Forty two

 又过了一年了。

Every year, I make it a point to write a reflection post as I turn older to remind myself of the things I've achieved, the dreams I've yet to fulfill, the simple joys I find in life and how I am truly blessed to be loved.

So I turned 42 in April and although I still have my battles to face each day, I feel truly happy. The thing about having four kids is that you realise no matter how hard you try as a parent, some things will always go wrong and instead of always trying to fix it when it can't be fixed, you just gotta accept it.

I think I've become more chill over the years but that took a lot of trying, falling, crying, learning and letting go that can only be done with time and experience. For instance, I am more relaxed with bedtime, screen time and splitting the family up when we head out these days.

On the other hand, it's a constant struggle trying to inculcate morals and values in the kids while keeping up with the Gen Alpha lingo, mindsets and behaviour. But there are also things that I will not compromise on, like saying vulgar language, violence and lying, these are forbidden at home though obviously the kids will always find loopholes and break the 'rules'.

One big challenge of 2025 was the big girl having to go through 'O' Levels. You know, I think I would be perfectly fine if I had a kid who was not academically inclined but had already put her best foot forward and did her best.

But on the contrary, I have a kid who is a high flyer in primary school and lower secondary but ends up losing motivation to study, finds revision and exams pointless, and decides to dedicate her free time to social media instead. It's such a struggle trying to talk reasonably and influence mindsets at this age because for one, you can't use force. Secondly, teens have a mind of their own and listen to no one. Thirdly, you wanna handle the whole situation delicately and not ruin the parent-child relationship.

So all I can do is keep reminding, or mostly nag, but in the end, what happens is her choice. I can't study for her, I can't force her to read her books or do ten year series, I can only do my best like wake her up for school and exams, make sure she is eating well, and let her sleep in on weekends since she is even more of a night owl than me.

Anyway, despite this being an important exam year, I still want us to find time to hang out together, play, exercise, try something new and spend lots of family time together. On the day of my birthday, the girls and I did something fun and that was going for a mum-and-daughters spinning session, woohoo! I started spinning at the end of 2024 and I am glad that I've been keeping it up regularly.

When I was told that I could bring my teenager daughters along, I jumped at the chance and guess what? We didn't just do it once, we've been to around a dozen sessions together already since then and I am just thankful that it wasn't a one-off thing. One of my resolutions last year was to find time to work out more, be fitter and feel stronger. And yes, I did it.

If you know me long enough, you will know that I've always loved crafting and creating things with my hands. Over the decades, I've bought a sewing machine and tried sewing, I made earrings and bracelets using beads, I did lots of friendship bands and cross stitch bookmarks, I used pearls to make personalised portraits of the kids, in addition to keychains, photo frames, self designed calendars, DIY cards and more. 

The thing is, as I grew older, I had less time and less motivation to pick up my stash and do something new. I wanted to change all of that as I turned a year older and so in the last few months, I dug through my craft supplies, went to Spotlight and Popular to get new ones and starting making once more.

I rekindled my love for crocheting and did these amigurumi aniamls for the kids, including a cute penguin for the youngest whose favourite colour is blue, a snake as a good luck charm for the big sister and a parrot for the korkor who specifically asked for this animal. As for Ariel, she is like me when it comes to crafting so she also took up crochet needles and made her own amigurumi gifts for her friends too. Awesome, my love!

I also made my first ever beanie and that was a birthday present for the big sister as we celebrated the end of 'O' Levels last year. It might be a very simple crochet pattern but it took me long to do and I hope it spokes volumes of love. She has always loved beanies so I hope this would be one that bears a special significance to her.

Besides crocheting, I also used pipe cleaners to make tulips and created a beautiful DIY bouquet, at least to me, to present to the eldest at her Secondary 4 graduation ceremony. Being the Stray Kids ardent fan she is, I know she would be thrilled to get a Puppy M plushie so I got it for her too and added it in the bouquet, along with a personalised printed card. Many parents brought store-bought bouquets but mine was the only DIY one I saw that day, and it made me beam. Plus, I realised that I'm probably one of the parents who has the most free time on my hands, haha.

