new words new discovery

Val surprised me a few days ago when i came home and heard him shouting, "throw!" it's funny to hear it, cos he says it with very exaggerated lip action - with his lips puckered up, and with lots of spittle to go with the word that he seems to spit out. Now, occasionally he combines it and goes "throw ball!" and then furiously hurls balls (or any other objects close at hand) all around. He's also picked up another Chinese word - ma (horse). We have no idea how. One day, he just pointed at a picture of a horse, and went "ma." Of course, he doesn't get the right intonation, so he could just be calling me a horse.

balancing act

As Val grows older and more cognisant of the dos and don'ts, he's also pushing the envelope more and more. He KNOWS when he shouldn't do something, but does it anyways to see how I'd react. He holds his spoon out and goes "oh no, no no no" but still flings it down with gusto. He wants to see what i'd do. These days I try all ways.... from stern warnings, to strong eye contact, to holding him back, to light smacks on the hand or the bum. Sometimes they work - especially the eye contact thing. I learnt it from the Horse Whisperer himself. (really!) But still, i think discipline's really a balancing act - how much is too much? Spare the cane and spoil the child? or smack the kid and hurt his ego? There was one night, i was frustrated with him - - he had been awake since 2pm and was still going about like a dynamo at midnight -- I shouted at him loudly. His reaction? He laughed, he giggled, he chortled even. He thought it was funny. @#$%^&&*** Parenthood - tough job

why is he so shy?

The boy @ Let's Take A Walk Dec 2008 (Gosh time does fly!)Photo by Linus Long

Val is literally a "long" or dragon at home and a "chong" or worm when he's outside. He screams, he runs, he chuckles, he does all kinds of weird stuff at home but once he's outside, he's usually "too" well-behaved - to the extent of being timid. He hides behind my legs to peer at the world ; when bigger kids brush past him or take his toys he bawls; he seems scared of so many things when we're outside. i dun mean being at the beach or at the mall when he's still essentially interacting with us, but when we're at someone's home and there're other kids, he really becomes another person. It takes him a loooong while to warm up - usually when i'm about to leave (yes, his engine takes that long to warm up!). The only explanation is that he really doesn't have enough kiddie company during the week, so i really have to bring him out to places with more kids. 2 weeks ago, just being in Go Go Bambini was enough to freak him out - - the hordes of screaming kids at OTT decibel levels just didn't do it for him. I remember once we were in Vivocity and there were loud announcements made by the DJ - Val hated that to the core. He much preferred being out in the open. Today at JH's house, he also refused to be indoors, much preferring to kick a ball in solace, fleeing to me once a stranger came up. He even cried when an older boy tried to hug him. HARUUMPH..... Guess we really need to help him socialise more. Right now, there're plans of sending him to a 2-hr daily playgroup when he hits 18 months....

our lil mime actor

i'm pleasantly surprised by the benefits of sign language, even my parents have cottoned on to the advantages of a toddler being able to express himself - he hardly cries because he can actually tell us what he wants with his hands and eyes, and by making lots of expressive sounds. recently, he has also invented new signs for the things he wants but can't say - - e.g. for crayons and pens - he signs with his hand how we would sign to waiters asking for a bill - you know, like clutching a pen and signing something. yesterday he told me that he wanted something on the desk by vigorously blinking his eyes and then putting his hands in front of them. When i figured out that he meant the camera, he was quite delighted. And of course, he never fails to tell me when he wants his milk - now that sign he is very proficient in making. in fact, i have a suspicion that he's now jus making the "milk" sign for fun, rather than when he really needs the breast. My mom calls the breast his opium. it's true - when you occupy him with things to do, he never asks for "milk" but once i am alone with him and he is not doing something, he leaps onto me, signing vigorously for milk. i try not to oblige but when the lil bugger actually adds on a sign that looks like "please" how can i say NO? haha.....see, We've trying to get him to sign "please" and "thank you" - by doing it ourselves whenever we ask him to do something - so must lead by example right....

anyways, a quick update of what he can say now (more for my own benefit as i haven't been keeping a real journal)

Truck - - says "tuck"
buckle - says "tiak"
car - - goes "booo booo"
thunder --- goes "brrrooom" with fingers in the air
cat --- says "mao" - his first chinese word!

