Aron's Head Injury

Yesterday, I had a very good time in the afternoon. By the time I got home, it was 6.15pm. I was running a little late to go over to MIL house (usually, I will b there about 6pm). At 6.30pm, the phone rang. Aron injured! How bad, I had no idea. I could only hear Aron's crying over the phone.

When reach the void deck of MIL's block, I met FIL carrying a bag of ginger, walking to the lift. I asked him if Aron was bleeding. The family's traditional way of stopping bleeding - press a slice of ginger on the wound!

By the time I got to the house, Aron had already been crying for a long time, and was still crying non-stop. The heartache mummy grabbed him over and hugged him so tightly. I was told Aron was bleeding badly, until his shirt got a big patch of blood stain with 2 small towels filled with blood too. They were about to get ready the ginger, while I told them to let me check the wound first.

The wound was at the back of the head with the hair covered up, so I had to gently brushed away the hair to find the wound. Yes, I found it, it looked bloody, and was about 2 cm long, but not a deep cut. The hair around the wound was sticky, due to the bleeding, and it really smell bloody too.

I asked for a new towel so as to pad on the wound to check if the bleeding had stopped. Thank God, yes, it had finally stopped. Still, the in-laws thought of putting the ginger to make sure the it wouldn't bleed again. I really couldn't bare to see my son take that kind of unnecessary pain. It would be another big traumatic pain for him. Since the bleeding had stopped, I told them there was no need to use the ginger, if the swell and the wound looked really bad, I can bring him to the doctor.

Then I finally asked how he was injured. Both the boys, after their dinner, was playing in the bedroom. While Aron tried to crawled under one of the mattress which was placed on a bed, I guessed Asher was trying to catch him. Too eager to escaped, Aron knocked into the pillar wall from the back. At that moment, MIL was having shower, while the maid was doing nothing but had no initiative to look after the boys. When Aron was crying in pain, the maid still take no initiative to carry him or check on him. Even when she realised that Aron was bleeding, she still had no brain and mouth to call for Ah Mah to tell her that Aron was bleeding. I wonder if my son fainted, will she have any response, I doubt...

The frustrated MIL sure had given the maid a good lecture, but the maid just gave no expression. My conclusion is she just don't use her brain at all. But having the phobia of changing maid, I have to leave with it.

As for Aron, after a good cry, pampered with candies, carried around by FIL, he was back to his normal cute and cheerful self, playing with his favourite Thomas Train and running and jumping all over. He also recited a Chinese rythme which he learnt from school, with actions that made everyone laughed...

Upset Mummy

Aron has been shouting and yelling at the top of his voice whenever he couldn't get what he want. It has happened couple of times lately.

Just this morning, after he woke up, I asked him if he wanted to pass urine, he didn't reply and continue to lie in bed. I repeated the question a few more times, and he didn't respond. So I walked in to the bath room and pee. Halfway through, I heard his voice shouting outside:" I want to be number 1, I want to be number 1, I want to be number 1." When I finally finished my business, and opened the door, he yelled so loud and so angrily. Then he stamped his feet many times and cried.

It wasn't the first time he behaved this way. I stared at him with my eyes opened to the biggest possible that my eyeballs almost dropping out. Still he continued to yell. At the top of my heat, I told him to go and find another Mummy, as I don't want to be his Mummy any more, cos I don't want naughty boy who doesn't listen to me. At 1 point of time, I raised my arm and almost going to drop it hard on his face. The Daddy just sat on the bed and kept quiet.

I told Aron that he shall follow Ah Mah to her house and stay there and don't come back. I kept asking him to go and look for Ah Mah or go find another Mummy. While my mum just give a commend to MIL that Aron has a strong character (by nature), I shot back by saying it was because he was being pampered.

Finally, after sending the boys off to school, I had breakfast with the Daddy at the hawker centre. After making sure that I had cooled down, Daddy spoke to me calmly, saying that I should avoid bring the grandmas into the picture and I shouldn't push the children to them. MIL have been looking after the boys and yet I still make use of her when I am disciplining the boys.

I do agree that I have overlooked the issue on the grandmas' feelings, and I shouldn't drag them in. But when I am overflowing with anger, I do have the tendency to spike those people who do not stand in line with me or against my way of handling the issues. I want to challenge them and see how effective are their ways of handling as compared to me. At the end of the day, I want to see results - if the boys learn their lessons.

I told Daddy if he has a better way, by all means, just tell me to let him handle the situation, I would be glad to let step aside and let him take over. It wouldn't be so stressful for me. He agreed.

