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 :).

My sweet little girl is 3

I loved it when she was 1. I loved it more when she turned 2. And now she is 3 - she's turned into a sweetest baby girl in the whole world.

She'd talked about her 3rd birthday about months before her birthday. She said she'd buy lots of flowers for Mommy. She would love a birthday cake and a birthday dress. On her birthday, she got multiple nasty insect bites on her face, one nastiest bite on her left eye that made her so miserable. But that didn't stop my birthday girl to be the centre of the universe. She had one birthday party at home with our adult friends and one birthday party at school. Everyone sang her the birthday song and at night she hums that tune for so long until she fell asleep.

Winter is approaching. Bing Bing got pretty sick over the last week. She got a very sore throat and spoke in a man's voice. She got a high fever every 8 hours. She was crying when she got a temperature but she was the sweetest little one when it's gone. That ached my heart so much to see her suffering from this virus.

Bing Bing and I spent a whole day together yesterday. I could feel that both our hearts and souls were filled up with love and contentment. We read books together, we played puzzles together, we danced together, we cooked together and watched Jurassic World together. She was such a brave girl. She loved action movies, especially with those dinosaurs. She asked me about what was happening and why it happened the way it did every 3 minutes which was adorable. I answered every question she had and it was amazing how much she could understand.

She made lunch for us. Yes, she cooked carrots and broccoli, she cooked chicken wings and she used chopsticks pretty well. I was impressed by my little one throughout the day. We did a puzzle about the four seasons in a year. She saw pumpkins in autumn and said "Mommy I touched a pumpkin yesterday in the flower zoo! It was too big you can't eat it." I was thinking "What flower zoo? When did you touch a big pumpkin?" But I remembered. We went to Hamilton Garden over the weekend where I took a picture of her with 4-5 large pumpkins and I asked her to touch one of them. "Flower zoo... That's clever and funny." I thought to myself and I loved her ability to connect the dots, all the events together. That's how much a baby's brain wired up. Amazing.

Bing Bing loved Teeda. She named him the moment she got the news. She pressed her ears on my tummy and listened to Teeda kicking everyday. "Did you hear anything Bing Bing? Is he sleeping?" I asked. "No Mommy, Teeda wakes up. He kicks BUM BUM BUM like the fireworks in the sky. I hear it." Oh yes, there was a hot air balloon festival in Hamilton last weekend and we took her to see the fireworks. Again, she connected the dots.

Bing Bing often talked about how she would take care of Teeda, that she would feed him so he'd grow bigger and bigger, that she would bathe him, change him, read to him, teach him how to swim and everything that she loves doing. But she always bargained with me that she wanted a brother AND a sister. Bing Bing has a biggest heart that is full with love and understanding. She would be an amazing big sister I'm sure of it. That gives me pleasure to think about our third baby. I hoped it'd be a girl so Bing Bing had her wish.

Teeda has been kicking so so much, sometimes so hard that I jumped and screamed out. I can't wait to meet him and introduce the two of them to each other and start to see their relationship develops.

Alex

Month 35-36: Passion is to be found

We are 10 days away from Bing Bing’s 3^rd birthday. Alex told me the other day that there was some interesting tennis class for toddlers which should be quite fun. After some discussion, we decided that she would not learn something too specific at this stage of development. Instead, we would like to expose Bing to as many fun activities as possible, so that she could continue to experience new things and gradually form her own interests and tastes.

Music

Bing Bing listened to various artists, e.g. Adele, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, and Michael Jackson to name a few. Adele was her favorite artist at the moment. Besides, she especially liked songs with strong beat as she could either dance along or “shake it off”. Of course, it was still too early for Bing Bing to fully understand all the lyrics. However, I was amazed to see that she could feel the emotions expressed in the songs. One day she was listening to “Someone like you” by Adele and she told me “Daddy, Adele is a bit upset”. We also bought music CDs in different languages for Bing Bing. She listened to her Spanish CD so often that she actually remembered the lyrics and rhythm. One day we were in the car and there was an Italian song playing on the radio. Bing Bing listened intensely and then queried “I don’t understand this song. It is not Spanish”.

Dance

Bing Bing surely had some happy feet. She could either dance or jump around non-stop whenever her favorite music was on. However, it should be noted that, like driving, she danced to the conditions (of the floor). During Christmas, we went to a colleague’s house and all the kids danced happily, except my little one. Erm, this was not usual at all – so I asked her “You are not dancing honey. What’s happening?”. Bing Bing looked at me blankly and said “It’s not soft Daddy”. Oh yeah, now it made sense. Bing Bing only loved to dance and roll on the premium carpet floor that was installed at our new home right before Christmas. The carpet she was standing on at that time was no match for ours J.

