the “suckiest”??

school yard words have begun filtering into the flat.

on far too many occasions, sebastian or one of his friends refers to something as, "the suckiest". alternatively, things can also suck.

i will ask sebastian's friends if they are allowed to use that word at home and they will say YES. i will say it isn't a word that we use in our house.

but sometimes, suckiest works quite nicely. and, as sebastian was quick to tell me, "i don't think sucks is as bad as the "f" word with the finger up high".

so suckiest is a lesser of evils. a downgrade from the f-bomb.

how do you handle language you'd rather not hear coming into your home? some of it…"taxes" "i can't meet you today…" are words you'd rather not hear but are inevitable. school yard (and exasperated mummy) language is inevitable too..but how should i react when i hear it?

shanghai…surprise!!!

i have referred to my lovely friend odila.

she lives in midlevels, where many of my good friends live.

however, next month, she will be moving farther away. even farther than kowloon side! yes…it appears that odila and joel (ever loving husband) are moving to angola. oh, her camera is going to be busy.

as sort of a last blast, odila and a few friends are headed to shanghai for a girls weekend. i am one of those girls! can you imagine, cruising along the bund, taking amazing photos, seeing new sights, new skylines, new smells. shanghai has changed so much since i was last there. i am so very very excited….and to be going with these girls even moreso!!!

i went today to get my china visa. i wanted to get a three year multiple entry visa, but my passport is up in january so that was impossible. i always try to get a three year, with the optimistic hopes i will be making many trips across the border.

how wonderful. charles didn't even blink an eye when i asked if i could go.

i love girls weekends! and then i will come back and the next day is the triplet's ballet recital!!

amazing grace…tess style!

today has been a busy day. it started around midnight when i was stubbornly refusing to go to sleep. i am reading "the interpretation of murder" and i was at a good bit, and the minutes were ticking by.

no sooner had i decided to be sensible then my second born came traipsing into my room, his heart racing. poor jasper. he lay down with us for a while and then i took him back to his room.

10 minutes later i heard him get up…but he didn't come into our room. and i just knew he was going into gary and marianne's room. cheeky little monkey! i raced out of bed and intercepted him. needless to say, jasper was up a few more times during the night.

this morning, we were out of the flat by 8.15am for the last rugby tournament before the sevens. the triplets don't like rugby any more than they ever did, but sebastian had a good day. it was fun catching up with steph and seeing other friends.

and then, it was back to church to send off the youth on…the amazing GRACE! their sunday activity was doing an amazing race. i had put it together and was quite proud of it. it had some good acitivities and wasn't too challenging or athletic for them. it was just right.

i like being involved in the youth. they are worth it. everyone always tells the youth "they are the future"…so how importnant do we think our future is if we don't invest time in the youth, even if they aren't our own kids?

anyway, i sent them off in teams of five, and with an adult supervisor, and off they went. then my friend bronwyn and i went with charles and the kids to look at another flat, since we didn't get the one yesterday. this flat was really high…i was a bit concerned. and the landlord isn't willing to be a proper landlord. if something breaks, she will not be responsible. we had to assume the costs. this is the situation we have right now….we don't want that!

anyway,we looked at the flat and then charles dropped us back at church and bronwyn and i ordered food, set out drinks, set up tables, brought out cutlery, and i set up the welcome mat that every amazing race has.

it was good to welcome the youth back. they had had a great day and each had "best" and not best things about their day. they looked as knackered as i feel!

my week is frantic and is only getting busier. but i can't tell you how rewarding it is spending time with the youth, even if i don't know them well enough right now. these kids are worth my sunday afternoon, a day away from my kids. everyone always tells the youth "they are the future"…so how importnant do we think our future is if we don't invest time in them?

i’m going through changes….

i had a half morning "vision" session at small world today. after enjoying a very tasty lunch, i texted magnificent and asked him where he was. as i expected, he was with sebastian and jasper, in baguio villa.

they were about to look at flats.

yes folks, we are leaving 122 pokfulam road.

i am not sure why the government has chosen to increase our rent by 46 per cent, but they have, and we need to accept that. so we will.

it doesn't make good economic sense for us to stay at 122 so we will leave. the challenge is trying to package it right for the kids.

of course their first reaction was, "i don't want to move i will go stay with…." and they begin a long leisurely list of people they are CERTAIN they would want them to just move right in. i love the confidence.

and then sebastian said, "if we move, i want to go to a place that has a pool."

oh they are clever little monkeys. CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER. love them.

