Rare Public Display of Raw Emotion

"YOU FXXKING ASSHOLE!!" a woman's voice screamed!

"...YOU FXXKING SHUT UP! JUST FXXKING SHUT THE FXXK UP!!" a man's voice was heard yelling back!

"NO! YOU FXXKING SHUT UP!" the woman retorted...

"..AND YOU ARE FXXKING STUPID!" the man continued ...

Suddenly everyone at the busy Bangsar Village was silent and many were seen rushing out from shops to see what the commotion was. We were on the escalator going up to the other floor and was taken aback with the sudden outburst. Ryan was more dramatic. He frowned and started to look for the source of the commotion. At the same time, he being curious as he is, asked "What noise ?? What noise??"

The noise came from a couple shouting at each other. The woman was relentless and the man began to shout back while still holding his young daughter. After a few more outbursts, the little girl began to cry....

Our hearts go out for innocent little girl who must have been totally frightened over the whole incident and probably have no idea to the outburst ...

What could have trigger this very rare public display of raw emotion? Could it have been bottled emotions, anger, discontentment that has finally erupted like a volcano in all her unstoppable fury? Or could it be their normal display of frank emotion without restraint that will lead to an equally wild and unrestrained making up ????

I believe every couple have their bad days. We have our share of disagreements, different opinions, argument and discontentment with each other ...but we have not so far once, went to raising our voice towards each other, let alone in front of Ryan.

What were they thinking of.? Of could be bottled up anger that could no longer be contained? I wonder ....but the real innocent victim would have to be the little girl...

Have you ever argue or fought in front of your children? How do you deal with arguments with your spouse?

Feng Shui anyone??

Although we are not staunch believers in Feng shui, but we do not discount the fact that certain feng shui recommendation of furniture arrangement are good basic sound advice for comfort and provide a better ambiance or serenity at home. So, when a feng shui master recently came to our home and pointed out that it would be advisable to rearrange the living room furniture to further enhance our wealth and health, we went ahead.

Honestly, it was quite fun too because it gave us a chance to re look into our furniture arrangement that we have not changed since we moved in 2 years ago. Our main door (which was originally by the side) was `moved' to the center of our home when we renovated our house, with the believe that a centralised main door would welcome good `chi' (health and wealth). A little step was created between the porch level and the living room area to `elevate' the living room and hence the home. However, in moving the main entrance to the center of the house, we have aligned the main gate, main door right through the kitchen which was the back of the house. (What to do? Small house!). So, something has to be put up at the hallway to block the `alignment'.

So, instead of spending thousands of our hard earned money in building a cabinet, we rearranged our L-shape sofa and reposition our wall cabinet. To get some height for the cabinet, we went to SSF during the weekend to get a plant arrangement to be placed on top of the cabinet. The plant also added some additional colour to our overall arrangement.

So, did it bring us additional wealth and health? I think it's a little too early to tell. But, we like the recent arrangement better, felt more privacy and comfort with the repositioning of our L-shape sofa and definitely a breath of freshness to the overall home. Wait till we are bored and then we will bring in another feng shui master for another reason to redecorate! Or until we struck lottery and move to a much larger bungalow!! HAHAHA!

His Presents!

Children nowadays are so fortunate! I don't quite remember the birthdays that my parent celebrated for me. The only one that I remembered well and with pictures taken was my 21st! But here we have Ryan celebrating his 1st birthday 3 times! And the amount of presents that he received from our friends and relatives were more than what I got in 3 years!

Of all the presents, I must said, I love the remote control love buggy the most! Honestly, I have always looked at kids with this little gadget with envy and thinking how lucky they must be. The closest I've got was a battery operated toy tank (which incidentally, was already a big thing to me back then!). Secretly, I was hoping that his toy car could fit me..hehe...so that I could give it a spin. Oh well, never mind. Maybe, my son would fancy one of those remote control helicoptors soon...hahaha..

But seriously, the amount of presents do not represent the love our parents have for us. It's rather unfair to compare my childhood with Ryan's because we live in two different era. Education, exposure, standard of living, financial capabilities and a host of other factors have changed the way parents demonstrate their love for their child. Not receiving the amount of presents like Ryan or getting the birthday celebrations like he did, did not mean that I receive any less love from my parents. The amount of education and life they have given me has been a good proof of that. It's just that today's parents will go a long way to ensure that their children would have their needs and `want's taken care of.

