Today, I did my first ever 'fun run' in Singapore. It was only 5km but wow, it felt like longer. I have been running at the gym generally 3 times a week for the last few months and I am feeling relatively fit, but the thing that I didn't take into consideration was how much the elements when running outside affect you. However, I managed to do it in around 29 minutes, I was hoping to be under 30 so felt good about the achievement. I have signed up to do a 10km run in May - but it is at 4pm on a Saturday!! Not sure if this is a sensible time to run in May. Oh well, I think I will concede that if I am tired, it's ok to stop for a bit and walk.
Alex has finished his first term at nursery and is on 'school' holidays this coming week. We have planned a few fun things - catching up with friends, going to the zoo and maybe the science centre too. He seems to be really enjoying his time at nursery and I am very grateful for that. It is incredibly handy as it is just across the road from us.
My big news is that this coming week, I will return to work after a nearly 15 month break. I had started to look for some part time work at the beginning of the year. Part time work is very hard to come by in Singapore - it's not really something that people do in my field anyway. I had talked to a few people and 2 weeks ago, a recruitment agent called me to talk about a contract role for maternity leave cover. It is however full time (but for a 6 month period). I had a phone interview the following day and this seemed to go pretty well. The next day they arranged to have a face to face interview last Monday. This also went well and on Tuesday morning I was offered the contract. I am excited and nervous about it. I will miss the kids loads, but they are both in great routines at the moment. Tara has good morning and afternoon sleeps and Alex has 3 hours at nursery in the morning followed by an afternoon sleep when he comes home. I suspect the person who will have the most adjustment is me - the kids will probably take it in their stride as they do most things. I have explained to Alex about Mummy going back to work and he seems fine with this - although he did suggest that Daddy could then stay home with him. Did Gary put him up to this?
I think (just depending on the paperwork) that I will start work on Thursday. It will be a relatively soft start as we have a long weekend in Bangkok next weekend (pending the protests being safe!) and then from Easter, I am off for 3 weeks due to Anelen going on home leave and our family holiday in Bali. So, it should hopefully be an easy transition. I am really looking forward to going back to work - I hope it lives up to my expectations!
I am trying to think of what else we have been up to over the past few weeks. 2 weeks ago, we had our friend Roger (from London) come to visit from Malaysia. Roger was spending some time in KL and decided to pop over to Singapore for a couple of nights. It was lovely to catch up - the last time we all saw each other was around 6.5 years ago at a bbq we had at our house in Walton on Thames!
We have moved Alex into Tara's bedroom at night. This seems to work really well - Tara loves the company and Alex loves the audience. Alex still naps during the day in his own bedroom (in the big bed) and this setup seems to be working.
We went to the zoo a few weeks ago. This was the first time we have been in a while and we ended up at Kidzworld (as we inevitably do). Normally Gary will go in the water with Alex and Tara and I will play a little on the side. I decided I should probably get wet and let Tara embrace it a little more. She loved it. She was so excited going down the slide, she was racing around all over the place. Alex now loves the big bucket of water that dumps down on top every few minutes - he used to be quite scared by it. How things move on! We think for Gary's next family day, we will go to have breakfast with the Orangutans again - we did this for Alex's birthday last year and it was fabulous, but I suspect both the kids will get a lot out of it now.
Last weekend, we re-visited Queenstown fire station with our friends Francesca, Lilah & Isaac (from our condo) and Rachel & Sennen. It was a great time. Alex loves the fire station - they have open house on a Saturday morning and it is such an adventure with the kids. Alex and I got to drive around the yard in the fire truck and Alex got to hold the fireman's hose. He was also delighted with the coming down the pole! A fun time!
So, our last month has been full of more Singapore adventures. The kids are both growing up quickly - but at wonderful stages. They make me smile every day (which helps to make up for the other times when they make me crazy!!)
I will definitely try to keep up my blog with my return to work - just need to make time for it like everything else. Just to finish, a short video showing our baby girl in her glory - she loves meal time and was rather cross when I told her it wasn't dinner time yet......
