Treading Carefully

Ex has been away overnight and I can feel the "I hate living here" conversation I have with myself rising up to overtake my mind. That's why I'm treading carefully.

I hate this place. This house with it's concrete yard, window grills, old, opaque windows, the stench of the filthy outside (council) drain. The leaky roof which needs fixing and is probably full of rotting board, termites and ants.

And the ants. Oh how they boldly go where no ants have dared gone before - into the kitchen detergent, the kettle and the various water bottles we have sitting around. They come for every crumb we happen to leave behind and invade the pantry on a regular basis. The descend from the roof in thin, light brown lines to inhabit our desks, keyboards and whatever else takes their fancy. How I hate them, because no matter how much I clean and wipe, they still come to find something to eat.

Did you know that if you go to swat an ant and miss, it will quickly run away - they know we are here and out to get them.

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Yesterday I stupidly put a rubber backed mat into the washing machine to wash it and of course the backing came off in little bits and has clogged the pipes. Families can never afford to be without the washing machine. I have to wait til ex gets back from his overnight stay down south before getting it fixed. Why can't I do it myself? Firstly, they speak Hokkien, yet another Chinese dialect different from Mandarin. Secondly when they do come, I can't speak to them anyway. I'd ask my friends to help me out here but they are busy and anyway, our family and it's problems are ex's responsibility, not someone else's. He can solve it once he gets back tonight.

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The above was written in the afternoon. Since then I've had a good session with two of my students, got the shopping done, picked up some mince meat from a friend who bought it back from Malacca with her, made spaghetti and cleaned up. Had a nice dinner with the kids, sans ex who wasn't back yet, and made them laugh.

I've also discovered that my son is really quite good at addition. He adds up in the most extraordinary way. If you say what is 15 plus 12, he will count (out loud) to 12 using his fingers, but then say the answer (27). It's like he's counting on two separate levels at the same time - once on his fingers to count out the correct number to be added and then in his head where he keeps track of where he should be on the number line.

eg 15 + 12
he says 15 and then counts out loud
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
In his head he counts:
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 - this is what happens in his head while he's counting out loud. If anyone is reading this, do you find it unusual? I've never met any kid who counts this way. Perhaps it's a different method that he's learned somewhere, but if I watch his fingers as he's counting, even they don't make sense because he also uses short cuts. There is something they teach here called 'finger abacus' but it's not taught often and my daughter, who went to the same kindergarten as my son doesn't know of it, so they didn't teach him there and he didn't learn it at school. Hmmm, something else to research.

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Ex is back from his trip. He got back at 8.30 - the kids were pleased and Yiethen even said, "how great is it that Papa's back." But he was tired as usual and didn't spend that much time with them. The kids never ask about him when he's gone either - maybe they're just used to it. I really do want him to spend more time with them - it's like he gets all motivated about it, tells me that it's not good enough for him to just be around, that he's got to spend time with them too. It seriously lasts about a week and then he seems to pull back. And not being with them has consequences - the other day when he tried walked into their room to play with them, they said he'd spoiled their game and came whining to me about it. So it's like he walked in and they walked out on him. I hope wasn't too hurt by it, because I know he'd see it.

And today, after he got back, he seemed a bit distracted and tired. He gave up on helping Yiethen with his Malay homework (that's another story) and really, it was only 'bina ayat" - making sentences about a few landmarks in Malaysia. So then I had to step in and my Malay is only at the basic sentence making level. "Perpustakaan Negara ada banyak buku yang penting." - The National Library has many books that are important. I couldn't see what was so hard about it, given that ex was educated in Malay. And when I told him about Yiethen's counting abilities, all he could say was "I don't get it". I tried to explain it a second time to him, because it's really quite good and again with the "I don't get it". When I speak to him, it's like he thinks I'm speaking another language. I never quite put enough context around what I'm saying and by the time I do, any further chance of decent conversation happening (without the baggage), has passed us by. So, so difficult to talk to him. I really don't know what I'm doing wrong sometimes.

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Oh well, all I can do is focus on myself and the kids and fill the gaps that he leaves. He's missing some beautiful moments with his kids, that I know for sure. Yiethen's 'sweet hugs' and his complete happiness when he's pretending he's a Wiggle and Jilian - well everything about Jilian, who is growing up right before my eyes.

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The visa is done and this time I was over-prepared. I filled out the forms in quadruplicate when I didn't need to fill out a form at all. I only needed to get a letter from the school because this is a renewal, not an initial application. The one little hiccup that has occurred is that they require 14 working days to process the visa and her current visa expires at the end of this month. Over the phone a week ago, they told me that we need to lodge it only 7 days before expiry! If they want to be fussy about it, they could require that we take her over the border to Singapore to get a 3 month visit pass, while the visa is still being processed. You never know with the authorities here - they can never give you the right information the first time. But in a few days, I'll ring and see if I can get some answers. My concern is that if we don't find out, when they get her passport, they'll look at the date from the last visa and say that it's expired and she shouldn't be in the country. I don't think they would, but you never know - they'll try anything for a bribe.

Anyway, it's time for bed. I've got an 8am yoga session with my kiddies tomorrow morning, as opposed to going for a walk. So it's night to you all, for those still reading.


5 weeks, 2 days, yahhh!