January 2019 - Another brand new year

Just a few minutes before this blog, I almost lost my mind. I didn't have any time by myself at all and everywhere I looked I see my children. I love them to death but I just wanted an hour of me time to listen to Ha Anh Tuan's songs and write a personal blog to reflect life.

We went to Fo Guang Shan Buddhist temple this morning. It definitely gave me the inner peace that I desperately needed. The musical sound of monks praying and bells ringing in the wind, together with the freshness of the morning and the fragrance of incense it was so not hard for anyone to look hard within their heart and soul and dust off all the materialistic worries of ordinary lives.

Right there I took a moment and pause. It was priceless. Everything we really need is actually right there and free for us to grab, if we could see it.

 

BB 5y7m & DD 2y3m & TT 6m: Mummy's birthday

I've just put the baby down in his cot sleeping and only managed to finish the title of this blog entry before he cried again. It is exponentially difficult when we have 3 kids. I had no idea. We had no idea it would be this hard. We have not slept through the night the like 5 years and not going to for the next 2 years or so. Think about that: almost a decade of no good sleep. Wow, that could almost kill you, literally.

But every moment I hold their little faces on my hands, kiss their rosy little cheeks and warm little hands, look at their sparkling eyes and beautiful smiles, I think to myself: God bless!

BB is now 5 1/2 years old. She has grown into a responsible child with very high level of EQ. She's already teaching me so much about being resilient. It is also her favourite competency.

TT is now 6 months old. He's a bundle of joy that one I can tell ya. 

BB 3.5y & DD 11w: Ups and downs

Today is our 5 year wedding anniversary. I looked at our two beautiful bundles of joy and I never felt so complete.

Bing Bing has turned into even a more wonderful child as she is now a big sister. She feeds him, she talks to him, she laughs with him, baths with him, she holds his hand in the car even though their car seats are quite far apart which makes her reach with half of her body outside her car seat. When her arm gets too tired she asked me (who sits in the middle) to hold DD's hand instead.

Bing Bing stayed at home for two week school holiday. It was so much work with the two of them home but now that she's back to school next week I truly miss the time we're together. I wasn't taking care of them both but she took care of her little brother with me. She runs upstairs and downstairs to get his nappies and wipes. She covers him with blankets when she thinks he's cold. She talks to him with her sweetest voice when he's crying.

"Ôi em hóc à? Chị có làm gì đâu, chị biết rồi em ơi, chị yêu em mà, ừ, ừ, em đừng hóc nữa..."

"Mẹ ơi, mẹ để em hóc một lúc cũng được mà, mẹ cứ ngồi đây ăn đi."

"Mẹ ơi, em lại ị rồi, em suốt ngày ị thôi, bỉm đây mẹ lau đít cho em đi mẹ"

"Mẹ ơi, con có phải là baby của mẹ không? Mẹ có yêu con hông?"

"Mẹ ơi, con giúp được ba mẹ nhiều việc lắm, con có ngoan hông mẹ?"

Bing Bing hugs and holds Deeda anytime she could. She kisses him and said "I love you so much Deeda, you're my honey bee bee."

I always called Bing Bing "honey bee bee" when she was a baby and it's so sweet now to hear she calls Deeda like that again.

I've started teaching Bing Bing the piano. She is learning so fast and doing really well. This kid definitely has a thing for music. I also started teaching her to read Vietnamese. She recognises words and does spelling quite fluently.

Summer's coming and we're looking forward to our 2 week beach holiday at the end of November. Bing Bing is a beach lover and I know she's going to have a great time.

Deeda has started to smile. He's a very alert baby. His eyes move across the room very quickly and they always follow Bing Bing's voice and her presence. He smiles every time he sees her face.
He's now 6.1kg. Quite a big (handsome) boy with funny eyelids ;) He's not as chubby but he's going to be strong and tall :) I'm just so proud of my two kids and only have wonderful things to brag about them aye?

The kids give me highest of the highs and lowest of the lows. Every morning I wake up and think it's another god damn day that I only just had 4 hours of sleep and 15 hours straight to work/ cook/ clean/ baby/ business and everything else. Then there are so many moments in a day when Bing Bing's said or done something that I just wanted to burst into tears because I know that I have raised an amazing little girl.

Alan booked a table for us at the Soul Bar again for our anniversary. I was surprised that he remembered to book, given all the craziness going on now that we have two kids.

