last of 2006

Life changing events of 2006: The birth of Dee. The move to Sydney. Zero income.

Enough said!

Here’s all the partying we did this evening:


Me and Day in our tent (which I managed to get up despite botched tent pole) chewing on calamari and masticating bananas while waiting for family-friendly 930pm New Year’s Eve fireworks at (where else?) Coogee.

Dee?


She was out earlier with us at the beach, but diarrhoea-stricken KK went home first and helped take her off my hands so I’ll only have to deal with one.

I wish they had stayed though.


Surrounded by big families who were funning under pine trees hung with starry lights, our tent seemed cavernous. It was lovely, though, to be amongst so many (innocent) pleasure-seekers and there was plenty of space for everyone, no overcrowding.

Day only started screaming when the fireworks started. Not in ecstasy, in terror.

Ah, the boy has got fireworks paranoia. As he buried his head into my neck (he hates the brain-jarring booms of the fireworks, which were less than 50m away), his wails were distressingly loud in the awe-struck silence between booms.

His was also the only face (I know because I glanced back) turned away from the fireworks, all the other children were entranced.

Oh well. So was I.

I only wish I had the gumption to see the Harbour Bridge fireworks (that would be something).

But I think 50 sparklers going off simultaneously (not to mention trying to fight for a bus with 1 million people who have been advised not to drive into the city) would scar Day (and KK) for life.

double cream

For someone whose favourite food on request is Macaroni with a Chicken Stock Cube, Day is probably not very enamoured of the cook book we recently borrowed from the library to spice up our boring days.

Not one for culinary adventures or oddities, he eyes each new dish his papa churns out (I have been kicked out of the kitchen, relegated to childcare duties while KK cooks up a storm) with suspicion and possibly, distaste.

This evening was one of those times.

The recipe in question - Pasta with Roast Garlic, Mushrooms and Cream (from "The 30-Minute Cook" by Nigel Slater)- called for something we had certainly never cooked with in our lives: Double Cream.

What IS double cream? And why is it DOUBLE?

Armed with nothing but a name, I ventured into the supermarket feeling like a fool, searching all the aisles for said item. I finally found it, after making an enquiry, in the cold section, looking for all the world like a healthy cup of yoghurt. Ah... appearances can be so deceiving.


Back in the kitchen, everything went well. Right up to the point KK peeled off the top of the double cream, took a whiff and stepped back: "Oh my goodness, it's so jelat!"

Having just sliced off nearly 2cm off the end of our butter knob into the frying pan and liberally doused our mushrooms with olive oil, we were doubtful about whether to pour in - as Mr Slater advised - nearly two cups of what smelt like butter milk.

We made do with a cup instead.

The result?

Utterly sinful. (lousy pix)


Meaning it was utterly yummy and restaurant-tasty despite the ugly serving pot and shabby ambience. To the two of us anyway.

Dripping with oil and butter and not-too-much-cream, Day didn't fancy his dish at all, which is probably a good thing. He twirled some spaghetti round his fork, pushed the mushrooms to one side and eschewed the garlic.

Then I went to have a closer look at the marvellous cup of double cream.

At one side, it said: "Double cream is pure, natural unadulterated thick cream." OK.

On the other side was the nutritional information: "713 kJ of energy, 18 grams of fat of which 12.5 grams are saturated". That's for ONE serving. We had the equivalent of FIVE.

Horrors horrors! I can feel the coagulation in my arteries!

We are going on the coastal walk pronto. Tomorrow if possible.

* I shudder now to think about how much cream is slopped into restaurant servings of cream pasta. Boat loads, judging by how what we felt was a significant amount tasted negligible in the eating.

she speaks!

Ah, the advent of speech is a wonderful thing. She stops feeling like a family pet and more like a human being.

First word: Papa.

Happily she has quickly gone on to calling me Mmmmmmmaaaa-mmmmaa. Usually when she is distressed.

Also mum-mum for food.

anger management

I can count on one hand the number of times KK gets truly, furiously mad with Day.

Today was one of them.

Funny thing is, Day’s trangression was eerily reminiscent of what I used to do as a child and, I’m ashamed to admit, something I still cannot get a hold of.

In a nutshell: Day got angry and got destructive.

He got hold of one of the two poles holding up our new tent and broke it.

The combination of having our beloved twice-used new tent spoilt, and the fact that he hates people who cause hurt in anger, made KK roar.

