The end of Summer bible camp for the kids

We wrapped up the week last night with a few invigorating, feel-good songs at church. Summer Bible Camp has, sadly, ended. Sean, Monique and Aidan were already asking if I would sign them up for next year's program. Initially, I was a tad hesitant that the combination of bible + camp = fun but was willing to be proven wrong. Afterall, if my children could experience God in a positive way, I shouldn't let my reservations dampen their enthusiasm. Amen to that.

2 failed dishes vs 1 dependable bread

Have you ever had one of those days where your food items were all threatening to be used right away lest they rot that very instant? Well, mine did exactly that yesterday.


I’d planned for a perfect summer dish, a mango spicy salad that combined my favourite flavours of tart limes, fiery chilies and stinky fish sauce. And I was pretty certain that all four of my kids wouldn’t say ‘no’ to it. During the weekend when the hubs was home to mind the kids, I made my grocery trip – in peace – and bought green mangoes and some mint leaves. But by the time I was ready to use them, my mint leaves were on their last legs. Once bright, they’d turned a lackluster brown while my firm, green mangoes sported a distinct blush and dare I say, even felt soft to the touch. Undeterred, I didn’t change my menu but thriftily salvaged what was left of the blackened mint leaves by keeping the brownish-green bits for the intended salad. Ugh. My shredded mangoes were a pulpy sweet mess and I ended up with worm soup rather than crunchy salad. The other supporting vegetables like the cucumbers, salad leaves and green peppers tried valiantly to hold it together but it was futile. There was nothing attractive about the dish and neither was the darkened expression on Monique’s face which rivaled the shade of the mint leaves in the trash.


The 2 pineapples that I’d bought 4 days ago were also in on the fruit & vegetables revolt. One had a weepy bottom even if the rest of it stayed firm and green. I wasn’t ready to use them for pineapple jam just yet as I was hoping a gradual ripening that would enhance the sugar concentration. Unfortunately, the pineapples had more pressing plans. Upon slicing them open, the insides were a dull brown which made me suspect that the fruits were possibly ruined during cold storage at the shops. Bah.


The only success I did have was my baked light rye bread which I sat down to enjoy. Thickly sliced and still warm, I smeared on my preferred orange marmalade spread. Ah! Nourishment for dampened spirits.

Are 4 kids too many?

Is it just me or is shopping with kids in tow enough to induce a mood so foul that even a non-drug user might, in a weak moment, contemplate mind-altering drug use?

Chickpeas soaking

But wait, you say, wasn’t I once enthralled by the clinical beauty of malls? Yes, that would be me. Who needed yet another leather bag? Me. What about dainty tip-toe shoes sure to turn heads when I stumble and fall ungainly on my bottom? Um, that would be me, again.


I’d only started seeing the error of my soul-less ways once I had kids and then shopping trips quickly turned into horror halls. The same can be said about grocery shopping. The aisles are never wide enough but the shopping carts have been re-sized larger to cater to customers’ increased purchases. Plus, I don’t understand why they make carts with attached kiddy cars when clearly the aisles cannot accommodate the wide-turning circle of such carts. Who has time to do a 5-point turn in the aisles when you are trying to shop Speedy Gonzales style and preventing kids from pulling items off shelves? I’m always half-minded to blind-fold my kids when we walk past those kid-friendly carts so that they wouldn’t be badgering me to use one and then bursting into a “but why not” tantrum when I hiss a menacing “forget it”!

Fried leeks, garlic and fennel seeds

I digress but I’m sure most parents have well-behaved kids or fewer kids or maybe extra helping hands to make grocery trips a less painful experience. But for those suckers like me who wanted 4 kids, the phrase “shopping with kids” is enough to evoke suicidal thoughts.


That said, this is not a blog where I try to sell you one (or all) of my kids to ease my shopping trip pains even if the hubs and I often jest that we would like to hawk them on Ebay -- yes, we are ashamed to say that we don’t crack good jokes anymore. We wanted 4 kids because we like even numbers. The number 4 in Chinese culture may not be considered auspicious, quite the contrary, it is often associated with death. But 3 kids, in my mind, would have been disastrous as I can personally attest to many lonely playtime experiences because I was the 3rd and the “baby”, hence rarely included in sibling games. Having 4 kids seemed harmonious -- 2 pairs of siblings and the silver bullet to the 3-kids imbalance. To us, it was perfection, much like the universal 2 kids and a dog named Rover happy family.

