Daph's World

34 and loving it

In a few minutes I'll be a grand old dame at the age of 34 years. As I'm sitting in the living room of my mom's place typing this and looking back on the past year, I'm so grateful for all the blessings that I hold dear to my heart. Although so much has happened throughout the course of the year, I can safely say that I've emerged from all the crap stronger and more determined than before.

Sometimes I stop and reflect on how my life has turned out, and I must admit that I never imagined to be where I am now. But I have no regrets...the trick is to be contented with what you have and not constantly craning your neck to check out what other people have. I guess it's true that when God closes a door, somewhere he'll always open another window... So I'm happy for my past 33 years and I can smile peacefully and look forward to my 34th.

Ok, enough with the emo contemplation... A couple of weeks ago we decided to be adventurous and attempt to go cycling with the kids. So 7 adults and 5 kids met at East Coast Macs early on a Saturday morning for brekkie and a plan. The problem was... there was no way I would be able to 'tumpang' my 14kg son on a bicycle without falling over disastrously. So the plan was that he would ride with Donny, whilst me and Sash get on a tandem bicycle-built-for-2 along with Jules. After much coaxing and persuasion, Jonah finally agreed to ride with Uncle Donny. Sash and I got off to a wobbly start and managed to get our groove after a bit...but if we had to make an emergency stop, that would be the end of us...

 

 

So off we went on our bicycle road trip... all the way from Macs to the East Coast Hawker Centre, where SOMEBODY insisted we stop for sugarcane juice. So we did, and chilled for far longer than our bike ride, afterwhich we were too lazy to cycle further and decided to head back. It must have been very comfy being chauffered by Uncle Donny coz Jonah fell asleep in his child seat :)

What happens when you put an Irish pub within walking distance of Donny? The inevitable happens...after we returned the bikes we ended up at the pub, where jugs of beer and all things fried were ordered. But it was jolly good fun....a chance for the adults to catch up and the kids to run amok. Days like these should come by more often :)

 

2 Birthdays and a Farewell...

As Tommy Page once sang - "Life is full of lots of ups and downs"... It's just 2 months into the new year and already we've seen colleagues-cum-friends leave the shithole organisation. I realise that we spend so much time in the office together, that colleagues usually end up forming firm friendships that last even after people come and go. We bond over bitching sessions, common nemesis, gossip sharing...and even though we're happy that they're moving on to better greener pastures, we can't help but feel sad that we're losing a friend at the workplace:

 All the best for your new and exciting endeavour Weetz!!! :)

On the upside, we had a couple of birthday celebrations this month, which involved good food and raucous merrymaking  -  Happy Birthday Marcus & Carlene!

 The 30s rock!! :)

Tiger Tiger burning bright...

Here's hoping that the Tiger year be a shiny happy year for everyone despite all the crap at work, ridiculous property prices, ever rising inflation and parenting (or parents-related) woes.... 'Huat' ah!!! :)

Chinese New Year is always a small intimate affair for us. Our family, including extended relatives, is small, so the mandatory visiting can be completed in a day over lunch and dinner. That left us 2 days of public holidays with no visiting required - yay!! We went to the club to see the annual lion dance performance and amidst all the noise of the drums and cymbals and festivities, someone decides to nod off in my arms:

Jonah doesn't really get CNY and the whole concept of ang pows yet... he tells me that he "dowan ang pows". Guess that will change in a couple of years when he understands the concept of money :) Now CNY is about eating crispy stuff aka love letters (or 'kouwk kouwk' as he calls it) and play play play. He loves showing off his power ranger moves to an appreciative audience :P

Even auntie and uncle got into the action :) The weekend before CNY we brought the kids to a play at the Esplanade... which was fun and entertaining, but what the kids really enjoyed was the running around after. Outside the Esplanade is a great place for the kids to expend their energy...Jonah and Josh were busy mimicking each other, and Sarah and Heather were eager to get in on the action... even though they were waaaaaay off the energy levels of the two monkeys.

