6817

Wei and I were there to close the door and shut the gate to the house, 6817 Jalan Sungai Puyu, at 9:58 p.m. on Dec. 23. The eve of Christmas Eve, and we cleared out the house, left it clean for the buyer. A home it was, a home where we grew up, played, cried and laughed. And now it's no longer our home. It was very sad to walk away but Wei and I are very glad we've found closure, doing what we had to do -- spring clean in less than 10 hours. Goodbye 6817.

The Juice of Life

Somewhere in Bandar Puteri Puchong, after breakfast on Sunday.

Daddy: Look at that lizard on the floor, Kayrin. I think it's half dead.
Kayrin: Why is it dead?
Mommy: Because it didn't drink its fruit juice in the morning.
Kayrin: Luckily I'm not dead.

Disposables

We were nearing Bandar Puteri Puchong, in search of breakfast, when Kayrin started on a litany in the backseat of the A-class: `Why no pants, mommy, why no pants?'
No inkling what she was going on about, I started looking out of the window and around for something without pants.
She then tugged at the pink dress she was in and lifted the hem for me. Yikes! I had sent her downstairs after putting her in the dress given by Aunty KK's Erin following a shower. And all thoughts of putting her panties on disappeared from my mind after the early morning struggle of getting Kayrin to drink her fruit juice.
Taking a detour to Giant's Guardian outlet, we bought the smallest-sized disposable panties we could find. Thank goodness they didn't slide off Kayrin's little frame.
Shopping and breakfast took place as planned.

Zoo and the A-Class

Kayrin, Ivan and I made our way to Zoo Negara yesterday morning, and though ma thought I couldn't manage the two of them on my own, we came home fine. Thank God. Only brush with danger was when Ivan stumbled and scraped his toe a teeny weeny bit. Not enough to make him cry or bleed.
It's my first trip to Zoo Negara in almost 30 years! The last time (and only time) I was there, ma was pregnant with Yee. So Woan and Lyan must have been just 5. I remember ma being in a blue maternity dress with square neckline, and yellow checks along the neckline. Weird how some memories stay with you.

The zoo was quite fun and Ivan and Kayrin seemed to have enjoyed themselves though I was a spoilsport of sort when I wouldn't let them have ice-creams. It was also about to pour when Kayrin spotted an ice-cream hut and made her request. Sorry darling, mommy will remember to be more of a fun person next time we're on outings.

That evening, in the pouring rain, I took delivery of my second car. Nice, but sure had me worried what I'd gotten myself into. Gone overboard with my spending? Lost my sanity? Dealing with mid-life crisis? I'm still trying to figure it out.

Love Me, Love Me Not

Shaw Feng: Do you love daddy?
Kayrin: Yes, yesterday.

The Budding Photographer

Kayrin is starting to be a photographer. She grabs the Sony camera off our hands as soon as she sees us with them. Her efforts have been very good so far, better than daddy's on some days, I'd say ;)

Check these out. All by Kayrin.

May Be Later?

`May Be Later?' is Kayrin's favourite phrase for now. Prodded to take a shower, go to bed or stop playing the computer, she will turn around and say that with an innocent smile.
Shaw Feng and I were fooled, for a while. Once Shaw Feng loses his patience though, the cane comes out. Not something I agree, as capital punishment when overused doesn't leave much effect among the kids.
At 4 a.m. this morning, Kayrin woke up and asked for milk (her third for the night because she had gone to bed before 7 pm last night.) After her drink, I threw her her bolster. It hit her face.
`That was rude,' she said. `Don't do it again tomorrow.'
I had to meekly agree after apologising.

Marrying

Dateline: Saturday, Sept. 30
Venue: Roti Canai place in Puchong Jaya

Kayrin: Mommy, I want to marry you.
Me: Afraid not, darling. mommy's married to daddy.
Kayrin: Daddy, can I marry you?
SF: You can't 'cos I'm married to mommy.
Kayrin: Who do I marry then?

Pine Cone Hotel aka Lone Pine

Pine Cone Hotel, that's what Kayrin re-named Lone Pine to be after we checked in on Sept. 25! Three nights in that quaint hotel that has the distinction of being the oldest in Batu Ferringhi was just the balm I needed. The beach was right in front of the hotel, the lawn kept bare and spacious, the casuarina trees grown tall.
http://www.lonepinehotel.com/suite.htm
As a teenager passing by Batu Ferringhi, I'd often ask when I'll get the chance to stay at Parkroyal or Rasa Sayang. Now, the charm of Lone Pine lures me more than that of the spanking new hotels we get to stay in when travelling for work. This, after all, isn't work. It's fun time with Kayrin and Shaw Feng.
And we had the company of a great old friend too, Heng Hou, for our food sojourns into the city, in Swatow Lane, and to Teluk Bahang's seafood shack.

