Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

fever "pitch"

"heyyyyyyyyyy BABY (HOOO! HAAA!) i want to knnnnooooooowwww if i can be your girl!"

today the sevens started. (and there are goodies at the end of this post)

sebastian was great. he has improved so much this year. he was interested in the game and while he didn't score a try, he prevented the other team from scoring one! he made a great two hand tackle that the referee recognised. he was closer to the scrum and participated more than he ever had. this was really great progress for him.

after his seven minutes of fame, (it was a 20-20 draw), we settled down into our front row seats with chad, andrea and adam sitting next to us, and watched some more junior rugby. sebastian and adam ate tea - hotdogs and chips. needless to say they were thrilled.

then the first game started - hong kong vs australia. it was a great game. sebastian loved watching the players take the whole field for the game, and there were some amazing tackles and plays.

by this time, the audience was really trickling in. the kids games had started at 3pm, and there weren't too many people there besides parents, to be honest. but by 5pm, there stadium was filling up, particularly the ever popular south stadium, which is the party place. there were girls in bikini's, a group of 14 "naval officers", 7 "prisoners", the village people, lots of people with frizzy pink hair, a few borats, some scots in kilts, some drunks in grass skirts....oh, hong kong loves the sevens!

sebastian got to participate in his very first "wave", and tried to learn the words to "Hey, BABY!", but let's be honest, all he wanted was to yell HOO! HAA!, which is what the majority of he men in the audience were screaming. charles, with a few beer inside of him, was singing loudly as well.

eventually, we didn't get to stay for the entire night...sebastian was getting tired. so we stayed for a bit of the new zealand blacks game and then headed out into the night, where people were walking along, avoiding the police's eyes, hissing, "anyone got tickets for sale?"

it is a great atmosphere and i can't wait to get back there.

meanwhile, we've added a photo album with some of the latest pics of the kids from the last two months. click here to access the album.

rugby sevens

the rugby sevens, the world's premier rugby sevens tourinament and one of the highlights of hong kong's social schedule kicks off tomorrow.

the first hk rugby sevens tournament was held in 1976, with eight teams competing.  as the tournament grew in popularity, more teams not only started attending, but tourists as well. and not just rugger fans! anyone who liked a party knew the sevens was a must attend tournament.

the stands are crammed with fans, many painted, most inebriated, who scream for their teams or any teams. alcohol flows freely as do songs, while the many morose fans who haven't been able to score tickets, wait outside and buy one from scalpers for up to five times the original ticket price.

at night, the parties head to lan kwai fong and wanchai, but the loyal fans still make it to the stadium for the sunday finals.

ahem.

this year, young sebastian caldwell will be participating in the "junior" tournament. this entails playing a "test match" friday to sort of kick off the weekend and entertain the fans (like the alcohol won't) between the "real" matches and another match sunday, after which all the junior teams will march past* the big teams.

tonight we were praying about the tournament and sebastian asked magnificent if he would be coaching, or at least on the field while he was playing. we said no. i don't know how sebastian is going to react, being in a stadium for 40,000 people. he has a tough enough time concentrating on the ball and remembering to "run forward, throw backwards" when he's playing on the local field. i wonder if he's not going to walk out on to the field at get totally overwhelmed!!

to help sort him out, we are going to bring a flag (i might make one with a big S on it) and wave it, so hopefully he can spot us. i don't hold out much hope...but i am sure going to try.

* the march by is a big deal and the kids need to be fully kitted out in their rugby gear. we were firmly instructed by our coaches that the kids need to wear their "socks up" for the march round, which might be a problem for sebastian. the socks are quite wide and his calves aren't, and the socks keep slipping down! i have tried elastic bands, and although it wouldn't do for the long term, at least we know we can do that incase nothing else works out.

when you are feeling blue, a number that is good is two

today i asked sebastian if he wanted to take a walk with me.

originally adam, andrea and ashleigh were going to come on the hike as well. but they ended up having a family outing, (there are such bonuses to having both parents being teachers!), and it was just sebastian and myself.

while i had my Bible study, i let him watch cartoons, and then i packed leftover easter candy, a bottle of water for me and a container of juice for the young sir. we packed our shoes, put on mossie spray and were off.

