our Christmas was divine. the kids were as good as they knew how to be, and feeding times didn’t interrupt with adult feeding times, and it was funny, loving and family-ish. the people were accepting, welcoming, warm and it was so wonderful to have grandparents there, even if they weren’t my parents. made the circle of life very pleasant. people mixed well and could talk with everyone, you felt comfortable enough to say NO to their kids when need be, and not to feel insulted when they said the same to yours. proof of it’s excellence: i am only mentioning the amazing food now. seriously, the fellowship surpassed the amazing food. laughter. happiness.

we were home by 9pm and in bed by 9.30pm. debated trying to find name tags for some gifts that were wrapped in tissue paper (not taped, just wrapped) and decided to just be really rude and ask people if they sent them.

we also experienced a present conundrum other mums of multiples have warned us we will be having in the next few years. people who send the triplets one gift. or did they? we had two scenarios this year…

there were three kid presents from my mum. one definitely for sebastian. (adorable, excellent). hmm…three kids, two gifts. was this one of those situations where the triplets are meant to share? (which of course works for now, but won’t in one year when MINE sets in….) i decided to just be honest and test drive a conversation i am sure i will have to repeat in years to come…

hi mum, ha ha, yes i know we chatted earlier today…ha ha ha…you know, kids should be grateful they are getting any thing at all, and adults should be able to save money and send one gift for all three…what am i saying? getting at? well,um, mum, did you send a present for each of the triplets or would like them to share?

what do you mean of course i sent three gifts, for the triplets and one for sebastian too. of course we did. your father and i. we chose them carefully.are you saying you have lost one of the gifts, teresa?

only temporarily, mum. it could be under the tree, or olivia might have batted it…

there were two gifts without tags, but they were baby books. i don’t know if i should contact this person and apologise for losing a present. but i think i will check around first. but i didn’t on Christmas day…we came home and went to bed.

it was a good night of sleep, which i was happy with because i was up the next morning at 5am, making stuffing for our boxing day feast. i cut up leeks, green/spring onions, apple, and celery, sauteed them, and then added the bread and seasoning…

and then it was time to stuff it up the 24 pound turkey’s bum. but first, pulling out the neck and giblets, while miaowing olivia watched with great interest and whisker licking.

had to go through the back entrance to get the giblets. the turkey responded to the loss of the giblets by loudly sucking up air and expelling fluids. very eerie at 6am. olivia and i jumped a bit.

now to stuff. got about half of the stuffing in there. now, it was time to wake up magnificent charles so he could give it a cerclage. (one of the benefits of having triplets is now i know the official word for sewing up the turkey, even if it is the wrong end. he did a great job.

we seasoned the top of the bird, foiled and threw it in the oven. i had peeled and cut the 20 potatoes we would later make garlic mash with earlier in the week, so the only thing really left to do was make salad, pie crusts and a few other things. all seemed to be relatively calm and according to plan.

except of course, when the guests arrived, we grabbed our drinks and spent the appetizer portion of the meal in our room watching cnn. tsunami in phuket, sri lanka, etc. when people ask me why we have the television in our bedroom i explain that i don’t have friends over to watch television. well, yesterday about five of us sat on my bed with the cheese and crackers in front of us, watching the disaster unfold. getting frustrated with the same old video clips that weren’t telling us anything new.

magnificent and i have been to the maldives. magnificent and i have been to phuket, he many times, and also to phi phi as well. richard (of aloo gobi fame) was with us on our bed, he got back from phuket three days ago. and suddenly, his blackberry started getting messages from friends in sri lanka.

they couldn’t use the mobile, but they could sms. can you help us get out of here, they asked. we are in the mountains, we were staying on the beach but made it to the mountains. we don’t think we have suitcases anymore, but we have our passports and we want to come home. is the airport open?

it is, he texted back. how can we help??

poor richard didn’t get a chance to eat the great vegetarian lasagne he brought, he was making reservations for his friends. and it did work. their flight was to leave at 9pm, and they texted from the airport i think saying they were close to being on their way. knowing this brought the evening to a good close.

magnificent is at work today, putting together an action plan to help employees who are vacationing or visiting family in phuket, madras, sumatra or sri lanka. and we are here, waiting for more news. putting aside relief items to donate.

