Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

how boring are we..and that strict too?

it's 9.19pm and we are home for the evening.

actually, we just got home from our new years eve "party".

i can remember a time when i got home from new years eve parties at 9.19am the next morning.  that was 15 years ago. a decade and a half! back when george clooney was on ER!

at 6pm we went down to chad and andreas for dinner. it is cold in hong kong right now, about 13 above, and of course no flats here have central heating. andrea had made dumplings and beef stew. "northern english food" she said, putting mashed potatoes on the plates.

her kids immediately tucked in.

my four shifted around, drank all the juice in their princess cups, pushed their spoons around their plates and generally were a PITA. if you don't know that particular acronym, then accept they were unpleasant.

i decided it was a good idea for charles to reveal the ben and jerry's ice cream he had brought for dessert, and this was enough to prompt my kids into putting a few mouthfuls into their pieholes. except for sebastian. he was poking adam, laughing, loud, and interrupting everyone. charles repeatedly asked sebastian to eat, and he chose not to. finally, charles issued a rather harsh ultimatum, "eat some dinner or you will have to go home." after one and two warnings and no action from my little blonde boy, charles apologised, and led wailing sebastian out of andrea and chad's and into the  lift, heading for home. goodnight sebastian. this is a consequence for your action.

poor sebastian.

everyone else finished what i considered enough of their meal, but it was still embarrassing. my kids are the last to finish when they try anything new. argh!

then it was time to watch shrek 2, and then high school musical, which predictably, jasper loved. adam and asheligh curled up on the sofa and watched happily, while the adults ate their stew and ice cream, and chatted away, watching the four youngest kids traipse into the playroom, where they started playing their newest favourite game, "mummy and daddy".

sela reappeared after a while, wearing a pair of ashleigh's pajamas. then carys, similarly dressed. and of course jasper, wearing nothing but a shirt of adam's and nothing else. think demi moore in ghost.

"we're going to bed!" they announced, holding up soothers. "Here are our dummies!"

jasper did decide, like every perfect housewife that before he went to bed that he needed to give the floors a good hoover, and so he did. the girls meanwhile, were giggling and really being no bother to anyone. the kids were being great, but really, how long can it go on for? one last cup of tea. one warning that we were leaving in 10 minutes, and half an hour later, we started cleaning up. found jasper's bobs and sela's tights.

pushed the kids into the lift, and went home. they were in bed two minutes later, and are asleep now.

sebastian had a harsh punishment tonight. will it make a difference in his ways?

stay with us for another year and find out.

head on over to charles' blog (link is on the right hand side of the page) to see recent pix of the fab four.

big day in life of sela and carys: bedrails came off today....and they have been asleep for 90 minutes and so far no   

BUMP.......

wahhhhh

MUMMMEEEEE!!!!!

may it continue!

introspection

one of the advantages of blogging is that there's only my side of the story to tell. it's like being called to the witness stand and not being cross-examined.

i would hope that as a fairly confident person and one who desires to learn and do better (even if i have issues with shame) that i don't always make it seem like i was the better person in altercations and everyday situations.

while tess 2007 is a far superior model than say tess 1995, there are still so many improvements to be made. i try too hard at times to make things happen, if someone i love has been hurt i find it tough to forgive, i can be overly sensitive. all very bad things that i try to recognise and keep perspective of. things God is helping me with when i'm not being a stubborn cow and not keeping Him in the loop. i don't like these aspects about myself any more than you do. believe me. i'm trying.

conquering something that has held you back is difficult.

recognising that you are no longer bound by that damaged emotion or way of being is amazing.

so roll on 2008.

i think this serves as my new years post.

ps i scored a huge win on ebay today. more to come.

magnificent and i celebrated Christmas eve in bed, watching a traditional Christmas film.