we started walking. and talking. he asked if there would be a lot of snakes that might bite us. i said i didn't think so, they would come out in a few more months.

after walking past middleton towers and high west, we passed a massive banyan tree. i took sebastian's picture under it as he stretched and tried to touch the bottom branches. then we popped up to the reservoir, and looked at the flowers blooming.

next, to my little man's chagrin, we walked up 167 steps to get to a flat, grassy plain. we walked to the eastern edge of it, and we could see our building. i called marianne, asked to go to the back of the flat and wave a brightly coloured towel. she did, and sebastian saw her and got VERY excited. a massive smile broke out over his face and he screamed HELLO TRIPLETS! very loudly.

after a while, we turned and walked up a few more steps to where the path forked. there we were offered a choice:

to the left: the peak via LUGARD ROAD

to the right" the peak via POKFULAM PATH

we chose to the right. we started walking and talking.

when we had set off, sebastian had been rather upset that adam hadn't come on the adventure. but we started talking, and walking, and soon, everything was just fine. he was having a good time, interested in everything he was seeing, the texture of the path, the birds and the possibility of flash flood waterfalls.

we discussed how if mummy hurt her leg, or couldn't walk, how sebastian would call 999 and tell the emergency services team where we were. every time we passed a marker, i told sebastian it was his repsonsibility to memorise what number it was. and he was very diligent. we did role playing on what the emt would say to him on the phone and what they would call to him when they came to find us. he especially liked calling out, "we're over here!" in a deep and manly voice.

we talked about God and how he made insects able to help plants cross pollinate.

we watched ants pulling away a dead fly. sebastian really liked that bit. we saw red ants and i warned him not to touch them.

he slipped his hand into mine at times, when he was confiding something, or when we were talking about God.

when we emerged from the path on to the path that leads down to the reservoir, i gave him an easter packet of m&m's and his juice. we kept on talking, and i told him that i was glad it had just been the two of us.

"i love the triplets and the pheasants, but i love it when it is just you and me."

he smiled at me. "why mummy?"

"because it is fun to be just the two of us. i love our family, but i can listen to you more when it is just the two of us and that is good, because you are a very interesting person."

he smiled and said, "yes i am."

and he is.

then he came home, wrote in his diary about his day and watched cartoons.

the 80's take on pms - and win

let's hear it for the 1980's and its inspirational music.

after witnessing the kids being repulsive* all today and most of yesterday, some long distance issues and charles and i not agreeing on a couple of things, i am stuck here in my pms state. i am not digging into the kids easter candy for one reason only - and has nothing to do with respecting their personal property. it is because i have a bag of my VERY own right beside me.

right now it is extremely tempting to slide into a deep funk for oh, two days would do it nicely. admitting that my children are manner free and putrid is a fact, and it is depressing, and avoiding them would be good. escaping from some of the less savoury aspects of life and focusing on milk chocolate with almonds would be sweet.

however, as i was contemplating how i could manage a two day absence from my life, i started humming a song any true child of the 80's knows...ready for it??? whitesnake's here i go again....

I dont know where Im going
But, I sure know where Ive been
Hanging on the promises
In songs of yesterday
An Ive made up my mind,
I aint wasting no more time
But, here I go again
Here I go again

An here I go again on my own
Goin down the only road Ive ever known,
Like a hobo* I was born to walk alone
An Ive made up my mind
I aint wasting no more time

* * * * *

grammatical it isnt, inspiring it is.

and then, i moved on a few years to van halen's RIGHT NOW (another righteous song that does not condone the procrastination i was kind of hoping for).

Dont wanna wait til tomorrow,
Why put it off another day?
One more walk through problems,
Built up, and stand in our way ,ah
One step ahead, one step behind me
Now you gotta run to get even
Make future plans, dont dream about yesterday, hey
Cmon turn, turn this thing around
Right now, hey
Its your tomorrow
Right now,

i'm not saying that tomorrow i am going to immediately put into an operation a 3 day plan that will result in obedient kids in 72 hours, or a perfect world and tess - but i WILL be getting on with it. one foot in front of the other. my schedule is full. i know this and i will do it all.

