Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

i've got your back, do you have mine?

today i was helping my friend sandi pack.

friend sandi is leaving hong kong after 25 years in our fair city. that might be another blog for another day.

however, at 2.35 i dutifully got up, brushed off my jeans (still tight from Christmas excesses if we are being honest) and rushed down to meet Gary and off we went to pick up the kiddos.

at kennedy school i was greeted by jasper who informed me that "i want to go to karate".

why?

some of you used to giving children the benefit of the doubt might wonder if he was inspired by the Karate Kid, which he saw bits and pieces of the other day.

some of you, who are suspicious and stingy (me) might wonder if the sudden interest in gis and martial arts might be because word has filtered down to jasper that after karate, i often take sebastian for an ice lolly.

whatever, he wanted to do karate. i let him.

sebastian of the big eyes walked up to me and said, "mummy, will you come and pick me up?"

now, i had planned to go back to sandi's, but where are my priorities? i said, "yes".

and the boys skipped off, jasper ecstatic.

then we noticed that jessica, carys' friend, was standing near us, tears streaming down her face. and when i say streaming, i mean STREAMING. poor little poppet. she was immediately surrounded by girlies who asked her what was wrong. and she replied, "my mummy isn't here!"

i pulled out my phone and said, "should we call her, jessica?"

that cheered her up and so i pressed CALL and gave the phone to jessica. who spoke to her mum and then handed the phone to me. while i was talking to her mum, who was about 30 seconds away from the school gates, another mum approached jessica.

i talked to that other mum for a bit. and we said that was one of the great things about kennedy school. how we all have each other's backs.

i went back to sandi's and we did a little bit of work. but soon it was time to pick up my little karate men.

however, we were late.

and as we turned on to sha wan drive, my phone rang. and it was a mum who has had to call me before, my friend Christine.

"hi tess"

"hi Christine...we're just coming!"

"sebastian just asked me, very calmly, if i knew where his mummy was. so i suggested we give you a call."

Forty five seconds later i was cuddling my little man and hearing all about karate.

But Sebastian said to me, "He can't find his mummy."

I called the friend over. He verified his helper was supposed to come and collect him. Or his mum. Neither were there.

I tried calling his mum. No answer.

Gary tried calling the helper. She said she was having a tough time getting to the school and hadn't left yet. Gary and I offered to drop the boy off.

Hilary wasn't kidding when she said it takes a village. Where would we be without those calls, people who stop when they see your child looking troubled, people who stop and take the time from their schedule to help someone else?

a new phase!

when the friendly giant tootled out "early one morning" on his alto recorder i really really liked the recorder.

when I had recorders for those elementary school years, i really liked the recorder. (I say recorder in plural because they kept getting lost.....mum?)

when i visited friends who had older kids and they whipped out their recorders to show off their skills and abilities, or even worse, their younger siblings got their hands on their recorders, i didn't care for them as much.

and now, sebastian is the proud owner of a recorder and i dislike the recorder with an intensity bordering on hatred.

how did i go from the friendly giant to this scaly eyed person?

obviously it is all my kids fault.

the kids have refashioned themselves into a modern day partidge family, with much cooler clothes, obviously.

jasper on keyboards, sela on vocals, carys on drums, and sebastian on recorder. today we have guest stars danielle and jessica also on vocals. sadly, after snack they discovered that the batteries weren't working in the keyboards anymore. sadly, the batteries had been removed. sadly.

can you blame me?

they were banging, belting, bashing and tootling. and congratulating each other at the end of a song before launching into another!

other times, the recorder is an item of power, to be used to indicate to siblings which one is the favoured. seb will allow the favourite sibling to use it, leaving the other two to whinge or fight between themselves as to who will be next.

someone pointed out to me, "well, you could just buy three more and be done with it", but i just cannot imagine.

why can't they learn to play the triangle or something?

i had a great day today.

firstly, charles is home, and we still have episodes of THE RICHES to watch (YAY).

