The day I was born...

I'll be attending my uni convocation in a few days time. A few days ago Mama asked if I remembered. Of course I do! "Tim chi lei ah, yee kei pai lei kum mong," Mama replied.

In a way Mama's right. I tend to forget about the ceremony once in a while. My head's full of work, work & more work. Can't seem to store other stuff. If we don't get any surprises for the day we're really lucky. It's only post production, how hard can things get? Well, you're in for a shock coz things can go really wrong on some days.

Tomorrow, like any other day my colleague & I will be working. OK, at times I might sound like I'm exaggerating but frankly, our deadline's awfully tight. We're virtually walking on a tightrope. The only good thing is we have the luxury of leaving at a later time from home each day. The editor can start at 1pm but we can get there at 3pm. At least we can sleep in. My colleague does most of the supervision while I handle the paperwork. A lot of things to type plus we have to organise the running order for the ending credit.

Today I brought 3 slices of cake to work. The question posed was "Wah! What's the occasion?"
"Nothing lah, my Mama bought this cake for my birthday," I answered.

As a kid I remember having a birthday cake almost every year. Sometimes I had 2 birthday cakes. They came in all sorts of shapes & sizes. I'd a Mickey Mouse cake when I turned four. There was one year when I'd a piano shaped cake. At that time I was learning how to play the piano, so that explains why lah.

I even had little parties in kindergarten, thanks to Mama who would take a few hours off from work. Mama would rush to my kindey and bring a huge cake. I went with Mama to select the cake from a bakery at SS3. When you're a tiny tot, you always feel so proud & happy to see your mom or dad when they come & see you at kindey. So imagine me holding on to the plastic knife, smiling from ear to ear with my mom & teacher beside me as my kindey mates sang "Happy Birthday".

Yaloh, you just don't forget certain things in life. And my parents and family certainly remember my birthday each year. As my Mama's first born, I gave her an early surprise. My actual birthday was supposed to be on the 2nd of May, a day after my Grandpa's. But no, I was just too impatient.

Mama called Papa in the afternoon. "My waterbag broke."
"Meh wah???!!!" said a stunned Papa. And off they went to the hospital.

"Ngo lo po kong wah ho tung woh," said a worried and helpless Papa.
"Sang chai hai kum yeong ke lah," the nurse replied nonchalantly.

And with that I was born much later. Was it a happy ending? Me thinks it was more like a sweet & sour period. Many years later Papa would often recall how strong my lungs were.

"You kept crying at the top of your lungs. You kept wahhhhinggg non-stop. It's like you hardly needed to stop to breathe."

"I went to work floating... from lack of sleep."

"We placed you in a flower basket, that's how small you were. What a pity the picture never got properly developed."

To my dear readers, and that's a little insight into the day I was born...