Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

i love creeping into the kids' room at night.

the reasons are mainly selfish: they ask so little of me when they are asleep. no questions, pulling, frustrations. and i can watch them. without them making a silly face. and, i can do my job well in these unconscious hours.

i get extreme pleasure from observing their automatic reactions. if someone's lovely blanket has slipped off, i lift it up and re-cover the child, murmuring, "ohhh,lovely". usually, within seconds, the child will smile and stretch in a luxurious manner. i love knowing that i have so easily given pleasure and comfort...because when they are awake& moving;i don't often have that confidence these days. parenting when your child is involved in an emotional event is so much more challenging than when maslow's basic hierarchy is your agenda.

i had a wonderful opportunity on wednesday; i got to visit a friend who 27 days ago had triplets. two girls and a boy.

the friend, her husband and a helper were stationed where else, in the babies room. all three of them, sharing a cot. oh my goodness, they were so little and so very very gorgeous.

lots of little toes, sounds, noses and snuffles. charts on the walls, labelled bottles everywhere....oh this was a walk down memory lane. a reminder of how my walls, cupboards and refrigerator had once looked. how my life was!

i was able to hold one of the girls, and watched little charles as he slept. when little isabella looked uncomfy, she needed one of four things: a new nappy, more food, a burp or sleep. four choices. (it was food, btw). the parents have them on a great schedule, but the time between feedings is practically non existant...60 minutes? was that really my world for those first months? i left missing those sweet little babies that used to be mine, but so grateful that we have moved on. because i still have those quiet nights, where with a quick smooth of a blanket, i can bring an instant smile to a face and know that i took care of their needs.

the fallout

i am blogging midday - something i rarely do on weekends, but the kids are so enchanted with their new presents that i can.

fallout from parties.

d'you know that charles and i haven't even bought the triplets any birthday presents aside from three aprons? i might get the girls crocs, but that's probably it.

speaking of crocs, on friday night i learned that an online shop in the states was selling crocs for 4.95. and the fuzzy lined winter ones were $7.95. they were going fast, the website was slow, but i was determined. i ordered crocs for all my kids, my nephew in toronto (don't know my nieces sizes or i would have), new born crocs as baby presents, and crocs for andrea's kids. and for ursula's kids. i was croc happy. and the frugal blake in me did say "don't forget, anything after $75 means free shipping!"

needless to say, all this took 60 minutes. but finally, i was ready to take my brimming cart to checkout. and i proudly took out my amex card...put in my mailing address, and then typed in the billing address....AND....there was no where to put in "other".it only listed states.

my dollar-saving dreams were smashed. i wasn't going to get these crocs because my credit card billing address wasn't in the states??? SERIOUSLY?

i was devastated. not for the loss of the dreams, but for the loss of the TIME. the night before the PARTY!

fallout -- the vegetables weren't cut as nicely as they could have been and my girls will be croc free for another few weeks. i WILL Get them on sale. one way or the other. now it is a quest.

and today reality tv regular jade goody will marry her prisoner boyfriend jack tweedy. this is a story i haven't followed too closely for reasons below. jade rose to celeb status from very humble beginnings after doing big brother. the public loved her raucaus comments. she had two children with a fellow reality star, and they ended their romance. her mother, a very crass person, got masses of free plastic surgery done. jade went back to do celebrty big brother and was called a racist after she called indian contestant shilpa shetty "shilpa poppadom" and made other comments. public opinion of jade went wayyy down, she lost contracts, deals, etc.

jade, in a fit of damage control, went to india, and then this summer left her two very young children for an undetermined period of time and started indian big brother, but while there learned that her cervical smear results had come in very abnormal...she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. she went back to the uk to start treatment.

in the past months she has stayed somewhat low, being in a panto, attending chemo, all with a maximum of media attention. jade only knows the media, they are part of her world, and she didn't shut them out during teh cancer.

so. a few weeks ago it was learned the cancer metastasized. suddenly, people are upset that jade is still talking, giving interviews. go away and die quietly seems to be the feeling. have some dignity others say. yet others claim...don't you want to spend time with your children?

she's going to marry her boyfriend today, who has been in prison for taking a golf club to a youth.

i haven't followed the story too closely because i was never a huge jade goody fan. i am very sorry she has cancer, i am very sorry whenever i hear that anyone has cancer. but i am not going to check in with her life right now. she claims she's doing all the media stuff to make money for her kids, so they have privileges she never did. i say, fair enough. i am not going to follow it.

