what a great day to start the week...

What do a Bolivian woman, a German woman, an Iranian woman and a Singaporean woman have in common? 

They all had lunch together at my place today! Hee... a UN food convention! Lunch was such a resounding success that it was discussed promptly when and where the UN delegates could reconvene. ;)

Our similarities, however, extend beyond our interest in food. We are all mommies, we all have at least one child in the American preschool here, we are all originally not from Frankfurt. 

Told ya, Frankfurt has such a huge international community. 

Though we talked about many things over lunch, some topics invariably came back to our kids but with a bit of twist. That's why I like these moms so much. 

So one of the moms recounted that one day she accidentally walked in when the teacher was giving some kids time-out. The teacher sort of gave a "glare" like "Don't talk to them, these guys are on time out here." She left quickly. By the way, the kids concerned here were actually our kids... and guess what? We had such a good time laughing and one of the moms even cheered: Yay, serve the fella (referring to her son) right! Ok, it's not my intention to portray her as the mean witch mom here. And I know for a fact that she loves her son dearly. But what she wants is a good structure in her son's preschool years and she hopes for harder discipline! Wow... completely different from moms from my part of the world. I'm full of respect for this mom! Imagine a Sg mom marching into the school and interrogate the teacher in front of the whole class, demanding "So what crime did my child commit? How could you this and that blah blah blah... Are you sure my child was the culprit?" 

Also, we didn't complain how much stress our kids are under, nor scared ourselves silly about sending our children to thousands of enrichment classes... although we did wish that our kids had more homework. Btw, our kids love homework here! Maybe it's the lack of it that make them crave for more. Recently we've been given some flash cards to help our kids sound out the words at home and then tick off a checklist... yes, that's all, so simple. No worksheets to complete, no spelling lists to memorise, nothing to count! So with this kind of attitude, our subject quickly returned to where we could take our kids out for fun, e.g. Lochmuehle, Taunus Wunderland, Disneyland or Legoland.... 

What a pity that this kind of stress-free school-life is almost at its last chaper for us now. Soon we'll be dumped back into the cauldron of stress, rat race and paper chase in Sg... sigh! 

Wait a minute, this post is supposed to have a positive tone... ok, I got to psych myself up again for the great week ahead of me. The kindergarten class has a field trip at the end of this week. I'm gonna convince the teacher to let me tag along to take pictures, yay! 

And talking about pictures, here are what we had for lunch... sorry just leftovers... we were too eager to start that we didn't take any pictures at all! 

Clockwise from top: Rendang... (blurred out coz it didn't look as good as the one in Lilian's), bee hoon and my favourite salad to go with the curry!

Again, yummy and pretty cakes from the famous Siesmayer Cafe in Frankfurt. Thanks, Mania! 

And little cupcakes made by Fatima's lovely boys! Thank you, little darlings! 

It would have looked so much better if I had a white teapot, teacup, saucer and plate... 

P/S Representatives from Moscow and London could not make it for lunch today. Their flights were cancelled... :( 

secret of "painless" days

Alan's been gone since Aug 2, afternoon flight. Basically, he was gone all of Saturday. He will be back on this Sunday, arriving however at 8+ pm in Frankfurt. Yet another weekend spent travelling. 

How's the company ever going to be able to compensate family time and the aches and pains that I have at the end of each day when the kids are finally in bed? 

We were in Provence in early July. I got myself a pretty expensive jar of Lavender Tonic Gel for tired legs. 12.90 Euro for 100 ml. This miracle rub has been keeping me going for the whole week. Well, it isn't that Alan hasn't been travelling much. In fact, most of the time, it would have been so anyway. He would be gone over the week, with perhaps a couple of sleep-overs at home. The children never seemed to miss him. And there was school everyday. 

But this time round, it's different. It's the height of summer. Very hot - think unbearable heat without air-con! There's no school, i.e. the kids are with me 24/7. My cleaning lady is on home leave! And I promised to help a friend take care of her daughter for two days while she packed to move to another city. 

