i am really happy about the election results. the worldwide reaction has been for the most part overwhelming.

selfishly, i am so glad that i was alive for this monumental event because for the first time, when people talk about "where were you when you heard" moments, this is a good one.

i was playing in my gran's backyard when i heard that elvis had died.

i was sick and watching television the day the spaceshuttle exploded in 1986.

i was asleep in bed when charles woke me up to tell me the twin towers had been hit in acts of terrorism.

i was making dinner when i learned of the phuket tsunami.

and now this.

i was getting ready to go for a run when i heard wolf blitzer announce that barack obama was the projected winner of the election. i had been postponing the run all morning, talking to my parents, lita, and other friends. and even though i had to be at school at 12.40pm, i procrastinated getting dressed just  a few more minutes…until the west coast polls closed. because the way things were going i knew there would be an announcement.

and there was.

remarkable.

so…where were you?

i wanted to wait until i could post the pictures but i am so happy that i wanted to share how amazing it was to be with carys today.

she had a fieldtrip at nearby hong kong park. we were identifying buildings from photos and the kids drew their favourite buildings.

carys has just blossomed these past couple of years. her independence and joy really struck me today. she has two blonde friends, danielle and laura. she seeks them out, they call out for her. next year all three girls will be at kennedy school.

we finished the work portion of the field trip in plenty of time, which meant we had the time to take the kids to the aviary and then the park, where carys slid, played in the sand, and joined two groups of friends. with one group of friends she played big sister in "families", and with danielle she played "airplane". they were pilots and air hostesses taking me to canada, bringing me apple juice, ribena, spaghetti and chips. they were just gorgeous. i took a lot of pictures.

afterwards, there was a bit of time left before jasper and sela got out of class, so carys and i played in the k3 classroom. she wanted to do puzzles. as she slotted in each correct piece, she squealed triumphantly and loudly, and gave me a high five. after completing the puzzle, she would put it back in place (a skill that hasn't transferred to home). [left and below: sela & jj from their friday field trip.]

she's just loving life so much. and just love watching her and being part of it.

i know the majority of you are reading this in a rush because you are heading out to VOTE…so i will keep it short.

last night was the icm banquet. remember last year charles and i bought enough rice to feed 100 families in a village? this year we sponsored a different need – education. the statistic coming from the philippines is that every child graduating from elementary school is at decreased risk of a life of poverty. so charles and i sponsored a preschool which not only teaches but serves a hot meal to 25 children a day, and offers the parents literacy classes, healthcare and spiritual life issues as well as counselling and emotional support. by graduating from elementary school, statistically SIX of the 25 kids will be saved from a lifetime of poverty. i cannot bear to think of the other 19, but instead be grateful for the ones we are educating and helping and feeding.

the cost? well…let's put it this way. we have seats to brisbane and sydney booked over Christmas, but i don't think we're going to pull it off. but in the big scheme, australia doesn't seem as important anymore. perspective is a good thing.

it was a fantastic night. we bought a table and invited friends from our building. the friends are hilarious and clever. paul and susan bid on and won a trip to new zealand and outbid the closest bidder by mere seconds. theirs was the first auction of the evening and set the night off to a good tone. gus and katie bought billy joel tickets and a vacation in the philippines, tinja and christian restuarant vouchers … oh we were smoking! and LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY!

as soon as charles lands in beijing he will post a couple of pictures that show the good time we were having. if you want to know where our handsome men are…that is a very good question and i don't know! charles was taking all the pictures (although these ones are courtesy of the lovely and talented tinja) and the typical man focused on the ladies!

tonight post bootcamp and shower, i was thinking what else i could do that would make me feel great.

i had done my inhouse makeover, and so what could i do for the soul?

ahhh, with charles out of the flat, there was only one thing to do…play throw away.

i opened the closet doors wide and was quite ruthless. made tall piles of "piling" clothes, socks getting close to holey (can't stand holes in socks), grubby looking knickers, thongs too wide in back (considering i wear thongs about 14-22 per cent of the time it is decent that i keep so many), sweaters with sleeves too short, black skirts gone out of style, business blazers i no longer wear. it took me 20 minutes and i am still smiling.

why do i love throwing things out? why am i so reluctant to cleanse my bookshelf? the annual kennedy night market is 5 december. i need to get rid of all the hangers on in the bookshelf…some of it will be easy. there are some absolute crap books that are barely good for reading once. but what about books like "guns germs and steel?" an interesting trajectory? i read it once, it was fascinating, but will i ever read it again? probably not…but it was v. expensive and v. interesting. choices, choices.

maybe i will just throw away some of magnificent's stuff instead.