He doesn’t intend to patch up with Day until a day later, even though the boy has tearily and timidly gone to him to say “Sorry I won’t do it again” before beating a hasty retreat back to my sympathetic bosom.

When I saw those tent poles, in my mind’s eye flashed images of pens, chairs, even a laptop which have been victimized by me in blind rages.

One of my enduring childhood memories remains one in which I locked myself into a room, spinning around smashing pillows into the furniture and screaming while my father yelled at me from outside.

When I get seriously pissed now (doesn’t happen often but it does), my first instinct is still to grab hold of something (the more valuable the better) and smash it.

So this is what I told Day: When you get angry, take lots of deep breaths. Don’t destroy things.

I doubt he will ever get as problematic as I was. But I want to make sure he learns how to cope and not just tell him It’s Wrong.

missing family

It’s been two days since my folks and brothers left us, on Christmas Eve after lunch.

The moment their taxi drove away was, I think, the point when our desire to vamoose to Singapore was at its strongest ever.


KK confessed to feeling profoundly homesick once more. I didn’t say a word to break the once-again tomb-like silence of our apartment.

And Day, poor boy.


Whilst we had told him about the impending departures, and he was stoic all the way, his face crumpled when their taxi drove away. Tugging at my pants, he implored me to hail another taxi so we could follow.

His increasingly high-pitched whining turned into tragic gurgle when he buried his face in my neck. We whipped out some finger paints to distract him, but for sure, we’ll miss having people around. Not just people, but loved ones.

Having big home-cooked family meals with everyone tucking in with chopsticks and opinions about the food.


Seeing Day and Dee being enjoyed by and bringing laughter to more than just their parents.


Day hurtling headling into his Gong Gong’s arms for a hug, speaking Cantonese once more to his Por Por (he is still stuck at the same “oi, mm oi, dor jae por por”…) and having fun with his uncles.

Which makes me think, after all, that there is joy in having a big three-generation family under one roof (only if everyone gets along to a certain extent, of course).

beachy christmas

Our first and (probably) last Christmas in Sydney…

Dee gets a fever on Christmas Eve and wakes up all grumpy today.

KK brings Day to the beach anyway, just the two of them, and Day ends up swimming in the sea fully clothed.

On my way to the beach (because Dee refuses to sleep), I meet KK and nude Day. The boy doesn’t have any issues with being naked in public and happily runs along dangling his tackle. (I’ve blurred it in the pix)


We set up our new bought-in-Tasmania at half-price toy – a two-man-tent - on our favourite green corner overlooking Coogee Beach. The weather is perfect: Not too much sun and natural air-conditioning.


We stuff ourselves with unhealthy chicken, chips and Pepsi from Oporto while Day runs circles around the tent clothed in my sweater.


We pop Dee by the tent flaps where KK says she’s the guard dog for our beach house. Hey, she’s got the best view.


Merry Christmas!

tassie highs and lows

On Tasmania, that glorious little island down under the right side of Australia.

I thought it would be interesting to ask everyone in our party (well, all seven excepting Dee) what they loved and hated about this trip and wonderfully, everyone had different things to say.

Says a lot, too, about my family members: What they each take away from the trip.

Here it is.

Patriarch: Papa Joe, my dad

LOVED: Spending time with and playing with his grandchildren. The triumphant realization that Dee has a particular tendre for her Gong Gong, never failing to lean towards him for a hug while unfailingly veering away from her Por Por.


Holding Day’s hand on beach / mountain walks, sleeping with him in the back seat of the car, repeatedly hearing the Little Ode to the Grandparents (lyrics by Day, tune Big Red Boat by The Wiggles).


HATED: The itchy rash which developed all over his body as a result of Tassie’s bone-dry air and possibly extreme temperature, and which kept him up all nights scratching away.

Matriarch: My mom

LOVED: Bed warmers. To be found in every place we stayed in, even the cheapo box-cabins, her greatest joy throughout the trip was to turn on the warmer to Number 3 the moment we checked in, and then turn it down to Number 2 the moment she slept so the bed would be toasty warm, for Tassie’s single-degree nights.

Coming in a close second is crayfish or lobsters, which we ate three times at the ridiculously low price of about A$40 each time, for a whole BIG crayfish and which Mom thoroughly enjoyed.


