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Cayen first overnight camp

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I think I’m starting to have an inkling on what tough it will be to send my boys off to army in future. Sending him to a 4 night camp was already quite a daunting experience.  I was worried for him on so many fronts. How would he wake up in the morning if he couldn’t hear the alarm? How would he get along with three stranger roommates? How would he work in a big team for the hackathon when he’s amongst the youngest in the camp at 10 years (think the age range is from 10-18). How would he handle the laptop, iPad and iPhone without losing them? Would he know how to sign on to wifi? Lots of questions on my mind.  Well, here was how the days went last week :  Tuesday After our breakfast together, we went him off to D resort where all the kids will be staying. They will be ferried to NUS on a daily basis thereafter for their activities. I gave him a quick low down on how to use the phone and WhatsApp just in case since he doesn’t have a phone and only used it to play games.  Whilst waiting
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Cayen PTM

After the initial brush with some bullying in the initial months, there’s no news in the past few months except exams.  Cayen had his first exams and results were quite low even for his usual best subjects like Maths. I think it ranges from 50+ (English) to 80+ (Chinese ironically).  Hence, since I don’t really know how to system works , I asked the teachers if there’s some median or average class grade. And I tried to explain that I’m not kiasu parent but I just want to know how these marks stack up, because whilst it’s a bit low on the absolute front, I think it’s pretty ok if it’s average or median since the exams are different from the usual cirriculum and there’s no need for concern.  Teachers say that as long the kids meet the threshold of 70 marks, it’s considered passing. And anything less than that will mean that teachers will reach out to us more.  In class, he’s apparently a good learner who’s not afraid to ask questions though he can get distracted and fidgets with his penc
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0 to 6 weeks

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To be fair to Caylen, I should be documenting his growing up years like how I did for Cayen and Cayson as well. As such, I’m going to restart my writing engine during my maternity leave and hope to sustain as long as I can. In his first month, Caylen has already displayed his personality pretty obviously by making various grunting sounds to express his preferences. If he doesn’t want to drink milk anymore, he will make sounds or thrust the teat out of his mouth with a remarkable force for a 4-6 week old infant. From being scared of bathing, he’s also transitioned to enjoying his bathing routine after the initial few weeks.  The only thing that differentiated him from his elder brothers was his prolonged jaundice that lasted more than a month but glad that it has come down already.  At around week 5-6, he’s starting to also exercise his mouth muscles by smiling or making chuckling noises when he’s happy or amused. And I noted that the chuckles sounded different so I think he’s trying to
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Cayson PTM

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After 2 years of hiatus, we had our first in person PTM for Cayson last Sat. And perhaps it might be the second last or last PTM before he graduates into Primary school next year., As Cayson always speaks fondly of this one friend Im , and on occasion Ca and Cl, I was a bit worried if he has other friends too so I asked the teachers if there’s any concern about mixing and socialising in general. But thankfully both English and Chinese teachers confirmed that he’s a very amicable child who will get along well with friends and won’t fight or insist on his ways - he’s like a model student so there’s no concern.  However, because these few boys like similar toys and also are a bit more worldly in their conversation topics (I think they even talk a lil about Russia and Ukraine when I tried to probe) so they get along relatively well as they end up chatting non stop to the extent that sometimes teacher gotta separate Cayson and Im.  Cayson also continues to adopt a positive mindset to learni
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P4

It’s slightly over two weeks. Seems like he still hasn’t made friends in class yet (except for one girl who’s in the school bus) though he seemed to like his school bus friends as they are always joking around, with his first friend leading the pack sometimes. They even played games on the bus something similar to Cluedo / Amongst Us concept. However, sad news is that he  also learnt that his first friend is leaving the school bus by February and rejoining only next year as she’s taking public transport.  His lunch reportoire is still chicken rice with different sides every day though he managed to try croissants on Fridays after I told him about the cafe. His review of the new school overall is that the food is cheaper but smaller in serving. Guess this really speaks to his priorities.  He also learnt how to make a lantern using Ang Pow this week and he was quite pleased about it . He came home to make one more on his own.   He has just started his computer lessons in school but it’s
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P4 - 10th Jan

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After his Covid vaccination on Saturday, I was concerned about him forgetting and inadvertently running or participating in strenuous activities in school. So I reminded Ah Pa to remind teacher as he has PE lessons soon.  However, we understand from Chinese teacher that Cayen was very on the ball and had promptly informed the teacher of his condition and that he cannot exercise in the next two weeks. Teacher however told him to tell the PE teacher instead. I cannot tell if he’s responsible or trying to just skive and relax as a result of that.  Anyway, his canteen food today was chicken rice, egg and egg sandwich today. Again it’s because the queue was the shortest. I asked if he could walk faster so he could try other food but he said it was not possible as one teacher would lead them to their designated seat and another would release them into the queues. At the rate he’s going, I reckon he might be eating chicken rice forever.  Today his only friend was playing with another in the b
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Music and Maths

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Cayson has been taking online piano lessons and physical violin lessons. I think he has been observing for a while , before he couldn’t help but ask the question to Ah Pa yesterday, “When can I get the proper piano lessons?” Perhaps he has seen or heard about Cayen’s physical lessons and hence, he’s asking.  This little boy also seemed to have a knack for numbers. Ah Pa showed him this computation on his iPhone , and he was able to replicate it on his own thereafter. He was quite pleased about it and repeated it a few times using the calculator.  12345679 x 81  12345679 x 72  By the way, you can try this for other multiples of 9 too like 12345679 x 63, 54, 45, 36, 27, 18, 9 . 
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