Daily schedule

Everyday, my mornings to noon time are almost the same. Preparing breakfast, marketing, cooking and bringing Josh to school. It's quite crucial because it involves food for the children and the whole family.

Breakfast

Early in the morning, Eve and I will prepare breakfast! And it will always consists of goat's milk, oats and bread.

For the choice of spread, it's either 

1. Avocado

2. Self diluted peanut butter

Every Wednesday is a pancake's day. And both Josh and Kate will help out in the preparation.

It's very important that we all sing our prayer song before eating and also we all eat together at the table. :)

Sometimes, we will get unhealthy breakfast to 'normalize' the body. Ha. It's usually once or twice a month. We get prata, chwee kueh, peanut cake...

Marketing

I will do this once every two or three days, depending on how fast we used up the ingredients. Now, every meal (lunch and dinner), we will have at least a vegetable dish. 

My favourite buys are

- beet root

- organic spinach

- organic xiao bai

- mushrooms

- tomatoes

- fresh black fungus

- sea fishes 

- fish bones for soup

- minced lean pork

- tempeh

- bananas

- corn

Quite standard right? But it's things that we love to eat and cook! Chicken is something we have cut down a lot. And don't really want my children to have them too.

At times, my children want to follow me to marketing. Of course I allow them to come! So they are able to learn what I buy! However, sometimes I woke up too late, hence I have to travel myself via bicycle to go there myself! 

Lunch for children

I will have to prepare their lunch before school so that Josh can eat during his lunch break. And it's usually porridge or macaroni. And I will take around 10-15 minutes to whip up and place in his school container.

We have easier alternatives like tidbits, biscuits, bao, Oreo etc. However, we didn't want as it is a bad option and its sugary too. There is less or no nutrition for these foods too.

Hence, even though it's quite an effort to prepare five times a week, it's worth it. We want a healthier choice for them :). At times, we will add some organic biscuits as treats for Josh and Kate.

Playground

For days that I don't go marketing, there is extra time before school and after breakfast. I will bring them down for cycling or playground too!

When they are playing, I will do my own stretching exercises. 

Bringing Josh to school

At times, it's me who 'drives' him to school via my bicycle or my mother-in-law who brings him there. Luckily there are Eve's parents who help us out, and lighten the load! 

After these are done, it's 12 noon! I can carry on with my work and going for appointments (if any). Or most importantly to have my Mervyn time - example swimming, sleeping or eating.

Dinner

Dinner preparation is possible as I cook the soup before I leave for house. And I will prepare the fish for steaming in the fridge. For vegetables, I will cut some of them so that when I'm back, I will just fry it. It's easy! So now, I've trained to whip up dishes within 20-30 minutes. 

My children will be having their dinner at around 6.30pm.

When I'm unable to cook, Eve will be the chef for the day! :) All of us are soup people and we need to have soup for dinner! So glad Josh and Kate follow us!

Likewise for breakfast, we will occasionally dine out because we need a break from cooking! Hence, we will decide and dine out!

Spend time with children

There are so many things we can do after  dinner!

- going to library

- going to ntuc

- playing cooking

- drawing

- catching

- taking bus

- eat vegan ice-cream

- play dough

- playing iPhone for 10 minutes

- building train tracks

- reading story books

- packing the house

It's these bonding times that I can see how my children grow everyday! Now they even help me in cleaning Gwen!

So sometimes if I am working till quite late, the only activity I can do is to make my children to sleep. I'm really very happy that they want me to make them sleep. It's like I'm part of their routine. So happy about it! 

That's sums up the day. And once they are asleep, it's my time again and both Eve and I will chit chat or have some simple supper together. At times, I may do some back log of work. That's normal.

Now with Gwen, there's additional night duty of changing diapers and feeding Eve water too! Hence stamina is quite important for me. Really have to slot in time to exercise. Otherwise, my whole body will get tired so much easier.

And after 700 days, there will be another 'little Hoe' in the house! Ha. And the cycle continues. Actually come to think of it, we have been doing this since Josh was about a year old, when he is starting to eat solids. So it's three years that we have done these. Think next time is Josh who will help in the breakfast step! Slowly delegating the job to the children...