Robin had a week off from work and studies, and he reckoned that we should get away from our normal routine and spend some quality family time together in a nice place. And so we did. We were away from 23/9 – 26/9.

We drove up to a country town that was about 2 hours drive from where we live and stayed in an orchard farm. The farm is surrounded by beautiful landscape and lots of fruit trees — orange, fig, mandarin, lemon etc. This is what we woke up to every morning.

Spectacular. It is amazing what plenty of fresh air and beautiful scenery can do to one’s mood. Everyday was happy day for us despite the stress of having to care for 2 young boys.

We spent a lot of time together as a family. It was great that Robin was away from his working desk and computer screens. He was so much more relaxed and was truly well rested. He spent a lot of one to one time with the boys, especially with Calvin. They went out for long walks around the farm, listened to the frogs croaked at night, looked at the moon and stars in the night sky, fed animals in the farm, played self-invented games in the chalet and ate their favourite ice-cream together. There was so much laughter when these 2 played together. It was good fun watching them.

Baby Athan also had time to bond with his papa. Robin played with the baby a lot, and he carried Athan in the carrier or push him in the stroller most of the time when we were out and about. When Athan cried for attention, Robin would also help to comfort him. So, as a result of Robin’s involvement with the boys, I get to have a break too. That was so good.

I love to see Robin spending time with the boys and how the boys react to him. Both Calvin and Athan simply adore their papa. Seriously. Athan always has a huge gummy smile to return to Robin’s teasing and Calvin is always laughing and asking for more play when he is with his dad. I pray and hope that the boys will have a strong relationship with their father in their growing up years.

I think Calvin had the most fun! There’s so much for him to do and so many new things to learn. He spent time with his brother too. We often put the boys together during play time and get Calvin to watch out for Athan. Calvin often *talked* to his baby brother telling him what he was doing, and Athan would watch him with great interest.

There’s a huge field in the farm for Calvin to run around, fruits for him to pick, animals for him to feed, and of course one of the most special thing he experienced was being very close and having lots of attention from his papa and mama. It is very obvious to us that he really liked it and he behaved rather well throughout the whole trip.

As for our dear little Athan, I think he has enjoyed himself too. He smiled a lot throughout the trip. He was very excitable and was kicking his little chubby legs and flapping his little arms all the time when someone played with him. Robin and I found that really adorable and we couldn’t help but laugh at him. In return, he gave us his huge gummy toothless smile. In fact, he smiled at everyone who smiled at him, be it the ladies at the bakery, the owner of the farm, strangers we met along the way etc. He took the car trips quite well, and he had numerous naps in the car. That’s a huge improvement to what he was like before — screaming his head off in car rides. I have to add that his night sleep was not that good — he kept waking up after 3 – 4 hours of sleep and cried for attention. For me, it was back to baby days again when I have to wake up 2-3 times a night to feed him. The good thing was that I was able to put him back to sleep after a brief feed. We reckoned he was either cold or he was aware of the change of his surroundings. Here’s one of our favourite pictures of Athan taken during the trip. Cute, ya?

As Robin said, it was a restful holiday and it was good to spend time with the family. Thank God for keeping us safe.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 1:19 pm and is filed under family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.