Rockstar: Mum. Actually I’m quite bored with eating the same thing for dinner every night.
(This is true – About 5 times a week Rockstar has a massive dinner of grilled salmon, hard boiled eggs, broccoli, carrots and rice for dinner. This is so I don’t stress about his school lunch – “Mum. <shaking head regretfully as he breaks the bad news to me> I’m just not going to eat much whatever you give me (for school lunch). I’m too busy.” Not that they don’t give him time to eat you understand, but he’s “too busy” kaypoh-ing to do more than stave off the worst hunger..)
Me: You get those dinners so you can eat (or not) what you want at lunch. AND zone out with Youtube as a perk as long as you make up for it by packing it all in at dinner (bad habit alert, but we don’t even own a dining table and eat casual buffet style at home because we all eat at different times – touch wood it doesn’t affect his table manners at all when we go out for proper dinners). I can change up your dinners, but if you take in less of the good stuff at dinner you won’t get as much freedom at school and weekend meals. Want to think about it and give me your final answer, whether I need to change your dinners?
(Such deals are the silver lining of a too-serious, thin-skinned child who has decided he hates being nagged and wouldn’t mind being provided a solution to “solving (his) problem” <roll eyes>)
Rockstar: <seriously> Yeah. Let me think about it.
The next day…
Me: What did you decide about your weekday dinners?
Rockstar: Can you repeat my choices again?
Obligingly I repeat our conversation the previous day, but kind of guess by his demeanor…
Rockstar: Yeah I’m fine with the same thing for dinner. <Turns back to his toys>
Me: So I don’t need to do anything? You’re sure? (Rockstar nods yes).
Later when I’m having a lot less luck feeding the baby…
Rockstar: Mum. Why don’t you offer her the same deal you offered me?
<Gravely tries to explain conditions to baby. Is drowned out by baby gabbling at top of her voice – her latest Charming New Skill, for when she doesn’t think it’s something she wants to hear, I suppose…>
Random pics of the two of them horsing around in the double-parked car… Rockstar’s finally warming up to handling Her Highness more…
One of those weekends when you kinda know by Sunday morning you won’t be doing anything of note – as in, so help you God.
A large chunk of Saturday was spent at an Asia Bankers’ Club – McLaren event where people munch hors d’oeuvres around some pretty cool cars. (Basically because Kings had to work and wanted to bring Rockstar to work.)
Rockstar and the dad… Rockstar having climbed in and out of the sports car (the “proper” way, swinging his legs in without shoes on the upholstery) umpteen times…
Juice is for grownup events! (Oh, and Rockstar’s wearing a Zara shirt embroidered with black skull and crossbones)
See? We must sip our glass of juice thoughtfully while mingling
(he had 3 of those in the end)
Ditto spiced shrimp and sausage…
We managed to roughly adjust the baby’s nap timing by dragging out her morning play time a bit longer than usual, then quickly putting her down for her nap and scooting out the door to the event. Doesn’t always work perfectly because even after a full morning she naps anywhere from 40 – 120 mins (and on really bad days she barely makes it to 40 mins), but yesterday we went a very satisfying 90 mins after which I still had another 90 minute window while the helper very slowly changed her diaper and put her in her feeding chair for lunch (baby salmon risotto from Ella’s Kitchen!)
Then we came home and I left Rockstar in the hallway with my cellphone (First Dibs On Mummy’s Phone For Not Breaking/Spilling/Offending Anything) so as to not illustrate to Her Highness Everyone Went For A Party Because You Napped Nicely (though yes that is kind of what happened and yes the cloak and dagger is necessary because last time we simply let her “catch” us all going out she refused to go down quietly for her naps and every time she stirred would immediately pull herself up the side of the cot, rather than go back to sleep, just to see if we were all still home)
(Don’t be fooled by expression, she’ll roll over and wake right up if you try to put her down…!)
Asleep Face can morph into Get Me Outta Here Face just like that <snaps>
Epilogue: We collected our two female children (baby and JD) and spent couple hours walking around and at an outdoor cafe. No more naps for Her Highness so she would go to bed peaceably an hour early and Kings and I could make our Iron Man 3 movie date. It was almost perfect, we got a text from the helper saying she’d just woken briefly around the last few scenes where Gwyneth Paltrow starts to kick butt.
