Month: October 2006

Vince: Superman, again.
Edda: Cute interpretation of tomato or strawberry.

I went to Vince’s school to tell them about Halloween, the holiday is getting more popular here, but mainly it’s just celebrated in the American neighborhoods (the opposite of Chinatown in the US) which is decidedly not where we live. The Chinese teacher was particularly interested in it, but it was pretty much impossible for me to explain (in Chinese) pagan holidays and All Saints Day, so I left it at children getting free candy. Also, how to explain “trick or treat”? Did I really want to say that if you don’t have treats, your house gets TPed or egged – it puts Americans in a weird light. But who knows, in Singapore, it perfectly fine to give sparklers and small firecrackers to a 4 year old.

Anyhow, I made the teachers go to different rooms in the school and then the kids and I went trick or treating. The love of getting free candy apparently crosses cultural boundaries without too much trouble.

To going balls out crazy and buying a digital SLR… Tell me I’m crazy Doris. Tell me I don’t need to do this… I’m just pissed sometimes that my P&S photos come out all blurry when the AF misses… sigh.

Nikon D200
Nikon 17-35mm F2.8

Halloween begins in our house with baking.

I tried to find orange sprinkles to make my sugar cookies into sparkly orange pumpkins – but it wasn’t at the local market – so orange glazed with rainbow sprinkles will have to do.

Oh, also, our 4.5 year old computer which we use as a TV/DVD and internet portal for the kids seemed to have reached the end of its rope today. I couldn’t get it to boot up, no matter how much I tried. Vince was OK with it, but Edda, she looked at me with sad eyes and whined for her videos for most of the afternoon.

Jeremy’s eyes were all aglow with the possibility of purchasing both a new computer and gasp, maybe a TV and DVD player. But a few minutes of computer genius and dumb luck (unplug everything and then plug everything back in) and the old clunker sputtered back to life.

We all woke up feeling a little bit like Ruby’s stuffed animal:

I was really sure that this entry was going to be Grumpiness: Part 3, but luckily, the weekend has ended cheerfully.

Jeremy even attempted the potato and paint craft again with Vincent to prove that the cheerful Jeremy was back. No one ended up frustrated and we had a bunch of decorated trick or treat bags in the end.

Wow, what a grumpy day – it seemed nice enough when we started, but it pretty much went downhill from breakfast. Jeremy didn’t get enough sleep (not because of Edda, just because he was preoccupied with work stuff), then Vince refused to eat breakfast, then Edda hated being at the dog park. Then the afternoon started, the gymnastics class went OK, but the ride home was a sea of grumpiness and tired complaints and then the afternoon went downhill with a failed paint and potato art project and a 2 hour stew that was started at 6 pm. Then Edda refused to go to sleep until 10:00 pm which means no alone time for me and Jeremy because we are totally beat. Goodnight! I’m going to bed.

Tonight I’m in a funk. You know it’s that feeling you get when one of your not-so-close friends, but better-than-aquaintence friends spends $400 to get 3rd row tickets to the sold out Elton John concert with his new girlfriend and he runs to the lunch room all excited and tells everyone about how cool it’s going to be and even though you never really liked Elton John (a bit cheezy and what’s with the weird costumes?), it seems as if he’s having more fun than you sitting at home eating cold pizza and watching TiVoed episodes of Project Runway with some great friends who are bringing cold beers and you know you are going to laugh until it comes out your nose.

I know, it just doesn’t make any sense, because, really what is better than beer coming out of your nose?

Finally the rains have come – the haze has been washed away, and I awoke to clear blue skies! Hooray!

Edda enjoyed the morning sunshine through her window as she tried to wack Vincent awake with her armbrace. Get out of the way of that brace, it’s a loaded weapon!

Today, Vince started gymnastics at Sporty Joe’s. He loved every moment of it, the uneven bars, the vault (it’s hilarious watching 2 year-olds try to vault), the trampoline, etc.

Vince is now signed up for 3 classes: swimming, music and gymnastics and he loves them all. Before each class, he revvs himself up with so much excitement, you can almost see sparks fly from his head. It is with some feeling of defeat when I realize that this is the solution I have come up with for entertaining my children. I had a vision when I moved to Singapore that the kids would spend the mornings in school and in the afternoons, we would find friends and go to the park, zoo or pool with them and I wouldn’t sign up for any scheduled activity. The weather is great, you can always be outside and there are plenty of things to do. But first, we had trouble meeting friends – everyone else was signed up for stuff or waaayyy to busy to hang out, or maybe I’m just lame and can’t get past the hi in the hallway phase. And now, with all of Edda’s therapy appointments, we barely have any free time to just hang. And I started to feel bad that Vince just got schlepped to all these appointments and he had to make do with the toys in the waiting room.

He was so excited that the gymnastics class was for him and not Edda. He calls it his own physical therapy class and he said that he would teach Edda everything. Edda had her own turn sitting in the waiting area – when she realized the class wasn’t for her, she was pissed. Cried and thrashed around. It took at good 15 minutes to calm her down.

On a side technical note:

I’ve been pushing the boundaries of my camera recently. I like taking close-up photos of moving people in low indoor lighting and no flash and as a result, all my pictures are blurry. Jeremy’s been looking at cameras again, but I don’t think I’m replacing mine, even though I’ve had it a year and it is no longer sold, I think of it as being new. Argh, I wish I was a better photographer.

Yes. I finally was able to drive to work today. Actually as it turns out, I was able to drive to work yesterday, except I didn’t get the memo from my muslim friends. Sigh.

So today, I did a lot of things I couldn’t do with a car – I went thru the drive thru at In-n-Out Burger, I went shopping at Macy’s in Stanford Shopping Mall, I got a Chai Latte from Starbucks, and browsed a bit at Best Buy.

I also had a frosted cinnamon roll. mmmm. It was a good day. 🙂

Everyone is back at work and school. Hooray! One of the best part about going on vacation is to come back to your regular routine.

Genesis had a celebration for the holidays this past weekend, Edda went all dressed up.

Also, Jeremy and I swear that Edda was trying to say the word “more” at dinner.

Today is Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan, a public holiday in Singapore. So Donald, I suppose you are driving your car again after weeks of pedal power.

We went to a playdate today where we met an eye surgeon! Woo hoo, we peppered him with questions about Lasik – Jeremy’s still thinking about getting it done. But both Mr. EyeSurgeon and Mrs. EyeSurgeon wore spectacles (aka glasses for the non-British / non-Singaporean). Hmmm, might that be a clue? Mr. EyeSurgeon (a 38 yo man) said he didn’t get Lasik because he felt he would need reading glasses soon anyway and since all his work involves close work it wouldn’t help him avoid glasses.

Dakshi also came over for a delicious fajita dinner.