San’s family journal

Today is Grace’s birthday and she is turning 4. It is rather bizarre to actually realize that Grace was actually started out with just a mere 2.7 kg helpless cutie bone-dissolving machine. To look back at the time when she was baby really brings back some chilling memories that I actually have to take care of her all alone by myself. Anyhow, to reflect back on those memories, some heart-warming feeling eventually emerges.

Grace was a miracle by herself to be born into our family after going against the odds. The critical moment while she was being born is so vivid to me and I can still conjure up live images of her inside the incubator of NICT. Grace is definitely the most suitable name to grace her life and I sure hope that Yen and I will be able to bring her up according to the ways of the Lord.

When grace failed to get her mother’s attention, she raised her voice and ask her mother to put on her ears. That was something new to us and i just it is because Yen and I used to tell Grace that we could not see well because we didn’t put on our glasses.

Grace saw our marriage photo albums and she wondered why she was not in any of the photos. She asked me where was she at the time of our marriage. So… this is one of the million dollar questions and it did take me some time to come back to her.

 So… I replied her that at that time, one half of herself is in Yen’s body and the other one half in my body. She got joined up after Yen and I got married. She accepted the reply with a thumb up and to my amazement, she did remember my answer at the time well as she reiterate the answer to us yesterday when I told Yen this small incident.

Guess it is not a simple job to educate a child after all and it is a real life example for me that parents should not simple give their children some vague answer to get through those million dollar questions as we are not answering the question for now, but possibly the rest of our children’s life.  

Grace was having diarrhea since a week ago. She was diagnosed by a first-time-met doctor with bacteria infection on the stomach again. Then Grace was prescribed a 5-day course of anti-biotic. During the time when she was on medicine, the diarrhea made a deep plunge as Grace started to pass watery stool and it lasted for the whole course of anti-biotic. Then we took the advice of my mother-in-law and gave her some Chinese tradition herb medicine and Grace’s stool began to turn from watery form to dough form. Grace noticed the changes and she commented that her stool has turned from ugly to beautiful.

We were explaning the year of rat to Grace and that was when we had some interesting conversation. With the year of rat explained and Yen belongs to rabbit year and i belong to rat year also explained, she wanted to know what year she blongs to. So, i told her that when she is twelve, her year of monkey will come. she replied out of a sudden that when she reach eleven and a half, it will be elephant year. Like that also can.

She continued to explain that elephant has long trunk on so on. Just out of random probability i asked her why does elephant has turnk. She replied matter-of-factly because it wants to be an elephant. Interesting huh!

My brother-in-law is adopting a girl baby of about 2 weeks old. A lot of people wonder why he is adopting a girl instead of a boy since he has no children after married for more than 15 years. I guess that is a typical conservative thinking of Chinese.

This reminds me of the time when Grace was born. She was sent into ICU just after birth, as she was not breathing after coming out of Yen’s womb. When my mother called to check on the status and asked was her grandchild a boy or girl. Then I only realized that I forgot to check with the doctor the sex of my baby, as my only concern was that whether my baby will survive or not. Boy or girl was not an issue at that moment. The only thing matters was that my baby was in troubles.

While I was ironing my shirts, Grace wandered close to my territory and I cautioned her to stay away from me or she might risked herself getting burned by the iron. She complied, moved a distance away then she said “Ya lor! If not, I will become bones.”

Hmm… I thought that was something interesting to talk about and apparently she picked up the idea from watching cartoons. Since it was a rather interesting conversation, I asked her, if she become bones, would Yen and I feel sad. Without a doubt she replied yes and she started to comfort me saying that everything will be fine, Yen and I just have to give birth to another baby, another Grace.

I wonder what is really inside her mind? Did she think that she would be incarnated again through Yen’s womb? Or did she really think that Yen and I would be happy again to have another one to replace her? May be we failed to let her know that she is unique to us.

I have been thinking about the way that I used to talk to Grace and I found that I threaten her most of the time. I guess that is the easy way out for me, as she will comply with my demand most of the time.

Grace nowadays is rather foxy and she will give you all sort of excuses when she doesn’t like to do certain thing. Yesterday night, I asked her to pick up her toys but she said that her leg is painful. The fact was that she was jumping here and there just before I asked her to pick up the toys. Do you call that foxy since her trick was exposed even before she said it? Well, I guess that is part of growing up.

Spontaneously, I said to her that since her leg was hurting, she had to spend a night downstairs as she should not be about to climb the stairs to get to the bedroom. The next scene was rather funny as without uttering another excuse, she picked up her toys. Then the thing hit me as I just made an amazing discovery about the effective way to get her to go my way. But I wonder how long will this trick last.

Anyhow, I think I need to work on the way I communicate with Grace as I think she could understand most of our conversation most of the time.

We got one night free stay at Genting First world Hotel as a gift from Yen’s aunty. Since grace has not been to places with cold weather and we thought that might be a good exposure for her, so we took the offer and went there on last Sunday.

So Grace did have a good time and I was very pleased that Grace didn’t throw us any tantrums and well behaved during the time we were there even when we had to wait like more than 20 minutes for the monorail ride. There are some rides that she is not old enough to get on, but she didn’t insist to ride them after we explained to her that she has to wait until she grows up a little bit more though it is actually few more years to go.

Basically, I am very proud of Grace, as she is only 3 years and 5 months plus and didn’t act like those older than her. The only problem with Grace was that my legs were like want to break as I had to carry her most of the time.