I’ve always known Truett to be an adrenaline junkie but all this time, he’s been a safe one (if there’s such a thing). He climbs stuff and jumps from stuff like a typical boy but he takes calculated risks and has always exercised restraint in how high he goes. And he always checks to make sure I’m there as his safety net just in case.
During our recent trip to Hong Kong, we spent some time at this playground near Citygate Outlet Mall. It’s mostly like the playgrounds we have here except taller and scarier. Like this rocket structure that was really huge – all the kids up on that thing were at least in Primary School.
When Tru saw it from afar, he sprinted to it and started climbing. And when the husband followed behind he was like “Daddy you go down, I can do it by myself. No, no, stand further back, you don’t come so near.”
He was up on the monkey bars, sitting on top of places that weren’t meant to be sat on and ok, somebody please tell me he’s too small to be scaling the structures spiderman-style. I was lurking around below yelling at him to be careful but he just looked down at me nonchalantly and said “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine I won’t fall.”
I figured I’d have to deal with this when he turns 7 or 8, but the little guy is barely even 4 and he’s doing all the things that big boys do. I guess 4 is the new 7 now.
It would have been a lovely Monday if not for the fact that it is getting quite unbearably hot around here. It seems compounded by the fact that my pregnant ass is generating heat like a Josper Charcoal Broiler Oven. As I’m sitting here spritzing myself with the spray my mom uses to water her plants, I so wish I had a tub of ice to soak my super hot, heat generating self in for the rest of the day.
But then I wouldn’t be able to blog because I’m probably going to end up dropping my laptop into the tub and electrocuting myself. Which would be bad because I do have something I wanted to talk about today.
Days like these, I wish I had a personal assistant to type whatever I said while I sat in my ice-tub all day. And also feed me grapes. And massage my feet.
The husband says it would be a whole lot easier to blast the air conditioning because people these days don’t have to rely on a tub full of ice to cool down. But the man hasn’t been pregnant before so he obviously doesn’t know the difference. Sitting in an air-conditioned room having to do my own typing isn’t nearly as fun as sitting in my ice-tub with a grape-feeding, feet-massaging personal assistant who was also good at dictation.
Anyhow, last night, I dreamt about Finn. Or rather, I dreamt about myself giving birth to Finn, who by the way, was beautiful and perfect and tiny. In fact, he was far too tiny because in my dream, I had gone into labor and given birth to him at 26 weeks. The whole time I kept screaming that it was far too early for him to be born and they were supposed to STOP HIM FROM COMING OUT QUICK PUSH HIM BACK IN NOW!! But he was intent on coming out and because he was so tiny, all his organs haven’t fully developed so they had to take him away and stick lots of tubes into his body.
Even though it was a dream, it was terrifying because there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.
I know I sometimes kid about how difficult it is to be pregnant and make a baby but the truth is that while being pregnant is occasionally uncomfortable, I’m really not much more than a storage facility. I mean, I go about my day, go to sleep and wake up and without me even thinking about it, the baby develops and grows. God is the one forming the little fingers and ears and intestines and all I do is channel part of my bacon sandwich to the baby. I can’t make him grow any faster or slower or tell him when to come out.
And I’m glad because if I was the one who had to call the shots and make the baby, he’d probably have misshapen toes and a gallbladder where his liver should be.
This being the third pregnancy, I hardly even think about being pregnant until the discomfort from the backaches and constipation hits me, then I send the husband passive aggressive emails about how difficult the pregnancy is because it usually results in an extra back rub when he comes home from work. Or maybe a tub of ice-cream.
I always hear people say that having kids is a miracle and such cliches usually make me cringe inside but today, I’m a little sappy.
So I woke up this morning and after checking to make sure that Finn was still snug in my uterus and growing healthily, I snuck over to give my 2 other kids a hug, thankful for how perfect they are.
A couple of weeks back, we finally did a family photo shoot, the kind shot by proper photographers who knew things like backlight compensation and spot metering. And since I’m usually the one behind the camera, I thought it’d be nice to do a shoot with all of us before I get too preggers to appear in photos.