***funniest****
"OH NO..." - - yes yes, he actually says that... with a really nasal accent that totally mimics my dad. it's super hilarious cos my dad always go, "oh no, no no no" with Val


other gibberish
wawabu -- we suspect it's from a chinese song he often listens to "wa wa bing" (meaning toy soldiers)
papuji - - we suspect it's mimicking my mom going "pua pua si" (fall to death) in hokkien when she chides him for spilling water on the floor cos it could make her fall to her death


no videos or pictures to show cos i've been a lazy photographer... and also the fact that it's close to impossible to snap him in action - because the moment i whip out the camera, he forgets everything else and leaps towards it.

life lessons

ONce again lil Val taught me something today: no matter how much you plan, things may not work out to your heart's desire! :-) Our family had set about making elaborate plans to visit the Jacob Ballas Children's Garden on Sunday - what time to go? who would be free? where shall we eat after? The adults were in a tizzy shifting around plans to make it one fun outing. And then Val develops a fever this afternoon after coming back from a lunch with my friends at Dempsey Hill (my gosh this is another post for another time ! i totally felt out of place at one of the eateries) - which means all our plans for the grand excursion tomorrow are chucked. Oh well.....as long as the lil fella get well soon. that's most important eh?


@Sushi Tei some weekends ago when the boy was well and up to all sorts of mischief

does filial piety count excuse my spending? tell me ...

So i went to the interchange this afternoon and had the time to stop by the telco shop. see, i've been thinking for a while to get my dad to stop his pre-paid phone cos it costs so much each time we call him. So i found out that if i got a new line under my name for him, it would cost only $9 a month for him. COol right? money saving right? so i went ahead and got him a new Nokia phone for $48 plus a sim that cost $26 - totalling $77, and then upon walking out, went DOH! i spent ! how? yikes?

So my question, dear friends, does it count if i spent out of piety? ;-)

maybe he really can read...?

leafing through nature
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

i bought a doodle pad - one of those with a magnetic pen and you scrawl on the white board and then erase everything with a button - when Val was few months old. sometimes, i just pick it up and scrawl pictures or write words for him. maybe 2 months ago, i wrote 'ball' and kept showing it to him. Obviously due to his Ball infatuation, he had no problems pronouncing the word. In fact, it was clear that he wasn't reading the word - just associating the doodle pad with ball really. cos, occasionally when i pick up the doodle pad, he goes "ball" already. Anyways, so yesterday, i decided to just write the word 'dog' , and guess what he went 'dot'. I thought i heard wrongly, and wrote 'ball' and he went 'ball' and then so on and so forth. So thanks to "My Baby Can Read" videos, i am quite sure that Val can now at least differentiate between 'ball' and 'dog' he may not even understand what these symbols mean right now, but he sure can tell the difference. It's an interesting start - cos according to the researcher who made the series, the first 50 words are the hardest to pick up, but once that happens, the baby's vocab simply accelerates, soaking up new words all the time.

I don't harbour big dreams of him becoming a genius and neither do we hothouse him at all - he watches the videos only once a day or sometimes twice a day after his baths. My only hope is for him to discover the same joy of reading as i did when my sis and i were given a few dozens of second-hand Enid Blytons during our primary school days. I am a staunch believer that if one is comfortable with words, and books, you can never be a real loner. I was always at ease with being on my own - solitude was never about loneliness cos i always had the worlds of acclaimed writers to visit. Ah.... reading. Love it!

err.... the fiscally impossible update

okay i 'fess up. yes, much to the delight of those laying bets on the sidelines, it would seem that the odds are definitely against me. i was boobytrapped yesterday into spending. (yeah yeah blame it on others you say) but truly! it all started out as a perfectly innocent idea of tagging along with my mom and sis to the mall - mom had to make glasses, while sis had shopping to do. for more than an hour, i was being the good girl - just window shopping , i even resisted the temptation to make new glasses, reminding myself to delay the spending till april.... and then when we were about to leave, the instigator (aka Sis) asks me to treat her to a coffee. Being the generous person i am (*cough*) i agreed without thinking. Sure, why not? So we headed for a cafe (all this while i must have been hypnotised or something). Then we all sat down, and then, i suddenly remembered that the instigator has a Dome card with really good deals - and then in a flash, i had agreed to also sign on to be a Dome member - dishing out ......$80 ... wait wait..but in return, i got $43 worth of coffee credit, $30 of vouchers, plus five or six more food and beverage vouchers. good deal right... i mean, i was going to fork out at least $20 for 3 cups of coffee and cake.. so why not go the full monty right? haha... right....... whatever. so that said, i now have a grand total of $100 to donate to a charity once easter is over..... please people, stop laying traps for me! ;-P

