Reflections part 1

One of the first few days where I still look like me. 现在已经圆到不行了！

Trip has been good so far, even though there were some disappointments. My mom ghosted on me at the 11th hr. Said she caught a bad flu on the Monday just before I flew, so I told her to rest for the week and mayb help me with the kids, when she’s much better. 

Called her on Thursday (when I was already in Japan) to check how she is, only to realize she has booked a cruise to go on Fri and only back on Sunday. My mind went in a blur. I was disappointed, to say the very least. She said the cruise was only decided on Wednesday when she met her siblings, which made me even 😡. Well enough to meet them, but not well enough to help pick my kids. 

🫠🫠🫠

I cried after I ended the phone. Was I surprised? No actually. Coz this wasn’t the first time she just MIA on me. Was I angry and sad. Yes totally. In fact even now as I’m penning this, tears just streamed down on me. And it has been a few days since this has happened. 

I guess it’s not always grandmother instincts. Her grandkids aren’t as impt as her happening lifestyle. Or mayb I shouldn’t have made them so readily available to her. 

Anyway this trip isn’t abt her. So enough of the rant. 

This trip is abt celebrating our time together. Even when all things seem so difficult, at least we have each other 陪伴 to carry forward. 

I didn’t know that uncle was so stressed planning the trip. He wanted to tick all the sights/food/everything that he has planned. But we all know the thing abt going on a holiday is that - a lot of things are also subjected to Mother Nature. 

The Sakura blooming was delayed. We should have caught it on the last day when we were in Nagoya, but atlas, it rained the entire day! (See pic below)

It was pouring so heavily - using the umbrella for very practical reasons, not bcoz it’s kawaii. The camera man was drenched lo even though he had a kiddy umbrella. 

But nonetheless, even though we booked the best ryokan for 2 nights but all we could see is this:

It’s okie la.. what matters is being here with you. I think this is the longest time we have been together without any kids in a long while! 

Happy birthday my dearest 老公！I love you to the moon and back 

Me

The dreadful day came and left. The day where I’m scheduled for a training. This time round, I suggested doing a panel producer sharing, so that everyone could learn more abt 3 unique individuals which are so different in their ways of prospecting, but successful in their respective ways. I’m so thankful that they agreed to be my panelists, hahaha.. 

The days leading up to the event, I was feeling all over the place. Disheartened bcoz I felt that my FG was going nowhere. I felt that I was not doing enough to help them; felt that no matter how much I tried, it’s hard to dig their whys and encourage them to work. Their activities hardly move and I started to self doubt myself even more. The tipping point came when I was frustrated with another adviser, who did so badly in her paperwork, and had no urgency in rectifying or change it. And these are moments where it frustrates me to the max, when people simply don’t care. Then there was a relatively young adviser who decided to leave and join another firm. Maybe I hadn’t done enough, maybe I did too little too late. Or mayb I wasn’t meant to be a leader coz a leader shouldn’t be feeling all emotional abt so many things, even for a mini scale presentation. 

Anyway I’m glad that it’s all over.  The panel sharing turned out much better than I expected. I just need to work on my nerves and emotions. This is going to be a regular event, doing trainings and everything. And if every little single event is going to make me binge eat and emo, then I’m so dead!

Made Joash zzz last night and I teared when it was time to leave for the airport. 

I’m such a mess. 一直在装牛角尖. On one hand feeling all guilty over dumping the kids , on another hand wishing to go on another short couple trip to bkk! Aiyo… lena ah lena.. 你在做什么！？好啦。要珍惜这一次的二人世界。要活在当下。感恩

Living on Borrowed Times

We celebrated the love of my life few days ago. It was a simple bday celebration. Instead of going to a fancy restaurant, the bday boy suggested going to a zicha place for lunch so that we could have a nice lunch without burning a hole in my pocket. I guess as we age, birthdays are days we are thankful to still be around. 

Uncle Choo is 53 this yr. I’m thankful that he’s still healthy, with early signs of aging. At the same time, I’m fearful for the day when he leaves me. I know it’s morbid but it’s precisely we are living on borrowed time that makes each day precious. He says no one is indispensable and eventually we will all learn to cope. 可是说的到容易。也不是说了就放得下。

Documenting our lives together so that when the time come, there will be enough for us to hold on to. 

感恩我们一起走过的一切。

Where did my bun bun go?

It’s the Mar holidays so we took time off to spend with the twins. This morning was supposed to be cycling with grace but last minute, both of them said they would preferred to watch an anime movie. So off they went. 

Had lunch at HDL before we splitted ways. I took grace to Chinatown coz she needed to get some crochet supplies. Suddenly dawn on me, she’s now a tween, and not the “bun bun” we called each other affectionately. Why did I take so long to realize it? She’s quite often the “forgotten child” coz she never had problems academically + have quite a lot of friends + doesn’t have as much meltdowns. So quite easily, I’ll forget. And it suddenly struck me that I’ve definitely lost a lot of time with her. 

I wished I could turn back the clock. 

This is us this afternoon. She used to spam my phone with 2000 of her photos and always I’ll remove all, leaving one or two of them. 

Us in may 2021, when she still loves taking 2000 selfies. 

She doesn’t complains even when she doesn’t receive as much attention or time with me. Most of the time I “fire fight” with the other kids or with work. She just does her own things. And now her addiction is probably the phone or computer. Something we need to work on. 

Just had a night chat with Joy - the teenager who I hardly see nowadays. Her schedule is so crazy packed that I wonder if she knows her first priority is still A levels, and not build an exciting and colourful CCA portfolio. She’s running for council, and to be honest, I hope she doesn’t get it. Too much work, with no pay. JM says she’s probably very much like her mom - the drive and the crazy schedule 😳.. anyway while hearing her campaign and conflicts etc, I wonder when will the twins reach this stage where I can b confident and comfortable with them. When can we chat like friends and I can b 放心 with everything ? 

We also went to the night safari this evening. The twins have been requesting for this for a long time. When we finally completed the whole tram ride + show, I asked the twins when was the last time we were here. They clearly wasn’t impressed with the whole event - a sign of “Aging”. They have outgrown it. 🤣🤣🤣 And so when I tried recalling the time we brought them here (coz we only came once!) I remember it was before Covid, so it’s probably in 2019 when they were P1! Gasp! Certainly didn’t expect that their request has been postponed for so long. And all of a sudden, the mum guilt overwhelmed me. I felt bad, for neglecting them and not doing all the activities we should do as a family. They said that they aren’t interested to come here again, and that maybe we could just renew our zoo membership. Asked them where they would like to go, and we will try to go before they outgrow it again. And they said USS! So I guess we will bring them there in June. 

Ended the night with Mac. 

What if I stopped at #1?

Got caught into the kids’ bickering and the noise killed me. I don’t know what started it or maybe it was something that Vera said which rubbed me in a different way. She said in front of Joash how she wished he wasn’t here, that she wished he would still be an infant or that he wasn’t borne. 

Moments like this, sometimes I would joke around and tell her “I wished you were an infant too, or likewise vera”

But today, for the first time, I too wished that I had stopped at #1. Maybe my friends who stopped at 1 knew better. If we had stopped at 1, we probably travel all over much earlier. 

William dragged the two of us out for a swim, coz I was overwhelmed by all the bickering and I guess the swim did me more good than I expected. 

By the time we came back, the twins were done w their 听写 and they also digged out their fav 飞机琪 so that we could play after that. 

One of those moments where I can’t wait for Monday to come. One of those moments where I wished I was free. One of those moments I know I’ll eventually get over all these negativity. 

Mayb I should eat a tub of Nutella after the kids zzzz … hahaha