I am still in love with my ex

I got to admit. I have not gotten over my ex.

We have known each other since his final year in university and me as a freshie overseas. There were many other very potential guys, ahem ahem... but somehow something about him, and me... we clicked.

Our differences are vast, our similiarities complementing yet irritating.

I love orchestras and soapy, romantic comedy shows, whereas he was almost nodding off at our first philharmonic together. Chechh.

This guy is a Star Wars, or is it Star Trek (what's the difference, can someone tell me?), Terminator, chop-head-blast-people, war-show kinda guy, whereas I cringe and hide my face and close my ears the moment I suspect a bloody scene.

I am a cleanaholic, whereas he doesn't mind mess and disorder.

But after 5 years, we decided to end the courtship... and upgrade each other to spouse status. : )

Gotcha!

We tied the knot in 2004, February 28th. He still joked that he could have picked Feb 29th instead, that being a leap year and how he'd save on our anniversary gift.

Fast forward 7 years, 2 kids and hundreds of arguments later, we are still surviving, and reasonably happily together, irritating each other every now and then, annoying each other with our peculiarities and habits, sometimes just letting out steam on the other party, guilty of taking the other for granted, saying hurtful things never once thought can be uttered and clashing in differences of opinion.

Yet.

"Darling, I sometimes question myself why we chose each other as life partners. But no regrets, the road has not been altogether smooth as you are aware, and tears fall till they can fall no more... still, no regrets.

Thank you for loving me more than I will ever know...

for not getting upset when I scratched the rims or dented the car door,
for wanting to be a better husband and better father,
for working hard and sometimes skipping your meals just so that we your family have good food to eat and enough to wear,
for being crazy enough to buy me supper in the middle of the night just because,
and many more.

Thank you for the 'one simple reason.'

I still love you, honey."

Oh, and thank you for the girl's best friend that you bought me for this anniversary ;)

Oh, the dilapidated state of Tenji Japanese Restaurant

OK, these people at Tenji worked hard, and they should be praised for the variety of food made available at a reasonably affordable price (affordability is defined by the amount that you eat, really. This is an eat-all-you-can buffet what)

But after having been wowed the first time there by the choices and freshness of food, despite the lack of air conditioning, I will surely think twice before visiting this place the next time.

Total visits to-date: 3

For all three visits, we sat inside, the air conditioning was NEVER cold enough. In the early days when they opened, the fresh coconut were free flow. The second time, they limited it at a manned counter. The third and most recent time, the coconuts went out-of-stock for a period of time. Sheesshh!

The shashimi failed to impress me. The freshness of the food seemed questionable. The waiters and waitress were smile-less. The Kindori egg-free dairy ice cream and Haagen Daz ice cream were not available during dinner on a public holiday. I cannot believe this! Variety of food also seemed compromised.

We were there at 6pm when they open and half the crew and food were not even ready. Talk about welcoming pulak!

Worse to swallow is the dilapidated state of the dining and toilet areas. Many parts of the flooring were torn, sunken/soft and covered with a cheap mat. In the ladies, one of the stalls had a leaking toilet bowl, and another was broken down. The wash area was wet all over, and 1 out of their 3 taps were leaking non-stop. The cabinet under the sink was broken and out of place. No cleaner was seen anywhere.





Sad sad sad. Oh, and did I mention that their hotline number is forever ringing with no one answering? You can try emailing them, and have better luck there!

On another note, we found this lovely place that serves marvellous pork burger (petai pork burger is their specialty). Check it out at Cristang. You will NOT be disappointed! And if you are fortunate enough to get to meet the owner, Mr Gerald, you may be pleasantly surprised by his dark, handsome good looks. : )

A wedding in Singapore over the weekend

Last weekend we hung out in Singapore, mainly to attend hubby's ex unimate's wedding, which was held at Il Lido, Sentosa Golf Club.

The luncheon was prepared in fine dining setting, and the wedding couple have thoughtfully place a teddy bear door gift from the Singapore Cancer Society with name tags of the child on the designated chairs.

Who says we cannot date younger men? See my very young, very dashing date? :P

Meet Vic's new beary friend, called Isabelle. William's bear is named... JUICY JONG! (Beats me how that name came about, I think it was Vic's suggestion as she's the one likely to come out with crazy names than little brother)

We had a choice of wine - standard - and a 6 course menu including coffee/tea. No speeches, no videos, just simple great food and friends (not that we know many others, except for Aunty Marilyn who flew in all the way from UK just for this).

The menu

This is our starter, raw (but not stated in menu) tuna tartar with blah blah blah...

Pictures of my blossoming princess

The last time I checked Vic on the weighing scale a month ago, the needle pointed at 22kg. She's still tall for her age, as what many people commented, but exactly how many centimetres, I don't know. Have to get around to measure her.

