Shocking!

I was talking to Sean in Chinese and suddenly Alec interrupted us saying: "You were planning to escape without the kids, weren't you guys?"

It's PINK!

Alec has been joining soccer every Saturday morning and getting good at it. Today he scored 2 goals and immediately run into me. "Mom, don't tell anyone, I saw my coach's underwear and it's PINK!"

Monkey Love

We had a really productive morning and treat our selves for delicious desert at Friday's. Well, they also had a balcony with a fun decoration which Alec love to play. They have wooden white fences that separate every 3 tables which is very cute. But the fences are also look like an army wooden boarder you've seen on tv or movies, so it gives Alec an idea to play with these interesting and inviting things. Since it was so cold outside so no body sat on the balcony. It was quite hard for me to say no to.

He was doing pretty good showing off his ability to walk on and jump over or jump from one fence to the others. We ate, and Alec asked whether he could play again. I can tell he was getting tired so I told him "no".

I ran upstair to get some ticket to see Christmas Carol in iMax-3D, while Sean waiting for the bill. Since the queue was long I went back and decided to order the ticket by phone (more on Taiwan awesome service another time). When I came back, Alec wasn't on his seat and disappointed to find out that Alec played outside but I'm too tired to argue. Not a minute later, here he comes crying from falling from one of the fences. Since we didn't see how he fell, we asume he was alright when he stopped crying.

We watched the movie and about half way through it, Alec whimpering and sobing that his arm was hurting. Not taking any chances, we took him the ER and this is what we have now ~ a wounded souldier :(

Say a little pray

Alec has a sniffle and gone worst by the day ends. This was his prayer last night before he's gone to bed...

"Dear Heavenly Father... (sniffle) thank you for today ...
umm... (sniffle) thank you for a beautiful day today... I had fun at Church...
please help me to sleep well tonight...umm (sniffle) and wake up NORMAL again and be happy.
I say all these in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen"

I'm graduated!

I want you to read "ARMY", Mom!

Happy 6th Birthday

Holy smokes Batman, you are six years old!

I cannot believe how a six year old could carry on with so much grown-up conversation like you've been doing forever. You are very smart and very, very passionate about all things military (especially guns!). You mentioned many many times that you are hoping to be the army "boss" when you grow up. You don't believe in magic, you believe magic shows are tricks. I cannot fathom how such a young boy could absorb so much information and still remember small little things I promised months ago, like playing paint ball.

Each morning this year when your daddy wasn't traveling, you would get up very early and wake up daddy to play Wii before he sent you off to school. You guys have really bonded that way ~ you two are screaming together, telling each other what to do, planning strategy to take the bad guys down. It's become a morning ritual for both of you. You have lost 5 teeth so far and have gained 4 and a quarter new teeth. (My favorite are the two giant beaver teeth that are coming in so quickly!) You are smart and bilingual and often translate bahasa cartoons for your Dad (still haven't figured out that he already understands, though. Hmmmm). You play basket ball very well for your age and are really good at soccer! Watch out Beckham ^_^ I'm amazed to see those little legs go!

You are pretty strict in telling between right and wrong, the truth and lies. There is no grey line with you -- especially when it's related to your sister. You are very caring toward your little sister. You are really good at swimming, you are quite popular in your class, everybody loves you, especially the girls! One of your classmates even says she wants to marry you!

Whether it is a science project, a bahasa language project, a book fair, or any other school projects; your friends fight to be in your group. You also had a hard time when I told you that we are leaving Medan for good. You mentioned your best friends' names in your prayers hoping that you will see them again when you grow up.

My hope for you, Chunko, that you will always be comfortable being who you are wherever you are. You are such a special kid. I will always be your biggest fan and, as I have said a gazillion times, I am blessed to have you in my life and I love you more than I thought possible.

Happy 6th Birthday
Love, Mom

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Since Alec's friends are leaving for the summer holiday and will not return until we're gone, I decided to celebrate your birthday a couple of weeks early so you can celebrate with them. We had a snow ball fight, squirt gun fight, popping ballons with your foot games, whacked a pinata and we all had a blast. Since we'll be in Taiwan on your sister's 3rd birthday, we celebrated her birthday at the same time. I made a Princess Cake for Sam and an Army Cake for you. I was very happy to see your big smiles when you saw the cakes.
Though they weren't the greatest, I made a simple pinata for each of you. Sam refused to hit the pinata but you and your friends had the greatest time ever.


Even though I asked our friends to not bring gifts (you have enough gifts from your grandma alone), you ended up tons of new stuff anyway. Thank you friends!

