i have learned of loss this week.

one –  a much loved friend whose surprise pregnancy, and the celebration, healing, fulfillment and love it represented, ended, barely one week after she learned of its existence.

second – last night an acquaintance shared her story of the day she learned of her husband’s death.

loss.

i won’t dare transmit my emotions and suggest it is what these two wonderful women experienced. but i went home last night and didn’t sleep well. and then today i was surprised why i was so happy, in the wake of such sorrow. i was walking through hong kong, this city i love so much, with my life that is far from perfect, and realised i was smiling. it wasn’t the weather…it was an overcast day. it was me. i smile because that is what i naturally do these days. that is the expression on my face. sometimes it surprises me, because 20 years ago smiling wasn’t a natural facial feature. it is now.

one of my favourite hymns has the line

this is my story, this is my song

walking through hong kong, i knew my story. i knew my song. there were no surprises. i was on my way to meet girlfriends for a post birthday lunch at one of my favourite restaurants, the annexe. i knew my husband was one kilometre away, and he was well. i knew my children were not napping although three of them should be, and i knew i would see them later on at sebastian’s football practise. i knew my business, although challenging, was going well. i knew my parents were getting ready to come to hong kong next month.

my story is carefully woven, my song is comfortable and fits my voice. i say it every year, i like getting older because i like myself more the older i get. not thrilled about the little skin tags that are appearing everywhere, but maybe that is where knowledge is stored. who knows.

listening to the stories that have made me cry over the past four days, i am aware of how loss can quickly come into my life, and erupt my story, deviate my song into notes i cannot sing and a tune i never wanted to follow. realising afresh my blessings and the temporary natures of them make them seem more precious. i don’t want to hold it too tightly and stifle my life, instead i want to hold it out infront of me so i can appreciate it. and in the sunshine, and even on the overcast days, the imperfections don’t seem so bad. i am so grateful for my life, and i cannot imagine loss of my loves.

Finally… birthday pictures

at long last mc posted pictures below of the triplets birthday party from a few weeks ago. here they are… first two photos are of the kids playing on the beach. you can see that, as reported, it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day.

next, carys and sela playing in the sand, and then jasper and sebastian playing in the water, which by the way, was quite chilly!

now we have jasper posing in the water and sebastian recovering from being in the cold water a little too long for his liking!

carys poses while sela plays in the sand. can you imagine what it’s like to clean sand off four toddlers? then it was time to enjoy the many snacks available to the kids. with only a few tables available, most of the kids used the wall as a table. meanwhile, jasper provides a classic jj moment! wait a minute… when did jj’s hair start going curly?

finally it was cake time… mc seems to think he has intellectual property rights on the cake. to see the cake you have to go to his blog (eye roll)! but for now, you can see the kids jockeying for position before blowing out the candles, which the wind blew out anyway! next, sela objects to her piece of cake that apparently wasn’t the right type of colour or icing or something! speaking of colour… notice the chip residue all over her hand?

the kids sit patiently as they enjoy some yummy dora cake. a poignant moment with carys and the camera. finally, at the end of the day tess, sela, carys ~ with perfect sunburns, suitably fatigued after missing naps and wearing their brand new, first ever nightgowns ~ enjoy a few minutes in front of the tv before heading off to bed. actually, mummy put suntan lotion on everyone but herself… kinda shows?

janine canham’s husband matt sent magnificent and me an email in april 2005. it was an email we had hoped to receive in early june and the headline told us all we needed to know: THE CANHAM BOYS ARE HERE!

they were indeed. born three months too soon, at 28 weeks, sam and his equally as tenacious brother josh were born in hong kong, at queen mary hospital which had housed our own triumverate just one year previously. the boys have since compensated for their 2lb5oz & 2lb 11oz rather humble beginnings – they are bonny…racing around hong kong and their mandarin is coming along so well that they will soon be ordering meals for their parents at local restaurants.

the canham boys are here, and unlike many preemie children, they stayed with their parents on earth. and janine, after emerging from the nicu experience with her own scars, vowed that she was going to do something to help preemies. donating clothes and stuff to the queen mary only took her so far…her vision was greater.

