Happy New Year… good riddance holidays!
I am sitting at the dining room table – sipping a potent holiday Rum ‘N Egg Nog – while the kids eat a special treat of Kraft Dinner. Special because there are no peas or broccoli contained within. Also, special because Sebastian made tonight’s dinner! Yes, I managed the stove and heat but Seb poured in the noodles, stirred them, melted the butter, added the milk, then mixed in the cheese all by himself. (With some coaching and coaxing from yours truly – and Tess encouraging, of course.) For dessert the kids busted into one of the two gingerbread houses we made – thanks to Tess’ forethought – just before Christmas.
Now, why good riddance? For the last seven to eight days – not counting the mild colds of the last month – one or more of us has been sick. You’ll know from Tess’ blog it started with her, jumped to me (turbo charged by jet lag), then to the kids. Now the bug seems to have morphed into a cold that’s trying to take down Tess, Sela, Carys and me. JJ and Seb seem okay for the moment but that might only be because JJ has had such a bad case of the sniffles the last month that his nose goop finally turned dark British racing green. That’s when he went on antibiotics to rid him of whatever had a grip on him. Needless to say we – especially Tess and I – are very, very tired. De is in the Philippines. Yes, we could ask Lita or the fill-in helper to assist, but they desperately need rest so we’re coping on our own. And as for the Holiday Spirit, despite my sermon it’s been hard to be present to the true meaning of Christmas… focused on it, yes, present to it, no.
The kids have been spinning all holiday. Each one of the trips is nasty naughty in their own little way. Sela and Carys refuse to do poopers on the toilet, then within 2 – 3 minutes of being put down for their naps – like clockwork – they fill their nappies. We have a new routine… pull that trick at naptime = no stuffed animals at bedtime. Today they went into angry orbit upon filling their nappies and hearing the sentence. But at bedtime there was no complaining. They knew the writing was on the wall. We’ve had a few successes on the toilet, but not many other than wee wees.
Jasper on the other hand is about 99.9% reliable with the potty. Today, with Sela and Carys unwell, only he and Seb came to church with me… I didn’t even bother bringing any back-up clothes. I knew he’d be okay and sure enough he was. But JJ has a nasty little sassy attitude of (1) saying "NO" and (2) blatantly disregarding or ignoring authority. That created a number of clashes today and many other days, too.
As for Christmas, yes it was wonderful. The triplets are not quite there with understanding the "kids" excitement of the whole thing, but Sebastian certainly is. All in all, they were well behaved and in line. Hard to share on Christmas Day, though, when you’re a kid who knows a present is YOURS, but in the end everyone compromised and got along just fine. All the kids love to sing, and we had some fun moments during the holidays when Sebastian "put on a show" for Tess and I. Another time all four of the kids were singing and dancing as pictured here. Each one would take turns singing a different song then finally they all joined in to sing a cover version of "Little Rabbit Foo Foo Away in the Manger."
During the holidays there was lots of fun time with friends but not quite enough. Christmas Day we had three families over for dinner – including ourselves we totalled eight adults and eight kids. Yes, at times it was insane, especially when someone broke out the noise makers. An LCD machine projecting Buzz Lightyear and Veggie Tales 1.5 metres tall on a wall helped calm the second half of the night so it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately that was the day the GI bug hit me, so I wasn’t a very good host nor did I eat any of the Christmas dinner.
Tonight, despite being invited to a New Year’s Eve party, it will be a classic Tess & Charles NYE… kids in bed as we munch something while watching a movie on TV. Chances are we’ll be asleep before midnight. Alright, time for me to go… Sebastian is procrastinating going to bed. He THINKS he can put if off until next year. (Also Sela just woke-up crying. Me thinks it might be a long night if her cold gets worse.) We wish all our friends and family a Happy Holiday and a Wonderful New Year. I promise that in the coming weeks I’ll post lots of pics and video from the holidays. Stay tuned.
Under Singapore law…
After the Christmas Cantata I was in Hong Kong for 2.5 days (Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday.) Wednesday at noon Sebastian’s class had a Christmas play. Of course, I recorded the whole thing and over the hols will You Tube a mini-production of the event. The whole thing was very sweet. I forgot to mention that after the Sunday Christmas Cantata I preached that evening at the 6 PM service at Union Church. Does anyone want to read the sermon? Should I post it here?
After Seb’s Christmas play I was off on another business trip… Hong Kong -> Bangkok -> Mumbai -> Bangalore -> Delhi -> Singapore -> Hong Kong. I arrived back on Monday night. I am a bit disoriented right now with jet lag and general fatigue so I am not sure when that was… I think two nights ago. Is this Wednesday? Answer: yes, midnight conf call tonight, it’s Wednesday. I am happy to be back home and even happier to be entering the Christmas season. This is when people in Hong Kong get caught-up on work. Ooops, now I can’t post the sermon. Point is: the quiet days over the next one to two weeks allow for clearing off desks, getting caught-up on e-mails (over 4000 at last count) and sleep. The pace will also allow for more family time.
What I don’t like about being back in Hong Kong is the reminder of another incident from right before I left – our car broke down… badly… in the middle of rush hour traffic with Lita, De and the triplets inside. The Achilles Heel of the Renault is the transmission and the entire thing went to the tune of HK$ 30,000. (About US$ 4,000.) We get the car back on Thursday, upon which I will write a cheque, compartmentalise and move on. But it still hurts… alot.
Meanwhile, next month is the 16 year anniversary of my first ever trip (1990) to Asia. I recall going through Singapore back then and reading the drug warning on the Immigration form. The same drug warning is there today.
