First Quarter Review

Well, guys, we’ve been here for 3 months now! I’ve decided that each quarter, I’ll take a quick survey to see where the 5 of us stand in terms of general satisfaction with the current state of affairs, and then I’ll post the results- a Skibitzki State of the Union address, if you will. As a caveat to all answers recorded below, we all acknowledge without hesitation that the absolute worst part of this move has been being so far away from our family and our friends. I, for one, can hardly think about any of you without getting teary; the same thing happens when I think about the U.S. in general or Libertyville specifically. Therefore, we’ll take that huge negative as a given for all of us, from now until we move back home. In comparison, the rest of this should seem pretty light-hearted.

So, we’ll start with Brad. My questioning of him was the least official, more an offhanded remark about this being our 3-month anniversary in Singapore, and how does he feel about that. The input I received from him was a smart-ass response about how his life is so much less stressful now and how he’s really gotten into a regular exercise routine to boot. (In case there was any doubt, none of that is true. His stress level is sky-high at the moment, and though I did get him to run with me 1 day last week, the only noticeable increase in cardio activity for him in Singapore vs. him at home can be attributed to the fact that he has to walk to and from the train here. Given that he’s seldom in Singapore these days, that’s a marginal improvement at best.)

Moving on to the other male member of the group, Logan proclaimed that the best part of living in Singapore is that he gets to go to school and that there are just so many fun things to do here. Also, he got to to bring all of his LEGOs. The worst/hardest part for him is that he doesn’t “have so many friends here,” as he put it. He does have plenty of friends at school (and seems to be something of an international ladies’ man as well, given the female admirers he’s acquired thus far). He’s really referring to the fact that there are no kindergarten boys in our building, and he’s feeling quite bummed at the moment because his friend Collin, who is an 11-year-old American boy that he has become very attached to here at the condo, is moving home. Collin has been so great with Logan, including him in the group of older boys down at the pool, and Logan is going to miss Collin and Collin’s 2 brothers very much. Finally, something that Logan really misses about home is going out to eat at Casa Bonita. 

Jenna actually didn’t have too much to say when I asked her my questions, which was pretty surprising in and of itself. She said that the best part of living here is hearing people’s accents. (Being the people-watcher that she is, she is fascinated with where everyone is from and what this means in terms of how they look and sound.) Jen really didn’t get past my disclaimer above when thinking about the worst/hardest part about being here; not getting to see our family and friends was what she wanted me to put down for her. What she misses is our house and Panera- the kid is seriously addicted to Panera’s broccoli-cheese soup, so she definitely misses that dining option.

When I told Kylie that we’ve been here 3 months, she said, “Holy cow! That’s crazy!” For her, the best part of being here has been all of the friends she’s made and “how it’s kind of like we have 1 big backyard that we share with all of our friends.” The worst/hardest part for her is trying to talk to people in the U.S. because you can’t have a real conversation unless you’re up really early or really late. (She has been enjoying FaceTime, texting, and emailing her friends at home. I’m pretty lenient with when she can do it because she is very right- it is so difficult to communicate regularly, and I love that she still feels like part of the group.) Ky misses how small her school at home was, and she misses eating good burgers, pizza, and Mexican food.