janine hooked up with  BLISS, a charity that campaigns for improvements in neonatal care so that more babies survive and have the best quality of life worldwide. BLISS ensures parents are supported as carers by providing a freephone helpline, specialist publications and website. BLISS supports the development of innovations in all aspects of caring for premature and sick newborn babies.

she will be running in the London Marathon in April, to raise money for BLISS. she would love your cheers and sponsorship so that BLISS can help other preemies thrive as josh and sam have done. the canham boys are here and waving at the finish line, proud of the effort their mother has made for preemie babies worldwide. if you visit www.janinecanham.com you will get to her site, where you can make fast, simple and totally secure donations. if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

this will be janine’s first marathon.  she is training hard and aiming to run it (42.2km or 26.2 miles) in 4 hours or under. but for janine the purpose of this marathon isn’t about hours or minutes. it is to give babies’, years.

if you can, please give – or at least post a message to wish her well.

finders keepers …. i like that part

the other day sebastian was thrilled to show his father and i something that he had found on the playground. it was a tiny little spiderman figureine or something of that ilk.

"finders keepers, losers weepers" he proudly recited.

that’s a great little ditty for justifying when you’ve found something and don’t want to give it back.

"do you really think so?" asked his dad.

vigorous nodding followed. even his siblings backed him up. yes. its the law.

sebastian, how would you feel if gina found Special Blanket and took it home?

i would be very sad. and i would cry.

but sebastian, finders keepers! that means she can keep it if she finds it!

not if it is mine, mummy!

i love the logic of kids. it is so what adults think but dont’ say anymore.

sebastian is having a tough time right now with the fact that all his friends are going to a different school than he will be going to next year. this year he knew two kids when he started off at small world Christian kindergarten. next year, he won’t really know any of them. and it is a huge school with five grade classes. FIVE! and sebastian still thinks that he will be in the same level as adam and the other kids he used to be in school with before i held him back a year.

he has informed his father and i that he doesn’t want to go to kennedy school. for a couple of days he was saying he wanted to go to new zealy, which we thought was new zealand. we jollied him along for a while, ho ho, new zealand is a great place for a family holiday, etc etc etc, and then he said that new zealy was in hong kong and that was where he wanted to go to school because that was where all his friends were going next year.

i saw the penny drop and watched it move away from my child.

sebastian, do you mean you want to go to glenealy school?

yes!

oh baby. we don’t live in that area.

but that’s where i want to go, mummy.

there’s nothing i can say that will make him feel better. i can promise him he will make friends, and i know he will. but right now, he wants to go to another school and there is nothing i can say that will make him think that another school is a good alternative.

"if i have to go to kennedy school, i will be very sad!"

losers, weepers.

metrosexual

education expands the horizons. definitely. you’re never too young to start questioning if a tree falls in a forest, would anybody hear, how can you prove that each snowflake is different…has anyone seen each one…or in jasper’s case, his gender.

jasper knows he is a boy. he knows this because he wears bobs, and in our family, boys wear bobs, and girls wear knickers. it’s the law. jasper is also aware that he has permission to wee standing up. his bits allow for this, much to his sisters’ firm, high pitched disapproval. boys can wee standing up, girls cannot. another gem he has tucked into his tiny grey matter.

jasper was the first of this batch of kids to become toilet trained. so he has had a bit of time to become familiar with his bits, and from the amount of time he spends with one or more hands attached to them, i figured he had his bits and his boyhood all figured out.

so i was a bit surprised the other day when as i was picking jasper up from school his teacher said to me while choking back a laugh, "jasper had a good day today. he made us all laugh."

"not surprising," i said, wondering if he had done his latest dora dance for them, which does get smiles.

"we were choosing the special helper of the day, and we established that the special helper was a girl, which meant all the boys had to sit down…."

"yes?" i politely inquired, wondering how my child fit into this scenario.

