February update

It's so easy to skive through the whole of February without writing a single post.
Yah, I know... this blog is half-dead.
I'm just too busy with the day-in-day-out affairs that I hardly had the inspirations to write.
I have no intention of killing it, in fact, far from it.
Even if I stop writing for a year or two, this blog will still be here,
be here for as long as I shall live.
cos' all the priceless memories of the kids are documented HERE and no.where.else.
not even in my hopeless brain, which has limited capacity :(

Life with two grown-up-yet-not-so-grown-up kids is nothing but noise
Noise everywhere..
The best happens when they talk at the same time and yet expect you to listen and respond!
As a matter of fact, I've learnt to listen with both ears - one for each child.

Left ear heard Kai's "Francesco Bernoulli is an Italian"
and I'd go "OK, Italian"

Right ear detected Xuan's "I have a lot of homework today"
and I'd quickly repeat "Hmm... homework"

Left ear hurriedly returned to pick up the last phrase from Kai "actually, I like all the cars in CARS 2 but I don't like Axelrod"
and I'd respond with a "umm..Axelrod"

This can be quite nerve-racking.
By that, I really mean hair-pulling - literally.
It needs an awful lot of patience and some witty tricks to maintain sanity
- that is,
devoting 25% for left ear conversation
another 25% for right ear conversation
and the last 50% for my own thoughts ...
"what am I going to cook tomorrow?... fried rice again? or fried bee hoon.. er.. maybe not, ABC macaroni might be wiser..., easier, ok set."
This helps in maintaining the sanity of a deprived SAHM in one way or another..
...

On a side note, I've finally succumbed to Kiasuism
and put Kai on a reading programme by "I CAN READ"
He refused to learn with me at home
and I was left with no choice.

>>

Xuan is 9

Xuan celebrated her 9th birthday a couple of days back.
All our birthday celebrations have always been simple affairs.
We never throw parties. From young, I only had "mee sua" to eat for my birthdays and I think those were great blessings.

But kids nowadays expect more than just cake or "mee sua".
Xuan was quite disappointed that we didn't plan anything special for her birthday.
She was expecting that we book the function room, invite some family members over and have a small celebration. But we didn't. Frankly, she wasn't expecting too much. It was us who expected lesser.

Anyway, in the end, we just had a simple tim sum lunch at Red Star restaurant with her grandma/dad. We cut the ice cream cake and sang her a birthday song. At the end of the day, she was quite happy about it. I think the six presents we gave her helped! They were small ordinary gifts wrapped up separately to make her think she had many presents!!!
oh well...

"Nine" is a special number.
It is her favourite number.
Since young, she has been playing with her favourite yellow toy block called "number nine"

At nine, she is now in a development period of major transition as she stands on the cusp of adolescence. She is supposed to be developmentally mature enough to handle most responsibilities and situations without adult intervention. Unfortunately, she is becoming more forgetful and careless. She lost her story book in school, forgot to bring back her Chinese textbook, lost her eraser, forgot to write her name in her book before handing up to teacher, forgot to bring her textbook and pencil box to school...

Well, I shouldn't be complaining.
Xuan is still the sensible child.
We are awfully blessed to have her.

>>

Year of Dragon

So fast.
Tomorrow is already Lunar New Year eve.
So occupied with so many stuff that I have forgotten Xuan's Chinese Birthday!!! Tsk tsk tsk...
It was only when she asked me this morning that I quickly checked the calendar and discovered that it was YESTERDAY! Very guilty.

Kai started having fever this morning.
What a way to start the Year of Dragon!
Well, it was kinda of expected... festive celebration always (if not 90% of the time) turns out this way. I'm just so "lucky!"

Here are some recent photos to go with the update.
I wish my family, friends and YOU a blissful and healthy Dragon Year.
愿大家身体健康，平安快乐，幸福安详。

>>

A better year please

Things are up and running

more or less.

Life in the past weeks was scary

You lived in a world that seemed to have stopped while everyone else moved on..

The year has passed

I didn't have time to bid it goodbye

The new year has begun

I didn't have time to welcome it

Anyway, I hope 2012 will be a better year for the whole family.

The kids are back to school and the husband is back to work

I am back to fetching the kids and husband to and from school and from work.

Life is back to mundane...cleaning, washing, and cooking..

Living a mundane life is a blessing..

