frustration is .....

when you are sick and are woken up by your fussy kid a second time within one hour. And when your kid is crying and kicking and refusing to listen to you. And when your kid insists on you fanning her back to sleep because “it’s very hot”. And when your kid then says after 3mins that “it’s very cold”. And when you start crying out of sheer frustration and anger. And when you feel as if your blood vessels are going to burst. And when you beg your kid to sleep through the rest of the night and stop waking up, while you sob uncontrollably. And when your kid finally does go back to sleep but your mind is now so fucking charged up that you can’t get back to sleep even though your body wants to. 

Yakkity Yak

It's been a lot of talk today. Abit too much for me lol. This introvert needs a break from all the talking and socialising.

The day started with a breakfast meeting with an old and close friend from the industry. An hour and a half of talking.

Came back to the office thereafter and immediately had a 20min discussion with the boss. Cleared a little work....

And then I had a lunch meeting again. More talking for another hour and a half. Came back to the office and had a 15min discussion with a colleague....

Bah, too much talking liao hhahaha...I think I'm done for the day...I don't want to talk anymore and shall hide in my cubicle till the end of the work day lol......

My sore throat wasn't doing too good last night....It still hurts now.  :(

Imagine

It was a fleeting image but it brought me warmth and anticipation. 

I was walking back to the inlaws place yesterday evening when I saw a mother with 2 primary-school-going daughters. The older girl was probably 10 years old and the younger one was 7 or 8. The two girls were dressed in long cotton nightgowns. One had princess characters printed on the front and the other I couldn't see clearly but I guessed it would have been similar princess characters too. 

And then an image came to mind. It was fleeting...but it made me warm and fuzzy and brought a smile to my face. 

It was me with Nadya and Alyssa. They both had hair past their shoulders. We were all dressed in pyjamas. We were huddled together on a bed and it was a rainy night. Each of them were curled up in the nook of both my arms...and we were reading a storybook together....Nadya looked about 8 in the image, which means Alyssa would be around 6. 

*love* 

I wonder how they'll grow up to be...:)

woozy

Had a sudden but split-second wave of dizziness on Tuesday while buying lunch. My colleague was with me and I grabbed his arm instinctively. It was over in a split-second but I felt a little odd thereafter.

I've been lightheaded on and off since that day. Today's Thursday. I think I'll go see the doctor tomorrow....hope it's not low blood pressure or anything though some of my symptoms point to that...

Presentation to the Minister

Did a presentation to a Minister today. It was a short session peppered with small quick discussions here and there. All in all, the session lasted only 20mins. He was rather quick-witted and could grasp things easily.

Oh the amount of preparation that went into it....the clearance and number of emails that went into getting the slide deck ready...the number of calls I had with my counterpart in the Ministry.....the nervousness I felt for the entire day yesterday (which thankfully dissipated when it was time to "perform")....All these did not commensurate with the duration of the session....just 20mins lol.

Am just glad it went well. Partly it was because the Minister himself was a friendly and approachable person. Very affable and no airs about him. He made jokes here and there as well and was generally very easy to talk to.

Glad this is over!
Good experience...

Chilli

I grew up in a Peranakan household. And of course, chilli and other spicy stuff were a part and parcel of life. I can't recall when I learnt how to take spicy food but I do remember eating prata and curry when I was in P1 or P2.

Even when my granny could no longer cook and my mum took over, there was usually at least 1 spicy dish each day or every other day. Otherwise my Dad would get upset and complain that the food was bland haha.

Ever since I moved out of home in 2012, I've been eating mostly at my inlaws place where food is usually lighter and not spicy. Curries or vege lemak were occasional treats. :)

Recently, I'd developed a craving for sambal and chillies to add to my rice. My MIL gave me a bottle of green and red chilli sambal that they had made. A recipe that they accidentally stumbled upon when they ran out of red chillies and made do with green chillies. The sambal turned out great....and yeah, I made my liking for it known and voila....I was thus given a bottle of it haha.

I think greedy me took too much of it yesterday....I'm poo-ing more today....and erm...my intestines feel spicy....:(

3 Jan

My first day back to work in 2018.

Before I even stepped into the office, I received a frantic call from one of my registrars and spent the next 45mins looking into an ops issue of theirs.

Sibei busy day.

More discussions to come later....Just finished my dabao-ed lunch!
Back to work!

p/s: about lunch.....made the mistake of ordering fried rice instead of getting something lighter from subway....boo.

2 Jan - Decluttering & Packing

I refused to work on the first official working day of the new year. Heh.

I took leave and spent the entire day packing my room and bits of Nadya's room and running errands. Managed to squeeze in a nap and a short walk/jog as well. It was a tiring day...but fulfilling too.

