Princess Emma and Prince Jack Jack

First, let's start with Princess Emma.

Princess Emma likes to talk. Whenever mommy asks her to stop talking for a minute, she'd stop for barely one second and start talking again. When mommy doesn't respond, Emma keeps asking "Mommy? Mommy? are you listening? Mommy? Mommy?....M...." until mommy gives in. Princess Emma can talk consecutively without break for at least 15 minutes. Then maybe a sip of water and start all over again. What she talks about? "what's that sign we just passed?", "I love princesses and I wish I can be one", "When can we go to Wonderland again?", "what's for dinner tonight?", "why can't I eat noodles every night?", "can I go to Chloe's house?", "you know I really like that skirt of yours, can you keep it for me?".... YES, 90% of her "talking" is asking mommy questions. It's irritating enough when mommy is driving in afternoon peak hour traffic trying to weave through the traffic quickly to get home and make dinner, it's even worse when Jack Jack is around because Princess Emma's talking becomes "Mommy, Jack Jack took my toy without asking!", "mommy, Jack Jack hits me", "mommy, Jack Jack pushed me", "mommy, Jack Jack is climbing up the stairs"....etc. What is mommy doing at the same time? Mommy is trying to cook, wash dishes, do laundry, bath Jack Jack...etc. Mixed in with Emma's "inquiries" and "complaints" is Prince Jack Jack's screaming, crying, and hanging on mommy's leg.

So yesterday, after dinner, mommy suddenly had an idea. Mommy finished washing dishes, grab Princess Emma and went out for a walk. Yes, leaving behind Prince Jack Jack, whose screaming and crying broke mommy's heart but mommy left with Princess Emma anyway.

It was a 20min walk (or less), mommy devoted 100% attention to listening to Princess Emma and suddenly she realised Princess Emma is telling her what happened at school. They had a magician came in to entertain the kids, Princess Emma told her all the little details about the magician's tricks... and for the FIRST TIME asked mommy, "so mommy, how was your day? what did you do at work today?" It turned out to be a TWO-WAY conversation, not just "one-way talking, you answer me". Mommy felt so guilty about leaving Prince Jack Jack behind (with King Daddy) but it was good quality time with Princess Emma.



What happened with Prince Jack Jack?... to be continued....

Mid-Life Crisis

I have been contemplating if I should write about this. It sounds really silly yet I think everyone (if not every women/ every mom) goes through this at some point in their lives. And so I am 32, yup, no secret. I am 32 , married, a working mom of two kids ages 2 and 5. I wake up, repeat the same old routine each day. Have the same (or at least look almost the same) hair style for the last 3 years, wear the same clothes/ same style of clothes for the past decade (still can wear some clothes bought back from early university years, yup no kidding)... all of a sudden I start to wonder, what's more in life? is this it?

Starting with one single thought, then a chain of events happened.
1. I started cleaning out my closet and determined to give away "older" clothes even the ones in perfect condition or haven't been worn that much.
2. I chopped off my long hair and perm it!! Now hold your imagination... it is not that "oriental old lady cauliflower hair style" you are thinking of. It's more a Bob hair style.
3. Went for a facial. (I haven't gone for at least 2 years and the package coupon of 13 sessions I bought from year 2003 still has 6 sessions left)
4. Went into a shopping spree phase for the past 2 weeks. Went downtown to shop on Queen W (which I haven't done in the past 5 years). Went and bought a new make-up set (which I haven't done in the past 3 years)
5. Signed up for a ladies only Boot Camp

Conclusion: I am convinced I am going through what is known as "Mid-life crisis"

Results:
1. Everyone likes my new hair style (which makes me like it. I didn't like at all at first)
2. Everyone thinks I look better and start asking me what I did. (just people from work though, my hubby doesn't seem to notice)
3. I feel better about myself.
4. Nearly broke from all the spending.
5. Have some insightful thinking.

I think I am done with my "mid-life crisis make-over", although my girl friend told me "the shopping and the make over is never done!!!", at least I feel like I am done for now. I don't think it is all the "things" I bought that make me happier. I think it is the "time" I spent for myself and on my own that makes me feel better. When I am out shopping or doing my own things, I missed my kids and wonder how my hubby manages with them. I still cannot stop myself from getting things for my kids, especially for my beautiful daughter, when I shop. Yet, I am glad I did go out. Then I found out:
1. My hubby does very well without me
2. My kids can survive (at least for a short while) without me
3. When I do see them again I am less grumpy and tend to think more rationally when they throw a fit.
4. Found out more about my girl friends and their lives, which puts me back into perspective that everyone goes through sort of the same problems in life, not just me and I am doing not too bad.
5. I can still look pretty.
6. I must get over this Mid-life crisis and the crazy shopping phase before I get totally broke and my hubby finds out how much I spent!!!
7. Life is still good.