We’ll take almost perfect… And Iron Man 3 was awesome.
Aaand it’s Election Day in Malaysia! We even had swiss attendees to the ABC event (who spent 16 years in NY) asking us about it over drinks.
Wish we could be there, my dad’s been waking in the wee hours of the morning to read things on the internet and the grandparents are going down to vote…
Dad looks TOO thrilled to be doing the heart thing with the son (who looks like he’s seriously humoring him. Now, THAT’S love!)
1) Will Smith arguably Most Embarrassing Famous Dad To Date. Heck, I linked it because Will looks way, wayy, WAYYYY thrilled to be doing the father-and-son thing with Jaden and the son is like Ok Ok Suck It Up This Dad, After All – check out the father vs the son’s faces in the pics ok… Then go see if Will Smith looks quite that happy when he’s not doing press junket with son as co-star… just a thought…
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Dis is Rescued Dog. Not Rescue Dog.
2) Hurricane Sandy animal rescue photos. (I know, late, but I only found it when I was clicking around…) Linked it because I thought the care these people took in rescuing the animals was sweet. Because animals are people too. No dog left behind and all that.
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Dis is a Rubber Duckie
3) We actually saw a scene that looked remarkably like the pic above from Bored Panda when we were driving around recently. I remember wondering why there was a rubber duckie in the water – and then going back to clucking around the kids. BIG wake up call for me: why did I barely blink at the World’s Largest Rubber Duck? I see world’s largest rubber duck floating by every day meh?
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What other uses for wires?
4) More photo manipulations. I like these things because they can make you look at stuff differently. There’s a video in the link of how he did one on the computer too..
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Aaand, this week’s Weekend Rockstar’s pic (because my 300-600 become not-so-silent when I do things like forget to put one up :D)
Little Miss Joins The Boys Club (or, Matching Beards, Obviously Related)
Someone remind me to come back here when Rockstar is old enough to shave. If things continue to go as swimmingly (sorry), there will be His and Hers razors.
ps: This is short because I wrote, then deleted, a big chunk off this page. If you’re wondering why, check out Top 2012 Aussie Blog Eden Riley’s latest post to date on my links at right.
Excerpt from one of Rockstar’s many schoolwork selections coming home last week:
That’s Rockstar’s cursive writing which he’s been learning in school…
There’s lots more (when the occasion might call for it then I post la).. This was just so I could put this up:
That’s his first time recently in his new taekwondo gi… I just loved the picture because I thought he looked cute, unbiased that I am… He’s “survived” a few weeks attending the most convenient class I could find, within walking distance of our home, which quite a few of his friends are going to… And he wouldn’t let me buy the gi til he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to quit…
Ok, actually I have more than one person (besides Kings) who reads this blog, but considering nearly everyone is silent or just emails (someday I hope to return favors to the brave few who dare to comment openly) because they don’t know who else is reading, I thought the “ghosts” out there might be a little curious.
When the nice Dandelion people contacted me with freebie offers of stickers and posters and things, I sheepishly explained we erm, had to have actual books. I had an idea the ~300-600 daily visitors who come here….. don’t do it for stickers. (Just a hunch.)
At the time, the Dandelion book was not available in print and I basically asked for their limited edition hard cover “prototype” or first print or whatever-you-call-that-edition book to give away. Then later on I also went and “bought” two more hardcover books at USD 100 each on Kickstarter. (As in, you become a “backer” of the project, and the USD 100 contributions are the ones that get you a “free” hard cover autographed book… I have a sometime project to slowly accumulate vintage, autographed or limited edition children’s books for The Rockstars to hand down to their kids, someday I’ll write about that more…)
So anyway this was my original post about Dandelion, and then the project took off after being successful on Kickstarter, but then the publishing of the books got wayyy delayed so I only received them (the freebie and the ones I “bought” myself) months later than originally scheduled (which made me initially a bit embarrassed to mention it at all, but after this reader experience I just had to say something, and btw the Dandelion App made one of Apple’s Best Of 2012 iTunes earlier this year).
