阳阳 Tackles Penguin Colour Matching Game

Just an excuse to post cute pics of 阳阳 hahaha. Meimei laminated some of the home based learning materials for 阳阳 to play with. He was pretty engrossed in them and looks to be having lots of fun.

Not a bad way to keep him occupied for a short while.

Pizza Making With Mama

Another fun activity for the kids conjured up by Meimei! Cooking has to be one of the more fun stuff to do together with the kids. An easy and fun cooking item is pizza making. The preparation can be done outside of the kitchen; there is no need of a live fire; kids can design their own toppings and lay the ingredients down.

Both kids took turns to help out where they can. 萱萱 was obviously more into it but 阳阳 managed to keep some interest in it too since it is all new to him. The pizzas turned out pretty good. 

Drawing For 弟弟 To Colour

The children were in the study room. As usual I do my own thing while Meimei was in the shower. 萱萱 wanted to draw so I setup her and 阳阳 up at the kids round table and gave them paper and pens. 阳阳 was his usual self mumbling about fire trucks but I ignored him and went to surf net and play my games. 

After a couple of minutes I suddenly hear 阳阳 chirp out "Fire Truck!". Hmmm I recognise the call because its the same one when I draw him one on the paper. But wait ... I'm not drawing it?? So I went over to the table to find out what's happening. Lo and behold 萱萱 had drawn him a bus and a fire truck! *kiss ... this girlgirl is such a darling and truly loves her 弟弟.

Corona Lockdown: Living In A Dream

This is so surreal, like living in another world. Never can I imagine that 萱萱 and 阳阳 would grow up in an environment like this.

We have been on 'lock down' the past month. Not being able to step out of the house is taking a toll on everyone. Although the children don't say it, I don't think it's healthy they are locked at home the whole time. Sadly that's the reality we live in. We can only hope this ends soon.

At this time, we seem to be winning against the virus and the government is going to slowly loosen the lock down next week. But we already lost on the economic front. Our government just announced a 4th package to boost the economy and help save jobs. How much impact it has is yet to be seen. The salary funding will last another month into July. But once that goes, I suspect my job may be on the chopping block.

It's probably a minor setback if we do not have kids. But with 萱萱 and 阳阳, job security is paramount. They deserve food on the table, having every opportunity to go to school to learn, have toys and gadgets to play with, have outings to places to expand their vision and horizon.

So I'm crossing my fingers that I'll survive the cuts that my company is working through right now. I should probably start working on my resume again. It's been quite some time since I last look for a job.

The One Cincalok

This thing is so good I have to blog about it. For the longest time I've been searching for that perfect condiment to go with my seafood on hotpot dinner nights. I've tried numerous difference brands of cincalok and at some point It got so desperate I even tried Thai fish sauce.

But the search is finally over. I've found the one. Funny thing is that this product could very well have been in the market for the longest time. It's just that it never occured to me to look for it in the cold food section where they keep the kimchi, beancurds and other food that need the freezer temperature.

But that's ok, better late than never as they say. And man this cincalok has single-handedly up my enjoyment of seafood hotpot. Even Meimei who never takes my other cincalok sauce was raving about it. That's how good this is.

Reconfiguring Children's Room

We just changed the configuration of the kids room to allow 萱萱 and 阳阳 to share the same room. This came about as more of a forced happenstance than a deliberate attempt.

The aircon broke down in the master and was dripping badly last week. So we have 萱萱 and Meimei join 阳阳 in the kids room for the aircon and I roughed it out in the study. Due to the Covid lockdown we couldn't get repairs till yesterday. But out of this week plus of sleeping together it seems this might just work. At some point the kids are going to have to learn to sleep on their own. Now is just a good time as any, especially when 萱萱 and 阳阳 seems keen on the idea too.

The original layout 2 super single beds laid side by side and two baby beds on the end to cushion the drop from the middle bed. 阳阳 sleeps on the middle bed but always rolls to the smaller beds.

In the re-layout, we have their beds on each side of the wall. This is probably the most common design. Meimei takes the middle while we train them to sleep on their own. Not sure how long it would take though since 阳阳 is still only 2 years old. We'll see how it goes, there's always the option of splitting the room with 萱萱 back in the master with Meimei.

At the very least I find this a much better layout for the room. It's closer to the to-be and allows us the flexibility of switching when we like.

Growing Green Bean Plant

Last week's home based learning was all about growing plants. We didn't have the beans so Meimei and I have been out hunting for green beans at the mall. Interestingly, the shelves are out of all sorts of beans. I suppose everyone's hoarding due to the lockdown and supply chain are adversely impacted by disruptions. We finally managed to get a pack and for some odd reason there were these disposable bowls lying around the place. No idea where they came from and what they were for ... and since they are lying around I didn't bother to ask and simply took them instead for the kids to plant their green beans.

At first they didn't understand the concept of a seed growing into a plant and it was not very interesting. But as the days pass and the stalk start growing they were very excited to water them daily. I think its a good way to teach them about caring for others and responsibility but I'm realistic that they may be still too young to understand such life concepts.

They lost interest after awhile but that's ok. It was meant to be something fun to do at home that doesn't take a lot of effort. At this point anything besides watching TV is a welcome activity to entertain them. I strongly believe kids should go out and play, and have the opportunity to learn from play. But with the Covid situation and lockdown in full force I really sympathise with the kiddos who are stuck at home.

