Lawn mower symphony

Most houses/units have a grass patch in the front or backyard. It gets quite long, as most grass tend to do, so a regular cutting is required every few weeks or so, depending on your tolerance for unsightly yards.

I was told by a colleague that Sunday are de-facto lawn mowing days. This is probably because people who work, do not have time to mow their lawns on weekdays. Oddly enough, this becomes a ritual. As observed by my colleague, although retirees have the whole week (mon-fri) to trim their grass, they only do it on weekends. Another ritual observed is that after the 1st lawn mower starts, the sound (which sounds like brrrrrrrrr...) of the petrol powered cutter engine 'makes a call' to all other lawn mowers 'to join in' and shortly after, you will find the whole neighbourhood in a symphony of grass-cutters.

Being a first-timer, we bought a manual lawn mower, thinking "how hard could it be?". However it turned out to be quite a physical work out. Often getting stuck halfway, we needed to remove the clumps of grass and dirt stuck in the blades. Partly this was due to long-overdue grass cutting - longer grass tends make difficult cutting, especially with a manual. After an hour of hardwork, the job was done. However upon inspection later, the lawn as if it had been ravaged by some wild grass eating creature, with haphazard patches of uncut grass scattered at various places.

I guess another round of trimming is in order... next week.

1st trip to the Doctor

Matthew caught a cold and had running nose 2 days ago. The stuffy nose resulted in him not able to sleep well and woke up every one hour at night. That made the 2 of us very miserable, so I brought him to the doctor 1st thing in the morning.

We went to a nearby clinic as recommended by the neighbour. It was a 5 mins drive away. You need to make an appointment for the clinic here. Some clinic can be really busy that you might not even get an appointment on the same day itself. Thank God we managed to get one before lunch time.

As it was our first time at the clinic, we had to fill up a form first. Matthew's cold was so bad, that his nose was literally dripping like a tap! Regardless of that, he was still playing with the toys there. When it came to our turn to see the doctor, Matthew was quite co-operative. He is actually quite used to being examined by the doctor. He used to visit the clinic more than we do, back in Singapore. After the examination, the doctor asked what was it that is worrying me. I was like, er, his running nose, can you not see that it is dripping like a tap?! I was actually expecting him to prescribe me with some cold medicine to stop the 'tap'. Then the doctor said, he usually doesn't prescribe any medicine for this kind of 'illness'. He said if you want, then give him some paracetemol, and give him time to heal. Cold medicine might make the heart works harder and make it more miserable for the child and might cause heart palpitation. But but but, my doctor in Singapore always give Matthew all sorts of flu medicine! Now, who is correct here?! I guess it's different practise and culture. People tends to self medicate here if it's common flu or cold. When it was time to go, Matthew waved goodbye, blow flying kiss, and even gave the doctor a 'hi five' on his hand.

I wasn't ready to give him time to heal, so I went to the pharmacy to get a medicine to stop his running nose. He is abit better now, at least not as bad as yesterday. I hope he will heal tomorrow and stop being so miserable.

Matthew's Hide and Seek

Matthew has been very 'proactive' lately. He will initiate games that involve us. One of which is 'hide and seek'. He will drag one of us to the room, push us in, and then walk away. When he walks away, he will then whisper "go there" and point to the living room. It's like him telling us, "I'm going there, come and find me". He will then run to the living room, and call out to either daddy or mummy (depending who is inside the room), and then the other parent is supposed to respond with "where?" After that he will go looking for us, and we're supposed to 'scare' him and he will go running hysterically out to the living room.

He can do this over and over again, pushing us into different room each time. If you don't oblige him, he will whine until you give in.

He also wants to get involve whenever I am cooking. He likes to see and wants to know the different ingredients being used. His favourite food is by far, potato, carrot, tofu and fish ball. He's very picky with his food, or shall i say he's lazy to chew. He doesn't like to chew on meat or anything that is too grainy. He will chew and spit out whatever he can't. I'm still waiting for the day that he eats everything.