Zen Mama

What a lovely way to break into nursery... feeding rabbits outside, and making your own bread inside. Today, Alexandre started his 1st day at Highgate House School. As is tradition with all 1st timers, the school allowed parents to sit in during the 3 hour morning session. We only lasted 2-1/2 hrs, because Alexandre started to get tired... so next week, we'll probably just have him stay for 2 to 2-1/2 hours, and gradually build up to the full 3-hour session. With rabbits, slides and a garden to play in outdoors, plenty of free play and activities to choose from, he seemed to really enjoy his time there. Next week is the real test, when I leave him there with the teachers and other kids. He seemed to be happy to play independently, with me in sight. Knowing him, he should be fine even without me in sight, as long as he is around other kids and has activities aplenty! He was especially pleased with himself when one of the teachers handed him a paper bag with his freshly baked bread ...

So, Alexandre turned 19 months yesterday on the 24th of May. All they say about toddlers his age running around with no sense of boundaries is true. We've been walking to a park nearby my brother's house, where there are two baseball pitches and lots of green grass. Once he steps down from his stroller, he's like a wind-up toy which keeps running and running and running... He's also started using some new words over the past few days -- While I was buckling him up in his car seat, he said "Keys" when he wanted the car keys in order to push the red panic button which sets the car alarm off. Over dinner the other night, he was so excited to have rice that he kept repeating the word "rice" (with an "SH" sound at the end, over and over again... Tang's family has two Labs, Daley and Kikko, who have become Alexandre's best friends. Especially Daley, the older golden Lab, who's a bit calmer. In return for Alexandre dropping him food fr...

It has now been about 12 days since I officially became a full time, "professional mom"... We kicked off our round-the-world major tour on May 10th, starting off in my hometown of Chicago (well, we're actually staying where my brother lives now, in Des Plaines, which is a suburb of Chi-town, with a population just over 59,000). With my brother and sister, Bertrand and Alexandre, my Aunt Sau Fong, Uncle Kam and Aunt Betsy, we brought some flowers to my Dad's grave on Saturday May 13th. It's hard to believe a whole year has passed since we were last there watching his remains being laid to rest. Bertrand was with us till Sunday, the 14th when he left for London. Between the jet lag and the erratic weather (from 72degrees F one day to 40 degrees and rainy the next), Alexandre and I inevitably came down with the sniffles. We're staying with my brother, who has 10 year old and 15 year old sons, a golden Lab named Daley and a black Lab named Kikko. Alexandre took to...

Here's Alexandre sitting contentedly on the steps at the Musee D'Orsay... one of our only outings in Paris over our Christmas/New Year's holiday aside from visiting family and friends. He was just having fun running along the corridors, surrounded by sculptures and beautiful works of art which he will hopefully one day learn to appreciate!

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 I can’t believe another Christmas is coming soon! We’re going to Paris for Christmas, with Alexandre. The flight should be interesting… I haven’t traveled with him since he started walking! Alexandre’s starting to really show that he understands more things each day. He’s been mimicking me for a few weeks now… when I point my index finger at him in the stereotypical parenty way while saying “no” if he’s sticking his hands into something he shouldn’t, he stops and sticks out his index finger and makes an "ahh ahh ahh" sound as if he’s saying “no” as well!!! How about that for cheeky!? Even if I just say “no” without the gesture, he makes the gesture for me! Then, he gives me a cheeky six-toothed smile… which makes me want to laugh out loud. But then, I try to resist or else I know he won’t take me seriously when I say no. This weekend, he showed that he’s starting to learn some of the baby signs that we’ve been trying to teach him also! I think we sta...

