Bloomin' marvelous

Small victory

2011-12-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

I am not a big fan of posh gyms. Ever since the rather scary BodyPump with Brad experience, I have only used the one near the office for my twice weekly ergo sessions. I joined it, at vast expense, seven years ago and have never got my moneys worth from it. I am also a member of two other private members clubs that have gyms and the University sports centre near where we live. With an ergo in my flat and lots of great trails nearby to run on I have lots of choices so rarely visit my wildly expensive Central gym anymore. As a result I have been contemplating cancelling my membership

For the first time in over a month I went to the gym at lunchtime today. The ergo has a lovely view of HK harbour, in fact it probably has one of the best views in the world from a rowing machine, and as I was pulling away I wondered whether it was worth paying the ridiculous monthly fees just to be able to pop in from time to time.

Then I went to shower and change and managed to lose my locker key. A nice cleaning lady helped me get my stuff out with the spare key, which I returned to the front desk as I left. It's the first time I have ever lost a locker key in any gym so I was rather surprised to be told I would have to pay $150 to replace it (that's HK dollars, so about eleven quid in British money). I pay ten times that as my monthly fee and have been a loyal member for seven years, I politely pointed out, surely they could waive it. The poor guy behind the desk looked very apologetic but told me that was the rule and he couldn't give me my membership card back until I handed over the cash. So, I told him to cancel my membership (which he did with very little protest) and I flounced out leaving him with my membership card still in hand. I would like it noted that I didn't pay the $150 either.

Brooding

2011-10-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

I have a whole bunch of friends who have either just had babies, are pregnant or are thinking of getting pregnant. This includes a friend who once scathingly said when we were both child-less career girls "What's the big deal about being pregnant? Any dumb animal can do it!". Quite a few of my friends who pregnant at similar times to me are now onto number two. My friends with children now almost outnumber my friends without. It seems that I have got to an age when the biological clock, if someone has one, has well and truly sounded the alarm, been put onto snooze a few times, and now refuses to go off.

In some ways, as one of the forerunners amongst my friends, it is nice to be asked about babies, what they do. My best friend is just realising, 4 weeks after gorgeous baby A arrived into her life, that babies don't sleep that much, tend to cry a bit and that it is perfectly OK to call her the "devil child" after a sustained period of days with no sleep. Another friend has realised that you probably shouldn't do a sea change race in an outrigger when you are 6 months pregnant (although as I recall I did try it). It's nice to have so many new members of the Mummy club and, for possibly the first time since I had Eve, I don't feel as lonely as a Mummy.

As for me? I confess, all these babies and friends with babies is making me think. I always said I would consider another when a) Eve was at pre-school b) my career was back on track c) I was fit again and winning races. All boxes are now ticked. Added to that there won't be much of a bonus for the next year or two at the Gnome bank. Perhaps I may be getting broody again myself...

Banking games

2011-10-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

I was in the lift up to work yesterday standing next to a grown woman in a smart suit playing a Smurfs game on her iphone. She got off at the investment bank trading floor. Weird.

Death becomes her

2011-09-23T17:14:00.001-07:00

As I sit in an unusual moment of calm on the sofa with no Boy (out doing a swimming race), no rowing or paddling (because Boy is out doing a swimming race) and Eve still asleep at 8am for reasons best known to the sleep fairies and not to be questioned, I am looking at our rather elderly cat fast asleep on the rug.

Marlow is a very tolerant cat. She has put up with being dragged halfway around the world, living with a sister she despised (Henley, who passed away a few years ago) and a small person coming into her otherwise calm and fuzzy life. Despite being poked, prodded, pulled and generally hassled by Eve she has never once scratched, hissed or shown anything other than mild disdain for what we have inflicted upon her. Except an mealtimes, when she loiters under Eve's chair hopefully. We have been very lucky to have such a lovely pet and she is part of our little family. She is, however, getting on a bit.

So, as I sit here pondering life and death, it strikes me that if she dies in the apartment we have a real problem. What do we do with her? In the UK the garden was the resting place for all manner of rabbits, cats, rats and so on. But in HK we don't have a garden. Henley, our other cat, helpfully died on the operating table at the vet. One week later our very apologetic vet (having killed our cat) delivered us a little urn of ashes. Those have also caused us problems in that I don't feel I can just put them in the bin and many discussions with my Mum about scattering them have led is to the conclusion that Henley was incredibly lazy, hated going outside and her favourite place was the sofa, so unless I am going to stuff them into a cushion they will just have to stay on the shelf in Eve's room. However, at least there was no issue about what to do with a dead cat body.

Marlow is very much alive (although fast asleep at the moment) so hopefully this is not a problem I will have to deal with in the immediate future. However, assuming one day I walk in to find her on the rug but just that little bit stiffer and that little bit colder. I can't just throw her off the balcony can I?

Another grumpy post about poorly behaved children

2011-09-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite blogs over the past few years is Pants with Names. Although I have neither the time nor the inclination to become part of a much larger mummy blogging community, I have my favourites that are mostly written by friend and friends of friends and I take a lot of interest and delight in the parenting challenges of others.

Recently, she wrote about whether one should or should not discipline the children of others. By discipline here we are not beating a small child in public but rather highlighting to other children some basic social norms (sharing, not hitting, being kind to smaller children) that are the basics with regards to human decency and a harmonious society. This is something I grapple with a great deal. It is a particular problem in HK because lots of children are not looked after by their parents and carers are rarely empowered to discipline the children at all, let alone in public. I don't tend to tell off children directly but I do seek out their parents or carers and suggest to them that they might like to do something. More than once I have felt very sorry for a Filipino helper whose prime motivation is to ensure that the little princeling (or princess-ling) does not tell any bad stories to Mummy about her, who has not actual support to instil discipline but faces me telling them that it would be a good idea if they could stop/start/remind their charge about something.

The worst instance was in a local theme park, Ocean Park. We went with friends and Eve was queuing up for a bouncy castle. Parents and carers were not allowed to stand with the children, but I could see Eve, and there was a park guide organising the queue. Eve was with her friend but, being kind, she had let her friend go in front and she went on a different slot to Eve. This meant that Eve was standing next to a couple of boys who pushed in front of Eve. Eve, having her mother's innate sense of fairness, asked the boys to go back, whereupon the larger brother of the two boys shouted at and hit Eve. I lost the plot completely.

I leapt over the barriers and grabbed Eve, who was by now crying. I told the park guide what had happened (she had been watching) and told her that she should remove the boys from the line immediately. She said that she didn't know what had happened, couldn't, and let the boys onto the castle. I told her, loudly and firmly, that she was reinforcing bad behaviour and if parents weren't allowed to stand in the line then she had a duty to ensure that children were treated fairly. She did that classic HK Chinese thing of saying sorry but not really engaging at all in any form of sensible discussion. Then, to top it off, she said that Eve would have to go to the back of the line to wait her turn to go on the castle again. Giving up on her completely, I looked around to find the parent of the boys to give her a piece of my mind, only to find the two boys were getting off and ran over to their Filipino helper who had seen the whole thing and just gave me a slightly weak smile as she carried their bags for them.

My Mum suggested that I write to the park manager but I know HK and they way things work here to know that nobody would care at all.

Bullies

2011-09-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

I was bullied at school. In fact at two out of my three schools. I was bullied because I was different, I was bullied because there were some nasty girls at my schools, I was bullied because I was too lacking in confidence to do much about it until my Mum stepped in - both times. I know a lot of it was from a strong desire to fit in an air of desperation and loneliness that I must have given off. Mum thinks that some children are just the "type" who get bullied. Maybe she is right. However, I spent a lot of my childhood at school being unhappy, until I finally found my voice, confidence and comfort zone at my final school.

As such I am acutely attuned to any hint of bullying or social isolation directed at Eve. She is a confident little girl around her friends but also like to fit in and be liked and seeks approval (oh so like her mother). There is one little girl in the playground, N, who is a couple of years older than Eve. I don't like N. I don't like her because she seems to enjoy excluding other children from her games. She will select one or two friends to play with and then, quite hurtfully, exclude the other children. This often includes Eve who, having been taught by her Mummy that if she wants something she should ask nicely, gets very upset when N tells her to go away. I came to the playground last night to find N sitting on a bench with one other little girl pretending to be on a boat with Eve standing nearby. She told me as I walked up to them that she was on the boat and Eve wasn't allowed on it because there were only two seats. Cue Eve getting really upset. I told her that there seemed to be lots of room and maybe we could all join her on the boat. She pointedly told me that Eve wasn't welcome. Eve started to cry.

Mercifully at that point N left the playground with her helper. H, our nanny, and I sat quietly with Eve and explained that not everyone is a nice person all the time and she had lots of other friends who would be more fun to be with. Eve gave a plaintive cry that she wanted to play with N and couldn't understand why she didn't like her.

To be honest, if it had been Eve behaving like that to another child I would have taken her to task about her behaviour. However, this is the city where 90% of children are looked after by helpers who have little or no support for discipline from the parents of their charges. I spoke to H about it, she had noticed it too and said that N's nanny knew about it but that she couldn't stop it. It would seem that the nanny fraternity in our playground have simply written N off as a spiteful bully. Sad for her when she is only 6 and sad for the other children who play there.

Portugal and Bill Clinton

2011-08-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

My recent bout of food poisoning reminds me, as it usually does, of a trip I made to Lisbon many years ago.

It was pretty early on in my relationship with the Boy, in fact it was our first break. Being just out of Uni and having no money, I managed to get cheap tickets on a BA deal and off we trotted to Lisbon. The only hotel I could afford was a rather anonymous business hotel a good 20 mins walk from the main city centre but it was a holiday and one I could afford without going into too much debt so off we went. The first 2 nights of our long weekend went really well. I had done a bit of research so we did the usual tourist things, although I discovered a useful fact about the Boy - he doesn't much like wandering around churches and that's sort of the best bit about Lisbon, and ate in some lovely local places. On our penultimate night, the Boy took control and decided that we would eat at a local BBQ chicken place he had read about. It was cheap, the food was yummy and I congratulated him on a great choice.

Until about midnight. When I started to vomit, and the other one, mainly both at the same time. About two hours later the Boy started doing pretty much the same thing. There was no way on earth we were going to manage to leave our room so we alternated between the bathroom and the bed feeling rather sorry for ourselves.

Being a lower end business hotel, it catered for Portugese business travelers. This included the TV channels where the only two English language channels were Eurosport and CNN. It was the day that Bill Clinton's deposition about not having sex with that woman. CNN was running it, in its entirety. Eurosport was running the European truck pulling championships in full, unedited. For those who have not been initiated into this wonderful sport, it involves pulling trucks. Men pulling trucks. Women pulling trucks. Other trucks pulling trucks. Riveting. So we watched Bill and trucks, upon reflection perhaps Bill would have been more interesting had he been pulling a truck, for about 8 hours.

I still feel slightly nauseous whenever I see pictures of Bill Clinton.

Weight loss HK style

2011-08-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

After 8 years in HK, about 6 more than I originally thought I would be here, I have got used to many of the less pleasant aspects of this amazing city. For example, I find that I not only tolerate but actually enjoy humidity now. I complain when it's below 25 degrees outside and frizzy hair is a small price to pay for being warm. I have given up all need for personal space and have got used to unsolicited comments telling me I am looking too fat, too thin, tired, too big and any other many comments about my appearance that seem perfectly acceptable to make to a virtual stranger. I have even got used to the slavish adherence to rules that sees me not able to raise my credit card limit or explain why I shouldn't get charged be being overdrawn on one account when it is the same account number as my other one and I have lots of money there (only someone who has lived in HK will understand that - it does sound like something from catch 22).

I had also got used to the less than strict food safety and hygiene standards in resaurants and it's been a full three years since I ate out and anything got to me, in any country in Asia. Until this week. After a fun and rare night out on a school night at a driving simulator (I lost all the races in the slow cars but did rather well in anything fast, even beating the boy in the final F1 race) and then a curry. It was one of the better quality curry houses in HK and I didn't eat anything odd but overnight I made friends with my bathroom. Three days later I still can't keep solid food in me, although I don't seem to feel too bad on it and I must be losing weight - every cloud and all that. Perhaps part of me, ie bits to do with digestion it seems, are still English at heart.

True blood

2011-08-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

Today I got a notice about the company blood donor drive. Once or twice a year there is a blood donation day at the office. It's a great way to get blood donated and, like the UK, there is no fee paid to the donors so it really is a civic responsibility for the people of HK. Being a newly minted permanent resident (I picked up my new ID card today) I decided I wanted to donate. I know that, in the past, I was rejected because I had lived in the UK and there is still a general fear about CJD. However, this was before I realised that I an O negative and, therefore, a rather rare and useful blood group. I checked the stats and it is especially rare amongst those of Chinese ethnicity and, according to Wikipedia, just 0.31% of the HK population are this blood group. Surely, there could be an exception.

Um, no.

Amusingly I can't donate in the UK either because the countries in Asia I have travelled to exclude me from giving in the UK too.

Oh well, me and my rare blood type will just have to settle for doing out civic duty in some other way.

Permanent

2011-07-04T05:50:00.001-07:00

I'm a permanent HK resident now. This means that I can live and work here without needing a visa (yey), I can vote (double yey) and I have been here 8 whole years (shit, that went fast). It doesn't mean I can get a school place though!

Simplify

2011-07-04T05:45:00.001-07:00

I've always been one for taking on a bit too much. I have the attention span of a goldfish and, most of the time, a huge amount of energy. I may also be just a tiny bit competitive and don't really think that it's worth doing something unless you do it well (or enjoy it, but often they are one and the same). However, earlier this year I realised that I was struggling a bit and had really taken on a bit too much. Aside from the full time job and being a Mum, I also had training for two competitive sports, sunday school teaching, voluntary work as a mentor for a reforming teenage drug addict, rowing club secretary and, after agreeing to organise a dinner for my former head of college, the alumni convenor for my college (although other than one dinner I've not actually done much yet). So, for the first time in my life, I have given something up.

I am no longer rowing club secretary. Someone else has taken on that task and after 6 years (out of the 8 we have been here) that I have been on the club committee I am nothing, nil, of no importance at all.

What will I do with all my spare time now? I was thinking of Chinese classes...

Another mummy moment

2011-07-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

To other Mums (and Dads).

Do you ever have a moment when it hits you, I mean really hits you, that you are a parent and your child is the most lovely and most important thing in your life? It's that moment when you really understand what unconditional love is all about - with the beauty and the pain that goes along with it - and how incredibly special it is.

It's the most amazing feeling alive.

School daze

2011-07-04T05:14:00.000-07:00

I need to get Eve into a school by the tim she turns five. I started this process just after she turned 3. Two years would be ample to have a good look at schools, make a decision about which ones to apply for and get her a place. I mean, two years is two years isn't it. I even laughingly told a friend of mine with a newborn, when she asked me whether I had put Eve's name down for a place yet, that she was mad and should enjoy her maternity leave. Oh how I laughed. Oh how I don't now. There are not enough places for expat children in HK to all go to an international school. Due to a bit of nationalistic fervour around the time of the handover back to China, almost all fully government funded schools decided to teach on "mother tongue". A great idea to get exam results up but there is now a whole generation who have been educated in a language that almost nobody outside HK speaks (Cantonese - at least educating in Mandarin would have made more sense) and a whole generation of Chinese parents who apply for the already scarce places at the English-speaking international schools because they want their children to be fluent in English.

If I was any other nationality except British then I would get priority for the international school of my country. French, German, Swiss, Australian - even the Norwegians have their own school. However the descriptively named "British International School" is open to anyone who has enough money and who applies early enough. Bugger whether or not you are British.

Most schools in HK work on a first-come-first-served basis, and I've had admissions officers laugh at me when I tell them Eve is 3 as if I am asking to send an eighteen year old to kindergarten. Apparently anything later than embryonic and I may as well not bother to apply. So much for me thinking I would select the schools, it is more of a case of getting Eve into anywhere now.

The priority for getting into these schools is as follows:
1 - national of the relevant country (bugger that for me then)
2 - have a hugely over priced corporate debenture. This is something companies buy to secure places for their overseas employees. Neither the Boy nor I are eligable for one.
3 - buy your own hugely overpriced corporate debenture. Um, I don't have a spare million hong kong dollars kicking around for that one. And even if we did the waitlist for most of the debentures is 2 years anyway so I'm too late
4 - when you applied for the school i.e. the earlier the better

The more eagle eyed will have realised that nowhere does the ability of the child have anything to do with this. It's mainly about money. Welcome to Hong Kong.