It was awhile more before I finally managed to meet up with the original reader who wrote me a personal email about her own bullying experience because by then it was almost CNY and she had family from the UK over for the holiday (I hope I got that right otherwise please hammer me dear!) and so on, and so forth, and well – this post became a Why Sticker Freebies Don’t Work With This Blog post. Or Readers, Meet Reader post.
See, what happened after I first posted about Dandelion was I would get correspondences asking where they can buy the book or at least check it out, BUT not competing for the freebie giveaway.
“Is ok, I think someone else needs the free one more…”
Ay, if I have limited edition something-by-Prada to give away how?
I don’t know if this is a thing about being in HK where the English-speakers are cynical in general because of the super-aggressive marketing calls (the ole’ advice is “if the marketer cannot speak English it’s probably not important” :D) and suspicious about little freebies, or if this is normal for English-lang blogs here, but basically I got responses like “Umm, is ok I can buy for myself. But can I have more information…” Or, “Where to buy ah?” and then I had to tell them the book really wasn’t available then at which they were all Oh. Ok….. <I imagine a shrug on an email>
In the case of this reader I finally met up with, she still came with a baby gift for Little Miss and book of stickers for Rockstar.At which point I then end up insisting on buying lunch. (Truffle pizzas yum!)
Like, and I say this with love, dear readers, freebie giveaway MAJOR FAIL.
IT. WAS. A. FREEBIE. NO ONE IS GOING TO CALL YOU TO TRY AND SELL YOU SOMETHING. NO ONE IS GOING TO SEND YOU EMAILS AND TRY AND SELL YOU SOMETHING.
I JUST WANTED TO GIVE AWAY A BOOK, DAMMIT.
The Dandelion people earlier didn’t even require I write a follow up post or whatever, they said Ok ok just give you a book instead of stickers. Then I felt bit bad and happily bought two more. Yeah you see you see I’m also like dat. And then because they were so late printing the books they then sent me another free autographed book. I would say it’s something in the water, everybody so Emily Post, but well the books came in out of Sydney.
And as for my dear readers, and I say this with love, “Is ok, I think someone else needs the free one more…” pretty much sums up you guys.
Who knew giving things away could be so hard? <sigh>
Rockstar attended a friend’s birthday party yesterday, and this was the first “intimate” party (as in, 10-ish kids in someone’s home) we’ve been to with a reptile-and-other-creepy-crawlie show.
(“Other creepie-crawlie” because they had a big hairy orange spider, newts, leopard gecko, and a “Pacman Frog” as well… The only one Rockstar didn’t want to hold was the spider, which he just stroked with a finger.)
Bragging rights with the little milk snake…
And I can’t remember what species this one was…
(And I found this old pic of when I did that in Bangkok… I was about 8 or 9 in the pic…) I don’t do this anymore. I generally like snakes, but stopped draping them over my shoulders after watching one pee on a tourist…
Sorry not easy to take pics especially with Rockstar yelling “Take a video! Take a video!” and the excited baby kicking and waving her arms maniacally in her harness strapped to me (before passing out to Kings’ Make The Baby Sleep Superpowers.)
KO-ed Baby (unfortunately she only stays that way for 20, 40 mins tops because she is a very light sleeper)
Would’ve let her hold the snakes too, but was a little worried she would take a chomp out of one. And that’s our Saturday, baby…
1) The idealistic belief in the existence of good people whatever the setting, be it in the Oval or a fictitious black ops military unit where the inconvenience of reality is flouted in favor of a storyline just never loses its appeal. This was originally a post all its own but then I realized I’ve got Friday Linky Party anyway.
In the spirit of my usual Let’s Find A Use For Every Bit Of Useless Knowledge Because Why Waste The Effort, here’s what I learned about comic book stories and movies:
You guys catch the recent Gi Joe: Retaliation movie?
pic from zoneflix.com
Sometimes I think parenting makes you a lot less picky about what movie critics say, you’ll take whatever movie is being shown nearby at the precise time your baby has gone to bed and your elder one has settled in down for his Youtube unwinding on a Saturday night. So anyway after thinking the movie was not too bad (the beer, olives and chips-and-cheese-dip might have something to do with it) and having heard how reviled the first one in particular was, I went kaypoh-ing online.