media fallout - jade is as controversial as ever.

fallout.

there is tonnes of beach cake left, and i am going to eat some for lunch. bad bad fallout there. but so tasty.

free piece of cake if you head on over to charles' blog for some great pix and drawings!

cloud on over, skies...i don't care. the triplets beach birthday party is over and the skies stayed true and blue for it.

for the past week the hong kong weather conservatory was predicting showers and force 4 & 5 winds for saturday due to the monsoon coming down from guandong.

this did not suit team caldwell at all...after all...saturday was the triplets 5th birthday party! we had planned to hold it at the beach and we needed sunshine! i told the triplets that i needed them to pray about the weather, and they took that task on willingly, as well as praying that their sick friend grant would get better and be able to attend the party. (left: the beach as seen from the bbq pit.)

the cake was a carefully thought out phenom. it had to be a theme all the kids liked, and we wanted it to tie into the beach party theme. so we all agreed on a beach party cake. excellent. i then decided that the beach party would be best, IF we included water. thus the hunt for blue water (jello) began. needless to say, in canada this would be easy, in hk it wasn't as easy, but thanks  to gail...we pulled it off and installed a pool into our beach scene.

i'll leave the rest of the cake descriptions to the pictures...but it was as tasty as it was clever. charles pulled off another winner indeed.

the party was held at south bay beach and we had a bbq - hotdogs, chippies, veggie platters, cheese platters, modest amounts of alcohol, wine, coffee and tea. and marshmallows roasted over the fire.

it was a great time. the weather wasn't perfect, but the kids did not care. most ventured into the water, there were sandcastles going, and playing. so much playing. every once and a while a windstorm would swirl up, which was annoying, but it would pass in 30 seconds.

at the end of the party, our 122 neighbours offered to carry presents, extra food and drink and other miscellaneous items back to the flat. i just love our neighbours. they are so considerate. i was swamped with kiddies demanding party bags (are match attax huge in north america right now?) so i didn't thank them properly. (left: the triplets during birthday cake time; that's grant buddying up to jasper.)

at around hot dog time, ursula and colleen and their kids arrived, and so we stayed around for a couple more hours. we left the party site at around 3:30pm (party ended around 1:00pm but many stayed later.) God gave us the good weather we had prayed for and then more. we were blessed. as we were leaving south bay, the skies started clouding over.

the kids are currently washing their old lego ~ why? no idea ~ in the bathtub and about to head to rugby. they have a room full of wrapped presents, and only asked once if they could open them. but not right now...charles is too exhausted to fully enjoy it and i just need some quiet.

i don't have to plan another party until NOVEMBER!!!!

thursday night i let sebastian sleep in the playroom. in spite of his weakened state, he was pleased. the playroom? sleeping there? how thrilling!

"can we pull out the couch bit, mummy? like i am a guest?"

it was quite nice to have him in the playroom, because when he sleeps in the top bunk, it is tough for me to smooth his hair and have a drowsy talk with him. but thursday night, after i gave him his last dose of ibuprofin, and made him repeat again where the sick bucket was, i returned the medicine to the kitchen cupboard and then had to check on my patient. oh, he was tired. i sat down on the bed and twitched the covers. unnecessarily smoothed his forehead, just to check his temperature.

sebastian, i whispered, selfishly.

his heavy eyelids opened so slowly. "yes mummy".

"i love you sebastian"

he made the supreme effort and lifted a hand, touched my face.  twirled some of my hair, which i normally hate.

"my mummy."

he gave a heartbreaking smile, that just shone his transparent love for me.

it is overwhelming. i mess up so often....you should see how badly i handle homework time with him (not to suggest he is perfect!)...but in return i get this SMILE, and caress.

"if you don't feel well...what are you going to do?" sotto voice.

"come see you."

"that's right. my good boy."

"even if you are sleeping, mummy?"