"it's a wonderful life"

"a Christmas carol"

"Rudolph the red nosed reindeer"

heck, even "Mr bean's Christmas" are all very good guesses, but may i lead you in anther direction.

we lay in bed exclaming over the great festive movie that is

DIE HARD

could alan rickman be any cuter? i mean, really. and bruce, so young and un-crumpled and the tushie on him!

admittedly, i didn't stay awake for all of it, i dozed off right where bruce outsmarts the forementioned mr rickman. but charles was stoic and stayed up almost until the credits. we don't need to see bonnie bedelia punch the reporter, that's a bit yawn-ish. the reporter is hilarious.

what was not yawn-ish was the next morning. sebastian stirred at around five am and i nudged charles. charles jumped out of bed and guided sebastian into the bathroom for a wee and then back to bed. by 6.45 they were assembled at the kitchen table eating froot loops (whole wheat...mean to appease me so i wouldn't gasp about how the milk turns purple after the sugar coated cereal has been in the milk for three minutes) and i was drinking tea. my throat was rather sore, i remember thinking, and my, my ears were itchy.

we opened stockings, and the kids were thrilled and so was i. some great presents from a great husband. i bought him some cashmere socks and he liked them. i was worried he might find the print too "funky", but he did like them. wore a pair this morning, i think!

the kids loved their stocking presents, the girls changed into their strawberry shortcake knickers and strawberry shortcake tights STRAIGHT AWAY. and then they danced around asking when we could open what was under the tree while charles and i got the turkey into the oven and washed dishes and got dressed, etc.

i think they loved every single present they received this year. lots of cries of

i love this present!

this is exactly what i love!

the girls received pink tutus and immediately put them on, and did twirls. jasper strummed his new guitar and sebastian announced jasper needed to share. sebastian loved his new star wars toys and superman movie. the girls received a cinderella doll that came with makeup and rollers, and they made her purple and red all over. jasper received his copy of "home alone", looked at the front picture of macauley culkin and exclaimed, "it's me!"

alot of laughter.

dinner was good, the turkey SPECTACULAR but the gravy wasn't. charles popped open a bottle of champagne (real not fizzy sparkling white) and dale and steph and their four boys came over. jasper was horrid at dinner time so he was put in his room for 90 minutes until we gave him a few morsels of dinner (no dessert) and popped him back into bed. he didn't even get to participate in the happy birthday Jesus cake or eat a piece.

the next day, i went to the hospital and got the same diagnosis as last time and a longer prescription. i don't really feel much better yet.

but it was a great Christmas. really fantastic. how was yours? were Christmases better when you were a kid, or are they better as an adult?

...update....

we are just finishing the stockings and trying to be civilised as we discuss where to place the stockings.

despite the thousands of reasons that scream DON"T!!! i want the stockings to be at the bottom of the beds, so the kids will see them full and intriguing and exciting first thing in the morning.

it's that first thing in the morning that concerns charles.

he's right of course, but i just wanted to be awakened by the gasps and shrieks of the littles as recognition dawned that Christmas Day was finally here. of course, if that shriek came at 5am, i would be cross beyond all belief.

stockings will likely be beside the tree.

update over. bed is beckoning.

countdown till Christmas

it is Christmas eve and everyone is in bed. i have accomplished the tasks i had for myself today, and so magnificent and i will shortly head to snooze-land as well, knowing the tablewear is out, the flatware polished and ready, the broccoli sliced, the turkey brined and in the fridge since 6.30pm, the happy birthday Jesus cake frosted and 12 candles located and placed in a location where i can easily find them tomorrow (famous last words). there are a couple last minute gifts to wrap, but i can manage those in bed because none of them are for magnificent.

we went to st john's cathedral tonight for their family christingle service. although union church is the oldest church in hong kong, st johns is probably the most famous. it is a gorgeous cross-shaped building

http://www.stjohnscathedral.org.hk/home.html

and beautifully furnished inside. because of it's age and size, it costs approximately us$5,000 to maintain the building DAILY.

the Christingle family service was at 5pm, and union church's service was at 6pm. knowing that my kids needed to be in bed by 7.30 sharp, we decided on the st john's service, and headed into central with chad, andrea and adam, ella and ashleigh. the building was crammed with people, and charles and chad got us seats at the very back of the building. even then, we only had eight seats, so ella and sela shared a seat and jasper happily planted himself on my lap. i had brought crayons to divert the kids in case they got noisy.

about five minutes into the service (right after the first hymn), sebastian and carys needed to use the toilet. charles offered to take them and adam decided he needed to go too. the sermon began. it was quiet indeed as the rector asked, rhetorically,

who was born on Christmas Day?

and all of a sudden, the voice next to me, screams out happily and confidently in the silent cathedral, "BABY JESUS!" it's jasper and he's thrilled. (and paying attention???)

heads turn, laughter swells, and the slightly shocked rector says, "that's right!" and jasper nods. satisfied.

a couple of other kids now decide that it is open mike nite, and they answer the next few questions. (jasper doesn't because my hand is over his mouth.)

and just when i think it is safe, i remove my hand just as the rector says the word, "shepherd". well, that's just too much for jasper.

