Our First Letter Exchange

About a month ago, I received a notice from Charlotte’s school that they are introducing post office, stamps, letter and etc in the coming week and we were asked to write a letter to our child and mail it the conventional way to the school address. I was excited as I think the kids will be excited too when they received the letter from their parents this way.

We were asked to keep the letter short, but take this opportunity to express our feelings, expectations, hopes and wishes through this letter. I think this is good as being an Asian, we are not as open and direct when confronting with our feelings and emotion with our loved ones. And I needed this opportunity share my feelings with Charlotte and how things have changed with Abigail’s arrival.

My letter to Charlotte:

亲爱的宣宥,

你知道吗 你是妈妈最宝贝的宝贝? 你是一个很乖, 也很贴心的孩子. 妈妈很欣慰, 也很疼你. 我都会把最好的给你, 用的, 吃的, 穿的, 包括时间和精神. 希望你能健康和快乐的成长.

妹妹出世之后, 家里大大小小的事多了不少. 妈妈也因为要照顾妹妹而很可能有多少忽略了你. 对不起! 但是妈妈还是很爱你的, 希望你会懂事. 你和妹妹都是妈妈的宝贝, 妈妈两个都爱, 两个都疼.

你今年六岁了! 明年你就要升上小学一年纪了. 妈妈最担心的是在学校功课, 饮食, 样样都必须自己负责. 妈妈希望你能学得更自立, 至少在家里能开始学习吃饭和喝奶都不需要再喂就好了! 宣宥 要加油哦!

妈妈爱你!  

Few weeks later, they have an expedition, going to the post office! And I knew what’s coming although nothing was announced by the school. However, Charlotte was very cute and she can’t keep the secret (or maybe she was not told that it suppose to be a secret). She told me that I should expect her letter, in green color envelope J .

One day, I was late from work and she called. She said “Mommy, can you please quickly come home? My letter is here!” J Of course I made my way home at the soonest and she eagerly passed me the letter and asked me to read it!

She wrote:

亲爱的爸爸妈妈
我爱你们
我也爱可宥
可宥是我的好可宥
宣宥上

There was no punctuation on each sentence, and I don't know why the paper was so broken. I think she must be trying to decorate it using a shaped scissors (see the edge of the paper) and that's how it turned out. 可宥 is Abigail's chinese name but she wrote it wrongly (oops!) and the characters on the letter were she and Abigail. The envolope was nicely decorated (I didn't know that it is allowed, haha!), Mr Postman must be amuzed when he delivered it.

A Quick Update



It is time for me to post about Abigail's growth progress; it has been 4+ months! How time flies. Sometimes I really wish for the 25th hour. My days are much occupied since I return to work, no time to slack!

Abigail is growing very well; she hits every growth milestone quite timely (Charlotte was always behind by 1-2 months as far as I could remember). She is a very cheerful and friendly baby. She smiles whenever she’s called and she loves Charlotte. She responds to Charlotte very well, sometimes she coos the loudest when Charlotte interacts with her. It is very funny to see the “chicken-duck” talk between the 2 of them.

So far, she wakes up once at night for feeding and she sleeps very well when she is swaddled. However, this has ended last week since she masters her new skill to roll over! She kept rolling over and woke up on her tummy and smiling at me in the middle of the night L  I had to keep waking up, put her back to sleep and that equal to no sleep!! Help!! But she has this cute and innocent face that you won’t get mad at her. Instead, I can’t help but kiss her a few times on her cheek before putting her back to sleep.  

Maternity Leave, Ended

Wow, this is the longest blog break that ever happened to me. I have been busy, really busy...

I have returned to work 2 weeks back. Well, my maternity leave ended long time ago but I took additional 2 weeks off from my previous accumulated time off that I had not had a chance to claim. I am now learning to live with new schedule, juggling between work loads and kids and sleep deprive…

When I gave birth to Charlotte, I took everything personally. I did everything for the baby myself, even during the confinement month. It was very very stressful and tiring. This time round, lesson learned. I took the opportunity to rest as much as I could. While having confinement helpers around during the first month I let her managed every for the baby, including the night feeding. I'm still breastfeeding, but with EBM I left the feeding job to her and trust that she is able to do the job that she is paid for. I did not have to worry about Charlotte too because my mother was around to help out and to take care of her. So, confinement month was rather enjoyable this time, except the ridiculous confinement rules that I had to follow...