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 So, just a couple weeks ago, mid-October, he was starting to take his first few tentative steps… By his birthday, Oct. 24th, he was still doing more crawling than walking. And even when walking he liked to be aided by one hand. He was walking around with his arms up in front of him, his shoulders scrunched up a little, and his hands sort of dangling down… a little bit like a sleepwalker but with a smile on his face! In the past few days, walking (well, actually, waddling) has almost completely overtaken crawling… He’s talking much more and, with his inflections, he sounds like he’s having a mini conversation. I think he’s learned to mimic our “what’s that?” And “What’s This?” when we point things out to him… because now, if he’s being pushed in a stroller, or just walking around, he’ll point to something and say “Dat?” “Dis?” or “Da?” It’s really such a marvel to watch him grow and develop each day. He barely plays with all the toys he received as birthday gi...

Sunday, October 16, 2005 Alexandre grows stronger and stronger each day! In the past few days, he’s started to take a few steps on his own!! He does it slowly, tentatively, by keeping one hand on the bed, sofa, or whatever he’s been holding onto… while reaching forward towards me, then, very quickly shuffling his two feet one in front of the other, while his arms are spread out as if he’s using them to keep his balance. When he does this, his facial expression (open mouth, a tense smile, and laughing at the same time) reveals the combination of fear and excitement he has at being able to move on his feet without holding onto something. But, while he’s still not completely confident about walking on his own, he walks really fast while grasping onto one of your hands now, instead of two. This has only happened in the past few days, and you can feel him cruising ahead. It feels like if I let go, he’ll just keep going… but not quite yet! When he wants to get somewhere on his own, and quick...

Alexandre now has four little teeth , with a couple more on the way soon. Why does Nature have to make teething such a painful ordeal for our poor little ones? Alexandre’s been pretty good about his teething so far (no fever, etc…) but he had a tough night last Saturday (Aug. 27) when his two upper middle teeth cut thru his sore gums. This little kid cracks me up… he has developed a very mischievous laugh nowadays ( how do they learn this ?). He’s already learned the art of letting out a short, clipped laugh when he wants to get your attention, or in response to my saying “no” when he is about to do something he’s not supposed to do (like licking the walls)! [That’s the look in the photo you see here] First time parents like me often torment ourselves thinking about ways to keep our infants stimulated and how to help them along with their development. But, you realize that, at this age, almost anything can occupy their time… For example, when he finds an open drawer full of clothes, or...

Alexandre turned 10 months on the 24th of August, and it seems as if he's always been in our lives. Each day, when I arrive home, he hears the door open and crawls quickly towards me, with his hands loudly pitter-pattering away across the living room floor. Then he stops at my feet, sits back on his knees and, with a beaming smile, he reaches his arms up to be swept up into my arms. At that very moment, everything else melts away and my heart surges with joy. Lately, he's been doing laps around the apartment on his hands and knees, pulling himself on everything he can reach. He's fascinated by drawers, doors and cabinet doors of all kinds. But -- a true sign that we're living in the 21st century -- the mobile phone (or my Blackberry) wins hands down! With an intent look on his face, he will sit with a mobile phone (or any cordless phone at home) and explore every button and crevice of it as if he's trying to dissect it... Then, there's Kleenex !! He's pass...

Have you ever cried during a Batman film? I was talking to Tang and Ying Ying on the phone the other day, and we all mentioned the fact that we felt sad while watching "Batman Begins", because the storyline entails how Bruce Wayne lost his parents at a young age, and he often has flashbacks of special moments he had spent with his father. Memories of our father, and the feeling of his loss can hit at the most random times. I've spoken to several friends who have lost their parents before, and they all say the same thing. The loss of a loved one will linger, and the sadness will strike every now and then, forever... For me, I was recently sitting by the beach in Bali, Alexandre had just fallen asleep and I was leaning against Bertrand's shoulder watching the crimson rays of the setting sun glistening atop the crests of waves crashing against the shore. Memories of my Dad started crossing my mind... of him teaching me to do the "cha-cha" at my grade school bir...

Bertrand & Alexandre relaxing in Bali at dusk... check out the crossed legs!

