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Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Mommy Life: Funny Mommy
I can't believe Jack is going to be 18 months already. My MIL has bought him a clay stampy thing to immortalise his hand and footprint, something I deeply regretted not doing when he was born. A girlfriend Pris warned me (with her husband as backup) that the clay dries real fast and don't dilute it either to slow the drying. They failed in their attempt and confirmed that it was the USA-made one they bought too. Well, we'll find out in a few days...
Tonight we did something different at bedtime. Instead of Jack and Mom reading, we had Jack's furry friends (not the cats but his stuffed friends) sit around and read together. He was so thrilled he spent some time arranging his friends in an audience and later, was thrilled when Kaku (tiny stuffed version of her namesake) decided to come and sit with Jack, followed by the rest of the friends. When I declared it was bedtime and his buddies waved by and hopped into the crib, he detained Mr Pterodactyl and bent into the crib to retrieve some of them back. It was real sweet!
He enjoyed the park recently, once to the Jacob Ballas park on Sunday, and to Fort Canning Park this evening where he emulated the joggers, to our amusement. At dinner he chomped on a handroll and helped himself to my ikura. At Popular, he picked out a nice small diary for me and was elated when I bought some Christmas decorations for the home. This Christmas will be one he will thoroughly enjoy.
Nowadays he loves looking at my face and watching my expression with a mischievous grin on his face. It is almost like he is thinking, funny mommy but I love her, as he points at my belly button and squishes my soft belly, laughing and giggling for all it is worth. Then he'll kiss my belly and make farting noises and shriek with laughter. Oh this boy really has my sense of humour. I grab and hug him and shower him with kisses and we have a wonderful laugh together.
Boy woke us up today, hungry and lonely. Or was that yesterday. The days tend to meld into one and what I do remember are the smiles and the laughter Jack and I share. And of course, people's birthdays.
Vista still annoys the hell out of me on occasion, but my new Nokia e61i usually chases the clouds away especially since I can now surf on it.
Lately I have started writing fiction again and am now working on a relatively long tale about postwar survivors. The premise has me rather enthralled and the first night I sat 6 hours writing the first 3000 words.
Jack can speak both English and Mandarin now, to our delight. He is still the same happy child as when he was born and he's developed a repertoire of mischievous looks he flashes to people, including "the wink" which his aunty Grace was privy to. That's how he charms the girls, we realised, alluding to the many little girls that seem to always want to be near him. His Dad couldn't be prouder!
1. Cultivate habit of washing with soap and water for 20 seconds (under nails too). 2. Use hand sanitizer when washing not possible. 3. Raw food bacteria is more dangerous than floor bugs.
With the hubby working so hard, it is no surprise that we both have holiday on the brain. Much overdue is a visit to the UK to visit our friends Greg, Heidi, Kevin, and my writer friend Mike.
Last time my cousin and I visited London, the London hotel looked awfully like the one in the pic. Or perhaps most London Hotels look like that.
I remember distinctly Heidi telling us on her blog that their apartment is a one-roomer so it won't be too nice to sleep on their floor with baby and all.
I have to say this site we found gave us a lot cheaper rates than if we booked directly online. Our last trip cost us GBP100 a night and this similar one is GBP40 a night if booked online. We might be able to afford to go to UK without sleeping on our friends' couches after all.
Organic Living: Does Anyone Care About Climate Change?
Recently I have been reading a lot on climate change. If we don't start making a difference, our children may see the end of civilisation as we know it with floods, famine, and earthquakes. Heck, we are seeing it already everywhere.
Some days I feel it is fruitless, all this recycling and self-imposed curb on consumption. Look, I asked a few friends the other day, and they haven't even thought about it and made some rhetorics and mumbles about yeah, it is important.
Truthfully, no one cares. The supermarket own bag campaign seems to be useless. I have seen less than 10 people bring their own bags in the weeks since it started. Cashiers automatically bag our stuff and look amused when I give them my own bags. One told me 1 out of 10 bring their own bags.
What about cutting our electricity use? By habit I had already started switching off appliances from the walls to save money years ago. Yet I can't even convince my nearest and dearest to do so in their own homes to save the world for the next gen. Is it really so inconvenient? I secretly do so at their homes and get a telling-off for making it so.
So if individuals don't care, it is up to the governments to step in and make it mandatory. The Ikea model works great. Charge people who want to use plastic bags. But didn't the governments just sign some lip-service treaty which still excludes the US, Australia, and China - three of the worst offenders? Does that mean the governments don't care too?
I may be dead by the time the climate really goes to hell. But Jack won't be. And I want him to live well and happy, and preferably in a civilisation. We sure aren't going to make it to space to save humankind, so what is a Mom to do? Build my own ark or maybe buy my log cabin in the middle of nowhere and teach Jack to hunt and fish.
Still I try. I recycle. I buy less and in bulk. I eat organic as much as I can afford. I bring my own bags when I shop. I use as little electricity as possible. Will it make a difference? I don't know. Things might come around. Who knows, you might try to live a green lifestyle after reading this article and together we might change the world.
