Trying to Teach

Updates about my attempts to have more learning time with the boys:

Today is the third day and I think these two days have gone pretty well : )

On Tuesday afternoon, the boys woke up at 4.30pm, and we read many books together for more than an hour! No, I don't force them to read books... they are free to go off to play with their toys or run around anytime they want to. But they chose to stay for the books. I guess I am quite a good storyteller after all! : )

Yesterday morning, I brought them to the playground downstairs. Things didn't really go as planned though, oops. Wanted to leave the house by 8am but we only managed to go down at 8.15am. Because Jiale didn't want to go to the playground! He said he wanted to play with his trains instead : ( Oh dear oh dear, is it because we haven't gone to the playground for too long? Or is it because our routines etc have somehow made him into a homebody? After some coaxing, finally got him to go downstairs willingly - told him he could let his cars go down the slides :P

The boys had fun playing... for a while.. Less than an hour later, Jiale said he wanted to go home..... : / Haii, I rushed and rushed to get them fed and ready to go to playground, planning to stay outdoors for about two hours until it got too hot... But but but... we have our plans and they have their own plans.....

So we went back upstairs and luckily, it was another good day for books : ) So we read and read until it was time for lunch, and then we continued reading after their nap, with a few pockets of train play (what else?) in between.

Today I decided it was time for more of the great outdoors. So we got a ride from Daddy to East Coast Park early in the morning. After breakfast at McDonalds, we began our Long March to Polliwogs. (Need some indoor playground time cos it would be too hot outside by 10am+) The walk took longer than I expected, good thing Jiale was very well-behaved (as usual!) and never once complained about being tired or hot.. though he did ask quite a few times 'playground where?' and commented 'playground 不晒, here 晒'. Didi also exceeded my expectations by walking for 40 minutes! :D When we reached Polliwogs, the not-tired (???!!) boys went crazy and zoomed around in the playground for 3 hours! I felt tired just looking at them!

All in all, I am feeling much better about what we are doing together. Seems that we are at least spending our time together more constructively. I don't have any ambitious plans for now, just hope to really spend time being present, being with them. Other than the first 3-4 months of my pregnancy when I was feeling so crappy and bone-tired, there was no good reason why each day seemed to be just passing us by. Now, I am more motivated and more disciplined - it's more stressful cos I have to be more organized and more 'on-task' but it's not too difficult. Mainly, I think it's the feeling of not having much time left... only about 3 more months before Meimei arrives and my days will be thrown into a frenzy again.... So I really need to make good use of this time! Who knows when I will be able to really spend time with the boys after Meimei's arrival!


[From experience, the first two months are really crazy. Then it will be another 16 months before things really become much more relaxing.. like now! hee hee. But I really don't want to be 'neglecting the boys for 18 months!!]