My secret of keeping the household straight, caring for three kids for a couple of days, running errands, bringing Bryan for a haircut and the kids to the doctor's all in one week lies in this tiny jar of purple essence: 

Strangely, even without gym, physiotherapy and stretching exercises, I managed to clean both bathrooms, scrub down the shower, vacuum and mop the whole apartment, fold some 7 baskets of laundry and counting, sort out the kids' toys, cook many meals, do groceries and wash the patio floor. Phew... what a busy week! Yep, that's right, it's my vanity holding myself in the highest esteem. :D

analogue vs digital design...

I started pondering on why it's always been easier for me to have a sense of time when I look at an analogue clock face rather than a digital one. I began to ask if there had anything to do with how the brain processes its information. - Ok, this is because I get very irritated when one of our analogue clocks is down. I seem to lose track of time easily because the digital time display on my computer does little influence on how I perceive how much time I still have before I rush off to do other things. I think people like me have to have thousands of alarm set to remind me to stay on task.

Some quotes I found on the Internet:
"Digital is discrete, Analogue is complete."
"Digital is about bits and pieces. Analogue is everything."
I suppose analogue gives the big picture, while digital gives details. Hmmm, maybe. Coz that's how I tick, I think. My rough idea of time comes from an analogue clock face, but when it's down to the seconds, I'd rather a digital one.

Please let me know if you manage to find a scientific study on how analogue and digital time displays relate to the lateralisation of the brain.

10 Goals for Children at Age 5

While I was surfing KidsGrowth.com, this was what I came across.

Ten Goals For Children At Age 5:
1. To pay attention and follow directions.
2. To ask questions if they do not understand.
3. To have confidence in themselves.
4. To have a positive attitude about going to school and learning.
5. To take responsibility for their actions.
6. To respect others.
7. To trust adults.
8. To make independent choices.
9. To attempt to solve their own problems rather than allowing an adult to dictate what they should do.
10. To express their feelings, including anger and frustration, through words rather than action.

I personally found it too heavy for a little 5-year-old. And boy, some adults don't even manage anything from #6 onwards.
And for #7, how am I to teach my children that some adults do in real life abuse children's trust?
Yep, some people like to say "small children, small problems. Big children, big problems!"
Gee, you know what my heart is crying out now?

false alarm...

Kristin woke me up today with her cries. It wasn't the usual cries for "Mommy-come-get-me" attention. It was weird. When I found her, her face looked so flushed that I only had one thing in mind: Is she afflicted by Scarlet fever?

Friends have told me that there had been cases in the Frankfurt International School and Internationale Schule Frankfurt. And knowing that Kristin comes into contact with the siblings of these children, chances were pretty high.

Anyway, I dropped Bryan off at school and then went off to the clinic with Kristin.
The doctor did a swab on hearing my account. Thank God that the test was negative. So it's just a common cold.

Sigh... no wonder I'm getting fat. You must be wondering what's being fat gotta do with my children being sick?

Well, I had plans to hit the gym and then spend the remaining of the morning in a sauna after a workout, but no, one of them has to spoil my plans. Already, I gave up my Monday for grocery shopping coz I had to bring a plate for the Thanksgiving Feast on Tuesday for Bryan's class and then attend his mini-concert. And now, Wednesday, I still can't spend time for myself! And whatabout tomorrow and day after?
Nope, the kids have no school (Thanksgiving holidays) and of course, the babysitters at the gym will not take Kristin in with her nose all runny now, or would they?

Now it's certainly easy to sit at home and get bigger on the waist, isn't it?

a sahm finally...

Yes... this is what I've been wanting to live out!

