Ganbatte!

It's been an expensive 1-2weeks, what with the 2 girls taking turns to be unwell. My pockets are crying...

I've had to rush between home and office or between office and my inlaw's place or between their school and office. Nadya's mega tantrums on some mornings has made me need to grab a cab to go to work. Most times I need to take a cab during peak hours and the surcharges can amount to much. A trip from home to office is easily $22-24 in the mornings.

PD fees are mad-ex too. $220 for Nadya's visit to the clinic that day. (0_0)
That's around how much I spend on my lunch at work in an entire month!

My self-dev goals for the month of May is kaput. Patience and Posture was the focus for May.
With all the rush and work piling up and taking care of the girls...and the barebone sleep that I get (or sometimes don't even get), my patience has gone downhill pretty much. And I couldn't focus on getting my posture right too....that ache in my right neck/shoulder area is still present too.....

June is coming. May June be a smoother, less challenging and more peaceful month!
Ganbatte!

-_-

Even cleaners play rank.

The auntie came by our cubicles this morning. She cheerily said "老板娘,早安!" to The Coll who is sitting next to me. And then she just walked straight past me.

Fine. The Coll is a rank higher than me. But 不需要这样, right?

Chey.

Breathe

When the stars align, sometimes things all start happening at the same time...

Board meeting next week, other work piling up, Alyssa is only just about recovering, school just called to say that Nadya is having fever, current helper leaving next week, new helper coming this weekend or next Monday...

Transitions, cranky kids, work....

Ganbatte...

Childcare leave today

Happiness is going for a quick trip to Bedok Mall, and having a quick lunch with your parents who swung by from Tampines just to meet up with you and your baby girl, and managing to complete 2 other errands....

......and then reaching home on time to feed your baby her next dose of medication, before letting her have her milk and much-needed nap.......

....all within a 1h45min timeframe....

Steady. :)

Now that Peanut's sleeping.....

Time to clear some work.

Jiayou!

Working Mum

I'm a working mother, with more priority placed on family than on work.

And so...

This afternoon, I'll need to leave my boss in the lurch and miss out on a discussion with the new CEO of the company.

Because I need to go to a Mother's Day celebration party at my eldest's school.

Mei Mei is sick

Alyssa is having fever and is at home now with our helper Maryann.

Apparently, she has been calling for Mama, Dada, Nana (Nadya) since we left home this morning...

:(

Feeling sad now.

Body at work but heart and mind at home.....

Will quickly finish up and then leave at 12-plus to go home.

Hang in there Meimei...Mama will be home in 3 hours...

Wah BEEZEE!

Sometimes when things happen, they happen all at the same time.

Suddenly, work is piling up bit by bit.
Suddenly, various folks are trying to arrange lunches with me.
Suddenly, old hostel friends are appearing and wanting to meet up.
Suddenly, the girls' activities in school that require parent participation are increasing.
Suddenly, family engagements are increasing too.
Suddenly, I realised that I have 4 to 5 separate medical appointments and check-ups within the last 2 weeks of June alone.

How come ah?
Macham the stars aligned or something? Haha....

I think my self-dev plans for May and June may not materialise....

Wrap Wrap

Discovered a new recipe of sorts.

Grab a wrap
Throw a slice of ham on it
Throw some mozzarella cheese
Crack an egg into the centre of the pile
Throw more cheese
Season with salt and pepper if needed
Wrap the wrap up
Bundle it all into aluminium foil

Bake it at 180C for 20-25mins

Voila!

Did it for my lunch last Friday....turned out pretty alright. :)

Mother's Day

It's the last 30mins of Mother's Day 2017.

I'm sitting in the dark. Nadya is sleeping below me on a mattress on the floor. Alyssa is also snoozing in her room.

I still sometimes stare in wonder at the 2 girls.

I am a mother. I am their mother. They came from me. How did K and I create these little humans? How did these little people come from my tummy? How did time fly so fast that Alyssa is already 20mths old and Nadya 3yrs 7mths old?

To witness them growing each day and getting more aware of their surroundings and other things makes me feel somewhat honoured and humbled.

Thank you sweeties, for choosing me to be your mama.

I love you.
And Happy Mother's Day to me.


Nadya made this card in school.

一连串

Saw the dentist this afternoon for an inflamed gum and inner cheek.

Had dinner. Then saw the GP for a burst eye vessel that just happened after lunch this afternoon. Left eye. 

What is happening....:( 

Peanut's speech

She understands quite alot of words now and is attempting to communicate more with words too.

This was her list of words about 2-3 weeks ago....

• dog 
• shoe
• wear
• where
• open (she says "apom")
• apple (she says "apul")
• fish (she can finally make the "f" sound! And now she says "fish" as "fees")
• dada
• mama
• chieh chieh
• auntie
• cheese
• hi
• bye bye

And now, she's started on the below words as well.....