Unfortunately, we are governed by impermanence

This mundane is always broken by something unusual

I just hope it won't happen too often..

I don't need an exciting life. please, thank you.

>>

Dreadful December

I didn't know how to write this.
It took me a long while...
I was waiting for things to settle before I start recalling and documenting...
At this point, things weren't settled as yet.. but I thought I should just write something cos' I was living like there's no tomorrow.

The whole of December was emotionally draining.
Since his birthday in November, the husband has been feeling lethargic with coughs.
The coughs went on and off and dragged till December. Then on 5th December, he felt the pain in his tummy. He thought it was just mere gastro discomfort. But we started to suspect something when the pain dragged on for the entire week, without diarrhea. I made him see the GP on the 10th. That day, after the GP, he called back to say he needed to go for a CT scan at the specialist. That very same day, after the specialist, he called back again to say that he had to go for an operation for appendicitis at 5pm. Everything happened in a short span of few hours. But he procrastinated. The husband, with extraordinary high pain threshold, thought that the pain has gone and he should just take some antibiotics to treat the "mild" appendicitis. He didn't go for surgery that day.

We were torn by the suggestion to go for appendicitis surgery. He said that his symptoms were improving and didn't think his appendix will rupture. He lived on Milo and antibiotics for the next two days, hoping that the appendicitis will go away. He had occasional chills along the way. I had fever too but mine was an isolated flu case. I went to see the same GP (our family doctor) for my fever and cough on the 12th. The GP was worried for the husband. He called him personally to go for a blood test on the 13th. That very same day, he finally had the operation to remove his appendix. The laparoscopic appendectomy operation marked the beginning of a "long" hospital stay. He was hospitalised from 13th to 17th. The stay was long and draining for both of us. His post-surgery infections were bad. He was in severe pain the following day after the surgery and had fever. He was nauseous and vomited. He had delusions and he couldn't sleep. He was badly dehydrated. It was an ordeal for him and emotionally draining for me...

Now he is back home..

but not all well

he is still having low grade fever

He still needs to go for a blood test 2 months down the road.

His white blood count was exceptionally high when he was in hospital...

and the doctor advised him to check his WBC again after he is well, to be sure that all is indeed well...

...

..

It was a dreadful December.

>>

Worried

I think life is fair.

When you have a disciplined kid who gives you the least worry, you'd also have one who is exactly opposite on the scale. Yes, I'm referring to Kai.

I'm not sure how he is going to survive in Pimary 1.

He only responds to words like "cars", "play", "TV", "iphone" - he is especially deaf to words like "learn", "read", "write"...

Seriously, I am worried sick when it took ages for me to persuade him to sit at the table to do some writing.

"Come, come here, come and sit here, ... come now, sit here, right NOW!"

"Here, hold this pencil, hold it ... hold it NOW!"

"You just need to trace this alphabet, trace only... don't have to write it yourself"

"Ok, start tracing now."

"start now..."

"what are you doing?"

"I said trace this alphabet"

"hold the pencil properly"

"start tracing now... please"

"put your pencil here... here, here.... start here, at this point... start tracing, start... START!!!!!!!"

I'm serious.

It was this bad.

>>

So exciting

Everyone is getting so excited about tomorrow.

Yes, tomorrow. Not because it's the last day of school.

Well, sort of..., but more importantly, there are two significant events -

1. We are invited to Xuan's school for the 2011 Award cum Graduation Ceremony!

Yeah! She has done tremendously well and we are so proud of her.

We are going to smuggle her doting grandparents into the school as well. Shhh... don't tell, ok.

2. Immediately after that, we are all heading to Resort World Sentosa for a short staycation!

The kids are so happy. They have already packed their own backpack. Kai has been jumping up and down the whole evening just now... he is still chatting with daddy right now (10 min to 12 a.m.) and is too excited to sleep.

Let's hope everything goes well tomorrow.

Good night.

>>

Therapeutic

Listening to songs, singing or croaking for that matter, can be so therapeutic. Really.

Many times, I find myself lost in the kids' world - forgotten about this enjoyment.

I was contented just living each and every day drowning in noises...

until one day, when I was driving home alone from the kids' school, I pressed on the wrong disc player, which miraculously played all the songs I used to love.

The best thing was, for the first time, it wasn't playing Kai's favourite "爱的初体验" on disc 3 track 9.

And I fell in love with these oldies once again.

