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Diva
updated 8 Sep 2010, 15:55
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Mon, Sep 06, 2010
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Rebonding with Mum and Dad
by Clara Chow

CAUGHT up in the trials and tribulations of parenthood, I often forget that there was a time before I became a mother. It took a broken toe to remind me how much I enjoy being a daughter.

In one of those freak accidents, in my own living room, one of my little toes tangled with a metal sofa leg and lost. An X-ray confirmed that there was a fracture.

So, for the past two weeks, I have been hobbling around with the fourth toe of my left foot in a splint.

My parents were tasked with driving me to the hospital for a check-up recently. Before taking me to the doctor, I found myself having dinner with just the two of them.

It felt both strange and familiar. Strange because, these days, dinner with Mum and Dad invariably involve my two sons and niece Rachel running around the table, as we adults bark at them to sit down and cajole them to finish their food. A civilised sit-down dinner as a trio is a rare luxury.

But it was familiar, just as I often remembered us in my childhood - my parents spending some alone-time with me, their firstborn child, and an only child for my first three years of life.

Having grown used to my parents in their current roles as doting grandparents, I had forgotten just how wacky they can be.

Over dinner, with no kids around to curtail our conversation or render us into PG mode, we talked about everything from the recent Hong Kong tourist hostage tragedy in Manila, to a dream my maternal grandmother had of my dearly departed uncle.

The topics moved to serial killers, child abusers and capital punishment, and it hit me where I had got my morbid curiosity from, even as I relished how good it felt to be able to gab on with two people with whom I could relate to instinctively.

As we picked through ramen and gyoza, we joked about my mother's addiction to the restaurant's pickles, and how she had been told they were not for sale the last time she came to try and buy a jar.

Later, my parents became very interested in the mechanics of an in-restaurant survey, which involved dropping a casino chip into a box that indicated you were pleased with your meal, or another box that indicated an unsatisfactory experience.

"I think the 'satisfactory' box is fuller," my mother said, as she tried to peer with one eye into the slit on top of the box. I rolled my eyes and tsked at her kaypoh behaviour.

Ignoring me, my mother asked the cashier presiding over the box, archly: "Can I take these chips into a real casino?" The cashier looked shocked, before she realised Mum was just teasing. I tried to pull Mum away.

"You'll get arrested," I mock-hissed at her.

"Hey," Dad, who had been moseying around behind us, exclaimed suddenly. "They are selling your pickles now - $1.99."

My ever-pragmatic parents pooh-poohed the small jar as being too expensive and left without buying any.

After they dropped me off at the hospital, I reflected on my relationship with my folks as I waited for my number to be called. It struck me that, in my rebellious teens, I had fought with and refused to be seen with them. Now, my parents have become the sort of people that I love hanging out with.

Or, maybe, I have just become the kind of person who likes the security, warmth and comfort of hanging around them. They're funny, cute and they make me laugh.

So here's a new parenting benchmark: If my sons grow up into men who voluntarily spend time with their father and me, I will feel that we'd done something right. And that's my toe... I mean, two cents' worth.

 


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