The Huntington

It is officially the driest spell LA's had since the 1880s, when they started recording rainfall here. We've not seen any rain at all since we got here. Some places have even cancelled their 4th of July fireworks next week, cos of fears that fires might get started. One of the mountains nearby is called Mount Baldy - I've been wondering if it's because of the brown patches that dot it; it looks so arid. I miss the relief from the heat that the rain brings.



We visited The Huntington today, which is made up of the Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. No time for the library or the art collections; we explored parts of the botanical gardens instead (despite the hot weather!). The Children's Gardens are lovely. E, the resident water baby, got her clothes soaking wet playing in the water fountains. She couldn't get enough.

Lunch at the Huntington: grapes and Cheetos

Lovely roses in bloom - very Jane Austen - I almost expected Elizabeth Bennet to appear (in an empire line dress, of course) with Mr Darcy next to her.

We're off on another short roadtrip next week. Will update y'all soon!

Exercise balances all that eating

J needed a few tips, but he was soon looking like a pro. He had a great time at miniature golf. I had stayed home to catch up on some housework; he came bursting into the house, talking a mile a minute about the windmill and the patch of grass for the golf ball to roll on. He's already made plans to return.

The golf clubs were still a bit too tall for E, so she gets her exercise by playing ball. She's great at it too!

Yum Yum Yum

It's not often that this happens, but when it does, it's a sight to behold!

I love jello.

Getting it out of the pot directly is the fastest way to my mouth.

Hot weather's here

Disneyland in summer is a bad idea - it's incredibly crowded and super hot! We managed a few firsts though: J's first roller-coaster ride (he loved it!), E's first time sitting on the carousel horse by herself (she was still clinging to the post when I tried to carry her off). Still, we're not going back until the weather gets cooler!

We found a new playground about a five minute walk away from our house.

And we found J some shades of his own. And he got a haircut today. Now he's a cool dude!

Hi, everyone! It's me, Emma!

I've been plenty busy lately! Growing in all sorts of ways. For instance, I'm in the midst of cutting SIX new teeth. All at the same time. Yes, SIX. Poor Mummy couldn't figure out why I'd been waking up so often in the middle of the night. Yep, it's been a few weeks since I've slept through the night, but how can I, when my gums hurt me so. Mummy's got me a tube of teething gel (in the hope that it would help me sleep better so that she can sleep better at night too), but it stings when she puts them on, so I hate it! I won't let her put it on easily!

I'm getting lots better at calling out for Mummy though, so she can't resist me! I call out "Meh Meh" or "Ma Ma Ma", so Mummy thinks I sound like a little baby lamb. I'm too cute.

I do get really anxious when Mum's not around though. She calls it "separation anxiety", I call it "I want my Mummy". I stuck so close to her in church today, she had to stay in the nursery with me.

Just this morning, I played a trick on Mummy and Daddy. After I drank my cup of milk, I sneaked it into the small cupboard next to the TV cable box, without anyone noticing. Mummy went wandering around the whole house looking for my cup. Heh heh. She was stumped and finally had to ask me to get my cup for her. Of course, I knew exactly where it was, so I sauntered over and took it out for her. She was quite tickled that I knew how to play hide and seek.

Other things I love to do: shopping for make up at the pharmacy. I just can't resist those cute little bottles of nail polish and cute little tubes of mascara. Daddy just rolls his eyes at me. I don't understand why Mummy keeps taking them away from me and putting them back. Can't she see how pretty those colours look?

Did Mummy tell you how much I love eating barbeque? Man, those babyback ribs and grilled corn. Too too good. Eat until can explode. You know, I make it a point never to sit through a whole meal quietly; I just don't know why these adults take so long to eat. But when we're having barbeque, I'll just sit down and eat and eat and eat. I also love the brownies Mummy baked today. All the adults were having some, so Kor Kor and I went to each of them in turn for mouthfuls of brownies.

That leads me to another thing. Mummy keeps putting me in my babychair, but I want to sit in a proper chair just like Kor Kor. The adults get all upset each time I try to get up on one. They say I'll fall down, but it's what Kor Kor does! I don't care what they think, I can do anything he can! And I want to make sure I'm not missing out on anything! I've already picked up on his love for trains. It's not just him who gets all excited whenever we hear the train whistle. Kor Kor runs to the room window to look at the train, but I'm not tall enough yet, so I run to Kong Kong or Ah Ma so that they can carry me up to look.