I have applied for the Canadian (lovely campus and nearby), a newish school with rave reviews and small class sizes (but we would have to move to get closer to them), and the German Swiss school on the basis that I work for a Swiss bank and I might get some sort of priority over others. You have to pay to even apply to the schools (a couple of hundred UK pounds each) so it's not a decision to be taken lightly. That doesn't even guarantee you an interview either, it's just a fee for them to read your application.

A friend told me, to calm me down, that you rarely hear of children who don't find a school place anywhere and have to leave HK. True, but there's always a first time.

Princesses

2011-06-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

I am not really all that bothered about royalty or princesses. At lunch today with two colleagues, one Italian and one from the US, they asked my opinion on the British royal family. To be honest I am somewhat ambivalent. I don't think they do any harm, they don't cost much money and they are good for British tourism and charity work. I don't care much for their births, deaths and marriages and the Boy and I spent most of the aftermath of Diana's death wondering what insanity had gripped the country. Although I felt sad that two boys had lost their Mum, that was about it.

In HK it has been pretty easy to ignore the Royal Wedding. There was an etiquette class in a local shopping mall run by a Kate-look-alike shipped over from the UK, but if one didn't watch the BBC then there wasn't much about it. We forgot it was even happening until I popped on the news after Eve had gone to bed and saw "the kiss".

Eve is obsessed by Princesses. I rather like the Disney version because they tend to be pretty positive role models, witty, feisty, independent and often the prince has to work pretty damn hard to win his princess. Eve has numerous dolls and books, and although she has had a slight flirtation with Tinkerbell and the fairies (similarly very positive role models), she tends to revert back to her Princesses.

I have been reading a bit about Kate, or Princess Catherine, lately by virtue of the aforementioned Italian colleague introducing me to the online version of the Sun (I know, I know but how would I otherwise know the crucial information about TOWIE?). She seems, within reason, far more like the Disney princesses than any did before her (does her own shopping, buys from high street stores, does her own hair, flies in a normal plane - although I'd be REALLY impressed if they fly economy) and for the first time I find a small sense of pride in my royal family.

Barbie

2011-05-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

I don't like Barbie. I think I may be alone in this because judging by the amount of Barbie-related junk (move, books, hair clips, pens, bike, iphone apps, rubbish bin etc etc) there must be an awful lot of people out there who are happily buying into the vacuous blond bimbo. I, however, am not one of them.

I have nothing against dolls per se. In fact Eve has lots. She loves, and I entirely approve of, the Disney Princesses. They are feisty, clever, witty and often the prince is nothing but a mere sideshow. One of the latest films, the Princess and the Frog, was ultimately about pursuing your own dream to run a business - the prince and the princess bit was a bit irrelevant to the main part of the story. Here is someone who is an excellent role model for the modern young girl. Therefore, Eve has lots of princess related stuff, including the dolls, and I have no problem with it.

It's just Barbie. Aside from the fact that her body shape is utterly unrealistic (although I read recently that her boobs have got smaller over the last 10 years, that's OK then but she still wouldn't be able to stand up and would have awful back problems) her only real talent or appeal comes in being pretty and wearing nice clothes. In the 1960s Barbie started to have the odd job but they have always been traditionally female roles and, as I said to a male colleague yesterday, even Doctor Barbie wears an outfit more likely to have come out of his fantasy than mine. As if to refute my claim that "you'd never get a banker Barbie", he found one online. Of course she's not sitting behind a trading screen, but at the reception of a suitably pink branch.

Eve knows that Mummy isn't too keen on Barbie and, while looking at a picture in a Barbie book the other day (which I will allow in the house) she asked me why I don't like Barbie. I replied that it wasn't that I disliked Barbie but rather than I think women should be valued for their intellect, skills and talent rather than just how they look and what they wear. Her reply "But Mummy, don't you think her dress looks pretty?".

I'll try feminism again when Eve is five.

Previews

2011-05-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

I don't get much time on my own to write the blog, so I tend to have to do it all at once. So that I don't forget the posts I have not had time to write tonight, I am going to give a preview of the next 3 posts.

Barbie
Sports Day
Air travel

Feel free to vote on which one you would like to read first!

Working Mum's dilemma

2011-05-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

It is mother's day next Sunday everywhere except the UK. This means that the Boy gets a shot at not forgetting, having been reminded back in March already about the UK one. It also means that Mums get invited to participate in lots of celebrations of Mum-hood.

Except, like most things, I always leave it to the last minute and forget. This year, with Eve at the stupidly-expensive-what-am-I-paying-for pre-school, Mums get invited in to have something made for us and a special Mum's story. It is on the 6th May so I booked the time off months ago, moved meetings, arranged to be in the country.

Then we get an email on 29th April, just before a HK public holiday, when the school is on vacation, saying that it has been moved to one week later. Cue panic and annoyance from me. They post the important dates on their website and I arrange my working life around them so that I can attend concerts and sports days and expected events, it is simply not acceptable to change them with one week notice. I almost wrote a nasty email back as disgruntled of Pokfulam, but it seemed a bit pointless because it wouldn't make any difference. Most of the Mums at the school don't work (I've only found one other that does so far) so presumably most only needed to change their yoga classes or tennis lessons.

Do I sound like a bitch? Probably.

The friends you make during pregnancy

2011-05-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

While staying in on my own last night (public holiday so no nanny and the Boy is visiting one of my favourite cities in the world - boo hiss) I watched an interesting program on BBC Knowledge about diet and fat. Apparently, one can increase the number of fat cells in ones body, for example when one is pregnant and tends to lay down a little extra for winter, but once they are there we can't get rid of them. It doesn't matter what you try, they just sit their waiting to soak up fat.

So all those hours at the gym and denying myself doughnuts is pointless.

Then I hit upon the solution. Surgery. A bit over the top?

Summer has finally hit HK

2011-05-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

Within one day of the temperature changing, I have 10 mossie bites and feel like one big itch. Despite being on the 23rd floor and too far away from the ground for the little blighters to fly into the flat, the little bastards have a way of getting into the lift on or with someone and setting up home in our flat. One has been munching me for the last two nights, despite deet, citronella and mossie coils going all night.

As I was in my kitchen this evening making a cup of tea, the horrid (and, may I say, rather full) looking suspect tried to land on me. Ha, gotcha. I feel great now and hope to sleep in peace - unless there are two of them...

When the cat's away

2011-05-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up my Dad rarely went on business trips and when he did it was usually to see some sort of nuclear machine in Switzerland. I remember his trips for two reasons. Firstly because he used to bring back presents, a music box, a bear, chocolate. Secondly, because whenever he went away some calamity would befall the family. One year there was the UK's strongest hurricane in decades, made famous my Michael Fish declaring there was only a bit of mild wind on the way. Another year I recall my Mum dropping me off at school and watching the exhaust fall off the car as she drove down the road.

This tradition seems to have been passed down a generation and, with stunning regularity, Eve always gets sick when the Boy is on a business trip. Of the 4 times we have taken Eve to hospital (not as extreme as it sounds, the doctors in HK don't do "on call" so our only option on a weekend or evening is to head to the local hospital), three of these times the Boy has been away.

He flew to Turkey on Sunday. Today is Tuesday and, true to form, Eve has a stinking fever with no obvious cause and I am looking at a sleepless night on my own.

Last will and testament and a final joke

2011-04-08T05:01:00.001-07:00

In amongst the things that my mother has been left, relatively abruptly, to handle on her own, probate and handling the will seems to be the most troublesome. As with all things in life, she has approached it with an admirable sense of practical togetherness. One of the problems she faced is that Dad hadn't updated his will in a while and it refers to assets that we no longer have so we need to adjust the will. As an executor, and one who lives in a different country, I needed to waive my rights over this or some such. Mum called me to tell me there was a form in the post for me to sign to do this.

Mum: It's in the post but there is just one thing I need to tell you. Your Dad wrote you into the will as Mrs S (my husband's surname)
Me: But that isn't my legal name. On all documents I am Ms P.
Mum: I know, but it will be too much hassle so can you just sign it as Mrs S?
Me: (raised voice) But I am not Mrs S. I have never been Mrs S. That's the name of my mother in law. I am Ms P.
Mum: (sighing) I know, but your Dad wrote you into his will as Mrs S so that's what you need to sign the form as
Me: But I'm not Mrs S. Dad knew that. It was a ridiculous thing for him to have done, he knew I am not Mrs S and hated anyone calling me that.
Mum: Yes, of course he did and he knew how much it annoyed you so you should probably think of it as his last joke.

And in that light it made complete sense, very much my Dad's sense of humour to jovially wind me up about it. Even in death Dad managed to make me laugh.

Be prepared

2011-04-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

I was at lunch with a colleague a few weeks ago when, over post lunch coffee, he announced that he'd just bought some survival rope (or some such, there was a name but I can't remember it) for his survival kit. Thinking he was joking, and he is a colleague of whom I am very fond and work with a lot, I was a bit bemused. This came a couple of days after the Japan earthquake, after which most of HK had totally overreacted to the idea that radiation might reach HK, so I really thought he was joking.

He then proceeded to tell me the contents of his family's survival kit. He strongly believed that he should have sufficient food, clothing and water for a week.

I didn't quite know what to say. Having been stuck in a natural disaster myself, my main thought was a) helping other people b) getting out and c) making sure the duty free booze and the chairs we had bought got out with us. I don't joke lightly about this. We were on the coast of Sri Lanka when the boxing day tsunami hit and I saw and did some horrible things and have never felt fear like it before or since. The focus of the chairs and champagne got us through with relative good humour and sanity in the face or the tragedy around us. However, I can't think of that many situations we would ever be in within HK when we would need a survival kit. I take on board the food and water argument, but sleeping bags and ropes? Are we assuming all our apartments will be flattened and I'll need to scale a mountain?

Maybe I am a cynical Brit. Maybe I am somewhat fatalistic about things and take each day as it comes. Perhaps I should think about this more seriously and he has a point.

This post invites comment so please do.

On a cold damp day in HK

2011-03-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

HK is unusually cold for the end of March and today was even more miserable with a light drizzle too. Having lost the Boy to the HK Sevens rugby all weekend I have been enjoying some bonding girl time with Eve. After ruling out museums and playrooms (we went yesterday) and shopping there isn't much left to do indoors in HK on a wet and cold day. However, I have stumbled on a great way to spend a day. Bus adventure!

HK is blessed with a brilliant public transport system with lots of regular, clean and warm buses. To have a bus adventure you start at a bus stop somewhere away from where you live (thereby giving you a more unusual range of buses). You agree to get on the first bus that arrives at the stop and go as far as you can on it. Then get off and have some fun. For the second and subsequent legs of the adventure (and to avoid just getting the same bus back again) you pick a number from one to ten and get on a bus with that number on it. Eve and I had lots of fun and variously ended up in a market, a coffee shop, HK's fanciest shopping centre and Marks & Spencer (I may have engineered that one so I could pick up supper!).

We had such good fun, seeing new bits of HK and not quite knowing where our adventure would take us. Definitely one to do again.

Demo

2011-03-27T03:43:00.000-07:00

On the same weekend as some half a million british turned out in London to demonstrate against the cuts, Hong Kong had a similar demo going too.

People in HK, if pushed, go a long way to protect the freedoms afforded them under the One Country, Two Systems of government when the UK ceded control of HK to China. The turn out every year at the candlelit vigil of the 1984 Tiananmen Square massacre is tremendous, almost 20 year after the event. When the HK government tried to enact Article 23, which effectively would have given the government the right to restrict many freedoms under a subversion law (similar laws are widely used in China to silence dissent) a million people came out onto the streets. If one bears in mind that there were only 7 million people living in HK at the time, this number seems all the more impressive.

Todays demo, however, was on a somewhat less grand scale. The demonstration was against the governments latest budget, the main point of which seems to involve giving every permanent resident a gift of HK$8,000. Despite this, there are some cuts and the local socialists and left wingers organised a demo today. I only know about this because Eve and I were on a bus adventure today and we got stuck in some light traffic. Despite the news reports of there being 10,000 people, I estimate there were about 150.

The wealth gap in HK is one of the worst in the world and there is no real social security to speak of (although medical care and schooling remains free for the poorest, which still puts HK well ahead of most countries in this region). However, it is also possibly the most capitalist country in the world as well. As I walked past the socialist party of HK banner I felt a sense of respect - it's not even an uphill struggle trying to bring socialist principals to a city like HK, it must just be akin to banging ones head against a mountain in the hope that one day you might chip just a tiny bit off!

Dear germs, again

2011-03-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

Dear germs,

Did I say something wrong? Did I do something to offend? I am not sure what I deserved for you to make Eve's ear hurt so much and fever so high that I only got 2 hours sleep last night. And another doctor's bill today.

I would like to thank Dr David for telling me exactly the same thing as Dr Louisa did yesterday, but seeing how frazzled I am and giving me some slightly stronger painkiller for Eve tonight. Take that germs - ha ha ha (hmm, perhaps I am a little bit overtired).

Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight.

Yummy Mummy

PS. I did find that the lovely Dr David, who usually sees Eve at night, fancies Dr Louisa, who sees Eve during the day. I find that sort of sweet.

Letter to the germs

2011-03-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

Dear germs,

I know that you need to live and eat and have happy germ sex or whatever it is that is your reason for being. I am really truly grateful that you saved the earth in War of the Worlds. I am impressed by your evolutionary rigour. However, I don't need this rigour and life-loving spirit to be displayed with quite such regularity via my daughter.

When I took her, again, to the doctor today (please bear in mind that I am not fond of doctors and they are bloody expensive in HK so it takes a lot for me to take Eve) and the doctor asked me how long she had been ill for I struggled to think of a time in the last year when she hasn't had a cough or a cold or a fever or some minor childhood ailment that has been just under the surface and mildly annoying for all concerned.

I am hoping that the 8 times she vomited today, including twice on me, will be the last display that you need to make for a while. It has been pretty impressive an I hope that you also found it amusing that I am having to shove a supository up her my daughters' bum to stop her vomiting. Can we just now agree I realise you are big and clever and can you please now just bugger off? For a couple of months at least. I really need to get some sleep and Eve needs to stop wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Thanks

Yummy Mummy

A little bit of HK panic

2011-03-17T03:56:00.000-07:00

If you have been breathing and near a TV or radio over the past few days then one will inevitably know about the horrific disaster that has befallen Japan in the last week. I have a particular fondness for Japan - Eve's first Christmas was spent in Tokyo, where her first steps were taken too. The Japanese are such kind people and I urge anyone to help in any way that they can.

However, this post is not about the Japanese. It is about the complete overreaction of people here in Hong Kong. Even the biggest doom-mongers regarding the nuclear reactors are not suggesting it will contaminate the whole region. Japan possibly and, if the wind changes, some of the coast or Korea and China. This is tough to contemplate, but it does not mean that Hong Kong needs to undergo some sort of mass panic.

The Hong Kong observatory website has, clearly knowing the tendency for people here to panic a bit, put up a nice clear diagram about exactly where our air comes from i.e. not Japan. It has also put the pages dealing with radiation levels, which I suspect never before registered a single hit, linked to the homepage. This is not so much Douglas Adams telling us "Don't panic" but rather "there is absolutely nothing to even register a panic about".

This has not stopped the gossip or doom-mongering. One colleague I sit near has taken to loudly telling anyone who calls from Europe that we are all watching Bloomberg closely to see what will happen with the reactors and whether HK will be effected. I admit that we are all looking closely at Bloomberg, but that is because the stock markets have been in freefall for the last 3 days AND WE WORK AT A BANK. The day I rely on Bloomberg for advice on nuclear physics I may as well pack up and turn off the lights as I leave!

Another colleague has booked herself an open ended ticket to Australia. Another is talking about whether she can work from the Singapore office.

None of this is in anyway logical. My point to anyone who cares to listen is that the point at which we in HK need to worry (meaning that most of Taiwan, Korea and China would have been hit too) there will be far bigger global ramifications for us all than whether we can get on a flight to Singapore. Concern and worry should, in my opinion, be squarely where it is deserved - right now that is with the people, including my colleagues and friends, who are in Japan.

