Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

women and for women

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q

i have previously written on how i remember my mum slipping out the door to go running or playing tennis back when we lived in edmonton. how she and her "keep fit" gang would run out, very early, fulfilling their need for exercise and fellowship before returning home to families, responsibilities, questions "did you remember...." and answers, "do i don't know where you put your signed form."

i remember when forming my own friendships what i wanted to have in my life.

i look at my friends now, and i am amazed. that i could learn so much from so many. that i let so many chances for friendship go by. but i have forgiven myself for so much, and that loss is among the forgiveness.
mainly because i have been blessed to have so many friends.

a friend sent me the above link a few minutes ago. she said the author reminded her of me. that was one way to get me to watch...even though i am gasping with tiredness. but a comparison? oh come on, i needed to see this?

not as much as i needed to hear it.

what a great affirming video. take five minutes of your life and watch this. send it on. appreciate what you and your girlfriends have endured together - whether it be at a distance or on the floor, backs against the sofa, as you watch your children play, grow and head off to school.

i felt great after receiving this email. i don't normally forward emails, but i DID send this one off. you send it too.

my mum leaves tomorrow.

i wondered when it would happen. when the kids would fall in love with their grandparents.

i remember when we lived in edmonton my gran came for visit. she was an eccentric lady and came out with all sorts of comments that you would NOT expect. she came out once a year or so. and one year i was sick the day she left. and i remember crying, because her taxi had come, my grandma had gone, and i hadn't said goodbye. mum soothed me..."don't cry, you will only make your headache worse.." but i remember feeling so sad that someone so fun had gone. someone who was mine.

i am watching my kids fall in love with their grandparents. it started this summer with granddad doug and then with my parents, but six months later, they are so much older.

sebastian, with his social anxiety, of course takes a long time to warm up to anyone. but the other night, with a pulsing fever, he pulled special blanket along the ground and approached my mum. knowing he was going to say "no", mum offered, "do you want to come lie by me?" and before you could say "cat's whiskers", sebastian was up on my mum, lying across her. little button. he was asleep in minutes, but it was one of those restless twitchy fevers.

jasper takes great joy in his grandad blake's jokes, accents and sword fighting. they all love how mo reads them books. sela loves how there are two more people to adore her and agree that she is the bees knees and very clever and very smart. carys loves having two more people in her world.

as my parents pack their suitcases, each of the kids have traipsed into their room and asked them why they are packing. each has said they don't want their grandparents to leave. this is huge. you would think that some kids would want to get their playroom, their wii, their toys back. but amazingly and wonderfully, the kids are sad their grandparents are going.

i see the relationships that my nieces and nephew have with grandad doug and i am sorry that my kids don't share that. but, it is good that the kids are growing up to the point where they are appreciating and cherishing the time they do spend with their grandparents.

today as mo was packing, carys and sela and i were watching her. mo pulled out a sarong when sela screamed (i was next to her, yes she did) "I remember that mo! that is you at summer!" earlier in the day she said, "you smell like mo at fintry today" after mum had put on lotion. carys for her part, said to my mum, :i can't wait to see you this summer."

i am not making this a succinct post at all, but i am making it a happy one.

because i really am very happy about this. the kids will be seeing doug at well this summer and can get into the fun with him too.

and i can only hope that if they are too young to have actual memories of these times, they have happy feelings of their grandparents.

it's been a very good visit.

updates - child four through sevens

one week ago i was in shanghai.

a great deal has happened. i haven't even downloaded my shanghai piccies, but odila has. if you go down to the right hand side of my blog to my blog list you will see odila's blog. click on that and you will see better pictures than i would ever take of our trip!!!

and on sunday was the triplets ballet recital. i cannot adequately tell you how gorgeous they were. i will have to let the pictures speak for themselves. however, they were gorgeous.

and here i am blogging. and you, being the astute readers you are, are saying to yourselves, "but tess, it is the rugby sevens weekend? why are you not at the sevens?"

and to this logical question i would reply in one word, "carys".

