Sick man of the east -- Part One

I have conveyed all your well-wishes to Clement. We are very, very appreciative of your friendship, well-wishes, moral support and prayers. It means a lot to us. MERCI.

Here's some pics to record this drama...

These 2 pics were taken last night when he was warded and waiting for his surgery. The man was in great pain and discomfort. He couldn't even slip on his slippers as he lost the psychomotor control of his right foot. The nurse and I needed to support him to the bathroom because he couldn't even walk properly.


He was much better today after the surgery. A suction pump was attached to his head to drain off the clot. He had to lie quite flat the whole day. In the end, his headache was ok but he suffered from backache due to lying in this position for many hours. Because he had to be confined to his bed and in a lying position, I need to feed him. He was definitely happy to have "lunch in bed" with a personal nurse attending to him. Sigh... poor me. I need to feed a baby at home and a big baby in the hospital.
That was the suction that was plugged into his head to drain off the clot. Spot his new punk hair style.

In the afternoon he was feeling ok. The headache was gone and the only discomfort was the tube attached to him. And of course the pressure of the suction. Look, he could still "siong" me for taking unglam photos of him.

At ard 8.45pm, there was a little scare. The fluid flowed backwards into his head and Clement experienced a lot of pain and discomfort. We quickly called for the nurse as he was told to call the nurses whenever he experienced headache and discomfort. The nurses couldn't help so they called for the doctor to assess the situation. I was quite worried when I saw the happy man in the afternoon transformed back to the sick man last night. The doctor said that the op was "minor" but not that "minor" because afterall it was a brain surgery. Anyway, the doctor pulled off the suction and stitched his wound while answering endless phonecalls at the same time. About 10mins later, the pain inside went away and he had to deal with the pain from the stitch. Thankfully, he was alright after another 10mins or so.

I left the hospital at 10pm and drove home with the help of the GPS. For the record, last night I drove home using the GPS too and I still made some wrong turns.=_=

He will need another scan on Friday to check on his progress. Meanwhile, his condition is stable and I thank you again, our dear friends, for keeping us in your thoughts. Thank you.

More than a migraine

As I am writing this post at 1.07am, Clement is in TTSH having his minor operation done.

It turned out that his severe headache was more than a migraine. We got alarmed when the headache got worse today despite doubling up on his dosage of painkiller. Clement started to vomit, experience giddiness and lost the strength on his right limb. I drove him to see the GP again after school and he was referred to the A&E in TTSH immediately. A CT scan needed to do done urgently to see if it was just a migraine or could it be a stroke or something.

After seeing the doctor in TTSH, I proceeded to do the admission paper work while the neruo surgeon did the scan for him. It turned out that he had some bleeding/ blood clot on the left hand side of the skull. The surgeon said this was usually caused by knocking about 1mth to 2 weeks ago but I couldn't recall any incident of head banging. Anyway, fluid gathered at the clot area and put pressure on his brain, causing the acute headache and the lost of strength on the right limb. He needed to go on a minor surgery to drain off that fluid which was the root of the problem.

I stayed with him in the hospital until he was wheeled to the OT. I hope everything will be fine after the operation.

p/s: My MIL just sms-ed me to tell me that he's back to his ward and everything is ok. :))))) She took over me and waited for him to come out of the OT while I came home to rest...

Bento #70

I baked the broccoli and cauliflower in advance. It's yummy!! The usual suspects will get to try this dish in the next gathering! :)

Bento #69

Clement was having this terrible migraine for the past 2 days. Last night, his migraine became so bad that he couldn't sleep at all. Even panadols couldn't help. He sat up at 3am this morning and wanted to bang his head against the wall. I woke up to help him put some medicated oil and massage a little for him. In the end, he fell asleep but I was wide awake!!!=_=

So I went to the kitchen to make bento at 3am. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. 3am.

I made baked rice with the usual stuff. However, this time I added some biscuit crumbs just to see how it goes. Hmmm... not very nice. Should have stuck with my old recipe. This bake rice I give it a 3/10.