I'm staying at home so that:
- I can drop off and pick up the kids at preschool.
- I can follow my children on field trips. This morning, I had my first debut as a chaperone for Bryan's field trip. It was a short walk to the duck pond and we collected leaves in the wonderful golden fields of autumn - nothing much to boast about. But yes, I want to be that mom who enjoys school experience with her children!
- I can experiment with recipes and bake as many cupcakes and muffins as I want.
- I can bring muffins over to another mommy friend's place and share them with her kids! Haha, so taitai now!
- I can sneak out for a lunch break with my husband and his colleagues (for some adult company) while the kids are at school and then back to being a sahm again when I pick them up after a decent lunch.

And now, while the kids are napping, I can steal some rest from my biking exercise this morning. I overestimated myself and attempted to bike to the kids' school within 15 minutes for my volunteer work. The uphill route proved to be a near heartattack experience. I came into the hallway looking all flustered, just 5 minutes before the class was about to leave the building and Bryan's teacher asked me how I was doing. It was so embarassing that I could only murmur a soft ok while I was still catching my breath!

I really should be going to the gym more often and bake less at home! Anyway, I don't bake when the kids aren't home.

the night before...

Tomorrow's gonna be a big day for the kids.

It's the first day of the school year for Bryan and it's the FIRST DAY of school for Kristin.

Yay! And finally, my day has come. Yap, mine! Finally, I can drop the kids off at school and have some time off from 9am to 2pm every day! At last, I can have a life! Previously, I was just a home-bound slave. Even though Bryan had been attending school here for a year already, I was still mostly stuck at home in the morning with Kristin.

So here are some things that I have in mind to accomplish, while the kids are in school every day:
1. Go to the gym, sauna, steambath and take good care of myself.
2. Do groceries, without kids on tow.
3. Sort the wardrobe: for the seasons, to give away, or to dump. Can you imagine I haven't been able to do this since we moved to Frankfurt in Nov 2005?
4. Sort the kids' toys. Messy!
5. Reorganise the store-room, basement storage. This one's gonna be tough work. Ok, basement? Am not too sure if I wanna be there on my own. I've seen rats scurrying around before.
6. Reorganise the contents in the kitchen cabinets. Throw out the expired stuff.
7. Sort the kids' books. Very Messy!
8. Start a family scrapbook. Got the materials, just need to have the time to do it.
9. Meet friends for brunch without the kids. Yippee!
10. Go get my eyebrows shaped! See, I can't possibly do this with the kids running around in Body Shop.
11. Make an appointment with the GP for flu jab and another appointment with an orthopedist to check my cracking left shoulder. Not due to old age, but due to prolonged carrying of baby/toddler in one arm, while I have to manhandle a mischievous preschooler who sometimes doesn't want to get into the car or do 1001 things with the other arm like cook, wash dishes, do laundry and fold clothes, carry grocery bags etc.
12. See Frankfurt, visit the Goethe's Haus, check out some museums. Can you believe it? I have been living in Frankfurt for almost 2 years and I hardly know this place. Yay, I can visit the book fair in October on my own!
13. Ask my husband out for a lunch date once in a while, hurrah!
14. Clean the toilets/bathrooms the way I like to. Somehow the Putzfrau doesn't get it quite right.
15. Errrmm, do nothing! Dolce niente! That is also good, isn't it?
16. Reorganise the digital photos. My photos are everywhere. My hard disk, Alan's portable hard disk, my portable hard disk and our common portable hard disk. Boy, if only one could actually see this virtual mess spilled over 4 hard disks...!
17. Blogging... hee, as if I haven't already spent lots of time here.
18. Buy myself a book and read. It's been a long time since I read for my own pleasure. The last time... ermm, before Bryan was born, oh my!
19. Go shopping/window-shopping! Haha... just doing my job: Alan earns, I spend!
20. Get a label machine. How can I not have one if I want to get organised?

Not exactly in any order of priority, just whatever that comes into my mind right now.
So... we'll see where the list gets me to in a couple of months' time.

happy birthday, Bryan!

Yay! You turn 4 today.

Of course, you're a big boy now.

