Saitaoha turns six

My baby is turning 6 tomorrow! Where did the time go? I still remember when we were waiting for her to come out (which she stubbornly refused until we had to eject her) and I even thought her birthday might fall on 29 Feb, the year she was born being a leap year. But she managed to escape celebrating her birthday every four years and what a glorious six years we’ve had with my first born.

This weekend was a Saitaoha birthday weekend starting with a family gathering on Saturday.

She chose both her cakes with this one being a chocolate custard cake, I was disappointed because I wanted her to choose a pandan one, but birthday girl gets to choose of course.

I told Saitaoha if COVID is really bad we might have to cancel her party but at least she will still get to celebrate with her cousins. She was pleased with that because they are her favourite people.

R and I spend half a day making these birthday cookies, we also had different coloured ones saying Saitaoha is 6 and Thank you cookies for her birthday party attendees. Quite pleased with how they turned out.

I’m glad the work year has started at a slower pace (or maybe I just haven’t allowed myself and won’t allow myself to let work consume my life again) because it meant I could better prepare for Saitaoha’s party. I have been gradually buying girly goodies for the goody bag, there’s even a bath bomb in there! The goody bag was very well received :).

Finally it was party day, Saitaoha’s first real birthday party with all her favourite school friends. We booked the pamper room at Crocs indoor playground, the outside area even had a tv for us to monitor the kids playing inside.

I thought it meant just a long table with staff helping the kids to have pedicures and manicures so was pleasantly surprised with this room!

Haha comes with superstar mirrors and lights and even pink robes! The girls were thrilled and so excited haha. To be honest I don’t think I would have liked this as a kid because I was quite a tomboy, but luckily my girls are unlike me and loved the pamper room.

Lemonade and mini cupcakes whilst getting your manicure, not bad hor.

Wedges and sandwiches with jelly cups to follow.

The princess sisters, Saitaomei loves blue colour and Saitaoha is a pink girl.

The birthday girl ❤️💜❤️💜❤️

Lucky we managed to take this picture before all the other little girls arrived.

Saitaoha and her manicure, hot pink nails of course!

Whereas this girl chose blue to match her dress.

Getting a foot bath after her manicure, then a pedicure afterwards.

Saitaoha and all her favourite girlfriends from school. They were all so cute and sweet little girls.

Thank goodness yee yee bought her some balloons which made the walls less empty.

Singing the birthday song and blowing candles, I was so happy that the little girl had a lovely celebration with her friends.

Her best friends the twins since kindy, they really are the best of friends!

Happy birthday my dearest Saitaoha, I hope you enjoyed your birthday celebrations and know how loved you are. At six, you love everything girly, sparkly and the colour pink, you like to roleplay, especially with your dolls, you love colouring and drawing and snacking. You are bright, sensitive, meticulous and very neat. You are mummy’s little helper and your sister’s hero. I don’t say this often enough my beautiful girl, but I love you to the moon and back.

The world dims

Saitaomei age 4

Today an old colleague and someone I cherish as a good friend told me that his dad is dying and only has 2-6 months to live. I said I’m so sorry and he said thank you, in a really sad voice. I could feel his heartache over the phone and I hope he knew my heart was breaking with him. He is going through my deepest fear in life.

We are not too far apart in age, we both have young kids and aging parents. We’re both going through the difficult period of our lives where our parents are getting older and have more ailments and illnesses. R’s father just had heart surgery this week and is still in ICU. He seems to be in good spirits but is not well enough to be moved to the general ward yet. Rehabilitation will be a painful and slow process. I know R is really feeling it and wishing he could be home to support his mother and be with his dad.

The worst part about growing up is watching your parents grow old. There’s an inevitable sadness about it, an ache that keeps on deepening in my heart. I’ve never lived in a world without my parents and I’m not sure that I want to or will be able to survive a world without them

Marriage, 9 years in the making

Valentine’s Day

The pretty earrings are my Valentine’s Day gift this year. I like them a lot but the gifting wasn’t without drama and a long conversation between R and I. It will serve as a reminder that a happy marriage requires a lot of hard work to sustain and maintain. I wish we were like those social media couples whom make marriage seem effortless, maybe it’s just a fake illusion that they want to portray and they secretly hate each other to the bones on the inside, either way, my marriage is not like that.

It takes a lot of communication, compromise, patience, appreciation and it also requires a commitment between both partners to improve and sustain their relationship. Like I said, it’s hard work, but the the outcomes of a happy marriage, a happy family, our children growing up in a loving environment are completely worth it.

