I’ve never been big on CNYs because my family does not really celebrate CNY beyond reunion dinners and going out for movies.
Of course this changed since I got married, because CNYs at my in-law’s are always buzzing with activities.
This changed again, of course, after having kids. My FIL has lowered his expectations of the tasks we need to do because he knows we have the kids to take care of, while I hope CNY would be a meaningful festival for the kids to understand the meaning of family and traditions.
I do not have much mood for CNY this year (and in fact most years) and did not prepare anything. Not even springcleaning. 😅
I did, however, buy a new dress each for the girls and new underwear for myself and the hubs. 🤣 And some new year goodies for the parents and relatives.
A family photo before we headed out in the morning on Day 1.
I basically just pulled out a shirt that’s not black to wear. 😆
The girls are dressed in the Kids-crafter cheongsam!
Love the dress!
It’s the only set of new clothes I bought for them this CNY.
拜年to Daddy while Mummy took photos. ✌
Spot Allie trying to taste the Mandarin orange. 🤣
And then she said, “Ba!”, placed it on the floor and started kicking it around.
Obligatory collage because I took so many shots.
Another set of photos with 猪宝宝!
Just nice, that Clarissa likes Peppa and Allie likes George.
So cute together!
Tried again to take an #ootd shot outdoors before getting to our car but Allie had other ideas.
Not sure why she kept putting her hand into her mouth lol.
🤩🤩🤩
Last year vs. This year.
Clarissa has grown so much!
While the grown-ups helped to prepare the steamboat for guests, the kids were in charge of drinks.
Ok, more like playing with ice.
Chilling in the room after entertaining the guests lol.
We had lunch after the guests left and headed home after 2pm.
The hubs made arrangements with my FIL for the next day’s drive into Malaysia.
My FIL said we’d better come to pick him early, otherwise there’d be a jam at the checkpoint.
The hubs was non-committal lol and said he will try his best. He said, “我尽量啦，你要看我有几个孩子嘞。”
(I’ll try my best to be early, but do you know how many kids I have?)
At this point, Clarissa, who was sitting beside her Daddy (and who I thought wasn’t paying attention to the conversation because it was in Chinese), turned to her Daddy helpfully and said to him, “爸爸，你有两个孩子! 你不知道吗?”
(Daddy, you have two kids! Don’t you know?” )
Shoving 2 fingers in front of his face as she stressed on the “两个!” 😆✌😆
Lol full marks for understanding what was spoken; more work to be done to understand the subtext and slight sarcasm.
The girls did quite well at Ah-gong’s place! Clarissa shook hands with the guests and greeted almost everyone while Allie obligingly let a few relatives carry her.
The girls took a short nap in the car on our way home.. and refused to nap when we got back.
Up and about again at 5pm! Watch out for the pink polka dots girls!
Dresses gifted by their Si-yi! I especially love the pink dress on Allie. But she was more keen looking for birds than to look at the camera. 😂
I’ve also realised that Clarissa, despite her preference for the color blue and to play with cars, is in fact very girly.
She enjoys dressing up and is in a hairband phase lol.
I put on a new but rugged-looking white t-shirt to visit my mum’s.. and she looked at me and said very slowly, “Mummy, I think this shirt is.. a liiittle bit.. not very nice leh.”
Hahahaha wtf.
I’ve never tried to correct her or to tell her what is “for boys” and what is “for girls”, so I’m wondering if her friends in school have somehow primed her.
Hahaha Jiejie judging her Meimei.
They had a lot of fun!
Day 2!
Up and about early in the morning to drive into Malaysia!
Allie still looking for birds.
I love their dresses!
Gifted by my dear friend.
(This explains why I only bought one set of dress each for the girls. ✌)
We had a pretty smooth drive even though Allie somehow refused to drink her milk.
She managed to nap for 30 minutes though.
My FIL was a little grouchy but thankfully the hubs obeyed most of his instructions.
I did observe how funny their exchanges are.
The hubs would be asking for his dad’s opinion, for example, on which route to take.
His dad would share his opinion.
The hubs would counter propose.
His dad would say, aiyah whatever lah up to you lah.
So the hubs would do “whatever”.
And then his dad would come back to it a few minutes later and say, “Didn’t I tell you to do this / not to do this!?”
😂😂😂
In the past tempers would flare and they would have started quarelling?
But I guess they both held back this time because of the two girls.
Aww someone’s no longer the youngest in the family.
Allie was so gentle with the baby.
So heartwarming to watch her trying to touch the baby’s head or poke the baby’s cheeks. Very, very gentle.
Sometimes so gentle that her hand was slightly above his head and not even touching.
The same girl who pinches her Jiejie and snatches things from her. 😅
Although she did, however, try to bounce a ball on the baby’s head. 😅😅
She warmed up very quickly and was ok even when we weren’t in the room with her.
She was sitting among the older kids, playing.
While Jiejie would still come out of the room to look for us.
Or sit in a corner to eat grapes.
She brought her boggie board along this time and it turned out to be a hit among all the kids, who took turns to write on it (and press the button to erase everything).
In fact she didn’t get to use it much and was worried about not being able to bring it back with her before we left.
I’m happy she’s willing to share, but I’m also wondering if it is because she’s too timid to stand up for herself.
Haha it’s hard being a child and being a parent.
We started our drive back to Singapore before 2pm.
Both girls napped and Allie woke up when we reached the petrol kiosk while Clarissa continued sleeping until we reached the checkpoint.
As promised the hubs bought ice-cream for Clarissa and here she is having her treat while Allie eats the cover.
Oops Jiejie fed Allie a bit of ice-cream before I could stop her. 🤣
She loves it and would turn to her Jiejie to say “Arrhmm!” to demand for more.
It was 4pm by the time we reached Singapore but thankfully the girls were sufficiently entertained.
We dropped by the hubs’ godma’s place again for an early dinner.
We’d dropped my FIL home before going to godma’s place and he got there after we left.
Bumped into him at the void deck and he tried to cajole Allie into going for a walk with him but Allie shook her head vehemently and ran away to hide behind my legs.
I spoke to my FIL with Allie hugging my legs from behind while popping her head sideways to peep at her Ah-gong from time to time.
We said goodbye and my FIL went up, only to come down again because he’d left the plastic bag of Mandarin oranges on the floor.
When we got home, Clarissa recounted the story to our helper.
“You know Allie didn’t want to let Ah-gong carry? Ah-gong asked her, want to go walk walk? She just shook her head and ran away to hide behind Mummy’s legs. Ah-gong was sooooo sad that he forgot his plastic bag. He left it on the floor!”
Hahahaha so drama.
I’m not sure how she linked all the dots.
I only remember gently chiding Allie about making Ah-gong sad. She has been rejecting him throughout the 3 days of CNY eve and CNY.
Before bedtime, we had a chit chat with Clarissa.
“So do you like Chinese New Year? Did you have fun?” I asked her.
She shook her head, “No, I don’t like Chinese New Year.”
I was a little surprised.
“Why?” I asked her. “I thought you had fun playing?”
“Because I have to keep saying Happy New Year to so many people,” she explained. “I only like to play at the playground.”
LOL.
Looks like she might turn out to be an introvert, afterall?
weeirdism 