Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Today looks like any other day, until I received an email congratulating me on my 13 years’ anniversary. It’s been so crazy busy of late that I didn’t realise it’s 16th May today, a date I recall fondly every year as it marked the start of a long relationship with the bank and with my friends.  It’s surprising to many that I have lasted so long in my second job . After all, 3 years is about the average lifespan of a job in many industries. Well, guess I have had the good fortune of rotating across many departments and it just doesn’t feel that long when one is on different assignments every 2-3 years, working on different products with different people.  Not many people can confidently say that they love what do , but I’m glad to say that I mostly do.  I particularly enjoy the times where I get to create products or services from scratch , where nothing has existed prior to that. I started my first project with a digital in principle approval solution for mortgage 13 year...

Even before the talks of Smart Nation or a cashless society, I was already operating on less than $50 in cash per week for all my expenditure. Given my love for credit card rewards especially cash rebates and convenience, going cashless was a no brainer. I'm an early adopter of most new payment methods in Singapore. This is how I survive without cash most of the time. Going to work: Set up the VCashCard arrangement so as to avoid having insufficient credit when crossing the ERP.  Breakfast: use credit card pay wave to pay for breakfast ; this was superseded by Apple Pay after that was launched  Lunch: Pay my colleague via Paylah as she helps me tabao / pack lunch or we split the bill when eating out:  Return home: Book cab using Uber/ Grab , where payments are all made using credit card. If I take MRT / bus, I have my handy Citibank SMRT card with auto top up function so I will never run out of credits.  For all other payments to friends or family, there's FAST payme...

Last week was International Women's week. For the first time ever, I attended two programs organised by my company. One of the sessions was interesting as they invited female leaders in Singapore to share their views and tips. What I found particularly interesting were the following : - choose a right spouse , one who believes your career is as important as his (I guess it's too bad if you have already chosen.. haha). If you are still single , perhaps you can check this out :  https://hbr.org/2017/10/if-you-cant-find-a-spouse-who-supports-your-career-stay-single - don't lean out   Many a times women will not try for a job or take a job if they feel they only have 6 or of the 10 requirements checked.  However, a man will go for it even if they only have 6. In fact they may package themselves as a 12.  - you can be your own role model  Many a times, we look at the job ahead, we give it a miss as we do not want to travel so much, spend so many overtime hours as th...

I didn't  follow every single speech on the Budget ... but these are my impressions and questions in my mind thus far . I read that one of the main reasons is that we need to fund for an aging population, provide more for those with those needy ones etc  and one of the best means is to increase GST from 7 to 9% , timing to be confirmed.  Questions : - Have we done projections and simulations of what's the incremental taxes we can get via GST increase vs other taxation means like luxury taxes or estate duties ? I saw some statements that the rest are not practical or sufficient but can we see some numbers to confirm ? These are important enough decisions to warrant some careful computations.  - Assuming GST is the only means to reach the target, can GST be waived for certain daily necessities like rice , baby food, milk powder, education , self improvement courses etc. If we do not segregate , everyone gets hit , be it the rich, the middle class or the poor. And the p...

It was an early morning flight so I reached earlier and shopped a little. I had injured my wrist a few days ago and was looking for a pharmacy selling Tiger Balm or Salon Pas but couldn't locate but I found them in a souvenir shop instead. With advice from the friendly salesgirl, I was introduced to another local brand that is presumably more effective. Chatted with her a little and ended up buying. She asked if I'm Singaporean and I said yes. She's a little surprised and shared with me that the Singaporeans that she's come across tend to be a bit aloof or colder but I'm different (she's not local). So she now had a new view of Singaporeans. I told her that perhaps it's  due to the stressful pace of life and perhaps fatigue that everyone might have been a bit colder. ( I didn't tell her but I for one isn't the warm and fuzzy kind either. Some days I'm so tired I just don't want to chit chat) In any case, I thought I saw a glimmer of hope in h...

With 2 kids now, 2017 flew past just like this.  For this year, on the personal front, I'm thankful that I have kept up with my goals of doing yoga and blogging once a week and have   also sharpened the saw by completing three trainings - SEO, Adwords/Facebook marketing and also Cryptocurrency.  As for parenting, I have also read many articles and two books "The Whole Brain Child" and most recently "How to Talk so kids will Listen and How to Listen so kids will Talk". This , alongside reading children books modelling good behaviour , playing lots of board games and puzzles, music, sports, executive functioning skills training and journaling , is my comprehensive strategy to nurture my smart, strong willed and sometimes impulsive kid . While it's not perfect yet but there's certainly marked improvement in the last one year so we just gotta keep it up.  With Ah Pa's training , Cayen has also mastered Chinese Chess (the normal and the covered half board...