Two Words & Tummy Troubles

Guess I'll get to the tummy troubles first.

It feels odd blogging at 11.40 in the morning on a Wednesday since I do most of that in the night or on weekends. But the kiddo has come down with a sort of a tummy bug possibly tied to his slightly sore throat yesterday. After a morning spent mostly with his head over the sink, he's snoozing peacefully after a spoonful of crushed Dramamine in honey (he still won't swallow pills and I can't say I blame him). No one is a pretty sight throwing up but the kiddo seems to have fully inherited my wallowing-in-misery-when-sick genes as well so maybe you know how draining that can be on the receiving end.

So now, it's so quiet. His forehead isn't as warm. The hummingbirds are chirping away, fighting for a drink from our feeder. And the chicken soup is bubbling happily on the stove and after watching him sleep so peacefully after being so fitful all morning long, I thought I may as well write something here.

I think I can blame it all on the events that are related to the two words I wanted to tell you about.

The first is "mangkuk" which translates literally in Malay to "bowl" but actually means being illogical or just plain not there if you know what I mean. And the second is "kiasu" which any Singaporean worth his/ her salt will tell you means "always win". So I've been both a mangkuk and kiasu these past few days. The rather unnaturally cool early summer weather we had in the last 2 weeks blinded me to the fact that driving the kiddo to a science summer camp in a rather hot area of San Jose and (please notice the italics) sticking to all the other classes he enjoys and doing a quick dash of 30 miles to the east bay once a week was going to lead to some sort of a break down either for me or him or the both of us.

I don't take to hot weather very well (I guess my 30+ years in Southeast Asia should have prepared me for it but it didn't) and I don't know what I was thinking signing him up for the camps on top of classes. Yeah, well, he wanted it too but I guess I should have put my foot down. Instead, I was just so glad to know he was going to get some science exposure and socialization time while I had my head wrapped around our impending move. Oh yeah, we're moving too. So can you see how much of a mangkuk I am right now?

If you don't hear from me for a while it's only cos I'm trying to figure out how not to be so mangkuk in the next few weeks. I'm giving up on the kiasu for now.

See you soon dear reader. Hope you're having a cooler summer!