After the first month, most "helpers" had left but luckily we have found a baby sitter to take care of Abby. I decided to start sending Abby to her (bad mommy, I know) because I needed the time to settle some overdue errands, get quiet time of my own, rest and rejuvenate before returning to work. Also, I need to start practicing the morning routine, that is getting myself ready for office, that includes expressing breast milk, feed and change Abby, get Charlotte ready for school, and not late for work and school. I could almost imagine the chaotic situation especially when Pat is out of town. So, by starting this routine while I'm still on maternity leave I could practice and set the schedule early without having to run into morning madness (although I still think that morning madness would still happens, hopefully it will be less frequent and in a smaller scale).

It is also a good thing that I am sending Abby to sitter, I could use the time to do marketing every morning after sending both girls off, get paperwork filed, bills paid, did some exercise, facial, hair cut and most importantly, planned and get things organized. Besides, Abby is starting to recognize faces and places. Getting her familiarized with her baby sitter early hopefully will minimize the separation anxiety that I used to deal with Charlotte when leaving her with her grandma in the morning.

Other than enjoying having a little quality time of my own, I managed to accomplish a small home improvement project. We never completely furnished our rooms for this current house that we have been staying for more than 8 years now. The master bedroom was the only room that we furnished, leaving the other 3 bedrooms and family hall upstairs "free style". Charlotte is still sleeping in our room, on our king + super single bed and we didn't really bother of furnishing the other rooms until Abigail's arrival. The baby stuff and everything else seem overflowing and running out of storage. So I engaged an ID company and my medium scale home improvement project was completed right before I return to work.

I think I had fully utilized my maternity leave. I am now embarking on another new chapter of life. I know it will be challenging, but blessed.

Stay tuned for my next update.

Introducing Abigail

It has been a month and I still don't have much pictures of Abigail to share. My SLR is only operated by me, and since I'm being requested to bed rest most of the time no one has been taking Abigail's picture.

This is the picture I took during the first few days, at the hospital. She was sleeping soundly after breastfeed. I took this picture with my phone camera.



This is the picture that I took 2 days ago, still with my phone camera. I think I need to take out my camera from the bag and standby all the time in order to capture a very nice moment of Abigail.

She has a rather boyish look and most people said if I give birth another child, it will be a son! Crazy!! I was satisfied with just Charlotte, and now I am very contented with Charlotte and Abigail...another one??? Don't even think about it!

My Pregnancy Memory

I didn't write down any pregnancy memory when I was carrying Charlotte. Back then, I didn't even have a blog. I only started blogging 2 years after having Charlotte. And this is it, a blog all about her.

Now that I am expecting my second baby very soon, and I think I have a perfect place to keep not just about my kids' growing up memory, but also start all the way back from my pregnancy memory.

I remember clearly the night before I found out that I was pregnant with Charlotte we invited a few friends to our house for dinner. We cooked steak and had a very nice wine and we stayed all night chit chatting. The next morning, I decided to take a home pregnancy test since my period was late. When the test result came out positive, the first thing I recalled was "damn! I was drinking last night!"...it wasn't a planned pregnancy but Pat and I did talk about it as we thought we'll just take it easy and if it happens, it happens...and it happened!!!

I swear and was 101% sure that I will not have a second child. I guessed I was not prepared to welcome another baby experience along with the responsibilities and commitments associate with it. I was overwhelmed, my tried to do the best (I think I did) for the Charlotte, I was committed to breastfeeding, I sacrificed my career commitment to allow bandwidth to take care of the Charlotte, I gave up many opportunities on both personal and professional growth. Naturally, I was in phobia to commit another one. Pat on the other hand, always wanted a second child. But he couldn't push to hard for it to happen because half the time he is not home and he knows that the responsibility is all mine. His brilliant idea is to have maid to help out, but I am someone that cannot rely on maid entirely, not on baby, not even on house chores. Baby is too fragile and I can never imagine to have something happen to a baby because I "outsource" the responsibility to a maid and accident happened. So second baby was out of the equation for quite some time. Charlotte is turning 6 this year and maybe I'm kinda forgotten about all the sweat and tears, and I also missed the feeling of having a baby kicking inside your tummy when you are carrying him/her, but I also realized that now I am 6 years older, my stamina and health may not be in the same condition as 6 years ago. Can I still cope with the night feeding marathon? The miserable colic cry every night? The washing and cleaning...so just like the 1st pregnancy we were not to serious about it but we are blessed!

