516 is Teacher’s Day.  I had made some bookmarks for the kid’s teachers. The older kids will be celebrating in school next Monday though.

Today, I let JS bring the handmade cards and some token of gifts for her teachers.

At 6pm , I received a surprise call on the fixed line. One of the teacher called to thank me personally for the gifts. I have never expected that. I expect no return, but a simple gesture of acknowledgement does make a different.  She really did not need to do so, she could just thank me the next day, but she called up personally. She is not even JL’s class teacher, but teaches the 6 years old class and teaching JL’s class music.  That’s the joy of receiving and the joy of giving.

Later I told JL about it.  She asked “why the the other teachers never called?”

I said ” Maybe the teachers don’t have our number. tell will say thank you when they see me”

JL “You know, only Teacher Ann hugged me after I give her the present. Other teachers never hugged me”

It does shows a lot of the quality of a good teacher in scenario like this.

I have actually no intention to write anything about Mother’s Day, though I have seen many friends sharing their Mother’s Gifts (which is actually done in school with the guidance of teachers) and celebration in their FB and blog. I just feel that it has been overly commercialized.

I had an early dinner celebration with my parents last weekend (the first Sunday of May). It was a mistake actually. I’ve called my brother on Saturday telling him that the next day is Mother’s Day and we shall go for dinner together (even told hub about it and my in laws that I want to reserve the Sunday for my parents)…but only to realize on Sunday itself that Mother’s Day actually falls on the 2nd Sunday not the first. Nevertheless we just carry on with our plan. Thinking that it does not matter if we celebrate on the day itself or not and that we can avoid crowds, overpriced and quality compromised food on a busy day (the actual day)

I did not expect anything from my children. JL did bring back an art work from school on Thursday, which did not make me go OOh and AAhh and all excited about it. Nothing to get excited because the initiative and preparation is from the school. Not her own will. (too young for her to know)

On Friday, when I pick JS up from school, I saw her carrying a gift wrapper.  The moment she stepped in the car, she told me she bought it from the book shop in school and it is for a surprise gift, but she has not think of what gift to make yet.  All I could think off the surprise gift was something done from scrap, which she is very good at, or probably a card, which do not need a brand new gift wrapper. I didn’t give much thought to it after that.

Comes Saturday, she told me “Mummy, I think I don’t have time to do anything for you this Mother’s Day”

I said “Ok. I don’t want anything at all. As long as you all don’t fight and help me with housework, I am happy”

Sunday was a usual day for me. Busy as usual.  Woke up early to prepare the kids for basketball lesson in school. Woke them up, prepare simple breakfast for them and hubs sent them off to school. And my man left the pick up job for me. As he has a filial son’s role to play. His dad has been expressing his wish to go down to Malacca for weeks, hence this filial son finally decided to drive his parents down to Malacca for a day trip that very Sunday, else he won’t have time until we come back from vacation in June. He left the house early  with 4 kids for me to handle on Mother’s Day!!

Went to pick the kids up after their lesson. JS said she wanted breakfast… omelet and sausages! We did not have any more sausages at home and she seems to be craving strongly for it. We were already on the way home, but detoured to the pork shop to get some sausages. Back home while they shower, I was busy in the kitchen preparing their second round of breakfast of omelet, sausages and fried mushrooms.  Ooh…by the way, before they were back from school and before the two younger ones woke up , I had bring in the laundry, fold them, ironed tonnes of clothes and hand wash and machine wash another load of laundry and hang them out.

After breakfast, kids were chilling out at the living area playing toys. I was a little mad at them as someone left the dish on the table after finishing their meals and didn’t bring it to the kitchen and the floor and table were a mess of food crumbs. I was mad that no one offers to help and I still work like a bull on Mother’s Day.  I grumbled a little as I don’t even see JS, she had escaped upstairs doing her own thing right after breakfast.

She came downstairs much later while I was getting ready to bake a cake as the bananas were getting overripe on the table. She offered to take over. I let her.

While waiting for the cake to bake, they were playing with some tessellation tiles and JS called out to me “Mummy, come and see this”

She said ” I love you mum!!”

Arghh…at least cooled down my fire a little

After I had done with all the housework and got them lunch, I decided to drop over at my parents place. Told them to get ready and that’s the time I went upstairs again after I have woke up since the morning

I saw this on my work table

It did bring a smile to my face for an instant. But I did not open it. Knowing very well that the box was from their aunt, my SIL the night before. It was a door gift from a wedding dinner with two candies inside.

On the way to my parent’s place, we stopped over at the bakery to get mum a cake. In the car, JS asked “Did you see it? Have you opened it?”

Me “aiya… I know what it is already. I didn’t open. You are not sincere, you used the gift Ku Ma gave to you and use it as a gift for me”

She didn’t say anything further and so did I . We chatted on something else

We spent a couple of hours at my parents place and left at 5pm as hub was already home.