Christmas Cantata
Saturday night Tess and I took the kids for dinner at Dan Ryan’s and then for a walk through Hong Kong Park and Central to see the various Christmas decorations adorning Hong Kong. Then today Union Church held its Christmas Cantata. That was quite amazing and the choir clearly worked long and hard to create that production. The last song, however, they were joined by the kids choir… and some young kids… starting at two years old! Funny story there… as the triplets walked in with the other children, Jasper saw me. Reportedly he’d just had a very minor accident in his pants. JJ didn’t think it was minor. At the top of his lungs he informed me – and the rest of the congregation – at least four or five times… “Daddy, I’m WET!” Too bad I didn’t get that on video… it was truly hilarious. But the tour of Hong Kong Christmas decorations and the last song of the Christmas Cantata can be found below. Enjoy.
Green Island, Great Barrier Reef
I flew to Sydney late Sunday night, spent half a day in the Sydney office, then flew on to Cairns for a management off site. Below is a quick video of my time in Cairns after we completed the work portion of our off site.
The Froggy Hopper
Provided you read my blog just before Seb’s birthday party, you’ll know that The Froggy Hopper was one of the rides in Birthday Bingo. After the first wave of five or so kids arrived, a handful of parents and I started a small herd through the circuit. First stop: The Froggy Hopper. A small line resulted in waiting a few minutes for our turn. The dilemma: one of the kids was frightened of the ride and wanted an adult to accompany him. Let’s call him Josh. Our turn came… five kids and two adults ran to get onto the ride that can seat six kids and one adult. The other adult, a Chinese woman, was in front of our group and took the adult seat. Josh was left out.
The adult from our group, realising she’d made a mistake about where to sit, turned back but not before we successfully encouraged Josh to take the last remaining seat. The Chinese woman then insisted on having her picture, with OUR kids, taken by the ride operator. This took a few minutes during which Josh figured out he was without a familiar adult. Then the trouble began.
First, Josh wanted to be with someone he knew. Second, there was general consensus amongst the adults from our herd, that the adult on the ride with our kids should be from our herd, not someone else. We tried to explain this to the ride operator but her English was very poor. We then appealed to the other adult, would she mind trading with one of us? No… quite indignant she insisted that she was before us in the line and should therefore have first right of refusal to be on the ride. What was a simple debate or issue turned into a full blown argument. By the way, by this time a second Chinese woman was now in line and slipped ahead of us. This happened while our kids were on the ride and technically "not in line!"
While the argument developed steam, we tried to figure out the perspective of the first Chinese woman. The Chinese can be very superstitious… having your picture taken with six mostly blond kids is a sign of very, VERY good luck. Going on a ride with five mostly blondies would probably be the equivalent to winning the lottery in the luck department. We concluded that the woman never expected the possibility we might refuse to let our kids ride with her since everyone was already buckled in. But that’s what happened next.
Once the Chinese woman refused to move, we made the ride operator pull all our kids off… undo the buckle and strap at one end… then the other end… then raise the bar and everyone slides off. Remarkably none of them seemed too distraught at that idea. Everyone patiently lined up again and the Chinese woman – noticeably angered but trying to put on a happy face – went by herself on the empty ride. The ride ended, the Chinese woman left, and all the kids headed towards the empty seats. Not so fast…
Chinese woman #2 was now in the adult seat. Not sure what was going on with her… no happy face on that person and quite grumpy, too. I suspect there was some sort of cross cultural assessment going on… I.e. she had a not so favourable opinion of us and probably made some conclusions about the proceeding incident. Remarkably we stood there as this lady, clearly mad at us, rode on The Froggy Hopper that was once again empty but for one person. We all stood there in wonderment… this poor woman was not even enjoying the ride. She seemed to be more concerned at being right about not letting US ride!
Finally, our turn came and our six kids and adult filled The Froggy Hopper. However, it was just a bit much for Josh. The operator had to stop the ride, let him off by undoing the buckle and strap at one end… then the other end… then raising the bar and so on. Once again the ride began. Everyone had a great ride and we gave Josh a stamp for bravery and being on the ride even for a short time. Off we went to the next ride.
Not so fast…
At some point in the middle of this scene Jasper showed up and wanted to go on The Froggy Hopper. I had to get on with some party responsibilities, therefore delegated this task to De. But no way, JJ would have none of that – he wanted to ride with Daddy – so back we went onto The Froggy Hopper. A quick success when just at the end Sebastian showed up. BUSTED. When he saw me on The Froggy Hopper with JJ he snapped. I might have had a tougher stance on another day, but his birthday and everything… I quickly ran to Seb and convinced him that we should ride on the The Froggy Hopper right away. So back in the line we went.
Not so fast… JJ wanted in on the action. Sure kid, just jump the que… there ya go, welcome to the team. We finally got on the ride, along with a friend of Seb’s, who like Josh was a little frightened of the ride. So down we came, she got off, strapped the ride back up and UP we went. By this time I was starting to think, "I have GOT to get off this ride. I am going crazy!"
Not so fast… Sela showed up and immediately went into whinging/crying mode. Something we see a lot of in her these days. "Sorry, Princess, I’m done." She got over it. Needless to say, I didn’t get my Birthday Bingo Card filled up, but I did get about ten stamps for riding The Froggy Hopper! Below is some vid and pics thrown together from the party. Sorry, there isn’t much more than The Froggy Hopper. I think I’m done with that ride for a while. Aiya!
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The Making of Sebastian’s Birthday Cake
Here is a fun video depicting the making of Sebastian’s birthday cake the night before his birthday party. The video is a little long but I think viewers will enjoy the pace and end product. And there is a little craziness in the middle, too. Having now posted this video below, in a few days I will post some pictures from the actual party and how the kids received the Buzz Lightyear Birthday Cake… meanwhile, enjoy the production below.