This weekend I celebrated the beginning of another year of my life in a quietly sublime way, in Bali with the two "main men" in my life -- Bertrand and Alexandre. Bali is a place that one can always go to rejuvenate the soul... watching the waves crash against the shore as the palm trees sway above you, while sipping a banana or mango smoothie... While we were there, Alexandre touched grass for the first time, and had his first taste of sand on Legian Beach... much to his (obviously newbie) parents' chagrin. The razor-edged tip of his first tooth began to emerge from the pink flesh of his lower gums. And, he started to crawl, tentatively still, but he's getting around... alternating between crawling, dropping prone to the floor and dragging his body along while leading with his upper torso, then sitting up and starting all over again. It's astounding to watch him figure out his own body's capabilities, inch by inch, day by day ... Sometimes, I swear he smiles ...

Today, Alexandre started to be able to gradually push himself up from laying flat on his tummy into a sitting position! The way he does this ... starting from a prone position tummy down, he pushes upper body up into a "cobra" pose, then pushes himself up on his knees… which he has been doing for the past month or more... but now, the main difference is that he’s learned to push his upper torso back over his knees until his butt then rolls over his heels and onto the ground so he's sitting up! He’s still testing everything with his little index finger… from his food, to the water running down from the tap… to your face, or your ear… but you have to be careful, because he starts by gently poking at you and then… he curls the tip of his finger in and digs right in!

Alexandre happy in his perfect cobra pose! 

The first time Dad & Tang met Alexandre, in March 2005

Some coincidences are too strange to be called coincidental…. PHONE CALL On Thursday, May 12th, the day before I left HK for Chicago, I called my Dad to tell him I was coming to see him soon. That was a Wednesday evening in Chicago… he told me he’d be home in two days and that he’d call me then. But, he was groggy from the morphine, so I could barely discern what he was saying at the time. I could only understand him saying that he’d call me later. It was only after my father’s death that I found out what had actually happened on the other end of the phone in Chicago. Tang and Aunt Sau Fong were at my father’s bedside in the hospital. About two minutes before my Dad’s phone rang, he was lying in bed, he looked forward, smiled, and said my Chinese name, “ Wai Wai ” … then, minutes later, the phone rang, and it was me calling. It was like he knew I was about to call. We still don’t know if he meant “going home” to be going home to my sister’s place in Champaign, or if he meant that he w...

May 21, 2005: A Tribute to My Father (as delivered at his funeral in Chicago) I remember being in grammar school, approaching my teacher at her desk and, thinking I was being precocious, I made the statement that "time is passing by faster and faster". I think I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time. She laughed and said "wait until you get older". True enough, we all know, time flies now. From being little kids running around the China Doll restaurant which Dad owned, and which became our playground… to Tang and I both being parents ourselves, and my little sister finishing college and in the workforce now...it seems all that happened in the blink of an eye. The time between learning about our father's cancer and the time of his death --- has been less than 3 months. When our father first went in for a triple bypass last September, we had our first scare about our father's life. He was prepared for the worst already. He said he was not afraid. That he was ...

Friday, May 13th ... the night my father died, was a shock to all of us. I'm only able to write about it more clearly now... Though we were expecting him to pass soon, we didn't expect that it would happen less than two hours after my brother Tang, his son Jeremy, my son Alexandre and I arrived to see him. Alexandre and I had just flown in that afternoon to Chicago, on a flight from Hong Kong. We all drove to my sister Ying Ying's house in Champaign, where Dad had just been transferred from Rush Hospital earlier that day. The 3 of us were planning to take care of him in the comfort of home, during his last days of life. When I did see him, it was heart wrenching. I barely recognized the person lying there in bed – his eyes, red-rimmed and teary, were rolling up into their sockets, tubes were coming out of everywhere helping him to breathe and take care of other bodily functions. He was breathing noisily like a fish out of water, his temples had sunken in, and he could bare...