from around here

A friend told me this morning that 40s is the best decade and yes, I am so on board with this.

And not in a let’s try to make the most out of this situation by forcing myself to believe it’s great when it’s not kind of way either. I actually do think it’s one of those secrets people who have turned 40 keep to themselves and I’m pleasantly surprised at how nice being 40 is.

So I read this article recently about a lady who signed up with a dating agency and was unhappy with her potential matches so she wanted a refund. Granted, she had a list of demands that made her seem borderline persnickety but what I found fascinating was the comment section. It was a lot of people reminding her that she’s already 40 and should have no business being this demanding. One comment referred to her as “no spring chicken” and “clearly an auntie”, which now that I’m 40, I IDENTIFY with these descriptions. Having once been a spring chicken myself, I can definitively say that being poultry is overrated, regardless of how succulent one might appear to be.

On that note, I’ve also long since embraced being called auntie. A few weeks ago, we were playing 3-on-3 basketball with a bunch of teenagers at the nearby court and one of the kids was like “eh, you go mark the auntie” and he immediately caught himself and was all like “uh, sorry, I mean…” and I was like “boy ah, my son is your age so I expect nothing less than being called auntie. In fact, I would be offended if you called me anything else.” I did nail a jumper in the kid’s face but guess what? That’s what us aunties do.

Being 40 has its challenges for sure. I feel my body wearing down after taking a beating for 4 whole decades. My left shoulder has been in constant pain for years, my knees are completely busted, my hair is turning white, my pelvic floor is gone, and I’ve come to terms with having routine medical check ups as a part of my life from here on out.

At the same time, I’m also fitter than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I’ve been on a HIIT program 5 days a week for the past 3 years and I run 5km every other week. I just clocked in at 27 minutes for my 5km this week and that’s faster than I ran when I was 18. I feel like if Mariko Yugeta, the Japanese lady who ran a sub-3 marathon at 62 can do it, I can probably keep this up right to my 60s.

If there’s one thing that I enjoy most about being 40, it’s the sense of freedom to just be me. Even when I wasn’t consciously doing it, it always felt like I was striving to prove something all through my 20s and for some of my 30s. I needed to be better, more successful, achieve more, have more kids, work more, do more, be more – and maybe it was just to prove to myself that I could do all of these things.

I felt like my life needed to be filled with all these adventures because it’s what makes for a better life. And to be sure, it is delightful to be be sipping wine in the Swiss alps and partaking in a fancy Miyazaki beef dinner, but it is just as delightful to have a $3.50 bowl of ban mian just because I enjoy it. I had it for dinner last night and it occurred to me that this bowl of noodles was comforting and delicious and it brought me joy.

I get to make decisions because it’s what I want to do instead of worrying about whether it makes me look a certain way. It’s the freedom to do work that makes me happy and to walk away from things that don’t, even if it’s something that everyone says is great. I get to enthusiastically enjoy all of life’s experiences, even the basic, boring, uncool ones.

All this to say that it’s only day 1 of being in my 40s and I’m already loving it. I woke up to my favourite person in the world and had my babies walking up to me to give me birthday kisses throughout the day.

Here’s to enjoying the best decade.

We’re approaching the end of October and it has been one crazy year. After a shaky start and a very rough middle, I feel like the next two months has the potential to get better (come on, phase 3!) or much worse. In any case, this year has certainly been one for the books.

Although there has already been some unexpected bright spots these past months. One of best things to have come out of all this circuit breaking is the extra family time we get to spend with the kids.

Look at these babies. Have they all gotten big or what?

So Truett survived his PSLE. We experienced the entire spectrum of emotions leading up to his exams (by that I mean me. Tru remained super chill throughout the whole process) – starting from optimism to trepidation to frustration and eventually despair, it was a fun time for all of us.

He came home after his final paper, yeeted his bag across the living room, shouted “FREEDOMMMMM!!” and has been celebrating ever since.

It’s been almost a month since his last paper and the poor boy is still suffering from PTSD. Some mornings, he’ll sit at his desk and grab his textbooks like he’s on autopilot, then let out a huge sigh of relief and be like “phew, I was about to study and then I realised that there are no more exams! Guess I’ll be gaming over here instead lol.”

The other kids have been observing his immense misery during exam prep and his indescribable joy these days and I think there’s a lesson to be learnt here, which is the value of delayed gratification, or that you can’t really know true joy without suffering, or as Theo puts it, “exams are very bad”. One of those.