I went back to bed at 4.30am and slept till 6am... and I was yawning out loud the whole day....

小老师

媛媛：爸爸，来！我是老师，你是小朋友！

爸爸：好啊。那我该坐在哪里？

媛媛：坐这里。（拍了拍地上）

媛媛：（拿起了书本）老师要讲故事了。快点坐好，不要动来动去！

爸爸：好啦，好啦。

媛媛：听故事，不讲话，安安“听听”来坐下，我们谁也不讲话，老师请讲话。

爸爸：是“安安静静来坐下”。

媛媛：嘿！！我是老师，你是小朋友啦!

爸爸：........（被打败了）

Favourite Colours

For a number of nights now, Jae has added to her pre-bedtime routine this little gesture of sending an imaginary balloon up to the moon. I think she got this idea planted in her from that night a couple of weeks ago when I "threw" an imaginary balloon out of the window after I got tired of the pretend play. My act upset the little one more than I'd anticipated, and sent her into one of her tearful wails. Feeling a little guilt-stricken, I told her that I'd wanted to send the "balloon" as a present to Mister Moon, to tell him that Jaimie had been a good girl deserving of praise. Fortunately, that tale I spun managed to placate her and she went off to sleep happily shortly after.

As she sent her helium-filled gift sailing out of the window tonight, Jae waved and said "Bye-bye, balloon!". I thought it was cute, and went on to ask her what colour the balloon was.

"Red!", said Jae.

"Oh, is red the favourite colour of the Moon?", I asked.

"Moon likes white and red.", she explained. Hmmm...I didn't know the moon favours our national colours.

"So, what are your favourite colours, Jaimie?"

"My favourite colours is pink and orange."

"Are. My favourite colourSSS ARRRE pink and orange.", I intonated meaningfully.

"My favourite colours IS pink and orange.", she insisted. Oh well, another time perhaps.

"Papa's favourite colours are yellow and orange.", I offered.

"No!! You like blue and yellow!", Jae corrected forcefully.

"Ehh? Who told you so?"

"Mmmm....Gong-gong told me.", she said coyly, looking slightly away.

"Is that right? And who told Gong-gong that Papa's favourite colours are blue and yellow?"

No reply this time. I repeated my question and threw in a "Huh?" at the end.

"很凉!", she responded cheekily, pointing at the table fan by the bay window.

Wah. Change topic and language at the same time ah? Ok lah....Papa shall let you off this time. I'd save my sermons on the virtues of honesty for another night.

Bento #68

Bentos made towards the end of the week are usually "fridge clearing bentos". As most of you would have known by now, I am really quite bad at estimating the amount of food to buy and cook. And being a typical kiasu Singaporean, I always buy more "just in case".

I love vegetables, so my bento clears up most of the vegtables in the fridge.

I was eating my bento when I received a text message from MF. She wished me well on this very hectic day in the week of mine. The friendship and warmth really touched me and I felt really, really blessed. :) Thanks, MF!! :))) Shortly after, I went to class with a warm stomach and heart. It feels so good.


I tried to make a sunflower with tamago, french beans and tomoto to cheer Clement up since he was quite sick for 2 days after the sandcastles building session. Unfortunately, I have to tell him I have arranged the food to look like a flower because he couldn't see the pic. Again. Until I told him so.

Bento #67

Heh heh heh, these bentos are my more presentable ones! I took about an hour just to decorate them and put them nicely in the boxes. I would have to wake up at 4am to make the bentos if I had not prepared the rice and moulded them the night before!

This is for YH. YH was most impressed with the tamago. Ya lah, because I bought them from Giant. I couldn't possibly make them.

This is for Clement. I got this 2-tier bento box from Daiso. Nice, does-not-have-cute-hello-kitties-which-make-Clement-feels-embarrassed, practical and of course, cheap.

