Toy collections from her grandaunt

Who wants to guess where the lucky girl’s grandaunt works?
(If you know, it means you’ve been collecting too!)

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Special

This is why she is the apple of his eye.

Because she has given her heart to him.

(Ok, she actually gave that heart to me first when she brought it home from school. But she changed her mind a couple of weeks later and gave it to him instead. When I pouted, she cajoled, “He’s your papa, he’s your papa. It’s for your papa.”)

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And there are 15 days of CNY!

CNY Day 5

BFF Y was back from Perth. She brought her little girl K over for CNY breakfast.

I could hardly bear to let her leave. Is it going to be another 2 years before we see each other again?!

I miss her.

CNY Day 11

Early 元宵 dinner with my family over the weekend.

Last 鱼生 for the year.

And 汤圆!

Mr Fluffy Hubby’s green and white.

I got green and pink! 2 pinks! I couldn’t stop laughing. 😀

CNY Day 14

My parents asked us over for a simple dinner at the cafe outside their house. And then 元宵汤圆 again! Homecooked by my mother this time. Pink and white stuffed with peanut, sesame and red bean paste. We had 3 big ones each, even the little girl!

Mr Fluffy Hubby’s rabbits

Last day of Chinese New Year — Day 15. The day after, we cut open our Power Pomelo and ate it up! It was yummy! Happy CNY!

Read also:
Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY Preparations
CNY Celebration in School
Reunion Dinner
CNY Day 1
CNY Day 2
CNY Day 3
CNY Day 4

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CNY Day 4

Popiah Party!

We also had kueh pie ti, chicken wings, fish balls, sotong balls and curry puffs. Kueh lapis for dessert.

But the food was just an appetizer for the fun that was to come.

It was not long before everybody gave up the pretense of lunch.

And took over the kid’s table for some long-awaited ban luck!

This is a very important pomelo. Mr Fluffy Hubby held on to it firmly throughout and never lost a single game!

The rest tried to up their luck with oranges. But come on, an orange is puny compared to a pomelo. So Mr Fluffy Hubby continued winning winning winning!

Next Chinese New Year, we’re going everywhere with a pomelo. POMELO POWER!!!

PS. Her uncle let her play a few hands and she won! He gave her all the money to keep. Her grandfather got her a piggy bank for it. So now, she has a small fortune! My little girl is rich!

Read also:
Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY Preparations
CNY Celebration in School
Reunion Dinner
CNY Day 1
CNY Day 2
CNY Day 3
And there are 15 days of CNY!

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CNY Day 2

开工大吉!

My father’s company lunch with all their business associates and closest friends marks the start of the new working year.

I’ve been going to this all-important lunch since I was born. When I was a kid, this was my favourite day of the new year.

Everybody knows, you wear new clothes on the 1st day of Chinese New Year. But in my family, we save our most splendid outfits for the 2nd day.

I would spend the morning running amok with the rest of the children in my father’s office; the afternoon huddling and chattering with my best friend in the restaurant.

The elaborate lunch always ended sometime in the very late afternoon. But my father and his closest and oldest friends (since their childhoods) didn’t let up. They moved the party from house to house till late in the night when they fed us roti prata from the only food stall that was nearby and still opened.

When we reached home way past our bedtimes, we would count our ang pows. It was the best day of Chinese New Year.

Now I’m all grown-up.

My father’s childhood friends still turn up for his company lunch, but not their children. Not my childhood friends. The uncles and aunties take up just 1 table among the many others filled with business associates.

I spend a minute or two missing my friends. I spend maybe another five to ten minutes repeating stories of my childhood to Mr Fluffy Hubby. I sigh, but I am soon distracted.

My child is shrieking with delight at seeing her granduncle. She is wishing him happy new year and exchanging oranges with him. She is holding on to them like they are her most precious possessions. (I will soon find out I am not allowed to exchange these oranges for others.)

The uncles and aunties are crooning at her. They are marvelling at how big and how pretty and how articulate and how clever she is.

She is dressed in her finest clothes — a floaty pink princess dress given by her paternal grandmother — and she is having a ball!

At night, we go over to my elder brother’s place for dinner.

Mr Fluffy Hubby stays to play mahjong with the rest of the men in my family.

