Day 3: No Time

Time only seems to matter when it's running out. ~Peter Strup

The kids woke up with cough and stuffy nose. Not that they just got it this morning, but it did sound worse than yesterday. So I declared today a Rest-At-Home day for them.

However, the kids just couldn’t get to rest. The minute their backsides touched the sofa, they needed to bounce. The minute their hands became idle, they needed to pounce. The minute their feet rested on the ground, they needed to flounce. Oh bother! I might as well let them have something meaningful to do, like wrapping their Teachers’ Day presents.

It did get the kids settled down for a few minutes. After that, they began to twist and churn in their seats again. Have you seen acrobats wrapping presents? Well, you should have seen my monkeys challenging the impossible while prancing about.

I couldn’t bear to see how many wrapping papers they had slay before completing their Mission Impossible. I looked at the deformed packages they held proudly in their hands and stifled a scream of terror.

It’s time for clearing up. With the kids picking up the shreds of papers they had left in their trail of massacre, I zoomed around the house with the vacuum cleaner to start tackling on the housework I have blocked off for the past few days. I vacuumed, mopped, washed and scrubbed. At last, the house looked more presentable.

“Mummy, I need to get some more presents for my teacher,” Mervin spoke with his new sexy voice.

“Me too!” chimed Angel with her sexy tone too.

“Huh? I thought you had gotten all that you need for your teachers?” I asked.

Immediately, they kids rattled on another few teachers’ names who they had forgotten to include the previous day. Sigh. Seemed like another trip to Popular was inevitable.

We headed down to the central again in the late afternoon. Before we had time to cross to the other side of the interchange for dinner, it began to pour buckets.

“Oh well, we may as well shop before we eat,” I shrugged.

We spent less than an hour at Popular this time, all the while looking out of the glass door to see if the rain had stopped. The monkeys were getting hungry.

By 7pm, the rain had reduced to a slight drizzle. I took out a tiny umbrella from my bag and handed it to the kids. We strolled across the road and proceeded to the Kopitiam in search for the monkey’s dinner.

Both of them attacked two plates of roasted pork rice and licked their plates clean with twenty minutes! After that, each of them gobbled down another egg tart to top off their meal. Bravo!

We shopped a little more and went home around 8.30pm. The kids gladly wrapped the last of their presents and looked forward to giving them to their teachers the next day.

As for me, I stayed up all night doing all the last minute preparations for the things I wanted to give to a couple of teachers I truly appreciate.

No time to sleep.

Sigh.

No time to miss either.