Ice creams

JE is rather attracted to get ice cream cones.  When I buy tub ice creams, sometimes together with a pack of cones, she has no interest at all.  No chance to be a thrifty mummy *roll eyes.

FamilyMart ones are good....

 

Green tea flavour!

We stopped by a shop on the way home.  She spotted ice cream on sale and asked for another.  What, 2 in a day??  Oh well. 

Chocolate. And strawberry. In kittycat cone sleeves

We have a CU mart below our apartment (I'd have preferred a FamilyMart) so some nights we walk down.

Mango flavour

Ice cream is as big as Piglet

And this photo must have been from another day judging by the different clothes.  SE is holding a dark choc ice cream in a black cone - looks cool but messy on the mouth.  She didn't like this flavour so I ate most of it.

Dark chocolate. And green tea

It's currently sea salt again at FM, which the kids don't like.  So we are waiting for the next flavour.

Couch potato

The girls will be in this position on weekends when left undisturbed....

Watch TV eat lollipop. And check phone

Watch TV eat lollipop

That's why I still send them for art class even though they complain it's not enjoyable and they're not learning anything.  At least they do something other than being couch potatoes!  We would also go out for lunch, sometimes a short trip to a small mall, swimming if the weather permits. 

Weekend schedule - TV allowed after lunch, iPads evenings onwards

Sat morning: Art class

Rest of Sat: Mostly couch potato-ing

Sun: Mostly couch potato-ing

18%

This.... is the pose of shame. Hmppfff.  She got 18 marks (over 100) in her BM paper so made her hold it up.  This is her very first exam.  She didn't have those in Standard 1 and classes were online the next 2 years, obviously without exams.

Failed this one

At the back of the paper you can see how she filled up some of her exam time.

Drew eggdogs

Close-up of the "eggdogs", apparently some creature she saw while surfing the internet.

Eggdog and Tall Eggdog

Studying from home hasn't been good.  Without the pressure of exams and having to do homework, the kids could get by without understanding much.  JE also failed 4 papers - she wasn't a top student before but she'd at least been in the top third.

Sigh.  Hoping they will be able to catch up.  SE didn't do too badly on her other papers.

For now, "eggdog admits defeat" - yep this one also drawn on the paper during the exam.

"Eggdog admits defeat"

 

Staying put

Since we couldn't go to my parents' place, we stayed put in the apartment.  The kids missed school the next 2 days.  If I thought my maid Jane could help take care of things.... she wasn't even leaving her room haha.  I was tending to the sick kids and the sick myself.  But can't complain also, she did come out to cook meals.

It was actually rather relaxing not to leave the apartment at all.

All of us got better and on Thursday the kids resumed school, albeit still with sore throats.  I resumed working from home.  So peace in the morning (Jane happily staying in her room), Jane cooking around noon, JE coming back for lunch then SE around 3pm.  SE had to be watched like a hawk for homework:

Kakak making sure homework getting done

And sometimes I would return from a toilet break to this:

 

Now how shall we reply this email

My car would end up in the workshop 2 weeks.  I kidnapped my parents' car since they were obviously not needing it.  Good timing also that everything happened at the same time!

Streak of happenings

The Monday 27 June started well.  For dinner we celebrated a belated Father's Day with food ordered in:

1. Crispy duck to be rolled in popiah skin with cucumber strips, spring onion, hoisin and chilli sauce
2. Braised pork trotters to be sandwiched between lotus leaf pao with fresh lettuce 
3. Chicken and beef satay with cucumber and onion

Food turned out good and was a nice change from our usual.

Duck, pork, chicken, beef... and friends

SE hadn't been well and she wasn't looking well that night though, so decided to take her to the clinic shortly after dinner.  That's when it started.

I drove a few meters and my car stalled.  Kept trying, the engine would start and immediately stop.  Luckily we were still outside my parents' house and everyone was still there.  We managed to push my car to the side after a few tries and my brother drove us to the new clinic below our apartment.

Poor SE was already sick.  With all this plus the wait at the clinic, it was an hour before we got to see the doctor.  Finally we got the meds and walked back home.

Kiddo getting sick - pic from the weekend before

Reached our apartment and.... the dining area lights went out.  Both the most frequently-used lights must blow at the same time?  Sigh.

Fed SE the meds from the clinic.  JE didn't look too good either so checked her and... FEVER.  Sigh.

In the middle of that night, both me and our maid also started feeling unwell.  Sigh.

The next day, both kids weren't well enough for school.  Kept them at home.  I made arrangements to have my car towed to the workshop.  Took medical leave (but had to attend a long meeting in the afternoon).  Sick day for all four of us.

That night, my mother tested positive for Covid.

The following day, my father tested positive for Covid.

So many things happening at the same time!  My parents were relatively fine but it would be 10 days before my father finally got a negative on the Covid test.  It was pretty certain they caught the virus from a dinner they attended the weekend before.  SE tested negative all this time.

Bit sick

When SE was not feeling well and not going to school for the day.  I went swimming in the morning and made her bring a book to read (she doesn't quite like reading yet).  Brought her a snack also.

Oh if you look closely, she also brought along Piglet, placed in a cup.  So she was pretty happy.

Read and crunch my snack

Ahmm

She has missed a few days of school recently.  Guess we should all resume taking Vitamin C - I make the fizzy 1000mg version and share the drink with my two girls.

1 Utama again

For the same holidays (yeah I must have forgotten about posting a while hehe), we also went to 1u.  What used to be a perfectly regular thing we did on weekends, has changed to become a special occasion due to MCO!  This was without hubby who isn't up to going out to malls yet.

And JE was wearing something that's not black!  She actually picked this dress for her birthday.

 

Girls in green 

SE found some of Mole's relatives and cuddled them.

Aww.  Cute

The girls love cotton candy, don't know why.  I keep trying to brainwash them that it's just sugar fluffed up, with an teensy amount of colouring and flavouring.  But since I'd already made the effort to take them out for the day, bought a container for them anyway.

Cotton candy is Yums!!

And for lunch, we tried a new place - Big fish small fish.  There are so many outlets in 1u and we always go to the same few.  Well we did enjoy lunch but there's such a thing as too much fried food.  So we decided "been there, tried that, no need to revisit".

All kinds of fried stuff

JE wanted to take a photo with these Genshin Impact characters.  Apparently the cup sleeves with these characters are very limited and popular.

No cup sleeves, photo also can

It did feel good to be going to 1u again. Of the few places on my list though, some have closed down for good.  Top of the list would be Cookies & Coffee -  miss getting to stuff freshly-baked cookies into a bag, sigh.