The pictures were taken by Josh (and Esther, his beautiful fiancé) from The Beautiful Moment Photography (Facebook page here) and they turned out absolutely gorgeous. A big thank you for spending your afternoon running after the kids and blowing bubbles.
We’re going to print out a whole bunch to put up at home – the only problem is deciding which ones to pick because I want them all.
Uh huh. Looks like there’ll be more testosterone and manly grunts on the horizon because us girls are going to be outnumbered around here.
I know I’ve been saying how my gut feel was that it’s going to be another girl but turns out I was wrong again. That makes it 0 for 2 as far as my mother’s intuition goes. Well at least this time, I knew better than to call him Hailey for the first trimester so instead I called him baby just to be safe.
Speaking of names, the original plan was to call the next boy Travis but we were sitting in the doctor’s office and we both felt like this one didn’t feel like a Travis.
This one sort of feels like a Finn.
Not short for Finnegan or Finnick or Finley. Just Finn.
Finn Kao.
Ok bring on the jokes – seriously, if you can think of any puns, do share. We couldn’t think of any but just in case we’re missing out something obvious, it’s better to find out now than 5 years down the road when he goes to kindergarten.
Day 2 of our Hong Kong Disneyland experience was possibly even better than the first day. Partly because we managed to recover somewhat from the exhaustion of having to hit the ground running on the first day.
Friday morning, we took a 5am flight and arrived in Hong Kong at about 10am, blitzed into the hotel for a quick check in, then went straight for lunch and into the park. Which meant that I was awake for the better part of 48 hours and even though the kids got pockets of sleep on the flight, they were surviving on pure adrenaline the entire first day.
After a nice deep sleep in our room at Disney’s Hollywood Hotel, the kids were up and ready to go at 8am on Saturday morning.
Breakfast was a character buffet meet and greet at the Enchanted Garden in the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel next door. The food? Stunning both in terms of variety and quality. I still can’t get over how good the food is in Hong Kong Disneyland because my brain has been programmed to associate Disneyland with fried chicken. But the best part was that Mickey, Goofy and Pluto came over to say hi while we were munching on dim sum.
Kirsten saw Mickey approaching from 3 tables away and started shouting “MICKEY! MICKEY I’M HERE!! SEE, IT’S MICKEY, MOMMY!!!” Naturally, everyone turned to look at the commotion but she got an extra hug from Mickey for her enthusiasm.
Once we were in the park, our first stop was Tomorrowland to get Fastpasses for Space Mountain. Since I was pregnant and Kirsten was too short, we did the baby rides while the 2 boys used our Fastpasses and went on Space Mountain 4 times. Yes you heard right, 4 times. Truett just made the height limit for the ride and he was in roller coaster heaven.
Hearing him rave about Space Mountain, I almost tried to sneak in once for old time’s sake but I didn’t because I’m pregnant and responsible.
Another of their favorite rides was Autopia, a race car ride that they could steer and drive along a track all on their own. They weren’t very good at steering so the ride got a little bumpy but all that bumping made it all the more fun for them.
Here’s a video of Truett showing off his driving skills. By the second ride, he actually got pretty good.
While queueing for the Jungle Cruise boat ride, they were picked by one of the cast members to be little helpers to the skipper on board. They were given special safari vests and allowed to help the captain steer the boat.
The last land we visited was the bright and cheery Toy Story Land, the park’s latest addition which opened in November last year. It is also Asia Exclusive, so you’ll only be able to experience it here. There were 3 rides here – the Slinky Dog Spin, the Toy Soldier Parachute Drop and the RC Racer. Unfortunately, Kirsten was too short and I was too pregnant for all the rides here so we walked around and took pictures while the boys got their adrenaline fix.
Baby girl is on a mission to grow taller and I’m on a mission to give birth so when we do that, we’ll be back to try them out.
By late afternoon, we managed to try most of the rides but we couldn’t possibly leave without doing the meet and greets, so we spent the rest of the time waiting to meet characters.
Truett wasn’t big on queueing to take pictures so after spending 20 minutes in line to meet Pooh, he decided his time was better spent on one of the rides. Kirsten, however, was intent to meet Minnie. I told her the queue to meet Minnie would take 25 minutes and she was all “I will be patient…I want to give Minnie a big hug.”
So she did. And that hug meant the world to her.
