Pa

The past few days seemed to pass by in a blur, yet so much has happened. I am physically exhausted, but I also feel emotionally recharged to be a better person. To be someone with a big heart - like my Dad. 

During the past few days at my Dad's wake, I learnt more about him. I always knew my Dad had a generous heart, but I never thought much of it. But during his wake, I had the opportunity to hear anecdotes of how my Dad helped various people unselfishly. I feel proud of my Dad, but only if he could be around to share his stories personally with me. I wish I had made the effort to know him better. I wish I had spent more time with him. I wish I was there to spend his last days with him. 

So many regrets. It is a hard lesson learnt. Never to take my loved ones for granted. I have been on leave for almost  11 months, but I spent so little of it with my dad even though he was ill. During this time, I visited my Dad less often than I would like to, conveniently hiding behind the excuses of taking care of my kids and physical exhaustion. Now I really regret it and I don't want to make this mistake again. 

To me, the bright spark from my Dad's wake was how my relatives rallied around my family during this difficult and exhausting period. Aunties took charge of the admin stuff, uncles deprived themselves of sleep to do the night duties, cousins joined us for the rituals (even though they didn't have to), my maternal granny was present everyday from morning to night, and everyone contributed every bit they could from folding "gim zua" to clearing the tables. To everyone who contributed their time, took leave from work, and/or sacrificed their sleep for my dad's wake, a BIG thank you. I always thought of my extended family as a typical Chinese family, but now I realise how extraordinary my family is. My family members may never utter mushy words of concern, but their actions reflect their love. I never knew how blessed I was to be part of this family, but now I do. 

Also thanks to everyone who took time from their busy schedule to attend the wake, friends who kept me in their prayers, and everyone who expressed their care and concern in one way or another. Friendship is an invaluable gift I treasure.

And to Pa, I miss you. I really wish you are at a better place - happy and healthy. 

Birthday Thoughts

Today, I turn a year older. And I am starting to feel old.  This day every year reminds me that I am definitely aging - I just hope that I don't look and feel older than I should. 

My gosh, am I really in my mid-thirties? When I was much younger, my image of someone in her mid-thirties would be someone who was very old. If I had to describe her, she would be wearing spectacles, hair tied up neatly in a bun, and dressed in a business suit (note: skirt has to be knee length). In short, she looks traditional and well, just old. Thankfully or not, I don't feel that way yet.

Fifteen years ago, I thought nothing about jumping around along Orchard Road and making a din. I was also thrilled to slide down a muddy slope blindfolded, and to walk through a cemetery in the middle of the night. In fact, it was so fun I wouldn't mind reliving those days again. But as one gets older, people often expect one to behave with a greater sense of propriety and decorum. I recall members of the public (presumably the adults) called and complained to the university that we were a nuisance at Orchard Road.  Didn't they know we were just having harmless fun? The feeling of liberation and satisfaction when you perform funny & awkward (but totally decent) acts in front of total strangers - you have to experience it to understand the kick of doing it.  I miss those crazy years, but am glad that at least, I still have the memories from those years.

Just recently, A and I attended Mayday concert and we behaved as if we were 10 years younger.   We jumped, sung, yelled and cheered non-stop to all the great tunes the band performed.  I have never felt so carefree and relaxed. My key takeaway from the concert was to live life to the fullest - 要活得精采！I hope to attend all future Mayday concerts and I never want to become too inhibited to belt my lungs out and jump about. 

Back to the reality of today, today was an ordinary day. A is overseas for work, my son is running a high fever, my daughter continues to test my patience by not finishing her milk, and the air smells bad (apparently PSI level is above 100). Other than a mini celebration after dinner, today felt like any other day. I didn't even stepped out of my house one bit. But I am happy - happy that even though there wasn't a "high" to my day, at least there were no "lows". Well, I did treat myself to wholesome homemade almond butter for breakfast, and also cheered myself by watching shows on iPad. I guess what makes today less ordinary is being remembered by friends and family and receiving their birthday greetings. 

