Rachel's "Beat It"

She sang, "Feed it... feed it..." after hearing it played on the car stereo!

Hong Kong 2012 Dec 10-15

Monday
0445 wake up
0530 leave the house
0600 reach airport
0730 take off
1130 land
1330 reach Holiday Inn Express at Causeway Bay in one taxi, lunch at Ho Hung Kee comprising wanton mee, lean pork congee, fried beef dry horfun
1440 get room, crash
1650 walk to St Margaret's Church, sound test, music practice
1800 walk back to hotel
1900 meet Ho Mei at Times Square, walk to Hysan Place for Japanese dinner
2200 return to hotel, crash

Tuesday
0900 wake up, breakfast at hotel cafe
1000 taxi to Ocean Park
1945 taxi to hotel
2030 dinner at Ho Hung Kee
2200 crash

Wednesday
0930 wake up, brunch at Chung's Cuisine at Times Square
1230 walk to St Margaret's Church, wedding
1600 walk back to hotel, crash
1745 taxi to Watermark Restaurant at Pier 7, wedding dinner
2300 taxi to hotel, crash

Thursday
0830 wake up, breakfast at hotel cafe
0945 MTR to Disneyland
1100 met park ambassadors Fion and Arthur, private audience with Mickey and Minnie
1800 MTR back to hotel, tapau Macs dinner at hotel
2100 crash

Friday
0300 wake up, breakfast at hotel cafe
0930 MTR to Disneyland
1630 MTR back to hotel, Rachel naps with Matt in charge, the rest go shopping at Times Square, Sean gets new boots
1900 walk to St Margaret's Church, TF picks us up to his place for dinner with SM, N&A and G
2330 TF sends us back to hotel

Saturday
0900 wake up, brunch at Super Star Seafood Restaurant at Times Square, browsing Page One
1330 back to hotel pack up, check out
1415 walk about Causeway Bay, supermarket shopping
1615 taxi to airport
1800 dinner at airport
2000 take off
2345 arrive
0015 reach home in one taxi, crash

Another Servicing Due

So I told Rachel, now three, that I might not see her tomorrow morning as I'd be taking the car 'to be fixed' after dropping Sarah off at school, and then going on to work from there.

She could ask me, 'Daddy's car spoil?'

This little girl appears to be practising deductive reasoning!

1. The car will be taken to be fixed
2. Things that need to be fixed are broken.
3. Therefore, the car must be 'spoilt.'

So proud of her.

Finally

We officially have the "new" place!

Let the reno begin.

17 May ...

... will always be a significant date for me.

This year, it means getting entered on the Register of Patent Attorneys (UK). After 4 years of rather horrid exams, am I glad!

Twenty years earlier, it was the the day St. Josemaría Escrivá was beatified. I was there in Rome to witness it and I hope I don't have to wait a further twenty years to visit Rome again!

Can't help looking back over all the things (and people) that have happened in between ...

Nighty Night!

Last weekend we started letting Rachel sleep out of her cot at night, on the mattress on the floor beside the bunk bed with the older girls. She's doing good! No getting up and walking around in the dark. And so far all fine healthwise, talking a lot and very demanding, telling me things like "Don't eat your dinner!" while trying to drag me away from the dining table because she wants me to play with her.

 S's off to Bangkok this week for a few days. And again next week. The hardest part I find is having the two older girls taking turns to sleep with me at night when he's away. It's all that getting kicked and smacked by flailing limbs in the middle of the night. Sarah is especially bad! I don't know how co-sleeping parents do it. I get very bleary eyed and grouchy after a few days of it.

Matt's back to having the middle room to himself at nights, where the cot remains for Rachel's daytime naps. We'll keep his arrangement in the new place, assigning Matt the smallest room so that when Rachel is napping in there in the afternoons, she blocks out minimal precious real estate.

We get the keys 3 July! Can't wait! And presently agonizing over window treatments... argh... can't decide!!

Like Fish?

There's a beautiful pond at our church. Someone recently donated about a hundred young koi and they're lovely, swimming languidly around. Last Sunday we stood there, enjoying the view.

"Look Rachel, do you like the fish?" Sean asked.

Rachel watched them for a while. "Ya," she said. "I like eat fish."

Chock-A-Block

11am we all go to church for Sunday Mass.
12pm we go home and Sean goes to fetch his mom home from hospital.
1pm Father Mario comes to our place for lunch.
2pm Sean returns.
3pm Contractor Jeffrey comes to our place for a preliminary consultation; he and Fr Mario leave before
4pm when estate agent Serene arrives and we exercise our option to buy the flat we've been eyeing.
5pm Serene leaves and we start tidying and staging our place for yet another viewing at
6pm when our agent Elaine brings potential buyers round.
6:30 they're gone and we all go to my parents' place for dinner.
8:15 Elaine calls to say one of the earlier viewers wants to see our place again that very night so
8:30 we say bye bye and thank you for a lovely dinner to por por and ah kong, and get home at
9pm to receive Elaine and the buyer with their agent.
11pm they all leave, and our flat is (almost) sold.