My bento is usually of "factory outlet" quality. The not-so-nicely-moulded onigiris, left over stuff which cannot fit nicely to the other bentos, decos with minor defects etc will usually end up in my box. I don't really mind having a "factory outlet bento" because I want those who get my bentos get the prettiest ones.

Middleage

Middleage is that awkward period when you arn't old enough to officially skive by leaving the physical work to the younger folks, while your body incessantly sends you signals to remind you that it's no longer the way it was in yester-years.

Today, as part of our organisation's retreat, we were made to build sand castles at Castle Beach @ East Coast Park. In the rain.

I am literally falling apart now.

Bento #65, #66

Frankly speaking, I didn't sleep well last night partly because I was over stimulated in the TABOO game we had in the evening t the Chuang's place. I was still thinking how some words could have been explained and lamenting the fact that I knew the word "totem" which WG was describing but she was buzzed by Clement because she said the word "tall".

Anyway, I think I slept a total of about 2 hours "this morning" and I still woke up at 5.20am to make bento. Applause, please. *bow*

Here's bento 65 and 66, basically they have the exact same ingredient. For breakfast I layered ham, diced green pepper, pineapple cubes, diced tomato and halved button mushrooms on the baguette spread with ketchup as the base and topped with mozzarella cheese. Pushed them into the oven for a good 15mins and they turned out nice and crispy but not anymore when I ate them later. Maybe I should bake a little longer. Viv packed some baked chicken wings for me and they were in my bento today! Nice and yummy! Thanks!!

Recently everybody is talking about Korean strawberries. They look really unripe but surprisingly they taste really, really sweet! They were as good as those we plucked from the strawberry farms in summer. What did the Koreans do to the strawberries to give them such sweet taste, I wonder.
This is my lunch. The same ham, mushroom, pineapples etc in animal shaped pasta. The sauce? Ketchup. Just toss them together. It's simple and delicious. I saved the chicken wings for lunch. Ohhh.. what great satisfaction! *BURP*

Warming Viv's and Jac's new house

Viv and Jacky moved to a really beautiful house recently and they invited us for house warming today! And we were going to have a popiah party! How nice! Viv is an top class chef so please do not even ask me whether the popiah are nice. Of course they are yummy yummy!

Spacious and homely dining area. Wolfgirl helping herself to another cup of sprite plus orange juice with MINT. *roll eyes* Well, this herbal plant thing is a private joke among the few of us.

Ok, and she had baked chicken wings with BASIL! *roll eyes again*

Viv, we're so envious of your herbal plants...

Jaimie made herself very at home.

Jaimie and Ezra. Sigh. Look, I am quite sure they have no feelings for each other anymore. There isn't any communication and eye contact! For the background of their story, see here.

After the delicious popiah and kweh pie-tee, we tried to lock the children in the room while we had a game of Taboo. However, the children broke free of the prison decided to join their parents in this intellectual game.

It was such an enjoyable evening. Both the adults and the children had loads of fun!

Viv, this is a little message for you but I have to express it in Chinese...

在这个充满爱与欢乐的新家里，祝愿你们生活得充实，幸福，愉快。

Tag: 6th folder, 6th photo

Thanks for the tag, Angeline!

***Rules***
1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture.
3. Post it on your bloggy and tell the story that goes with the picture.
4. Tag 5 other glorious peoples to do the same thing and leave a comment on their bloggy tellin’ them ’bout it.

This is exciting because I really do not know which is my 6th folder and the 6th photo in it. This is going to be even more exciting for people who like to do self-portrait in the... bedroom!! wahahahaha!!!

Opps! My picture is taken in the bedroom!!

Coincidentally, the 6th album belongs to Jaimie and 6th folder is a collection of her pictures at 6mths old. This is just a random shot taken at our old house in the bedroom, apparently. Jaimie has kicked off her pacifier since July last year but she is still in love with her bean pillow. AAWWWwwww... my little girl at 6mths old....

