A Daddy's Life Journal: Time flies

January 2017 almost ends. I feel much attached to my children. Their everyday's routines. Their fights. Their laughter. Their cryings. Sulking. Playing.While celebrating Chinese New Year, their happiness is hindering me from going back to Marudi to work. Work? A rather monotonous routine of punching attendance card. Talking rubbish. Doing rubbish. Just to get that pile of money to pay bills with nothing left at the end of the month.

Early of the month, Wife taught me a few simple soups such as watercress in Pork and Watercress soup. Wash the watercress a couple of times under running water. Blanch the bones in a pot and boil them in another clean pot for 45 minutes. Put in the leaves and simmer for another 15 minutes. I was blown away as the savoury delicious soup is that simple to make.

Watercress

Evenings are spent with the boys in the swimmming pool. Once, I asked them if I could take a picture of them. They readily demonstrated a few cannon ball jumps.

Darrien managed to learn to swim in simple style when we sent the boys to a beginner's swimming course. They really look forward to their swimming time every day. They will pester, plead, sulk and ask nicely every single day to bring them to swim. We set a rule that they can go swimming every other day.

I brought Darrien to school one afternoon to buy exercise books and he showed me his seat in the classroom. Right in front of the teacher's desk, as last year his same form teacher said that he was a talkative boy among his classmates. I kept motivating him to strive harder. To get more A's. To be number 1 in class. Wife was worried whether we might had pushed him a bit too hard. We sent him to tuition classes in the afternoon. So far, he is coping well.

Not as smiley as he used to, he always ask if it is alright that he needs not to smile in front of the camera when photo is taken.

A month had passed. We hope he can cope well. He can memorise the multiply of 2,3,4,5 and 10. I was 9 when we were taught "Satu darab satu sama dengan satu" while the Chinese school going children are taught " yi yi yi; yi er er.."

We also celebrated Wife's birthday in January. The boys were so eager of celebrating the occasion. Darrien started with how the balloon should be dropped from the ceiling to surprise her.We chose the birthday cake design together. We discussed how many candles to be put on the ice cream cake. We talked many hours. Such a pity that I did not record our conversations.

At the bakery, I asked Darrien to spell out the wordings on the cake. And he said M.O.M.M.Y. Not with a U. Nope, he uttered. We added Korean icing flowers to the cake decorations.

Chinese New Year was celebrated a couple of days ago. It was a joyous occasion. I enjoyed myself much with much merry makings. Wife put up a lot of CNY decorations.