Solomon is now crazy about keys. His favourite 'toy' is a box of my medicine cabinet keys at my shop, and a basket of house keys at home. He loves to get his hands on any key, then search for any keyhole within his reach. Then he can spend ages trying to fit various keys into the keyhole.
This activity can fascinate and keep him occupied for long periods of time. Thus, I let him have the keys whenever he wants them! This of course has its risks; the main one being missing keys! We have already lost some drawer keys and also the keys to the balcony grille. We suspect that he has thrown them out the window! (BTW: we live on the 10th floor!) This is because he has a history of throwing his little baby pillows out the window. He has tried squeezing big pillows through the window grilles, but luckily they don't fit!
Solomon loves the keyholes on my medicine cabinets at the shop, because they are low enough for him to reach. The door keyholes at home however are a little too high, and he has to tip-toe to reach them. He also likes riding in Daddy's car, because of the keyhole on his glove compartment!
The other day, he insisted on having the house keys when we reached home. Imagine his sheer ecstasy when he then spied row upon row of wonderful keyholes on the letterboxes at the lift lobby!! He was in heaven! I think this must be the stuff his sweetest dreams are made of! Best of all, so many of them were within his reach!
Isn't it wonderful to derive happiness from such simple things? If only we adults were so easy to please! :)
A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook status. It just so rocks:
Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater, give her sperm she will make a baby, give her a house she will give you a home, give her groceries she will give you a meal, give her a smile she will give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what she is given. So if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of SHIT...
Making decisions regarding our children's education can be extremely hard at times. This is because, unless we are billionaires who can hand down millions per child to secure their future, the most important thing we can give them would be a good education.
I remember the stress I went through with Annie, trying to decide between:
a traditional, strict Chinese medium school,
a private school which follows the national curriculum and some of the UK equivalent
or an international school which is very relaxed and stresses on all round achievement instead of the academic aspect only.
Being Chinese, we of course would like our children to be fluent in the mother tongue, especially when we ourselves shamefully are not! China is also developing into a power to reckon with, so mastering their language would be a definite plus.
The cons however would include the fact that both mummy and daddy would not be able to help with homework, thus attending extra tuition classes would become a necessity! The strict, academic-centred, fact-cramming style of Chinese schools also do not nurture creativity and originality.
The private school in question produces very good public exam results. They happen to be top in Sarawak, results-wise. Children follow the government's standard curriculum and also stay back in the afternoon for further enrichment, using Singapore and UK syllabus. They sit for the usual public exams like PMR and SPM and are also afforded the option to sit for 'O' Levels. They are also loaded with tonnes of homework. Thus the children have little time for anything else.
This would be the obvious choice for parents who want academically high achieving, straight 'A's children.
However, after much deliberating, we decided to send Annie to the International school, where they only follow the UK syllabus and homework only starts after age 9! We decided that it was unnecessary to put the children through the stress of studying the local syllabus and the UK one. Especially since our local syllabus is nonsense to say the least! I do not want to leave the fate of my children's education to some fickle-minded education minister's whim and fancy.
Sometimes I worry that we made the wrong decision. I worry that Annie is too relaxed and is falling behind academically, compared to her peers in other schools.
However, she enjoys going to school every morning (mostly) and that in itself is already priceless, says Hubby. She also has plenty of time to discover other activities, like music, squash, ballet, swimming, tae-kwon-do and even hip hop dancing!
She is also doing well in school and feels proud of her achievements. Her confidence is also boosted as teachers encourage and praise her artistic endeavours as well.
I came across this quote in The Reader's Digest, which assured me we made the right decision:
"Education is not the filling of the bucket but the lighting of a fire." W.B. Yeats
Well, I seriously hope their fires are being lit, because the "matches" sure are expensive! :)
Here's another quote on education which I find funnily true:
"Sixty years ago, I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." Will Durant, philosopher.
Isn't this a gorgeous picture? The photographer really did a superb job! It was taken in the middle of a road in the rain!
That's hubby in the sky, 4th from right! His "brother" got married last Saturday and he was appointed one of the 5 groomsmen!
Here they are trying to look cool and macho with shades and all...
but instead ended up being made to catwalk with balloons...
even "go round the mulberry bush"!! Muahahahaha...~~so early in the morning...~~
The church wedding, photo shoot and lunch was followed by dinner that night at The Hilton. After the dinner, the beat picked up and the party began. There were many old friends who came from far and near, specially to attend the wedding.