Here are my 5 friends whom I will tag:

Wolfgirl, Vivian, Idy, Meekfreek, Diana.

瘾君子: My Top 5 Addictions

I suspect this is my wife's way of reminding me just how long it has been since my last post on the blog, and her giving me that little nudge to get me off my lazy butt.

No particular reason why I havn't been contributing at all lately. Writers' block, uneventful days, overwhelming exhaustion, pure laziness, all of the above. You know how it is with things, once you get into a doing something consistently and regularly enough, the force of habit kicks in and it becomes routinised. Exactly the same goes for NOT doing something. That was what happened to me when I laid off blogging for a while.

So, anyway...back to the Tag. Oh, it has indeed been a considerable while since the last Tag appeared on this blog (not counting Angie's recent one lah). I'm glad it is an easy (short) one. One that I can work on, now that I'm curiously awake at this odd hour, with my laptop on my well, lap and my two babies soundly sleeping on the bed next to me. Well, here it goes.

(1) The smell of Jaimie's hair (not when it is sweaty and sticky, though)

(2) The taste of Angie's bentos

(3) The sound of the line "Papa, I Love You"

(4) The feel of the bed after a long and tiring day

(5) The sight of my two girls, side by side, soundly asleep

I feel truly blessed that I can indulge in a couple of the above at this very instant. Ok, I'm gonna do (4) too now.

G'night.

JAIMIE'S SECOND PROFESSIONAL HAIRCUT

Jaimie had her first professional haircut done in Nov 2008. I predicted she will need another haircut in 2.5years' time but I am pleasantly surprised that she needs one in 3mths' time!

I asked her if she would like to get her haircut. She remembered the treats she got during her last visit, the balloon, the sweets, the stickers. She nodded profusely and was so excited that "haircut" was the hightlight program for her today! The first thing she said when she woke up from her nap was to ask us to bring her for her haircut and so off we went to Vivocity in search of Junior League.

We forgot where was the Junior League so we searched the directory at B2. To my horror, it wasn't listed! The only haircut service available was QB House! Jaimie realised that there wasn't any balloons and stickers in the "hair salon" and she refused to cut her hair. I didn't want to disappoint Jaimie so I asked Clement to drive to Suntec City, which he said no. When we went up to level one, we saw Best Denki having some road show and there were some balloons. I was very smart so I bluffed Jaimie with a whole pack of lies about the salon was too small and they kept the balloons over here. So if she went for her haircut, she would get her balloon after that. With little more convincing needed, Jaimie agreed to go for her haircut and so I bought the ticket before she changed her mind. To replace the basket of sweets given to the little customer in Junior League, I let her have a dollar coin and promised her a kiddy ride after the cut.

I was glad the Jaimie enjoyed her haircut. She was smiling throughout the haircut and when the hairdresser asked her to close her eyes, lower her head etc, she obliged and won a lot of praises from the aunty. That really made her very happy.

Tah-Dah!! I want Jaimie to keep her hair short as the weather is really quite hot recently.

And so I went up to the road show and approached a staff for one of their balloons. They were really kind to give me one of their deco balloons.

The father and daughter did some balloon chasing in the fountain area and Jaimie got wet. Luckily I bought an extra set of clothes for her. I don't usually do that but because Jaimie was having a little diarrea, I bought one set just in case.

Meekfreek messaged me later to tell me that Junior League is located in Toys R Us. AHhh!!! Yes!! That was where we saw it the last time! Nevermind, we'll go there in 2.5mths' time, hopefully!

Tag: Top 5 addictions

Thanks for the tag, Joyce! It has been a long time...

This is easy for me, for I have alot! The difficult part is to decide which are the top 5...

(1) ICE CREAM

(2) SHOPPING

(3) MAKE BENTO

(4) TEA

(5) BLOGGING and READING BLOGS

I used to watch a lot of drama series but personal time was very precious nowadays to glue myself to the tv. Reading is a passion, I think, not so much of an addiction. I am still very fond of reading and will find time to read no matter how busy or tired I am. It is very difficult for me to enter a library without bringing a book out. Hence, I always borrow more books than I can read. Hmmm... maybe the borrowing part is an addiction!

