holiday's over (thankfully)

Three months of having absolutely nothing to do and it all ends tomorrow when KK goes back to school.

We are going into Phase 3 (Phase 1 being Semester One and Phase 2 being Holiday Season).

As if I’m about to jump off a plane, KK has been asking me several times a day: “Are you ready for it?”

Truth be told, I am relieved.

It’s been said that idleness is the greatest sin and oh Lord, I really haven’t achieved anything in this time.

It’s different when he’s in school and I’m home alone minding the kids because then, I am solely in charge and strangely, I do more alone when I have that domain of responsibility, than when we are two.

I am a better housekeeper, I think of more ways to keep the kids occupied and I do more within the same time frame.

These past few months, I do have a tendency to flop on the couch and stare into blank space as toys litter the floor around my feet, the rubbish bin bursts at the seams and we start to smell the piled-up dirty clothes.

You just tend to think: Ah, there is another equally bored person around with absolutely nothing to do, to work on it. And of course, it takes way longer to get done. If at all.

Now KK is going back to school, however, psychologically, I’ll be so on the ball!

It’s been a good holiday, notwithstanding.

For certain, we’ll never again have the chance to bum around for three months with our kids in this lifetime.

While we never got to do any of the things we said we wanted to do, at the beginning of the holiday - Rent a car for a week and drive around New South Wales, get on a budget flight to Darwin to visit my brother (the constraints were all financial) – we did develop a very pleasant holiday routine.

Tuesdays being the day we go to Maroubra to shop at the Asian grocer (fishballs, fishcakes, lap cheong, ikan bilis, chrysanthemum tea), eat at the Cheung Sing BBQ house, get a new stash of toys and books from the Bowen Library, stop for a cake and coffee before heading home on the 353.


Wednesdays being the day we hang around at Coogee Beach in our tent for lunch, Frisbee and some tree-climbing before renting five DVDs from Civic Video (A$1 each on Wednesdays, four for us and one for Day)


Some day in the week being the day we go shopping at the Bondi Junction Westfield mall, where we lunch then go to Borders to pick up Thomas books for Day (a cheap series, A$3 each, printed in Singapore no less) then maybe go to Target to check out sale clothes for the kids.

Some day in the week being the day we take a bus to town opposite the St James Station, eat at a food court (udon for KK, something else for me), have cake and coffee, walk past the St Mary’s Cathedral and Domain to the Botanic Gardens, hang out there, walk past the Opera House, take the 374 back.


Some day in the week being the day we go to Chinatown, have lunch at the Superbowl (noodles for KK, porridge for me), pick up custard tarts and pick up Savoy cakes.

Then there are the one-off excursions.

Now it’s just going to be me.

Alone with Day and Dee, I can’t go far.

But unlike in July when we first came and I had to be on my own, I have no trepidation whatsoever. I have been trained.

his first movie

Day’s first movie, at the ripe old age (for today’s standards anyway) of two years 10 months: Finding Nemo.

Courtesy of a kind neighbour who lent us the DVD, he’s been watching it, oh I’d say, once a day in parts.


Meaning he watches the jellyfish scene then he stops and plays with his trains; then the whale scene then he stops and plays with his trains; then the aquarium ritual scene then he stops and plays with his trains; etc etc.

Seeing as it took him several viewings (in parts) before he went hahaha at the funny bits, I don’t think he’d enjoy any movie in a movie theatre.

But he sure likes this one. Never fails to roar and punch the air when Marlin and Dory emerge at the Sydney Opera House (how fitting). Laugh out loud. Repeat all the lines. Yadda yadda.

the return of fertility

I can have a third child now. IF I wanted to, which of course I don’t. Not NOW.

For a panicky moment there, though, I thought we scored again by accident.

I’ve completely forgotten what it’s like to menstruate. Haven’t actually gone through the process for 3 ½ years now, short of a few pitiful periods (more like leaks) between Day and Dee.

So when the breasts got a little sore, I started feeling a little weak and some of Dee’s feeds were mere drops, I got a little worried. Actually that’s an understatement.

Thankfully, nothing was fertilized.

