In ang mo countries, bringing kids to work thereby allowing the kids to experience what the parents go through in a typical day is a big thing. Lil Shauna and Lil Isaac saw it in the Lil Bill cartoon on TV, where Lil Bill went to his daddy's company and briefly understood what happened on KAT day.
The KAT day was supposed to take place in June but was postponed due to the haze. Lil Shauna was so disappointed then and had been asking when she could visit my office. Of course she was over the moon to know that she could finally visit mummy's office. As usual, Lil Isaac is the clueless one and would happily tag behind jiejie.
We woke the kids up at 7am this morning. The kids were to assemble at 9am but we had decided to be earlier so as to bring them for bfast and to reach my office at 8am, which is the official start time for me.
Upon arrival, the kids were happily snacking and monkeying around in my room. Lil Shauna was showcasing her artistic talents on my huge whiteboard. I tried to work but it was impossible and had to usher them to the meeting place to wait for time to pass.
There were so many kids, so much noise and I was so glad when the event finally started. The kids were each given a nice little lunch box with munchies.
The kids were distributed according to their age to enable better learning. As such, Lil Isaac had to be parted with jiejie and he was very reluctant. He was even more upset to know that mummy couldn't stay with him. He was grumpy and started sobbing when they started getting into their groups, even when I was standing right behind him. I think he was the only boy to cry. Aiyo. On the other hand, Lil Shauna was very independent and happily got to her group. When I kissed her goodbye on her cheek, she even looked embarrassed and wiped my saliva off her cheek! Wah lau. Lol.
I accompanied Lil Isaac to the first station to make carbonated drinks using fruit juice. The boy started opening up and was happy to make his drink, shake his bottle without mummy holding his hand. He still peeped to make sure that I was in the room every now and then.
As they were proceeding to their second station to make cookies, Lil Isaac was ready to go independently. He couldn't even care more when I told him that I am leaving but he could ask the aunties to help look for mummy if need be. But in the very least, he gave me a kiss when I asked for it. Lol.
I peeped in on Lil Isaac about half an hour later to see that he was happily making his shaker chips. I couldn't even locate jiejie but knew that she was in great hands and would be totally fine. It was an hour later that I saw them again to bring them to the toilet and they seemed totally great. I even saw Lil Shauna happily chatting with her new ang mo girlfriend.
I had lunch with the kids. They had catered buffet for adults and MacDonalds Happy Meal for the kids. On top of that, they kids earned $ for the "work" that they had done, similar to the BabyBoss concept that we experienced in Taiwan. However, the organising committee was very generous with the commodities that the kids could buy with their $. Each kid earned about $6 and the very nice notebook, magic-pens, chocolates, puzzles are prized at $1 or $2 each. The kids went crazy shopping.
At the end of the event, Santa distributed presents to every kid. The kids were so eager and were all crowding around poor Santa. Lil Isaac was the last few to get his presents. He was so anxious and ended up asking me why Santa didn't want to give him his present. Lol. And you can probably imagine how long the wrapper stayed on the present.
I packed the kids back to my office after that. Shortly, I called for a cab to send the kids to JP and enroute back to the office. We went to office with a small recycle bag but cake back with a huge paperbag. Christmas had definitely came early for the kids.
The kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Mummy was so tired despite not doing much actually. I can only conclude that kids and work don't gel well. I am so glad the KAT day only take place once a year.
Mummy Lim
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