test of faith

today was the big easter egg hunt on the playground. go to charles’ blog for a pic of the Easter bags. eight families including ours, has set up to participate, and anally retentive tess had organised the event, from the egg hunt to the pizza and sausage sizzler party afterwards.

unfortunately, although on TUESDAY the weather report was predicting fine things for SATURDAY, this morning we woke up and i knew sunny skies were not to be ours.

why isn’t the sky bright? asked an inquisitive child.

because it is cloudy, replied a sibling.

sebastian looked up, worried, "it is not going to rain for the easter egg hunt on the playground is it mummy?" he doesn’t say mumm-eh anymore.

we prayed about it, and i told them that was the best we could do. instead we played games and puzzles, and then at 10am we decorated sheets of paper for the easter egg hunt. the skies got a little brighter, and we were happy.

at 1.30 i got a call from my friend jennifer. "is it still on?" she inquired. "it is very wet here." she was calling from the club.

"well, it is just drizzling here," i said. "if i cancel it, i will let you know."

i talked to andrea who was wtih her family on kowloon side. she was wondering the status quo. i said that if it kept up like this, there would be nothing. she said fair enough and suggested sunday as the alternative. i agrreed./

at 2.30, it was sheeting down, so i sent out an email saying that with such filthy weather, there would be no picnic, but if the rain ceased, the hunt would commence. if the rain and fog were still happening, we would postpone it, and i suggested a date.

three people called and said they wouldnb’t be able to attend the postponed date.

charles took the kids out, they were having a crisis of faith. "but we prayed the rain would stop!":

at 2.45 the rain started in earnest and just came sheeting down. it was vile. and it seemed obvious, there would be no easter egg hunt. fair enough.

at 3.30 i spoke with tara who said, whatever you decide is fine. and it was still raining.

at 3.45 tara called again. "is it on? its not raining anymore!"

at 3.50 i got another call from another person. "is it on?"

at 3.51 i sent out an email saying, as of right now, it is on.

and then i called charles…and he didn’t answer. where was he? where were my kids? they needed to be back for the easter egg hunt? i called andrea…its on! but they were sitting down for tea and wouldn’t be able to come. i think i had pretty much said it was cancelled. i invited her up for pizza anyway. i felt really badly at this point, and HATED BEING IN CHARGE. was it my fault they were going to miss the hunt? and where was my fricking family anyway?

at 4.20, i sent out the official ITS ON email.

kids started coming with their mums to my flat, while the dads congregated downstairs planting eggs. the kids were thrilled. the mums shocked that i was even considering going ahead without my kids. we have to wait! cried susan and tara.

and so we waited, until around 5pm.

by the time my children arrived, the fathers (and one lovely mum) on the playground were soaking, because it had started to rain again. oh yes it had. sheeting down. but the kids didn’t care. they went racing off and collected eggs like there was no tomorrow. some kids did really well…as i mentioned last year, none of my kids seem to have the desire for chocolate that extends past whinging and begging to what really counts in an easter egg hunt, racing and running and searching and foraging. kids had raindrops dripping off their noses and were clutching wet bags and having a great time. i was feeling guilt about andrea and her kids and realisng that this was the easter egg hunt we are probably always going to remember. the one in the rain.

when the last egg had been found, we all dried off, and then most of the families came back to ours for dinner. we ordered the pizza, people brought wine, delia smith’s risotto, a pumpkin quiche, chippies, long yogurt, meatballs, and i had made a salad. it was so divine. the pizza arrived quickly and it was a good time. the kids were really well behaved, no one cried, and it was a fun evening.

the kids, when getting to bed late, commented, "we prayed to God that it would stop raining and it didn’t".

and i said, "well it did, but we were late. and then when it did rain, we realised we could still have the easter egg hunt so we were lucky."

sebastian said, "God knew we could do it."

yes, he did, and although i still feel guilty that andrea and her family weren’t there, i think this might be the easter egg hunt i remember, the one in the rain and the madness. the show must go on. and it did and it was wet and hilarious and bags were breaking in the rain and the stamping around in the wellie boots and the kids loved it.