Lost

2011-03-12T00:08:00.000-08:00

There's been a bit of a gap since my last post. There are lots of inane reasons I could blame. The computer broke and I can't log on from work. I've been super busy with a promotion and exams and so managing the work-life balance has meant not much time for other things. As Eve grows up things change less quickly, I get better at managing the challenges and need to write about them less (I still read all the other blogs regularly though).

However, the real reason is that I've been having a tough few months. My beloved Dad died just before Christmas. Bereavement, whatever the circumstances, is overwhelming and although daily life goes on, it is a constant filter through which you see and do everything. I have started a whole bunch of posts but when I read them back I realised how they were coloured by this filter so I binned them. I also don't want to upset my Mum, who is the most amazing woman and I want to only do things that help and support her. I know she reads this, and she worries about us and I don't want her to worry, so I wanted to be strong and sensible and alright.

Now I have decided just to have done with it and write this.

I really, really, miss my Dad.

That's all for this post.

Christmas Cheer

2010-12-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

It was Eve's first school Christmas concert this week. The Boy and I had taken the morning off and, video camera in hand, treked off to her school to watch her musical genius.

I know Eve has musical genius because for the last 4 weeks she has been practicing her Christmas songs. Loudly. Whenever she can.

Quick note to all teachers of almost three year olds, they cannot and will not be able to (for another year of so) sing the words "figgy pudding" so unless you want 40 parents giggling at whatever slightly rude words this phrase tends to sound like, ditch the second verse.

Being a stupidly expensive private nursery (although in HK they all are, but it still grates on me), we were welcomed by mince pies, juice and punch. I noted that the mother of the behaviourally challenged child and she of the really odd email had hit the punch. Then we were ushered into a room with the lilliput chairs whereupon we were told how hard all the children had been working on their songs.

Now, I can't recall being almost three but I am pretty sure that when faced with a paparazzi style group of 40 adults, all with cameras clicking and videos whirring, the only sensible reaction would be to panic, cry, gaze in fear and amazement - or all three. Which is what almost all of the 15 children in Eve's class did. There was absolutely NO singing at all. Cue more scary (sorry, encouraging) smiles from the parents and one parent actually got up and gave their little one a bit of a prod.

Half way through the first song, which was really only being sung by the teachers and parents, things started to get more interesting. One little girl, to her credit, threw herself into the challenge and started singing and dancing. One little boy took off his santa hat and went and sat on his Mum. Behaviourally challenged boy started grunting loudly. Another girl burst into very loud sobs. Eve stood, looked at us, smiled a bit and then went back to her previously mute and bemused status.

Nothing really changed on the next song, except that the kids had bells to ring so it was even more obvious that they were not actually moving. Jingle bells sung by the teachers and parents to resolutely silent bells.

It was hilarious. All us parents seemed to step into the enthusiasm vacuum of our children by overcompensating and behaving like, well, almost three year olds singing Christmas songs. Hand waving, manic smiles, clapping, even jingling the odd bell.

After about 15 minutes the performance was finished and off we all went after wondering at the Christmas craft that the children had done. As an aside, Eve told me that her reindeer looked sad because he had lost his Mummy. Ah, that will be what she did while I was away in the UK last week.

Merry Christmas!

Theology 101

2010-12-03T16:39:00.001-08:00

This is the first Christmas where Eve has been old enough to start to grasp the Christmas story. As we go to church mostly every week, she has a pretty basic idea of concepts such as God, Jesus and prayers. She knows that we celebrate Christmas because it is Jesus' birthday, albeit with huge frustration that she won't actually get to open the baby Jesus window on her advent calendar for another 20 days.

One of the lesser known facts about her Mummy is that I have a degree in theology. I specialised in the Judeo-Christian tradition and can even read the New Testament in the original greek - well, maybe not now, but I managed to pass the relevant translation exam for my finals. Therefore, there are few theological concepts that I have not thought about, grappled with, and settled in my own mind.

Having an almost three year old throws new light on these. The big ones about the relationship between the God we pray to and Jesus are actually rather easy to explain. God wanted to visit us so he sent Jesus. Jesus now lives with God in heaven (along with great granddad Harry). Jesus was born as a baby and yes, he grew up and taught us lots of important things.

I am also finding that the exposure that the bible stories give to Eve on concepts such as sickness, people being nasty and death (why is it so many people kill children in biblical stories?!) are helpful in exposing her, in a gentle way, to some of the nasties in the world.

However, Eve managed to flumox me this week when we were in a taxi. "Mummy, did the Roman's kill Jesus?". This stumped me a bit. Well, firstly, which gospel are you using? They all have it in a slightly different way. Secondly, is the failure to stop something awful happening tantamount to supporting it? Finally, if ones looks into the political climate of when the gospels were written and the political as well as theological points they are trying to make then can we be sure anyway?

I ended up muttering "well, sort of" and pointing out something pink outside the cab to distract her.

For other such theological musings with children, check out this.

Running with the Dragons

2010-11-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

Fresh off the flight back from the UK, with only about 4 hours sleep overnight and I found myself up at 6am the next day to do a 24km canoeing race.

Insane? Probably. Hard as nails? Yes. Now injured with all manner of random bruises, scars and muscle aches? Indeed.

I've added it to the list of improbably stupid races I've done since I fell pregnant and wondered whether the men's crews we beat (I was in a mixed crew with a male friend of mine) are pissed off that they got beaten by a girl. Tee hee.

Eve and the Boy were there to cheer me in. I sometimes wonder what Eve must think of her mother doing all this sport - but then conclude that I must be setting some sort of positive example!

For more details on the race, and should anyone fancy trying it next year, look here

Welcome home, Eve-style

2010-11-30T05:46:00.000-08:00

I've not had the best week of my life over the past week. Too detailed and too personal to go into here, but needless to say it involved an urgent dash halfway across the world to London and visiting hospitals. Always the worst fear for any expat who is miles away from their family.

This was also the first time that I had been away from Eve for more than a few days. And the first time on a weekend. I cried when I left home to go to the airport, forcing the Boy to promise to skype me in London before Eve went to bed every night. In the end it was fine. Eve got away with murder while I was away. Exhibit A - a weekend phone call home.

Me "Hello, where are you?"
Boy "In a shop"
Me "I can hear Eve in the background talking about Upsy Daisy, shouldn't she be having a nap right now?"
Boy "I asked her about a nap and she said that she didn't want one"

Hmm, so that's OK then! Eve also wants to ride my motorbike and drive the car but I hope to goodness he didn't let her do those while I was away. In all seriousness, the Boy made a great single Dad and both seemed to have lots of fun without me. That said, I hoped that when I got home Eve would be pleased to see me back.

I purposely walked into the flat, fresh off my flight back to HK, gifts in hand. Whereupon Eve took one look at me, nearly burst into tears and cried "But Mummy, I was about to go to the playground!". After five minutes of gentle reassuring that we would still go and I would come too, and the presentation of the Harrods westie dog in his own bag (thereby combining two of Eve's favourite things in one gift - a fluffy dog and a handbag), I got a huge cuddle and off we went to play on the slide.

When the wheels fall off... the track wheel that is

2010-11-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

I don't have much patience for whinging (or gossip, but that's another story). I had lunch today with K, a feisty colleague who is Mum to not one but two gorgeous little girls. K, being the efficient lass that she is, popped them both out at once too. We were talking about someone she knows who is pregnant for the third time and has taken to her Mum's house for the last trimester because she's a bit tired and needs to lie down. Ah, bless. K and I both scoffed at this lack of gumption, us being both of a certain nationality and certain type of upbringing where complaining is seen as a sign of weakness and is punishable by death.

However, I confess that today I feel a lot like complaining. My life is starting to feel like a conveyor belt that seems to be getting faster and faster. I never much liked the Generation Game, I have found something inherently scary about Bruce Forsyth since I was a small child, but I am increasingly finding myself shouting the working Mum equivalent of "teasmaid, TV, hockey stick, cuddly toy" at my life as I desperately try to remember everything I need to do.

So, this morning, for the first time in my career I found myself late to a meeting. Not just a bit late, but full on halfanhourlateanditswithmybossandlotsofimportantpeopleshit late. The cause? My Blackberry broke last night. My life is now organised to the millisecond and if I don't have something to write it all down in and flash and vibrate at me violently to remind me to be somewhere then my life simply stops. Everything goes into my Blackberry, I even put my Sunday school teaching dates into it. Without it to organise my life I am lost.

My assistant called IT to get it fixed this morning, I couldn't bear to call and she had to prise my fingers off it. Someone came and took my broken little device away, and as I wept and made the man from IT to promise me that he wouldn't leave me on my own for too long, I realised the only option is to cancel all meetings for two days until I get the new one.

Stuck inside

2010-10-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

A typhoon is about to hit HK (well, maybe, if it can make up its mind where it is going). This is annoying because I have my big rowing races this weekend. The ones for which I have given up my life for over the past 5 months of hard training and dragged myself kicking and screaming countless times onto an ergo. These are the races where all the good international crews come to race. Chinese national crew anyone? But now it is likely to be called off and, well, that's all folks.

However, considering one of the news reports I read today called the oncoming super-typhoon Megi "more powerful than Katrina" I think that come Saturday I will have more to worry about than a rowing race. Thankfully HK is pretty well prepared for this sort of thing - even if it is going to be much, much worse than the normal typhoons that hit.

H, our nanny will be going out tomorrow to panic buy food and I am going to panic buy Disney and Dreamworks DVDs.

The Boy, typically, is flying out of HK tomorrow to go off rowing in the US, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Mummy rant

2010-10-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since I updated this. In my defence this is my busiest time of the year when I am trying to train for two big races in the next month, write a strategic plan for my team, have a full time job AND be a Mummy that Eve recognises as someone who is involved in her life wearing anything other than sweaty rowing kit or a business suit.

It is usually this time of year that the work/life dilemma looms large and I get to the point where I realise that I simply can't fit everything in. This normally results in me deciding that the only thing to be done is give up work and be an expat wife. Or move to another country. I think both would be slightly extreme responses and the more sensible one would be simply to take on a bit less (I have now added being a Sunday school teacher to my extra curricula activities).

However, for a really extreme response see the below email that was sent out by a parent of a child from Eve's class in reply to an invitation by another to meet for coffee mid-week, when any working Mum is in the office. I'm not sure whether she is taking the piss, had a few drinks too many and let rip, or is really angry enough to send this email to a bunch of parents she has never met. Or all of the above. A few names and locations changed to protect those involved.

"I'm Alice's mom. I would love to come but I tragically have to go to work. I recently discovered that I hate working and I want nothing more than being a stay at home mom, as its so much more fulfilling than the unintellectually stimulating crap I'm doing now. Unfortunately I am in the middle of a project and I can't really leave until February. So as much as I would love to join you, I'm afraid instead that I have to be in my horrible little office carrying out pointless work. Please have a coffee on me and let me know about any weekend playdates, I would love to come along. God I can't wait to resign and be there for my kids."

The real meaning of soap box

2010-08-29T04:51:00.000-07:00

Short update on the local election. As election day nears (5th September) the wavers and bowers are out in force. On my way to church today both Paul and Ellis were standing at the same junction waving. I note that Ellis has stopped bowing now, although it was a rather hot day today. It has taken the whole competitive side of the election to a new level when both candidates' waving abilities can be judged side by side.

Clearly, however, the Ellis camp felt they were losing out because on my way home this afternoon I noticed Ellis seemed somewhat taller. A closer look showed that he was, in fact, standing on a blue plastic box.

You couldn't make it up.

Boys and girls bits

2010-08-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

Eve has a little friend in the playground, M. He is 4 and his little bother is Eve's age. M is quite taken with Eve and Eve is rather taken with M. He is quite a boisterous little boy, but very gentle and kind to Eve. I think it might help that she is the same height as he is.

We were in the playground yesterday and the three of them were playing together. M needed a wee and ran over to the gutter, pulled down his pants, and had a wee. Eve, wanting to copy everything he does, then went over to the gutter and pulled down her knickers. Quickly running over to pull them up, I explained to her that girls have to wee on the toilet. She initially seemed suspicious, but after some reinforcement by M's nanny, Eve asked to go to the loo. There are loos in the swimming pool by the playground and M insisted on coming with us.

When we got there, however, Eve refused to let me pick her up and pop her on the loo and screamed that she wanted to wee standing up. She had a complete tantrum over it. I explained that girls can't wee standing up because boys have a willy and girls don't. She started to scream louder. Whereupon I looked next to me to see that M had pulled out his willy, held it out so Eve and I could see and said proudly "see this is a willy, and you don't have one".

Eve went quiet, absorbed this piece of factual reality, turned around and sat on the loo.

He who bows lowest

2010-08-18T05:07:00.000-07:00

A slight diversion from Mummy chat for a moment to explain a strange phenomenon occurring in Pokfulam (the suburb where we live). We are currently in the run up to a local election for a seat on the district council.

The seat was formerly occupied by Ronnie Chan (now gone to work as a government advisor). Ronnie started a new method of connecting with the electorate by standing with big banners at the junction of my apartment complex and the main road and waving all day. He was the only candidate we ever saw. Our apartment complex has around 1,000 apartments. The equivalent complex just below us about the same. So some clever election analyst figured out that dear Ronnie could capture around 4,000 voters by simply standing in one place all day. Ronnie won the election by a landslide.

This might sound a bit facile but there are few differences in policy platform between the parties. They tend to be either democrats (whose main angle is universal suffrage for HK, because we don't actually have it yet) or the pro-Beijing parties (who don't want it, or only in a form that could never challenge the mainland government). In reality all important decisions in HK are made up of a largely unelected bunch of people at a city-wide level, so the district council hasn't got much impact. Therefore, it is more like a school election popularity contest than a sensible election.

For this election we have two democrat candidates. I think the pro-Beijing ones have largely given up on our district, which is mainly expat and middle-class Chinese. Both candidates have adopted Ronnie's approach and placed themselves strategically at points to gain maximum awareness.

Initially I was impressed by Ellis. Not only does he stand there all day, but he adds a bow to every passing car. Not just any bow either, but full ninety degrees bend at the waist bow. He does this to every car. I was impressed and had decided that he would get my vote.

However, over time we have seen less of Ellis and he seems to have been replaced by supporters who just wave. I would rather see Ellis, it shows a sense of commitment, but at least if he is going to send a replacement then they should also adopt the bow.

Feeling somewhat let down, this morning I was on the bike on my way back from circuits to find our other candidate, Paul, setting up his own stand. This was 7am and he was doing it himself. Not just sending some student supporter to get his banners ready, but doing it himself. Ellis doesn't do that!

So now I find myself conflicted.

That said, I've not yet filled in the permanent residency forms so I am not actually entitled to vote. But that doesn't stop me taking this whole election process terribly seriously.

Influenza childcare

2010-07-20T06:28:00.001-07:00

The past weekend I've been rather ill. Too ill to drink wine and too ill to row - usually the sure signs that something is actually wrong. I suspect I just had man flu, but it resulted in a stinking cough, a nose that could run marathons, an annoyingly persistent fever and reacquainting myself with everything I ate. All in all not much fun.

On Saturday the Boy was sublimely helpful in staying home from rowing to look after Eve while I pathetically lay down, threw up and generally made sad and self-pitying noises at him.

Sunday was a different matter because he had to race and, well, unless I was really ill (and bear in mind he still went rowing when I was stricken with pneumonia last year) he was heading off to spend half the day at the river. After lying in bed and feeling sorry for myself, during which he did offer to take Eve with him and see if someone could look after her while he raced, I decided it was mind over matter and of course I could look after my child, however awful I felt. Single mothers have to do it, people without live in nannies manage. Somewhat confused, I had after all been throwing up an hour earlier, the Boy took the window of opportunity and fled.

It started rather well. I needed to bring my fever down and what better than lolling around the pool for an hour. We had fun, I only had to drag Eve out of the pool to the loo so I could dry retch once, and thankfully we were the only people there so my hacking cough wasn't within earshot of anyone who might mutter something about avian flu at me. Then we came home, I switched on Cbeebies for a quick 10 minute fix of the Fimbles while I rinsed the swim stuff. I sat on the sofa for no more than a split second, but the next thing I know it's an hour later and we're watching Mr Maker.