She's picking up on her English, but still "don't like reading" but she fares well in her other subjects, phew!

Here are some pictures of my soon-to-be 6yo little princess, who, in my opinion, is growing wwwwaaaay too fast, in all aspect. Sometimes it's even hard to communicate with her, because Victoria does have a strong will since young and goes into her stone mood whenever she's scolded.

Vic does what she does best... fooling around

And would you believe this? Vic says she wants to be a maid! Aiseeehhh... one time maid, one time pilot... well, hopefully the latter. She enjoys helping kakak chop and clean the garlics, and occassionally she gets to mop the floor as well, then thank me for letting her do house chores! Kekekeke, wonder if 10 years down the road if she'll still be so domestic???

This is Vic - having her FIRST STARBUCKS at The Curve. I ordered a chocolate drink, less one pump to lessen the sugar, but the taste was equally great and she loved it!
Vic posing on her bed, in HER BROTHER's Sheriff Woody (affectionally known as the cowboy)'s pyjamas.
And finally, who is sweeter? The cakes or Vic? I may be bias, but I think it's the young lady holding the cakes. ; P

I want to marry you

My daughter and son says they want to marry me.

But I say I am already married, I can't marry either of them. Then Vic says she wants to marry William.

.....

Dancing with the lions

Every year, the excitement and craze over lion dances seem to intensify. At first when we only had Vic, we were afraid that she'd be afraid. Then when she is, we wanted to give her more exposure to toughen her up, in a way.

Then William came along, and naturally he joined in our annual search for lion dances from very young. I remembered his first lion dance in The Curve (was it The Curve, honey? I hope I recall correctly) and it was ssssoooooo loud but he was totally. un. a. fraid. Yeaaaaaa!!

This year, we manage to see only four. Is that a lot? Not a lot, by my kids' standards. Vic is still afraid of the lion dancers, but I think she's an inch braver now. Nevermind, girl what... we saw another girl her age in 1Utama also scared of the lions. She still ask me to bring her to see lion dances despite her fear. William? Well, let's just say if we are not carrying him, he might just go dance with the lions.

Look at the pictures of the lion dances that we "caught."

First Lion Dance: Singapore Holiday Inn Atrium, on CNY Day One. Troupe comprise of two yellow lions and a baby red lion. Oh, and a Bugs Bunny too. : )




Second Lion Dance: Hubs checked out the shopping malls and we headed to 1Utama new wing with Popo Gong Gong. Due to the heavy downpour, the lions were half an hour late, but their performance were quite impressive with all the stilts. But the drummer not so lengchai and rather chubby ;P

It was here also that Vic received an orange from the lion, and patted his head, more like pushed that resulted in the lion blinking ten times at her face! Vic got a fright and backed off! I thought the lion smelt fear and was being cheeky with my girl, but who would have guessed that it was Vic who started this!




Third Lion Dance: This was at Cycle & Carriage Petaling Jaya. The previous year I remembered the troupe were not very punctual, but this time, when I drove into the visitors' carpark, I could see the troupe already waiting at the entrance with a long-bearded, very dark old man ie the Choy San (God of Prosperity).

As this was held during a weekday at 11am, Vic was at school and didn't join William and myself. Daddy was at work too. But William was unperturbed. The sales manager even carried William and placed him on top of one of the lions that was lying on the floor, peeling the oranges and pomelo. Fortunately, the lion didn't get up at that time!

I must say this is the best lion dance I saw this year. They climbed the very high poles and that created a little suspense. One of the lions were very sporting and cheeky too, as when I was aiming my camera at him, he (the lion head) stopped to look at me, and lifted one of his leg to pose! Pity the shot came out blur and too zoomed in.







Fourth Lion Dance: There is no more lion dances planned after this, but oh, how I secretly hope (and the kids too) that we may chance upon one. The fourth and final lion dance we saw performed at Victoria's music classmate's house in Robson Heights.

It was a birthday cum CNY party, and there was a carnival of games, plenty of gifts to redeem, a generous door gift for each kid, abundant food and gracious hosts. I may put up some pictures of this party separately later.

Back to the lions. When the lion dance were about to begin, my little princess froze. Almost. She hopped onto Kakak who had to carry her, whilst Daddy and William was no where to be seen. Probably somewhere up front. Before this, I brought William to check out the lion head resting on the floor, and the troupe waiting for the cue. This little boy took pictures with the weird-hairstyle drummer, and he actually got to hold the drum sticks!!

Towards the end, the lions gave out oranges and came very close to Vic, who bravely stuck her hand out to receive one.

This is the way I brush my teeth (sing sing)

What are you people looking at? Never seen a boy brush his teeth kah???