Now, growing up I loved comic books. I can’t remember when the last time was that I read one, but from a childhood of X-Men and Transformers and the occasional Avengers, I don’t do too badly on trivia when all the comic book movies start coming out. But I don’t always make it to the movie, so I started reading entire storylines online while expressing milk (still find some of the comics today too violent, compared to what I used to read as a kid). Also variations. Which was how I found fanfiction.net.
At which point you might wonder why I read at all.
Because, however fantastical (evolution giving rise to mutants who can cause thunderstorms, anyone?), story lines and characters follow the tastes and preferences of their targeted readers. I figured it can tell you a lot about the people creating them and the people they are created to entertain. It is a big indication of popular culture in that time and place. Or start an interesting fact vs fiction vs what could be fact theoretically, with your kid.
pic from joediliberto.wordpress.com
For e.g., take Captain America – his was a character created to inspire during wartimes. All the “noble” characteristics of the ultimate soldier serving his country. No real surprises that after the war they put him in an iceberg until such time when his real powers of rallying the troops and inspiring nationalistic tendencies would be needed again. (Or, you could just get Chris Evans to fire up a female fan base for you to make big bucks on, during an ailing economy :D)
And so that was how I got interested in the GI Joe storyline.
pic from comicvine.com
There is this whole fascination with the rivalry between Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, so let me try to put this the “Captain America Way” –
In the comic book story, Storm Shadow is Japanese-American but with a long ninja clan history in Japan, whereas Snake Eyes is a blonde-and-blue-eyed Caucasian American. Both were in the Vietnam war (Japanese-American portrayed as having served his country – that’s the US, not Japan, and I should just say the words Pearl Harbor Nearly Two Decades Prior To Vietnam if you wondered why I was that curious), Japanese-American brings his white friend back to Japan where his mysterious ninja clan adopts him……. Lots of bloody feuding and a spin-off ninja clan because of the disagreement among clan members re adopting the white guy… White guy then surpasses Asian guy in Asian martial art, thereby fueling rivalry………. (Even if you aren’t a nerd like me, quite interesting right, the storyline the writers arrived at?)
(And then of course White American Ninja must instead choose Uzis and various other guns to (I suppose) appeal to the guys who like the comic stories about the American military and there’s that whole part of the States that really loves their guns……)
But wait, there has to be a link in there somewhere, so here it is:
This is an e.g. of the kind of fiction written by a fan of a particular comic book (and there’s like, umpteen short stories for free about all manner of characters). Bearing in mind I have zero interest in soldiers and wars, I’m the first one to wonder why I liked the story and happily stuck it through the entire 87+k words. I think it’s because, somewhere in the seemingly mindless antics of bored army grunts in between moments of sheer terror (btw my cousin served in the British Army and was deployed to Iraq) is a story about a nerd who wants to help injured people on the battlefield, while sticking to his pacifist views – read that again and wait for it to sink in – serving in the middle of an elite military unit known for adrenaline-junkie jocks.
Somewhere in there, whatever the setting, is the story of someone proving himself using his brains and guts while still not giving in to peer pressure or intense bullying.
And people write these things for free as a hobby. Isn’t that just cool?
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Ok, this next also cool:
Pic from Best Dads, Real Life Edition, hellogiggles.com
3) Youtube’s 10 most watched videos ever. Gangnam Style, Call Me Maybe, no surprises there. But you guys seen Charlie Bit My Finger… Again? Rockstar loved this way before it made top 10, having watched it repeatedly and yes, never, ever let Her Highness near his fingers.
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pic from Thedailybeast.com
4) Morning TV Wars. I don’t even watch Morning TV, but occasionally I follow the soap opera that has been Ann Curry’s departure in yet again another example of Why Is It The General Consensus Is Bankers Were Cutthroat When People In Other Industries Can Prove Just As Shitty. Not a popular opinion I know, but it was an eye-opener for myself that in fact a lot of other assumed sunny happy professions are in fact….. not. It should not take me this long to arrive at Wherever There Are People There Is Both Good And Shittiness.
