Dear All
Nothing much to say about May, except it's the stressful exam time for the girls.
Tiffany is halfway through her exams..next week she has 3 more papers. Felicia started her orals and compos 2 weeks ago. Next week is her main papers. This year she's Pr 3 so she'll have 4 papers this year.
Today is Mother's Day. Feli bought me a very sweet tiny cake from her school. It's from sweet secrets and it was so sweet of her to get one for me from her meague savings. She chose banana as I told her to choose what she likes as I would like to share it with her. She was so excited for me to open it, she just couldn't wait, but I was kinda mean and postponed opening it till after we went out for dinner on Friday night till we got back.
Tiffany, in her cute "oh yah" exclaimed she forgot about Mother's Day, and that's why we went out for dinner on Fri...so that she could go shop for a gift for me. We enjoyed a meal of prata (can you believe just 1 banana prata costs $3!) then went shopping. Tiffany said she brought $10 for my gift. In the end, I chose a gift that was more than $10 cos I liked it better than the one costing $7.90 so sweet Feli helped her sis foot the balance of the bill. Then, the payment started at the cashier...luckily the shop was not crowded...my eyes almost popped and I stiffled a smile as Tiffany paid for the bear gift in COINS! Yes, that's right...in 50c, 20 cent and 10 cent coins! I asked her calmly how come she didn't bring a $10 note...the poor girl declared "I'm so broke...why must so many special days happen in May?" She had already spent quite a bit of her savings on several friends' birthday presents..I know of at least 1 gift costing her $18.90 and she didn't even bat her eyes when she paid for it, as it was for her best friend! I'm moved that she can be so generous, but I think my 2 girls are quite naive in budgeting their expenditure.
So when it came to getting a present for mama for Mother's Day, I told them to share the present. At first they wanted to buy flowers but they were either too expensive or not value for money. So in the end, they bought a cute frog photo frame with a musical mechanism that also turns a little stick frog costing $7.90 but the only problem was it played "We wish you a merry X'mas"!! There was another cow frame but we don't know what music it played, but Tiffany was eager to get it done and over with (you see, she hates shopping!) and settled on the frog.
We also bought a cookies and cream cake for my mum and I to cut. Luckily I got the 1kg cake as later on, mum told me my elder brother and his family was coming over for dinner too this Sunday evening. It was good to chat with them and my nephews. The last time we met was 2 May for a cousin's son's wedding but we couldn't really chat much then.
A good outcome of my mum's being ill is that 3 of us (excluding my elder sis who lives far away) take turns to bring her to hospital for her follow-up visits. She's still not well though. My dad liked very happy today. He must be overjoyed to see us all together today.
I guess it's kinda sad we live as necleu families. It's quite tough to live together as an extended family...there's no privacy of space, and it's difficult to live under either a patriach or a matriach...the 2nd generation are already adults and need to have some authority over the discipline of their own children and family. I don't know how the older generation did it in the past, but for Bert and my part, we try to make it a point to visit my parents every weekend with the children as my mum has said they so look forward to seeing the grandchildren. I guess that's the best mother's day present I can think of giving my mum...to call her at least once a week and visit her during the weekend.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL LC MOTHERS!!
Love Theresa