I’m not sure one paragraph will be enough for me to answer my own questions. There’s so much more that I need to write about, and I know it’s been almost a month since I last posted, so I have high hopes for getting back to posting regularly and sharing more of what life here is looking like right now. Briefly, I would say that the best part of this experience so far for me has been the friends we’ve made and watching as all 5 of us work to figure out our new life. I know that we picked the right condo for us; the families that we’ve met here have been really great, we all have friends, and I could not be happier with how it has all turned out. My kids are so much savvier now than they were 3 months ago, and there’s nothing I love more than witnessing their excitement and awe as they learn about the rest of the world. The fact that Logan came home a few weeks into the school year and told me that it was someone’s birthday and that the class sang to her in 6 different languages illustrates exactly why we were willing to make this move. I could never have taught them this global awareness at home. As for the worst/hardest part for me, I have to agree with Kylie- not being able to just pick up the phone and call people when I want to is super-frustrating. Now that Chicago has “fallen back,” we are 14 hours ahead in Singapore. Trying to call at a time when our kids will be up, especially to talk to my grandmas or FaceTime with my baby nephews when they will also be up, is so hard. Also difficult is having to work so hard to find food here that I want my family to eat; more on that soon, but just feeding this group consumes a huge amount of my time. Our lack of family time since our move has also been extremely difficult; again, this will be a post unto itself, but the hope we had going into this that we’d have so much more quality time as a family is not currently the case. Now, for some of the things I miss: fresh air (as in, air that’s not so polluted that I regularly have to sweep up piles of soot from my balcony), blue skies, changing seasons (as it’s perpetual August here, and I’m a fall-weather-kind-of-girl), Independence Grove, Chicago-style pizza, Five Guys burgers, Sunset Foods, my car, the occasional OK-hair-day (and Lindsay, who has cut my hair for years), wearing jeans, Cook Library, Comcast (and let me be the first to say that I never would have anticipated that one), The Chicago Tribune… the list goes on.

I’d say that all in all, the Skibitzki family is doing fine. We are now entering a season of holidays and birthdays that will be tricky to navigate. On the plus side, we have the first of our trips coming up, so we are anxious to really begin exploring the Asia-Pacific region. Also, we’re now coming to the time of year when the weather is not so pleasant back home, which helps a little bit; we are looking forward to a winter with no shoveling required!

 

 

 

 

Hard to “Contain” our Excitement

I am thrilled to report that our container arrived in Singapore last week. The third and final step to our moving-in process is now complete (the first 2 steps having been getting us here with our 17 pieces of luggage, followed by the arrival of our air shipment last month). Our belongings were delivered on Friday, and we have been enjoying having some of our furniture from home here ever since. (Despite a presumably treacherous journey through the waters off the coast of Africa, my long-awaited bed and sectional arrived nearly unscathed- not a single pirate to be found lounging on either of them!) Logan’s bed made the trip as well, and his room now looks much like the one he left behind in Libertyville (albeit with a very different view out the window).

This looks more like Logan’s room!

Jenna’s eagerly-anticipated doll house and Barbie collection were also among the spoils; she’s been busy playing with them ever since. Ky was very pleased to see all of her art supplies. The younger two got right down to business playing restaurant, now that the toy food is here. (As those of you who know Jen are aware, she wants to be a chef when she grows up, and there’s not much she enjoys more than food- real or otherwise.) We did have some damaged items- a torn box spring, scraped corners on our coffee table, banged up feet on our couch, a big chip in our console table, assorted scratches on a chest and some shelving units, etc.; however, if I had it to do all over again, I would send the same pieces. (I would, however, insist on better wrapping of them; what seemed more than sufficient when the movers were packing everything up at home came to feel very lacking when we saw them come out of the container in various states of torn and tattered packaging; our movers here told us that this always happens with items coming from the U.S. They assured us that they do a much better job protecting the furniture that they pack here to send back to the U.S.)

Torn box spring

Scraped coffee table

Scraped sectional foot

Regardless, nothing was lost or damaged beyond repair, and it feels much more like home in the condo now; we all definitely needed that feeling.

