa on Sentosa.

There, we met someone we last saw in Sydney: The gorgeous Stella! Whom I will always remember as the girl who first said Day looked like me.



She remembered the kid's names. I, with my poor mother's memory, could not remember hers.

One last note: Dee clung to the peanuts, holding an entire silver bowl captive, gleefully picking out the little golden pillows and chomping on them throughout the ceremony.

growing up... more

These days, my first-born is completely off my radar.

It’s not so much that I don’t have time for him; but even when I have, he would much rather do his own thing, be his own man.



Blogged about it before, but I think he's come even more into being his own, and that seems to be his primary development these past few months.

The easy times – when I would suggest something and he would gladly co-operate, when I would try to teach him something and he will enthusiastically absorb – are over.

If I told him: “Day, let’s do some painting!” or “Day, let’s make some Christmas cards for your friends!” or “Day, let’s read a Chinese book!” or “Day, let’s go for a walk!” he would probably say “Don’t want”.

Once upon a time, he would drop everything and set upon whatever interesting new activity I had lined up for him, with gusto. Not surprisingly, it’s plumb impossible for me to try to “teach” him Chinese now.

Even getting him to sit down for a spot of music practice - something I do with him when he comes home from school and for a grand total of about 3 minutes - is clearly a chore which he greets with sighs and a lot of “haiya” and “tsk” and exasperated “But I’m hungry! Can I eat something first? Can I play with my trains? Can I not practice?”

What he really loves to do (and which he does every day the entire day) is:

* Play with his Thomas train tracks
* Switch on the computer and surf Youtube for Thomas videos
* Pop a Thomas DVD into the player and watch more Thomas videos
* Pop into his grandparent’s room to see what they are watching on TV
* Grab my mobile phone and start typing SMS-es to KK or Kaofu Choon, or play mobile phone games
* Sit with his uncle (my brother) Teng as he plays endless computer games


* Photo taken in March, before Lu was born!

Is there a trend here? In his preferred activities?

At times, for all of about five minutes a day, I wish I had him for a little more. I recall halcyon days when we would do things together, make little crafts.

At others, which is the rest of the long day and when I am shagged out with the two girls, I am thankful he is so self-entertaining.

Generally, I don’t do ANYTHING with him the entire day.

He is also absorbing a lot more from his friends. Strange rebellious phrases like “Fine!” and “Suit yourself!”

And my, he seems to have completely shed off the baby fat. He is THIN. And, I think, a carbon copy of KK when the man was a child (only Day’s eyes are a little big bigger).



* On that note, I have to say the part of mothering which I so loved and which I thought I was best for – doing things with the kids, teaching them, stimulating them – is currently dead. Day is not interested, Dee is stubborn to a fault – she is not interested in anything I have to offer although I try, really hard. But Lu, perhaps down the line.

dee's art I

Since that lion-like creature, Dee's probably only drawn another 4 or 5 more times.

Not from lack of trying on my part; I constantly shove a piece of paper and black felt-tipped pen under her nose because I want to watch her drawing. It's fascinating watching - for me anyway - just that if she doesn't want to do anything, she won't do it.

Gripping the pen with her left hand, she puts pen to paper and she hardly lifts the pen. It just stays on the page, slowly creating lines - her pen probably moves at a rate of 3cm per second - and jerking now and then for strange aberrations.

She always seems to have a focal point. Like so (somewhere in the middle of the page):



Sometimes her lines don't cross. Sometimes they do. Whatever it is, in the randomness, she always seems to know exactly where she wants her pictures to end up.



Her face is a mask of concentration, but it takes very little to distract her.

Suddenly, after a squiggle, she throws down the pen and declares: I want to watch the Wiggles.

I chase her with the paper in a bid to get her to finish it but she won't have any of it.

Sometimes, she decides after she finishes that she wants to make a (lopsided) paper plane out of it and nothing I say will dissuade her.

Sometimes, she senses my watching her. She throws down the pen and stares at me: "Mummy why are you watching me?"

Nowadays I pretend to be doing something else as she draws. Her output is still dismal, but I love her artistry, if that's what it is. To be frank, I don't think she even likes drawing.

Does it say anything about her? I don't know.

* That she creates chaos around her but is dead focused on what she wants?
* That she wants absolute and total control?
* That she defies convention?

Whatever it is, I haven't had a glimpse of any stick figure with face eyes and mouth, the normal stuff which kids draw. I haven't had a glimpse of anything the faintest bit realistic. Not that I'm worried.

anne ying

This is my friend Alicia's baby, Anne Ying. Anne is pronounced Ahn. She is about to be six months old and is totally squeal-worthy.

Thought 1: I really should have married an ang-moh. (Same thought goes through my head everytime I see a mixed child) There must be a Caucasian out there with the exact same set of peculiarities, eccentricities and smell (very important, this) as KK.

Thought 2: From nodding off on the same school bus (aged 10) to slumber parties to attending "functions" (God) to talking motherhood and breastfeeding, it's been a long way.



* Alicia's gorgeous nursing top, by the way, is from Dote Studio. Our classmate's creation.

state of health

The same flu… and how we are all affected differently.

