Letitia's Princess Party

When organising a birthday party for a 5 yo girl:
1) Make sure that your B'day daughter is not 45mins late for the party. This way she gets to play more of the games designed for her.
2) Have more than 1 more person (other than your spouse) to help out.
3) Forget about catering for everyone's gourmet taste (healthy food), it'll get wasted.
4) Plan for extra "surprise" guests (junk food and esp. toys).
5) Plan to stay back another couple of hours to clean up (with overtired and whingy kids)

This is one for the biggest event we've achieved on our own. As usual, anything well planned is sure to go wrong. This party was "missing" a birthday girl for about 45 mins as our lovely neighbour who was suppose to drop her got the time wrong. **Our sincere apologies to our neighbour as she felt really bad about it but we still have to blog it. All's well anyway and we are indebted to her!!** Letitia did not know a thing but felt real "royal" when everyone was WAITING for her. She was just thrilled to finally get to her party. She didn't even know she missed out on a few games (we had to keep 20 kids occupied) and generally had a ball with all her friends.

We found that most of the finger food were wasted due to the heat but the chinese take-aways were very popular. We have learnt to stick to our own cuisine and have loads of it for next time and drop the "rabbit" stuff. Carrot and celery sticks were soon converted to "Wiggles vegetable soup" at home. We were blessed enough to have our PRATT family help with looking after Mathena (she needed someone to hang on to as it was overwhelming) and also to take heaps of pictures (which was great as I missed out on a lot of action). A lot of prep work were done 2 weeks prior and the day before. Even more were the cleaning up after. We had 2 girls from our church to "play" with the kids, up to 8 games and lots the running around. They had morning tea and lunch and a play with the play equipment on the park.

We were TIRED after and still recovering. We are happy that we pulled everything through with not much dramas ("I don't want to be your friend!") or tears. Letitia still have some friends in talking terms with her and we apologise profusely for "the look" when she ripped off the present's wrapping and found clothes/craft stuff instead of toys. We realised that our parenting skills were all "on show" at birthday parties and yes, we are VERY embarrassed.

Letitia has been drilled that the next party of this size is when she turns 10! I have 5 years of excuse left. The other ones will just be cake and family (and 1-2 friends). For the time being, just let me rest till the end of September when Ms No 2 ask for "Wiggles party".

Come Back Soon, Kong-kong!

How do you explain to a 2.5yo who asks "Where's Kong-kong??" nearly every day?

The house has indeed been quieter as Mathena does not yell for **"Gong-gong" anymore at the top of her lungs. And she doesn't go thumping up and down the stairs in search for "Gong-gong's" company. She's now stuck with plain old mom. Nomore hide-and-play-seek, nomore flicking the tv remote (their game), no more jumping on grandad's mattress (her private trampoline), no more strolls to McD with a 60cent ice cream at the end of the journey, no more impromptu visits to the park with multiple swing rides and no more "Bweak-first time!!" yells at dinner time!
**Chinese for Grandad or Pop

Instead, she gets car rides to Letitia's school 2-4 times a day and a few moments of playtime with me. We have lunch in a school lunchbox (she has to have one!) now and her meals are getting less and less "chinese" due to her aussie exposure. On the other hand, we've discovered that she is quite a "rice pot" and can gobble down half a bowl of rice by shovelling into her mouth.

My dad has been the constant companion and friend to Mathena all the time he was here. She gets almost everything she asks for (reading, tv, play, water, fruits, jumping on bed?) but is generally happy to just sit with dad's arms around her watching her favourite "Wiggles". Dad is now very well verse in all the Wiggles songs eg. "...rocking, rolling, riding, all along the way" and "Tie me kangaroo down sport!" while Mathena uses the placemat as a wobble board.















* Playing with the girls * Papa took Mathena to playgroup and got
all wet

It's been a real pleasure having papa here. He got a bit bored as there's not much to do here (minus the 7 days of tennis). He still manages to mop my floors, wash my dishes, and hangs out the laundry (normally when I am unsure of the weather, my laundry goes straight to the dryer) while he watches the sun. He's done most of the "spring cleaning" stuff for us and relieved us of many chores (esp Alex). Mostly, he's started a love-fun relationship with the girls and even Letitia thinks the dining table is less cramp without him there.

My Baby's growing up

I don't know what I did with all that time between March 2005 and this March. I guess I can easily have a look at my on blogg log...

BUT, my little first born is turning 5 in a couple of weeks. This year, we'll have a party with REAL friends to invite!! Over the past years, she only gets the friends that comes with our friends and some neighbours.

It still hurts thinking of the 16 hours I spent in delivery ward inducing and waiting for her to "pop". It hurts more now as I look back and she's all grown and knowing.


