You can call me AUNTIE

I came down with COVID-19 :( As The Hub was out of town, I was the only adult at home. Luckily, the kids are old enough to do some things independently and even help me during my home recovery. Two KPIs were met: (1) The kids stay alive; and (2) they did not catch COVID from me.  Here are some tips to help others in similar shoes, i.e. single parents of (semi-)independent school-going children and with mild symptoms on home recovery. *** *** *** Put up safety barriers To be honest, if you get COVID from the kids, most likely you are all going down coz they would be infectious before showing symptoms. But if you're the first and you know about your exposure to COVID early like me, there is a very good chance that your family won't get it from you if you do this first step right. Even if you don't know about any exposure, it's best to barrier up at the first symptom and hope for the best! Mask up: While a surgical mask would do well for those who can stay put in one room

There were many things to replenish when our helper left. Took two trips to Ikea in one week - first to Alexander for the big stuff as I'm familiar with the place and it's easy to just pop my boxes from the trolley to the taxi; second to Jurong for the small stuff not available at Alexander. In between the two trips, I bought an ironing board cover from NTUC. I knew that I would have to get a new iron because helper scratched burnt fibres off the ceramic soleplate with a knife!! That was some time ago but I didn't bother changing it since it was still working and I knew I wouldn't keep her long. But I didn't realise until after my second trip to Ikea that I had to get a new ironing board too!  The army towel acted as a dust cover but also prevented me from seeing the truth about the board whenever I went into the yard Some weird stained on the iron rest The cover under the polka dot cover was disintegrating I didn't remember why I had two ironing board covers, h

"A toy hammock is where toys get their rest after accompanying you the whole night..." I grew up among mostly girls, and I remember a dear cousin with many soft toys. So I always thought soft toys are a girly thing. Then a male classmate in JC said he liked soft toys. Thanks to that, I didn't find it strange to see how my little boys love their soft toys! But they love them too much - we have too many of them... They were all over the beds. At one point, the kids threw them everywhere at bedtime so we wasted precious time picking them up before they could settle down to sleep. In the middle of the night, these plushies inevitably got pushed to the floor. The next morning, my helper would pick them up and place them on the beds. But somehow, she would put one or two on the wrong bed and at bedtime: MAMA! Where is my Ninja turtle?! MAMA! This is not mine! I needed a storage solution. Was googling and saw toy hammocks - too many to link here; just google it yourself. I was p

"Auntie" = a noun, defined as: An aunt, i.e. a parent's sister Any older female adult Source: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Thesaurus This auntie (under definition #2) offers another definition: "Auntie" = a description of someone who does... auntie things! Ok, I'm not a terribly good teacher... Allow me to illustrate the meaning instead: Why are you pressing all the fish for firmness? Stop doing such auntie things! Somewhat derogatory? Sometimes. But other times, it can also be endearing :) You like Daiso ? Me too! We're so auntie! Haha! Correspondingly, there is also "uncle". Which happens to describe my husband, henceforth known as The Hub. Just about a month ago, I left a job after 18 years and became a stay-at-home-mum (SAHM). SAHM - as opposed to full/part-time working mum, I suppose? Anyway... In the lead-up to that, I started thinking about what I could do in my spare time. At some fuzzy point, it hit me that Auntie c