Mid-autumn festival

Autumn is a beautiful season. It’s the time of the year when nature displays it’s beauty with colors of red, orange, yellow, pink, brown and more. It’s a nostalgic time when the weather begins to cool, the leaves begin to fall, and you will tend to stop and look at the flowers more because soon they will be gone when winter creeps in. I like autumn, even though we do not have very beautiful fall colors here, I like the feeling that the season brings.

At the start of Fall, the Chinese celebrates the mid-autumn festival (中秋节) or you may also call it the Mooncake festival. There are many myths and legends associated with this festival. Too many to mention here. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes, which was what we did this year at a friend’s house.

After a sumptuous dinner, we gave each child a paper lantern which they decorated earlier with stickers, and had a lantern parade in the backyard. It was alot of fun. Then we huddled together in the light of the moon to listen to the story of mooncake festival while chomping on all kinds of yummy desserts (mooncakes included of course). For the kids (and the parents too), it was a very meaningful celebration. Aside from all the food and fun, they also learnt more about the Chinese customs, which is so important.

Hang in there

Ricky left for a business trip this morning, not for long, just less than a week. I have learnt to take care of the kids all by myself pretty well, I’m not too concern that I can’t cope….unless the kids are not well. That’s exactly what’s happening right now.

Russell started having a cold and fever since Friday evening. This morning, he woke up around 5.30 am, maybe because he was not well, or maybe because I told him that daddy would be leaving for the airport early in the morning. Anyhow, he stayed awake to see daddy off. For the rest of today, occasionally he would bring up the topic of how much he missed daddy and asked when daddy will be home. Health wise, he seemed okay, no fever, no more runny nose, just constant cough, and he has a pretty good appetite.  As for Netanya, who normally has no problem falling asleep by herself, was acting out today! She would not quit crying until I sat in her room and waited for her to drift off. This happened both at nap time and bed time today, while his poor brother sat outside all alone feeling sick and tired (literately). Finally close to 9 pm, i came out of the room to put Russell in bed, I could hear his cough escalating. By the time I went to his room again to check on him, it was too late. He has vomitted on his bed. I tried to comfort him and was about to bring him to the bathroom to clean him up, when he vomitted again and again all over in his room on the carpet.

If I was not a mother, I would have cried. What a mess! But because I am a mother, and my child is depending on me to take care of him and the situation, especially so when daddy is not around, I kept my composure and assured him that everything was going to be just fine. For the next half an hour or so, I cleaned him up, change his sheets, cleaned the carpet and tucked him in bed. *pause* (Listen…it’s all quiet now, he’s finally asleep.) But not for long. Since he threw up all his medicine, I’ll have to wake him up around midnight for another dose to keep his fever down.

Gearing myself for a long night. I only pray that he’ll start feeling better soon and Netanya will back to her normal sleep routine tomorrow.

twinkie twinkie little cake

For those of you who don’t know what a twinkie is, it is a cream-filled sponge cake which happens to be many kids’ favorite, including my kiddos. Netanya, who is learning to self-feed now, will not let me touch her twinkie once I unwrapped it for her. She is as possessive of her twinkie as a dog would it’s bone. So each time when she eats a twinkie, I will have a MAJOR cleaning up to do after that. Look at the pictures and you’ll know what I mean. I have to clean the high chair, the floor, herself and all the creamy handprints on the things that her little hands touched!

daddy this and daddy that

Russell has always adore his daddy, but in recent weeks, daddy’s importance in his heart has elevated to even greater heights. He practically wants to do whatever daddy does. To cite a few examples; he insisted on wearing jeans to school on a hot summer day because daddy was wearing jeans to work that day. On weekends when daddy doesn’t have to go to work, Russell would rather stay at home with daddy than to come along with me to do grocery shopping (he would never let me go out without him last time). And on weekdays when he did go to the store with me, he didn’t want to sit in the shopping cart, nor walk next to me, he’d walk in front of the cart, holding on to it with one hand as if he’s ‘guiding’ the direction of the cart. Why? He explained “That’s what dada did!” Last night he even ate a bowl of laksa for dinner, while gulping down lots of water, because he wanted exactly what dada had for dinner.

Tonight’s incident tops them all. He wanted to have dessert after dinner, so I offered him a slice of cake. He thought the slice was too much for him and asked me to cut it into half, which I did. I gave him half and started eating the other half myself. After I’ve finished, I caught him staring at him in a strange way, he said, ” When we share (the cake), we don’t have to finish everything!” Hmmm….I didn’t quite get what he meant. As if he could read my expression, he went on to say, “Dada hasn’t tasted the cake. How? There’s nothing left for dada!” Oh….now I get it, he’s blaming greedy mama for finishing the cake that he wanted to share with he DEAR DADA. “Gek sim ah!” (in Hokkien means heartache)

Actually I shouldn’t be jealous, instead I should be very happy that Russell is emulating his dad and sees him as his role model. I know he still loves me and needs me, it is only healthy that as a boy he wants to be like his dad in every way, daddy is his hero now.

Hey daddy, now you need to watch your speech and behavior even more closely, somebody is watching your every move.