too much time means..

… we have no routine. No working hours, no study timetable, nothing, we live one day at a time with absolutely nothing on the calendar until KK starts school in March.

… we can wake up anytime we want (930 for me, when Day comes in to wake me and Dee up, and 11-ish for KK) and sleep anytime we want.

… that after KK wakes up, we look at each other with our biggest worry for the day: What do we possibly do today?


… we go out every day because it’s maddening to stay at home without anything to do.

… we regularly go to the library as that is the only place where we can get books and toys for free to keep us entertained.


… that in a variation of our Coogee ritual, we go to the beach (nearly) every day for lunch, set up our tent under the trees, pass time by watching birds, planes and babes in bikinis, sleep (the kids anyway) for a good two to three hours, before returning home to find that oh goody! It’s already five o’ clock!


… we have time to learn the names of and admire all the summer flowers we see, smell the tang of freshly-plucked pine needles, scrutinize the amazing bark of the trees which peel away to reveal smooth silver-green.


… we can play Frisbee anytime we want.

… we do everything at a very leisurely pace. Apart from eating of course. A lifetime of rushing around can’t change us into French diners.

… we haven’t felt stressed or anxious or manic or adrenalized in a l-o-n-g time.

… we get to watch the kids grow and change. Literally by the minute. We don’t miss a thing.


… we keep thinking of ways to spend money. Eat out. Eat good. Buy things (there are tantalizing post-Christmas sales every where). But it’s just thinking, of course!

… we end up doing very little of what I would consider constructive because sometimes, one needs some routine, some stress, something unpleasant (like work) to jumpstart initiative.

… we get dead bored as there is only so much “holidaying” one can take, even Day gets bored and he asks me: “What do I do now?” to which I (bearing in mind I have just gone through three activities with him) throw up my hands and say “Play with your toys by yourself!”

… Day turns into something of a juvenile delinquent as he gets so easily bored, he refuses to be “taught” by his mother and so ends up roaming round the house making trouble.

… sometimes, because it’s just the four of us day after day after day, we get sick of looking at each other.

… KK keeps talking about going back home to loved ones, to a job, where he’d feel useful and be part of a community.

… I am going crazy, for who in their right mind would complain about a surfeit of time?

… that one day, when I back in Singapore, frazzled with a million and one things to do and not having enough time to spend with my husband and kids and loved ones and friends and myself, I will look back on this particular post and, despite the negatives, long for days like these.