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In other news, I’m really excited to introduce Gen X Singapore, a new content portal delivering content for well, Generation X.

Depending on how you cut it, Gen X is typically defined as those born between 1965-1980, but I’ve always felt more like a Gen Xer than a Millennial. I’m painfully aware of the irony here (with Millennials and their obsession with Harry Potter references) but I see this as a sorting hat situation where your generation chooses you as much as you choose it. And if so, I’m definitely Ravencl…I mean, team Gen X.

I’ve been working on the site with a friend, Theresa (who is a classic Gen Xer and a veteran in the editorial scene) for the past several months and it’s been a joy coming up with content for this overlooked, low-maintenance, self-sufficient generation. We get to geek out over our shared love for Star Wars, the Mandalorian, old-school bands, iconic Gen X movies and the experience of growing up in a different time.

But more than just being a throwback site reminiscing about some defining Gen X moments, it’s about looking at the world through the eyes of a Gen Xer today.

In the upcoming months, we’ll be working with talented Gen X writers to cover pretty much everything that Gen X cares about, ranging from lifestyle to entertainment to finance, to travel, to relationships and parenting, as well as develop some really fun video content.

Come by for a read if you’re a Gen Xer or feel like one.

//

In other other news, we’ll also be launching a cafe space at Rowell Road some time in the next two months. Yeah, I know, siao one. As if we’re not already up to our eyeballs with work and kids and the new website. Let’s also open a cafe!

I guess part of the why is that this has always been something we wanted to do. To have our own space where we would sell all the things we liked to eat – basically coffee and cakes and cookies and pies. There will also be bacon somewhere in that menu.

I did think it was a little late in life to be picking up a new skill from scratch but if Jason Statham can take up piano at a late age, I’m pretty sure I can learn to barista at 38.

Also, the kids have spent an embarrassing amount of time pretending to sell imaginary food in their pretend cafe and they’re really excited to be selling real food to real customers so I already have five very committed employees who will take payment in the form of hugs and high fives.

Just kidding, I’ll pay them in snacks of course.

We’ll have a proper skilled barista on the team but if you’re feeling adventurous enough, drop by when we open and I’ll make you a cup of coffee myself.

It’s day 23 of the circuit brea…wait, it could be day 25, 28, 45? Feels like 400. I’ve lost track of how long it’s been and I woke up this morning confident that it was Wednesday until I realised that it is most definitely only Tuesday.

When the circuit breaker was first announced, I had some concerns but mostly, I was feeling rather hopeful. It couldn’t be that bad, certainly I can do 4 weeks of home-based learning with all the kids at home 24/7 without losing my mind<?> Yeah, I realise that came out more like a question than a statement there. But I was optimistic and I had it all figured out, at least in my head.

I was planning to run a tight ship – everyone had schedules! Individual workstations! Lists of things to complete each day! A sense of personal responsibility! (okay questionable)

At 9am on day 1, I gathered all the kids and briefed them on their daily responsibilities + the importance of taking ownership of their individual tasks. Once I determined that they possessed a suitable level of enthusiasm for the day ahead, I sent them on their way as I settled in with my first cup of coffee. They were to brief me on their progress at noon, and then again at the end of the day. Optimism, y’all!

9.15: Truett couldn’t log in to his school email account, troubleshooting required.

9.18: Finn couldn’t complete his daily check in because he couldn’t find his thermometer.

“Did you check your bag??”

“Oh ya, found it.”

9.30: Set up a school-assigned workout for Theo and Hayley on the laptop. While attempting a downward dog, Hayley smashed her head onto the ground and it was adorable but also injurious to both her delicate face and self-esteem.

“I can’t do any more exercises, I’m super injured…”

10am: Messages are coming in hard and fast via class dojo. There were like 20 messages from various teachers with instructions and links and updated schedules. I attended to each one with as much dedication as I could gather but I scanned through the list and was already exhausted.

Some examples:

“Some students have posted the Practice 4 Word Problem. Thank you very much. However, some of them did not do the corrections before uploading.The corrections should include the models, equations and workings and not just the correct answers. Please help to remind your child. Thanks.”

“Hi. I still have the following lesson in SLS showing as incomplete: *Word Prob-Division. Finn needs to complete it asap, as the lesson will be available in HBL for only a week from the start date. Thank you!”

