The 3 older girls have very gruelling school days, leaving the house at 6am and reaching home past 7pm on most days. I let them sleep in on Saturdays to make up for the inadequate rest during the week.
7:00 am: Kate and #5, on the other hand, have an internal alarm clock and they are up early even on weekends. Why, kids? Why? I tell them to be very quiet so as not to wake the rest of the household up. They make their way downstairs and watch TV while having their breakfast. This buys me extra snooze time before Kate gets bored and starts talking really loudly, singing or fighting with her gor gor. When I can hear her voice from upstairs, it is time to drag myself out of bed to attend to her lest everyone else gets woken up.
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| Breakfast prepared by our helper |
8:00 am: Her favourite outdoor activity at the moment is cycling and she hops on her little balance bike and beckons me to follow her out the gate. To keep up with her I have to brisk walk and occasionally break into a slow jog (that’s where I get my daily dose of exercise). She knows the neighbourhood well and makes her way to the playground.
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| Stray dog following her |
Meanwhile, the hubs is off to the market to prepare brunch for the troop. He usually whips up bak kut teh, hainanese chicken rice or roast chicken.
10:00 am: The other 4 are awake by now and we have a leisurely brunch together.
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| Stuffed roast chicken with potatoes |
10:30 am: The grandparents come over every Saturday and they often take Kate and #5 for a little outing, either to the zoo, bird park or science centre.
11:00 am: While the 2 little tikes are out of the way, I will see to the ad hoc needs of the older girls. It could be a dental appointment or a quick trip to the mall to get stuff they need. The ones left at home will either be attacking their homework, doing ‘girlie’ stuff in each other’s rooms or using YouTube to learn things they are interested in. #2 is teaching herself to play the guitar and #4 has picked up some pretty awesome braiding techniques.
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| #4’s hairstyling doll |
2:00 pm: The 2 younger ones are back and Kate goes down for her nap. My parents will stay on a bit to chat with the girls before leaving.
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4:00 pm: With kids spanning the ages of 2 – 16, it is not easy finding an activity which suits everyone. Thankfully, we have recently found something we can all do together where I don’t get cries of “boring!” from the teens. That is – going on bike trails. It takes the hubs a good hour to get all the bikes pumped, checked and loaded into the car. We have to drive 2 cars. One for the bikes, one for the kids.
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| Alfresco dinner |
5:00 pm: The kids are hungry so we have an early dinner enroute. We like the picturesque and relatively quiet Labrador park trail, going across the boardwalk which snakes behind the Reflections and Caribbean condos to the Marina at Keppel Bay. Here’s my previous post with more pictures and directions for Labrador Park.
We take it slow and steady as we have to wait for those lagging behind. Frequently, that’s me. The kids love to stop and pose for photos and to take in the beautiful scenery, especially the setting sun.
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| Pit stop for pictures |
That’s how we spend our weekends – slow and simple. Long have I abandoned the crazy weekends of before where I need to unwind from the weekend.
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Here’s a peek at how our typical weekday looks like.
Next up is Mary who blogs at Simply Lambchops. She is mum to not one, not two but three little lambs. She writes at Simply Lambchops – her little online space to preserve precious memories of her children, and to encourage anyone through her littlest one who is born with Down Syndrome.
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| Mary’s lovely family |
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Hi, (thanks for your comments, but somehow it got lost when I clicked publish!)
Anyway, here's my reply.
I'm not the only child, but my kids are the only grandkids so far. Yes, we are extremely blessed to have the help and unwavering support of my parents all these years!
Love how you manage to settle the errands and yet give the kids time to work on their individual interests (that hairstyling doll is so interesting!)… and still squeeze in time together as a family to cycle! So inspired that we'll work on our cycling as a family this weekend! Thanks for sharing your day! (And that brunch looks soooooo good!)
I have to make it a point to build that into our weekends as often as possible, if not everyone will be pulled every which way!
Haha, yes, it's great that at least ONE of us can cook 😉