24 Nov was a very special day for Qinzhi , I accompanied her to collect her PSLE results , got excited with her and cried with her—in joy.

Qinzhi asked that she can just enter the Normal academic stream and she worked just enough to arrive at that and the result was just that she asked.

While she went to her classroom to collect her results, I was seated at the classroom directly below hers, and asked to sit at a certain seat because, the teacher said, Qinzhi is seated at the same spot upstairs. I couldnt really concentrate on what the teachers were saying, I was feeling excited and wondered if Qinzhi felt the same upstairs.

Qinzhi’s chinese teacher qiu laoshi specially popped over to see the kids and I had an inkling i knew her. She confirmed that we were in the same secondary school , what a coincidence. Qiu laoshi is a teacher who helped qinzhi alot.

And when she came to me, she came to me crying and my tears naturally followed her. That is how close how bonded we are as mother and daughter. My tears just flowed when I saw her, I followed her emotionally, it reminded me of the time when i was a teenager and lost in love, i cried at the dinner table and mommy cried just seeing me cry.

Seeing Qinzhi and tearing with her, made me see how she would be following me emotionally, it meant that if I felt something, Qinzhi, the perceptive Qinzhi, felt it too. And it made me see how much i followed my mother-emotionally. It reinforced what I realised in my self reiki session this morning-that I have unwittingly, consciously and unconsciously taken on my mother’s emotions and trying to be responsible for them. But they are not mine in the first place to begin with.

A while ago, the parents chat group invited us to pen something for the kids, and that the teachers would give this letter out to the kids right before releasing the results. I wrote her this letter

I also had the chance to write about Qinzhi in my column in the chinese daily.

We continued to walk and this time during the weekdays so that on weekends Qinzhi and Huaihao can head to stayover at popo and yiyi’s. Sometimes we went down by the canal to cycle and Huaihao and Qinzhi would teach me how to cycle. We always end the walk with something delish! And then the kids would head to the bookstore.

The friday after collecting psle results, we headed to ah mei ayi’s for dinner. and the kids did a staycay

This day we went for dinner at grandpa’s the kids got treated to Godiva’s

This saturday, we were welcoming archer and family, popo, yiyi, davina, into our humble abode and qinzhi made a playhouse out of cardboard.

But otherwise, the holidays were spent pretty much resting and lazying, watching the tv, iPad and computer playing

And this day, we went to Tiong Bahru to pick up Qinzhi’s friend Yuwen. It has always been Qinzhi’s wish to have her friends visit and play at home. And even if we had to head over to Tiong Bahru to pick her, I would, because it would make Qinzhi happy.

I prepared food for her and cooked as I would for the kids, very glad they had a good time and liked what I prepped.

On one of the mornings, the 3 of us walked to millennia walk. Then had Shake Shack

On another day, we headed out to Orchard Road, the kids had been skipping malls because we were not vaccinated, now this is the first time in a few months that they had stepped into a mall and a restaurant. What fun they had!

And on mid December, we went on a family camp and Qinzhi had one of the rare opportunities to mix with children of different ages outside of school. Played lots of fun games of yesteryear and gets to express her feelings publicly.

Interestingly, the mentors commented that Qinzhi is really thoughtful and helps kids along gently and quietly. As always, her good nature shines through. She does not clammer for the spotlight for goes on to be responsible for things she feels needs to be done or people who needs help with. Hearing other parents tell me about Qinzhi made me feel really proud of her. Because what she did, not even I can at times, out of shyness. But she does it without any advice from others. On her own initiative.

Well done Qinzhi!You made us so proud as your parents!