So that's pretty much it. I'll write again if I have more to tell y'all.

Love, E

A Prayer for My Children

"My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

And in far other scenes !"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight" (1798)

"May she become a flourishing hidden tree

That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,

And have no business but dispensing round

Their magnanimities of sound,

Nor but in merriment begin a chase,

Nor but in merriment a quarrel.

O may she live like some green laurel

Rooted in one dear perpetual place."

William Butler Yeats, "A Prayer for My Daughter" (1919)

Every night, we tell Josh and Emma a story before we put them to bed. Last night, during my dramatic telling of an encounter in a fishing pond between Harry the Hippo, Zoe the Zebra and Ally the Alligator, Josh had the perspicuity to point out that zebras don't really play in the water with fish, unlike alligators and hippos. So I had to reframe the story a little, to suit his sensibilities.

A little over three years ago, I became a somewhat startled, overwhelmed and clueless father of a tiny, helpless infant. Just as we became accustomed to his antics and habits, we reprised the entire experience, this time with a girl who, as it has turned out, has a very different temperament from her brother.

Why do we become parents? Why do so many people put themselves through an experience that many who do not have children probably view as a form of purgatory? That, of course, is a question that the Singapore government has wrestled with for some time, resorting to outright monetary incentives to induce couples to have children. It's a question some of my friends have asked too, because it's all too easy to recognise and enumerate the apparent downsides of having children. You lose (a lot of) disposable income, time, leisure, social and professional opportunities. Your time no longer becomes your own. Your sense of the world must expand to constantly reference the needs of a helpless infant who needs you constantly, incessantly and often, irritatingly.

But we still have children, and we love them so.

My own, admittedly limited, experience with fatherhood has provided me with an important hint to why we need parenthood. My own instincts will always tend towards selfishness and self-centredness. (Notice the self-centric nature of the list of "complaints" about parenthood I noted earlier.) My own sense of the world will largely and dominantly encompass just my own frame of reference. And unless something extraordinary and otherworldly happens to me, I will remain stuck in a limiting way of understanding the world. My heart would remain small. My sense of the world would remain limited.

Parenthood, like a calling to a sacred ministry or responsibility, challenges these instincts. That's why it's difficult, and so rewarding, at the same time.

I am grateful to my children for showing me that my heart was bigger than I had thought previously. When they demonstrate good behaviour, or show off their beguiling sides, it's easy to love them. But it is the times when they challenge my sanity or patience that I understand how my own behaviour must seem so vexing and disappointing to my Father. And it is at those times when I need to tap into deeper reserves of love, like an oil prospector reaching deeper into unknown strata but with a key difference: I know my search will not prove fruitless.

So perhaps we need to celebrate our children. We have Mother's Day and Father's Day. Admittedly, Father's Day goes by much more quietly than Mother's Day (I think the number of Mother's Day cards outnumbers the Father's Day cards four-to-one.) Perhaps those days should also become celebrations of how our children transform us, so that we can become people with lives of some transcendant purpose.

And so, we will continue our stories of Harry the Hippo, Duncan the Dolphin, Zoe the Zebra, Ally the Alligator and the assorted other animals that have captured our children's imagination. And we will continue to clean up the mess after their meals or playtime or bathtime. And we will continue to wonder about the people they will become in the future. They will learn "far other lore" from us. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge said of Hartley Coleridge, our children will have a far different experience of the world from us. And that's our great hope. As we continue to tap deeper into surprising reserves of love and patience that we did not know even existed, we provide the fuel and sustenance for a new generation that hopefully, will bless the world in ways that we could not have done.

The first encounter...

...with the health-care system here. Aiyoh.

As part of J's registration in nursery school, we had to get him physically checked out by a doctor; and both he and I had to have a TB screening (I have to get screened because of the volunteer days I'm supposed to put in with the school). Sigh.

We went to a "urgent care" centre, which is basically a place where you can just walk in to see a doctor (instead of going to a hospital's ER). We waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. For over two hours!!! Argh. For something as simple as getting the once-over by a doctor. When it finally gets to our turn, it takes like five minutes for everything to get done. We had to pay US$50 for J and US$105 for me. That's just the consultation fee, the TB tests cost more.

