Maximillian's Warning

Maximillian's Warning: Potties are hazardous to your (and your neighbour's) home. They can cause serious flooding, water seepage and various pollution problems. Children and babies without proper supervision should not try using them at home.

Part-time Parents

Parents in Hong Kong are the unlucky ones.

The unreasonably high living standard makes it virtually impossible for any of us to become a full-time parent. If you are lucky enough, you will have your ass saved by being a tenant of the public housing estates where the rent is cheap and the price is low. But if you aren't one of them, you will have to work your brains out to repay your mortgage with the bank for the teeny tiny flat you have bought, which is so small that you can't even flex your legs when you sleep.

Yours Truly and Yours Truly's wife are the semi-lucky ones. While we aren't tenants of the public housing estates, we aren't flat owners at the moment either, currently renting a flat as our temporary home. But that doesn't mean we don't have to work hard. Milk powder, clothes and food all cost a fortune, and remember, we don't have to spend money on education, piano lessons, soccer class and tutorial, YET.

Yours Truly always blames himself for not being smart enough to be among the top echelons of some international conglomerates. That means Yours Truly's wife can't quit her job to stay home to take care of our Dear Daryl full-time, and that we have to hire a live-in domestic helper to help us out.

Our daily routine looks like this:
- Wake up at 6, and play with Daryl for a short while;
- Leave home at about 7, and watch how Daryl is doing through the IP cameras;
- Go home at about 7 and play with Daryl for a short while;
- Dinner at about 8;
- Play with him for another short while; and
- Daryl goes to bed at about 10.

If you do the math, you can see that there is just a couple of hours (quality or not) we can spend with Daryl every day. No wonder we have found it quite difficult to make him laugh sometimes. Sadly, we have missed so many memorable moments in his rapid development. Very often we have to listen to our domestic helper about the wonderful things that Daryl has done while we are busy at work.

Yours Truly's friend, Angry Eyes, says that she is sad that she can't be a full-time mother. Yours Truly feels the same too. But what can we do?

Get a Mark Six ticket, of course!

Otherwise we'd better suck it up and stop sulking.

You Reap What You Read

Unlike most of my colleagues (such as Angry Eyes), I have never been an avid reader, which is quite bizarre given the nature of my work. Imagine a soccer player who hates playing soccer. That is simply unimaginable and inexplicable.

In fact, I am a selective reader. I don't read a lot of things, as I often find books and texts boring. But you can still find a lot of books and magazines in my bookshelf, the reason being most of the them are related to sports.

I have always been a sports fanatic, but my interest is strictly limited to being a spectator instead of a participant. When I was a small kid, I would tape a lot of sports programmes on TV (Italian Serie A and the NFL in particular) and watch it again and again whenever I had time, and so I could and can still remember nearly every word of the commentary. For example, my man Martin Tyler reminded us, after an excellent 2-1 home win over Bologna early in the 1990-91 season, to "watch out for Sampdoria", which would go on to win its first and so far only Serie A title that season. I still have a couple of seasons' (from the early to mid-90s') worth of Serie A and NFL tapes in my cabinet, ready for me to pop into the VHS player when and if I have time.

You may say that watching the same tapes again and again has made me more laconic, which is probably true. But the flip side is, the excellent commentary of Tyler and Peter Brackley, among others, has greatly enhanced my English proficiency.

Anyway, when I finally have some (NOTE: not "a lot of") money, I decided to buy sports books, lots of them. My collection mainly consists of books on Formula One, but the number of baseball books is also increasing at a rapid rate. When Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" created a lot of controversy a couple of years ago, I immediately bought one from my trusted old friend, Amazon. And being an avid follower of Rob Neyer, I just can't miss any of his work. But despite being a huge fan of soccer and American football, I don't have too many books on them in my collection.

As for magazines, there is only one that I have been reading regularly for nearly 15 years: Sports Illustrated. It has the two things that I am looking for: Excellent coverage of sporting events (mostly in North America) and fantastic columns by renowned columnists like Rick Reilly and Steve Rushin. To say that I am trying to imitate Reilly's style in this blog, but to no avail (possibly forever), would be an understatement.

Daryl is now nine-month old, and we hope that he would pick up reading as a habit, as experts always say that it would be good for his development in terms of speaking and writing. At the moment he can only play with his toy books, and still can't turn the pages properly. I know we still have time, but being his parents, we are always worried about a lot of things.

No, we don't want to force him too much, but there are just some things that we should tell him to and not to do. We want him to love books and we want to build a nice little library for him. But instead of a sports library, we want his to be a general one, with topics involving every aspect of mankind. Otherwise he would be like me, who know nothing but sports.

But first we have to find a bigger flat, and buying a Mark Six ticket may help realise our dream.