Being tagged are the following people:
Clement, Angeline, Diana, LZMommy (if you haven't given birth yet!!!), Meekfreek.

Bento #64

It has been a long time since I ate this: marie biscuits soaked in hot milo! This used to be my favourite breakfast/ teabreak when I was little. Since I did not make anything for breakfast today, I made myself a cup of hot milo and threw in some rich tea biscuits from Marks and Spencer. So nostalgic!!!This is another chap-chai-berng bento. This time, everything except the steamed broccoli was from my mom's dining table. (1) home made ngor-hiang (2) lor mushroom (3) lor egg and (4) corn. I like to eat brown rice tasted and I realised that furikake makes it even more appealing! Hmm... perhaps furikake makes everything taste good! Next time I shall try furikake in oatmeal... anybody tried?

Bento #62, #63

Clement was at Holland V area last evening so I asked him to tarbao the hey-cho (prawn rolls) and san-lao horfun from the famous but attitude Holland V XO Fish Head Been Hoon stall so that we could share with my in laws when we went over for dinner.

My MIL was quite sick with fever and flu but she still cooked dinner for us. With the extra food Clement bought and the sumptuous dinner my MIL cooked, she had a lot of left over. To make her happy and to show my appreciation, I tarbao some of the leftovers for my bento today so that the food would not go to waste.

Clement's bento is for breakfast so I didn't give him alot. (eh?! not a lot meh?) The pork ball and the hey-cho was the left over while I made him egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. The broccoli were steamed in the morning.

This is very big portion!!! I had tofu, minced pork, pork balls, prawn rolls, broccoli, ginkgo buts and brown rice for lunch. This looks more like chap-chai-berng then bento... but it makes my morning more manageable. I can wake up at 5.30am instead of 5am with all the stuff prepared! Half an hour makes a lot of difference!

Today I tarbao some food my mom's place. My bento #64 for tomorrow will be chap-chai-berng styled again. I think I have found the way to make my life easier... heh heh heh.

Bento #61

HappyPig is going to buy me the delicious duck porridge for brunch so this is my pre-brunch and teabreak.

Quite healthy except for the oh-so-delicious cheese sausage. Toasted wholemeal bread with butter and vegetables, zucchini, honey tomatoes and my much needed ginkgo nuts.

Clement's bento doesn't have any ginkgo nuts (not that he has a good memory!!!!). He gets a persimmon instead.

Bento #59 and #60

I am mass producing bentos these 2 days. First I made 5 bentos of inari/orgini yesterday due to an overestimation of rice to cook, then today I made 4 crossiant sandwich bentos because in Giant, I had to buy a box of 5. In case you were wondering, Clement ate one as supper already or else I will need to make 5 bentos today too!!!

Here's my tasty yummy crossiant with cheese, egg, veg. Tomatoes and tuna spread as sides. These 4 crossiants go to: Clement, HappyPig, YH and myself. Btw, YH, if you are reading this post, hope you get well soon!

Here's my very healthy lunch. Rice (left over from yesterday!!!!!!) and steam tofu with mushroom and oyster sauce. This is very easy to make and quite tasty too! I would love to add some prawns and topped it with some corriander if I have them in my fridge.

Bento #58

This is my first attempt to make inari because I wanted to copy AF's bento idea. However, I could not figure out how to wrap the inari so I left the filling "exposed". Thanks for the tip, AF. Now that you have told me how to, I'll try again next time.

I made 5 bentos today because I overestimated the amount of rice to cook. Hence, some of my bentos are just simple onigiri instead of inari. Inari is easy to make and good to eat. I will be making more of them for my bento.

