If you would have seen our weekends and weeknights 2 years ago and compare it to our current schedule, you would have noticed a great difference in our time spent as a family. It was all play and hardly any work on weekends and weeknights back then. We had fun planning for outdoor play and playing games at home. Those were the good old days.
Right now, we have a boring schedule. Weekends are ferrying kids to their 1,2 non-academic classes and that’s half a day gone. Afternoon we have 2 hours revision and it will be dinner time. After dinner, it will be rest and relax time. On weeknights, I try to get home before 630pm, eat dinner with the kids and by 730pm, we are back to studying. I cater first 30 minutes to Missy 12 and next 30 minutes to Master 10. At times when Master 10 does not need any of my help, I will spend slightly more time with Missy 12. Then plus some supervision of piano playing, I finally have time for Master 5. Poor Master 5! He has to play by himself as we will have to keep him out of the study room for an hour. I will try to compensate him by reading him 3 books every night after 9pm. Hence, it is not that bad except that his older siblings used to have more fun on weeknights with art and crafts, silly games and many fun play than he does now. I can’t wait for the exams to be over to resume our play.
Missy 12 and Our Revision
I guess by now, everyone kind of knows our revision schedule has been religiously stuck to 30 min a day on weeknight and 2 hours on weekends. I am heartened that the revision has been going on very well and better than we expected. Considering we have only started such #30minrevision from January this year, I think we have made very good progress. We are certainly looking forward to how Missy 12 fares in her SA1. However, I am mentally prepared if her results showed that she needed more time to improve. I still feel that we have time to catch her weaknesses and focus more on them. It helps when I do not place expectations and target marks on her. I am not expecting big leaps of improvement. And it really helps that I know she has tried her best and that is all that matters. Still, I hope that our efforts will pay off and any slight improvement will be a boost of confidence to Missy 12 and me.
On Life as a FTWM – Time Spent at Home is PRECIOUS!
My current job allows me to work from home occasionally. I love this flexibility and makes full use of it to cook a simple love lunch for my kiddos. Each time I stay home to work, I will try to cook something different for them. I made Bentos, Baked Rice and Baked Pasta, Fried Udon, Carbonara, etc. The kids love to see me at home, even though I can nag at them to bathe, hang their towels, do their homework. I prepare tea break in the afternoon and listen to their day in school. We can have early dinner and the evening schedule is brought forward because I am at home. We sleep earlier too. I hope I can work from home come nearer the PSLE. What I used to jokingly said to a colleague that she took leave to make soup for the kids’ exams, I think it is my turn now to stay home to make soup for them as a morale booster. For mummies who have been through or those who are like me prepping for PSLE, do you and will you take a few months leave to stay home during PSLE period?
Activities in the midst of exams
As I have stated in my Life goes on in PSLE year, we still continue our usual schedule and have fun, albeit less of leisure activities. We checked out Safra Yishun new pool and for that day, we skipped a day of revision. We went for the Income Eco Run to soak in some early fresh air and sun. We also had fun creating Terrariums from Masons Home Deco and we skipped that night’s revision too. We played board games on rainy days and had movie nights. We do skip some other events due to the proximity of the exam dates like the Home Team event, Imaginarium opening day, and some other invites. Thus, before the exams are over, I am already planning the places to bring the kids to visit. I know that before long, Missy 12 will have to be back to her revision again to prepare for her prelims in July.
On Myself and self-care
I fell sick after 2 consecutive nights of waking up at 3am to work. Age is catching up and I need my 8 hours of sleep daily to function well. Because of that, I was down with flu for 2 weeks! This is what happened with low immunity. I have been trying to consciously eat healthily and read labels. I consume portions just enough for me and not force myself to eat the leftovers of the kids’ plates for fear of wasting food. I am trying to go the natural way of remedy via Essential Oils. My blogger friend, Serene from Xavvylicious is like a doctor who teaches us ways to recover naturally via Young Living EOs. Amazing results I have seen after trying on myself and my kids! As a result, we avoided taking medication and use the EOs to maintain good health in the long run.
I still have lots to improve on healthy living. For example, taking my eyes off the screen more often and cutting down social media screen time to save my eyes from fatigue. I need to exercise more too. I also need to be less serious at home, and get into the fun mood with the kids rather than focusing on whether they have done this, completed that. I probably have to relax more so that I can laugh more. Laughing more is the pill to youth. Sometimes I envy my helper who can laugh and get silly with the kids so easily. No stress, no worries.
On a Happier Note…
As I am writing this, the SA1 will officially end tomorrow. I need a good break from revision and I bet Missy 12 needs that too. So, we are going to rest and relax and go for playdates. I am going to date each kid to 1-1 date too. I can finally read more regularly with more time on hand, at least for a few weeks. Just thinking of the relax days ahead makes me very happy! Haha! I think you could really tell how stressful I feel being a PSLE mum who insists on no tuition, has no expectations and heavily burdened with responsibility to help her child meet her own target. Yes, I am really serious in shielding my child from all the academic stress and taking the stress solely upon myself. Stressful as it is now, I feel it is totally worth it as long as the enormous stress is not on the young child.
So, I am ending April 2017 with… away with the academic stress!!! Looking forward to a happy month in May!
How did your April go? 🙂