The lightings were done, the blinds will be fitted tomorrow, and the tenancy will commence on the 1st of July. Finally, I can take a real serious break from the enormous stress that has been plaguing me for more then two years.

Running into financial stress is such a pain. And it is not helpful at all when people stubbornly thinks that we are loaded. It happened in 2002. My sister and I, we issued a cheque and placed a deposit on a bomb shell just a few weeks before SARS strike and the property market did not recover as we have expected. We tried marketing the unit. There wasn’t any good offer at all, only a few shrewd scavengers trying to fish out some cheap deals from the desperate sellers.

I don’t want to run into the situation that I need to borrow money from people or worse, declare bankrupt. I try cutting back on our household expenses. All unnecessary indulgence was trimmed away. However diligent I am into saving up, I am aware that it will never be enough. The fact is, the petty savings always got channeled somewhere else. Either someone fell sick and needed the money to see a doctor, or something broke down and need to be replaced. Useless my effort might be, the act of it gave me a false sense of security and make me less worried. I thought, if we have to declare ourselves bankrupt, I have done my part to save up, it is not my fault…haha.

Ok, we didn’t go bust lah. Somehow, we managed to overcome the crisis and even find a tenant within a month. The monthly mortgage has been taken care of, well, at least for the next two years. Thank God! He must have heard my desperate prayer every night and want to teach me a lesson before helping me.

One stress removed, hopefully better days awaiting us from now onwards.

This is a good evening. The baby has fallen asleep, earlier then usual, you

A) didn’t even know about that. You are already drooling in your sleep
B) yawn sheepishly and decides to sleep. Forgetting about brushing and flossing your teeth as well.
C) march into the kitchen and wash up the dishes that have piled up in the sink for the past one week.
D) put on your favourite yellow rubber gloves and took out the super wonder mop and start disinfecting the floor with super anti bacterial detergent.
E) fill up the pail to go wash car. The 20cts water downstairs is too expensive.
F) do the laundry, fold and iron the dried ones. Argh, still need to hand wash the stupid curry stain on your partner’s shirt.
G) prepare tomorrow’s breakfast, muffins perhaps, haven’t prepare any decent breakfast for the longest period of time, not even kaya on bread
H) read something interesting besides the prints on cereal boxes, maybe one of the bestseller.
I) reply emails that you received a month ago.
J) read/update blogs. There is like one thousand new entries in bloglines awaiting you.
K) make a silent warcry and immediately tell your partner to login to WOW and play for the next six hours.
L) sneak downstairs with your partner for roti prata supper. Nah, order the husband to go get it for you, you wouldn’t bear to leave the kid alone at home even for half a minute.
M) turns horny and hit the bedroom immediately. Nation building in progress.

Choices available:
1) Any of the above, except M
2) All the above except M
3) All the above, will consider M if there is anymore energy left.
4) Any other.
5) M

(M) alone is not an option, do let me know if I am wrong.

Is vainity something that is pre programmed into the female genes?

Ashley is already toilet trained and diaper free at 18months old! Ahhh, I am inspired again. Yah, I know, this is going to be like the 5th time I am inspired by another toilet trained kid, and maybe the 5th attempt to try out toilet training the kid.

This toilet training issue was one of our discussion topics for today’s playgroup. I think most of us mamas were impressed by the idea of having a diaper free kid at 18months, the cost saving is also very attractive. Some of the mamas are already embarking on toilet training their little ones, and is able to make them wee wee or ungghh ungghh at the potty or toilet bowl, or at least, is able to detect the expressions or signs that they are going. Some are as clueless as me, absolutely no idea what to do, or how to go about doing it. Maybe we are resigned to the idea of letting them wear diaper until they 10 years old.

Helena said she started by catching her son Nythan’s wee wee using a cup. By the way, Nythan is a boy, of course use cup, Yauyau no need to use cup. So, Nythan managed to associate the cup with wee wee time, and later, they made the shhh shhh sound to indicate wee wee time. Perhaps, the first step is to be able to catch them urinating and let them know that action is call 尿尿.