I bring our little girl home to sleep. I wait up for Mr Fluffy Hubby till I fall asleep too.

Our 2nd day of Chinese New Year — as good as the 1st day of Chinese New Year, as good as ever.

Read also:
Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY Preparations
CNY Celebration in School
Reunion Dinner
CNY Day 1
CNY Day 3
CNY Day 4
And there are 15 days of CNY!

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CNY Day 1

We brought Rabbit everywhere with us!

We started our day only at noon, over at Mr Fluffy Hubby’s mother’s place. She’s a culinary whiz who’s always experimenting with the newest recipes. So after our 鱼生, we had lightly fried chicken rolls stuffed with ham and prawn tempura stuffed with minced pork. Plus her signature 五香, restaurant-style spread of abalone on a bed of oyster spinach, incredibly thick and yummy sea cucumber with scallop and shark’s fin soup that was the real deal. There was even freshly homemade honey and garlic chili sauce.

The little girl developed a taste for sea cucumber and abalone. Mr Fluffy Hubby’s favourite was still the shark’s fin soup. I loved everything!

After that, we sat around and watched TV reruns of last night’s new year celebration. Ate some goodies. And ended the afternoon with mandarin oranges and fruit juice.

It was late evening by the time we got back home. The little girl napped till night, then we went over to my parents’ place.

It was festive! Big red lanterns, long bunch of firecrackers, too much food, and lots and lots of people!

They had already tossed the 鱼生, but saved some for us. The table was filled right to the edge with curry chicken (a tradition passed down from my grandmother’s era), pig’s stomach soup (my mother’s specialty), stir-fried leeks (which I’ve been faithfully eating every year, in the hope that it will imbue me with mathematical prowess by virtue of the sound of its Chinese name, because that’s what I’ve been told by my parents since I was a kid) and abalone (my all-time favourite). Then there was the most indulgent pot of 盆菜 ever. And my mother’s 五香! Have I already raved about my mother’s 五香? I can eat it every day for the rest of my life.

After dinner, the kids went for one round of sparklers before heading back into the house for dessert. Häagen-Dazs ice-cream cakes from my cousin! He has brought them over for so many years now, they have become a tradition.

Mango & passionfruit for the older folks.

Cookies & cream for the children.

Everybody left after the ice-cream, except us. The little girl spent some time sorting and safekeeping her candy with her grandfather. And that was the note on which we ended our 1st day of Chinese New Year — sweet.

Read also:
Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY Preparations
CNY Celebration in School
Reunion Dinner
CNY Day 2
CNY Day 3
CNY Day 4
And there are 15 days of CNY!

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Reunion Dinner

Reunion Dinner was at my parents’ place.

We had 佛跳墙 which was marvellous as usual. But what I really enjoyed were…

My favourite Chinese New Year dish — 鱼生! Mr Fluffy Hubby surprises me every year with how well he knows the ritual and with his secret stash of Chinese New Year auspicious wishes. It’s really pretty impressive for someone who repeatedly flunk Chinese in school!

My favourite home-cooked dish — my grandmother’s and mother’s 五香! I’ve been meaning to get the recipe from my mother, but never got round to it. I must!

The kids’ favourites, however, were the bubble balloons and sparklers!

Read also:
Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY Preparations
CNY Celebration in School
CNY Day 1
CNY Day 2
CNY Day 3
CNY Day 4
And there are 15 days of CNY!

Read Full Post »

CNY Preparations

We were real speedy this year.

We got our CNY goodies almost a month early.

I was looking to buy bread for next day’s breakfast, somehow stumbled into a cookie shop and ended up sampling a lot of their CNY goodies. I emerged with pineapple tarts, prawn rolls and arrowhead chips.

After that, it’s been shop after shop, goodies after goodies. We bought from 6 shops and received from 7 shops – 13 altogether!

Part of our harvest.

We put up our CNY decorations a week later. After she had gone to bed, Mr Fluffy Hubby and I went at it for hours. (It’s not as exciting as it sounds. Ahem.) We both had sore fingers from re-activating blue tack for the next couple of days. (Not exciting at all.)

Her grandfather and her admiring the rabbits on our CNY couplet.