MMEG: Two Weeks In

Two weeks in on MMEG and still having lots of fun. It's reminiscence of the early days of Summoners War when there is the joy of discovery and getting new monsters to play with. Plus I was lucky to pull some of the best monsters in the game so that helped quite a bit with the good experience.

The game also works well on emulator which further enhances the gaming experience. It seems emulators are being condoned by the developers so no risk of losing the account there so long as I don't use macros or auto clickers to farm.

Anyhow I like the overall gameplay. Arena is ok but littered with high levels farming at lower ranks, but that's how it is with most games. I'll definitely keep going on this one, very promising.

TV Meals

It's hard to get the children to sit quietly at the dining table for meals. Videos are almost a necessity and when they don't get it, they will kick up a fuss and refuse to eat. Well for the most part that's 萱萱  reaction right now. 阳阳 can still be coaxed to eat but that may change too when he gets older.

Recently Meimei purchased 2 TV meal trays in Paw Patrol motif. With that they can have their meals at the living room and we can put the video on the big TV instead of the iPad.

It's useful too when the kiddos have snacks. I find its a good way to train them to put the utensils and plates at a proper place and not run around and create a mess. We'll see how long this can last before they decided to get into other fusses. 

Home Based Learning

Since the children cannot go to school, the Ministry of Education has actively encourage educational institutes to practice home based learning through e-platforms such as Zoom. Although its voluntary for pre-schools, 萱萱 & 阳阳's school has put together some simple home based learning materials for the kids and scheduled Zoom sessions so the kids have the opportunity to see their teachers and meet their friends online.

They also send over some slides material but its not enough to fill the whole day. I covered it with both kids in an hour. There are also arts and crafts activity which I find to be done with little taste since none of us can go out to buy the materials required to execute the exercise. 

I'm happy that the kids have the chance to meet their friends but am disappointed by the quality of learning materials. I supposed that's to be expected. I just hope this lockdown ends soon and they can go back to school to continue learning.

Building Robot With Papa

They have been watching the Mighty Pups movie I bought on itunes the past week and as with all things they are exposed to, they are now in a "Robot" phase. I jumped at the chance to fuel their passion by showing how they can build a robot with their Duplo  lego set. 

They were very excited to see a robot form out of the legos and were parading them happily around the flat. I like how they try to decorate the robot with different parts to make it more fancy.

Painting In Study

Normally we would never let the kids play this at home, much less in the study room where the place is cramp and a spill would totally ruin the parquet flooring. But desperate times calls for desperate measures. The kids are going crazy coup up at home for more than a month now.

So today Meimei brought out the fun stuff - Painting. The kids get to paint at school and recently 萱萱 has been painting on a canvas set that Meimei ordered online. But 阳阳 never got to play with it till today. So he was pretty excited even though he looks very serious in this photo. Naturally he still does not grasp the concept of colouring and simply smudge the page. Oh well at least they are happy :-) 

Might & Magic: Elemental Guardians

Started this game a few days ago and it's been a blast. It feels a lot like Summoners War with the added bonus of much better graphics. There is a large pool of monsters and characters to collect and varied skills and mechanics which means different combos and team building. I like how it is similar to SW yet slightly different in its own way in terms of mechanics, buff and debuff etc.

Also I am someone that don't really take to anime style gachas which is why I gave Epic 7, 7 Deadly Sins Grand Cross and the likes a miss. I have no interest in collecting waifus and the events, rate up banners and whatnot mechanics of anime Korean/JP turns me off.

The global lunch was about one and half years ago so it's not too far off like Summoners War. It has unfortunately been unable to hold the interest of its youtuber base it seems and there is practically no videos on this for the past 9-12 months. I guess that explains the low number of users, there is only a single server.

That said, I find this a fun and engaging game. It has the usual grinds like any gacha but there are so many units that you can work your way through the content with a magnitude of variety of units. Naturally there are the cookie cutter builds and teams but the game doesn't seem to need you to have a certain unit for progression.

Well, I'm gonna spend less time on Calibria and move towards this game. Calibria was fun for a short while but when the only thing you do is build a lair team and farm that all day it gets stale very quickly.

Vehicle Jigsaw

阳阳's totally into vehicles. So its no surprise he gave full-on concentration when Meimei presented him with a vehicle jigsaw puzzle. Its a simple one for young kids and I like how they have a model for children to refer to.

Best part of this is that he can quietly play with it by himself. He doesn't need company, just leave him alone and he'll be so focused on it till he completes it.

Frozen Food For Circuit Breaker

Since we cannot sit down and eat, we have to pack and eat at our desk. So over the weekend I bought 2 microwave meals for lunch.

The first is a chicken bolognese from NTUC Foodfare. Pure garbage ... I thought you can never go wrong with pasta. I cannot be more disappointed and shocked that it can go so bad. It's like someone puked out mee and they freeze dried the vomit and slap on minced meat bits in orange goo. Yuck!

Tuesday's lunch fared much better. The strong curry probably helped to mask any uncanny taste. I purposely took a pic of the brand so I don't forget and can get it again. Well, it would be even better if  we get out of this lockdown soon and can dine again publicly.