Daddy: “Student” (Post-Script)

[Daddy,] THAT’S JUST because, instead of teaching regularly as in a full-time position or “preaching” as I would be in the ministry, I have become your wife and a mother. You and Little R have become my only Students and Audience to my ideas.

And, that is why I do not need my TIME magazine and CALIFORNIA magazine back issues anymore, because now my target audience does not appeal to the raw statistics and up-to-date facts. They need a tender mom who can do whatever Proverbs 31 has said about what a good woman should do.

But I did keep my CHINESE CHRISTIAN magazine back issues just in case I will have free time to read them in the future.

(February 18, 2012)

Daddy: “Student”

UPON MOVING, Daddy asked if I really needed to subscribe the TIME magazine and if I would read it online. I gave him a 15-minute lecture on the value of printed paper, how studies have shown that people cannot remember what they have read online, how the things that you have read on non-perishable printed matters would stay in your memory much longer than the things that you would have read on their electronic versions, and why we want to hang photographs on the wall because you can see them every day, which makes a whole lot of difference than viewing digital photos, and on and on.

Daddy, I have to say: You are a good student. You just listened to me, or you were too sleepy to respond to my lecture. And, here I go again, I took my career a little bit too seriously at home.

And, I AM contemplating of getting rid of my collection of the TIME magazine and CALIFORNIA magazine back issues, as I am preparing the move.

(at 4 years 3 months 17 days)

Moving (2)

MOVING IS not just moving “stuffs” but searching for “the lost souls.”

When living in the States, I had moved 11 times in those 13 years there as an international student (including moving from one room to another in the same apartment, moving into a dorm room and out of a dorm room into an apartment, moving from one school to another as an undergraduate to a graduate and then a seminary student). I was constantly on the run, ready to go, ready to move, ready to scrutinize my life and possessions. And I prized every possession that I had gained in my student-to-adult life. I had nothing much to begin with at 17 and then at 30 I thought I had accomplished a lot, when I moved back to my native home, Hong Kong.

But, that is also why I hated moving once I had settled down in Hong Kong. Notwithstanding, in these past decade, I had changed offices for a few times and altered my job natures in the same number of times.

At my home, my possessions marked the different stages of my career. But I am saying, OK, it’s time to get rid of my 1992 edition GRE sample examination book and the like. But no way am I going to let go of my yellowed music scores that I had taken to the States and back home. I still think: When I have time, I will sing those songs to my children and then to my grandchildren.

OK, Mama, stop reflecting and go back packing the rest of your piano and music score books now!

Moving

LITTLE R was so excited about moving. He wanted to help me fix the boxes, do the taping, and move stuffs here and there. But, I am not so excited about it.

Mama: (at 10:30 pm) Little R, moving is not fun…it’s a lot of work!

Yes, I killed his joy, because indeed it was late in the night and he still needs to drink his milk, change into his pajamas, do his Kumon homework, brush his teeth, and go to bed.

In the next hour, he was more cooperative: He even did his homework by himself, while daddy was dead tired napping on Little R’s bed and I was cleaning the dogs out in the corridor. After I finished with the chores, I was surprised to see him sitting so still and quiet at his desk doodling an airplane on his Kumon homework.

Mama: “Good baby, well done!”

I wasn’t thrilled about moving: Our home is messy in the process and I have to do a lot of cleaning/dusting, reevaluating, sorting, and packing on every piece of stuffs (books, documents, souvenirs) that I have accumulated over the 10 years that I had moved back to Hong Kong (together with the paper “treasures” that I collected from my 13 years living in the States), the six years that my husband and I have been married, and the four years that we have had a baby boy.

While I cleaned each and every book that has sat on my dusty shelf (which I have over seven bookcases of them), I started to feel what a blessing that is to move! If I were not to move, I would not even TOUCH these book shelves and DISCOVER these wonderful literary treasures that I owned over the years.

So, I set aside a few books that I said to myself that once I have moved into the new place, I will read them on my new massage recliner in my quiet time. I felt that it is God’s blessings for me to recount my memories and stuffs of what used to interest me in my past young adult’s life. Now that I have become a middle-age mother and a part-time housewife and a full-time mother and wife, I feel like the chores that I need to do (particularly when we get rid of the helper) have overwhelmed me.

This moving will help me rekindle my spirit and my first passion: A called life in the ministry of our Lord. I shall continue to brush up on my books and my spiritual life. Truly, I want to be a godly mother, a godly wife, a godly citizen, and a godly teacher.

Please continue to help me, Lord!

