Epilogue…
And so the circus moved to Sydney for several days to accompany Kings on some business meetings in the last few days of our Aussie trip. By the last leg we are bone tired, despite Kings’ steep learning curve and best efforts at assisting in childcare. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Rockstars at Sydney Aquarium (super crowded with tourists) while waiting for Kings to finish a meeting
Rockstar loved the rays… We spent a good 90 minutes just looking at the fish. If Kings was not at a meeting I’m not sure I’d have spent 90 minutes “just looking at fish”
After which we all went for a little “train” ride along Darling Harbor
There are some things you can outsource – for e.g. I don’t do floors. This is not snobbery; I am very bad at them, from a childhood where floors was the thing my mum did because as is I averaged 6 hours sleep a night as a teenager, what with taekwondo and piano and umpteen ECAs and tuition and maximum subjects for SPM. (I did the dishes and made my dad’s coffee though – even when I was otherwise bedridden with a fever from chicken pox). I don’t do floors because any helper/cleaner we have will be better at it than me. And outside my comfort zone, it takes up a lot more of my energy than anything else – energy that could be used to read another I Wonder Why book to The Rockstars.
Parenting I believe (sadly) to be one of those things in life for which “No pain no gain,” holds true. No free lunch. I can’t get over the thing in my head whereby you are paying someone minimum wage to say no to that extra piece of candy or too much tv. If I were the helper, why would I make things difficult for myself by inducing a tantrum saying no to junk, when they’re not even my kids?
Sometimes I have to grit my teeth and go head to head with Rockstar (who can be very, very determined) when the temptation is to just make life easier for myself in the short run and he IS my kid. I’m the one saddled with a jackass for several decades unless I dunno, I leave him in a shelter or something, if I don’t correct the bad behavior. So I always think how is a helper going to react when your kids are being difficult… Of course there are exceptions; of the gadzillion helpers I see everywhere, I’ve seen one threaten a misbehaving child with leaving Funzone if he doesn’t stop bullying other kids and actually haul him away kicking and screaming. She deserves a medal. I might’ve left him and carried on texting my friends.
This was exhausting – I couldn’t find her baby smoothies and Kings had to run back and search the car while I struggled to keep her from melting down in this nice place while giving her a bite of Rockstar’s order – all before Kings’ meeting that afternoon
Rockstar deserves a lot of credit, even with my harassed finger in the frame – the baby is always allowed a bite (or more) of whatever he’s eating. He considers it a compliment she always wants to eat what he’s having
Our helper in HK complains how ill-behaved the 4 kids under her care in her previous employment in Singapore were. My response is “You had a hand.” The mum was a working mum who was often not around. After 2 years our helper (just like helpers before her I suppose) leaves that Singapore family and horribly misbehaving kids (we’re talking 11 year old boy who still needs to be spoonfed his meals and who punches 6 year old sister with super foul mouth) because at the end of the day it’s not going to be her problem for much longer.
Parents don’t get to change kids every 2 years. Even the good-time parent eventually has to say no. It’s not fun. It’s also not an option. You receive permanent resident status in “Real” Parenting Land when you make that connection. Otherwise you’re just on visitor pass. You get to leave before it becomes your problem. You don’t pay taxes.
One day about 6 months ago, I noticed Rockstar trying to get a laugh out of Little Miss by “stabbing” his thigh and mimicking the blood flow. I traced it back to a stick figure Youtube animation he’d watched under the supervision of our helper. Her response? “I told him to stop but he ignored me.” <insert tragic What To Do? Face>
I was in the next room pumping milk. She could have told me, and I would’ve stopped him, I have told her so many times with Rockstar present. But it was just too much work to walk the 10 feet to the bedroom and say something to me. (So helpers are for floors. And Rockstar is under strict instruction to close any dodgy windows on my laptop if his searching and clicking should bring him there – “because in the end you have to be responsible for yourself.” Don’t want nightmares? Don’t watch awful stuff and increase the chance you’ll have one. Rockstar hates nightmares, you see. You can put the child safety locks on, but I believe the most effective is to work on making the child not want to watch it, therein lies the real parenting challenge.)
But when you are tired it is very, very tempting to farm off the kids (heck, sometimes I want to check my email). If the helper is there you are going to.
Kings and kids before a meeting
We were both exhausted. Kings checked himself in for several hours Thai massage at one point, in between business meetings. But then he began to get so much better at handling the kids. There is just no other way – you get your PR status by committing to a longer stay than what immigration grants you as a visitor. And at the end of the day, as thankful as I was to come back to Hong Kong – suddenly it’s a much easier time for me when there is a helper to do the feeding (under my supervision) or diaper change – Rockstar has had the Ski Fix we promised for so long and my Partner In Parenting has had quite the learning curve.
As for me, suddenly it’s easier to go about the day with two kids in tow. After training for a time with weights, you take them off and you find you fly.
We did however discover the virtues of Blaxland Riverside Park. They can keep the Aquarium, we’d fly to Sydney again just for the park.
Rockstar and baby were along for some of Kings’ more casual meetings even. One of the guys Kings meets with remarks how he misses his boy. They’ve been apart couple months, though he tries to fly back every couple weeks. But…. “He (the boy) is…… strong-willed.”
Yeah, so’s Rockstar. So’s Little Miss actually, just in a different way. Her tantrums are more deliberate, planned. We sometimes call her Miss Wayang. You just didn’t see the bits where I heaved after getting screamed at point blank in the face for a little longer than I could take in the car, or when Rockstar picked up an annoying habit of mouthing off by disagreeing with every damn thing we said, even if it was simply “Oh look, fish!” “It’s my body,” when he doesn’t want to eat/ put on a jacket… After too many of those I snapped at him hard, to the various judgmental looks from Canberra residents around who hadn’t see all the build up. Or else maybe they didn’t care, maybe they don’t believe kids should be hammered, regardless. One such look from another mum whose child I had felt Rockstar was very rude to haunted me for days.
But it was hammer or don’t get to have them along on more of our family’s life journeys. Kings remains “just” the hard-at-work dad who comes home with umpteen toys or a tub of ice cream. Travels alone always. And he travels often.
Rockstar’s take? “Daddy always forgets I don’t eat mushrooms!”
Me: …and this is why Daddy has that job and I have this one…… Actually why don’t you eat mushrooms?
Rockstar: They’re disgusting!
As for the “looks”…. I did come home determined to correct Rockstar in a less harsh tone. So no pain, no gain. That time, it was my own tiredness and frustration motivating the yelling at Rockstar. That really hurt to admit (hence “pain”), because sometimes after you do the whole jig taking care of them and get really tired, you might feel entitled. And then when the dust settles you realize you don’t get to. Damn this parenting thing isn’t easy.
This was our last evening before proceeding to the airport
And this reminds me of that final scene in Snatch where after the whole long, violent scene Cousin Avi gets back on the plane, knocks back a shot, and goes on to collect the diamond.
But we’re home now and I’m off for a much anticipated pedicure. My feet shalt looketh like feeteth againeth. I googled the in color for summer 2013. My toenails shall be duck-egg blue.
Update: They didn’t have duck-egg blue at the salon and so I had to get turquoise. This just blows.
Last sunset in Sydney
Isn’t it just freaking awesome when you have a shade of blue to complain about?
By request:
Darn I’m missing baby oil and a fake tan
“Brr” or “Ahh..”?
I dithered for a bit but there is just no way around it. These are pictures of my feet in the wrong shade of blue pedicure. So now you know I wear baby pink flip flops and have taken a picture of my feet in the shower.
