Die.

Completely forgot the man’s birthday! Only disovered it close to midnight yesterday. And I hadn’t even realised until I mentioned the date to him because I wanted him to run an errand for me.

The first thing he did was to cup his hands around my neck (read:strangle) because I didn’t even realised what I’ve forgotten.

Gosh.

But forgetting a spouse’s birthday after being married for 12 years isn’t so bad right? I mean there are couples who forget within 10 years.

Blame it on the Chinese New Year distractions. Better still, blame it on the solar eclipse.

＼（－－）／

Okay lah. No excuse. But what to do? I plain forgot.

I tell you what dear. Forget my birthday this year too and we’re even k?

* Then I’ll not only cup my hands around your neck, I’ll probably banish you to the sofa for a week.

He said to me when I queried him again on why he didn’t feel sad at all that his auntie has left. And finally I understood what he meant. Without the maid, my husband and I are now his main caregivers and he’s happier to spend more time with us.

Tonight’s dinner was more than maggie mee. We had dishes that my MIL cooked during lunch as well as two dishes the man whipped up. The boy fed himself quite quickly, and even helped to bring his plate to the sink after he has polished his food. He also made himself useful by filling up the toothpick holder with toothpicks. I washed all the dishes, mopped the kitchen floor and even found time to coach him academically.

Sure there’s been some adjustments needed. Mornings are especially rushed particularly when I have to begin work at 8am today. Otherwise, it’s been manageable thus far and I feel quite good at the new arrangements. And I’m most glad that the boy has been very sensible so far, trying to do what is required of him as well as possible.

Looks like our plan of getting him more independent is on target!

I expected him to be sad when he came back home today because the maid has left. To my surprise, he was nonchalant and told me that it doesn’t matter because “auntie is not so important.”

Well, important or not, she took care of him for five years and she was a good helper all round to me. But I decided to let her go because I don’t really need her so much now and I figured out that it is the best course if I want to build the boy’s independence. With her around, it’s quite hard to get the boy to even feed himself. And it has been good so far because he has been feeding himself, brushing his own teeth and learning to bathe even.

It isn’t that difficult without a maid now that the boy is six. Household chores are pretty manageable except that I need to spend less time on the computer and get myself a pair of gloves. Only thing is cooking the meals, which is quite a headache because it’s not exactly my favorite activity in the kitchen.

Well, I guess I have to learn to like doing it a bit more. But for tonight, it’s maggie mee on the dining table. Eggs and vegetable will be added for nutritional value of course.

It’s not even half a month after the New Year and I’ve had two very bad news of tragic proportions. One of a colleague who passed away and another of a family member who has to vanish for the time being. Coupled with our own crisis, I’m kind of feeling quite depressed.

Initially I thought we’re probably the only family dreading this coming Lunar New Year and wanting to hibernate. But it looks like others I know, even related by blood, are not too far off. And the worst part is that we all have to pretend like we don’t know what has happened and continue to look merry. How tragic is that?

Seriously, I really don’t know what has gone wrong. Why is it that everything is suddenly coming to a head? It’s like a bad patch of acne that suddenly exploded on my cheek and just refuse to go away.

A couple of days after X’mas, he was playing with his Star Wars Lego set by himself in the living room. Suddenly, I heard him speaking anxiously to the maid, but all I could hear was the maid asking him “did you swallow it?”

I got out of the room and found out that he has apparently swallowed one of the Lego pieces. Of course I got worried and started questioning him. But all he could do was to jump and asked “怎么办? 怎么办?” (how how in Chinese). He didn’t appear to be choked but I made him drink lots of water which he obliged very willingly. Then I became angry and scolded him for behaving like a baby, putting small toys in his mouth! He was almost in tears, still jumping and asking “怎么办? 怎么办?”

Then as he jumped, the missing Lego piece dropped to the floor, out from one of the sleeves of his pajamas.

It took us a full minute to realise what has happened and then we all laughed like crazy afterwards, especially over the fact that the silly boy didn’t even know if he has swallowed his toy. It was a pity his dad was out at that time to enjoy the hilarity.

So this silly boy turned six yesterday. He has grown quite tall, standing at almost 120cm now and sometimes speaking like a cranky old man as we call him. But really, he’s still very much a baby to us – a baby whom we fuss over, worry about but love very dearly.

And boy am I glad he was still going to K2 and not P1 this morning!