Friends

John Chrysostom's insights on the value of friends: “Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as . . . flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. . . . It would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends.”

I was going out with my girlfriends last weekend. Counting our fingers... we have known each other for almost 2 decades!! We don't see each other much, we don't even talk much but when we met up, it was like old days all over again. We went shopping, and we would pick out clothes for each other saying "that's your style"... we seem to know each other better than we know ourselves.

"A friend is the first person who comes in when the whole world has gone out."... this is so true. I am so blessed to have such good friends.

Life, Love, Chocolate

This is what I read today and found it a very good reminder:
"It was the morning of his ninth wedding anniversary. Not having a lot of money, the writer ran out to get his wife, Heidi, their favorite French pastry—pain au chocolat. After sprinting several miles, he arrived home, exhausted, to find her in the kitchen just pulling a chocolate-filled croissant out of the oven. It was pain au chocolat.
That husband, Jeff, compared his life with Heidi to the lives of the people in O. Henry’s short story “Gift of the Magi.” It tells of a man who sold his lone possession of value—a pocket watch—to buy hair combs for his wife, who had sold her long, beautiful hair to buy a gold chain for his watch."

Life, love, and chocolate taste better when shared with others!! Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up with tedious daily routine. Relationships become dull and life becomes dull too. But let us not forget how to love.

My Little Prince

Once upon a time there is a Little Prince, his name is Jack Jack. Prince Jack Jack is a very active boy - he climbs, he jumps, he pulls, he ripes, he bumps, he screams, he cries, he runs, he giggles, he laughs.... He is one stubborn little prince that needs a lot of patience, love and discipline.

Since the birth of Prince Jack Jack, mommy has quite intensive vocal exercises since she needs to scream/ yell from far away to stop Prince Jack Jack from doing silly and dangerous activities such as - climbing up to the table and jumping down, somersault on sofa (landed once on his head on the hardwood floor, thank God he wasn't badly hurt besides the big bruise on his head), and running full speed and knocking Princess Emma over. Whenever Prince Jack Jack is around, mommy needs to pay 120% attention, which has trained mommy to have supersonic hearing. Sometimes at the middle of the night, mommy can even wake up 5 seconds before Prince Jack Jack starts to cry (note with both mommy and Prince Jack Jack's bedroom doors closed). Besides the vocal and hearing exercises, mommy has also mastered sprinting. You see, mommy must out run Prince Jack Jack to prevent him from running into danger. One example would be the moment Prince Jack Jack gets unstrapped from the car seat and land on the ground. He would struggle off mommy's grip and dashes off into the parking lot, which is EXTREMELY dangerous. Most of the time, mommy could hang on to Prince Jack Jack's arm (thanks to mommy's nice tennis grip) but once in a while, Prince Jack Jack would succeed and dashes off. In such cases, mommy would be able to sprint in world record speed and retrieve Prince Jack Jack.
20 months after the arrival of Prince Jack Jack, mommy has become almost "super human" and also grown 10 years older due to the lack of sleep, rest and much added stress. Sometimes mommy even misses those days when she was free, relaxed, well rested.......

Then something amazing happened one day......
One night, at 1:34am, Prince Jack Jack cried and screamed at the top of his lungs for mommy... as usual, zombie mommy dragged her tired body into Prince Jack Jack's room, carried him from his crib down the stairs and into the kitchen.... pull out the mid-night magic - "Cheerio" pour it into Prince Jack Jack's bowl, sit his majesty down on his table and Prince Jack Jack started settling down to eat his favorite food... while zombie mommy is sitting half asleep beside Prince Jack Jack, Prince Jack Jack suddenly turned to look at mommy with a big grin on his face and said "Ma Ma, Yeah! Yeah!" and at the same time pumping his little arms like he is cheering for mommy for all her hard work. Mommy instantly woke up, sleepiness all gone... grab Prince Jack Jack and kissed him non-stop for at least a minute.

From then one, Prince Jack Jack has been throwing little surprises like that to mommy once in a while to cheer mommy up. Yesterday, Prince Jack Jack also did something impressive. Mommy was tidying things up as usual after dinner. While mommy was kneeling down on the floor tiding up the garbage bags to take outside, mommy felt a little tuck behind her... as she turned, she saw Prince Jack Jack has brought her the little stool to sit on (his favorite stool that he takes with him everywhere). "It's ALL worth it" mommy thought.