My little sister is coming to visit. I hope she's here to stay. That our family will be even bigger.

Anyway, it's a miracle that I have the time and energy to write a blog these days. But I made time :) I don't want to forget these days - one of the happiest days of my life, like in a movie, enough to give meaning for the entire life.

3 years 4 months: A mother reborn

Saturday, 6 August 2016 - 3AM

I walked to his room, picked him up and I looked at his little baby face...

He's perfect. He's mine. And he's here. At last.

I sang him a lullaby song that I sang to Bing Bing the first night we were home together.

He smiled with his eyes closed. Oh, I think a fairy has just been born - when a baby smiles for the first time.

It's only been two weeks since we both almost lost our lives yet I felt like we've been together for a life time...

Wednesday, 20 July 2016 - 11PM

Alan was unhappy that I was working too hard. It's 11 o'clock and I was still at my computer emailing customers. I was dead tired so I jumped onto bed with him. Alan already put on "The Good Wife" series as usual and we watched it together before going to bed. It was like our bedtime ritual to watch a couple of episodes to know that we do something together everyday no matter how hard the day's been.

I had these bad contractions and I thought it was Braxton Hicks like a couples days before. Alan timed them and damn it they were regular, every 9 minutes exactly, lasting for about 50 seconds. That night was the weirdest night of my life. Pain came every 5 minutes over and over again and nobody could help me but myself.

Thursday, 21 July 2016 - 12 noon

For 13 hours of contractions we finally met my midwife at the hospital. It was noon and I didn't remember anything else of those 13 hours but the constant anticipated pain that never failed to disappoint me. I was surprised that I handled it much better than I thought I would. I didn't make a single sound even though I had never been in so much pain in my entire life.

I was told I was dilated 3 cms. "What?! After 13 hours and 3 was all you gave me?!"

My midwife appraised me constantly of how well I was coping and how brave I was and that my threshold for pain was exceptional. I couldn't exactly make out any words she was saying, I was murmuring in my head "Baby we can do this baby..."

Thursday, 21 July 2016 - 6pm

I had been in labour for almost 20 hours now and dilated 6 cms. My contractions were so intense that midwife believed I should have been in delivery by then but things started to go wrong and later very wrong.

My temperature spiked up. A fever during labour suggested an obstructed labour.

My cervix was swollen and closed back up instead of dilating.

My baby boy's heart beat spiked up to almost 200, just like it happened with Bing Bing. My heart broke a little every time that Doppler machine made a sound. He was in distress, just like Bing Bing. My worst nightmare was happening all over again like de javu.

After consultation with the doctors we decided that an emergency C section was our best option as my fever continued to rise. But the wait for an OR was 3 hours.

Thursday, 21 July 2016 - 9pm

8pm. Something went wrong I could feel it. I buzzed the bell three times and every time the doctors told me the same thing "There's so sign of critical conditions yet and we should be moving to a theatre in a couple of hours." My midwife insisted that everything was on track and that I shouldn't be worried. I kept on telling Alan that I felt something wrong in my stomache and that our little one had been kicking frantically for the last hour. I could feel he was not able to wait for any longer.

The last bell - a crew of doctors who just came out of an operation checked me out. The doctor name was Mahesh and he asked that we moved to an OR straight away. They injected a high dose of epidural, ran ice against my skin to make sure I couldn't feel anything from the chest down. Since the nerves for pain are the same nerves for feeling cold, my body misunderstood and I started to shiver and shake like never before.

Alan was sitting right next to me, holding my shaking arms and he gently leaned to my ears and whispered "It's going to be okay. We'll meet him very soon. Just hang on." I started to feel dizzy and things get blurry with all the lights and the noises. Minutes later, I finally heard him crying. My tears just ran down my cheeks uncontrollably. I thought this nightmare was over.

Suddenly everything went really quiet. Doctors sent a really long time closing me up. Baby wasn't crying any more. Somebody said "Baby's got trouble breathing. Send him to NICU now."

Bing Bing 3y4m: 3 YEARS IN NZ

This post is long overdue and that’s why it is going to be a little bit longer than usual. My mother visited us for three months and I was glad to see that Bing Bing and her grandmother bonded really well. Before grandma arrived, we told Bing Bing that her grandmother could only speak Vietnamese and Bing did promise not to speak English at home, so that grandma could understand her.