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5) For the Friday afternoon that is No Brainer Youtube Time. Big Cats Love Boxes Too:
from http:bigcatrescue.org
Aaaaand these two’s Good Weekend shot for the week:
Rockstar’s Aw, Shucks look is because I had to practically lasso him from being chased round and round on the bed by the baby (still having that personal space thing, whereas she’s still determined to get a cuddle from the bro) so he could just get a hug over with.
Random crime in my home country has always frightened me, as it does my Malaysian friends who live here in Hong Kong. (I have a girlfriend who tells me she goes nuts when her son, growing up here, goes back to Penang and isn’t used to being kept on a proverbially “far shorter leash” and out of habit wanders much further than your average child growing up in Malaysia would. I know how she feels.)
In my lower primary years a man walked right into my primary school, claimed to be my father’s friend and tried to carry me off the compound in a bear hug. The only reason I’m still around is because as he made it to the edge of the playground, me squirming but unable to wriggle free, otherwise too young to be afraid (simply didn’t believe he was my dad’s friend so didn’t want to follow him), I loudly said I’d forgotten my schoolbag. He reluctantly let me go to get it, and obviously I didn’t come back. As I watched him looking for me through the windows of the classroom I was hiding in, one of my friends came in and said “Oh, while you were playing, your father’s friend asked me what your name was.” The man never showed up in school after that day. It was almost 2 decades before I realized just how not ok that was. There are so very many of them. That doesn’t make them ok. None of them are ever ok.
Below is the heart breaking blogpost a reader sent me, written by a teenaged girl who watched her mother stabbed on a roadside in Bukit Gasing, Malaysia. I teared up when I read it, and at first I just wanted to keep quiet for fear of saying or doing the wrong thing during their trying time.
Then I decided to post Hui Wei’s tribute to her mother in its entirety as a tribute to her.
A few months ago in English class, my teacher asked us to write about the person who we admire. I wrote about my mum. A month ago for my English March Test paper, the topic I wrote about was “My Hero”. I wrote about my mum. During my test, i had a writers block so I simply wrote out everything i knew about my mum: her childhood, achievements, etc. My mum is my hero. She always has been, she always will be.
20th April 2013.
Mama left early in the morning for some event her Kiwanis Club’s K-Kids had planned. She came back home with lunch for me and milo ais. I remember grumbling to her because I didn’t want to follow my parents jungle trekking. I did anyway. We had to set up a trail for my father’s running group so mama was carrying a bag with just plain paper in it. I remember grumbling to my mum as we went up and down the hills of Gasing. She told me we’d be out soon. After 2 hours of trekking in the jungle, we finally hit the road. It was the road in Gasing leading up to the temple. We decided to walk back down to the car.
As we walked down the steep road, there was nobody there. No people, no cars. Just the two of us. As we nearly reached the first house, we heard a motorbike sound from behind. We turned around and saw two men on a motorbike. Mama said walk further in the pavement so we did. As the motorbike drove past us, they stopped. The man from behind jumped off. My mum pushed me to the back and told me to go. The man attacked my mum straight away, without saying any words. The knife he used was just a normal kitchen knife, the blade was about 10cm long. As my mum tried to protect herself, she turned to her left, only to be stabbed twice on the back of her right shoulder. She was struggling to escape. The attacker then proceeded to stab the back of her left shoulder. Mama tried so hard to escape. She fell on the ground and the attacker pulled her on the road and stabbed her thigh. I tried to help but the attacker thrusted the knife my way so i ran back further. I couldn’t do anything but scream at the top of my lungs. I screamed and screamed. The attacker hopped on the bike and rode off.
I remember.
