Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

a flurry of curry

saturday night, being me, i ate curry at around 8pm.

at around midnight i made the pronouncement, "i don't feel so good".

that thought and slight variations of it, were the dominant thoughts and slight dreams i had from 1am-7am. sort of like a Christmas card with "happy Christmas" written on it in every language known to man. it all comes down to the same thing. for me, i had a mouthful of saliva (always ominous), sweats, and had to prop myself upwards. and cramps, upper gi ones, sharp ones, that woke me up from my dreams every 20 minutes or so.

at 7am sebastian skipped into our room and said, "let's wake up! tomorrow is Christmas!" and i said, "charles, i cannot go to church. cannot."

magchar looked at me, as i briefly explained my symptoms and as he drilled me on the date of my last period i could tell he was thinking ectopic pregnancy but the dates didn't fit and AS IF we could ever get pregnant naturally anyway. and then he pressed down on my stomach and (dramatically i might add) lifted his hand up. i was so alarmed at how my stomach jiggled when he removed his hand i did a sharp intake of breath. "oh boy" said magchar.

i clued in.

"i don't have appendicitis."

"but just then when i pressed in...classic sign, tess"

"i was disgusted with my lack of muscle tone, i am a fat sloth. but i am not a sloth with appendicitis."

he did it again and i stayed silent, this time refusing to look at my stomach. and my personal physician agreed i did not have appendicitis.

i stayed in my room and writhed in bed for a few more hours. after church my angelic, almost pope like husband took the kids to the club for lunch and i writhed some more. the diahhrea, or as it is commonly known in our house, "poo juice" had started earlier in the morning. but i still felt vile. and the appalling egg burps were killing me.

at 2pm, the cramps were so bad that i took a swallow of some mint flavoured mylanta. ten minutes later, 18 hours after i had eaten the curry, and 30 seconds before my kids walked in the door, i realised it was time to play deja vu with the curry. i was no where near the bathrooms.

but i was near the kitchen sink.

the kids were very impressed to see green peas coming out of mummy's nose. i was very glad i hadn't eaten chickpeas.

while recovering and wondering how i could ever get this taste out of my mouth, i noticed the mylanta had expired in 2005.

and now poor Charles is sick with the same thing.

i'll write about Christmas in a couple of days, but in the meantime, thank you to everyone who made it so great.

in u2's plaintive song, "beautiful day" they gently prod then push at listeners not to forget that no matter what state your personal world is in, it's still a beautiful day out there.

beautiful day was one of the first songs to make it to my ipod and a classic for all times. right up there with 3 dog night's "mama told me not to come". (nothing if not classy babe am i).

there's a line i think of often from that song. the other day i was walking downhill from sebastian's school down to central (and it is all downhill) and i saw a group of tourists taking the peak tram up to victoria peak. they were amazed watching the city unfold infront of them.

and then came the song...

it's a beautiful day,                                                                                                                 don't let it get away.

twisting in their seats fingers poised over their cameras waiting for the perfect shot. or maybe, sadly, letting it get away.

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you

i stopped walking and smiled, seeing how overwhelmed they were by hong kong which alongside the peak tram is a kalaidascope of colours and attitudes. hong kong can do that do you. it was a crisp day with a hot yellow sun, hong kong was really showing itself off. i kept standing there watching them watching hong kong, i like seeing my city being admired.

two days later, it was me on a train, a different train, the kcr, as i headed to shenzhen, china to do a little last minute shopping and to check out the artists enclave i have heard so much about and wanted to see for so long. i was going with my friends barbara and odila and a few of their friends. as the faithful kcr chugged along (the kcr takes you to the new territories and then up to lo wu, from there you cross over into china), we were past the racecourse in sha tin, and the university, and it was marshy, green, with herons, cows, really a different feeling from the hong kong i know. and before we got to sheung shei station, i noticed that i could see the highrises of shenzhen.

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you

i can see it.

i went to my tailor, got some pants made for charles and put in an order for a top made for myself. i have long arms and while that is beneficial for sports, it is a hassle when i am wearing sweaters because the sleeves are always so short and snaking above my wrists. i DISLIKE THAT INTENSELY. (nothing like a little reminder that my anal retentive tendencies are alive and well.)

then shopped around a little bit, and found a place that i sometimes have trouble tracking down that had ferragamo boots for sale. real ferragamo. so i bought a pair of brown boots that actually fit in with my lifestyle. check them out.

http://www.styledrops.com/shoes-83_5.html

they're the terry ones. they look good with jeans or a long skirt. which is what i wore them with today. and i paid about $50 us for them. they are great.