learning curve

Val's been on a steep learning curve this week, so i have been told by Grandma. The most significant would be that he is now indicating that he would like to learn how to put himself to sleep on the bed unassisted, i.e. without us carrying him in the ERGO and rocking him to sleep. Grandma says for 3 days now, he has insisted on tossing and turning around on the bed at nap time to try to go to sleep. He would try to shut his eyes close very tightly and lie down on the bed trying to nap but normally he would fail. Then after a lot of lolling about and whining, he would finally fall asleep. But today, somehow, after an hour of the sleeping attempt, he was still wide awake and frustrated so it was back into the Ergo again to rock him to sleep. I'm really proud of his attempts and hope that he will continue to do so over the weekend while he's with me... hmm.....

the other significant achievement would be that he has finally decided that he will now sign MILK MILK again with his hands! Yeah! YEAH! YEAH! so now, he promptly signals MILK whenever he sees me and i always try to nurse him if we're at home and if he's had his meals first. and suddenly too after this, he now signs "rabbit" as well! But he only puts his little hands up till his ear level instead of on his head to indicate the long rabbit ears. Cute. Oh, and a self-invented sign for "Scared" . he's a little drama king - ever since he learnt the concept of "scared" (he puts his hand on his chest and pats himself) , he kept going around being "scared" of everything - from the neighbour's dog barking, to people talking to him. Oh, and that poor neighbour who cut his hair a second time? Val bawls at the sight of her - he goes "scared scared" with his hands frantically whenever he sees her now. :-)

On the speaking front - Val has finally progressed beyond "ball ball" he nows goes "butt!" when he sees a bus, "tuck" when he reads the book with trucks and tractors, and of course, his new favourite word is now "dog dog" - and may i say *brag*, like the word "ball" , it is PERFECTLY pronounced ;-P it's funny cos sometimes in the middle of his sleep, if he hears the dog barking, he would rouse, sit up, point outside, go "dog dog" and then tumble back to sleep. Aiyah. he's so cute. i love my lil man.

another observation - i dunno where he learnt this - but he teases people. he would blink his eyes and tease us with it, knowing his eye blinking attempts are so comic. Then recently he learns to pretend to give you something, and then runs away with it, cackling with laughter. nobody taught him this. so where did he pick it up? grandma asked, with some concern today, whether he might become a lil bully in school - since he loves to tease people. hmmm..... only time will tell. we just have to teach him properly - draw out his boundaries for him.... ah... parenting... complicated.

fresh air #2

Yeah. i did it again. This morning, i managed to drag my tired ass up Fort Canning Park again. I was soooo tempted to just say "another time" but decided to just get out of the office and go for a morning walk. It wasn't as cool as the first time, since i was about 15 minutes later than last week's jaunt. But it was just as nice and refreshing going up the steps and circling the mound briskly. I saw a little squirrel scurry up a tree... a black moth flitter up the stairs.. and of course, the endless chorus of the cicadas made me think i was in a forest. Nice. Are you also minutes away from a brisk walk or a quick swim from your office? Do you feel tired and listless during the week? I highly recommend a 20-minute break from the routine to get your blood pumping, rejuvenate your mind, and just let the stress out. Better than Yomeishu i believe. It's free too.

lent part #2

call it an impulsive move: i broke my lenten promise without even realising it until seconds later. and it was for the silliest thing. something that i usually DON"T even buy. arrgghhh... guess what it was? drumm roolllllll......

A box of Magnum ice cream on promotion! Comes with a free ice bag! Plus five sticks of solero ice-sticks too! For just $20.

My eyes must have glazed over the moment the ice cream sales woman flashed me a picture of a Magnum. Perhaps it was the past two days of "abstinence" that just got me silly. But there i was, without a moment's hesitation, i went "yes yes yes, i'll get it" and then realised, oops i did it.... and it was just way too pai-seh to tell the woman i didn't want it anymore. So there. Yup. $20 bucks spent and wasted on fattening and unhealthy MAGNUMs no less....

so that means $20 will now be pledged to a charity - i haven't decided yet. it's silly really. not the pledging - but the buy. so impulsive, so irrational. so dumb dumb cos this morning i was going to buy a bag from Bloom - run by Diana based in Siem Reap - and then told her i was on this no-shopping thingie and then tonight i splurge on bl***dy ice-creams! Arggh....

