Self soothing

Whenever Matthew hurts himself, he will come running to me and says, "Mummy sayang". I will have to kiss the spot that was hurt to make him feel better. There was this time when we were riding in the car, and he remembered hurting his leg when we went barbeque the other day, and as usual, he asked me to 'sayang' him. However, I was sitting in front and cannot reach him, so I asked him to 'sayang' himself, and guess what, he lifted up his leg and kissed the spot that was hurt!

From then on, he developed his own self soothing technique and if he sees me busy, he will 'help' himself first before running to me. We haven't got a chance to take any picture of him doing that. Watch out for this space and we will upload it whenever we get the chance.

St Kilda beach

Sunny day (20C) at St Kilda Beach. Antarctic winds were quite a chill, and that made it very cold. You'll see Matthew donning his jacket in the last few photos.

It's the flies season!

Today is the hottest day since we came. Lowest of 20C and max of 37C! I have already anticipated that and have shut all the drapes, windows and doors in the house. Cannot let the hot air come into the house otherwise it is going to feel like an oven. It is so far so good. When the temperature rise, that means the flies are out!

The flies here can be super irritating! They will hover around you like blood sucker and when you are outside, you are practically waving your hand all the time. Matthew cried the first time when he was disturbed by the flies. Haha! Now he knows them as 'stupid flies'.

I think this summer is going to be very hot. It's not even December yet, and we are hitting over 30C temperature. I cannot imagine what it is going to be like when summer comes. Thank God Matthew and me will be going back to Singapore in January, where it is cooler during that time of the year.

School hunting

We went to a visit a private school last Saturday morning. It is an all boys school, starting from Pre-prep (K1) all the way to Yr 12(JC2). The school only take in 1240 students, so there is limited space. We sat through the presentation given by the Headmaster and then went on to tour the Junior school section.

I like the idea of a single sex school, and the fact that it starts from Pre-prep, means that you will be attached to that school for most of your student life (provided you don't get kicked out or dropped out). However, the main concern is the cost of the fees. It starts from $10,000 all the way to $18,000 for Year 12! It is almost equivalent to paying for a university education. We just cannot afford that kind of money for so many years. We do hear people say that it's better to put kids in private school from Yr 7 onwards, so we might do that.

The most ridiculous thing is that parents are actually enrolling their kids even before they were born. As soon as you know the gender of your baby, you better go and enrol him into a private school, else the waiting list is going to be long. The problem with the selection is that it is not based on academic results, but based on the date you lodged your application. So the earlier you apply, the higher is your chance.

I never thought that I will have to worry about 'school hunting' so early. Matthew is not even 2 years old yet! I think we will 'shop' around some more and enrol him into a good school soon.