DAY brings back a bug from school, maybe last Thursday or Friday thereabouts. He has a mild runny nose. Very mild. He is not affected in the least, carrying on his usual activities, sleeping his usual hours. The mucus is clear, runny and is copious, often covering his upper lip in a fine sheen. But he completely ignores it. No medication, he recovers.

DEE gets it sometime over the weekend. She has exactly the same mild runny nose. She is her usual crotchety self, no worse than usual. And as usual, she doesn’t want to sleep, carrying on like a jumping bean well past her 830pm bedtime. She has the same fine sheen of mucus covering her upper lip. She screams for me to wipe it off, but other than finding it conceptually disgusting, it doesn’t affect her. No medication, she recovers.

ME, I get it also sometime over the weekend. It knocks me out, I am horribly tired and I nap two or three times in the day. I sleep at 10pm. My head is heavy, my throat is itchy, my eyes are runny and my nose runs, just like the kids, only it bothers me. From clear mucus – I seem to have far more of it than the kids (maybe because I blow my nose?) and I seem to sneeze far more – it becomes a thick yellow. Work takes a backseat, I feel horribly decrepit. No medication, I recover too, albeit a day longer than the kids.

LU, she gets it Monday. It starts with the fine sheen of mucus covering her upper lip. More and more of it appears. Monday night she gets a rather high fever. Tuesday, the fever disappears altogether. But the mucus is thick, yellowish and sometimes green. It clogs her nose completely, she cannot sleep for more than 30 minutes at a shot. She is rather miserable.

I am not going to bring her to a paed and fork out a fortune in consultation just so he can give her a stupid useless nose spray, when there is absolutely nothing the matter with her except a blocked nose.

The neighbour teaches me a very effective nose clearance method, which she had learnt from a nurse. Insert cotton buds into the bub’s nostrils...



...and twirl out the mucus strands, sort of like what we do when we eat spaghetti.



Short of putting my mouth over Lu’s nose and sucking – which I have heard so much about (it’s the most effective apparently) – the cotton bud method’s next best. Also no medication, though I have to see how she does tomorrow. I suspect she’ll be fine. Right now, the mucus storm seems to have blown over. Her nose is relatively clear.

KK? Have I mentioned the man NEVER falls sick?

* Day, by the way, denies all responsibility for the bug - "No, no no! It wasn't me! It was you!" He insists the germ came from me because my nose got stuffy first. Right.

lu 7

Finally, Nene struck Gold with Grandchild #3.

Nene is my mother-in-law, the kid’s grandma.

Nene, a simple homebody who has done nothing but happily care for her family since she got married, relishes her grandchildren.

However, Day, from month 6 thereabouts, hated her.

Hate meaning whenever she carried him, he would scream, arch his back, lunge downwards and she would pretty much have to leave the flat and bring him around the void deck to distract him from the fact that she was carrying him.

Dee was exactly the same. Somewhat worse, perhaps, since her screaming is a few notches louder than Day’s and she is a few notches more stubborn.

KK always used to say: My mum doesn’t know how to handle the kids.

However, Lu, sweet Lu, is different. She takes to her Nene. (keeping fingers crossed that this affinity remains)



She lets Nene carry her, laughs at all of Nene’s faces, and Nene is the best person to feed Lu in the whole world.

Lu eats whole big bowls of porridge in Nene’s arms.

I imagine if I didn’t have Lu, Nene would have 2 grandchildren who really don’t like her very much.

Anyway, to end my series on Lu, here she is with her sibs - AGAIN. I like taking the trio.

lu 6

She doesn't have much of a routine still. She sleeps, doesn't sleep, sleeps, doesn't sleep. It's hard to tell.

But typically - maybe 3 or 4 days in a week - her day goes like so.

0730
Rise and shine! Papa carries her downstairs where Gina our helper takes her. I - having slept about 1 or 2am the night before (from work) - am still snoozing.
Lu potters around on her mat.

0830
Gina puts her back to bed.

0930
She wakes up. I breastfeed her. I give her little pieces of bread to chew. I play with her, read her some books, sing some songs, tickle her. Mornings, I am still in a good mood so I engage her as much as I can.

1200
Lu is cranky. I am cranky. Dee is cranky.
I have my lunch, Gina takes over as I eat. Lu drops off to sleep in her arms.
Gina naps with Lu.

1430
Lu wakes up nice and happy. I play with her, let her "walk" around the house by holding her up by her armpits as she wanders from station to station.

1500
I feed her the porridge I cooked earlier. She eats much better now, ever since I added pork into her porridge. I feed her half the porridge, eat the other half, feed her some fruit, give her some water.
She pretty much plays on her own as my mood nosedives in the afternoon.
She plays with her siblings when they wake up.
If I bring the trio out, it's during this time, between 3pm and 6pm.

1800
Lu is super cranky. I am super cranky (and hungry).
I give her a shower in the bathtub.

1830
Dinner time. I hand her off to Gina so I can eat. Lu falls asleep in Gina's arms.

1930
She wakes up again. This time KK is around. He hugs her, carries her, plays with her.

2030
I feed Lu. KK puts her to sleep in his arms.

The rest of the night she wakes up several times. I forget, I am barely conscious.