secondly, today was a rugby tournament. all the kids went and played.

sebastian and i stayed home in the morning, because his games didn't start until the afternoon. it was fantastic. i let him watch harry potter and we lazed around, we talked, we prayed and just took it easy. then we caught up with andrea and adam, caught the 970 and headed over to king's park in yau ma tei.

the triplets had games earlier in the day. sela had a streaming cold, and possibly should have stayed home. but instead, i got a text from charles after their first game which read, "jasper and sela scored tries! carys and ella held hands during the game." hooray for jasper and sela, and isn't it great that carys and ella caught up on their fun time.

jasper told me, "i'm not sure if i should be a football hero or a rugby hero". oh the painful choices ahead!

after liaising with our men, andrea and i took the girls and headed to the ladies' market with the girls. they were really fantastic. we looked at jewellery, they begged for toys, we bought them plsatic flowers for their rooms, and then we decided to head home. carys was complaining that her ear was hurting.

as we headed to our bus, we saw a display of ugg boots. the price was really fantastic, but with our sharp negotiating skills, we made them even better. pretty sure these come from the same factory the real ugg boots do. they were in the same packaging. we let the girls choose their own colours. carys chose beige, and although last year sela declared beige to be her favourite colour, she informed me that now she just likes the WORD and she selected BLACK ugg boots for herself. (little miss).

then we got mentos, jumped on the bus, and headed home.

home where the girls watched my little pony, andrea and i read magazines and surfed the internet, she bathed the girls while i made dinner. and then the boys came home. the seven kids ate pasta and yogurt, and the adults stood in the kitchen and demolished bread rolls hot from the oven.

we talked and laughed and then they left for our home and we put our kiddies to bed.
but first the girlie whirlies wanted to show daddy their ugg boots (which are an early birthday present).

while they were twirling around, carys started crying, and shivering.

"i'm so cold," she declared. "please may i go to bed".

charles and i took her to bed and gave her some medicine.

she was asleep before i turned out the light and when i last checked on her she was sweating. she should be okay by morning.

seb and jasper were playing around but giving jasper lovely blanket toned him down a little.

and then it was sebastian's turn. we talked a bit about the day, and how he hadn't scored a try but still played well. we prayed and i turned out their light, but kept the hall light on, because jasper said MUMMY! please! i sleep better when lights are on! and then went back to his typical pose of clutching a pillow to his chest and hooking his leg over it.

into the kitchen, wash the dishes, while charles unloaded uniforms, shoes and stuff from the day. 

recalling it, it doesn't sound very glamourous, or deserving of such joy. but for me, these days are just so very very good.

tess lyons is grateful

i don't have facebook, but if i did, that would be my line.

i am really grateful for this past week. God has been so good to me and my family and has blessed us all in so many ways.

MC comes home tomorrow morning. just in time! i have read all the magazines he sent me. i am so lucky to have him as my husband. he mails me magazines, and if he has the time, he flips through them and writes his comments as to who he reckons has had plastic surgery. (you've guessed by now he doesn't send me the economist!) he calls me, and does shopping for us.

after much discussion with sela and carys, they determined that they wanted the TALKING baby alives for their birthdays. IM HUNGRY the dolls apparently shriek, as well as pooing and weeing. All they say is IM HUNGRY? heck, jasper asked me for a mobile phone the other day. BABY ALIVE sounds like it has manners. charles picked up two of them.

im grateful.

today i went to sham shui po to get some electronic stuff taken care of and while there, i did some bead shopping. for such amazing prices you can get beads of all shapes, sizes and colours which my girlie whirlies will make into bracelets and necklaces. it was a fantastic time just browsing and oozing around. and then dim sum lunch. gorgeous food. tasty. laughing. i just felt so happy and grateful to be at this place in my life.