Read also:
Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY Celebration in School
Reunion Dinner
CNY Day 1
CNY Day 2
CNY Day 3
CNY Day 4
And there are 15 days of CNY!

Read Full Post »

4th Birthday (Part I)

Poor girl was dreadfully sick a few days before her birthday.

She was better on the day itself, but we had already cancelled her party.

She celebrated with her fluffy friends instead. They had a lavish ice-cream treat, followed by an elaborate cake ceremony in the morning.

We took her out for a pizza lunch. After that, her grandfather, who is her favourite person in the world, brought her for herbal jelly dessert.

Then, she took a 3-hour nap while he waited around for her.

When she finally woke up, he treated her to a kiddy ride before taking her to dinner.

It was as good as it gets.

Read also:
4th Birthday (Part II)
4th Birthday (Part III)
4th Birthday (Part IV)

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They say, love is staying up all night with a sick child

Day 1, Friday

I was convinced that I was still suffering from the aftermath of drinking coffee on Tuesday. I know, it’s ridiculous – much less to say impossible, but I am was a coffee virgin and what else am I to conclude from throwing up twice almost immediately after downing that monstrous mug of coffee on Tuesday, gasping from gastric pains throughout Wednesday, and knocking out from numbing headaches on both Thursday and Friday? Ok, I guess I could have concluded I was just very sick. But hey, cut me some slack – I was sick. (I’m never going to get that PhD.)

Sometime in the late afternoon, I crawled out of bed, made my way out of the main door and somehow even managed to drive myself to her school. I stumbled out of the car, and from afar, saw her favourite teacher carrying her while another teacher hovered nearby. It struck me as out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t until I caught sight of the cool patch stuck on her forehead then I finally realized – she’s sick!

The teachers informed me that she coughed and threw up about an hour ago at the start of her abacus class. Since then, her temperature’s been rising rapidly. I took her hand, and gosh, was she hot! I rushed her home, took her temperature again – 39.3 degrees celsius – that’s high. I dosed her (and myself – at this point, I obviously and finally realized that what I had taken for a bad reaction to coffee was most probably stomach flu) with Ibuprofen and sat her down in front of the TV.

I contemplated calling BFF to cancel our dinner date. But it was a little too late. Besides, dinner was already cooked. BFF arrived, we got through dinner. In fact, the Ibuprofen kicked in enough for her to even cycle around in the balcony after dinner.

That night, she slept in my bed. I spent most of the night struggling to get up to take her temperature after having just managed to settle down to sleep again.

Day 2, Saturday

Last week was the end of her Montessori classes; we had to skip only Kindermusik this week.

Mr Fluffy Hubby was away on reservice and would only be back by lunchtime, so I had to manage the morning alone despite running on hardly any sleep. I got though it by plonking her down in front of the TV again.

She took her medicines, but couldn’t eat much of either breakfast or lunch.

Before settling her down for her nap, I checked her temperature. 39.3 degrees celsius, 1 hour after her last dose of Ibuprofen. I debated on whether to feed her Calpol on top of the Ibuprofen, but decided in the end to keep my fingers crossed and let her go to sleep. Big mistake.

The next time I took her temperature an hour later, she was burning at 39.9. I yelled for Mr Fluffy Hubby to dunk her in the bath while I prepare more medicines. I returned with the meds to find them still in bed – he was cradling her in his arms. He informed me, “I took her temperature. It’s 39.7.” I screamed, “DOES IT MATTER?! WHETHER IT’S 39.7 OR 39.9?!” I mean, isn’t it common sense to go with the higher temperature reading and just bathe the kid who is nearing 40 degrees celsius??! Huh???

I snatched her away from him and got right down to bathing her myself. Her temperature remained constant. Mr Fluffy Hubby insisted that the water needed to be colder; I maintained that we shouldn’t shock her body, but out of desperation handed the shower hose over to him anyway. He doused her with much colder water, and sure enough, her temperature came down. She wailed and wailed for me. I took over bathing her again and pissing off Mr Fluffy Hubby who insisted that I was just making things difficult for him. We fought some more – most of it with me ignoring him, and consequently, with him walking away.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of sleep and medicines, interspersed with TV.

I kept a close watch on her the entire night.