* the kids didn't commit any particularly heinous, just not obeying us the first time we asked, and were unreasonable at a brunch we attended where they were the youngest kids in attendance, whinging, acting like clearing up will give them acne. it just gets wearying when you're trying to be joyous about the happiest day of the year and the kids antics are getting in the way..argh.

test of faith

today was the big easter egg hunt on the playground. go to charles' blog for a pic of the Easter bags. eight families including ours, has set up to participate, and anally retentive tess had organised the event, from the egg hunt to the pizza and sausage sizzler party afterwards.

unfortunately, although on TUESDAY the weather report was predicting fine things for SATURDAY, this morning we woke up and i knew sunny skies were not to be ours.

why isn't the sky bright? asked an inquisitive child.

because it is cloudy, replied a sibling.

sebastian looked up, worried, "it is not going to rain for the easter egg hunt on the playground is it mummy?" he doesn't say mumm-eh anymore.

we prayed about it, and i told them that was the best we could do. instead we played games and puzzles, and then at 10am we decorated sheets of paper for the easter egg hunt. the skies got a little brighter, and we were happy.

at 1.30 i got a call from my friend jennifer. "is it still on?" she inquired. "it is very wet here." she was calling from the club.

"well, it is just drizzling here," i said. "if i cancel it, i will let you know."

i talked to andrea who was wtih her family on kowloon side. she was wondering the status quo. i said that if it kept up like this, there would be nothing. she said fair enough and suggested sunday as the alternative. i agrreed./

at 2.30, it was sheeting down, so i sent out an email saying that with such filthy weather, there would be no picnic, but if the rain ceased, the hunt would commence. if the rain and fog were still happening, we would postpone it, and i suggested a date.

three people called and said they wouldnb't be able to attend the postponed date.

charles took the kids out, they were having a crisis of faith. "but we prayed the rain would stop!":

at 2.45 the rain started in earnest and just came sheeting down. it was vile. and it seemed obvious, there would be no easter egg hunt. fair enough.

at 3.30 i spoke with tara who said, whatever you decide is fine. and it was still raining.

at 3.45 tara called again. "is it on? its not raining anymore!"

at 3.50 i got another call from another person. "is it on?"

at 3.51 i sent out an email saying, as of right now, it is on.

and then i called charles...and he didn't answer. where was he? where were my kids? they needed to be back for the easter egg hunt? i called andrea...its on! but they were sitting down for tea and wouldn't be able to come. i think i had pretty much said it was cancelled. i invited her up for pizza anyway. i felt really badly at this point, and HATED BEING IN CHARGE. was it my fault they were going to miss the hunt? and where was my fricking family anyway?

at 4.20, i sent out the official ITS ON email.

kids started coming with their mums to my flat, while the dads congregated downstairs planting eggs. the kids were thrilled. the mums shocked that i was even considering going ahead without my kids. we have to wait! cried susan and tara.

and so we waited, until around 5pm.

by the time my children arrived, the fathers (and one lovely mum) on the playground were soaking, because it had started to rain again. oh yes it had. sheeting down. but the kids didn't care. they went racing off and collected eggs like there was no tomorrow. some kids did really well...as i mentioned last year, none of my kids seem to have the desire for chocolate that extends past whinging and begging to what really counts in an easter egg hunt, racing and running and searching and foraging. kids had raindrops dripping off their noses and were clutching wet bags and having a great time. i was feeling guilt about andrea and her kids and realisng that this was the easter egg hunt we are probably always going to remember. the one in the rain.

when the last egg had been found, we all dried off, and then most of the families came back to ours for dinner. we ordered the pizza, people brought wine, delia smith's risotto, a pumpkin quiche, chippies, long yogurt, meatballs, and i had made a salad. it was so divine. the pizza arrived quickly and it was a good time. the kids were really well behaved, no one cried, and it was a fun evening.

the kids, when getting to bed late, commented, "we prayed to God that it would stop raining and it didn't".

and i said, "well it did, but we were late. and then when it did rain, we realised we could still have the easter egg hunt so we were lucky."