Horrified at having let Eve watch an hour of TV, I got out the farm and vets set and we started playing with the toy animals. Except after an hour I felt rather wiped out again, so became ever more horizontal on the play mat. The next thing I know is that I woke up with two small pigs and a cow on my chest. By this time Eve had clearly got used to me dropping fast asleep every so often and happily continued to play as if I was still awake.

The pattern continued for a few more hours, during which I seemed to manage to help care for her baby dolly and clean and tidy the dolls house. Not that I have a huge recollection of either.

At lunchtime the Boy came home. I cooked the family lunch, whereafter I promptly fell asleep and spent most of the rest of the day in a similar state.

Morning wake up calls

2010-07-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

Eve wakes up before 7am every day. This is lovely on a school day (hers and mine) when I get to spend lots of time with her before school. It's not so good on weekends. It's especially not so good on weekends when I've had the rowing girls and a case of wine round the previous night and got to bed late, and drunk.

At 2.30, mindful that the Boy was going to be up at 5.30am to go rowing and I had no desire to be woken up, I crawled into bed with Eve. The next thing I know, it is 7.55am and Eve is only just waking up.

Rarely, very rarely, in the course of parenthood do children take account of your own moods, circumstances or needs. Quite the opposite, usually when I've got a hangover Eve wakes up at 5am. This morning, however, was a rare moment of wonder and bliss. It doesn't quite make up for the sleepless nights breastfeeding, but it's a start.

Downhill from here

2010-07-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

Firstly, apologies to LCM. I WILL get round to doing it, but since I got a proper job and can't blog all day I just don't have time.

Now on for the proper post.

Tomorrow Eve starts pre-school. After friends' tales of tears at the school gate and three months of daily tears, I have tried to handle it the right way. Eve came with me when we looked around schools. I went with her last week and she picked her school bag (Thomas the tank engine, an awful Chinese knock off bought for less than 50 of your princely Hong Kong dollars in a market). Lots of her little friends are a bit older and already go to school. She is really keen to go. She already knows her alphabet, can count to 20 and never more has a child needed to go to school.

Then why do I feel so awful??

I have been in a state of semi panic whenever the "S" word is mentioned. I have been asking her daily whether she wants me to take her or get the school bus, and each time her decision is resolutely in favour of the bus. I can't quite figure out why I feel so awful. Eve has been looked after by a nanny for most of the day since she was 3 months old. I clearly don't have an issue about letting someone else look after my child. So why do I feel like this?

I think it is because I am petrified about how much of what I love about her will get knocked out of her at school. She has a delightful imagination, which I adore, in seeing ideas and people and thoughts out of ordinary things. School will bring a harsh reality into her life that I think she is too young for. I also have a huge desire to protect her from any pain. Whenever a child is mean to her (or she is mean to another child) there is someone to remind her that she is loved. I think part of my fear of school is that from the age of 9 until 14 I was bullied horribly at school and I am petrified that she might have to go through this too.

I also had some teachers who marginalised me and made me feel stupid and inferior. They were, mercifully, a minority, but it still hurts to this day.

So, looking at it in the cold light of day, Eve starting school tomorrow has brought galloping back all the insecurities and hurt I associate with school. I just want to protect her from all of that. Of course I can no more protect her from that than I can from shit boyfriends or job rejections. It doesn't stop me wanting to try though.

Lunch with Eve

2010-06-11T05:02:00.000-07:00

Every so often I have lunch with Eve during the week. She comes in on the bus with H and we have a girlie lunch together.

Today we sat in the sun and ate pizza and played.

Lesson from today - don't wear nice expensive cream linen trousers around a toddler eating pizza.

Thankfully I only had one meeting this afternoon and kept my legs firmly under the table.

Home sick

2010-06-11T04:53:00.000-07:00

I am now 7 years in HK (as of earlier this week). I came for one, maybe two. Seven years, one child and 3 jobs later I am still here. Oh, and I've got a mortgage too. Eve goes off to pre-school next month, I have a fair few good Chinese friends (always the sign you have assimilated a bit rather than just lived in an expat ivory tower). I love the speed and messiness and organic way in which HK develops. It has everything I like about life - good food, easy rowing, great weather, designer shows. It's been very good to me, I have a great job, a fantastic nanny (which enables me to enjoy the great job) and a wonderful bunch of friends. In all practical ways, HK in home. I always thought of relationship permanence could be measured in terms of how easily one could walk away. If that was the case with HK, we would be married and the divorce would be messy.

Which is why, after 7 years of being HK's biggest fan, I am finally starting to think about whether this is long term or not. Of course this comes after a wonderful trip home. The UK was at its best. Lovely weather, we stayed for half the week on the Cotswalds, including where I was at Uni and we got married. The other half was with my sister, who I love dearly and miss horribly. I am very close to my family, so being with them is a treat. Now all the little ones are getting bigger, it is such fun to be with them and they love being together. When we got home Eve's favourite game was getting on a plane to see E and J (my sister's kids).

But still, all good things come to an end and I am starting to wonder whether this may be nearing it too.

Then again, after a sunny weekend of rowing with my new rowing buddy C, playing on the beach with Eve, sitting on my balcony with a glass of wine and a book listening to the cicadas (as I am now) and the sheer convenience of everything here I will most likely change my mind.

Grumpy grump grump

2010-05-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged by the lovely London City Mum to list my top 7 things that make me grumpy. After a shit week at work, a few things going not quite right at home, and another night on the sofa after working - again - after putting little one to bed, I feel the venom rising to the surface. So here it is.

1. People who don't do what they say they will when they say they will
I work in a job that means I spend a lot of my time persuading people to do things that they don't really want to, that means they will have to go out of their way just a little bit. Using my best good girl voice, feminine wiles and the odd bit of begging, I tend to get what I need. Which just means that it REALLY, REALLY annoys me when someone says they will do something and then fails to deliver. That goes for people who don't turn up to rowing outings when they know there is a crew waiting, or people who don't turn up for dinner parties (all too frequent in HK).

2. Lack of sleep
Pre-Eve I was an 8 hours a night girl. Or, in my more partying days, the 8 hours every 24 hours. I love sleeping. I love my bed. I have spent that last 15 years of my life being dragged out of bed when it is still dark to go rowing/running/circuits class. Therefore, I love bed. Since Eve, I have learnt that I can survive on 6 hours on and off sleep a night. But it is survival. In the last week, Eve has started waking up at 5.30am. Boy am I grumpy about it.

3. There being no bus between 7.45 and 8.10am
Most mornings the Boy gives me a lift to work. It's a bit indulgent but rather nice. However, when the Boy is away I have to get the bus. In HK we have minibuses that run fixed routes and will stop whenever you want to get on or off. Every big city should have them, it is just about the most convenient part of public transport. I am spoiled because one goes from right outside my block to almost right outside my office. They run every 5 mins or so from 6am until midnight. Except in that crucial rush hour time between 7.30 and 8.15 when there is only ONE bus! This lack of logic and customer centricity makes me grumpy anyway, but it is even worse because I know that all the buses and drivers are having a chat at the petrol station just down the hill. This morning I ran into the office because I couldn't face the stress of waiting.

4. Thin people
I know this puts me out there as a real bitch but I've never been a thin girl. I grew up with an impossibly stunning, tall, thin sister and now I live in HK where everyone is tiny and obsessed about staying so. I don't like feeling fat, therefore I get grumpy with anyone who makes me feel fat.

5. Lazy people
Sort of similar to number one, but this goes for people who are seriously lazy. Those who expect you to organise an evening out. People who complain about stuff but do nothing to change their situation. People who, like today, stand over me at my desk telling me which order they want me to put their charts into a pitch. On the latter, after 5 mins I politely suggested they make all the changes they wanted to themselves and then get back to me with the final version.

6. Cold
I've lived in HK too long, I need heat and humidity to survive - whatever it does to my curly hair. And I don't much like having one either.

7. Eve being in a bad mood
Mercifully rare, but there is nothing that makes me more grumpy than my darling, generally happy little girl, waking up in a bad mood.

I will tag Lady C to take up this idea.

Mothers Day

2010-05-09T01:53:00.001-07:00

Happy Mothers Day (the international one) to all other international Mummies who are celebrating today.

Although I haven't got a present, I did get to do anything I wanted today. Cue a lovely early morning row in a double scull on flat water in the sun with a dear new friend, a fun church service and lots of cake with the other mummies at church, a boozy lunch, and an afternoon nap on the sofa after reading the whole of the Sunday newspaper in one go - a very rare treat.

I want to break free, oh I want to break free

2010-05-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

From when a baby is born there seems to be an awful lot of baby stuff that is designed to keep a baby stationary. Bars on a cot. Car seat. Bouncy chair. As the mother of a very, very mobile child I have embraced this with gusto. When Eve got too big for her cot, not for us was the nice pink princess bed, No, we headed straight to IKEA and bought the highest bed we could find (it's a bit like bunk beds but with only the top one). I used the excuse that it was a sensible storage solution in our tiny HK flat but, in reality, it prolonged the immobility, and sleep, for me.

The other morning, after a rather large night out with Eve's godfather, I failed to hear her plaintive cries of "Mummy, I'm awake". Our nanny did, but she ignored them too. The first I knew about any of this was when Eve climbed into bed next to me and poked me, telling me to wake up. She has finally learnt how to climb down the little ladder from her bed.

Initially I was horrified at this new development. No longer could I rely on the bed four feet off the floor, heavy blackout curtain and sliding doors to keep Eve in. However, after 3 days I must admit I rather like it. Not only is my little girl becoming a proper big girl - a fact she is all too keen to inform me of - but I don't actually have to get out of bed when she wakes up and I can get another ten minutes dozing while we cuddle and she sings to me.

A stitch in time

2010-04-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

I have a nice morning routine with Eve. Usually I tend to wake up when Eve does (there is something genetically programmed into Daddies that mean they just don't hear the morning wake up call - I've checked with friends), then we spend up to half an hour just the two of us. Sometimes I jump into her bed and we chat and play, sometimes we get up and read books, sometimes we just cuddle on the sofa. It is precious time.

Last Wednesday was one such morning. My toenails were in need of repair pending a possible outing this weekend so Eve ran to the kitchen to get my nail varnish from the fridge while I got remover in the bathroom. As she galloped back to me, she fell over, head first, into the door frame.

My general principle is that if Eve can wiggle whatever hurts and there is no blood then it gets ignored after a quick kiss from Mummy. Except this time there was blood, an awful lot of blood, coming from her face. And a lot of crying.

Quick as a flash the Boy was up, we all got dressed and were in the car to the hospital. I am not one to overreact but when it's a head wound and you can see the flesh below the flesh, a formal opinion may be needed. Luckily we live 5 minutes drive from HK's best teaching hospital. A public hospital nonetheless.

I cannot praise the HK public health system enough. We rarely use it, having health insurance from both our companies, but I think I will most likely use it again. Eve was seen immediately by the triage nurse, a doctor within an hour, an x ray immediately thereafter, and stitched a short while later. 4 stitches. Everyone spoke perfect English, not easy even for native speakers when dealing with medical terms and distraught parents. And we got all this for the princely sum of 100 Hong Kong dollars. Hong Kong Health Authority, I am your new biggest fan.

That said, I don't want to repeat the experience. There is something heart wrenching about a scared child or one in pain. The look in her eyes as she had her xrays taken and asked "what is that noise Mummy, will it hurt me?" (no, was my reply, it's just like Daddy's camera and takes a photo of your skeleton). Then having to hold her hands down while the nurse stitched her face up, all the while as she cried "no more Mummy, make it stop Daddy". I was almost in tears at this one.

Eve, of course, being a little trooper was fine about 10 seconds after her stitches were in and is wearing them like a badge of honour. She is showing no signs of slowing down or taking any fewer risks. I have resigned myself to the fact my daughter will never be a super model and all is back to normal.

Sound of silence

2010-04-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday afternoon I took a bath. Not just any bath, but a bath at the spa of the Four Seasons Hotel. I had an amazing view of the HK harbour, a glass of champagne in one hand and a copy of Vogue in the other. The bath was full of some sort of milk, kept reheating itself, and would bubble gently if I pressed the right button. After my bath I had a body scrub, then a 90 minute massage, during which I fell asleep.

This was my mother's day present from Eve for last year (yes, May 2009). I'd not had time to do it any sooner.

Afterwards I chatted to my therapist, herself a mother of two young boys as it turned out. I told her how wonderful and calm I felt, she empathised with the need for Mummies to have some "me" time. But then I realised that it had nothing to do with the bath, or the indulgent pampering (although they were all lovely) but that this was the first time in just over 2 years that I have been somewhere that was completely silent. No darling daughter demanding I come and look at her lego house, no husband snoring or telling me about his rowing outing, no phone ringing on my desk or emails demanding I open them. Just pure, wonderful, quiet.

School daze 2

2010-04-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I realised that the last blog was getting too long. So, here is what happened in my own pre-school selection for Eve.

There are a few good ones locally and I tapped the local working mothers network to ask for advice. Two came out on top so I arranged to go and see them. I have absolutely no idea what to look for in a pre-school. I googled "what to look for in a nursery school" and was mightily scared by the number of basic child safety things I am supposed to look for (are the staff checked for criminal records, how are complaints from parents dealt with, is there are a large sign outside saying "we beat children, and enjoy it"). So I asked my Mum, who replied via email "I have no idea. Your father says to make sure they have lots of toys". Helpful!

In the end, Mummy instinct came to the rescue, as did Eve. Of the two, both very good, schools we visited one was larger and clearly had more space for the children to be let loose in. As Eve is not being prone to sitting still for periods of more than 5 minutes, this was a big plus. The teachers were all happy to chat to me about what they were doing and they openly welcomed Eve to join in the classes. They had lots of toys (thanks Dad), lots of books and the children there seemed really, really happy. After we had visited both I simply asked Eve which she preferred, which turned out to be the same one as I did. The Mummy instinct is strong in this one (sorry, bad Star Wars pun there!).

We start in July, after we come back from a trip to the UK for Eve's transition time before she starts school proper in September. She can't wait and has already told me that she wants to get the school bus each day and needs a special school bag because now she is a big girl and going to school.

School daze

2010-04-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

Last week (apologies for the delay but the lack of blog access at Gnome bank means I don't get as much time to write as I once did) saw me making the crucial decision about pre-schools for Eve. In HK this is no small matter. If my local Chinese colleagues are to be believed, this is the single most important decision I will ever make about Eve and if I get it wrong I could ruin her life. I do not exaggerate. The Chinese cultural focus on education is huge. You can't go down a main street in HK without bumping into hole-in-the wall schools for music, art, academics. The local media has widely covered the burgeoning industry in celebrity tutors, whose faces beam out at you from the backs of buses and have such trendy names as Ken O.

Of course, like most things a large degree of this is down to money and education is a good money making enterprise. I don't know a parent alive who wouldn't give up the clothes off their back if they thought it would help their child get a head start in life. However, there is also a grain of truth in that HK schools are intensely competitive.

If you are a local Chinese parent you have the choice of the local system. However, the good local schools are much like anywhere else and over subscribed and highly selective in the students that they take. They also tend to have either formal or informal feeder pre-schools and primary schools so it becomes even more essential that the right place is gained at the age of 2.

All other parents, expats included, have to look to the private or semi-private system. The private schools (known as "international" schools here as if this gives some sort of extra status) are relatively easy to get into as long as you throw money at them. To even be considered for a place you need to buy a debenture - a sort of bond system that the school uses to raise money. The cost of these vary, but the top ones come in at around HK$1million (about GBP 80k or US$ 130,000). This doesn't even guarantee you a place! You then have to pay a fee for application to the school and if you get in you are looking at a cost of around HK$100,00 per year just on fees.

The other system is a throwback to the colonial era and is called the English Schools Foundation. This is part funded by the government and the annual fees are about 75% of what you pay for an international school, it has a mixed ability intake and even special needs support and you can only apply the year your child is due to go. They don't have feeder schools and admission is mainly based on language because the mission of the schools are to provide education for children who don't speak Chinese and can't be educated in the local system. That said, about 80% of the students are local Chinese anyway. Guess which system Eve will go into!