• hand (uses this when she wants to hold hands)
• wash hand
• i want (she learnt this from her older sis haha)
• there
• tissue (she says "shoe") 
• no (one of her favourite words)
• pear (her current fav fruit)
• please (she says "peesh")
• escalator (she says "esh-ker") 
• bag
• owl (one of her fav words too) 

And she's now saying the last word of various sentences of the following songs :)

• The Alphabet Song - I'll go "l, m, n, o...." and then she'll say "p". :) Or I'll go "now I know my ABCs, next time you can sing with....." and then she'll say "me".
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - she says the "star", the "high" and the "are"
• Chinese song 两个小娃娃
• Snow White's Heigh-Ho
• some other songs that I can't recall offhand :) 

Childcare is really making her speak much more. 

Jiemei

May these two grow closer and stay close forever!

Father-Son Bonding

Dad and Adrian are in England now. 

It took Adrian years to convince my Dad to travel with him to see Anfield. Really. I think it was a good 5 years maybe? Anyway, Dad finally agreed to go and so off they went, on 2 May. 

Dad's 75 this year so Mum and I were a tad worried about his health and how the long flights were gonna be for him. Luckily, Adrian had more than enough air miles to get Business Class seats for the both of them. Or maybe he had to top it up in cash, I'm not sure. 

They made their way around Manchester over the last few days and took a train earlier today to go to Liverpool. 

It's 11pm SG time on 5 May now. Should be around 4pm London time. Adrian just whatsapped us a photo of them. They've finally reached Anfield! 

The two of them are so excited haha. It really warms my heart just looking at the photo. I'm really glad Dad went on this mini adventure with Adrian. Creating memories is always great! What more with your own son. :) 

YNWA! The two excited boys!

Office Frolicks

For some reason, someone suddenly shared a piece of office gossip with me out of the blue.

About a 40-something year old lady colleague on the same floor who was having illicit relations with up to 2 other 50-something year old male colleagues, who are also on the same floor.

Scandalous, yes.

But not enough to make my jaw drop.
Anyway, it was something I didn't want to know also.... (0_0)

Errmmm.....eeeww.

330am

I don't think I've slept since 2am?

By now, the tears have dropped.

The older girl is still whining and asking for various things. I probably shouldn't have cried in front of her but I couldn't help it.

Small one just drank and hopefully will sleep till 7am.

One can always wish and hope right?
At the rate this goes, older one will be cranky in the morning.

3am

Very tired. Lost track of the number of times I've woken up since 1030pm. 

Frustrated. Tears are forming.

Stuffed nose. Sore throat. And I just had a nosebleed.

I need to settle Board paper submissions tomorrow. Amongst other stuff.

Yes I know I'm not the only mother who has 2 kids and who is having a severe lack of sleep. And yes I know, I do have a helper. But I just need my space to air my complaints, bitching and whining or whatever you call it.

So whoever tells me to "suck it up", just shut it ok.

Errrrr...?

I'm perplexed.

I'm a Senior Manager. You're an SM too.

Why are you asking me how to handle this aspect of your project ah? You set the deadline for our partners....you decide lah how you want to manage them to solicit responses....If you need my help because the partners know me better, sure, I can help you ping them. But why look to me for simple things like whether to send them a reminder email?

Big question mark.

Drip Drop

Feel a little like crying now.

But.

There are things to be done.

And into work I shall dive.

The tears can wait.

Till a more opportune time.

Sleep

The 2 girls slept together last night. My second attempt at putting them together before the current helper leaves for good and the new one comes. 

It was a better attempt compared to the previous time. At least, there were no major screamfests. But the both of them were bad sleepers last night. Each tossed and turned like nobody's business and the small one did a 270 degree rotation to and fro over the course of the night. She would have done a full 360 if not for a bolster blocking her path. She even somehow managed to travel up and down the mattress. 

This mom here was relegated to a tiny strip of property at the foot of both mattresses. Just enough for me to lie straight in my back. 

Zzzzz...verdict? Good try. Hope it gets better.

But I woke so many times I lost count. It's a busier period for me at work. I hope I can tahan...

I feel the onset of a sore throat plus cough creeping in. Jiayou!!!

Annual Performance Appraisal

So I just had a session with my boss. It ended in an hour. His sessions with the other team leads took an average of 1.5 hrs each. Should I be happy or worried? Lol....

Anyway, things sounded pretty positive. He said I was dependable. And when I asked whether there were any areas that I should improve on, in terms of work or character or attitude, he said he couldn't think of any. Woot! I told him I would take that as a positive thing haha.

We discussed possibilities for a job rotation. Either that or a job expansion so that I could develop further. (I told him I was somewhat stagnant). If it were a job rotation, it wouldn't be this year. But it could be next year.

We'll see.....we'll see...how it all goes...

p/s: Besides myself, there are another 3 team leads. Although he did not name names, during our chat, he referred to them as (1) the one that talks alot but either did not deliver or delivered late, (2) the one who thinks he knows alot and is very good but is actually so-so and (3) the one that is very smart but often offends others and EQ needs working on. I had no problems guessing who each one was. It was quite funny....not I'm not sure if he should have referred to them in this manner. I appreciate his candid-ness though haha.