sebastian said, "God knew we could do it."

yes, he did, and although i still feel guilty that andrea and her family weren't there, i think this might be the easter egg hunt i remember, the one in the rain and the madness. the show must go on. and it did and it was wet and hilarious and bags were breaking in the rain and the stamping around in the wellie boots and the kids loved it.

a person's a person, no matter how small

this morning the crew was up not nice and early.

they were quite pleased with themselves and life in general mainly because last night as i was tucking them into bed, i had shared that the next morning we would be going to see HORTON, an adaptation of the dr seuss classic..HORTON HEARS A WHO.

the movie started at 9.30 and at 8.45 we were out the door.

why so early? you ask, quite reasonably.

why do you think? money.

taking a family of six to the flicks is not a cheap exercise. but in hong kong, cinemas charge cheaper rates for the first show of the morning. and in this case, the 9.30 viewing of HORTON was $35per person, or app US$4.50. regular tickets would have been about twice that.

so, as any daughter of frugal blake would say, "9.30am it is! popcorn for breakfast is just like corn cakes...essentially"

we walked down to cyberport with chad, andrea and their three. the kids were excited but very well behaved. so well behaved that jasper only asked me to carry him once, and that was right toward the end.

once we marched into the cinema, andrea and i corralled the overexcited bunch into the lavatories and everyone did wees and washed hands (well, i trust sebastian, adam and jasper did both of these things, i have no proof, but i was so proud of sebastian who said he would be 'daddy' and watch over jasper in the men's room). the girls definitely did their wees and as carys was sitting on the toilet trying not to fall in, and i was attending to sela who said that she only needs to hold on to the seat with one hand and can grab toilet tissue with the other hand and therefore doesn't need me in the stall with her, a girl and her mum walked past her stall and carys said, "lauren!". it was a classmate from k2, and so sela and carys chatted so happily and unselfconsciously with lauren. "i just love her." sela confided.

then, charles and chad herded the kids into the seats and charged andrea and i with snacks. which we did with aplomb, i might add. we walked in, gave the kids popcorn to share and drinks, and they were on their way.

the movie was really quite good. a nice message, not too OTT jim carrey, and the whos in whoville were really darling.

around 3/4 through the movie, jasper decided to come and sit on my lap. after 20 minutes he got down, went back to his own seat, lifted up the armrest, laid down and watched the rest of the movie with his head in my lap and his little body spread out on his seat. carys sat with her dad and i held her hand. sela sat eating everyone's leftover popcorn, and sebastian, asheligh and adam were angelic. ella had been in her dad's lap for even longer than jasper had been in mine.

they really were very sweet. all in a row, the littles. so cute. they've all grown so much.

oh, btw - jasper and ella are an item. they are holding hands and they brazenly kissed infront of andrea and me today. "what are you doing?" we asked. "kissing!" they replied. "we like it!" oy!

after HORTON, we went to the bathroom again, and this time, my most hated daughter (can't remember which one)...i had them in the stall with me and as i was doing a wee, instead of thanking me for the gorgeous privilege of going to the cinema,  one of them said, "mummy, your bottom is so big you can't fall into the toilet!" and there were was laughter from other stalls as other people overheard !

little rotters.

the other night i was sleeping soundly dreaming of something nice (spanx underwear that go up the armpits, possibly?) when i was jolted out of my happy happy dreamworld.

the culprit wasn't charles looking for his birthday present a few months early, instead, jasper was at my bedside. or rather, his body was at my bedside, his head was burrowed against my stomach.

inbetween sobs, jasper explained he had dreamed that swiper was coming to kill him. dora the deathdealer!  at least that is what i thought he said, it is rather difficult to understand what your sobbing child is saying when they are burrowed against you and ridding their snot on your shoulder.

not wanting to take a noisy child into the kid's bedroom (sela had been sleeping restlessly just a bit before), i pulled on a tee shirt and pulled jasper into our bed. he was wearing his dorothy the dinosaur pajamas that are really girls pajamas but jasper has loved from the minute he saw them and has never even considered letting his sisters wear them.

