My exploration in life… (diary for baby!)

Ever since I met and got married with YEN, I felt that my life had changed for the better, somewhat.  Sure, my father passed away then, and that was one of the biggest lows in my life so far, but we started dating after that and I definitely cannot blame her for that!

I feel this way as many good things have came our way since we have got together.  I had never won any money in 4D, Totos and such, and I had a close brush after we collected our MARCH three years back.  We were advised to buy its registration number and we did so for the fun of it.  However, I did not persevere and stopped after a couple of luckless weeks.  Needless to say, as cruel as life is, my previous registration plate number opened as first prize in the one of the next weeks that followed.

Of course, I attribute the fact that my family has been holding out happily till this day, with many thanks to my lovely wife.  She has given me two lovely children, with a third one on the way.  Last night was another example of good luck, probably brought about because of my lucky star.

I had never won anything in lucky draws in life.  Not top prizes, not consolation prizes, not mini-consolation prizes, zilch.  Nothing.  My lucky is a blank when it comes to winning of prizes due to luck.  But it is probably changing, starting last night, at the Teachers’ Day Appreciation Dinner.

Last year, I won a prize as one of the five best-dressed teachers, based on the theme of ‘Retro’.  That part was partly my wife’s work too, giving me suggestions on what to wear and things like that.  Lucky draw-wise, think I didn’t win anything.  Not last night.  The theme for last night was ‘Hollywood / Bollywood night’.  I dressed as ‘Dick Tracy’ (from the fame of the same titled movie in 1990) and wowed my colleagues.

I won as the best-dressed male teacher.  Other than that, I won, by luck, the second prize of the lucky draw.  The prize was a diamond pendant that I had not seen, and will collect next week as I return to school for meeting during the one-week break.  This is going to spur me on to buy my new registration car plate number until we win something.  Hey, perhaps I should just continue to buy it for as long as we have the car!  =)

RACHEL seems to understand more and more of our language as we communicate with her.  This past week, she surprised us with the word ‘apple’ as she was watching te VCD on ‘Paddington Bear and his alphabet treasure hunt’.  She is just a joy to watch most times.  FELIX is still learning things that he should know, slowly, and hopefully surely.  YEN is into the fourth month of her pregnancy.  It’ll be a month more until we know the gender of our third child.  =)

This is my second Teachers’ Day since I started teaching.  I did not feel too ‘involved’ in the last one as I barely started teaching a couple of months then, and was not a form teacher.  It’s different this time round as I had kind of ‘bonded’ with my class for the past eight months.

I had received cards and gifts from students whom I teach PE too.  Even from students whom I taught PE for the first six months of the year, and am not teaching anymore due to some reshuffling after the mid-year break.

As of past years, students who graduated from the school would return to their primary school to meet their teachers and ex-classmates.  Some went to the extent of playing games too.  There was an incident because of this where an ex-student tried to slam the ball into the hoop and lost his balance.  I did not witness his fall, but from the condition of him later, I gather that he fell awkwardly.

I helped him on a stetcher and to the porch.  My Vice Principal made the decision to send him to SGH, a stone’s throw from our school, by his car and not pay for an ambulance, which would cost $60.

The boy was in some pain, understandable, but his only concern then was that he could not play basketball again, and that he wanted to play for another three years.  Sigh - I thought what his concerns of breaking his hand was!

On a happier note and at home, I think RACHEL knows how to answer our simple questions by nodding her head to the question.  I had asked her if she wanted milk this afternoon, and she nodded in reply.  She finished the bottle after that.  It was confirmed tonight when the same thing happened again in the night.

However, I think she had learnt to lick some kind of food in play-school this week.  Not that it’s not good, but she has been doing that for almost all kinds of food and not opening her mouth to bite them.  She would then refuse us when we offered her the food later.  I’m not sure if she has been having enough food this way… =(

I think FELIX is too used to being carried by YEN and my mother that he can hardly do without being carried every time he is not engaged in some play activity. He has this habit, nowadays, of screaming on top of his voice - whether he is happy or not. Adorable and amusing at the beginning, but it does get on my nerves when I long for a little peace and quiet. He has not been able to start walking without aid too. His feet seem ‘weak’ and goes wobbly after just standing whilst holding onto something for a short while.

FELIX has yet to learn tht he needs to share toys and playthings with others - his sister in this case. Being a child (and a young one at that!), he would be interested with whatever others seem to be having fun, sights and sounds, with. He would immediately drop whatever he has on hand and ‘join in’ with the fun, snatching it into his possession.