Photo meme

2010-03-19T04:37:00.000-07:00

I have no idea whether this will work. Anything more complex than typing my blog is beyond me because a) we have a mac and I have no idea how to do anything on it and b) my default settings are all Chinese so if I face even the smallest problems I get all befuddled. Oh well. I was tagged by London City Mum to take part on a photo meme (?!?!). The rules are thus.

1. Open the first (oldest) photo folder in your computer library
2. Scroll to the 10th photo
3. Post the photo and the story behind it
4. Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread

I don't know 5 people who blog who have not already done this, so I will risk the wrath of the modern chain mail demon and do it all except the last bit. Any readers I don't know about, please pick up and run with this one too.

The photo was taken I am not entirely sure when. Over 7 years ago, because that is how long I have been living in HK and this was taken when I was still living in the UK. It is Christmas (hence the hats and cigars). The man waving like a look behind me is the Boy. The man next to me is my brother in law, S.

I am pretty sure that neither my sister nor my brother in law read this (Mum and Dad, don't tell them), so I can be relatively honest about my brother in law here. I adore him and have more respect for him that almost any other man I have met.

He grew up overseas and moved to the UK in his twenties. He met my sister in the bar where he was working as a bar man. After a while he decided that he wanted to get out of the bar and get a professional qualification, so studied like a demon, took some very difficult exams, and got a much better job. He married my sister, making her very happy.

S is most definitely a boy's boy. He plays rugby (front row so not a shy and retiring flower like those pansies at the back), and loves his sport and his beer. The Boy loves it when we go to visit on our trips home because we can guarantee that any rugby, or football, of any note will be on the TV. He happens to rides a gorgeous big black motorbike, I left him my small one when I left the UK and he quickly moved onto something sleeker and faster. He is also a dab hand at DIY - he and my Dad practically rebuilt my sister's house so that they now have a lovely family home in London.

However, S also dotes on his two children, to the extent that when my nephew was born he decided to give up work and stay at home and look after him and my niece.

There are very few people who have the patience to stay at home and look after children, and even fewer men. I am not in any way being sexist here, but being a stay at home Dad is going somewhat against the grain of society and that has just got to make it harder. My niece and nephew adore their father (who is also an active member of the PTA where my niece goes to school) and he is doing a fantastic job with them. He is also an amazing cook, his pork belly is better than any I have ever had in a restaurant.

As if often the way with families, especially in laws of the opposite gender, we don't tell each other anything like enough that we love them and how fond of them we are. I genuinely could not wish for a better brother in law.

Thanks LCM for giving me the chance to say that.

For the love of a giraffe

2010-03-12T06:26:00.001-08:00

My sister, who picks brilliant presents for children (having two adorable ones of her own) sent Eve a lovely gift for her birthday. It was a giftbox containing the wonderful children's book "Giraffes can't dance". If you have not come across it yet, I can highly recommend it as a delightful book, and the others by the same team are similarly charming. They have not quite exceeded my love of Julia Donaldson (Gruffalo, Sharing a Shell etc) but it comes close.

The giftbox came with a height chart and a small cuddly giraffe. Eve loved the book and the giraffe. There is a part in the book that describes Gerald (the giraffe) learning to dance and Eve would grab Gerald at this point and do the actions, including swishing his little tail. Gerald became her absolute favourite toy.

Last week her godfather was passing through town so off we went to meet him for an early supper. She wanted to show him Gerald so he came with us. I was a bit distracted in the cab (we were sharing it with another Dad, see previous post) and I was a bit rushed getting out of the taxi and realised too late that the beloved Gerald had been left behind. I didn't worry too much. The trusty Amazon would come to the rescue and I could just buy another one. I told Eve that Gerald had gone on holiday to London to see her cousins and would be back soon.

Getting home that night, what I expected to be an easy task turned into something quite different.

Amazon has every version of the book imaginable but no giftbox with Gerald. No matter, a couple of bookshops in the UK and New Zealand had it. Except when I went to their websites they were out of stock. It turns out that the cuddly Gerald was a special limited edition and is no longer sold.

With an increasing level of panic I turned to Ebay. Nothing in the US. Nothing on the HK site. I finally found someone who had 4 copies, seemingly the last 4 in the world, in the UK. All I had to do was register and pay, it even had the helpful "buy it now" tag so I could be assured of a new Gerald, although if the truth be known I probably would have bid an obscene amount of money to get my hands on it.

Except I hit a bit of a problem, you can't register on the UK website if you live overseas. It sent me to the HK Ebay site to register, where the whole registration process was in Chinese. By now I was starting to get really worried. Will Eve grow up always hating me? Will she always feel insecure that one day I might forget her and leave her in a taxi? Will she never trust me to tell her the truth again?

I managed to change the registration page to English, whay hey, and then registered. It sent me my confirmation email, which then sent me to a confirmation website that was, drum roll here folks, entirely in Chinese!

Back I went to the UK site and struck upon the brilliant idea of registering under my parent's address. Except it already had me registered via the HK site, which I couldn't read or confirm the registration, so, in effect, I could bugger off.

I started to sob.

Then I remembered that a good friend of mine is a bit of an Ebay-er. One phone call later, she had ordered Gerald and he was being sent to her.

He arrived today, she gave him to me whereupon he went straight into my handbag to ensure I didn't leave him behind in the restaurant. He is now sitting on the dining table where Eve will see him when she wakes up.

Phew

Hello, um, hello

2010-03-12T06:18:00.000-08:00

Due to my nightly trips to the playground to pick Eve up I have built up a small network of parents and nannies of Eve's friends with whom I am now on speaking terms. I know the names of almost all the nannies, but when it comes to parents I have a complete memory block on the names of other parents.

It's not like there are a lot of them. In HK, where help is so cheap and work hours so long, it is a small band of us who bother/manage to make it to the playground of an evening to collect our charges. In fact, I think I probably only know the parents of 4 or 5 of Eve's friends. However, remembering their names are beyond me. It's not that we haven't been introduced, we have. However, within a goldfish-memory-like split second I forget them and default to calling them Oscar's Daddy or Chris' Mummy. They are all designated in relation to the offspring. I know I'm not the only one either, all the other parents seem to have the same problem. We studiously avoid using each others names except when talking to the children, when Aidan's Mummy becomes a perfectly acceptable name to use. I know what Oscar's Dad does for a living, where his parents live in the UK, his favourite beer (Friday beers in the playground time), even his type and size of motorbike - but I'll be damned if I can remember his name.

Last week I shared a cab with a parent I know quite well (Kieren's Daddy) and the whole cab ride I had to studiously avoid saying his name. It would have been awkward were it not for the fact that he had clearly forgotten my name too.

The worrying thing is that I know, and can remember, most of the nannies' names.

Gratitude for gratitude

2010-03-12T06:15:00.000-08:00

Thanks ladies (you know who you are) for taking up the Gratitude Tag idea. Despite being in a place where the bastardised commercial US mother's day is followed, on Sunday Eve and I will be going to a nice Anglican Church where mothering Sunday will be celebrated and Eve will be forced at Sunday school to make me something with loo rolls and sticky back plastic. It will be the first of many I hope.

So, I've found a church I really like (week 4 and I even know the names of most of the congregation), and somewhere that mother's day will be celebrated at the proper time.

For Godness sake

2010-02-18T03:59:00.000-08:00

New year, new resolve and along with giving up booze for lent (which I am regretting after one day), I also decided to try again to find a church in Hong Kong that suits me and Eve. I have started going to a rather good bible study group run by a colleague so asked around the members and one church was suggested. It struck me as being a bit happy clappy for high church anglican me, but I am willing to have an open mind so trotted off there this Sunday.

It started off well. I was quite warmly greeted and told that I had the option of Eve attending Sunday school or the service. Finally, I thought, I can worship with my daughter. There were lots of children in the service, which started with two songs and Eve and a little boy danced happily at the back while people looked on smiling. I was feeling really rather positive that I had found a place that we could call our church.

Then it all went wrong. "Will all children under ten now leave" came the announcement. Um, what, my child? I didn't really feel I could pipe up and say that the nice lady outside had told me that children could stay in the service. So I left. We were carted off to a classroom where the children watched a video about buying a cow for a village in China. All well and good, except Eve had seen the climbing frame outside and was refusing to sit still. The video, which was a bit too raw in its detail of life in an impoverished village in China for your average toddler, ended with a large, fat man coming in to tell us that every child had to bring in twenty dollars next week to send to the village. Um, hello? Shouldn't children do something more meaningful than asking their parents for money? Earn it? Do a sponsored swim? But then this is Hong Kong where money is supposed to solve everything.

Then it got worse. All the parents left, except me. Three teenagers then taught the Sunday school. Except it involved giving the kids a colouring book about Jesus and then trying to stop them hitting each other. For about half an hour all they did was keep the kids colouring. After about ten minutes Eve was trying to make a break for the climbing frame again so I took it upon myself to read her the story she was colouring and try to engage her a bit. Then we sang a song, by which point Eve was so bored and annoyed with her Mummy not letting her go to see the climbing frame that she just went and opened the door herself.

Then all main service finished and all the parents came to pick up their children. So, in effect, all this actually turned out to be was moderately religious childcare. The teacher even had the audacity to tell me that Eve was a bit too young to concentrate for that long and maybe I should take her to the creche instead. I bit my tongue and restrained myself from simply replying that she was bored out of her mind colouring for 45 minutes.

So we left and I will not being going back. The sad thing is that Eve really quite enjoyed it and has been showing the Boy and H her little bible book that she coloured with real pride. She is even talking about Jesus. This is enough to keep me going and try to find a church that Eve and I are both going to enjoy being at together.

Watch this space.

Pot, pot, pot, potty

2010-02-18T03:48:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year has been and gone and, if you've read any of the previous posts, you will know this was going to be P day. That is potty and pants. I hesitate saying potty because what we actually have is a toddler-sized seat that fits on our loo because we don't have enough space for a potty in our tiny Hong Kong bathroom - but the principle is still the same.

I was well prepared. Four days of Eve wandering around naked and getting used to going to the loo. Easy peasy. Except the day before the Chinese New Year break started a cold spell hit. In fact, the coldest spell for two years. It has gone down to ten degrees and usually sits around 13-14 in the day. I know it's not actually that cold, but in an apartment with no heating or carpets that is required, for ten months of the year, to stay cool and drafty, it is bloody freezing. Not, therefore, ideal conditions for Eve running around naked for a few days.

Undeterred, however, we went ahead with it. The star chart was stuck up in the bathroom at Eve height so she can see and colour the star I draw every time she does a wee or a poo. Disinfectant at the ready to clean up spills. We were ready to go.

Then it was all surprisingly easy in the end. After two initial accidents, now whenever she is in the flat she tends to ask for the loo before she wees on the floor. She managed to make it to the loo for her her poo yesterday and although half came out before she asked today, she did then hold in the rest until she was over the bowl. We still have her in nappies when we go out, but a few times she has suddenly asked to go home, which turns out to mean she actually needs a wee or a poo. I have introduced her to public loos in Hong Kong now, which are almost without exception so clean that one could eat off them.

It will take a few more weeks yet until she is properly ready to go without nappies in the daytime, but we are well on our way now. So, this weekend I am going to take Eve to buy her first knickers, at Marks & Spencer of course!

Gratitude tag

2010-02-03T04:21:00.000-08:00

Following on from my post yesterday I thought I would try something here. I am not very "in" with the blogging crowd and lingo so will rely on my regular blogger friends to read this and pass it on.

The idea is simple. Write about one thing you are grateful to your mother for. Or more if you would like, but at least one. Then tag a couple of people you know who blog to do the same on theirs. Hopefully then we will end up with a lovely celebration of motherhood.

So, here goes mine.

Aside from my legs, the thing I am most grateful to my mother for is the amazing example she set me and as a result the incredible self-belief she instilled in me.

Mum left full time school and went to secretarial college. She worked in numerous jobs she really didn't like because we needed the money. This was exacerbated, I suspect, when I got a scholarship to private school that covered a lot of the fees, but not all and we had to find the money for them from somewhere. My sister and I both went to University, when she and my Dad hadn't had that opportunity, so she kept working so we could afford that too. At every point in my school and university life I always felt that my Mum was right there behind me. She feels passionately that women should be educated. She has sponsored girls in developing countries for far longer than it has been fashionable and she supported both her daughters to achieve the maximum they were capable of. Let me be clear here, she never pushed either of us and always allowed us free reign to choose our own path, but we were always very secure in the knowledge that she would support us whatever we wanted to do.

That isn't it, however, she also led by example. While still working full time being a magistrate and sitting (for some time being Chair) of the family bench in one of the less lovely parts of London she also studied in her spare time for a law degree and then a masters. Most of this was while working full time, being a JP AND bringing up two teenage daughters. How the hell she found the time is beyond me.

So, I am grateful to my Mum for being the living breathing embodiment of focus, dedication, hard work and unconditional, loving support.

PS. Sorry, Mum for any factual inaccuracies. My teenage years were a bit of a blur!

Gratitude

2010-02-02T03:46:00.000-08:00

Once you have a child of your own you finally realise what your parents, and mothers in particular, do for their children. I have a few friends, mainly male and single but not exclusively so, who have a habit of complaining about their mothers. I don't know why, but some people don't ever quite grow out of the adolescent rebellion that finds them thinking their parents are dull, boring and never did anything for them. Now, however, I am a mother myself I know just how much of oneself and ones life you give up for your children.

Just carrying a child and feeding it and changing it takes some commitment. For many people this selfless (and sleepless) act would be sufficient martyrdom. Add to that the many other commitments and sacrifices parents make to ensure that their offspring are sufficiently healthy and balanced to face the world and it would take a good few reincarnations for any child to be able to show sufficient gratitude to their parents (and don't let me go there on what parts of my body have also suffered!).

It was Fraught Mummy who got me to thinking about what parents do for their children. In her case a bad back and frozen toes. In my case, my list is quite a long one already and will undeniably get longer. I hate to think how long my mother's list would be, I was an awful child!

So, to my own Mum, thank you. I know that doesn't cut it but I don't tell you enough.

And to anyone who dares ever even mutter a complaint about their mothers, take a step back and think hard - what has she done for you?

Supernanny

2010-01-24T00:31:00.000-08:00

We subscribe to the cheapest cable TV package in the Yummy Mummy household but, mercifully, all the BBC channels come as part of that bundle. I know it makes me an expats expat to crave that little piece of home but I swear the programs are just better than the US bunch that come churning out of the Fox-related networks we also get.

My latest BBC addiction is Supernanny. I know that I have come to the Supernanny fold quite late, but there is something incredibly compelling about watching some truly awful children, and their parents, start the show behaving so badly and ending it like little angels. I know I am a complete voyeur in this respect. There is something compelling about watching car crashes, whether rubber necking on the motorway or a family. However, I also view Supernanny as something of a horror movie (a genre I hate). What if Eve turns out like that? What if I do? What if people say that about my child?

I also don't quite believe it is that easy, for either parent or child. I mean why exactly does an otherwise unruly and out of control six year old sit on a naughty seat and not move? Is it all clever editing?

Last weekend Eve had her first tantrum. I naively thought she'd had them before, but like many things with children you don't realise you've had one until they really hit! I can't recall what prompted it, but we had full on screaming and crying and shouting. So, taking a leaf out of Supernanny's book, I popped Eve on the sofa and said she would have to stay there until she calmed down. She got off once, but I put her back on, and she stayed there. She tried everything to fight it. Volume, shouting for Daddy (I had to restrain him from going over and cuddling her), shouting for me. Screaming "sorry" at the top of her lungs but refusing to say it quietly. But she stayed on the sofa.

I sat in the kitchen, I am afraid to say, laughing quietly and mouthing at the Boy "why doesn't she just get off the sofa?!?!". It actually worked. But why on earth did an otherwise bright and intelligent child not realise there is nothing I could do to keep her on the sofa? I am not querying it, but I can't understand whatever psychology lies behind it.

I am now watching Supernanny with a newfound sense of respect.

Going potty

2010-01-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

Crap. Eve is two now. I'd better start potty training properly now. It's just so damn cold that it wouldn't be fair for her to run around naked for very long while she wees down her legs - my sister's and nanny's chosen technique.

Chinese New Year is coming up. That is 4 whole days off. It will be warmer by then. That will be 4 whole days of cleaning up Eve's pee off the floor then.