We are trialling a period where we’ve set some home rules for both of us, no video watching for a couple of weeks, daily bedtime reading ritual with the kids and showing our appreciation for each other and the kids in words, through simple gestures of saying thanks, you’re welcome, hello, goodbye and love. Small steps but important nevertheless.

It’s going great so far but I’ll see how we we fare in a couple of weeks

The week that was

Reunion dinner

We had a belated reunion dinner last week and there was so much good food ! Ah ma cooked up a storm and it was all really delicious.

I love ah ma’s stir fried shark fin dish, I wish I had more of it but I was so full.

Ah ma’s asam ak

Ah ma’s duck dishes are the best, her asam duck dish is so morish, again looking at the pictures makes me wish I had more that day.

I finally washed and cleaned the pig intestines to make loh bak and teng for the family. I really should try to make kueh chap for the family one day.

The cny cousins

Tristan and LG looking very festive! My girls were in party dresses, next year I will be more organised and get them some pretty cny dresses.

Back at work, the first week was relatively calm and quiet. Everyone seems to be panicking and stressed already but maybe it’s because it’s my first week back so I’m still very chilled.

I’ve enjoyed waking the girls to school and getting to do some pick ups and drop offs. I pray that my wfh days last and I’m able to at least have a couple of days where I can be for present in my kids’ school lives.

A photo for remembrance, I am looking forward to the days when we no longer have to hunt for RATs and the supermarket shelves are not empty and bare. My father in law is undergoing a major surgery next week and we can’t be there for him or for my MIL, I feel really bad for R, I know he’s secretly worried.

When to visit my friend’s grape farm where he left nice grapes for us. I’m sad that his dad isn’t well, why do people have to get sick and age? Sigh.

Saitaoha lost her first tooth, of course tooth fairy visited but she let her keep her tooth.

Grape season

Thin skins and such a great crunch, juicy and sweet.

My cute Saitaomei and ah pa’s 丝瓜, he is always bringing the girls around his garden and letting them pick his fruits of labour. It must be so satisfying picking and eating your own homegrown fruits and veggies.

This playground at my parents backyard was a lifesaver during Covid days and gave the children a great area to run around and play in the sun. It is still a lovely garden and I always feel relaxed and happy walking around the garden and checking ah pa’s latest fruit of labour.

My girls are so big now. Sigh.

The weather was nice enough for us to venture to their favourite playground on Sunday morning.

She always wants me to push her on the swings and refuses to let her papa do it. Both of them in fact are always fighting with each other to sit next to me, or even something silly like having their towel hung next to mine ! While it is sweet being so loved by my girls, I wonder when they will no longer fight to be close to mummy?

She is very athletic and agile, so good on the monkey bars, obviously she doesn’t take after me, I have no physical abilities whatsoever.

Is this supposed to be Byron Bay?

They are used to me taking lots of photos of them. I want to chronicle their childhood and document their lives, our lives growing up and growing old together. This is also the reason why I still blog to this day. I recently started writing on dayre too, it’s fun to take photos of my daily life, snippets and sudden moments and thoughts, at that time, I had this thought and I felt this way. That’s Dayre for me.

Kimchi fried rice

Sundays are the days I replenish R’s lunch bentos, I like to think that despite my hectic work life, he’s never run out of lunch boxes !

Pasta bolognese, penne for the kids and spaghetti for R, because they both prefer different kinds of pastas 🙄, I aim to please.

We had a Sunday steak dinner that somehow morphed into a Valentine’s Day dinner. The food was surprisingly good if I may say so myself, R and I were in a good place this week, and the kids were happy too, they soak up our emotions and when their parents are happy they are happy too. It’s as simple as that I think.

Tiramisu

Befitting dessert of Tiramisu to end the night. I hope the next week is good too and I get to spend quality time with my family again.

39

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, the heatwave in Perth has finally let up, there is a cool breeze in the air and cloudy skies which hint of long desired rain in the evening. I have just sent the reluctant kids off for a nap (they wanted to play more), but I’m not sure that this will work and have a feeling they will be tip toeing out of their room before long with guilty eyes (that’s Saitaoha) and mischievous grins (that’s Saitaomei) because they know they have not followed a ‘mummy order’. Ah well, at least I have 15 minutes of me time, dinner is coming along nicely on the slow cooker, the kids have been fed and showered, I have R’s lunch boxed stacked in the freezer, and the kids’ lunches of sushi rolls are in the fridge. It was a productive Sunday, one that I haven’t had for a while.