(at 4 years 3 months 13 days)

Daddy

WE WERE enjoying a cozy dinner at our rooftop garden for the last time tonight (as I suggested) before we will move to our new home next Sunday. Daddy bragged about how “efficient” he was by bringing up the laundry (in a basket) and hanging the wet clothes onto the clothes lines for drying while Little R and I were still savoring the juicy mango for dessert.

Yes, today, after we had gone to church and had lunch with Granny, Daddy had trimmed the dogs’ fur, bathed the dogs, took Little R out to get takeout for dinner, and then, now, he was doing the laundry–again. In fact, he did three loads of laundries this morning (although he had not done the folding).

Daddy: “You see, THIS IS how much I LOVE YOU TWO by doing all the chores for you today!” (with much emphasis)

Sitting on the black bench, Little R and I looked at each other into the eyes with a funny glare and a demurred grin.

Mama: (wondered in my head) Is this also what Little R was thinking too upon Daddy’s comment? … That … Yeah right! Daddy! We had fired our former helper for two weeks now, and that is WHY you would be doing the chores and laundry now for us!!! (besides, of course, that on most other days in the past two weeks, I was the ONLY ONE who did all the laundries and household chores every day.)

Indeed, Daddy, it was sweet to see you sweat while we sit down and enjoy watching you “loving us.”
(at 4 years 3 months 12 days)

Guilty Feelings

DEAR LITTLE R:

I feel quite guilty about letting you miss attending your Saturday morning’s 9:30 Music and Speech class and your 10:40 Putonghua class three weeks in a row. Since we fired our last domestic helper on January 28, I had not been able to let you wake up early and get dressed and ready to go out on time on Saturdays, with the chores that I needed to do, such as walking the dogs. And I am particularly guilty about not preparing you for the classes (including your 11:50 Scienceploration class) by reviewing the worksheets with you every week and getting your stuffs out–your HW, bags, water–the night before the day that you need to do these classes. It’s all my fault.

Would you let Mama do a better job from tomorrow onward? I want to promise you and God that I will do a better job starting from tomorrow. I will review your HW with you every day.

Please help me God!

Love you,
Mama
(at 4 years 3 months 11 days)

The Whimsical Year

I OFTEN think that there are certain whimsical, magical thinking and power that a 4-year-old kid possesses that adults could not have or understand. I am not a fans of Harry Porter books and movies, but I did not need to read Rowling to realize the whimsy of my son when I watched him dance and dance pretending to be “the prince” in his school’s Sleep Beauty Ballet Workshop performance.

It was an extracurricular activity that I had signed Little R up for for the past four months. The ballet teacher said that that was their first time putting up together a workshop like this based on a theme. That was the Sleeping Beauty story and music by Tchaikovsky.

Little R did not use to like “ballet,” when I first asked him to go to ballet lessons. But thanks to this show and the arrangement of a very interesting theme and beautiful music, he was totally into playing “the prince” and doing the swings and spins on his toes. He could not hide his excitement in performing his “special magic” that his legs were constantly tiptoeing and his body twirling (even as they were walking into the hall before the performance) and that he could not put his smiles away for a single second in their final stage performance yesterday.

Here is a picture of how excited he was (at tea time with us) before going back to school to get ready for his debut ballet show.

(at 4 years 3 months 8 days)

Daddy’s First Reaction

DADDY AND Little R were caught on film by an anonymous reporter for a local Hong Kong newspaper (without our noticing it), while we were cruising on the streets of the famous Chinese New Year’s market in Causeway Bay on the day before the Chinese New Year’s Eve. What caught the reporter’s eyes were probably the enormous Lightning McQueen helium balloon that Little R was pulling along in the air, that he was 7 feet tall up on Daddy’s shoulders, and that he had a bubbling smile on his face.

And that he probably was the proudest kid on the aisle that day.

Anyways, on the Chinese New Year’s Day, we felt really surprised to be informed by our relatives who saw the picture published in the newspaper (dated New Year’s Eve). All of these relatives live in Los Angeles, California. So, they read their papers one day later than the ones in Hong Kong

We asked, Does the Hong Kong edition have it too? Finally, we found that newspaper at my aunt’s home when we visited her on New Year’ Day. Daddy deliberately checked that newspaper, dated January 22, lying on my aunt’s couch. Eureka! He found it!

Daddy’s first reaction to the picture was: Hey, we can use this picture [in the portfolio] for Little R’s application to primary school!

What a daddy! What a funny first reaction to this picture of himself and his son appearing on newspaper!