** This was my cue to yell at Finn to complete his Word Prob-Division.

Several minutes later, “Message for Finn! Well done Finn! Good job! You have tried doing almost all the assignments! See you next week during live session :)”

Just going through all the messages and looking into each one took me over an hour. In between, kids were coming to me with numerous problems ranging from the I-can’t-click-submit variety to my-mouse-is-going-crazy-please-help. Theo + Hayley had completed their school-assigned curriculum and I needed to figure out how to occupy the rest of their day in a productive manner. Right then, it occured to me that this was basically a preview of my expected level of involvement in the days ahead and I silently asked the Lord to take this cup of suffering away from me.

But the Lord works in mysterious ways. It’s now day 20-something and my cup of suffering overfloweth. My tight ship (now more like a sinking vessel) is springing leaks all over and I’m desperately scooping water out hoping that maybe it will somehow keep us afloat.

Like yesterday, my entire day was spent helping the big kids with their Chinese assignments (can I just say that listening to them read 理解问答 passages out loud is a soul-draining process) and by the end of the day, I had lost almost all of my will to live. I don’t know how teachers do it but whatever they’re being paid, it’s not nearly enough.

Speaking of teachers and the pain they go through, I overheard this gem from one of the kids during Finn’s zoom class this morning. “Teacher, can you repeat everything you just said, I wasn’t paying attention.” I cannot even.

//

Although as far as silver linings go, there are plenty to be found. In the midst of all the mayhem, the kids have been in an unexplainably chirpy mood and life around here is best described as a beautiful mess.

We’re spending a lot of time building forts, fixing legos, reading stories, hanging out with bunnies, staging epic pillow fights, doing movie nights and having indoor picnics. I was prepared for more squabbles seeing that everyone is at home all the time but the kids have gotten along fabulously. The days while intense, have also been a lot of fun.

It’s also been nice having the husband around all day. All the kids are pleased to have him at home for a change. The big kids will come observe him at work and ask questions like “what is it exactly that you do?“; Finn will offer hugs; Theo will challenge him to multiple combats (I feel the need to mention that these are real fights with karate chops and body slams on the bed and I have mixed feelings about it) and Hayley will ask him for snacks. They are now conditioned to keep it down whenever daddy is on a work call, and they do a fairly good job – there’ll be a lot of shushing or loud whispers of “keep quiet, don’t disturb papa...”, it’s adorable.

When all of this is over, I think we’ll look back on this as a special time where we got to spend time doing life a little differently.

These are some strange times. We were supposed to be in Austin for the South by Southwest conference and 3 days before we were scheduled to leave, the whole event got cancelled and everything escalated everywhere so we decided it was best to stick around at home instead.

Times like these, I’m glad Singapore is our home and I can’t think of anywhere safer to be right now.

The kids are pleased about this development. Well at least my 3 babies are pleased; they were like “You’re not leaving anymore? I can spend all my time with you now? YEAHHHHH!!” while the 2 big kids were all “Ummm, so does that mean we won’t have 2 whole weeks without parental supervision? Aw mannn, I mean…yay??”

Sigh, almost-teenagers are breaking my heart.

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Hayley has finally started school and it’s been rough. On me, mostly.

This baby is having a great time hanging out with kids her age and after a fabulous start (zero tears!), she’s acting like she’s done this all her life.

The school recommended easing her in with a half day program on the first week but she was totally flexing by volunteering to do the whole full day right from the get go. “Are you sure? I can come pick you early if you’d like,” I offered, but she just put her little baby hand on my shoulder and said, “I got this, mom.” Okay, yes ma’am!

And to think that there was a time where I was complaining about not having enough me time. 2008 sleep-deprived, postpartum me clearly knew nothing about how good she had it. Now, I’m a walking cliche of a mom who’s wistfully browsing old baby photos and going on about how these babies used to be all mine all the time.

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It’s our anniversary today. 13 years in and I still wake up feeling like the luckiest girl in the world because this guy right here is the one I want to spend all my good days and bad days and average boring days with. I think that means I still kind of like him.

Also, these kids have set the bar for planning surprise parties. They put together a whole dinner thing for us yesterday and it was straight up the best anniversary celebration ever.