Tracing the origin of Deeda’s name

People asked me why Margaret is called Bing Bing all the times. This was fairly easy because I named her myself. Things were getting more difficult with Deeda because Bing Bing called him so from the very first day, and we were not sure whether it was Teeda or Deeda at times. After a lot of researches, I was very confident that we had been able to trace the origin of Deeda’s name. It was not related to our friend’s car make of (Nissan) Tiida as she hoped. It was not at all a random choice. In fact, it gotta be some smart act of spoonerism I believed (!). I came to realize this listening to the conversation between Bing Bing and her grandmother:

-     - Bing Bing ơi, Bing Bing dạy bà nội tiếng Anh nào?

-     - Bà nội ơi, Mommy, Daddy, Deeda…Daddy, Deeda… hihi J

I thought Bing Bing did play with the word Daddy and shuffled it a bit to get her brother’s nickname. Two most important men in her life so far - like what Alex said. Well, at this stage, she did not confirm my thinking just yet, but I hoped I was getting this right.

Kill the Bad, not the Ugly

Bing Bing had a little book named Hipposite with a lot funny pictures explaining two opposite concepts, for example ‘night vs. day’, ‘pretty  vs. ugly’ and ‘soft vs. rough’ etc. We also tried to teach her about all the good vs. bad behaviors in daily life so that she could form her own boundary.

-     - Bing Bing, what do you think about crossing the street when red light is on? Is this good or bad? – asked Alex

-     - Bad – Bing Bing rolled her eyes and answered

-     - What about not putting your rubbish in the bin? Is that good or bad?

-     - Bad – now she answered while jumping up and down   

-     - What about tidy up your own toys honey?

-     - Good, it’s good Mommy :)

‘Good or Bad’ concept was also extended to the likes of fly and mosquito as well. Bing Bing obviously didn’t like flies and mosquitoes because they were bad enough, and she tried to smash them all using her little green pad. On a rainy day, she was walking out of the garage and she saw an earthworm on the ground.

-     
-     - Daddy, look! What is it? Ba ơi xử lý nó đi, it is ugly – said Bing Bing

Though I was not a big fan of either worms, snakes or any creepy crawlies, I thought it should be useful to talk a bit more about them for Bing Bing. I explained that it was actually an earthworm and it helped cultivate the soil. Lastly, I told her “Well you don’t just kill it because it is ugly OK?”. Bing Bing nodded her head and repeated “Only kill the bad ones, not the ugly ones”. Yeah, that’s right!

Frozen Obsession 

One of the things that I really wanted to find out was what source of viewer research Disney conducted before producing Frozen. Why every little girl was obsessed with Elsa (though in my opinion she was not pretty) and her blue dress was still a big question to be answered. Of course, if there was ever an Elsa Fan Club in Auckland, Bing Bing would certainly become its president or something. She loved Elsa's long hair, she loved Elsa's long dress and she even introduced herself as Queen Elsa of Arendale sometimes. I did some Google search and found out that they sold Elsa's dress at Farmers. Quite an investment yet the look on Bing Bing's face (after she fell asleep for 2 hours on the way to Farmers) made it all worthwhile. Bing Bing now pretended to be Elsa all the time wearing her blue dress and singing 'Let it go'. 

Deeda 

There would be another long post about Bing Bing and Deeda of course. Deeda was born on 21 July 2016 and he gotta spend a few days in NICU afterwards. Bing Bing got to see her little brother a few days 

3 years 2 months: Talk about WOO quality (win others over)

We were invited to one of my colleagues' house warming party a few weeks ago. It took me by surprise when we arrived. There were probably 50 people in the house, on the deck, in the kitchen, just everywhere. Perhaps 40 of them were Indonesian as the wife was an Indonesian woman. I looked around and I knew only one person: my colleague. So as awkward as we were, Alan and I found a seat and just simply talked to nobody but ourselves. Bing Bing on the other hand was out on the deck smiling and talking to a bunch of women. I was too far away to hear anything. After about 10 minutes chitchatting she sat down among them and continued the conversations. Suddenly she ran back to our table and grabbed some crackers.

"What are you doing over there Bing Bing?"

"Oh, I'm just talking to the girls. She's got yummy crackers so I want some. Do you want some crackers Mommy?"

I shook my head and off she went back to her chair among the women and kept on chitchatting. One of them was waving and approached us:

"Is Margaret your daughter?"

"Oh yes" I replied with a smile and was wondering how the hell she knew her name.

