Money

Lucas received a Ben10 wallet as gift last Christmas. This Chinese New Year, with the angpows money, he started keeping money in his wallet i.e. his winnings from playing Black Jack. Recently, he has upgraded himself to money changer. For the past two weeks, he has been into money. First was asking for the new Malaysia currency notes. I had to go to real money changer to exchange some new notes for him. And now he is collecting foreign currencies! He knew we had some foreign currency in the drawer. Everyday he will come to me and said something like:

Lucas: Mom, I give you 2 10 ringgit notes and 1 20 ringgit note and you give me 1 10 euro note and 1 1 ringgit. (He even know the exchange rate).

Lucas: Mom, I gave you 1 50 ringgit note and you give me 1 10 pound note.

He has exchange everyday and honestly, I wasn't listening after a while. He will put his money into my wallet and I will just asked, "How much do I have to give you?". I trusted him being honest and had the exchange rate right.

His goal now is to have 1 100 euro note and he is short of 30 ringgit. He asked if he could have 30 ringgit and I said no. I told him he has to work and earn it. Yesterday, he asked,
Lucas: If I clean the playroom properly, how much will you give me?
or
Lucas: If I clean the whole house and mop the floor, how much will you give me?

My mother in law said Dominic was the same when he was young, Like father like son!!

To work or not to work??

My maid's contract is ending April 2013 and she is not extending. Her reason was her husband has found a job and she need to take care of her daughter while the husband is working. She helps me take care of my kids when I am not at home or while I work from home. With her, I can have a job. Now that she is going to be gone, I'm not sure what should I do. My dilemma - should I get another maid and continue working fulltime or just quit working and take care of the kids myself?

My kids only have 6 waking hours at home on weekdays. Lucas gets home at 2.30pm and sleeps at 8.30pm. I don't really want to waste their growing up years busy myself with work. I want to be able to spend some time with them. They grow fast.

On the other hand, I want to have some adult intellectual talk and use my brain a bit differently. And having 2 incomes does help - hopefully Dominic and I don't have to slave until we are in our 60s.

What should I do? Not get a maid replacement and see what kind of part time job I can find?

First Three Weeks

Lucas and Chloe are now in the same school, five minutes drive from the house. Lucas starts at 7.40am and Chloe starts at 8.30am. Lucas finishes at 2pm and Chloe finishes at 1.15pm. Sometimes I send them on separate trips and sometimes together. I have prepared them and it seems to be working out well. During school holiday, I kept reminding Lucas he has to sleep an hour earlier as he has to wake up an hour earlier. It worked thus far. The kids are ready in bed by 7.30pm and asleep by 8.30pm. I have to move their schedule forward, playground time is earlier and dinner time is earlier.

The first 3 weeks for Lucas was a mixture of feeling bored, anxious and excitement. He is bored as he said the school work,especially Math is too easy. Today, he told his teacher to give him something difficult and the teacher gave him Year 3 Math. Lucas is in Year 1. Lucas then get a bit excited saying it is very difficult and his face was grinning when he said that. Guess he needs to do something he doesn't know to excite him. His classroom is in a new building and that building is huge compared to previous year. He is anxious and sometimes not too sure where to go for assembly and canteen. Every morning, he insists that I walk with him to his class, and then walk with him to the assembly. His teacher will then walk them to the classroom. I decided to let him take his time until he is comfortable to walk on his own.

Chloe meanwhile was sick for half of the 3 weeks. She caught a very bad bug on the second week and had been missing school for a few days. She is sick again this week. She did not cry on the first week. On the second week, after she returned from her sick days, she wailed when I left her classroom. She clamped to me like a crab. Third week was good. She was actually very happy and asked me not to go inside her classroom. She is always excited after school telling me what she had for breakfast and lunch in school, and what did she do.

For me, I have to wake up and hour earlier. Get myself ready and then wake the kids up. At days when I had to work late, it is hard to get up. Well, I better get used to it. It will be like this for the next 12 years!

London

This post is very late, but better than never.
We managed to snugged out for a few days in London without Lucas & Chloe. The grandparents were busy entertaining them while we were away.
In London, everything was good except for the weather.We managed to do all the things we planned to do and even did some shopping and eating out.
We were at Harrods and Selfridges. We were at Mark & Spencer. We were at Russell & Broomley. In another word, we had our shopping list.
We ate at Harrods Food Hall, a nice Indian restaurant, English pubs and grabbed sandwiches from Mark & Spencer and cafes. We ate all the food we wanted to eat without thinking too much about the money. After all, it is rare to get a chance to eat the food of our choices.
We watched a play and visited a friend and collected our wedding gift.
New places I've visited this time - Oxford, Portobello Market, Regent Canal and Paddington area.
We flew First Class to London on Airbus 380 and we flew Business Class back to KL on Airbus A380. Sheer luxury and pampering and now, let's get back to reality - work and kids. Holiday's over!

First class - Dom Perignon and lobster.

Dominic's suite in A380.

Yes, oyster, caviar and salmon.

That's my oyster. It was delicious.

One of our nice shoot.

We visited Dominic's college. In the background was used to be his dormitory.

Dominic's college Dining Hall a.k.a. Harry Porter's Dining Hall.

Simple ribeye and tomatoes from Harrod - sooo good.

Another of our nice shoot. We arrived on Paralympic Opening day.