Migration

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Farewells

This will probably be our final post from Claremont.

We are in the final stretch.

We have spent the last two days saying goodbye. Me to the women at bible study, J and E to their teachers at school. It has been an emotional time, but how I thank God for the friends we have made here, some of whom have become family to us. They make it incredibly hard for us to leave and they will always have a special place in our hearts.

Slightly more than a year ago, a few youth from our home church in Singapore sent us off with a song. I heard the song again, quite by chance. As we pack up in our final few days here, it feels like we have come full circle.

We have had the time of our life.

For Moments Like These

My favourite Mom moments:

1. When J tells me, periodically throughout the day, "Mom, I love you", sometimes accompanied by a kiss. I will never tire of hearing it. (Not to be outdone, E echoes him now. All the better for me.)

2. When E climbs into bed with me in the morning, snuggles into the crook of my arm and pulls my arm to wrap it around herself. She fills a space I didn't know was there before.

3. When J tells me, "Mom, I want to marry you next time"; he gets upset if I tell him he can't. He'll figure it out soon enough, so I don't burst his bubble anymore.

4. When J and E put K's and my shoes on, and in so doing take on our personas as well. J calls E Fiona or honey. And E calls J ah-nee kor.

5. When the kids join in our good-night prayers. Last night, J thanked God for Target, seeing toys and watching the train. All I could make out from E (who insists on praying lying face-down on the floor) was "Peeh God..... (then she mumbles for a couple of minutes!)". I trust that God will figure out her baby talk!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day Ad

This has been my favourite Mother's Day ad that I've seen on TV so far...

New Haircut...

...complete with red highlights, to match his jazzy red Lightning McQueen shirt. J was really upset when I washed his hair during bath-time. But I want to show my friends, he said.

Waking up

The kids usually make their way over to our bed when they wake up in the morning. This has really been one of the best things from this past year: having the time to cosy up and snuggle in bed with them in the mornings.

Just before they got up and stumbled into our bed today, I woke up from a bad dream. There was a blue and green snake involved (bearing a startling resemblance to J's toy snake!), which eventually imploded, but it sure got my heart racing.

After J was in bed next to me, I told him that I had had a bad dream. (He has bad dreams of his own regularly, so I thought: good chance to show him that he wasn't the only one.) In reply, J reached his hand under the covers, and patted and rubbed my arm to sayang me.

I sure felt a lot better after that.

California Dude

What sprouts forth from the mouth of my little California dude:

Cool!
You betcha!
Definitely not!
Totally!
No way, Jose!
See you later, alligator! (This sometimes to random adults...)
I'm a cowboy! Hee-hah! Hee-hah!

Asking the Important Question

As K steps out of the bath today, J asks, "Daddy, did you wash behind your ears?".

On The Seventh Day

All The Saints Join In - (from Ps. 148)

Praise Him, praise Him from the heavens
Praise Him in the heights up above
Praise Him all of His angels
Praise Him all of His heavenly hosts

Oh praise Him oh you sun and moon
And all of you shining stars
Praise Him from above
Oh praise Him oh you highest heaven
Together with one mighty voice
Praise the name of the Lord

Praise Him, praise Him from the earth here below
Praise Him, all creatures and storm winds that blow
Praise Him, you mountains that tower so high
Praise Him, you oceans so deep far and wide

Oh praise Him, praise Him all you kings
You princes and rulers of earth
Praise Him with all power
Oh praise Him, both young and the old

Together with one mighty voice
Praise the name of the Lord

All the saints join in, all the saints join in,
Singing this heavenly song
All the saints join in, all the saints join in,
Shouting creations song

Tommy Walker WeMobile Music ©Copyright 05 CCLI #4556370

I have a princess... and a knight

In what was probably our penultimate trip to Disneyland yesterday, E (completely of her own accord) asked for a 'princess dress'. "Me, pin-ceh dheh", all the while tugging at her own shirt to try to get it off.

We've managed a whole year of not buying any Disney merchandise, so I gave in and allowed J and E one buy each yesterday.

So E picked out a Cinderella gown, replete with poofy sleeves, a glittery bodice and a poofy organza skirt. It cost US$65! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), there was only one piece left and it had a bit of thread (glittery, of course) coming off already, so we had to look for an alternative. She passed on the Jasmine and Snow White princess gowns, and eventually settled on this pared-down (cheaper!) Belle gown.

We tried it on for size while still in the shop and I couldn't get it off after that. I had to put her on the cashier counter for the man to scan the price tag. She would only deign to take it off when she wanted to be unencumbered while playing with J's buy, a Disney racer track.

