school holidays

It's school holidays now, and I find myself often spending a full day at home with the children. They play by themselves now and rarely interrupt me while I work. I also don't need to worry about fetching them from school, just need to make sure we eat lunch. Chen Rui is taking fewer afternoon naps now. She has enough energy to play the whole day. The children help themselves to their toys, and only Chen Rui sometimes asks for help because she can't reach a certain box or container.

I realise that I have stopped telling them bedtime stories. I have run out of ideas, and after a while they have stopped asking. Also now I don't need to accompany them when they go to bed. They are becoming more independent.

17 Nov 2011. Shee Yun playing with Michelle's pillow.

Chen Rui pretending to ride a horse.

If I remember correctly, this is an Ikea pillow case that we brought back from Taiwan.

Chen Rui is still not eating proper meals. For a while she used to eat plain rice with tomato sauce, but she doesn't want that now. Now Michelle is trying to get her to eat meehoon as her proper meal. This started when we had 斗湖生肉面 (in Tawau, of course). Chen Rui liked it. Chen Rui also likes the kuey-teow in soup at Old Town Kopitiam. She sometimes eats chicken nuggets (protein) now, but still not yet other types of meat.

The children still usually eat at their own child tables, often watching TV while they eat. I think Shee Yun is old enough and tall enough to eat at the dining table, but we have not switched to that yet. In KK she usually does eat with the adults at the dining table, and sometimes Chen Rui too.

Shee Yun thinks it is a little shameful that she is still using the milk bottle for drinking milk. When in KK, she seemed to want to avoid letting Ma know that she is still using the milk bottle. We have not really tried to get the children to switch to using mugs for their milk. Using milk bottles is actually quite troublesome - much more troublesome to wash, and to sterilise using hot water. I think we are so used to it that we forget to switch away from it.