Mercifully, I didn’t waste any money on a test kit before the period came.

Welcome back, cramps.

day says...

“It’s so expensive you know. Papa and Mummy have no money.”
In reply to a question on whether he wants those train tracks.

“But there are CHILDREN there!”
In response to our declaration that he must go to school when we go back to SIngapore, said in a tone leaving no doubt that he finds children detestable.

“Ah-ah-AHHH am shy.”
Our question: Why didn’t you speak to that little boy?

He’s also got a problem starting his sentences nowadays. The first word sounds like it’s stuck in his throat and he only manages to spit it out after several attempts.

“Go to the kitchen and drink some water. Water is the best, you know. It will make you feel better.”
On seeing me sneeze.

“You must say excuse me and cover your nose!”
On seeing Dee sneeze.

The boy is such an old man nowadays. Crotchety, self-righteous and full of shoulds and should nots, all said with a great deal of head-nodding and finger wagging.

I can tell, he revels in telling us off.

favourite photos

I have thousands and thousands of photos of the kids.

All parents do, but amongst those, we all have our favourite pictures. The ones that we stare at, the ones that we choose to print.

Recently, I happened to take a photo of the kids and their father eating breakfast and something about the way Dee’s little face looked, small, round and right at the bottom of the photo, made me gaze at it for a long long time. So long that KK has been peering at my laptop screen and telling me “Can you stop it?”

It isn’t a great photo, not by a long shot, in fact it’s blur. And it definitely isn’t her typical face-all-stretched-out gappy-toothed grin.

If anything, she looks pensive. But in its solemnity, I can see hints of adult Dee’s face and maybe that’s why I like it.


As for Day, I like this one, taken by his papa (though not to the same idiotic level of intense staring for Dee’s shot)


He just looks so unaffected and happy and carefree (cue seagulls flying behind him).

sunnies

On...


... and off.

the long-awaited result

Closure to this episode:

Dear Loh,

Apologies this has taken so long. I submitted a revised mark last week. You passed!

I am still concerned that your original scripts went astray.

This is the first time that has occurred. Unfortunately, there were a number of students that did not submit anything last year - and I assumed that you were to be one of those.

Best wishes

Ian

KK's first semester tally: Seven subjects passed.

piggy year

And here’s my little tubby, munching away on love letters.

I wanted to put a curly wurly tail, ears and a snout on her but KK desisted: “She already looks piggish.”

She’s sure got a lot more layers than her brother, when we took a similar Chinese New Year picture of him two years ago, and he certainly didn’t have baby breasts.

I do this every year: Take CNY pics of the kids. Here’s the two of them together.


And Day, at CNY 2005 and CNY 2006.

Usually I just chuck mandarin oranges and red packets into the picture.

This time - and I must say this is a life first for me - there are NO mandarin oranges and NO red packets. The oranges are simply not available and as for red packets, the one shop in Chinatown we checked out were passing off Disney characters printed on envelopes (they came in blue and pink) as angbao.

No dong-dong-chang music (apart from two tunes my mom sent me via email), no one to visit, no one to come visiting, no money exchanges, no spring-cleaning, it’s status quo.

If anything I think there are even fewer Chinese than usual, as everyone has gone back to where they came from.

All is, however, not lost.

We did have some flavour of CNY.

REUNION MEAL

We had a nice reunion lunch (it’s pure formality as we see each other 24/7) at Chinatown’s Superbowl. But it is a bit hard to feast when there are only two adults and one kid, and while we managed to enjoy the fried salt-and-pepper-squid and sambal kang kong, we had to take away the roast chicken. (usually just two dishes would suffice for us)


As for actual reunion dinner night (17 Feb), we simply had bak kut teh and fried veg. Nothing extraordinary.

NEW CLOTHES

After hemming and hawing for the longest time, I decided I should get the kids new clothes. But only from Target, that bastion of cheap-and-acceptably-nice kiddy clothes.

Day in his new shirt (cap belongs to his dad) in Chinatown, some Chinese New Year banners are behind him.