"i am a shepherd!" he bellows. "i can't wait to see baby Jesus!" there is so much laughter (majority from chad) that the second part of his sentence is largely not heard.

the rector continues on, and asks someone else (we were so far away, that i couldn't tell if it was adult or child,), "what do you think, cameron?

and of course, ding dong double damn it, whose party did jasper go to on thursday? you guessed it.

"cameron?" jasper says incredulously. "cameron's my friend!"

shortly after the sermon ceased, we got our Christingle candles (candles placed in an orange) and we held them up and sang songs and of course one of the carols was "away in a manger" and if you remember from a few days back, someone in our home loves that song.

and jasper turned to the person behind him and said, "i like this song!" and belted out the words to the first verse throughout verses one, two and three.

in our defense, it does say the Christingle service is a family service.

i'm just glad they didn't sing jingle bells.

happy Christmas.

tragedies always seem most tragic at Christmas.

within the last 24 hours, i have learned of two tragedies.

one, a triplet mum in michigan who died during delivery due to complications. never got to hold her two new daughters and son. http://www.woodtv.com/global/story.asp?S=7527243 amniotic fluid got into the bloodstream.

second, this morning at 7.30 a friend of mine died of cancer. a brave friend who held her husband, son and daughter many times, who had been battling various forms of cancer on and off for years. she used to live in our building, and the family also attended our church. we served on the fellowship ministry team together. odila and i had lunch together with her in late october.

and i also learned that a health scare i had, is for now, dormant.

so here we go...bits of a little poem that i have loved.

Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.

Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.

Count your health instead of your wealth;
Love your neighbor as much as yourself.

xo

despite not being musically gifted, we are a singing sort of family.

in the early days, singing was a way for me to express love and tenderness to the babies i couldn't touch and hold. it was a way for me to tease a smile out of my so serious sebastian.

in the later days, singing was a way for me to repeat the same thing many many many (i am singing as i write this!) times without going completely loco. "i like the way you're cleaning up, i like the way you're cleaning up, you're cleaning up so well..."

other top 10 hits:

tissue not the finger, please

first time i ask, please

when a door is shut, you should do what?

shh shh shh! good night my loves, i hope you are well, good night good night, miss clavell!

you get the picture.

most recently, in fact, as of yesterday, music has become a way of determining how integrated the kids are becoming into modern ways of the world.

Christmas carols do tell us quite a bit. i think we know that Rudolph the red nosed raindeer has those additional second hand lines, that we ourselves used when we were in mary janes, thank you very much. the song has morphed somewhat, as i don't recall singing lustily like my dear sebastian does, "you'll go down in history...like shakespeare!" but we did mention that rudolph never got to play any games...like monopoly!

we went to a birthday party yesterday. the birthday boy is a classmate of jasper's, and thursday jasper woke up and said, "ith cameron'th party today!"

i replied, "and you are going!"

and from across the room sela came running toward me, grabbing carys' hand so that the two of them were running together. they screeched to a halt infront of me.

"mummy" sela started, and touched her chest with one hand and her sister's with the other, "what about the girls? are they going to the party?"

"yes, cameron's mummy did invite you"

"ooh hurray!" shouted the social convenor and raced to her room to select a dress. (note: she wore chartreuse pants and a pink top).

on the way back from the party, the tired trio began singing.

"jingle bells, jingle bells,!

oh how nice i thought, what a lovely spontaneous song.

and then it continued, and my smile froze

robin flew away!

mr silly lost his willy

on his way to bal-let!

from my three year olds, thank you very much!

oh, my! i said, and where did you learn this song? like i didn't KNOW!

sebastian and adam! replied my three, who launched into it again. and then again. little rotters.

so now, music is a temperature gage of determining what they know and the context they're using them in. it's funny (not ha ha) that they start using the context the minute older brother does.

good tidings they did not bring, to one of their kin.

but what could i say to sebastian? really?

happy for hormones

i am very grateful for my hormones.