HATED: Fish and chips. This we ate on average once a day, as fish and chip shops are everywhere, is relatively cheap, and my Mom doesn’t eat anything with bread or mayo or sauce or beef in it. Yes, she hated the batter and the fact that it’s fried, but she had no other choice.


Driver and cook: Choon, my bro

LOVED: The one game of golf he played with KK at Strahan, a seaside town on the west coast, at a 9-hole course which cost A$10 where golf etiquette didn’t exist. With the whole course at their disposal, Choon traipsed around the course in track shoes shooting balls into trees, running around like a mad hatter and pulling Day out of harm’s way. Yes, we all went onto the course including me with Dee in arms.


HATED: The smoky bush-fire tainted air which dogged us for two days. We drove right through part of the burnt-through forest, some trees still with embers glowing in the branches, which had been burning for days.


Navigator nerd: Teng, my youngest bro

LOVED: Contrary to all my expectations (his Sudoku puzzle book? The maze?), Teng was the only one in my family who picked a scenic spot. Cataract Gorge. Right in the middle of Launceston, one of Tassie’s big towns, it’s a people’s park and it’s not hard to see why.


Child minder: Hubby KK

LOVED: Tasmazia, an sprawling artificial set-up of hedge mazes and quirky chest-high cottages for kids which Day, of course, loved. The way KK puts it: If the kid is happy, I like it.


What he himself liked best, however, was a motel: Sweetwater Villas at St Helens, a pretty game fishing village. With two double-storied apartments between us, four toilets and upstairs family lounges with views and plushy sofas, it was where we were most relaxed and comfortable.


The whole family didn’t do anything the whole day we were there except walk on the board walk and skip stones in the lake.


HATED: The long drives, averaging 100km or so every day. We drove one big circle round Tassie.

Little boy: Day

LOVED: Tasmazia. He loves running through blindly, getting lost and bumping into us at odd corners. He also loved what was called the Village of the Lower Crackpot, an imaginative collection of chest-high, upside down, sideways, houses.


Me, I’m just glad everyone is together, that we all got along, that we had a great time.

peekaboo

back home

We’re back!

Got back late Wednesday night, where the surreal feeling of watching the taxi metre run like a water metre was capped by our opening the door to our apartment and feeling like this was home.

Yes. This bare, mouldy apartment belonging to a stranger suddenly felt like home, like never before.

Tasmania? Not a place I would recommend for anyone who has to lug along kids!

Chiefly because I can't trek with them, I can't canoe with them, I can't go on sand dune buggies with them, the sun was too harsh for them, the wind was too cold and they don't appreciate scenery which is probably Tasmania's biggest selling point.

They were great for photography though.

hello tassie

We're off to Tasmania in seven hours.

Six adults, Day and Dee, bungling our way around the state in a Tarago.

We'll be back in 10 days so if there's no Internet in our hotels, there'll be no sound from me!

Happy Holidays!

family visit

Five months. It’s been that long since the kids saw their Gong Gong and Por Por – my folks.

So we’ve been predictably psyched up this past week, gearing up for their visit, as well as their two uncles - my younger brothers.

I have been rehearsing with Day; how he has to call them when he sees them, how he shouldn't purse his lips and turn away his head (like he has been doing with most people nowadays) etc etc.

Yesterday was the Big Day.

After waking up at 8am to clean the house top to bottom (I discovered many dirty nooks I have never reached and never want to reach again) and putting on a pot of red bean soup, we sat and waited.

And waited.

Each minute after the expected time of arrival at my place at 12noon was inexorably long. We just couldn't wait to get our hands on the dried mango, the haw flakes, the toys, and most of all, just to see them. How we have been starved of company!

Then at 1pm, we heard the cab and the bang of a car boot closing.

Grabbing Day, we ran downstairs (Dee was sleeping).

And this was what happened.

Day's Gong Gong: "Come to me, baby!"


Day: "Who's this?"


Oh dear.


He warmed up in the next minute though, and Gong Gong, clucking over how thin his beloved grandson had become, carried Day upstairs.

onlooker

Were you the child who would raucously join in any activity with open arms, dance when the music came on, gleefully shout in response to any silly question the kiddie MC threw your way?

Or were you the suspicious shy one who hung back, too afraid to make a fool of yourself, afraid to let go?

For sure, 100 per cent of the time, I was the latter.

Even my disappointed father’s dire judgements of “Not sporting at all!” would not move me an inch.

To my surprise, my son seems like me.