a person’s a person, no matter how small

this morning the crew was up not nice and early.

they were quite pleased with themselves and life in general mainly because last night as i was tucking them into bed, i had shared that the next morning we would be going to see HORTON, an adaptation of the dr seuss classic..HORTON HEARS A WHO.

the movie started at 9.30 and at 8.45 we were out the door.

why so early? you ask, quite reasonably.

why do you think? money.

taking a family of six to the flicks is not a cheap exercise. but in hong kong, cinemas charge cheaper rates for the first show of the morning. and in this case, the 9.30 viewing of HORTON was $35per person, or app US$4.50. regular tickets would have been about twice that.

so, as any daughter of frugal blake would say, "9.30am it is! popcorn for breakfast is just like corn cakes…essentially"

we walked down to cyberport with chad, andrea and their three. the kids were excited but very well behaved. so well behaved that jasper only asked me to carry him once, and that was right toward the end.

once we marched into the cinema, andrea and i corralled the overexcited bunch into the lavatories and everyone did wees and washed hands (well, i trust sebastian, adam and jasper did both of these things, i have no proof, but i was so proud of sebastian who said he would be ‘daddy’ and watch over jasper in the men’s room). the girls definitely did their wees and as carys was sitting on the toilet trying not to fall in, and i was attending to sela who said that she only needs to hold on to the seat with one hand and can grab toilet tissue with the other hand and therefore doesn’t need me in the stall with her, a girl and her mum walked past her stall and carys said, "lauren!". it was a classmate from k2, and so sela and carys chatted so happily and unselfconsciously with lauren. "i just love her." sela confided.

then, charles and chad herded the kids into the seats and charged andrea and i with snacks. which we did with aplomb, i might add. we walked in, gave the kids popcorn to share and drinks, and they were on their way.

the movie was really quite good. a nice message, not too OTT jim carrey, and the whos in whoville were really darling.

around 3/4 through the movie, jasper decided to come and sit on my lap. after 20 minutes he got down, went back to his own seat, lifted up the armrest, laid down and watched the rest of the movie with his head in my lap and his little body spread out on his seat. carys sat with her dad and i held her hand. sela sat eating everyone’s leftover popcorn, and sebastian, asheligh and adam were angelic. ella had been in her dad’s lap for even longer than jasper had been in mine.

they really were very sweet. all in a row, the littles. so cute. they’ve all grown so much.

oh, btw – jasper and ella are an item. they are holding hands and they brazenly kissed infront of andrea and me today. "what are you doing?" we asked. "kissing!" they replied. "we like it!" oy!

after HORTON, we went to the bathroom again, and this time, my most hated daughter (can’t remember which one)…i had them in the stall with me and as i was doing a wee, instead of thanking me for the gorgeous privilege of going to the cinema,  one of them said, "mummy, your bottom is so big you can’t fall into the toilet!" and there were was laughter from other stalls as other people overheard !

little rotters.

the other night i was sleeping soundly dreaming of something nice (spanx underwear that go up the armpits, possibly?) when i was jolted out of my happy happy dreamworld.

the culprit wasn’t charles looking for his birthday present a few months early, instead, jasper was at my bedside. or rather, his body was at my bedside, his head was burrowed against my stomach.

inbetween sobs, jasper explained he had dreamed that swiper was coming to kill him. dora the deathdealer!  at least that is what i thought he said, it is rather difficult to understand what your sobbing child is saying when they are burrowed against you and ridding their snot on your shoulder.

not wanting to take a noisy child into the kid’s bedroom (sela had been sleeping restlessly just a bit before), i pulled on a tee shirt and pulled jasper into our bed. he was wearing his dorothy the dinosaur pajamas that are really girls pajamas but jasper has loved from the minute he saw them and has never even considered letting his sisters wear them.

the sobbing subsided a little bit and we prayed together and then i tried to get to sleep but it was so challenging, considering that his little arm was locked around my neck. i tried easing him around but that was no good. finally i removed the arm, and in response, jasper promptly turned on his side and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

a few minutes after his breathing got nice and regular, i eased out of bed as best i could, although it meant dragging jasper with me, picked up my drowsy man, and popped him back into his own bed.