William's style of brushing teeth

Still using his Toy Story cowboy toothbrush, he prefers to brush teeth on his own. Refuses any help from me, and that irks me most of the time (at this stage) because he takes only 5 seconds and how clean can one clean his teeth in 5 seconds?? Moreover, I think he just enjoys eating the toothpaste more than brushing his teeth! Well, looking on the bright side, this is a start and better than just a few months back when he suddenly rejected the toothbrush altogether.

When it comes to rinsing his mouth, he normally stands in front of the toilet bowl, and spits with a herculean effort, and with each spit, I give him words of encouragement. (Oh you should have seen my fury the last time he refuses to rinse after brushing his teeth!)

And once finished, he'd reaffirm himself by saying, "Mummy, like this good boy... like this good boy..." until I answer him, "Yes yes... like this good boy."

~William @ 2 years 9 months old~

A Day At The Park

Yesterday morning we had picnic at Taman Tun Dr Ismail park, together with Mama, Yee Sok Yee Sam and cousin Theodore.

We equipped ourselves with small fishing nets, plastic water jugs (to keep our catch) and the kids naturally wanted to bring their swimming toys as well ie a spade, a bucket and a castle mould.

If we sound like professional picnicers to you, well, we are far from that. The experienced picnicers brought picnic mats, sufficient food for a small clan and they are there early to book the good shady, dry spots. We also got to know two maids who knew just where to catch the big fishes and shrimps! (They were proudly showing us their catch which includes a shrimp as big as a tiger prawn, and when they walked off, fishes were literally falling off their buckets and hubs slowly picked them up from the dry ground into our containers).

Weather was good, not too warm, and although we didn't get to see the terrapins basking in the morning sun, but we got to see baby monkeys rummaging a dustbin and hanging from the trees on our walk out (and because we had to walk past the monkeys, Vic almost cried in fear).

It's Kakak's fault!

Can you believe that at this young age... not even 3yo, Master William already knows how to shift the blame?

This is the 2nd occurrence when I highlight to him that he's holding the fork and spoon on the wrong hands.

But William insist that, "It's Kakak's fault. Kakak put wwwrrrrooonnnggg!!!" (Emphasis belongs to William)

Hearing her name, the Maid came out from the kitchen, and asked, "What is it, William?"

William told her off, "You put my fork and spoon wrong. Not me!"

Ya right.

Getting stressed over music

This week during JMC class, Vic's teacher announced that the children will be facing their first music examination in June, in conjuntion with the end of the two year course. Although this examination is optional, but she hopes all the students will sit for it. As a parent, I'd like to see my daughter sit for this exam too so we can know her progress and decide how to move on from then.

Her examination will comprise of a few parts - namely, singing, playing, chords and notes identification and solfege singing. There will also be the fun part, which is the group presentation.
I tell you, Vic's love for music is like a yo-yo. Sometimes she plays well, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes it's like making music with a stone and she clowns around in class. I cannot describe how annoyed I get because when she clowns around, she doesn't listen to what the teacher is saying.

After 18 months, Vic is still struggling with her theory. I keep emphasizing to her to read her notes, and if she doesn't know them, count them from Middle C. But this girl prefers to play by memory. Hhhmm...

On hindsight, maybe I can't fault her for her lack of performance during the last lesson after the holidays. Like most of us, she must have gone rusty. So a couple of days back I was determined to get her back on track.

On one practice session, she couldn't read her notes despite the singing that teacher taught. Her Fa can become a So, and So can become a Mi and everything became a mumbo jumbo to her.

As a repercussion, I wrote random notes on her manuscript book and told her to identify the notes by writing down the names.

Here's the result...

I'm pleasantly surprised. Mostly correct, only a couple wrong. So how come she can't identify them when she's playing? This Queen really has her moods... can annoy me so much one minute, and another minute she impresses me so!

On another note, she came home the other day with an all-correct ting-xia (err, I suppose that means chinese dictation/spelling?) and teacher gave her a sticker. Today she strategically told me that her teacher said her parents should reward her as well... in reply, I told her I will discuss with Daddy on her reward.

CNY Random pictures

CNY Day Two: William with his young pretty aunties

Behind the scene: Victoria helping little brother do the last touch-up... combing his mohawk hairstyle and William checking out himself in the mirror to make sure jie jie does it just perfectly
The other part of Singapore
Enjoying her eggless orange cookies. Very fresh and very precious.

Housewife or SAHM??

A few nights ago, I was asked during a CNY gathering of some new friends and a lady asked me who took care of my kids when hubs and I go to work. She had, of course, assumed that I was a salaried employee like most ladies my age.

When I answered her that it was me, myself and I... she looked bewildered and shot me a question, "Oh, so you're a HOUSEWIFE?"