That pretty much wraps up our 2-day Hong Kong Disneyland experience. Just as we were walking out of the park and waving goodbye to the happiest place in the world, Tru turned to us and said “I like Disneyland. We need to come back again, ok?”
I think I fell in love with Disneyland the first time I walked down Main Street in Disneyland, Anaheim 14 years ago. It was one of those moments in life where you know something magical is happening the very moment it happens. I remember standing outside the Emporium looking down the street at Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and feeling like I was in a dream I never wanted to wake up from.
This visit to Hong Kong Disneyland, we wanted the kids to experience the same magic.
The moment they stepped into Disneyland, they alternated between the OMG-I-can’t-stop-jumping-euphoria and the too-much-awesomeness-brain-shut-down. It was too cute to watch.
The first order of business when we arrived was the Flights of Fantasy Parade, a street parade with floats, a marching band, lots of dancers and their favorite Disney characters. We got great seats with a brilliant view of the entire parade.
Kirsten even got a chance to join in the parade to dance with the characters. She was so thrilled she couldn’t stop talking about it the rest of the day. “I dance really well like a princess right? SO FUN!”
Right after, we went for the classic “it’s a small world” boat ride in Fantasyland. I have to admit that in all the times i’ve been to Disney, I’ve never been on this ride because it’s totally for babies. In fact, I’ve never been on most of the rides in Fantasyland because there’s no way I’m queueing 45 minutes surrounded by a bunch of babies to get on the carousel or the spinning tea cups.
But with the kids, we became one of those parents who stood patiently in line for a 2-minute ride on dancing horses. And you know what? It was awesome.
We also managed to catch a show on the first day – The Golden Mickeys. I must have enjoyed it the most because it was basically a musical singalong session featuring all my all-time favorite Disney songs from Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Mulan, Hercules. The husband didn’t really know most of the songs but he thought the staging was superb.
The kids got a little bored halfway through and Kirsten fell asleep just as her beloved Ariel came on stage, which was unfortunate because that was the only time we managed to see Ariel appear during our entire Disneyland visit. She was really bummed when she found out that Ariel doesn’t do character meet and greets in Hong Kong Disneyland so it seems like we’ll have to make a trip down to Florida some time in the near future.
That was pretty much the end of our first day and we wrapped it up with a splendid dinner and the “Disney in the Stars” Fireworks show.
I’m not really a foodie but I have to take a moment here to talk about the food in Hong Kong Disneyland. It’s like having the best of both worlds because there’s nothing like being able to slurp down a bowl of steaming hot wanton noodles in Disneyland. When we were in Florida, we were eating burgers, pasta, fried chicken and fries until we were both a little nauseous. Our Chinese stomachs were craving for some comfort food in the form of rice, noodles and chili sauce.
During this trip, we had some awesomesauce Chinese food. Like double boiled conpoy and chicken soup in coconut, king prawns in black bean sauce, wok-fried tenderloin beef cubes and these super cute character paus.
We’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a while because tomorrow, we’re all heading over to Disneyland Hong Kong to soak in some much-needed magic fairy dust. Especially so since the kids have been battling illnesses and feeling a little down in the dumps all week. After Truett came back from the hospital, it was Kirsten’s turn to come down with a whole bunch of flu-like symptoms.
The great news is that they’re both almost fully recovered in time for our trip early tomorrow morning.
This trip is extra magical because it will be the kids’ first trip to Disneyland, plus it comes fully sponsored by Disney – for which we’re extremely thankful. They’ve arranged for all the accommodations and itinerary, and I’ll be updating details of the trip over the next couple of days.
On a related note, Kirsten is completely in love with Ariel, the Little Mermaid. I’ve never been a fan of any of the Disney Princesses because hello, Pooh, Buzz Lightyear, Mike Wazowski, Boo, Mater?? But seeing how Princessy my little girl is, I’m not surprised her favorite Disney character would have to be a princess. I’m just glad she went for a spunky one at least.
She watches Ariel’s Part Of Your World song several times a day on Youtube and knows all the words to the entire song. Ok, the pitch is all over the place and we suspect she might be a little tone deaf but what she lacks in musical talent, she makes up for in unadulterated passion.