The positive part about growing old is that I have learnt to appreciate the little blessings in life. In fact, I think I am now more excited about my kids' birthdays than my own. Celebrating their birthdays and seeing the little faces light up makes me feel as happy as if I am also celebrating my birthday. 

So today is coming to an end. My final thoughts? I guess I just have to accept that growing old is part and parcel of life. I hope the wrinkles and white hair will stay away for many many years to come. And I never want to feel old. Here's a toast to feeling young and happy always! 

Happy Mother's Day?

12 May 2013

As a mum to an almost 5-month old baby (C) and 3 year old toddler (J), this is how I spent Mother's Day today.

1:30am  Missed my 12:30am alarm and overslept. Fed J milk (because he did not take his afternoon nap, fell asleep while having dinner, and missed his milk feed just before bedtime). My son decided he wanted to sleep with Daddy who was asleep with C in the other room and he went off.

2:30am 1st pumping session of the day. Kept myself awake via online shopping :)

3:30am J walked back into the room smiling cheekily. It was obvious he wasn't sleepy at 3:30am in the morning! I ended my pump session and persuaded J to brush his teeth by promising him a YouTube video on tooth extraction.

4am Brushed J's teeth.  Wanted to show J the agreed YouTube video, but he decided they all seemed too scary. I took the opportunity to remind J that he should brush his teeth everyday otherwise his teeth could decay just like those in the YouTube videos. Switched off the lights and we finally went to bed.

8:20am Overslept again! My alarm was supposed to ring at 7:30am. J woke up when I moved him from my bed to his. Spent a few minutes pacifying him as J is usually whiny when he is sleepy.

8:30am 2nd pump session of the day. Read news on my iPad at the same time.

9:30am Rushed to wash up and pack stuff. As I was brushing my teeth, A got J to wish me Happy Mother's Day and give him the gift he made in school.  Cheeky J insisted on giving me the present my colleague gave him instead.

10:30am Brought J to my aunt's country club for a swim.

11am Finally had breakfast - I am famished! After breakfast, spent some time chatting with my aunt and entertaining C while A & J had fun at the water playground. Managed to read some news while C napped in my arms. 

12:15pm Fed C milk. Changed diapers for C as she pooped while drinking milk.

1pm Lunchtime. Reprimanded J because he did not want to eat his fried rice. He was only interested in the chicken wings and orange juice. Managed to feed J a few mouthfuls of rice. J became sleepy and fell asleep in A's arms.

2pm Headed home. J woke up just when I was about to help him wear his diapers. 

3:20pm 3rd pump session of the day. Played candy crush to keep myself awake. 

4:20pm Decided to cook dinner for J as he did not have a proper meal the entire day. Prepared J's dinner after my pump session.

5pm A was exhausted and taking a nap.  I deliberated between tabao-ing or cooking dinner - decided to cook a simple meal since I had ready ingredients and it didn't require more effort than heading out to tabao.  Instructed the maid to wash and chop up the ingredients for dinner.

5:45pm Printed a family photo that J's teacher had requested. Photo colour was horrendous but I had no time to resolve the issue as I smelt a burnt smell emitting from J's porridge!! Thankfully I managed to salvage most of the porridge. It is during such moments when I really appreciate having a maid - in her absence, I will have to spend the next hour scrubbing the burnt pot.

6pm Caught J peeling the cork coaster and reprimanded him. Fed J dinner and got him to apologise. Happy that J was eating much better than he was at lunchtime. 

6:40pm Cooked fried bee hoon and had dinner thereafter. In the meantime, A showered J.

7:30pm After a short chat with my mum and giving C my bedtime kisses, I took a shower.

8:20pm 4th pump session of the day. Blogged this entry at the same time. C is sound asleep but surprisingly, J is still very energetic even though he hardly napped today. J kept asking A to read him storybooks - I am glad that J is oblivious to the iPhone in my hand. Not once did he ask me for my phone!

10pm J wanted to drink milk and finally, he is starting to yawn. But all signs of exhaustion dissipated when he saw 爷爷 and 奶奶 who were just back from a holiday. 