"and jasper stayed standing and then when i said, ‘jasper are you a boy or a girl?’ he responded, "i am a girl with a willy."

i said nothing intelligable, but burst into laughter. my eyebrows jumped somewhere up to my hairline.

on the ride home, jasper repeated his new found knowledge, with confidence. "girl with a willy, girl with a willy." sebastian, ever the policeman, informed jasper not only that he was wrong, but where he was wrong. he gave detailed descriptions and was mostly correct.

since then, i have told him that he is a boy and he will say, "no i am a girl". and then i will say, remembering my first year university philosophy and logic course…"jasper do you have a willy?" and he’ll say, "yeth!" and i will say, "do boys have willies!" and he’ll say "yeth!" and then, hoping that i have gently led him to some conclusion, i will say, "so…" and by then he will be picking a scab or pulling out his hair (seriously, he does this, does this seem odd to you ???) and the discussion will be over.

free willy!

all gone and all growing

all four of my children are attending small world Christian kindergarten.

all morning i am alone.

this is not technically true, but it does sound dramatically impressive, doesn’t it? if i accompany sebastian, jasper, sela and carys to school then we leave the house at 8.20am and i get back approximately one hour later. if i go with de to pick them up from school then i have to leave the house at 11.20 and come back approximately one hour and 15 mintues later (loading kids in to the car takes time).

the kids are loving being in school almost as much as i am loving having them out of the home.

because they are only gone for a few hours a day it is no BIG THING for my heart. when sebastian goes to full day school next year, that will be a BIG THING. a VERY big thing.

watching the girls go to school was not overly difficult. they had each other and they walked in to the class,  holding hands, after removing and pushing their knapsacks into their cubbies. they smiled and chattered.

they’re very montessori at school, when i came back to pick them up, they were playing with bowls placed on a tray, scooping out items and putting them into the next bowl. when they saw me, they put the bowl back in place instead of leaving it on the table.

this skill of putting things back, which seems second nature to them at school, is a skill that apparently cannot be achieved or remembered at their playroom, pokfulam road, hong kong. they look blankly at me when i suggest clearing up.

they love school and their teachers, miss jovina and miss helen. today, miss jovina gave me the good news that carys is talking more, therefore feeling more confident. this made me very pleased. we walked down the steps and sela barked orders on how we needed to walk on the red line and hold the handrail. carys repeated her, as she often does. but, according to her teacher, sela is talking more, thus, i need not worry about anything !!

technically, life is much easier. i know it is for lita, who has admitted she loves the kids being gone more. she is cooking them singapore noodles and other fun stuff, which they love.

it is also easier for me. i know i should feel remorseful, and at times i do dig up a little sorrow when they come home telling me a song they learned or a country (malaysia) they learned about. if they were unhappy, i would be in bits. but they are not. they are very excited about their new world. sebastian loves having "his triplets" at school and bossing them around a bit in his loud, loud voice.  but i am enjoying the quiet and myself right now. later the sorrow will come. but for now, it’s all good.

all four children are attending small world Christian kindergarten.

they are growing, and so am i.

happy birthday

today we celebrated carys, sela and jasper’s birthday. it was a rather hastily thrown together affair, and one that we decided to have at a relatively close by beach, chung hum kok.

we weren’t sure about the weather, and had the contingency plan that if it was raining or yuk, we would host it at our place.

last night charles made a dora cake, i cut up vegetables, made a dip, lita made cupcakes, sebastian and i made cookies, lita and sebastian also made cookies, we bought sausages, put away candles and a lighter, i procured napkins and plates, got out bathers, mossie spray, etc. and before we went to bed we prayed for good weather.

this morning, we woke up and it was greyish and cloudy-ish. we prayed again. a couple of people called. beach party or home party? charles and i looked at each other and decided to take a chance…beach. we loaded up the car, changed the kids into their bathers, and headed off to the beach.

what a fantastic decision it was. by the time we got there, the clouds were clearing. no sooner had we got the food laid out on the three tiny tables that were halfway between the beach and the playground and then the sun came out. we grabbed a drink and bounded to the beach, and the kids frolicked in by the shore and ventured into the water.

