Happy 5th Birthday
I can’t believe she’s already 5. Happy birthday to the most beautiful daughter in the world. I am such a lucky mum.
Lessons I’ve Learnt From My Daughter
She loves this pair of angel wings, which she was more than happy to wear around the zoo.
1. Love, Faith, Trust
She has no doubt that we love her. She has no doubt that I love her with all my heart, mind and soul. By the same light, she loves me unconditionally. She has faith that I will do my best by her and trusts that I won’t hurt her. Because of that, her love tank is so full that she has an unending capacity to love, accept and care for others with no fear of not getting the same in return.
2. I’m Sorry
She doesn’t have any qualms apologising when she realises that she has done wrong. She used to be a bigger drama queen until I tell her each time I’m disciplining her, that it’s not that I don’t love her (in fact, I do very much), but if she has done something wrong, she has to own up to it. Which she does. Sometimes she learns from it, sometimes she doesn’t. But it’s all part of learning and growing.
3. Confidence
She walks around with angel wings and doesn’t really care that people take second glances at her. The other day, she wanted to wear a dress to the zoo, just because. She loves pretending that she’s a princess and loves wearing her princess dress everywhere. She asks many questions at the top of her voice, which sometimes have strangers erupt in giggles. Shes not afraid to ask when she doesn’t know. I wish her inquisitiveness will never disappear.
4. Strength
She seen me having an off day at times. And somehow, she always seems to know the right thing to say. She tells me that we’ve got each other, she’ll look after me and that she loves me very much. She’s my mini rock.
5. Reasoning
She doesn’t blindly take sides. She weighs options – right or wrong – and walks on the side where her moral compass takes her, even if it means not taking her mother’s side. And she doesn’t worry about speaking her mind at all.
6. Processing Hurt
She processes hurt by feeling hurt, understanding why she got hurt, figures a way to not get hurt again, and moves on. She doesn’t get angry.
7. Empathy
She understands when someone is sad. She understands when someone needs a little more TLC. And if she knows that she can do something about it, she will; with a kiss, a hug or a sweet word or two.
8. Grace
As a mum, I have no problem apologising to my child if I did something wrong. Like turning up late for picking her up from Chinese class, which I apologised profusely for. Instead of punishing me by throwing a tantrum, she constantly reassured me that it was ok, told me she wasn’t scared but was worried.
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Most importantly, whenever I feel inadequate, I look at her and remind myself that I must be doing something right to raise such a wonderful child as her. She’s just turning five and by no means perfect. But she’s more than I can ever ask for in a daughter, in a person.
I hope I never stop learning from her. I hope I continue doing something right.
From Dooce
Read this quote from one of my favourite bloggers, Dooce, which I find to be so very accurate:
Because as much as a person with depression is sad, we are the same measure of angry that we can’t just stop feeling this way.
Blog entry here.
Space Filler
I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already. I need more hours, as humanly possible, in a day.
The Worst Day of the Year
I think it’s safe to say that I had about the worst day of the year yesterday. Truly.
It all started out with me waking up on the wrong side of the bed, and after a bit of fumbling, I was out of the apartment and headed straight into work (although wishing very much that I was snug under the covers with my iPad instead).
I found out that Hong Kong has declared a scarlet fever outbreak, and since I was planning to take Clare to Disneyland this weekend, I figured that it wouldn’t be too wise to bring my child there, especially to a place where there are hundreds of other children. I spent the morning trying to figure out what to do (to go somewhere else or to cancel the tichets), then sort out my flights (managed to get a one year open ticket), cancel accommodation and called the little one to explain why we cannot go to Hong Kong this weekend.
Drying out my Mac.
After lunch, I came back with a nice cup of latte from St Ali — a really hip and trendy cafe that serves really good coffee — which I promptly, and accidentally (of course!) spilled onto my MacBook Air. I had no idea what was going on because I knocked it over with my chair when I wheeled it away. All I heard was a fizzing sound, and when I turned around and saw the poor little machine drowning in coffee, it blacked out. I think it’s dead now. I washed out the keyboard area, and so much coffee was still leaking out … I’m drying it out but I have a feeling that I murdered the MacBook Air. And I’m very sad.
Then, at dinner, I decided to go to yet another hip and trendy restaurant, that also ended up in disaster. Not the restaurant’s fault. Many people have been asking me to try out Cookie, so to Cookie I had to go at what was supposed to be my last night in Melbourne. True to its reputation, the food was great, the retro and kitsch atmosphere really worked and I had a ball. But sometime towards the end of dinner, I felt my eyes puff up, especially the right eye. And as I was walking to the car, I started noticing shortness of breath. And when I was in the car, I was coughing a lot, my ears were hot and itchy, my face felt like bursting, I felt like tearing my scalp out from the itch and my body was not comfortable. I was on the phone with my cousin-in-law, who is a doctor (bless her kind soul for always being my medical emergency go-to person) and she told me that I was coughing because my throat was constricting.
