Wonder of the World

I'm looking at a wonder of the world now.

Which one? That cute little girl in the sweet pink dress, of course. :)

What makes her a wonder... She has grown and changed so much since birth.

She retains that fiesty and fussy personality, but she has learnt to pepper it with self-control and consideration for others.

She's still very persistent and demanding but has somehow channeled it to push herself to learn quickly and learn more.

She is still very loud. But instead of crying and screaming, she has turned it into singing and talking (or shouting with possibility of shattering ear drums).

This wonder of the world makes me wonder... Do we truly retain the essence of who we are from birth, though we do change as we grow older? I believe so. I also believe that we can use who we are for good and for bad. I hope my girls use their personalities for good.

Social Skills

There's much to be said of social skills. Some of us have it, some of us don't.

Some of us may need to be reminded that we are singing too loudly.

Example:

Young man sings passionately "Candle in the Dark", which is playing on the radio. Queenie puts a hand on his shoulder, looks into his eyes and says, "I really want to hear the singers sing."

It sure takes social skills to tell someone to stop singing.

Out of Plan

In Singapore, we love having proper procedures for everything. When we finally have proper procedures, we sift the whole system through a fine filter to see how we can make it even better.

Sure, it's all good to have everything planned and have everything go without a glitch. But what if things DON'T go according to plan. Is that so bad? Or to all Singaporeans, is that plain evil?

I didn't grow up in a structured environment. My siblings and I learned to flow with things. I believe it builds a certain kind of strength - the ability to endure nonsense and move on to the next thing without being hung up.

Perhaps it is not that EVIL to have chaos. And perhaps chaos to a certain extent is fun. Can those of us in Singapore believe that?

Well, one day, I planned to take a photograph of my girls. And in my plan, their faces would emerge in the photograph, as is the case in most photographs. Lo and behold, there was some chaos. *shiver in disgust*. And the photograph didn't show their faces! But I love this photograph and I think it's fun. So there!

Work More La!

At this very merry-go-round, this very heart wrenching episode took place.

Queenie: Mom, can you put in two dollars, so we can play this?

Me: Ok, let me check if I have the coins. *digging around in my wallet* Oops, sorry, not enough coins.

Queenie, exasperated: Go and work more la! Then you will have more money.

At that point, I wondered why I often wondered whether to work part time or not work, so I could look after them. It clearly meant more to Joquim that I have enough money. Ok, she said it in the spur of the moment. I should not take it so seriously.

But seriously, I'm going back to work tomorrow after the long weekend. Happy, Queenie?

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

Haven't had the inspiration and energy to write for a long time. So, what really happened?

Life. I guess. Life takes over our lives sometimes. As in, the daily routines and obligations takes up so much energy, you feel like you have nothing left. But then, those routines and obligations make up your life.

Chinese New Year is the epitome of fulfilling obligations. You have to do things that you don't see the meaning in, just out of respect to your elders. You go from one location to another. At each location, you fulfill a series of steps, from exchanging the mandatory oranges to giving the widely anticipated red packets. Seriously, don't ever ask me why we need to do these things. I just want to have a peaceful festive season. If all it takes is for me to mindlessly obey, I would. Call me spineless if you wish. I'm simply spineless that way.

Oh well, here is an obligatory greeting that I made my daughters do. I do unto them what my elders did/do to me. It's all about respect! I have got such backbone that way.

Sweet Friendly Friends

I realised that the times my husband and I enjoy most with the girls are when we are enjoying some food together. I'm not referring to the kind of food we have to eat, like breakfast, lunch and dinner. I'm referring to the kind of food you won't exactly starve and die without.

Think ice cream, waffles, pancakes, cheesecakes, and their own sweet friendly friends. With the girls and I being prone to cough lately, our number 1 choice (ice cream) has been sadly out of bounds. But thank God for lovely cakes and their other sweet friendly friends.

It's really important as a family to find common interests, so we can become sweet friendly friends with each other. I'm just not as interested in playgrounds and playing make belief, as Treasure and Queenie are. But desserts are easy to love. Desserts make us happy and help us relax.

Hopefully, as the girls grow older, they will find more common interests with me. I will just wait for that to happen. In the meantime, cheers to pancakes, and long live cheese cakes!