Jacqueline (Ashley’s mom) experience: just make them go diaperless for a period of time. They will pee and wee and shit all over the place, but they will also feel uncomfortable from the mess and will start indicating that they need to go. Well, be prepared to have more cleaning work though. Jacqueline made it sound so simple, I am tempted to try, but the image of her doing her business on my bed terrifies me.

Actually, we have been successfully sitting her on the potty for quite some time already, but there has been zero action. Not even a drop of output and the potty is still clean enough for drinking water. There is not yet any sign of her wanting to wee wee, though she will still freeze and exhibit an ultra serious concentration moment when she does her big business and will start touching her diaper after she pooed. Ok, at least she is aware that the smelly object inside her diaper makes her uncomfortable. Maybe I will start from there.

I wonder what terms parents use for toilet time. I have been using “shh shh” and “bang sai” for a while. Now I think “bang sai” is really too crude and fear that she will shout “我要bang sai” aloud in the public next time. Maybe I will switch to尿尿 and 大便, though they sound equally not classy enough.

We were at the SPH family day yesterday. For your info, we are not employees of SPH, but my sis is. Got free tickets, free tram ride, free lunch, free ice-cream, free candy floss, free pop corn…like everything free, sure must go!

I forgot that SPH is a very big organisation and most of their staff gets about 4tickets each. The crowd is huge. Just look at the entrance, only slightly better then the MRT rush hour. We are afterall civilised people, hence no pushing or shoving, everything was orderly chaotic.

I see children everywhere, it’s like every group has got at least a kid in tow. I wonder if all parents and their kids hit the children play area first thing they set foot into zoo. Left, right, front back and on top hanging or climbing like ah meng, every family crammed into that area. Did they come for the pool or the animals?

The giraffes are back! But are they babies too? Look rather small and short. I think the two wooden display giraffes have carried the load of thousands kids, because parents thought they are good photo taking props.

Ah Yau was more aware of the animals this time. Maybe she saw some resemblance with her toys. She was greatly amused by the goat and laugh hysterically after petting it.

My stupid shoe gave way 5 mins after we entered the zoo. What a bad timing, nobody sell shoes in a zoo. In the end, I attached two red rubber bands to the shoe and fastened it onto my foot. It was ugly, and I wasn’t wearing long pants to hide them.

By the way, we didn’t get all the free goodies in the end, not even the free lunch. So many people were queueing up for them. My father who joined the queue, said it was like refugees lining up to get their ration of food. He must be feeling rather grouchy, I guess he was very hungry.

Oh dear, I didn’t even realise yesterday was Father’s Day until I read some blogs today.

James never remembers any of these days, maybe except my birthday and yauyau’s. Since he has been away from home and is never really close to his father, he will never remember it. I don’t remember these special days too and rely heavily on the TV or papers to remind me, but I seem to have totally missed them.

I should have just gone home and have a dinner with my father. We did celebrate in the past. But the cozy atmosphere changed since my father decided to remarry. The old home that I am so use to be living in, the familiar place where I could do whatever I like and could behave like the matriarch, suddenly belongs to another family. It feels like loosing the status of big boss there and can only behave like a married daughter who is only visiting. I can boss around my mom comfortable (with respect lah), but not with my stepmom. I can yell at my mom to get her to speed up her action, but not with the stepmom.

Since there is no dearest mama for us to shower our affections on, we conveniently delete the part about our father too. Well, not exactly also. I am already a mother myself, and really don’t need a stepmom to provide me any motherly love. It is difficult for us to build a relationship, especially when both parties never try to do so. There is no reason for us to celebrate mother’s day with our stepmom, so we didn’t. So I thought, wouldn’t it be very insensitive to her if we have a big dinner party for father’s day. Will she be hurt? Will she feels unwelcome in the household?

Anyway, that was a no action day for my father. I hope he does not feel unwanted! I know what, I will go and buy him some durians later.

Gaming mamas, how do you juggle between your family and your burning passion with computer games? Are there any out there, or have you completely leave that old life behind?

