And another turns 3

Kids, poised and ready to launch
their attack on the bday cake

When Ethan Lee (Elliott's brother) turned 3 two weeks ago, his parents Sam and Adeline, threw him a special party at a charming pottery craft shop called, 'Art 4 Fun' in West Hampstead. I thought it was a brilliant venue to host a kiddy party because the clay painting activity was good fun for all the family.

After a sumptuous spread of spaghetti (which I mistook for mee goreng... don't ask me how. Duh.), home-made samosas, fishballs, prawn salad, pizzas etc, everyone was ready and itching to get creative.

Dee and I let Cheeks choose our clay figurine. Surprisingly, she chose a cat and said she wanted to paint our cat, Bambi. Considering she's never been particularly close to my cat - she was too young to really interact with Bambi; afterwhich we upped and left for London - I was rather nonplussed, yet pleased that she remembers our dear ol' cat back in SGP. So we did our best to paint the clay cat in Bam's likeness.

I must say I am quite pleased with the results. Look:

Papa dishing out instructions
on where to paint 'Bambi's' patches

Before going into the kiln

The finished product.
I say there's a semblance. :)

Little Storyteller

Dear family, friends, fellow bloggermums, people who stumbled on my blog simply because it was randomly thrust upon you when you did a 'Next Blog' click,

Welcome.

How nice of you to drop in and how timely too because - whaddya know - it's storytime here in Saggs' City!

What you're about to hear is an original, unrehearsed, completely unadulterated, totally off-the-cuff story by my 3YO.

But first... a little background story, about the story.

It all began when this thoroughly pooped-out (and I mean every sense of that word) mum ran out of ideas on how to entertain her little one. Opting for a more sedentary activity as opposed to playing hide-and-seek for the 28987376th time, we began concocting stories while snuggled up in bed.

Now, prior to the story you're about to hear, she'd entertained me with a delightful tale about a monkey climbing 'up and up and up and up' a tree for its banana. I had hoped she'd re-tell that story for the camera but no, that was a once-off, as is the following.

Well well, enough prattle from me. Here she is, my daughter, with one of her originals... Enjoy.


A story by Danielle from Saggieswee on Vimeo.

(for those who need subtitles)
One day there was a Papa, then he saw a monkey. Then there were two monkeys - there was 1 baby one, 1 mummy one. Then, Dora came! She realised that were her monkeys. 'No, that's my monkey!' said Dora. Then, she 'brang' them home, because they were her monkeys.

Yes, we belong together

Danielle: 'Girl' and 'Danielle' belong together.
D: 'Dad' and 'Dennis' belong together.
D: 'Mummy' and 'Sylvia' belong together.
D: Kuku and Nainai belong together.

On other family members:
D: (pointing at framed up photo) Mummy, is Gonggong botak?
M: (stifling a laugh) Hhaffmph...No, not completely.
D: (ponders) Yes, he still has some hair. He's not completely botak.
D: He has a little bit of hair on his head.

D: Mummy, Grandma is very small, isn't she?
D: She's very tiiii-ny.

Off Sick

Allow your imagination to run, say, a minithon, then imagine that's me in the above picture. Oh I know it's quite a stretch (it'd better be!!!) since you'd have to picture me with hairy man legs, stocky arms, in the buff from waist-down, and straddling a toilet.

Now that I've managed to conjure that lovely image in your mind-- Hold.It.Right.There. Feel the need to hurl yet? Well, c'mon down and join my barf-fest!

I have been - for the past few days - confined to a corner in my black and white tiled bathroom. Thus explaining my absence in blogging, although I'm quite sure some of you would've enjoyed my blow-by-blow accounts 'on location'. =)

So where was I? Ah yes. That picture depicts my position of late. If I wasn't seated, I'd be grasping the smooth, curvaceous sides of the ceramic bowl in a tight embrace, the words 'Armitage Shanks' staring brazenly at me while I keeled over and hurled out every single meal along with all my innards, and drowning the silence with horrible retching noises that reverberated round the four walls of the WC.

