[kiasusam]

“Baby, are you ready?” Faith shouted across the living room.

“Ok ok. Coming, aiyoh.” I replied and getting a little impatient with her rushing while I did a final eyeballing around my room, my last check.

Alright…I’ve got my phone here, wallet, passport in the camera bag, camera, SD cards, charger, extra battery packs, extra lens, tripod’s here, handphone charger, iPad. Swee! Done!

Faith went on to check on Kate, who was changing Keane in the nursery. “Done? Is this the only luggage,” she asked.

“Yes, and help me bring that out too. Be careful huh.” Kate pointed out to the baby bag she had prepared on the armchair and back to changing my boy.

“Di di di…bah bah bah.” My boy spoke in his baby language and swung his hands vigorously in front of him.

“Yes baby, papa, mama and godma are bringing Keane out.” Kate said to our boy and added, “We’re going for an holiday! We’ll be taking an aeroplane baby…an ae-ro-plane.”

Ding dong

The doorbell sounded. “Must be them,” I said to Faith who was making her way to the door through the luggage piling up along the walkway.

“Hello Andy.”

“Hi, are you guys ready?” Andy asked, with his wife, Nicole, removing her flip flop behind him.

“Ya soon, Kate’s changing Keane though. Hello Nic.”

“Hey hello! Holiday time!” Nicole announced excitedly before adding, “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Thank you and, Yay! Holiday! Finally!” Faith said, returning her enthusiasm back at Nicole.

Faith and Nicole are no strangers to each other. They have known each other since my wedding. Both of them were Kate’s bride maids and successfully made my gate crushing a miserably memorable one.

When they entered the house and saw the luggage lying on the ground. Nicole commented,” Whoa seriously, so many!”

“Bo bian lei, Keane already took up this big one and the 2 ladies each got one,” I said before turning to Andy, “Hey let’s go let’s go. Bring them down first. Got space or not huh? How many do you have? Kok’s downstairs ar?”

“Ya, in the carpark. He’s waiting in the car. Should be ok la…we got 1 only. Go down and arrange first la.”

At the carpark, Andrew was busy bringing down the back seat so to have more space at the boot. “Wa lau, so many!” Andrew commented when he saw us pulling the luggage and then instructed, “Must stack liao. Hard ones at the bottom.”

After some time of solving the puzzle, we finally managed to fit all our luggage in his 8 seater MPV. “Luckily got you lo. Thanks huh bro.” I said as I gave him a pat on his shoulder.

“Aiyoh, don’t get mushy with me la. Just bring a sweet young thing back for me will do.” Andrew said with his brows going up and down.

“SYT don’t have, sweet potato want or not. This is not a sex trip lei. We’re going with our wives,” Andy joked.

Wives – it was indeed, for my case, literally. That was the first trip I had with Kate, Faith and Keane as a family. It has been a few months into my new life. Things have been smooth, although Kate and I had some minor arguments along the way on Keane’s schooling issues. Faith was always the one calming us down with her bubbly self. So far I have not had any dispute with her and I am keeping my fingers crossed on that. I wonder whose side would Kate stand by if that were to happen. Then again, I would not be surprised if she were to stand by her best pal, you know – united we stand, divided we fall. At times, they would gang up on me. Sigh…but I’m not complaining.

So the sun set and rises, set again and rises again; my new life seemed to be on its track to bliss. Day in day out, I would drop Faith at her office before heading back to work and Kate would bring our boy back to her parents’ place for the day where I would fetch them from after picking up Faith in the evening.

Just had we slowly adjusted to the new member in our family, Faith was sent to Beijing by her company for 10 odd days back in somewhere mid of November. I really missed her during her absence and we would video chat every night along with Kate and Keane. On the 4th night into her trip, as usual, we chatted on Skype. That night, Faith and I were alone as Kate had brought Keane back to her parents’ for the night and something interesting followed... ... ...