made aniq stay up to write cards for his teachers and lao shis. managed only four before he gave up. (sorry Teacher Sandra, whoever you are.)

as he’d written in all his (almost legible) cards, Thank You, teachers.

(i gotta say, those cheap cheap cartoon stickers from pasar malams are damn useful. )

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… c’mon, don’t say “itch”. :p

barely recovered from The Worst Stomach Flu i’d ever encountered and being comatose and totally devoid of food for almost two days, i was prepared for a shock to my system… well, what’s a celebration without food, after all. it’s something the husband is especially, especially fond of. i think, even fonder of than me ha ha.

and that ice-cream, which i’d taken the liberty of requesting from the wonderful staff of TGIFridays @ JB, was almost regretful on the part of my stomach (no dairy, doc said!)… but i survived, phew.

to the guy who boils me homemade barley for my fever, makes hot tea for my stomach, scours shops for that particular isotonic drink to recover my salts…

to many more years of looking after me!

HEH HEH.

(that, and many more dishes of delish food to enjoy, and drive-home music to sing along to.)

(but enough babies, ok? thanks.)

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i didn’t know such a tradition existed until i started seeing lanyards suddenly bedazzled with multi-coloured metal pins, cling-clanging against each other, weighing heavier and heavier around the wearer’s neck as each day passed during the Games.

it stirred up my childhood fascination in collecting all things tiny and cute… (seriously, i loved pins when i was small.)

unfortunately, i didn’t get many opportunities to meet with the athletes or NOCs personally to practise the pin-trading tradition, nor did i have any to give away in the first place. i didn’t even know the protocol to go about it. TOO SHY LAH.

but! a fellow purple-shirted comrade offered her loot to me, collected from her venue. thank you Rafidah Meier!

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a fellow purple shirt came by to visit me at ‘work’. he took one of those (infamous) ‘Give Way’ shuttle buses we could hop on to get from one Games venue to another.

and so, Games time ends today. a little sad to part with the company i’ve made over the past two weeks. being involved in this reminded me of the times i’d worked in event management just after i’d graduated, a (much younger) youth myself then, how i liked being a cog in the wheel of things, the challenges faced in intense periods, meeting new people… and in an event as large-scale and international as this, the cultural exchanges were, needless to say, most enriching.

oh, and yes, i did learn more about SPORTS too, erm, of course. ha ha. (watching from the sidelines was admittedly more exciting than on tv.)

but the time has come for us to sink back to reality, and move on with the ebb and flow of normal (yawn) everyday (yawnn) routines…. sigh.

au revoir, Jeux Olympiques de Jeune. it was a great run.

thank you, merci, obrigado, gracias, and (my favourite, in russian) – come on, say it with me – “spasibo”!

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P1100942, originally uploaded by izadd.

in maternal guilt, i let them ’skip school’ on my two off-duty days to gallivant with them, in the hopes of alleviating any abandonment issues that might arise with my long shift hours during the Games.

almost drove all of us insane. i think i’m better off at work…

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half of the languages we’re supporting for the y.o.g…

(am particularly fascinated with russian and find myself inexplicably thrilled rolling their country names off my tongue – azerbaijan, uzbekistan, kazakhstan, kyrzgyzstan, belarus – gah! ok i’m a dork.)

a melting pot of youths, foreign and local, speaking in exotic languages, learning about each others’ cultures – needless to say, this deployment was a perfect fit for me.

while i don’t provide any interpretation myself (merde, it’s been 12 years since my french and german lessons :p), felt extremely proud watching the volunteers do their job interpreting for the athletes, a first time for most of them, especially in the glare of camera lights, all excited, nervous, yet keeping cool and doing their best.

gotta say, i like the energy and enthusiasm of this generation’s youths. (i’m not sure i felt it that much in my days.)

and being around teens so much these few days, hey i turned into one myself… *looks at an oily zit on the face*

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somehow, baa baa black sheep has associated itself with a carefree big bad wolf, and doe, a deer, induces much emotion.

