Men - Looks versus Character

Now that I have 2 boys, I do spend some time *dreaming* about the kind of men they will turn into.. Of course I have many points of reference - from the men I admire lah..

Eh, given the recent movies and drama series I have been chasing, there are quite a few men salient in my mind now..

Let's see, last week has been the "admire Orlando bloom" week cuz we caught P.O.C last Sunday.

The for past weeks, we been watching the 2006 re-make of Return of the Condor Heroes and got addicted to the Yang Guo character.

Then last month, we finished the Japanese show 'Engine' showing Takuya Kimura and I so love both him and the character in the show.



But looks aside, boys/ men ought to have "substance". No, they NEED to have substance.
We woman are not stupid.. at least many of us are not.

Hence, I hope my boys will be lucky to have both some appearance and lots of character...

For now, En seems quite photogenic.. i love to take pictures of him cuz he is so cute.. and cheeky in front of the lens..

Xuan, on the other hand, seems more charismatic than anything else. When he does not smile, he seems v "fierce" but once he breaks into a smile, with his 2 cute dimples, i just melt.. he is not the classic cutey-pie, but he is a v nice bb to be around..

On our recent trip to Sentosa, we saw some youths with dyed hair and I started imagining if both boys turn out like that - like a Cao Ah beng, I will be really aggravated...

then again, I believe everyone ought to try some things at least once.. so... I am a bit torn about that.. sigh...

Busy bee...

These days, I feel really tired.
Think I play too hard, and work too hard, and do everything too much...

Besides working long hours last week, I also do my fair share of TV.. watching VCDs and TV program..

Then on weekend, I baked lagsana, not bad at all for my first attempt.. hubby and melanie all said its good, think i can make it to serve guest next time. I do it all from scratch ok, even the cheese sauce.. and I love it..

I think baking is therapeutic. it de-stresses me. And for a gal who hardly knows how to use the convection oven, I think I have come a long way...

Weekend, i was even too sleepy to really play with the kids.. i wonder if it a sign of aging, I am prone to take afternoon naps on weekend to catch up on lost sleep, and I am the gal who use to party all night or work the report through the night and still be able to watch movie the next night.. these days, just staying up to 2am exhaust me..

Xuan xuan is becoming quite the muscle man, with a loud voice, he loves to scream.. and the house is now often filled with his screams and excited wails..

Then to maximise the weekend, hubby and i went to watch pirates of the Carribean At World's end.. despite the lukewarm critque, I love it.. It is entertaining, and Orlando Bloom excites me! Drool no end.. And so I have changed my MSN photo to Orlando for this week.. babies taking a backseat haah!

de-generated...

I feel sad.. because i think i am a bad mum...
because somehow, i think i am giving my kids to sub-standard care..
because i know i can do better for them but ve not done so..

En en started throwing things at everyone. and he threw his lego blocks at me today.
and he laughed. when i reprimanded him, he laughed more.
and then i had to moved him away from his toys to stop him from throwing things at me.

He does not listen much to me. and ppl that he listens to do not discipline him.
if anything, they encourage him to do the wrong stuff.. such as throwing things around, pick up his toys after him when i have trained him to pick up after himself, do things for him because it is easier and faster that way rather than giving him time to figure out for himself how it could be done and nurturing his sense of independence and patience..

all these are wrong. but the people are blind to it.
they think they are doing the right thing. by simply coddling him and suffocating him with love.

Bad love. 孽爱 is not love.
everyday is a struggle between right and wrong.
but all i see today are all the wrongs, so wrongs.

A kid does not understand circumstantial differences, just as a dog can't understand when biting is permissible and when biting is not. Hence, until the kid mastered the concept of circumstantial differences, certain acts cannot be condoned, encouraged or applauded. Such as throwing things at ppl versus throwing ball at ppl. Both, at this stage are not permissible.
Cuz to them - a ball = a toy.
I throw ball at ppl = i can throw my toys at ppl.
Win.

i am sick of excuses. and i am sick of closing one eye to mis-deeds.
i want to do what is best for the kid.
but everyone is against me by giving in to the easy way out.
no one said parenting is easy - so why are we so giving in to the easy way out?

we always rush to do things for our kids, jump in on them before they had a chance to learn and experiment or find out for themselves. We prevent much of their exploration because we are afraid of the harm that could befall on them.

So the child grows lazy and dependent. and years later we look back and ask why are our kids not creative, not independent not adventurous.

