4 nephews & 1 niece

My maternal cousins' children, 4 nephews & 1 niece -- Timothy (5 yrs old), Benjamin (3 yrs old), Jonah (2 yrs old), Kayla (2+ mths old), Brendon (1 mths old). All of em are suuuuper cute!! =D

Today is the 1st time all the 5 of em are together under 1 roof. Jonah & Kayla were in USA with Kia cos she went there to work for nearly 5 years. She juz came back on Thurs & is staying in Singapore for good, Gnet was so happy cos she can finally have her sister back in Singapore.

Jonah is quite talkative... like Timothy, haha. The 2 of em somehow reminds me of me & Gnet when we were young... cos Timothy is Chinese-speaking (like me) & Jonah is English-speaking (like Gnet). I rmb I had a super hard time communicating with Gnet when we were young cos my English was super bad. Haha.

Kayla somehow reminds me of my sis... cos both of em were the only ger when u look @ the cousins of ard their age. Luckily my sister has a sister, but Kayla only has a brother!! But actually come to think of it... these 5 4th generation kids/babies are not direct cousins!! Haha.

Now... I suddenly realised that as times goes by, younger generations get smaller in numbers. I can't imagine that in the future, (if I ever get married,) my children will only have a few maternal cousins (I don't expect my sister to give birth to a dozen...) & only 1 阿姨 (maternal aunty). MayB cos I grew up in a family whereby I'm close to the cousins on both sides of the family and also having lotsa relatives on both sides of the family. Think I've 30+ direct cousins in total.

The reason y I bold the word "direct" is cos I've seen some of my mother's cousin's sons/daughters, there was even 1 who was younger than me by 1 year & studied in TJ, and also my grandfather's cousin's grandchildren, who are already 40+ & I've to call her "jie jie" & her son who is 2 years older than me needs to call me aunty.... Family trees are so interesting. There was even a guy who is 1 year older than me & he has to call me "ah por", which means grandmother... I'm actually 2 generations older than him!! But that one is a v v distant relative, so distant I dunno wat's our relationship, haha.

Anyway I digressed. Now let's tok bout Timothy & Benjamin who are brothers. Both are v cute, but they've opp characters. Timothy is so so talkative while Benjamin, though @ the age of 3, doesn't talk @ all, cept sometimes to his parents. Kaizi has seek help from 2 doctors & both concluded that he's autistic. Come to think of it, I can see signs of him being autistic. He is really fantasized by some things that can be opened & closed: he likes to open & close the sliding doors @ Ah Mah's house & he likes to play with this toy car that can open & close. He'll also use his palms to hit his head or bang his head against an object of wall when he can't get what he wants or when he's frustrated. And most obvious of all, he doesn't talk. But luckily his is not a serious case, cos he still interacts with ppl.

Think I wanna go sleep already. Sian... tml is Mon, work again. N I think I'm getting fat... haven't done much exercise since I came back from Sri Lanka. So I've decided to walk back from work everyday, which I've measured to be approx 2.8km. Haha. I tried walking back on Thurs & I took 35min =P. Good exercise! Heh