I have been held under house arrest, imprisoned in the toilet, if not shackled to the bed. I am indisposed and green from the ghastly fumes which are emitting through some of my orifices (don't make me name them!) even as I type.

Ahhhhhh... don't you just love vicariously living such adventures through me? *wink*

New Old Hairstyle

It's no wonder why I made such a convincing
'Sadako' during Halloween! Yikes!

Pretty much the same hairstyle, just 5 inches shorter
Have a bit of a fringe again (yay!). Didn't cut fringe too short tho'.
Didn't fancy looking toot-ish, if you know what I mean.

I did it.

I had a haircut in London. Yes, in British pounds. This cost me 19 quid, and even that was a discounted rate. The salon of choice gave a 50% offer to all first-time customers, see.

Converted, that's 50ish SGD. And it's my most expensive cut. Ever.

So it's nothing life-altering, earth shaking, nor jaw-dropping but it's still a nice weight off my shoulders.

I am happy.

Jesus to A Child

A rather 'religious' conversation we had the other day:

Cheeks and Bams in SGP before we departed for the UK
Kinda looks like she's 'blessing' Bambi in this photo, doesn't she?

D: Everyone has a God. Hannah has a God, Mummy has a God, Papa has a God, Nainai has a God, Kuku has a God, Grandma has a God, Gonggong has a God... I have a God.
D: Animals have God too. Bambi (our cat) has a God.
D: Mummy, I want to give Jesus to Bambi, then I'll have a new Jesus.
D: I want to wrap Jesus up as a present for Bambi.
D: I like Jesus. He's very nice.

Oh what the heck

If you're in complete bafflement why I keep blogging my baking exploits despite the botched attempts, well, I have only a few words for you -- get over it.

I've stopped 'the therapy', but then decided I WOULD NOT be defeated by the streak of baking misadventures involving sawdust cookies and cardcakes (oh no, no typo error here). So I decided to give it another go.

Behold! My latest kitchen exploit:

Banoffee Pie!

I LOVE banoffee and I cannot lie.

It was good. Sinfully good. So sinfully delish that my bigass butt has now been reduced (the irony! the irony!) to just BIGASS. (And yes, I WILL keep making references to my sizeable arse, so there!)

I am triumphant! Woooaaarrhhh! * barbaric yawp*

Cheeks was eager to assist during the preparation. She helped to crush the cookies for the base, and gleefully licked the whisk clean of ALL the excess cream.

And. She slept at 11pm tonight. Oh, go figure if you wish.

Pardon the sudden segue from baking to matrimonial news but I just wanted to announce it's my 5th wedding anniversary today! It is also my parents', what, 40th anniversary? Yes, we got married on the same day some 30-odd years apart. How cool is that? =)

Happy Anniversary, Mum and Dad!

I'll try to blog the day's events later but for now, the sketchy plan involves a trip to the hairsalon (me. YES! Am getting a haircut! Wish me luck!), dropping Danielle off at nursery (also me), shopping for a new worksuit for Dee since he decided to break out of his clothes like the Incredible Hulk, only sans the muscles, and oh, being green and all (Da Hulk). *rolleyes* How exciting eh? 14 years together and we've got a haircut listed as one of the programmes.

Whoop. pee.

Oooerr, I kinda like this picture of me and Hubs.

Makes him look defenseless to my 'wily' charms.
(Cheeks looks on, wondering what she
did to deserve such a maniacal mum)

Where a parent waxes lyrical about spit through a very bad poem

My daughter Danielle,
(yes, that oh-so-cheeky gal)

used to swallow toothpaste
and did it with such haste
I simply could not stop her
insides being a minty flavour
But lo!
one sunny September,
between brushing and grinning
She bent her head and
started spitting
I was over the moon
beaming like a buffoon
For now she doesn't swallow,
in the sink her head burrows,
and there she spits!
SHE SPITS!
Hoorah!
Hoorah!