one of our diversionary games last night was trying to determine the worst song of the 1980’s. the nominees:

wild boys – duran duran

come on eileen – dexy’s midnight runners

the oo-oo song – pat benetar

your suggestions are welcome and will be debated seriously.

a great, busy, wonderful Christmas. and i am going to look for lost presents now. and be grateful that missing presents, not people, are the greatest of my concerns.

merry Christmas.

in 90 minutes we are heading over to friends houses for food and fellowship. it will be tres suburbia…eight adults (one set grandparents), five children over two and five children under one. thankfully turkey tastes good cold, and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

if you check the right of the screen, you will see one of charles’ Christmas presents…a family photo.

more soon….!!!

what’s in a snooze?

personalities do not shut down with the eyelids.

cruising through the babies rooms these past few weeks, i have noticed their sleeping positions reflect their very unique selves.

jasper sleeps face down, arms akimbo. the minute we lay him down, usually during prayers, he flips over and commences sliding his gro-bag clad self down the cot. not an easy task, but he is up to it. leaving a snail trail of drool that a) marks the path of his voyage like a treasure hunt for infants and b) indicates the effort needed to create this pathway. the j always has his mouth slightly open. if a stray cheerio might pop up from the folds in his neck and migrate into his mouth during the night, jasper wants to be prepared.

he has a really weird sleeping position, whispers magnificent charles.

that is funny, coming from a man who sleeps lying on his back, with his knees up in the air and his feet planted firmly into the mattress. head tilted back in a position that cannot be comfortable.

carys sleeps tightly clenching her lamaze cot decorator. while she is still awake she tends to roll from side to side, cooing in her gravelly voice and occasionally popping in and removing her right thumb. as she gets tireder, her thumb drops out of her mouth and hovers two inches away from her mouth, in case the thumbs services are required again. as she settles into sleep, she grabs on to the decorator and relinquishes control of consciousness. i have tried loosening her grip on the decorator, but it is tight, and why bother? who’s she hurting? besides, lying on her left side means she is sort of partially strengthening the tight side of her neck.

sela moves very little from the position you lie her in. on her back, right arm outstretched, left arm arced and thumb in mouth. by the middle of the night both arms are flung out. two theories abound on why she chooses this position: its flattering, and b) she’s lazy, and wants to get to sleep. our sela likes her sleep.

sebastian has been a wriggler since the day he was born. when he was released from the hospital, magnificent charles and i agreed that he could bunk with us for a few nights. it would be easier for feeding in the middle of the night, etc.

magnificent charles was concerned that he might roll over and squash sebastian, so we put the bald wonder into a xerox a4 photocopying paper box that we had lying around. and so, we tenderly introduced sebastian to his first bed. he slept, but charles and i did not. sebastian scratched, bashed and bonked the corners of the box all night long. every noise, by b00bs would leap to attention, and magnificent would bolt upright  "wha???". and our cats, who were allowed to sleep on the bed with us would shuffle about, turn two and one half times around, then settle themselves again.

the second night sebastian was home, we read and worried about the transition from sleeping in a comforting small space to cruelly shoving sebastian into a cot. one thing was certain, he would not be sharing our room again. because of the very real danger that babies who don’t have happy transitions from small baskets to cots don’t get into good colleges, we compromised, and that night sebastian slept in the xerox box, which was in his cot. that worked fine for a few weeks.

sebastian has no regard for proper sleeping placement and i find him with legs and arms dangling off the bed, his head where his knees should be, or his head pressing against the bed rail. he is all over the place all over the time. why? i am not sure. he is not overly eccentric, paranoid, or prone to bad dreams. maybe the the first level of his circadium rhythm is an aerobics programme.

my sleeping position? i always sleep on my right side, with my hands between my face and pillow (preferably a cold pillow) and knees bent (when my dear departed cat was alive her sleeping spot was behind my knees) and bare feet sticking out of the duvet.

everyone’s heard of dream analysis, but sleep analysis seems just as interesting.

number two is my number one preference

i have something new to worry about.

a friend, and i do mean that, a nice friend said jokingly the other day that she hoped she would be around when the triplets were old enough to read my blog.

what do you think they will make of it? of you?

the plan: i will make no apologies for content. i will tell them that to their faces (or backs, because teenagers apparently only dole out face to face eye contact when they are pleading), ie:

please mum, you cannot wear that.

if you let me go, i will clean my room tomorrow. honest.

i really need the car tonight. really.

and i will tell them that feeding them wasn’t something i loved doing. but i will also add, that i love changing their nappies.

why? let’s start with the basics.