the sobbing subsided a little bit and we prayed together and then i tried to get to sleep but it was so challenging, considering that his little arm was locked around my neck. i tried easing him around but that was no good. finally i removed the arm, and in response, jasper promptly turned on his side and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

a few minutes after his breathing got nice and regular, i eased out of bed as best i could, although it meant dragging jasper with me, picked up my drowsy man, and popped him back into his own bed.

then i went back to bed and dreamed about nice things.

nice things include the fact that i cleaned out kitched cupboards today and bleached them with a damp cloth. anyone with any anal retentive tendencies would have loved to have been me. seriously. any rubbermaid or tupperware item that did not have a top i threw away, i got rid of the 14 icecube trays that used to house homemade babyfood, a jug of charles' that he loves but needed to be thrown away, oh it was a good day. i even told charles first of my intent to rid our home of the jug, so i wouldn't have to deal with nasty guilt feelings afterwards.

what made my day great is that i also walked up to the peak this morning. i know i have yakked on before about hiking in hong kong so i won't today, but it was a divine morning. even better, toward the end, there was a woman with two big dogs behind me, and i made it my goal that she wouldn't beat me to the top. the dogs were pulling her along, and i increased the speed and i heard the dogs breathing behind me (or maybe it was her??) amd ha ha i won. the cheeky cow had pushed andrea out of the way so my victory was necessary for vindication.

absolutely great to be 38

i woke up this morning to magnificent kissing my cheek. "happy birthday, tess" he whispered before heading off to reunion group.

i heard shushing and giggling and decided that i would stay in bed until the kids came powering into the room to wish me happy 38. but that never happened....or at least i don't think it did because i fell back asleep! woke up again, toddled out into the living room, and instead of being greeted with a chorus of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" was met with the kids crowding around me and touching me.

how sweet, i thought. they all want to hug me. wow. i do feel loved indeed.

instead of giving me loving hugs, the kids had an insistent question that needed answering right away.

"happybirthdaymummydidyoubuyusanythingforyourbirthday?"

huh! nice. not even an offer for a cuppa.

"no kids, only Jesus gives presents on his birthday and do i look like Jesus?"

their beady little disappointed eyes turned away and they returned to surreptitiously jumping on the sofa.

then the phone started ringing and i had to stop screaming at them to answer it and they were thrilled because mummy on the phone means they can be naughty right under my nose adn the phone kept ringing much to their delight and i realised that magnificent had been at work reminding people it was my birthday. good heavens. people were calling left right and centre and i was getting some great emails as well. pretty fun stuff. all in the name of 38.

other people couldn't get through and so left messages, like doug and penny. my favourite message possibly came from my dad..."uh hello? maureen, can you come here? i am not sure if the lines are down, it's not ringing anymore and she was talking to me but now there's just silence...kiddo? kiddo? maureen, i think the line is down."

i got dressed and headed to my friend sheri's house...we were sharing a taxi into town together for a ladies lunch at isola. i had requested to the girlfriends that instead of gifts that a donation be made to ICC, the charity where i volunteered in october. (international china concern), grudgingly they agreed, but to compensate, we had lunch at the divine ifc restaurant isola.

the anal retentive ones in the group, steph, sheri and i arrived five minutes early and went to be seated. we had a tough time located our reservation - cora was meant to make the reservation but she had made a last minute trip to japan when school was cancelled. steph took matters into her own hands and looked at the reservation list and saw that there was a reservation for six under the name mr a ha. cora's husband is mr allan ha. perfect. we so loved our window table that we didn't even make a fuss that the reservation should have been for eight persons.

at 12.45, mr ha and is five guests showed up wanting to be seated at their table ! gah! just a little embarrassing, but we managed to stay in our location anyway...hooray!

home, then back to sheri's for easter egg decorating with her absolutely fantastic son olin, and then back home for the kids to be ornery on the playground and i went to sandi's to hear about her trip to new zealand and to tell her what has been happening here in her absence and to just catch up. it was a lovely visit, actually.

then home to my honey and to the kids who actually all sang me happy birthday, FINALLY.

