Not only is it time for another quarterly update (and let me just apologize for the fact that my most recent post prior to this was last quarter’s update- ridiculous), but we’ve now also reached the anniversary of Brad’s fateful phone call last spring, telling me to get a bottle of wine ready because he was headed home from work, and we had something big to discuss when he arrived. It was the Thursday before Mother’s Day, so we then spent Mother’s Day weekend informing our moms (and our dads, of course) that we were quite possibly going to be moving their grandkids a world away from them- Happy Mother’s Day! After that came a strange period of being in limbo, waiting for details of this proposed move to trickle in, so that we would have enough information to make the call- should we accept the challenge and start the adventure or stay the course and hope not to be penalized for doing so? By early June, we had decided to go for it and were in a race against time to be ready to move to Singapore by early August. The fact that we began all of this a year ago is absolutely amazing to me.
I feel like this 9-month mark is almost more significant than the anniversary of our move will be. The kids are fast-approaching the end of the school year, and we have our highly-anticipated summer visit to the U.S. on the horizon. My mother-in-law recently asked me if Singapore feels like home now, and I responded that it’s where I picture going when we’re returning from a trip, so to a certain extent, it does feel like home. We have settled into a classification system whereby we call our Singapore condo “home,” and we call the greater-Chicagoland area “home-home.” (I think the turning point for everybody was the sale of our house; it’s not like we can just return to Libertyville now and pick up exactly where we left off- there is no house to return to, though it’s definitely still home-home to us.)
I am so proud of the kids for adjusting to their new lives so well. All 3 of them have made great friends here. Poor Jenna had to say goodbye to her best school friend, Rina, a few months ago, when Rina’s family suddenly moved back to Japan. Jenna was very sad but has adapted, and that experience taught me a lesson- given the transitory nature of most people’s stays in Singapore, don’t wait when it comes to making plans because you just never know how long people will be here. With Rina, I had never met her parents, and her mom didn’t speak English; given how busy life with 3 kids can be, and how many friends our kids have right here in our condo, I had never pursued having Rina over for a playdate. I assumed we’d have time for that in the future. Luckily, we had just enough notice of her upcoming move to arrange to have her over for a full day of play during her last weekend in Singapore back in March. Her father turned out to be the nicest man, and since he is still working in Singapore for a bit, Jenna hopes to have a chance to see Rina when she comes to visit her dad here at some point. I had some photos that I’d taken of Jenna & Rina throughout the school year, and I took a bunch more the day that Rina came over to play. We then gave Rina a photo album with all of those pictures in it, and I gave Jenna an identical album, which really seemed to help Jen handle the situation. She still misses Rina a lot, but she has continued to strengthen her friendships with many other girls in her class, so she’s doing OK.
Jenna & Rina, so cute together
Logan continues to thrive in Singapore. He is currently a 4-sport athlete, participating in an after-school basketball program, taking swim lessons with Jenna in the condo pool, and spending his Saturdays playing soccer and baseball. He has loved kindergarten, and he has turned into quite the reader. He and his best friend Nico are engaged in a friendly competition to see who can get farthest along in the alphabet-based rankings that measure their reading proficiency. I help with math in his classroom every Friday, and Logan’s group is full of Star Wars-loving boys who keep me on my toes. I got to observe his Spanish class recently, and I love that he’s come so far with it at the age of 6. Most interestingly this school year, Logan has been playing the cello (Suzuki lessons in violin or cello are provided weekly for all kindergarteners), and we were just discussing over the weekend how much he enjoys the cello and how he really wants to continue to play next year. He has a concert coming up soon that Brad & I are very much looking forward to attending. Given that this was his first year of elementary school, he has certainly embraced all that it has to offer.
Logan was thrilled to play catcher for the first time on Saturday- all that gear really appeals to him
Kylie had quite an experience at the end of March, when her class spent 5 days at camp in Thailand. Yes, I put my child on a plane, to fly to another country without me, and then I had no direct contact with her for 5 whole days. Parents received updates by email each morning, with a group photo from the day before and a little blurb about what the group had spent that day doing. Ky went to an orphanage, where she had fun playing with one 18-month-old boy in particular. She also went to a prosthetics plant, an organic farm, and hiked up to a mountain village. She went to a night market, where she practiced her bargaining skills. She did jungle cooking one day, making her lunch over an open flame. Though she didn’t mention it right away upon her return, she had the “opportunity” to try eating an ant; apparently, the type that she ate has a distinct citrusy taste that one of their guides thought they would enjoy. I was unaware that she would come back ready to find food Survivor-style! Her school group was spread throughout the plane on their flights, and during one of the flights, Ky found herself between two women who were not affiliated with the school; both ladies were very nice, but Ky was a bit offended when the one well-meaning woman wanted to order Ky’s food and beverages for her. Kylie definitely embraced the independence-building nature of camp, from packing her own suitcase before the trip (as mandated by the teachers) to wanting to deal with the flight attendants herself on the flights there and back. She returned exhausted but thrilled by the whole experience. (I’m so happy that she had the opportunity to go, but I’m also so happy that we’ve checked that experience off the list; at home, a field trip to Chicago or Milwaukee, an hour away from Libertyville, was a big deal!)
