Today I grew up a little

It's 1.43am on a Friday now. I just finished sending out an email.


This week has been hellish. One of the contributing factors was triggered by an email from another head. Indirectly I learnt that she sent an email to all other heads except me to ask for opinion on standardizing a document which needed majority of the input from me, but which I have been delaying providing due to lack of resources.
So I replied by asking her to share the document so I can add my input and to include me in this communication which she has left me out. I was of course not happy with it.
In response she replied with a sub-par standardized document without my input. And mention in the email to everyone that she has asked me for input before but I unfortunately did not provide.


I wanted to be mature and I called her after the email. I wanted to clarify how it ended this way. Without going into details, she was a bitch. Then I wanted to reply the email to everyone such that I can put her down. But I told myself to wait and not do something I will regret.


Finally I replied her email tonight. What did I learn and what did I do?


After a day, the anger died down significantly. I was able to think clearly. When I just wrote the reply, there was still a little bit of me that wanted to bite back. I didn't want to lose face in front of the other heads. I didn't want others to think I am a coward. I didn't want to let this head off so easily.


But in the end I didn't bite. I was cordial and provided my input that I stayed up tonight to work on instead of spending time with Lucas and instead of sleeping. I did not harp on the sacrifice that I made. I thought I will feel like a loser when I sent the email in a cordial way. But I didn't. In truth I didn't expect not to feel lousy. I learnt a lesson. I grew up. Today I lived the wisdom of Buddha - let things go and you will find inner peace. Sounds clichéd huh... I didn't know, but it really works. Today I grew up a little, and this is the proudest thing that I did all week.

Luis’ 2nd birthday

Took me 3 months to write about this. First it was laziness, then it was resource crunch at work due to a couple of people leaving, then it was mother being admitted to hospital and still is in hospital now. In the office now and there is network down so work cannot be done. Decided to do some ‘well-being’ brain stuff.

This year I managed to think ahead instead of being caught off-guard that his birthday ‘suddenly’ arrived. Luis still likes monkeys very much, especially the monkey soft toy that Daddy bought for him. So we had a monkey themed party.

As usual we invited our friends and their children over to our house, (I hope) they had a blast of a time at our house. Even our bedroom looked like the tornado struck, I didn’t dare look at it anymore after the first look, so I assumed they had plenty of fun. Not to mention the other rooms.

We also had a celebration with Daddy’s side of family. The usual dinner followed by birthday cake. Luis enjoyed his cakes very much at this period. I brought him to Four Leaves at Yew Tee and let him choose his cake. It wasn’t easy! Which kid at 2 year old can make up their mind without changing it? So in the end he ‘chose’ his cake with my preference – it was a strawberry shortcake which turned out to be surprisingly nice.

For his actual birthday it was a weekday. Lucas got to skip childcare that day. We brought both boys to take the duck tour followed by the Singapore flyer. Then we went to Swensens! They give a free ice-cream of 5 flavours to the birthday kid with a candle, we did it once with Lucas and we thought it was very nice. So we went to Bukit Panjang Plaza’s Swensens. Both boys had a good time.

Finally we went home for naps. In the evening we had a small single portion cake for Luis with birthday song in our house. Cake was shared by the brothers. And that is the start of Luis’ 2^nd year J

Funny Luis

At home, Luis slung a bag meant for toys on this neck and then said, "bye bye, I go 'hoyeeday'", then he left out bedroom. Kp and I looked at each other and laughed.

Luis - 2 years 3 months






"Water-water" - Luis was referring to the water bottle, but he calls it water water.
Luis - 2 years 6 months

Kept referring to yoghurt as "sugar". We always enjoyed yoghurt together, just Luis and me, before Heguru class. 

Luis - 2 years 6 months

KP was scolding Lucas in the room, Luis was in the living room. 

Luis (to daddy): Don't scold Lucas.

(Me in the kitchen preparing dinner, thought: oh such a good boy, protecting his brother)

KP (fiercely): Why?

Luis: Because Lucas is so naughty. 

(Me, thinking it's normal, he's just two so his thoughts are not logical)

Luis, after a few sec: Cane Lucas. 

!!!!! Evil!!!!

Luis - 2 years 6 months

Luis says 'oopsy!' whenever he falls or drops something. Wonder where he learnt that from!

Luis - 2 years 3 months




"I want mommy let me sleep."
Ok I am responsible for the bad grammar, because I always tell the maid to "help me let Luis sleep."


And another classic that I hear a few times everyday.
"I want mommy carry.", which sometimes sounds like "I want mommy hairy."
Lucas and I make a joke out of it sometimes.
Luis- 2 years 6 months




I was coughing on the bed next to Luis. When I finished:
Luis: Mummy, you must cover your mouth when you cough.
And then he proceeded to put his hand on my mouth and said, "Like that."
Why I want to record this - at this age, I find that this is an impressively long and grammar-correct sentence.
Well done baby.
Luis - 2 years 7 months

"Have good principles and conduct yourself honourably"

This is an excerpt from the eulogy given by Li Hong Yi, grandson of Lee Kuan Yew. 

I particularly like this excerpt.

Sometimes I am a coward at work. Not daring to speak up, not daring to verbalise my opinion when I feel someone is not doing right. I will not be this kind of person anymore. I will keep to my principles and hold my head high. I will not concern myself about not being polite, about being afraid that I will offend others. Life, after all is not worth all these little actions that waste time and are not fruitful. Be true to yourself, that is more fulfilling. If you are a honourable person, there is nothing to worry about.