Of red angry faces, heaving chests, hot tears and LOTS of screaming

I think...I will be hearing more squealing, shrieking, screaming and squalling in the years to come. The girls fight at least once each day. 

Last night was a big fight though. I was not present and the helper didn't seem to know how to pull them away from each other. By the time I heard the commotion and went over, the thing they were fighting over was torn.....

Before: A lovely document bag given by my brother to Nadya for her birthday. It was given on 7 Oct at their party. 

After: A huge gaping slit by one side of the bag.

Each girl was holding on to a bag handle and having a tug-of-war. By the time I reached them, both were on the floor. Nadya was half squatting. Alyssa was almost lying on the floor and using her legs as well. The small one was screaming like a banshee and both girls were crying like nobody's business. 

I had to pry Alyssa's fingers away from the bag. She protested vehemently. She usually comes to be for comfort though so even though I was wrestling with her, she gave up and kind of just wanted me to hug and comfort her. While still screaming like a mad banshee. 

Nadya needed less comforting though she was pretty upset as well. 

The bag was squirreled away and tucked in a corner of my room. So they both didn't get it in the end. 

15mins later after I calmed Alyssa down and distracted her with other stuff......I found them playing together again. Laughing and giggling like nothing happened just before that. 

I have Jekylls and Hydes in my home lol. 

Conversations with a 4yr-old

Nadya is getting more.....articulate and analytical and sometimes her matter-of-factness stumps me. Hahaha....here are some of our recent conversations....

===================
On 4 October, just before bed. Totally random.

Nadya: Mama, if Rapunzel's hair is so long, then how will she pee and poo? Won't her hair get into the toilet bowl?

I literally laughed out loud at her question. :D
It's a practical question to ask though. In all my 37 years, I never thought of it haha.

===================
On 17 October, when the school was closed and we sent her over to my inlaws' place but not Alyssa.

Nadya: Mama, is Meimei going there too?
Me: Nope.
N: Why?
Me: Yeye and Nainai might not be able to watch the 2 of you at the same time. (lame reason I know...it's just become a habit that we leave only Nadya with them there haha.)
N: Noooo. There are 2 of them. Yeye can look after me, because I like Yeye. And Nainai can look after Meimei. Right?
Me: Yeah...oh well...(changes subject)

She's getting to the age where we can't just randomly blurt out an excuse...

===================
On 20 October, some fuzzy wuzzy small talk while we were lying in bed about to sleep.

Me: Nadya, why are you lying so close to the edge of your bed?
N: Because I thought I could marry the edge of my bed.

I was stumped at that point because I thought it was a witty reply. "Punny" in a way.
Lay close together mah...you lie close to someone when you get married mah...right right?
But the more I think about it, the more what she said doesn't make sense to me hahaha.

===================
On 21 October, Saturday morning.

Nadya: I am here. It is here that I am.

So random again....and....so philosophical!
I really have no idea where she learnt this from. Maybe from school?

17 October 2017

I turned 37 that day. So I'm officially in my late 30s now.
A little scary to me though.

When I was in my early to mid-twenties, 37 years old seemed old, and established, and mature, and stable.

Now I'm actually 37. But I don't feel that established, mature or stable. And it scares me somewhat that 40 is just 3 years away. 3 more years and then I'll receive my Eldershield letter from the government. Yikes.

But I'm thankful.

For K, for the 2 princesses, for a roof over my head, for loving parents, for caring parents-in-law, for good friends, for a stable job, for relatively stable health.....

Embrace the 30s!

==========
The school was only operating for half a day that day, so I decided to just not send the girls to school. Alyssa stayed at home and Nadya went over to the inlaws' place. And while Alyssa had her lunch and afternoon nap, we went out for a nice lunch. (Don't worry, the helper was still at home watching her.)

We went to Strong Flour at Katong V. Lovely handmade pasta. We had 3 mains between the 2 of us lol. And then we went home and I managed to snooze for around 1.5 to 2 hours before Alyssa woke up!

Simple celebration. But it was enough for me.
No big bangs or pizzazz for me. I'm a simple girl who prefers quieter things. :)

Mum

Just got news that Mum checked herself into A&E this morning.
She asked to go because her tummy issues had been present for several days. Medication from the poly doctor didn't seem to have much effect.