I found out that I was pregnant at around the 5th week the first time, and this second time was maybe just around the 3rd week. We couldn't see any sign of embryo formation when we went to see the Gynae, just a sign of positive pregnancy with thick wall on the uterus. I was in a little denial for a couple of weeks until the presence of an embryo showed on the ultrasound scan later on. So the pregnancy journey started...

I had a very easy pregnancy the first time. Everything was normal, I ate as usual (maybe was eating a lot more than usual), sat, walked, slept as usual. No morning sickness, no backache, nothing...so the whole 40 weeks passed by very quickly and Charlotte born just 2 days earlier than the EDD. The 2nd pregnancy is a whole new experience, and I never thought it could be that challenging although I had heard many difficult pregnancy experiences before. It started with a very bad morning sickness, or maybe I should say all-day sickness because that's really what it was. I felt so sick all day long, nothing (food/drinks) seemed to be able to comfort my tummy. I was hungry but everything that went in came out pretty soon. What makes it worse is the washroom in the office, the look, the smell, even just the thought of using it made me sick already. So I was really dragging myself to work everyday in the first trimester. Not only that, I started to have backache even at 8 weeks along. I couldn't bear the pain even just walking a short distant, imagine back then my tummy had not really show and I was worried sick about the remaining 30+ weeks journey. In between 1st and 2nd trimester, I had numerous occasions of spotting and visited A&E very frequently. I spotted when I was slightly overworked, slightly over stressed, did a little bit more house chores than usual, baked a cake or two over the weekend...I was on bed rest many times so far. I felt so fragile and weak with this 2nd pregnancy, but I was all energetic and active during the 1st. No wonder the old wive tales called it unique pregnancy...but I call it "age does matter pregnancy"...

With Charlotte, I had a very clear sign of labor - my water bag burst at 40 weeks, at 4+am. I knew for sure I had to check myself in to hospital by then. I am now 38+ weeks and for the last one whole week I kept having false signs of labor. I felt the contraction last Thursday late afternoon, Pat was away from home and so I drove to the hospital myself and had a CTG check. The nurse asked me to pack my bag and check-in that night because the contraction was strong and consistent. On my way back, I called Pat and asked him to come home immediately. Pat came back late night, but we didn't check ourselves in because the contraction had went away, and it was nothing for the next few days. I woke up on Saturday morning and found out that I had "show" and this time we packed and put all the necessary things into the car and went straight to the hospital. Strangely, the contraction that morning was very mild than usual and my Gynae said there was no dilation yet. He sent me to CTG monitoring again and when the result also showed mild and inconsistent contraction I was sent home. I had my follow up today and my Gynae said my baby likes it in my womb and decided to stay a little longer...(sigh!). I'm home once again.

Will the bell rings next week?

A Letter To Baby

Charlotte wrote a letter to baby last week, I can't believe that baby's 1st letter was from her sister...

I love mommy because I like mommy. I oso love you baby so I like you baby. I love baby when baby come out. I will take care, I will not fight with baby. Baby is my friend, I love you baby. This is for you baby.
I am Charlotte. I oso your friend.

She's Such An Angel

I am very blessed to have Charlotte, she's such a sweet, understanding and sensitive girl even at this age. As I am marching in further at 2nd trimester, many of the early stage pregnancy sicknesses are gone but some new symptoms have surface too. When I was suffering from morning sickness, I tried to avoid letting Charlotte see or knows about it. I remembered once it hit me really badly and when I came out from the bathroom, Charlotte was crying and said "I don't want mommy to sick, I love you mommy!". It must be hard for her because I always seem strong to her and she probably felt insecure when I fall sick. It took her awhile to overcome and understand that I was ok after all.

Lately, I have been suffering from backache and I woke up with severe but sudden muscle ache on my left arm the night before. The pain was unbearable, but there was nothing I could do as Pat was not around and it was already midnight and I couldn't get help anywhere. I waited until morning came, get Charlotte ready, dropped her off to school, went to office for an important meeting and by the time I get myself out to hospital was almost 10.30am. I put on the cream subscribed by my Gyne all day when I was in office but it did not relief me much. I couldn't bother much at work because of my workload but when I got home, I felt like my arm was falling off my body. It was almost 9.30pm when I finally decided to visit to a nearby pharmacy and ask for help. I knew this pharmacist and he was very helpful for my last few visits to the store. He recommended my a patch and also a hot water bag. I immediately the patch on when I got home and Charlotte was watching me. She was again breaking down in tears "I don't want you to sick mommy!" while lightly pat on my arm. No matter how I assured her that I will be fine and the pain will all go away soon I couldn't stop her from crying so sadly. She was still sobbing when we went to bed. She did her bedtime prayer and this was what she said:

Jesus, I love my mommy and daddy, so please ask my baby to be good and don't make my mommy sick. Because she is so pain and I don't want my mommy to (feel) pain because I love her. Please ask my daddy to come home tomorrow so (that) he can help my mommy and my mommy not pain anymore. Jesus hear my prayer, Amen.

