Monday, July 14, 2008
Weekends
14-JUL-2008:
Having your husband unavailable on a weekend in Malaysia means you can make arrangements for a shopping spree with your girl friends and high tea later in the afternoon. Having your husband unavailable for two Sundays in a row in London means being a single parent and lonely housewife.
The Sunday before the last, daddy left for work early in the morning, even before Dominic and I got out of bed. I craved some company but couldn't think of anyone who would be willing to spend a few hours with me in the park, with a 2-year-old. Boring, boring for those who do not have kids. I decided then to give Laura a call. Laura used to work at MK One Kids - the nursery Dominic attended before we moved him to Cybertots. Laura was the only person Dominic felt comfortable with when he started nursery for the first time and she remained his favourite.
And so we went to the park, fed some ducks and chatted for a while. The weather was quite miserable and most of the time we were standing in the drizzling rain, but Dominic had fun. I got him an ice-cream cone on the way back and later that day, I had to take his stroller apart to give it a good wash.
I'm not sure how much Laura enjoyed the time. It seemed like most of the time I was doing the talking and initiating new topics for conversation. While in the process of "making conversations", I managed to dig up some information about her - such as how much she earns, where she lives, does she live alone and (indirectly) does she have a boyfriend? Haha! I definitely enjoyed myself. I was so cut off from social activities that it made me feel good just having someone to talk to.
On another (but yet related) note, just as we were about to leave the house to meet up with Laura, I noticed that daddy had locked the front door from the outside on his way to work and didn't realize that the lock was faulty from the inside. So there we were trapped inside the house with no way out until our supposedly-good-looking neighbour from upstairs came to rescue us. For the first time, I got a good look at him. He was nice-looking, very tall and reminded me an awful lot of my ex-colleague Tat Chong. Turned out he didn't have such a fab bod after all - he's got a bit of flabby spare tyres. :p
Yesterday was another Sunday alone with Dominic. Daddy left for Chicago on a 2-week business trip yesterday morning. I took Dominic to the park, let him ride on his Fisher Price bike, blew some bubbles with the bubble gun and had pitta & chips for lunch. After that, we took a nap. When I woke up from the nap, the quietness surrounded me everywhere, apart from Dominic's soft snoring, and it was loneliness to the core - knowing that daddy will be away for another 13 days. I asked myself when have I become so dependent on him? He's been away many times before this. At one time, he worked in Hong Kong for a few months, and when we first got to London he worked in Newcastle and only came home during the weekends, but I was fine. Absolutely fine. Apart from feeling lonely, I was a little scared too. Last night, I double locked the front door, closed the window in the bathroom (which we usually don't) and woke up to the slightest sound throughout the night.
Dominic missed his daddy too. He kept telling me that "daddy went to airport". And it was first thing he said when he woke up this morning. I guess he understands an awful lot now, although I doubt that he has any sense of how long 2 weeks is.
Daddy, if you're reading this, we miss you very much - and we hope to get a nice gift from you when you return! *wink*.