not that mine were ever particularly obedient during the infertility years, my ovulation temperature charts looked like a flatline and indicated no oestrogen surge at all. magnificent used to put my daily temperature on the computer and made a very nice, professional graph out of it all, which he converted to power point to show how month by month my hormones were not improving or moving.

but on days like today, i am grateful for hormones.

i can blame my hormones on the absolutely crap day i feel like i am having. in fact, it was a good day, denby, mother of asha and shae (jasper's "betht friends") and i took the trips and her twins out for lunch (her husband matt and their 15 month old ethan joined us) and then to a party. the kids were really well behaved. we were on the double decker bus, in taxi's, and the kids were squashed and very good.

but at home it just seems that life is miserable. at one point, sebastian was meant to be reading to me and he wasn't paying attention, and i got so fed up with drawing him back to the book. finally i just said, stop, sebastian, go away. you're not trying and i cannot make you.

he dashed away, very grateful and happy, a renewed bounce in his step and his previously inaudible voice happy and loud.

yet halfway to the table and the tableau of siblings waiting to laugh at his jokes and encourage him in his ideas, he turned and raced back to me and gave me a big hug.

where did he learn this empathy?

why did he hug me? did he know he was being a rotter?

my black mood was momentarily lifted, and then plunged again when i asked him to brush his teeth, four times he ignored me. action time --- no special blanket tonight. sebastian burst into tears, started using a baby voice and called me cruel and said that daddy never takes away his blanket. this is true. but as mean as i felt, i didn't give sebastian his blanket back.

instead i cuddled it as i watched "friends".

i am going to try to blame everything that is going on on hormones, and not at all on my children who hate me and my misdirected, over zealous strictness which obviously isnt getting results.

the other day i braved the masses and headed over to toys r' us.

typically, tru in hong kong follows along the same theory as hong kong grocery shops. small aisles, unfathomable turns, etc. the north american counterparts are wide-aisled and lovely, even during the Christmas season, i am confident.

while standing in line i noticed a very small sign that i might have not read had i not been trained by frugal blake to sight this word from 50 metres: FREE.

what was free? i panicked, wondering if it was worth losing my place in the queue in order to grab a bargain, a free bargain i might have missed. trying to catch the eye of a hapless salesperson who would do my bidding.

on closer inspection, the sign read, "free giftwrapping, second floor."

well, hello dolly!

i scuppered up to the second floor with my purchases, a smile on my face. free giftwrapping! tra la la la la...good tidings we bring to you and your king.....and stopped.

although there was room for three gift wrappers, there was only one at the gift wrapping counter. and the lineup was four deep. there were three businessmen, one in a very nice cashmere coat, and one woman, all holding a bag in each hand.

the girl (a tru employee but there was a bucket where you could donate to unicef) was taping herself into a frenzy. good thing frugal blake wasn't there to wince over the excessive tape she was using. "oh the waste" i could hear him muttering.

what stunned me was that in hong kong, this city of time is worth more than money...these people were willing to stand in line, when there were many places available, and wait while one person did their wrapping. especially this poor cello tape wielding girl, who looked harried and frantic and who could blame her?

perenially strapped for time tess...was i willing to wait? when for a person to do a job i very well could do?

i think not. i was only in it for the free wrapping paper!

i didn't have anywhere i had to be THAT minute...but i mean seriously. who is going to wait in line for an amateur gift wrapper to wrap your gifts when you can do it yourself.

i moved behind the counter, shrugged off my jacket, and started pulling my gifts out of the bag. the people in line observed me, but not one of them had an issue, or objected to me jumping the queue as it were. because i was doing the work myself.

i pulled nice crisp corners and taped them tightly.

flipped them over. another small tap of tape.

cello girl next to me looked at my masterpiece.

i started off with an easy, rectangular one to get me in my groove, then started in on one of the toughies.

no problem, i was cruising. not using surplus paper, eyeing the corners correctly...yes this was a good wrapping experience. 

another person came along, saw the tru employee and me, put two and two together to make a very neat four and took the next space and started in on her purchases. the people in the queue again had no truck with this.

i finished wrapping, stuffed some cash into the unicef container and then caught the bus home.

i was out of there faster than three of the four business people who had originally been ahead of me in line. and as i was leaving...one of the men brought his purchases over to me and asked if i would wrap them! "it's for charity!" he said with a smile.

worth mentioning: i always give the kids a container of cello tape each in their stockings. its a great gift. they like it almost as much as they like their m&m's.