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the kids had been singing snatches of what sounded like ‘we are singapore’ days before national day. the little one would putter about going “seeeng-a-poh… seeeng-a-poh…”, and the older one would ask the title of the song where “got lion roar, that one”, so we knew they’d been brainwashed – i mean, taught in school about national day. “singapore’s birthday?”, he asked. well, sorta, i guess. that’s much simpler than having to explain the history of independence to a 4-year-old.

i’d never been to a national day parade when i was young, my parents preferring to stay put at home and restrict our national merriment through live telecasts of the parade on tv. izad on the other hand, has only fond nostalgia of the NDPs he’d been to as a kid, now lamenting how difficult it has been to obtain tickets since the advent of the balloting system. i guess i’m not “patriotic” enough to reallllyyy want to participate en masse in flashing flags and singing in unison to sappy songs about being home, truly, but there’s enough of it to go along with the crowd to soak in the holiday atmosphere and enjoy the roaring jet displays and spectacular fireworks, the latter admittedly being my only favourite part of the celebrations.

actually, my seemingly lackadaisical attitude towards the concept of patriotism extends to having few complaints of being born here and subjected to the system that is singapore. (sometimes i even find myself defending the system, despite myself – well, as they say, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, heh.)

comfortable and complacent, how’s that for being a model singaporean?

and now, enough of that perennial (and truthfully tiring) grumblings of “wasting taxpayers money” rubbish, you cynics. (there’s plenty in the coffers, take this is small change.) i love fireworks, my kids love fireworks, and i’m ‘technically’ paying for it too, so suck it up and enjoy lah! :p

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(a little note: about the part on the rattlesnake, coincidentally, an episode of The Pink Panther was shown after we’d read this a few times together, where the panther accidentally stole a basket containing a baby instead of food during a picnic scene and in an effort to pacify the said baby, now crying, he’d removed the end of the rattlesnake’s tail to give to the baby as a rattle, and i guess this left such an impression with the kids that they associate it with this particular rattlesnake every time.)

(also, another note: they will inevitably ask the same question in every story with illustrations – “where’s the daddy/mummy/baby?” not sure why but there’s always a concern for the whereabouts of a missing family member in the story.)

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was discussing insurance for the girl the other day (her brother’s was done when he was two too), and our financial advisor estimated we’d need a cool $85k in 16 years time if she were to go for a local tertiary education – i mean, IF we’re fortunate enough for her to want to pursue it, that is. (well, a mom’s gotta hope.)

made me wonder how much my parent forked out for mine, coz i have NO idea. they’d split costs – mom paid for my brother’s overseas education, dad paid for my local one. and i was fortunate enough to not have to repay any student loans whatsoever either. (dear dad, thank you for giving me my education. and while i’m at it, thank you too for paying for my driving lessons. and basically, for everything you spent on me. as my brother would constantly remind me, i was a spoilt princess – still am, yeah i know. :S)

so anyway, we’d settled on a whole life and term policy thing, same as her brother’s. i don’t know, i’m generally not very good with money (seeing how i’ve not been made to handle much of it in my life growing up), and just hope that things will work out for them in the future…

meanwhile, in the present, was updated of the girl’s progress in child care (she’s in a half-day programme for now). all good things so far. she especially likes the home corner and dress up corner (oh the gurly gurl she is turning out to be), storytelling and art, conversing with friends and teachers, discovering things, always the one to help distribute others’ water bottles… and i’ll spare you of the superlative adjectives her enthusiastic teachers had for her. :p

one thing the teacher DID ask me to work on with her was fine motor skill, in particular threading work, which she, for some reason, did not like doing. i’m guessing she doesn’t have the patience yet for it, but since it seemed like another activity we could do together at home, what the heck…

and the last thing we talked about was toilet training, which we all agreed she was pretty ready for. the past few weeks, she’d cooperated on the potty before bedtime, and the previous weekend she’d woken up, walked straight to our bed and asked to pee in the toilet, so i think all that reading of Princess Polly’s Potty came to fruition after all. well, that and the fact she has her older brother to model upon, and me, whom she follows to the toilet all the time to observe. (yes, that open-door policy still stands here at izadnhana’s abode, sigh.)

and so, am happy to report that this was her third day in preschool undiapered, and doing pretty okay (minor mishaps, ie. half-accidents, notwithstanding).

so yey to less diaper wastage! (and to mother earth, sorry we didn’t get started sooner).

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