As for Dee, we both agreed that pretty feminine dresses are not quite her thing. Erm, because our dumpling is neither pretty nor feminine.

The difference is, I STILL want to get the bloody pretty dresses in the hope that packaging makes a subliminal impression, whilst KK only wants to see her in cute shorts.

We settled for a sporty OP-type dress.


LION DANCE

Believe it or not, Sydney actually wants to make its CNY celebration a world-class tourist attraction, sort of like its Mardi Gras parade, I gather.

What it is, is a Chingay-type procession and a two-day food pasar-malam at a park with a stage for performances from China and the like.

Good thing we happened to go at the right time, and we caught the lion dance, which made a real impression on the kids. Dee was just scared of the noise and Day, sitting on KK’s shoulders so he could rise above the crowd, was entranced.


FOOD

The year of the Golden Pig, aptly so, is the year we paid A$4 for ONE slice of bak kwa which tastes more of honey than anything else.


We were happily not short of CNY goodies for a friend’s mother, living in Sydney, delivered some home-made goodness and my very sympathetic friends, Jo and Pris, sent over a big (auspiciously red) box of sweets including love letters and melon seeds.


But in the end, CNY is really all about people, isn’t it?

Devoid of all the ritual, we really just want to be with the people we love.

We can’t wait to go home.

botanic gardens

I’m just going to caption pics for this one. In a nutshell: It’s good and free and we’ve gone there a few times.


Whichever tourist on a four-day trip ever visits the Royal Botanic Gardens? They’re missing out, though, on the best photo they can take of the Opera House right smack in front of the Harbour Bridge. Plus flowers in the foreground to soften everything up. Of course you have to hit the sweet spot.


On our 15-minute walk to the Gardens, we pass by the St Mary’s Cathedral and one day there was a band playing. A good one. They all breathed in time. Looked closer and realized they were the New South Wales Police Band. I seriously hope they are as good at crime-busting as they are at music-making.


While the band was playing the theme from Mission Impossible, Day danced around the lawn, Dee did a lot of bouncing, KK ruminated, I took photos and then we all applauded.


It could be the time of year but flowers? Few and far between. I’m surprised the roses even survived the blistering summer heat.


The little red tram train which takes lazy people around the gardens for A$10 a pop. Of course we didn’t get on it.


Funny how we notice exotic plants in the zoo and now, exotic animals in the gardens. Somewhere in the middle of the gardens, what appear to be giant bats fly overhead like some nightmare scene from Indian Jones, only they are not bats but flying foxes the size of small cats. I had the pleasure of seeing a lady stop short and give a small scream when she realized the trees all around her were dripping with clusters of twitching flying foxes.


My boy, always a happy camper on the grass. It’s nice dry carpet grass and not wet muddy cow grass.


Imagine the Gardens to be a giant letter u, with the Opera House on one end and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair on the other, with a large body of water filling up the u. That’s the body of water, Farm Cove. Day is terrified of being lifted up over the wall, he bleats: “I’m scared!” but he still tries his darndest to peep over and spot the seaweed.


Under a funny bush with artistic branches.


Dee is wearing a hand-me-down from my Singapore neighbour. She doesn’t like to venture beyond the mat because (I think) she finds the grass prickly.


Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, so named after a stone seat where a lady used to sit to sea-gaze (obviously not in my picture), and where a friend of mine got married, I can see why. That’s us under the tree, enjoying a slice of chocolate cake. Day reveled in running down the slope on the left of the picture.


After she is done chewing the ends of the branches, she uses them like drum sticks.

to my valentine

Most people today revile, spit on and censure Valentine’s Day as a commercialized (most-used word), hyped-up over-inflated occasion for retailers and so on and so on.

The point being that: Shouldn’t Every Day Be Valentine’s Day? Or Why Can’t We Show Love On Other Days?

Poor, poor misunderstood Valentine’s Day.

Sometimes, it’s probably just nice to mark an occasion for people who haven’t done so in a long time, to reach out to each other. And whoever complained about receiving a bunch of roses? Or a handmade something?

Anyway.