a few weeks ago i made the tough decision of stepping down as board member of an organisation and off another committee. i didn't know what i was going to do with the emotional energy or the time! but within 72 hours, i got a phone call, and an opportunity is sitting at my doorstep. don't get excited...i won't get paid for this....but it is an opportunity i believe i have been called to do.  there is also an opportunity to do work at the hong kong ICM headquarters, to take on a project there.

grateful to be able to make a difference for the people in the philippes. that although i don't have talents like my sister, sister in law, mother or father in law...i'm not a nurse or doctor...my rather soft and dubious talents are needed. 

i watch CNN and i look at the coverage, so reminiscent of the philippines, and amongst the devastation and death there are stories of hope. and help. people living on food stamps who are donating money and their "other" pair of shoes.

i'm so grateful to be part of it all.

i am grateful to be almost 40.

i am grateful i have lived long enough to see people change around me.

i am grateful i have lived long enough to change

i am grateful that i still believe change is coming.

presents and presence

on sunday, magnificent left for san francisco.

before he left, the entire family gathered around to give him pictures (some hastily scribbled, some carefully created) and to pray.

the kids' prayers were pretty predictable.

sebastian: please let me be a good boy.

carys: please let daddy's plane not crash and daddy not die.

just what you want.

charles closed the prayer by asking protection over our home. then he left.

weng and her children, james and mary mae came over to spend what was left of the afternoon with us. the boys took light sabres down to the playground and the girls did craft-y type things at the table and then on the carpet. when i asked them to tidy up, they skipped back into the room with fairly good nature and prepared to do so.

next thing i heard was carys wailing. real tears. sela came racing out. "the heater fell on carys and she is crying".

the girls room has an iron bar heater we have pulled out during this cold time.

"was it plugged in?" i asked in alarm.

"no" sela assured me. "but it fell on carys and cut her"

"is she bleeding?" i asked in horror. i could just imagine.

"no." said sela. "but it fell on her mummy..."

and then carys arrived to be soothed.

she had a thin white strip surrounded by red on her chin and lower cheek. it was only God's grace that prevented her from having a split open chin. God knew i couldn't handle stitches again, and three more at the hospital. charles had prayed protection on the flat....and we had gotten it!

moving on to PRESENTS...

i am having a tough time trying to figure out what the triplets need for their birthday. not a lot, let's be honest. my parents deposit $$$ into charles' account and then i buy presents for the kids, which means that i have to be creative. (i do like vetoing things like loud musical instruments, though!!)

should i get them each a movie? i dont think they would love a zhu zhu. jasper wants a few lego figurines, but what about the girlie whirlies? frankly, they don't need anything, since the only gift they are "desperate" for, the strawberry shortcake cafe, i already know they are getting. it seems like we just finished with Christmas and i was wracking my brains trying to figure out what to get them from aunties and grandparents! (have to say, seb loved his magician kit).

sela wants a hamster, but a girl hamster because she heard a daddy hamster bites. i say no hamsters and blame it on jasper's allergies. carys suggests we get a turtle. i say no pets, but secretly wish we had a cat or a dog.

i bought the girls puzzles (real ones with boxes vs the wanchai markets puzzles) and they did them a couple of times and that's been it.

i think i might get them dresses. does that sound boring?  i could take them to stanley or marks and spencer and say, "choose a dress. whichever one you like, it's yours as long as it fits and is not suggestive or inappropriate or too lacy or or or." (basically, as long as i like it).

does that sound like controlled compromise?

xoxoxxo

i procrastinated a bit on the "tomorrow" bit

it's another manic monday. (children of the eighties...is the song firmly in your head now?)

a promise is a promise...so i will tell you about AFTER we got everyone tucked into bed following our NYE party.

charles and i cleaned a little bit. i am not the sort of person who can go to sleep while the house is dirty. so we cleared plates, did some washing, dried things, put stuff away, created order for the next day.

and we heard carys coughing.

we looked at our flat, decided it was satisfactory, nodded, and got ready for bed.

and carys' coughing resumed. but this time there was a different sound to it that got me out of bed, and running to her room.

it was carys' night to sleep in the top bunk.

i found my wee miss pretty asleep, sitting straight up, coughing. i said her name, and she turned toward her pillow, vomitted a brown streak into it, relaxed while her body gurgled, then produced another massive vomit. this one missed her pillow and drenched her sheet and BEBE and other misc. toys.

