Remember LKY, Majulah Singapura

At the end of the State Funeral, we were gathered at the TV for the minute of silence signalled by the PWS. I had ZK in my arms and Ah Yee was carrying ZY - of course the kids didn't realise the significance of this week, the week that witnessed the passing of a giant and the coming together of so many Singaporeans for one single purpose. Even the heavens cried. (Or we would have brought the kids downstairs to line Commonwealth Avenue!)

It has been two very heavy weeks. This time two weeks ago, I was coughing madly but had to go back to work to prepare for a meeting on last Monday - which was to discuss what to present at a meeting today on what to discuss at a meeting in May!! And, best, after Monday, it was decided that we needed yet another pre-meeting yesterday. Seriously...

Last week was heavy for two reasons - there was the preparation for the pre-meeting today and there was national mourning.

I have been following the news when I can, i.e. on the way to and from work though I usually ended up looking ridiculous cos I would be tearing up here and there. There are so many articles on LKY - how to he led his team to build up Singapore, first-hand accounts of him, but what caught my attention most was when Mrs Lee was mentioned. I'm such a sucker for love stories.

I signed up to go to the Parliament House last Wednesday to pay my last respects to the man but due to limited allocated space for my office, I wasn't able to go. I was on the reserve list (?!) but wasn't activated. Perhaps just as well cos my colleagues who went were stuck in the bus for hours and the group split up when they walked near so a number didn't get to go near to bow at all. Heard the public generally just walked past that day. And the queues just kept getting longer and longer.

So I thought I'd just go to my office's reflection session on Thursday - a couple of videos and a few speeches were on the cards. All was fine until the big boss spoke. He barely started when he teared. And then everyone started crying too! :( We were asked to reflect on LKY's legacy for Singapore and Singaporeans, and for us personally as well. Many tuned in to the special Parliament sitting that afternoon too, but I couldn't cos of work. I could, however, hear sniffles from the two colleagues flanking me as they watched the live streaming.

But then, I still wanted to go! Thought of going with Sito on Thursday night but the estimated waiting time as of 11 pm was eight hours?! I stayed up to do work and checked the queue duration along the way - before I slept around 4 am, a colleague had waited for four hours and counting!

So last Saturday, we went to the Botany Centre community tribute centre but there was a queue too - only an hour but 10 min could be too long when you have two kids with you. They had no priority queue so we left for dinner.

But I wasn't giving up, not even when Sito gave me a valid counter-argument: If someone else had died and the queues snaked on, LKY might just tell everyone to not waste time and get on with life, he being pragmatic and all. Well, my heart defied logic. After all, it's LKY leh! My 偶像!

So I went with fellow LKY groupie CY instead to the AMK tribute centre. We waited in line to get to the front, which was in no time at all. An elderly volunteer along the way was thanking us and told CY that we were too young to understand what people of her generation had gone through. The amount of flower bouquets was amazing. A volunteer led the group to bow three times to the wall with his picture and video, just behind the flowers.

The scene was quite amazing. The flowers. The people. The volunteers of all ages - kids handed bottled water to us. The wall of colourful post-it notes from so many people. It felt awesome to be standing there. It felt awesome to be Singaporean.

I was very heartened by what I saw and heard the whole week. I mean, people went to pay their last respects to LKY not because they loved him like family or friend, right? I think people respected him and went to thank him for what he had done for Singapore, the country we share. I'm very 感动 because going by what you normally see and hear, people don't love this place very much. You see, I'm more than a LKY groupie; I'm a Singapore groupie :)

我出世在八十年代，只亲眼见过影像里的一半，但之前的故事听看起来，也感动几下哦⋯⋯

Fare thee well!

I was a nobody to this man. But he was somebody to me. Not that he was a friend or what, but without him, Singapore would probably not be what we are today, and then, there would not have been the me and us today.


Source: PMO website (screen-shot)

This morning, I was latching ZY when I saw a flashing banner - Kel whatsapped me that LKY had passed on.

The inevitable had happened, I thought. He had had a long and fulfilling life, and he left in peace. We should be happy. But still, I feel sad at the passing of a great man. He felt like the grandpa whom we didn't talk with much but whom we know had done much for us.