my littlest love woke up last night shrieking that her head hurt. she had been complaining of headache and had a low grade fever throughout the night. she was ripping hot this morning at around 4am, and was sobbing. we moved into the living room, she on the sofa, me on the other sofa...identical to where sela had restlessly lain 10 days previous. she cried a lot, and went through many tissues. (kids have not learned to fold over tissues after first good honk, and i decided the wee sma' hours were not the time to enforce this lesson.) we talked for two hours and sang a bit and i did some reading as well. fighting back tiredness. why wasn't she tired???

her cheeks were hecticly red, and her tears were brisk and huge. she was just miserable. at 5.45 i gave her cough syrup (nightime...no subliminal hints , nothing suble about me.....i just wanted her to SLEEP!) 

at 6.20, as i dozed off to sleep, carys got herself up and vomitted. she reported this back to me. i cuddled her and got concerned. my fugue was caused by tiredness...hers was by fever. not good. i pressed more juice on her and went back to sleep. i woke up around 7am to see my parents around me (more accurately, around CARYS) and worried about her. poor little poppet.

she began crying because no, she didn't want to lie down on her bed, no she didn't want to lie down on mummy and daddy's bed, she just wanted to lie on the couch. to sleep. and she shut her lids and slept (thank you nighttime cough syrup!)

at 9am i gave her more ibuprofin..and this time it worked. her fever went down from 102.5 (underarm) to 99.4 (underarm) at 10am as the drs office opened, i called and made an appointment.

the dr said no rugby sevens. carys cried a bit but the dr said if she is improved, she MIGHT be able to go on the parade, where all the kids get to walk into the stadium wearing their kit, and the pro players are on there with them.

carys said she wanted her mummy to stay with her.

am i disappointed? yes. a bit. do i mind? no. when kids are sick, they are so much more vulnerable. so i am here. i should be cleaning, but instead i just watched carys falling asleep while watching MY LITTLE PONY. she tried to play a game on the computer while i tried to clean, but that was too tough.

with four kids, one on one times can be far and few between. so this is very good in a way. she is sick, but i am here. she doesn't know what i sacrificed, but she does know that it is mummy who is getting her juice, putting in video's and picking up tissues from the floor.

it's all good.

surreal

here has been the highlight of my evening.

after fantastic massages we headed over to a brazilian bbq restaurant called cantina for dinner. odila was particularly excited because there was a live band playing brazilian music. steph had called earlier and learned the buffet (meat a thon) was offered until 11.30. 

we walked in to the restaurant and learned that not only the buffet was closed but that the band had stopped playing several minutes ago. there was a fellow who was so apologetic, he was sorry, but the band was finished for the night, why didn't we come back tomorrow? no, we said, we had plans for tomorrow, but we would still stay for dinner.

we sat down and started drooling and debating over the menu. odila and terri ordered frucka, a brazilian soda. and then the chinese waiter came over and asked us in perfect portuguese if we were ready to order. well! odila was in ecstasies and a brisk conversation ensued. the table next to us looked over and smiled to hear the portuguese pouring from odila's mouth. the waiter turned to the table that was occupied and chatted briefly with one of the fellows there...it was the same fellow who had apologised to us about the band being done for the night.

of course, it turned out that he was the band. odila requested very politely that he play JUST ONE SONG. he said to us...YOU NEED tO ASK ME NICELY...and she said, please goodlooking, play us a song! and we started clapping and screaming as good canadian and american girls do.

so this is how it happened that we sat listening to brazilian music and eating brazilian food in shanghai. the lead singer was newton, he is a paulista and she is a carioca (from rio). it all had a slightly surreal feeling to it.

i need to go, bed beckons, but it was a magical evening. i have not described this experience well. but i will remember it always.

me or her?

on tuesday i realised that sela had been sick for a few days. really quite sick - fever only controlled by medicine, cough really quite bad, nose really shooting out interesting colours.

