I went to Diana’s (my ex colleague) place thinking that it was just one of those gathering cum makan session. It turned out to be the official viewing day of her one month old baby boy. Oh boy! I didn’t even know she was expecting and imagine my shock when I see her carrying a baby.

I guess that is what happen to many women left their job and decide to stay at home. I start loosing touch with many of my friends and have no news of them unless I take the initiative to contact them.

I felt especially so with this group of ex colleague friends whom I use to work so closely with and enjoyed tremendous joy in each other’s company. I greatly appreciate the fact that they still call me up for gathering though I have left school 3 years ago. Everything seemed fine during the first year, I could still relate to what they are talking about, which mainly revolved around the school that I used to teach. But as time pass, I can’t help but feel that I couldn’t fit in as comfortably anymore. I still enjoy listening to their funny stories and unstoppable complains, but afterall, that is not is not part of my life anymore. It is different, I can’t feel the cosy camaraderie.

Am I loosing touch with the society? Well, I don’t think so, at least not yet. It is a regretful that I feel this lost of intimacy from this group of friends. Maybe that is one reason that has been tempting me want to go back to teaching again.

I have decided to get rid of thosecorner guards for child safety. Those things never serve their purpose of child proofing the hard and sharp corners of tables at all.

The product I have gotten is really crappy. Though it would probably provide some sort of cushioning if the child accidentally falls and hit that edgy corner, it is never designed to withstand itchy hands of a curious child trying to pry it off the table. I don’t think any of the children who have been to my place and saw those rubbery things never tried to peel it off it’s rightful place, and they have done it with such ease and enjoyment.

What’s left behind after the rubbery things came of is the ugly, black and sticky residue from the sticky tapes that is supposed to hold the soft cushioning. I have tried replacing it with new heavy duty sticky tapes, but the hands of children proves to be much more powerful. So in the end, I just leave them as it is and only trie to stick the rubbery thing back in position when visitors come, to hide the ugly black stains and also to put on a false facade that “I did childproof my place” hehe.

Thanks to the bottle of thinner I managed to dig out from one dark corners of the kitchen, I manage to clean away all the sticky residue. Gone are the eyesores! I think contant reminding and teaching the child about the dangerous corners would probably be a better option for now.

There is this new kids zone in Suntec city out there to dig into the pockets of parents. Toy shops, maternity apparel shops and even Toys’R Us.

I got this set of jigsaw puzzle from Growing Fun after much “encouragement” from the shop assistant. I was rather skeptical about a 21month old piecing a 20 pieces puzzle, but thought no harm giving it a try. Yes, my 21-month old really cannot complete the puzzle, but I found out there are so many other things to do with the puzzle. Matching pieces, finding a particular piece with a recognizable picture on it, playing I-spy with the completed jigsaw and etc, could easily fill up 15-30minutes of time. And the kid never seems to get tired of it.

Maybe it was because I first started her with it before her bedtime, now she associates the jigsaw puzzle with bed/nap time. So before going to sleep, there must be a round with the jigsaw puzzle, else she would just hold on to the box and cry. I also learnt that after completing the puzzle with her, if I accidentally let her wanders out of the room, it will reset the entire routine and I have to go through the puzzle thing with her again, which is definitely not an enjoyable thing to do.

I guess the 20piece puzzle I have bought might be a little bit too challenging, should probably try out those simpler ones. Isn’t that a good reason to get another set?

Alright, I finally collected Indar’s (my most trusted helper) work permit. Actually, she should been enjoying her Hari Raya home leave back in Indonesia at this point of time if not due to our negligence.

We had the air ticket booked for the 3rd of Nov, and she had brought all the presents for her family. Just lacked one item, her work permit was due for renewal by the 12th of Nov. I happily procrastinated the renewal and thought it would be done just in time before her departure and never checked her passport expiry date. Ah damn, it will be expiring in 3 months and she never informed me. That was like 3 days before her departure date.