I pretty much ignored the noisy boys on the way to school today as I was concentrating on the radio - PM was going to make a speech about his father's passing at 8 am. When it took place, I was on the way to work and missed it. But I read so many Facebook posts about LKY and how PM delivered his speech that I lost half my eyeliner by the time I got to office. Just lost my eye cream after watching the recording of his speech:



I tear up when I think of what he has done for the country I love so much. Then perhaps I wasn't a nobody to him - I'm a citizen of the country he committed his life to.

Thank you, Mr LKY.

“50 years ago, he wept for the nation. 50 years on, the nation weeps for him.”
Source: Somewhere online...

PS: I had wanted to write on his tribute page but the input page I saw in the afternoon is now gone. Let's see if I get to write this somewhere later...

一代宗师万世垂

对于建国总理，我只能说感激。谢谢您的努力和付出，带领建国功臣为新加坡打下牢固的基础，让今天的我们享有这美好的家园。我希望我的孩子们懂事后也一样热爱这繁华的岛国，传承您的爱国精神！

Update: Managed to write in the website on Wednesday.

One time jialat jialat!

Yes, many photos this time! :)

Lots have happened in the past month... ZY turned eight months and started having porridge on 28 February - that first time failed cos I forgot to soak the rice to make it soft enough.. But we did better on Monday, and now ZY is eating porridge very well - he has even started on chicken and fish in school!

Outside, he's getting troublesome but thank goodness for snacks! Oops, food bribes aren't too good right? But they're useful!

I gum gum my biscuits...

Smaller biscuits? He plays with them but doesn't put them into his mouth, hmmm...

At this age, he can be forgiven for going as he's eating..!

Oh, milk? Well, I started him on formula the Monday before LNY and he will start his second tub tomorrow - one tub for three weeks as I still give him 40% breastmilk. But as work gets busier and my supply keeps dropping (cos of work stress??), I finally dropped one pump from last week. Today, I was attending a course so I didn't pump until I got back. My mini stash in the fridge probably won't last another month...

I'll probably just latch him morning and night, and give him formula in the day eventually. But lately, he's been tugging at his food source when nursing at night. I screamed out in pain the first few times and he would smile at me. So I stopped giving him an apparently funny reaction but he continues to tug and smile, argh!

I can have my milk milk standing up too!

Let's go back a couple of steps before we get to standing....

He is sitting very well. BUT! No flipping except accidental ones, no crawling.. Just as well, no need to worry too much about him falling off his bed at night or crawling out to no man's land in the middle of the night like ZK did last time!

ZY up, penguin down!

But I still place him with his back against something safe, just in case he decides to fall backward... And I give him a toy. Or fruit.

We had some fun in the kids' room one weekend morning. He sat in front of the cabinets, pulled out drawers and gummed them to his heart's delight!

Is this edible? No.. Still, yummy!

Mama, why did you put me on my belly?

I don't want! Waaaa!

Hush now, my baby.. Let's smile for the camera!

I also let him sit on me - and one day, I caught this on video - sooooo cute! :)

He's also very cute when he claps his little hands :) He seems to clap whenever I sing.. And lately, I realised how little I have sung to him! I used to sing to ZK on the way to and from school but now, we drive them to and from school so just now, I sang to him before bedtime but he didn't seem to like it :( Have to slowly sing more and more to him. ZK still wants me to sing sometimes :)

When he's less cute, I scooped him away from the changing table and dumped him half naked on the floor *.*

He can sit so well that it's so easy to use the bath tub - ZK didn't sit very well until later but by then, it was easier to let him stand than to use the tub.

Looking up to the big brother who was holding another rubber duckie

But my little baby still prefers to sit with someone - and read!

And then he stands!

He can pull himself up if I give him my arm as a grip. And he likes us to help him walk a few wobbly steps. So he can stand now and almost going to walk with support but I still love to wear him! Until he gets too heavy, that is...

First time in the full set - that was the fourth day of LNY

And now, my two-going-to thirteen boy! Really...

mf: ZK, what are you doing?
ZK: *silently watching videos*
mf: ZK...
ZK: *silence*
mf: ZK, you're ignoring me?!
ZK: Yes? *without looking up*

*___*

Of course, Mama - see? I'm already big enough to carry my own big bag!

And eat noodles with less mess - and sometimes no mess!

Wefie!

Papa's turn with ZK - I really like this photo, so happy :)

I was trying to take a photo of his milk beard but was overpowered by my tot..