Day 3, Sunday

She had to miss her art and ballet classes.

She seemed better though. In addition to TV, she was able to play with her blocks and even managed some colouring.

However, she complained of a sore throat and had begun coughing – a development that always brings about conflicting feelings in me. On the one hand, a cough means that her body is attempting to expel the phelgm – she’s on the road to recovery. On the other hand, she hacks away non-stop whenever she has a cough, so she’s most probably going to end up vomitting – mega messy!

She continued glugging medicines; I continued my vigil throughout the night.

Day 4, Monday

Her teacher called numerous times in the morning to ask after her. I’d like to think that she was genuinely concerned, but I have a sneaking suspicion she was more worried that it would be the school’s 1st case of HFMD. Thank god we didn’t make history!

She was fast developing an addiction to TV. The better part of the morning was spent watching Disney Playhouse. In the afternoon, I managed to peel her off the google box to make some art together.

I placed a small blue rubber dinosaur in front of her and she came up with this.

She spontaneously drew a self portrait of herself with her kitty cat.

She maintained a 37.5 degrees celsius throughout most part of the day, peaking at 37.9 degrees celsius (only!) when she refused (she was well enough to refuse!) to take her nap. Her sore throat had subsided, but her cough had worsened. She hacked till she was blue in the face and I lost count of the number of times she retched.

At one point, I fretted aloud, “I don’t know how to make you feel better. How do I make you feel better? I don’t know what to do!” She gasped in between her coughs, with tears streaming down her face, “Love me. Love me to make me feel better.”

Other than the cough, she was almost back to her usual sunshine self by the time her father and grandfather returned home in the evening. She fell asleep easily and early enough by 10pm since she had skipped her afternoon nap. But she woke throughout the night, coughing and coughing. I wasn’t too worried though – at least she was no longer burning away. This spell of sickness seemed much shorter than her usual 6 days.

Day 5, Tuesday

She woke up only to cough for ONE AND A HALF hours in the bathroom. In a moment of sheer helplessness and panic, I made her drink her medicines, in the (stupid) hope that they would help her stop coughing. Of course, they didn’t work. Because she proceeded to cough them all out in huge puddle of phelgm. Immediately after, she had a big bout of diarrhoea. Then she threw up her breakfast (“Ooh, Honey Stars!” she said). Poor girl doesn’t get a rest.

Strangely enough, she stopped coughing when she watched TV. So, I blasted Playhouse Disney for the rest of the morning.

Her balance bike arrived sometime in the afternoon. I tried to fix it up, without any success. In the end, I dumped it in the study room. I figured Mr Fluffy Hubby could handle it when he got home – that’s what husbands are for.

Because of the balance bike, I was running late for my post-surgery dental check-up and treatment facial. I had foolishly made those appointments yesterday when she had appeared to be recovering and it was much too late to cancel them. I had arranged for my mother to be here in the meantime, but there was still no sign of her. So I rang her up and screeched, “Where are you?!” – an act I would of course regret later – she was late because she was buying famous chendol for me; she knows I love chendol.

By the time I was done at the dentist and the beauty salon, I was late for dinner. It was my turn to get screamed at, most deservedly. Mr Fluffy Hubby barked over the phone, “Where are you?!”

I sped home to find her stoned out on Playhouse Disney. I reached out to hold her – she felt hot! I grabbed the thermometer – 38.7 degrees celsius. I was furious with Mr Fluffy Hubby – why hadn’t he taken her temperature and given her medicines?! We ate dinner in silence.

She continued coughing and retching throughout the night. She had coughed out puddles and puddles of phelgm – why hadn’t her cough gone away?! I prayed that tomorrow – day 6 – would be the last day of the fever, as it usually is.

Day 6, Wednesday

She seemed better immediately upon waking up.

She was not coughing as much, she ate her breakfast, she took an interest in my leftover Zinger burger. She watched an unhealthy amount of TV. She coloured, played with puzzles, weights and links. She balance-biked everywhere.

She lay quietly beside me during naptime, but was still wide awake when I woke up 1.5 hours later.

She was on the mend.

I say, love is staying up all night with your sick child… then spending all day with your sick grandchild, knowing that everything is made better by love.

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