- fin -

Our Sleepless Holiday

Before she left, I asked Mel whether she would do me the honour of being a guest writer on my blog. I'm v happy she agreed becoz, quite frankly, I was much too lazy to do the updates on our week-odd holiday out of London myself! =)

When I received her draft, I was tempted to edit bits here and there (ok, so I did! Only a teeny-weeny bit! The grammar! The spelling!) but I held back as much as I could so that 'flava' - that's so distinctly and wonderfully Mel - would not be lost.

So here she is, in her own words (well, most of it?), my very first guest blogger - my dearest friend Mel :)

6 Nov, Monday, baby-sitting for the SAHM

I have been invited by Saggs to be a guest blogger here.

As assigned by the ‘editor’, I'm supposed to blog about my trip to Rome, Edinburgh and around the UK.

I have been here for 20 days now and tonight is my last night in London.

Sob.. sob..sob

Currently, JH and I are babysitting Danielle. We bought a pair of tickets for Saggs and Dee to watch their first-ever musical in London, 'Wicked'. It is a small gesture on our part considering the generosity and hospitality we have enjoyed at the Chan household – free lodging, cooked meals, packed lunches, free flow of coffee and Milo... What more can a homeless tourist ask for?

About the wonderful, fantastic 20 days of holiday I've had so far? Gosh, it will be hard to describe in a short entry...

@ Stonehenge, Wiltshire

A few words come to mind – Splendid, Astounding (Danielle’s latest word), Awesome, Picture- Perfect. It is indeed amazing how big the world is and how many different cultures and beautiful places there are out there. It re-affirms the saying that one needs to travel. I now go away fuller, fulfilled, one notch up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs... but of course, poorer.

And the places I was able to visit - what with my meagre budget were – Edinburgh, Bath, Lake District, Rome and finally within the UK.

Windermere, Lake District

@ Edinburgh Castle, Scotland

About Edinburgh, Bath and Lake District - beautiful English country side!!! Breath- taking views, quaint cottages, rolling hills that make you want to put on a frock, do a little skip and holler at the top of your lungs – ‘the hills are alive at the sound of music’!

St Peter's Basilica

Rome was holy, breathtaking and ornate (as JH would mutter after every picture he took of the chapels and churches. He took 4000 over pixs, mind you!) Art on every corner of the street, on ceilings, on walls, it was literally spilling over with art pieces which makes the sights in London pale in comparison. To me, the best part of Rome was the tiramisu and gorgeous Italian men in leather jackets and Top Gun shades... And oh, it was a pity I did not get to shake the Pope’s hand, perhaps, if God was onto one of us, the Pope was probably busy on the phone.

To me, the best part of the holidays were the people I travelled with – it was the best crew ever assembled since The Lord of the Rings. The icing on the cake would have been if my husband were able to have joined me on this trip. I would highly recommend our gruelling schedule and itinerary for anyone who wishes to train for 'Amazing Race, UK edition'.

I discovered something new about the people around me through this trip. Dennis was the epitome of ‘a beast of burden’ – he would carry milk, maps, medicine, Danielle's buggy, bottles of water (both hot and cold) and Danielle on his shoulders (he could probably have prepped a bath for his daughter anytime he wished, with all that water and toddler on his back). This beast of burden was going uphill, down slopes, up flights of stairs, nothing was too heavy for this brother. He practically had a 7-Eleven on his back, and the best part, he was always close but never closed...

JH was the self-elected military ruler who sings a ‘beautiful’ symphony during his sleep. He prided on ruling over us - the sleepy, tired band of tourists. He was the alarm clock, time keeper, map reader, bus guide and restaurant guide all rolled into one. He scheduled the order of the morning visits to the toilet, dished out SOP if the group ever disbanded. I bet he even had a plan on what would happen if enemies infiltrated our base. His only weakness was ice cream – he blew all of his budget on Italian ice-cream. Syl was the clucky hen and perpetually asking ‘Where is JH?’ every 10 steps of the way, while I was the herded sheep, happy to follow the brood.