Don't the kids look soooooooooo adorable together? :)

The Good and The Bad

First up - The Good: Green Day in concert.

It was my first concert in years and it was so damn good. So amazingly good. Can't believe that Billie Joe Armstrong is 37 years old. He has the energy level of a 12 year old that rocked the house for 2.5 hours. The band engaged the audience, interacted with them, entertained them with old and new tunes, hard core rock and tender ballads - so glad that I went for the concert.

The Bad - Green Car.

The next morning I woke up to my mom telling me that apparently a tree had fallen onto my car. Still groggy, I went downstairs and was greeted by this sight:

Talk about being unlucky... it was the ONLY car to be hit in a carpark full of cars on the one time that I had to park away from the usual coz there were no lots. So I called the police and they came down pretty quickly. Think they were also at a loss of what to do... they told me to drive my car out and advised that Town Council would be in touch with me. Thankfully my Swift is a hardy little car and came away with only some dents and many scratches. I still drove to work and the little fella worked fine. Before long HDB called to express regret at what happened but quickly informed me that the trees were not maintained by them but by Town Council. So I waited. They finally called in the afternoon to tell me that their contractor who maintains the trees in the estate will compensate for the damages to my car. Met them this morning and wasn't too impressed by their service or follow-up. We'll see how this matter works out or else somebody's gonna get hurt real baaad... 

 

The 1st day of 2010...

...was spent at the pretty greens of the Botanics where the little one indulged in feeding the swans and tortoises and splashing around at the water play area. It was a hot and sunny day...hopefully it's an indication of happy times ahead :)

The first week of work has been absolutely hectic and chaotic, with corporate planning in full steam and people obsessed with plucking inflated numbers out of their asses. This is always such a bummer after the festive season... makes you crash land back to reality. But as I'm typing this there is a rainbow outside the window - a gorgeous bright full arch that's almost near enough to touch, a stark contrast against the gloomy grey sky...puts a smile on my face and reminds me that every cloud does have a silver lining :)

 

Goodbye to the old, Hello to the new...

Farewell 2009 - it was a year of ups and downs, tears and laughter - a door closed but a new window opened, so I'm optimistic that there is hope and a new beginning :)

The end of the year is usually packed with festive gatherings, maddening shopping crowds and scratching head over how to clear leave so as not to surrender remaining days to the big bad corporate blackhole. This year was extra busy and stressful, and leave was dedicated to packing and moving. I've moved out of my abode of the past 6 years and back to my mom's place temporarily (thank you mommy *muacks*), packed and stored 52 boxes in storage and am living out of more boxes currently coz there's no space to unpack :P Let's hope that property prices will return to logic soon coz the current prices are insane - which idiot in the right mind pays $600K for a 5-room 110sqm HDB apartment??!!

But there was still time to squeeze in a couple of parties, some meet-ups with friends and happy merry-making:

Of course there were the usual office shenanigans...the office was turned into a child care centre on Christmas Eve with more than 10 kids invading the normal quiet :) Without these dear crazy colleagues work like would be absolutely unbearable:

Heartfelt thanks to all my dear mommy, friends and confidantes who have given me unwavering care and support throughout the year and have shared my woes and laughter. You've given me strength and and resolve to live life to the fullest and find meaning in living. May 2010 bring lots of joy, love and good health to everyone!! 

 

Deck the halls with lots of parties falalalalah...

The crazy round of Christmas meet-ups has begun. I have overdosed on chocolates and log cakes and it's still 10 days to Christmas... The revelry began with a long-delayed BBQ gathering at Shu's place. Jonah had little friends to play with, and was also well entertained by all the aunties and uncles. It was interesting to see the interaction between him and RH, considering that they had only previously played together once 6 months ago. Jonah was very much the uncle, telling RH what to do, how to climb, how to play...RH was happy to just have marshmellows :P

Next up was the policy gals gathering at SS' place. There were 9 kids!! Could have been more but a couple of them couldn't make it. Jonah was happily entertained by the older kids and little Lucas' toys. Even ventured to the pool to splash around (coz I didn't bring his swimmers... luckily he didn't kick up a fuss) then chilled watching Ice Age 3 where I had to give a running commentary to Jonah (Seth corrected me that they were 'mammoths' and not 'elephants' :P):

 

Also took leave (I'm still clearing last year's leave) to bring Jonah to the SSO Babies Prom, which I think is a great experience for the kids. It's his second year and I think he appreciates it more this time. It's really entertaining, even for the parents. But I think the little monkey had more fun running around after :P

More to come this weekend!! Hope everyone is having a merry merry December too :)

Go Rangers Go!