Everyone had a great time, especially Hubby who was so happy, you'd have thought he was the one getting married! :)
We even ended up dancing on the sofa! Hey, I don't get to do something like this very often, so why the heck not eh?
~~Y...M...C...A...!~~
Here's the lovely couple. Congratulations Lam and Sarah!! What a wonderful start to a beautiful life together.
Kids grow up so fast. Especially at Solomon's age, you see them change from wee crying babies to little children running around in the blink of an eye.
I hope to remember everyday not to get too stressed out and angry at life's little bumps all the time, so I can be happy and enjoy their presence and them mine. Work in progress...
Solomon's wearing a raincoat-like bib/shirt thingie which he got from Ee Ee on Christmas. Real handy...
Solomon sleeping in style. I suppose looking at this, Hubby will be hoping it indicates some innate martial arts talent waiting to materialize?? Hmmm....
In case you don't know, (why the heck would you know right?) I call Hubby "Destructo", because he has fidgety hands and loves to fiddle with things which usually end up in an irreparable state.
I think Eva has inherited this "special ability" of his :) Eva just started kindergarten at Claire's school, so I gave her a small basket to use. This basket has been used by Claire for a whole year without any untoward incident whatsoever.
However, after just a day with Eva... no not even a day, this happened in the car on the way to school. She was playing with the basket handles, bending them up and down, up and down, over and over again:
I have to apologize for not blogging much lately. We are in the process of moving house, and the 'house' in question currently looks like this! (It looked worse when they hadn't removed the rubble yet!)
We're knee deep in some minor renovations. Anyone who has ever done this will understand the headache it entails. It is exciting yet stressful at the same time. Moreover ours is just a small condominium unit which already has most of the built-in cabinets. I don't even have to worry about outdoor stuff and gardens. I wonder how people handle building a house from scratch!
I was stuck in a jam this morning. For want of anything better to do, I read the car sticker on the back of the small car in front of me. It was staring me in the face. It said:
There is a poem on the back cover of the kids' new school diary for this year.
It starts with "I believe"...
There are many lines to this poem, but the one that stood out for me was this:
"That just because someone does not love you the way you want them to, it does not mean that they do not love you with all that they have."
I think that this is so true, especially for women. We expect the men who claim that they love us to behave a certain way and do certain things for us (without prompting, mind you. If we asked for it, it doesn't count) to prove their love for us. This is because we would do those things for them as well just because we love them. When they do not do or act as we expect, we translate it into, "He doesn't love me as much as I love him!" and that's where all the problems start. Little do we know that the men are clueless as their brains are far less superior models as compared to ours! :P
It's funny, because we actually have known this all along. We apply it to our fathers. Especially Asian fathers. We know that they love us with all they have, even though they are not good at expressing it. We know that their grunts and nods sometimes do mean "I love you".
So why can't our men's farts and ignoring-you-while-reading-the-newspaper be expressions of love? Well, okay, it is a different relationship, but they're both that 'blur sotong' (if you are not familiar with this term, think Homer Simpson) species called man. And when we understand that our brains don't run on parallel tracks, we'll be a bit more forgiving.
There is such wisdom in those words. It usually takes a long time into a relationship for this revelation to dawn on us, but when it does, the relationship can then mature and progress to another level towards unconditional love.
Men and women differ so much in the way our minds work, that I think we should be classed as different species. Maybe they should teach "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus 101" in secondary school. That would prevent a lot of future heartache and strife indeed!
So anyway, this is dedicated to all young couples out there:
"Just because someone does not love you the way you want them to, it does not mean that they do not love you with all that they have."
A while ago, hubby and I went to watch Avatar. It's a movie by James Cameron, the same guy who made Titanic, so I guessed it was going to be a good one.
I was not disappointed. This is by far the best movie I've seen in quite some time, not that I've watched a lot of movies, but... you get the drift.
So anyway, the movie was way cool, with great special effects and computer graphics, or whatever modern technology movie magic they have nowadays.
We watched the 3D version because the normal one was showing a bit later, and we didn't have much 'escape' time! :) I actually prefer the normal versions, because I think the 3D effects don't make much of a difference and wearing the glasses makes everything a shade darker. Then if you take them off, everything is double-vision. The tickets are also grossly overpriced for 3D movies, in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the movie. It's a fantastic, original plot with breath-taking scenery of an alien planet. I observed that they got a lot of inspiration from the undersea world when designing planet Pandora's vegetation. From the spiral shape of the plants, to the jellyfish-like movement of the floating seeds of the 'Ehwa' tree. Also, most of the plants and animals glow in the dark, much like the undersea world.