but boy, these 2 days have been quite challenging and interesting in more ways than i expected. First, there were all those 20% discount vouchers for TopShop and Karen Millen passed around the office - they expire before my 40 days so i had to pass them up. Then, i chanced across the cutest key chains at a mall going for $2.90 but i managed to walk away. This morning, i walked past Starbucks and was so tempted to have that warm blueberry skinny muffin.... aw.... nope, i gritted my teeth and plodded on. I have bought some Old Chang Kee fishballs though - but for subsistence really cos i was so hungry going home. And then, the MacAddict texted me this morning that a cheaper version of the imac is now on sale! What shall i do???? Chewing my fingernails already. Aw........ and the IT show's next week......

Gosh.. i never guessed that i was so addicted till now.

MY BABY CAN READ! ..... not

Here's Mr SmellyBottom Lay with his daily fix of the news. He has, at the tender age of 14 and some months, formed a studious habit of studying the papers, many times each day.



Here he is again. Making some humanly contact with the beings around him to express some disgruntle that he cannot seem to find that piece of news he is hunting for.



Finally....... he finds that thing he is looking for...BALL BALL! Yup, the sports pages are his favourite read. :-) cos he sees grandma reading the papers everyday. One day She had graciously lent him the sports section to browse on his own - and what can we say? The rest was history. He is officially in love with the inky smudgy prints and he flips through them quite a few times a day to find the elusive rounded objects. Talk about a positive influence! Maybe the lil man might just grow up to be a sports journo? Hmm....

wabbit

Val's first close up encounter with a wabbit - he only has those "touch and feel" books with a black wabbit on the cover that he sayangs. So upon sighting the real thang, he runs and hides behind my legs to peer at the furry thing.


he makes lots of high pitched excited sounds "hnh...hnh.... hnh...." and begins yabbering away in his lingo


he decides that Sugar's orange cage is waaay safer to tackle... goes over boldly and begins walking around with it... FYI - we don't know Sugar or her master.... just complete strangers on a beach but this fella went around carting Sugar's box like it was his.


finally the lil man musters up the courage to stroke the rabbit and is delighted with the experience. A little ang moh girl nearby goes "it's a wabbit!" and Val suddenly bursts out crying and runs away. *DUH* i have no idea why!

for Lent

and so it's Lent again... a season to reflect and think of all our past doings... and certainly i've got plenty to think about though this blog isn't quite the space to discuss those matters. anyways, the priest asked us today to think about of what we would give up for the next 40 days in preparation for Easter. That set me thinking of how $ can really change our way of life and i asked myself if i could possibly NOT BUY ANYTHING for the next 40 days.

i remember how during those days when i'd given up a full time job to volunteer - how even a cuppa coffee meant a lot to me. $4 for a cuppa was unimaginable. I ate at home a lot, and met up people after having my meals, and even left singapore for 4 months to backpack cos that was a cheaper option than staying here. when you have little to spare, you tend to think more clearly i believe. there's less clutter in the brain - less options, and thus what you need to do is clearer. now that i am earning an income again and being in the city that never stops shopping and selling, suddenly i feel the breathlessness of being caught up by a shopping bug again.... now i find myself surfing the net looking at computers when my trusty G4 is still plodding along; i pick up a handbag online cos it's on sale; and i can now afford organic stuff when previously i just closed my eyes and picked the cheapest on the shelf. Sigh....this jungle bunny feels like an animal unleashed in shopping galaxy. Thank the stars for the values of thrift that's been programmed into my system so i haven't gone TOTALLY berserk swiping those cards. i know of people who max out their credit, and deplete their monthly income on a regular basis. For me, it goes back to how one's brought up i believe. My mom was uber strict with us growing up - if we wanted something, we had to save up for it, and we never got to buy it at the first encounter. that was usually a good test of whether we really wanted something bad enough. i try to practise that principle as much as i can. and so , if i DO try the ambitious task of abstaining from purchase for the next 40 days, this principle would be something to rely on.

I thought about whether i should be writing about this online cos we really should not broadcast to the world what we plan to do but thought the online record would press me to stick to it cos of public accountability issues. So there you have it: i am now saying that i will NOT buy/ consume anything unneccessary for the next 40 days till EASTER is reached.

i've drawn out some rough guidelines to this abstinence.