Lastly, the entertainer, the muse of all our photographs and ‘pick-me-up’ of the trip - little Danielle. Just one minute with her, listening to her crisp English accent would relieve all tiredness and soreness, keep the spirits up and remind us to view the world from the innocent eyes of a 3 year old – believing that the royal jewels are behind the glass casing, but ‘the King is not in the area’ (at Edinburgh castle), Santa Clause was entombed at Saint Peter's Basilica (actually they were the mummies of popes who’d passed on) , God has many enemies who want to fight Him, and Roman pigeons are ‘ornately’ different from English pigeons but damn, they still can’t be caught.

It is sad that the holiday has to come to an end. Tomorrow, JH and I are leaving on the evening flight back to Singapore. It has been a great holiday – such an old bunch of friends. It was a sleepless adventure (as Dennis would say) and a great time of ‘bonding’ as our lives branch out into different chapters after this trip.

As the holiday comes to an end, I wonder when this motley crew will re-group again and under what circumstances, for certainly our lives would be different. But I am heartened by the memories, the long conversations and the friendships that endure.

As I told Syl, I am predicting the happy chimes of wedding bells before we congregate in close proximity again.

I hope it will be soon...

Farewell, London


Our 1st Halloween from Saggieswee on Vimeo.

Baking out the Blues

Mel says my mastery in being able to 'summon' Sadness with the snap of my fingers, then meme-ing it to people around me, is deserving of idolatry. To her I say - it's not mastery, it's an art that's been perfected through time. Ahem.

And while I'm busy *virtually* peeling her pouty lips from off the ground I've tread upon, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to...

freshly baked cupcakes!

Tired of moaning and moping, I decided to shake off all negative, defeatist feelings with a good ol' kitchen remedy (???) - B.A.K.I.N.G.

But gawd, I CANNOT BAKE. In order to eschew any (highly) possible kitchen disasters, I resorted to using these vunderbah baking aids. Oh, I kiss the ground of the inventors of these stress-free creations. Muah muah muah.

Ready-mix Dora Cupcakes!

So Friday, Saturday - I baked. And baked. And baked.

Not only ready-mix cupcakes, but REAL, recommended-off-the-internet-recipe, chocolate chip cookies.

You know, I really love the idea of baking. Even though I'll never be a pâtissier. I always gawp (and drool) whenever I read/check out the foodie pictures on cooking blogs. I marvel at the baking prowess of these bloggers . (Ros, must take you on as my sifu!)

Anyway, anyway. Why baking therapy? Inspired by an episode ('I Am a Tree') from Grey's Anatomy where Izzie channels her grief into muffin-making, I thought why not? It satisfies two primary needs - to stave off the blues, and to indulge unabashedly in sweet, sweet comfort food.

So right now, sitting in my kitchen is a tray of cupcakes and tupperware-LOADs of chocolate chip cookies. I'd offer an entire batch to you but they taste somewhat like fibre-y sawdust.

trust me, they are as pasty as they look

It's no fault of the recipe though. It's me.

I CANNOT bake. But at least, I'm a lot less blue.

Worn

When I first moved here, I wasn't quite prepared to love living here as much as I do.

Yes, love.

Despite the wildly erratic weather, high living standards, issues that arise with being a 1-income family, having my wallet pickpocketed not once, but twice, having Tube travel plans incessantly thwarted by endless engineering work, the reserved English who are so hard to get to know, being treated like a second-class citizen, foreign worker, illegal immigrant, person who surely speaks no English.

I embraced it all.

Because I thought I could rough it out.

And (I think) I really put myself out there.

I made friends, explored London with Danielle, learnt bus routes, got to know local shop proprieters, and even some of the librarians by their first names (!!?), became friendly with the people at Starbucks, kept busy with planned playdates, walks, mini 'excursions', art/craft at home, dabbled in the odd cooking/baking session with Cheeks, leafed through (possibly) hundreds of childrens' books, watched all sorts of kiddy TV, surfed CBeebies, got active on my blog/Facebook.