She's been having trouble with her reflux and also had trouble swallowing. She has discomfort after eating and poor appetite.

Sigh...:(

Take care mummy....
Pending updates from Dad.....

a little....

disappointed.

that some friends of 24 years didn't wish me on my birthday.
do i expect too much? i don't know.
thoughts of "you shouldn't hinge your happiness on what others do" are floating in my mind.
rightfully so too.
chill babe.

==========
disappointed.

that after all these years, I am still a doormat at times.
i've improved much compared to last time.
just that when i encounter assertive or bossy people, I still sometimes acquiesce, especially if they are within family or close friends.
chill babe.

==========
hopeful.

nadya seems to enjoy dancing quite abit. and she seems to be into speech and drama as well.
i hope it brings her out of her shell more and helps her get more confident.
she is also opening up more these days. she managed to buy bread on her own the weekend just past, with some guidance from me.
kudos to her for trying. proud of her.
baby steps.

==========
hopeful.

although alyssa is in her "i don't care, i want it and i will scream if i can't have it" stage right now, she is more flexible and also open to alternatives compared to how nadya was at the same age.
even if i go ahead to do something against her will, and she bawls terribly, she takes a faster time to recover as well and with less pandering by me.
which is generally good. need to guide her more. but we're starting on an easier slate. 
baby steps.

Laments

frustrated.

lazy colleague looking for quick answers. bugging me for the simplest of things.

==========
exhausted.

but it's only 11am. tahan. had 5hrs of sleep with 3 interruptions in between.

==========
queasy.

bloated and nauseated. due to lack of rest and i don't know what else.

==========
groggy.

everything feels abit too bright today. the lights in the MRT, the lights in office, the sky outside.

==========
unmotivated.

maybe demoralised as well. the coll's team will be expanding soon. and i am still stuck as an OMO. difficult to progress like this.

==========
teary.

partly from yawning. partly from feeling a little emo.

==========
jiayou.

hang in there. tahan. hwaiting. you are not the only one dealing with such things.

7 Oct 2017

We held a birthday party on 7 October for the 2 girls. Same thing like last year, but bigger.

Although Alyssa's birthday had passed, we decided to still combine both their celebrations together since their birthdays were only 2 weeks apart. (Alyssa's birthday was on 24 Sept and Nadya's was on 9 Oct)

We invited some of Nadya's classmates (and their parents) and also one of Alyssa's classmates. We also invited our immediate neighbours and their kids. There was balloon sculpting and face painting as well. Food was great, thanks to the team at The Garden Slug.

We were in luck as well because there happened to be 2 art exhibitions taking place and the cafe walls were adorned with various art pieces. There were watercolour on wood pieces as well as oil on canvas pieces. There were animal paintings and portraints, and mermaid pictures and some of dolls too. It was a colourful atmosphere befitting of a birthday party!

I think Nadya enjoyed herself thoroughly. She was very well-behaved and fed herself her lunch while seated with her best friend. She responded confidently when engaged in conversation by the balloon sculptor and she was also able to hold her own when conversing with one of my neighbours. She danced on the mini stage in the room with her friends, sang loudly and pranced about too haha. It was lovely seeing her enjoying herself.

Alyssa was somewhat subdued this year though. I think the poor girl was a little overwhelmed by the number of people milling about and she couldn't understand why so many familiar faces were altogether in the same place, like both sets of grandparents, her paternal aunt and maternal uncle, and even her classmate and her classmate's parents haha. She clung to me like a baby koala bear most of the time and only agreed to take pictures with her schoolmates when Nadya was around. She was so tired when she got home after the party that she slept for a good 3 hours.

Thanks to all who attended....
The girls were happy and excited with the presents they received and.....
My house is now flooded with toys, books, clothes and other stuff from Frozen. I'm seeing Elsas and Annas everywhere lol....

8 October 2017

It was our 6th ROM anniversary on Sunday. So fast.

We held our ROM ceremony earlier and separate from our customary Chinese wedding. Mainly because of my Granny. She would not have been able to attend our Chinese wedding dinner and I wanted her to be part of our celebrations. So we did an ROM lunch instead.

We went to True Blue Cuisine and booked their private room. It was cosy, it was intimate, I loved it. Only immediate family members were present and we had a delicious Peranakan lunch.

