Stories of KK

If KK had gone beyond 50, he would have turned 51 today. Our firstborn David shares the same birthday. It’s always been a double celebration. This year, David goes first. On the actual day, we have the steak dinner and cut the cake for KK. The kids help to blow out the lone candle on the cake but we do away with singing the birthday song. That would really be too weird.

KK doesn’t have to go to Mandai  anymore. That means he has an extra 75 hours a month, a lot more time in which to spend a lot less money. The point is that he’ll get to be home a lot more, and he’ll be with us on Saturdays once again, and even a weekday afternoon or two. Never mind the money. We’ll get by. It’s time to celebrate! In memory of this great occasion, Jo and I do a video of his first weekend post-Mandai. I shoot the videos, send them to her via Whatsapp, and she edits and puts together the entire thing just like what she did the last time.

Papa sleeping in the tent, kids on the beach (the three tiny black figures). Making sandcastles, planes flying overhead. Papa and boy go blading, girls chill out. She keeps everything neat and tidy and clean. Boy makes a sand bug after blading. Mummy plays frisbee with Papa and gazes at the dappled roof of the tent before falling asleep.

The highlight of a trip is not always the best thing, it’s sometimes the worst. It was the mountain. Halla San is right smack in the middle of Korea’s Jeju Island and is the highest mountain in South Korea. Its 1,950m above sea level and is supposed to be very beautiful. Nobody said anything about climbing it. With ages from 5 to 76, our party was just going to sort of skirt around it. You know, take some photos and say we were there but not actually sweat. Then Teng got a bee in his bonnet. He had to climb it. We decided to split. The very old, the very young, the females and the sick would visit museums and drink coffee in warm cafes. Teng, KK and Day would climb the mountain. The big day, the boys emerged at 6am. The lady owner of our hostel Sylvia eyed the trio suspiciously, unsure if they were serious about it. Outside it was freezing and was about to rain. KK was clad in bermudas, a polo shirt, long-sleeved inner wear and thin-soled shoes completely unsuitable for a mountain trek...

KK works late three nights in a row.  Three nights, we don’t hear the loud click of the door lock turning at 7pm and the kids don’t have the sturdy pair of arms to run into, squealing “papa”!  Each time KK has to stay back, he tells me almost apologetically and I respond: “OK”.  Home alone with the kids doesn’t faze me anymore. But one of us cracks.  The second of KK’s late nights, I tuck Day in bed. As I pass by his room door on yet another thankless errand the girls send me on, I hear quiet sobbing.  The boy is lying face down on the bed, legs clamped tightly together, arms crossed under his face. I go over to him: What are you thinking about, Day?  He looks up, mucus running, eyes red and streaming with tears. “Papa… I miss papa,” he squeaks.  KK tucks Day into bed every night. The talk man-to-man in the dark. They play games on the iPhone. They sleep next to each other until Day goes down, which usually takes all of five minutes. That’s why he miss...

"Interviews" with the kids What Day would say abo ut his pa   Papa always lets me know I am special because he says we are the only two men in the family plus we share the same birthday.  He tells me he likes me a lot.  I can’t wait for him to come home every day because he always laughs until we cannot see his eyes, and sweeps me up for big hugs.  He is my rough-and-tumble man. He also always does fun things with me. Bringing me to Esso to buy sour bear sweets or cold drinks. Mummy is always scolding us.  What Dee would say about her pa   I don’t like papa. He never lets me have my way. I cannot bully him.  Every time I scream, he walks away and leaves me alone and ignores me. Sometimes he smacks me on my hand.  He always tries to hug me and play rough but I don't like it. I scream at him to “Go away! Go away!” and I always call him “Naughty papa”.  He thinks I am very funny. Sometimes he thinks I am mad.  What Lu would say about her pa...

The call usually comes at 430pm. My mobile phone spews out its Nokia ditty, and all three of us at home stop what we are doing because the sound of a ringing phone is so rarely heard around here. Once I end the call, I grab Dee's pink toy stroller, bundle the kids into their jackets and shoes, head out with the house keys in my fleece pocket and nothing else. For we aren't going far. Just 100 metres down the road, at the end of a tree-shaded lane, to Bardon Park; a place we very imaginatively call the "green field". Straight to the centre of the field where there is a cricket strip, I sit down watching the darkening sky as the kids take turns to push the stroller, draw faces in the sand with twigs and play with the many dogs who are chasing tennis balls. Then KK appears over the crest of the hill. Backpack on, sweaty from his 30-minute trek from school, the University of New South Wales. That's what everyone is waiting for. Squealing, the kids abandon twigs and st...

When baby Day's daddy zoomed home from work tonight on his motorbike, later than usual, dangling from the bike handlebars were two plastic bags.  For a man who had once given an ex-girlfriend a tin of butter cookies for her birthday, seldom bothers with important dates and never gave his wife (me!) an engagement ring, the last thing I expected to find in those bags were Christmas Presents. But they were.  He, a crowd-hater, had battled the shoppers in a  shopping centre to find stuff for us. Nonchalantly swinging the bags, he pronounced: I got something for you and Day. Me? Too??  Thrilled, I quickly turned on the twinkling Christmas lights on the tree. Out came two gift-wrapped (I can't believe it) boxes. Tearing the paper off mine, I discovered a pair of Nike shorts. Not the stuff of romantic legend, but infinitely useful because I keep pilfering his.  Proceeding to tear the wrapping off baby Day's present, we (me and Day) discovered a Barney Dinosaur handphon...