Drawing Inspiration

Jesse made me this drawing a couple of days back. "Take this to work with you, Daddy," he said, "and show it to your friends". The kid's a narcissist, I tell you.

The drawing made me laugh. It's his cute little attempt at spelling and his record of events and observations that entertains me no end. I think I'll teach him to blog next. That oughtta be hilarious.

As for the drawing, the boy managed to sucker Uncle Jeff into getting him the new Iron Man toy as a present when they were out at Tropicana City. He's also awed by the fact that Iron Man has a triangle arc reactor this time around.

I dunno, but I thought that deserved a blog post in itself. :)

Maddie 365

Maddie turned one 2 Sundays ago. As tradition, we had a little bash for the family. It was like a scene from Goodfellas.

There was Jeffrey and Stevie and Me. There was Gino from the family up north. There was Slicky Ricky and his brothers, Eric the Booze and Two-Tone Tony. There was Tall Joey, who was Lari's brother from the wife's family. Two Jasons. And you had Ashley The Eyes and his gal, Cotton Candy. And Jeremy 2K, who gets the nickname because he owes me 2K.

It was all in the family, but you get the idea. Now enjoy the photos. :)


It's Maddie's first birthday and we're a little liberal with her eating for the day. She gets a first taste of Vitagen and she loves the stuff. Check out the killer pose.


The spread. We catered this from D'Fortune and it was good. An order for 45 feeds 60, with some leftovers. Shhh...


Maddie complaining to Auntie Sue, "There's just too many people here, and they're eating my food!"


The Grisly Sisters (mine), watching Maddie sleep. There's something discomfiting about this picture, because you should never sleep in the presence of these two. Especially when they have marker pens nearby. Trust me on this. Poor Maddie.


The whole village. 60 of us, Grandfathers, grandmothers, grand uncles and aunties, uncles & aunties, cousins, etc. And this is not even the whole family! They came, they ate, they left. Just like locusts, except that we like them and they brought gifts. Heheh.


One for the album. Everyone singing the song, but Maddie just wants cake.


Kids ravaging the cake. This one comes from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and it's got all kinds of goodies on top. The little horrors were just picking off the colourful treats, led by their leader, my son. :)


A little flower power for my little girl. Maddie's totally into the cake decoration. She's also into her very first taste of cake.


No it wasn't the kids. This was all Mae. Apparently it's extremely difficult to cut a cake that's got all kinds of candies on it.


Cuppacakes from Wondermilk. Mae bought a whole box of the stuff and ate it for a week. Yeah. Eww. Too much of a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.


Maddie gets her first birthday present. She loves it, if only to jump up and down on it.

It was tiring just looking at all those people. And in the end, it was more a party for everyone else than it was for poor little Maddie. Sorry sweetheart. Daddy will make it up to you every birthday from here on, okay?

Reprise, Repeat, Repulsor

I haven't blogged in ages and I figured I should. Aside from being a nice reminder of things that happened in our lives, it's also pretty therapeutic. And Lord knows I need therapy from time to time. Comes with the whole territory of being Hainanese. Heh.

Anyway, it's been over six years of blogging now. Or semi-blogging, as the case may be. Jesse's going to Primary 1 next year. Maddie turns 1 this Sunday. I'm pushing 40. And Mae is 25. (It's statements like this last one that ensures I get to turn 40.)

At this stage, if you've read this far, you'd realise I'm just rambling. Sort of a freestyle riffing. There is probably a point to this post, but it might take awhile getting there. It probably has to do with growing old and getting verbose. A few more years, I'll be recounting war stories and their many reruns from a rocking chair.

So yeah, this one's about growing old, and growing up.

I look back at the last six years of blogging and I don't recognise the blogger. I've grown awfully cynical and perhaps even somewhat bitter. I don't marvel at too many things these days. And people don't surprise me any more. I've grown to hate more things than I love. Because with age and experience, comes the ability to see through all kinds of bullshit. You know, the kind that suspends your disbelief in anything, allowing you to be happy and well-adjusted.

Growing old sucks. Cos you can't find the time to watch a movie at the cinemas. No wonder I'm bitter.

I need to watch Iron Man 2 before I self-destruct.