L: On the way to the hospital with swollen eyes and rashes on my face. R: Strapped up and waiting. Don’t ask me why I look so happy at the possibility of dying.
So I ended up in the hospital. I was given 25mg of phenegren on the way there, and the triage nurse gave me another 50mg of prednisolone, which promptly reduced the swelling and the itch. And yes, it was so good to be able to breathe properly. I was kept in the hospital for another half hour under observation and had wires strapped to me to monitor my breathing, blood pressure and goodness what else, so that everyone would be notified immediately if I died or something. The phenegren knocked me out in the meantime, and I felt as if I could sleep forever (which, honestly, is something that I need actually).
I am much better today. I woke up this morning feeling very sore, internally. I switched my flight out to Saturday, because I think I would have managed very poorly on the flight out this morning.
I’ve never had such a massive allergic reaction before. I’m thinking it was the German riesling that my body didn’t take too kindly to. I was allergic to alcohol when I first started drinking, but I mostly ended up with rashes and nothing more. These days I can manage a couple of drinks, and I am fine.
I love stationery and book stores, but I never know what to do with them these days since I’m more reliant on technology. Can’t wait to be able to buy such things for Clare in the future!
I took some time off today, and had an extended lunch break. I strolled along Conventry Road, across the office, and popped into a couple of little stores, which was very nice. I bought Clare some books and I can’t wait to go back and read them to her. This was my first day off to explore the interesting little bits of the city. What I like about Melbourne is having many little stores around, kind of like London, or the fictional town in Gilmore Girls, which I really love.
Coventry Road
The Mystery Quiz Show
Come on! You know you wanna join this show!
Melbourne
Hello from cold and windy Melbourne, the land of Lift (only but my second favourite soft drink in the world, after Coke). I’ve actually been here for almost a week now, for work, mostly. I managed to get some sights squeezed in over the weekend, during my little jaunt into the city.
There was the opening of the second Zara store in Australia, which had heaps of people queuing up outside it. It’s quite funny for a Singaporean to witness that, because we have Zara stores all over the island and it’s my go-to place for clothes. We will never find a queue that loops 5 times over outside a Zara store.
I had dinner at Spice Temple, at Crown Casino last night. After dinner, we decided to break the rules a little and had a little spin at the roulette table. I put in AUD50, and after a few rounds of nearly being wiped out, managed to make another AUD50. So with 100% profits, I decided to take my money and run! Good fun.
As usual, I’m shocking with photos. I don’t know why I bother carrying my 5DMKII everywhere. What’s even more embarassing this trip, is that I actually brought my camera WITHOUT the lens, and only discovered my folly after I checked through immigration. Hence, I paid for a really cheap 50mm lens at the airport, which hasn’t been too bad, in the few times I actually used it.
Home in a couple of days. Hong Kong Disneyland with Clare after that. I can’t wait — it will be our first time to Disneyland.
The Amazing Race Australia, Episode 3
In this episode, the teams fly from Hue, Vietnam to Hong Kong. There I produced one of the scariest challenges ever. Myself, together with the help of the other producers, spent the night before counting 10,000 fortune cookies and to get rid of the broken pieces. During the challenge, there was only one fortune cookie with the correct clue in the pile. While I am sure the manufacturer did a good job, there was no way of me to double check that each cookie in the ‘correct cookie packet’ was filled with the right clue. And it was only minutes before teams arrived that I had that panic attack and was absolutely petrified. The game worked perfectly well though, and it was such an awesome moment of my life.
Cleaning up all the broken bits of fortune cookies with a broom and pan.
Rest of the photos, and will be continued to be updated, here.
The Mystery Quiz Show
Come join our Mystery Quiz Show! :)
The Amazing Race Australia
Sorry for the extreme radio silence. I’ve been utterly swamped with work (always a good problem) and have now resurfaced for a little break.
While I’m on break, have a look at this! THE AMAZING RACE AUSTRALIA! For all you people residing in Australia, do catch this show on Monday nights, 8:30pm on Channel 7. I worked rather hard on it and was pretty excited to see the first episode go on air, because I was second country producing it, in Lombok and Gili Trawangan.
The second episode went on air last night, which brought the teams to Vietnam. The picture above, was taken at the game I was producing — teams had to find the correct girl carrying a fan with their names on it. There were hundreds of girls walking around Lam Son Square.
I’ll put up my pictures in when I get back. :) I’m on holiday now.
