Hi 24hr-mum,


I really identify with you. As much as I remind myself not to judge myself by my children’s results, I find I get quite stressed when I realize that at times my efforts seem to go down the drain. Sometimes, they are still rude, at others, they do not do very well in school.

I used to work in a bank and would take great pride in doing a job well, but now I have to keep telling myself my children are different, they are human beings and not numbers to crunch or customers you need to serve well to maintain your KPI.

Now, I find what helps me is I tell myself to enjoy them each day and to always focus on their strengths and not their weakness. Of course I want to minimise their weakness but at the same time, I want to really focus on their strengths and encourage them in that. My daughter loves to dance and although it is not very important to me, because it is important to her and it is her strength, I encourage her to go further in that area even if it means cutting down on other areas like extra chinese creative writing classes.

They grow up so fast and I do not want to waste my time with them being stressed and driving them and myself up the wall.

Hope this little sharing helps. But I think all mums whether stay home or working mums have to keep fighting guilt and pressure and stress which is usually put on by ourselves.

This time the MPH sale does not have many books for younger preschool kids like Usbourne series. I used to be able to find stacks of them but when I went at around 2 pm, I could hardly find any.


There are many Eclipse books, babysitter club books, and some
series of unfortunate event books. I find that the MPH sales do not have such a wide selection now. However, the prices are still good.

jasmineong:

wywy2:

Hi sunshinelove,


Where did you go for the spelling bee? Is it the one held at Singapore Post? I wanted to bring my child but it is quite far, do you know if they have it anywhere else?

Why don't you call them up at 67588744 to ask about it as they might have their community service programmes at their own centres as well?

Ok tks, I called them already and have made a reservation for my child.

Has your child gone for it?

Hi sunshinelove,


Where did you go for the spelling bee? Is it the one held at Singapore Post? I wanted to bring my child but it is quite far, do you know if they have it anywhere else?

Hi TAS,

I am also very interested in this programme that Violetmum talked about :love: Can share more?

Hi,


Any good chinese tuition centre or tutor to recommend for bishan area? My kids did not do well for chinese this year so thinking abt changing their tutor.

daddy2007:

The H&S premium is paid using MediSave so should be quite ok right? I presume you are talking about the Rider which we have to pay in cash? About $100+ per annual for the Rider. So I just save $10 each month to pay for the Rider

Personally I will only downgrade when I am 60+ when the premium is too high

As for the kid, I will continue to pay for her until she turns 21 where I will ask her to pay for herself. $100+ p.a. to buy a piece of mind which IMHO I think is worth it. Of course the premium might grow over time.

Insurance is about transferring of financial risk and to use it as leverage to protect one's wealth. So I tell myself that it is better to play safe to pay a sunk cost as one will not know when one will need it. This is just my personal view.

Hi daddy2007,

Thanks for your input on this. I guess I was asking as I just wanted to be sure. For money matters, I need to learn more as I feel I can be a bit blur about such things. Tks!!

MMM:

Planning a party for my P3 this december as she rarely get to celebrate and this is the 1st time she is inviting her friends over.


What are the food suggestions? We will be doing home cook stuff. Eg. fried bee hoon, fried rice, fish balls, chicken wings, nuggets, hot dog, sandwiches. Any other suggestions....

In terms of activities, I am getting someone to do 1.5hr magic, puppet and balloon sculpting.

Thinking of having a pinata too... still exploring where to tie to. Never had one and looks like lots of fun. What do we stuff them with????

Also, iso of party bags. We are thinking of having a lucky draw. All kids will go back with a prize.

Any other ideas....

Not forgetting doing up the place with party decors stuff. Sounds like a great deal of fun

Hi MMM,

You can stuff them with lots of candy and little cute things like small notebooks, stickers etc.

I did that for my older girl's birthday when she was 5 and her friends all loved it.

You can actually also rent candy floss and popcorn machines and the kids simply love it.

Have lots of fun! Your child is only young once, when they are younger it is easier to plan cos they are tickled and charmed by almost anything. :lol:

daddy2007:

I fully agreed that private hospitalisation plan is a must. I bought the highest private plan for my daughter when she turned 1. Don't know is it lucky or unlucky, she has been hospitalised twice when she was 2+. So far didn't pay a cent at all for the hospital bill (both occassion staying at Private A ward)


It is good that one buy the highest H&S plan (those entitled Private Hospital) for a yound child since the difference between the next plan (for age below 18) is not alot. It is easier to downgrade to a lower plan then to upgrade to a higher plan. Once the child has any medical history, there will be bound to have exclusion clause

As for endowment, I have my reservation. The returns is quite small (~2-3% p.a) over 18 years. The winner is the agent & the insurer

PS: I am not vested as I am not a financial planner

Yes I agree too, get the highest plan and it saves you a lot of heartache, just wondering though when should I downgrade, oldest kid already in Primary School. What do you think? Cos quite heart pain to cough out so much for my 2 kids. And actually one of them did not even need it so far.

hquek:

So sorry busymom for late reply. For bookdepository, I think the price is inclusive of shipping so don't bother buying there. You should look at

http://clubs-shop.scholastic.co.uk/
http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_home_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100

These 2 are typically very good for booksets and I am not sure but would think that 3 weeks is enough. Though I still would encourage you to send an email to query your order and check if they can deliver on/before that date.

If you are a newbie in amazon, there may still be PRIME membership that you can trial. Sign up for the trial (but make sure that they don't auto continue) and you can have your stuff delivered overnight.

Luckily, uk is way better than china - I nearly tore my hair out trying to match dangdang's timing to my travel in Beijing.

Hi hquek,

Thanks for these websites! Personally I do not find book depository very cheap, for the websites you quoted, like The Book People, I went to the site and under delivery, they mentioned that they cannot deliver to overseas addresses, how do you get your books from them then? :?