You can dress yourself, put on your own shoes, feed yourself, although you still prefer Mommy or Daddy to do these things for you.

And from last doctor's assessment, we all know that your motor skills are pretty well-developed. Hopping, jumping, skipping, walking backward or sideways certainly doesn't prove to be of any problem to you, and you sure are confident at scaling heights at the next playground.

You never fail to impress me with your language skills and your talent in singing songs with words you make up out of the blue. And of course, all the silly sounds that you make as you attempt to learn phonics each day really send me off laughing.

Though you can't really read yet (other than the two words "zoo" and "buzz" you know), you've been reading to me Chicken in the City every night out of sheer memory skill.

Now that you're a big boy, be sure to leave all those crying fits behind you. Believe me, the past weeks have been nothing but a torture to me. The construction site in our backyard is not helping in keeping it down, and you whine and cry just about the moment you open your eyes and every 3-4 hours in the night. Those 5 hours that you spent in the summer camp for the last two weeks were peace for me and what's still keeping me sane.

So no more crying in the new year, please. Let's do more grown-up stuffs together. What do you say, wii play? Ok? :)

in and out of cherry windows...

When I was about 2.5 years old, I too went to a nursery. (See, there's a family tradition to send children to school early... haha!) That was the result of pestering my mom every morning, when I saw happy preschoolers marching past our windows to get to their PAP kindergarten just next block. But no one then would accept anyone at three, much less a toddler who's just about 2.5 years old. After a hunt for a nursery, my mom finally found a private one in Chip Bee Garden. Hmm, wonder if that place still exists.

I had fond memories, snapshots here and there. And I particularly enjoyed a song. It doesn't quite make much sense to me right now, or my memory has certainly faded. Nonetheless, I found myself humming to the tune yesterday during lunch. Out of the blue, the words came out as I tried hard to help both my children to concentrate on their lunch.

It went like this: "In and out of cherry windows (x3), I am the leader. Tappa' (x3) on my shoulder, Tappa' (x3) on my shoulder, Tappa' (x3) on my shoulder, I am the leader."
It was a game we used to play during the nursery class, where children held hands to form a circle and one kid would be tunneling in and out of the circle under the held hands, until this kid decided to tap the shoulders of another kid to make him the leader. And then the little train continued to tunnel in and out the circle to find another leader.

Within 5 minutes, Bryan was singing the song together with me.
This morning, he asked me where Mommy learnt the song from.

From my teacher, in my kindergarten, of course.
Oh, I see. I learnt mine in the kindergarten too. You see, we sing, "In and out of cherry doors (x3), I am the engineer."

Hey, son. You sure think fast.

Btw, if you've ever heard of anything close to my version of cherry windows, please leave me a note.

is that really me?

Guess curiosity got the better of me:
2,805,259 people took this quiz and there are 137,770 others like me out there...? Nah...

VIOLET

You surround yourself with art and music and are constantly driven to express yourself. You often daydream. You prefer honesty in your relationships and believe strongly in your personal morals.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Surrounding myself with art and music? Well, at the moment, I only read children's books. All tunes must be approved of by my 4-yr-old son. So much for art and music and self-expression therein.

Daydream... yeah, who wouldn't? Just a dose of it is always good. It gives hope, does it not? ;)

Hmmm, but the last part??? Gee, that makes me sound like a puritan. Haha! But, hey, a second read: Mark the word "personal". This could be anything, man.

when I was 5...

oops... I was tagged - a new game I discovered in the blogging scene, thanks to Lilian.

When I was 5, I wanted to be a doctor. My only patient then was my little brother.
At 10, I thought being an articulate and powerful lawyer could help the poor defend their rights. Noble, noble!
When I was 15, my secret ambition was to be a writer...?
When I turned 20, I dreamt to be a rich man's wife. A rich tai-tai-wannabe, ha!

So where did that all lead me to?

Errrm, does blogging count? :p
No critics, please!

mothers' day lunch...