BUT later we find out we didn't even get to see a doctor, the guy who checked J out was a physician's assistant! And I don't even know why I had to pay the $105, since all he did was ask me why I needed a TB test. Nothing else.

Aiyoh. I tell you, it was such a frustrating experience. So I understand why people here self-medicate a lot.

Highlights from the past week

It's been a week since I last posted anything so here's an update:

1. We made our second trip into LA. On the train, of course. J was so eager to leave; he tried calling and calling us to get us to leave the house. Then he got tired of that, so he just put his shoes on, went out the door and leaned against the car. When K found him there, he asked plaintively, "Can we go yet?". We checked out Chinatown in LA, where we had a really good dim sum lunch and where I bought ginseng and chrysanthenum. We also visited Olvera Street - the heart of the Mexican part of LA. The kids took in the sights:

It's quite colourful and supposed to get really loud and fun around Christmas time, so we'll see if we can make another visit down then.

2. San Diego, part 2. We did the same round in San Diego, stopping at La Jolla to check out the seals again. Unfortunately, because the weather's a lot warmer now, there were no seals on the beach, and only a few swimming in the cove. Both kids were much more interested in watching the waves crash on the breakwaters. J was particularly thrilled each time a huge wave came in.

3. SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park (which is also run by the Zoo, but it's in more a safari style).

J insisted that we get a dolphin cup, and you can see that E had fun with it too! It's much much hotter now, compared to the last time we visited, so everyone's really brown now! The heat can get quite quite draining, and J even wanted to borrow Dad's shades.

Both kids were suitably impressed by the animals they saw. Here's J doing his best imitation of a dolphin dive:

And both practiced being flamingoes back in the hotel room after their day at SeaWorld.

We didn't get a chance to visit the Children's Zoo in the San Diego Zoo the last time, but we did this time round. And we learnt that while E usually loves watching animals, she gets real antsy when they're up close and personal! Oh, and in the hotel room, she surprised me by saying "duck, duck" at a picture of a duck on the wall, all by herself, without any prompting.

True to his fascination with big things (he always wants the bigger french fry, the bigger piece of cake, etc.), J spent a long long time checking out the big hippo at the zoo. He wormed his way to stand right up against the glass, and followed the hippo up and down as it swam the length of the pool.

3. Food. In true Singaporean style, good food featured heavily this past week, with two highlights in particular. In San Diego, we had dinner at the Kansas City Barbeque, where apparently one of the sleazy bar scenes in Top Gun was filmed. Food was fantastic, everyone enjoyed their barbeque meats, E most of all! She happily sat in her highchair throughout the ENTIRE meal, eating corn kernels, french fries, the crust from onion rings (she spat out the onion - that's my girl!), and meat from my plate of babyback ribs. She loved it, and had oily hands, mouth and cheeks at the end of it all. She was quite a sight. Unfortunately, no pictures to show it because everyone else had oily hands too.

The best part of the meal from J's perspective was that the restaurant was located right next to train tracks. And right after dinner, he got to see the longest train ever go by. We saw the first carriage of the train, and it must have been ten minutes later when the last carriage went by. J's standing in front of the train below.

The next night we ate at Joe's Crab Shack on Pacific Beach. Also yum yum yum. Check out my broiled seafood combination below. E didn't last the entire meal here in her highchair, but she did enjoy the broccoli off my plate - she loves broccoli.

Sharing a lollipop!

Reinforcements...

... arrived today in the form of K's parents! The kids were terribly excited, or at least J was, E didn't really get what was happening at first.

When we spotted them at the airport, J shouted "Welcome to LA!" and ran over to give them both the biggest hug. It would have made me cry if I had been the one being greeted by him! In the car on the way home, E refused to let go of her Kong-kong's hands; he was behind her, so he had to sit up close to her carseat, while she held one of his fingers in each of her hands. Very sweet.

The grandparents came with presents for the kids so they were both playing hard today, and with playmates that they hadn't seen in a month! Everyone had a good time, I think. The month ahead should be fun!

What God's been teaching me

Today was the first time I could sit through a whole service at church. And that was only because K took E to the nursery, stayed with her until she got settled, and went back to tend to her when she cried cos she was looking for us. She seems to have hit the peak of separation anxiety, and can't be distracted by any toys (and believe me, there are a lot of toys in the church nursery, and really cool fun ones too!).


