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.

Emma and Jack Jack

Emma didn't eat her lunch again today. She took one bite, she didn't like it and she left it, went with a hungry stomach for the whole day just because she didn't like the sandwich I made her. Sigh, my stubborn little girl. I was so angry when I saw her lunch box, I started raising my voice. Not only did I worry about her health, angry with her pickiness, I am also sad to see the wasted food. I really hope she will grow out of her pickiness. Hearing me raise my voice and Emma started crying, Derek just said in his annoyed voice "can I have some quietness please?" That just fueled my anger further. Of course, my voice got even louder and Emma got more scared. I went to continue cooking dinner (at the same time, on top of the crying and mommy yelling, Jack Jack has to scream and asked to be picked up, he was hungry). Emma was told to stand at the corner until she stops crying and calmed down. Poor girl. Five minutes later, I hear this little voice whispering, "mommy, I want to pray for you....so you don't get mad.... be nice to me mommy". My heart softened, I picked her up and hugged her tight. We both calmed down. I explained to her why I was angry and we prayed together for patience and love for each other. Meanwhile, dinner was still cooking, Jack Jack had to come pull Emma away as he saw that mommy was holding sister but not him and he was still very hungry....
This is my life, my everyday life. Boring but challenging.

V-day and Family Day

How long has it been? Must have been more than 4 years. It's been more than 4 years since Derek and I went on a trip alone, without kids. Lately, it has been really exhausting. Work has been stressful, kids have been demanding, housework never ending. I felt burn out, trapped, boring. Daily life is just so boring. I thought to myself, is this it? Life is just like this, rush to work, rush home, cook dinner, rush rush rush, sleep... get up and start the rush routine all over again? Where did romance go? Where did excitement go?

More frustrating besides the stressful boring daily life, is to feel neglected and not appreciated. Thank God, my friend bought me a book called "How we love", I think everyone should read this book. It talks about understanding people, people that matter in your lives. It talks about how we become the persons we are today, from our childhood experiences, experiences that are stored in our subconscious memories. It talks about the different personality type or referred to as imprints in the book. The book is absolutely amazing, not only did I find out more about myself and why I react in certain ways, I learnt more and understand more about my own husband, whom I thought I know very well. Also, I learn about how I treat my kids will affect how they turn out as adults, as parents later on in their lives. From my perspective I felt un-loved, un-appreciated; yet, I found out that it was my husband's personality type - or imprints- that prohibited him from showing his compassion. He was just simply not taught to show love. It doesn't mean he doesn't love me. The book is good in a way that it doesn't only tell you which imprint you fall into, it talks about how you can overcome your short falls. In short, there's hope. We can all overcome our short falls in our imprints, as long as we understand ourselves and be persistent in trying.

I talked to my husband about how I felt, in honesty and with love. Let him know that I am not trying to change him or pressure him, just want to be able to love him more and be better couple together. Be happier parents to provide happier home to our kids. Thank God, for His grace and mercy, Derek did listen and try to understand even though to him it was very hard.. almost like understanding another language. Derek made the effort of taking me on a 2-day trip to Montreal (mini-Paris as he referred) for a romantic alone getaway. Two-day trip was not a long time but he knew I would miss the kids too much if we went longer (he was right). It was short but it really revive the romantic memories. It revived our feelings for each other. It helped us focus on each other for 2 days, no computer, no work, no kids. After this trip, we both agreed we should have this getaway trip every year, just the two of us.