Jonah had his first school excursion last Friday and I tagged along coz I knew that he wouldn't be able to tahan 4 hours with his teachers without getting all cranky. For some strange reason, they figured that the Singapore Art Museum would be a good place to bring 2-4 year olds *scratch head* It was mighty difficult to get them to keep quiet and not run around and touch stuff, especially since when one kid acted up the rest of the herd would follow suit.

The guide was telling us that parents should encourage children to be creative through drawing and even photography, and we should ask then to explain their 'artwork', coz there usually is a reason or story behind it. I think Jonah has inherited my lack of artistic flair - his art consists mainly of lines, circles and dots, which he would proudly declare as "this is mommy" or "this is mama" - ooookay...

He's currently crazy about Power Rangers so those funny poses that he's doing are his Power Rangers stances :P

Brought him to watch Thomas and Friends Live on Stage. It took me one hour to drive to the Indoor Stadium coz of the bunch of silly people running around the island causing road closures and traffic diversions. Luckily I left early to factor in the delays - took me many detours and u-turns to get to my destination coz the public communication was crap. We got there just in time and there were many many people who were later than us. The show was pretty cool and the engines were really similar to the toys - was like seeing the toys come to life :) Jonah was well entertained for over an hour... but one gripe was that a bag of chips and a Snapple cost me $9!!! Daylight robbery!! 

Jonah also told me triumphantly that "TV say Power Rangers coming to Singapore" so I guess that will be our next show :)

Tis' the Season to be Jolly...

Can you believe that it's December already? Where did the entire year disappear to? In a couple of weeks it'll be the year 2010... that used to sound futuristic :) I can still remember when we were heading into the new millenium and the Y2K frenzy and in a blink of an eye, 10 years have flown by...

December is always a hectic month, with birthdays, gatherings and Christmas and this year there's an added burden of packing and moving... but there's always something magical about the cool rainy weather, the carols playing in the shopping centres and the festive decorations everywhere, that make even the xmas shopping crowd bearable :) Brought Jonah to town to check out the fairy lights:

Had the first of the birthday parties, 3 of them to be exact - Matt, Julian & Evan - over a span of one weekend...was super shack for mommy but I think Jonah had fun :)

So it'll be busy busy busy for the rest of December with lots of changes but hopefully Christmas and the new year will bring good cheer and new beginnings :)

 

Trick or Treat!

First time in my 33 years I went trick or treating on Halloween, thanks to Glo and Jon, who organised a get-together for the kids to trawl the neighbourhood. The evening started off really dark, gloomy and stormy, with the rain lashing down and lightning streaking the sky and thunder making the kids hide their faces in their mommies' arms. Thankfully after dinner the sky cleared up and although it was wet out, we still managed to troop around seeking candy. It was pretty cool, with some of the houses really getting into the spirit of things with ghoulish decorations and lots of candy to give out.

There were other people in costume going trick or treating too, and everyone was really friendly. I think it's the only neighbourhood in S'pore to celebrate Halloween and we saw a couple of cars pull up to park by the road and kids in costume jumped out to go trick or treating, so it must be a known fact that the Sunset neighbourhood is THE place to be on Halloween :)

The adults all found excuses not to dress up :P But Jonah had a ball as Superman. Funny thing was we had 2 supermen and 2 firemen in our little group :) He had quite a good candy haul but thankfully he doesn't have a sweet tooth so left most of the loot untouched. It was good fun and we'll be more adventurous with costumes next year :)