interestingly, today i was given a magazine. a few months ago, when charles gave me the card that donated three months of rice to 25 needy families in the philippines, one way that we said we would pay off that debt was for me not to buy vanity fair. i actually upped the ante, and haven't bought one magazine since then. at times it has been tough, but not agonizingly so. i am surprised, actually.

some birthdays you feel very loved. today was one of them. Thirty-eight is off to a very great start. thank you everyone who called and wrote and send emails, so very appreciated.

one more off the list

jasper, sela and carys had an OT assessment today.

an assessment is different than a session because they're getting graded on what they are or are not achieving.

jasper and carys went first. oh they were social together. carys encouraged jasper to cut a straight line, jasper clapped when carys coloured in between two lines. the kids had fun for the first bit, but after five exercises asked the lady if it was sela's turn yet. they continued to ask her this quesion.

i watched the kids grasp the basic tasks and then get stymied as they grew more challenging. out of the corner of my eye i saw the OT writing suspicious looking ovals in the scoring areas. zeroes?

to tell you the truth, i am quite bored of appointments. and aren't we supposed to be keeping our kids away from areas where the flu might linger? this would be the place. lots of nose and mouth fluids being transferred to the (not working) toys, let me tell you.

but with all the ovals being so cavallierly assigned to my children's best efforts, i saw more long appointments in the ot office.

then it was sela's turn. possibly because she was alone or because she is a competitive bossy knickers type of daughter, she finished in about half the time that the others did.

then the results.

predictable. jasper scored below his age range, albeit just slightly. was i worried asked the ot. not really i answered.

carys also scored slightly below her age range. she hasnt decided if she is right or left handed and the ot says that plays into it enough. and apparently i should be letting them play with scissors more. my kids don't know how to walk, they only run...add scissors to that mix and how do i see it playing out??

moving on, thank you very much.

sela scored higher than her age range. in some areas she was "as high as a 73 month old".

why don't they just say a six year old?

truly, not taking away from sela's competitive nature and accomplishments, if jasper and carys had been alone, i suspect they would have scored higher. i did praise them highly for encouraging each other as politely as they did.

however, mediocre and skewed scores or not, hong kong only provides OT for kids who score in the bottom 27 per cent. and, if you are doing number bands to 100 as our young friend sebastian is. you know that 49 per cent is above 27 per cent.

so my kids are released from OT, hopefully forever.

what a nice present for mummy's 456 month birthday.

bird flu - part deux?

my children got to live out every kids dream this morning.

last night i was drifting off to sleep when the phone rang. it was stephanie, with the news (via cora) that school was closed five days early for easter break, to resume 31 march.

what? why? according to our friends in the government, they are closing the schools as a precautionary measure, after two students have died of the flu over the past couple of weeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/world/asia/14flu.html?ref=world

doesn't this seem a little....well....on the overcautionary side?

apparently not. hong kong is still haunted by SARS, (which was five years ago...amazing!) where the government was criticised for being too slow to act. so now, they're taking no chances.

when we were kids we used to dream of this sort of thing. school closing because of some illness....but it really happens here. unreal! the kids are going to grow up and be able to tell friends, "that happened to me once....school really did close once for a week...." and of course then they'll be all cross that they weren't older and couldn't really enjoy it more.

speaking of which, schools are only closed at the primary levels and below. secondary school students are expected to be at school. needless to say they feel very ripped off. they would relish a week off.

no one is taking the whole flu epidemic too seriously. no one has made contingency exit plans, because an epidemic just doesn't seem likely. i know we've been praying that our rent will decrease, but i don't think it will happen this way. i think it is the government trying to be careful and proactive, etc. and to make the kids love them.

sebastian and his cronies were thrilled to spend the day playing, while the triplets were quite sad not to be at small world christian kindergarten and their teachers there. the kids are having a tiny vocabulary explosion right now, except it's more like parroting.

today jasper was talking with his sisters about tallinn's dad. i was evesdropping.

"he is a very cool guy," jasper opined. his sisters nodded.

sela put in her two cents worth. "but tara is very gorgeous, and funny."

sela continued talking, because she is rarely a one sentence person, and then carys summed up, "they are a nice family."

sebastian meanwhile, was steadily eating sweet and sour meatballs, his favourite dish.