as ursula and i skived off and had a quick smoke (me, passive) between volunteering stints at kennedy school, she spoke of how her son harrison had been to the doctor with his high fever and cough and the dr had said, "it isn't pneumonia yet". i got home from volunteering and grocery shopping and felt my little girls head. she had been napping for three hours and was hot. she had also had a morning nap.

i knew it was time to see a dr. and i called until i found a pediatrician who would see her.

a hasty taxi ride into central.

the nurse flipped when she read sela's ear temp. she then gave sela an oral thermometre. it registered 40.4. i began to feel a bit guiltier. sela was whimpering, wanting to go home. we saw the dr, who listened to chest, looked at ears and throat. felt glands.

and suggested an x-ray.

sela was such a good girl but was crying with tears, not loudly.

the xray showed pneumonia. we were given five medications (not including the fever medication we had at home) and sent on our way.

i asked the doctor..."i am supposed to go to shanghai on thursday. it is not an essential trip. should i go?" and he said, "have you bought the ticket already?" i said yes, and he responded, and i appreciated him for this, "no."

i told my friends i probably wasn't going. they told me they understood, but not to discount the power of prayer. i agreed. we all started praying for the antibiotics to kick in.

and they did. sela has not gone back to school, but she is sleeping through the night, has regular coloured mucous, and her fever no longer is controlled by medication.

today is thursday. the plane leaves in three hours.

i will be on the plane.

i do not feel guilty about my decision.

i feel excited about my adventure and proud that my daughters told me to go and take pictures (and buy them something). i will, not out of guilt, but because i want to share part of my trip with them.

and you too. so wait for the pix, they're coming soon.

i'll post tonight.

another flower for her hat

last week when our friends the debocks were able to physically remove themselves from the four children trying to show them their favourite dolls and plush toys, or attempting to brush their hair, choose their accessories and wear their glasses, they made an observation about my city.
naturally, i was waiting to hear it.

and to my immense pleasure, it was a comment i had never heard before.

"hong kong" they proclaimed, "might be the most international city in the world."

it's like telling halle berry's mum that her child is beautiful. you can't deny it, but you can try to point out the beauty in others. and so i did. quite valiantly.

"what about vancouver?"

"no, vancouver is half ESL, but it doesn't have the australian populatation that hong kong does."

"toronto or new york?"

"No, again, not the same number of australians, although granted, new york would be better what with the banks."

"what about london?" i came up with.

london, we had to agree would be close, if not, possibly, the most international city. but does it have the high number of americans? canadians? kiwis? an excellent question. both locations got points for south africans and africans, and for europeans.

it might be london.

then again, it might be hong kong.

**************
on a side note - sela is sick. fever of 103. poor little dot. she is very quiet and every four hours i need to give her drugs or else her fever spikes. her joints aren't sore, but she is miserable. last night she woke up crying because she had misplaced her packet of tissue and her nose was streaming. and it was too dark. amazingly and impressively, "the others" slept through it.

the "suckiest"??

school yard words have begun filtering into the flat.

on far too many occasions, sebastian or one of his friends refers to something as, "the suckiest". alternatively, things can also suck.

i will ask sebastian's friends if they are allowed to use that word at home and they will say YES. i will say it isn't a word that we use in our house.

but sometimes, suckiest works quite nicely. and, as sebastian was quick to tell me, "i don't think sucks is as bad as the "f" word with the finger up high".

so suckiest is a lesser of evils. a downgrade from the f-bomb.

how do you handle language you'd rather not hear coming into your home? some of it..."taxes" "i can't meet you today..." are words you'd rather not hear but are inevitable. school yard (and exasperated mummy) language is inevitable too..but how should i react when i hear it?

shanghai...surprise!!!

i have referred to my lovely friend odila.

she lives in midlevels, where many of my good friends live.

however, next month, she will be moving farther away. even farther than kowloon side! yes...it appears that odila and joel (ever loving husband) are moving to angola. oh, her camera is going to be busy.

as sort of a last blast, odila and a few friends are headed to shanghai for a girls weekend. i am one of those girls! can you imagine, cruising along the bund, taking amazing photos, seeing new sights, new skylines, new smells. shanghai has changed so much since i was last there. i am so very very excited....and to be going with these girls even moreso!!!