I was so touched hearing this. This is how sincere a kid can be, and I am glad that she knows to turn to God and ask for help. That night I hugged her to sleep and deep down I also pray to God to relieve my pain and let me have a good night sleep as I have a heavy responsibility at work and at home. I had a hot water bag on and I slept like baby in no time.

I am all recovered in the morning! Hallelujah!!

妈妈的味道

Charlotte likes to snuggle up with me whenever possible. It is very funny that even we are sitting on a 3 seater couch, two of us usually only occupied 1 seat. I felt suffocated when I needed a space of my own, especially when I had a long day at work, or not feeling too well. But most of the time we both enjoy the cuddling and being close to each other.

One night she was sleeping very close to me and held my hand. She asked: "mommy why you always smell so good?". I thought it was a very funny question, so I gave a simple answer: "because I just had a shower" and brushed it off.

This morning she came to me and put a little handkerchief of her on my face before we left home. I didn't know what she was doing but I let her. Later I overheard the conversation of her and my mother: "外婆, you smell" and hand out the handkerchief, and she continued: "妈妈的味道, 很香! 我要带去学校"

She's A Great Kid!

While most parents had some sort of getaway with their children during the 2 weeks school holiday, Charlotte was with my parents, and at home at all time. I was very busy at work and practically did not see daylight (except during lunch), and Pat was on business travel. Everyday, Charlotte woke up without me, and she waited for me to come home to tell me what she did and what happened during the day. Sometimes I was way too tired and fell asleep while she was telling the story and she would tell me "妈妈, 昨天你已经睡了可是我还没有说完" then she continued "没关系, 因为我知道你累了". That made me feel even worse and I promised that I will listen until she finishes the story that day but then I fell asleep again without me knowing it.

I felt very sorry and the guilt kicks in everyday. However, I was glad that she was very well taken care of, she ate well, learnt many things that I was not expecting her to know or pick up, and most importantly she was happy when I got home every night.

She is a great kid and I am very proud of her. She carries good manners, show respect to people, thoughtful and very kind hearted. One night, when she was telling the story, she asked me if I noticed grandma's hand. I said no and asked why? She said grandma burnt her hand when she was cooking and she asked me to buy cream for grandma tomorrow.

Last Wednesday night, I told her that the next day will be grandma's birthday and I asked her what she want to prepare for that occasion. She suggested that we give grandma a surprise, and get her a cake! Well, to me that's very easy to do. I got the cake after work (I left office early that day) and when I was home my mom showed me the birthday card that Charlotte made for her, from scratch! My mom said she asked for a piece of white paper and color pencils in the morning and my mom had no idea what she was up to. Charlotte drew a wonderful picture, and she wrote "I LUV U AMA", "I GIF U PRASEN", "HAPPY BUFDAY AMA". My mom had no idea what she wrote but I was laughing with my tears running in my eyes when I read it (forgot to take a picture of that card). It was a very colorful card and she even made an colorful envelope to put the card inside! She told my mom to put the card under the Christmas tree, I think she got confused with Christmas somehow *LOL* My mom was very happy with a small celebration we had at home, and a small gift that I bought for her but I couldn't take her out for a treat because I had to attend a night conference call.

I can see how sensitive and thoughtful Charlotte is, and I am very proud of her for having good manners, gentle and very understanding. I want to encourage her good behaviour and also to keep her happy while I am trying to get my busy work schedule worked out.

Yup, we took her for her 3rd movie! We know Charlotte could relate Toy Story Part 3 very well as she watched part 1 and part 2 since 2 years old, and still watching! I personally like part 3 more than the 2 episodes before because it has a very good story line and moral value too. I also got her...

A talking Jessie! you should see her big grin when I bring the box home today. She was thrilled!!

It is tough to be a working mom, isn't it? Trying to keep everybody happy, both at work and at home. My turn? Soon! ;)

母亲节

几个星期前, 在回家的途中听车里见收音机播放的一首歌心里忽然有一种莫名的感触. 那首歌叫"太委屈", 描述的是谈恋爱的种种心情. 可是我的感触却和恋爱无关.