All of us napped and woke up about 7 pm. Went to  Pizza Hut for dinner, a place that we thought would be less crowded compared to Western cuisine/chinese restaurant or any other fancy restaurant.  Still it was pretty busy at the restaurant, but we didn’t have to wait for too long.

The gift was left unopened on my laptop still.

The reason why I wrote this down was because on Monday (yesterday), while clearing the table, just so happen, I unwrapped the gift. It really did surprise me.

No, she didn’t give me the two candies from the wedding. She didn’t just wrapped the box from her aunt and pass it as a gift to me.She had something else for me in the box. Guilty at charge!!! Guilty for not showing appreciation, guilty of not trusting her!

My daughter had actually stitched a heart made of felt for me. Very neatly done up too. I didn’t know when she did it, must be when I was busying downstairs on thatSunday morning.  I felt that I have owe her a gratitude on her loving gesture for me.

This morning I overslept again!!! We miss the transporter’s van again. But the good thing is I woke up at 6.30 and it was still not too late to send JS to school personally and not being late.

The toughest part of having early morning school going kids is to get up early. I am definitely not an early bird and i definitely hate it. Hate this kind of responsibility. Looks like I have 17 more years to go through this

It is exam week now. Over the years, I have learned not to be stressed out and be so take marks so highly. We are pretty relax even during exam weeks.

Kids had sat for three papers as of today. Today WH came home and told me that he got 66% for his English paper which he sat yesterday.

Me ” so fast teaching finish marking meh? Teacher gave the paper back to you already?”

WH ” teacher told me the marks. What do you think?”

Me “ok. Not too bad”

WH ” 66 also good meh?”

Me “Good enough but you can try harder next time”

WH ” Good enough meh? I think is very bad leh. I want to get 100, or 99″

Me ” you can try harder the next time”

Ever since he is diagnosed with dyspraxia/dyslexia, I have learned to set my expectation according to his pace and not what I want him to achieve. But what I am grateful is I never have to scream for him to revise or complete his work.

You will know that the mother is a FB kaki/blogger by looking at this pic

This was taken two months ago. Because mum (moi) takes picture of everything with the thought of blogging about it/posting in FB. Kids take up this habit too, including a two year old toddler. When she was younger, she used to bring me the camera and sign to me asking me to take pictures of what she has done, especially her doodle. Now she does it on her own.

Every since our maid’s contract ended and we are left without a maid, JE is always tailing behind me observing what I do and having her hands in what I do too. From hand washing clothes, to hanging up laundry, picking up dirty laundry to put in the laundry basket to sweeping, making bed and washing dishes, she always volunteers her help. She keeps the dry laundry on her own initiative too.

At 2.2 months, she already started to fold laundry without being asked to.

  This video was taken yesterday , I had to sneak to record the video as when she saw me aiming the phone at her working, she protested. She wouldn’t let me refold too. But she isn’t doing too bad for her age. 2 years 3 months old. We don’t need ziccofold!!

That’s the beauty of keeping my little ones around me when I do chores. Need not have to babysit them with any gadgets.

I have three girls, but only the younger two are girlish and vain. They like dressing up, playing with dolls and all sort of girlish stuffs , whereas JS can’t really bothered about these. Even when she was at her sister’s age, at age 2 – 4, she has never really like dolls. She never like Barbie dolls and princessy stuffs. I have caught the two younger girls starring at the mirror, climbing up the bedroom vanity tables, admiring themselves. Good thing they have each other to be into all these girlish stuffs.

Playing hairdresser game.

This is what JE does when she just woke up and still in a state of daze in the morning when I need to hang up the laundry. A year ago, when she was just 16 months old, it’s not quite possible she would lie down on her own. When she is sleepy, she would cry her lungs out wanted to be carried and nurse. Often when I am doing chores, I have to wear her in the sling. Now she can lie down on the bench and watch me. Luckily we have this comfortable bench in the porch.

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May is a good month to demonstrate `Gratefulness’. There are two ocassions which one can demonstrate that character ie. 1. Mother’s Day (13 May 2012) 2. Teacher’s Day (16 May 2012). Let us take these opportunities to show the people we love by extending our appreciation to them with a `Thank you note’, dinner or even a hand made gift. We can extend the “Gratefulness” character to the month of June by on Father’s Day.

Some thoughts of gifts to be considered for your dad, Mens diamond cross .

I guess it must be under heavy influence by her 2nd sis, JE is another vain pot in the making. She chooses her own attire, matching shoes and accessories. Many times I caught her admiring herself in front of the decorative wall mirror.

She has so little hair, but she likes to play with her hair, choosing her own hair clips and etc.

  This is her, using the oven door as a mirror attempting to tie her hair. She is not even 2.5 years old, but she can hold a bunch of her very little hair with one hand , another hand reach for the comb to comb her hair, after combing, she put down the comb and pick up a rubber band and attempt to tie the hair. But she had yet to learned how to twirl the rubber band to tie up her hair.