My heart beat a little faster when KK sidled up to me and, in a conspiratorial whisper, said: “I have something to show you.”

Ooooooh! What could this man, who has barely been out of my sight in the last three months, and whose entire fortune is in my hands, have to show me?

As it turns out, here it is ('tis unpleasant):
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* pix removed at request of scandalized husband

A Zit.

An oozy pus-filled mountainous sonofabitch just under his nose.

He then proceeded gleefully to squeeze it and show me the bloody aftermath.

Ah, a truly sobering dose of love. Only a wife could tolerate such demonstrations.

name origins

Cousin Dawn, who is pregnant with her first child, got me thinking when she asked why I named David, David.

Some of my friends (and Dawn herself!) had beautiful names all picked out for their offspring before they even married.

We never thought about baby names as parenthood was the unlikeliest thing we thought could happen.

Then Day materialized. No baby name books, no agonizing, we threw around some names for a night or two – whatever popped into our heads – and stuck with one. Yes, our chin chai-ness extends to the all-important naming of our children.

Our minimalist criteria:

* Mustn’t be the same name as nasty people we know
* Two syllables
* Simple
* Strong
* Uncommon (not in their generation anyway)
* Must go with KK’s surname, Loh (we regretfully eliminated Gigo and a few other funny ones which I regretfully can’t recall now)

DAVID


Why David?

I looked at KK, decided that my son would be pint-sized and settled on the name of the Biblical David who defeated the giant Goliath. You know, no fear, courage in excess, brains over brawn.

And since the name was common in the last generation or two (especially men born before the 60s I think), I figured few people would name their sons David this time.

Chinese name: Sheng Wern. Man of culture. Doesn’t quite work with David but it doesn’t matter.

Why the “R” in the Wern? We were given several official dialect-name translations of his Chinese name, and we just picked what looked to be the most exotic.

JODY


I confess, Jody might have been Adam. That was when the spectre of a penis appeared in one of her scans and we were misled.

For an atheist, I do have a penchant for Biblical names, don’t I? (On hindsight, it’s probably not a good idea to name one’s sons David and Adam)

Then he became she and we were temporarily flummoxed.

We scrabbled around and came up with Jody. And one day, Dee dear girl, if you read this, know that one small reason we picked your name was so Dee would go with Day. (*cough cough*)

It’s a good strong funky name for who I hope will be a strong funky girl. I also like names that start with “J”.

Chinese name: Zijun. It sounds mighty masculine and was my first choice. Once again, strength.

"gao gao jee"

We belong to that breed of stupid parents who slide into the routine of pretending to sleep with our children, staring into the darkness and ignoring the restless twitch of our limbs for up to an hour and a half, before we creep out of the bedroom with bated breath, on our tippy toes, praying that the baby stays asleep even after the door shuts with what sounds like the loudest click in the world.

Stupid because, just taking me for instance, putting Day to sleep over the past two years plus and Dee now (don’t forget the afternoon naps), has probably cost me in excess of 2000 hours or 83 full days. I could have learnt a new language in that time.

So anyway.

The sleep wheels have turned and Day, I am happy to say, has been sleeping on his own in the last few months. Albeit in the living room couch where he can be near us, but at least we don’t have to lie next to him like a log.

He knows that after reading books which is Number 3 on his Bedtime List for Good Boys (Number 1 being to pee and Number 2 to brush his teeth), Number 4 is to go to sleep. We put away the books, tuck him in, give him a little goodnight kiss and leave him there where he flips through his books for a while before dropping off.


Right now, though, Dee is the time-waster. Can’t go to sleep without her comfort blanket – me or KK.

Why don’t we do the smart thing and train her to sleep on her own?

I can’t quite explain it, but it’s just a bad habit that refuses to go away. We’re lazy, sticking to our tried and tested (not very ideal) method.

As far as I know, there is no easy way to break it. Crying it out is emotionally damaging and not practical for cot-less babies who might fall off the bed in the dark, gradual distancing (slowly situating oneself, centimeter by centimeter, further away from the baby every night until one is out the door) is theoretically good but as it took far longer for Day to fall asleep when I tried it with him for several weeks in 2005, I’m not quite up to it again.