Because we forgot that we have killed their innate ability to explore and be creative from birth. we killed it with our over prudence, our impatience, our over protectiveness.

Xuan xuan is now 5 mths and can't even turn. why, because no one bothers to stimulate him in all the right ways.

... sometimes, i wish i do not have to work.
the man says I cannot always think I am right. but how can i deliberately blind myself to what is so clearly and obviously wrong?

Cooking Mama

Recently I have been busy..
Busy playing games on my DSlite..
Busy watching VCD drama
Busy working and draining my brain

And I love this Cooking Mama game on my DS Lite.. and it inspires me to cook.. tomorrow I gonna cook steak, and on Sunday I am cooking chicken enchiladas...or maybe try the lagsana

I think cooking can be therapeutic..
So I bought this cook Mini Tefal for En en to play..
Those who heard I am buying a cooking set for my boys go "yewk.." But i find it perfectly fine..

En is in the phase of learning to feed himself, playing Masak masak will fit with his needs.
In Montessori education, they teach kids to be independent and one of the life skill is cooking.. I see for myself how Kai Kai, our nephew is such a good little helper around the house..

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I brought En for his first PlayClub at the Julia Gabriel near our house.. The best part that he enjoyed was snack time.. after being the first in Q for the food, he was also one of the earliest to finish his snack, and then he started to reach into the plate of the little girl next to him, eating her snack! Definitely not the way to impress the little gal...

There were interesting sand play/ water play or paint play lessons.. but En seems to have inherited his dad's finicky cleanliness habit - he seemed to find the sand dirty while the other kids relished messing around with the sand...

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I just realised a scary fact.. when a couple is divorced, the judge may not grant the kids to the wife.. Hence, I am convinced I have to continue working.. who knows what will happen.. the Channel 8 drama series had the kids left to the husband and were faced with a monstress of a stepmother.. that is a scary thought..

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Spot the difference...

This first set of pictures was taken in March this year when we first moved in..
En was about 17 months then...
This next set of pictures were taken just last week, when Xuan Xuan was about 4 months plus..


And yes!! Both boys are wearing the same tee!!! Amazing right?!!
En is now 11.7 kgs while Xuan is now 7.9 kg, and they ahve like 15 mths of difference between then...

Both are growing well according to Doc.. so it just a matter of size!!

MERRY MOTHERS' DAY!!!!

MERRY MOTHERS' DAY

Happy mothers' day to all the mums in the world..


And I forgot, what i wanted to blog previously was to welcome a new mum joining our league - Hsien and her princess... and the second time mother Ah Si with her little prince!!!

Today, i did something new as a mum.. as a second time mum, you would think I have done most of the motherly things.. Not true.. haha, cuz we have such a Super Nanny for En, there are many things which I do not have to do nor worry about...

For instance, making puree to freeze and feed Xuan Xuan.
Today, I made our first pear puree.. really quite simple, but just a somewhat laborious chore cuz gotta make sure all the stuff used are well sterilised etc..

And it tastes quite yummy.. So this will be a new chore which I will do from now onwards. Previously with En, as he was with nanny most of the times, not worth it to do the puree for just the weekends, so En was a cannned pureee baby.. haha

See the fruit of my morning labor!

A long week..

This week is had been a long week for me, and most of my colleagues..

Work has been hectic, but I am suffering from lack of sleep.
That made me really short fused..

Xuan Xuan seems to be going thru sudden growth spurt..
He seems so much bigger, and now maming much louder noise too...

En is still interested in feeding himself, and we came across an interesting concept at the Ma Maison restaurant - the family meal thinggi where the kid gets a toy, the dad gets a beer and the mum gets a dessert... interesting..

When we went there last night, we have to Q as we did not have a booking, but it was kinda worth it cuz the hamburger steak was divine.. i just love it...!!

feeling drained, so mind also drained.. dunno what to blog about... till i feel betta...

Musing on Motherhood part 1

We celebrated mothers' day early this sunday, having high tea with both sets of parents and the 2 babies at Marriott today..

And we witnessed another milestone of En's. with the kids' utensils provided by marriott, he was eagerly eating on his own in his high chair, spearing quite accurately his little bites of food using the fork, and putting them in his mouth. of course, the floor beneath his high chair was such an ugly mess, i regretted not taking a pic of that now. I was so worried that the staff of Marriott would start demanding that we pay for the cleaning of the carpet!


