Recently Jay went back to school, on the 2nd of January, to start grade 3. For those not in the know, the school year starts in January here in Singapore. Which means that the long summer holidays, although it’s always summer here, are in November and December.

As a side note, Singapore has two seasons, hot and dry, and hot and wet. I haven’t seen a winter in 18 years now. The closest I came was summer in Canada, where even their August weather is colder than anything I’ve experienced in a long time. And yes, I did get some odd looks for wearing jumpers while I was there. read more

I think this is a question most parents will end up asking themselves at one point or another. When should we put a limit on our children’s creativity? And has it been destructive enough to require punishment?

Maybe a little background is in order. A few years ago Jay got angry at SO and basically threw a tantrum. The specifics aren’t important, and in any case, I don’t remember them. The next day, SO came home from work to find “I love (heart) you mummy!!!!” written on our couch (as seen in the above picture), as an apology. We didn’t end up punishing him for it, although he did get a talking to not to do it again. But should we have? It was a creative way of saying sorry, but at the same time it was also destructive. read more

Because of work and other life commitments, we decided to stay in Singapore this year for Christmas. This made it Jay’s third Christmas that he didn’t spend in Australia. This was a big deal, because it means it’s just the 3 of us spending the day together. Although this year, one of his cousins from Jakarta was staying with us, and even though he’s in his twenties, it still gave Jay someone else to play with.

Of course, in Australia we usually just spend Christmas day with my parents and my brother, so there’s no other kids for him to play with there either. But we do usually see some of my cousins while we’re there, and Jay gets to play with their kids. read more

Since we got married, SO and I had only had a couple of Christmases in Australia. But after Jay came along, we decided to try to go there as much as possible. This year is only the third time that we haven’t gone back since he was born. The first time I’ve already written about. The second was the year my brother got married in Canada and we spent a month there with him and his new wife earlier in the year and didn’t want to take more time off work. This year we were just too busy to take time off and travel. This post though, is about times we did go there. read more

Since it’s almost Christmas, I’ve been thinking of the past and specifically of Jay’s first Christmas. Since he was born in the first half of November, he was only around 6 weeks old when Christmas arrived that year. Also, since he was adopted, we had spent most of that time finalising the adoption and organising his trip to Singapore to join us here.

As it turned out, his adoption was finalised about a week before Christmas Day, but then we also had to get him a passport so that he could actually travel. Because of work, this task fell to SO, while I stayed in Singapore.  SO went to Jakarta, where Jay was being looked after by her family, and went to work getting all the paperwork organised and applying for his passport. By some miracle, and SO’s extraordinary powers of manipulation, I mean hard work, she’s not manipulative at all, she managed to get the passport on Christmas Eve. read more

In last week’s article I started to talk about our trip to Legoland Malaysia, if you haven’t read it yet you can check it out here.

When I left off we had just headed down to dinner. There’s not much to say about it other than it was a buffet, which is something Jay always likes. The food was okay, but not as good as you would expect from an expensive hotel, particularly the western dishes. The Asian dishes were better, which is common in Asia with the western dishes never as good as what we get back home, unless you’re really willing to pay for it. read more

Jay’s school holidays started a few weeks ago and as an extra birthday present we decided to take him to Legoland just over the border in Malaysia. For those who don’t know Singapore, it has their long summer (it’s always summer here) holidays in November and December, 6 weeks of no school, and return to classes at the beginning of January. We’d taken him there earlier in the year on a one day trip, but this time we decided to spend the night at the Legoland Hotel and spend one day at the theme park and the other at the water park. read more

A few weeks ago I wrote about Jay’s 8th birthday and how he had a small party with only his best friend. And being an expat family that’s how most of his birthdays are spent, with SO, my wife, and I, and maybe one or two of his friends to help celebrate.

You see, the problem is, my parents and one brother are back in Australia, and my other brother and his family are in Canada. SO’s family, on the other hand, are all in Indonesia, Jakarta to be exact. Which creates the peoblem that we have to travel internationally to celebrate events with family. So as a result we tend to celebrate our birthdays a long way from our families. Except for Jay’s first couple of birthdays anyway. Christmas and Chinese New Year (SO is ethnically Chinese) are other times that we try to travel to see family, but I’ll write about them elsewhere. read more

A little over 4 years ago, my 3 year old son, Jay, decided he needed to clean our iPad 1. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was so cute and adorable, and my wife holding me back, he may not have seen 4.

So how did we get to that point? I bought the iPad about 2 years earlier because I could see how much it would help me with my work and I could become much more productive. Okay, okay, the truth is I had spent some time playing on one with my wife’s nieces and nephews and I wanted to play the games at home by myself. read more

So Jay’s turned 8. Which seems strange to say because he’s exactly the same as he was when he was 7. Okay, he’s changed a lot in the last few years. How could he not? He’s getting bigger and learning more and maturing. But on a daily basis, we don’t really notice those changes. It’s only when we look at how our kids are different than they were a year or two earlier that we really notice how they’ve changed and grown.

Not that that is what I’m writing about today, but it seemed the right way to start. What I am going to write about is Jay’s birthday. And more specifically, how we celebrated it. read more