It's a huge milestone to be graduating from Secondary School after four long, tough years but I'm so glad and thankful that she made it and that the hubby and I were there to support her from far on her special day. Please know that despite all the disagreements we've had in the past four years, we are so very proud of you, my dear Angel.

Every Children's Day, I will do something handmade for the kids and this year, I used these Dala horse mirrors I got from IKEA over a decade ago to turn them into cards and decorated them with sequins and personalised names. Looks not bad, right?

Since the kids do not go to tuition classes yet, I try my best to teach them whenever I can. It's hard because time is so limited and I hardly have any one-on-one time with each of them, but we do what we can. We started having group study sessions too where the two middle children will do their homework and revision, the youngest will do drawing and colouring, and I will be there to help whoever needs me. Where's the eldest? Well, usually sleeping, haha, I told you she doesn't have any motivation to study but life still goes on for the rest of us.

If I can, I will choose to be an adventurous mum forever and still try out new experiences with the kids in my old age. Anyway, we still hang out quite a lot outdoors and it's nice to know that all four of them still like to go out together, even if it's something as simple as having an ice cream cone together.

Nature is a big part of our life and we still try to go to parks and beaches whenever we can. This year, I've been trying to run more and besides taking part in family runs, we also take some weekends off to go running together. It's hard for me because I don't actually like to run and my stamina is bad, but seeing how my girls are both in track as their second CCA, I wanna try to keep up with them and at least be able to go for a jog together and not give up after merely 2km. We'll get better if we keep practising, right?

Home cooked meals are still part and parcel of our lives and I want the kids to always remember how simple dishes can be delicious and filled with love too. It's also fun when we let them join in the action, like how they love to use bread, ham, pineapples, tomatoes, mushrooms and cheeese to make 'pizza' so that is something we do from time to time.

No matter how old I get, I will always stress the importance of family time and I'm very grateful that we still have lots of gatherings with our extended family. We get together for festivals like Christmas, Chinese New Year, National Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, as well as every of our birthdays. That's quite a lot every year, right?

It's a dread having to tidy and clean the house before and after every gathering at our home but the memories we make with our loved ones, the laughter we share and the chit chats we have are so precious and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

We also made time to have a 17-pax outing to Desaru in June and had fun staying over in a kelong too. I'll share more about this next time but it's really a blessing to still be able to travel with our parents and I hope we can do more trips in future, while we still can.

That said, it's also important to spend time as a family of six, especially considering the fact that the hubby is away or busy most of the time. We still try to do something special once in a while, like how we celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival at Gardens by the Bay as we took our lanterns to go on a walk, ate mooncakes and played charades that made everyone laugh out loud, or how we kept up with our family tradition and had a blast at Halloween as we dressed up as pirates and played lots of fun games.

In December 2025, which is just last month, we also went on an epic 9D8N self-drive road trip to Malaysia and visited Kuala Lumpur, Genting, Cameron Highlands and Melaka. It turned out to be an absolute blast and I can't wait to share more happenings about our trip soon, check out my IG highlights if you wanna have a sneak peek yeah.

During my birthday month, a very kind and generous friend gave me a couple of tickets to Sun Yanzi's concert so I could go watch it with the bestie. It was such a nostalgic night as we sang some of her classic songs together and waved our light sticks to and fro. I rarely go out without the kids so this was a night to cherish and remember. And yes, my heart was filled with endless gratitude too.

On my actual day, the hubby was overseas so the kids and I decided to head to the nearest Teo Heng outlet in our neighbourhood and have a karaoke session. We sang our hearts out, ordered Jollibee takeaways, had lots of fun and wished that the night didn't have to end.

