It has been 6 years that we travel back to Penang for Chinese New Year with young children.
2013 is different as we travel from different country back to KL and to another state. Traveling with a small baby and a preschooler is never easy. Packing itself takes half a day. Keeping them busy along the journey is another creative skill to learn.
Appointment is always back to back. Priority is always family although we are longing to meet our close friends. There are times when we need to arrange baby sitting arrangement especially when my father-in-law has appointment in the hospital. This is a painful experience as I have to trouble my mom to take care of the girls. My mom will call for me to console my baby over the phone as she can't tolerate the crying baby.
There are times we will sleep overnight in my mom's house. There's no cot and baby will crawl and explore around the room. Eventually she will be overtired and cried. My eldest will complain as she can't sleep because her sister is disturbing her.
Driving back to Penang is fun. However, we have to plan for food supply, games in the car and rest stop along the journey. We learnt to tolerate our girl restlessness throughout the journey. However, we will share a room and the same situation will happen. Sometimes, we go through it at every school holiday.
When I was young, my mom will brought 4 of us with 3 bags to Pahang by bus to visit my late grandparents. We had to fight for seats (yes, no numbered seats then). If it's a rainy day, there will be all sort of human smells in the bus. I remembered my mom was calm even we had to fight for seats and cramp in a hot and stuffy room. What is left are my sweet memories in those years. The relationship we built is priceless.
On hindsight, these journey and experiences are priceless. Our girls will watch us and go through it with us. As parents, this is another modeling. There are a lot of things to learn throughout the journey. We learn to be tolerant to each other, we learn to cherish the time together, we learn to understand each other more, we learn to be patience to each other and we learn to love each other more.
It's through all these that it build family relationship and strengthen family values. This is what 'balik kampung' is all about. Children spell LOVE as T.I.M.E. Our parents spell LOVE as T.I.M.E. too. When I am old, I would love to have my children and grandchildren coming home to spend time with us.
Happy Lunar New Year everyone!
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