Unlikely combination? Paired up -- Chickpeas in tomato puree with fried leeks and garlic mix in the slow cooker

So, I remind myself that as much as shopping with kids is a hellish experience, the sibling pairing, on the other hand, has worked out rather well. The elder two Irish twins, Sean and Monique, are the best of friends and sometimes, competitors because they have A-type personalities. They get each others’ jokes, they think alike and yet even when they don’t, their differing perspectives complement each other. While the younger two -- Aidan and Sophia -- are both equally playful and lively making them a perfect match for each other. And as rough as my little girl gets, Aidan is always tough enough to put up with her manhandling (read: WWE Smackdown).

Add freshly squeezed lemon juice

The older versus younger age pairing isn’t the only way my kids engage as siblings. The pairing mutation takes place on more levels like there is the all-girls’ playtime when Monique wants to practice mothering and Sophia is the willing victim. Or the all-boy’s action team when Sean pretends he is Luke Skye Walker in “Star Wars” and Aidan becomes a fighting opponent. Then there are times when it isn’t about age nor gender pairing but companionship driven by the same interests like when Aidan’s and Monique’s love for swinging for hours on end draws them outside to enjoy each others' company, or when Sean’s love for books extends towards reading to an eager listener that is Sophia. If I could only list the many instances of yin-yang embraces, this could make a seriously boring read. Really, all this evidence of sibling friendship-- as precious as they are to the parents involved -- might make others want to barf.

Chickpea soup with cracked black pepper

Just yesterday, my hubs mused whilst watching all 4 of our spawns splashing happily in our paddle pool, how well they played together. It is moments like these where murderous ideas conceived when shopping with kids in tow evaporate and all that I’m left with is a warm fuzzy feeling that I’m glad we chose to have these 4 little horrors.


But, I still detest those so-called child-friendly shopping carts.

A satisfying soup for little tummies

Perspectives from a non-vegan spouse

Assembled ingredients for pistachio pesto

I’ve always been fairly cautious about what I consume. Sure I love decadence like the buttery crumbliness of pineapple tarts, various sticky sweetness of nonya kuehs, artery-clogging inducing coconut curries like Laksa, -- and the list could go on-- but that nagging guilt never fails to creep in even as I shovel in those tempting delights hand over fist. But you'll never catch me suggesting starting a diet.

In the food processor

So, when my hubs broke the news to me one fine day in early 2007 that he’d decided not to consume meat nor meat products  --like forever and for real -- I wasn’t fazed. Afterall, I could do with some sort of no-indulgence diet, meat or without. But unlike my hubs, my will to cut it out completely, lacked steel.

Pistachio pesto

I was, however, a little surprised that my dear hubs -- who has a reputed propensity towards cheeses and copious amount of baked lamb and beef --had the courage to turn vegan. Wouldn't vegetarianism have been a little easier to start off with? Afterall, there are tons of self-proclaimed vegetarians who consume dairy, eggs and even some who have placed fish and shellfish under a whole new vegetable group, and are still trimmer and healthier because of it.

 Sliced zucchini

I knew that his litany of reasons for doing so was not only for a  healthier lifestyle but also an ideological one. One that I regarded as a commendable "no" to an alarming increase in dodgy meat quality driven by our unwitting demand for industrialized animals. Plus, it was nice to see his soft, non-pregnant belly --that had ballooned over the years --shrink.

Tossed zucchini in pesto sauce

But the nobleness of his new diet started to wear thin as each meal became a challenge to think up. So-called vegetarian dishes in my repertoire still carried traces of meat. No cheese, milk, butter nor even honey? Take out the oyster sauce in my broccoli and kai lan; and the fish sauce out of my spicy Thai salad? What next? Separate the alphabets from the alphabet soup??

Add zesty mushrooms

I could have served up 2 carrot sticks, some cucumber slices and a slice of bread and called it a meal. But as it turned out, even some breads do contain milk solids and/or honey.

Pistachio pesto 'pasta' with zesty crimini mushrooms -- His meal

I started out trying to replicate non-vegan foods by substituting ingredients. Sometimes it worked but there were more disasters than not. Then an epiphany hit me one day, I realized that I would never be able to replicate flavours or textures like cheese (the soy ones are seriously strange if not, just tasteless goo) or how the way the warm, savoury juice from a meatball pervades our tastebuds. When I started appreciating vegetables for their subtle sweetness without feeling the urge to enhance that with cheese or meat, meal preparations started becoming easier. As my hubs so eloquently said, “You have to like vegetables if you are vegetarian or vegan. Otherwise, you are screwed.”

