Child care leave

Today marks the first time I made use of my child care leave to just spend time with the family. As a civil servant, we are entitiled to 5 days of childcare leave- of which 3 days must be certified with MC while the other 2 days, can be any reason. This is for 1 kid. So if you have 3 kids, you are given 15 days of childcare leave so as to encourage us to give birth to more.

Well, this is probably nothing compared to the French where they are given up to 3 years of paid leave! And even the fathers get few months of parental leave to spend time with their family. I think 2 days of paternity leave for fathers in Singapore is really pathetic. They will probably use up all of the 2 days in the hospital to spend with their wives.

It is very sad because most wives would love some form of support in the early days when they are at home after they give birth, especially when most mothers suffer from post-natal blues because of hormonal changes.

But nevertheless, I am just thankful that we have childcare leave and I had a great day with the family as CT also took leave.

Early in the morning, we went to Hougang for breakfast and then strolled in Punggol Park as the weather was nice and cooling.



Ok, this was one of the rare opportunity where we can have a family photo. Thanks to Vicky who took this picture for us.

Punggol Park has a big, still lake..



There was also a playground. Caleb went on the slide...


And the swing..



The funny thing was that Caleb found it more fun to stand up on the swing and jump!



This is another view of the lake..


Midway, the sun came out and we stopped to feed Caleb.



There were aunties, who were there for morning strolls, came by to talk to us as they found Caleb very cute.

After feeding, CT carried Caleb the whole way back to the car. Caleb was in his small little red cap.







A short while later, Caleb fell right asleep on CT's shoulders....



Even when placed him in the car seat, he was still sleeping...



We went home after a nice morning stroll.

In the afternoon, we went to Hougang Mall for lunch. Went there to return library books as well. The library there had much better selection of baby books and there are a lot of new books as well. So, I prefer going to Hougang library than Sengkang.

We did our grocery shopping there as well...Here is Caleb first time in the trolley!



What an enjoyable day spent with the family...