Yesterday was probably one of THE most exciting Sundays I’ve had.

Finally, able to rest well after taking care of the very-sick Allan for 2 days. Allan hardly gets beaten down, but when he is down, he is REALLY flat on the ground. Miraculously, Keatkeat did not wake up in the night (mentioned before that he has been sick for 7months and we have not been able to sleep well since then, I still owe you this full story, haven’t I?), I really had a good night rest, woke up at 10am on Sunday and I thought “Wow! Today is going to be a Great Day”.

Then I smelled something! *Ewwww….* It was a very familiar smell which I’ve long forgotten. Binbin urinated on his mattress. I re-wind the ‘tape’ in my head and got an answer to the disaster – We were so tired on Saturday after watching the F1 qualifying round, the kids just collapsed on their mattress without peeing first. Keatkeat’s mattress was super dry so that was a relief.

How would you feel when the first thing that greet you in the morning were stinky smelly urine, accompanied by a little yakking toddler that smelled as if he had bathed himself with his own pee, “Mommy, I shh…shh.. on my bed…very wet…now I cannot sleep on it…” (ya, tell me about it!) and not forgetting the washing of the mattress cover, the pillow cases, the bolster cases, mopping the urine stain off the floor and blah blah blah!!? I would tell you – You have woken up to the reality of being a mother!

It was way too stinky, in-fact it was almost dry when I laid my hands on that uninviting mattress.

So we decided to WASH the mattress and the pillow and let the sun do the job. When we came home from my in-laws place, they were still not dry yet.

So, Binbin slept on my bed last night while I sleep on the couch, no..no..no…don’t pity me, I fought for it with Allan (he didn’t want to sleep with Binbin too *laugh*). Sleeping with my practice-his-karate-kick-in-his-sleep baby is the last thing I wanted.

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Yesterday, my 2nd bro and his family did not come to my in-law’s place, so there were NO arguments between the 2 primary school girls – *Yeah* Free from being a peace maker for this Sunday…

But the real excitement came at about 7pm, my MIL, who was in a super-good mood, yelled from the kitchen, “Its a big butterfly…no…its a bird! Its a bird!”

The easily-excitable-good-old-ME was the first to jump off my chair and ran to the kitchen. “Oh its beautiful! Papa (my FIL) come and see! Come and See!”

FIL: “Close the windows…catch it…I’m coming…I’m coming…”

The bird didn’t fly much and was easy for my FIL’s non-agile hands (FIL had a serious car accident when Allan was only 5-6years old, he was ‘paralyzed’ for a very long time before he regained his ‘muscles’ back to an independent man again. After 20+ years, he is still not as good as he should be at this age of his).

We covered the bird with a plastic cover with lots of holes on it – meant to cover food to prevent flies from attacking the yummies. The hundreds of holes was good enough for the bird while the 4 adults (FIL, MIL, Allan and I) were busy preparing for the temporary cage.

FIL and Allan drilled lots of holes in the plastic container meant for Chinese New Year egg rolls. Then MIL and I tied 2 small containers for food and water. MIL also found 2 short wooden sticks to poke into the container for the bird to stand on.

The kids were having their dinner when the bird flew into the house.

Allan: “Whoever finish their food fast will get to go with me to buy the new cage and food for the bird.”

Go ahead and use your wildest imagination on how fast those kids REALLY ATE!!! Our car couldn’t fit all the kids in, so only ZY (my favourite girl) and my 2 boys went with us. (Sorry MY (ZY’s sis) and WD (ZY’s bro)).

Off we went, skipping and semi-running towards the car. Got the cage and the ‘correct’ food for the bird after we gave a clear description of it.

On the car ride back to my in-laws place, Allan suggested that we should give the bird a name.

ZY (my niece): “Is it a boy or a girl?”

Allan: “how would I know?”

ZY: “Then how to give a name if we don’t know?”

hmmm…that’s quite true isn’t it?

Binbin: “I know what we call the bird. ‘BINBIN’ just like me! I’m so cute and the bird so cute. So the bird is just like me! Call ‘Binbin’!”

*Laughter filled the car*

ZY: “how about Mary?”

Keatkeat: “I know I know, its called Birdie!”

Me: “I like BIRDIE!”

ZY: “I don’t like Birdie”

Me: “How about ‘Pretty’? The bird is pretty isn’t it?”

ZY: “Yeah! I like ‘Pretty’!”

Keatkeat: “I DON’T LIKE ‘Pretty’! I like Birdie!”

The clever Allan: “Let’s call it ‘Pretty-Birdie’!”

“YEAH!!!!” Everyone in unison!

And so we have it, ‘Pretty Birdie’ the new found pet in the Loh’s family after the 3 cats (more than a decade ago), which one died about 2 years ago, so now left with 2 – still alive and meowing.

When we reached my in-law’s house, the happy mood was completely taken over with pity. My in-laws found Pretty-Birdie to be a crippled (look at the yellow circle) Every kid was going “OH NO!…”

We washed the new cage, put super absorbent paper underneath it and Allan did the transfer.

Then we poured in the food we bought and the water. Pretty-Birdie was so excited, took a sip here and hopped over for a bite and hopped back for another sip. IT must have been really hungry!

Several hours later after watching the F1 final night race in Singapore, we bid farewell to Pretty-Birdie who was all puffed  up like a furry ball…sleeping… FIL was so considerate. He covered 90% of the cage with cloth so that it would not be so bright…its like ‘lights-off’….

What an exciting Sunday from the usual hi-bye-eat-play-Sunday routine to my in-law’s house!