10:30pm J showed off his "doctor equipment" in a role play as a doctor. He would squeal in delight as we pretended to revolt when he tried to feed us medicine that was too bitter. I also packed Joshua's schoolbag.

11:30pm 爷爷 and 奶奶 heads home. I brushed J's teeth and then washed up. 

12am Finally put J to bed

One word to describe Mother's Day? Exhausting.  I don't need breakfast in bed or a luxurious spa treat. All I really really need is sleep. I know I should be more positive, but I am really really tired.  Tired Me = Grumpy Me. It will get better though...I can't wait. 

Smile Pinki

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CamEXQ8x72c

SMILE PINKI, the captivating story of a desperately poor little girl in rural India whose life is magically transformed when she receives free surgery to correct her cleft lip. 

Channel News Asia screened the above documentary last Friday.  In a way, I can identify with the children in the documentary, and yet I am tons luckier.  There are millions of children who are still awaiting treatment, and many of them face ostracization for a condition that is beyond their control.

I just hope there is greater awareness of the plight of these children, and that more can be done to help them so that they have a reason to smile.

Blogging

I enjoy blogging. This seems odd given that my last blog post was in Apr 2012, and I only posted 3 FB notes in 2012. But I have reasons for my few posts:

1. Lack of time. Other than blogging, I have also  given up on other hobbies since I entered parenthood. It is really hard to find time for hobbies when I am already so sleep deprived. I really miss practising on my keyboard, but plan to resume learning the keyboard when my little ones are older. I have not touched my Swarovski crystals in ages - no point making my own accessories when I do not have time to dress up anyway. My number one priority nowadays is catching up on sleep because I get extremely grumpy & lethargic when I get insufficient rest.

2. I have actually been blogging when I am free e.g. on my way to work. But due to the limited time I have to blog, I have several unfinished posts. 

3. I am a hugely private person. Sometimes I choose not to blog because I deem a particular issue to be too personal. And when I blog, I tend to be careful in my choice of words - I want to share my life and yet I do not think I should be pouring out all my woes publicly.

I enjoy blogging as it is a good way to vent my emotions when I experience a particularly trying or upsetting incident. Plus I want to remember those happy special occasions. In fact, blogging seems essential if I wish to remember the unique incidents which stirred up extreme emotions in me. It is literally a walk down memory lane as I relive the emotions I experienced whenever I read my older posts. 

For a start, I am going to post my uncompleted entries. As for the privacy issue, I guess I will just continue being selective in what I post.

J's First Day at School

9 April 2012

Today is J's official first day at school. Last week was parent-accompanied orientation week. From today onwards, J is attending school like a big boy - all by himself. My only concern is whether a 2 year old is ready to attend school all by himself.

I do not recall crying when my Ah-Ma sent me to kindergarten at the age of 5. Perhaps I was too ignorant (in other words, dumb) to fear school. But there could be another reason, one which I tend to subscribe to - that is, I was mentally ready for school and I was not afraid. I knew my Ah-Ma would be at the door waiting for me when school ended. If this is true, then perhaps toddlers at age 2 are not mentally ready to face school all by themselves. I hope my theory is wrong, because regardless of what I think, I have made the overriding decision to send J to school.

So I am at work but can't stop thinking of J. I wonder whether he is adjusting well to his independent life, whether the teachers will notice when he hides at a corner to poop, how he will nap without his Ye-Ye or me, whether he will be able to chew his food properly without choking, whether the teachers will get him to drink more water,...

So many wonders and ponders, and no answers. If I could, I would drop my work, head to his school, and secretly observe him from a corner. But I can't. Sighz.

At least I know he did not cry when my in-laws dropped him off at school this morning. That is a good sign.

I really hope J will enjoy school, and the teachers will take good care of him. It is not easy to entrust my precious little one to a stranger, which is why I do not let the maid take care of J. And I believe J will benefit tremendously from going to school and interacting with other children, which is why I am starting him at school at 2 years old. I have chosen what I think is a pretty good school, because I want to be certain that the teachers will take good care of him.

For now, I'll just trust that I made the right choice, and hope that he adapts to school quickly.

Maids Again

Hiring maids has given me reasons to write about them.