Once she has her princess dress on, she loves twirling and twirling around to get the full poofy skirt effect. I don't know where she gets it from - I hated all things frilly when I was young.

On a sidenote, J says he'll be the knight to mei-mei's princess and will rescue her from the dragon.

Why it's hard to say goodbye

In the spirit of making lists and making memories, here are the things that I'll miss most about being in Claremont (in no particular order)...

1. Target - as K puts it, it is my 'happy place'
2. J and E's preschool - They have had such a wonderful time here, where they learn through play. They're free to choose whatever activities they want to do each day. And J has learnt so much about interacting and socialising with other kids (he now tells about when he mediates between his friends!). E gets to play with icky messy materials, things that I baulk at having at home.
3. KSGN - as long as we are within range, the car radio is tuned to it.
4. Trader Joe's
5. Our church - who has embraced us, taught us and challenged us in the past year. They were our family and support, as we made our decision to adopt.
6. Women's bible study
7. Disneyland, California Adventure, SeaWorld
8. Seasonal weather (although not the summer heat...)
9. Seasonal fruits - cherries and strawberries right now, all manner of stone fruit in summer...
10. Being within walking distance to my pilates studio, Starbucks and ice cream shops in the village (J will miss having the train station so close by. He's taken to running to the window to watch the trains each time he hears the train whistle. He did this for three or four months when we first came, then lost interest, and has suddenly picked it up again.)

Transition

A week ago, I packed up 62 pounds of books in two boxes and shipped them off to Singapore. Thanks to half.com and Amazon, I’ve already sold many of the books we’ve bought this year to readers all over the United States. One book by St. Augustine went to someone at the Harvard School of Design. One book by Peter Drucker just went off a few days ago to Santa Clara, just up the coast from here. Other books have gone to Indiana, Florida, Connecticut and Missouri. These books – which we’ve mostly enjoyed, though some went barely touched – now lie scattered all over a vast continent. I like to think that they bear a whisper of an imprint of their time with us here in Claremont. Perhaps, as they go to their new owners, they contain, in their pages, the weight of the accumulated memories that they inspired in us and in all their previous owners.

In a course I’m doing now on the contemporary family, we’ve struggled with coming up with a working definition of what a family is today. I think one writer encapsulated it best when she described a family as a “community of memories”. We are memory-making creatures. Through our encounters and experiences, tactile or otherwise, we create memories that sustain, challenge, nourish, warn or inspire us. Our heads are not the only repository of such memories, for families, through their stories, photo albums and blogs, also serve as a way to allow memory to become a living part of daily life.

We will leave Claremont in about three weeks’ time, full of memories of a year rich in learning and experiences and growth. Growth has come because we have placed ourselves, deliberately, in new territory, untested ground, and found that we could still stand, even if a little unsteadily. I think we all need to find new ground and to test our footing every once in a while, if only to remind ourselves that we need to change as the world changes, as the people around us change. Plants grow and put deeper roots into the ground. Tomatoes and lemons ripen. Roses bloom in abundant profusion. But the plants adapt too. As the dense heat of summer approaches, our avocado tree has begun to shed its leaves; every breeze scatters a new shower of leaves green and brown, blanketing our lawn, reminding me that even in the full life of summer, some living things will fade away and die.

The snow has also disappeared from the lofty, austere mountains overshadowing our little town. The ski resort at Big Bear just closed two weeks ago, after a blistering spring weekend that made me want to jump into the fountain at Claremont-McKenna College’s central lawn. Final exams and papers approach. Packing to return home has become a reality, not a theoretical exercise. We’ve begun to throw away, or sell, or give away, many things that have become a part of our life here. Our futon, which took my father-in-law and I two hours to assemble, went off a few weeks ago. Clothes, books, toys, furniture – the detritus of our lives – have now taken on a strangely transitory sheen. Are they really here? Will they still be here when we return home to our little green house in Claremont the next time we go out?

Soon, even this little green house will fade away. Our memories will consist of our first live Christmas tree, our first fireplace, setting off the smoke alarms early in the morning, mowing the lawn – and living in a house that’s older than the independent history of most post-colonial countries, including Singapore. But our family will remain intact. This community of memories – my wife, my children – will continue to sustain me as we begin a new life.

For it is a new life that we return to. T S Eliot has said in over-quoted lines that we return to the place of our beginning with new eyes. He was partly right and partly wrong. New eyes teach us to see new things, to apprehend faces and colours and the shimmer over the water’s edge that we didn’t see before. But I think we return with more than just fresh eyes. We return home with old bodies and old memories chastened by the experience of testing new, uncertain ground, and knowing that we need to keep finding uncertain ground in order to grow, to live, to breathe. Or else the old ground hardens into glue, and we find that our feet can no longer move, and we remain, content, to become a pillar of salt molecule by molecule.