Sports

I quite like a quote about passion “Passion comes from a special fit between an activity and a person. You can't force that fit; it has to be found”. This was especially true in sports and Bing Bing was allowed to explore multiple types of sports on her own. Recently, I joined another badminton club in North Shore and they played from 7pm to 10pm every Saturday. We had brought Bing Bing along twice so that she could watch the games and play with my spare racquet. She had great fun playing outside the courts and quickly caught up with the rules. Bing Bing explained to Alex “When the bell rings, all the children (FYI - she meant my club members) stop playing Mommy”. I loved it even more when she spoke to me in Vietnamese the next day “Ba oi, ba huong dan Bing Bing choi cau long nhe” (i.e. Daddy, can you please teach me how to play badminton?”). Two weeks ago, Alex found a kids’ martial art class for Bing Bing, in which they taught Choi Kwang Do. This school of martial art was more flexible than Taekwondo and the teacher told Bing Bing and her classmates on the first day that "Remember, the only place that you can fight is within this class". Bing Bing talked about martial art all day now and she kept stressing the point that “Daddy, it’s not fighting OK”. We planned to bring Bing Bing to Alex's table tennis club soon so that she could experience another game. 

Food

Bing Bing’s default answer to any sort of new food is “No I don’t want it”, combined with multiple head-shaking. That was why we needed to eagerly encourage her to try new stuff every time. “Please try it first honey” – said Alex, “You can always spit it out if you really don’t like it. But you need to try”. That worked well for us, and I realized that Bing Bing rarely spat anything out after trying. We went to the zoo quite often and some animal stories were quite helpful when it came to food. Bing Bing’s favourite zoo animals were Buma the Elephant, giraffe, seal and tiger/ cheetah. I often reminded her about the tiger “Do you know why the tiger is strong Bing Bing? Because it eats a lot of meat” when I wanted her to have some more protein.

About Teeda…

It took me quite a while to come up with the name Bing Bing when Alex was pregnant back in 2013. This time, I asked Bing Bing to name her little brother/sister and she instantly came up with the name of Teeda. We went for a 20-week pregnancy scan this morning and the doctor told that everything was beautifully normal. She also confirmed that Teeda would be a little boy and this part of the story actually made me a bit nervous. I would need to read more and learn how to raise a son now. The way Teeda kicked Mom’s belly was totally different from that of Bing Bing – and I assumed that was a hint about his personality being different from Bing Bing's. Bing Bing went in the scan room with me and she was really excited to see Teeda moving on the screen. However, Bing Bing had always said she wanted Teeda to be a girl and her denial mode was on even after the doctor had already confirmed otherwise. Bing Bing took a profile picture of Teeda for her “Show and Tell” today; and she told her dear teacher Andrea that “Teeda is a girl. But I want a brother and a sister”. 

I cannot wait to celebrate Bing Bing's 3rd birthday. She's grown so much during the past year and we are so looking forward to the next. 

Month 34: The incredible Christmas

It's now end of January 2016 and I had to post a long overdue entry.

Honestly I just don't know where to begin because so much has happened and it's all a bit overwhelming for me, even up til now.

Let's start with December 2nd...

Alan was looking for a higher position at his firm. He sent me a list of all the opening positions they had at the time. Glancing through the list I noticed three positions were highlighted by him. They were one, two and three levels above his.

In the next couple of hours I received several emails from Alan. He seemed to favour the middle one - two levels above his. As his wife, I knew he was going for a challenge 'seems-to-be' option but in fact he needed some confidence to go for the highest position. So I gave him what he needed: self-assurance - something I sometimes have in abundance.

I almost forgot what it's like to apply for a job in a bank (!):
1. He had an informal meeting with the hiring manager. He submitted the god-damn lengthy application online with a CV and a cover letter.

2. Alan did three tests: numerical, logical reasoning and a personality one if my memory serves me right. I remember those tests were driving me crazy that evening as they took 3 hours from 9pm to midnight for him to finish. The personality test itself had almost 400 freaking questions that sounded exactly the same to me but apparently they carried tiny differences in meaning and that tiny differences make all the difference in the overall results (?)

3. Alan was then invited to a formal interview with the hiring manager that lasted for like two hours at lunch time. He was totally starved.

4. That's not it, round two was an interview with the boss of the boss of the hiring manager (I think) whose profile was like... unspeakable. Alan was a bit nervous with this one (who wouldn't?). Once again I gave him what he needed: confidence.

5. The last meeting was easy, again an informal meeting just for the hiring manager to give Alan some feedback, break the news of the job offer and talk about figures.

Alan called me when I was on the bus picking up Bing Bing.

"Hello baby, so just finished my meeting with Jerry..."

"And???" I couldn't wait.

"He gave me some very good feedback..."

"And???" (Come on Alan!)

"Oh and he offered me the job"

"Yay! I knew it. And???" (You know where I'm getting at Alan, to the point, to the point!)

"Guess." He was smiling at the other end I could feel it.

I could never guess it. It was totally out of my range. I remember myself either screaming or laughing out loud on the bus when he finally told me.

It's also the day I went for my first scan. I was 6.5 weeks pregnant. Oh if you could imagine the joy.



December 8th...

We bought a new house. Wait... What? (Yes, like a dream I know). We had been to about 30-40 open homes. We finally found our dream home in November and went for it without a single thought. The best primary school for Bing Bing. It's situated by a Kauri reserve and next to a bay. We could see the beach and the forest on our drive way. I could hear nothing but the birds. It's really a sanctuary of calm whenever I get home after a long hard day at work. It's got a huge garden that I always dreamed of for Bing Bing. It's got five bedrooms for our family to grow.