Children at work

2010-01-14T03:31:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I am really rather enjoying the toddler stage, and if I confess honestly hated the whole baby stage, is that now I have a real little person with whom I can rationalise. Eve understands cause and effect and generally tantrums can be headed off before they start, or at least minimised, by a rational explanation of something and boundaries that make sense.

So, this evening, when we went to leave the playground Eve decided to stay. She sat on the floor and screamed. To which I simply said that she could stay, but she would be on her own because all her friends had gone home, would get cold and it wouldn't be as comfy as her big girl bed to sleep there. Within 5 seconds she was running into my arms to come home.

If only colleagues were so easy. I have spent the day listening to excuses about why things have not been done, a fair bit of whining (some from me, I will admit), and a complete lack of thinking through consequences. Much like London City Mum (whose blog I will link as soon as it is up running for general consumption again), I found myself today wanting to tell a colleague that they could do what they wanted to but if they did it then nobody would want to play with them again and they would have to stay on their own in the cold.

Birthdays and birthdays

2010-01-10T03:17:00.000-08:00

I will confess this right now but I write this a little bit tipsy. It was Eve's 2nd birthday last week, is the Boys tomorrow and his parents are in town (a WHOLE different post), so rather than having what I had intended would be a quiet birthday at home I did something a bit special today.

I have always been a bit scathing of the highly competitive mothers in HK who wheel out parties that doyens of Hollywood would be envious of. This has seen us at parties with entertainers (a rather surly teenage princess who looked as if she would be happier in a crack den than with a bunch of toddlers) and ones where the helpers seem to run the show. Not for me I thought. I would bake the cake, we would have something small scale at home, children would not be given any of those stupid party favours that seem to be given out in plastic bags at the end of parties. Oh no, not for me.

Except, my in-laws are in town and I would be an even more evil daughter-in-law (for this is the fate of most daughter-in-laws) if I didn't at least make a bit of an effort.

I think I may have overdone it.

Private room at the rather lovely private island retreat at the yacht club. Free flowing food and champagne and wine for everyone. Balloons everywhere. Lots and lots of children. A vastly expensive cake with a sleeping teddy bear on it and icing saying "Happy 2nd birthday Eve", incidentally which lasted about 5 minutes before an unsupervised Eve stuck her finger in it, leaving something saying "Happy irthday ve". And, of course, every child got a cupcake with an animal face on it. In fact, most adults got one too.

The issue comes that I don't know what came over me. I bargain hunt as a pastime and was debating yesterday with the Boy over ten Hong Kong dollars for some balloons. How, then, did I end up having the type of bash that I routinely criticised in the past?

Answers on a postcard please. Needless to say the in-laws thought it was great, so did Eve and the Boy, I had a great time and already have a hangover even before I have been to sleep.

We will never forget

2009-12-15T05:25:00.000-08:00

I had lunch today with S, my former colleague who was pregnant with her second at the same time as I was pregnant with Eve. In the interim she has left Gnome bank, went to work freelance for a while and is now back in another bank doing a full time job.

The usual inevitable question came up from her about when I am going to have number 2. I asked her whether it was easier second time round. Her reply? "Goodness no, pregnancy and the first 6 months of the baby are miserable regardless of how many times you've done it before".

Hmm, so I was right in my thinking on that one then.

Great tidings of comfort and queues

2009-12-14T04:07:00.000-08:00

At the weekend I took Eve to her first Christmas party. I figured she was ready. She is nearly 2, can say the word "snowman" and be understood and generally gets the whole concept of presents and decorations and it being a very special time all about a very important child - her. Gnome bank runs a Christmas party for children of staff each year so I signed her up and managed to even drag along the Boy, not normally known for his fondness of confined spaces with lots of children making noise.

The party was a testimony to Swiss efficiency. We turned up, with our specially labelled stickers allowing us to get past the extra security guards. Oh yes, I work in a place where billions of dollars are traded each day, but we need extra security to deal with a bunch of toddlers.

The "party" was actually a series of orderly queues. First we queued up for registration and a free Gnome bank branded bag. We were ushered to another queue, where we lined up for a gift. Despite registering Eve in the 0-2 category, I asked for one for the 3-5 age group. I was firmly told no, it said 0-2 on Eve's sticker and so a 0-2 present would we get. Then onto another queue for a photo with Father Christmas. Eve was both transfixed and petrified by one of my colleagues in a santa suit. Two clicks and flashes later we were ushered into another room and another queue.

By this point I'd had my fill of queues. I am British, I do queuing as a national pastime, but this was starting to annoy me. Children's Christmas parties are supposed to be chaotic, noisy, messy and fun. This reminded me of the immigration department [feel free to insert your own queuing venue of choice].

So we divided and conquered. I queued for twenty minutes to get a balloon in the shape of a dog. The Boy queued up to get food for a by now ravenous and overwhelmed Eve.

Then we watched a magic show where not only was it obvious how every trick was done, but the Boy gleefully told me at the same time. All the while children, who have by now had a bit too much of standing or sitting quietly, are running riot. Eve gets onto the stage, right in front of the magician, and does a little dance. I think that more of the audience found her entertaining I certainly did so didn't bother to stop her. She was very cute.

Never, ever again.

What not to wear #2, or "oh my god is that really me?"

2009-12-04T04:08:00.000-08:00

After my cries for help, a good friend C took me in hand and off we went shopping. Considering my, ahem, curvy (big tits) figure we headed to Diane Von Fursternberg for one of her wrap dresses.

Shop 1 did not have what I wanted in anything other than tiny so the next day off we went to the other branch in HK where I experienced perhaps one of the most happy moments of my life Please prepare for extreme shallowness.

For a bit of background, having a baby screws up your body and, perhaps more importantly, your body image. I've always felt a bit of a fat girl after putting on far too much weight in my early 20s, but then Weight Watchers and exercise meant that pre-Eve I was a size I was generally happy with. Then I got pregnant. I felt fat and ugly and immobile and sick for much of the pregnancy. Then once I had Eve and became a mobile milk machine my image of myself got even worse. I am happy to admit I am relatively vain, but I defy anyone to make it through those two years and come out feeling sexier than when they went in.

I've not deliberately tried to lose weight since I had Eve, but I have worked really, really hard to get fit. The by-product of this is that I have got quite thin and quite toned and very fit (gold medal winning fit!). But I still have a hideous self-image and I loathe shopping for anything except shoes and handbags as a result.

So it was with some extreme joy and possible tears of happiness that I tried on a black clingy jersey dress in DVF that fit like a dream, make me look sexy and thin and gorgeous and stylish (in a way Mums rarely feel). The broad grin on C's face said it all. This was MY dress. I finally looked like someone I would walk down the street and turn to look at.

Then I bought the red one with long sleeves as well.

So, I am wearing the sexy black one for my birthday on Monday and the sexy red one for my MC duty. And I have finally, finally, admitted to myself that maybe I don't look too bad after all.

Postscript:
Since buying the dresses I found out that DVF supports a great charity that does some amazing work in empowering women.

What not to wear

2009-12-01T04:03:00.000-08:00

A slight deviation from the Mummy blog for a moment. I have been asked to be one of two MCs at our office Christmas party on 18th December. In my pre-corporate days an office Christmas party involved a boozy lunch, secret santa and inappropriate flirting. The latter was scuppered when I ended up running an all-female office in HK, in fact none of my team drank alcohol except me so that one went too, but it was still a small and intimate affair where we all knew each other and then went back to the office in the afternoon.

The Christmas party at Gnome bank, however, is an entirely different thing. For one, it is huge. There will be about 600 people there, including the great and the good from the business (read: people who decide whether I will have a career here or not). It will be held in the cavernous hall that is the HK Conference and Exhibition Centre. Normally this would not bother me. I have spoken at conferences with more than this number of people, heck I even tried to crack a joke at one conference in Japan (it failed miserably due to the abject lack of a sense of humour of most market researchers). I can do this. I won't be funny, or even comprehensible (although memo to self not to drink beforehand), but it isn't this that is causing concern.

What really daunts me is that I will be standing up in front of 300 of the thinnest, best dressed women I have ever met, the 300 men will be pretty dandy too. There is something about working for a private bank that means people are just so darned presentable. Usually I potter around the office with my body of wobbly bits and frizzy hair. In my day job this doesn't matter too much, it is my brain more than my looks that people care about, but on the 18th, in front of 600 people, it will matter - a lot.

Panic, panic, panic. Must book hairdresser, buy new dress and sexy shoes (could I wear my sexy red louboutins all night or would I fracture my ankle?). Dress must make me look thin (hard), demure (harder) and sexy (harder still if I am also being demure). It must, at worst, not screw up my career prospects. At best it must get me a promotion. YES, a dress can do this! Panic, panic, panic.

I need to get to the gym, lose weight, exchange my hormonal skin for one with no blemishes, get a bikini wax, pedicure, buy a new designer handbag...

Oh my god, what have I agreed to.

Foiled

2009-11-30T04:00:00.001-08:00

The clever geeks at work have blocked all logging into blogs, for posting or comments. I can feel my blog dying a slow, and not all that painful death...

Travel with toddlers

2009-11-21T04:52:00.002-08:00

As I was planning and then experiencing a holiday with a little one in tow, I was struck by how little child-friendly touches make all the difference whereas being child un-friendly exponentially makes ones life hell. Planning the holiday was tough in this respect. Family rooms often mean a larger room with an extra bed, meaning when Eve goes to sleep we all do. Some places charged me for the cot. Some places only serve food so late that it would be impossible with a child who likes to be in bed by 8 etc etc.

There aren't that many good, well researched, guides about places to stay with small children so I thought I would start one. I am relying on my better connected blogging Mummy friends to point people here or, if this already exists, point me in the right direction to another one. Who knows, it may take on a life of its own at some point.

So, to kick off, here is my find from my last trip.

Dunk Island, Queensland, Australia

Perfect for kids. Kids eat free with a paying adult and there is a choice of 2 restaurants for most meals. Two pools, one large safe and protected sandy beach, a few other beaches ideal for hunting for cool stuff such as crabs and shells and interesting stones (Muggy Muggy beach is especially good and comes after a fun short trail walk around the coast). It has a farm onsite so there is lots of fun to be had playing with the animals and feeding the pigs. Has horse riding (for older kids or yummy mummies) as well as lots and lots of water sports. There is a kids club, although we didn't use it. Has all sorts of other things you can do as a family too, we did a guided bird and butterfly walk and there are so many cane toads we would go hunting for them on the way home from supper every night. The garden rooms, where we stayed, have a separate bedroom at the back with two single beds so you can put the little ones to bed and still sit in the main room or on the balcony. Baby cots are free.

The best bit is that the staff and the whole environment is very child-friendly. For example, staff tend to bring the children their food first when you are eating and nobody minds at all if children run around in the restaurants. Nobody minded at all when Eve decided to play tennis with us and was happily brandishing a full size racquet and bashing it on the floor. All quite stress free for parents.

The only down side is the selection of food for children - mainly friend and processed with few vegetables. That said, we found the same everywhere we went in Australia on the kids menus.

Update in 200 words or less

2009-11-21T04:52:00.001-08:00

Apologies for all being quiet on the Yummy Mummy front. A combination of new job requiring full time in the office and a much needed two week holiday has meant lack of time and blogging has gone to the bottom of the list. So, in 200 words or less (yes, I will count) here is a quick update.

Job all good, loving it. Brain is working again and the people are great. Don't get to work from home (bummer) but also no longer have to travel at all (yey!). Rowing brilliant. Won the big race of the year, beating 3 crews of fully funded full time international level athletes in the process. Celebrated with me crew lots, danced most of the night, discovered the benefits of Cbeebies when you have a hangover - bad mummy. Eve good, speaking lots. Much like me and very opinionated. Potty training going like a cream with not much effort required, she seems to like going to the loo. Not quite at the stage where she asks in advance unless she is naked. Holiday great. Much fun in Sydney with the amazing aquarium and beaches (and the Hunter Valley wine festival for Mummy and Daddy). Then island with beaches, sun, a farm with escapologist pig, horses, goats etc. Met a 2m long carpet python on a run but after childbirth nothing scares me now. My parents have just arrived, Eve being spoilt rotten and loving ordering two more people around at her whim.

Plant update #2

2009-10-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Bad news and good news.

Bad news is that of the 3 basil plants only one is grimly hanging in there and it only has 2 leaves. I think it may shortly be going gently into that good night.

Good news is that the rosemary is thriving and I even used it to cook last night.

The even better news is that the small pot of dead leaves that Eve picked is going from strength to strength. It has new leaves, is growing and positively thriving.

Playground darling

2009-10-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit miffed lately because my previous playground boyfriend (he of the being very impressed by my basketball skills) has been neglecting me a bit lately. In fact, he has barely said hello for quite a few weeks. So, imagine my surprise and delight today when he came over to Eve and I while we were playing hopscotch (well, jumping on the hopscotch outlines) and threw his boomerang at me. Now I am no expert in nine year old boys, but I think that is as close to a declaration of love as you can get.

Plant update

2009-10-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

All are still alive one week on. The basil is looking a bit weedy and the small tub of dead leaves is suffering a bit from too much love (i.e. water from Eve) but also seems to be alive.

I wouldn't make any bets on any of them lasting another week though. I know my green fingers of death far too well to make that assumption.

Dear so & so, HK version

2009-10-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Fraught Mummy, and after my own rather strange week, here are my postcards from the edge.

Dear husband

I know that you have a busy and important job, but did you really have to spend the whole of the month away leaving me to deal with starting a new job, 4 weeks of bloody hard rowing training and a toddler to get up, get out and put to bed on my own each day? You may have noticed that our phone calls about what a brilliant time you are having in various overseas locations are getting shorter and shorter.

Yours, tired and feeling a bit stressed.

PS. And it had to be this week that the bloody car decided to break down didn't it.
______________________________________________________________________________

Dear security guard at the library

Toddlers make noise. Especially when they are a bit tired and it is near lunchtime. Looking sternly at me and following us around is actually worse than your colleague who asked me to leave last time. If you didn't want children to make noise while their parents check out the books then you shouldn't have such a brilliant children's section (for which I am very grateful).

Yours, the mother of a normal child

______________________________________________________________________________

Dear HK bus authorities

I know the reason you have so many buses is because the more you run the more money you are allowed to make, but wouldn't it make sense to put the stops for all the buses that go to the same place in roughly similar locations? I don't understand why I have to walk 200m to two different bus stops to get two buses that run to the same place and are operated by the same company.

Please explain.

Yours, a bit tired and hot

____________________________________________________________________________

Dear darling daughter

When Mummy tells you things, it helps if you do them. Like not trying to eat your shoes after taking them off in the taxi, or pulling at the door handle in the taxi while we are moving, or having a screaming fit in the middle of the library because I wanted to check out the books so we could read them at home. There was a reason why you didn't get your beloved pizza for lunch and we came home instead, but I am not sure you have quite made the link.

Yours, loving but fraught mummy

____________________________________________________________________________

Dear NOW broadband

Thank you so very, very much for giving us the full package of BBC channels without charging us for them. I don't know how or why you chose to do that a few weeks ago but Cbeebies has changed my life.

Yours, joining the ranks of mothers who realise that TV is an excellent babysitter and that you can get over the guilt quite easily when you need time to take a shower

Green fingers

2009-10-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

As part of the Mummy-Daughter bonding on the National Day public holiday, in the afternoon I decided to take Eve to Mongkok to go to the flower market. I love Mongkok, it is everything about big cities that I love and it is distinctly Hong Kong. It is a connurbation of roads, markets, shops, street food stalls but all rather down at heel. A couple of years ago the powers that be built a plush shopping centre to try to lift the area up a notch or two, but it failed, and it is still the dirty, busy, messy place I love. At weekends, and public holidays, it is heaving with people. What a perfect idea with a toddler in tow!

We had a lot of fun. We went to the street with all the fish stalls and saw a few too many endangered species for sale for me to feel comfortable. We went to the bird park and market, saw the old men taking their birds out for a walk, ate our supper of ham-filled Chinese buns and looked at a few more endangered species.