"oh, sebastian."

sebastian played a good tournament on sunday. it is difficult for him to get enthusiastic some days, and sunday was one of them. his first two games were meh...which was difficult. as he had won a pennant the previous tournament, coaches AND parents were expecting more of him this tournament.

but sebastian isn't a boy who will scream (pass to me! HERE! right here!) or dive aggressively into the scrum. (unlike his mummy). and, the7 yr olds have discovered a new game called, "let's pass to our friends", which their coach quickly put to an end. "You don't pass to FRIENDS, you pass to the TEAMMATE who is in the BEST POSITION to make a TRY for the TEAM."

game three and four, seb warmed up, just like the afternoon sun, and played really well. he is really good at not losing metres for his team right after receiving the ball. he finds the holes and he runs. and, being a good caldwell boy (again, not like his mummy who is NOT a fast funner), he also runs quickly through the holes.

he felt great knowing that he had played well.

some kids felt richer knowing they had played well. we learned that some parents give their children the equivalent of $7us for a tackle and $15us for a try. per game. what do you think of that? it is a great motivator, but??? i am not sure if there are cons, it's just a new concept for me.

so here we go

saturday was valentines day. i don't think any of you will be particuarly surprised to know that i don't really buy into the whole valentines day spiel, but, my husband is a rather romantic fellow. every year he makes me a collage of pictures of the year that has just passed, combines it with love poems and Bible verses and presents it to me for 14 february.

add that to the fact that magnificent arrived home from a business trip on 13 feb, and well...i HAD to do a little something for valentines day.

i ended up making him eggs benedict (his fave breakfast) which sounds good but unfortunately wasn't. i was too lazy to make the sauce from scratch, and so i used a packet, and it was grainy and really disappointing. but it's the fort wort counts, right?

then i presented him with his gifts...gifts that were guaranteed to make him happy (because he likes these things) and gifts that were guaranteed to make me happy because they are disposable. freshly ground coffee was at the top of the list. i called charles' husband, paul, for advice on which coffee to buy and paul came up trumps. i told paul i would give him credit if the gift was a success (and let him fall if magnificent didn't like the taste) and so i now publicly thank paul for knowing my husband's java preferences.

it was a good day, and then in the evening we went to odila's for a milestone birthday party. lots of familiar faces and some new folks to meet. a great time. and the food...well well well...fantastic is a good word. the hostess looked fabulous and zexy in black sequins and joel was rumpled eleganance as always. charles and i kept looking at each other from across the room and mouthing, "we really need to be going" and half an hour later, coming to that same realisation.

it was a great evening.

today was a rugby tournament. sebastian took a while to warm up, but played really well in games 3 & 4. so proud of my little man.

enough said...over and out for now.

same old same old

this is a fairly ironic title for a blog about vomit.

today, as i was talking to ursula on my mobile about a cancelling a lunch so she can come on a hike with me and mandy, the phone rang. i pushed jasper toward it and he answered lovingly, "hiiiiiii". a second later, he gave me the phone. "it's for you".

it was nurse anne.

whenever i hear, "it's nurse anne" i always think "head lice" and hold my breath while one hand flies up to my head and my nails start scratching. et tu, pavlov?

but no, sebastian was just in the nurses office with a tummy ache. he had been in and out of the office throughout the day and had only nibbled at his lunch. poor poppet. jasper was chatting to ursula, so i hung up with anne, grabbed jasper (girls were having a playdate) and we headed down to kennedy to pick up sebastian.

sebastian was pale and listless, and we walked in the door at around 2pm. he said the ache was gone. nurse anne had asked if there was anyone in the clas who was upsetting him, if that had caused the stomach ache. i said no, things were good...things are good! at around 2.40 sebastian said he didn't want to watch television and went and laid down in his bed.

at 2.45 jasper rocketed down the hallway and said, "i just heard sebastian vomit!"

i got up and ran down the hallway (kicking off slippers) and indeed, there was the evidence. (i thought he had only nibbled at his lunch?) a massive vomit down the steps of his bunkbed, the heater, the bureau and the floor. and jasper's sheets. i grabbed some towels and began cleaning, and instructed jasper to ask marian for a bucket filled with dettol and hot water. jasper got me some rags, and i gave one to seb. as soon as a pathway was cleared i opened the windows.

oh, the smell of dettol is comforting. not romantic, but reliable.

following my adage of, "you feel better after brushing your teeth"...seb was climbing the steps to be all minty fresh when he dashed for the toilet and thank you very much, yakked into the basin. so brave. so accurate.

his eyes were all glassy and he was so hot, i risked it and gave him some kiddie ibuprofin.

a few hours later, no repeats, but there are also three more kids in this house.

it's fair to say i am weary of vomit, but i am not overwhelmed by all the sickness, because it really hasn't been all that bad. but i am incredulous. and, not feeling so great, so....goodnight.

what can you say?

today jasper came home with an odd look on his face.