I brought a pink diamante hairclip and pinned it onto Granny's hair. She looked so sweet and when she smiled, her eyes shone brightly. Her mind was a little fuzzy by then but I believe she had her lucid periods during the ceremony and she was aware that I was getting married.

Funnily, we've not gone back to True Blue Cuisine after our ROM there. Not once in 6 years I think lol. Maybe we should bring the girls back there for a meal one of these days.

Worry is

...when your scalp, the part where they cut open during surgery 12 years back, has ached for several days...

:(

waste of time

I don't profess to be someone who is extremely good in English. But I think my grammar is still sort of passable.

It pains me that I am editing 12 articles which we paid a professional copywriter to do up. Several thousand for 12 articles and anther 2 more articles in December. Chockful of typos and grammar mistakes which should not have been there in the first place.

This is not work that I would expect from a copywriter! No checks on quality? Goods were not delivered on time as well.

Heng. This is not my project. I'm just covering someone.

Past. Present. Future.

No. Not about tenses.

About the mind. My mind.

Too much focus on the past. Too much reminiscing.

Why do I live in my memories? Both the good memories and the bad ones. I don't know the answer myself...

Is it because I find comfort in the past? Is it because I'm scared of what the future brings so I tend to dwell on the past?

Do I miss out on the present because my mind seems too centered on the past?

How do I re-jig my mind?

Ear Worms

What's drifting out of my earphones today?

1. Jung Joon Young's playlist
With my favourite song of his "Sympathy" on several repeats. And his duet with Roy Kim "Becoming Dust" on many repeats as well.

2. Jung Yup's It's Love
I'm very much in love with this particular OST from the drama "Doctors".

3. Goblin's OST
Because while there were some dips, the Goblin fever has quite ended yet....:) Chanyeol & Punch's "Stay With Me", Crush's "Beautiful" and Sam Kim's "Who Are You" are my favs from this playlist....

4. The King & I playlist
More because I miss listening to "Shall We Dance" and "Getting to Know You". :)


Suddenly realised I'm listening to more Korean stuff these days haha....

Wednesday

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival everybardee! 

Early morning tio giap between 2 man-spreaders on the train lol. Hope one of them gets off before me! Lol....

Get well soon sweetie

In gist:
Small wound on right elbow from hitting a door frame at home. Scratched the scab off. Wound bled again. Scratched somemore. Bacterial skin infection. Touched wound. Touched other parts of body. Now skin infection spread to torso and left elbow also. PD gave antibiotics yesterday and need to use antiseptic cream as well. Running a fever and nursing a phlegmy cough today.

Get well soon Peanut....:(

Music. Life.

So who's accompanying me at work today?

Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra

and also....

Zhou Sheng and Jung Joon Young haha...

From jazz to Chinese and korean songs...

Yes, I listen to a wide range of music... :)

I hope the girls like music too next time.

Conversations with a 2yr-old

Peanut's speech is suddenly improving exponentially.

Each week...no actually, every other day, she seems to be saying something new or surprising me with something she says haha. She still babbles sometimes and mispronounces things but you can clearly hear her intent and there is also a structure to what she says.

====================
She poo-ed in her diapers the other day.

She came to me and said:
"Meimei poo poo. Mama change you. Auntie Hope no."

Translation:
"Meimei just had a poo. Mama, please clean me up and changed me diapers for me. I don't want Auntie Hope to do it."

====================
We were at Jalan Sayang just last night. We went to the opposite neighbours' place and stood at the gates looking at the dogs there. One was a Pomeranian, the other one was a Shih Tzu.

Me: Alyssa, which dog is cuter?
A: *blur* (I think she didn't understand the word "cute")
Me: Alyssa, which dog is prettier?
A: ME!!! (without any hesitation)

Lol....it was a hilarious "facepalm" moment.

====================
Some of her favourite phrases these days:

"Zard poo poo."
Translation: "The lizard poo-ed. Or the lizard is pooing."

"Who is that?"
And she would say this in a deeper voice.

"S'wan. I want s'wan."
Translation: "I want this one."

====================
Animals sounds that she can make these days:
Dog, cat, duck, chicken, bird, cow, goat, sheep, donkey, monkey, snake, bee, frog, owl, mouse.