1. it starts on monday 0000 hrs (which means i have one more hour to shop!)
2. it excludes daily subsistence such as lunch, but it DOES include designer coffees and expensive meals such as sashimi, steaks, lobster, anything consumed in a restaurant (unless i am made to go because it is part of a family outing cos it would be rude otherwise no?)
3. it excludes necessities such as tissue paper, sanitary pads, toothpaste but i am limited to buying generic ones nothing branded
4. it excludes my $100 zara vouchers because they expire in April! (not using them would amount to waste ya?)
5. it excludes magazines i buy for work purposes.

Specifically this means:

1. i will not buy another new pair of shoes
2. i will not go to the IT show that starts in mid march
3. i will opt out of restaurant meals as much as possible without becoming the most anti-social person around.

All that said, may i stress that i really am not a spendthrift, ALSO i know that i really should not be doing this only at Lent but make it a daily practice. but hey, baby steps are a great way to start.

ONE LAST THING:
if i should falter, i will put aside the equivalent sum spent and donate it to a charitable cause. ;-)

FRESH AIR...

a little yellow butterfly flitted past me this morning as i traipsed through the greens at Fort Canning Park.
how do i describe that feeling of being in the woods again?
the cool, refreshing micro climate afforded by the trees...
the crickets chirping...
the quiet bustle of the city in the background...
ah.... it's been a long while since this has happened.
the sweat that dripped down my back was like a long overdue detox...
i hope this won't be the first and last.

W is for water

Excited! He picked up the Water sign in ASL last night after showing him for a few months. It seems that suddenly it clicks in his mind. But instead of the W sign on the side of the mouth, he puts his entire five fingers over his mouth like a Red Indian about to whoop. Cute....

Val + FOOD = ?

Oh, he eats.........
Quite a fair bit..........
He loves new food.......
especially those of the adults'.....
He's tried even kimchi (with distaste), and chilli (with horror).......
But burn burn burn...
His food gets turned into fuel pretty quickly......
So SKINNY he stays....
for now at least....




Hey they smell Tangy but they're round, so they must be nice smelling balls that Mama's got for me - throw, hurl, toss, pitch....




During that period called CNY, I saw everyone holding the two balls and passing them from one to another - i dunno what games the adults are playing, but it sure isn't as fun as what i do with them!



Now, for a quick laze in Mama's lap while watching the world go by from the gate....Bliss*



Checking out that thing Mama's holding in her hands.... sometimes i see myself in it!



I love CORN! i hate it when Mama gives me bit by bit i prefer the entire cob!!!
p/s: dun worry for me, i can handle it better than an adult!



Sometimes when i'm good, i get to sit in my little chair for breakfast. I love COLD fresh milk, YUM! but i still hate the milk bottle....



Wassup........no mamarazzi allowed when i'm enjoying my milk please...




This is how hungry i am - that i am eating my sleeve -- Mommy.... me want sushi!!!!



*SLURP* i LOOOVE japanese sticky rice and unagi..... so sweet, so nice... i like....

Valente's day

Yup, that was his day on Saturday but we did nothing significant to mark the day - perhaps next time when he's older and definitely a skirt-chaser then will the day be of greater importance (?). Anyways, a way overdue post this is. Been superbly busy at work - finishing up an inaugural issue of a magazine for a *challenging* client and also trying to finish up my second Gender essay for the semester (yes, still late and past the deadline... again). tomorrow will be the day i sit down and eke out that essay. So yeah, after this week, i shall have the time to blog and update photos of my lil man who has been growing (not so much sideways but definitely vertically) and now seems TOO much for his own good. I feel like i have to invent a new language so that he won't understand what we're saying. In fact, there are times i've resorted to spelling words out while talking to my mom. The koala bear still clings onto me at times, but much much less so compared to when i first started working outside the house. But he really cottons on fast - whenever there's a brief mention of me needing to change my clothes or to go toilet, he latches onto my leg sometimes crying blue murder. thankfully, he's very easily distracted - yes, by BALL! so we have a permanent friend in BALL to always rescue him from tears. He's started talking a lot more these days.

Sounds he makes now:
FISH - - phisshhhss
Bus --- but
Lion - - grrrrrrr
Tiger --- grrrrr
Aeroplane --- errrr (plus hand sign)
Bird --- psst ( plus hand sign)
Ball --- ball ball, ball ball.... BALLLLLLLLLLL (plus hand sign - like patting a basketball)
Bye -- a high pitched bye! and elaborate hand waving
mommy - - short abrupt MA!
No --- sometimes he goes "bu yao" we don't know if this is a coincidence but he's done it more than once!