Our final stop was the flower market. The flower market is lovely, just over a street full of shops and stalls selling stunning flowers at ridiculous prices, as well as all manner of plants and even the odd ornamental cabbage - something I have wanted since I first saw them in Japan 6 years ago but have never got over the sheer impracticality of them enough to buy one. I needed basil and rosemary, having killed off the last ones we had, and I told Eve she could pick her own plant to buy and look after. I tried to steer her towards by favourites, the plants with the sensitive leaves that fold when you touch them. Or a bonsai (so pretty), or something with flowers. Eve eventually stopped next to a rather non-descript box of small plants on the floor and pointed at what looked like a collection of half-dead leaves. "Dat" the shouted. "Darling, are you sure you want that one? What about the one over there with flowers?". She looked more sternly at me. "Dat" she insisted a little more firmly and grabbed the leaves.

Eve insisted on carrying it all the way home, on the train, while I carried her, a bag and a few other plants on a very busy MTR. That particular trauma is a whole other post on its own.

So, we are now the proud owner of one of the most bland little plants I have ever seen. Of course the pot was far too small so I have now spent more than the plant cost on new pot and soil. It had better live for a while.

Early bird

2009-10-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up I used to get really, really annoyed with my parents' obsession with getting to everything exactly as it opened to "avoid the crowds". This meant we always ended up getting up really early and I admit I used to get pretty grumpy about it. I added it to my mental lists of things I wouldn't do as a parent. Oh no, not me sir.

We have annual membership to a brilliant theme park called Ocean Park. It is only 10 minutes drive from where we live, it is brilliant with an amazing aquarium and cable car and adorable giant pandas along with many more things Eve loves. It is also hugely popular, even more so than HK Disneyland. I love going.

Today is National Day, a huge public holiday here and on the mainland. Lots and lots of people were likely to head to Ocean Park today, tends of thousands in fact. When I told a colleague yesterday that I was planning to go he merely laughed and said I was a brave woman.

So at 9.20am this morning, ten whole minutes before it opened, Eve and I sat outside the (closed) entrance. Not just any entrance, but the back entrance which is less busy and closer to the aquarium, Eve's favourite bit. I am proud to say that we were the first people in, the only people even in the aquarium so she could get lots of lovely close up views of the sharks and rays and seahorses. No problem at all getting onto the cable car. Eve stood behind a little glass partition about 2 metres away from the panda (and happily told everyone else to "shush" because the panda was sleeping), we stood there for ages because so few people were there and nobody moved us on . In fact it was a rather pleasant experience and we were done and out within 3 hours.

So, Mum and Dad, you were absolutely right - as always.

Racing

2009-10-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

Not that our daughter is the product of competitive parents, but her latest fun game is to shout "ready, set, go" and then run like fury across the room/playground/hallway and then shout "first" when she wins or "mummy first" if I do. She has also taken to saying it over and over again at traffic lights until they go green.

Nothing else to say, it is just very, very cute.

If you want something done, ask a busy person

2009-09-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

The weekend saw Yummy Mummy on an unusual social outing. A very good friend is getting married soon and I was drafted in to help organise and then attend her surprise hen night. It involved all the usual things, pole dancing, having a nice dinner and getting a bit tiddly, dressing her up in something wholly inappropriate. J is one of life's superachievers and so are most of her friends. I was surrounded by three women who had done an ultra marathon across Namibia recently, a couple who regularly go on missions to look after neglected Chinese children and a whole host of bankers, lawyers and super high-flying girls to boot. These are girls who think nothing of scaling a mountain in the morning, followed by a light brunch and windsurfing to Macau in the afternoon. Well, maybe I exagerate, but you get the idea.

My and the only other Mummy sat at one end of the table and talked about nappies and childcare and in-laws and work. We had a bit of a winge about all of them.

Then it came to all of us saying how we knew the hen and why we love her. All rather nice and cosy. What shocked me was what she said about me in return. She said that she thought I was amazing because she had no idea how she could be as organised and fit as much into my life as I do. She said that she sometimes found it a bit intimidating (in a nice way) that I could have such a good job, be married, row and train as hard as I do and be a good mother. I was about to differ on that last point when she said that she had watched me become a mother and, after a few bumps in the track, had held it all together so well and continue to do so. I did the only sensible thing, which was to protest a little and burst into tears.

Not enough people tell us Mums, working or full time mummies, that we do an incredible job in keeping it all together. So to my Mummy friends, well done ladies. What J said to me goes for us all too.

And if you want another example, then head here for another great example of a day in the life of a working Mummy.

Going potty

2009-09-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

As Eve gallops towards her 2nd birthday, we have started to think about the dreaded potty training. I know of nobody who has said this is an easy exercise so I am not much looking forward to it. A few weeks ago Eve started to tell us when she had a poo. Progress, I thought, so I trotted off to buy a baby seat for our loo and a little step for her to stand on. I decided against a potty because we just don't have the space and she loves to copy Mummy and Daddy and so the loo seemed a sensible choice. I picked one with a bear on it but when it came home she screamed every time I tried to put it on the loo, to the extent of snatching it off and throwing it across the floor.

I tried another tack, I started using the damned thing myself when I went to the loo. It is not easy trying to have a wee on a seat ergonomically designed for a toddler, esepcially not with a bum my size, but I thought it was worth a try. However, each time I did this, accompanied with "Mummy is sitting on the bear bear toilet to have a poo" she would cry and try to push me off. I had largely given up as it being too early and too traumatic for us both, until fate gave me a helping hand today.

Eve was ill over the weekend. She had a high fever for a few days, the usual non-specific childhood stuff. She was fine in herself and it came down by Sunday lunchtime so we didn't worry too much. Except today she came out in the most miserable rash on her bottom, all bright red and looking a bit like a burn. I cursed the makers of her nappies, took it off and she ran around happily with no pants on. We made it clear, however, that if she needed a wee or a poo then she should ask. She did, twice. She insisted I put the bear seat on the loo and she happily sat on it. I read her a book, it was just too dull sitting there waiting for something to happen. Both times nothing did, but we flushed the loo and washed our hands anyway.

Once she did a wee on the floor, but then asked to be taken to the loo. Too little too late but at least she is getting the idea.

Then later she did a poo (mercifully the nappy was back on for that one) but asked again to go to the loo where I removed the nappy and wiped her bum.

So far so good. It will be a long way to go before we actually get anywhere near being able to coordinate asking and going, but at least she is no longer screaming every time we put her near the loo.

Tell tale

2009-09-15T02:04:00.000-07:00

I am really enjoying my motorbike. I am finally getting used to riding her (she is so sexy and cool that it must be female) and having a lot of fun. The Boy is occasionally allowed to ride her. He rides much better than I do, but it is MY bike (ah, the inner toddler comes out now) so I like him to ask when he uses it.

On Saturday I called Eve from Singapore airport just before I got on my flight home. The Boy had gone rowing. During the conversation the following occured:

YM - Has Daddy gone rowing?
Eve - Yey
YM - Did he go in the car?
Eve - No
YM - Did Daddy go in the car? (thinking I was just getting the default no response from Eve when she doesn't understand the question)
Eve - Daddy vroom
YM - Ah, did Daddy take Mummy's motorbike?
Eve - Mummy vroom, Daddy vroom
YM - Did you see Daddy take his motorbike helmet and jacket into the lift?
Eve - Daddy vroom

Daddy had not actually asked Yummy Mummy whether he could borrow my bike and had Eve not told on him then I would have been none the wiser. Atta girl!

Gushy one

2009-09-15T02:00:00.001-07:00

I spent my lunchtime today sitting with an assortment of cuddly toys under a big tent (chairs and a sheet) with a mini tent (old baby playgym and Eve's blanket) beneath it. This was because Eve had grabbed my rucksack off the shelf and I came upon the bright idea of packing for a trip... to the tents. Eve was very diligent in her packing - kitchen utensils, a book, a ball to play with, her toy Percy train, a couple of cars and a mini-motorbike. We unpacked them in the tent and set up camp.

This led me to wonder at what point my daughter, in fact all children, just become to utterly cute that you never want them to change?

Looking forwards

2009-09-14T01:32:00.001-07:00

Having spent the evening on Saturday justifying my decision to keep working, I find that today I get offered a great new job. It is internal at Gnome Bank where I currently work, two or three steps up from where I am now and I would be mad to turn it down.

However, it was a horribly difficult decision. The job I have now is with a nice team and a lovely boss. I get to work pretty flexibly and from home whenever I can. I seem to be doing rather well at it. But it isn't the new job and the amazing career move that new one is going to be.

Yes, it was a really, really difficult decision to come to. I will no longer be able to work from home, well, sometimes but it will be the exception rather than the regular pattern I have now. This means that every day of every week I will leave my baby at 8am and not get back until after 6pm. I have no idea how I will feel about this. In reality, I have not been working from home much recently because I have been so busy and have been travelling lots (which the new job won't require me to do as much, if at all) but the option and flexibility was always there and it won't be with the new job. I'll have a team to manage and be expected to be in the office.

I keep telling myself that Eve will be off to nursery soon anyway so there won't be as much point in working from home then. Except I will be there when she comes home two days a week, which would be very precious. Yes, it has been a horrible decision and one I feel very selfish over.

In the end the choice was clear. I am lucky and financially I don't need to work, I work because I enjoy it and the money does come in handy, but I could give up and we could still pay the mortgage. At the moment I am spending time apart from Eve for a job that is OK but not stellar and isn't really going anywhere. This is partly why I've not become reconciled with the whole working Mum thing, I kept asking myself why I was doing it. If I am going to give up time with Eve then I would rather it be for something I love, that is enhancing my career, that I feel adds a huge amount of value to my life. When I thought about it like that the choice became a very easy one. Over time I may even be able to get more flexibility again. After all, I did with my former two jobs and someone has to blaze the trail.

If it doesn't work out? Well I can always give up work. At least I will be actively making the choice having given it a really good try.

As two wise women have told me, you make the choice and make it clearly and for the right reasons. My reasons feel right and I can always do something completely different if it all goes wrong. But I may yet come to regret my last post about trailing spouses.

Revelations on a boat trip

2009-09-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

After a pretty hideous week at work, including flying back to Hong Kong on a Saturday morning and thereby missing the three great loves of my life, Eve, rowing and riding the new motorbike, I found myself at a fortieth birthday party on Saturday night. Yummy Mummy doesn't get out as much as she used to so the prospect of free flowing booze while trundling around Hong Kong on a boat was all rather appealing. It also served to give me a reminder about the existence of professional trailing spouses.

I've not had much exposure to them lately, we've been here so long now that most of our friends are pretty "local" in attitude. I had rather forgotten the trailing spouse brigade.

The one thing that really struck me, as usual, is how little I have to actually say to these women. I had thought that now I have a child we would have more in common. Sadly not. After the initial "How are the children? Which school are they at?" comments, my life is so completely different from theirs that we simply have nothing at all in common to talk about. In the past this would usually mean that I would end up talking to the husbands about banking, but now I have a child they too treat me differently. For the first time since I came to Hong Kong I really felt like I was being judged for the choice I have made to stay at work. A number of husbands asked me why I decided to go back to work, one even flinched when I (quite honestly) said I thought I would go a bit potty on my own at home all day. I found myself having to justify my choice to keep working - I love my job, it is a good role model for my daughter, I have an excellent work-life balance in my job, blah blah blah. I started to feel quite upset as I soaked up the disapproving looks and comments.

Then, as we got off the boat, something happened that made me feel a lot better. One lady's husband was staying on the boat a bit longer to party whereas she was getting off the boat early with us. I turned to her and commented that one could tell who would be getting up with the children early tomorrow, to which she said "Oh no, I have two helpers so I won't need to get up tomorrow at all". Hmm, so you've not actually stopped working to look after your children then.

Fur

2009-09-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

I was with Eve walking past the high-end luxury brand shops today (on the way to the Star Ferry to go to a museum). In one window was a horrible fur handbag, Eve looked, pointed and said "cat". Well, precisely.

The mother(s) I want to be

2009-09-01T02:23:00.000-07:00

As I was running last night, having put Eve to bed, I realised that much of what I think a good mother should be has been shaped by some of the really excellent role models I have had the privilege to meet. This is a mixed blessing, it is probably the source of so much of my working mother guilt that I have had few really excellent high flying working mother role models, but they have also shown me the type of mother I want to be. My own mother reads this so I won't describe her, she knows she has been a fantastic role model and I consider the strength of our relationship into adulthood (I was not an easy child and am no easier to deal with as an adult!) testimony to her skill and patience. However, as I was running the mother of one of my ex boyfriends popped into my mind.

D, my ex, was lovely. Kind, gentle, adored me. It was destined to fail, even though he had a motorbike! He was one of 4 brothers and his mother, M, had always wanted a girl but never had one. They lived in a glorious old farmhouse in a village just a little too far from a mainline rail station to be considered London commuter belt. His family were very religious, I met D at a Christian summer camp, but by no means stiffling or judgmental in their faith. M had made it her mission to bring up her children surrounded by as much love as possible. Even though her sons were often quite errant in their ways, the one I dated especially so, she always met everything with complete and unconditional love. This wasn't to mean there wasn't any discipline, there was, but it was metered out with such fairness and kindness that it just seemed to be more effective somehow. She met any news, good or bad, with a big hug and kind words. I adored her and she really liked me. When I was accepted at Oxford to read theology I think she may have been as proud as my own parents.

There was no expectation of achievement but just a desire for each child to be happy.

If I can give Eve half the feeling of support, love and sense of infinite possibility for happiness that she conveyed to her children then I will consider it a job well done.

Toys for the big girls

2009-08-31T20:27:00.001-07:00

As we get older we never quite grow out of toys. For me, dolls and cuddly toys have been replaced by a love of shoes, handbags and horses. The Boy has numerous sports-related gadgets (in many cases a few of the same thing but in slightly updated models). At the weekend I got my new toy, a large Ducati motorbike. I have ridden motorbikes ever since the Boy got sick of having to drag me everywhere on his one when we lived in London. My interest goes back even further to my first proper boyfriend who was an utter dick in every way except that he got a motorbike as soon as we turned 16. I have been rather sensible in my motorbike choice until recently when I sold my sensible, small-ish Honda and changed for a sleek, black, 800cc Monster (the brand name, but somewhat apt). I love it.

So does Eve. She thinks it is the coolest thing and loves to gaze at it in wonder, with a slight smile on her face somewhat similar to mine. She doesn't want to sit on it, the noise and size scares her a little bit (if the truth be known it scares me too), but she is fascinated. When I was riding it home at the weekend, Eve was in the car with the Boy and sat repeating over and over "Mummy, moma (her word for motorbike), vroom" and smiling. Now every time she sees a motorbike she says "Mummy, vroom".

Calling all working Mummies

2009-08-25T00:12:00.001-07:00

I have a bit of a dilemma. Yummy Mummy has been very, very lucky since I became a Mummy and I have the most amazingly flexible working arrangement with my boss. I work from home when I can, leave at 6 if I am in the office, and have responsibility and a nice salary to boot. It is a nice job, although not what I imagined I would be doing, but a good team nonetheless. At the moment I don't have any obvious career path within the team, however.

Last week I was approached to find out if I would be interested in applying for what, pre-Eve, would have been my ideal job. It is working for a team I know well and find very interesting. It would get me closer to the business and our clients, which has been one of my complaints about my current job because it moves me further away from where the actual business gets done. I really like the person who would be my boss, it would be a great career move. I only have a limited window before my old contacts and reputation from my pre-Eve job run out and make it difficult for me to make the move at all.

It would also see an end to working from home, would mean longer hours and seeing less of Eve. When I met the person who is currently doing the job yesterday to discuss it I was so excited about the chance that I had made my decision to go for it. But when I sat at lunchtime today singing "if you're happy and you know it" with Eve I made it back the other way.

I also realise that I can't work like this forever, in any other job I would probably have to change how I work, that Eve will go to nursery in about 6 months and I will then stop working from home, or do half days rather than full days here.

I can't help feeling that this is one of those crucial life-changing decisions. If I say no then I will always wonder what I could have had as a career had I made the choice. If I say yes then I will always wonder what I have missed with Eve. It is, quite simply, the choice between having a career and having a job.

I can already pre-empt all the comments about being able to get back into the career later etc, and I realise how fortunate I am to even have this decision to make. So many women don't. However, knowing that doesn't make it any easier.

