Rambling Thoughts

I just can't believe christmas is over..and my fave christmas radio station, the clear fm 104.9 immediately stop playing christmas music and now back to everything else...so sad...i guess time flies when you are having fun AND not having fun...so time flies anyways huh?!

This past few days have been pretty un-eventful for us, with each one of us still continue to recover. Shun is getting excited preparing Kairo's 2nd b'day, which btw, the invitations will be out soon.

What else...I'm going back to school next month, not really a lecture type of school, but more like a distance ed one...and of course being me, I had to pick the most intense one, the one that's only 10 month in lenght but requires at least 20 hour of studying per week, have 4 exams throughout the 10 months, and a national enterance exam in october. I don't think I ever feel this worried about school ever. I'm just hoping that things will get better with Indie's sleeping schedule. 20 hour per week is like a part time job...so in May, when I'm back to work, I will have a full time work during the day, come home to take care of my kids and then start my 'part time' job for the rest of the night...I'm scared. I just want to get this school thing get out of the way. Shun told me to limit my blogging time to accomodate the studying...sigh...so Liz..don't miss me too much when I don't blog very often anymore okay:)

I have some Christmas pictures attached in this blog. Though we didn't get to go out anywhere during Christmas, I managed to forced Shun and the kids to stay in front of the tree and the gifts...heheh....yes, we looked like crap, but at least I have pictures of Indie's first Christmas:)

This time of the year has always been the best for me ever since I can remember. Maybe because my b'day falls within 4 days after new year, so we always had a get together at my parents place. It's a combo of christmas, new year and my b'day i guess:) It's never about the gifts though. I remember that I always got presents, but I can't remember what they were anymore. What sticks is the feeling of warmth and happiness to have people you love around you, to see how everybody is laughing and happy, and of course being kids, to play those silly indonesian kids games before we all passed out:)

Ever since I had Kairo, I always wanted to create that type of atmosphere for my family. But of course it's difficult since most of his close relatives are scattered around the globe. So I'm just glad that we could have that christmas exchange thing as a tradition, which actually, the gift exchange is what my family used to do when we grew up. I know that the aftermath of the last party has been bad, but I hope that it won't stop everyone from coming to the next one. Shun and I already have another idea for the 5th christmas exchange, but it won't be fun if nobody else is coming:) Maybe I can borrow one of those breathelizer thing and scan everyone at the door. If you carry more than 'normal' amount of germs than we'll just take your food, wish you merry christmas and wave you goodbye...hahhahaa....:) Nah...we're all adults here, I'm sure we all learned our lessons and continue living:)

Anyways...here are some pictures from this holiday. Shun tried to incorporate Kairo to build the gingerbread house (thanks Gene and Terri), but the still-sick little man just refused to do anything but wanting to eat the cookie. At least he ripped open all his gifts and had fun with the presents as well as the wrappers:)

Enjoy the rest of your holidays everyone...

Merry Christmas to all

First of all, I would like to say Merry Christmas to everyone!! Hope all your christmases be merry and bright, full of love and laughter, spent with family, friends and all your loved ones. Thank you so much for all the presents for Kairo and Indie and us!!

Our christmas this year is nothing like the other christmases we had before. Well, the obvious difference is that this year we have two kids celebrating it with us:) But the biggest and kinda sad difference is that all four of us are sick. I have to say, after a little over a week, Kairo is finally getting better, picked up his appetite and being a cherful little man he is. Indie is slowly recovering, still has the barky coughs and the runny nose, but appetite is slowly comes back and she finished a bowl and a half of her solids!

Since this is Christmas (and you tell the truth at Christmas time (according to my fave movie 'Love Actually')) I would like to let out what's bugging me this past week.

As most of you know, both Kairo and Indie got sick pretty much right after our Christmas party. This week, I spent my days, driving back and forth to a walk in clinic, Kairo's pediatrician, Children's emergency for Kairo and a pediatric walk in clinic for Indie. As a mother, the physical fatigueness is nothing compared to how emotionally drained I am when my kids are not eating, not being themselves, have high fever and seemed in pain to say the least.

Though it is true that you can pick up the bug just about anywhere, it is also true that you can at least avoid getting the bug by not having sick kids around your kids, so long that you know or been notified that those kids are sick. To me, being a mother is for most about taking care of the well being of your children. But with that, comes the sympathy and understanding to the other mothers when their kids are sick. Having been thru what I've been thru when my kids are sick, I never wish any kid to be sick, let alone kids of my family and friends. For example, the plan for this christmas was for us to spend the night at the Bennett's,but looking at how contageous my kids are , we decided that it is not very wise of us to impose Kelan to the sickness and having him expose to the germs. We've been planning this christmas get together for a couple months or so, and if you ask me, we can't wait to hang out with John and Lyn and play whatever games they already prepared for that evening (after the kids are in bed of course). But again, it would be selfish of us to take the kids there anyways just so that we can have a break.

A break...that is certainly one thing that we need but just couldn't seem to get. It so happens that our families and relatives are all far away, so we don't really have a sitter for the kids so that we can catch up with our lifes..per say. I'm not complaining..really! This is the life we chose and to be honest, I am glad that we are what we are. But this past week has been very unnecessary, not only that both kids are sick, but at the end, Shun and I got cought up with the bug. The effect of this has snowballed to not only ruined our christmas, but also ruinned the Bennetts.

Maybe it's a lesson for us next time, to constantly watch where our kids are and what they do , even in our own house! Sounds dumb, but apparently necessary. The other thing that bothers me, is that apparently Kairo spread this bug! Yes, weird but true. And here I am thinking that if he spread the bug to begin with, he would have the immunity to the same bug now wouldn't he? But hey, that's just me I guess.