I remember watching my mums body lying on the road, all the blood oozing out. The attacker did not manage to get any of my mums belongings. She told me to call my dad. I ran down the hill looking for help. The first house i went to, the maid (who saw everything that happened) ran in and did not even try to help me. I ran further down and saw a car. They saw me and stopped. And I told them what happened. The driver, Mr Lai told me to get in and we drive up to my mum. Mr Lai called the ambulance and the police while i tried to keep my mum conscious. There was blood everywhere. My mum just kept saying “save me”. Her voice was so week. My dad reached the site 10 minutes later, after running all the way. Mama kept telling us that she couldn’t breathe. I prayed and prayed. She was slowly losing herself. We tried our best to keep her awake and conscious. The police arrived. We put her in the police car since the ambulance hadn’t arrived. As we reached down the road, the ambulance was there so they transferred mum into the ambulance.
I remember.
I remember sitting in the ambulance, holding my mums hand and trying to talk to her but she didn’t respond. I remember crying. The paramedics were doing all they could do at that point. I remember calling Eu Lim, who was at church to pray for my mum. We reached the hospital in 3 minutes. They rushed my mum to the emergency was. I wasn’t allowed to enter and i was so so scared. My dad had followed Mr Lai’s car and they hadn’t reached yet. I had to settle my mums registration and then i had to talk to the police. My dad arrived. Then my friends arrived. I sat at the doorway of the hospital, praying and praying. 10 minutes later, my dad came out and told me my mum didn’t make it. I dropped in the middle of the hospital floor, screaming. Everyone was looking at me, but i didn’t care. A bunch of doctors came out to get me, they took me to a special room. They questioned me and they told me about how my mum was already gone when we were in the ambulance. They tried their best to revive her.
I remember.
I remember coming home. My friends just sat in silence. I just sat in silence. I was covered in blood, mama’s blood. I had to get myself together. I had to bathe. We broke the news to my sister through Face Time and that was really hard to do. Slowly, people started coming. It was hard seeing my aunts and uncles cry, my parent’s close friends, my close friends & to know i had to keep it all together. It was really hard, telling my story to everyone. It’s really hard to even close my eyes for awhile because i see it replaying in my head over and over again. Watching my mum lying in her pool of blood and not being able to do anything. Not being able to save her.
People come, then people leave. All i hear are “I’m so sorry for your loss” or “my condolences”. All i hear are people questioning me about what happened, since i was the sole witness. But i am so tired of telling this story over and over again. I am so tired of hearing other people tell this story. This is my story. This is the truth. Newspapers and reporters may twist it around and exaggerate to the whole world, but this story will remain the truth forever.
I am truly grateful and appreciative to everyone who came, whether it was for a short period, or a long time. Thank you to those who’ve brought a little bit more of hope and joy to me, even though you guys didn’t try. Thank you to those who’ve brought food and drinks, and flowers. Thank you to everyone who called, texted, whatsapped, facebook-ed and tweeted me. I dont know how i became a trending topic overnight (#prayforhuiwei). I was mad at first, but then i realised how much my family had all of your love and support. Whether i know you or not, whether you knew my mum or not, all your kind words really helped. My mother was such an amazing and beautiful person.
I remember.
My mum’s last words to me were “I love you so much” dying there, on the road. I watched it all. I watched it all slip out of my hands. Now my life feels so empty. I keep thinking to myself that this is all a dream. Maybe I’d wake up and be able to avoid this from happening. Maybe if someone pinched me I’d wake up from this nightmare. But this is reality, and I have to face the facts. I have to face the fact that I’m alone now. I have to face the sounds of crying and wailing from the other room. I have to face the facts that I’m going to grow up motherless, clueless and confused. It won’t be easy, but I will get through this.
Ma,
I love you so much. And I am so sorry I had to watch you die. I am so sorry I couldn’t save you. But you’re with God now. Ma you’re such a great person. Beautiful inside and out. And I thank you for teaching me your ways. Thank you for always teaching (scolding) me to be a better person. Even tho we’ve had our moments, and times we didn’t see eye to eye, you’ll always be my best friend. Who’s going to pick me up from school now. Who am I going to say “HEY MA” to and tell them about my day. Who’s going to cuddle up with me on the couch and be lazy for awhile.
Ma,
Remember how you used to come into my room while I was studying, and hug me then tickle me. Remember how you used to sing me to sleep when I was young. Or how you used sing when you’re happy. You had a beautiful voice. Remember how we sat on the couch, looking for coloured beads to do arts & crafts. Remember every single day we spent together.