At home, I quickly checked out the Yamaha theatre system and the Blu-ray player but started to curse its inability to play CDs!!!

What was the use of a sophisticated sound system when it couldn't even perform the most basic function and provide the simplest pleasure???

I was about to dismantle it to pieces when I spotted a USB port on the blu-ray player.

So I inserted my thumb-drive, which contained all my favourite songs, and...

Voila! It worked!

BTW, I was never good with all these sound or Tech gadgets - how they connect to each other - which way in and which one out...

But somehow, with lots of button pressing, a myriad of determination and a great deal of desperation, I managed to do it!

It felt good.

Really good

- to bring music back to my life again.

>>

SA2 2011... her first exam

Results for SA2 main papers came back.

English 60/60

Maths 100/100

Chinese 69.5/70

So proud of you, baby!

*Muak*

>>

Exam-anxiety

The time reads 2.50 p.m.
HOORAY! The exam is officially over!

Today Xuan sat for her last paper - Mathematics.
She must be very happy by now.
I can imagine the exhilaration and happiness showing on her face NOW.
Yes, right now.
YEAH...! It's over!

*Erhem* If she was happy, I would be 20 times happier!
For the past week, and especially the day before each of her exam paper, I had read through, ingested and digested all her school textbooks, workbooks, worksheets, test papers... to help her with her revision. I highlighted all her mistakes to her, without her going through her entire stack of school work. I WAS the one revising!
[I can see your head shaking vigorously now. Don't judge.]

Occasionally, I would be questioned by the "invigilator" who did a surprise check and slapped a question like "How come she didn't know her punctuations, I thought you already went through with her?" in my face.

When she was in school for her examination. I watched the clock.
When the clock read 1.20 p.m., I told myself, "exam starts.."
When it ticked 2.50 p.m., I heaved a sigh of relief, "one down.."

Well, this was the first time she sat for her exams - REAL examinations - not those bite-sized assessments or short tests.
It was also my VERY FIRST EXAM after my last departure from school, when I had long forgotten what it tasted like to be EXAMINED. All of a sudden, scent of the burning mid-night oil came gushing back to me. And those mountain-high stack of lecture notes. Oh, oh... how could I forget that it almost cost me my sanity, when I forgot momentarily how to write or even spell for that matter - my.very.own.NAME, on the exam paper! That moment was really scary.
So you can't exactly blame me for my anxiety this time, can you?

Anyway, I am so thrilled that it was all over.
But I can't get over the fact that I have to sit through this sh*t exam-anxiety for the rest of her academic years.
Err... by the way, did I tell you that she is only in Primary TWO???




P.S.: Actually, Xuan has been doing consistently well in her studies this year. That was why I did not attempt to drown her with the entire year's school work for revision. During her examination period, she could even afford the same amount of play. No less. She was very disciplined. She needed minimal supervision. I could not even hold a candle to one-twelfth of her willpower at her age.

We are going to celebrate today.

>>

How their baby faces have changed

I was doing some housekeeping on the PC the other day and came across some old photos




and a recent one...

and realised how time flies
and how I missed their baby faces...

>>

Kai's temper tantrums

I am exceptionally happy with Kai today.
Simply because he is behaving very well.

Let me put this on record.
In fact, I have been having a very difficult time with Kai these few days.
His temper tantrums were getting worse.
He got upset easily.
He hit and kicked, whenever things went against his will.

This time, I'm attributing it to the iPhone again.

And I am blaming the Dad for giving him the phone after it has been renounced for a long while...

yet now iPhone has become an everyday demand whenever dad's home.

There wasn't any educational apps... but his all-time favourites -- Temple Run, Traffic Rush and the like, that could stir up his adrenaline too easily.

Sigh!

There must be a way to stop all these before it become worse.

You heard me, Daddy?

>>

Playing cars together

Nowadays, Xuan has turned to playing cars.

She likes playing cars as much as her younger brother does.
And she likes to play them together with him.

Instead of the usual Barbie and Ken chatting, shopping, and the mundane day-in-day-out activities, she actually enjoyed using Lightning McQueen, Mater, Francesco, Shu Todoroki in the cars play - talking, arguing, racing, winning... and more often than not - crashing, injured, rushed to hospital, and stuff. OK, to be fair, the crashing parts and the more violent plots are often dictated by Kai. Xuan's are mostly of sleepovers, cars performing on stage... sa ma ma ma la la la la...