The first week of being 39 has been tough and I hope doesn’t signal the year to come. The booster shot and its side effects was unexpected and completely ruined my last week of holidays. I still managed to get some tasks of my to-do list, but really, it wasn’t much. After two years of procrastination, for I am a master of procrastination, I finally have some semblance of a will made out. Writing a will is tough business, because it’s difficult to think of a time when I’m not around for my kids and my family, what happens to them, who will look after them, will they be alright. It makes you question your choice of a life partner, is he really someone that you can entrust your kids to? And your finances? At the end of it, I found it sad that I don’t have that much trust and faith in R yet. I’m not saying he’s not deserving, he might feel the same way about me, but he’s just not the hands on kind of dad or what people nowadays call ‘an equal partner’ in parenting, I cannot hand on heart say, this guy will put my children as priority should I not be there. I know, I know very clearly, and I think he does too, that I am the anchor of our little family, and should I not be there, I really really hope that I made the right choice, and he will step up and look after my children with all the love and care in the world.

I have many resolutions that I want to set for myself this year, but I don’t know whether I should, am I just setting myself up to fail. If anything, I know I’m a really bad planner and manager, I am called daitaoha for a very valid reason. I just sort of seem to amble along with no particular goals or ambitions in life, I just know what kind of person I want to be, and try my best to be that person. As an example, I don’t set goals such as , I want to pay off my xx mortgage by whatever percent this year, instead, I think, I should always try to pay off my mortgage and have less debt in life, so I just put money in my offset account, and try not to spend too much. There’s no set goal to it. I think my bad planning habits has made my family suffer? I should have homework plans and goals for the kids’ education, but I’m just so blase, and the past two years of hectic work and made any teaching stressful, ad-hoc and definitely not fun for Saitaoha. I really really want to do better on the homework front for my child who is now a primary school child! I don’t need her to excel academically, but I should not let her fall behind due to my lack of attention and bad planning. I just want her to be able to grow up at a normal pace, to be a happy and healthy child who is confident in herself.

Confidence is something that I’ve always lacked and it has always held me back in life, especially so in my career. It’s something I really want to get a hold of, and challenge myself to develop myself personally and professionally. After having achieved a significant career milestone, one that others have been applauding us over, why do I feel so empty? I have always been taught to be humble, but I think this quality sometimes overtakes so much of my personality that I always end up hiding in the shadows and letting others take the limelight.

This year, the last year of my 30s, I just want to be someone I can like and be proud of again. I’m sure over the past 39 years, there must have been a period in life or times when I was proud of myself, or I liked myself, or felt confident in myself? I just haven’t felt that way for a very very long time, every year, I just find myself beating myself up for being a crappy mother, daughter, wife. I would like this year to be the year where I can look at myself squarely in the eye and think ‘you’re not so bad’.

FTWM life for 2022 officially starts tomorrow. Let’s go!

Holiday plans gone to pots

My last week of holiday has been totally busted by the side effects from my Moderna booster shot. Had I known the side effects would be so great so much as to render me useless and stuck in bed, I would have gone for the Pfizer. But who knows ? The effect might have been the same.

It’s been a long while since I’ve had a fever, migraine and fatigue, so I had forgotten what it feels like. This bout of sickness reminded me of the days when I had chronic pain from my prolapsed discs. The long nights of tossing and turning, moving from room to room to couch, trying to beat the pain out of your body, being in a fog and feeling desperate and angry. I really don’t do well when I am sick.

It makes me angry because it was my kids’ first week of school and I had a long list of to do tasks to accomplish and I hardly did anything! Instead I watched from the sidelines and witnessed my parents having to pick up my slack again. I don’t know how my parents did it or do it, but it can’t be anything but sheer grit, will and love. They must be so tired all the time. I am eternally grateful, saddened and shamed by it at the same time. I am so mad at R because I feel he’s not doing his part, either he doesn’t know how to or just won’t, but it grates at me and this illness makes me just want to hurl things at his skull.

Why am I such a lousy parent and a lousy daughter ? I really must do better and not just say I will do better but actually do it. Saitaoha has more homework now as a primary student, I must set aside time every night to go through her reading and spelling with her. I just hope I don’t get consumed by work and become impatient and exhausted by the time I get home from work. All the more reason why I need to concentrate on finding a new job with better work life balance this year. Wish me luck.