WELL.

between vomit one and two, while she gurgled i called CHARLES!

my legs were straddling the sleeping sela.

carys, having finished her business, laid down in the mess and tried to go back to sleep.

the next few minutes were rather reminiscent of new years eve 1985, when our dog cut off her circulation. graeme and i found her and had the fun task of cleaning the crap and vomit out of her fur and off the floor and walls.

charles pulled she sheets of the bed while i got carys into the shower. she was crying and confused. a nice warm shower didn't help much. WHY was she here? WHAT had happened? WAS she sick? WAS she going to vomit again? WHEN had she vomitted and was it in the toilet?

into pajamas. brisk rundown of her hair.

a quick race around looking for sheets for her bed. find some semblance. quickly make the bed. push sela up there just in case.

get bucket for carys, put her on bottom bunk. I think i might vomit again she says. but i doubt it.

she looks at me. apologising and sorry. asks me to sleep with her. i tell her i will for a bit. she will be asleep in seconds so i am not too worried. but as fast as the lids slammed shut, they suddenly spring open. "wheres BEBE?"

i don't want to say that BEBE is covered with sick and is lying as instructed in the bathub, covered by similarly covered sheets that i am going to rinse out before going to sleep. i tell carys BEBE is watching new years' fireworks. this bit of fantasy delights her and she falls asleep.

lucky little cow.

i get up and breathing through my mouth, stagger into the bathroom. stagger out again and grab dishawashing soap. turn on the shower and get the chunks out of the sheets. hope the drain doesn't clog.

decide to use shampoo on BEBE and the other animals.

leave the shampoo and soap in the animals and sheets and pillow overnight.

put in a plastic bag and on to the terrace.

wash hands hamlet-mother-like for 10 minutes or so.

go to bed.

sleep, but very lightly.

the little party that kept on going..and growing!

i am in the classrooms today so i must be briefer than a stripper's knickers with this post.

but i wanted to tell you about New Years Eve.

I mentioned earlier how the kids were giving us grief about having a social life. So Charles and I decided that we would spend New Years with our family and actually celebrate it with them. As we learned at Christmas...they're old enough.

We decided it would be movies and wii at chez Caldwell.

It sounded divine.

Then I said to Charles, "I wonder if we should invite another family" and he said that sounded like a good idea. I contacted Weng Simon and her family, and she texted me back " Gr8! Simon Family will be there!".

I was on a roll. I knew that Tara had plans but I invited her anyway. I invited Susan and her family, but she reckoned that they had plans.

So it looked like it might be small. Two families. Fine and fair enough.

Except then I was talking with Charles about a family we really like and he suggested I invite them. So I did.

And I don't quite remember what happened after that (kind of like when you go on a wild shopping spree??) but I DO remember that I was talking to people and the topic of New Year came up AS IT DOES and if they weren't doing anything it just seemed RUDE not to invite them to our place. How can you not invite friends? Especially ones that for the most part, we have all known for over five years?

So on 31 December, 14 kids and 12 adults gathered in our flat. We had wii on and an LCD projector playing in the boys room.

WIthin minutes, the girls' carpet was covered with their princess dress collection and the girl visitors were climbing up and down their bunkbed ladders.

I had ordered pizza, "made" sausages, a macaroni cheese, had thousands of bags of chippies and juice at the ready, so we were set. For adults there was champagne, wine, and at 10 am I had filled the slow cooker full of chili ingredients and pressed start. It was smelling fine. Everyone brought something - spring rolls, dumplings, chicken wings, pate, cheese ball & crackers, adult home baked pizza, and lots of wine. 

We presented Weng with her birthday cake and all the kids got cupcakes. The party had started.