I say surprise because I thought he was an exuberant child without reservation.

And on that particular Sunday when we chanced across the big stage set up smack in the centre of Coogee Beach, it wasn’t just any song and dance. Onstage was the dinosaur from The Wiggles no less, singing all the songs with all the moves which he has fervently practiced so many times at home, with so much joy.


He stayed in my arms the entire time, resolute shaking his head whenever we asked if he wanted to join the dancing kids.

As I no longer have reservations (not at my age), I ended up doing most of the dancing alongside KK (each of us carrying one kid), dignity be damned.

Day, instead, preferred to spend his time getting his head muddled in a spinning teacup.

her eczema

Eczema. What a plague.

What is it about people or the environment nowadays, that so many normal healthy individuals produce babies with bad skin?

I have a dollop of eczema which started at 21 and hasn’t gone away, though docs would say it’s “well under control” at this point.

Then I produce two babies, both of whom have eczema, and successively worse too.

What I mean by that, is that Dee looks like she is going to be covered in the damn rash and she’ll probably have it much worse than Day. For a girl (who is likely to treasure smooth skin) that’s pretty unpleasant.

For while Day was born with a dry spot on his left ankle that never went away, his eczema didn’t really get bad until I stopped breastfeeding him. Now it’s more or less all over his body except for his back.

Dee, poor girl. She was born with dry patches all over. Her fat little calves, forearms, on her chest, her right cheek, her bum crack.

She is still breastfeeding loads, but she seems allergic to the smallest things – jarred baby food for instance - and the patches become angry red swaths.


Recently she’s learnt to scratch and she keeps picking away at her chest, and at her groin when I unwrap her to change her diaper.

What does a baby know about how scratching worsens the rash?

All I can do now is to be very very careful about what she eats, the slightest reaction and all bets are off.

I wonder too how the eczema will change when we return. Probably worsen.

It also brings to mind what my Singapore paediatrician said about eczema (probably in consolation): Only the smart ones get it.

Which is complete hogwash, the idea of a divine trade-off between good brains and good skin. Why, it would mean their papa is an idiot for he has perfect skin, and guess who’s taking the Masters?

More likely it’s the rich (and therefore intelligent??) parents who are willing to fork out a bomb for steroid creams from the paed, for their offspring’s eczema.

But anyhow it’s become the basis of a running joke for us: Like the worse the skin the cleverer our kids will be.

dee now

Like a summer flower, she has blossomed.

A prosaic line indeed, considering it comes from my most unpoetic husband.

Uttered while we were staring at her in rapt admiration, that is, however, how we feel.

Something about Dee, now 8 ½ months old, in the past few months has made me wish that if I were to have a third child (very unlikely but never say never), I want a girl.

Yes, she is still terribly unfeminine. She grunts, she snorts, she smells, she has bad breath and rashes. Very little hair covering a flaky scalp. And she’s still an eccentric no-nonsense creature whom we laugh at more often than we laugh with.

But there’s an inherent sweetness in her gentle gaze and tiny pink mouth that makes us feel all googly when we look at her.

She’s done rather a lot of growing up in the last few weeks too.

The most obvious one: She’s got teeth. Two on the lower gum. They first sprouted when she turned 8 months.


All she wants to do is stand and wobble her butt around. Walk around if there’s enough furniture around for her to hang on to.


She doesn’t seem interested in crawling; her butt seems too heavy and she just can’t seem to get it off the ground. She does seem to move an awful lot on her bed (the biggest double bed in our apartment) and has fallen off four times or so. Luckily the ground is carpeted.

She can do the “bye bye” and “clap hands” on command from her papa. Ah, what we do for some entertainment.

She says “papa” but she’s not object-specific yet.

She eats, not a lot still, but much better now. One meal a day of silken tofu (thanks to those who left comments on this blog!) with some sort of meat (it’s only been chicken so far) and veg. Still no water though.

She loves the moving image. Loves The Wiggles on the laptop. Cartoons on TV. It's my fault. Sometimes I have to dump her there to keep her quiet while I do other things and she's probably learnt to like it.

She is completely totally madly in love with me, her mother. Her outpouring of love when she spots me (delirium, squeals, madly scrambling to get to me so she can stick to me like a limpet) is touching beyond words. Won’t I remember this the day teenaged Dee walks out the front door all pissed declaring she’ll never speak to me again.

poisonous cow's milk

That's Day sipping a Babycino, a baby-sized cup of frothy milk and choc powder . Only I always have to specify: Soy milk please.