Almost all the people we've met at church have been really friendly and welcoming. Yet, what sticks in my mind is something that happened the first week the kids and I were there. The church being new to the kids, I had not wanted to push them to sunday school right away, so we sat at the very last row, with both the kids, in the service. Naturally they were making some noise, and that's why we were at the back, trying to minimise the distraction. But one guy sitting a couple of seats from us actually told us to send them to the nursery. Which I felt was incredibly unwelcoming!!! And a poor witness. I was quite upset about it actually, but the children's pastor saw what had happened and she quickly reassured me that was ok for the kids to stay (kids make noise, she said, that's what they do). So I'm trying not to let the negative undo all the positive.

So everyone else whom we've met in the church has been really nice, but this incident is still on my mind. And it's made me think about how important our actions are in witnessing for our faith. Does my behaviour do a dis-service to Christ? It's not just about having a bad day or being tired or being in a hurry, but about reflecting poorly on, and dishonouring, my Father. So that's my prayer: that I honour Him with my actions, words, behaviour. Even though I know I will come up short. That's when it's time to give Him thanks for His grace!


So there it is, my long story. I've wondered about whether to put up this particular post, and I decided to put it up because I also want to remember what I've learnt along the way, in our time here.

One Month On

We've been here a whole month!



One month on, we are nicely settled in our home here. We have all that we need for now, and what we need for the colder months ahead are coming with K's parents next Tuesday! Garage sales are a great thing here too! I happened to look out our kitchen window today and noticed that a neighbouring house was having a garage sale, so I walked over and managed to find some nice warm clothing for J: four pairs of pants, one pair of jeans, one fleece pullover; a pair of pants for E, and a small blanket for the kids to use while in the stroller so that they'll still be cosy when we go out in the fall and winter. All in good condition and ALL for US$7. ONLY. Very pleased.




One month on, J still continues to get excited whenvever the train goes by. He gets a good view from his bedroom window. So wherever he is in the house, once he hears the train's whistle, he scuttles off, rushes to the window and stands on tippy toes for the best view. Then he'll come tell me what he saw - passenger train, double-decker train, goods train. The first few days, while he was still getting used to the layout of the house, he used to run to the wrong room. Quite funny. If we're outside, then he'll insist on running to the end of the driveway to look. I do wonder if he'll manage to keep this up for the whole year.



One month on, E is talking more. Her words aren't always clear but you can still make out Dada when she points to K, beh for ball, gah gah for kor kor, and Meh or Ma for me. Very cute. I think she's put on weight too. Carrying her is no joke! And watching her play with her kor kor is lots of fun. It's great to see the two of them interacting with each other. (A little less fun when they're fighting over toys though.)

One month on, I'm getting used to cooking more often! And I've managed to drive myself to the grocery store (it's easier to go without the kids, then we don't have to stress about keeping them entertained while we try to get groceries). I'm slowly getting used to driving, but it still stresses me out. The drivers here are impatient! Oh and I've started pilates again. Yay!

One month on, K's getting settled back into being a student again, doing his reading and handing up homework! He also gets to spend lots more time with the kids now, than when we were back home. I think he's enjoying the time with them.

TT and other updates

The first day of toilet training was tough. J was so used to being in diapers; he didn't know how to tell us when he wanted to go to the bathroom, and by the time he did, it was too late. He went through, I think, six pairs of underwear that day. (Oh, and needless to say, they are of course, Thomas the Tank Engine underwear.)

Today's the third day since we started toilet training. And he's been doing GREAT, much better than I had expected actually. Since that first day, he's not wet his underwear at all! He now knows how to tell us when he needs to go so that we can make the run to the bathroom in time. We're so proud of him. We still have a ways to go before J's fully potty trained of course, but already, this has been such an answer to prayer. Praise God!

Other updates: we're thoroughly enjoying watching the kids' personalities grow and develop each day. E wants to do everything J does. So she plays with his cars, trains and planes. Give her a doll and she won't know what to do with it. She's also started mimicking J in the bathroom, so she stands up on the stool against the toilet and lifts her shirt up! Quite hilarious. When J starts dancing around, she tries to do exactly as he does, be it shaking his bum, waving his hands or spinning around. She's not very good with balance though so she does tumble down quite a bit! She loves squeezing herself into the boxes that we use to store toys. As you can see, she barely fits in the small box! And so she topples over often.