I cleared my desk, cleaned out 2 drawers as well and re-jigged some stuff in the bathroom. K sorted out the entire kitchen and all the storage cabinets there. He found a roach and many roach droppings in the process too. :( Need to step up hygiene levels and nag at the helper to do so too.

We threw out 3 big black bags worth of rubbish.

There will be more to come when I start working on the girls' old, broken toys or those with parts missing here and there. And maybe even more again when I decide to shave off part of the mini garden outside and when I take a look at what we have in the storeroom.

It'll be an on-going project de-cluttering the whole house...
One area per weekend? Take another 2-3 days' of leave to do so? I dunno....see how....

Jiayou to us!

2018 - Less Junk, Less Gunk

Happy New Year!
May 2018 bring to everyone more good things! Huat ah!

For me, my theme, or motto, or mission, or whatever you call it.....for 2018 is "Less Junk, Less Gunk".

Yup. Less junk and less gunk in all aspects.

Work
- focus on the key items
- see if I can speak to the boss and throw out the melodrama associated with ops
- minimise interactions with toxic colleagues

Relationships
- focus on those who matter
- weed out toxic relationships or at least minimise interactions with these people

Home
- throw out or donate unnecessary stuff (glad that I've donated at least 3 bags' worth of kids clothes to some village in Myanmar already...)

Body/Health
- eat better, eat cleaner, eat lighter (I've let loose over the last 2-3 years and it shows....both in my blood tests and my erm....wobbly belly...)
- more fresh air!

Relac

Today is the last working day for me for the year 2017.

I bochup and wore jeans to work.

I got myself fried beehoon and my fav chicken wrap from Old Chang Kee for breakfast.

I went to Ichiban Boshi for lunch with my team.

I had a very light lunch of a half a rice-bowl of soba + 2 pieces of sushi so I'll probably be having milo and cream crackers for tea-break soon.

I got some stuff cleared and am working on a non-urgent piece of work now.

I bought 2 tops online earlier in the day.

That about wraps up my last day of work for this year!

May 2018 bring more good things to my family and loved ones, my girls, K and me....
Huat ah!

Peanut's in N1 Santorini

Peanut's having a hard time adjusting to N1...her transition over the last 3-4 weeks has been terrible with long bouts of crying in the mornings. My heart aches to see her cry every morning when the teachers peel her away from me.

Just spoke to her form teacher and apparently these 2 days has been bad after the Xmas break...She has her good times where she manages to laugh and play. But she gets emotional and is easily triggered into crying, especially when she sees her former form teacher walking by her class....:(

I've told Nadya to try to take care of Peanut and give her some support if she happens to see her crying. But I think that might be too much to ask of the 4yr-old, who has her own class activities to handle.....

I hope Peanut adjusts soon...This is the 2nd or 3rd time I'm talking to the teacher already...:(

Peanut...jiayou!
Dada, Mama and Jie jie love you loads!

lists...

I shared an article on FB a few days ago. It was about the invisible mental load of mothers.
Let's see...what's my mental load?

1. Weekend menu planning
2. Weekly grocery planning list
3. Stock-taking of food and supplies at home (tried outsourcing to the helper to no avail)
4. Monthly online grocery list (mainly bulky items, homecare products and frozen food)
5. What to get to keep the kids entertained and/or stimulated? 
6. Which days will the school be closed?
7. When are the girls' excursions? When do I need to fill up and send back the consent forms and make payment? Do they need to dress up in PE attire on that day? What do they need to bring on that day?
8. What class activities are the girls doing next week and what art materials do the teachers need us to contribute? 
9. All other stuff that the school sends out on a weekly/daily/monthly basis
10. Which toys need to be thrown away? What old clothes need to be kept or donated? 
11. Are the girls growing well? 
12. Xmas presents 
13. CNY angpows 
14. What CNY goodies need to be bought?
15. When is the helper taking her off day?
16. Is the helper doing things right?
17. What does the helper need to concentrate on this week or next week or the week after? 
18. Has the helper completed the extra stuff I asked her to do last week?
19. When do we need to celebrate the inlaws' birthdays? When do we need to celebrate my parents' birthdays? When can we do Mothers' and Fathers' Day celebration for both families?
20. When are my checkups? Do I need to do anything before that?
21. Am I doing the right things?
22. Do we need to do anything for the neighbours for Xmas or CNY?
23. The curtains need washing
24. The aircon needs servicing
25. The windows, cupboards, fridge, utility area and storeroom need to be cleaned from time to time
26. The plants, whatever is left of them, need to be pruned 
27. Need to cut my hair!
28. Have I paid my bills?? Credit card, my insurance, the girls' insurance, mobile?!
29. Need to "trim back" the organically growing piles of junk everywhere in the house
30. Need to....
31. Want to...
32. Am I....
33. What do we....
34. When are we....
35. And the list goes on......................
36. and on...................

