Silence is Golden - Happy Anniversary

First and foremost, allow me to declare that we got married when we were VERY young and innocent!

Yesterday was our 11th anniversary and.... we did nothing. In fact, we didn't even exchange more than 20 words.

No no! It's not that we are having problems or anything. Changunnie daddy has been suffering from a really bad case of sore throat and still can't speak. He has been drinking yogurt fruit shake. Our plan for a late night movie yesterday was canceled as he fell asleep under the influence of his medicine and I was tired from watching You Tube (I found this really funny Korean drama with English subtitles - Queen of Housewives)

We looked at each other most of yesterday without saying much (thanks to his sore throat, nothing remotely romantic at all). I think silence at the right time is indeed golden and helps to have a healthy relationship with your spouse. From my experience for all my friends, next time....

... when you are about to say something mean in order to win a fight over mostly trivial things, remain silent. It's easy to be verbally abusive but the cost to repair the damage is hefty

... when you are about to say something "funny" at the expense of your spouse, remain silent. If you think the pen is mightier than the sword, words from your mouth can be as potent as an a-bomb

... when you want to complain about your spouse for ignoring you, remain silent. Is he/she really ignoring you or just worn out after a long and bad day at work?

This year's note is a short one. Whilst I believe Silence is Golden, I also am a believer of Less is More. Changunnie daddy, don't complain if I eat most of your food and give you the "lady" portion. Less is more.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Halloween (or what's so happy about it?)

Gomo kindly picked a very cute Cinderella dress for the Changster. We all thought she would happily wear the gown but she said one gotta look scary for Halloween and so her decision was to pull out the 3D pumpkin suit that we bought her when she was 18 months old. Erhh... a plump orange Pumpkin itself wasn't scary. The entourage that accompanied the Changster was.

Who would dare to take Changster's candy when Grandpa was walking 15 yards behind with the ever hyper Bear. Daddy was 10 feet away with an abnormally big face/chin/neck because of his sore throat and mummy was dressed as a witch (fits my personality much better than Kick Buttowski according to my BFFs at work. I take it as a compliment) right next to her. We knocked on doors, Changster repeated the same three steps:

1) Happy Halloween (what's so happy about it? In fact, why do we need to go around to do T&T on Oct 31??)
2) pick one, nothing more nothing less, candy from each basket (call me the ultimate smug parent but I was very proud of the Changster for being able to demonstrate self-discipline when adults were saying "take more!")
3) Thank you.

Some kids eyed the Changster up and down and focused on her candy bag but the moment they wanted to make a move, they were met with the deadly stare of Dyson 2000.

What prompted me to write this is the behaviour of other children who came to our place for Trick or Treat and those we met at other houses.

Do parents teach children the true meaning of value anymore? The behaviour of those childen seem to scream value means how much candy you can grab in two seconds or selecting the house with the best treat or better yet, put on a new hat and hit the same house again because of the quality of treats. Those children moved in like sharks dancing around a pool of blood when the door opened and appeared a basket of candy. They elbowed each other out of the way and greedily stuffed candies into their big trash bag.

In case you are reading this and your parents didn't teach you or you want to teach your kids. Here's my penny worth:

-Don't get overly excited when someone is handing out free candies. I checked the packages, there are some pretty nice ones and some about to expire ones too

-Don't judge a book by the cover. You may be picking on the youngest one in the crowd, the big scary one might jump out from behind to give you a real lesson. The same principal applies when you go to school, go to work... just learn to be nice and fair

- Candies may give you the instant pleasure from sugar rush, you will suffer from depression and unnecessary weight gain which will take some pretty extreme measure to loose

- Just because you wear a Halloween outfit doesn't mean I don't know which house you live in. You will have to pay for your rudeness and trust me on this one

Happy Halloween!

I love Panda Express

Some say I may have Alzheimer's Disease. Or is it Parkinson's? Whatever it is, this is how the story goes.

We drove Grandpa to Sai Kung for golf and decided to eat some good Cha Chaan Tang (HK style cafe) food while we were there. Changster being Changster, the swings and slides are like magnets to her little buns of iron; no one can peel her off that plastic seat until she's done with at least 20 rounds. Naturally, we stayed.

My "BFF" from work called at 1pm when I was monitoring Changster like a hawk on the side. She didn't even asked if I had lunch or was free to talk. She was thinking out loud about something which made absolutely zero sense. My train of thought had a train wreck from talking to my BFF and when I managed to push the "End Call" button, I was exhausted and felt lost. At that particular fateful moment, some other mother asked me which school did Changster go to when she was little, I had a brain freeze and said "Panda Express".

You can probably imagine what I got from the proper HK and expat mothers. "Total negligence" was already one of the milder comments. I violated every single protocol that a "good HK mother" would follow. I was considered as rude and crude by making a bad "joke" (Sorry Dyson 3000, I am not a good wife). I didn't care about my daughter (which is so untrue! I am always ready to move in should a little brat dare to harm my Changster). I sent my daughter to some unheard of crappy school and would let my daughter be a loser by not paying for any private tutorial to make way to some ivy league schools.