Trapped

My two-week holiday culminated with a drama at home -- Kayrin trapped in the study yesterday.
Jack was giving me a haircut in the backyard, Shaw Feng had slipped out to buy food and Wati was with Kayrin in the study when the cheeky one decided to shut the door and press the button on the knob when Wati walked out.
The next thing I remember was Kayrin saying "Let me out, let me out," and my rushing into the house with the cape around my neck and my hair in clips.
The room keys didn't work. Thank goodness for the Internet. A search on Google for the Malaysian phone directory got me there, and another search on "Locksmith Puchong" on the Yellow Pages got me a number. Another call and I got through to a locksmith on a date in Subang Jaya. The locksmith arrived at our house with the girlfriend in tow. After a few tries, he said the lock was jammed, so he broke the lock.
Amid all this, Kayrin played calmly with her little kitchenette in the study after giving up on our pleadings to "turn the knob". She even helped by tugging a water pipe Shaw Feng had slipped under the door, and she pulled the pipe over the knob, slipped the end through the door again to Shaw Feng. All that failed to work. At one point before the locksmith arrived, she declared she needed to poo-poo. Thank goodness her old red potty (and thank goodness she doesn't use some fancy potty) just managed to get through the grill at the windows!
Ah Wah the locksmith got her out at about 7.30 p.m., two hours after her ordeal started, and he had the distinction of being the first into the room that was stinking because of her poo! She didn't cry at all in the room, to her credit. This whole episode reminds me of Woan and Lyan being trapped in the bedroom in the Taman Hajjah Halimah house in Baling as well. They must have been aged three plus too. Pa had to use the car-jack to widen the window steel bars and get me in to unlock the door.

Dentist

A very big milestone took place on Aug. 4, 2006. That Friday, Kayrin, Ivan, ma and I made our way to Dr. Loo & Foo's clinic. It was Kayrin's second visit to the dentist's chair. The big step was that she allowed Dr. Foo to clean her whole set of teeth! The last time, in February, she would only have four front teeth cleaned before she declared she had enough.
And so on Friday morning, she climbed onto the dentist's big blue chair after Ivan had his last fillings of teeth (the fourth or fifth visit for him!).
As soon as Kayrin got onto the chair, she looked up at Dr. Foo pleadingly and said:
"Please don't pull my teeth."
Dr. Foo took it all in his stride and asked if Kayrin would like to have her teeth brushed instead, and to that, she said a definite "yes."
So it went on for about 15 minutes, I guess. Seems to take longer than that because I was more anxious than I'd expected. After the first rinse, Kayrin said she didn't want anymore. But Dr. Foo managed to persuade her to sit down for "a bit more." And hooray, she did. So proud of her!
And Ivan, ever the curious one, asked Dr. Foo for his age. It's 46.

Art Attack

Kayrin and I went on our girls' day out yesterday.
1-Utama it is, cos Shaw Feng said I should let Kayrin enjoy an introduction to arts. A visit to Art Attack at the new wing was an eye opener. Kayrin finished an hour of activities and brought home a mobile fish aquarium. The fish was made of transparency, and painted her favourite colour -- green! When she got back and showed it to Shaw Feng, it was with these proud words:

Happy Father's Day to you, Daddy!

Woan -- One Month Has Passed

A month has passed.
Thirty sad days and many long nights,
where we wondered how you are.
In Heaven, enjoying yourself, of course!
Silly ce, you'd say, Woan.
That's where the days are fair
bright and beautiful
For you to grow all the flowers
and bake to your heart's content.
Close to God
We know we will see you again
One day you will show us what you'vedone there.
Beautiful plants in a row
Plenty of cakes to show!

Kayrin's Ice-Cream Obsession

Kayrin is just mad over ice-cream now. A trip to Petronas to fill up the S40 isn't complete until she gets her Nestle Doraemon ice-cream, which incidentally costs an atrocious 3 ringgit for a mere half cup. The remaining half of the cup is dedicated as space for a Doraemon toy.
A trip to Giant, Tesco or Carrefour won't end till we pick up a box of mini-Cornettos or some 1-liter tub.
I had an inkling how much ice-cream occupies Kayrin's thoughts on Sunday, July 23. Shaw Feng was breaking his half-boiled eggs for breakfast at a Puchong restaurant and was showing Kayrin the egg white stuck to the insides of the egg shell.
"It looks just like ice-cream,'' Kayrin said.

Woan's in Heaven

Just minutes into July 6, or even just before that, Woan passed on. She went home to be with the Lord, with her twin Lyan at her bedside. Woan battled brainstem tumour for so many months, put up such a courageous front. We miss her so. I'll come back to this again when I've collected my thoughts better. For now, these ring true.
This one because it's Woan's favourite:
`For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.' Phil 1:21

and this because it so aptly describes what Woan went through:
`I've fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept my faith.' 2 Timothy 4:7

Woan, ce miss you so. We know you are in a more beautiful place now and that God loves you more than we do. See you again in heaven. Shen.