He's really a big boy now. A couple of weeks ago, he started consistently going to poo poo in the toilet bowl. And after wetting the bed two or three times over as many weeks despite staying dry while in diapers, he finally woke with dry underwear last Sunday! It's the third consecutive night - let's keep our fingers crossed..

See? I poo poo a lot! Like chocolate... (Really, he said that!)

When we brought him to the huge playground at Westgate, he wasn't interested in the playground for his age group at all. He wanted to be with the big kids! Lucky it was a week day and there weren't many kids around so I let him explore. It was scary at first as I watched him. But he was confident and where he wasn't or it was difficult, well, he fell a couple of times! :p But he conquered the route in the end :)

Easy to go up, difficult to go down...

Wearing beach pants instead of swim diapers! But somehow he didn't like this waterplay area very much.. 

He has been super cheeky these days. The terrible twos are going into the threes... Just a small thing can trigger him off, e.g. if he isn't the one who presses for the lift. And he still watches so much videos!

Watching next to me when I was having a fever *.*

But the past couple of weeks, he would turn the phone off and reach for some books - nice but it certainly dragged his bedtime... And for the past week plus, I started leaving him awake to fall asleep on his own. He kept coming out to get me, or go pee, or go poo, or just whine. So now he sleeps past 9 pm every day, sighs.. Maybe I have to wait until he drops his afternoon nap before he will start to sleep early again..

Sometimes I feel so guilty towards this boy. On days when ZY slept in and I brought ZK to school first, he would be such a good boy. But when we all went to school together, most times he whined and asked me to carry him though I was already carrying ZY.

And cos time is always tight in the morning, I'm forever nagging at him to have breakfast, brush teeth, pee etc. Now I nag at him to go back to bed. Sometimes I was outright shouting. I don't like to do that :( And worse, he looked at me sadly, sometimes at the brink of tears, and said, "I don't want Mama angry... / Don't (be) angry with me..." My poor boy.. I love you ok? I love you very very much... I hope he knows that...

Going nerdy...again

Just posted about pi day on Facebook. Pi leh! How magical - 3.1415926 :) I still remember the Anderson library - a maths teacher printed out pi to many many decimal places and stuck the paper around the library between the wall and the ceiling. A stack of paper was left unrolled and tied to the corner when he ran out real estate.

And when I thought of pi, I thought of pies too! And I remember this. Shall find a simple pie recipe for Saturday, woohoo!

This afternoon, we were talking about someone in the field of signal integrity. Binary signals came to mind somehow and lo and behold! "Binary values" turned up in the next sentence after the definition! And now I thought of the binary clock I saw in the Maths Institute.

Just a couple of my simple yet strangely indulgent pleasures :)

A totally random and nerdy post by yours truly :)

PS: I've been very busy lately so photos have to wait...

Childhood memories

I was on the throne when I suddenly had a very vivid flashback - I was squatting over a few pieces of old newspaper and pooping! I didn't think much about it back then but now, I wonder who does that apart from doggies?? *.*

That was on the floor of the second level of Grams' shophouse, in front of the toilet behind the kitchen. We used to go upstairs for lunch and I guess we did out business there as well! In the evening, we would have a bath before going home, and in those days, Grams didn't have a water heater so they would boil water on the stove and pour into a tub of tap water!

It must be all the potty training we're doing. ZK can now poop very well into the toilet bowl - so proud of him! Nvm that I sometimes have to stand there and peer into the bowl with him to gaze at his output - in amazement, no less! Back in my time, I used the potty for a long time, even in primary school I think! Cos the toilet bowl was not in use; we used only the squat toilet - I don't remember whether I was scared or I wasn't allowed to use that. Extra proud that he has outdone his mama :)

I realised that my memory is really getting from bad to worse. I used to be able to remember my blog posts but now I have to search to see whether I have written a certain detail. It must be the lack of sleep. Boys, won't you let me sleep, please??

Yan was in town last month and she reminded me of how well I slept as a child. Mother miscarried once and had an ectopic pregnancy before and after YQ so when she was in hospital, we stayed over with Yan. So there was this time when her parents were going to bring us to the theme park whose name I forgot but where I remember sitting in big tea cups spinning round and round. I was napping so they said they would wait for me to wake up before leaving. Then Yan and MZ tried to wake me - poke me, tickle me, open my eyelids - but I remained fast asleep!

mf: Oh, I don't remember that!
Yan: Cos you were sleeping!!

Why oh why are my kids not like me?? *.*