Daddy's Poem

While slowly retrieving old files and deleting unwanted ones following the crash of the old hard disk and installation of a new one, I came across an old floppy disk (yup, the oldies are still lying around...) labelled 'Personal'. I found many files which contained thoughts, notes and information revolving around Caitlin who was a newborn then.

One little file was titled 'Daddy's poem'. Eugene, being a rather non-communicative homo sapien in character and personality, especially pertaining to emotions and detailed descriptions (the typical male I'd say!), actually wrote a poem! This is the one and only poem I've seen him write in my entire life of knowing him since 15+ years ago! Even when we were courting, I could only DREAM of receiving flowers, let alone love notes or poems from him!

But on 27 Oct 2002, the day Caitlin was born, some magical angel dust fell on him and here's what the 'E' of ACE wrote:

Caitlin

You are my special angel.
When I think of you,
I am filled with so much emotion,
it makes me want to cry.
You’re the best thing that’s come into my life,
I thank God for such a special gift.
I am not sure if I am worthy of something
so precious and special.

Daddy, Eugene
27 October 2002

Caitlin, one day old, 28 Oct 2002

And since that fateful day, there has yet to be another poem or something similar to it that has sprung forth from the 'E' of ACE!

Caitlin, only you have Daddy around your little finger. Daddy (and Mummy) love you very much!

Caitlin, 5 years 5 months, March 2008

2nd day of school

This was taken yesterday - all smiles. This morning, we had to patiently bear with loads of tears of refusal to wake up, refusal to get into her school uniform and refusal to go to school. She complained that she was too tired to wake up. I guess it takes some time for her to adjust to having to rise early and get ready within a short window of time to get to school punctually. And before she stepped out the door with Eugene, she said she'd miss me. I assured her I'll be there to pick her up after school and reminded her to hand up her homework as how the teacher instructed yesterday.

Back but not in top gear, Caitlin's first day

We got a new hard disk. There's lots of space in it since all the old data in the old disk has yet to be recovered and re-stored into this new one, if there's any possibility of recovery....We've yet to hear from the supposedly professional people who specialise in data recovery of their diagnosis of our hard drive which let us down. Of course, we were too slow in backing up our files and didn't get around to doing it before it was too late....

The first day at primary school for Caitlin wasn't too bad. Here's a general run down of our day minus the pictures (because I've yet to re-install my photo downloader software for my phone to the PC, amongst a host of other downloads and uploads I've to re-do...)

6.00am Wakey, wakey Caitlin, "No, I'm too tired..."
6.20am Hurry up, brush your teeth etc etc, get into your uniform ....
6.30am Hurry up, eat your breakfast, we're running late. "I discovered I don't like going to Standard One...." :(. You haven't even gone yet!
6.55am Eugene, hurry up, we're ready
7.03am In the car to school
7.25am Phew, made it to school with smooth traffic conditions
7.30am Got to classroom and found a seat for Caitlin
7.45am Children line up outside class to head to hall for assembly
8.00am Assembly starts, parent hangers-on like me and Eugene were invited to join at the back of the hall, sing school song, national anthem, recite pledge, Principal speaks and makes announcements and briefings, in between firmly calling out names of children who talk, don't pay attention. I wondered if Caitlin knew what was going on as half the announcements were in Bahasa Malaysia.
8.30am Class teacher Puan Jackie addresses the class in the classroom, gives some instructions, takes them on a tour to the toilet, canteen, music room, library, bookshop, teachers' staff room.
9.45am Break time, line up to go canteen, we join her there for a while and bid goodbye....the dam breaks, some tears roll but no wailing or bawling. Phew...we head home, Eugene goes to work late. I run some errands, have early lunch
1.00pm I'm back at school. Had to park quite far away. School is on a hilly housing area so walk up to school was a torture to my legs, steep incline. Headed for the canteen to find her eating chicken rice. She's ok and asked if she could go home right after lunch. Told her no, there's still lessons and I'll wait. She asked me to wait at the corner where she can see me. I said I couldn't do that. Teacher won't allow and I won't be coming to school every day like that.
1.15pm - 2.40pm Networked with some other mothers and exchanged notes about school and education in general, shared insights and grouses on Chinese school, private school, international school etc etc, learnt some things from these mothers.
2.45pm School dismisses, happy to see me, we walk down the slope to the car to head home, complains about the steep walk DOWNhill...said she enjoyed her day when asked. Had one homework to do.

PC crashed!!

Yesterday, our home computer crashed :( taking along everything that we have stored in it... :( including lots of photographs and some of my work files. We had meant to back up our stuff but the computer did this to us before we managed to. I'm now blogging from Eugene's office notebook.

Looks like we'll be computer-less until we get a new hard drive etc etc. We've sent our hard drive somewhere today to see if they can recover any of our data and we'll only know in a few days' time if anything can be salvaged.

I can do without blogging or surfing but not email, Internet and Microsoft Word. Sigh, what a way to start the new year.

Ready for school?

Caitlin is cool as a cucumber about going to Year 1 in four days' time as she's one who lives in the moment. She's still in holiday mood and going about life happily with her books, toys, TV and games.

Meanwhile, mummy here is counting down and worried that she can't get up early enough to get to school on time. And been working 'hard' in getting her books wrapped and making sure her school uniform is ready. There are three more books to get. They are currently out of stock....and there's her iron-on school badge to stick onto her pinafore and her name tag to be sewed on below it. That's not done. I'm a lousy seamstress. Tried sewing on her name tag (embroidered cloth patch) onto the pinafore but failed miserably. Gotta take it to the shop to pay someone to do it I guess, to save me the frustration.