Two years ago I would have said that as baby feels most secure and loved when bedding down with the parents, why not? Now I just think it's a big waste of time and it's not as if grown-up Day and Dee will remember or appreciate it.

I suppose I’ll just wait for her to grow out of it, like her bro did. And I should be thankful she doesn’t need rocking or carrying.

* Gao gao jee, by the way, is Cantonese baby talk for “sleep” and I never heard it before until my dad used it on Day. We say “(Baby’s name), it’s time to gao gao jee now!”

refugee camp

Tuesday morning my laundry poles were uprooted. Razed. Demolished.

In the name of better drainage and the replacement of our concrete backyard with turf (an excellent initiative I have to admit), I am nevertheless faced with the quandary of how I am going to dry my clothes henceforth.

The next-biggest crisis I have faced in the last few months apart from that postal faux pas (says a lot about the extent of our troubles here), there is actually no other option for us but to use the freaking communal drier.

Which costs A$1.60 per load. For two dirty kids and adults in sweaty summer, that works out to maybe three loads a week.

We’ve been told the blinking poles will not be up for another 150 days. Five months. A$80.

Anyhow who the hell would use a drier in an Aussie summer when it sometimes takes a couple of hours to bake the clothes dry? Not to mention the fact that some clothes cannot be put in the drier.

I’ve been watching, to see what every one else does (the entire apartment complex, probably 30 units, has been left bereft of laundry poles) but no one seems to have washed their clothes in the last four days or maybe they all used the drier.

Today, after accumulating five days of clothes, I could wait no longer.

I washed the load and was all prepared to use the drier. Only I didn’t have the exact combination of coins for the drier (it’s one of those coin-operated things) and there wasn’t even a soul around for me to change money with. It’s bloody inconvenient.

In the end I turned our apartment into what KK calls a refugee camp.


Wracked my brains, strung up loads of lines in the two bedrooms and hung all 50 or so articles of clothing.

We will all be sleeping with clothes and underwear hanging over our heads for the next few nights, for I’m pretty sure it’s going to take more than a day for the clothes to dry indoors.

I’m probably also going to continue drying the clothes like this, refugee camp style, until the laundry poles come up again.

Using the drier is just too dear and on a matter of principle, I frankly don’t see why I should be forced to fork out precious funds on something which I don’t WANT to use.

And oh, did I mention that our two bedrooms now overlook mountains of sand, which start just under our window and peak about a metre away from our noses, meaning our view is truly splendiferous.


Not forgetting the bleeding diggers, jackhammers and drills which start at 8am (good alarm).

* I just realized that looking out our windows, what we see first is clothes hanging willy nilly on a string, then bars on a window then a barren sand scape. How truly depressing.

opera house up close

Nearly seven months of living in Sydney, and we finally visit the place which most visitors first pay homage to: the Opera House.

Ideally what I’d like to do is to listen to an orchestra play in the concert hall, but as that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I have to be content with making the prosaic observation that up close, the giant fins are not eggshell-smooth, but are in fact comprised of diamond shaped scales.


Plus pretty views all round, of the Harbour Bridge and the skyline. Sadly, that about sums up all I have to say about the famous icon.

6/6

I winked the other day and suddenly realized that I had perfect vision in my left eye.

See, while I am one of the very very lucky minority in Singapore not to ever require glasses (this one is definitely genetic), vision has been slightly blur in my left eye since I was, oh, in my 20s.

I do mean slight; in the region of 20 to 50 degrees.

But it definitely irked me to close one eye and not be able to read approaching bus numbers or the fine print on posters.

So to discover that far-off things are intriguingly crystal clear once more…. Ahhhh.

I have to put it down to the fact that daily, I stare at my laptop screen less than an hour, read also less than an hour and am always staring into the distance. Plus I am never stressed, not in the academic / corporate manner anyway. So the eyeball… er… re-shapes itself. Whatever.

Nice one, though: For better eyesight, stop work and be full-time housewife in foreign country.

psychology of walking

It’s all in the mind, really, the first steps we take in our lives.

