'New' Evening Routine

Last week, Mother steamed orh-kueh (yam kueh) and kim-guay kueh (pumpkin kueh). Both were so delicious that WY kept eating them during dinner and I had to stop him from over-eating! Even WF (who is usually quite picky with his food) asked to try these kuehs when he saw how WY was enthusiastically gobbling them up! Afterwards, WF gave them his "thumbs-up", too!

CP, on knowing that Mother had steamed these orh-kueh and kim-guay kueh (according to Mother, she had steamed the kuehs at CP's suggestion), also made an unscheduled trip back home to Mother's place for dinner after work that day.

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Since about a month ago, Mother has been helping to bring dinner in a tingkat to our place. I had requested this special arrangement because it makes logistics easier on our part.

Previously, we had to make a dash to Mother's place after picking WY & WF up from CH School, lugging everything with us, rush to scoop & get the food ready on the table while Mother got WY to shower and then showered WF. Then we had to clear the dishes & wash up (the washing was sometimes done by Mother) before we would have to rush back upstairs with everybody & everything again. It was super exhausting.

(rights of owner acknowledged)

It was also totally frustrating because after shower and dinner, WY & WF would tend to ask for some play time/tv time at Mother's place and refuse to 'get moving'. WF, especially, would hog the tv and keep asking Mother for biscuits + milo + yakult etc.

Now, Mother would usually bring the food up for us by about 7pm and so we get to go upstairs directly from the car. WY would help me to unpack the stuff to be washed (eg the school uniforms, water bottles, lunch boxes etc) and then go for his shower. At the same time, we would get WF's bath ready while WF 'chooses' the toy cars he wants to 'wash' for the day. Then between R and me, one (usually R) would bathe WF while the other (usually me) would wash the stuff and get the food ready.

So we can now, on average, have our dinner by about 7:45pm and finish and be ready to wash up by about 8:30pm. Review of WY's work will usually start about 30-45 minutes later. During this period, WY and WF will have their play time whilst R and I handle the dishwashing & laundry as fast we can. Sometimes, we manage to squeeze in our showers too.

When play time is up, WY and WF will be reminded to keep the mess of toys. Very often, we have to rely on the Brand's timer to 'buzz' them into action. On 'good days', they get moving quite quickly. On 'bad days', they would do so only when I start to raise my voice.

These days, we have started to assign 'work' to WF to do during the time WY reviews his homework with me. Sometimes, the 'work' is written work such as Maths or English or 写字练习 or colouring work. At other times, it is practising the Yamaha songs on the keyboard or completing the Yamaha homework or practising the 文化艺术团 work.

Our aims are two-fold: to get WF into the habit of doing some work (instead of spending his evening time only playing with toys or glued to the tv), and to appear to be 'fair' to both WY and WF (both have to do work - these days, WY tends to be ultra-concerned about 'fairness').

Sometimes R would accompany WF to do his work. If R does his own things, then WF would keep running to me in WY's room and ask for company.

It was very tough to totally ignore WF - it's not good to keep 'shooing' him away from WY's room. But it is almost impossible to deal with WY's work while also handling WF simlutaneously because WY would end up so distracted and the entire session would just go beyond our targeted end-time of 10:30pm.

Getting the boys to bed is no easier task. Both of these night-owls love to be in my room as they get changed and stay there till WY is finally 'shooed' to his own room at about 11pm.

WF usually asks to be read to after he has changed into his pyjamas and after he has downed his cup of milk. So once WY goes off to his own room, WF would move swiftly to our Library to pick out a short-story book for me to read to him. On most nights, I would oblige.

Recently, I have started to get him to read alternate pages of the chosen storybook. "Ok, we will take turns," WF would say. He can read quite well now although I still have to constantly remind him about clear diction and every now and then, correct his pronunciation. According to WF's CH School teacher, he can read quite well during class - the teacher gets the children to read their assigned readers to one another aloud.

When the reading is done and the story book kept, it will finally be lights off for WF and me. On 'easy days', this is about 11:30pm.

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For dinner, Mother usually needs to be reminded not to overcook (in terms of quantity) for us. On the day we had the yam kueh and the pumpkin kueh, the quantity was ok.

Just to complete the picture, these were what we had that day: