when papa comes home

The call usually comes at 430pm.

My mobile phone spews out its Nokia ditty, and all three of us at home stop what we are doing because the sound of a ringing phone is so rarely heard around here.

Once I end the call, I grab Dee's pink toy stroller, bundle the kids into their jackets and shoes, head out with the house keys in my fleece pocket and nothing else.

For we aren't going far. Just 100 metres down the road, at the end of a tree-shaded lane, to Bardon Park; a place we very imaginatively call the "green field".

Straight to the centre of the field where there is a cricket strip, I sit down watching the darkening sky as the kids take turns to push the stroller, draw faces in the sand with twigs and play with the many dogs who are chasing tennis balls.


Then KK appears over the crest of the hill. Backpack on, sweaty from his 30-minute trek from school.

That's what everyone is waiting for. Squealing, the kids abandon twigs and stroller so they can run toward their papa unencumbered.

Day lives for the sweetie which his papa always has in his pocket; Mentos, gummies or chocolates. Some things never change.


Dee, still sweetly baby-ish, has no agenda and is ecstatic just to see her dad.


Me, I am astounded at the amazing S3's zooming powers.

"i'm sad"

Working parents claim they have no time to talk to their kids; regrettably I find it’s the same as a stay-home mum.

It’s a very strange situation of me and Day never being more than 10 metres away from each other the entire day, but yet, talking moments are few and far between.

Most of the time I’m whirling around the house picking things up or sticking to Dee, making sure she doesn’t stuff a beetle in her mouth and generally keeping her quiet.

When I do have a moment, it’s not a matter of simply squatting down, staring him in the eye and expect to have a heart-to-heart talk when I feel like it.

He has to be ready too. In all likelihood, he’ll probably go back to what he’s doing, ignore me or give me the one-ear-in, one-ear-out treatment.

Funnily enough, being Asians, I think parents and children generally don’t like talking deep stuff face-to-face either.

Which is why I reckon conversations-in-the-car (nobody looks at each other and can pretend to be fascinated with the scenery) have become the busy Singapore parent’s favourite mode of communication while ferrying their offspring to and fro.

Us, we have no car. But I realize that Day opens up when I go with him on one of my nightly supermarket jaunts.

Running alongside, just the two of us with no papa and mei mei as distractions, he chatters to me stutter-free about the houses, the cars, the lights, the moon, and if I were to engage him, he responds openly and honestly.

A conversation last night opened a window into his soul and left me feeling very sad.

This is what transpired.

I asked: “Day, are you scared that we are going back to Singapore?”

“No. I am not scared. I am very very sad.”

“Why?”

“Because I am very happy here at Leeton Avenue. I don’t want to go to Singapore.”

Pushing his pram, at that minute, my thoughts whirled as I scrambled to give him an answer.

In the end, I told him: “Leaving Leeton Avenue and Coogee Beach doesn’t mean we will say goodbye forever. We can always get on an aeroplane and fly back here and you can go to Coogee Beach to play with sand and do all your favourite things again.”

And for the moment, he seemed satisfied.

camera muse from sim lim

My muse.

Not Dee, the camera! My new camera!

I have discovered that for some strange reason, I find it extremely hard to blog without a camera. I am just uninspired and uninspiring, finding it very tedious to write a chunk of text and nothing but text day after day.

Considering my former profession, that’s just weird.

Then there’s also the fact that one of the key reasons I maintain the blog is for KK and he’s a pictures man. Erotic fiction doesn’t do it for him, but show him a picture of a naked woman and bam. Actually I think most men are like that.

My new Canon S3 IS was, two days ago, still sitting on the shelf of a photo store in Sim Lim Square and how it’s sitting in my lap now 6,000 km away, is the result of my brother’s about-turn, a quick decision on my part and my wonderful air stewardess cousin.

Basically my bro suddenly realized he needed the camera he was supposed to send over, I, with no desire to pay through my nose for a Sydney camera, decided to choose a model online, get someone to buy it for me in Singapore and entrust my cousin to bring it over on her Friday flight.

Why the Canon S3 IS?

* It's what my brother recommended!
* I’ve always been a Canon girl, since the first camera I ever took decent pictures with was a Canon. It’s a heart thing. And I think Canon pics have great colours.
* Not for me one of those pretty palm-sized cams with huge LCD screens, I wanted a slightly higher-end cam which can take slightly nicer pictures. That means something from the Powershot series.
* It must not be too expensive, not more than $1,000 or so.
* The cam must have a video recorder function for the kids.

On that last point, I had to make the heartbreaking decision to eschew the SLR - something I have always wanted so I can take even better pictures – as the Canon EOS 350 (the only Canon SLR within my budget) does not have the video recorder function.

At the moment, I miss my old Canon G2.

Cameras, despite being just mechanical clunks, all produce different sorts of photographs. Some make you look nicer, some make you look uglier.

My old G2, every photo looked warm and if there were shadows, they would come out blacker than black.

My S3, well. All my pictures look more blue, grainier and somehow softer, like there’s a very light mist in front of my lens, black takes on a grayish cast.

Here’s how Day appears through the S3 lens.


And Dee.

mum friends

A very close still-single friend of mine said, when I half-jokingly remarked that I wanted a #3: “Wait for me lah. We can have one at the same time and they can be playmates. ”

You know what? It’s an entirely appealing idea.

Women should do it, you know, if they can. Time the births of their children so they pop together with their close friends. Sort of like a high tea appointment: See you in the labour ward in October.

Why? Because motherhood is consuming.

A new mother whose friends are all childless, can find herself very blue indeed.

But once a mother, I find myself bonding with strange mums I have never talked to before, especially if they have a same-sex child of the same age, and the baby and toddler talk can fill hours.

This is especially true for stay-home mums who have no choice but to drag their offspring everywhere they go. Only fellow mums would have mastered the art of carrying on a conversation with interruptions (screams, spills, scrapes) every 10 seconds, ignore an exposed boob with spraying milk and talk right through the changing of a particularly noxious nappy.

Single friends still living up the high life, I’m afraid, are not quite up to it. Maybe once but not constantly. And I would never subject single friends more used to wining and dining to such agony.

So you lose touch.

You become closer to the new circle of mum friends, and further from old friends, who may have seen you through heartbreaks and career woes, but cannot quite accompany you on your journey through motherhood.

The good thing is, mums, I think, do reclaim their lives after several years. When they are thoroughly sick of living their lives only for their kids, and start thinking of themselves again.

I think I am somewhere there.

And that is when they have their new friends to talk motherhood with, and the old friends to talk everything else with.

i wonder

Why is it always the mummies …

… who end up having to finish the children’s food?
… who have to finish the last biscuit from the box, the last slice of bread, the about-to-be-expired milk?
… the children turn to even if the daddies are just as loving and present an equal amount of time?
… who refuse to “wait a little while” (like most men prefer) when there are household chores begging to be done?
… who end up being the un-fun parent because they insist on routines?
… who end up washing the dishes?
… who count pennies and are on the perpetual lookout for discounts?
… who do the supermarket shopping?
… who do the laundry?
… who have to wipe the children’s backsides?
… who are less willing (than daddies) to pop the children in front of the television?
… who try to “teach” the children their numbers and letters and music etc etc etc?

All my peeves.
Top of the list: Eating the kid's scraps and having to finish all the last bits of food which nobody wants.
I. HATE.

happy birthday, boys

Today, Day turns 3. (On a sidenote, KK turns 36.)

It’s very sweet that Day happened to be (naturally) born on the same day and month as his papa, but as I told KK, it means he’ll forever be forgotten on his birthday but as it so happens, that’s exactly the way KK likes it.

peachy

Why I love cuddling Dee.


Regrettably, she probably doesn't feel the same with her bony mother.

homeward bound

On the 3rd July, we will step foot on Singapore soil after a year of absence, just in time for a Hokkien mee dinner at the East Coast Park hawker centre

If we were willing to stay a little longer, we could save a bundle on SIA Sydney-Singapore air fares which are lower in late July.

But no. To Craig my trusty air ticketing agent from the Flight Centre down at Coogee, when he asked in mock puzzlement: “Are you in such a hurry to leave Australia”, I laughed but had to say yes.

None of us are in the mood to sit around scraping the bottom of our bank barrel, so-called enjoying life, when all we want to do is to join the blessed ranks of the worker ants and start toiling away for the sake of our children’s futures.

dressing her

* Bad photos from my spoilt camera. No choice lah, still no camera.

True: Clothes-wise, it is much more fun to have daughters than sons. Which is why I hope any subsequent child of mine will be female.

Anyhow, despite Dee not being a very traditionally pretty baby, nor does she have copious amounts of hair for me to work with (she’s inherited my spider webby hair, which means no long hair for the rest of her life unless she is prepared to pore over the knots, poor thing), I still like admiring her in whatever I can get my hands on. Or in nothing.


Even though she has a slightly bigger wardrobe than me (which is not saying much), the Target sale advertised on TV suddenly made me realize that it’s not enough.

We went on a (budget) shopping spree.

Now I don’t exactly have what is called “taste” in fashion. A pair of red pumps is about as fashionista as I can go.

That extends to baby clothes. Fashionable mama equals fashionable baby. Ah soh mama equals Ah soh baby.

So I kept to some guidelines which sounded alright on paper.

* No cartoons or kiddy prints
* No turtlenecks (because she has very little neck it makes her look fat)
* No sleeves (so I can bare what I think is her loveliest feature: Her two smooth chubby arms which still have got the forearm fold and elbow fat)
* No zips, buttons, laces or ties (so I can pop her head and arms into the right holes pronto without giving her time to struggle)
* No dresses. Dee is sadly not a dress girl.
* No overly long tops. (Dee has a very long torso and very short legs and a long shirt would just make her look like a gnome.)
* Must be cotton and very thin (bearing in mind we are going back to Singapore and Dee happens to be someone who can perspire in 22 degree weather)

Which doesn’t leave me much choice.

I ended up with six tops and one pair of shorts. The pick of the lot: This Bonds singlet.


It’s absolutely perfect and it’s even got little bra strap buckles which means I can adjust the length of the straps which means the top can grow with her. I fully intend to pick up the black piece next time I go. Because she so fair she'll look dead cool. Price? Not much. Everything I buy is cheap.


These are her hot shorts (KK’s favourite of all the buys, and the cheapest of the cheap, at only A$4) and another Playboy-ish tank top.

a different perspective

Sometimes, lost in the nitty-gritties of every day housewife—ing and child rearing, I lose my head.

All I can see is what is right under my nose. Day stutters? Quell it! Day won’t listen? Make him! Day is defiant? Beat it down! Day wants attention? Ignore him! Day is yelling? Shut him up!

All I know is, he’s been a bit of a problem; not just in giving us problems, but in the sense that I would hesitate to call him Happy or Well-adjusted.

So it was illuminating when a social worker friend of mine, who has been reading the blog, sent me some of her thoughts.

“Just wondering if it the transitions in the last year have been a bit stressful for Day?

Transitions such as moving to Australia, leaving behind familiar people and environment, being a Kor Kor, having to share Daddy and Mummy's attention with Mei Mei etc. Cos when he was in Singapore, he was the centre of attraction of more people right? And now he has to share just Papa and Mummy with Mei Mei?

Am thinking that his not being able to verbalize his thoughts, fears etc, has made it even more difficult for him to get the assurance for his Papa and yourself. Does Day draw? Or colour? Or in his play, do you detect any morbidity, negativity, sadness?

Or his lack of preparedness may been a contributing factor to some of the difficulties that he seems to be posing.

Note in one of your entries that he has said he doesn't want to go back to Singapore - I wonder what does that mean for him?

For some of the kids that I have worked with, going back to a familiar place / an environment where they felt happy and secure also meant that it could be taken away again, and hence their unwillingness to go back.

Again, these are just some of my hunches based on my limited work with children and families and also the little that I read from your blog. And I acknowledge that my hunches could be totally wrong too.”

A timely reminder, given that we are about to pluck him out of all he knows, once again.

At the moment, the inward-ness I wrote about earlier, is increasingly apparent. He is barely interested in the world around him and as I lamented to KK, he seems to have shut out the world before he’s even seen it.

He is not the least bit curious about anything. Not people, not places and he certainly doesn’t like to talk.

All he wants to do is to colour.

No morbidity I can detect there, however. He’s currently in Rainbow mode.


Even the non-rainbows get the colour treatment.


And the faces he draws, are all happy.

taste of freedom

In recent days I’ve had the odd outburst: “I want Hokkien mee / beef noodles / kaya toast!”

Brought on, no doubt, by the fact that we are right now in the process of booking air tickets home, and the great eats of Singapore are tantalizingly close.

Strangely, though, I crave these eats as one would crave a novelty; rather than as a gastronomic way of life.

Despite what every Singaporean-leaving-home says, that food is the one thing they always miss, I have hardly missed the tastes of home in the last nine months. Definitely not to the extent I thought I would.

Yes, my heart gives a little leap of joy if I see char kway teow, or chicken rice, or laksa, on any menu here, but without any reminders, I quite happily eat what I can get my hands on, and I don’t go dreaming of Singapore food.

In that sense, I know that if I were ever to migrate anywhere, food would not be a consideration. Even if it’s a non-Asian country, I would be OK visiting Singapore once a year for a pig-out holiday.

For now, even stranger still is how, more than any hawker food delicacy, I have been envisioning a Mos Burger yakiniku rice burger, complete with minestrone soup, French fries and ice lemon tea, right in front of me.


After puzzling over it for a second, I knew why.

When I used to dump the kids at my in-laws place every Saturday, that particular meal, week after week, is what I would eat for lunch at the Bukit Panjang Plaza, all by myself, in my own time, in my own peace, with a book just borrowed from the public library as my companion.

That, I now realize, is my taste of freedom and that, more than any food, is what I truly long for.

baby sleep woes

Would anyone pay A$2750 for a sleep expert to stay in their house for five days and train their baby to sleep painlessly without tears?

If I had the money, I would. Not the five days though, maybe the two-day package which costs A$1210.

I find it tremendously interesting, that there are these sleep trainers in Australia, called Baby Whisperers, who charge a bomb to basically go round hand-holding distraught sleep-deprived parents, training their babies to go to sleep on their own quietly without fuss according to a fixed routine.

This lady, Sheyne Rowley, is by no means the only one, but she’s pretty clear with her packages, costs and what service she offers, all stuff which I find interesting reading.

She talks about observing the existing parent-child relationship, establishing lines of communication, managing of “illness” (by that I suppose she means the cannot-sleep illness), puts in routines, then trains and mentors the parents before leaving them with a goodbye and a few thousand in her pocket.

Hey, she even flies overseas for international clients provided they pay her airfare, and I am sure baby sleep problems are so pervasive, there are some rich folks who would pay that kind of money just to get a good night’s sleep after years of interrupted nights.

It was actually a playgroup mummy who told me how someone she knew paid a Baby Whisperer A$1,000 a night, to come and quell their four-year-old daughter who would wake up several times a night screaming.

At first I baulked at the prices.

Then I thought, seriously, if I were earning a decent wage, I might well fork out that kind of money.

Not for Day. I have to say again that the boy slept through the nights when he was a month-and-a-half and nowadays, a word from us and he goes obediently.

For Dee, hmmm. Frankly, she isn’t as bad now as she was before but she still wakes up in the night expecting to be given a feed which she doesn’t need. If I’m lucky, twice, and if I’m not, a lot more.

I could let her cry it out but it’s so much easier to just give her the breast.

And putting her down, well. I just lay down with her for an hour for her afternoon nap.

Nowadays KK goes the “punishment” route. If she refuses to sleep, he lifts her off the bed and puts her on the ground, which makes her scream and by the time he puts her back on the bed, she surrenders.

But that’s such a military thing to do. Punishment. Shudder.

communication breakdown

We can’t talk to our three-year-old.

Two reasons.

* He doesn’t want to talk to us

In a eerie echo of myself and my parents all those years ago, he’s been ignoring us.

We call him once, twice, thrice, maybe up to 10 times and he pretends not to hear us. Mind you, these aren’t even occasions when he’s done something wrong and he doesn’t want to face the music.

These are perfectly out-of-the-blue instances when everybody is hunky dory and we want to ask him about what he’s building, what he’s drawing, whether he likes something. Civil dialogue. Which turns rather ugly by the time he fails to even look at us at our tenth “Day!” because obviously, we are turning blue.

Typical teenage behaviour from an about-to-turn-three-year-old boy.

What do we do?

I go up to him, look him in the eye and tell him that if he wants us to listen to him, he has to listen to us. Deaf ears, really, but I keep trying.

What I really want to do is to slap him senseless and ignore him for the rest of the day.

* He can’t quite talk

This is the more worrying factor.

Because I think I could understand him better when he was two, than now.

He doesn’t speak properly.

Of course, I understand when he says “Ma-yee, wa oh there” to mean “Mummy, what’s over there,” but who else will?

It’s not a vocab issue; sometimes he does opinionate in nice complete sentences which make us go “oh so cute”.

But by and large, in the last few weeks or so, he’s suddenly grown marbles in his throat.

He struggles to get the words out, giving guttural “ah, ah, ah’s” and blinking very rapidly like there’s some broken connection between his brain and his tongue.

And when he does speak after 20 seconds or so of trying, it comes out so quickly with all the consonants clipped off, only a mother could understand.

He gives up, too. When I go “Pardon?” nowadays, he shakes his head and clams his mouth shut.

What do we do?

Frankly, we’re not quite sure here. We don’t know if the problem is physiological or psychological.

KK orders him to speak clearly but this is one of those things where, I think, awareness may worsen the problem.

no photos

I'm at a loss.

Within a fortnight, both my cameras die on me.

The Canon G2, which had been sent back to Singapore for repairs to the tune of $400 late last year, conked out on me again, conveniently just after the three-month warranty. Exactly the same problem: It's dead, can't be switched on, and it's not a battery issue.

The Canon Ixus, the small cam which takes inferior pictures (relative to the G2), I was content to live with until we got back to Singapore. What do you know: It spoils two days ago, just after the Easter Show. It takes videos fine, but the photos are either very very over-exposed or have fine lines all over them.

As one of those cam-crazy maniacs (OK I'm not that crazy but getting there) who is more likely to remember to bring out my camera over my wallet, because you never know when something camera-worthy might happen, I am bereft.

I don't like not being able to "capture the moments" of my kids.

My heroic brother is once again coming to the rescue, sending me his cam by post. I seriously hope Aus Post doesn't fail me this time.

royal easter show

A show full of dogs, cats, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, horses, (and away from the livestock) kiddie rides, balloons and hundreds of goodie bags is bound to be a surefire winner with any normal toddler.

Yes?

Not mine.

To be honest, we traveled 45 minutes by car (Alan’s car) then took a train to avoid parking woes, plus paid another A$62 just to enter the sprawling Olympic Park where the Sydney Royal Easter Show was held, mainly for Day.

Day, Day, Day, Day, Day, who is proving to be a growing puzzle.

Sure, there were a few things that he liked towards the later part of our expedition.

A miniature railway ride from which he waved to us like the Queen. A mini roller-coaster which he gamely pronounced “was so much fun.” His first taste of the carousel (truth be told, I made him get on the horse, his inclination was to sit in the carriage).


But what about the animal nursery, the milking barn, the three little pigs?


He had no eyes for them.

Once Dee was out of her pram, he quickly shoved his butt in and refused to move, showing a complete disinterest in livestock. I’d push him right up to the fences where the prize-winning animals were shown, coax him to see the prize-winning alpaca give a great big yawn.


But all he would do was give a cursory glance out of deference and then look away, bored.

Could be that he (like his papa) doesn’t like crowds.


Could be that the gray skies and intermittent rain had put a dampener on his spirits.


But based on our experience at the aquarium and the zoo, I think I can reliably say this boy ain’t going to be a biologist.

Funny how kids change, I would have sworn when he was younger that he was wild about animals.

Thankfully, once again, Dee, at this phase in her life, proved to be more enthusiastic than her bro about animals. When not ogling horses and goats, she was flirting with Alan.


We thoroughly enjoyed the show too. Touted as the largest annual event in Australia, KK, who usually has no opinion about anything, grudgingly called it an “eye opener”. It would have been really fun if we had no kids.


Especially eye-opening, though, were the Showbags.

Probably the most crowded section of the entire show (railings were placed outside the entrance so people can queue to get in), it’s a huge hall full of booths selling hundreds of themed bags going for a discount. It’s kosher, Nicole Kidman reportedly grabbed six bags.


So a Wiggles bag of goodies worth A$50 would go for A$25. We got a Thomas the Tank Engine bag for Day for A$17.50 and vamoosed out of there pronto to catch our breaths.

Whole load of stuff in there.

dee and sand

Watching her sprinkle sand from her fingers like rain, it suddenly hits me: Dee, unlike Day when he was a wee one, is not the least bit afraid of the gritty stuff.

She gets down on all fours to crawl in it, clumsily lands face-down, eats it up, fossicks for interesting things like cigarette butts and bottle caps.

easter eggs

Easter. Big, big deal here. And by that, I mean in the commercial sense.

It’s a long weekend, Friday to Monday, and the supermarkets have been selling (super yum) chocolate eggs and rabbits since February.

One playgroup granny lamented: Easter has become so commercialized, just like Christmas. Since when did it all become about the eggs, and chocolate ones at that?

Someday, my kids will learn about religious significance, but for now, in Sydney, what they know of Easter is… chocolate eggs.

What Day will remember, is when a giant white Easter bunny popped its head around the fence during playgroup with wicker basket in hand.


He will remember finding a pair of shiny yellow and blue Easter eggs at the foot of a tree - a spot I obligingly led him to shortly after spotting two playgroup mummies doing the egg planting.

He will remember chucking the two eggs into the wicker basket, before the Easter bunny sat down and started re-distributing the eggs to all the gathered kids.


He will remember the taste of the blue chocolate egg he picked out for himself and which he ate in a great big hurry.

He won’t remember how the poor blind bunny (no eye-holes in the suit), all but forgotten by the kids after the eggs were gone, landed on its bum with an ungraceful thump when it missed a step as it tried to hop its way out, but I will.

I will also remember the sweaty, sodden, smiling father who played his role to such heroic effect.

Anyway here are Day’s Easter bunny ears, festooned with toothpicks which he had very carefully lined up.

sk8 (skate)

What a toy.

Our latest purchase: The Toddler SK8 Board.

A smallish skateboard on wheels which hooks on to the back of the stroller, both KK and I wish we could get on it, but as it’s only meant for those 25 kg and below, we have resigned ourselves to being the perpetual stroller-pushers.

Good idea though. Push one stroller, move two kids around, plus the kid on the board has a rolling good time. So good, both my kids ended up not wanting to sit in the stroller.


Price? A$80.

Convenience and happiness factor? Priceless.

If I were any good at woodwork, though, I’d make it myself. It is ridiculously expensive.

flying discs

No gym, no swimming, no ball games of any sort.

Sports-wise (apart from running everywhere), the only thing Day does nowadays is throw the Frisbee.


He used to be real bad at it, worse than me.

His Frisbees used to go in the opposite direction of where he wanted it to go and the floppy way it went, it looked like a flying prata which would usually land with a splat a few feet behind him.

Now, to my shame, he is in SOME ways a better Frisbee player than me. He still can’t catch it (he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to protect himself from the Frisbee), but as his father would say, he’s got a far better spin.

He grabs the disc with both hands, puts his entire body into flinging it out like a speeding UFO, and when it hits, usually about 15 metres or so away, it hits hard and painfully. Once he hit a lady’s arm, that arm was in a sling and the lady screamed at us before walking off in a huff.

Now he just has to learn to throw it where he wants it to go.

bodily discharges

All in a day’s work…

* Pee on the floor

Day’s personal toilet is a red plastic bucket in the toilet, which comes up to his thighs and is just perfect for him to go pee without having to bother any of us.

Dee is very fascinated with that particular bucket, and is perpetually trying to poke her head into it and meddle with the curdy bottom.

She struck gold today when she not only made contact with her brother’s urine, she lifted up the bucket and spilled its contents – a great fat load of pee from the entire morning which I had not yet poured into the toilet bowl - over the toilet floor and some on the carpet outside.

That’s one.

* Shit in the bathtub

On this particular evening while giving Dee her bath in the bathtub, Day decides to join in. They haven’t communal-bathed in a few months, maybe he misses it.

So because he likes to swim, I fill the bathtub from ankle-deep to near the top.

The two are merrily playing away, Day swimming and blowing bubbles, Dee squatting in chest-deep water.

I look away for a moment and when I turn back, I’m not sure if I’m seeing what I’m seeing, but it appears to be loads and loads of brown turds floating around Dee’s chest.

Day clearly sees it the same time I do because he freezes.

The next moment, before I can shout at him to “Get out!” the boy, a mass of flailing wet limbs and desperation, is next to me.

Dee, clearly sensing that something is amiss, stands up and squeals to be carried. Frankly I don’t want to touch her but at that moment, I really can’t quite figure out what to do so I carry her out.

I wipe her up with a wet wipe, put clean clothes on her and Day, and cross my fingers that there are no miniscule shit flecks on the both of them because what’s looming in my mind is the state of the bathtub.

I can’t quite pull the plunger because the shit’s too big to go down the hole. As I study the bathtub, Day wanders in to stare, like it’s a fish tank full of interesting fish.

Finally I go to KK (who I know, like all men, can’t deal with shit for nuts) for ideas. “Just drain everything,” he says.

“What about the shit?”

“Just take it up.”

“With WHAT?!!??” And then my husband continued blissfully watching the TV.