不晓得从什么开始, 己经不再要求别人的嘘寒问暖, 反儿负起了"照顾"这个责任; 也不晓得什么开始, 从一个对厨房, 家务事一窍不通的我变成了家里的总经理, 包办了家里大大小小, 上上下下所有的事务. 从父母的千金到为人 妻, 为人母, 加上身为职业女性, 肩膀上的负担和精神上的压力不时都把我压得喘不过气. 自己有时也觉得很无助, 很委屈. 丈夫虽然也有他的付出, 但男女还是不平等的. 彼此的责任毕竟还是有差. 以前是"男主外,女主内", 现在, 女生大都"内外双兼".

很多时候 我都沉不住气向妈妈诉苦, 有时是无意, 有时是无奈, 但是诉苦后看见妈妈的心疼我更是后悔了. 常常就和几个要好的朋友透气, 埋怨, 发泄, 同时也互相聆听, 心中的不平衡也幸好有她们才没有变得极端. 大家也觉得现代的女性特别的难做, 可是我们也因此变特别的坚强, 能干. 最重要的是我们也更爱我们的妈妈, 更体谅妈妈, 更清楚何谓"世上只有妈妈好". 也从中彼此鼓励, 以走得更长远. 我常常心里在想, 如果没有了妈妈, 没有了朋友, 那就更委屈了.

一日为母, 终生劳碌. 无论是家里琐琐碎碎的实务还是上上下下的起居饮食妈妈没有一天放轻松. 就算儿女长大, 成家立业, 到后来多半还是奶奶或婆婆来帮忙带小孩. 妈妈对儿女的爱是没有条件和没有止境的, 但儿女对妈妈(父母)的爱却很容易被取代. 有没有人想过为甚么当我们带一个刚学着走路的小孩是满满的爱心与鼓励, 但当手扶这一个年老, 走起路来不方便的人却是个负担? 为甚么我们教导小孩都讲究技巧和心理学, 但为甚么面对年老, 脑力衰退的却是满肚子的牢骚?



母亲节的意义是否每一个做孩子的都明白? 我也是当上了妈妈才真正的了解做母亲的牺牲和付出. 不要应为庆祝而庆祝, 总要存感恩, 要知道"树欲静而风不止, 子欲养而亲不在"的道理.

祝天下的妈妈们 "母亲节" 快乐!

A Promise Is To Keep

It has been a long and busy 2.5 weeks. Actually, I was only away from home for 1 week but it takes longer than I expected it to be to clear the work backlogs.

While I was away, daddy made a promise to Charlotte that he would take her to horse riding one day. I don't know where and how this idea came about until one night Charlotte was reading her bedtime story book. There it was!

The same evening I touched down the airport, we headed to the north side of the island and daddy kept his promise!

However, come next Monday I had trouble getting Charlotte to school. She felt like she didn't have enough time with me and that separation anxiety kicked in again. It was a difficult week, every morning I had to deal with a crying pre-schooler. I tried to distract her with treats and play after school but it just didn't go very far.

One night, it was just me and her as daddy was still busy at work. I had a very close heart to heart talk with her. I told her that she made me very sad that every morning I had to leave her crying and drag myself to work. She didn't understand why initially but I pointed out to her with some examples and she finally agrees that she would feel the same way too if it is mommy that cries. I then told her that I kept all my promises to her, she asked for early picked up and I did, she asked for Crayola Finger Paint Book and I got her one from my trip, she asked for a new princess crown (I broke the previous one) and I bought her a very nice from from my trip too, plus many extras but I told her that she didn't keep her only promise to me. She kept quiet.

The next morning, she whined but not as much and I thought oh well, all that talk last night didn't work out. As I was dropping her off in front of the school, she said "mommy, I don't want to cry but please come pick me up at 4pm!". I thought that was an improvement alright. I wasn't plan to pick her up at 4pm because she asks for that everyday anyway. But then I considered it again, maybe I should because we talked about promises the night before and she was trying to keep her promise! So I took 2nd half off from work and went to pick her up at 4pm. When she saw me coming, she was really really happy. I pointed at the clock to her and told that I am keeping my promise again. I also told her that there will not be any more 4pm pick up after today and she has to keep her promise and do her part.