then we left the mall, and in a taxi headed off to the artists enclave. the taxi driver got "lost" aka: let's take these three women for the scenic ride but we got there in one piece (i had sms'd charles the taxi driver's license plate and number just in case he kidnapped us). and the enclave was so peaceful, so unlike shenzhen which you associate with people grabbing you and saying, "missy missy, latest fashion come here and buy now, watches, purse, movies, gucci, prada" etc.

it was another buttery sunshine day and about one city block had every single building dedicated to art shops. it was amazing. local traffic only, so we cruised along happily, as did bicyles, children, birds and very contented cats. and the artwork was stunning. every medium, every form, incredible.

i found an artist i really like. i've been looking for some art to go behind our bed, but we have a sleigh bed so i have to be careful with the frame. and i think i found him. he is a very interesting fellow. i bought one of his original prints, not for behind the bed. we all bought something. and laughed.

it was starting to get dark, and we had to get home. i had forgotten that china, that shenzhen could be like this. there are "lazier" sections of hong kong, but this area was just wonderful. i might even get a sketch of the kids done at some point. anything is possible.

we said goodbye (with much hilarity) to the area, piled into a taxi and headed back to lo wu, and then zoomed back into hong kong.

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you

it was a beautiful day.

boy was i wrong

oh ho ho no bottle of rum for you frugal blake.

here i am telling blog land that you are such a quiet man, spare with words and gossip and you go blabbing stories.

it wasn't snakes and ladders anyway you boob, it was parcheesi. which makes your reporting inaccurate.

you want to get libellous

i will get litigious

then we can both write a book on the experience and make plenty of dosh.

how can a loser ever win?

the kids are moving past stacking rings (although forever loyal to THE WIGGLES) and on to a new stage in entertainment - puzzles. i have moved the puzzles down to a more reachable level and they are quite pleased to be able to play puzzles or words whenever they please. i have also moved the scrap or recycled paper and crayons to their level, so now sela doesn't need to come to me with her imperious command, "i need to draw" whenever the spirit moves her.

one of the kids best presents EVER and one that i will always keep came from lucy. (that would be the same miracle worker who bathed and fed sebastian dinner at her house for the first month after the triplets came home and charles was out of the country). she got them wooden puzzles with their names on them. brightly coloured and rectangle shaped, then the letters come falling out of the puzzle and can be pushed back in.

sela is unimpressed with me that i selected her such a short name. she mastered her name puzzle a year ago and has been mentally petitioning for a name change to "marie antoinette" "queen elizabeth the third" or some other letter lengthy name, although i suspect she feels entitled to the title business.

she quite enjoys doing the "sebastian" puzzle, and slaps the letters into place, "e" is for ear, "b" is for ball, and whenever i hand her the "s", even though it is the "sebastian" puzzle, she says as if it is the most normal thing in the world, ""s" is for sela".

carys is more methodical about achieving her puzzle, which is a good thing because it gives me more time to remember what things "y" is for. yogurt? ypsilante? yams? yaks? please don't remind the queen of reflux about yakking.

jasper likes his name although he believes that every letter is "s" and stands for jasper. but they love those puzzles.

while they are puzzling out life, sebastian and i are playing "concentration", basically where you lay the cards down and try to get pairs. we have a set based on underwater sea life characters....seals, puffer fish, crabs, sea lions, sharks, clams, octupus.. you get the picture.

naturally, i lose on purpose. like most kids and adults, seb hates to lose and wouldn't play the game if he thought he was going to lose. and concentration is meant to help him learn to concentrate in school and i am supposed to be helping him bla bla bla. the problem is, if he is going to win the game, that means i have to lose. like most kids and adults, i don't particularly enjoy losing, even when it is my beloved offspring winning.

does this make me a bad or less maternal person? do i care?

when he's wiggling his (admittedly very cute) tushie in a dance i know he learned from me saying "woo woo i'm on fire yes i am" ...it is very tempting to inform the exile from my loins that the only reason he is winning is because i am letting  him. instead i get modest revenge and enjoy seeing panic flare in his little eyes as i get three pair in a row which usually gets him worried and recounting his pairs like scrooge mcduck. but honestly.

when can i start winning? how will my child ever appreciate my brilliance if i don't start beating him (at games) on a daily basis. i think i should start now.

grey's anatomy - my heart

to quote the good folks at seattle grace hospital, "seriously".

or in hong kong, "series-ly".

