First - A day of firsts for a little girl and Mommy

What a day this has been!

For the little girl, this is her first day at school! To a parent, this is an exciting day. To a little girl of 2 years and a quarter, this is a frightening day indeed. From her point of view, she's been taken away from her mother, for no reason, and left with a bunch of strange adults and kids!

Some kids may be too happy to play with other kids but Yan is different. She cried and howled until she had to be carried away by a teacher kicking and and screaming. I left immediately as I didn't want to set any precedent that Mommy could stay during school hours. For the whole session, she hung on to the teacher for her dear life. Poor thing, I wondered how long it would take for her to say goodbye to me with a smile.

For Mommy, she got involved in her first car accident! Nothing major, just a broken non-consequential side lamp for me and a broken rear brake light and a dent in the bumper for the other party. Hubby's first question was whether the kids were okay. Good man!

It was a bit scary because I was alone with 3 small kids and I knew it was my fault. It didn't help that the other party was a rather hostile couple. In my opinion, they were over-hostile considering the "severity" of the damage. Luckily, hubby was just a phonecall away. He provided the courage I needed to stand my ground.

Lesson learned: don't expect sympathy from people just because you're a "helpless" woman with small children. They may view it as your weakness and take advantage of you.

Lightspeed: the sequel.

I can't believe it's almost 2 weeks since my last post. A lot has changed for me since Boxing Day. For good or bad... I don't know but I prefer to look at the bright side.

Before I continue, I'd like to thank Jo-N and Suzette for visiting despite my lack of posts in the weeks before Xmas. [A deep bow and thank you for both of you]

Changes:-

• Translation - I've stopped. Hubby didn't approve of my staying up late to catch up on the work to meet the deadlines. The work is not as leisurely as I thought. I managed to do a few shows in December cos it was the holidays. They offered me the position of Editor. Hubby and I even travelled to the other side of town (and got lost along the way!) to meet the owner of the company. Although I can work out of home, the offer was not very attractive financially compared to my opportunity costs. Now that my eldest has started Primary One, the opportunity costs are too high, I don't want to afford it.
• New year - Hubby and I are very practical minded people (probably that's why we're accountants by training!). To him, it's just another date on the calendar. For people dealing the financial side of companies, it most likely signifies closure of the old financial year aka more work. Not much fun, that. Also with 3 small kids in tow, we can't join in the countdowns anywhere except in our living room in front of the TV. Not much fun, too.
• First day of school - This means more to my family than the first day of the year. Reason: my work starts. With Heng in the morning session of school, I have to wake up at 5.30am! (This is also why translation doesn't fit in as I usually worked on that until 2 am.) It is a full day with breaks in late morning (when the boys are in school) and afternoon (when all 3 kids take their naps). Bedtime is around 10pm if I were to have enough shut eye before the alarm rings. It's a full time job.
• New phone - I'm really grateful to my hubby for this one. My Nokia "Butterfly" is close to 5 years old. Casing was damaged but since I'm used to it and all my contacts inside, I don't see the point of keeping up with the trend. It was functioning until some hiccups lately. So, hubby took the chance to upgrade it to a Nokia 6300. I fell in love with it at first sight. It was what hubby had in mind as well though he didn't tell me at the time. It's sleek and fits nicely into my palm. Kids love the new games, too.

When things settle down, I'll have for time for blogging :)