then i went back to bed and dreamed about nice things.

nice things include the fact that i cleaned out kitched cupboards today and bleached them with a damp cloth. anyone with any anal retentive tendencies would have loved to have been me. seriously. any rubbermaid or tupperware item that did not have a top i threw away, i got rid of the 14 icecube trays that used to house homemade babyfood, a jug of charles’ that he loves but needed to be thrown away, oh it was a good day. i even told charles first of my intent to rid our home of the jug, so i wouldn’t have to deal with nasty guilt feelings afterwards.

what made my day great is that i also walked up to the peak this morning. i know i have yakked on before about hiking in hong kong so i won’t today, but it was a divine morning. even better, toward the end, there was a woman with two big dogs behind me, and i made it my goal that she wouldn’t beat me to the top. the dogs were pulling her along, and i increased the speed and i heard the dogs breathing behind me (or maybe it was her??) amd ha ha i won. the cheeky cow had pushed andrea out of the way so my victory was necessary for vindication.

absolutely great to be 38

i woke up this morning to magnificent kissing my cheek. "happy birthday, tess" he whispered before heading off to reunion group.

i heard shushing and giggling and decided that i would stay in bed until the kids came powering into the room to wish me happy 38. but that never happened….or at least i don’t think it did because i fell back asleep! woke up again, toddled out into the living room, and instead of being greeted with a chorus of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" was met with the kids crowding around me and touching me.

how sweet, i thought. they all want to hug me. wow. i do feel loved indeed.

instead of giving me loving hugs, the kids had an insistent question that needed answering right away.

"happybirthdaymummydidyoubuyusanythingforyourbirthday?"

huh! nice. not even an offer for a cuppa.

"no kids, only Jesus gives presents on his birthday and do i look like Jesus?"

their beady little disappointed eyes turned away and they returned to surreptitiously jumping on the sofa.

then the phone started ringing and i had to stop screaming at them to answer it and they were thrilled because mummy on the phone means they can be naughty right under my nose adn the phone kept ringing much to their delight and i realised that magnificent had been at work reminding people it was my birthday. good heavens. people were calling left right and centre and i was getting some great emails as well. pretty fun stuff. all in the name of 38.

other people couldn’t get through and so left messages, like doug and penny. my favourite message possibly came from my dad…"uh hello? maureen, can you come here? i am not sure if the lines are down, it’s not ringing anymore and she was talking to me but now there’s just silence…kiddo? kiddo? maureen, i think the line is down."

i got dressed and headed to my friend sheri’s house…we were sharing a taxi into town together for a ladies lunch at isola. i had requested to the girlfriends that instead of gifts that a donation be made to ICC, the charity where i volunteered in october. (international china concern), grudgingly they agreed, but to compensate, we had lunch at the divine ifc restaurant isola.

the anal retentive ones in the group, steph, sheri and i arrived five minutes early and went to be seated. we had a tough time located our reservation – cora was meant to make the reservation but she had made a last minute trip to japan when school was cancelled. steph took matters into her own hands and looked at the reservation list and saw that there was a reservation for six under the name mr a ha. cora’s husband is mr allan ha. perfect. we so loved our window table that we didn’t even make a fuss that the reservation should have been for eight persons.

at 12.45, mr ha and is five guests showed up wanting to be seated at their table ! gah! just a little embarrassing, but we managed to stay in our location anyway…hooray!

home, then back to sheri’s for easter egg decorating with her absolutely fantastic son olin, and then back home for the kids to be ornery on the playground and i went to sandi’s to hear about her trip to new zealand and to tell her what has been happening here in her absence and to just catch up. it was a lovely visit, actually.

then home to my honey and to the kids who actually all sang me happy birthday, FINALLY.

interestingly, today i was given a magazine. a few months ago, when charles gave me the card that donated three months of rice to 25 needy families in the philippines, one way that we said we would pay off that debt was for me not to buy vanity fair. i actually upped the ante, and haven’t bought one magazine since then. at times it has been tough, but not agonizingly so. i am surprised, actually.