"She's SO adorable and friendly. She said her name was Margaret. She's three years old and she asked about out names and age and how we enjoyed the food."

"She did?!" - I sounded nothing like her mum.

I looked around and saw Bing Bing already moved to the next audience. Of course 5 mins later, a man and a women holding a baby approached me and said:

"Margaret said you're her parents. She's SO cute and so friendly. She said she's got a new baby soon and he's a boy. His name is Teeda and he's in your tummy."

Needless to say, Alan and I were both laughing and being totally confused.

"She said all that?... Hoho... Yes, yes, we're having a boy in a couple of months.."

Until the end of the party, Bing Bing got acquainted with a lot more people than we did. They all loved her, her charm and cuteness of a three year old. She left the party saying goodbyes to everyone she talked to. She talked about them by names in the car on the way back. Alan and I both knew that she's got something both of us don't.

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"Oh Margaret do you want to tell your mummy what you did today?" - Her teacher asked when we picked her up.

Bing Bing was too busy finishing up her late afternoon snacks so she didn't say anything.

"Kelly's eldest son came to the kindy today. Kelly introduced that his name was Jason and he's 9 years old. The first person who came up to Jason was Margaret. You know what she said? She said "do you know my name Jason?" Jason said "No sorry I don't, what's your name, baby?" "My name is Margaret, and I'm not a baby, I am three. Then others take turn and introduce themselves like Margaret did" - Her teacher told us.

Jason didn't manage to remember anybody's name but Margaret.

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Our favourite closeby restaurant was Portofino - an Italian restaurant. Bing Bing loves the spaghetti bolognese dish over there. We go a couple of times a week actually. This time Bing Bing said loud and clear the first moment she walked in to our usual waitress:

"Hello there, it's very nice to see you again?" - She rushed to our usual table

Needless to say the waitress was so pleasantly surprised that the words came out of a three year old and that should have been her line.

She poured some tap water in our glasses and continued to praise Bing Bing in front of us. But before she even started, Bing Bing looked down on the ground and said:

"Oh, I like your shoes."

Yeah, all of us had the same reaction. The waitress almost burst into tears of joy and surprise. I was just thinking "@__@ how? when? since when she's been able to say such lines that just won everyone over..."

"Excuse me, I want pasta and chips please. Oh, can I have a baby folk please? I need a blue pencil too"

Yes that was all her. Since a while now we never ordered food on her behalf. She always called a waiter and ordered what she wanted, sometimes she wanted orange juice, sometimes she wanted some more napkins.. it's all her.

"Oh, thank you so much." She said when her demands were met.

"Oh my gosh, she's so cute, she's got such great manners" 

I just smiled away. Yes, she does. She's my girl and I'm a proud mother.

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I don't cook any more given my excessive tiredness and backache. So Alan stepped up quite a while ago in the kitchen. I was tired and had to deal with an overloaded basket of laundry; Alan was cooking while Bing Bing asked him all the time to read her some books but Alan couldn't.

Bing Bing was a bit grumpy coming to the table because she wanted to read some books before dinner but nobody was available. After some nagging and all, Bing Bing tried her first spoon of rice and pork ribs. She stopped being grumpy and smiled:

"Thank you Daddy and Mommy for cooking for me."

Yeah, you guessed it, Alan and I were touched deep in our hearts and jumped to kiss our girl. All the tiredness and the stress disappear in a blink of an eye.

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Bing Bing continues to reveal her personality and her grace and charm and caring for others were the qualities that I'm most proud of. She continues to be confident in expressing herself and her emotions. She told me before going to bed this evening that today she was upset that she lost her beautiful blue mask at school. She also said next time when she brought something to school she would keep it safe in her bag. She also said she loved Daddy, Mummy and Teeda because we were a family. She said Teeda will grow bigger and bigger to a very beautiful boy. She said she didn't want me to leave her room because she didn't want to be alone in the dark. Yes every night before bedtime she always shouted across room: "Mummy, I love you in the morning and I love you at night. I love you always and I love you forever."

3 years 1 month: All about G.R.O.W.T.H

What's her height now?

At Bing Bing’s kindergarten, there was a height measure in the shape of a funny giraffe. Last week, I asked Bing Bing to stand against the giraffe and assumed that she might be in the zone of 92-93 cm. Turned out to be 98 cm. With no shoes and double confirmed by her teacher!

Into Science Now...