hong kong isn't on top of the game when it comes to series television. we're everything from two episodes to two years behind. a noteable exception, possibly due to my letters, telephone calls and tears is the amazing race, for which we are only 14 hours delayed. AND (AMAZING RACE SPOILER AHEAD, if you would like to go back a few months to my prediction blog, may i say, i did quite well in the predictions.)

so it is only recently that i started watching grey's anatomy. series one started in hong kong last year, but i cant commit to being home (or awake) once a week at a certain time. and i never started with the show although all my girlfriends were going on and on about patrick dempsey and that very cute isaiah washington (ding dong!). but i dutifully bought the series in shenzhen last december and approximately one year later, here i am watching it.

and watching and watching. very addicting show i might add.

forget the mcdreamy bit, i adore the "nazi" and sandra oh's character. they're the best. and the aforementioned dr burke.

last night (mag charles, or should i call him mccharles? is in india) i started watching an episode where i woman with quints comes in. and my fluffy enjoyment of the entire episode just fizzled away to naught. 32 weeks with quints and her stomach was that small? at 26 weeks wtih triplets my stomach was close to twice that size. give me a break. and they weren't throwing food at her at every opportunity? hardly.

the scene where her babies are born i found very unsettling. all those drs in the or. i have sometimes wondered what the or was like when our babies were delivered. delivering quints is of course a larger scale, but it probably would have been something like what the show was portraying. lift one baby out, cut cord, tie cord while intubating, into isolette run into lift. repeat times three. almost three years ago.

have i ever mentioned that i never found out how long jasper, sela and carys were when they were born? it wasn't relevant to life saving and would have wasted precious seconds finding out, so they never told us. it was after the babies were released that we started charting their length. almost three years ago...yet it could almost be yesterday.

btw - if you haven't been to charles' blog to see him making sebastian's birthday cake, please do. and you can see his rave/rum dancing as well...always a bonus. and see a very enchanted sebastian and the kids still, for once!

we had our first attempt at a democratic Christmas tree decorating this year.

the kids, bless them, loved it. racing back and forth, repeating the drummed into their blonde heads admonition, "one finger on the Christmas tree" mantra, placing, pushing, forcing, dropping, attempting, to put ornaments whereever they thought they might belong.

once every three minutes (roughly) sebastian would ask, "when can we put the star up?" and once every three minutes i would answer, "when we're finished decorating."

so many things irritated me about d.C.t.d.

1) sebastian's voice got a little whingier each time he asked how much longer until the star. that wasn't too pleasant but neither was my immature response, which was to get snarlier. and i believe i  might have thrown in, "this will be the Christmas without a star if you don't stop asking." let me check my notes, but it does sound familiar.

2) sebastian sort of dented the ornament he made for me last year. how can you break a styrofoam ornament? seb found a way.

3) the kids have not inherited one a.r. fashion gene. not a single strand. i thought sebastian and sela had them. apparently i was wrong because those kids had no problems putting two blue ornaments next to each other. don't they KNOW blue-silver-blue is the correct order of the Christmas tree universe? (unless you're this chick i run across occasionally who when she asked me my christmas tree theme colours and i told her, she responded, "oh, i did that a few years ago when it was popular.") so the tree is haphazardly decorated.

during the infertility years, i prayed for this tree. or more specifically, for kids to do an endearingly crap job decorating the tree. we didn't buy a tree one Christmas pre-kids, there didn't seem a point. so my complaints are worse than sebastian's whinging about when can he see a star. for months i begged to see a double line on a pregnancy test. during my ivf i begged to have the blood test done early, so i could get the results faster.

that star on the Christmas tree means presents will soon follow under it, and holidays and daddy not going to work. three fantastic treats for sebastian. that blood test for me meant magnificent charles and i were getting the best presents we had ever asked for.

i realised i had to lighten up about the tree. which is why i am stoopendously proud to announce that i did NOT rearrange ANY ornaments last night after they had all gone to bed.

the house of vomit and fog

there has been a 24 hour 'flu bug going round so multiply that by the eight or so (charles is travelling, so i really shouldn't exaggerate...) seven people in our household and you get a week long flu. mine has been accompanied by lower cramping in my intestines (right hand side). oh, and magnificent charles isn't here. he's actually in australia, scuba diving at the gold coast. nothing he doesn't deserve.

sela started first, getting all hot and red like a tomato, eyes red rimmed like a teenager experimenting with lipstick in all the wrong places. or maybe it is fashion and since i am old i just dont know these things anymore. but she was hot. not too hot, just 102 at her worst. but motrin took care of it.

then carys. same thing.

then jasper.

they could all eat, except for they all played deja vu with their food.

splash and gross.

