I haven't visited this site since Thelo was born! He is now nearly 7 and a joyful second grader. Atticus is 9.
Since I've last written this blog, two more were born: Fibonacci Jahn & Pascal Lakshmi Loh-Ratan. Both were named after mathematicians. We were inspired by an email from my sister Angela in 2016 in which she shared that her kid Mei Mei was learning about the Fibonacci sequence & enjoyed watching a
youtube video about it. Robby & I loved the video so much & were so fascinated by the Fibonacci sequence that we returned to the name when the twins were born. "Pascal" felt too cute to pass by and a perfect pairing with Fibonacci, so we stuck with both. We hadn't learned the twins' sex until they were born, though because they were identical, we knew that we'd get either two girls or two boys. If they had been girls, one of them would have been named Fibo (Yup, that's how committed to the name we were!). Anyway, loh & behold, two more boys were born & now we have four... We call the twins Fibo or Bobo & Pazzy.
 |
| Fibo |
 |
| Pascal |
Fast forward 20 months... Robby had been dreaming about sabbatical since graduate school, & his time had come, so he cast a wide net & landed on Singapore. We left our home in Michigan on August 1st, stayed in California for 2 weeks, in which Robby did some work with Nissan in Palo Alto & borrowed a motorcycle (glorious for him). We saw family & stayed a bit with my parents in their new digs in Walnut Creek. In mid-August, we took the 16-hour flight to Bangkok (layover in Singapore) & met up with Angela & her family, who had already been there for a few weeks. Bangkok was a busy, trafficky mess, but Chiang Mai was a dream. We also visited Phrae, 3 hours from Chiang Mai & almost completely lacking tourists.
 |
| Phrae is known for being near villages that sell indigo-dyed clothing. |
Anyway, I LOVED Thailand - couldn't get enough of it & can't wait to return.
Now, we've been in Singapore for 3 weeks. Twins are 23 months old & just finishing up their first week of preschool at Learning Vision on Nanyang Technological University campus. Atticus & Thelo have completed 2 weeks of homeschooling. Pics of our humble abode of the next 6 months are below:
 |
| Living room |
 |
| The twins finally have a size-appropriate table. |
 |
| Dining area with two bedrooms to the left. |
 |
| Front door |
 |
| Kitchen |
 |
| A&T's work space |
Our two bedroom/two bathroom apartment at NTU is furnished with not only furniture but with appliances & kitchenware. There's even a rice cooker, pots, pans, towels, utensils, & sheets! So it was a relief to discover that we didn't have to buy much. You can see that it's plain but spacious, & we're fortunate to be close to the athletic fields & preschool.
Our biggest problem right now are COCKROACHES. Ugh! They have been entering the kitchen through the back patio area (where the washing machine & drying rack are located), which is enclosed. But there's a trash chute, & we think they're crawling out of the trash chute & looking for crumbs. It's disgusting, & they fly! They're big, much bigger than American cockroaches. After a week of attempting to use natural deterrents (garlic powder & cucumber slices), we finally acquiesced and bought poisonous traps & houses. We've killed at least 6 around the trash chutes since we set the traps out 3 days ago. We've left the carcasses untouched because live cockroaches will each the poisoned ones & die later. They've given Robby & me the heebie-jeebies, & I've never seen Robby clean with such passion, focus, & stamina. We even bought a used robot vacuum to clean up after our crumby children.
So, hello Singapore! We'll be here for 6 months.
No comments:
Post a Comment