not a clean crack of the heart, but a wiggly one

so yesterday jasper and i stayed home from church. we read books for a little bit, spending quite a bit of time on beatrix potters, and then we moved to the computer and jasper practised his typing for a while.

two pages of writing later, jasper asked if we could watch television. i agreed.

usually when jasper and i are alone together and he is a bit under the weather, he will ask for the wiggles. jasper is the last of the trio who still likes watching the wiggles and the girls often outshout him when it is time to choose a video. so it wasn't a surprise when jasper asked me to put in a wiggles dvd, and we started watching it together. the one where they are live in sydney. it is a good one.

jasper seemed less engaged than usual and i began to wonder if this was because he was sicker than i had originally thought. he wasn't even 'romp pomp a chomping' with his erstwhile vigor and there was no hands in the air, rockabye your bear… he just wasn't interested.

15 minutes in, i abandoned my routine and sat down with little jude, thinking he needed a cuddle to feel better. five minutes into the cuddle, jasper asked, "mummy, can we turn off the wiggles and watch mamma mia?"

and my heart gave a distinct crack.

i managed, "sure jasper, no worries", and i kissed him and popped in the new dvd, courtesy of andrea.

i held it together until charles and the remaining three came home. once they were settled, i called to charles and he found me in the kids bedroom. in a low low voice i told him what had happened. unfortunately, my voice was so low that he needed me to repeat myself. and as i was in the middle of attempt #2, i started crying as i faced the fact that our wiggle days are done. and magnificent pulled me to him and i cried like i haven't since olivia died.

those dvd's, which gave the kids so much comfort and enjoyment, no longer do. it makes me so very very sad.

murray, jeff, anthony and greg, thank you. the kids might have forgotten your lyrics, but i don't think i ever will.

this growing up business…it's good, but oh it hurts.

jasper woke up this morning with a yukky cough. whenever jasper is making sounds like that my first concern is that the sounds are emitting from his chest. i am happy to say that they aren't, that this appears to be just a phlegmy cough. but still, although i think he is quite healthy, i also think that he needs to take the day off from church, because frankly, if i was a first timer to union church and took my child to sunday school, i wouldn't be too impressed to have mr down to one pack a day hacking next to him.

sebastian is currently at rugby and the littles are watching dumbo in another room. as much as i would like to be with them, i draw the line at dumbo. goodness knows i have tried to watch the sweet little tale with them, but from the first, none of us really watched the movie. the kids would watch me, blinking rapidly, sniffling and then giving way to the tears pouring down my face, and when they got old enough, asking, "why cwy, mumma?". to put it in circus terms, i was the big tent attraction come dumbo time.

carys is coughing a bit too.

i want to take the kids hiking today. i wonder if i can do that?

if i was a better mum, i would have the kids halloween outfits all figured out, tried on and ready for friday. however, in defense of my anal retentive nature, the boys are going to wear what they wore last year, and the girls just want to be princesses, and i can go to the lanes and get princess costumes for $15 canadian a pop tomorrow in virutally any size. easy peasy lemon squeezy.

DOH! just went to check up on sela and WHAT part of dumbo did i stumble upon? like i needed an excuse to hug my kids.

it's thursday night, 9.30pm. the shower felt great.

i nearly broke sebastian's heart today. he and jasper had been sniping at each other for what seemed an inconsequential thing, and then jasper apparently made the comment that all of my children have been known to utter at times, "you're not my brother".

sebastian, forgetting those same words have come spewing from his gorgeous little lips on a variety of occasions, sought me out for comfort and more than likely, in hopes of getting his brother into trouble.

unfortunately, i had just finished a small run, cut short by the need to visit the bathroom. i reached the bathroom with some relief when sebastian stumbled into the bedroom and wailed, "mummy…."

he poured out how his brother hated him and didn't want to be his brother anymore and didn't love him. he looked at me, wanting reassurance of how he was loved.

and i am afraid that mother nature caused me to shut the door in sebastian's face and say, "nonsense, he does love you. now go find him and straighten this out or you will both feel yukky inside." (this last sentence in direct proportion to my tangled and yukky insides.)

me shutting the door could have further devastated sebastian, but instead he found his brother and i believe they sorted out their business while i took care of mine.

and in case you are keeping track, sela now is riding a bicyle without stablisers. round and round. if you ask jasper, he will tell you very calmly, "i don't want to. why do i need to know how to ride a bike, mummy?"