So far, the "promise" episode works out well. Let's hope for it to go far as I will have a very busy work schedule starting end Apr :(

On The Move, Again

This is my 3rd time leaving home for a business trip since Dec last year and I got very very worried that Charlotte might have a tough time to accept it. I planned very carefully of how and when to break the news to her. Thankfully she accepted the fact, although with some tough negotiations and treats.

Last Sunday, while putting her to afternoon nap I asked her if she wanted to go visit 外婆 (maternal grandma). She asked me why, and I said because 外婆 is my mother and I missed her since it has been almost 2 weeks since I last visited her. Immediately she broke down in tears and I knew I had said something wrong, or rather sensitive. I pretended that I didn't understand what has caused her to cry and she said "because when you go to China I will miss you too mommy!"

Lotte Oh Lotte!

Update From Home

I called home last Sunday night to check out how's everything going back there and I got a good news but I did a poor job in handling that news.


The good news was, everything was alright and Charlotte even won the church Christmas singing competition! It was a duet for ages 3-6 and 2 teams were announced as the winner for that age group, Charlotte's was one of them!


I was so excited when Pat told me that and I asked to talk to Charlotte, didn't know that it was a bad move! (I asked Pat days before did Charlotte requested to call me because she told me that she would call me if she misses me before I left. Pat told me he did ask her but all she said was "call tomorrow"). When Pat passed the phone to Charlotte all I heard was sad, sad sobbing. I kept telling her that I got her lots of toys and dresses for her and how proud I was of her achievement in that singing competition but there was no response from her other than the sobbing. It was really heart broken listening to that sobbing and I didn't know what was the magic word to say to make it right. I told her that I love her and I miss her lots before I hang up.


A minute later, I sms Pat to find out if she was already alright. The reply was "no more cry, playing bubble now". Now I know why she didn't want to call me - she was really trying to hold back or avoid her feeling and emotion.


Thank goodness, and I am confident now that Pat is able to take care of her when I am not around. I just need to learn to relax and let go sometimes.

Away From Home

I haven't been traveling on business since July 2007 and now I am writing this from 10K miles away from home. I still remember how difficult it was for both Charlotte and myself back then, mostly after the trip. She was practically all over me and glued to me 24x7. She was only 20months old back then, but she is now 4 year old and I had a lot of talking to do before I leave just to make sure she understands.

I took last Friday off and our family spent a weekend in KL. I broke the news to Charlotte when she was really happy and enjoying the shopping trip. I didn't tell her the whole story in one try, but only adding more facts after each day. She slowly accepted the fact that I won't be home during that period of time, but mommy has all the back-up plans arranged for her.

I reminded her everyday before I left, and I was glad that she gave me all positive responses every time. I didn't have her to send me to the airport but she gave me a big hug before I left and said "媽媽﹐ 路上小心, I love you!". It was the best assurance I could ever get, don't you agree with me?

I know she will be ok as I have Patrick, my mom and my sister in law all lined up and ready to take care of her when I'm away. I also prepared small treats and presents and Patrick will only give to her if she is acting way too difficult to convince. Will see how many left when I go home.

外婆的宝贝 (Grandma's Little Precious)

It was school holiday last week, Charlotte was home all day while Pat and I were at work that whole week. We don't have a maid since Brenda (our previous maid) went home in May, so who was there to look after Charlotte?

At situation like this, my parents never failed me. They are always there for me, for us, anything at all that we asked, they will never say no as answer. For that, I am very very thankful that I am such a blessed child. Obviously, my mom volunteered to look after Charlotte for the week even before I asked. I was very happy to hear this as I know nothing can go wrong and I can focus my attention at work knowing Charlotte is in good hand. The only thing that we were worried about is if Charlotte would get connected with my mom the way we hoped for. This is because we only visit my parents once a week or less. We observed that Charlotte sometimes need a long period of time to warm up and get comfortable with my parents.

My parents came Monday morning, and I was very relieved when Charlotte ran to the door and greeted her grandparents. My dad proposed to take Charlotte out for breakfast worrying that she may not agree to let me leave for work. That was how I managed to get to office without any protest on Monday morning. It was all peaceful throughout Monday, no phone calls from home and I knew everything was under control. I went home early Monday evening as promised to Charlotte and my mom started her "update" the moment I stepped into the house.

Update:

1. Charlotte was very obedient, didn't create any difficulty and my mom was able to cook and prepare meals without any disruption from her.

2. Charlotte had good appetite (something very new to me), she ate "char siew pao" during breakfast, big portion of lunch, she had 3pcs of biscuits and a cup of milo for tea.

