Jan 2019

My Dearest Love Ceyone,

We started 2019 with a clean slate and lots of anticipation and excitement for the brand new year ahead. We both made our vision boards by cutting out magazine pictures of the things we wanted, habits we aspired for and places we wanted to visit. When I went to buy my board sheet, you were totally smitten by the idea and decided to do one for your own. At age 6! I was happy and proud when one night you shared with me you vision of opening a business of shipping reptile pets across borders and their preservation. You badly wanted pets from the US but there was no way of international shipping so you came up with a business idea. You also made us do a reality check when you commented that we did the same job every day and how boring it would be! Oops...

My handwriting club was gaining momentum and we started seeing some consistent strength. 

It was a ritual for me to do Facetime with Nana and Nani every Saturday morning. We exchanged updates, thoughts and ideas in great detail and you often popped into the frame to say hello or show a new toy to them. 

While cleaning up my old stuff, I found this very old name bracelet that Adnan gave me as my first present in primary school. 

You could swim well by then in free style and were mastering breast stroke with coach Leong. Sometimes I made you float on your back with eyes closed, to practice mindfulness and you absolutely loved it. I felt that you had a hyperactive mind and it responded very well to calmness exercises. 

Focus on healthy food was greater than ever. I introduced new habits and foods frequently in our household and we gravitated towards better eating slowly. 

My weekly office team lunches continued. 

I had been thinking about the time when your milk teeth would fall and decided to organize a photo shoot before your baby face changed with permanent teeth. We went to Fort Canning Park and Chhay clicked some nice photos for us. 

As part of Pensieve and Dreamcatcher kids' club I organized activities from time to time. One of the activities was learning how movies are made. So we decided to watch Bumblebee. I printed the story and handed over to all the kids as pre read. After watching the movie, we saw videos about how the movie was made, who was the director and the cast and how they shoot various scenes and add animation later. In my heart I wanted to teach you and all kids that movies are great entertainment but they are not real. They are amazing masterpieces of highest forms of creativity and great for drawing inspiration. Its you who will control the course of your life and make it like or unlike a movie. 

My favorite pic! 

My good friend Rie was visiting from Japan and one evening I went out with her. We walked through Gardens by the Bay and ate dinner at Marina Bay Sands hawker center. 

Another colleague, Q who was an amazing pleasant personality visited from Japan and we had more team lunches. 

The weather was pleasant in Singapore in Dec - Jan and we sometimes went for a walk in the evenings to feel the breeze. There was a beautiful Buddhist temple coming up right behind our building and we checked it out. Meanwhile, our pet turtles Jaws and Paws enjoyed basking in the afternoons, sometimes with their hind legs stretched out. They were complete entertainers and nut jobs. I could spend long bouts of time observing them. 

Another of our team lunches happened at MTR, a southern Indian restaurant in Little India. 

On Jan 26th, Republic Day we went to celebrate Yashveer's 6th birthday at Cafe De Paris. It had a canvas painting activity and you gave me the idea to write 'Boost' on our canvas. I happily did and our canvas turned out to be quite pretty at the end. 

That's us watching re takes of making of BumbleBee. 

I joined a new team called Self Serve Ads within Twitter and had a new manager named Radha. We went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a work trip. 

 

I couldn't believe how quickly January had ended. When the times are good they finish fast. 

Life was always full of surprises and fun with you Ceyone. It was my extreme pleasure to see literacy develop in you and you turning into an independent little human with immense creative thoughts and ability to make connections. Stay kind and curious Ceyone. 

With endless love,

Mumma