*****

Now, let me just say that I despise this term because once when I was like most uninitiated folks who used this term, I thought nothing of it, until I became one. The core of the mistake is this is at the most a politically incorrect title and at the least a demeaning term.

Are we married to the house? Do we NOT have a social life like most working women? Well, maybe not quite as glamourous, and we don't dress up when we work (err... yes, we do work.. I'll get to this part shortly) but I'm sure the general population of "housewives" do have friends, even though they may not have glitzy titles or they may be just other housewives down the road or shopowners.

Sure, we don't have to endure the headache of choosing what to wear, which shoe to match (I was like this) etc, but here's what our work entails us to do (note down some similarity):

Chaffeur
For those sending kids to school in the morning, we go through the peak hour jam as well. Having said this, we also have to wake up nearly the same time, if not earlier, than most salaried peers. Oh, and don't forget we have to ferry them back after school and to/fro tuition classes.

Customer Service Executive
We have clients too what... our kids and hubby not our clients meh? Their satisfaction is our aim, and the household is our work place. And they are only our internal clients, what about external clients? We deal with them too!

Finance Manager
We manage finance as well, from what to buy, where to buy, who are the chosen panel of "suppliers", paying creditors (eg school).

Hygiene Supervisor aka Cleaner Lady
With or without a domestic helper, we are in charge of keeping the household, oopss, workplace I mean, clean and tidy and devoid of any unsafe objects.

All the above and probably more!! Having said all these, so, is SAHM even a correct term? We should be called Work At Home Moms (WAHMs)!

*****

So what was my answer to the housewife question??

I just said "No, I'm a Stay-At-Home-Mom."

Who's the big fat hen?!!!

Over breakfast yesterday, I was going through the "number of limbs" game with William, testing him on how many hands an octopus has, how many legs a horse has, chicken, duck, so on so forth, and after going through most of the animals, I asked him, "How about William? How many eyes do you have? Ears? Nose? Mouth? Hair?"

He said he has only one hair. Hehehehe... : )
(to which I answered that only God knows the number of hairs on his head, even Mummy don't know)

Then I asked him an easier question. "How many fingers do you have?"

I thought he'd answer "Ten" and I'd have to crack my head for another question, but he started singing, "One two buckle my shoe, three four, shut the door, five six, pick up sticks, seven eight, lay them straight, nine ten... a big fat hen!!!"

Cheeky mummy asked him, "Who's the big fat hen?" and seriously seriously, folks, I was thinking of either he or me, but without hesitation, William answered...

"DADDY!!!"

:))))))))

(Sorry darling, you're always the one the kids like to poke fun at, I don't know why)

Reunion Dinner and CNY Day One

Reunion

This year we had reunion at Lian Eng Hwa Restaurant, instead of the yearly celebration at 6th Ee's home.

6th Ee had booked in advance for the first dinner slot at 530pm (yes, business is so good that restaurants in Singapore practice two dinner slots to maximise revenue, but this I consider smart. The second slot starts 730pm and whether or not we finish our dinner, we have to vacate the place by then).

We had two tables - which, btw is NOT the full scale of hubby's Singaporean relatives - comprising of 6th Ee, 6th Ee Jiong, 7th Ee and family, Mama Yeh Yeh, Yee Sok and family and our family.

I had an agreement for Vic to dress up in her cheongsam bought by Yee Yee. William donned his new long sleeve bought from UK last year and believe it or not, Vic helped change her little brother all by herself, from putting on his diapers to buttoning his shirt and tucking his shirt in. Again, she has her moods lar.

CNY Day One

Had our breakfast in the hotel and enjoyed the spread. Vic had quite a variety - milk, juice, bacon, sausages, grilled tomato, cereals, fruits, yogurt... oh and I forgot to mention that William came down with slight flu yesterday, so this morning he was still nursing his cold. I downed him with Vit C drink.

Lion Dance was scheduled at 10am at the hotel lobby, just like the previous year. The kids soooo looked forward. And quietly I am one lion-dance sucker too, coz I love the sound of the energetic drum beats, the prancing around and every breath of culture and tradition in it.

This is our first lion dance "caught" this year.

Hubs and I had a strategy to split directions with the kids. He'd take William, and me with Victoria, he headed to one end and me the other. But the moment we split, Vic went running after Daddy in tears and I had to pull her back. She was, as previous years, still scared of close contact with the lion, and took time to overcome her fear.

Mummy Daddy and baby lion
William like to touch the lion.. hoping to get some gold coin chocolates or mandarin orange
In action...

After pai nin with Mama Yeh Yeh in the hotel room, we headed to Tai Po's place in Bedok...

Happy snapshots

William is pretending to be a lion troupe drummer




Left Singapore at 3pm, arrived Seremban for dinner, and continued our journey home to PJ after dinner.

This is the little taukeh in the car who now refuses to sit in his car seat