Packed with Love

BY MY reckoning, a quarter past six is an unearthly hour to be awake. At this time during schooldays, everyone in the family would be awake except me.
Two of them would be getting ready for work, two for school, and daddy will be their driver.
What time I get up ­depends on what time I retire the night before and my itinerary for the day.
But since the beginning of this year, I have been diligently setting my phone alarm for 6.15am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
I usually don’t treat the phone alarm with respect; it can be ignored or shut off at will.
But on these odd weekdays (it’s odd all right since I never rise while the sky is still dark!), I obey the command of the alarm and ­dutifully get up.
I trudge to the kitchen to ­prepare the children’s lunchbox. By this I don’t mean a ­muffin or a bun for recess. I mean a proper lunch.
This year, No.3 and No.4 started attending a private school where they only knock off at three o’clock or later.
They can’t stand canteen food five days in a row, so I put on my sacrificial mummy ­persona (since precious sleep has to be sacrificed), and do the mummy thing.
I hope they will remember this period of their lives when I’m old and sick and need them to feed me!
The easiest way to prepare school lunch is to use leftovers. I cook extra portions for ­dinner so that the leftovers can be reheated the next day.
Spaghetti fits the bill ­wonderfully.
But if I want to prepare it fresh for the ­lunchbox, I will dump all the sauce ingredients into the crockpot the night ­before.
The pasta can be prepared at night too or the next morning.
If fried rice is on the menu, I will cook extra rice the night before and prepare all the ­ingredients beforehand.
The frying gets done at 6.15am when I should still be snuggling in bed instead of ­slaving over a hot stove wearing an apron over my nightdress.
Sandwiches are easy to prepare. Slap some filling in between slices of bread, cut some tomatoes and cucumber and that’s it.
But having the same old tuna or egg sandwiches can get pretty boring after a while.
In fact, I have to strike off tuna as a key ingredient now as No.3 has just acquired an intense aversion to it.
My guess is that it was a case of over-indulgence. He ­reckoned that it was because he recently had a tuna-and-egg combo which, to his ­tastebuds, is the strangest food ­combination.
Somewhat like durian and tofu with the durian ­overpowering the tofu ­completely.
Fortunately for him, the halo over my head is still in place. The other day, I made chicken mushroom sandwiches for them.
Into the crockpot I dropped a piece of chicken breast, sliced button mushrooms, some BBQ sauce and other condiments.
It cooked through the night and by 6.15am, the chicken was tender enough to be shredded with a fork.
I even dusted off the bread-maker and cranked up the ­machine again so they could enjoy sandwiches with home-made bread.
These kids are so blessed and do they know it? In case they don’t, I will email them this ­article to read and also file it in the “When mummy is old” folder.
Lydia Teh is a mother of four and author of seven books, including Honk! If You’re Malaysian and the latest, The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim comic. Send comments to: lifestyle.lydia@thesundaily.com.