But bravo for En, his attempt at independence is coming along nicely..


Then he gave me the Mother's day present in his own little way. He was clinging on to me like a koala, even when his fav papa tried to reach for him, he insisted that i carry him and would shake his head at Papa when Papa tried to get him.

It made me think that the rewards for motherhood seems surer than career rewards.. you know how you could have worked your A off and that promotion still passes you by sometimes. Well, at least for babies, the returns seem more sure and immediate - I see this as a return from the quality time I invested in en each mroning before I head off to work. Eh, not so sure the return will be the same for tenneagers, maybe by then, it would be what we call in Econs the "diminishing rate of return" hahah!

Still, it was a sweet feeling to be preferred over the all time fav papa. Not playing the one upmanship - but the rewards for spending time with kids are there. we just have to do it.

Then I came home, made the cottage Pie even though tired as I was, watched the fund raising program, and read Bak chew's blog on the death of the HP employee from the stress of work (http://pinkmayflower.multiply.com/journal/item/140). And I felt all the signs seem to be telling me the same thing..


I decided to make cottage pie over working.. Not too bad as a first attempt. At least En En was a staunch supporter, asking more many many seconds (bites) haha!

And while wacthing the fund raising, i heard Cai Qing sang the song which I love the first time I heard it in the 无间道 movie - 被遗忘的时光. And when i heard her sang the oldie 读你 I enjoyed it so much..

Reminding me that I seem to have age. Or rather, age, coupled with motherhood, has synergistically matured me, much like a wine maturing.. fermenting...

And when i read the blog of Bak Chew on the employee who died of work stress... i felt so angry.. and again the song by Cai Qing refuse to leave my head. In a sense, it seems very appropriate for funerals too. If you have not heard it, I share this here with you. In her rustic quality of voice, the song reminded me how time is wasted if we"spend" life freely. that in the end, what we have are just forgottem times.

And in a strange way, as the ways signs seem to work to tell me something, I was just readint his quote of Maggie Cheung in the Saturday papers ;

"I have given away too many 6 hours (to work) in the past, now 6 hours are very important to me"

Maggie C had always been my idol - an icon on how a woman should age gracefully. Now she is my inspiration for how a woman's thoughts can mature beautifully too.

When I read that quote of hers, i empathise completely. How easily we lose track of ourselves and time. I was like that in the past - when I was so career obsessed with climbing the career laddder.

Now, as i had felt tonight when I was making that cottage pie, that 2-3 hours of doing something for my family is so precious. In the past, I would have used those hours to catch up on work. Now, instead of giving that time away to work, they are important to me and my family.

I always remember the line vividly from "tuesdays with morrie" -

"When you know how to die, you will learn how to live"

Reading the last words of the deceased,

"I've got myself sick these few days. Had diarrhea last Thu, hurt my knee and was limping badly since last Sunday, had breathlessness since Wed & fainted after work on that day at my office lift lobby, knocked my head against the wall when I fainted, collapsed again last night at home. Now my chest feels really tight & breathing is really tough. Getting up & walk, I just feel like I'm carrying a heavy baggage of few hundred kilos & I'll start to feel really weak & dizzy. Doc just said I'm really stressed out. sigh..... what should I do? Quit? or continue this ultra-super stressful job? I've got a contract of 6 mths to fulfill... 3 months to commit. If I quit now, I've got to pay back 1 mth's salary. Not worth it."

and the choice she had made, and the outcome of that choice, I felt anguished.
at the same time I also felt imbued with power - the power of choice.

As a mum, we are faced with choices everyday, some tougher than others.
We have to choose between time for our husband and for our kids.
We have to choose between our role as mum and our career.
We choose between being there for them, and being here for myself.

None of those choices are easy to make. There is no such thing as an universal right choice - there exists only the right choice for ourselves. we face the consequences of our choices.

But as a mum, we leave an indelible print on our young, something which like it or not, they will carry with them through adulthood. For that, we have to be responsible choosers.

But i am beginning to enjoy the rewards of motherhood.
As a lazy bum - and sleepyhead, i have chosen to wake up early for walks with En, and to cook for the guys. It is nothing great, but it is my little contribution as mum. ..

No matter what choices a mum chooses, they are worthy of celebration on Mother's day, because behind every choice is an opportunity cost - big or small. And for that, we celebrate mother's day, not only for being mothers, but what mums go through day in and out battling with the tough choices...