Writing Messages

Now that Emily has begun to read, she has also started spelling out words based on the sounds she hears in them. Here are some of her first messages she left for us.

To me, because I lingering a little too long over lunch:

To her father, just before gymnastics:

Lyrics to a song that she likes:

Answers:
1 O Mum, be done soon
2 Dad, where's my leotard?
3 Girls just wanna have fun

Sometimes I Eat Chinese Food

which I cook.

Found a box of Hainanese Chicken Rice mix in the cupboard today. It was like a craft kit, but food. The label said, "Best before Febuary 2007". In keeping with my tradition of eating expired Asian food, I said, "Well, then, it's about time we cooked it up!"

So I did.

Even though I felt very low-class throwing frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts into the stock pot. Sacrilege, yes, but I swear, I did not have a whole pullet in my fridge/hen run! Frozen white meat was all I had! Along with the weird unmatching bok choy (and not even baby bok choy, at that).

Jenna came into the kitchen, sniffed and said, "What smells so good, Mum? Can we have it for lunch?"

Ah, the good smells of the clean, light, delicate, subtle Chinese flavourings that are worth eating - ginger, shallots, coriander, garlic, sesame oil. So unlike the bizarre plum sauce, hoisin, kikkoman soy concoctions that are all over the restaurants here.

And right away, I was transported back to that little chicken rice restaurant at (if I remember) Woodlands Avenue 1, where I lunched between visits to schools to counsel the Sad and Bad kids. Their chicken was superior, of course, and I miss their consomme, but this was good enough.

Jenna and Kate wolfed quite a bit of the rice, it was so lovely -

but that chilli sauce was the main thing:

Ah, chicken rice chilli sauce - all tangy and garlicky and wonderful. I miss Mum's chilli sauce collection - she always had at least 5 or 6 different kinds of chilli sauce in her fridge to accompany the different dishes that required them. Oh, too have a different kind (Mum says, "the right kind") of chilli to eat with different dishes! Yes, there is such a thing as the wrong kind of chilli - in Singapore, entire meals have been written off as complete failures because the cook was careless with the chilli sauce. But I should talk - I, who indiscriminately (and somewhat desperately) pour vast quantities of generic "red pepper flakes" from my Costco-size bottle, on almost everything I eat here that isn't a dessert.

So yes, I am biased towards Indonesian/Malaysian food, but I will also eat Chinese food sometimes, especially when the chilli is right. The day will come when I will cook again from scratch - and put away my Red Pepper Flakes for good. But it will be for a while yet, and until then, hurray for premixes. Hey, I think there's a box of Mee Rebus premix in that same cupboard, best used by 6 Jan 2007.

Perfect.

Kateisms

Nothing in particular - I just wanted to record here that Kate is at the odd stage in which she (correctly) uses fancy words like "actually" and "probably" while still referring to herself as "my".

Examples:

Me: Kate, are you going to finish your cereal or not?

Kate: Yes...... (then after a while) Actually, my all done.

and

Me: Anyone seen Pink Baby (Emily's comfort object)?

Kate: Prob'ly in Emily's room. My get it!

She also likes using "that's OK" to introduce something that she guesses is offensive to us. She says it with her head tilted to the side and her palms up.

Example: "That's OK my eat the pink gummy. My find it on the floor. That's OK it icky."

And she liberally punctuates her sentences with "because" - it is her universal conjunction.

Example: "My need it because Jenna took it away because my crying!"

Translation: "I needed it but Jenna took it away so I'm crying!"

I also love how her "r"s are still "w"s, viz: "pwettywellas", "gwass is gween", "cwawling"

and how she still lisps when she says her "s"s.

These, however, are the only clues that she is 2 years old - otherwise, she talks like a teeny grownup but with attitude.

Technology by Jenna

This is.....

the control panel of a music player, says Jenna.

Also says Jenna, the pink button on the left is the Start Button, which plays the music. It is big because it has a biiiiiiiiiiig job.

The orange button is the Skip Button. You use it when you want to skip songs - if you want to listen to Girls Just Want To Have Fun and you don't want to listen to the other songs, you press it.

The green button (on the orange button) is the button to turn it on.

Summer in October

Who would have believed it - 87 degrees in October!
Well, we aren't complaining.

When Emily got home from school, it was already 74 degrees, so we dusted off our picnic blanket, packed a picnic basket, picked a read-aloud book and went to a park for lunch and some playing. Delightful.

I read to myself, I read to Emily (she brought along a pillow and lay on her back in the sunshine) and enjoyed this little bit of summer impersonation. We were in shorts. Yes, shorts! Six days ago we were in two layers of fleece.

Speaking of shorts:

Emily ran in her school's fundraising run-a-thon today. Everyone ran, even some parents. I told her I'd run with her next year, when Kate would be in school. She ran 5 rounds of the track, and got water and bread and fruit snacks when it was all over. She was very excited that "the whole school day was spent doing this!" Perfect day for all sorts of outdoor, shorts-needing things.


Shorts-unrelated, this is our Emergency Art Basket:



Last week, with a lot of loud whispering, Emily and Jenna assembled it. It contains crayons, colour pencils (in the princess pencil box), glue, scissors and paper. They explained to me that it was "in case the other art stations in the house are not working". They have hidden it away under a small table so that it can be produced in dire circumstances. Although, as we have art supplies all over the house and in every possible closet, drawer and room, it is hard to imagine an art emergency. Still, it is good to be prepared.

Princess Stories

The girls have been pretending to be princesses a lot lately. One of their favorite princess plots is a combination of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and poison (either in apples or hurled across the room via wands). Today while Emily was in school, Jenna and Kate got all dressed up, grabbed wands, and ran around the house being princesses/bad fairies.

Jenna: I'm the evil fairy Henna! I will poison you, Katie!

(Kate runs away from her, pretending to be afraid).

Jenna (waving her wand in Kate's general direction): I will poison you!

(Kate runs away from her, pretending to be afraid).

Jenna: No, Katie! This is how to die! (Jenna flops down on her back on the floor).

(Kate obeys and collapses on her back on the floor).

I come up to Kate and ask her how she might be cured.

Kate: True love's kiss!

Me: OK, I will kiss you (and I do).

Kate: (with a horrified look): No! Not you!

Me: Then who will give you true love's kiss, Katie?

Kate (reverently): My pwince!

Me: Who's your prince?

Kate (smugly): Jenna is my pwince!

Very confusing, but nonetheless entertaining.

We Have Entered THAT Phase

In the last 3 hours since we've been up, Kate has had 4 different outfits, excluding the PJs she woke up in. And not because any of them was dirty - she just liked the change. None of these are dress-up costumes, either. She thinks she's experimenting with colors, styles and fashion in general. If we hadn't spent an hour (of those three) in Michaels, there would have been even more variety in her dress this morning.

......wait....

while typing this, she got into #5. "All by myself", she is proud to add.