as friends arrived and we saw the kids bending by the shore and girls racing to the tide and then squealing as water hit their toes, we realised what a great decision it had been to have the party here. the sun became quite hot, about 25 degrees, and the light breeze kept the mossies away, and it was fantastic. even when jasper tipped a$$ over teakettle and had to be hastily pulled out by wonderful gus, did we regret having the party at the beach. the kids entertained themselves, racing around and loving the clean sand, the shells, the rocks, the play area.

the candles were blown out by the wind, but the triplets never noticed, they were too busy oohing and aahing over the dora cake magnificent charles had made. and digging into the bags of chips. and asking for a new juice box, taking one or two sips, abandoning it, and then five minutes later asking for a new one.

we didn’t leave the party site until one hour after we were meant to. there was no reason. the kids were having so much fun, and truth be told, after all the dreading of birthdays, we were just savouring the sunshine of the day.

so happy birthday, three.

please click here to see pics of the party

oh yes, carys

last year around this time it was all about BEBE, carys’ much loved green plush toy that was essential to happy sleepies and successful naps.

since Christmas time, BEBE is finding herself with a bit of breathing room, because BLUE has moved into town. blue is a doll, who wears a blue onesie, and is much loved by miss carys. i have started swaddling blue (and sela’s doll, "pink", who wears a pink onesie) and carys stands over me and watches, fascinated. "SWADD-EL-ING!" she’ll declare, very impressed and happy in the knowledge that her baby is cosy.

carys likes babies, she stands by when a baby is getting a bottle and watches eyes wide, as the baby guzzles, and is then burped. she’ll tug at my arm and whisper, "baby."

not that babies weigh so much more than carys, she’s still a tiny girl. her wrists are like string, but her fingers are so long.

she hasn’t really shown much of a competitive fire (sela stole it), instead at playsport while jasper is examining the grass on the field, if the ball rolls by, carys will scream joyfully at her sister, "come on, sela!" and take after it. oh carys, i want to shake my head. sela wouldn’t stop for you, don’t wait for her!

carys often waits for sela. i don’t necessarily think this is a good thing. carys will let sela speak first, and then she will repeat what her sister has said. she can blather on, but in a conversation with people, she will often just let sela take the lead when questions are asked, and regurgitate what answers are given. time i am hoping will take care of this.

she starts speech therapy soon, as soon as there is an availability. she gets grommet surgery at the end of march. her nose seems to be permanently plugged (even when breathing freely) and she doesn’t have a nasal talking voice, but there almost seems to be a sinus issue with her. speaking can be tough.

hearing can be tougher. not from the difficulty persepctive, although she needs grommets i believe carys’ hearing will be fine ~ but from the perspective of if ytou speak too harshly to carys she brusts into screams and is unconsolable. sela was doing this last year, remember? but this is so intense. she gets unconsolable. with sela, a couple of cuddles and it was over, and you wondered how much of it was dramatic. but this is deep, and dark and i am not sure what else. someone of course muttered autism, and yes "behavioural" something or other was mentioned, and i just don’t know what to make of it. she is hyper sensitive to criticism, even if she knows that she was being terribly naughty. so she is wearying and i get a chill of concern at times.

on a lighter note, her hair is equally as confusing. she seems to have three crowns in it. in years to come, she will have a fantastic time getting her hair to fall back and hold styles, but for now, i cannot get her hair to do anything! i gave it a cute cut and it looks great with clips, but where is it going? good question.

she loves her parents and loves being cuddled by either magnificent or me. having a hand held by a parent is very important to carys.

when she is being delightful, she is very quick to answer questions and to sing songs or to make them up. she and sebastian probably have the least to do with each other, he finds her too babyish and unable to stand up for herself, while she finds him too demanding.

but my heart just contracts with love for carys. not because of from where she started, but because of what she can be. she has a distrust of strangers, i think she thinks everyone is a doctor or physical therapist until proven otherwise. but once you are in her heart, she clutches you there, she swaddles you in, and you feel so cherished.

carys.

my beloved.

sela “i need that” caldwell

one year hasn’t changed miss sela caldwell overly much. it has sharpened and softened her in entertaining, exasperating and endearing ways.

