Happy New Year

Ok, we received the Year 2007 in our normal way - mahjong and fireworks, albeit with fewer number of people this year as wifey is till doing confinement. Wife and I won $23 from her parents in mahjong, and we watched the spectacular fireworks (probably for the last time) from our flat in Cantonment - dig the ones that flared from the rooftops of some buildings in the CBD. None of the kids were awake, and we had no intention of waking them up in the middle of the night for this.

Wife and I are quite strict about bedtime - and our elder son would be in bed by 9.30 pm (used to be 8 pm a few months back). So we are generally quite appalled when we see parents with blurry eyed kids shopping or having supper late at night. We reckoned it is because either i) they don't have maid / someone at home to help tend to kids while they need to run their errands or ii) they are trying to make up for lost time with their kids. If it's the latter, I think it's very uncalled for - it's not good for the kids - they need the sleep. It also enforce discipline and gives you some time at night to spend time together. Even if we are at someone else's place, we make sure we find him somewhere to sleep at the same time until we leave.

Though some of our friends are still quite bewildered as to why we avoid bringing kids to wedding dinners or for night outings as per other parents. For the record, wedding dinners start at 8.30 pm - BEDTIME!!! I don't want to bring a kid there, only to find that when the dinner is about to start, he starts getting cranky the entire night. Well, it's different parenting style, and this is something worth picking up from the western school of thoughts.

Happy New Year folks. And to my pals -sorry can't spend both NY and X-mas with you guys this year - must have been fun.