Friendly Tooth Fairy

Quip du jours

Alec: "Mom, I don't want to go to Taiwan"
Me: "Why not?"
Alec: "I don't want to speak Chinese"
Me: "You don't have to if you don't want to. Just like in Medan, nobody forces you to speak bahasa. But you speak bahasa with your friends anyway, because we want to. The same in Taiwan"
Alec: "Ok. But I don't want to wear any Chinese outfit"
Me: "You can wear anything you want"
Alec: "I can wear army?"
Me: "Yes"
Alec: "Only at wedding, I have to wear special clothes?"
Me: "Um-hm.."
Alec: "When I get married, I'm not going to force anyone to wear anything they don't want. They can wear anything they like"

Quip du jours

Sean: "What is 2 apples plus 2 apples, Alec?"
Alec: "4 apples"
Sean: "What is 2 oranges plus 2 oranges?
Alec: "4 oranges"
Sean: "What is 1000 plus 1000"
Alec: "5"
Awesome...

Quip du jour

Alec: "Mom, Vicyie wants to marry me"
Me: "Did she tell you recently?"
Alec: "No, a long time ago. Should I give her something?"
Me: "Like what?"
Alec: "Like a ring. Like in Spiderman movie"
Me: "I don't think you're ready for that. I don't think I'M ready for that!"
Alec was laughing and said: "I know! I should wear a tie, right?"
Me: "More than a tie, honey. You also need to get a job before you ask someone to marry you"
Alec: "But she asked me to marry her"
Me: "Here's a lesson for you. When someone asked you to marry her, you don't have to marry her if you don't want to"
Alec: "Why did you marry Dad?"
Me: "Because I love him and he makes me happy"
Alec: "Yeah, but why not different guy?"
Me: "Because I won't have you if I marry another guy"
Alec: "Huh?"

He is only 5 years and 11 months for God sake. I wonder what he will ask me when he is 13.

Quips

Sean and I have been talking about replacing our Playstation 2 with Playstation 3. But we have not talked about "when" do we need to buy it. Due to Alec's sickness, I've been loosing my beauty sleep for the last 3 nights. I finally had a break when Sean came home early and took Alec for 4 hours and came home with a box of Playstation 3...

Alec: "What are you doing, Mom?"
Me: "I'm looking at this cute bunk bed on my computer. Do you think you can share bedroom with Sam sleeping in this kind of bed?"
Alec: "Oooh that's so cute! Yes I can sleep in there! Can you buy it, Mom?"
Me: "It's a bit expensive, though. I need to talk to Dad first"
Alec: "O, just buy it, Mom. He didn't ask you buying Playstation!"

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Alec was playing around with my Camera and confuse how to operate it.
Alec: "Hey, can you teach me how to use this? I don't speak camera"

Quip du Jour

Alec and I slept in the tent in our living room last night. I woke up with a shoulder ache at midnight, so I moved us to my bedroom. When Alec woke up this morning in my bed, staring at the ceiling ...

Me: "Good morning Mr. Army"
Alec: "Mom, didn't I tell you that I want to sleep in the tent yesterday?"
Me: "Yes, you did" (I smell trouble...)
Alec: "So, why am I doing here in your bed?"

Oi, you're going to be a good leader someday...

Camping

Alec had a camping gear out and set it up in the living room since this afternoon. Well, I helped him out whilst Alec instructed me what to do to build it. He is all stoked when I said "yes" to his question whether I want to sleep in the tent with him tonight. He came to my bedroom to tell me that everything is set and it's time to go to bed.

Inside the tent, he has 2 sleeping bags with pillows for us, a flash light to read Tin Tin series, cold bottle of water, game boy next to my pillow and couple of guns in the corner of the tent by his feet.
Ah, I feel better already...

Finally - - A "post" !

Oy, my apologies to those who care. It has been too long and not a peep out of this site. Not that life has been slow ~ in fact it never slows down. Life has been colorful and full of excitement. But that another story for another time :)

A little heads up on Alec: Alec has blossomed into such a charming little man. He tried really hard to talk like Sean, using prescribe sentences. I found him often pretending to talk on my cell and walk all over the house ~ complete with the hand and shoulder gesture. At school though, he act like boys his age; who teased a girl one day and got kicked on the face. By a girl. He had a lump as big as an egg on his right cheek. His replied was: "It was my fault, I was teasing her"
Such a maturation.

He played really rough and made his front teeth a little loose. That of course followed by loosing a tooth in several days. Charming. But it may as well come to the time when he looses his milk teeth. Who knows.

