What Have We Done

Dear Little One,

We are sorry you never got to see the world.

We are sorry you never got to see a mother’s smile and her tears of joy for the first time, to hear her coo and sing you a lullaby, and to feel her warm fingers surrounding yours.

We are sorry millions of people saw grisly photos your little lifeless body in places a baby shouldn’t be.

We are sorry your only memory about life is the cold hard floor.

We are sorry you never got to make friends, to learn how to read, to find love, to dream and to achieve it.

We are sorry your life ended even before you could stand up for yourself.

We are sorry we did not enforce enough laws to protect you.

We are sorry we have been so busy with our lives that we fail to see that we all play a part in this society to raise a new compassionate generation with good sense and values.

We are sorry that in this era of information and advanced media, we fail to see that our children need our guidance more than ever before.

We are sorry we fail to see that the most important sex education begins at home, with open-minded, honest, accepting and loving parents.

We are sorry we are not taking enough responsibility to teach and to reach out to our children.

We are sorry we have failed you, little one, when you have done nothing, nothing at all.


Read baby dumping news here

Project Playhouse

These days, not many homeowners in Malaysia get to own and enjoy a garden. Especially more and more city folks in KL who are living in apartments. Even elsewhere, existing garden plots are cemented off to convert into more parking space ( one-household-two cars concept ). Morever, a garden is hard to keep when you don't have the time to maintain it. It needs work and love for it to grow.

I'm lucky enough to have a garden. An unkept one. And so I browsed for some garden landscape design and I decided I want this one.


But after some hardcore complex mathematics calculation, I figure the measurements doesn't tally because I only have this much of plot to work on.

Shucks.

So my search narrowed to "SMALL garden landscape design". And you know one thing led to another.



I want to build a playhouse now!

So my search has deviated to "how to build a playhouse". Lo and behold, I never thought a fancy one like this would cost almost USD20K, from Lilliput.

I think these are ready-made and assembled for you upon order or something. They also provide kits, and parts and plans for the more adventurous who wants to build it themselves.

Too fancy. I want a kampung hut style.



Tactfully, I brought this up to the busy husband. Expecting to be called crazy, he took a look at my pencil sketched plan, thought about it for a few seconds and said, "Can do". Woo hoo!!

It will take some time, and a LOT of work, but it will be so fun as a family project! Daniel can participate and see the building process and appreciate it even more. I don't know how we can pull this off, but at least it is a plan.

Daniel Doodles

I gave this little blank notebook to Daniel when he was 3.5 yrs old, just for fun ( actually I wanted to throw it away as useless trash). But what I got back was pure delight. He draws and doodles on it whenever he felt like it. And I'm always amazed at how kids put their imagination and impressions on paper.

Pig and pig-bunny hybrid going on a date (L). Super pig (R).


A girl with painted toenails.


Snails.


Someone with mascara holding a cellphone., probably breaking up with her boyfriend.


His recent impression of a tornado. I thought this was awesome.


Now this was the mother of all art, to me. After he drew this recently, I asked him, "Oooh, mummy love Daniel?". Without a blink, he said " No, this is Daniel love mummy"


I turned into a pile of mush. This is why we have kids.

Causeway Bridge Akan Datang

Lock Up Your Daughters

Funny T-shirt. I told him to put on "evil bad guy" look.

Parenting is not for the Selfish.

Someone I know recently proclaimed that she has decided not to have children of her own. As a parent, I tried to debunk her impressions, that it's not all that bad as it sounds, and of course, the immense joy, love and blablas. But somehow, amidst the soft debate, part of me supported her decision. A part of me was saying "Yeah, you go girl. Go travel, go see things we mothers of young children would never have time to see, go for food adventures that we mothers would not have the chance to go for because 'little James don't take spicy', go for that movie we mothers can't bring our kids to because it's PG13, I mean, just go man, go!"

But there are more than that. Children not only restrict your lifestyle (in fact they change it entirely), raising them is no longer as easy as what it used to be 30 years ago. Yes, the world has changed. Melamine was found in infant formula. What else? Plenty.

Parenting is, really, a matter of perception and expectations. It is a love-hate relationship. Sounds familiar? I love my kids to death but sometimes I just want them to vanish for awhile!
The difference is this. Happy positive parents focus on the love part, therefore, parenting is a joy and all heartwarming stuff. Stressed up unhappy parents sees the hate more than anything else, therefore parenting is shit and tiring. Nonetheless, it is a tiring job. And it. Never. Ends. It's FOR life.

So, for those of you who are childless and/or decided to be free, here's something that might reinforce your stand.
All Joy and No Fun : Why Parents Hate Parenting.

It's a loooong read. But a good read. For me, I'd choose this journey all over again.





Happy Weekend y'all!

Justified Expenses

I almost bought an iMac AND an iPad.

Just because.

But the Goddess of Reasoning whispered to my beautiful ears, "Honey, you don't need those. You Apple whore." So I decided not to.

And the most amazing thing happened after that. I found justification to buy other things! The Goddess says to me "Go ahead, buy this shirt, you saved $2500, so what is $19.90? That's right, take that debit card out." Suddenly, spending $19.90 on a stupid shirt isn't stupid anymore.

I also got my camera fixed. I miss my compact Ixus. I could carry it everywhere and could at least snap pictures of the recent active road developments in JB while stuck at jams, and share it here. But the lens are stuck in a jam too. $230 to replace lensa. But it's justified!

Also... don't tell Daniel I got him the UberMegaCool Electronic Buzz Lightyear with laser lights, voiceover and retractable wings.

I'm such bad influence on myself.

Causeway Bridge Bila Siap

Dear Contractors and the Board of Decision-Makers & Executioners of the JB-Singapore Causeway Bridge Project,

Don't be asswipes. Are your ears itching a lot lately? That's because hundreds of commuters are hurling insults at you guys every morning. If you are facing hiccups at the construction which is slowing it down, fine, we understand, hiccups happen. But please provide a better alternative road, one which is not riddled with potholes because this causes vehicles ie. the swarm of motorcycles, cars and buses altogether to tremendously crawl like babies who are just starting to learn how to crawl.

If you don't like to be stuck in a bottleneck jam, don't be the cause of it. You asswipes.

Sincerely,
Thank-God-for-iPhones

Deja Vu

I'm a photostat machine.

Daniel, 2005


Darren, 2010


Same cheeks, same chin, same double-chin. But somebody's wee-wee is smaller, I can't say whose. Ngiah ngiah ngiah. This evil mother can say "DO YOUR HOMEWORK OR I'LL TELL YOUR FRIENDS WHO'S GOT THE SMALLER L**J***!"