But despite all these, I concede my life here is not real.

And for the first time, I feel ready to raise my white flag and succumb to that which I'm-not -quite-sure-what-I-am-succumbing-to.

I feel tired. Worn out.

I can't keep to the pace anymore.

I want to stop.

This surrender spells a number of things for me:

I thought I could give my daughter a chance of a 'different' life. A life where her achievements were NOT determined by an endless slew of box-ticking commitments. But I can't.
I thought I could live independently in another country, 10 thousand over km(s) away from those I love and cherish. But I can't.
I thought I am a survivor. But I'm not.
I thought I could be a good stay-at-home mum to my daughter, good wife to Hubs. But I can't.
I thought this little family was enough. But it's not.

Everything I thought I could be. I'm not.

There's a void that life here cannot fill.

Could that void be Home?

...

I don't know.

Perhaps I'm still reeling from Mel and JH's departure. Perhaps it's the sad, gloomy weather I've been cruelly subjected to since they left. Perhaps, as Hubs would put it, I simply relish making myself sad.

Or maybe it's simply Jay Chou. And the thought that if I was home, I could croon to his songs at some cheena KTV, till hoarse.

Everyone has their 'moment'. I guess this is mine, again? I know, I tend to spiral. Sorry if you had to subject yourself to the ramble.

But since you have, I'll let you in on what's been putting me in 'the mood'. Hubs is right, ain't he?
(Vick, if you're reading this, I think you'll like this song.)

The morning after...

Dear Mel and JH

Ok, so I didn't allow myself to spiral down a whirlpool of tears, snot and Jay Chou. Trust me, it took some measure of self-control. Also, I didn't think 'Tears on the Tube' was a good self-made MV to subject other commuters to, repeatedly. Nope, no siree.

And then there's Danielle.

Praise God for my daughter and her sprightly disposition. She really helped transport Mummy 'to a happier place'. You'd have been proud of her Mel, since you told her to 'look after Mummy once Aunty Mel leaves'... She distracted me with silly games all the way on the Tube, and didn't nod off to sleep till we got home.

She's at nursery now so I thought a little Jay wouldn't do any harm. Baaaad mistake! Hahahahahaa...*honk honk, wipe tears away*

How can I put it any other way -- I miss you. Both.

Waking up to an empty living room. Walking into the kitchen and not seeing a person partially hidden under the covers and a tangled web of big hair. No more queues to use the bathroom for EVERYONE's morning dump. No more skimpy, brighty coloured thongs lining the clothes rack. No more punctuating sentences with 'Where's JH?!!'. No more grown-up conversations - no matter how senseless (Mel) or laced with 'joy-ful' references (passion, JH, passion!).

Time simply passed too quickly. That whole year of waiting, saving and anticipating is now encapsulated in thousands of wonderful photos and happy memories which we'll no doubt reflect on in years to come. I'll remember fondly the 'military regime' we had to undergo, wowing at the brute strength of our 'beast of burden', the frothy cuppacinnos and gorgeous gelatos in Italy, revering the Holy of Holies at the Vatican City, staying at that salmon-hued B&B (with 'Psycho'-esque bathroom!!!) at Edinburgh, having fried rice at a park with the Colosseum as a backdrop, having home-made sandwiches by Lake Windermere at Lake District (and all through our roadtrip!). ALL THOSE TOILET STOPS! Indeed, we have taken much from our travels together.

Sorry, it's just hard for me today...

Hey, you know what? You were right - you did bring sunshine to London. It started drizzling this morning.

Love,
Saggs

at Trevi Fountain, Rome

It's so hard to say goodbye

Us 3, at Hampstead
having the 'famous' french crepes

The tears have started.

Tomorrow, this time, I fear it will be far, far worse. At the airport.

Oh why is it always sooo hard for me to say goodbye?