Poor RACHEL does have this possessiveness too in things that she is playing with, and scream (cry, at worst) when her things are snatched away, even if FELIX takes just one of the many pieces of building bloks she is playing with, of presses one button of the piece of toy. Our little girl can go into tantrums, I tell you, and we would witness our next national team backstroke champion as she lie on the floor, screaming and crying, propelling herself forwards with her feet, ala backstroke swimming!

Just yesterday, when we were returnng home from my mother-in-law’s in BEDOK, that I commented to YEN I cannot imagine at this point of time how we can handle thre children just a few months later when we need to bring three of our children on our visits…

We celebrated FELIX’s first birthday two days earlier to catch the convenience of the weekend.  We invited family (EDDIE and HUIJUN, MUM-IN-LAW and JASON), relatives (my Uncle’s wife and children - KAILIN and JUNHAO on my side; YEN’s uncles and aunty, their spouses and children) and close friends (SHIRLEY and my long-time pals from Shaoerzu).  All in all, over 40 of them were invited.

RACHEL really surprised me during the few hours of the celebration - she hardly cried or threw a tantrum.  We had expected her to.  The nap the children had just before the guests started turning up must have helped (kudos by a good move from YEN).  Or perhaps her being at the play-school really did let her improve on her social skills and she is not as afraid of strangers now then much earlier before.

We are thinking of sending FELIX to play-school when he turns 18 months, just like we did to RACHEL, so that my mother can look after our new child and third baby in the day just like how she is looking after FELIX now.  YEN and I had a long discussion earlier as to whether we should get external help in the form of a domestic helper, but it died a natural death along the way.  I’m sure this topic will be surfaced again later.  It is just whether we can afford it with our current way of spending.  Really have to look at the suggestion in detail before anyone breaks down due to fatigue.

YEN is cautious about sending FELIX to play school now as he is almost one and has yet to show that he can swallow solid food.  At this age, RACHEL had started walking too.  Though FELIX can stand with the aid of items by his side, he needs to learn more before we can rest our minds sending them away.  Hope that he learns soon enough!

On this day that the country celebrates her 43rd birthday, YEN celebrates hers as well.  I hadn’t had the chance to get YEN anything, but prepared her a collage of her pictures with our babies in a powerpoint show.  It is inadequate to show my gratitude and appreciation to my lovely wife, but it was the least I could do.  She said last night when I presented the "gift" to her that she was very happy with it.  I would really have loved to give her more.

She shared with me that she really felt tired and expects the situation to get worse with the impending and imminent birth of our third child.  I have not been able to help much with my being very tired at night (due to my early mornings to work).  My mother, who is helping us take care of FELIX, is showing signs tiredness of old age and she fears that mother’s body may not be able to take too much too.  We agreed that we must talk about this further and find a solution (or somewhere close to one) to the current situation…  =(

We bade goodbye to MARCH last week after three and a half years of its serving YEN and I.  MARCH had given us little problems and had been a good car to drive and manoeuvre.  We saw the need to get a new car, a seven-seater as we envisage the imminent need of having three baby carseats in the same car with the birth of our third child next year.  We let go of the car unwillingly as our agent, one recommended by EDDIE, said we had to sell the car at this point, or face a huge drop in the price of scrapping the car any later.

Our new car, a parallel-imported TOYOTA WISH, will not be ready so soon.  Our dealer, JASON, asked us if we could go without a car before the new one came and kindly agreed to lend us his own before that happened.  We are now driving his NISSAN SUNNY for the past week.  We still miss MARCH, really.

We had been busy the past weeks, attending housewarming functions in back-to-back weeks - JIANWEI’s and ZHENSHUN’s - in the previous two weeks.  WENQIANG has found a second-hand flat, finally, in PUNGGOL.  SHIYONG has yet to confirm a change in his relationship status with a girl he has been going out with.  Looks like RACHEL will have to wait a while more before she call acknowledge a ‘Godmother’, ha.

We are getting ready for FELIX’s first birthday.  Well, actually, YEN had been doing all the preparations.  I feel sorry for her as she is doing so while she had been so busy at work.  She must be extremely tired too due to the fact that she is pregnant with our third child.  However, I hardly have time to help her as I try to grapple with my own work in school.  Sigh.  I commented to my colleague, RAY, that pay is really low for a diploma holder in our line compared to a degree holder, who might very well be doing the same work.  He assured me not to lose hope and said "the money will roll in after our bond".  Hopefully, that is true!!