Preparations started two days ago with K and Tru holding a 2-hour long meeting with all the kids in the room. They were so excited to be sworn to secrecy and I love how babies get so excited about a huge secret that they kept coming out to update me like “MOM!! SOMETHING HUGE IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN BUT I CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT IT IS OK FINE IT’S ABOUT YOUR ANNIVERSARY TOMORROW...” and one of the big kids will yell “NOOOOO STOP TALKING YOU’RE GIVING AWAY THE SECRET!!” until finally Hayley came out and whispered “later after the meeting I will tell you the secret okay I’ve got to go back, bye.”

Yesterday, the 3 big kids went on a secret mission to Waterway Point (on their own for the first time). They made me give them $30, which they used to eat Japanese food and “get stuff”. Apparently, they had a really hard time deciding on what to get because Tru was the Money Planner and every item seemed to be out of their budget. Kirsten found a bunch of artificial flowers that was necessary for the deco and Tru was like “we don’t have enough money, let’s do without the flowers,” but after a long discussion, K outvoted him with her Overall Planning Chairperson status + her superior decorating abilities.

At 5pm, they banished me to the room so they could set up the decor and cards and dinner. I was tasked to order food, which they plated to perfection. Then they ate their own dinner, dressed the kids all spiffy and waited for the husband to get home before I was allowed out of the room.

These guys sure know how to make a girl feel special.

A little late, but happy new year!! I’m excited about 2020.

We were away for almost all of December last year (more on that!) and in the midst of the mayhem that comes with traveling with 5 kids, I got some time to think about my life up to this point and what I wanted it to look like in the next 10 years. 2019 was wonderful but also hard and there were days where I felt like I was failing at too many things.

I can see myself approaching a version of midlife crisis and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve done all the predictable things people do in their late 30s – exercise, eat better, worry about health, question things, make plans and then question those plans, try to figure out what’s really important in my life. I’ve been feeling like I need to do more with my time and be more intentional with my decisions.

In my 20s, I had all the time in the world to discover myself, take detours, go on adventures. At 37, time feels like it’s running away from me and my years are gaining speed. Meanwhile, my list of things to do is somehow getting longer.

//

This year, Truett will be preparing for his PSLE, which also means that I’ll be preparing for his PSLE. After gathering information from other parents who have gone through this ordeal, I’ve decided that my approach will be one of moral support and encouragement, mostly in the form of “YOU CAN DO THIS, TRU!! Now go do your 10-year series.” Actually, I’ve prepared several deeply moving and motivational pep talks, which I intend to deliver to my son at opportune times throughout the year. He doesn’t enjoy them, but I do.

Kisten and Finn will be continuing in their Primary school journey and they appreciate the respite that Tru’s upcoming PSLE will bring them. “Uh mom, I think you can focus on kor kor, kthxbye.”

Theo is very much enjoying his last year of preschool. He has the benefit of seeing his older siblings having to deal with the pain that is homework and 听写 and assessment books and is all gleeful like “wah, this is so relaxing, I can play games and go swimming and hang out at the playground while the rest are busy with their hard work.” In return, the big kids sing to him their favourite line from Hamilton. “Just you wait…just you wait…”

And baby Hayley? Can you believe that this baby will be 4 this year? I’m in severe denial about this. If all goes well, she will be starting school this year once a spot opens up for her. She’s on an immediately enrolment standby list and I’m told that it could be as soon as next week or several months. Hayley is hoping the waitlist never clears because she will be “so sad if she doesn’t get to be near me at all times.” Her baby eyes fill up with tears whenever she considers not being within touching distance of my being every moment of every day.

I get the separation anxiety because I feel it too. One of my favourite parts of 2019 was spending my mornings with this last baby alone. I’ll miss our morning walks and long chats over breakfast and I know that she has to grow up sometime, I just wish it wasn’t so soon.

2020 – let’s go!!

We made it to the end of exam season and just look at the happy faces around here.

I don’t remember Primary school exams being this big a thing back when I was a kid. There were papers at the end of every semester with grades attached but they were pretty much nbd right up till the PSLE. Sometimes my mom would present us with gifts of assessment books and we would have to make a show of getting through them but there was a lot of phoning it in without much consequence.

Helping the kids navigate their exams has been a learning process for us. We started out trying to be all chill about exams. I was all “just do your best, don’t worry about the grades” and they took the second part quite literally because Tru skipped home with his Chinese paper at the end of P1 to show me the 8/50 circled in bright red ink. His Chinese teacher followed up with a call several days later to gently inform me that that was the second worst grade in the entire school while suggesting that it wasn’t too early for an intervention.

