sooyindotcom

I stumbled across this lovely post while surfing from Sher’s blog, Offspring (which I absolutely love to read!) to Vera’s blog.

It brought tears to my eyes as I read it, and I would like to share it with you here.

I Am The Child

I am the child who cannot talk. You often pity me. I see it in your eyes. You wonder how much I am aware of…I see that as well. I am aware of much…whether you are happy or sad or fearful, patient or impatient, full of love and desire, or are just doing your duty by me.

I marvel at your frustration, knowing mine to be far greater for I cannot express myself nor my needs as you do. You cannot conceive my isolation, so complete it is at times.

I do not gift you with clever conversation, cute remarks to be laughed over and repeated, I do not give you answers to your everyday questions, responses over my well-being, sharing my needs, or comments about the world around me. I do not give you rewards as defined by the world’s standards…great strides in developments that you can credit yourself; I do not give you understanding as you know it.

What I give you is so much more valuable…I give you instead opportunities.

Opportunities to discover the depth of your character, not mine; the depth of your love, your commitment, your patience, your abilities; the opportunity to explore your spirit more deeply than you imagined possible.I drive you further than you would ever go on your own, working harder, seeking answers to your many questions, creating questions with no answers.

I am the child who cannot talk. I am the child who cannot walk. The world sometimes seems to pass me by. You see the longing in my eyes to get out of this chair, to run and play like other children. There is much you take for granted. I want the toys on the shelf, I need to go to the bathroom, Oh I’ve dropped my spoon again. I am dependent on you in these ways.

My gift to you is to make you aware of your fortune - our healthy back and legs, your ability to do things for yourself. Sometimes people appear not to notice me, I always notice them. I feel not so much envy as desire, desire to stand upright, to put one foot in front of the other, to be independent.

I am the child who cannot walk. I am the child who is mentally impaired. I don’t learn as easily, if you judge me by the world’s measuring stick.

What I do know is the infinite joy in the simple things. I am not burdened as you are with the strife’s and conflicts of a more complicated life. My gift to you is to grant you the freedom to enjoy things as a child, to teach you how much your arms around me mean, to give you love.

I am your teacher. If you allow me, I will teach you what is really important in life. I will give you and teach you unconditional love. I gift you with my innocent trust, my dependency upon you, I teach you of respect for others and their uniqueness. I teach you about how very precious this life is and about not taking things for granted. I teach you about forgetting your own needs and desires and dreams. I teach you about giving. Most of all I teach you hope and faith. I am the disabled child.

Good things are meant to be shared…what a lovely ad (I noticed Thai ads are usually very good…either extremely humorous or very touching). Ok la, the last part with her hair flying about is abit over-the-top, but overall, nice!

Those of you who’ve never seen Elena’s early photos on my Flickr/Facebook would probably be surprised to know that my little princess has an extra toe fused to her last toe on both her feet! The sixth toe doesn’t have any bones though as we only saw 5 bones on each feet when we did the ultrasound while I was pregnant. I’ve been meaning to take some close-up shots of her funny feet but never really got around to doing it till now (and I’m still not too happy with these shots).

The toenail on her left feet is continuous, ie. she has only one nail on the two fused toes.

However, the toenail on her right feet is separated, hence one overlaps the other and it’s near impossible to trim cause the overlapping part is so close!

I hope that she won’t have problems walking in the future, although the paed did reassure us that this will not in any way impact her development (in walking). However, I think we might have some difficulty buying shoes for her in the future as the extra toe(s) would mean that normal shoes may be abit snug in the front. Open-toed sandals, maybe? Her daddy said that she’ll untung when she goes for pedicures next time though…6 toes for the price of 5… (if I have a rolling eyes icon, I’ll definitely use it here)…

Well, considering that all my focus is now on when baby’s coming out, and therefore, the frequency of my contractions, and throw in the time I spend on the net, it’s not really surprising that I started searching for online timers to keep track of my contractions…

I found these two pretty useful:

1. Pregnancy Contractions Timer (can be printed)

2. Contraction Master (can’t be printed, I think)

It would be nice if there was a similar application for mobile phones…

On a separate note, I’m going for my next checkup with the doctor tomorrow morning. At this moment, the most pressing question I have on my mind to ask him is:

“Can I be released from bed-rest in the house cause I’m literally suffering from cabin fever and going a little bit insane…?”

TAU FOO FA!!!

Omg, I can’t believe I’ve abstained from eating my favourite dessert for nearly 9 months. I was told to avoid eating it due to the gypsum powder that’s used in the process of making tau foo fa. I know that there are many other unhealthy food out there that contains preservatives, colouring, etc. that would make eating a bowl of tau foo fa safe in comparison…but for some reason, my brain decided that tau foo fa would be the one thing that I would definitely give up for the sake of baby’s health. Yes, I’m rather weird, I know that already thank you very much.

And in no particular order once I’ve satiated myself with bowls and bowls of TFF…

King Crab’s salted egg squid. Squid was another thing that I’ve avoided eating throughout my pregnancy…more for pantang reasons that anything. Funny thing is, I’m not really a big fan of squid…but I do like King Crab’s salted egg squid!

Toast dipped in half-boiled eggs with a smidgen of soya sauce. Yup, another dish that I’ve avoided since I found out about my pregnancy. Again, it’s not something that I really really love…it’s just that when you know you’re not supposed to eat it, it becomes the one thing that you keep thinking of…

Prosciutto. By itself. With melon balls. In a salad. I want.

And surprisingly, that’s about it. Just these few things.

Oh, my beloved Funny Mountain Tau Foo Fa…*drools*