charles and i looked around at baguio today. i know the big mistake is comparing to what you have already, and i tried not to do that. (this is when you tell me how proud you are.) charles was a tougher nut to crack, but that's our boy. he wailed about the lack of storage space and i don't blame him. what about gary and marianne? their room would be a LOT smaller. that would stink for them.

since we need to be out of our place by 28 march or take a three month extension on our place paying the rent they want us to, we made a tentative bid on one of the places we saw today. truthfully, i expect the fellow to say no, and i believe he will.

this is what trusting God is all about. we will be fine.

if we moved into a four bedroom place, we could split up the boys and the girls…that would be a great thing. see how positive i am being? would anyone care to guess what colour the girls would like to paint their room??

joy comes in the morning

yesterday is over, and today arrived. a new day.

yesterday was bad. a bad bad day. but do you know what was gorgeous? everywhere i turned, there were arms. reaching out to me, encouraging me, loving me.

i returned andrea's phone call yesterday, and when i heard her voice, i got a little weepy. she wasn't at home, but immediately said, "do you need me to come to you?" and i said no. i just needed to get through this myself. i told her i would catch up with her later (and that was my intent).

i went for a little walk, and then came back. at that point sebastian was asking me why none of his friends were at the playground and available to play with him. i sent sebastian to play with the triplets, on the basis that at least with the triplets he can feel like the big older brother and they will think he is remarkable. (which, he is).

i went to the playground looking for the idiotic water bottle that was apparently left there but due to renos the door was blocked off. and i saw tara and katie and susan. i went to talk to them and they smiled at me, and i went to sit down. they asked how i was, and i didn't want to say anything because i knew i wouldn't stop.

it was not my intention to cry, but i did. once on the phone with andrea, once in tara's arms, and again as i wrote to mel.

and then it was okay. magically and wonderfully.

i had a headache, but it was okay.

the triplets, our guests the debocks and i applauded sebastian for his honesty at school and i gave him two packs of match attax. he was thrilled. i was thrilled. i love him. he's my boy.

this morning, i awoke, refreshed and relieved. the crisis was over.

i decided to forgo my usual morning grocery shop and instead hightailed it over to ifc to get a pedicure with tara. a good choice. we chatted and giggled. and then i went to park n shop and spent more $$$ than a small country makes in a year, just so my kids can have chicken nuggets. honestly.

this parenting thing isn't easy.

but i learned a valuable lesson yesterday and was reminded again how wonderful friends are.

and, although i promised myself i wouldn't cry, this email came in (why do my commenters prefer to email??) and it just made me shake my head so i wouldn't.

just read your blog -  felt it with you today. S, C, and J they make me want to dance, or run, or get down to their height and play, Seb – he helps me stop and think and look at the world, and sometimes he makes me want to run too – just not as fast as the others (gotta see what's out the window). He makes me want to grow! They all rock babe – and that can only be a tribute to you and C.

***************

and then there was another email from a mum whose child also has add, and it was so compassionately worded…nothing about putting on my big girl knickers and getting on with it…just all about love.

learn from your children

this week has been tough for me parenting wise.

sunday, i went to rugby and got to see my son, jumping up and down trying to get in his coaches' line of vision while his coach divided the players into teams for a match.

the players dwindled down, and sebastian moved again, and said, "me! what team for me?" and the coach stopped for a moment, looked at the teams to assess which players were on which, and then put sebastian on a team.

crack goes my heart.

i know my son is not easy. i know that his social anxiety makes it difficult to warm to him. i know that he is immature for his age, as most add kids are.

i know that he loves rugby.

today, a bunch of kids sebastian's age are having a playdate. sebastian is not invited, although they mentioned the playdate right in front of sebastian.

me, i was hurt, upset. wonderfully, amazingly, sebastian didn't even notice. as of five minutes ago, he took his match attax downstairs, in hopes of finding someone to play with.

is it his immaturity that makes him so immune? does he not get it? i don't know, but i am so grateful that he doesn't. i don't think i could deal with his hurt on top of mine. so i am grateful for my unique, wonderful child.

and he is wonderful. today in the classroom, shannon's chair was covered with teddy bears that each child had brought in. of course, the minute shannon's back was turned, the kids would go running to the chair and pull out their special bear. at one such point, shannon called out, "who was just touching the teddy bears?" and no one answered. again, shannon repeated her request, asking this time, "whoever was touching the teddy bears, please stand up!"

and i watched sebastian stand up.

i asked him about this later, and he said, "i wanted to be honest."

oh i am so proud of him. don't get me wrong, he is not an easy child…but he is wonderful.

i need to be more like him.

i love creeping into the kids' room at night.

the reasons are mainly selfish: they ask so little of me when they are asleep. no questions, pulling, frustrations. and i can watch them. without them making a silly face. and, i can do my job well in these unconscious hours.

