Sinh Nhật TM!

(Mum’s handwriting)

It’s my other baby’s birthday today. I had to pinch myself a few times and yet still can’t believe he’s now an official adult at 21! It surely wasn’t that long ago when I walked him to kinder for the first time when he was at the ripe old age of three. In my mind there’s still this vivid image of him crying, when his teacher led him inside to joing his friends and dance around in a circle singing some morning exercise song. I stood just outside the window looking in, quietly bawling my eyes out as well. And that’s not all. In the afternoon when I came to pick him up, the whole teary episode repeated itself. It used to be my favourite thing to do, picking him up from kinder, sometimes having to carry him all the way when he was tired.

I’m also remembering his first birthday; his 7th birthday; when he was skinny and his legs two little sticks, when he started to get a little chubby and his monthly report from school was always “Cường eats well, naps well, gained 1 kg this month.” I miss when he cried and cried the day I left for Australia and refused to eat. How when he visited me in Melbourne with Mum the next year, I used to take him to class at Uni, he’d be sitting next to me drawing pictures from Asterix and occasiontally telling me off for not concentrating!

It saddens m’ & me that we can’t be there with him today, and that we couldn’t be there at the Hawaiian themed pool party his friends threw for him a few weeks back. We love him so much it feels like someone’s wringing my heart right now.

~bmthc~

“There used to be just me. And now there are THREE of you!”

That’s what Mum says all the time when we’re fussing around her, trying to hug her and pestering her to kiss us. Which she doesn’t do properly, no matter how many times we whinged and whined and gave demonstrations. LOTS of demonstration! Instead of squashing her lips flat on our cheeks for a sloppy SMOOOCH!, she just puts her nose on our faces — no, more like we push our faces against her nose — and takes a quick sniff. I miss her so much…

Anyhoo, so for the last one and a half weeks, TM has made a beeline from his hide-out in sunny Brissie, and its foreboding dental hospital, and come down here to Melbourne to get back in touch with the ass-freezing cold and temperamental rain. Also to be bullied entertained by his two annoying loving sisters. In between his “busy social outings” with mates, m’ & I also brought him to visit our friends, took him out to eat phở about a 1310 times, went jogging and swimming with him, stood right next to him for emotional support every time he got online to check his exam results, gasped & sighed & shouted obscenities along with him when he downloaded next semester’s gruelling timetable. In general, I don’t mean to brag but I think we’re just the best sisters anyone could ask for!

What’s even better is that we did not, I repeat: DID NOT, be mean to him, or pick on him, or make him do any of the following: help us clean the whole place, rearrange most of our furniture, cook for us, do the dishes / laundry / grocery shopping for us, help out at the shop and run little errands. I did mention something about making the most of CHEAP LABOUR, ahem, but that was totally about *cough* someone else, i.e. some other person, i.e. NOT ME, you hear?

And last Monday when I had the first day off in three months (except for that one day when I was sick), we three set out to brave the chilling winds and re-explore the city. Needless to say, it was one of those memories to be treasured forever. Now for some visual aid:

Typical Colgate ad. Notice our matching scarves, and matching red (runny) noses?

"Look, m', I know we're freezing out butts off, but let's try and smile for the camera, ok?"

What about another lousy black and white shot? Sooo classy, like!

"Sky's the limit," thought TM, "now that I'm 40cm closer, for a whole TWO seconds."

~thc~