He said he just HOPE that whenever he come back home, everybody is happy. I can't guranttee that I can create happiness in the family every moment. So, if I have created unhappiness at some point of time, I also HOPE he can take over the mess and start to create happiness from there.

At the moment, whoever has an effective way to handle and control Aron's tantrum, I would beg him to take over and I would be most humble to learn from him. If there is no one who can handle this effectively, I have no choice, but to use the way I believe it works best.

My Projects

Have been so busy lately. Busy with what? Well, busy with the children school projects, busy with searching for the school holiday programmes, busy with doing research on the business opportunities...

Just completed my children projects. Wonder if they are their projects or MY projects, since I am the one doing more job than them. First Asher's class was being assigned to do a project using wood material. I am really not a wood or technical person. If only Asher is in the other class which was assigned to decorate paper bags, I would be most happy to take on the job. So I threw this technical job to the man of the house. But he too could not come out with a fantastic idea. After waiting so many days for him to come out with an impressive plan, I began to run out of patience. One night, while I was sleeping with my subconscious mind still working, a picture just came into my eyes. So, I decided to go ahead and work on it. With the help of the Grandpa's technical skill, Ta da...

After submitting the project to the teacher, one morning, Aron's teacher came up to me and ask me to work with Aron on another project about Different Part of My House. I only have 1 week to work on it. So, in less than a week's time, I "give birth" to another "baby", Ta da...

While the boys are very proud to present their projects to the teachers and friends, Daddy is not very satisfied with the productions, because they are too beautiful to represent our son's "true" and "genuine" capability. If that is the case, I think I should leave the job to Daddy to handle next time.

Then, I have to start planning and searching for some school holiday programmes and trips, so as to maximise and utilise the time fruitfully. Well, now my only resources is from the internet, since I hardly got the chance to socialise outside and get info from the other mummies in school. The school have been restricting parents from entering ever since the H1N1 scarce. Facing the PC is definitely more tiring than talking to the mummies. It is to the extend that I suspect my eyesight is deteriorating due to long hours on the net. Plus, it is also quite brain draining to consider so many factors, such as the costs, the timing to match all the programmes, the locations, holidays which and meet the whole family's needs, etc. With only 1 & half weeks away from the holiday, I am still working hard on it.

Turning Point

3 days after my 36th birthday, my hubby dropped a "bomb" to me - he was told by his boss that the company is going to close down his division and asked him to be prepared "for the worst". In fact, he knew this about a week earlier, but kept it to himself till after my birthday. The reason is very obvious. That also explained why he couldn't sleep well for that couple of nights. He was doing a lot of calculations, to check how long we could survive with our savings, and making plans on his future career path.

At that moment, besides feeling shocked, I was more worried about how hubby is taking it mentally. Well, men usually like to hide their feelings - the utterly stupid man's ego thing! Always trying to act cool and brave. By the time hubby told me about the news, he had already gotten over the shock, fear & depression all by himself.

After gotten over the shock myself, I suddenly felt that it is not a bad thing for things to happen this way. After all, hubby has been working non-stop for so many years. He dares not think of taking a break for a short while or switch job, as he think no other job can give him a better package. He dare not complain about his endless traveling. He has become so "mechanical", that I could feel he has lost his passion for his job. The tireness is shown all over his face. He is carrying the entire family's burden on him, so he cannot stop working.

Well, maybe God has decided to give him a chance to take a break and re-look his life, as well as to let our family face some challenges. He has always chosen to stay in the "comfort zone", reluctant to make any changes. He is not the ambitious guy who will dream big or challenge to win. He will choose to be contented with whatever he has and not see at things that he doesn't have. I think God probably can see how much bigger is his real power, potential and capability, than what he can see in himself. It is a chance for him to bring out his hidden full power.

Over a couple of nights, we discussed and threw many ideas on the possible ways we could do for survival. I offered to go out to work. After being tai-tai for 4 years, its time I start doing something. Hubby suggested about setting up business. In fact, we had ever talked about doing things in relation to children education before. As parents, we understand that no matter how bad the economy is, parents will never give up or save on children education. We also want to take on a business that is stable over a long period of time. We started to do some research and make some calculations on setting up a tuition agency or Chinese enrichment centre.

I began to be very excited. Suddenly, I felt my worth and see my role in a clearer picture. I had been feeling very useless and small for the past few years. Now, I will be able to give hubby my full support by running the business together. I am prepared to get very busy, and to take the challenge. Together with him, I will be powered up to face any difficult moments, for I know, we will give each other the encouragement and drive that will push us to overcome any barriers. Even though we have no prior experience, knowledge or resources, but I believe our will power will see us through. I am ready to "do or die" together with him.