I got the cute cross-between-cat-and-bear-with-panda-eyes kamaboko from the wet market. The Thailand produced kamaboko (including those you can find in NTUC) is half the price of the Japanese ones, the taste is half as good too. :(

Wayang Wayang

I saw the stage when I was walking home after dinner and I quickly snapped some picutres. Soon, our children will not be able to see such scenes in Singapore anymore.

Chinese Wayang, or Chinese Opera, used to be such a big thing in the 70s. Some of my most memorble childhood memories was to follow my mom to watch Teochew opera or my grandma to watch Cantonese Opera. I couldn't understand a single word although I am fluent in Cantonese and I can understand Teochew. However, the fun was really to watch people, watch the performers' glittering costumes, and wait for mom to buy me cha-kwey-teow for supper or grandma to buy me a 20cents ice cream cone.

Grandma had passed on many many years ago. The art of Chinese Opera is dying too. I think it is really a pity that our children think that ge-tai is the norm to celebrate the hungry ghost festival.

Nothing Much Is Happening...

Nothing much is happening lately but I still want to blog to say that nothing much is happening lately.

I wasn't making bentos because I was on 3 days MC... so I was just resting at home. I am well now, so I think I should be making bento on Monday! I have already bought the ingredients today.

Since I was on MC, there was nothing much happening since most of the time I was sleeping and sleeping. I had so much sleep debt to clear.

Clement was extremely busy. What could he be busy with? Of course it was not work! Dont be silly! He manages his work-life balance extremely well. He was busy training in Mario Kart so that he could go online to challenge Cedric and Elodie. Mario Kart is the game Ced gave him as his birthday present. I tried to play a little... I think I need to go for more driving lessons.

Jaimie had been having a slight runny nose for almost a week and a half but it wasn't serious enough to bring her to a doctor. 2 days ago, she developed a cough with plenty of phlegm. Last night came the fever. We wanted to bring her to go on the Singapore Flyers and Singapore River Cruise this morning but the plan was postphoned till she gets better. Instead, she visited the doctor this morning.

That's the update for the past few days.

A Very Special Rose

When I was sitting at my desk and getting upset over some issues, somebody knocked on my cubicle. I turned around and saw my ex-student, Bryan, with a stalk of rose in his hands.

"Mrs Ng, I want to thank you for the help you have given me last year when I was re-taking my A levels. I really appreciate it very much. This is my way of saying thank you."

I quickly stood up and received the rose with two hands. And I was very, very touched and happy.

I taught Bryan in 2005. He dropped the subject I was teaching because he could not manage 4 A level subjects. When he sat for the A levels in 2006, he did not do well enough to get to the university. He took the exam again in 2007 and still, he did not make it. Then, with great determination, he re-took the exam in 2008. He was serving NS and he could only study when he was off-duty. Every night, he studied from midnight to 4am. Last year, he texted me and asked me if I could pass him some notes or past year papers on the subject which I taught (and he re-taking it). I dug out all my old files and sent them to him. It wasn't very troublesome but this grateful boy thanked and thanked me. While waiting for his results, he is currently serving as a relief teacher in my school.

This is the beauty of the teaching profession. You know you are doing something worthwhile in your job. You know you are touching and changing lives of the young people. You know you are not just teaching them the subject content but you are shaping their values and moulding their characters. This is why I love my job so much and am very passionate about it.

From Bryan's point of view, I may have motivated him and salvaged him. However, it is students like Bryan who help me to stay focused and motivated, especially when I am feeling frustrated, upset and disillusioned.

Bento #57

Life is all about balances.

Sometimes I take many pictures of one bento, sometimes I took none.

Sometimes I wake up at 5am, sometimes I oversleep till 7am.

Sometimes I eat ultra healthy bentos, sometimes my plate(s) is full of lard.

Today is a balanced bento, which I didn't take any picture of. It's brown rice with a slice of bak kwa.

Life is all about balancing.

For example, if your husband buys a new car, you buy a new (second hand also can) branded bag to balance things out.