School Holidays are here!

After today, it'll officially be the start of the school holidays! I've got mixed feelings for the school holidays, especially for this year for the following reasons:

1. I'll have 3 noisy kids (in addition to princess Ash) at home creating havoc, testing boundaries and fighting over everything with each other.

2. We are now staying with in laws, so there's a unspoken rule that we need to try to spend more time at home now that the kids don't have to go to school.

3. Hubby will need to travel on and off, leaving us with in laws when he's away *gulp*, and which in laws will assume that we will be home more than ever :(

4. Kids will be pestering me to bring them out instead of staying home everyday, thus expenses will go up!

Of course, with the school holidays, I can be spending more time with them, and bringing them out for bookfairs, trips to library, taking breather out from home and we don't have to be tied down by the old routines of ferry and fetching from school etc. It'll be more relaxed for us with no timetable to follow and they can do their revision and holiday homework at a more leisure pace, taking the stress out of studying.

We are all looking forward to our year end Korea trip, where the boys will be able to experience cold and snow for the first time ever. Rather exciting for us as they've never see snow, and we've never tried skiing, which we will do in Korea! Of course now that the boys are older and more manageable, I might be able to squeeze in some shopping time :P which I've never done on the past trips LOL

Overall, it'll be a watchful holiday, and we are already feeling Christmasy!

One of those days..

It's amazing how kids know how to react when they are being reprimanded in the presence of their grandparents, and it's so frustrating how much the grandparents can go to "protect" them from being punished. Sigh...

My conclusion is that kids are great when they are not yours to discipline so they don't drive you up the wall. They'll be the cutest when you don't have to bother with the cleaning, feeding, soothing and disciplining - you only see from the side and get to play with them...once their terribles and horribles mode are activated, return to the owner and you'll be fine.

Ok, I guess this is one of those days when I wished I was single/carefree or simply married with no kids. My such moments will pass...till then....bear with me please!

As long as exams are over, school's considered out!

Finally the exams are over and results back. Hao did ok, though I was expecting a little more than what he got. I guess it's hard not to fall into the trap of looking and comparing results and class standings. I have to remind myself very much that I should be looking at how much he has improved, not just in terms of his studies but also overall attitude and how much independence he has gained over the past year and no longer rely on me much on his studies. I hate to be constantly on his back getting him to do his work and revision. It is good that he has improved in his command of languages, but careless mistakes are still there for maths paper. I guess for that, it's continuous practices and more effort in checking. Other than that, he has a good grasp of his school work and understands most of what teacher is teaching in class. It hit me that he's going to be in P3 next year! Sounds very grown up to me!

Perhaps for now, we should be looking forward to the school holidays, a lot of idling around and playing as well as our holiday in dec.