Mum’s long overdue post

Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Shame on me.  Just peek at the date of my last post.  I thought I could sweep this one under the rug, but, oh no, I would shatter the heart of a 5^th grader. I have promised to publish the post on time by Sunday, 13^th May, but, darn….something came up at work that completely exhausted my willpower. I was battling between my office workload and home load. Yup, seriously insane 😦   But, of course, I will not steal your time to blah blah blah on something that is not worth reading.

Blame it on me.  The post is long overdue, and before it’s chronicled as ancient history, here goes….

Close your eyes, Mam upsilon!

If you’re wondering what that foreign word “Mam upsilon” means, it’s a concatenated word connecting the word and letter, Mam + Y, or simply “mummy”.  A word invented by my 5^th grade son.  Mam = Mum and upsilon is the Greek letter “Y”.  For a Dutch speaking boy, with zero exposure of the English grammar (yet), that’s how he spells “mummy” or “mommy”.  It’s Mam upsilon to him. I thought it was cute and somewhat artful.

Ooops! Sorry for the diversion.  Now, where was I?

Ah yes, “Close your eyes, Mam upsilon”, said my 5^th grade son. It was early in the morning on Sunday, 13^th May.  He took out a 45cm x 15cm package from his extra large plastic bag. 

“Now, open your eyes, but be careful”.  He passed the package to me, which was nicely wrapped in an antique ruby wrapping paper with a gold ribbon.  Nice choice of colours, my boy 🙂

I carefully unwrapped the package, not knowing, what I would end up seeing.  Hmmm…. weighs quite a bit, I thought, and pretty firm, too.  Oh yes, very curious already. 

Oh wow!  Here’s what I got!

If you look carefully, you will see kitchen, laboratory and garden items intermingled – test tubes, wires, tulips, pasta and even buttons – absolutely gorgeous! The piece of plank was hand painted.  No wonder he came home one day from school with blue fingers 🙂

“It’s not over yet, mama”. He dipped his left hand deep inside the extra large plastic bag, and got out an envelope.

I was closed to tears when my son hugged me and whispered “Gelukkige moederdag” or “Happy Mother’s Day”. 

I opened the envelope and took out a 100% handmade card with me, or almost me on it!!

LOL! What I got that day were what my son thought were the best visual description of his mama. He’s probably right 😉  Thanks, son, from the bottom of my heart.

Sweet Revenge

From one surprise to another, this time, from my 15-year old son. He said, “Mum’s day is not complete without a cake”. I was not surprised with a statement coming from a sweet tooth critter🙂 !

Nope, he did not bake the cake.  It was store bought, and I did not mind it at all. “Leve moeder” or long live mother! I’ll try my best, son and thank YOU so much. Mwah!

Term of Endearment

Not wanting to be left out of the race, my other half came home that morning with a bagful of surprise.  Gosh, what a domino effect it had become that Sunday morning.  I felt pampered by my three guys.

A pot of budding yellow roses!  That’s exactly what I wanted and it’s still standing on my kitchen windowsill!

By the way, I googled the meaning of roses: to be precise, yellow roses.  Here’s what I found from “History and Meaning of Yellow Roses – by Samantha Green”

Quote –

“A bouquet of yellow roses brings to mind all of the sunny, cheerful feelings of warmth and happiness. Yellow roses can send the perfect message of appreciation and platonic love without the romantic subtext of other colours.  They can represent feelings of joy and delight, and are an ideal way to brighten someone’s day who may be feeling down. There is perhaps no other flower that is able to bring out a smile in quite the way that a yellow rose can.”

Unquote –

I was at a loss for words. Thanks, my dear!

Breakfast fit for a Queen

To wrap up Mam upsilon’s day, we had a pretty regal and filling breakfast complete with martini champagne!  Breakfast was a complete surprise, as with the rest of the happenings that morning.  Then, I understood why the guys did not say “yes” to my offer of going out for a Greek lunch on Mother’s Day.  The regal breakfast was planned weeks before D-day.  With such heavy breakfast, it was logical to skip lunch. Sorry “Zorba”, maybe next year…

Boozy Treat

Heavy breakfast, no lunch, now it was my turn to treat my guys.  A boozy slow cooking chicken noodle soup 😀

All you need are chunky-sized chicken (skin removed), sliced carrots, sliced ginger (pre-fried in sesame oil), dried shiitake, couple of drops of Straight Bourbon whiskey (Jim Beam white label).  Dump all these in a slow cooker or crock-pot with some water. Season well. Add the booze last when the chicken is cooked.  To serve, add the chicken broth to pre-boiled noodles.  I used rice stick flat noodles (or kway teow).

Serve piping hot with boiled eggs and Mae Pranom shrimp flavour crushed chilli with lime or lemon juice. 

Voilá !

It was a simple dish, but prepared straight from the heart.  My way of saying, “Thank YOU, guys!”

By the way, it’s nice to be back, slowly but surely…

Have a great weekend.

Cheers!