Ma,
I just saw your body, lying in the coffin. You look so beautiful, peaceful, just like you’re sleeping. And I have the biggest urge to scream “wake up”. Thank you,Ma. For giving me life, for giving me love. You taught me everything good in my life. You were always selfless, God-fearing. You were my strong pillar of hope and love. And even though you’re no longer here with us, you’re with God. And you’re happy, just like how you appeared in Lissa’s dream. And I do hope justice will be served. They’re working on finding the criminals, ma. They will be caught.
We all miss you ma, we miss you so much. Goh Ee and Sar Ee has already appointed themselves as my ‘mama’ and I see you so much of you in them. And it’s not going to be the same anymore. Nothing will be the same anymore. You’re not going to watch me graduate, you’re not going to watch me get married. You’re not going to be there to take care of my children. But I know you are with us in spirit, and you’re always watching over us. Please give me the strength and courage to move forward with my life. Please give me the motivation to be better. To be more like you. To spread the love and joy. Papa, Tache and I will always be grateful for you are the biggest blessing God has given. And maybe you’ve done too much good so The Lord called you home. And you are safe now, safe with God. He will watch over you (and us) and protect you. You are safe from all the evil now.
I will make you proud, mama. I will make everyone proud. I love you so much. I’ll love you every single day of my life, and I’ll never forget whatever you’ve done for me. Thank you so much. Rest in peace, mama, I love you.
At some point it abruptly occurred to me I wouldn’t be breastfeeding (well, pumping my milk out) for like, forever. At 10 months 3 weeks, Her Highness is big on solid food (very determined to mash things with her gums and 5 teeth) and our freezer is chock-full with frozen breast milk. You’d have thought winding down is easy, but well I expected it to be easier. First of all, apparently you can’t just tell your breasts to stop. Secondly, while thinking you can do that, you get really clogged up which ends in a vicious cycle of you pumping it out, thereby signaling to your body you’d like it to produce more, please.
Damn it’s the last thing I want but all I’ve been able to bring myself to do so far is cut the Fenugreek. I have 3 unopened bottles, if anyone out there wants to breastfeed, please. Damn you, bulk buying.
I couldn’t bring myself to actually take something to make it stop. Psychologically, I can’t get over the “guilt” of knowing I can produce and simply choose not to, out of “convenience,” when I already don’t work. (Which is also bullshit since of course you do work when you’re an SAHM, you work bloody hard and without a thank you – and yet we do this to ourselves. I do, anyway.)
So I keep hoping my supply dwindles, like a lucky, lucky girlfriend of mine, so I’m off the breastfeeding hook. After lots and lots and lots of negotiations and reluctant pumping outs and re-negotiations (with my boobs, people – d-uh) I’m down to about 12-14 ounces a day. Shut up. This is an achievement. I was at 27 ounces a day, at the height of my pumping regimen.
Meantime, it’s a constant reshuffling of frozen breast milk bags, replacing the older ones with freshly frozen good stuff, checking all the dates… Also, it’d be nice to have more freezer space again. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to buy an additional freezer for the milk just like another mum friend of mine did…..
Emerging from settling the baby for her second nap of the day, I find Rockstar just home from school on the sofa with his magna doodle. This is what was on it:
Rockstar’s back on his solar system kick, because they’ve been learning about what causes night and day (I think) – anything about the planets, our sun etc is just right up his alley. In case you’re wondering why “Venes” has tendrils (which interestingly I saw a classmate friend of his sign her name with and speculate – this is the first time I’ve seen tendrils on anything Rockstar does) is because of the poisonous atmosphere. Jupiter appears to have another circle in it because that is the gas planet’s Great Red Spot.
I listen to the explanation, then wander off for a slice of leftover pizza. I return to this:
Because “Uranes” and Neptune are “too far away.”
Note that “Uranes” has its rings circling it top to bottom because “a very big astern-oid bumped into it and it turned over.”
And just in case anyone misses a cute pic of my kids…
This is a random recent picture of Her Highness (literally!) tied to a bar stool because the cafe we were lunching at ran out of baby chairs and the stroller was just a little low to the table…