I have the formal interview tomorrow and then I will either have to make a decision or not. I can't help wishing they would turn me down so I don't have to make the decision at all.

Evicted

2009-08-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

Along with being thrown out of a pub and out of a church, Eve can now add a library to her list of places she has been ejected from (although we didn't actually get thrown out) .

If we had been in the main part, where anyone was reading, then I might have felt a bit less aggrieved about it. However, we were standing in the atrium by the lifts (the cause of the shouts of happiness from Eve as she watched them go up and down) when the security guard came over and, pointedly looking directly at Eve, told us to be quiet.

I felt like asking him if he fancied trying to keep her quiet. I had been giving myself a pat on the back because I had managed to get her to stay stationary while the Boy returned our books. Silent AND still would be too much to expect.

I felt like a naughty child being told off and wandered off muttering "what does Mr Quiet do?" to Eve to persuade her to lower her volume.

Dromedary

2009-08-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Broodiness is not something I ever experienced before I had Eve. Although much loved now she is here, I had never been one of these people who just had to have a child. I have lots of friends who were, so I understand the concept, but it just never happened to me. I got drunk, got pregnant, had a baby and became a Mum. The whole planning and desire bit rather passed me by. I thought of broodiness in the same way as I do about people with allergies. I know that they are real, but I just don't have them. I am too strong and healthy (and selfish and stubborn) to succumb to that.

So it is with some fear that I am starting to realise that I might be coming down with it and, the more horrifying thought, that it might be catching. I have 2 friends with relatively new babies, a couple who are pregnant, and a similar number who are actively trying. As Eve was bouncing up and down on the sofa and trying to pull the cat's tail today, I couldn't help thinking that she would make a great older sister. In fact, it would do her a lot of good. Maybe those nights and breastfeeding weren't so bad, and it is not as if it goes on forever, and it must be easier the second time round. Surely?

As a result I find myself being a little less careful about taking my pill than I was last time I was on it. And there is still a jar of unopened folic acid in the cupboard that I could start to take just in case.

Or maybe, like allergies and other illnesses, my immunity will kick in, the illness will pass and I will get better again.

Pets not to buy your children

2009-08-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

A delightful short piece from David Attenborough on the one pet you might want to avoid buying your children.

One bite or two

2009-08-17T18:49:00.001-07:00

While I pat myself on the back for raising a confident, independent little girl, sometimes confidence can go a bit too far. I came home yesterday to pick Eve up from the playground to find out from our nanny that she had bitten one of her friends who wouldn't share a toy with her. This comes on the back of Eve pushing other children at the pool at the weekend. This new aggression is an unwelcome piece of toddlerhood that I had hoped would pass us by.

I must admit, however, that I am a bit stuck as to what to do about it. I have done all the sensible things, told her it hurts, said no, removed her to another place when she does it. However, she still does it. A glimmer of hope comes, however, in that the has bitten the Boy a few times but only me and her nanny once. H and I have little patience with such behaviour whereas Daddy is not quite so firm. Clearly consequences and discipline are the name of the game.

Which leads me onto the second dilemma. Managing a set of 3 carers, all of whom have to have the same consistent approach. H is a bit too soft on Eve, being more used to Chinese families where the children are rarely disciplined by the help. After a quick chat yesterday, H and I have agreed that if Eve pushes then she gets one more chance and then gets taken home. Biting and she goes home straight away. If she snatches then we take whatever she has snatched away and we do a time out. So far so good.

The Boy, however, needs a bit more work. He doesn't understand the need for consistency. Hence a stupid argument at the weekend. We were at the pool. The baby pool has shade, but the big pool has not. The Boy told Eve that if she wanted to play in the big pool then she would have to wear her hat. After we had removed her from the big pool 3 times (she refused to wear her hat) the Boy gave in saying "well she has a lot of sun tan lotion on". I then spent the better part of 10 minutes explaining child psychology 101 and that if you set a rule then you HAVE to stick to it. In a huff I advised him to pick his rules more carefully next time.

Grin from ear to ear

2009-08-05T18:33:00.001-07:00

One of the oddest things about being a Mummy is you forget that you were once an attractive and desirable human being and maybe, just maybe, could be again. Maybe it is the few months of leaking boobs, looking like a whale, or (as is the case today) my classy look being somewhat spoiled by finding bits of green paint on various parts of my body and clothes that I didn't manage to wash off after Eve and I did a rather vigorous session of painting this morning. Anyway, I rarely feel like the sexy, sultry woman I once thought I was. And that's fine. I suppose.

Anyway, I was exchanging emails with one of the rowing boys yesterday, ostensibly because he is looking for a job in banking and had been training with the Boy earlier this week who had suggested he have a chat to me. After general chit chat, he wrote the following.

I have been single for far far to long. My requirements. They have to be half as good looking as you and I would be a very happy man

BIG, BIG grin from Yummy Mummy

Quiet as a mouse

2009-08-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

Amongst other delights this weekend, we took Eve to the library. I am rapidly becoming a huge fan of our library, mainly because I don't have to read the same books over and over, but also because Eve can happily run riot in all the space and come to relatively little harm. As always, however, I am left wondering why Eve seems so different from other children.

When we got to the library we had a quick stop first in the cafe. The Boy had not eaten since our vast breakfast, it was early evening, so I needed to fortify him with cheesecake. As we were sitting down, I jealously looked at the other Chinese children. They were sitting quietly, reading their books or just, well, sitting quietly. Eve decided to run around like a loon, eating pieces of lemon I had given her, climbing onto chairs, chatting to other people, climbing onto a concrete plinth and shouting at the top of her voice. All the while the nice quiet Chinese children were being very well behaved while their parents looked upon my little show with horror.

A similar thing happened on Sunday in the playground where the Boy and I had taken Eve. The little chinese girl, who is the same age as Eve, was playing nice and quietly while Eve was swinging from the bars, stealing toys from other children and generally being, well, Eve. I found myself apologising more than once as she pushed past another, quieter, child on the way to the slide. I reprimanded her when she snatched or pushed, but she is a toddler and doesn't quite understand the concept of sharing yet.

I can't figure out why Eve never sits still and is always climbing or chatting or making mischief while all the other children just sit demurely and do as they are told. I am clearly doing something very, very wrong in this respect. Maybe she lacks discipline, although we hardly let her run riot at home. Much as I tell myself I am raising a confident, inquisitive little girl, I would also like to occasionally have a nice little girl who sits still and doesn't throw her food or herself on the floor.

Where did it all go?

2009-08-03T07:00:00.001-07:00

It is Monday and as usual on a Monday I am left wondering what on earth I did with all the time I must have had before I had a child. This was a rare weekend because I wasn't rowing (the river was closed) and so I was looking forward to a nice relaxing couple of days.

My relaxing weekend went thus. On Saturday we started the day going out for breakfast, then a swim, then to the truly excellent Museum of Coastal Defence, then motorbike shopping, back home for a quick ergo session, then off the indoor play area, finished off with a little light zoo building using lego. Then I cooked supper for the Boy. Sunday started off with a 6.5km run with Eve in the buggy and, well, didn't get any less active for the rest of the day.

I loved every moment of it, but I could really do with a weekend now.

Not so bad Mummy, but still quite icky

2009-07-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Another on the list of Bad Mummy moments, I seem to be having a week of it this week. I won't go into details on the pen debacle, but there were tears and Eve's nice pretty dress is now ruined. The one I am thinking about involves the pool and poo.

I took Eve to the pool last night after I had finished work. She'd had two poos already during the day so I figured I would be safe. To explain, Eve went through a phase of ALWAYS having a poo whenever she was taken to the pool. Initially we thought it had to do with being with water, but she has never had a poo in the bath, there seems to be something about the pool and swimming that brings it on. This has led to some quite nasty shower moments after swimming, but these were but a distant memory because she seemed to have grown out of it.

We are at the pool and having a lovely time. Eve is jumping in from the side, ducking under the water and coming up spluttering and giggling. I am blowing bubbles at her, all is good. Until she gets out of the pool, walks towards the changing room and says "poo". Eve has become quite a little trooper recently about telling us when she has had a poo. I asked her whether she had done a poo, to which her answer is of course "no" (see earlier post). When I get out to check, she has indeed done a poo. So, what to do? Only one swim nappy, a 5 min walk back home to get the other one and we'd only been in the pool 10 minutes. So I did something very practical, but not very classy. A wandered into the loo and held Eve with one hand over the toilet bowl. She was wriggling a little bit but still manageable. I pulled down her swim nappy, did a bit of a shake and shimmy with Eve and most of the poo fell out into the loo. Task one complete. Then I used a bit of loo paper to fish out the rest and, hey presto, clean swim nappy. Well, nearly.

Sadly during the shaking and shimmying some of the poo had missed the loo. So I put Eve down and picked it up with some loo paper, only to turn round and see Eve trying to fish the poo out of the loo. Shit. I washed Eve's hands and mine very, very carefully, pulled up the swim nappy, flushed the loo and we were back into the pool for another half an hour.

Not my classiest moment, but I feel there is something of the Girl Guide in how I dealt with it.

Bad Mummy

2009-07-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a Bad Mummy day.

It started off rather well. The Boy had an early race so I took Eve to the playground and the pool. We had a lovely time playing, and I even bought her croissant for her mid morning snack. Then I turned into bad Mummy.

I had to drive up to the river for my race. Eve fell asleep in the car just as we got there, so I woke her up. Not popular. Bad Mummy also forgot to pack the buggy so there was no hope of her going back to sleep. She then spent the next 2 hours at the boathouse, being variously hot, bored and hungry. The Boy and I were on the water at the same time so Eve had to spend 45 mins being looked after by our much put upon rowing coach (who should really have been coaching the racing crews at that point). The only thing Bad Mummy had packed for lunch that Eve decided she would eat was pitta bread. And I didn't pack any extra milk so she had a fight with Bad Mummy over the empty bottle still in the bag from her morning milk. There were tears.

Once home, Eve was put to nap about 2 hours too late. Which meant she was going to sleep through her supper time. Rather than staying home to enforce a shorter nap, Bad Mummy went off paddling in an OC1 in the sun. Bad Mummy then persuaded Daddy to bring Eve to meet her for supper. Eve ate supper 2 hours late. Bad Mummy had a couple of glasses of wine. Then the heavens opened, meaning that Bad Mummy made Eve go through the rain to get a bus home, which took ages. Bad Mummy then put Eve to bed, but forgot to switch off the light and didn't realise for an hour and a half, by which time a very tired Eve had been awake far too long and pulled all her clothes out of the cupboard. Bad Mummy switched off the light, put the clothes under the cot (well, nobody would see them there) and poured herself another glass of wine.

Bad, bad Mummy.

The weighing game

2009-07-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

One of the things that most shocked me when I came to Asia was the sheer size and scale of the slimming industry. Whereas back in the UK this was largely absent except for occasional adverts for Slimfast or Weight Watchers, here in HK by far the majority of adverts in places like the metro station are for slimming treatments and potions. This is mainly because you can make almost any claim for a product here and you don't actually need to be able to prove it, but there is also a cultural obsession with being stick thin (as opposed to being healthy), which I can never quite understand.

Often the adverts are accompanied by highly amusing before and after pictures. One of my favourites is where the before picture is tucking into a huge lollipop and clearly a whole lot happier than she is in the after picture. Another one that is plastered on the back of the seats of the bus I get home from work has the girl in the after picture dressed up as a hooker, complete with red platform stilettos and a cowboy hat. Normally I laugh them off for being the silliness that they clearly are. However, as I went via the metro station this morning to shout at my mobile phone company (a long and tedious battle that I have finally won) I passed one that made me quite angry.

The after picture had a woman in an unfeasibly small white dress looking benignly happy. However, the before picture had her looking unhappy, dressed in many layers of jumpers and trousers, with a baby next to her, implying that she was the mother (the ad was in Chinese so I don't know what it actually said). I know that baby weight is an issue for most women, I had my own demons over that one, but surely linking this so directly to a slimming product is just wrong? New Mums have enough to worry about without being reminded that as well as feeling like a dairy cow, never sleeping, not having enough time for a bath let alone make-up or exercise, they are also fat. Shame on you advertising men.

Postscript: I have two friends here who were told within about a week of having the baby that they should already have started the diet to lose the baby weight. One was told by her mother-in-law and the other, more shockingly, by her husband.

Another silly scientific study

2009-07-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

Another waste of scientific research funding to prove what Mummies have long known. The revolutionary new finding in this one out recently is that if children run around a lot and are active during the day then they find it easier to fall asleep at night, sleep better, and tend to be healthier and have lower obesity rates.

No shit sherlock.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no

2009-07-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

Eve is becoming so wonderfully acquainted with her newfound ability to say No that she loves to use the word, even when she means yes. I understand that this is just her learning to assert her independence, and boy does she like to assert it, but I am having to draw up a whole new set of Mummy behaviours to deal with it.

1. Don't ask a question if you aren't actually giving her a choice e.g. would you like to leave the playground now? Asking the question, being told no and then ignoring that desire seems to result in a tantrum of monumental proportions. I now make statements rather than ask questions unless I am actually OK if she says no.
2. Sometimes no means yes. If I suspect Eve actually means yes then I just keep asking until she realises that maybe no isn't the best answer. So, this morning I asked Eve is she wanted toast for breakfast, no. Then croissant (her all time favourite breakfast food), no. I asked again, no. Then again, at which point she paused.
3. Silence means yes. Easy.
4. Don't sweat the little things. If she doesn't want to eat her breakfast, or have her fruit, or would rather be carried than walk then I let it go. I am learning to pick my battles, the current one being brushing her teeth, which is very important for me to win.

All other suggestions gratefully received.

Lie in

2009-07-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Eve has finally reached the holy grail of development and now is capable, in fact happy, playing on her own for a while. I am delighted that she is developing right on schedule, but more importantly that I should now be able to sleep in a bit longer in the morning while she amuses herself in the cot. She normally wakes up at 7am and an extra few minutes will make all the difference.

Last night we went out to a friend's birthday dinner. It was at a lovely French private kitchen and a lot of very good wine was drunk. Knowing in advance that this was likely, when I put Eve to bed I popped her favourite bear in her cot with her and thought that if ever a theory should be tested then this was the time. We stayed out beyond midnight for the first time in ages and I felt a little bit fuzzy when I finally made it to bed. But I had my cunning plan in place to give me a few extra minutes of much needed sleep.

It sort of worked. She woke up and happily chatted to her bear for a whole fifteen minutes before the plaintive cries began demanding to be hoisted out of her cot. This would have been brilliant, had she not woken up inexplicably at 6.15. Oh well, I will keep trying.

Something borrowed

2009-07-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

After the sugar and champagne frenzy of yesterday morning, we decided in the afternoon so do something altogether more sedate. Eve loves books, we love books, but for some reason after 6 years in HK we have never joined a library. We decided to fix that yesterday.

I have always loved libraries. When I was a child I used to spend many happy hours pretend-playing as a librarian stamping books out for my cuddly toys. I was blessed at University by having the gorgeous Radcliffe Camera as my library and loved the smell of the stacks of books, the never quite enough lighting, and the thousands and thousands of thoughts and words that the building held. There was something about going in, after a rowing outing, and bedding down for the day surrounded by books that I loved.

Things have changed since then. Hong Kong's Central library is the model of efficiency. Aside from being housed in an affront to modern, indeed any, architecture it is brilliant. Gone are the days of library cards and little bits of paper. After a short form and presenting our ID cards, we were all fully subscribed members of the library. Let this be a lesson to all the people in the UK who are opposed to ID cards, they make life so much easier! Using this and the online system, you can get a book from any library in HK delivered to your local branch and return it back to any other branch. Amazing.

The kids section is huge, a whole floor, complete with a playroom, reading room, computer room and lots of child-sized desks and chairs so the little ones can read. They have a CD library as well as books, although the toy library is currently closed due to swine flu. Eve loved it. She ran around the shelves pulling off book after book and squealing with glee. She eventually settled down on a little chair with one entirely written in Chinese about monkeys cooking congee (or at least it looked that way from the pictures). I was also so excited by the endless possibility of access to so many books that I joined Eve in running around. In the end we borrowed a couple of Mog books and one about a smelly, hairy bear all done in 2 minutes using our ID cards. I can't believe that it took us so long to join.