That made us reconsider my approach with the chillness. We started them on Chinese tuition and put in more hours coaching them on the dreaded 听写. Every exam season, my favourite websites are testpapersfree.com and sgtestpaper.com, both bookmarked and visited daily.

Since then, the question I’ve been trying to address with every impending exam was the first part about doing your best. What does that look like for a 10/11-year-old?

Effort, for one. But how much effort was enough? An hour of revision a day? 2 hours? Do we benchmark it against the average? Which is what, 30 hours a week these days? I maybe did 30 minutes of revision a week back when I was in Primary school, but that level of effort clearly isn’t going to fly with today’s kids. I look at some of their Math questions and I already have to do more than 2 hours of learning today to understand how to draw some of the models.

It’s a delicate dance – putting just enough pressure for them to work hard while assuring them that grades aren’t everything, and that we would love them no matter what.

During a particularly stressful afternoon of exam prep where Tru was struggling with his Math paper, he quietly told me that he already knew he wouldn’t be as successful as Kirsten or Finn when he grew up. “K is good at exams and Finn is super smart, he’s always getting full marks,” he said, looking at the unreasonably difficult Math question in front of him.

“Hey, stop with the Math for a moment and listen to mom.” He fiddled with his pen without looking up. “I won’t say this often but here’s where I tell you that exams are overrated and even if you fail all your papers from now till eternity, you’re going to be ok. You’re going to be more than ok because God made you special. You’re smarter and wittier and more talented than I was as a kid and I’m actually excited to see all the amazing things you’re going to do when you grow up. One day, you’ll realise that all of this won’t matter, you’ll see.”

“If it won’t matter, then why do I still have to do it now? I can just play computer games if I want to be a pro gamer next time.”

“That’s a fair question. It’s about giving yourself options in life and having a well-rounded education gives you options. It’s about overcoming challenges and learning the value of hard work and developing some grit in the face of adversity. It’s about training your brain; figuring out what you’re good at, and working extra hard at the parts that are difficult. At this point, it’s your job to try to nail these Math questions and learn Chinese words and memorise scientific things. I know it’s hard but you just need to try.”

***

Today, I get to tell them that they’ve done a good job making it through exam season and they’re going to be ok no matter what. We’ll figure it out together after the results are out but first, we party.

 

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Tru is done with exams and I asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate. “I think I will build a trampoline fort for the babies,” he decided. Today, my living room is a trampoline park and these babies will adore him till the end of time

A post shared by Daphne (@daphneling) on Oct 31, 2019 at 7:57pm PDT

It’s children’s day today and the kids were like “WE SHOULD CELEBRATE!” and I asked them what they had in mind and they were all “how about some snacks and we can have fun together maybe go swimming or the playground” and then I was like “this is your entire life, guys – having snacks and having fun hanging out together” and they thought about it for a moment and were all “yeah ok, good point! let’s get on it.”

As it turns out, they’re all headed for a super fun children’s day carnival at church and for the first time this morning, Hayley announced that she was going to partake in this big kid activity because she’s a big girl and I was all kinds of here for it.

“Mommy’s not going to be there, but you’re going to have a great time with kor kor and jie jie ok?” She nodded, suddenly looking all grown up and decidedly unbaby.

“I’ll have so much fun!” she said, sounding just a little unsure, before planting a kiss on my cheek and hopping up the bus with her little backpack and all of the resolve she could gather. “I’ll miss you, mom!”

My heart isn’t built for this – saying goodbye, even if just for half a day.

//

For the first time in too many years, I find myself with zero kids and a whole lot of me time and I’m not sure what to do with myself. I thought about going back to bed and reading a book like I’ve been dreaming of doing for such a long time. Which I did for a while, and it was delightful. Then I had breakfast and went to the gym and blitzed through my inbox and had a second coffee and is this a sneak preview of how my future feels like?

I’ve scheduled my life around the kids since Truett came along 11 years ago and life feels grounded with them around. I’ve gotten good at finding pockets of time to do everything else while having the luxury of sneaking in a delicious baby cuddle in the middle of my day. Multitasking feels normal and the intensity of kid-related mayhem is comforting to me. My brain tells me that I should relish these moments of finding myself but when the kids aren’t here, things feel like they are all up in the air. I’ve suddenly got all the time in the world and guess what I’m doing? I’m sitting here making plans for how to spend the rest of the day once the kids are back.

My future can take its time to get here, is what I’m saying.