In addition to the container being delivered last week, we dealt with yet another issue with our air conditioning. This has been an ongoing theme since our arrival. We have individual units for each of the bedrooms and for the main living space. The day we arrived, Kylie’s A/C was leaking and required servicing. While the techs were here, they performed the required quarterly (oh yes, quarterly) servicing on all of the units. Last month, the A/C in the living room stopped working, which meant that I had to have the windows open all the time. It’s consistently hot and humid, and there are no screens, so that was not a fun time in our household. Additionally, having the windows open results in an ungodly amount of dust settling everywhere, meaning that you can’t even walk barefoot in your own home without your feet ending up black- disgusting! I hate dirty feet… It took 3 visits by the A/C techs to fix that issue, and at one point, we were told that the part we needed wouldn’t be available for 3 months; Brad termed that “not good news” in his ensuing email to our landlord’s realtor (who we like very much, by the way), and we did ultimately get the part in much more quickly. No more than a week had gone by after that repair was made than the 3 units in the kids’ bedrooms stopped working properly. I have come to expect flashing orange warning lights whenever I look at the A/C, and then I feel pleasantly surprised when they are a steady green instead. It took 2 more trips for the bedrooms’ issue to be resolved. Happily, it’s been all-systems-go since Saturday- we are on an air-conditioned roll now!

Our A/C units, on a balcony outside our kitchen

It was interesting to see the reaction of the A/C techs to the new look of our condo. Having been in numerous times since our arrival, they were accustomed to our ugly rental furniture. While here diagnosing the problem w/ the bedrooms’ A/C on Thursday afternoon, they witnessed the removal of that furniture, in preparation for the next day’s big delivery. When they came on Saturday to perform the fix, they stood looking at our sectional, and 1 of them reached out to touch it and then apparently encouraged one of the others to do the same- before I knew it, they were both petting our couch!

Before: some of our ugly rental furniture

After: much better

So, in addition to our A/C woes, the removal of our rental furniture, and the arrival of our container, last week also brought the return of terrible tummy troubles (accompanied by fever) for Logan, who then shared the bug with Kylie. This has been another recurring issue in our family since our arrival. Jenna was hit within a week of the move and missed a day of school, Brad had a turn and stayed home from work one day, and Logan missed a day of school as well, maybe a month ago, and continued to complain about his belly hurting for weeks afterward. Ky and I had escaped it until Logan got it again last week; he missed 2 more days of school, and then Ky came home with a fever and stomach issues on Thursday. Everybody is back at school and doing better, but I’m not sure that we’ve truly eradicated it yet; my turn is surely coming.

All in all, it was a heck of a week. We are thrilled to finally be done with the move, and we are feeling much more comfortable. I will say that part of me was a little apprehensive about the completion of the final move-in step. Having my sectional sitting in my living room here means that it is most certainly not still sitting in my great room at home, which is where I like to imagine it (and us). We are all doing fine, adjusting, learning, and deepening our new friendships. I wouldn’t change our decision or want this experience not to have taken place. However, we continue to struggle with the great distance between us and all of you who are reading this blog back home. We miss you and think about you all the time. It’s great to see your comments after my posts, so please, keep them coming!

Yes, the Tooth Fairy Comes to Singapore

So, what did our first few days here look like?

Well, there was jet lag:

This was our first night in the new condo, and poor Logan was exhausted! (Brad wasn’t so wide-awake either.)

The day after we arrived, there was Brad’s first day of work (yes, the very next day- nothing like being on your own with 3 kids in a new country, on a different continent, almost immediately):

In this pic, he’s waiting for the elevator, just outside our front door. He then walks to the train station, rides the train, and walks a short way to his office; round-trip, it takes him about 25 minutes, which is about the same as his drive to work at home. At least he’s getting some exercise!

Here are the kids on our balcony, before their first swim in our gorgeous pool- definitely one of the best parts about living here:

Here’s a better view of the pool itself:

That’s actually Ky down in the pool, later in the week, with a new friend from Australia.

This is Brad before his second day of work:

Note the change in footwear; just as I learned back in my days of commuting to downtown Chicago, he quickly figured out that dress shoes weren’t going to cut it while walking to and from the train. He also has to bring a towel to dry himself off once he gets to work; the humidity in Singapore is no joke!

Finally, just to add another big first to the first few days we spent here, Logan lost his very first tooth:

He is proudly displaying both the tooth and the new gap in his smile in this photo.

We were a little nervous about proper protocol over here, but as it turns out…

…yes, the Tooth Fairy does come to Singapore, and she even pays in Sing dollars! 🙂