Day and cow's milk don’t go.

He might as well be drinking poison.

He belongs to that class of milk-sensitive children who are allergic to cow’s milk (at least that’s what I think it is). Every time he downs cow's milk, his eczema blooms.

Thankfully, he doesn’t go into shock or vomit like seriously milk-allergic children do.

When the milk is cooked however (like in pancakes) he seems fine.

As for butter, cheese and other dairy products, well, sometimes he reacts to it, sometimes he doesn’t. Which makes things very hard for me but there it is.

Does he like cow’s milk? Unfortunately, yes. He knows he shouldn’t go near it though.

And sometimes, like now, I wonder if we are under-nourishing him because he doesn’t drink cow’s milk. It is the commonest milk around. And as I surf around, I see plenty of pictures of two and three-year-olds clutching full milk bottles.

Back in Singapore, my neighbours used to give their kids four, five full milk bottles daily and they were older than Day.

He’s never had a drop of infant formula in his life.

All he ever had was breast milk until 1 ½ years, when I had to wean him off because Dee was in my tummy.

Since then, he’s had hardly any milk, except soy milk.

I don’t mean soy milk formula, but cold soy milk, the kind found in the refrigerator section of supermarkets.

Neither does he drink that regularly, but on and off, as and when he feels like it or to go with his cornflakes; maybe once every three days or so.

Is he getting enough calcium etc etc?

I certainly hope so, though he, a fussy eater (who also eschews veggies) doesn't eat much either.

kk misses man u

If there is one thing (amongst the many) which I can pinpoint as the follow-up source of misery for KK here (number one being the loss of income), it would be the loss of Channels 22 and 23 (on Singapore’s Starhub).

Cable TV sports.

Specifically, ESPN’s faithful coverage of English Premier League matches.

For some strange reason, despite the fact that there are so many English people around us, soccer here is under the radar.

Australians, instead, are turned on by big beefy men in shoulder pads and mouth guards tossing around a ball (versus kicking).

KK’s itch to watch his beloved Manchester United (yes yes) grew even worse after his exams.

Walking to the Coogee pubs is not an option as the matches are played sometimes at 2am or even later, and it is highly possible that he may get assaulted on the way.

Getting cable TV is not an option for it is firstly expensive and secondly, our landlord’s TV is a dinosaur from the 70s with a concave screen and loads of static.

Watching it live online is not an option as our ADSL connection is too slow and he waits more than he watches.

So how?

He’s had to watch the action on You Tube, that wonderful video repository which was recently sold to Google for $1.65 billion.

He only gets to watch short snippets, highlights and none of it is live.

But it’s better than nothing.

He intends, when he returns, to try and get recordings of every single Man U match he missed this season and presumably watch them straight through like those Korean-drama-crazy women who speed through 20 DVDs with meal and toilet breaks.

Good luck, I say.

summer time

1st December: Summer is upon us.

We have been warned to expect a super duper hot summer as spring was exceptionally hot.

Forty degree days, sunburn, sleepless nights.

While tourists and natives are descending en masse to the beaches to roast themselves, I am conversely leery.

I welcomed Spring but not Summer.

Nowadays, the only reason why I look forward to sunny days is to dry the clothes. I much prefer English weather: Gray days, a hint of rain in the air, a chill which warrants a sweater.

For when it gets hot here, it’s broiling hot.

It’s hot too in Singapore, but there I feel steamed. Here, I feel baked.

Every five minutes, my throat feels newly parched. Wrinkles are more apparent than ever.

Day and Dee, both, have bad skin which does not do well in the sun and the dryness further robs their skin of moisture.

Furthermore, Day is terrifically allergic to sun tan lotion – it gives him a horrible raised red rash which is itchy and flaky to boot. Right now he’s got it all over the back of his neck, his face, the backs of his ears, the backs of his legs, all his joints.

Not applying it on him is not an option when we are outdoors at noon and it’s 40 degrees. My rationale is, a rash is temporary. Skin cancer is not.

Dee, I don’t like applying suntan lotion on her baby skin.

Instead, I try to keep her covered at all times in her pram with a pod-like sunshade which is sanctioned by the Australian Cancer Council. It apparently cuts out 95 per cent of the UV, so I didn’t mind paying A$50 for it.



To Autumn!