some birthdays you feel very loved. today was one of them. Thirty-eight is off to a very great start. thank you everyone who called and wrote and send emails, so very appreciated.

one more off the list

jasper, sela and carys had an OT assessment today.

an assessment is different than a session because they’re getting graded on what they are or are not achieving.

jasper and carys went first. oh they were social together. carys encouraged jasper to cut a straight line, jasper clapped when carys coloured in between two lines. the kids had fun for the first bit, but after five exercises asked the lady if it was sela’s turn yet. they continued to ask her this quesion.

i watched the kids grasp the basic tasks and then get stymied as they grew more challenging. out of the corner of my eye i saw the OT writing suspicious looking ovals in the scoring areas. zeroes?

to tell you the truth, i am quite bored of appointments. and aren’t we supposed to be keeping our kids away from areas where the flu might linger? this would be the place. lots of nose and mouth fluids being transferred to the (not working) toys, let me tell you.

but with all the ovals being so cavallierly assigned to my children’s best efforts, i saw more long appointments in the ot office.

then it was sela’s turn. possibly because she was alone or because she is a competitive bossy knickers type of daughter, she finished in about half the time that the others did.

then the results.

predictable. jasper scored below his age range, albeit just slightly. was i worried asked the ot. not really i answered.

carys also scored slightly below her age range. she hasnt decided if she is right or left handed and the ot says that plays into it enough. and apparently i should be letting them play with scissors more. my kids don’t know how to walk, they only run…add scissors to that mix and how do i see it playing out??

moving on, thank you very much.

sela scored higher than her age range. in some areas she was "as high as a 73 month old".

why don’t they just say a six year old?

truly, not taking away from sela’s competitive nature and accomplishments, if jasper and carys had been alone, i suspect they would have scored higher. i did praise them highly for encouraging each other as politely as they did.

however, mediocre and skewed scores or not, hong kong only provides OT for kids who score in the bottom 27 per cent. and, if you are doing number bands to 100 as our young friend sebastian is. you know that 49 per cent is above 27 per cent.

so my kids are released from OT, hopefully forever.

what a nice present for mummy’s 456 month birthday.

bird flu – part deux?

my children got to live out every kids dream this morning.

last night i was drifting off to sleep when the phone rang. it was stephanie, with the news (via cora) that school was closed five days early for easter break, to resume 31 march.

what? why? according to our friends in the government, they are closing the schools as a precautionary measure, after two students have died of the flu over the past couple of weeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/world/asia/14flu.html?ref=world

doesn’t this seem a little….well….on the overcautionary side?

apparently not. hong kong is still haunted by SARS, (which was five years ago…amazing!) where the government was criticised for being too slow to act. so now, they’re taking no chances.

when we were kids we used to dream of this sort of thing. school closing because of some illness….but it really happens here. unreal! the kids are going to grow up and be able to tell friends, "that happened to me once….school really did close once for a week…." and of course then they’ll be all cross that they weren’t older and couldn’t really enjoy it more.

speaking of which, schools are only closed at the primary levels and below. secondary school students are expected to be at school. needless to say they feel very ripped off. they would relish a week off.

no one is taking the whole flu epidemic too seriously. no one has made contingency exit plans, because an epidemic just doesn’t seem likely. i know we’ve been praying that our rent will decrease, but i don’t think it will happen this way. i think it is the government trying to be careful and proactive, etc. and to make the kids love them.

sebastian and his cronies were thrilled to spend the day playing, while the triplets were quite sad not to be at small world christian kindergarten and their teachers there. the kids are having a tiny vocabulary explosion right now, except it’s more like parroting.

today jasper was talking with his sisters about tallinn’s dad. i was evesdropping.