"mummy today i asked miss rupa what her mummy's name is."

i thought, foolishly i thought, what a nice sensitive boy i have. he really is a thinker and a lover. and my self congratulatory thoughts were interrupted by reality.

jasper continued..."she told me her mother's name was virginia."

and of course you know what my son responded. the minute he said "virginia" i put my hand over my mouth because i KNEW jasper was going to work vagina into the conversation. and he did. "VIRGINIA?" he said incredulously? "that sounds like V@GIN@!"

what a man what a man what a man.

there are a couple of reasons for the new springs in my running step:

1) obviously, i am running again. after several months of annoying itbs, which stopped me running and bootcamping back in november, i am back in the game. the running game that is. i have been hiking for a month now. it feels pretty good. haven't had that eerie stinging over my knees and that ouchie in my hip. although i do have a smellie on my shoe from stepping in dog squish.

i am religiously avoiding downhill runs. (i await your massive applause). this is difficult because hong kong is a pretty hilly place. so i don't have a lot of options. but i am sticking to the family path, which is pretty much four to five kilometres from door to door. i walk down a LOT of steps, but that's the least of my worries.

2) music. i need to jiggle around with my itunes but i am loving some new songs. katy perry's hot n cold can keep me running for a while. see? i'm hip (albeit stretched and strained), i'm cool!

but it's U2's "i still haven't found what i'm looking for" that keeps me running that extra mile these days. that plaintive song, so full of longing, love, hope and pleading takes me back and pushes me forward. 

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
 

of course this song reminds me of my relationship with Christ. how i won't have all the answers, until one day when my time on earth is done. and i will keep running. some days, it is away from Him, but those days are far fewer than they used to be.

it can always be worse

hearing the words, "mummy i vomitted" are not pleasant words.

but they are not the worst, i learned the other day.

the worseness is compounded when:

- the child is talking to you

- it is 3.30 in the morning

- they repeat the sentence and tag on, "i vomitted in bed".

sweet heaven.

i swung out of bed, filled with tiredness and sympthy for sela. poor little dote.

but, i was also alert enough, my mum beams working at 90 per cent to say:

"turn toward the door" (aka: not near my bed, if you are vomitting again, i don't want it to be on my bedlinens)

my next question: "are you going to vomit again"

once we had established NO, i asked , "did you get any vomit on yourself? and so after i had removed her nightdress, i gave her a cuddle. (didn't want vomit on me.)

sela was still tired and a bit weepy, so i let her come and watch me have a wee, which always cheers the kids up. something about how much space my bottom takes up on the seat. and then i dispatched her off to brush her teeth "you will feel better. everyone needs to brush their teeth to feel tidy and fresh after they vomit" i went into the room she shares with three others to inspect the damage.

i started off touching the floor around me. so far so good. nothing. the air purifyer was also pristine. excellent. i crawled until i was looking down on the bed and saw the rough outline of the damage. quickly whisked off the sheets, and the blanket. placed them in the middle of the floor, something i could never do if all four kids were awake and moving around.

faster than you can say, "that really smells" i changed the bed, and just as sela was coming into the bedroom with her minty fresh teeth, i got her back into bed, said a quick prayer wth her and gave her spongebob. ah...it was tempting to linger over the kids because i do like them aLOT when they sleep, but i did have to get on with it.

i took the sheets and blanket into the kitchen and finally for the first time was able to shed light on the situation. could have been worse. took a plastic bag and scooped the vomit off the sheets. flushed it. tied the vomit bag tightly but put bleach in it first. rinsed sheets, kept them in sink. (couldn't start washer because it is next to gary and marianne's room and i didn't want to wake them up). and that was that. back to bed.  

am so glad she didn't vomit on the floor.

so, i guess it is time to talk a bit about octuplets.

when i first heard the story, i was amazed. another mum of multiples, upon hearing that the mum had carried the eight kids to 34 weeks, was stunned.

"she must have a uterus of steel!"

i agreed.

and suddenly the focus of the story shifted from eight babies to other numbers:

- six children at home

- only one parent

- parents forced into negative numbers trying to support the daughter

- two bedroom home

i pretty much know what the multiples comunity thinks on this topic.

today's topic...if she does get her wish and is interviewed by diane sawyer and oprah for $2m, is the public wrong for giving in to her, or are they giving the taxpayers of California relief?

it would be very easy to blame the doctor for a lot of this. however, i don't believe the doctor was right in transferring eight embryos. i am torn but leaning towards no on the issue of: the doctor has any right to deny this woman fertility treatment based on her financial situation or the number of children she has already.

did anyone get into bed with you and your partner at the time you conceived your child and ask if you could financially and psychologically raise him?