Glass Shattering Birthday

Today we celebrated Mike's birthday. Grandma cooked a fantastic dinner of crabs, prawn, curry chicken and chicken with mushroom and sea cucumber, and soup. After everyone had finished, we had the usual cake cutting ceremony. Mike's bro brought the cake. And after that I brought out the chilled sparkling grape juice. As I ended a phone call (a friend just had her baby this morning!!), I heard Mike giving a yell and then a "C-R-I-A-N-GG!" Micah somehow knocked the glass off the table. Grandma and I cleaned up.

I actually have a phobia of broken glass. It is probably because as a child I had a chip of broken glass stuck into the sole of my foot. I can't begin to describe the pain and agony it gave, and then the horror of having to get it picked out with a needle! Also, I remember my grandfather exclaiming that broken glass is more dangerous than broken ceramics because it is transparent. That sure magnified my fear of broken glass. It's like some kind of booby trap that will just spring on you unawares. So I studied the floor very carefully and did a wide radius search for broken glass. I was down on all four and my nose almost touching the floor. I actually studied the floor from a few different angles and hopefully, still uneasy about the whole thing, I have cleared all glass.

After Mike's bro and his girlfriend left, we all went upstairs. Max fell asleep in no time and so I had some quality time with Micah alone. Mike watched TV while we sat beside him looking at a story I did with the playgroup earlier in the day. Suddenly we heard a loud "C-R-A-S-H!!" Mike went down to check what had happened. Grandpa said it was from upstairs. We checked the back door where cats like to hang out at the back of our house and sometimes do knock thing over (in fact, they have broken quite a few jars and bottles). Nothing. Much later, after Micah had fallen asleep, I went to the bath room to remove my contact lenses. That's when I discovered the "CRASH". It was the bathroom glass soap tray on the wall which broke. It had perched precariously before and a few months ago I had straightened it. So now it is the end of it. Mike later confessed he bumped into it while washing Micah's feet earlier. So round two of picking up broken glass pieces, some in tiny chips, and wiping the whole shower area with tissue paper and hope that I had picked up everything. So now there are two naked grips on the bathroom wall.

They say thing happen in threes, but I sure hope this is the end of our sort of uneventful birthday celebration for Mike. And while I am here click-clacking away, he is watching Troy on TV. Well, it is his birthday, and tomorrow is Saturday, so he can vegetate all he wants. Happy Birthday, darling. You are the best friend and life partner one could ever have. Indeed God has blessed me with more that I can hold - 3 boys!!




Post Script( 27 Jan 2007, 7pm):


I offered Mike another piece of his birthday cake after lunch. As I was cutting the cake, the plastic cake knife broke. My ma-i-l laughed and said in Hokkien "No three no success", i.e. third's a charm, as they say... well, it was just a plastic knife and the cake had been in the fridge and was quite hard...but I was still surprised.