Antics he gets up to:
Blinks his eyes in a really funny way to tease us
scrunges up his nose, flattening it, to snort like a pig
waves his hand infront of his nose to say his shit is smelly
pretends to give you something but takes it away
if you hold his nose, he snorts like a pig too

Surprising things he knows:
Our chinese names!
he points out my clothes (including the bras) and pronounce them as mine

well, that's about it for now, as far as i can recall. will blog more when i have energy......

Val turns 3

Technically - going by the lunar calendar - Val should be 3 years old by now. And boy... has this past year of the Rat been long and short in different ways. Breathe in... breath out... I shall focus on the good things now.... The boy is skinny skinny skinny. He loves Balls (still) and no matter how clingy and whiny he is, set him down in an open space with a ball (or any vaguely round object), and he'll forget Mommy in a flash, preferring to go with ANYONE who has possession of that ball.

He can READ one word - the word BALL (lol) I promise that i am not boasting. It all started out as a joke - i thought that since he loves Balls so much and he shouts the word at everything, i might as well write it out and show the word to him. Of course, when he sees it now, he goes "BALL" but wait.... when we watch those baby videos, he is usually quiet but these days when the word BALL is flashed, he shouts BALL before the narrator speaks. So i'm convinced that Val knows ONE word though i can't say the same for the other caregivers in his life. They are convinced i have mommy delusions. ;-P One thing that everyone agrees is that Val picks up sign language pretty fast. He saw an aeroplane while riding the MRT and i signed to him "airplane" moving my hand in front of him. Later that evening, when we asked him if he saw any aeroplanes, he signed something similar - - with his hand up and down like washing a window! So cute.

It's a joy being with him. But i must admit that since i started work, he's become EXTRA SUPER DUPER elephant brand super glue whenever i'm home, especially on weekends! It's really tough. somedays i even have to pee with him in the toilet with me, cos he wants to be where i am - - literally everywhere. MY mom complains that Val is so much easier to care for when i'm out of the house. He becomes the sticky koala whenever i'm home. There are times it does get to me. Especially this CNY period. Gosh. i feel like i've grown a boy on my hip..... plus it's a little bit pai seh when everyone remarks, "he's very sticky, hor..." sigh.... i can feel the "judgement" in their voices and can see their thought bubbles flashing in front of me - ya, cos she carries him in a sling, practices whatmachacallit attachment parenting thingie, breastfeeds, and blah blah blah - but i just try to remind myself that hey, Val will be older very soon and he'll not want mommy around anymore so i should just treasure this time with him. So there! Harrumph! Anyways, here're some snaps to share. i know i've been so lax updating the blog. He's learning to climb stairs and doing it very well. He sucks at the fine motor skills movements cos he has no patience. And lately, he's been showing some attitude..... boy attitude - - i dunno how to describe it but i think the pictures will explain (you know, with those thousands words they are suppose to have).


He's always loved arching his back and recently took to lying on the pillow by the bed this way with a super cool expression.


Rapping career in the horizon?


Cool top, not so cool bottom. Ratty shoes. Shucks. I can't get down but i'm not letting anyone know i'm pissing my pants!

Life back in the workforce (read: days of WAHM over)

Wake up at 630am
Sneak out of bed to get ready
Val's eyes pop open instinctively and jumps onto me koala-like
Walk around with koala, both have eyes half open, trying to get dressed
Unable to get dressed with koala attached to hip
Wake grandma up; she wrestles with val to get him off me
Screaming fest which dies down when distracted with strange food
Stumble out of house
Get on bus
Reach office
Work; get distracted; attend meetings; lunch; work; gosh it's 5pm!
Get on bus
Reach home
Koala screams in delight at sight of mommy; becomes surgically attached again
Gobble down dinner; bath (without koala who has been wrestled off again);
play with val and beg him to sleep while stifling yawns and trying to keep eyes open
Lose patience at 9pm; begin to look menacing to threaten sleep to come
Val nurses enthusiastically until asleep *yes yes go ahead to tsk tsk me
Sometimes i fall asleep and wake up at 1am, wondering where time has fled
When successful (like now), surf net, read blogs, catch up on news, check emails, never have time to reply or blog
Continue working or studying
Collapse into bed

Go back to beginning....

Weekends are another story for another time