1) it is a finite task. you can gauge your progress as you clean. you know how much there is to go. pure skin, no smell is the goal. just do it.

2) there are crafty bits that challenge you. ah yes, you are a girl, so we play front to back with you. or, oho, mr jasper, you didn’t think i would forget to clean between your fat rolls?

3) babies really appreciate being cleaned. and they love being naked. the longer their privates can be exposed to the air, the happier they are. so even if you are a slow nappy changer, they’re thrilled.

4) it is a great opportunity to spend one on one time with your baby. singing, declaring this filthy nappy to be the fullest, heaviest, chow-chow* iest (*mandarin word for smelly) whatever. they are always happy when getting their nappy changed, and it is a fine time to converse with them.

5) nappy changing provided sebastian’s first opportunity to interact with his brother and sisters. when we first brought the babeolas home, sebastian was very apprehensive of carys, and jasper’s oxygen tank freaked him out a little too. so when jasper needed changing, i hoisted the bald man up on the change table, and brought sebastian to the table. (i could go over and collect sebastian because this was before jasper could roll off the table. sadly, those days are done.)

what did jasper do?

a poo

is it a little poopers?

no, a biiiiigggg poopers. it’s big, mummy.

seb would smile, impressed. his first smiles directed to his siblings were invariably centred around the change table.

6) unlike feeding, you are in charge of how long it takes. sure the baby can wriggle about, but all in all, if you have any coordination, you can clean up the mess and slide a fresh nappy under the adorable bottom in under one minute. then you can let the baby enjoy the naked feeling for as long as you both wish.

7) it puts you off certain foods. for the first few months, i couldn’t look pesto in the face. now that we’re on solids, pumpkin pie is low on my Christmas consuming wish list. (ironically, i have to make a pumpkin pie for Saturday’s feast.)

so after explaining gently to the babies turned teenagers that even though i did not enjoy giving them nourishment (or wearing the deja vu either), i will tenderly explain that i loved changing them. expand to the fact that changing jasper was easier than changing the girls, by the mere fact of outdoor vs. indoor plumbing. that the girls would splash their legs happily in wees that happened during the changing period. and probably, while i am trying to explain my desperate love for them, they will be wallowing in the vulgar and distasteful knowledge that yes, i did see them naked a great many times. yes, i wiped their bottoms. their bottoms needed wiping. they will be embarrassed, upset (why do you always bring this up, mum?) and then they will really wish i had kept my mouth shut. and maybe, possibly, hopefully, in between begging me for extra cash, to put the music up a couple of decibles, and pizza for dinner instead of leftovers, they’ll know how much i love them.

live from little leper land…sebastian and sela have succumbed to hf&m. sela’s only sign is some mottling around the ankles and a tiny blister on her thumb. no surprise, it is a cute blister. sebastian’s are also pretty small, but are growing.

magnificent charles has just left to take sebastian for a drive. had to explain to him NO PLAYGROUND, and that was tough for him. the blue car was a great consolation.

is it just me or does hf&m sounds like the name of a men’s magazine?

on to another topic altogether.

check out www.awfulplasticsurgery.com

i cannot take credit for finding this divine site. BOULDER pointed me this way, months ago. she is either so ahead of the curve, or part of a conspiracy, because this site is all over the celebrity news these days.

nicolette sheridan is denying she ever had the plastic surgery awfulplasticsurgery claims she has had done. as is sharon stone. and just about everyone else. i know i have touched on this before, that the parallels between plastic surgery and infertility treatments are obvious.

do people have a right to privacy? YES.  it isn’t our business what they’ve done to achieve the end result. but it gets tenative when it skews the way you view yourself, your plans, or your self image.

back in 2002, malaysia picked up that theme of self-image, and pulled toyota car advertisements featuring brad pitt on the grounds that his non-Asian face would "plant a sense of inferiority among Asians."

a malaysian government spokesperson also wondered why "we must use their faces in our advertisements? aren’t our own people handsome enough?" 

