seung yi turns two

Last Thursday Seung Yi turned two years old. We celebrate by skipping Ji Hong's back to school night (this, after I was at school until 9:30 pm one night and 8:00 pm the next, and Phet was out of town in Chennai, so Seung Yi and Ji had been pretty much living with Iaimon and Laree). Intead of being responsible we went out and had incredibly expensive Japanese food at the ex-Nikko-now-Metropolitan hotel. The food was ok, just much more costly than it should be. However, it was nice to eat tasty salmon. Lately, it seems that all the sushi restaurants in Toronto have been taken over by folks who have no idea how to select nice fish. This summer I had these hand rolls that were literally overflowing with massive hunks of salmon which, sadly, were chewy and had stringy bits and weren't delicate at all. Hamburgers, sure, they can be Kobe beef or third rate triple fat ground beef. Or mutton for that matter. They'll taste decent almost no matter what. But sushi does not work on the same principles!

Seung Yi was very lucky and actually received a real gift from me. Maybe I'm mellowing out in my old age. Next thing you know, I'll be shopping at Chanel for stockings and high heels. I bought her two new additions to her Ikea railway set and I also let Ji Hong buy her a wooden hammering thingy where you whack balls through the holes kind of like a whack-a-mole at the Ex. On top of that, we saved a package we got from Mum in the mail recently and she opened up a big pile of presents that were in there. Adding to the fun was the fact that Mum had decided to save money on the shipping of the package and thus all the items had, in fact, been meant for EASTER. Yay, squeaky bunnies! Yum, chocolate eggs!

These days Seung Yi is talking a-plenty and understands a great deal, although of course she is still super repetitive. She uses three and four word sentences and the other day when I came home really late pointed out that it was dark and that the earth had turned around the sun and now Gramma had the light. (Yes, I had explained that concept the week earlier, but points to her for noticing it and remarking upon it and being able to regurgitate it back to me at exactly the right moment). If Ji is around, Seung Yi's favourite thing to do is to follow him and copy him. If that means stealing the item he is playing with, then she will yank that right away. Luckily Ji is a very calm boy and never freaks out. I make the point that she CAN'T HAVE IT if it is something homework related, which usually results in a big crying fit and Seung Yi shouting "CAN HAVE IT! CAN! CAN!" If Seung Yi is told she's a bad girl (because, for example, she has flipped the air con's electrical switch yet again) she will stand there, furious, saying "NOT BAD GIRL. NOT BAD."

This week, Seung Yi has been sick with a viral fever that Laree brought home. She was feverish for a couple of days and we took her in to see the doctor who had hours at Max Hospital on Sunday. Yes, I may remember Max Hospital from such episodes as "Margie's Terrifying Kidney Infection." Mum may recall it as the place in which they threw corpses into a furnace in the central hallway. Mind you, as she recalls it she is CUCKOO. There is a perfectly pleasant - and yes, noisy - atrium in the middle of the hospital. Not a furnace at all. Our doctor has her own clinic and then she also has hours at the Max clinic and lately she's also had hours at the Max Hospital. On Sunday she was a little late meeting us because she was delivering a baby upstairs. After she saw Seung Yi she said that it was probably a viral fever but that we should do a blood check to make sure it wasn't dengue since it is dengue season (although we did find out later that her fears were TOTALLY BASELESS as our landlord Mr. Singh pointed out that there are no dengue mosquitoes in Golf Links. Our enclave is way too posh for that. I wondered whether he had heard Phet's Dad's theory that only Vietnamese chickens can gets SARS). The nurse-guy who was in the clinic area to do blood work was a knuckle head and when it became apparent that Seung Yi was not going to gently offer up her arm for blood removal, we went into a 3rd circle of purgatory trying to find the correct person to do the job. Eventually, we got sent to Emerg and they then got an on-call pediatrician to come down and hurt out baby. Phet and I had to hold down her body and a mean nurse held down her little handie really hard and then the doctor pained her for about 8 hours. Not fun. But she seems to be getting better; now she's just got a cough and no fever. So maybe the torture shocked the sickness right out of her.

In other news, Seung Yi is now starting to go to school ON HER OWN. Iaimon takes her and Laree and then leaves them at the school gate. This is a big deal, for sure. Laree has no problem, but Seung Yi is still not convinced about the whole thing. Still, apparently she went today and spent the hour there and only cried when Iaimon came back. The school a.k.a. the Gulag Archiplayschoolio continues to surprise us. I ordered a cake specially for Seung Yi's birthday which got rejected by the teacher because I hadn't sent information regarding the cake two weeks ahead of time. More exciting news was sent home the next day:

Dear Parents,

To help children in identifying with their own school and their special school peers, we are introducing "school dress" for all children. The availability of the winter dress will be intimated shortly.

Meanwhile, continuing on the same line of thinking, new Friday assignment folders have been designed for the children. They are smart and each child is going to feel very proud carrying these foldres. With it the children will receive a table mat with napkin and an apron for art activities. The aim of this is to expose the child to good quality things, well designed so that he absorbs good taste. He / She will be unfolding and folding the mat and napkin during snack time, thus learning good table manners. Habit of taking care of things will be inculcated in the child.

I'm glad that she'll be absorbing good taste this way. We'll really save money since now we don't have to send her to finishing school

[Seung Yi-2-September-2008]