Weekends the entire routine flies out of the window.

lu 5

While Lu is awake, half the time she's in my arms. Or the maid's.

The other half, she is mostly self-entertaining. Because that's what we mostly do with her the moment she could sit. Pop her down somewhere and leave her to her own devices.



She sits, does a lot of banging with whatever is within reach, crawls around (she crawls around on one knee and one foot), looks for vertical surfaces, pulls herself up, stands, and stands for a long time.

At the moment, the standing keeps her occupied for the longest time.



But I like. That she can keep herself occupied. I mostly do Dee while I leave Lu to her own devices.

I think it's more a product of nurture (even if she yelps now and then we ignore her) than nature.

Day, for instance, could never play alone. He constantly needed attention and people to play with him every minute he was awake.

Anyway, here's looking at you, babe!

lu 4

The girls have been fighting.

Two or three weeks ago, it started.

Lu spotted Dee chomping on her peanut-butter bread, crawled towards it, put her hand on her sister’s thigh. Dee pushed her off, squealing “I don’t want Lulu to eat my bread!” Up to this point, nothing is new.

That day, however, Lu fought back. She attacked her sister with renewed vigour, squealing. My jaw dropped.

And when Dee ran off, she started yelling for the lost bread.

Now the girls fight. Not much, maybe once or twice every morning. Lulu has a tendency to go for whatever Dee is holding / playing / eating.



Dee – unlike tolerant Day – is not nice to her sister. She kicks, she pushes, she shoves. Like so.



Lu has landed on her face before - on the marble floor - when Dee pushed her arms in so there was nothing holding her up.

Lulu gets terrifically upset, waving her arms and yelling “Eh! Eh! Eh!” (not crying, but yelling) after her sister.

Dee usually squeals: “I don’t want Lulu to eat my toy!” or “I don’t want Lulu to eat me! Yee, no no no!”

Sometimes I want to laugh. It’s retribution for Dee. Her buay-song "this is what I have to live with?" expression.



At other times, I want to cry. Now I can just pick Lu up and put her elsewhere, by the time she crawls over she has forgotten what she wants. But when she starts to walk? Or when she (shivers) becomes more stubborn?

So now, I break up Dee/Lu fights in the morning, and three-corner Day/Dee/Lu fights in the afternoon. Wonderful.

lu 3

Less about Lu than her sibs. Well but this is why they get most of the attention.

I put the baby in a gorgeous bohemian dress which I love love love - thanks to Deb for the dress!

I try to take a picture of her. Try being the operative word.

Day and Dee jump into the frame, clamouring "Take me! Take me!"



I oblige. At least Lu's head is in the back. I ask them to move out of the way.

They strike another pose. "L, L, L!" they squeal, tongues wagging.



Finally I get a picture of the reticent shiny-headed star.

lu 2

A quartet of teeth!

lu 1

A 7-day series dedicated to Lu.

Who benignly exists in the shadow of her exciting brother and even more exciting sister, but who fully deserves her time in the sun.



Any opportunity she gets to be up and about past 8pm - meaning we succumb to her cooing and standing up in the dark and switch on the light instead of ignoring her completely - she grabs.

She stands, she squeals, she sees.

She sees KK's cheese sandwich.

She gets very excited about all sorts of bread. She eyes it longingly.



KK breaks off a piece and drops it in her open mouth.

night on the beach

A family outing with KK’s friends is always far more pleasant than a family outing with my friends.

Because I genuinely enjoy his friends. He seldom enjoys mine, he's such a hermit, and it’s a matter of dragging his sorry ass there just so he can help with the kids.

Then I end up feeling so sorry for him because he's Mr Mope and I don't enjoy myself either.

Outings with his friends, unfortunately, are few and far between. Like I said, hermit.

But we just had an enjoyable one, with his ex-windsurfing buddies - Chong, Chuan and Yujiro - and their families.

From meeting, bonding and spending entire weekends on the beach waiting for the fickle wind over a decade ago (I was then a windsurfing widow), all the guys have gone on to… golf. (Now I am a golf widow). Bleah.

The place was a two-day-old pizza / tacos / fajitas restaurant at their old windsurfing haunt, the PA Sailing Club, called eltoro or etoro, something or other.

There's Day and Dee in matching blue (Dee insisted on changing out of her white dress to match her brother) on bar stools admiring the games machine.



Interesting place, this one. No restaurant at the PA Sailing Club (apart from the pioneer Malay auntie selling potato and sardine curry puffs and canned drinks who, in my opinion, was the best) has lasted more than a year but it’s really genuinely a nice spot.

Right by the beach with balmy breezes and romantic tealights, the pizza was wafer-thin and crispy, the décor was white-washed wood and chiffon-light curtains and there was even a rather good guitar-and-drums live band which Dee was captivated with. She sat still as a statue.



As one of the guys aptly put it: Better enjoy the place before it closes down.