My parents also prepared a steamboat dinner, along with my favourite cake, to celebrate me turning 42. I really appreciate all that they do for us, and each gathering we have is so greatly treasured. So yes, don't mind me taking more photos always because I just want to remember these happy moments forever, yeah?

To the kids, please know that your cards mean the world to me as always and I cherish every single detail you drew, every bead you pasted and every colour you added. To Angel, I know you don't like making cards and you said you don't have anything to say to me in the card, but know that your drawing of Energy was the out of this world. You are incredibly talented at this and I appreciate it much more than you will ever know.

To all my dear friends who sent over flowers, tarts and made time to catch up, thank you very much for your kindness and your friendship means a lot to me, even if I don't say it out loud.

I might be a stay-at-home mum of four who doesn't have exciting stories to share, who doesn't earn a salary, who is outdated in more ways than one, who does mundane things day in day out and who is still doing all the things she did ever since becoming a mum a decade and a half ago. 

Life has changed in some ways but others remained the same, like my personality, the things I love, how I can't take durian and my adventurous soul. I will never crave for anything more than a simple, carefree and happy life and all I hope is that we can all stay healthy to enjoy this pure bliss for more years to come.

Simple things like toasting with a bowl of hot soup or igniting a sparkler brings me great joy and I hope I will never lose sight of what truly matters in life.

Thank you for still being here, for listening to my stories and for being a part of my life.

42 was great, now I move onward to the next year and see what else lies in store. I have faith that it will be a positive and wonderful year.

After all, life is what we make out of it, isn't it?

Happiness is... treasuring the time when the kids are still little

I have four kids who are in different phases of life as their age gaps are not that small. If you compare the oldest and youngest, they are turning 16 and four respectively and yes, that means their gap is nearly a full cycle in the Chinese horoscope since they are both born in the Year of the Ox - although the big sister is at the end of the year and the little brother at the beginning.

This gives me a whole new perspective when it comes to spending time with my youngest and I totally cherish the years left he has in preschool before he goes to primary school. We still have over two and a half years left where he goes to school merely three hours a day and we get to lunch together, go out together and nap together every single day. And yes, I absolutely love and cherish this fleeting phase.

In this post of "Happiness is...", it's about making the most of our time with our kids while they are still little. 

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I make it a point to check the lion dance schedule during CNY and try my best to bring the kids to watch a live performance. It gives me great joy to soak in the festive ambience and the kids are always very fascinated and impressed with the lion dance.

Given that Ansel is the only one who still can 'pontang' school and dismisses early enough for me to pick him and make it for noontime performances, we had a one-on-one date one morning. He would always try to hi five 财神爷 and hope to one of the lucky ones to catch a plushie and so far, he has been quite lucky already.

Don't you love CNY too?

Back at home, we still keep up with home cooked meals although I must say I do quite a fair bit of dabao-ing too because some days are just too exhausting.

Although I can't cook as well as the hubby or many fellow mums, I think the kids still like my simple dishes because it has the taste of home, and of love. Can you guess one of their favourite dishes of mine? It's steamed egg lor. Haha. Such a simple dish but they only like mine cos' of the taste and smooth texture, and it's something I like to make for them too. On good days, I would even add bit of ingredients into cups and make chawanmushi for them.

When the hubby is around, we dine out sometimes and one of our favourite restaurants is Ding Tai Fung as the kids totally love their xiao long baos and chicken noodles soup.

That said, it is getting increasingly expensive for us to dine there due to inflation and the pure fact that now that the kids are bigger, two longs or 10 xiao long baos ain't enough for our family to share. Yup, expensive to eat there and it's a treat for them every few months.

So I said to treasure the time with Ansel before he goes to primary school, right? This month, we had an outing to Sentosa and even though it was mainly to capture videos for a campaign, we still had fun walking around, eating at the Malaysian food court and he was most stoked to get a LEGO present in advance for his birthday.