sela loves going to playsport. of the four kids, she definitely has the strongest competitive streak and races across the field in pursuit of the football. she has a good throw and loves throwing and catching. she could spend ages on the playground throwing and catching. her coach never has to call her to attention, if anything he calls her out because sela is likely to jump the queue in her eagerness to get her turn to kick the ball into the net. she grits her teeth, sets her jaw and kicks.  when she runs, there is nothing half a$$ed about her, the elbows are flying and she goes in pursuit of her luckless prey. i get a kick out of watching her.

i don’t get a kick out of sela’s interpretations of her entitlements. "i need" is an often recurring term in her life and she uses it often. she needs: blue not green socks, pink or purple everything and anything, her baby (named pink) swaddled just perfectly, a sister called ashleigh, to be able to wear lipstick, to be able to show her knickers at church to everyone (they’re princess! she hisses) and to sit in the middle section of the car whenever she wishes. oh, and to be first at whatever, or last, whichever. possible the middle. sela loves getting her own way. and when thwarted. she cries. loud scraping cries. that hasn’t changed from last year, has it? she is so bleeding loud.

endearingly, sela is the child that will show the most impulsive affection. she will be racing about, and then suddenly stop, rest her forearms on my legs, place her head on her chubby arms, look up at me and smile, pause for another second and be on her way again. those little re-charges delight me. i have no idea why she stops to give me that unasked for affection. her hugs are also the heartiest.

although at playsport sela is a determined runner, around the house, she bounces and skips. combine the skipping with her typical state of half undress (she’s usually getting herself into a barbie or belle dress but forgets halfway through or gets sidetracked or possibly jasper pinches the dress) that includes a wedgie, and you get a very cute child bouncing about the place. her hair is darker, but the loose curls (only behind the ears) still exist.  by the time she’s five, sela’s hair will be my colour, but oh it is sweet right now.

verbally, sela is the leader and is very precise in her language. she needs to be, so her barked instructions don’t go amiss. she and carys share funny jokes and squeal over events, and she can hold a fair conversation as long as the topic is something that she likes, such as: donuts. she loves being read to, and the other day i started off reading THE PAPER BAG PRINCESS and after finishing the book, she said, "now you read five more" and she dashed off and returned with bread and jam for frances and four other long books. she believes my lap is purely for her, and raises her voice to the heavens when she finds her siblings sitting there. she gets in huge discussions and debates over the concept of "my mummy"…sharing is an area where the teacher will tick, in gracious understatement, "needs improvement".

she still sucks her thumb for 30 minutes a day.

she hasn’t done a poo in her nappy for over two weeks.

she mothers her siblings and veers from being really upset when they are hurt to being really nosy when they are being disciplined.

she loves polishing tables and bike riding.

at three years old sela is very pleased with herself, but ambitious for more.i find her my easiest child, and very possibly this is because she is most like me.

three cheers, they’re three

all this week i have been aware that today jasper, sela and carys would be turning three. all month i have sort have had 23 feb in the back of my mind. i can never forget that date, but unlike sebastian’s 30 november birthdate, i don’t like dwelling on 23 february 2004.

so needless to say, for the third year in a row, there is no party planned and there are no spectacularly wrapped gifts from mummy and daddy. i cried (no tears on the face but they appeared in my eyes) when a friend asked me if it was still a tough day, and have been close to tears all day long.

i am ripping the triplets off, not just commercially (or with cake, sebastian’s big concern) with this "let’s pretend it never happened" attitude. yes they were born, yes they did survive, yes i do know how incredibly lucky we are. yes i know all this but it doesn’t erase the terror, confusion and other helpless feeling associated with the worst day of my life.

i’ll write more tomorrow. but for now i will add that all day long jasper was telling people at the hospital (he had an appointment) that he was one, sela was informing friends she was five, and carys was quite happy just saying it was her birthday. and oh my, don’t even get me started on the multiple discussions that quickly downgraded themselves into arguments as to WHOSE birthday it actually was.

ps – yes they did have a cake. and we will have a family party next week. charles and i are planning to make a dora cake for that event. we will post pictures of the cake eating soon. thanks for respecting my feelings and actions, even if you don’t understand.