We have been on World of Warcraft for about two or three months. It has been a frustrating struggle between gaming and baby caring. The guilt is unbearable when you leave the kid on the floor to play on her own while you work on your game. To make up for it, I will pick her up and sit her on my lap, and she will always hit the wrong keys when my health is critically low. It is either late night gaming, else I need someone else to babysit her. We have been perpetually tired since and my eye bags, panda eyes are obvious evident. I managed to make her sleep before 10pm every night, and that helps a bit.

We have been telling each other, how we wish the kid is older and could join us in the game. James has met little children in the game, with blessings from their parents. One of them even received virtual presents from the mother, a sword for his WOW character from eBay, and he was obviously very happy and proud about it. Do I see future generation asking not for mobile phones anymore, but maybe some fancy virtual accessories? Who knows!?

Meet my hunter, my online love. See how I love my kid; even my hunter is named after her. Maybe I should attempt to trace my agonies of online gaming with a clingy baby. I am sure I am not alone.

After almost 1 week of zero business, rpf finally started the ball rolling. And after rolling the ball for just one day, we are seeing the formation of the first playgroup online! Hurray!

Just in case you are wondering what this is all about….

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Playgroup is a fun activity for both child and parent. Mommies (and daddies too) who feel so bored at home and in need of socialisation can easily find friends and support within a group. The child will also be able to interact with other kids and probably find little friends to grow up with.

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There isn’t a single photo available to record this KL trip, because, for the second time, I remember to bring the camera, but forgotten about the battery. This is so forgetful of me!

We didn’t take the sleeper train this time, because all the tickets were sold out. No tickets on a Thursday night! I really don’t understand why, perhaps it was because of school holiday or 端午节. We took the Aeroline instead. Very nice coach. Although we weren’t early, we managed to get two seats at the lounge area. Too bad the two seater sofa was taken by an ang moh! The same thing happened on our return trip, the two seater sofa was again taken by another ang moh, but this time, this Temasek Poly lecturer gave up his big spacious seat to me and the kid. What a sensitive man! And we had a wonderful trip back (except for a minor embarrassment that happened to me, something to do with period). The kid could actually sleep on the sofa lying straight while we watched DVD. It is important to “chop” that seat if you have a little kid in arms. By the way, Aeroline has very attentive and gentle male coach stewards too.

She was a rather happy kid for this trip. She didn’t cry a bit meeting with the other strangers. She behaved well while seating between Grace and myself during lunch. When godma visited us in our hotel room, she didn’t cry bloody hell and even lingered around her (for food, I supposed). My conclusion, she likes KL a lot and doesn’t mind staying there…

We are back and still tired. The dumplings were ready, eaten and digested, so are the agonies that I mentioned earlier.

We all love to hear stories about tension between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, don’t we? Too bad, the agonies generated from the dumpling making session weren’t really results of any conflict. There were just the normal stresses I experience when too many things were to take place all on the same day, plus the idea of a dirty kitchen.

Shopping for ingredients, preparing the ingredients the night before. Preparing the ingredients again, which involved frying a big bowl of onions and 4kg of glutinous rice at 6am in the morning just dampened my spirit for a good day. The idea of a greasy and oily floor, cabinets and walls was enough to make me regret the decision to learn making dumplings from my MIL. Luckily, we managed to get the entire oily frying done quickly, and the floor moped before 9am. Playgroup would be starting at 10am, still got to tidy up the place, prepare snacks. Then we have to get the dumplings cooked before 4pm, so we could have enough time to pack a dozen of them for the godma in KL.

We managed to arrive at the coach boarding area five minutes before it left. Phew!

As usual, the agonies find their sources in my own stubborn habits of wanting to do things in my usual and ideal way. That was why my MIL’s habit of using large amount of oil for frying with strong fire, resulting in oily floor, strong smell all over the house peeves me. When the washing comes, she also likes the idea of flushing with the tap fully turned, and I see strong gush of water splashing everywhere. Wet floor and waste water, adding water to oil = explosion.

I guess tension is inevitably created when we start nitpicking. I have master the number one simple and only effective tactic to counteract all my irritations - to close one eye, curse and swear to myself silently and bear with it. When peace returns to the kitchen again, all the grouses disappear like the grease. Confrontation is unneccessary. To think of it, having to get so annoyed is silly, but I know I have to go thru this process again and again for years to come.