Renee graduates from Kindergarten

Heh heh, seems like such a big deal! Here's her super cute picture!

We also attended her ceremony, which was held at Paya Lebar Methodist Girls Secondary school, coincidentally. She was in a dance number towards the end of the show, our miss go-go dancer was supposed to be an Eurasian.

All in all, I am really happy with her performance in her last year of kindergarten. Teacher Jean did a great job, she is very strict but at the same time she gives the kids the respect in that she watches them from afar, giving them enough space instead of hovering around them. The kids learned discipline and independence. You can see the difference between the younger kids and those in K2. They are definitely much more mature and I just have to wipe a tear away when I think of the first time I sent Renee to play group in 2008, how she cried like mad, and how independent she is now.

Toilet training

At 6 and a half years, I finally started night toilet training Renee. I know it is very late but I was just too tired to wake up in the night and she complained that she was too tired in the morning from being woken up. But I just told her that we would start when we went to Club Med, can you imagine your friends laughing at you if they find out you are still in diapers? And then, she agreed. So we started in June and over the last 5 months, we've had a couple of "accidents", the usual, nothing I can't handle.

Then I started night training Russell sometime in September, which at 4 and a half years, is also quite late. It was a challenge to train both of them because my inlaws tend to give them milk at night, which is a recipe for disaster! Sure to wet their beds, and it is really difficult to convince Russell not to drink at night. But I find that it is easier if we go home earlier, and I can control their liquid intake after 6 pm. I only need to wake Russell up once and we're fine till the morning.

There were a couple of times when washing the sheets was a daily affair. Not funny at all, especially when it rained during the day, making it almost impossible for the laundry to dry by night time.

Next year, Renee starts school at Paya Lebar Methodist Girls Primary School, which just got changed to a single session school, meaning she has to be at school by 7.20 am! Goodness. We have decided that Eugene will send the kids to school in the morning and Riley to my inlaws and I will pick them up in the evenings. I have proposed that we order tingkat food so we don't linger at inlaws till late. The kids will probably need to sleep by 8.30 pm in order to wake at 6.15 am! I really don't know how it's going to go and I'm a little worried.

The kids fooling around, wearing Renee's school uniform! I have two daughters!

Club Med Phuket

The kids' first time on the plane! How exciting!

We went to Club Med during the June school holidays, for 5 days 4 nights. We had adjoining rooms, which was great because that meant we didn't have all squeeze into one single bed! They each had their own bed, a playpen for Riley and we had two bathrooms to use! The two kids went to Mini Club Med on the first day while we went to town with Riley. On the second day they didn't want to go to Mini Club Med much to my dismay because we had paid for it in our package price! In the end, we had to trick them into going but by afternoon they were ready to call it a day :( Russell "complained" that the staff made him eat a lot (haha) and Renee said she didn't want to watch TV when it was TV time (double haha).

There were 15 children in total, so it was heaven for the kids. All day we ate, drank and swam. By the third night, the kids were so tired, they slept right after their bath!

On the last day we brought them to Patong Beach, because I didn't want the kids to think Phuket only equals Club Med.

Overall a good trip, the kids enjoyed themselves and Renee kept saying she wants to go back and occupy the SAME rooms were allocated.