So there it is...I let it out. I know being angry is really pointless, since it can't change anything really. But I figure, since this is also close to the end of the year, I'm hoping I can let it out my chest, say what I needed to say, and start the new year fresh, and of course careful.

Anyways, hope you guys' holidays are better. And may all the sick kids be better..SOON.

Christmas Party--and the aftermath

After all the husles and bushels of having the tree up, decorating the house (well, I guess we just put the lights up and some garlands:) ) and cleaning the house a bit, the 4th annual 'Christmas at the Chiangs' came and went succesfully:) The gift exchange still opened with how it should be played and seriously, it sounded justtt like last year. Maybe Bry is right, maybe I'll tape the next one and so the following year's we'll just play the tape:)

Party started at 1pm and ended at about 7pm, and pretty much all of the kids were spent! Thank you for all of you guys that came...it was good to see everyone again in the Christmas atmosphere. Too bad the karaoke didn't work...but we did get a little performance (and little encore) from Vats and Chris:)

Mrs. Sales was the only one who brought a camera...so we'll just wait for her to post her pictures:)...Darn...I wish we did a group picture. I know we had a group picture for the 2nd one...can't remember if we did or not for the 3rd one and I have to dig in for the 1st one....oh well.

The aftermath of the party is not the greatest...for us anyways. Kairo started to have a runny nose on Sunday and yesterday(Monday) he had a fever. I'm watching him closely to make sure that his breathing is still okay, darn respitory problem!! It got me so sad when I checked that his temperature was close to 40 C. Last time he had a temperature that high was 3 days before Indie was born and we had to rush him back to the emergency at Children's. Hopefully this is just a mix of the cold season and him being tired maybe. Hopefully all the other kids are doing okay too. Nothing's worse than having to witness your child being sick.

Last night when I lied down with him, couldn't help but cry. I went to his room at around midnite, to check his temperature again and found that he was up, just lying in bed and looking at me. I asked him if he's okay and he raspily answered "yeah"..and when I took his temperature it was nearing 40 C. So I rushed down to get him a cup of warm water and his tylenol. The guy just loving tylenol..heheh...thank goodness for white grape flavour..(btw...what is white grape? don't think i've seen one in store before). He chugged his water and asked me to go lie down with him for a bit. So I did. He asked me to tell him a story about donkey, and I did(btw, the most boring story ever, but he still loves it):) My baby boy seem so grown when I lied down with him. We had a quiet conversations and I sang a bit for him. After that I asked him to put down his cup and offered to put him up onto his trucky bed and he agreed. While all this happening, I was just thinking if things got worse and he had to go to the hospital, I couldn't stay with him because Indie still needs me too. So thank goodness that everything is better now for him.

Brought back really bad memories of having him to stay in the hospital for one week, in the isolation room. And during that one short week, he visited the emergency one night, visited the Operating Room once and scheduled for a Day surgery...and this all happenned when I was 7 month pregnant. In times like that, I sure miss having my family around. They phoned me from Indo almost everyday, heck if this were to happen in Indo , I sure would see them everyday; my parents, my brother, sister, nephews and my in laws. So for you girls that knew about this then and care enough to phone and visitted me, I can't thank you enough. A friend in need is a friend in deed:)

Anyways, that what's happening so far in our house. I hope all the kids that came to the party is doing okay, especially Alexis since her and Kairo kissed and hugged..hahha...Nat, your daughter finally gave in to my son's persistent-ness...heheh....a lesson for Kairo, no means no, but if you wait long enough, it might changed to a yes...hahahha:)
Merry Christmas everyone. Now here's a toast for a wonderful new year ahead!

Lazy days

Feels like ages ago since the last time I blog, thank goodness for all you girl-bloggers that keep the new blogs coming:) Things have been quite hectic (and messy) around the house this past few weeks. Shun and Pao put on the laminate in our living room, so it changes the look of the house a bit. I am so glad to get rid of that carpet, it just looks disgusting and dirty and I don't think it helps that Kairo has a respitory problem.

We just got our tree from Ikea today...man oh man was it ever windy there!! Both kids were in their peaceful slumber when we got there, so I couldn't really leave them in the car . Poor Shun had to untie the tree, showed it to me, re-tied it and tied it up on the car roof . Anyways...now that the tree is here, and he's done with all the remainder touch up he has to do in the house and everything is out of the box, we can start decorating the tree tomorrow...yay!!:) so excited!! Btw, Ikea is selling the tree for $20 this year, which goes toward your $75 or more worth of purchases, gone up a bit from last year. Last year, we got our tree for $15 and it could be used towards a $50 purchase or more. Oh well.

What else,...we just got back from Victoria this weekend. I forgot my camera since we were rushing in to catch the 6 pm ferry on Friday..sigh.. We had lunch with Kelly and SJ , I guess for the last time before their baby's born:) and also met up a bit with Andre and Tiana with their two kids. So cute:)

The kids are doing great, no more colds for both of them. Indie is as loud as she always is. I wonder if she has an attachment issue or something, she seems to be very clingy to me. Maybe I'm sort of comparing her to Kairo, who, I realize more and more now, was such an easy baby. Very happy and minding his own business type of baby.

Anyways, enough update:) I'll add more pictures tomorrow or something. And yes, loving the lilypies tracker thing, they're too cute:) Hey, I was inspired by Nat as I was inspired by everyone else to do the blog. Nah...copying will means exactly the same thing right...like the strollers...hehehe:)