This is how the story of My Little Prince begins....

My Day Off

Today, my princess Emma is sick. Since last night, she has been having a fever. Apparently many children are having this "fever-cough" thing these two weeks. Due to the H1N1 panic, I immediate take the day off and took Emma to see the pediatrician. He said Emma is fine, just stay home, drink lots of fluid and keep on taking Advil to control the fever. I asked him if she has H1N1, not that she has been out of town, but who knows where the kids from her class has been to?! The doctor told me it's hard to say, nowadays, it doesn't really matter because H1N1 is actually just like any other flu, just keep an eye on her and keep her at home. As long as it doesn't get severe, she should be able to fight it off like any other flu.

Feeling relieved, I thought why not take advantage of today and relax. So Emma and I went shopping! We first went grocery shopping to get some fruit and vegetables. Then we went to the bakery to get some bread and egg tart for Jack Jack (he loves egg tarts). Feeling like cheering up my little princess (I rarely buy her any toys, usually just books because I think some toys actually can 'limit' the creativity of a child) I thought "why not get Emma a tea party set today". Emma loves playing tea party, usually she will play at her friend's house. The good thing about Emma is that she doesn't nag me to buy her toys. One time she even said to me, "I really like that mommy but we don't need to buy it, I don't want to waste money. We have other toys at home" I was so touched!!

We went through every aisle in Toys R us, we looked at almost everything except the video games and baby sections. (note, Emma didn't ask me to get her anything, she just said "that's nice, this is nice too, oh look mommy, they have Thomas here.." she just really enjoy walking around looking at things). At the end, I told Emma, "mommy was thinking maybe I will get you a tea party set, would you like that?" and Emma was so excited, jumping up and down. So we found a pretty nice tea party set. Then, I saw some aluminum water bottle that are customized with names. We spent another 20min looking for Emma's name. At first we couldn't find it, but with the help of the salesperson, we found it at last. We also saw some nice princess prints wall borders, I thought, Emma's room is pretty plain compare to some other girls' room, maybe I should help Emma decorate it. Of course Emma loves it. After spending two hours there, we checked out. As we were walking out, we saw some sand boxes display outside the store. Emma saw them and said "wow, so nice"... I asked her if she really want one, she said "yes mommy, I love playing with sand" So I said if daddy said yes then we would buy it. We called daddy up, daddy talked to Emma on the phone... and said "ok, if she really likes it, we can get it. She can play with Jack in the backyard in the evening before dinner" that's better than watching TV I suppose.

Then, we made our last stop at Home Depot to get some play sand. My friend told me Home Depot has very good quality beach sand. So I haul this 20kg of play sand, 3 ft dia. sand box, bags of grocery, toys... back home.

While Princess Emma is napping after taking some Advil to keep her temp down; I prepared soup for tonight, fold laundry, and planning to pack away the winter clothes and pull out summer clothes for myself and Jack Jack (maybe for Emma too if I have time). Gee, what a busy day. But so happy too. Throughout today, I couldn't help but keep on thinking how blessed I am. Such beautiful kids, sweet hubby....

Lost

I remember when my friend's mother passed away, she was very sad and depressed. I couldn't understand her feelings, I tried to comfort her in the best way I could. Now looking back, my words probably didn't comfort her much. I realise what it means to really being able to comfort someone... is to "have been there" and share the same kind of pain the other person is feeling. It's so much easier to share happiness because everyone likes happiness. Everyone is willing to share your happiness. Everyone can find a way to relate to happiness. Yet, the burden of sadness, that's a different story. Even the closest person to you may not be able to share your burden of sadness. Not because that person doesn't want to share with you your sadness, it is his/ her ability to understand and relate that make them incapable. Who wants/ likes to get themselves in the deep pain when they "don't have to"? It's only intuitive for human to avoid "pain", it's self protective nature. Yet, if that person has been there, has experienced it, he/ she can connect with your feelings immediately. He/ she may not even need to say one comforting word, but just be there and shed tears with you and you already feel better, like someone has taken part of the burden away.

I miss my dad. I miss him and regret for not spending more time with him. Yes, he has his new family, his new life but that doesn't change the fact that I am still his blood related daughter. I feel so stupid now that I look back all the worries that prevented me from seeing him more, for caring for him more. At the end of the day, what matters? Other people's feelings? Other people's view? All I wish now is to be there for his last breathe, for his last few minutes on earth that I was there with him. To be there to say a last prayer with him, to hold his hand, to kiss him good-bye.