Genius Peanut

Had the most vivid and awesome dream last night. I remember waking in the middle of the night thinking "Wow! Just wow!"

In the dream. Alyssa was a super duper child genius. At the age of 2, she was representing IMDA and Singapore at a United Nations forum. Yes, at the age of TWO haha.

She spoke passionately about an issue in particular. Grand hand gestures and all. I can't remember what issue though. And in the dream, she was speaking in that baby voice of hers, poor diction, unclear pronunciation, lisps and all haha.

But still! Being the genius that she was, she convinced many countries to take the same position as Singapore and everyone voted to not ratify an international treaty of sort...Again, I can't remember what the treaty was about. The delegation from Singapore, with her as the main speaker, had a resoundingly successful trip to that forum!

The organisers must have given her a very tall stool to stand on because I remember her head just peeking over the lectern when she was speaking haha.

This is probably the most awesome dream I've ever had!
Hahaha...I woke feeling so proud and elated, even if it was just a dream..... :)

Reconnecting

This year's Xmas festivities were pretty good...I was a little jaded last year and tired as hell to be honest. I don't think I enjoyed the holidays as much as I should have.

This year, I felt that all gatherings went well and were better than I'd expected. Just simple nice times spent with close friends, fast and firm friends, and of course...family.

• 14 Dec - Dinner with the Duckies...more meaningful conversations...laughter as usual and we'd already made plans on the "theme" for next year's Xmas gifts. We're supposed to buy something round. Up to us to define what "round" is ahahaha. One whole year to think through what to get!
• 16 Dec - Dinner with K's family at his parents' place. Home-baked turkey and other home-cooked food, plus some beef and roasted pork I brought from my company's leftover function made for a yummy dinner.
• 22 Dec - Lunch with PQ & Ally and Kyler, followed by a visit to Parwin and her new baby Eshaan! Thoroughly enjoyed the lunch time together though I think I had to much truffle fries haha.  
• 23 Dec - Dinner with the rest of the sec sch peeps at Eugene & Yenhui's place. With 8 adults, 8 kids and 1 more baby on the way....gatherings in the future would probably be at someone's house more often than not...This year, with most of the kids being older already, we even managed to get almost 2 hours of sitting, drinking and chatting by ourselves at the dining table. The kids were either glued to the TV or playing on their own. Yay to more of such!
• 24 Dec - Annual gathering as usual at Uncle David's place. Managed to catch up with my cousin Suli, which was nice...even managed to interact with Baby Ashlyn without the girls getting jealous haha...
• 25 Dec - Xmas day dinner with my own family at Katong Kitchen, one of our favourite buffet places. :) Food was good, company was good, Nadya fed herself more than half of her bowl before getting distracted (hahaha).....what more could I ask for? 

Long toes!

Facebook reminded me that on 20 December 2008, I posted this photo on FB.

I distinctly remembered where I was, why I was sitting there, what thoughts were going through my head, who I was waiting for and what song I was listening to on repeat.

Where I was: Steps leading to the Harbourfront MRT station. This was at the exit at the back. Very few people pass by this exit.

Why I was sitting there: Waiting for someone.

What thoughts I was having: Anger, sadness, disappointment at something that happened. I was also at a loss and in a muddled fuddled state. I was trying to find my bearing and wondering what I should do next.

Who I was waiting for: An ex

What song I was listening to: Angel by Sarah McLachlan. I was using my Ipod Nano I think. One of the earliest incarnations of it haha. I listed to the song at least 12-15 times. Can you imagine how long I was made to wait there? I remember thinking to myself then "I'm always the one who is waiting. Since day 1 when I was made to wait 1.5hrs for the first date. Why? Am I that unimportant? I probably am. For things to have come to such a state."


p/s: My nail polish was quite chio! I've not done my nails up for a long long long long time...ever since the kids came into the picture haha....I should do them up for Xmas!!....DIY at home....if I can find the energy to at night when they are asleep. :D

Peanut is sick...

Alyssa is sick again. Fever in the middle of the night.
Might be the black forest cake on Saturday and the choc donut on Sunday that did her in.

Body is at work but the heart is at home. :(

She cried big time when I left the house this morning. Heart pain....

I've made up my mind to head home after lunch, sometime in the early afternoon....maybe do some simple painting with her...or blow bubbles with her when she wakes from her afternoon nap.

Get well soon peanut.!You still have 4 more parties/gatherings this coming Xmas weekend....22, 23, 24 and 25 Dec....

Conversations

Funny how conversations go the older one gets.

In my 20s, conversations with the Duckies revolved around asshole boyfriends, horrible dates, gossip about the company and our ex-boss, updates on whichever workplace we were at at that point, general trivia, bitching and well, more bitching. 

Truth be told, though I treasured them as friends and appreciated being part of the group, sometimes I felt abit zapped out by the incessant bitching. Too much of it haha. 