yes they are, but they don’t have the benefit of the wraps, bleaching, dying, highlighting, non cosmetic facelifts, botox, lymphatic drainage, rhinoplasty, lifts, suction, etc etc etc that seems to be available in every californian or new york hotel or gym.

do check out the website, though. at the very best, the before and after pictures are frightening. do celebs really think the after pix are more flattering?? do you??

what are those childhood lessons we lisped at our mother’s knee?

if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all (not a grammatical dream, but a good lesson nevertheless)

do unto others as you would have others do unto you (i would love it if when we went out to dinner my friends always suggested we eat indian)

never smile at a crocodile (because why?)

and, oh yes, i remember it now…

DON’T MAKE FUN OF HF&M DISEASE AND PUBLICLY DECLARE YOUR CHILDREN DON’T HAVE IT BECAUSE BY THE NEXT MORNING THEY WILL.

i had forgotten that one.

i don’t know how carys found the time to get hf&m disease, she was crying all last night and i was carrying her from midnight to four am. yet, by 7am, she had a perfect little pustule under her tongue. i guess while her mouth was open all night long, the pustule moved in and set up house.

and jasper also has hf&m. he isn’t unconsolable, and still smily. a little confusion dots his brow, but otherwise, he is fine, and jasper. his pustules are on his hand.

sela, horrified with visions of possible long term disfigurments that hf&m disease might result in, is fighting the good fight and refusing to succumb to it. she still might, though. and sebastian, so far so good.

no party today.

explaining to sebastian, who was singing happy birthday in preparation for the party, that he would not be attending was not an easy task.

i couldn’t say because your brother and sister are sick, because if my parents had stopped me from going to a party because pam and graeme were sick, i would have hated pam and graeme. so i couldn’t really give the reason he was going, i had to give an alternative.

bassin go to sam abu daday party?

actually, sebastian, we;re going to stay home because daddy is coming home today! instead of going to the party, we’re going to see daddy!

whew! those long dormant pr crisis skills coming into play. i thought that was a brilliant, and possibly only way to console sebastian about not attending the party. 

he’s in his bed (singing happy birthday) right now. i didn’t know that "abu daday" was a lullaby, but it soothed the wee three off to sleep, and for that, i am grateful.

my turn.

whenever i hear the term hand foot and mouth disease (hf&m), i always think of horses. isn’t there a hoof disease out there?

apparently, hf&m disease is very common in children, and most kiddies contract (?) it at some point or the other. sort of like head lice or worms, just not quite as high on the embarrassing scale.

there has been an outbreak of hf&m disease (i don’t like that they call it a disease, it makes me feel guilty for laughing about it) at sebastian’s school. a few of his friends have it.  i figure sebastian’s chances are good for staying hf&m disease free. if he was going to get it, he would have by now, right?

i got a call from a mother, asking about the birthday party sebastian’s classmate is throwing tomorrow afternoon. would sebastian be going?

i got a little nervous. how did the mother know that i was so tired i was wishing i didn’t have to take sebastian and i could just wait for magnificent charles to walk through the door, and say, welcome home, if you want your child to enjoy his social life could you please take him to the party, i want to sit down and re-read appointment in samarra.

sure, he’s going. i reassured the mother, banishing thoughts of laying on my bed, olivia the cat on my lap, turning pages happily.

even with the disease running rampant through the school?

i gave my spiel, if he hasnt got it yet….

well what about giving it? what if he is a carrier?

if i can go, he can go. he’s going. i think.

i am a tired girl. the babeolas didn’t sleep that well last night, and not because the early signs of hf&m disease were keeping them awake.

carys has had a fever and threw up around 10.30. not just milk, either, a fine combination of lentils and pumpkin. i undressed her and then pulled on another sleeper, noting how long my little girl’s legs are getting. and once i had snapped all the snaps, i realised my hands hadn’t been too clean when i put the sleeper on and i had smeared the deja vu pumpkin and lentil on a bit of the sleeper my darling was now wearing.

if the smear had been near her knees, i would have just left it. but it was near her shoulder, and smelt a little bit, and not a nice smell, you understand. so i washed my hands, unsnapped her, pulled her unwilling arms out of the sleeves, and pulled out another sleeper and popped it over her head, arms through the appropriate holes, etc.

back to bed for carys.

