Is it possible?

To be busier now as a housewife than I ever was working?

The sands are shifting again.

Grateful

This past holiday season, I’ve had a lot to be grateful for.

Firstly, it was how my friends rallied around me during my time of need. I had two weeks to get outfitted for a formal event and I didn’t even know where to start. I had no evening gown, no idea how to do make up and had funny overgrown hair. I was desparate.

C scouted the town and reported to me the evening gown situation in the shopping malls. E booked me a hair and make-up appointment with her stylist, and found a small boutique with some potentials. A dropped everything and came shopping with me. When the search of assessories proved fruitless, E loaned me jewellery and shoes. It was amazing, but I pulled the whole thing off, in just two weeks. Without A, C and E, it would’ve been an unprecedented disaster.

Secondly, this came in the mail about a week back.

A thoughtful and sweet young lady remembered her cyberfriends over the holiday season. It’s beautiful and even has a pair of ballet shoes on them. I have never said much about my years dancing on this blog, but that she had remembered was touching and sweet. While it was lovely to receive the present, I was also hugely embarassed. Not only did she get the gift, she had to send it airmail to me. I never do anything this thoughtful and it makes me feel like I really don’t try hard enough with the people around me. A reminder, I guess, that one really should be appreciative of one’s friends, and that a small gesture really does go a long way.

To the lovely girl who sent this, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Saraism #403392

S’s been going on and on and ON about the new molar coming through. She talks about it when she first sits up in the morning. It’s the last thing she talks about before going to bed. Yesterday, she brought it up again, for the nth time.

S: Mommy, you know, my mouth is so painful that I cannot talk. (Opens and closes mouth like a goldfish)

M: Really? Good, then don’t talk.

S: But….

M: *wagging finger* Uh, uh, uh, you said you cannot talk! Better keep quiet so that it’s not so painful.

Mommy – 1, S – zero.

Dressing up N

The reality of living with a child with common food allergies is that every other week, we’re battling some degree of rash. The itchiness at night makes N a lousy sleeper and even as he approaches two years, I’m still getting up at night and dealing with nasty bouts of scratchiness and restlessness that last an hour or two. If it’s early in the evening, he gets to come out and watch TV with us or play, but if it’s about 1am in the morning, he’s confined to the bedroom while I sleep on the floor. This usually means some degree of physical harm for me because he’ll either sit on me, or throw books at my head in attempts to get me up.

The allergist gave me some new medication – a steroid cream which I loathe to use. He tells me it’s safe and I’m sure it is, because it’s used by allergic children and adults the world over. Still, the idea of steroids, in whatever amount, bothers me. We are attempting alternative rememdies on N, but they take time. A year, maybe two, I’ve been told. We persist with it in an attempt to prevent the food allergies from becoming other types of allergies. The type that plagues my family. Sinus allergies. Both our alternative medicine doctor and our allergist have warned me that N could become allergic to stuff like dust and mites, even if he isn’t yet. While it definitely doesn’t mean the end of the world, it’s a curse my family and I have had to live with and I will do whatever I can to free him from it.

Back to the steriod cream though. Despite attempts to avoid using it, it has finally occured to me that while I may have lofty ideals regarding its use, the fact remains that if I don’t use any of it, N cannot sleep if he gets an outbreak. His legs and arm become red and weepy from all that broken skin. Regardless of how short his nails are, he still can cause hideous damage in under one minute. So we finally decided sod it all – N will get his steriod cream when he breaks into rash. Curiously enough, while I loathe the steriod cream, I have no issue with antihisthamines. Perhaps it’s because I grew up on them.

We’re in the midst of another outbreak, in case you are wondering where this is all coming from. I’m still coming to terms with his allergies, and I’m learning to take it, and all the attempts at useful advice from observers, in my stride. Everyone means to be helpful, but very often, they are not. It just makes me feel even more insecure about my inability to deal with it. Allergies are common in children, especially these days, and we are lucky that N’s are just confined to nasty red rashes. Many parents deal with allergies vastly more life threatening.

