Christmas Tree is Up!

I love Christmas!!

I guess I really need to attend a "How to decor your Christmas Tree?" course. My Christmas tree is so ugly. Very messy too. And I'm using the decorations from 2 Christmas-es ago.

I'm going to get new decor and a new tree next year. And if there's really a course to learn how to decor a Christmas tree, I'm going to sign up too.

Yikes!

Tara's 2nd Birthday Bash!

A small one actually. We decided to throw a small birthday party for Tara cos we felt little kids deserve to have their birthdays celebrated. But this year, we only invited family. No friends at all. Not even relatives. Not counting Bob's ones cos he has only a few close knitted relatives in Singapore, and they are considered family to him.

Actually, I don't really have any mood to make the preparations as Mum was admitted to hospital just days before. The day I ordered Tara's cake, it was in between trips from work to hospital. Bob told me not to go ahead with the party cos he knows I was feeling really down. But I thought all the more I should go ahead, to liven things up. And there, I proceeded to order a 1.5kg "Empress Dowager" flavoured one from The Patissier. It cost quite a bomb. But I told Gene it's to make up for the ugly cake I bought for Tara on her first birthday.

Food for the party consisted of just fried noodles, red eggs and make-it-yourself popiah. Mum was supposed to cook more dishes but she couldn't. Initially I thought the food were too simple for a party, even for a small one. I was wrong. The make-it-yourself popiah is actually a good way to get guests involved in making their own food! It's quite fun actually.

Mum told me Tara needs to wear new clothes on her birthday for symbolic reasons. But I was shuttling between work and hospital everyday, and simply have no time to do anything else, less to say shop for clothes. So on the day itself, I pulled out an Osh'Kosh jumpers my BIL bought for her almost a year ago. And there, new clothes. Not even washed! Very new!



The cake! I thought Tara will like the cute little animals sitting on the lawn in front of the cute house. Boy am I right! She was really excited to see the cake, and I can see she loved it a lot. Well, the $$ I spent is worth it after all.

Noticed the "Tara is 2". The scrapping mummy ensure that her scrap projects goes every where, even on top of the cake. It's for a reason though. There's actually a piece of white chocolate that says the same words but the chocolate fell flat during the trip back from the bakery, and the words were smeared. You can see the smearing on the left side of the candle. And because of the smearing, it becomes "Tara is 0". Not only that, the house was so heavy and it keeled over. I removed the plastic pipe that is not doing a good supporting job and just pressed the whole house into the cake. There. Done.

As for the wordings, it took me 20 mins and a whole lot of effort to make so you must see the zoom in picture of it. Hehe.



And the birthday girl. She struck this pose when I said I'm going snap a pic of her. She's a girlish girl after all!



The make-it-yourself popiah. Forgive the bad lighting



Tara eating her cake.



I'm glad Tara enjoyed herself. She loved the cake too. Even her armpit loved it. Since that part of her t-shirt got smeared by the greenish cream. I would guess so.

Little Golfer

Just before we leave for KL. A little video clip for you peeps to watch.

Updates!

Thanks to all you kind souls out there for leaving me a message and sending me sms-es the past weeks, perking up my otherwise gloomy mood. It has been a roller coaster ride these few weeks for me and my family. From Tara's little accident to Mum's stroke. It definitely brought me and my family closer and that's a good thing. Mum's incident also made me realised that I should not take anything or anyone for granted.

Okay, updates on the both of them. Tara first.

Kids do have an amazing healing ability. Now the scar on her head is not even that obvious, unless you take a closer look. And till this day, she still remembers that she hurt her head and has never fails to remind every single one of us everyday. She will point to her scar and said "头", at least 10 times a day.

Okay, recent picture of the little girl.



As for my Mum, she's recovering really well too. Less than 2 weeks ago, she was fully confined to bed and and require full assistance on her basic needs. Now, she can walk, feed and also attend to her toilet needs by herself, though she require some assistance in moving around as she's still feeling mild giddiness.

Mum can be discharged from NUH but has to stay in a rehab hospital for 1 - 2 weeks or until she's fully recovered and able to function as before. We can see that she doesn't want to go but she understands that it's the best for her. The medical social worker said she will be able to recover faster as compared to recovering at home and shuttling to and fro the hospital for physiotherapy.

