March is really a full fledged revision month. In my kids’ Primary School life, I have never revised more intensively than now. We are finally staying on track with our nightly #30minrevision and our 2 hours revision on Saturday and Sunday. You would have think that this is not much but to us, this is a big jump from our previous effort on revision which is half-hearted mainly on my part. So, now, this mummy is finally getting the hang of revision with the kids and we are actually enjoying it! Yes, enjoying it because we are seeing good progress through daily work!
On PSLE Kid
Missy 12 had told me that she feels more confident in English! Whoa! I am seeing our combined efforts paid off here. Even though we have yet to see actual results represented in formal tests, I am heartened that she gains confidence with our home revision. Confidence is the start to success. I believe with confidence, she will find the subjects that she used to struggle with become subjects that she is starting to like. She then went on to feedback that we have insufficient time spent on revising Science and Math. In fact, from now till her SA1 (Semestral Assessment 1), it will only be left with 4 blocks of 2 hours revision for each subject since we have only 4 weekends left. Indeed, time is insufficient, but that is the limitation of a FTWM. I cannot revise during weekday afternoons. Time is never enough. I will have to squeeze in time somewhere, maybe increasing weekend revision hours to 3 blocks of 1 hour on each Saturday and Sunday.
1-1 Time
I realised that spending 1-1 time with each kid ranks rather high on my priority list. I try to squeeze out time for that. So, every child’s dental or doctor visit, piano exam, school excursions, etc is a precious 1-1 time. I take full day leave, bring the kid out and enjoy the time spent together. I had one with Master 10. We went to his favourite restaurant, brought him to play Animal Kaiser in Time Zone Arcade, bought 3 Geronimo Stilton hard cover books which he had been asking for a long time and shopped together. He told me that he enjoyed shopping with me and that made me ponder if that was really true or he simply wanted to spend time with me, no matter what we were doing. It was a very sweet date for the both of us.
I also resumed our jogging date with each kid. Last Sunday, both sons joined me to have a morning jog at the nearby park. It was kind of funny as both ran at different speeds and I was in the middle, encouraging the slower one to catch up with his elder brother. We went for breakfast together, just the 3 of us. I like it and I think I shall make this happen more often.
On my relationship with Hub
We have not been seeing much of each other during weekdays as the hub works late into the night. Even if he comes home early, I would be busy with each kid. When it comes to bedtime, I would fall asleep with Master 5 and miss the chance to chat with my hub. I have not been working hard on couple relationship since the start of this year and writing this down in this post will help remind me to work out something! In fact, we are going to watch A-Mei’s concert come June. Errmmm, yes, that is the only plan for couple date for now. Hubby, if you are reading this, I love you and stay tune… LOL!
Struggles I face as a FTWM
Missy 12 has been given a phone lately with rules attached. I have decided that instead of unleashing the devil with no limits after her PSLE, it would be better to start giving the phone to her during weekends and occasional special days when she would need one and let her get used to weekdays without phone. She has shown good discipline with her phone usage and even asked me to state curfew hours of no phone usage. Her request impressed me very much.
So, there was a particular weekday when she had a phone and hence could see messages from her friends. She told me that one of her friends had sent a good night message to her and already slept at 7pm, the time when we were about to eat dinner. I thought about it and envied that this friend’s mum is a stay-at-home-mom and that explains that she could revise with her child in the afternoon, have an early dinner and let her child sleep early everyday. I can only revise with my kids after 8pm and delay their sleep time till 930pm. There is not a better arrangement for FTWM and FTWM’s kids will always sleep late. How sad it is, I thought to myself.
As a FTWM, there are many things that we cannot do during weekdays as we are working. But as far as I can take a day off, I will do so for school events, competitions, birthday celebrations, etc just to not deprive my kids of their mummy’s involvement. I want to be there with them at celebratory moments, school fun and many more!
So, last week, I took a day off to be a parent volunteer (I was the only parent) to bring Master 10’s class to visit an old folk’s home. I did that 2 years back with Missy’s class too and will certainly do it again for Master 5’s school excursion in future. It was a fruitful afternoon and I really enjoyed chatting with Master 10’s classmates and helped the shy children to approach the elderly.
On days of working from home or days off, I make it a point to prepare lunches for my kids and eat with them at the same table, and listen to them rattling off the day’s events. I really treasure such times with them just as what my mum did when I came home from school everyday. Seeing them eat up my prepared lunches makes me a satisfied mum. I am determined to do things a stay-at-home-mom will do when I am off work.
I hope my children will remember all these small little things that really matter lots to me.
I guess no matter if you are a FTWM or SAHM, you will find yourself nagging non-stop at the children. Despite my effort of trying very hard not to nag too much and let go, I am not very successful in this area. I am not sure why. I return home with a goal of enjoying some peaceful moments with the kids but it always ended up with some scoldings, nagging and breaking up fights and such. I guess this is the phase that will pass when kids are older, I am not sure. But I am going to try again and again and perhaps put up a reward chart for our family to create a better atmosphere in the house. Hmm.. sounds like a feasible idea, let me think of how to achieve that!
On a happier note…
We went for a staycation at Village Hotel Changi again! I shall be sharing our happy times in the hotel. We have also had some family bonding time with my parents at Upper Peirce Reservoir, sighting monkeys along the roads and running in the vast greenery. We also took my in-laws to JB to celebrate my MIL’s birthday with a sumptuous dinner on a school day. We hosted an impromptu dinner in our house for our parents and brother-in-law’s family. We really love hosting dinners as we enjoy having our parents over to bond with our kids and cousins to play together. I think we are doing it every month for the past few months and will be organising another big one for Master 10’s birthday.
So, we are ending March 2017 with… academic progress and at the same time, balancing academic and play. I hope April will be a fulfilling month!
How did your March go? 🙂