J grows increasingly articulate too. Yesterday when we asked if he'd like to have water play, he thought for a moment, then pronounced, "No, water play is so boring. I want to play racing cars." Another time, he also told me, "Next time, I want to take care of dolphins." SeaWorld clearly left an impression! We've already planned our next trip there.

Warm weather today, so the kids enjoyed playing out in the backyard (one of the benefits of living in a house, so we're trying to make full use of this before summer ends and it gets too cold). E LOVES this. When she saw K getting the pool ready, she hustled out of the kitchen, climbed down three steps, and toddled over grass and wood chips all by herself, without any shoes on! Just so that she could hurry and get in the water. She would have climbed in fully clothed if I hadn't gotten to her in time.

K's been diligently working in the garden. There are always leaves to clear! We now have a lovely rose in its full glory. We also have a rather mysterious bush growing pretty much in the middle of the backyard. We think it might be a blueberry bush. So now K's trying to revive it and we'll see if it'll bear any fruit.

The Big News

The Big News of the moment is: we're finally trying to toilet train J. Yes, yes, this is long overdue. It's only been one day so far. And it's been tough! So please pray for patience and endurance for us, and for J to learn quickly!

After making quite a few calls to a number of preschools, we finally managed to find a place for J at the Claremont United Methodist Nursery School. We paid them a visit - it was nice! Each classroom opens out to its own play area, the kids have a really fun room, they do lots of art and can get quite dirty. Looks like fun. BUT J has to be toilet trained first! Hence why I finally got started on this. He's registered for the fall term, so we have three months! Oh, and I have to put in 16 days of parent participation, which basically means I have to help out in the classes. Not sure if that's going to be so fun for me (15 kids like J! In the same room!), but we'll see...

On to other stuff. It's a lot less convenient, and more expensive, to eat out here, so I've been cooking at home a lot more than I used to. No coffee shops downstairs, no market five minutes away. I've had to be a bit more inventive - don't want to be making the same stuff over and over again.

I found this in the Asian supermarket here, and bought it on a whim: Seasoned dried bonito and sesame seed mix. It's turned out to be really yummy! I sprinkled some on green beans that had been dressed with some sesame oil and soya sauce. Yum. Also really good sprinkled over egg salad. J liked it. He kept asking for the parts with bonito flakes.

The kids have been snacking a lot here than they did back home too. Maybe the cooler temperatures increase their metabolic rate! So I've had to thinking really hard about what to give them. E will eat almost all kinds of fruit, so there's that. She's had cherries, strawberries, oranges, bananas, nectarines, pluots. And she'll eat raisins like there's no tomorrow. But J refuses everything. He'll only eat apples and watermelons. Anything with chocolate in it, they both love. But I'm trying to limit that. So I found a ready mix for banana bread at Trader Joe's (my favourite supermarket here, but not the cheapest), so ta-dah. They turned out pretty well, and the kids ate them, although J avoided the piece of fresh banana I put in the middle like it was poison.

Saved the best for last: In-N-Out Burgers! So so good. J can finish a whole hamburger by himself (albeit sans tomato). And that was for a teatime snack too. He was having a hungry day. And K, who usually hates fries, loves these. He bought back for dinner yesterday and came into the house saying that if the drive back had been any longer, there wouldn't have been any fries left. And we all fought over the vanilla milkshake.

LA Farmer's Market

At the LA Farmer's Market, which we visited yesterday with K's brother, I bought loads of fruit! Tis apparently the season for sweet peaches, nectarines and cherries. (E almost managed to finish a whole donut nectarine by herself today. Almost.) We got to check out another exhibition of beautifully maintained vintage cars, some from the 1930s! And J got to look at a fire engine up close, and was given a 'Fire Chief' helmet too.




For lunch, K and I tried some New Orleans cuisine. I had seafood gumbo with mustard potato salad, and he had a shrimp po'boy (translation: sandwich). Yum, yum, yum.




You can tell from the pictures that I only remembered to whip out my camera half way through the meal (actually, even then K still had to remind me). The kids had sushi - a caterpillar roll, which is basically a California roll with extra avocado rolled around the outside (green, hence like a caterpillar). J was a happy camper with his sushi, and E ate her fair share too!


Postscript: Check out the green buds below!!! Baby cherry tomatoes growing on one of the plants that K planted in our backyard! Our new babies. Which we shall eat when ripe!