then at 11pm, i had to give her her bottle. mila knew i was tired and wanted to do it, so i let her, and did penance by washing the throwup that hadn’t landed on the sleeper out of carys’ sheepskin rug.

carys went back to sleep.

even in her sleep sela could detect there had been activity that did not include her, and that fact was enough to rouse her, and for her tongue wagging screaming to commence. 15 minutes later, she was also asleep.

i pointed to jasper, sleeping on his stomach as always and silently urged him to continue sleeping. or at least cry facing down so it wouldn’t wake me up.

carys was up around 2am for about 30 minutes, whinging a bit. no vomit. gave her some paracetomol.

then at 3am, sebastian decided it was morning and came to my bed and stared at me. and stared some more.

i don’t sleep well when magnificent is out of town at the best of times, so when i suspiciously opened my eyes and became aware that i was a) not alone and b) another person (not olivia the cat) was a few centimetres from me, i shrieked.

mental note to self: make him wear a bell around his neck. tell sebastian it is a necklace. he’ll go for it.

mummy, i need to do wee wee

did you do a wee wee before you went to bed?

no, i did wee wee in the baf.

it has not been a good week for bathtubs in our flat.

helpers in hong kong

there are many benefits to living in hong kong. the food, the proximity to india, the interesting people, the proximity to warm places (it takes less money and time to fly to thailand from hong kong than it does to fly air canada from calgary to victoria…scully, that statistic is for you). being able to live in another culture gives you an appreciation for your own.

when you have children and aren’t travelling, dining out or seeing your interesting friends as much as you used to because your spare time revolves around your recently released NICU graduates, one of the best benefits to living in hong kong is the opportunity to have domestic helpers.

like everyone else in hong kong, we have a domestic helper. actually, we have two. mila and lita are from the philippines, and both have families of their own, that they see once a year, all because they can make more money working in hong kong as a domestic helper, than they could in the philippines, working as a teacher and an engineer. how sad is that.

these women are true mothers. it pains them not to be around to witness their children’s growing and lives, but they are determined to make a better life for their children.

mila became a grandmother on monday night for the second time around. another grandson. his name? jasper. magnificent charles and i were so touched.

i am godmother to lita’s only daughter, four month old melissa. i take the task of godmother seriously. all i can do right now is buy melissa clothes and toys, but i am diligent about that.

mila and lita, and domestic helpers in general are amazing. the majority of hong kong’s (and singapore’s) helpers are from the philippines, but helpers from thailand, sri lanka and india are also typical. imagine living in someone else’s home, and not speaking the same language, and having to determine their nuances, what they were saying, care for their children, do their washing….all while dealing with living in a new home, a new culture, and homesickness.

these women do it. the majority of domestic helpers work for chinese families. the chinese tend to have more people in a flat, and so it is not uncommon for the helper to sleep with the children, in the kitchen or under a table. no place to escape.

many great domestic helpers have very tough lives. one excellent helper i know who i trust my children with, told me about the first family she worked with, where they would not let her eat food from the refrigerator on sundays, her day off, because she was not helping THEM that day. the wife would portion out the food for the helper, she could not help herself to the contents of the pantry. any food she wanted to make, she had to pay for herself. on her day off, she would come home and find the sink stacked high with dishes. she often was not paid. and when she was, it was not her full wages.

this is common practise. and the helpers could complain but the sad thing is, if they raised a fuss, they would be fired, and without a letter of reference, very unlikely to get another position, and they would have to go home and face the recriminations of their family.

most helpers aspire to work with a western family. not because we are better employers.  one main reason is because when working with a chinese family, the helper often suffers from the relationship between the mother in law and the daughter in law. it is common for multi-generations to live together, and relationships between the women is not good. usually the older generation owns the flat, so the daughter must be subservient, but takes her anger out on the helper.

working in a western household, where they are likely expats without parents in law living with them, is much easier. it is also easier, because there is one less language barrier. filipinas speak tagalog, and usually have a good grasp of english. western families, be they australian, spanish, or german, tend to speak good english as well. whereas when working in a chinese home, the helper has to start learning cantonese, and both communicate in broken english. can you imagine reading recipes?

mila (at left with Carys and reading) is the bottle whisperer. she can coax any of the babies to slurp back a few more millilitres, even when the rest of us have tried and given up. she is a lovely Christian lady of about 57. she sleeps in the guest room when magnificent charles is out of town, knowing that i don’t sleep well when he is gone.

