O Camel Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree on Wednesday, and dare I say it, it's the best tree I've ever had in my 30something years! We bought a fake tree this year as 2008's real live Swedish IKEA tree was wonderful but oh-so-high maintenance.

This year's tree has ornaments from the previous years, with a few new additions: golden Christmas lights that have red flowers, green stars and blue cones interwoven amongst them, a yellow bird that Jordy chose all by himself at TANGS' splendid baubles fair at Vivo, and a sparkly blue butterfly, again chosen by Mr J himself. What's missing is the 2010 Jordy bauble, something that is quintessentially him. Will know it when I see it. (Of course, right now, looking at his preferences, it'd have to a Dora or Boots bauble. He is OBSESSED with Dora!)

Pictures to come. I promise. I realise my photo-taking has drastically declined now that I've started full-time work. I'm also not the biggest fan of taking photos of everything as it means you aren't really inhabiting the moment. But some things, like the annual decoration of the Christmas tree, well, that's different!

Oh and just a funny anecdote from my expedition with Jordy to Vivo yesterday. To understand this, you need to know that Jordy has, from about two months ago, developed a dislike for sharing lifts with strangers. If a lift comes with a stranger in it, he says loudly, "Next one!". However, sometimes, in the morning rush of getting to childcare and work, he passes on two lifts in succession, then I will look at him with a stern expression and say, "we have to share the next lift. Why do we do that? Because we live in a community."

So anyway, back to Vivo. We were in the basement and wanted to get to the level 3 skypark. It was a Friday evening. It was crowded for Singapore standards! The lift comes, a whole bunch of people exit, and another bunch of people get in. Jordy takes one look at the lift and says, "Next one!"

I enter the lift with him wordlessly.

As the lift travels level by level, somewhere between level 1 and 2, he says in a quiet voice, "Community..."

A few heads turn, some wide eyes, and the girl next to me chuckles in surprise. Jordy looks stoic and unfazed. When the door opens, he can see the sky park on level 3, some birds playing on the grass, and he runs out to meet them.

What a boy.

On that note, here at The Camel Diaries, Christmas is starting early. I'll leave you in the good hands of one of the brightest Internet stars (in my opinion)!

Blogging and the working mum

Well, it seems my complete silence corresponds with my starting full time work in October! I'm starting to figure out a new routine and so far so good! Thank god for an understanding workplace that let's me leave at 4pm most days to go pick up Jordy. So really, the key differences to before embarking on full-time work, is that I now have less time to cook and do chores. Which means weekdays, Jordy gets mainly reheated frozen food, I alternate between a chicken and brocolli noodle thing, spag bog with 5 veg sauce, various veg soups n cheese and marmite sandwiches, Mac and cheese, and easy cook dishes like bee boon soup with tofu. The house is slightly messier, but other than that there hasn't been too discernible a difference!

My craziest working mum moment to date must have been on Thursday, which happened to be The Biggest Media Announcement Day of the Year. We'd just run a media conference that morning that saw everyone turn up (biggest turnout to date), the rest of the day was spent fielding many media queries. When I got home with Jordy that afternoon, I was pretty much doing a one woman Hindu goddess juggling act. At one memorable point, just before D got home, I was simultaneously on speaker phone with a reporter from The Straits Times and changing a poopy diaper while filling up the bath! *bows courteously*

The best thing? The journalist was a mom too and totally identified with the constant juggling that is working motherhood. And we shared a moment in between talking about trackable donations to religious organsations!

But that's the thing I'm so relishing at the moment. That by day, I get to do something I think is pretty meaningful, something which I truly believe will make Jordy's generation happier - I mean, promoting volunteering and philanthropy in Singapore is a pretty cool job to have. Then when I go pick up jordy at 5 and go hangout at the playground then have dinner, I'm doing the most important job of all. So despite the daily adrenalin rush of just keeping things together, I think I'm in a pretty sweet spot right now...

Oh well, it's only been six weeks in this new routine. And I've only managed to blog ONCE. Well, it's a start and the camel diaries is back again! Refreshed, revitalized, and still manic as ever!