Of having girls

I saw Mr. T the other day for follow up of his thyroid cancer.

He excitedly shared with me that his wife is pregnant, into her 2nd trimester. They are expecting their first,a girl.

In jest (he knew I have two), he asked if I had any advice.

Ah, what would I say?
With girls, you would be sentenced to a life of:

• A life full of pink, in varying shades, so much so that it begins to become your favorite color
• Dora, Barbie, Sofia, Cinderella, Ariel, Rapunzel, Belle. You'd learn the words of the themes songs of all the princessy shows
• Braiding and nail painting (which I secretly enjoy doing now- good bonding time when they're actually sitting with you and listening)
• Drama. Not the kind I remember growing up with boys. Not of that physical wrestling, punching. But a lot of "mommy, XX said this...."
• Your wife having natural allies, more than you appreciate. "But DADDY, mom said you shouldn't do/eat that...."
• Perfumes and make-ups
• Little hugs and kisses (I'm going to miss these when they hit their teens and stop giving daddy kisses)
• Tiaras and gowns
• Unlimited and unconditional love. Even after you've punished them for being naughty

Yes, these are generalizations, but at least for me this is what I have to deal with. And I wouldn't have it any other way (ask me again when they are teenagers).

But no, I didn't give him too much details. All I told him was "You'll love every moment of it".

Hunting for a school bag

We took Alli schoolbag shopping the other day. And I have to say, it brought some warm memories back to me. Except this was a variant of what I did when I was a child.

I remember being excited as mom and dad took us to get our schoolbags. Back then, it seemed that the popular ones were the bright yellow 3M backpacks that every kid in school had. You know, the one that was big and yellow and waterproof, with a metal clasp to hold the flap in place? That feeling of pride, when you carry your brand-spanking-new bag for the first time, loaded with freshly sharpened pencils and a new eraser, in a shiny pencil case?

Except this time, it was me taking my child out to pick her own backpack. We took her to the store and she was so excited looking at the racks and racks of back packs. Checking each out carefully. And instead of getting something boyish with superheroes or robots or planes or cars, she picks a pretty purple-pink princess bag. With Cinderella, Rapunzel, Ariel, and Belle on it.

And this time, instead of excitement (well, I guess I am a bit excited), it was a lot of other emotions. My wife and I had our moments when we looked at each other and tried not to tear up. Our girl's growing so fast.

Come Monday when she starts school, I'm pretty sure we will be a mess. Wish us luck!

New Toy

OK, I'll admit, part of me feels a bit guilty.

After all, a person in healthcare should not take pleasure in killing living things, should he? Isn't that a sign of antisocial personality issues?

But man, this has been one of my more fun purchases from Amazon:

All fathers will attest to this I'm sure; kids just somehow can't learn to turn off lights, fans, or close the screen doors. And because of the latter, we have flies infiltrating our house on a daily basis in the summer. And so I recently decided to get this electric fly zapper from Amazon. Something my wife hadn't heard of before, but pretty commonplace in Malaysia.

Well, let's just say I've probably already killing a generation of flies. At least 30- I kid you not- in the last couple of weeks. And there's some gleeful pleasure in hearing that "pop" when you finally catch that sucker in the wires (sadistic, I know. Maybe I should have become a pathologist). And yes, I use this only on flies.

Little Lies

My fear is someday my girls will follow my footsteps, and go into medical school and become doctors. 

And then one day, after they have learnt real physiology, they will confront me and angrily say:

"Dad, eating broccoli does NOT prevent armpit hair", or "Eating peas does not make me grow taller!". 

Or, Alli: "Daddy, why are you putting deodorant on your armpits?". Me: "To help the hair grow". Alli: o_O

Please tell me I'm not being a bad dad and telling these little white lies. It's almost too easy now, especially when their daddy is a doctor and knows everything.

After all I remember the ones I was told:

Eating chicken feet will give you bad squiggly handwriting

Not eating all your rice will give your future wife a lot of acne

Eating too much Maggi mee will make you bald (or maybe this explains a lot for me...)

Ah, the joys of fatherhood.