As I am writing this, he looses 5 milk teeth already. They are now replaced by nicely formed 4 brand new teeth. Alec participated in many extra curricular at school also. He took piano lesson for the whole semester, which he decided “not enjoying it anymore”. He continues taking percussion lesson from the beginning until now. He took part on some plays at school; participate in all kinds of school's activities such as Science Project and Business Day.

We had an Easter egg hunting trial a few days ago, to teach Sammy the idea of egg hunting :)

Medical Clearance for Taiwan

Alec and I went to Medical Unit at the Embassy today as part of getting medical clearance for our next post to Taiwan. The medical technician drew some Alec's blood and he cried. Not for long, but it was a big deal for him to sit alone without my assistance and get the shot. He also took some a "six-year-old questionnaire" (it is supposed to for progress report or something) and Alec aced them. I thought he was being super good and I promised him that he can buy one toy at the mall. On the way to the mall, the phone rang and the med. unit wanted something that I can give them on my next visit. When I hang up the phone, Alec asked the question...

Alec: "Was that from the doctor's office?"
Me: "Yes. They want me to come back but I thought you want to go home today, so I told them I can't. You should be nice to me because I did whatever you want today"
Alec: "Yes, I will... -- and you should be nice to me also because I got hurt"

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Alec kept staring at his finger where he got the shot.
Me: "It doesn't hurt anymore, does it?"
Alec: "No. But when we were at the doctor's office, I thought I was going die with the blood all over me"
Ah, the drama...

A little trip to the pharmacy

I was at the pharmacy waiting for the cashier to give me the change. I love the way they decorate the cashier register area with bunch of craps that you think you don't need but finally grab it when you see it in the last minute before you pay your items. This particular pharmacy has all kinds of colorful candies and Alec just can't take his eyes off it ...

Alec: "What are those, Mom?"
Me: "The one you pointed are cough medicine candies"
Alec: (started to cough.....) Uh, what's wrong with my throat!" and coughing again ... and again ...

Quip du Jour

I was reading my book in the tv room next to Sammy watching her Dora and was mimicking, singing Dora's song and followed every words Dora was saying.

Alec: "I don't really like Dora, though I like some of her movies"
Me: "Why don't you like her, sweetie?"
Alec: "Well, she is lying. In this movie she saw a falling star. When she found it ON THE GROUND, she held it by her hand and put it back next to the moon. She CAN'T touch a star, she will get burned! Stars are pretty but they are made from fire!"

Quip du Jour

Alec: "I've made a piggy bank today. It's made out of a box"
Me: "O yeah? You can't bring it home?"
Alec: "It's for business day, I'm going to safe my money"
Me: "You got to keep the money if you sell it?"
Alec: "Yes. Evan doesn't want to safe his money"
Me: "Why is that?"
Alec: "He wants to spend it right away. But not me. I want to safe my money for the toys I REALLY want. The toys I want has a lot of zeroes in it, that means a lot of money"
( 1 USD = 12.000 Indonesian rupiahs more less)

Quips

Every time Alec sleeps in my bed, we sort of taking turn to pray ...

Me: "I think its your turn to pray"
Alec: "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for today, I get to play badminton with Mom. Please get Mom better. And Daddy better. So we can have fun again. Please let everyone in this house to be healthy. Help us to sleep well tonight so we can wake up happy tomorrow and be "pore-duct-tive" (read: productive). We pray all these in the name of Jesus Christ. Aaaamen"

Alec: "Mom?"
Me: "Yes?"
Alec: "Vycie says that she is going to marry me when I grow up"
Me: "Goodness me. Do you like her?"
Alec: "She likes me"
Me: "I know she likes you, she wants to marry you. Do you like her?"
Alec: "A little"
Me: "What about Nasywaa? You told me a while ago that she likes you."
Alec: "Yeah. But she doesn't come back"
Me: "Well, she moves out of school. But she still around"
Alec: "It's kind of hard when you don't come back to school"

Quip du Jour

Alec is having a hard time eating fish. The only fish he had ever eat was deep fried salmon. Even that he eat the crunchy part only. When we had a Christmas eve dinner in Singapore, one of our main course was a deep fried grouper. Complete with the head, served on the table ...

Alec: "Mom, we still have the head"
Me: "I know sweetie. I'll remove it for you"
Alec: "Do you know why the fish's mouth opened like that?"
Me: "Why?"
Alec: "Because he screamed: Mama! Mama! Help Me! They want to eat ME! Mama!"

Quip du Jour

One night Sam was putting her own pajamas by herself ...

Me: "Alec look, she's dressing up by herself. I don't think you put pajamas on by yourself when you're her age. Isn't she smart?"
Alec: "Yeah, that's because I didn't have anybody to copy to"

Alec on top of the world

Vivo City, Singapore