Our focus in the boys’ early education was always language but I have been shocked by the deterioration of their mandarin since starting primary school. Immersive Chinese language experiences have always been important to me because it has been the way I learnt best, and I regret not having sustained opportunities for that, both growing up and in my work life.

Sweet Suzhou Saturday roadtrip, with traditional tanghulu and a cultural performance of this Song Dynasty poem by Li Qingzhao, ancient China’s most famous female poet, that went completely over their heads.

Today was such a fulfilling use of a birthday and day of leave. I envy anyone who has the opportunity and aptitude for languages and it has long been a dream of mine to enable earlier immersion study for bilingualism. It mirrors my own language journey, which I regret has ebbed and flowed with my environment and creative quality of teaching; and missed opportunities to spend more time living in China improving my Chinese and indeed, in HK improving my Cantonese.

This CNY, I’ve just been so blown away by the effigy of colour, celebration and dragons- I didn’t realize Asians have so much dragon stuff. Although I couldn’t maintain the stamina to keep socialising and visiting, I felt very fortunate to spend time with the warmth of family and grateful to have friends,

I’m not sure what’s worse, the 7-year old who declares in the minutiae of the start of school weekend, early-dropoff-fatigue, shoes-are-outgrown, need-art-supplies, sports-trials, that he should make macarons, or the 4-year old who wakes up and bursts into your room at midnight singing “time for Cuddles!”

But he did and they turned out pretty good!

The boys turn 8. Last Nov, Wes baked pumpkin pies to fundraise a dinner with some of the men we met through ItsRainingRaincoats, a meaningful home-grown organization. We’d planned on briyani at Racecourse Road but did an about turn when the coordinator told us they would definitely enjoy McDonald’s as a rare treat.

Happy 2024! 2023 is the first year that we haven’t managed a physical Christmas card. This is because it has been a very quick and a very long year, and we’ve finally been overwhelmed by juggling life and four kids. It never stops, but we are getting better year-on-year at managing.