A Moment In Time

9 October 2011, Changi Sailing Club.

Usage

We were all driving to Sarah's eye appointment and I pointed out a large, furry, rolly-polly dog being walked down the street.

Sarah said, "Is that a golden retriever? They are very well behaved right?"

I replied, "Only if they are well-trained. If they are not trained they can be very dangerous. All dogs can be trained."

Matthew asked, "How do you train a dog?"

I didn't want to go into the whole thing so I just said, "From young!"

He observed, "Ya, you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Mmmm...

There's something incredibly sensual about Italian food. Unlike Asian fare, which doesn't do much beyond satisfying the taste buds (albeit in a most satisfying way!), Italian cuisine seems to evoke something more - memories, feelings, desires. And so it was, at Al Forno last night, where crab meat farfalle (with chilli padi) was combined with fresh-from-the-wood-oven bacon and egg pizza, topped off with tiramisu and cappuccino - and this, from a non-coffee drinker. Heavenly!

More calcium, anyone?

This morning, I thought I would share some good news with Sophie.

"Sophie, mummy did well at work this year, so my boss gave me a bonus."

"Oh, you did well at work so your boss gave you a bonus? Is that a bone?"

"No, it's not a bone!"

"What is a bonus?"

"It's extra salary."

"Oh, it's a money?"

"Yes."

"Oh ok. That's good."

And that was all.

I'm glad I didn't get a bone!

Look Ma No Hands!

Rachel is finally walking independently, really and truly! Yay!

I'm so glad. I was starting to think she would never be able to go to kindergarten because she wouldn't walk by herself.

She's a little parrot these days, quite accurately repeating new words and other random exclamations anyone makes, especially the loud ones. Curiously, some words that she learned long ago, she's stuck in baby babble phase. "Barney" is still "Ah-Ee." All attempts at correction have so far been futile. But she has no problem saying "iPad." She refers to it as the "Ah-ha-ha" though, because we caught a short clip of her laughing like that using the video function and it just cracks everyone up when it is played over and over again quickly in a very silly way.

Rachel also loves to dance, or rather, be danced. When she hears or sees something that reminds her of music and dancing, she will call out, "Mummy, dah!" and won't be satisfied until I pick her up and dance her around the room. And she must hold on to my thumb, not any other way of holding hands. This one has quite a mind of her own.

On another note, her doctor told us that there is another child having a similar condition, and we are going to meet the other family this weekend to share how Rachel has been doing on the weekly Peg Intron.

Close My Eyes And Count To Ten

As a one-plus year-old, Matthew couldn't eat a cookie for he would gag and choke, while others his age crunched down two at a time. He was spoonfed porridge until the age of three.

Last December, I found him on the sofa intently studying a full-colour Christmas catalogue of roasts and platters. Another time, we walked through Cold Storage and he got all excited at something he saw. "Look! Mummy, look!" It turned out to be a picture hanging on the wall, something like this.

From being so talkative in primary one until teacher had to put him at a lone desk right in front of the class, his P4 report book now says he is a quiet boy who prefers reading by himself. Harry Potter worked his magic alright!

But, he still waxes lyrical about all kinds of dishes. Start him on the topic and he'll go on and on, considering the possibilities, imagining and describing the nuances achieved by each little variation, and all I need to do is go uh-huh, yeah, mm, and he won't stop. I think his favourite is the Stuart Anderson's Black Angus medium rare ribeye with red wine sauce.

Oh, yesterday he came home having completed a three-day course. He's now capable of sailing an Optimist single-handedly. Pity no photo since we just dropped him off at the club so we never actually saw him doing it. But as some sort of evidence, we have a severely water-warped and tatty copy of the "Deathly Hallows," that only very recently arrived from The Book Depository. All thanks to him allowing it to cosy up to my precious pair of Gill gloves, still wet from the sea. Argh! But, wait a minute, he can actually wear them!

Good Things Come In Threes

Yes, Rachel's turn. Or, at least, she used to do it at least once a week until we found the solution. More about that in a minute.

Like her sisters did before her, this girl played with the contents of her diaper when she woke up from a nap in her cot. Not only that, she's a real Houdini, capable of escaping from all her different types of clothes, no matter how hard we tried to prevent her having access to her diaper. No use pulling on a pair of pyjama pants over her bodysuit cos she would manage to pull it off, she even managed to wriggle out of a zipped up wearable blanket that they're not supposed to be able to get out of! Wasted my fifty-over bucks getting that thing!

Until I saw the solution, hanging at a pushcart selling baby clothes at one of the MRT station malls. Simple - instead of putting on the pyjama pants after the bodysuit, put the pants on first before snapping the bodysuit over and outside the pants. This way, she can't pull the pants off!