But Kai will protest, "the cars don't want to go to the performance"
Instead, "You see..., Jiejie, Lightning fly up, there's a river here... WEEeee, and SSsplashhhh!
Well, they'd reach a win-win compromise somewhere somehow

But in the end, towards 11.00pm every night...
"Why Francesco races so fast??!!!"
"No! Lightning wins..."
"No, he wins..."
"NOOOOOoooo"

Exhaustion kicks in
No more compromises
One of them will cry

And that calls for the end of the play,
the end of the day.

Not a good way to end the play.
But without that, NO WAY are they going to end the day.

>>

Fever fever go away!

The week that passed was hectic and exhausting with the duo taking turns to fall sick with fever as high as 40.4 deg. Celsius. That was 1st October. Kai got it first. Three days later, Xuan caught it. The fever was really scary - it didn't go away after three days - it stayed for a good 7 days. No joke!

We had to dose them with Voltaren suppositories and I became an expert in pushing that stub into their butts overnight. Without those suppositories, I wouldn't know what would happen. The fever had made them vomitted, especially for Xuan. She couldn't take the oral Nurofen prescribed for high fever. A few seconds after she has taken Nurofen, she'd vomit - it never failed. It was messy.

Well, I'm glad it was over although there are still lingering coughs here and there...
I just have to pray hard that she doesn't fall ill again on her exam days.

>>

Primary 2 examination

In most primary schools, children are "streamed" according to their academic abilities at the end of P2. So the pupils from the first 3 classes in P3 are so-called top of the cream. No matter how much we parents disagree, it has become a reality that we have now came to accept, especially when your kids are currently in P2, as in my case. The system might change for the better, but we won't see the light that soon. Schools are still very much in the competitive mode.

Xuan is in P2 this year. She will be sitting for her year-end "streaming" examination in end October, which is like... one more month down the road!! Schools, principals, teachers, parents are all very competitive. It's not easy being a child at this age. There is nothing much we can do except to revise with her and help prepare her for the examination.

>>

Chest pain and aches

It all started with an innocuous pain on the left lower chest. Then it turned into sharp pounding pain with each deep breath. Next, the pain spread to lower left back. The pain was aggravated with each movement. I could hardly twist or turn. I could hardly walk straight. I could not lie down.

I had fever.

The best and wise thing to do was to see the doctor.
The doctor could not identify the cause and advised me to go for a chest X-ray and blood test.

X-ray showed pleural effusion, which is explained as excess fluid that fills up the fluid-filled space that surrounds the lungs.

There are many causes for pleura effusion.
One of them is pneumonia.
But it couldn't be pneumonia as I didn't have any cough.
So the GP advised me to see a chest specialist.

Oh yes, and I remembered that I crashed my chest into the marble counter top in the kitchen while doing work the other day. But there was no bruise in sight. So this cause was also ruled out. (btw, I have concluded that I should wear an armour when I work in the house..)

At the specialist, I was told to do another blood test for mycoplasma.
The result was negative.
So it couldn't be fungal infection.
Maybe it was other unknown bacteria.

I was prescribed with Avelox, an antibiotic which made me nauseous, giddy, blur, sometimes high, sometimes low, and more..
The pain was gone immediately after I saw the specialist.
The side effects of the drug was still there nonetheless.

Then, on the fifth day of antibiotic, I woke up with the pain on the right side of my back.
It couldn't be bacteria then.
And this warrant an immediate visit to the specialist.

Another X-ray taken...
The hb was with me all these while.
He was worried.
I knew he was thinking what I was thinking.
But we never spoke about it.

I tried very hard to focus on the positive.
But I broke down and cried when no one was around.
It was the thought of separation that brought me to tears.
the thoughts of leaving behind my hb and two young kids..
the regrets of not doing enough for the kids..
the agony of not able to watch them grow up..

That was even before I took my second X-ray.
I was so silly. But the thoughts were depressing.
We never know when in life we are going to fall ill and die.

Thankfully, the second X-Ray showed improvement in the pleural effusion.
Phew. It wasn't as bad as we thought.

I am well.
The rest are history..

>>

Talking too much

I'm not sure whether it is the age problem
but at 8, Xuan really likes to talk
She can go on and on and on... about the same topic, non-stop, until I had to say "ok, that's enough of talking."

Example:

Xuan: "Mummy, do you think mechanical pencil is better or normal pencil is better?"