why indeed? he's a taxi kind of fellow. and actually, coming home from a rock climbing birthday party today, it was jasper's job to hail the taxi. sela was also suffering from a troubled tummy, and i was tending to her, and i told jasper like at ballet, he was the man of the group and needed to get us a taxi. truthfully, here we are on robinson road, taxi hungry folk surrounding us….i didn't rate jasper's chances of getting a taxi too high. but his little hand went up, and flapped flapped flapped, and voila. in we went. jasper asked if he could sit on my lap and as he had done such a spectacular job hailing the taxi, i let him.

it’s the little things

one of my greatest little pleasures of the week is stepping into the shower thursday evenings at 8pm.

from 6.30pm-7.30pm i go to bootcamp, and suffer greatly there. bootcamp is a lot of torture and a lot of fun. for not only is our instructor samson quite cute, but he is also quite young, which means he embarrasses quite easily. the other day, one rather buxom member of our group forgot her sports bra. she had come straight from work to bootcamp. by the time we were halfway round the track, her hands were on her valuable assets and she informed us that she was in agony.

"no more running for me tonight, girls!" she exclaimed.

"just tell him," i advised, and then in a moment of jack nicholson inspired furor announced, "he can't handle the truth!"

and so my wounded colleague approached samson and informed him she would do squats, whatever, but no jogging or star jumps. samson made the error of asking "why" and was told very briskly, "I forgot my sports bra. i'm not wearing the right one and i'm in pain."

samson became very interested in untying a knot in the string holding the mats together.

bootcamp is a hassle and i am still in pain (although not in my tookus where at least i would be pleased if i were in pain knowing that i had worked it well) from the vicious lunges samson had us doing last week. i return home, sweating and wild, still panting and exultant, and slide over and into the shower.

people say the reward is in the workout, and maybe that is the next level of workout zen that i haven't reached yet. maybe i need to lose another layer of fat before i can truly feel that way. right now, the reward is in the shower. stepping into clean clothes afterwards. gorgeous.

a close second is my favourite stretch, which comes right after abdominals. very simply, hands over head, legs out. like a pencil. that stretch is something i anticipate all workout long. even before the bootcamp bell rings, i am dreaming of the stretch. (the fact that we do the stretch at the end of the workout also might have something to do with it as well.)

little things. a shower and a stretch being pleasures? that makes my life sound seriously boring.

it is half term break. the weather is agreeing..sunny skies and chirping birds. after just one day the kids are tanned. from what i heard, their tonsils should be tanned as well..they spent most of yesterday screaming! 

firstly, apologies for the week long silence. i have had a girlfriend staying with me. i've known her since i was 11 if you can believe it, and i've been doing double duty of hysterically navigating down memory lane and shopping at the lanes (and the jade market, and the ladies market!) while monitoring homework, ballet, birthdays and social lives that have nothing to do with mine. then there is bootcamp, running and Bible studies…leaving very little time for social stuff, and that includes blogging. having kelly here was great fun though. love having visitors.

carys started riding a bike without stabilisers the other day. sela is puce with envy, however sela justifies (correctly i might add) that her reading is much better. sela is reading words like THAT, SEEN, READ, GOOD, THE, THAT, and is interested in the aforementioned words, unlike jasper, who is actually a good little reader, just not overly interested in reading.

sebastian's academic career continues..much to the frustration of his teacher he has a good little mind. why would that frustrate a teacher? well because he sits around and looks out the window (Even though he sits with his back to the window) and when she asks him a question knowing he hasn't been paying attention, he will know the answer. his maths skills have really increased and right now he is devouring a book we are reading together BRIDGES, BUILDINGS AND TUNNELS. it is filled with all sorts of experiments and we are learning why buildings shake in big winds, and that sort of thing. sebastian is also reading a star wars book.

charles is busy with volunteer projects and at work. not as much travel as before and he is really appreciated AT work which is always nice. he is looking really good, better than anyone who has to live with my constant kvetching has the right to.

i was an assistant coach at rugby the other day. i actually had a lot of fun but boy did it require energy. i was with the under fives, which is only fair as 10 per cent of the class is related to me. lots of running and encouraging.

this seems to be a rather boring update, so i will finish on a high note.

last friday, two mums from sebastian's class and i went hiking on cheng chau, one of the nearby islands. the hike was only an hour and included seaview, temples, lanes between peoples houses and strolls around schools. there is just so much about this city i don't know. but as i discover more, i love it more. can you see why i consider myself so blessed?

sebastian lost his first tooth today.

a few months ago at a dental check up they said that his jaw needed to expand before any teeth would come out.

over the summer, charles and i noticed his teeth "spacing out".

and a couple of weeks ago, the tooth was definitely loose.

after not wearing his mouthguard during a crucial play on saturday, the tooth was much looser.

and tonight, during dinner, it popped out and landed on the dinner table.

he already thinks he has a second loose tooth.

little man.