3. Charlotte had good manners, keep telling grandma to be careful of the stairs, slippery bathroom, helped grandma with aircond and fan in her room as grandma was not familiar with the environment.

4. *there were many other comments which I didn't really listen because Charlotte was talking to me at the same time*

All of us had the most delicious and wonderful dinner that week! My mom is a great cook and she has magic in her cooking that I can never understand how it tasted so differently even I followed her recipe and instruction exactly. Maybe that's what called "cooking with love"! Pat ate the largest portion of all and my mom was definitely happy seeing us enjoyed her cooking. Charlotte even decided to sleep with grandma!

My mom, being her usual self, she bought a whole of things for the house, for the kitchen, for us and not to mention for Charlotte. I saw my fridge and freezer was filled with materials for cooking, kitchen added new tools, new dresses and accessories for Charlotte everyday. Last evening, I was greeted by this cute malay looking girl when I was home.

Every evening, I look forward seeing happy faces (Charlotte and my mom), great dinner, nice little chit chat among mother, daughter and granddaughter, small shopping here and there when I don't need to attend night teleconferences. It has been going on for a week and I can really get use to it. Unfortunately, it has coming to an end and I have to consider my dad although I love to have my mom all to myself. My dad has been living by himself and run his business all by himself this entire week. Although he keeps saying that there is no big deal for him, I feel extremely bad and selfish and I should "release" my mom to take care of him when Charlotte is back to school next week. I love to have both of my parents staying with me when my dad decided to retire one day.

Priceless!

If you have a picky eater at home like me you will know how I feel and what I'm going to say is true. It is priceless to hear the picky eater ask for food, or seeing he/she eats! Eating, may seem like a normal and natural way of life but it is not the case for the picky eater of mine.

Having said that, Charlotte has been showing good eating habit lately. In fact, her eating habit improves significantly when she started school this year. She asked for cake as desert for 4 consecutive nights last week. If you must know, she had never eat any cake for more than 2 bites, even her very beautiful and yummy birthday cake that she requested last year. I was very skeptical when she asked for cake. Then again, I never reject her food demand since she is such a picky eater and whenever she asks for it I will be more than happy to give.

I drove her to a nearby bakery and she picked a Germany Chocolate cake. I kept telling her that she must not waste the food, and the money of course as that piece cost me RM5.50! She said "yes" without any hesitation. That night, she finished almost 3 quarter of the cake! I was really really happy to see that of course. She asked for it again the next day, the day after next and another day. She did not finish the entire cake for all the 4 nights, but it was all with about 1/4 left and that was way exceeded my expectation.

It is priceless (to me) to see her enjoy her food...

She Cares

I am very pleased to see my little girl is growing up as a kind and generous person. Although she has her temper tantrum once in awhile but overall she is behaving rather well. She is willing to share her toys and belongings with others, she thinks of others and she is showing her sensitivity toward other's feeling lately. Like when I told her that Simba (our golden retriever) was sad because he is always staying home while she gets to play outside, she "talked" to Simba a lot lately. She told Simba to be good and she will bring him out to the beach again, she greets him everyday after school and etc. I'm glad to see that she takes our pet so dearly.

Last week, she told me her good friend Chloe had a cut on her finger at school. She told me that she wants to give her the "princess plaster". I said ok and told her to remember to bring along to school tomorrow. That evening, Chloe came knocking at my door. She returned the stamp that Charlotte lend her earlier and then she said "Auntie, Charlotte said want to give me princess plaster!". Oh, I didn't know that Charlotte made a promise to Chloe! Charlotte then looked at me and said "Yes, mommy I told you! Come let's go get the princess plaster" and we rushed to our room and she picked a "Sleeping Beauty" plaster for Chloe! She was very happy and kept on shouting out to Chloe "Chloe, wait ah!", "Chloe, I'm coming!". They both very happy, with one giving out "love" and another receiving what was promised :)

A few days ago I had a small cut on my thumb and when she noticed it she kept asking "Mommy, pain or not?", "Mommy, I sayang you ya, don't cry". She held my hand all day long, making sure that that cut will not get any more hurt.

Every time we have the opportunity to bake or cook something special she would think of sharing it with her friends in school, grandparents or her cousins...

I am pleased to see that Charlotte has developed her sense of empathy and caring for others as I think it is important to live "humanly". Another lesson that she learns indirectly is to keep her promise! Actually, both Charlotte and I made a lot of promises to each other everyday. Small deal like do her homework before TV time, eat her fruits/meal before she gets to play, clean-up after play and etc. She always keep her promise when she made one and I am so proud of her!