On another note, our beloved Kong2 will set wings off to Kuching this Friday. We'll miss him terribly esp. Mathena who's now taken him as her constant companion and pal. We look forward to more family visits in the future, meanwhile, we'll have to plodder along in our busy life with kids.

It's NOT all Happy-happy here!

Been holding out for a while now....can't keep it in any longer!!! Remember how I was "annoyed" at robbers???

Well!!!! I got "pick-pocketed"/lost my wallet last week!!!!!!!!

I remember having my beloved wallet when I entered the clothing shop that sells cheap T-shirts. I just got given some money by my mom to buy something nice for myself (sniff) and was eager to find a bargain. All the shuffling and digging through clothes piles found me without a wallet by the time I went to the counter to pay. To my stress and dissapoinment, someone was unkind enough to walk away with it and left me with stress and lots of sweating in fear of Alex.

2 hours of phone calls, cancellation of cards, dragging the kids back-tracking through all my paths, police reports as well as LOADS of cold treatment (will blog a about that next time) later, we went home to Wollongong. Very down and depressed for the rest of the weekend. I was later given the task to "recall" all the contents (of value) in the wallet and spent most of Monday and Tuesday replacing them.

Lo and behold, Thursday afternoon came and I had a parcel from Aussie Post in my mailbox. Someone had "nicely" dumped all the contents of the wallet into a street red postal box and the AussiePost group/ mail-people has kindly return the entire stack in a neat envelope to me. The amusing thing is, ALL the cash is gone, my wallet was not attached BUT there were two pieces of "ang-pows" with $5 each in them that were untouched.

I am feeling really "un-attached" to these contents who's been round everywhere to come home..... so not all of them are back in my *substitute* wallet. Still recovering from the drama, the guilt, the burden and the hassles involved. If I waited a week, I would have saved heaps on replacement cards but I would have to wait in "vain" for the things if they did not returned. I needed also a Driver's License to go around.

*substitute* = The many men's wallet Alex received over the years.

Get to Know KINDY night!

I went to a meet the class session for Letitia's class. This is what I learnt:
1) English: Reading, writing, talking and listening (All with a myriad of activities to instill)
2) Phonics (Now I REALLY know what it is!)
3) Maths: Taught everyday with games and group work
4) Human Society and It's Environment (Now focusing on the "School" community)
5) Science and technology (weather, seasons and designs)
6) Personal Development, health and Physical Education (gross motor skills and sportsmanship-friendship)
7) Creative and Practical Arts (speaks for itself, my guess is Letitia will love this class!!)
8) Homework (Yikes! 10 mins a day)
9) Home readers (2 books a week to read at home)
10) Library (1 book a week to borrow)

....and as that's just for the US, the parents!!

I really do feel like attending Kindy just to know it first so that when Letitia comes home, I can at least answer her questions. We have to make sure that all equiptments are labeled (yes, we've lost a labeled water bottle already!!), we have to make sure they have the right uniform on the correct days, we have to make sure we clear all the school work out of the bag, and we have to monitor their behavior (they get cards for positive or negative behaviours!!). We also have to fill out notes for anything out of the ordinary and still fill in 4 hours a term of parent participation hours.

Welcome to kindy, folks! Now I understand why my poor little baby comes home and ask for, "Mommy, can I have a little QUIET please??" and climbs upstairs to her room for a bit of R & R. To all the moms out there starting BIGSCHOOL this year, my thoughts and best prayers are with you.

Kindy day 3

Letitia went to school with the entire clan. We had "Ah Kong" and Mathena at the school grounds to have a look-see. Mathena went with her "Gool-bag" with lunchbox and all..

L had a sadder start before being led to Kindy. She had tears while reaching out to me. I had to wave her off and asked her to have a lovely day. We are tired and day 3 is just about enough for her.

Another family with a more mature child told her mom, "Mom, I am not at all sure about our agreement to have this 5 day week Kindy !!". We loved that statement. This is from one of Letitia's ex-PREP friends who is unfortunately in a different class. She also added, "I guess I still have to go to school and be nice with those people, hey?", not at all impressed!

Letitia had swimming after at 4pm and she's in a BIG KID class where it is no longer fun and games anymore. She had to do laps and laps and laps. Boy, was she tired ever!! She was a bit whingy, tired and teary. Overall, she sustained herself till daddy arrived! PTL!

Kindy day 2

While on the way back after a hot and tiring day,
"Mom, can you please not ask me any more questions?"
"I'm tired, I just want to be quiet!!!!!"

After a bath and some winding down with Mathena,
"Mom, can I have enough of school already?"
"Two days is enough, thanks! Can I stay home tomorrow?"

Believe me sweetheart, mommy wants you home with me too.
The driving alone is enough to make any mom want to quit the
schooling "thingy". But life happens....

Day 2