Godmothers

Because of the incredible amount of stuff in our home ("They're enough to support a dozen people," said our domestic helper), I always say that we have a lot of EVERYTHING in the world. The only thing we don't have is money.

And the same goes for Daryl. He has no money yet (What? You think he has a million-dollar bank account? He will if any of you give him, or us, one.), but has a lot of clothing, toys and other stuffs.

And no, he doesn't have one godmother. He has TWO in fact.

These two crazy girls are two of my very best friends. They are my high-school classmates, and they love children a lot, and one of them has been other kids' godmothers before.

How crazy are they? They once said that we can simply concentrate on supporting Daryl's study and buying his food, and they will take care of all his clothing. Then during the very hot summer days, they told us that they have already bought a super-warm quilt gown for him. And when scorching summer finally ended and the weather became cold, they decided to tell us that they have bought some swimming wears (notice the "s") for him.

And a quick check into Daryl's wardrobes confirms our belief: We, as his parents, have only bought him the cheapest of clothes from the cheapest of places. Meanwhile, almost all of his "designer" clothing are bought by his godmothers.

But their "donation" is strictly "in kind". When we suggested them make stock or fund investment for Daryl, they flatly said no, as "stocks and funds won't make Daryl prettier!"

Sometimes they are evil. They would sneak into our home when we were away at work and visit Daryl. As they have already won over the trust of our domestic helper, we are really worried that one day they will kidnap Daryl and ask for a huge ransom.

And they are also the main reason why we have to move. They always threatened us that if we don't move to a bigger place, there will not be enough room to store the things they have bought for Daryl. We, as kind and friendly as always, have no choice but to accommodate their request.

But at the rate they're buying things for Daryl, we'll soon have to acquire the flats (notice the dreaded "s" again) next to us, just to have enough room for us go to the toilet without tripping over.

Nevertheless, Daryl is a lucky boy. We always thank God that everyone loves him a lot, and it's really a blessing for him to have two such caring and loving godmothers.

Home Sweet Home

After spending months searching for a new flat, we finally found one, and have now moved in.

It wasn't easy at first. There simply wasn't much flat available close to where we were living when we started. If there was one, it was either too expensive or simply too dilapidated. We don't mind living in flats of poor conditions, but we also have to take Daryl into consideration. We want him to grow up in better places.

So we spent many weekends visiting flats with property agents, who can sometimes be quite obnoxious and annoying. If you hate receiving cold calls, then you will probably detest the company of property agents. They are just the same.

In late October, we finally found one we like a lot. It has recently been renovated, and is quite close to my parents' home as well. Then the next (and probably the most important) thing to do was to bargain. However, the owner stood firm, and we are not the best of bargain hunters. The result: One of the sides is very happy.

Then we suddenly remembered what we had forgotten: Daryl hadn't visited the new flat yet! Older people say that people should bring along their babies when visiting flats. If the baby is happy, then the flat is good and "clean". If the baby cries, then it isn't.

When we finally brought Daryl along to the flat, we had already done all the paper work, which means that we have reached the point of no return. Worried, we showed him the flat and much to our relief, Daryl was smiling and very happy in our new home. He likes it a lot! Thanks Jesus!

And after thorough cleaning, we decided to move in on a Saturday in late November. The actual moving work took almost half a day, as we indeed have loads of things (we were told that there are enough things for a dozen people to live in). We also took Daryl to his godmother's home, lest he would be scared by the noise and the dust of the chaos. Turns out that he was scared by the sound of the piano there! And after two more days of unpacking the 50-plus boxes and drilling holes for boards and stuffs, we finally have a "brand new" home!

A New Home

We are definitely not rich. We cannot afford a place of our own, and we have been staying at someone else's home for the last couple of years. So far, so good.

But we were told recently that we can't live there anymore, and were asked to move away as soon as possible.

Two years ago when we moved in, there were only two members in the family. Now there are four. That means we have to find somewhere bigger, somewhere which can give Daryl as much room to play and move around as possible.

Two years ago when we moved in, the rent (What? You thought we sneaked into someone else's place to live?) was at an all-time low, particularly the flat we are now renting. And when we started to find a new place to rent, we were simply startled by the unreasonable price that some of the owners are asking for.

A case in point: A derelict flat (albeit in a major blue-chip housing estate) with no decoration but extremely dirty and smelly kitchen and toilet can cost somewhere near $15K. I won't live there even if I am PAID $15K per month.

We thought of buying a flat on our own, yet the price is even more unreasonable. A brand-new standalone building at Shau Kei Wan cost you $6,000 per square feet, but the bedroom can be smaller than your bed. Go figure.

Our decision: Rent another flat, even if that means we have to pay a lot more for a place not much bigger than the one we are now living in. And after months of searching and bargaining, we have found a decent one which, although considerably more expensive, is an ideal place for Daryl given its coziness.

Hopefully we have made the right choice for him.