Now all we needed was stamina!

At 8.55pm we gathered the kids around the television and turned on Australia TV to watch the Sydney fireworks. Charles had printed out copies of Auld Lang Syne and we passed around versions to everyone and sang, and wished our Kiwi and Aussie neighbours a happy new year.

We took polaroid pictures of all the families.

After the first new year, our numbers began dropping off....fair enough. Our invite had read...

At the beginning of the milennium, none of us had children. Let's celebrate the start of a new decade with them.

That's what this party was all about. Being with our family at the start of the new year.

By 11.30 we were a sorry crew. One adult was asleep on the sofa. The rest of us wanted to be. Sela was asleep on our bed. The rest of the kids were watching ET.

At 11.55 we pulled everyone in to the front room, woke up sleeping beauty, and welcomed TwentyTen with sparkling water. We had already consumed three bottles of Pol Roger, so we didn't feel too hard done by!

And by 12.30 our last guest had left.

I think this is what our New Years are going to be like for the next few years. Until our kids get their own invitations. We owe it to them to make it good and fun, not only so they have good family memories, but so they have alternatives if the going out option isn't the most appealing one to them.

I think this is what our New Years are going to be like for the next few years.

Or at least, I hope so.

Tomorrow...i tell about what happened after the neighbours left!!!

off to a cracking start

2010 really has its work cut out for it.

if 2010 thinks it is going to be as wonderful as the first day of the annum, then we have a fantastic year ahead of us. today was quite simply, a fantastic day.

we went fishing in the new territories. in a place i would never be able to find unless i was following the leader. en route, the kids dozed and charles and i listened to praise and worship music as well as some robbie williams. (jasper's favourite "mr bojangles" and sebastian's all time favourite, "under the sea". i just love looking at his face when he hears that song.)

as we drove, i noticed how carefully mark was driving, keeping the other cars in his view, and how the kids were cross when a taxi cut in between us and the terlichs. maybe it's the strains of auld lang syne still reeling in my head, but i just felt so blessed to be among friends, all of us looking out for each other, whether in traffic, looking for sales at in wanchai, or kids on the playground.

it took us about 45 minutes to get to our destination and it was so interesting watching hong kong change nuances as we got closer to the border. in sha tin suddenly there are special sidewalks for cyclists. this fascinated the kids so we briefly talked to who ever was awake about bicycles in china.

then trees, of all shapes and sizes and all shades of green.

and parking.

stepping out, with our friends and the kids sniffing the air. "i like it. it's fresh air" declared sela.

getting fishing rods.

sebastian doing a lap of one of the fishing ponds.

setting up a table with a bottle of white wine, cups, a bag of chippies (aren't we sophisticated?) and standing around, looking at the water. learning how to cast. and drag in.

the look on jasper's face when he caught the first fish. (correction: his pole caught the first fish. paul reeled in the fish!) the look on sasha's face, then aidan's, then jasper's again. the look on tara's face when she HADN"T caught a fish. (actually quite similar to sela's face....sela and i were the only ones who didn't catch fish i think!) taking sebastian for an exploration around the fishing area, and letting him loose only to have him stop short as a great white crane took flight five metres in front of us.

the kids got filthy and the sun sunk lower in the sky.

sometimes we talked to each other, sometimes we veered off, alone (or in hopes of grabbing a fish). later on, the kids watched the fish being bopped over the head (that would be killed), and filleted. i chose not to watch that bit. sebastian didn't like that bit as much, his ears were covered, but he insisted on watching with the other kids.

what a day.

we were left completely alone, and in hong kong that is rare. the kids had the run of the place, and in hong kong, that is also rare. it was freedom, and it was fishing.  it was comments like sela's as she emerged from the squatter toilets, "I couldn't find tissue so i just shaked."

friends, cooperative fish, simple pleasures, clean air, laughter, lazy days, roaming kids, the sweet poignancy that comes at the end of a good holiday. we just felt so blessed.

2010, you're off to a great start.