1. I like to think that I’m the sort who’s always ready for a challenge but I will tell you straight up right now that I will not be doing this simultaneous moving/renovating/living like gypsy again ever. Or at least until the next time it happens and I have to question my decision making ability all over again.
This moving in first then renovate and sort out furniture along the way plan seemed considerably less problematic in my head than it has been in actual execution.
In reality, it has meant living without lights for 2 weeks (so romantic doing everything by candle light, but mostly just a lot of “guys be careful, please don’t set the toilet on fire!!“), eating on the floor like it’s a picnic every day (okay, that part’s pretty fun), emergency laundry at my mom’s house while waiting for the washer to arrive (I learnt that the number of days we can go without doing laundry is 3 and a half) packing, repacking, moving things around and cleaning ridiculous amounts of dust caused by all the drilling and installing of various things.
On the bright side, we’re about 80% done and I feel like I can finally come up for air.
2. Basically unrelated but look at these two sharing lollies. Who needs furniture, mom? We have lollies!
3. I’ve lived in the east all my life and it’s a bit of an adjustment moving to Punggol. I think about people moving across continents and here I am moving 15 minutes to a new neighbourhood feeling like we’re discovering a whole new place. It’s been an adventure looking for new eating places, new playgrounds, new parks, new heartland malls.
The first Sunday we moved in, we woke up feeling rather brunchy, so of course the husband turned to google for assistance. We were thrilled to discover a cluster of hipster cafes at Tebing Lane, just 2 minutes from our new place because now we can have all the avocado toasts we desire on Sunday mornings, which turns out to be zero avocado toasts. I try to be hip but sadly, I’ve never been able to desire an avocado toast. I’m an old fashioned kind of girl, just give me all of the bacon.
4. The school situation has been a logistical challenge. The plan was to shift the kids to a school in the punggol vicinity (there are 3 schools within a stone’s/javelin’s throw, if the person doing the throwing is the Night King) but apparently, one does not just anyhowly shift one’s kids in the middle of the school year. All the schools we applied for are presently full so we can either wait it out or take our chances and apply for a transfer using MOE’s Student Transfer Exercise for Primary Schools at the end of the year. It would require giving up their spots in the current school and accepting the school assigned by the system (within 3km) but I’m not sure if playing roulette with my kids’ education is a good parental move. We don’t need them to get into the best school but it has to be a good fit so we’re still mulling over this one.
The kids have been really good about the move though. Having to transfer schools is a big deal and they are sad about leaving their friends + a little nervous about adjusting to a new environment but they’ve been really positive about it, trying to focus on important things like “WAH this school got a Popular bookshop inside??!!!” or “this canteen got chicken rice?? I love chicken rice!”
For now, commuting to school is a 20-minute drive in the morning and a 50-minute trip via bus + bus + LRT in the afternoon each way.
5. Much to the delight of baby Theo, we discovered that there’s a family of komodo dragons living at the waterway just behind our house. They would come up to the pathway for a tan or a meal (of small children, as I keep telling the kids but no one will listen) on most afternoons while we go for our little walks. Evidently, I was far less delighted to discover this.
On one of our brunches at Whisk and Paddle, my beautiful children whom I love with all my heart took one of the rubbery toy komodo dragons from the play pit and casually put it on my shoulder. Kids, mommy loves you dearly but if this nonsense happens again, I am not above giving away my offspring, am I clear?
*Edit: so apparently there aren’t any komodo dragons living in the punggol vicinity and it is most likely just friendly neighbourhood monitor lizards. I will however, maintain that they still might eat small children for lunch so one should avoid them as one would avoid an actual dragon, komodo or otherwise.
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