We need to walk on water every now and then, and discover, to our infinite surprise, that the water can hold us up as we begin to grasp the patterns of new life, new ways of living, new ways of thinking and creating and tumbling off into the tumult of old and new relationships.

And even if we sink, even if the ground beneath us gives way, we learn. We can survive and build again. And we will know how to walk better, to build better, the next time.

Playing Dress-up

Watching her kor-kor learning to dress himself has inspired E! She put this look together herself. (J saw me wielding the camera and ran to join in the picture.)

On The Seventh Day

Preschool Open House

We visited J and E's preschool for their open house this morning - lots of pictures of the kids doing the things they do usually!

Playing with flubber (a mixture of glue and liquid starch - the teachers regularly make up batches of the stuff). Very sticky. E loves playing with it, J hates it and will only touch it lightly with one finger before moving off to something else.

E's artwork, done the week they were reading a story about blue and green.

J's class has a planter box in their yard. The kids love watering the plants and looking for roly-polys.

J's teacher tells me that one of his favourite things to do are puzzles.

Making patterns on a crown.

Trying to arrange the sticks by height.

The tyre swing in the yard in front of J's class is always a big hit. E hardly ever gets a chance to swing on it, but she loves it when she does.

Now that the weather's warming up, J's teacher has put up a comfy cushion outside for the kids to lounge on while looking at their books.

Their preschool will be one of the things we'll miss the most when we get back home to Singapore.

Volcano in our backyard!

Coke & Mentos!

Photo Essay: Spring is...

Spring is...

...blowing bubbles in the backyard
...bouncing on the trampoline
...giggling
...beautiful flowers
...running through the spray
...vibrant colours
...playing in the sun

On The Seventh Day

What the kids brought home from Sunday School today...

Singapore Boy

I suppose it was inevitable that J would pick up some American-isms in our time here. He says dan-s for dance, tenny for twenty (not quite managing to get the w sound in there) and hut dog for hot dog.

Today he spilled a little water onto his clothes drinking from a bottle, and a most annoyed Aiyah burst forth from his mouth.

I have to admit, I was rather pleased to hear it.

Noah's Ark

There was a reference in the LA Times a few weeks ago to a Noah's Ark exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center (a Jewish cultural center). It's a really great exhibit, made with lots of recycled materials - and the kids got a lot of hands-on action!

Asian elephant - Chinese steaming baskets for its trunk

Making the rain fall...
...and the wind blow.
J got to built part of the ark

And then we sent the animals up two by two

With the animals they love
E enjoyed making an ark collage.

And to finish off, we caught a rainbow...

Pajamas

These are the pajamas that actually caused E's jaw to drop. She so loves them, she actually cuddled them before I put them on her. And then she proceeded to thank me profusely for them: "Kyu, mommy. Kyu, mommy."

On The Seventh Day

Standing Corrected

One of E's favourite books to look at is a Diego picture book, filled with many animals, some of which we (K and I) aren't particularly familiar with.

This has been the book of choice for bedtime for quite a while now. Today, daddy was going through the animals with her. He pointed to one, and said, "That's an anteater."

J looks up, and says, "No... I will show you." He then proceeds to hunt down E's Diego field journal toy, so that he can find the picture of that particular animal, press the button beside it, and tell his daddy, "Aardvark, daddy. Aardvark."

Storytelling

E is quite the artist. She loves drawing, and has begun to put stories to her squiggles.

Me: What is this?
E: Bird.
Me: What colour is it?
E: Waid. (Red)
Me: What is it doing?
E: Pie. (Fly)

Daddy takes over...

K: What does it have in its mouth?
E: Tsee-weed (Seaweed, which is what she calls all vegetables.)
K: Where is it bringing the seaweed?
E: There. (Points to telephone) Peed bay-bee. (Feed baby.)

Yosemite

Yosemite. Was. Beautiful.

(We all enjoyed it, even the kids.)

Inspiration Point

Yosemite Falls
(which was only a short walk away from where we stayed, Yosemite Lodge)

Mirror Lake

Bridalveil Falls

Sidenote: I had bought a travel-size Hungry Hippos game for the kids. J's been asking for it for quite a while now, so he was thrilled with it.
At the tender young age of two, E has already figured out how to push her kor-kor's buttons. When she tired of trying to make her hippo eat the little balls, she just laid her body on top of the whole toy. Leaving J haplessly trying to hit his hippo lever without being able to see what he was doing.