Dad called me early this afernoon, and said that Mum had a wonderful appetite today. She wolfed down a packet of chee cheong fun my Dad bought this morning. Before that, a few mouthfuls of food and she would feel nauseous, so today's a big improvement. I can hear the happiness in my Dad's voice. He's been so worried about my Mum the past week.

So everything's almost back on track. I'm glad.

Bob is in KL for business till Thursday but has extended his stay till Sunday so that Tara and I can join him for a short stay there. I've booked air tickets for this Friday. Now the only problem I have is, how to handle the little active kiddo all by myself, during the flight. Just to keep her seated during take-off is a major challenge. And it's a mere 45mins flight.

Anyone has portable DVD player to borrow? At least I can try playing her favourite Hi-5 VCDs and hope for the best that she can behave. I'm also thinking of bring onboard, lots of food and drinks and maybe colour pencils, crayons and paper for her to doodle. Hope I can survive the flight.

Pray pray.

4D

Tara: 7766.. 7766

Mummy: 哇！ 你在报号码啊？

Tara: 7766..

Mummy: 要不要买？

Tara: 要!

And there... More money wasted on 4D.

Now it's my Mum

2 weeks after Tara's little accident, I'm back at NUH A&E again. This time, it's my Mum.

It happened on Saturday midnight. Dad told me he heard noise coming out from the hall and went out to see my Mum leaning on the sofa and complaining of giddiness. She told my Dad she was feeling really terrible and wanted him to call the doctor. Dad thought it was better to send for the ambulance.

It's one of those rare occasions that Bob and I both off our handphones and my Dad, Sis and Bro could not reach us. Both of us were also too tired and was sound asleep, thus didn't hear our house phone ring. It's only when my BIL came pounding on our door before we realised something had happened Mum. Initially we didn't dare to open the door cos we thought it's some hooligan out there. Even after we knew that it's my BIL, we also dare not open the door. It's a scenario that was never expected as we never thought will happen and so didn't know how to react. My BIL was literally pounding the door (my door bell spoilt), shaking the gate and even threw objects at our kitchen window and that was scary, especially if it happens in the middle of the night!

BIL sent me to the hospital while Bob stayed home to look after the soundly asleep Tara. I realised I was trembling all over even though I wasn't cold. In my heart, I was praying really hard that nothing serious will happen to my mum. I reached the hospital at 2.30am to see my Dad standing at the entrance of the A&E and smiling at me. He told me it's nothing serious and said my Sis shouldn't have called me. He said Mum was semi-conscious and was able to talk to him throughout.

My Dad and I waited at the A&E till 7am before we managed to see our Mum. Nobody spoke to us and we were only told to follow my Mum to the ward. My Dad who was trying hard to act cool the whole night went all nervous and kept asking the nurses about my Mum's condition.

We weren't given any answers until about 8am, one really young lady doctor came to ask my Mum and us a series of questions. She told us they need to observe and check her throughly before they can tell us what happened.

To cut the long story short, my Mum had a stroke. A mild one. The doctor told my Mum this morning. The stroke is not enough to paralysed her but she wasn't able to open her eyes for long cos she will get really giddy. They did quite a lot of tests but can't seem to explain the cause of Mum's giddiness. This morning, she was sent to the Neurology ward where they keep her under close observations. From the time she was warded till now, she was lying on the bed throughout. It was such a heart wrenching sight. My Mum is a very active person and she can't even sit still for long (unless playing mahjong), lest to say confined to the bed completely.

Any chance I have, I will rush to the hospital to see her. I just went during my lunch time. Before I left, one of my Mum's close friend was singing to her and it was the first time in these 2 days that I saw her smile. It almost brought tears to my eyes.

I know that all humans will get old and fall sick but I refused to think that when it comes to my own parents. To me, they are always young, strong and very healthy. And nothing will happen to them. What happened to my Mum jolted me to reality, that she and my Dad will leave us one day.

Now I just pray and hope that nothing serious will happen to my Mum. This Sat, we are celebrating Tara's 2nd birthday and I really hope by then, she will be discharged from the hospital and will be able to attend Tara's little birthday party. I wish that it will also be a celebration for Mum's recovery.