Empty Chair

I saw this empty baby chair and was overwhelmed by a longing to see my Grandson, touch him, and cuddle him.

The Boy Bites

Yesterday at lunch Grandson was overcome by a desire to suck his Mommy's finger. Suddenly he lost control and bit his mom!

The little boy now has teeth and the bite was quite hard so it left a scar.

Motherhood is indeed fraught with dangers unexpected and unknown.

Bits of My Mom

Last night, we went for dinner with Grandson. To my delight he was all smiles when he came into the car. He was even smiling when he was having his feed.

How my heart melts when he smiles!

Again it struck me how his features resemble my mother's whenever he smiles. And I'm not the only one to say this.

It’s nice to see bits of her in Caden.

My mom

Giggly Pink Ladies

We found a very accommodating photographer at the pink party Baby Sis invited me to recently. Sunny Tan took our photos, and surprise! surprise! he also emailed them to us as promised! 

This is a very rare occurrence for Baby Sis and me because we have been "conned" so many times by photographers taking photos of us in our nyonya attire that we have become very skeptical when photographers say that they will send us our photos. That almost always happens when we are dressed as nyonyas. I wonder why? 

Anyway, thank you very much Sunny! You're the best. You keep your promises. And we love the photos.

We started out trying (unsuccessfully) to put on a bored look...

...that soon fell apart when the giggles burst forth

Real Reading

Tonight is one of those rare nights when I get to curl up in bed and catch up on my reading. Such nights are too few and too far between to satisfy a true blue librocubicularist like me.

I read a lot but reading is only reading when I have a physical book in my hands. Reading from a screen, whether of an iPad, phone or computer is simply not the same. Reading is really reading only when I have a real book with pages I can touch and feel.

The book I am reading now

Woman Has Prostate Cancer

This morning I overheard my colleague telling another colleague, "My friend's mother just found out that she has prostate cancer. The doctor gave her six months."

That immediately caught my attention. Unable to contain my curiosity I blurted out, "How can she have prostate cancer?"

"Why not?" she replied.

I explained, "Women don't have prostate glands la! Only men can get prostate cancer."

That's when she clarified, "Oh, I was saying that she had FOURTH STAGE cancer."

And we had a good laugh over something that is certainly no laughing matter.

An Extraordinary Sunday Worship Service

Today we had an extraordinary Sunday worship service line-up and it all started with our Senior Pastor spraining his back yesterday. 

By evening he was still in pain and so the SOS went out for Bro. Koay to take over the preaching for him and for me to conduct the Holy Communion. 

When I went to church this morning, I went looking for Grace Tan, the worship leader, to find out when she is going to pass over the service for me to conduct the Holy Communion. Lo and behold! I was told that she had fallen sick that very morning and that Melissa was taking over the worship leading. 

So this morning we had an unprecedented occasion in TOP where we had a replacement worship leader, a replacement Holy Communion leader and a replacement preacher. All on the same day. We just stepped up and into our roles and it's "business" as usual even when the Senior Pastor is not around.

That is wisdom of training up and empowering lay leaders to do the work of the ministry. No panic. No running around like a chicken without its head. No problem. 

Well done, TOP!

Our First Okoberfest

Last Friday we attended our very first Oktoberfest ever despite our most gallant efforts to evade the "invitation". We were finally cornered and coerced into buying tickets for the event.

At first Hubby didn't want to go for the dinner but I persuaded him otherwise. After all, we still have to eat dinner. No point in letting the tickets go to waste, right?

So the plan was to just go for dinner and then leave.

Our plates piled high with green salad, German potato salad, laugen bread, sausages, barbecued meats, sauerkraut, and chicken mushroom pie. Hubby's had additional egg fried rice.

Here we are trying to eat in the midst of the noise and behind us you can see the band in the background oom pah pah-ing away. There were also pretty girls dressed as bar maids in frilly short skirts moving among the crowd but we didn't get around to taking any photos with the sweet young things.

We left immediately after dinner as planned and on our way out we met the President of the club. When he saw the bottles of soft drink and water in our hands he said, "It's a crime to drink this at Oktoberfest!"

Well, at least we give face and turned up.

A photo proof of the "criminals" leaving the Oktoberfest party with their illicit drinks.

Unfortunately Hubby woke up with a bad headache the next morning. He claimed that it was a hangover!

I don't know how that could have happened when ne'er a drop of beer or anything remotely alcoholic passed our lips last night. Maybe it's the beer fumes in the air. Or could it be the Sprite?

Anyway, I think this will be our first and last Oktoberfest ever.

P.S Can you believe it? I didn't even know that Oktoberfest was spelt this way until I took a closer look at signage in the photo of us below the arch at the entrance. All the while I was spelling it as Octoberfest while I was writing the post. *blush*

Think Pink This October

This is the month to think PINK! So be prepared to see lots of pink events stealing the limelight this month. This has been happening without fail annually ever since October was designated breast cancer awareness month more than 25 years ago. I am glad to find that breast cancer awareness promotion has been picking up momentum over the years.

My pink October kicked off with a good start when Baby Sis invited me to attend a Luscious Ladies Day in Shades of Pink last Thursday at the Victory Annexe Ballroom at the E&O Hotel. 

Lovely party favours in all shades of pink

A pretty pink themed table to set the mood for ladies

Clockwise from top left corner: All the chairs prettily dressed in shades of pink; in contrast, the lovely stage was framed in frosty white; table arrangements; pink and silver helium balloons clinging to the ceiling

Baby Sis got carried away by the pink balloons. The guy in orange
with a very worried look on his face was the balloon vendor.

For me, the highlight of the morning was a testimony from a lady who had preventive double mastectomy when she tested positive for the BRCA gene mutation that increased her risk of getting breast cancer to 85%. 

She had been going for mammograms ever since she was 21 because she has a family history of breast cancer. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 32 but managed to beat it. Unfortunately her mom succumbed to another more aggressive attack at age 42 that eventually took her life. 

When she tested positive, she was in a dilemma because, being a breast fed baby herself, she wanted to breast-feed her baby. As she thought to herself, she realised that she wouldn't have minded not being a breast fed baby if it meant that she could still have her mom around. 

Likewise she didn't want to leave her children orphans when she could do something about it and so, with the support of her husband, family and friends, she underwent a double mastectomy. The doctor took fat from her stomach to reconstruct her breasts so she had a tummy tuck as well. 

Then she did another test that showed that she had a 50% chance of getting ovarian cancer. Since she wanted to remove her ovaries at age 35, she and her husband decided to fast forward their plans to have a baby even though they didn't plan to have children while they were in Asia. Recently, at age 31, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl here in Penang.

After listening to her, I could understand a little bit more of why Angelina Jolie made the decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. Who are we to sit in judgement of their decision when we have not walked in their shoes? Nevertheless, I couldn't help imagining a situation where we keep cutting off more and more parts of our body until...what? Until all our organs are removed or replaced? That thought just boggles my mind. 

I Am Not Alone! AMEN!!!

Before the auctions and what-not there was a little James Bond skit and Mazeta led us in singing Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone". I had a God moment as He comforted me with the words:

You are not alone

I  am here with you

P.S. All photos taken by Lillian Tong

Gifts from Taiwan

God-daughter bought us some gifts from her recent trip to Taiwan.

This...

and this...

The latter is to help beautify her God-mother.

She never forgets us wherever she goes. My heart is warmed by such thoughtfulness and generosity from someone who is still studying.

Thank you, Jewel! *hugs and kisses*