Animal names that she can say clearly these days:
Dog, cat (though she still prefers to refer to them as "wou wou" and "meow meow"
Owl, mouse, duck, frog, elephant, bird, bee, sheep

Animal names that she is still trying to master:
butterfly (fly)
chicken (kern)

====================
And....her first Chinese words to me came over the last weekend when she said "喝水" to me. :)

====================
Some of the songs that she roughly knows and can either hum along to or sing the last word of some sentences....

Shall we dance - Yul Brynner & Deborah Kerr in The King & I
Do, Re, Mi - Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music
Because it's Singapore - our national day song for 2017
Where I belong - Tanya Chua
Let it Go - from Frozen
Rasa Sayang
Mr Sun - from Barney & Friends
BINGO - Nursery rhyme
Brown Bear - Nursery rhyme
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - Nursery rhyme

....amongst others....

*breathe*

Stress is when........

1. You send out a draft warning letter to your legal team for vetting. It goes out to them 100% in black text in a word doc. Then it comes back to you with tracked changes. 95% of the document is now in purple amended text and yellow highlights. And many comments within the text as well. Now you need to go through the proposed changes one by one and reply to all the legal team's comments and requests for clarification. 
2. Your colleague was out of action for August and September. You've been covering her for some aspects of her work. And now your boss is asking you to suddenly take on more pieces of her work as her medical leave was extended till end Oct. Some of the work is not straightforward and requires you to read up and gather background knowledge on the project before you can do anything. But the project is already underway and there are deadlines to meet. Fixing the wheel when the car is running.....boo. 
3. Your kids' birthday party is coming up and the vendor screws up your order of goodie bag items. NB. Now need to waste extra time to work with them on a solution. 
4. Your younger girl's wound doesn't seem to be healing and now looks a little puffy. Kind of like a blister. It's worrying that her skin seems to be very sensitiv, especially to wounds and insect bites. A mosquito bite can swell up to a red bump of 5cm X 2cm and end up leaving a mark on her leg. :( There are several such dark scars/marks on her legs already....;( 

一只鸡，一只鸭

Instead of packing from home, I decided to get breakfast from Subway this morning for a change.

In front of me in the queue was an older auntie, maybe 50-plus 60 years of age. Poor lady couldn't converse much in English. And the unfortunate thing was that the entire staff were either non-Chinese or non-Chinese foreigners. I think there was only 1 local staff (who happened to be Indian) amongst the crew of 5.

I had to help the auntie order and was her proxy to decide which bread to choose, which vegetables to add to her breakfast sandwich and which sauce to take.

Sigh...wonder how many of such situations are there around Singapore?

The elderly who can't speak English and getting hindered at establishments where they only have English-speaking staff.
The elderly who can't speak Mandarin and getting hindered at establishments where they only have Mandarin-speaking staff.

Another good example. My Dad and his friends are all kantang Peranakans in their 60s, 70s and 80s who simply cannot handle Mandarin at all. They get extremely frustrated at foodcourts where stall staff are China-born Chinese who cannot speak English or Hokkien. My Dad came home one day and ranted his head off because a Chinese stall helper got his order wrong and he had to spend an extra 10-15mins trying to rectify his order...

More questions again

Had an hour-long Whatsapp chat with the mother of one of Nadya's classmates.

We lamented and also wondered if we were slacker parents. Because other parents were sending their kids to enrichment classes left, right and centre. I recently found out that another of Nadya's classmates is attending Chinese and ballet on Saturdays, and English and Math classes on Sundays.
And our kids were playing masak masak at home or hanging out in malls.

On one hand, I feel we need not tax the kids so early...On the other hand, I'm scared Nadya will start lagging behind.

How like that? ...... :(

Nevermind....I shall mull over it abit more....

First up, swim classes for her....this is a life skill she should have.

I hope she is interested in music classes too...Academic classes...maybe in the next 1-2years?

I didn't have such stuff when I was young. No enrichment and only Chinese tuition simply because my parents were hopeless in Mandarin. Sigh...we all still ended up ok right?
Hmm.....Has the climate changed so much in 30 years?

work

Not concentrating well at work these days.

Why neh? No idea....Could be any of the following or a combination of them.

• Just xian. Or in Korean "kern-yang" (no reason)
• Fatigued. Lack of sleep.
• Fatigued. No work motivation. 
• Boredom. No new stuff at work. 
• Just me.