monday sebastian woke up. he was hot, 103. motrin took care of it, but i didn't send him to school. he didn't want to go outside, it was too cold, he claimed. so i let him stay inside all snuggly. he liked that. and then tuesday, just as we were getting ready to leave (i was helping my girlfriend steph out at the final conrad fair, she has her own business)..sebastian vomitted. he had vomitted earlier in the morning but i thought it was sort of a five year old's version of morning sickness and hadn't given it much thought.

so he stayed home for the day.

very tired ofcleaning up vomit. i know they haven't been sick for a while, but when they are sick it seems like i have been cleaning up sick for three years.

i was very impressed with seb who was as brave as a soldier and did not cry when he was sick. good man.

they're better now, just in time for hand foot and mouth to sweep across hong kong. be interesting to see if we get that.

when my brother was very little, he stuttered. there is the old family story of the time we were getting our portraits taken and the photographer said, "say cheese, everyone!" and the camera flashed and the shot was taken.

the light still blinding us, pam and i ran off in different directions, and graeme was still standing there, saying, "ch..ch..chchchch...ch..chch..."

with a lot of diligence, patience and repetition, my mum, all by herself, trained graeme out of his stuttering. i can remember her bending down, looking into his eyes and saying to him whenever he started to get his words tangled,

"stop speaking. think about what you want to say. speak slowly."

not bad life lessons if you think about it. ones that frugal blake has always lived by, i might add.

i can't put a time frame on it, but graeme's stuttering eventually stopped. we never teased him about it, because it was the way he was. it wasn't funny, we saw how much trouble it caused him. but mum's continual gentle reminders trained graeme out of the stuttering. very impressive. she got us to say it to him as well, so at school or walking home we could remind him as well.

sebastian has a thing that i need to be training him out of. it is one of those traits that kids will start noticing and commenting on soon. his teacher said that he doesn't do it much at school, but when he does, she stops him.

obviously this is different than a stutter. it isn't something like picking your nose, it is just a thing that could get him teased. being the ever protective mum, i don't want that. so mag char (who also noticed it) and i talked about it and when we see him doing it, we remind him not to and give him alternatives.

what line differentiates a mum between a perfectionist who was continually harping and a mum who really helped you? the seriousness of the issue? the success of the initiative? if they recognise the issue needs to be taken care of?

anyone? anyone?

the kids are extremely entertaining right now, when they are not busy being two, or possibly even worse, three. sebastian, embarking on the world of five and the wisdom it brings, is alternately endearing and exasperating.

the other night, in the post meal bathroom pile up, sela was shifting from foot to foot, curls bouncing as she waited for jasper to complete his business, at which he is notoriously and predictably slow. finally she burst out, "jasper! hurry or i will chow-chow all over barbie knickers!" (we do have another bathroom that sela could have used, but that other bathroom is not equipped with a dora the explorer toilet ring. sela believes her buttocks will inflame if they touch against anything other than dora or barbie toilet rings and refuses to grace any other comic or action figure.)

today, jasper was very cross with me for making him hand over one of sebastian's birthday presents back to it's rightful owners. i was in the playroom, tidying and talking with auntie pammie (btw - thank you to grandads doug and blake, mo, auntie pammy, auntie mandy, charmaine, auntie carolyn and cousin galen, and shayna for calling and wishing sebasitan a happy birthday. i am not good at calling on birthdays, you all calling and thinking of him was so kind...xoxo) and jasper stands in the playroom door, looks at me reproachfully and says, "mummy, share". and then walks away.

little lulu started crying today when sally called and informed them that gymastics was cancelled. it broke her tiny little heart and she loves sally so very much. "but i love nastics! i love jumping!" she informed me, and she did a couple of little jumps to prove her devotion to the sport she has mastered. her hair is a mystery to me, i have no idea how to style it, but i am happy to report that it is long enough to put into two very thin bunches. after an hour and some running, the elastic invariably falls out...but...while it lasts, those 13 hairs look quite cute all bundled together. carys, who walked in as i was replenishing the female hygene section of my closet the other day and said, "mummy, you wear little nappies?"

with sebastian, i think it is his learning what is gobsmacking me right now. he's coming home jauntily throwing about words like "pentagram" and described his birthday as "wonderful". this growing up is wonderful, but painful too. today at a birthday party i saw this blonde child and thought, "ooh, he's exquisite" and then realised as my mind was forming the opinion that it was sebastian. i still worry about some aspects of his learning, and his speaking being too loud...but oh the love i have for this boy.

and for magnificent. he is divine. really love that fellow.