That meant I wouldn’t be able to renew her work permit at all. Without a permit, she would be allowed reentry if she leave Singapore. Ack! I called the embassy and found out that they will be closed for 10 days starting from the next day for Hari Raya. We rushed down to the Indonesia Embassy immediately, took and filled up the forms and charged down to the domestic worker consulate. Oh man, the staffs were busy rounding up their work and told us passport renewal application is only available in the morning! But luckily after some begging and pleading, the nice lady agreed to help us and took in our application after giving us a lecture, ok, we deserved it. We managed to get a new passport 16 days later, not too bad.

Going down to MOM to renew the work pass was another headache. I wanted to call them up to enquire about overstaying without a valid work pass. It was like almost impossible to get to the customer service officer. I could have turned on my speaker phone and waited 2 hours before someone picked up my phone while I do something else, but the irritating part about MOM hotline is, the sweet recorded voice request you to press 1 for this, press 2 for that, and press 3 for another thing repeatedly. If you are slow and do not press the button to confirm that you are going to wait, it will hang up! What a waste of time. So I took the advice and called outside peak hour, at 8.30am. And yes, after about 10 minutes, I finally got to talk to an officer.

So I found out there will be a 7 days grace period after the work pass expire, but I have to go to MOM personally for the renewal. The place was crowded, but I only waited for about 15 minutes in my queue. The serving officers even congratulated me for the short wait, they told me the wait for the previous week was 3 hours and they worked till 6pm non-stopped. 3 hours!? Goodness, MOM should just generate more jobs by opening up more serving counters instead of the proposed reduction (they said now can go online, no need so many counters).

Anyway, got that done and the finally step was for me to collect the work permit at Tanjong Pager Centre today. Wah, that place is like a construction site to me. Probably upgrading to look as posh as MOM? The staffs there were as busy and diligent as those in MOM, calling queue numbers one after another non stop. I noticed that the poor souls at the collection counters don’t seem to have chairs to sit on. They were standing and retrieving this and that all the time. Must be so busy that they have forgotten about resting their legs. Such committed staffs, should give them a bigger year end bonus. Especially so when they continue to serve you happily without giving you the ultimate black face.

Now I have gotten all the necessary documents done, got to pack up my trusted helper and send her to the airport tomorrow. I am going to miss her terribly for 2 weeks.

Isn’t it great that the kids are becoming more and more helpful as they grow older? They can be such enterprising little dears who are ever so enthusiastic to help us with the household chores. They must have been observing us sweeping and mopping the floor, wiping tabletops, boiling water, throwing rubbish, doing laundry and have been diligently learning how to do it. Ah, they just can’t wait to try their hands on these tasks.

So one day, she began drawing tissues paper from the box and started wiping here and there. I believe this is one of the toddlers’ favourite activities. Then she began helping us lazy adults throwing rubbish into the bins. She can’t wait for me to do laundry, so she could put the dirty clothes into the machine. Watering the plants gives her enormous pleasure too, but the poor plants are badly victimised by Yauyau zealous act of over watering.

She is up to sweeping the floor lately and has been arming herself with the broom and pan, walking around the house trying to sweep up some invisible stuff. How I wish she would be as diligent when she grows up and not becomes another lazy bum like her parents.

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Alright, I am no longer sour and sore, it seems that I have won back the position to be Yauyau’s all time favourite and she doesn’t cry for Indar anymore. I have no idea why what made her stopped crying for Indar suddenly.

Perhaps it was just short phase when she found mama to be too busy minding her own business and neglected her, thus she decided to seek the comfort of another person. And maybe it was because I stopped panicking and take things easier when that happened. During the first few incidents when she cried sorrowfully for Indar, I simply couldn’t stomach the idea of her not wanting me. I wanted to stopped her crying and calling for Indar immediately by carrying her and pacifying her. It didn’t really worked. After a few rounds of failure, we decided to knock some sense into the kid by telling her that Indar was not around, she would be back again tomorrow. Wow, surprisingly, that did the trick. She seemed to understand that and wasn’t that unmanageable anymore.

Well, should have realised earlier that the kid is growing up fast, reasoning seems to be working much better then distracting, humouring, pacifying or giving in.