Me: "I think mechanical pencil is better, I like mechanical pencil"

Xuan: "I also like mechanical pencil. But I think normal pencil is better... Do you know why? Because it is thicker. Some mechanical pencil lead are very light, but normal pencil lead are always darker."

Me: "That's not true, normal pencil also have lighter lead like HB, just like mechanical pencils"

Xuan: "Oh is it? Then I think mechanical pencil is better. I can write in nice handwriting using mechanical pencil. But sometimes, I still think normal pencil is better because........................"

If I'm not wrong, for the next 8 minutes, she was still on the same topic.
*slap forehead*

>>

Colouring and CARS

Kai loves cars so much that he has been colouring, painting and drawing them!
He especially loves the cars in CARS movie. His favourite is Lightning Mcqueen.


Recently, he was colouring the cars in his colouring book when I saw him coloured Mater wrongly. Mater was supposed to be brown in the CARS movie. So I asked,"Why do you colour pink here?"

His reply was "This is called ART!"


Btw, we caught CARS 2 as soon as it hit the theatre's screen on 25 August. Both kids were equally excited. Kai had been looking forward to that day. He kept chanting that it was his 'happy day'! We went to Shaw Theatre at NEX and watched the 3D show from 9.30pm to 11.30pm. On the whole, I felt that CARS 2 was more action-packed and its pace too fast for me. Hee.. I am those slow-by-few-beats type. So I still prefer CARS 1.

Throughout the show, Kai kept asking me what was going on.
"What did they say???" he probed almost every other second.
Well, he enjoyed the show nevertheless.

>>

Lizards' stuff

Adventures with lizards continued even as we shifted to this new house few months ago.
I was so looking forward to a fresh start---life without lizards!
But things just didn't work that way.

Everytime I dream about lizards, they'd come and greet me the very next day. It's that mystical. It's creepy! It was rather unfortunate that I seemed to dream about horrifying lizards very often recently. Sigh! But in a way, the dreams helped me to be on high alert.

By the way, I have tried very hard to keep the house lizards-free. Other than religiously cleaning the house and eliminating lizards' food source, I've also tried:

• hanging empty egg shells near windows;


• mixing TABASCO sauce with water and sprinkling them all over the house - err.. lizard-frequent spots, that it;


• using PEST-STOP 5000 - electronic pest repeller that uses ultrasonic technology to chase lizards away; (this one is supposed to scare away cockroaches and mosquitoes as well)


• Non-toxic RIDSECT repllent - deters the lizards ability to cling onto the surface and therefore prevent them from going back to the same spot; (I'm pretty sure this one works, cos' the other day I saw this little lizard that dropped to the floor after passing through the sprayed spots and it had to hop out of the house.. tsk tsk tsk, already told u not to come in!)


• And finally, the rubber door seal to prevent lizards from crawling into the house. (The same tiny lizard mentioned above apparently resided in the corridor. It loved to visit me. It has came into our house a few times through the main door, despite being chased outside by a stick. I had quite an adventure with it. Now with the rubber door seal, I hope it will not come into the house again.)

Anyway, I'm not sure which of the above "smart technology" works best. Cos' it seems like I've used them all almost at the same time. Too smart. *shake head*

However, if you are as terrified and paranoid of lizards, just try them.
They are harmless methods anyway.

>>

Best friend

Kai's best friend in school is a girl - Jenny, who is very popular in class. I've seen her, she is very sweet and friendly - the next-door-girl who is every boy's dream. There is something special in her that attracts. I just couldn't tell.

Hmm... my son has taste. He told me he wanted to marry her. Haha...
There was a little small talk among the four of us (Xuan, Kai, Jenny and Me), outside Kai's school today.

Jenny: Hello Jun Kai.
(Being a shy and quiet boy in school, Kai just smiled and kept quiet)

Me: Hello!!

Me: Do you partner him? (pointing to Kai)

Jenny: (nodding her head) Yes, when I partner him, I smiled.

Me: Do you like him? (What a question!)
Jenny nodded her head.

Me: He said he likes you too!

Xuan to Jenny: Who is your best friend?
Jenny thought for a while and pointed to Kai.
Then, she held his hand and led him into the classroom.

Aww... this attractive little girl has stolen my heart.
Think I couldn't wait for her to be my future daughter-in-law... hahaha!

>>