Yes, they definitely did a great job, especially with the gorgeous aerial views like the 'Hallelujah Floating Mountains'. I also love the majesty of the ginormous 'Home Tree', and the awesome scene where it came crashing down.
So, the point of this post is... if you haven't already, you must definitely make it a point to watch this movie while it's still on the big screen! :)
Yesterday was the first day of school. It was Eva's first day at kindergarten, so it was a new school for her. She's now at Claire che che's school, where the classes are much bigger compared to her playschool classes.
I promised to accompany her for the first 3 days. So now, I'm assistant teacher as well as school bus driver! One little boy keeps calling me "teacher"! :) They're all so cute. There's even a (what's the collective noun for triplets??) triad? of triplets in her class. There's one boy who has hair longer than mine or Eva's even! Another girl keeps sneaking off to the sink to play with water and a pair of friends ask to go to the toilet every 15 mins!
Anyway, today, the teacher told me to wait outside. I informed Eva before I went out, because I want to earn their trust. I also slipped her a sweet as a bribe! (She's crazy about sweets!) It worked for about 10 seconds, then she escaped out the door, crying and came to sit with me until the teacher hauled her in kicking and screaming!
After a while, she managed to climb up the shelf and force open one of the window louvres and screamed at me! This is why Grandma and Grandpa call her Osama the Terrorist!
I remember going through this with Claire! It's so stressful! Claire would just peer out of a gap in the window at me and weep mournfully! It was so heart-breaking!
Annie was the most independent. I could leave her alone from the first day of school. Even for play school, when she was only 2 years old. I think I stayed with her for 2 hours on the first day only.
*Sigh*... Solomon next...
So anyway, here's my 'school bus' schedule for these 3 days:
7:30am - send Annie to school
7:45am - send Claire and Eva to school
10:30am - bring Eva home
10:45am - pick up Solomon from home
11:00am - send Eva and Solomon to shop
12:.30pm - pick up Claire from school
3:00 pm - pick up Annie from school
Should get myself a bus driver uniform with a nifty cap eh?! :)
Hubby managed to squeeze in a diving trip while doing time at Papua New Guinea. It was just off the coast of the capital, Port Moresby. He was taken to the coast by the dive centre operators because driving there was 'hazardous', as one had to drive through hostile areas! Thereafter, it was just a short boat ride to the diving spot.
He went for 3 day dives and reckons the place is more beautiful than Manado, but still not as gorgeous as Sipadan Island. There was an abundance of huge fish, and they amazingly did not seem wary of humans at all! This is why he could take such close-up photos of these graceful fishes.
Camoflouge fishes stay still, so it's not hard to photograph them as long as you can spot them in the first place!
Hubby and friends also visited the local market there. It is not a place you want to go unless you have a guide, or even better, some bodyguards! (His friend was almost pick-pocketed even though they were with a guide.)
Look at their wonderful natural supply of seafood! Hubby must've been drooling...
New Year's Eve; Hubby and I escaped when the kids fell asleep! This year, we managed to leave the house much earlier. A couple of times before, by the time we got the kids settled, we'd leave the house only to get stuck in the massive jam of people rushing to countdown to the new year anywhere but in a car. We would arrive with seconds to spare before Cinderella's coach turned back into a pumpkin.
Anyway, this year, we met up with the usual gang to usher in the new year with eye-stinging cigarette smoke and partial hearing loss! :)
*Sigh*... better make an effort to not sound so old and 'un-hip'! Actually, that's a dead giveaway; I think nobody uses 'hip' anymore except to refer to the leg joint.
So 'lame'! Yes! That's the word Annie uses!
But really, it was nice to be around old buddies to see in the new year and listen to loud music and pretend to be 18 again!
Chronicles of a thirty-something mummy of 4. With a shop to manage and an ever-traveling husband, she engages the aid of her trusty Indon helper sidekick and together they bravely face the chaos that is her everyday life!
Supermum has supermummy powers like high speed multi-tasking and 360 degrees x-ray vision. She fights to defend her sanity, struggles in the never-ending battle against impoverishment and strives in the pursuit of happiness!
To infinity and beyond!
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