All parents will swear that before their kids actually started walking, they were physically able to do so WAY before. Weeks, months even. The strength in the legs, the ability to stand for long moments, balancing.

Funny thing is, the babies will only do it when they are unaware; when they are busy walking to something they really want, for instance.

Once awareness kicks in – that hey, I’m walking! – they drop back on their butts and start whining. Or worse, tip over.

That’s when the gan-cheong spider first-time parents start to go: But WHY won’t she (or he) walk? WHAT is she so scared about? WHEN will she stop crawling?

These two kids of mine, if walking is any indication, they have very different psyches.

Day was what I think would be considered an early walker.

Ten months one week exactly, and he sprinted off the block, carefree and happy as a lark.

He didn’t look back. Clumsy plods, in a matter of days, swiftly became the pitter-patter of running feet.

He wasn’t afraid to fall. He didn’t look at the ground. Once he discovered he was capable of walking, he stopped thinking about it and started using his feet as a quick means to get to things he wanted.

It’s very easy to pinpoint the exact time he started walking because thereafter, he was on two legs all the time.

Dee. If we were asked now if she’s walking, our answer would be Hmmmm….


Nine months, three weeks, she took her first solo steps. Four, five steps at a time.

Well and good. We have been told many times that girls are supposed to be faster than boys.

Here’s the difference: She is dead cautious. Slowly, very very slowly (relative to her brother, that is), she is gradually building up her courage to venture further. Right now it stands at ten to fifteen steps. Half our living room. Before she chickens out.

Why we hesitate to say if she is walking, is because she prefers to crawl half the time.

Walking is still something she attempts with a measure of caution, something she’s still not that sure about.

And there is one more big difference: She loves holding one of my hands as she walks. I try to hide from her sometimes as she seems to think I owe it to her to lead her around like a dog on a leash. (Day never liked holding my hand, not even now, for the matter)

I’m not sure if it’s a boy-girl thing, or a character thing.

But I sure can’t wait for them to grow up, to see if any of this translates into their adult personalities!

finally, a family photo

the minority

On what started out as a beautiful Friday night where the yellow moon hung huge and heavy in the sky, as we cheerfully walked through the shadowy big green field with sparklers in hand to play at the beach, we were heckled.

As Day, who was right in front, galloped past a bench where a group of braying youngsters with an emptied carton of beer next to them were sitting, this is what we heard, again and again: “F*%king Asians! Go home!”

I had a real urge to wallop them.

But of course I couldn’t. Dee was stuck to my side in a sarong.

We walked off, played with our sparklers and went home another way. Suddenly, the quiet streets of Coogee looked ominous and every person carrying a beer bottle (there were plenty) appeared predatory.

Well unlike the last time, at least nothing was thrown at us.

adult food

* Arm restraints.

We are reveling in her gluttony.

Dee is a bottomless pit. She eats, as my sister-in-law aptly describes, like a baby bird, tipping her head backwards every time we feed her, so her mouth is like a hole where nothing escapes from the side. She doesn’t need bibs.

Her food horizon now includes our food.


Cakes, biscuits, chicken breast meat, French fries. Mealtimes for Day are terrifying as his sister relentlessly chases him round the coffee table (we eat sitting on the floor), trying to grasp his food in her chubby claws.

He ends up eating on his feet, bowl in hand, ready to make his escape (he moves when she’s about a metre away) whenever she comes too near.


She eats everything (apart from mango which she sniffs at) and if it takes too long for her four teeth to masticate, well, she swallows it.

Whole grapes, it’s all gone down and emerged whole (albeit blackened and flattened) from her bottom end.

Yes, she chokes, she gags, tears come into her eyes and we wonder if we have to do the Heimlich, but then she bangs her fist for more and we roll our eyes.

She isn’t even very interested in breast milk anymore. Were I to eat and feed her at the same time, her head would pop up and grab the tasty morsel I’m eating for herself.

But yes, of course I’m still faithfully breastfeeding her. Just so I remember, probably about six, seven times a day. See, she still doesn’t drink water. She chokes on it.