However, I believe that being a responsible parent, we got to constantly remind ourselves that we do not spoilt our child or uses material possession as a replacement of the quality time or love for our child. I have friends who have bought luxurious condominiums and cars for their children once they are old enough to drive, all fully paid for. And some even had the guts to specifically asked for the type of car and NOT just any car!!! I think it's an excellent idea to invest in good properties for the future of our child but to hand everything to them in a silver platter could sometimes do them more harm than good.

Overly engrossed in our babies??

Every parent is proud of their little ones. This is especially true with first time parents. Who can blame them. For the very first time in their lives, they witnessed and brought a cute, little precious bundle of joy into the world. The baby is their everything. The baby is their world, or the world revolves around their little new arrival. When you talked to them, their eyes suddenly sparkled with excitement and they will start rambling about this and that about their baby. "She is so cute!". And being Asians, it is also common to hear their parents said, " Aiyah. She ar...very naughty lar!. At night, don't want to sleep some more. Only wants to be carried leh...aiyah..so tired lar..." (All these said while smiling and grinning from ear to ear, occasionally planting a few kisses on the baby's forehead) You know it's not a complaint but our humble Asian manner of `praising' our children and how proud a parent we really are.

Being proud of our children is good, but what happen when we become overly engrossed with them, forgetting that we still have a life to live, work to do, money to make and responsibility to fulfill.

We recently returned to the pet shop where we bought Zoewe, our dear little toy poodle. The owner was sitting behind the counter and gave us a smile and greeted us. In our previous visits, he would have asked us what were we looking for and proceed to recommend new toys, dog biscuits or stuff for our Zoewe. Our conversation will most definitely be about our pets and their recent mischiefs.

This visit however, was totally different. Why? Because we brought Ryan along and his wife just delivered a baby boy as well. For the entire 25 minutes that we were there, he was so busy and proudly telling us all about his baby, how cute, how naughty etc etc. The usual `selling' was surprisingly missing. We showed him a tin of home made dog biscuits with some trapped insect, and he just put it away, without asking us whether we would want another tin. He was apparently more contented to continue sharing with us about his baby. There we were, in a pet shop and the owner was not `selling' any products related to pets but he was `selling' his baby!

He is a proud father and so am I, which leads me to seriously evaluate myself. Am I equally over engrossed with my baby that I too am guilty of rambling the whole day about him, forgetting my responsibilities as a bread winner and a husband besides just being a dotting father? Have I got overly engrossed in Ryan for my own good. Is there a time for everything? A time to work, a time to play, a time to laugh, a time to cry, a time for wife, a time for Ryan and lastly a time for me and my own reflection......

Don't just hire them, brand them.

There is so much that we do not know about how to raise our little one properly. What we are constantly looking out for is good advice and guidance. We all know that good playing aids will help and places like ELC (Early Learning Centre) should be able to assist. Well, suffice to say, their retail outlets are definitely loaded with lots of aids but what is seriously lacking is good advice.

We walked into an ELC outlet last weekend, looking for a good ABC learning book for Ryan. The outlet was manned by a lone staff who really looked like she rather be elsewhere. Not only were we not greeted with a nice `Good morning’, she was not even smiling! We spent a good 10 minutes in the shop browsing, looking for what we `want’ (although we do not have the faintest idea being new parents) and no one approach us to advise. In fact, there were 3 other pretty ladies whom I believed are shopping for some gifts for their friend who has just delivered and all of us walked out of the shop empty handed without buying a single item. And the staff could care less!

What make a great shopping experience for any customer is the service, personal attention and sound advice given by the outlet staff. Far too often, many organizations have forgotten to invest in training their staff and proceed to carefully brand them besides giving them their uniforms. Give them an identity and carefully cultivate a corporate personality that is unique to the organization. Be different. Go the extra mile.

When we walked into a baby outlet for example, what we need is a passionate person who would enjoy sharing with us what our 4.5 months old needs and how their respective products will help him. What ELC probably would need is not a staff manning the cash register. What ELC should probably have are trained and knowledgeable staff in children’s early development. (that is what they are branding themselves anyway).

Needless to say, we could not find anything interesting in ELC but we spent RM70 buying a ABC learning aid from another outlet just because the staff talked to us, found out what we were looking for and showed us options that could interest us. We could have easily spent the RM70 at ELC but I guess they can survive without our small transaction.

If you are just going to hire them and not train and brand them, you might as well fire them.