What does it matter to you?

Its a birthmark....

For the upteenth time I find myself having to quote that ....

And the interesting thing is that I never found myself having to say that... not even once... on my trip to UK and Paris...

Why is it that in Singapore and even more so in Malaysia, I find myself having to explain why my baby has a bluish patch on her right cheek repeatedly with a gentle "please dun ask me anymore question" smile ... in Malaysia, they are not even just satisfied with that and would even ask me strange questions about my labour... to test out their old wives theories as to how the patch could possibly have come about... and me with such strong boundary issues have to face such personal questions

Maybe I should instead be saying..."It's a haemangioma, otherwise known as a strawberry mark" and go into a full blown explanation that it is a -

Red or purple-coloured vascular skin markings that develop shortly after birth. most are usually painless and benign. Some lesions (cavernous haemangiomas) will disappear or become harder to see as the child approaches school age.

That should shut them up!

My mother just has her belief that the mark was caused by me going out, whilst pregnant, when there was an eclipse of the sun .. how strange... and stranger yet that she actually believes it when even my grandma debunks it.

I find myself not really caring anymore about the patch.. it used to be a concern and I even contemplated laser treatment etc but now I looked at it and dun see anything wrong with it... Like Penelope got used to her nose... well the patch is a part of Daniah and I think it would be strange if she did not have it anymore. My father still is though and would keep asking when the patch would go away reasoning that its a big concern cos she is a girl. You mean it won't matter if it is a boy? My only thoughts are if a guy were to reject my girl cos of a patch on her face, he is not worth her time and definitely does not deserve this princess!

Daniah turns 7 months yesterday and she has yet to sit fully unsupported and crawl... I think it does not help that she has 2 elder sisters who developed so fast and became a point of comparison. Not that it matters once she finds her legs... she will then become another one that we have to chase after and look out for.... for now, ooohhhh my aching arms and back!!!

Feeling like a maid?

I've heard this comments occasionally from my girl friends whenever they have to do more than the usual household chores "I feel like the maid" ... and it now sets me wondering at how far the women in Singapore have moved on ...

The league of our mothers and grandmothers would never have made such a comment. It was unthought of... it would not have crossed their minds that when they are doing the household chores that they were being treated like a maid or even feel like one. It was their duty, their responsibility ... and there was no two ways about it... they get it done cos who else would? Definitely not the men in the household. At most they get the help of their daughters when the later are of age...

Today though... its a different story.... how much we have moved on to feel that household work need not necessarily be our responsibility ... to feel that it could or should be someone else's ....

Think about it... when women breastfeed... it is tiring, it is taxing, it takes a lot from the women but it would not have crossed their mind to quip "I feel like the maid" when they are actually doing it.. it is their duty, their responsibility, their role to do...

but when it comes to household chores ... hmmm... it becomes a different thing... how is it that we have somehow move to start feeling that when we are doing household chores that this should be the responsibility of the maids and not ours? I think it impacts more on those of us who works full-time...I dun mind having to do household chores... i mean not that i completely dun mind... of course I would prefer not having to do it... but hey if I have to do it, I got to do it....

I start feeling upset tho when I feel that somehow the other members in the house disregard the fact that I am also working full-time and yet having to do the household chores. When things are thrown on the floor or left lying aroound with an expectation that I will pick it up. Sometimes I also feel upset that it is being taken for granted that I will do it so no one else feels compelled to do it... and thats when the thought "I feel like the maid" comes to mind... cos dun we get into that mindset/ tendency that when we have the maid we no longer have to do the household chores and leave it completely to the maid?

I do wonder how the maids feel when this happens to them... not too far different from us I suspect...

Maid Blues... Again x 4!!

Oh when would this ever end... and here I thought we would be getting a maid by tonight and that my house can finally be clean again by tomorrow afternoon... only to get a call from the agency that the maid has failed her exams... 3 x in a row and would now be nicely going home to Indonesia... what was this? a short getaway trip for her???!!!

And the search is on.... again... and the wait is on... again....

so back we would be hauling ourselves to the agency once more ... to make our selection... once more... and subject ourselves to the mercy of waiting ...

London Bridge is falling down

The girls in Bath

We finally made it to UK and Paris for our longest trip ever... and I know there were definitely moments there when dear hubby was ready to just kill Tasnym... cos I felt that way too... Somehow she got into the mode of wanting to be carried everywhere, refusing to move from the pavement she is sitting on until no one else except her papa returns to carry her. Daniah too became an absolute koala refusing anyone else when her mama is around... my arms became muscular from the trip!! Colleagues said that I am now half of me from before the trip! Yeah and slowly but surely gaining back that half!!


I would say that it was a good trip... I loved the natural history museum - to get to see the dinosaur fossils and the bones of the blue whale... wow!! Stonehenge and the changing of guards at the Buckingham Palace was a let down... maybe too much hype than anything else.



Having both sets of grandparents around was a good thing - as extra sets of hands to carry things and manage the girls.. The long flight was a killer and the earlier road trips drove us simply nuts as we just kept getting lost - finding ourselves going the wrong way on the map... and to think that SOME PEOPLE said there is no need for the GPS thingy in UK.. yeah right... the same people who ended up putting themselves on fire cos of stress... just looking for the hotels took more than an hour... as we went round and round... We even ran out of clothes to wear cos some people insisted that I should not be bringing so much clothes, the same people who ended up shopping for clothes cos he did not have anything to wear... hmmmph!

Not forgetting the saga that we went thru when I left my phone behind in Kensington Park. The whole of Singapore was trying to get hold of us in UK and that was on our first day there. I am amazed at my good fortune that the guy who happened to walk past my phone when it coincidentally rang (cos a friend in UK was calling me) picked the call and agreed to return the phone to me! There began the whole saga of my entire family trying their darn hardest to get hold of us after my friend contacted my friends in Singapore to get in touch with me in a very circuitous way..... And I did get my phone back from a very nice person by the name of Mehdi who works in Royal Albert Hall.. Thank you so much!!

And to think that I also left my camera behind in a toilet in Edinburgh and also got it back! I am becoming so forgetful and absent minded!!

My house is till a mess, the suitcase is still lying in the hall ... and we are still dealing with the jet lag... but the memories were worth it... how do you grapple with looking at a building that is 800 years old? Or that a room you are in saw the birth of a King 500 years ago? Living in a bed and Breakfast was an experience... but we definitely could do without all those stairs ... to think we were staying in the attic!

Feeding ducks and swans at Windermere, Lake District

Paris was not as nice an experience... the snobbery of the people, the filth of the metro... it just spoils the entire experience when the places we were at were so nice.. where else can you meet Indian guys selling crepe (that's French Prata!!) speaking French with the snobbery attached!! and the fact that someone attempted to pickpocket my dad! The guy we met at the tourist information counter at the airport was so arrogant... he should definitely not be working there... he told me off for mispronouncing Les Halles..."Its Lee-Al, its French" with a dismissive snort... huh! like I would know how it should be pronounced and like as if he can pronounce Bedok!

Painted faces in Disney. We paid $25 each and they wanted it wiped off after an hour!Never forgetting her trademark pose!!

Its been a long time...

It has been some time since I last blogged... and there has been lots of ups and downs in between... for one the maid left and now I'm waiting for the next maid to come tomorrow... more details some other time...

daniah is now 6 months old and has turned into an absolute koala...

tasnym is well just tasnym... with aspirations of being a princess now

and sarah ... has turned into someone who is trying to discipline her younger sister, like that will happen!

Sarah: Say sorry... say sorry properly... I am still waiting... dun nyeh nyeh nyeh... say it properly.. wat must you say if you want the biscuit? ...