That week we had two exams as part of our PhD degrees. I just wanted to jot it down before all things fade. It was one of the most hard working week of our lives. We were preparing for Alan's interview. We were studying for our exams. We were working with the banks and our lawyers to sort out the settlement for the house. I was facing down the toilet three times a day with my morning sickness that seemed to last the entire day. I remember we just finished our three hour exam on December 11th and waiting for us outside the exam room was our carpet dealer bringing samples for us to pick out a colour for our new carpet. I had to throw up before I could meet her...

December 12th...
One day after our last exam, we moved in the new house. That sounded simple enough but moving house is never a simple task and we (mostly Alan) did it in one day. The whole house was packed and moved. Even with some help from our friends, we were exhausted after all that was happening. First night at our new house was incredible. Probably one of the best sleeps I'd had in months.

December 18th...
My mum came to visit. Well again that sounded simple enough but applying for her visa was a lot of work and hiccups but finally she was here. That's also when our 4 week Christmas break began.

Vietnamese
I spoke Vietnamese to Bing Bing all the time. Bing Bing went to daycare when she was about 4 months old. She started speaking English when she was 16 months old. Since then it didn't matter how hard I tried, her brain worked like a ping pong table. Whatever Vietnamese balls I hit at her, she responded in English instantly without pause. She spoke one or two words in Vietnamese but only because she didn't know the word in English. I was so disappointed. I couldn't understand how other kids in a bilingual environment like Bing Bing could speak both languages, especially Chinese kids. I began to think perhaps Bing Bing went to childcare a bit too early? Maybe I'm doing something wrong I don't know. I just had to keep it up and speak Vietnamese to her.

But in December, she was 33 months old and all of the sudden, yes, that's very expression, all of the sudden, she spoke fluent Vietnamese and Vietnamese only to us at home. How did that happen? All my hard work paid off? Oh my god, all the words I never thought she knew, all the right expressions she used, it's just too sweet for my ears to hear my baby speak my language, it's like we finally understood each other in every way possible. I couldn't be more proud (even more proud than her successful toilet training :)). She speaks fluent English at school and fluent Vietnamese at home. She even speaks Spanish when she listens to Spanish songs. She is learning Spanish at school. I'm like "Really? Are you a dream come true?" She truly is.

Music
Bing Bing has been fonder and fonder each day of Adele. Yes I'm talking about the British singer with Grammys and Oscar. She particularly loves the song "Set fire to the rain". She listens to Adele every single day, at home, in the car. She watches her DVD over and over again. She notices every single move. She distinguishes every single musical instrument: piano, violin, guitar, drums, and even banjo. She loves the song "If it hadn't been for love" because she loves banjo. She dances when songs are up beat. She sits down and looks totally down when it's a break-up song. She listens to the lyrics word by word, memorises them and she sings her favourite songs perfectly.
She often asks me "Mommy, why is Adele so upset?". I don't know what to say but tell her the truth "Because she has lost someone she loves." I'm not sure if she got it but I like telling her the truth and let her think about it.

Bing Bing has also grown fondness of Alicia Keys. She particularly loves the song "Girl on Fire". Seems like her favourite songs all involve some sort of fire element. She jumps on the piano, plays and sings at the same time like Alicia Keys. It was breathless to watch such passion from such a little girl. She was indeed the 'Girl on Fire" when it comes to music.

Role-play
Bing Bing has grown so fast now that I couldn't keep up. She reads a lot of books and she loves doing role-play. Like this evening, she had a paper cut when reading books. She lied down and pretended to be Martin - girl in one of the books who had a bike accident, broke her leg and had to see a doctor.

"Doctor, I am hurt, please give me a massage." She spoke to me in Vietnamese
"Here is it hurt? What about here? Is it hurt?" I replied just like the doctor in her book while pretending to examine her legs and arms.
"No... No... Yes... I hurt my finger". She replied.
"What happened?" I showed my concern.
"I was reading a book and the paper hurt me". She answered
"I see, it's a papercut. Here is a band aid" I replied
"Oh thank you Dr. I need milk and some massage please" She requested
"Oh no more milk, I will have to go buy some for the baby" She's now playing a role of "be Mi" - a girl from another book who was so brave to go out and buy milk for her baby brother when mommy was cooking.  She ran to my Mum and said:
"Please sell me some milk. Thank youuuu". She rushed back and asked me to lay down like a baby and she fed me with a smile.

Like that we did the whole play for like 10 times before she agreed to go to bed. She said goodnight to me "Bye doctor" and to my Mum "Bye Milk Seller" all in Vietnamese!

There are so much more of her that I want to capture here. Maybe for some other times as it is getting late. I started to feel a bit guilty that I didn't write any blogs about this pregnancy like I did for Bing Bing. I'm just too busy and too tired I guess. Work has been really full on as well. Oh by the way Alan and I passed our two exams we sat in December given total number of hours we spent on studying those two papers was like 5 - what a month. We now can start... writing a thesis. Yeah, I know, PhD is like an endless journey to misery :))

I have my family. With it, I can do anything. See? My self-assurance in abundance ;))