Friday, January 04, 2019

Annual report - 2018

2018 - what a year! Here are some key highlights.

- Since Xena started primary school in 2018, all three of us had to be up really early in the morning. 6 am to be precise. (Ouch. I know.) Luckily, the khadoos mommy that I am, had made it a rule that in 2017, we would wake up at 6:30 in preparation for 2018, and honestly, it made waking up at 6 am a lot easier for all of us. I wake up a little earlier, in fact, to cook and pack the two snack boxes for Xena's school, and I've found great pleasure in making all sorts of things for her snackbox -- broccoli patties, atta pancakes, pizza-dosa, wholemeal sandwiches, etc. etc. I baked a whole lot in 2018, with a keen focus on wholemeal stuff. After many unsuccessful attempts, I finally found a wholemeal bread recipe that works for me, and now it's a staple in our home.

- The biggest personal highlight for me in 2018 has to be my inline skating lessons. It literally felt like a rebirth (and still does, with the exception of my old knee injury that keeps coming back). Under the tutelage of my amazing instructors, I am now somewhere between levels 4 and 5. If my knee allows, I hope to pass level 5 and get the coveted black certificate, which not a lot of skaters manage to get. Lately, my instructors have started teaching me more complex slalom moves. Here's one of my favourites.


You're supposed to do it with cones placed on the ground, but I didn't have any so I, um, imagined them.

Our instructors organised an 8.4-km long urban skate-a-thon. Can you spot Xena behind me? The photo was taken by Viv who decided to run alongside us, doubling as the official photographer of the event. 

- 2018 was also the year when Viv broke into the kitchen. Like, seriously. Because of my skating classes on Saturday and Sunday mornings, he decided to take on the task of making breakfast on weekends so Xena and I could focus on getting ourselves and our skating gear (that weighs approximately 897893246793264 kg) ready. It has been both an amusing and touching experience to see him attempt to make new things. We always had very clear roles when it came to food, and they had nothing to do with gender -- I like to cook and he likes to eat. Simple. So to have this system reversed was kind of funny, but a welcome change nevertheless. He's now pretty good at making omelettes, poha and uttapams, and I'm looking forward to newer items in 2019.

- 2018 marked our 20th year in Singapore! I still have very clear memories of landing on this sunny island in July 1998 as a clueless teenager. To mark the occasion, I organised a 'back to school' event for our university friends. We had all landed in Singapore at the same time to pursue the somewhat-loved but much-loathed engineering course. So we spent the whole morning walking all around Nanyang Technological University, telling the not-so-interested kids, how cool we (and the other uncles and aunties) were two decades ago. We even posed against the same backdrops that featured in our old photos. It was fun. For us, at least.

-  We did a fair bit of travelling this year. Early in the year, I travelled to India for my cousin's wedding (my first flight without Xena!). It was weird and nice at the same time. I more than made up for leaving her behind by taking her on a reward/incentive cruise that one of my publishers sent me on -- and they offered to pay for her ticket too! This time, we left Viv behind. Poor guy was absolutely miserable by himself. We need to do a cruise together at some point. In June, we went to Gold Coast, which is now my favourite Aussie holiday destination. In December, we did our big family reunion, which has become a tradition over the last few years. Us, parents, in-laws, all in one place. The first year, we did Mauritius, last year it was Sri Lanka and this year we decided to check Kerala off our bucket list. I'll be writing about it soon on my travel blog.

So that was my 2018. How was yours? 



1 comment:

Arun said...

Came across this relevant story
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/01/03/my-daughter-asked-me-stop-writing-about-motherhood-heres-why-i-cant-do-that/?utm_term=.855ac5574165

"On Parenting Perspective
My daughter asked me to stop writing about motherhood. Here’s why I can’t do that."

Quote:

"“What’s all this?” she said. The screen was covered with thumbnail sketches of her as a baby, a toddler and preschooler — each paired with an essay or blog post I’d written on the subject of parenting. “Why are all of these pictures of me on the Internet?” She wanted to know, and she had a right to know.

Years ago, when I began publishing essays and submitting family pictures to editors, I considered the day my children would confront me about what I’d written. At the time, I’d read articles by parents of older children who were weighing the ethics of using their children’s stories or pictures for essay material, but my kids were too young to care what I shared about how they ate, how little they slept or how their taste in clothes was terrible. I remember thinking that one day I would have to answer for my work. Yet when the day finally arrived, I had no response prepared."