Last night, as I dressed N up in his bandages – yes, he has to be bandaged where the itching/scratching is the worst – I realized that this isn’t really about me. N’s allergies are not a failure on my part, and he certainly won’t feel any less for it, not unless I make it so. He will outgrow it one day, and as long as we find alternatives in the sweet and snack department, I think he’ll not really notice his “disability”.

We’ll all ride this out together, this allergy, and we all await the day N can indulge in ice cream with his big sister.

Know your place, woman!

Sara ranks the people in our house, in order of importance:

1. Mommy

2. Papa

3. Auntie

4. N

Nate, through a variety of simple questions, alludes to the following ranking:

1. Jie Jie

2. Mommy

3. Auntie

4. Papa

Popularity contests are a difficult thing around this house.

Saraism #7943

Sara’s quick response this morning to my continued mourning of Nate’s fine, upstanding hair which, until a few days ago, used to stand on end like a rambutan. Quite suddenly, on the second of January, his hair decided to grow up and lie flat.

Sara: Nathan’s hair is lazy.

Me: Wha….?

Sara: It won’t stand anymore. It’s lazy.

Doing the unthinkable

 

We hiked, last weekend. All of us, Nate included, albeit strapped to Danny’s back. It was the family’s introduction to Danny’s great passion – hiking. 

I was impressed with myself. I was even more impressed with Sara who did the entire thing in about two hours (we budgeted three hours), with nearly no complaints. Nearly because she did complain, at one particularly long, uphill stretch. Otherwise, it was easy-peasy. I managed to do the entire thing in good humour because hiking in winter is a much better proposition than hiking in summer. It’s dry and cool and psychologically less exhausting in the absence of sweat and humidity.

It was a gorgeous, leisurely stroll through the wilderness of Hong Kong, sort of. Even the pollution didn’t dampen our trek too much. Yep, we should definitely do more of this. Before it starts heating up again.

PAR-TEE

A totally deviation from past New Year’s Eve tradition, this year we actually got invited to a hip New Year’s Eve party. How cool was that. Lots of beautiful people (read: tall and gorgeous models and starlets), shrieks of feigned enthusiasm, sounds of loud air kisses and bright flashes from cameras. Everyone was a Paris or a Nicky or someone equally unimportantly important. We didn’t know anyone, save some folks at our table and our hosts, but we weren’t bored. It was an experience to behold.

Welcome to the new year!

New Year

Here we are again. A couple of years back, I wrote this on New Year’s Eve. It’s a good thing I did – I frankly don’t remember much about anything anymore. I couldn’t even remember why I didn’t do a wrap up post last year, and sure enough, digging through the archives, I realise why. We had the earthquake just off the coast of Taiwan after Christmas last year and it all but knocked me back to the Dark Ages for weeks.

I have no such excuse this year, so here I am. Back in January of 2007, I made this note, but as God would have it be, that didn’t happen. We didn’t move country, or city or even house, so that counts for some sort of stability, but there were changes that totally blindsided me. Still, not all change is bad and you’d think that after this time, I’d have learnt to deal with change gracefully and positively. Which I haven’t, but I’m still working on it.

2007 was a good year. Danny took bold steps in his career, I headed back to school for something I love. The kids have grown lots and we are proud of them, flaws and everything. Sara is an almost four-year-old, confident and happy. She talks incessantly and has an insatiable curiousity for everything damn thing around her. Nathan is a charming toddler of almost two with an infectious laugh. His moods tend towards extremes, but we can’t imagine him any other way. Life is good.

2008? Change is upon us, I’m sure of it. Mostly because we are planning changes ourselves. But history reminds me that I should never rely on planning too much anyway. Things have a great knack for not following plans.

I stopped making resolutions some time ago. Danny had asked me why I bothered since I never actually tried to achieve them. Very true. But this year, I’m back to resolution making. Only two this time. Real ones I intend to work on. Firstly, stay healthy and exercise. Secondly, write more. Not blogging, but real writing.

So Happy New Year, everyone! May 2008 bring as much to you as we hope it brings us.