Monday, March 24, 2014

Weekends at our house

We've been very busy lately. March has been an eventful month for our little family, full of big and small events. Ryan has been attending a birthday party almost every weekend and his work schedule was also fairly busy. Babydoll has been having an exciting month too - she's had a few interesting experiences.



Since the start of this year, we've had a new weekend routine. On Saturday mornings, babydoll goes for her Bilingual Playclub class at Julia Gabriel, which is two hours long. Richard usually accompanies her while I stay with Ryan. The two littles have Shichida in the afternoon so if Ryan has a linking memory test or poem recitation that day, I will spend about ten to fifteen minutes practising with him before we go outdoors to play (Rachel has nothing to prepare). I might also take some time to tidy the house, while Ryan works on some of his own projects. I usually rush through all this because I want to get to the part that both of us look forward to - getting outdoors!




We spend most of the two hours outdoors and that is the best part of those two hours. Actually one of my resolutions for 2014 is to spend more time outdoors so this is a perfect pocket of time to do it. I treasure this time with Ryan very much. We take his kick scooter out and head for either the beach or the playground. He is always happy and we always have a great time chatting and connecting.



Sometimes Ryan and I will eat lunch on our own before Richard and babydoll get out of class. Otherwise, we all eat together at home. After lunch, Ryan will have a shower while babydoll goes down for her nap. We all leave for Shichida together around 1 pm. The rest of Saturday is free and we usually spend it splashing about in our new and *very tiny* swimming pool.




On Sunday, we all go out for breakfast (usually prata) before Ryan's swimming class in the morning. When he's in the pool, either Richard or I will bring babydoll somewhere. The first time, I brought her to the Botanic Gardens while Richard stayed poolside. Since then, Richard has been her companion and they usually visit the art museums or art galleries around Dempsey Hill. The rest of Sunday is free.




We switched the kids over to the Shichida branch at Toa Payoh this term. At the Springleaf branch, they were closing Ryan's class (there were going to be less than four students in the class) and they were also going to change the teacher for Rachel's class, so we took the opportunity to get them into matching time slots which, as it turned out, was only possible at Toa Payoh. It's a little further for us to get to Toa Payoh but having the two kids go into class at the same time is such a time-saver and parking is so convenient. The disadvantage of having matching time slots is that, when one of the parents can't make it, then both of the kids can't go for class. This happened a few times when Richard had to take a meeting on Saturday. We skipped class and I stayed home with the two littles.


For next term, our schedule will change again, as Ryan's Shichida class is, again, closing. We've switched the two kids over to Sunday afternoon in matching time slots, still at Toa Payoh. Actually, I wanted to withdraw babydoll from the programme but the school said that it was too late into the term and I would have to forfeit my deposit if I withdrew her then. Since we'd already signed Ryan up for next term, we decided to let babydoll continue as well. I'll share my reasons and thoughts on withdrawing from the programme another time.

So I hope you enjoyed this peek into our weekend routine. All the photos were shot during Mama-and-Ryan time on Saturday mornings over the last few months.




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