As I moved into my 30s, there was a noticeable shift in conversations whenever we got together. Especially in the last 2 to 3 years. 

It became even more apparent to me in our last 2 meet-ups. 

Our talk is no longer about horrible dates. Though as a group we went through 2 divorces  (both were cheating cases) and had to contend with one of our own ghosting us. All of which happened within the last 3 years. 

Our talk is now about health, be it our eczema issues (which surprisingly a lot of us have), EH’s immune disorder issue, G’s hepatitis issue, our digestive issues, etc. 

Our talk is now about quick but meaningful updates of our current lives. Our talk is about our siblings and familial relationships. Our talk is now about careers (not jobs and workplace gossip). Our talk is now about reminiscing.

Sure, the lame jokes are still there. The occasional bitching is still there. But generally, I feel our conversations have become abit more meaningful, at least to me. 

And there is this easy camaraderie amongst us as a group, including the “associate members” I.e the boyfriends and husbands. 

Here’s to 15 years and counting! May this band of Duckies go strong! 

The Duckies

Had dinner with the Duckies this evening. Our annual Xmas gift exchange and dinner gathering. 5 of us ladies plus 2 “associate members” I.e boyfriends/husbands. Thankful that somehow this motley crew has managed to remain together for the last 15 years! 

One of the ladies kinda abandoned us 2 or 3 years back and despite various attempts to get through to her, she didn’t really reciprocate. It was a sudden and some say, deliberate, distancing from us. Anyway, we’ve since given up on her and we’re pretty ok as we are right now in this group. 

Cheers to more years of friendship, nonsense chatter and many guffaws! 

存在 - 汪峰

Not sure if I've posted this before....but this remains as one of my favourite songs with very meaningful lyrics....存在 (Exist) by 汪峰 (Wang Feng)

存在 - 汪峰

多少人走着却困在原地
duo shao ren zou zhuo que kun zai yuan di

多少人活着却如同死去
duo shao ren huo zhuo que ru tong si qu

多少人爱着却好似分离
duo shao ren ai zhuo que hao si fen li

多少人笑着却满含泪滴
duo shao ren xiao zhuo que man han lei di

谁知道我们该去向何处
shui zhi dao wo men gai qu xiang he chu

谁明白生命已变为何物
shui ming bai sheng ming yi bian wei he wu

是否找个借口继续苟活
shi fou zhao ge jie kou ji xu gou huo

或是展翅高飞保持愤怒
huo shi zhan chi gao fei bao chi fen nu

我该如何存在
wo gai ru he cun zai

多少次荣耀却感觉屈辱
duo shao ci rong yao que gan jue qu ru

多少次狂喜却倍受痛楚
duo shao ci kuang xi que bei shou tong chu

多少次幸福却心如刀绞
duo shao ci xing fu que xin ru dao jiao

多少次灿烂却失魂落魄
duo shao ci can lan que shi hun luo po

谁知道我们该去向何处
shui zhi dao wo men gai qu xiang he chu

谁明白生命已变为何物
shui ming bai sheng ming yi bian wei he wu

是否找个理由随波逐流
shi fou zhao ge li you sui bo zhu liu

或是勇敢前行挣脱牢笼
huo shi yong gan qian xing zheng tuo lao long

我该如何存在
wo gai ru he cun zai

谁知道我们该去向何处
shui zhi dao wo men gai qu xiang he chu

谁明白生命已变为何物
shui ming bai sheng ming yi bian wei he wu

是否找个借口继续苟活
shi fou zhao ge jie kou ji xu gou huo

或是展翅高飞保持愤怒
huo shi zhan chi gao fei bao chi fen nu

谁知道我们该梦归何处
shui zhi dao wo men gai meng gui he chu

谁明白尊严已沦为何物
shui ming bai zun yan yi lun wei he wu

是否找个理由随波逐流
shi fou zhao ge li you sui bo zhu liu

或是勇敢前行挣脱牢笼
huo shi yong gan qian xing zheng tuo lao long

我该如何存在
wo gai ru he cun zai

It’s happening all over again

The night terrors. 

It happened with Nadya when she was around 2 and lasted several months I think. She’d wake up screaming and crying in the middle of the night. Nothing you said got through to her and she would mumble a phrase repeatedly. Something like “don’t want” or “I want mama”. Either that or she would just be screaming, crying, struggling and rejecting everyone who tried to touch her. 

It’s happening to Alyssa now too. Sigh....she’s been waking up screaming for a couple of days now.

And for some reason, Nadya has had pee “accidents” during the night more frequently than usual. I think it’s happened twice in a month already. When she was doing very well over the last 6-8months! She just peed on her bed and dripped onto my tilam on the floor as well.

What’s happening here? Transition to new classes leading to behavioural and sleep pattern changes? 

Jiayou jiayou.....*fighting*