Pan-seared snapper with zesty spices -- the kids' and my meal

Certain concerned family members and friends have said in polite disgust that I was being a total pushover and that the hubs should cook his own meals considering the added stress and effort I was being put through. Not wanting to sound like some battered wife, the thought of separate cooking makes me uncomfortable. I do love preparing meals and I feel weirdly possessive over my kitchen. And as appreciative I am of his offers to cook, I always heave a sigh of relief when it is back in my rein.

The non-vegan meal -- not His.

Yes, my dear hubs is still vegan today and yes, he does still consume chocolate and salt and vinegar chips/crisps (they contain milk solids) even if those wouldn't qualify as vegan-proper. And I'm still a meat-eater even if I try to do my enlightened bit by buying local and organic produce. I haven't turned him loose in the kitchen to prepare his own meals whilst taking care of just mine and the kids. Quite the opposite. I continue to prepare all the meals. And, we still eat as a family.


Besides, at the end of the day, a shared meal with loved ones is possibly a tad more important than the meal preparation itself. Maybe that or perhaps I'm merely chalking up heavenly points that will earn me the suffering-wife's equivalent of 7 young virgins as promised by Mohammed to martyrs!

His empty plate. Coincidentally, it looked just like mine.

The age of self-inflicted bad haircuts

As if she'd heard my recent ramblings about women's general lack of ability to cut hair, Sophia decided to prove me right. On Saturday evening, armed with her sister's scissors, she hacked off uneven chunks off her own fringe resulting in a look that was a cross between hilly-billy meets post-punk.

I didn't even scream because I'm a hardened Mom of 4 who've seen pretty much all and then multiply that figure by 4. Monique had done something similar to herself at the same age and I did go ballistic. Aidan decided to hone his hair-cutting skills on Sophia earlier this year which had me doing a little yelling and jumping routine. This time, I did nothing. Maybe I shifted my butt on the couch into a comfier spot. I figured that if it ain't bleeding, we were doing just fine.

Her Dad said that her Bambi-eyes "don't work on him no more". Cute is going to take a while to grow back. Better that than jagged ears or ripped eye-balls, hey?

I'm such an optimist.

Toy Story 3 -- A heart warming tear jerker

There aren't many movies these days that would or could make me weep. Plainly because I like comedies and I stick to watching them. I prefer dark comedies, satires and even feel-good comedies but can’t fully sit through the slapstick variety. I stay away from intentionally soppy movies with titles that would make anyone tear up at the very sound of it e.g. "My Left Foot" (read: tragic clumsiness) and the epic "Snow falling on Cedar" which was painfully boring and not to say the very least, a formulaic Hollywood tear-jerker. Moreover, I despise clichéd movies that undermine the viewers' intelligence. OK, so I did cry at "The Joy Luck Club" which was very unfortunate, considering a name deceivingly auspicious and cheerful. My excuse was that I was already emotionally frail at the time.


I cried at Pixar's 3rd and (possibly?) final installment of Toy Story last Monday. Some of you might fall off laughing at this revelation but before you do, I want to explain for my leaky emotions over a kids' cartoon.


Simply, Pixar is genius. And Disney couldn't have partnered a more technically charged company with a sharpened sense of what drives kids to movies. Unlike Disney who churns out low quality cartoons with an often rags-to-riches theme coupled with girl-meets-boy-falls-in-love-lives-happily-ever-after bubbly ending, Pixar isn't afraid to broach issues that cut closer to the nerve. Themes of loss, abandonment, empty nest and death aren't exactly your usual Disney saccharine ingredients. But these are exactly what make Pixar cartoons likeable for adults. We weren't just there for the popcorn as we were when we suffered through "Snow White" or "The little Mermaid".