"he is a very cool guy," jasper opined. his sisters nodded.

sela put in her two cents worth. "but tara is very gorgeous, and funny."

sela continued talking, because she is rarely a one sentence person, and then carys summed up, "they are a nice family."

sebastian meanwhile, was steadily eating sweet and sour meatballs, his favourite dish.

highlights of my day and week are sometimes hard to pinpoint, particularly if the week has been lucklustre or highly entertaining.

but despite this being a high action week with plenty of high points so far, i have experienced the high point of the week, if not month.

today sebastian’s class had their year one easter play. charles and i both attended. sebastian was a pirate, incase you are wondering.

charles and i got there early, and sat down in seats in the second row. there were a lot of parents there and many of them were milling about.

and then the kids started filing into the auditorium and onto the platform.

of course i was raking the audience looking for my little pirate boy.

and soon enough i found him.

much sooner than he found magnificent and me.

so i sat there, watching him watching for us.

all around him there were kids waving to parents, excitedly showing off costumes. all around us were parents waving in return, brandishing cameras and digi-recorders. nearly took my head off!

he continued scanning the audience, passing us several times. other year one students filed around him, as our little blonde boy stood paralysed on the stage, looking for us. neck high, mouth open, every once and a while swallowing, brows furrowed…

until.

the look on his face when he saw us. relaxation. relief, flooding through him. confidence. love. joy. unrivalled, pure joy.

one of the top moments of my ??? ever ???

my little pirate keeps stealing my heart.

THE talk

thursday night charles and i are talking about it.

(it = sex.)

which is kind of ironic, given that our children are the result of ivf. technically speaking, we could be Bibilically ignorant of each other. you never know.

the good news is, talking about it is just as good as doing it, so this counts as one of our four nights this week.

the bad news is, we are talking about it to a bunch of gorgeous teenagers, aged between 14 and 17 at church. you hear me dog. (practicing hip talk so i can relate).

and we are answering questions they anonymously submitted last week which include:

*Is being single better than being in a relationship?

* What if you are dating someone and they want to go farther than they do and you are afraid they will break up with you?

and then, tess and charles get to explain the importance of sex in marriage.    

what do tess and charles know about this topic?

do i say my little mantra, "it takes so little time and makes them so happy"?

will charles get mad if i say that (let’s test run it here and see if he does….but i mean relatively speaking. it’s not like sitting through old dharma and greg episodes or anything.)

charles actually has some very good answers on this topic. me, i take the less entrepreneurial approach, and i quote other people. i have found a really good article from men’s health where a man writes that the minute he has made a conquest, he is less interested in the woman, no matter how fascinating she is, or how much better she is than he.

but i also have to talk about sex, and regrets. yes, this could be a long night, kids. bring a pillow.

besides giving the talk to your own kids and their friends, has anyone ever done anything like this before? even if you haven’t, can you please give me/us some advice please? i mean really! today i gave a talk on toilet training multiples, which was easy (employ lita), but this, yikes!

what is the importance of sex in a marriage that we can tell unmarried teenagers?

confessions

1) charles and i have never watched an entire episode of american idol, but we have downloaded several performances. whoever it was that sang lionel richie’s hello the other night rocked it. i know the world is meant to love that continually sobbing david arguletta (spelling is bad there but you know who i mean), i don’t lurve him. doesn’t mean he won’t win, though!

2) we DID go (thank you very much) to the zoo on saturday. it was a great day. halfway through charles had to leave for a meeting, and it was not two minutes after his departure when carys announced, say it with me, "i need to do a poo". i put down my apple slice, and told jasper, who has just finishing his lunch, to continue his eating. sebastian and sela were playing on the merry go round and i told them to continue and not to let anyone take the movie camera, my chips, or jasper. sebastian was stuffed with testosterone, "i am in charge!" he announced. i think he said more but carys had one finger stuffed up her b 0 t t 0 m by now and was dancing like she was auditioning for riverdance.

3) three minutes later (including the handwash, carys wasn’t lying), we returned to the merry go round and there was frigging jasper on it. not looking so pleased with himself. i grabbed his hand and got him off, tried to give him some water, smiled at the mainland tourists who were videotaping my blonde haired heroes and then, moved the video camera, because, oh yes, jasper vomitted.

given that we were in front of people, and videoed, i had to clean it up. jasper kindly gave me a handiwipe when i was done. we then went to look at different species of monkeys. the jaguar was sick so we didnt go there, and we didnt make it to the snakes either.