我的爸爸咧? (Where Is My Daddy?)

Pat's work is very demanding and so the time he spends at home on the weekdays are very limited. He usually only home after everybody has gone to bed, at least 2 or 3 nights on the weekdays but he makes sure he is home on the weekends (if not on business travel). Charlotte is missing her daddy more now as she is getting more matured.

Last night, we went to bed early and I noticed that Charlotte was tossing and turning for quite awhile and I asked her why.

Me: Charlotte, why aren't you sleeping yet?
Charlotte: 我的爸爸没有来 (my daddy didn't come)
Me: No, you should say 我的爸爸还没有回来 (my daddy is not home yet) not 没有来 (didn't come)
Charlotte: Why 我的爸爸还没有回来 (why my daddy is not home yet)?
Me: Because daddy is still at work
Charlotte: Why work so long?

She fell asleep not long after that conversation. This morning when I walked her to school, suddenly she turned to me and asked "我的爸爸咧?" (where is my daddy). I told her daddy is still sleeping as he came back late from work last night.

Poor darling, she must be missing her daddy very much.

You Made Me Proud!

A week before I was very worried if Charlotte would let me leave for work everyday this week as it is a school holiday week. I started to prepare her for what's coming, explained to her what school holiday is, and the most important message is "mommy has to go to work". I am very proud to say that her response and supportiveness was way beyond my expectation.

Not only that she is good to let me leave for office every morning without any fuss, she also been behaving very well at home. She did her home work, voluntarily. Her school doesn't have home work for them but those are simple worksheets that I prepared and have asked Brenda to make sure that she spends some time with Charlotte for simple learning instead of watching TV all day.

When I went home on Monday evening Brenda told me that Charlotte switched off the TV herself soon after I left for work and asked for her homework. The worksheets were very well done and she had not watch any movie that day. Same thing happened yesterday (Tuesday).

I have been very busy with work and have teleconference on most weeknights recently. I am usually exhausted after work and have not been emphasising in Charlotte's academical learning, shame on me. I only started to teach her simple spelling a week ago. Simple words (3 to 5 letters), as we came across them. It was spontaneous. I also started her on spelling the numbers, like "O-N-E", "T-W-O", and the last one was "T-H-R-E-E". Yesterday, I asked Charlotte "now, do you know how to spell four?" and she replied softly and slowly "hmm...F-O-U-R"! Guess who has been teaching her...Brenda! I am thankful that Brenda is very sincere and helpful too.

Charlotte is definitely showing her maturity and understanding more now than before. When I have night teleconferences and daddy is not around, I usually give her advance notice and that she will have to let Brenda to tuck her in bed (I used to sneak out when she didn't pay attention, and hide in my room at least 1hour before the meeting time for her to finish her screams and cries before the meeting starts). Now, I just need to make sure I have my work schedules planned ahead of time. She doesn't react very well with last minute notice though, then again, don't we all too? It's all about respect, even with the little ones.

Both Pat and I are very thankful that we are blessed with such a wonderful daughter!

Preview

Remember the crochet dress that Brenda (our maid) made for Charlotte? It didn't occur to me that I have a "sifu" (teacher) available 24x7 that I can take this opportunity to learn this skill until lately. When my company announced pay cut in Jan, we are entitled to get 2 days off every month and I started to wonder what I can do with this extra free time that I have.

While chatting with Brenda one day about the crochet workshop available at one of the mall nearby she said why not I go learn up this skill with the 2 days every month and I seriously think that was such a great idea! But I didn't go sign up the workshop, instead I went to a book store and started to look for books on crochets. I studied the instructions and I think I am able to interpret at least 70% of it. I was thinking, it doesn't matter even if I don't understand the instruction as Brenda is definitely able to figure it out. So I bought this 2 books, but they are in Chinese.

I started to look for a simple pattern, with simple instruction to start with. It has been months since I started my 1st piece of work. You must be thinking, "she is too free ah?", "she no need to work meh?", but the truth is I have been spending a lot late nights doing it. I can only do a very small portion at a time because I am not familiar with the work and I need to watch the time so that I will not take too much time off from my sleep hours.

It is not complete yet, but here is a sneak preview as I tried it on Charlotte today. Actually, Brenda has been making a lot of corrections, repairs and additional rows when I was away at work. Otherwise, it will take another few more months if I do it all by myself.

I think it looks great on Charlotte!