When it came to learning, we realized that there should be no limit to Bing Bing's thirst for knowledge. Earthquake, dinosaur, stethoscope were some of her favorite topics recently and she was so eager to learn more and more about those seemingly sophisticated subjects. Alex recently showed Bing Bing some BBC documentary on dinosaur during one of their "movie nights", i.e. those Friday nights that I was out to play badminton. What impressed us most was the fact that Bing Bing tried to remember all the names of the dinosaurs, e.g. T-Rex, Apatosaurus. She figured out the key difference between these dinosaurs and clearly termed it as "having sharp teeth". Those dinosaurs which had sharp teeth should eat meat, while those without sharp teeth like "long-neck, they just ate leaf, Daddy". Thanks to the likes of elephant and 'long-neck', I could now encourage Bing Bing to have more green vegetables at dinner by reminding her of her favorite animals. I would be like "Bing Bing, you should have some vegetable just like the long-neck", and Bing Bing would concur in Vietnamese "Bing Bing ăn rau Bing không đau đít". Very outcome driven indeed :).

20,110! This is not a random number. It is in fact the number of earthquakes that happened in New Zealand last year (GeoNet). Learning about earthquake should be necessary and we were happy to see Bing Bing pick this up so quickly. She remembered all the required actions and was eager to demonstrate them at any point of time. If Bing Bing was sitting on the sofa, and we made some fake earthquake sound, she would dive into the floor and covered her head. And if asked "What else would you do Bing Bing?", she would answer with an unmistakable Kiwi accent "I'll run outside".

In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book, he told a story about a mother telling her son to ask the doctor anything he needed to know during the appointment. I kinda liked the idea and encouraged Bing Bing to do the same with her GP. She was always comfortable interacting with her GP and never ever cried. One GP used to tell Bing Bing that she wished all her patients were (good) like Bing Bing. At home, Bing Bing loved to role-play as a doctor and examined all her toys (including me of course) using her own stethoscope. Her current kit was a cute little stethoscope which could help you hear actual heartbeat and a small blue box with all the wooden devices. I loved to (pretend) to be one of her patients as I could actually feel my daughter's loving care when she held my hand, checked my temperature and wrote me a prescription.     

And language

We maintained a bi-lingual environment at home and Bing Bing could switch instantly between English and Vietnamese. The other day Alex was telling her "Bing Bing, you need to sit down while eating". Bing Bing replied instantly in Vietnamese "Mẹ ơi nói tiếng Việt đi, không nói tiếng Anh", and her mum was stunned for like a second while I had a good laugh. We found out that Bing Bing sometimes introduced herself using her full Vietnamese name of Phạm Tú Mỹ Anh at kindie. She told us that her friends didn't understand that and they were like "What? What are you talking about?". Besides non-stop speaking, she sang all the time - in the car, in the bathroom, before going to bed, even on the bed. Her current favorite songs were "For the first time in forever" and "Three hot buns", yet she kinda wrote her own lyrics for the songs.

And more independent

We recently sold our townhouse and moved some of our favorite furniture to our new place, which included a little white bed for Bing Bing. FYI - She had been sleeping on her mattress for more than a year so that she would not fall off to the floor. And now for the white bed, it was definitely love at first sight. Bing Bing kept rolling on her new bed and screamed "I love my new bed, I love my new bed". Then all of a sudden, she raised her independence to a new level after her third birthday. She decided to dress herself, brushed her teeth properly on her own even though she started doing that by herself about a year ago and now she started using her own lipstick(!). It was not "lipstick" lipstick, but some lip balm with a sweet smell of cranberry & raspberry from Nivea to be exact. Bing Bing held her "lipstick" even during her sleep. She even brought it to one of her "Show and Tell" sessions and conveyed such a clear message to her friends "This is my lipstick. It is for girls, not for boys". One of the children inquired curiously "Why do you use lipstick Margaret?" and Bing Bing gave a cannot-be-clearer explanation of "Because I like it".

And for Teeda...

Bing Bing went to the doctor with us to see Teeda every time. She already knew that Teeda would be her brother yet she kept requesting for another little sister. Bing Bing promised to feed Teeda and change his nappy if necessary. Sometimes, she gently touched Alex's belly and asked Tee what he was up to punching and kicking mommy's belly button. I can't wait to see Teeda and I hope he would be as cute as his Big Sister. Alex tended to be more specific as she wanted his eyes to not look like mine :).