Back to the rat race...

Thanks for all the emails from all who know our decision and the suggestions etc... Sorry I have not been able to answer all emails... for those on facebook know that we are headed for Steaming Swingapore. YAY!

I feel like the decision was quite hard to arrive at because all our choices involved some sacrifice somewhere. Well we won't be spending on snow suits yet! So now that I am lifted from the where to go haze, I can move forward on the planning for the move... the last few days, I have been trying to figure out which preschool to send the boys to.

My first choice, along with everyone else who wants their kids to be fluent in Mandarin is Nanyang Preschool has about a 300 kid waiting list. The remaining choices are 50% english and 50% mandarin, which may not be that bad since I remember how I hated school when it was 100% immersion and I could not make friends (maybe this is the cause of my introverted nature?).

But what we do know is our ship out date is likely 24 Jan, we will park ourselves in KL for Chinese New Year for maybe 3 to 4 weeks till our container reaches singapore. The dog movers have told me that Singapore Airlines refuses to take Jack Russell Terriers, poor Jake, as they have had many bad experiences of dogs digging out of their wooden cage and running off! Also will try and look for a Chinese helper but for singapore its not a "source country" so they put up hurdles, will try anyway. New rules state that they have to take an english test and a safety awareness test.

Today at the park, we had quite a "unhappy situation". There was a little (I think) Chinese boy, his dad and him spoke a different dialect. The dad stayed in his car to "watch" his kid, the kid had a cast on one arm and is younger than Nate but older than Ike. Nate and him were playing nicely and climbing all over the jungle gym. That kid must have been accident prone cos at one point he falls from the jungle gym and bumps his chin hard. Starts crying but tries to hold it in, he wanted to run to his dad but then stopped, I tried to comfort him and then his dad runs out... starts shouting at the the poor kid, things like do you want to break your other arm, what are you so useless and then a bunch of stuff I didn't understand and then the dad wanted to go home.

The kid was so angry and hurt he started throwing sand at his dad and then his dad started cursing at him (this I understood!), incredible to a 3 year old?! then he stormed off to his car, threatening to leave if his kid doesn't get in... all very dramatic as the kid resists and doesn't want to close the car door, we can hear the dad cursing all the way as his windows were down. It was just so sad for the little boy.

Even Nate felt sad for him and wanted to understand why the father was so rude. I should have taken his car registration to report to Child Services. Was too shocked at the whole scene. And I guess history will repeat itself in the next generation? oh and the little boy looked alot like the boys cousin, Han.