Ky in Thailand
Happily, Brad’s travel has slowed down, and he hasn’t had to make a trip back to the U.S. since February. His conference calls at night are going strong, though, so he still spends the bulk of each evening (many nights until midnight or even 2 a.m.) on the phone, the poor guy. We don’t have an office, so he does his work from the couch. This continues to provide its challenges; cleaning up the kitchen and getting the kids to bed has to be done very quietly. I’m sure that some of our domestic noise makes its way through- I just always hope that it won’t be anything too embarrassing. (With Jenna and Logan sharing the hall bathroom that’s just off the family room/dining room/kitchen, it’s a realistic concern to have.)
Some other aspects of life in Singapore that are wearing on us a bit at the moment:
(1) The weather, which I’d been more positive about in my last review, coming off the slightly cooler winter months- the heat and humidity are back with a vengeance, and it’s thick out there, like soup.
(2) Termites, a new issue of late- apparently, this is the time of year for them, and they are very attracted to the light. When half your kitchen is open-air, this is a problem. Again, what is wrong with screens?
(3) Mold & mold mites, thanks to having our A/C on constantly- I spent a whole week this spring wiping down walls with a clove oil solution to eliminate the yellow mold and the harmless but gross little mites that feed off of it. As a result, the condo had a holiday-like scent to it for weeks.
(4) Cab drivers- I always seem to find the ones who are so picky about where they’re willing to drive a person, usually because their shift is ending shortly. Seriously, how many shift changes are there? I hate the rejection and the ensuing panic that I won’t get where I need to be on time if one of them doesn’t take pity on me and let me pay him to take me there, as one would expect cab drivers to want to do; I am not above begging. We continue to prefer the train and the bus, but some of the kids’ activities are in locations that are best reached by cab.
(5) Rules- my personality lends itself well to being a rule-follower, but this place has more rules than one would think possible. Within our condo complex alone, the rules can make you want to tear your hair out- where you can and can’t eat (given your proximity to the pool), how far in advance you can book the tennis court or the function room, what toys can be brought into the pool, where the kids can use their scooters, what the kids need to be wearing to play at the playground, etc. There is no room for thinking outside the box or employing logic to decide the most reasonable course of action; for expats, this can be particularly frustrating.
(6) Sidewalk etiquette- if you are walking with an umbrella up to shade yourself from the sun and are also busy texting on your phone, it is unlikely that you will be walking in a straight line or moving at a reasonable pace. Believe it or not, this can be very frustrating for those trying to get around you. Also, if you are walking four-abreast, and there is a single person approaching you, common sense would dictate that at least one person in your group should move out of the way, rather than expecting the individual headed toward you to hop off the sidewalk at the last moment to avoid a collision. Can you tell which person I am in these scenarios?
Then, there are the scratch-your-head moments that can occur in Singapore. Just for fun, check out this sign that was posted at the Little India train station yesterday:
I’m still not sure what “hoarding works” are; there is some ongoing construction at that station, and there was an area that was barricaded, but I think something may have been lost in the translation.
Most exciting since my last post, we were lucky enough to have our second set of visitors from home arrive here in April. The kids and I hadn’t seen any family members since Brad’s cousin Kathy came to see us in October, so we were thrilled to have Brad’s parents arrive on 4/8 to spend 2 weeks with us. I will post more about their visit at a later date (hopefully not too much later, but we’ll see how it goes- my track record lately is obviously not great). We had a wonderful time showing Grandma Sandy & Grandpa Bobby around Singapore, and the spring break trip we took with them to Vietnam was fantastic. The picture at the top of the post is from that trip, taken in Halong Bay. The boat behind us is the junk boat on which we took a 3-day, 2-night cruise.
When we decided to move to Singapore, our goal was to really take advantage of our new Asian home-base and travel as much as possible. We have been very lucky to have the chance to see many new places during the 9 months we’ve lived here. We’ve been to Malaysia twice (Batu Batu on Pulau Tengah, as detailed in a January post, and Johor Bahru, which is just over the border, to go to Legoland), New Zealand, and Vietnam. Kylie went to Thailand. Brad has been all over Asia for work. We still have a trip to Cambodia to squeeze in before the end of the school year. I feel like our kids are going to return to Chicago with such a broad view of the world, and that alone has made the last 9 months worth it. That being said, the best trip of all is coming soon- home-home awaits!
Simpler in Singapore? 