It is Sunday night and due to unforeseen circumstances, we didn't do our usual dinner at my in-laws'. So I gathered the brood and we trooped to the kopitiam downstairs to have dinner.
As head of the household, my default job is to go ahead of the party to chope a table. You need to do this when you have eight mouths to feed (wife, three kids, helper, Mom, Mom's sister and yourself).
And to ensure the speedy arrival of food because Mom has Qigong at 8pm, I ordered the food in advance (four chicken chops, four fish and chips from the "Western" food stall, because the zhichar stall looked busy).
When the gang arrived fifteen minutes after me, the food arrived too. We are a high-efficiency family, do things must chop-chop.
Then over dinner, Isaac asked me a burning question, "Papa, in your olden days, did you have TMNT?"
"Yes, I read Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics & oi, what 'olden days'? I not that old, ok?"
I also noticed Joy wearing cleaning gloves.
"Why are you wearing cloth cleaning gloves? Frozen ah?"
"Ya! I'm Queen Elsa!" she replied.
"Not Queen Susah ah?"
The whole family erupts with laughter at the kopitiam table, and my Mom laughed the loudest. Joy feigned annoyance but laughed too. Good girl. Kids must learn to laugh at themselves.
After dinner, Mom went to her Qigong and we dabao-ed the leftover fish and chips home. The wife and I double-checked if the kids had any homework left to do and I asked if the school bags were packed. No and Yes were the answers.
That done, I declared that bedtime of 9pm shall be adhered to, left the kids in the care of our helper, and whisked the wife away for a quick date, just a beer with some friends.
I got a little lost on the KPE to the Suntec area and entered what Miyagi calls The Wormhole.
You know you are lost when you drive and drive and go from the KPE to the MCE and when you exit, you see a giant cruise ship at a cruise ship terminal you didn't even know existed. And in the distance, the Singapore Flyer and CBD skyline looks so small.
A merry go round later, we finally get to Millenia Walk for a beer beneath the stars.
The night was 23°C and windy. Nippy and nice. We didn't even need to turn on the aircon later that night at home.
Rowdy family dinner, conversation with good friends, awesome weather: One cannot ask for a better way to end a Sunday evening.
