homemade blues

I'm in a dilemma. It's not that big of a dilemma. But a dilemma nevertheless...

A's operation has been postponed. To next year. 2010. Hmmm...

Story is - on Monday (23 March), we finally got to meet the actual pediatric surgeon who will work on A. A was asleep, as luck would have it, and the surgeon got a good look at him, and she told us that A is just too small for any operation(s) to happen anytime soon. She explained to us in great detail what she would be doing in the operation, and there are certain pre-requisites that need to be fulfilled before anything can be done. Particularly, the size.

"I can do it sooner," she says,"but there are too many risks of complications..."

So it has been decided for G and me. The next appointment will be 18 Jan 2010.

My dilemma is - as those of you who would know, the main reason (or excuse?) I requested for this whole year off from work, is to care for A. And of course, if you refer to my earlier posts (earlier than 1st Jan 2009), I wanted - needed - this break from work, because I believe I'm burning out. I really truly do.

Now what do I do?

I can't NOT go back to work. The operation has been postponed. It's against my principles to "trick" the company that I'm caring for my child when I am not. Even if I did, I can't request for another year of sabbatical leave in 2010. That would be... I don't have a word for it. That's not even considering whether the company would consider such a thing. I'm not anybody special that they can't live without. As it is, they are doing fine without me. I think. No news is good news, right?

But if I don't work there anymore, what would I do? I can't be staying at home permanently. How can we financially maintain what we have? And if I do want to work somewhere else, or work at something else, what is it? That's how pathetic I am. I don't think I ever had a dream. Or a secret ambition. I don't even know what my special skills / talents are. I just did what people told me to do.

I feel like I'm at a crossroad. And I hate making decisions.

Grrr. I had the best laid-out plans. Now it's back to the drawing board. I've been thinking since Monday afternoon. I can't think anymore. Correction. I don't want to think about it anymore.

What a week. Weekend to weekend, it's been the longest (to me) week-long school break ever.


Let's see. The Friday before the start of the school break we celebrated Danial's birthday ('twas a brief 15 mins or so) in his class... cupcakes and goodie bags for everyone...




And on the day itself (which happened to be Monday), we had another party with family and (some) friends... more cake!

Ibu made her famous Chicken Rice. She insisted. Even bought and brought the rice grains all the way from KB. Macam la kat sini takde beras... Anyhoo, needless to say, I gained back nearly half of the weight I lost... I haven't been to the gym (and couldn't care less about the diet) for the last, (mental calculation) umm, 12 days. Yeah, there'll be h!@# to pay. I'm re-starting the regime tomorrow.

I also realized (with some "enlightment" from watching the first season of The Biggest Loser on Astro Hallmark Ch702 - the run has ended, but are they gonna ever bring the other seasons to our shores? Correction - I just happened to see that The Biggest Loser season 2 is now on, every weekday at 7pm on Ch702) that I need to constantly push myself in order to see results sooner. Doing the same routine at a comfortable level (i.e. not making you want to puke) will not yield what I want to achieve in the time I want. So there. I'm sticking to my resolution. I HAVE TO! :)

...what else did we do during the break?...


We went to the Putrajaya Lake Cruise. Hehe. We did it because G and I agreed not to let D go with his school mates - his school organised a trip to Putrajaya, and the cruise was one of the activities. I mean, there are 22 6-year-olds in his class alone, and there are 4 (I think) 6-year-old classes. And they've got how many teachers? No offence to the teachers, but I don't think they'd be able to control all the kids in one go. And D so badly wanted to go, so we thought we'd take him - on our own time and terms. It was fun.


Oh, and we had 2 birthday parties to attend last weekend. One was Daina's son (it was a birthday plus a housewarming party which then became a mini TKC8690 reunion), and the other was D's classmate in McD's. And I also went to Along's engagement event on Sat night. Sigh. It's so nice to see these 2 lovebirds finally together. That's a whole long story by itself...


Who said staying at home is gonna be boring???

Singing happy birthday...

Blow the candles!

Cut the cake! And I want dem bunny ears...

We stayed for a while, had good laughs, and then headed home for some deserved rest after all the activities. Monday afternoon I have to bring A to see the other doctor...

Monday

After D finished school, we rushed to SJMC (which I discovered has changed its name to Sime Darby Medical Centre Subang Jaya... I shudder to think how it will be abbreviated) because I had to take A's x-ray films from the ED before I go to see the specialist. A fell asleep (it was his nap time, after all) and I got a bit disoriented because there was some contruction work going on at the old parking lot in front of what used to be the entrance to the hospital lobby. Finally I got to the other designated entrance, dropped the boys and Oom off, and parked the car all the way over at the lakeside carpark (sounds very touristy). When we got to the doctor's office, I left the boys and Oom there, and walked over to the ED (which is across the road, so I used the link bridge) to get the x-rays.

Ok, ok. To cut the long story short, we saw the doctor, and he just did something to A's arm (which jolted him awake and got him crying) and he said (in not so exact words), "Ah, there's a sound already. He should be ok now." Huh? He proceeded to tell me that A had a pulled elbow, and whilst there was no bone dislocated, there was a ligament out of place, so he has corrected it. By doing whatever it was he did. If I had known it would be so simple, I didn't have to bring him to see the specialist, eh? Haha. That's why he's the doctor, and I am not.

By the time we got home, A was fully awake, and was starting to use his left arm to hold his bottle. By late evening, he had started to use both his hands to throw things around the house.

Sigh. Back to normal... All is good.

I originally wanted to close the chapter of the "What An Eventful Weekend" series... but we interrupt this posting with a news update...