i get extreme pleasure from observing their automatic reactions. if someone's lovely blanket has slipped off, i lift it up and re-cover the child, murmuring, "ohhh,lovely". usually, within seconds, the child will smile and stretch in a luxurious manner. i love knowing that i have so easily given pleasure and comfort…because when they are awake& moving;i don't often have that confidence these days. parenting when your child is involved in an emotional event is so much more challenging than when maslow's basic hierarchy is your agenda.

i had a wonderful opportunity on wednesday; i got to visit a friend who 27 days ago had triplets. two girls and a boy.

the friend, her husband and a helper were stationed where else, in the babies room. all three of them, sharing a cot. oh my goodness, they were so little and so very very gorgeous.

lots of little toes, sounds, noses and snuffles. charts on the walls, labelled bottles everywhere….oh this was a walk down memory lane. a reminder of how my walls, cupboards and refrigerator had once looked. how my life was!

i was able to hold one of the girls, and watched little charles as he slept. when little isabella looked uncomfy, she needed one of four things: a new nappy, more food, a burp or sleep. four choices. (it was food, btw). the parents have them on a great schedule, but the time between feedings is practically non existant…60 minutes? was that really my world for those first months? i left missing those sweet little babies that used to be mine, but so grateful that we have moved on. because i still have those quiet nights, where with a quick smooth of a blanket, i can bring an instant smile to a face and know that i took care of their needs.

the fallout

i am blogging midday – something i rarely do on weekends, but the kids are so enchanted with their new presents that i can.

fallout from parties.

d'you know that charles and i haven't even bought the triplets any birthday presents aside from three aprons? i might get the girls crocs, but that's probably it.

speaking of crocs, on friday night i learned that an online shop in the states was selling crocs for 4.95. and the fuzzy lined winter ones were $7.95. they were going fast, the website was slow, but i was determined. i ordered crocs for all my kids, my nephew in toronto (don't know my nieces sizes or i would have), new born crocs as baby presents, and crocs for andrea's kids. and for ursula's kids. i was croc happy. and the frugal blake in me did say "don't forget, anything after $75 means free shipping!"

needless to say, all this took 60 minutes. but finally, i was ready to take my brimming cart to checkout. and i proudly took out my amex card…put in my mailing address, and then typed in the billing address….AND….there was no where to put in "other".it only listed states.

my dollar-saving dreams were smashed. i wasn't going to get these crocs because my credit card billing address wasn't in the states??? SERIOUSLY?

i was devastated. not for the loss of the dreams, but for the loss of the TIME. the night before the PARTY!

fallout — the vegetables weren't cut as nicely as they could have been and my girls will be croc free for another few weeks. i WILL Get them on sale. one way or the other. now it is a quest.

and today reality tv regular jade goody will marry her prisoner boyfriend jack tweedy. this is a story i haven't followed too closely for reasons below. jade rose to celeb status from very humble beginnings after doing big brother. the public loved her raucaus comments. she had two children with a fellow reality star, and they ended their romance. her mother, a very crass person, got masses of free plastic surgery done. jade went back to do celebrty big brother and was called a racist after she called indian contestant shilpa shetty "shilpa poppadom" and made other comments. public opinion of jade went wayyy down, she lost contracts, deals, etc.

jade, in a fit of damage control, went to india, and then this summer left her two very young children for an undetermined period of time and started indian big brother, but while there learned that her cervical smear results had come in very abnormal…she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. she went back to the uk to start treatment.

in the past months she has stayed somewhat low, being in a panto, attending chemo, all with a maximum of media attention. jade only knows the media, they are part of her world, and she didn't shut them out during teh cancer.

so. a few weeks ago it was learned the cancer metastasized. suddenly, people are upset that jade is still talking, giving interviews. go away and die quietly seems to be the feeling. have some dignity others say. yet others claim…don't you want to spend time with your children?

she's going to marry her boyfriend today, who has been in prison for taking a golf club to a youth.

i haven't followed the story too closely because i was never a huge jade goody fan. i am very sorry she has cancer, i am very sorry whenever i hear that anyone has cancer. but i am not going to check in with her life right now. she claims she's doing all the media stuff to make money for her kids, so they have privileges she never did. i say, fair enough. i am not going to follow it.

media fallout – jade is as controversial as ever.

fallout.

there is tonnes of beach cake left, and i am going to eat some for lunch. bad bad fallout there. but so tasty.

free piece of cake if you head on over to charles' blog for some great pix and drawings!

cloud on over, skies…i don't care. the triplets beach birthday party is over and the skies stayed true and blue for it.