As for the family, I know they will all be behind us. When MIL knew that hubby is losing his job, she immediately offer to rent and sell away her flat. She said no matter what, she will make sure the 2 boys are well taken care of. I was very touched and thankful for her offer, but at the moment we do not need to go to this extend. I know they are all ready for the tough time. In fact, I don't even mind to have my children to go through some hardship. Maybe that is a way to make them learn to be more appreciative for things they have.

Few weeks later, hubby drop me another news. His ex-boss of 14 years is pulling him over to his division. That means he has to choose between taking up the transfer or taking the retrenchment package of 15 years and leave the company. Obviously, being the non-risk taker, he chose to take up the transfer option. He told me to go ahead to set up the business while he continue to work in his current job. If the business do well, he can quit and join me, if the business go bust, at least he still have his job.

While I understand his concern, my drive goes down by half. Setting up business alone? I am not sure if I have enough energy and motivation to do it - all by myself. If I am so confident, I would have done it few years back. It is the "togetherness" that will really power me up. But now? How much can hubby support me when he has to travel so much and drained out by his job. How much would he put his heart and soul into the business while he has to worry about his sales numbers and deadlines at work?

For now, I have to take things slowly again. Maybe my drive will eventually dies. Or maybe we have to wait for the next crisis, turning point or cross-road to come again.

Lift Accident

Yesterday was a no-school day for the 2 boys. After they woke up in the morning, MIL, the boys & me prepared to go to market for breakfast.

As usual, I was the last to get out of the house. While I was struggling to lock the main gate, the lift door opened. The lift is just 10 steps away from my door step. Aron, being closest to the lift just walked in, taking for granted that everyone else will follow right behind him. In actual fact, Asher turned back to check if we were ready, MIL was about 5 steps away, and me still struggling with the stupid lock at my door.

All of a sudden, the lift door started to close, with only Aron inside. MIL, in the panic, ran to the lift, but only use her finger to press on the lift buttons. The door didn't get to open again. From the glass window of the lift, we could see the lift started to move upwards. Asher burst into tears and cried hysterically, while MIL keep repeating "Chaam loh, chaam loh, chaam loh, Aron sure will be frightened to death", and continuously pressing on the up and down buttons. At that moment, my eyes were glued to the number screen, trying to see which floor the lift was moving to. While I looked calm enough on the surface, my mind was actually flashing with many scenerios. There were 21 storeys in my block. What if the lift went up to the top and stopped there? What if the lift came down again to my floor, but Aron wasn't inside. The number on the screen keep going up - from 9 to 10 to 11 to 12. Finally, the number stopped changing. For that few seconds, when the number remained at 12, I was praying that Aron would just stay in the lift, and someone would walk in and give him some comfort. For a moment, I could hear Aron's crying from a distant, but just felt helpless.

As the number started changing again, from 12 to 11 to 10 and finally to 9, the lift stopped. The door opened this time, with my poor traumatised Aron crying sympathetically at one corner. I felt so relieved. As we walked into the lift, I saw a familiar face smiling to me, it was the ka lang guni man whom I greeted very often. He is a friendly man who lives on the 12th storey. I have asked my boys to say hello to him a couple of times. In front of him, was a trolley half loaded with things. He said he recognised Aron. Usually, when he met us on the 1st storey with full load of things, he will not enter the lift, he will humbly said he can wait for the next lift. While the 2 boys still crying noisily, I repeated "thank you" to him a few times.

Well, I knew this incident is going to happen at some point of time. There were a few times when the boys rushed into the lift without waiting for the adults. Everytime, when such "danger" happened, I managed to put my bare arms in-between the doors, or I would stepped in-between and used my entire body to stop the doors from closing. I don't trust the lift buttons during those emergencies. I had warned the boys a couple of times that they have to wait for the adults to go into the lift together. I had also told them what to do in-case such "accident" happen, that they should take the lift either to 9th floor or 1st floor and wait. But children usually won't take the advice even if you have mentioned it a thousand times. So, maybe it is good to let them learn the lesson through hard ways.

As the boys cooled down, I started to ask Asher why he was crying so badly when he wasn't even "trapped" in the lift. He replied that he was afraid that Aron will go missing and he will lose Aron. Then I said, if that is the case, he will not have to share his toys with anyone and will not need to fight with anyone, wouldn't that be nice. He shooked his head and said he loves Aron. My heart melted. I turned to Aron and told him how much Kor Kor had cried for him and how much Kor Kor loves him, and I asked him to go and give Kor Kor a hug. He did what I said. Then they both laughed.