Kayrin Saves the Day!

Kayrin was playing super-heroes with Shaw Feng a few nights ago, and I was pottering around in the bathroom in my pre-shower ritual, when I heard this amid the jumping around on the bed while Super-Hero Kayrin tries to take off from the bed in her sarong cape:

"I saved you Daddy, I saved the day!" Kayrin shouted.

I stuck my head out of the en-suite, with contact lenses in the palm of my hand, and asked Shaw Feng if he had heard what I just did. Amazing what she learns from TV.

A Letter for Sooz, Kayrin's Godma

Dear Sooz, I've only just developed that roll of film sitting in the Nikon SLR. Yes, I'm still using those old SLR cameras. I only realized it was an `ancient' way of taking photos when last week, after taking a pix of Kayrin, she came running over and said, `Let me see, let me see.' She was totally flummoxed that there was no image to see at the back of the camera where the screen is supposed to be. She couldn't understand when I explained that I'll have to get the film developed before she could see the pix. She kept wanting to `open' the camera to peer inside. I was stumped too.

Two of a Kind (the Singlet Kind)

What We Wear

One thunderstormy evening. And Kayrin insists on going to the playground. So here she is, in her weird colourful garb (not a reflection of my dress sense, of course), and directing us where to head to.

Life's more than just about what we wear,
Life's more fun when we don't care,
But only to a certain extent, wouldn't you say?
Because other times, it's about living life wonderfully our way.

I love putting together words this way. I should gather my little poems into somewhere. Some day, may be.

Happy Father's Day, Shaw Feng

I remember the year you took off work, taking care of Kayrin.
I remember the first few weeks after Kayrin arrived,
you held her till the wee hours of the morning so that I'm not bleary-eyed.
These days, you're her best playmate on the Web
Her teacher on what to do on the Internet.
I see the love you have for her
I see the adoration in her eyes every night.
So from Kayrin and I,
Happy Father's Day and Happy Birthday come July!

Vaseline

My jottings will always start with "One evening," I realize, because that's when I give Kayrin my attention, for all of one hour or less.

And so, one evening two days ago, Kayrin decided to bring a tub of Vaseline to her bedside. Daddy raised his eyebrows at her when he saw her sticking her fingers in. (It's Vaseline mommy uses as lip gloss, really.)

"My lips are cracked," Kayrin said, pouting her lips and pointing to them, for daddy's benefit. "I need to put lip gloss on my lips."

There goes my lip gloss. The following night, it was experimenting with mommy's Clarins shaping facial lift cream. http://my.clarins.com/main.cfm?prodID=603

"What are you doing with mommy's stuff??" I asked, frantically trying to pry her little fingers off the pump.

"My face is cracked and I need cream."

That's my baby growing up fast.

Kayrin, all of eight days old, in Eastern Lagoon 2, S'pore.

Ambition

Michael Buble's CD was playing in the room, and it was around Kayrin's bedtime, when the cheeky three-year old pointed to the CD cover and asked who that was.
`That's Michael Buble, darling,' I said.
`What does Uncle Buble do?' Kayrin asked.
I told her he sings and makes lots of money doing that and that she can sing as a career too. Immediately sensing this an opportunity to talk about ambition and careers, I asked, `What do you want to be when you grow up?'
`A firefighter,' came the reply, without any hesitance.
`Why,' I ventured, while thinking I should have led her down the `right' path about careers before she was even two.
`Because...I want to rescue people in buildings.'
`Wow, mommy's so proud of you,' I said, thinking such a noble cause shouldn't be put down.
Soozhana, Kayrin's godma in New York, got to hear about it over the mail the very next day because mommy was eager to share.

The following evening, upon coming home from work, I decided to get into the ambition talk again.
`What do you want to be when you grow up, darling?'
`A zebra. Bee-cau-se I want to live in Ah-fri-kahhhh.'

So much about noble ambitions. ;)

Pain

Woan, who was diagnosed in October with brainstem tumour, yesterday had one of the worst of her headaches. Ma was sitting on the floor, by the bedside and holding Woan's hand while the pain shoots through Woan's head. That's how Wei and I found them when we got home from the neurosurgeon's clinic. While I was there, Woan had another episode. It isn't throbbing headaches, she says. It is as if the back of her head is about to split open. We can only imagine what she has to go through. We pray that the headaches will go away.

A poem

How odd,
I've got a blog
started from nought,
though I must say
I've not a brilliant thing to lay
on this empty canvass this gray day.