This wasn't the first time Alan and I decided to leave Kristin at Bryan's school for some hours of daycare. And she really enjoyed it. This morning she was repeating after her brother, "Go to school!" And as I was dropping her off for daycare at noon, we not only climbed up the stairs together, Kristin also counted the steps with me! She's really good now with her counting... ok, only sequential at the moment. Looks like she's all ready for school now. Pity that we have to wait till this fall for her to start school proper.

Anyway, for those three hours, Alan and I managed to steal some couple time and we went for a scrummy Indian treat just round the corner from our place. Something we can definitely not do with the kids around coz the restaurant ambience and food is not at all children friendly. This is for people who wanna dine with some peace. So that was our little Mothers' Day lunch without the kids and a little off time for Mommy in between the hectic dropping off and picking up.

Ok, this isn't exactly the spread that we had. I forgot my camera. So where did these pictures come from? Use some imagination, ok? :p

marvellicious monday lunch...

Top five marvellicious reasons because
1) no kids!
2) wonderful steaks, tender and succulent!
3)great wine!
4)beautiful sunny weather with blue skies!
5) no kids... that would have made anything palatable enough for me!

It's a special treat from the company today. An annual fund that looks after the welfare - to be precise, the tummy of course -of the staff and at the same time enough to allow spouses to join in on a more relaxed context.
At first, we thought of extending Bryan's school hours till 3pm so that Mommy and Kristin could join in the fun feast. Then Mommy thought, hmmm, why don't we also leave Kristin at the daycare from noon to 3pm so that Mommy can truly have a decent meal? Yeah! Finally, for the very first time, Alan and I dined in one of the finer restaurants here without kids!!!

And we finally got our sizziling steaks after a really, really long time... Piping hot food with children around? Those of you with kids will know... no way! Most of the time, we'll be quickly gobbling down cold dishes and chasing after the kids once they're done with their meals. For someone who loves his food served piping hot like me... tough luck for the next four, five years still, perhaps??? Hopefully by then, the kids would have learnt good table manners and Alan and I can finally enjoy a reasonable meal dining out with them.

By the time I was back in school to pick both the kids up, Kristin had enjoyed herself so much that she refused to leave... hmmm, maybe an occasional lunch without kids will do both Mommy and children good.

Imagine this is gonna be my new routine come fall this year when Kristin also starts school daily from 9am to 2pm! Hey, kids, Mommy will have so much energy to deal with you when school is done and you'll be asking for naps willingly... haha!

how's it like being a mom?

I was dumbfounded by a question posed at me almost 4 years back: How is it like being a mom? To be precise, it was when Bryan was one month old.

I really had no idea how to answer that question then. I had nothing in my mind except that breastfeeding was indeed a tough decision to live with. The first four weeks were marked with insecurity of whether I had latched the baby on correctly and if the baby had enough to drink. I didn't know how time passed coz there seemed no end to breastfeeding and there wasn't much sleep to talk about. For the first time in my life, I wasn't functioning normally, i.e. my mind could be thinking about something and my mouth would be uttering total nonsense.

So that much went through my mind when the question came along. But I didn't really dwell on the early troubles of breastfeeding. I smiled and said, "I'm still learning how to be a mom." Only that much sense came out of my mouth that morning.

Four years have lapsed since that question was first posed at me, and I won't say I can asnwer the question well yet. I'm still learning how to be a mom each day. A good one. A responsible one. Sometimes, it backfires and I become a not-so-nice one who screams and yells at my children. And believe me, the learning curve was great when I suddenly switched from a full time working mom to one toddler with help from grandparents and a maid to a stay at home mom with a baby and a toddler to care for, minus all the help. Luckily, my mom helped a lot during the transition period. Yeah - so great is a mom's love. It never ends even when your child is thirty-something and even when your child herself is a mom too. That's one thing about being mom... Will I ever be that kind of mom one day when the situation calls for it?