I have now employed my 4th maid, and she has given me good enough reasons to attribute a blogpost to her.

She joined my family on 5th Dec with no working experience, so it has only been slightly over a month she has been with us. One would think that no brand new maid would dare to slacken or do anything funny within her first month. Not this one though. She should be given an award for her boldness and acting ability.

I wonder if her boldness is common for Filipino maids as she gets advice from her experienced relatives. She is on the phone with them almost every other evening...so maybe they taught her how to deceive her employer. Or maybe it is just her greedy nature.

Thankfully my family has yet to suffer any huge loss to our knowledge, but her little dirty acts are suffice to raise my blood pressure.

Within the first few days of her arrival, I accidentally saw her eating off the skin of the orange while she was cutting it up for me. I brushed it off as an unhygienic act but didnt think of confronting her.

When my mum-in-law unexpectedly returned home one day, she caught my maid rummaging through the biscuits. My mum-in-law did not mention anything but my maid subsequently spoke to her about it - she claimed she liked the biscuits my mum-in-law gave her and was looking at the brand earlier so that she could buy for herself in future. What an ingenious reason.

There was once when she finished her jam and did not inform us. As she has the bad habit of not telling us when her foodstuff has finished, I wanted to wait a few days before passing her the jam. She still had butter anyway. But my mum-in-law cautioned that she may end up consuming our jam instead. So I strategically positioned my jam jars in a certain way that evening - true and behold - the next day one of the jam jars was in a different position. Sighz.

There was once my mum-in-law asked her to cut some fruits. Right under my family's nose, my mum-in-law saw her keeping a slice of the persimmon under all the fruit peels. It was only when my mum-in-law decided to cut the fruits herself that my maid told her she had accidentally left out one piece under the fruit peels - wow what an accident.

The final straw came two Sat ago when my family was out and I could not access the video camera remotely. I suspected my maid had turned off the camera - which was exactly the case. The camera was still switched off when I got back and she promptly received a harsh reprimand from me. She explained her feet had accidentally hit the switch while she was cleaning the grilles. She got frightened when she switched the camera on again because the camera was revolving non-stop. I actually believed her story.

It was only on Sunday evening when A and I pieced the real story together. Because we found a piece of our cookie missing - we had counted our cookies the last time we ate them (yes we have to resort to such measures! ) and surprise surprise, there was now one less cookie . I questioned her (nicely), even reminded her she is a Catholic and should not be lying, but she was adamant she did not eat the cookie.

But the facts are obvious. She has turned off the surveillance camera while we were not home and helped herself to the cookie which was placed right next to the camera. I am not sure what else happened when the camera was switched off. In retrospect, the odds that she could have accidentally switched off the power switch were one in a thousand. Given the chunkiness of the camera plug and the location of the powerpoint and power switch, it would require more than an accident to switch off the camera. She might as well crashed my camera and said the camera fell off the table by itself.

I could close one eye if she only stole my cookie - it was not her first time anyway. Or maybe we really miscounted. Perhaps she did switch off the camera by accident. But for both incidents to happen at the same time is too much of a coincidence. If she is bold enough to switch off the camera, I cannot imagine what other tricks she would come up with in future. She is a liar, a thief, and a very audacious one for the matter. I certainly hope other Filipino maids have more integrity and pride in themselves than the one I have hired.

So I am off to hire maid no. 5, and we have decided that our experience with this Filipino is so horrendous we are sticking to Indonesian maids for a long time. All I want is a honest and hardworking maid - is that so difficult to find?

PS: Over the weekend, I noticed that a bottle of snacks which my family has never opened did not look as full as it should have been. Further, the scotch tape that was used to seal the container was pasted in a messy manner and had bubbles all over. I don't want to speculate but there is a huge likelihood someone had opened the container to taste its contents and tried to seal it back unsuccessfully. A thinks it was probably done before we alerted her that we knew she stole our cookie. We may be wrong of course, but we just do not trust her anymore. I want to give her a piece of my mind and send her back now, but A prefers to wait till the new maid arrives. She frustrates me so much I can't wait to kick her out of my house soon!