i went today to get my china visa. i wanted to get a three year multiple entry visa, but my passport is up in january so that was impossible. i always try to get a three year, with the optimistic hopes i will be making many trips across the border.

how wonderful. charles didn't even blink an eye when i asked if i could go.

i love girls weekends! and then i will come back and the next day is the triplet's ballet recital!!

amazing grace...tess style!

today has been a busy day. it started around midnight when i was stubbornly refusing to go to sleep. i am reading "the interpretation of murder" and i was at a good bit, and the minutes were ticking by.

no sooner had i decided to be sensible then my second born came traipsing into my room, his heart racing. poor jasper. he lay down with us for a while and then i took him back to his room.

10 minutes later i heard him get up...but he didn't come into our room. and i just knew he was going into gary and marianne's room. cheeky little monkey! i raced out of bed and intercepted him. needless to say, jasper was up a few more times during the night.

this morning, we were out of the flat by 8.15am for the last rugby tournament before the sevens. the triplets don't like rugby any more than they ever did, but sebastian had a good day. it was fun catching up with steph and seeing other friends.

and then, it was back to church to send off the youth on...the amazing GRACE! their sunday activity was doing an amazing race. i had put it together and was quite proud of it. it had some good acitivities and wasn't too challenging or athletic for them. it was just right.

i like being involved in the youth. they are worth it. everyone always tells the youth "they are the future"...so how importnant do we think our future is if we don't invest time in the youth, even if they aren't our own kids?

anyway, i sent them off in teams of five, and with an adult supervisor, and off they went. then my friend bronwyn and i went with charles and the kids to look at another flat, since we didn't get the one yesterday. this flat was really high...i was a bit concerned. and the landlord isn't willing to be a proper landlord. if something breaks, she will not be responsible. we had to assume the costs. this is the situation we have right now....we don't want that!

anyway,we looked at the flat and then charles dropped us back at church and bronwyn and i ordered food, set out drinks, set up tables, brought out cutlery, and i set up the welcome mat that every amazing race has.

it was good to welcome the youth back. they had had a great day and each had "best" and not best things about their day. they looked as knackered as i feel!

my week is frantic and is only getting busier. but i can't tell you how rewarding it is spending time with the youth, even if i don't know them well enough right now. these kids are worth my sunday afternoon, a day away from my kids. everyone always tells the youth "they are the future"...so how importnant do we think our future is if we don't invest time in them?

i'm going through changes....

i had a half morning "vision" session at small world today. after enjoying a very tasty lunch, i texted magnificent and asked him where he was. as i expected, he was with sebastian and jasper, in baguio villa.

they were about to look at flats.

yes folks, we are leaving 122 pokfulam road.

i am not sure why the government has chosen to increase our rent by 46 per cent, but they have, and we need to accept that. so we will.

it doesn't make good economic sense for us to stay at 122 so we will leave. the challenge is trying to package it right for the kids.

of course their first reaction was, "i don't want to move i will go stay with...." and they begin a long leisurely list of people they are CERTAIN they would want them to just move right in. i love the confidence.

and then sebastian said, "if we move, i want to go to a place that has a pool."

oh they are clever little monkeys. CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER. love them.

charles and i looked around at baguio today. i know the big mistake is comparing to what you have already, and i tried not to do that. (this is when you tell me how proud you are.) charles was a tougher nut to crack, but that's our boy. he wailed about the lack of storage space and i don't blame him. what about gary and marianne? their room would be a LOT smaller. that would stink for them.

since we need to be out of our place by 28 march or take a three month extension on our place paying the rent they want us to, we made a tentative bid on one of the places we saw today. truthfully, i expect the fellow to say no, and i believe he will.

this is what trusting God is all about. we will be fine.

if we moved into a four bedroom place, we could split up the boys and the girls...that would be a great thing. see how positive i am being? would anyone care to guess what colour the girls would like to paint their room??