lita (pictured with sebastian and jasper) is about my age. she and sebastian are very close, as she was our only helper at the time the triplets were born and the one who picked up a lot of the slack at home.  she reads the same books i do, and loves the patricia cornwell thrillers i have never gotten into.

we are blessed to have our helpers. we have made our back area into a living room for them, and every night i smell the rice cooker and hear the laughter of the ladies and a few of their friends who come over. i find filipinas to be incredibly resilient, industrious and optimistic. the majority of these third world women are working to put their siblings and children through school, are constantly pressed for money, are working at a job that is tiring, requires extreme diplomacy and has many unenjoyable aspects to it, yet if you were sitting down with magnificent charles and i and listening to the laughter and shrieking voices coming from the back terrace, you wouldn’t know it.

i like listening to them. i can’t imagine being them.

JENNIFER!

although the v. has ceased and the d. is not as vehement, today, which so far is no more/less chaotic than any other day in my (or more accurately) the babies’ existence, i feel like blaming someone for my life. my generation is encouraged to have no ownership of our issues, suits me just fine.

embryologists (definitely), acupuncturists (obviously), doctors (indeed), the proficiency of magnificent charles’ as drug injector, (what else would you expect?), the prayers of our church and small group (Excellent!), the friends that recommended this doctor as the best (of course)..all are contributors to my state of four children under three.

but the real blame goes to jennifer pryznyk. or bond, depending on when you knew her. i WILL include both her last names because she deserves universal recognition. the fact that she is beautiful and intelligent does not factor into the tale or the blame.

but she had a baby. a beautiful (and large, dare i remind her?) baby girl, hannah. i was 24 at the time, and previous to the arrival of hannah, babies were not a huge concern in my life. i had married friends by then, but i had never really considered them as something i had wanted. marriage, i thought i wanted, but i never factored babeolas into the equation.

although jennifer and i weren’t particularly close growing up (although thanks to our mothers we knew more about each other than our best friends did), from the moment hannah arrived, i watched jennifer carefully. i saw her driving a car, waving to mum and i, with hannah carefully buckled into the back seat capsule.

she would come over, pulling hannah in a sled. she would hold hannah in her lap, scanning the floor for possibly harmful items, then putting her girl down.

although hannah grew hair and teeth rapidly, jennifer changed even faster. i was fascinated. i didn’t see her very often, but when i did, there was this growing dimension to her that astounded me. jennifer had accepted that jennifer wasn’t her first concern any more, and that thought appalled selfish me. how could anyone be this way?

and hannah, was a fascinating child. not spoiled at all. in fact, hannah should shoulder part of the blame for my current state as well. she was charming, even then. loving sushi and mexican (the way to my heart, through food) at an early age, polite. talking to her was interesting, mainly because i could see jennifer’s hours of patience, reptition and love coming into action.

i wonder what it would be like? i thought as we celebrated hannah’s first Christmas.

i wonder if i could ever do it? i thought at hannah’s first birthday.

i wonder if it is as hard as it looks?

i wonder if i could love someone so dependent that much. and deal with the relentless routine of standing up just seconds after you finally sat down, eating cold meals, answering the endless stream of questions, gently removing hands, diverting attention…..i wonder if i could.

because i think i want to.

the tag team of jennifer and hannah planted that seed, but it wasn’t until i met magnificent that the root took hold and grew.

and then, after years of infertility and frustration, that root became a family tree.

thank you.

hats off to you ladies who endure morning sickness.

i have caught a bug (and several good friends have it as well).

last night i woke up at 3am and ran to the bathroom where i threw up. i nearly choked, it was so terrible.

the early morning got even more interesting when the diahhrea kicked in. as kids, we used to call bad diahhrea "bum juice". that is what i had.

i really learned how accurate i am when i needed to vomit at the same time i was "juicing". a talented friend of mine who has the same thing was smart enough to use a bucket, but i am not an intelligent girl. so i just aimed for the bathtub.

this is ongoing. sharp stomach pains and panicky bowels.

two interesting sidenotes:

1) i am so grateful magnificent charles wasn’t in town to witness this.

2) today just happened to be the day we had no flushing toilet water from 9am-5am.  enough said.

must dash.