In the end, I used one of Day’s toy pails to transfer all the water (and shit clumps) out of the bathtub into the toilet bowl, one after another painstaking pail.

Then as I stepped from the (earlier in the day) piss-strewn floor into the shitty bathtub for my bath, I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

It’s been a long day.

friends from home

I had a vision. That I would come to Sydney, effortlessly make friends good enough that I can pick up the phone and chat, and leave knowing that there are people in this corner of Australia whom I would actually bother to keep in touch with.

Shattered dreams.

Reality is far different for so, so many reasons.

* KK, apart from a few parasites who take it upon themselves to send him SMSes so they can copy and borrow his homework assignments, has made no friends at school

* As I am forever with two kids hanging around my neck, that cuts out the singles.

* Without a common shared experience – like a workplace or a church – there is no chance for me to just hang around with the same people and smile at them until a time when we start to say hi and talk.

* Well there’s the playgroup, no? Unfortunately, while I have gotten to the “hi” stage with several mums and grandmums, it’s impossible to play get-to-know-you when after two minutes either yours or their kids are screaming away for attention and we have to end it at “excuse me”.

* Without a car, it’s virtually impossible for us to get anywhere to meet anyone, meaning whoever befriends us (and who does not live within walking distance) will have to either fetch us (and that’s if they have space in their car for two extra car seats and me) or meet us somewhere where we can get to by bus and if the bus is involved, that means KK has to be involved and as he doesn’t like meeting people, that’s, well, it.

* Then there’s just the sad little (key) fact that in our 30s, making friends that stick is just so bloody hard.

I’m not really at the point where I relish walking up to the Sam the pizza guy and striking up a conversation with the hope that we can engage in some good old brain-picking over a cuppa.

The one time I walked up to a neighbour, pregnant Tiffany, while she was hanging out her clothes and discovered to my joy (somewhat akin to striking the lottery) that we were on the same wavelength, I was suitably chastened when, after giving birth, she decided she had to spend more time on getting back into competitive running than hanging out with her lonely expatriate neighbour. A snub equivalent to “I don’t friend you.”

So it’s really, really, really, really, really heartening when the kindest people, friends’ friends, Singaporeans living in Sydney, take us under their wing and brighten up our lives for no reason other than the fact that we need a little company on our island.

Uncle Alan, Auntie Kelly and Uncle Alvin

If not for Alan, Kelly and Alvin, we would never have visited the Sydney Fish Market, Chatswood, Bobbin Head, Canberra, Toys R Us.

Day and Dee would not have gotten their first Chinese New Year red packets, would not have gotten the chance to browse around Toys R Us where Kelly bought them birthday presents, would not get to know other adults apart from their parents.

How we got to know them: Alan is a friend’s friend who called us out of the blue, packed us into his car and introduced us to Kelly and Alvin in August last year. So that the kids could sit safely in his car, he even got Dee a used baby car seat.

Dee used to scrunch up her face whenever she saw Alan.


But ever since he started feeding her ice cream and goodies, she’s warmed up and I thought I even saw the girl grab hold of his hand for a walk while he was baby-sitting her in Toys R Us. She lets him carry her and that’s saying something.


Day, he likes to run after Alan. And be fed.


Auntie Jenny

The mum of my Sydneysider-now-based-in-Singapore friend, auntie Jenny is our food angel.

If ever she happens to be in the vicinity, she routinely calls to check that we are in before dropping by, always clad in her dainty beaded Peranakan slippers and cardigans, toting bags of always yummy home-made goodies.


Dumplings, curry puffs, a huge koi-shaped jelly for Chinese New Year, glutinous rice balls, frozen and packed containers of her home-cooked food like assam fish head curry. Nowadays I start to salivate whenever I get her call.

She says we remind her of the time when she, pregnant, struggling with a toddler, reluctantly saying goodbye to her maid in Singapore, traipsed to Britain to accompany her doctor husband who was doing further studies, only they were there for three years and on what I think was a far tighter budget than ours.

She’s probably the only person who sees the lines of washing in my bedroom and laughs off my embarrassment by telling me how she used to hang up far more cloth nappies (they couldn’t afford disposables) to dry indoors.

Her stories, of housewife struggles, baby woes and loneliness, always make me feel better about myself and she always likes to say to me: “Oh, I know exactly what you are going through.”

And these four characters, if I may say, are the heroes in our Sydney adventure.

All hail!