Each day flies by like a whirlwind. It seems like I just blinked and Jack is now 16 months, says new words every day and delighting me with kisses and hugs. Just today he said "bell(y) button" and repeated "button" for his Dad's benefit. Yesterday he said "auntie" to an auntie who was very honoured she was the first. Despite his cough now, he is happy and spirited, dissolving in tears only when tired or hungry.
We bought him new shoes today after the few he had worn before began tearing at the big toe and began smelling rather salty. He loved trying the new shoes. But prefers his Dad's, Mom's, Grandpop or Grandma's instead. :) We bought a pair of those squeaky sandals to air his feet (heck, I loved walking on them as a kid) and a pair of Snoopy shoes for more formal occasions.
It has been 16+9 months since I have slept through the night. See, I can't even count nowadays. My memory is better and my good nights are those when he wakes up 3-4 times. Bad, like last night when the poor baby was sick, 7-8 times. I was mush today and thankfully my Mom and Dad came to the rescue since hubby had a meeting.
Just on Saturday I broke out the card-sized photo paper and printed a whole bunch for my parents, who were delighted to receive them, and for us too. They almost feel like collectibles (they truly are) and just looking at his impish grin breaks my face into a smile.
I love online stores for babies and the whole family and Preggers n Proud is another delightful place for moms to browse and buy neat stuff for the family.
At Preggers n Proud, there are USA-made tees for mom, dad, and baby (no worries about formaldehyde in your clothing). I like the wholesale prices (US$6.50 per tee - minimum 10) since I *might* want to design and sell some. Note to self: must also include shipping in before calculating a sale price.
Meanwhile I am contemplating buying the "Good Daddies are Hot" tee shirt for the hubby. :) He will be tickled.
A portion of each purchase goes to supporting Canines for Disabled Kids, PETA, and Zero to Three. An online company doesn't get cooler than that. Check them out at Preggers n Proud.
And so I spent Saturday and Sunday night finishing the chronicles of Harry Potter. Rowling wastes no time plunging the world into a Voldemort-ruled chaos and no one is spared.
While Harry, Ron, and Hermoine are off on a quest to find the remaining Horcruxes and sidelined by the Deathly Hallows, the rest of the world are devastated by Muggles and Mudbloods being rounded up and executed like Jews in the second world war.
It begins brilliantly. The Durseys are swiftly extracted for their own protection and Dudley makes an unexpected gesture that is really very touching. Harry's own extraction from his home of 17 years, thus breaking its protection both for his family and himself leaves the Order of the Phoenix one short.
Sad and unexpected deaths scatter through the beginning and through dreadfully draggy middle of the book but it is only from Harry, Hermoine, and Ron's brilliant escape from Gringotts when the action really kickstarts. The Battle of Hogwarts brought to mind many a battle from Lord of the Rings, and its final swan song well choreographed.
It was not without flaws though. For many Potter fans who failed to reread the whole series before embarking on the final journey, some parts perplexed me, such as how did Neville draw the sword from the Sorting Hat when it was clearly with the goblin? Also, Harry's resurrection was a tad convoluted although well-explained in its wiki.
Like many other reviewers, I found the epilogue pointless and scant of value. It could have been fuller with more on what happened to everyone else, rather than a focus on the trio's children. It felt rather cliched. At the very least, it could have shed more light on how Harry and the others felt after all those years. As an ending to a monumental series, it fell flat.
Still, the Deathly Hallows answered most of the hanging questions and neatly tied up most of the loose ends. It could have been better organised: less time spent on the trio's search for the Horcruxes, Snape and Dumbledore's tales weaved into the story rather than stuck in as chapters of their own, and a more cohesive ending which told more of what happened 19 years later to everyone, not just the trio and Neville, or perhaps even better, not at all.
Time flies so quickly every day, almost like a book lying on a hilltop, its pages flipping fast in the wind. I try to grasp each moment with Jack, memorising each smile, each quizzical expression and the thing that earned it.
I long to go back in labour, so that I might relive the ecstasy of seeing my own child born from my loins. He has grown up too fast.
He's now running, climbing, saying new words, testing them like ice cream flavours: fssh, up, *growl*, he dances, he laughs, he pulls his own penis in wonder, he pushes people away, he hugs his mom, dad, grandparents, he squeezes a strawberry and amazes at the red juice that smears his leg, he feeds himself strawberries, grapes, vegetables, he chooses his own clothes, he swims and delights in splashing his cousin.
We spend days exploring the parks, gardens, pools, malls, the different machines (read: rides) in shopping centres, music in shops where he runs in and dances much to the delight of the shop girls. He points out bugs, hairs on the grounds, tiny leaves, and marks on the floor. It's sheer delight watching him discover our world.
What a journey it has been these 14 months and the 9 before. These have probably been the best months of my life. Let me press Publish and return to it...
It is a terrible life for them in cages so tiny they cannot stand or turn. In addition, catheters are permanently stuck in their side to drain bile from them.
Help Animals Asia rescue and rehabilitate these bears. Let them live out their lives with dignity and happiness in a sanctuary.
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"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." -- Bertrand Russell
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison (Harper's Magazine, 1890)
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