3) yesterday sebastian went swimming and the triplets took a two hour nap. what is with these two hour naps they’re taking these days?

4) we’re putting together our summer plans. we’re not sure if we will be going to eastern canada or not, were waiting to hear if our plans fit in with everyone else’s. i hate not driving and always inconveniencing other relatives….they have their summer too!

5) paula abdul (yes, we can close this with more american idol) i never understood the drugged out rumours … oh i sure do now. she’s all over the map! and why is everyone so cruel about simon…he gives great advice.

special person

two weeks ago, sebastian came home waving a large piece of white paper.

"mummy!" he exclaimed loudly.

immediately i was intrigued. firstly, he was about to volunteer information, likely about school. how RARE. secondly, he was excited! how fantastic!

"yes?" i inquired, as happily as possible.

"i’m the special person next week. and i get to make a poster about myself!"

kennedy school has a special person programme in primary one. each week, a student is selected for the special person in the weekly year one assembly, which is attended by all the primary one students. in the assembly, the student presents their poster, which relays details about themselves.

as any parent of a six year old knows, when they say "they" get to make a poster, "they" aren’t telling the 100 per cent truth. sebastian answered a few questions, but the colouring, decorating and printing of photos, was left to tess and magnificent.

but here are the questions.

1) what is your secret wish?

2) what are you good at?

3) what do you like about kennedy school?

4) what are your hobbies?

and here are my little man’s answers, as he spelt them, which he wrote in pencil.

1) what is your secret wish?

to have a lit sabr

2) what are you good at?

karata, reading and rememembring

3) what do you like about kennedy school?

my friends and teachers

4) what are your hobbies?

rubgy, soccr, playing with frends, my famly

having completed his work, i coloured in bits and applied stickers that said things like, "i am happy to be me!" and charles downloaded photos. photos of sebasian playing in the waves with rachel and leah, kayaking with nathan, eating ice cream with pammy, with galen, with adam and rufus, with his brother and sisters, with our family on the first day of school, at kennedy sports day. took charles and i bloody hours.

the night before assembly, sebastian came in early from the playground and announced he wasn’t feeling well. his forehead was hot but the half mast eyes are the kicker. i gave him some mild drug and he went to sleep. the next morning he wasn’t feeling well and mum was putting the heavy parental pressure on me to forget assembly and to stay home. but i gave sebastian the option of going to school for assembly and then coming right home, which he took.

sebastian was right in the middle of all the year one kids being honoured. it was just lovely. the deputy head looked over his poster and admired all the pictures. commented on the canadian lifestyle, all the outdoors and fun. and all the siblings sebastian has. and then my dad and i got to walk up and put a badge on sebastian that read "special person" and i watched his chest visibly puff out with pride, despite his fever and shuttered eyes.

then i helped walk the year one kids back to their classroom, i took a picture of sebastian and his teacher, and then i headed home with my little man.

and his week as special person passed.

but the next week, he came home waving a small spiral bound book.

"mummy!" he exclaimed loudly.

oh no, who did i owe money to now, and why was sebastian excited about it?

he stopped short, and his chest was puffed out again.

"look!" he said.

look indeed.

the book was entitled "special person….sebastian"

and each student in the class had written SEBASTIAN IS OUR SPECIAL PERSON BECAUSE…

and then their own explanation for why he was a special person to them. and they also drew a picture.

the most popular reason was that he was a superhero. approximately half the class wrote that. oh did sebastian love the pictures of himself flying through the air, saving people.

but then there were others such as:

– he is a good reader

– he is friendly

– he is funny

– he is handsum

– he is good at writing

– he is our frend

– he is gud at games

– he doesn’t hit

– he is happy

– he is cute and he is sweet (this picture had him holding hands with a girl)

oh what a gorgeous book. what a gorgeous little boy.

what a great idea special person is.