I don't think it's an update per se. But I have come to a conclusion - perhaps many other women already have, so I may be a late observer, as always - that all men are CEOs. Reference to the point - they don't want to be bothered by details, they just want a solution. They don't care what it takes, they just want to see the results.

Case in point: D's birthday is coming up and we agreed to do have the party on Monday night. And lo and behold, a bomb was just dropped on me. "I have to play golf that afternoon," he says. Have to? Excuse me? Have to? Did someone strap you to a chair and threatened to pull out your fingernails one by one, or shoot you in the kneecaps, if you say no? So who's going to be moving furniture around, prepare the food and drinks, get the goodie bags together, blow up the balloons, etc., etc.? I can visualise the answer - "I'm sure you can handle it, the maid is there to help, you don't need me."

Who's child are we talking about here?

Thing is, we just had an argument about priorities, and responsibilities. I understand my role as the one who stays at home (for now) and his role as the one who provides. But the one who stays at home gets to do all the menial work, and the one who provides gets to "de-stress" (he calls it)? I know it's such a small, relatively unimportant and hardly mentionable issue like a birthday party, and I'm probably being too idealistic, but is it too much for some pysical involvement in something for our son? So what if he provides the financial aspect? Is that it? His involvement is up to that extent alone?

I am extremely upset. I have to stop.


Blog entry Friday the 13th, March 2009: Amends have been made on the day itself. Apology accepted. Arguments noted.

This was what I ordered for G and me. Salad Caprese - salad and tomato and feta cheese with olive oil and some citrus-y dressing...

Liz ordered this for her and Rastam. I know there is a grilled scallop (yum!) and cheese - but can't remember the rest of the details

Mokz ordered this for him and Nora. Gnocchi... something... I can't quite remember, but it was like a starch dumpling with carrots and spinach in a cream sauce... It was excellent! (recommended by the waiter - who, Mokz said, was a Malay chap from Kedah, it seems)

Then it was time for the mains...

This was what I had - oven baked salmon steak on a bed of grilled vegetables (cauliflower, asparagus, baby carrot) and lentils (ala, kacang dhal... hehe) with creamy caper sauce

G had lamb lasagne with grilled vegetables

Mokz had seafood lasagne with grilled vegetables

Nora punya - beef tenderloin with grilled vegetables and baked potato with sour cream, swimming in black pepper sauce... (macam menu mess night!) Can you see the steam? The tenderloin was so tender!

Liz had... hmmm... Lamb canelloni or something...


I've no idea what Rastam had... I think it was lamb as well...

And because G thought the portions were going to be small - like in Nerovivo - he ordered pizza!

And the desserts!

Rastam and I both ordered this Chocolate Truffle Dome. Unbelievably rich chocolate-y taste!

Nora and Mokz had this Neapolitana ice cream... Smooth and creamy... Mmmm...

Liz had this Almond Pie which I originally wanted to order, but we still got a taste. So nice!

And in between, we had a great time laughing and enjoying each other's company. Everyone else but me had coffee later - I was stuffed! And we were finally ushered out of the joint because apparently, they close at 10pm! (I glanced at my watch as they gave G the bill, it was already half past 10pm... Hehe)

We did make a stop at the hotel lobby, where we were serenaded by a Filipino group at the lounge below - I didn't know this hotel was huge! And we chatted for a while and we girls watched some people dancing drunkenly ('twas some mat & minah sallehs with some chinese dudes...) while waiting for our guys to call it a night. We then drove Mokz and Nora home and got back to the house until after midnight...

Yes, I had a good time. The food and the company were absolutely wonderful. I'm so looking forward to our next outing. G says we should go to Red, KL Hilton - they won the best restaurant award for last year's MIGF! But not in the next 3 months. Because the bad news was - I gained a whole kilo! Grrr...

Phew. I'm tired. Another weekend (+early week) like this, I'll be considering to go back to work. Haha.

I'm going to be writing in chronological order, so we'll start with...

Saturday morning

Sent Ibu to the airport at 5.45am. We got there at about 6.05am, so she still had plenty of time to check in and wait for her 7.10am flight. It was on the way back home that I suddenly remembered to ask whether she had taken the flight itinerary that I had printed for her the day before. Thankfully she did. Haha. This story is not about that.

G and I slept in, and then it was time for D's outdoor golf class in Tropicana at 11am. We got there slightly after 11am, and after D and Miman went off to the putting and chipping green, G+Remi and I went to lepak at the golf club cafe. A was running around with Oom, and it was all routine until it was about time to go home. Oom came up to us, and A was crying his eyes out, and Oom told us that she had grabbed A's left arm earlier because he got dizzy after running around in circles for a while (yes, he does this quite often) and was about to fall hard onto the floor.

I got a bit anxious because A was crying much more than usual, and it looked like he was not using his left hand. He was crying throughout the trip to 1 Utama, then calmed down a bit as we went about our normal routine - lunch at TCRS, D's computer class (where we scoured the entire toy section of Parkson to look for Fareez's birthday gift). He even played a bit (it still looked like he was not using his left hand) when we waited for D's computer class to start, and then he fell asleep.

G and I debated whether we wanted to bring A to the doctor's before going to Kemuning Utama for the sleepover, but he was asleep, so we decided to wait and see what happens on Sunday when we pick him and D up. When we left them at Kemuning Utama, A had woken up, but was in a somber mood, and was playing quietly with Airis's toys. I sent a text message to Oom much later, and they were at the playground, and A was playing as well. Hmm...

Since Mokz had invited us to his house for makan in honour of his sister's birthday - nasi briyani ikan (yeah, i never had it before - i was curious), so we went straight there after leaving Kemuning Utama. I had a little bit of rice and the fish - it was delicious! And we stayed for awhile before going home to get ready for the dinner. Makan lagi!

To be continued...