for the past week the hong kong weather conservatory was predicting showers and force 4 & 5 winds for saturday due to the monsoon coming down from guandong.

this did not suit team caldwell at all…after all…saturday was the triplets 5th birthday party! we had planned to hold it at the beach and we needed sunshine! i told the triplets that i needed them to pray about the weather, and they took that task on willingly, as well as praying that their sick friend grant would get better and be able to attend the party. (left: the beach as seen from the bbq pit.)

the cake was a carefully thought out phenom. it had to be a theme all the kids liked, and we wanted it to tie into the beach party theme. so we all agreed on a beach party cake. excellent. i then decided that the beach party would be best, IF we included water. thus the hunt for blue water (jello) began. needless to say, in canada this would be easy, in hk it wasn't as easy, but thanks  to gail…we pulled it off and installed a pool into our beach scene.

i'll leave the rest of the cake descriptions to the pictures…but it was as tasty as it was clever. charles pulled off another winner indeed.

the party was held at south bay beach and we had a bbq – hotdogs, chippies, veggie platters, cheese platters, modest amounts of alcohol, wine, coffee and tea. and marshmallows roasted over the fire.

it was a great time. the weather wasn't perfect, but the kids did not care. most ventured into the water, there were sandcastles going, and playing. so much playing. every once and a while a windstorm would swirl up, which was annoying, but it would pass in 30 seconds.

at the end of the party, our 122 neighbours offered to carry presents, extra food and drink and other miscellaneous items back to the flat. i just love our neighbours. they are so considerate. i was swamped with kiddies demanding party bags (are match attax huge in north america right now?) so i didn't thank them properly. (left: the triplets during birthday cake time; that's grant buddying up to jasper.)

at around hot dog time, ursula and colleen and their kids arrived, and so we stayed around for a couple more hours. we left the party site at around 3:30pm (party ended around 1:00pm but many stayed later.) God gave us the good weather we had prayed for and then more. we were blessed. as we were leaving south bay, the skies started clouding over.

the kids are currently washing their old lego ~ why? no idea ~ in the bathtub and about to head to rugby. they have a room full of wrapped presents, and only asked once if they could open them. but not right now…charles is too exhausted to fully enjoy it and i just need some quiet.

i don't have to plan another party until NOVEMBER!!!!

thursday night i let sebastian sleep in the playroom. in spite of his weakened state, he was pleased. the playroom? sleeping there? how thrilling!

"can we pull out the couch bit, mummy? like i am a guest?"

it was quite nice to have him in the playroom, because when he sleeps in the top bunk, it is tough for me to smooth his hair and have a drowsy talk with him. but thursday night, after i gave him his last dose of ibuprofin, and made him repeat again where the sick bucket was, i returned the medicine to the kitchen cupboard and then had to check on my patient. oh, he was tired. i sat down on the bed and twitched the covers. unnecessarily smoothed his forehead, just to check his temperature.

sebastian, i whispered, selfishly.

his heavy eyelids opened so slowly. "yes mummy".

"i love you sebastian"

he made the supreme effort and lifted a hand, touched my face.  twirled some of my hair, which i normally hate.

"my mummy."

he gave a heartbreaking smile, that just shone his transparent love for me.

it is overwhelming. i mess up so often….you should see how badly i handle homework time with him (not to suggest he is perfect!)…but in return i get this SMILE, and caress.

"if you don't feel well…what are you going to do?" sotto voice.

"come see you."

"that's right. my good boy."

"even if you are sleeping, mummy?"

"oh, sebastian."

sebastian played a good tournament on sunday. it is difficult for him to get enthusiastic some days, and sunday was one of them. his first two games were meh…which was difficult. as he had won a pennant the previous tournament, coaches AND parents were expecting more of him this tournament.

but sebastian isn't a boy who will scream (pass to me! HERE! right here!) or dive aggressively into the scrum. (unlike his mummy). and, the7 yr olds have discovered a new game called, "let's pass to our friends", which their coach quickly put to an end. "You don't pass to FRIENDS, you pass to the TEAMMATE who is in the BEST POSITION to make a TRY for the TEAM."

game three and four, seb warmed up, just like the afternoon sun, and played really well. he is really good at not losing metres for his team right after receiving the ball. he finds the holes and he runs. and, being a good caldwell boy (again, not like his mummy who is NOT a fast funner), he also runs quickly through the holes.

he felt great knowing that he had played well.

some kids felt richer knowing they had played well. we learned that some parents give their children the equivalent of $7us for a tackle and $15us for a try. per game. what do you think of that? it is a great motivator, but??? i am not sure if there are cons, it's just a new concept for me.