I rarely make conscious effort to do things that I don't give a damn about but this time, I thought hard during the drive home and came to a conclusion:

1. Everyone has a BFF at work. They are the one who drives you crazy and regardless of how hard you try, they stalk you. So, don't get upset. Once in a while, let the BFF to have a taste of his/her own medicine (以夷制夷)

2. Panda Express represented a day of freedom, of extravaganze when I was in college. It was my once a quarter day in the mall (in which Banana Republic was a god sent). My reference back to Panda Express is only me talking to my inner teenager.

3. I probably was hungry and thus thinking of General Tsao chicken and Lo Mein. The cha chaan tan Breakfast set was tiny. Not going back

It does pay off to listen to other people once in a while, just need to be careful in filtering out all the nonsense. I love Panda Express!

A cliff, a canyon

Changster sleeps with me on the weekend for our bonding. It's pretty much my only chance to read to her in Chinese but I often have to read the same story three times as she wants to have the English translation and one uninterrupted one before she sleeps.

We picked 羞怯的副櫛龍 ( The Shy Parasaurolophus) tonight and we got to a page where a friend of the main character said, " 我的家就在那邊的懸崖上" I read it as "I live on top of the cliff over there". Changster stopped me and said, "but mummy, there's a crack in the picture. It's not a cliff!" I waited for her to say something like a rock but she said it's a canyon. She's actually correct. According to the picture, it was "A long, deep, narrow valley with steep cliff walls, cut into the Earth by running water and often having a stream at the bottom."

That left me pretty speechless. When we were done with reading, she asked for her water cup and I told her to grab it as it's on the bedside table on her side. She then said, "mummy, pretty please, can you get it? It's beyond my reach" ( as the bed side table is about a foot away)

I don't know if I'm capable of helping her with her development at all at this rate. What type of 3 year 8 month old child talks like that? I feel like the only choice I have is to quit and go back to school. Will I be the type of stalker mum who over protects the child? What should I do?

Wild boar!?

One of my favourite restaurants was closing down as the owner decided to open a bigger and glammer outpost. A friend booked a table for a last meal there and I happily signed up when she asked if anyone wanted to join her.

I was so looking forward to getting my favorite wild boar ragout. I was thinking if I should get a 1.5x ALC portion since it'd be a long time before I could taste it again on my way to the restaurant. Wasn't I glad that I weren't driving as all I could see in my head was a dish of wild boar ragout tagliatelle with a wobbly soft egg sitting on top.

When we arrived, the waitress dutifully reported that some of the signature dishes weren't available. Hmm... My dish wasn't named and I smugly said, "well, MY wild boar ragout isn't on the ..." and the waitress chirped in, "sorry but the wild boar ragout is not available either". My friends joked about where the restaurant got the supply of wild boar and whether we should call in the Agriculture and Fishery Department to hunt some wild boars roaming around town in HK in order to get our prized ragout.

What a bummer and despite the very attractive special on the board, my heart sank. I was there for my piggy. In the end, i got tagliatelle with lots of porcini and a wobbly egg on top. I left the restaurant as a happy customer but something was missing....

Got home after a painful and unsuccessful search for a kid friendly camera. I heard a story about wild boar (why oh why to torture me like that?) from Grandpa.

Changster was telling us the story of Goldilock and the three bears after I unplugged the TV, Grandpa asked me if I think there are bears around in HK. I said, " there shouldn't be but I know there are wild boars in town. In fact, they got so close to residential area that they became headline news awhile ago."

Grandpa then told me that the other day when he took Bear (our puppy) for a walk, crazy boy (my nickname for Bear) started barking furiously at the bush on the slope behind our compound. When Grandpa was wondering why, he saw a big brown creature running back into the mountain. My guess is they were less than 20 meters away from a wild boar.....

If I report the case to the A&FD and they successfully hunt it down, can I get some meat?

I love couch potato

Not!

I'm really struggling if I should quit or continue working. There're pros and cons in both cases. I get a pretty decent income considering how much value I'm bringing to mankind. That number is infinity given it's positive over zero... I do enjoy my interaction with people outside of home and there's no need to use censored language at all time. I can even unleash some mean comments to adults who can take it once in a while. I also don't want daddy to take up the pressure of being the sole breadwinner at home. However, I don't get to spend time with the Changster during the week at all. She's still attached to me but I feel like a gap is widening. Also, I feel like the Changster is leading a double life and I need to correct that.

At school, she's her teachers' darling. She's the attentive one, always helpful and display a strong sense of discipline. At home though, she loves watching TV to a point she looks like a statue in front of the TV. She snacks a lot and even at night before bedtime and after brushing her teeth. I have to correct that every Saturday and Sunday night. That's not cool (using her vocabulary)

It's so difficult to discipline her when I'm not at home and I feel really bad telling everyone off. I am working hard but I feel like I don't have the wisdom of doing it right. Like tonighht, I told the Changster eating at night before bed would give her bad teeth and bad health over the long run. Plus, she should wait till breakfast since she had dinner. If she didn't have enough for dinner, she still had to wait because it's her choice of not finishing her food (I must say the food prepared by my maid isn't something I would eat either but when you are three, there's no choice!). Grandpa didn't say much but I knew he wanted to help her and the Changster knew that too as she kept looking his way.

What should I do?