It's all in the simple things, right? Like the random chats we will have on the MRT, seeing the beautiful scenery on the monorail, stopping to take a mother-and-son photo and so on. These are the things I love to do with him while his whole world still revolves around me. We all know how short-lived this phase is, right?

February makes his hatch day and it's been four fabulous years since Ansel came into our lives and joined our humble family. I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I didn't plan to have four kids, neither did I plan to stop at three. It was more of a leave it to fate kind of thing but I did think my hands were already pretty full as stay-at-home mum of three who has no help and needs to solo parent on most days. 

But then, fate decided that I got pregnant after just one try, even though I had assumed that I won't but then again, I'm not the guru at counting ovulation dates and fertile periods. So Ansel came into our lives (read his birth story here) as a preemie at 35 weeks old and let's just say life has never been better for me as a mum. I love having four kids!

So the hubby took time off to join us at his birthday celebration in school where we cut cake, interacted with the teachers and kids, and gave out goodie bags too. We keep our goodie bags small, affordable and filled with stationery rather than snacks just so to be more thoughtful about the well-being of these little preschoolers.

To celebrate his big day, we had a Sheriff Labrador themed party which was filled with lots of games and laughter, and he was truly a happy boy that day. You can read all the details about this 4th birthday party here.

It's a tradition to gather with the extended family for the kids' birthdays too so February was no exception as we got together to celebrate the special day of our youngest family member. Happy turning 4, dear Ansel! Please know that you are deeply loved by every one of us.





This month also marks a milestone for Ariel who has graduated from her Heguru journey after over eight long years. Yes, I can't even describe how amazing this learning experience has been and she has been blessed to meet many wonderful teachers who truly care for her.

Unlike the big sister who (used to) excel in academics in primary school without much effort, it's harder for Ariel and she needs to put in more effort in order to be consistent and get the grades that she wants. She did an average job for her Primary 6 Prelims and I think it was a good effort and job well done given that she has not have any tuition or academic related enrichment class outside of Heguru.

Then lo and behold, she improved her score significantly for PSLE, achieve her target score and got into her first choice of secondary school. We are beyond proud of you, Ariel, and I'm sure all the teachers at Heguru are proud of you too.

With the girls fast growing up and having their own busy teenager schedules, I have more time to spend with the boys these days. I love that they still like to hang out with me, let me make decisions on where to go, and are very happy even it's playing at a neighbourhood playground or enjoying a soft serve.

We also still go to KidsFest to watch theatrical shows because they enjoy these performances and I would do this for as long as I can, if it makes them happy. This month, we watched The Hungry Little Caterpillar and it's one of our favourite classic tales of all time. 

Then if we have free time, we will take leisure walks, enjoy a cooling breeze, walk hand in hand and just chit chat about anything under the sun. These moments, which are free of electronic devices, are much appreciated and cherished. Things will be so vastly different once they have their own phones and personal learning devices, as proven with experience, haha. So yes to nature walks and more hands-free family bonding sessions!

February also marks Valentine's Day and this year, I got a nice sunflower from the hubby who got it when we were shopping at Sheng Shiong and the auntie cashier managed to persuade him to part with his money. Haha. I'm not a flower lover but such gestures are still greatly appreciated.

Last but not least, CNY also means a time to gathering with friends and I'm glad my Jie Meis managed to meet up before the last day of new year, woohoo! We also make it a point to celebrate each other's birthdays and it's a tradition that I hope we can keep up for many more years to come. 

Yes, time flies and it's quite amazing how every CNY comes and goes so fast as I take down one animal horoscope decorations and put up the next. 

That is also why it is especially important that we make each day count when we spend time with our kids. They grow up just way, way, way too fast and guess what? Time can never rewind but only go forward. So believe me when I say you are gonna miss the years when the kids are little so hold on to every moment, cherish it and know that you are blessed. Till the next post of "Happiness is..."!