Spoilers below
Toy Story 3 opens with a video footage of young Andy playing with his toys in the usual elaborate set-up of cops and robbers. Flash forward present day, Andy is grown up and readying to leave for college and has to sort out his belongings. He is obviously conflicted as he has to either pack his loved but yet untouched toys or have them donated. The toys --all but Woody-- are accidentally thrown out as garbage during the upheaval but they steal off into a box of Molly’s (Andy’s little sister) toys destined for donation to a Daycare centre. The story then follows the adventures of how the toys cope at being manhandled by the toddlers at the Daycare centre. With Woody’s help, they escape the clutches of a disillusioned and self-centered bear. Woody & friends return to Andy's house where Andy proceeds to move them up into the attic for storage. But thanks to Woody's quick wit, Andy ends up donating his beloved toys to a gentle child named Bonnie. Even Woody -- who was originally kept aside as part of Andy's college take along -- is given to Bonnie although with obvious reluctance and heartache. The scene then fades to a close as Andy's toys watch their long-time owner drive off into the distance.


By this time, I'm willing to bet that there were no dry eyes left amongst the quietly sobbing parents. Several of my friends, also mothers, all admitted to weeping and google sites tell me that so did Dads (but just not my hubs because he might be half-robot). Yes, there were slapstick scenes that had both kids and adults in stitches and there were clever lines like one from Barbie, “Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force” that had us pondering.


Sure, Pixar’s high definition graphics was a treat for the eyes but the juxtaposition of the timelessness of toys against a transient childhood made the movie darkly bittersweet. It made me think of the countless times that I’ve told my petal soft-skinned 2.5-year old to never grow up and the times that I’d wished I could freeze moments just like C.S. Lewis’s Snow Queen to have my children stay the way they are. I might be ahead of myself but it made me think of the inevitable that one day, my present furiously chaotic days would be replaced by pin drop silence when like in the final scene of Toy Story 3, I watch my children drive off into the distance. And those were the reasons behind my weepy moment that day.


I loved Toy Story 1 back as a 23-year old, enjoyed Toy Story 2 a few years after and now at an over-the-hill age, Toy Story 3 still charmed the cockles of my heart. I would have given the movie 2 thumbs up that Monday afternoon if I wasn’t so intent on drying my eyes. But my tears speak appreciative volumes.

Smores, you say?

Mac-n-cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and cookies 'n' cream. Just when I'd thought I'd tasted most of American kids' fare, along comes one more surprising combination -- smores!

Smores? Say what?


Originally from 2 words -- some more -- smores is yet another uniquely American favourite enjoyed around a campfire and as comforting as PBJ (peanut butter and jelly) is to American toddlers. The name got contracted evidently because the food combination was so darn delicious and gooey that kids often resorted to begging for more whilst their mouths still sticky from it. Well, at least that is what I loosely gathered just by observing the effect it had on my children.


Shamefully, it had me hankering for s'more too.


For the uninitiated, smores are simply toasted marshmallow with a chocolate square (or two) sandwiched between 2 graham crackers. No frills but really quite addictive. Our dear friend Holly, pulled out a pack of marshmallows after dinner Saturday night and had us toasting them over the grill. I had no idea what to expect but Sean did.


The flavour and texture combined resulted in a crunchy, slightly salty biscuit shell against a sweet,warm and gooey center. Surprisingly sublime and decidedly decadent.


Thanks Holly, now I can't walk past the grocery aisles without lingering around the sugar rush section selling marshmallows and/or graham crackers and without the taunting sweetness of smores creeping back into my head!







Sean's toasted marshmallow ready to fill a smores sandwich.




Voila! Smores!

My happy 4th of July

This time 11 years ago, I arrived at Houston's International airport with 2 oversized suitcases and a leather backpack upon my back. Peeking out of my backpack, I'd purposefully stuck a mini American flag that my dear friend, Daphne, had bought me. She'd said it would immediately gain me red carpet treatment if I waved it walking down the customs aisles.


She was right.


The strapping African-American customs officer beamed at me at what seemed like my unquestioning patriotism right off the plane.


Coincidentally and symbolically, I'd arrived on America's Independence Day having accepted a job transfer that plucked me out of Singapore to live in the good ole' Land of the Free. Armed with only a quarter of my wardrobe, I couldn't wait to kickstart my independent life in Houston.


Truth be told, my American ride hasn't always been smooth sailing. Yes, I'd battled culture shock, suffered through seemingly neverending harsh winters in upstate NY, despaired at the lack of easy access to gourmet food (particularly in Corning) and then endeavoured to keep the butt bulge down because of the huge food portions served. But good memories in this country have outweighed the tribulations necessary to understand life in America.


It's cheesy and cliched but I do mean it when I say, "God Bless America" on this 4th of July!