Problem solved. No more poo-smeared cot and baby. HUGE sigh of relief.

The Pox! - Part II

Yes, this time it's Sophie. She wasn't yet born the last time it happened, and we stupidly forgot all about it afterwards, so she wasn't vaccinated.

At first we thought it was the dreaded Mouth Disease AGAIN, since she had a fever and was complaining of ulcers, plus a tiny liquid bubble on the corner of her lips. Then, the next day, I noticed that she had some small broken blisters on the side of her face and neck, and a couple on her chest, and one of them was also liquid filled! Alarm bells went off in my head - this was way beyond HFMD.

So, another trip to the doctor. We came back with antiviral tablets that seem to work quite well at halting the onslaught of spots - she has far fewer than the hundreds Matt had.

On the up side, we now have a legitimate reason not to take her with us to Universal Studios next Monday, compared to just telling her that she is still too short for most of the rides. She is quite the long-suffering little patient who accepts all her illnesses with amazing equanimity, totally unexpected given her usual chilli padi ways.

Oh, luckily, Rachel has been vaccinated. We're not THAT stupid!

Going Solo

Rachel walked by herself over the weekend! And walking with balloons too, holding one up in each hand, the 'fake' kind on the ends of sticks instead of strings. So, no, she didn't get any helium boost to aid her. But she wouldn't do it without the balloons! Maybe they helped her feel like she was holding on to someone.

We're very happy that she's developing normally, other than lacking the confidence to let go of our hands to walk by herself. She's been physically able to for months now. Her NF1 doctor thinks (like us) that it's probably due to the diminished sight in her right eye, making her more wary. Her speech, fine motor skills, the usual baby and toddler accomplishments, are all on track. Including fighting with her siblings, yelling when she doesn't get her way. Getting right into the terrible twos. In exactly a month's time!

Who would've thought I would ever be glad to have a child throw a temper tantrum. But I thank God that she can. Not that we let it go on for any length of time, of course. I still believe in nipping such behaviour in the bud. It's just a little trickier in her case to balance indulgence with disciplining the ones we love.

Her interferon jabs are coming along fine. We try and get there early every Saturday morning and with luck, can even be done and leave within the car parking grace period! At most she gets a mild fever (under 38) that same day, that goes away with a single dose of panadol. Phew.

Say The Girls

Rachel is currently undergoing a speech explosion. Her vocabulary now includes:

moe-more (no more)
shoe
bo-bo (open)
jie jie
deddy (daddy)
no
bye!
mick (milk)
dog
arf!
yee-yuck!
air (hair)
no (nose)
eye
mah (mouth)
pea (please)
car
go
book
yeh (yes)
meh-meh (mummy)
jor (drop)

She picked up three quarters of her words in the last two weeks!

----------

We were in the car on the way to Sentosa. ABBA's "I Have A Dream" was playing on the stereo.

Sarah suddenly said, 'Isn't it quite dangerous?'

'Quite dangerous? What do you mean? What's dangerous?' I asked.

'To have a dream,' Sarah replied.

'To have a dream?' I repeated, idiotically. "How is it dangerous to have a dream?'

'When you cross the street! They're singing, "I cross the street, I have a dream"!'

-------------

'Sarah, do you see the thing that looks like a spaceship on top of that building?' I asked.

'Uh huh.'

'That's a restaurant, it goes round and round while you're eating.'

'Really?'

'Yes, but very slowly.'

'Like the earth?'

Erm. 'A little faster than that!'

-----------------

Sophie: Mummy, when you go out of this world, you are in space. The aliens are living in space, right?

Life at the Top

Or to be more precise, at Ku De Ta on the roof of Marina Bay Sands. I won a pair of tickets to catch Depeche Mode member Andy Fletcher deejaying, courtesy of Gold 90.5. It was our first time at the integrated resort, and I have to say, it was a little disappointing, from poor signages to inefficient use of parking space to dirty toilets! And boy was it windy - Lu's jacket came in very handy.

Due to start at 10pm, Andy didn't show till half-past midnight, by which time we had already aborted one attempt at leaving. Now I think I appreciate the work that goes into modern deejaying (remixes done on a Macbook Pro, no less), but I can't say if I found the results exactly enjoyable. I mean, apart from some cheesy Simon Says routines, there wasn't much interaction nor energy that normally comes with a live performance. Heck, I'm not even sure if the rest of the crowd enjoyed it - only a handful were actually dancing. Perhaps I'm not getting the point of the gig. Perhaps I'm just getting old.

Don't get me wrong, we had a good time, but it was mostly due to having each other for company. And possibly a fascination with observing human behaviour in a strange setting.

As they say...

生字, according to Matt:
"生字 is like taekwondo for my hand. I keep writing the same word and I get better, like I keep doing the same kick and get better."

Sophie, according to Sarah:
"God made Sophie a good girl, but I think sometimes Satan is controlling her."