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Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids Thunderstorm days What to Expect... As a Mother

Mom, interrupted, Part 1

March 6, 2013

Ever since the stay-home gig started on 1 March, it’s been nothing short of crazy here.

In fact, I’ll be frank and go as far to say it’s been *crap*.

I’ve been barking, hollering and watching my blood pressure go up while feeling my blood boil as I attempt to undo some years of bad habits and poor child training.

I would go, “Stop what you’re doing and let’s have breakfast now.”

And the kids would go:

“But I’m busy. I want to do what I’m doing.”

“No, I don’t want to eat breakfast. Eww, what’s that? Yucks!“

This happens for lunch time, bath time, nap time and whatever-Mama-says time. Every time.

Then there would be the meltdowns and temper tantrums ranging from not wanting to wear a particular piece of clothing I’ve chosen to not being the first in line for vitamins. Like the “why-you-give-whoever-the-vitamin-first-and-not-me” kind of silly tantrums.

Plus, arguments and fights on an hourly basis and having to put children in their time-out corners for I-dunno-how-many-bloody-times a day, a needy baby who wants to be carried ALL THE TIME, a four-year-old asking you incessantly “What can we do now?” and a middle child who’s practically screaming her own head off when things don’t go her way, I’m pretty much going beserk after 6 days.

I’m also doubling up as maid of the house because it is just impossible for the helper to manage the chores. So guess what, I’m also mopping the crayon stains, folding laundry and changing bedsheets. Every day, someone would wet the bed, spill milk, scatter Cheerios, litter the house with shreds of paper cut-outs and eraser shavings, and smear the walls with Crayola.

Yesterday’s dirty laundry

Two baskets of unfolded laundry

And then some more

But I’m no fool of a Mama that will accept things as they are, and have these kids continue to be poorly behaved.

Child training – this is how it begins.

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I can't categorise such entries

Maybe baby? Thoughts on the new Parenthood Package

January 24, 2013

So the government unveiled a $2 billion package to boost our country’s low fertility rate. The latest measures are the third round of enhancements to the Marriage and Parenthood Package, covering areas such as assisted reproduction, healthcare, priority in housing, more childcare subsidies for the middle-income and paternity leave. The Baby Bonus cash gift is now up by S$2,000 per birth, up to the fourth child and every newborn will have a CPF Medisave account with a grant of S$3,000 to support healthcare costs.

Image from straitstimes.com

When I went, “Dang! Baby Nat missed the extra 2,000 bucks, and that money can get me a truckload of diapers man!”, people around me started telling me I should go have another baby.

They did the math for me. “You see, very good leh, $8,000 cash, plus Medisave grant of 3k to support healthcare costs and one week of paid paternity leave for daddy. Go for number four lah! You already have three, might as well, right?”

If it wasn’t too socially embarrassing to roll on the floor laughing, I would.

In my mind, I’m thinking, “Siao ah!” [Loosely translated: Are you crazy? Get out of here!] Do you seriously think that for 8k I would want to go through pregnancy (and delivery) for the fourth time?

It costs about 2k to deliver a baby naturally and 4k by caesarean. It costs about 90 bucks per visit to the gynae for prenatal checkups.

It costs about $80 on the average for a visit to the pediatrician.

It costs about $600 to 1k to send one child to full-day childcare.

1 tin of formula milk costs about $30 for 900g and 1 pack of diapers costs $16 on the average. Multiply that by the number of children and the number of milk feeds and diaper changes each kid needs and you’ll get about $200 a month for a family with three kids like mine.

And if the kid wants to pick up a musical instrument, learn a sport, wear leotards and tutus, that’s gonna set you back by another 250 to 600 bucks a month.

Yes, it’s true we don’t have to send the kids for extra programmes. We can search for cheaper childcare alternatives. They don’t have to drink the expensive brands of formula milk. You might as well say the kiddo should be toilet trained from Day 1 so that completely eliminates the need to buy diapers.

But we all have hopes and dreams. We want to give our children the quality of life that will allow them to have a meaningful childhood, and not be caught in the rut of the humdrums and doldrums of life, so we will surely say yes to music, dance, drama and sports. We don’t want to queue up with over eighty sickly others in a polyclinic and waste two hours of our precious time when it can be better spent recuperating at home, so we go to a private doctor. We think the childcare we send them to is doing a great job and that we’re getting our money’s worth in terms of programmes, so there isn’t a need to pull our kids out and have them go through another round of adjustment at a cheaper alternative. In short, we want to have kids and still live comfortably.

But it’s not ALL about the money, really. If you’re a fly on my wall, you’ll see that my three very young children need a lot of love, attention and affirmation ALL THE TIME. They need my energy. They need my time. They need my presence. They need me. As it is, I live with mommy guilt most of the time. I wished I had more energy to understand my middle child. I wished I had more time with Ben to read him stories and then enter his world of vivid imagination and dwell there a little longer than I can. I wished I was the one feeding the baby his porridge at dinner time instead of the maid, but it’s just impossible every evening because I need to be with the older kids.

That is why I’ve made the decision to stay home, just so I can reduce the number of episodes of mommy guilt recurring and give them the best of my time and energy. They won’t be getting leftovers from Mama anymore. I am looking forward to having better work-life balance come next month, work now being taking care of the kids and teaching them at home.

I’m sure the enhanced Marriage and Parenthood Package will benefit many couples and families out there, and I hope that we can quickly and steadily increase our birth rates. I wished there could be more support for mothers that have decided to stay home though, or at least help the dual middle income families that fall through the cracks and consider them on a case-by-case basis. As for the Kaos, we ain’t getting any of the benefits this time round and I certainly will not go have another baby just so I can get those benefits. Well, if ever 8k allows me to duplicate myself, hmm, that may be a different story.

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Milestones and growing up Parenting 101 Re: learning and child training The Kao Kids What to Expect... As a Mother

Fighting sleep at naptime: Kids 1, Mama 0

December 27, 2012

All three kids got to skip school after the Christmas holiday, just so I can have a taste of what my life would be like come next year March.

Actually, it’s because Nat has conjunctivitis (again!) and I had grand plans to read and do craft with the older two kids.

But I also managed to get a glimpse of what my life would be like next year. *Gulp*

Every day, I do the impossible. It’s just impossible to make them eat their breakfast, lunch and dinner without me yelling, threatening and tearing my hair out. It’s impossible to get them to the bath to be clean without having to count to three.

But that’s not the worst. The worst, and the one I dread most, is nap time.

In daycare, the two older kids (and now even Baby Nat) follow a routine. By 1pm, I hear, they would’ve had their lunch, shower and milk and would be fast asleep. The teachers tell me Ben and Becks have no problems at all falling asleep together with their friends. It’s peer pressure, they say.

It’s a different thing altogether at home. There’s no sign of sleepiness at 12, 1, 2, 3, no, not even 4pm. Even if they were up at 7am. I don’t give them sugary treats and so I am always wondering why it would take them so long to finally settle and take their afternoon nap. I’ll get them to start winding down by about 2.30pm, put them to bed by 3pm and they would be tossing, turning, chortling and saying the most random things to each other.

Ben: You’re so poot poot la la. Hahahaha.

Becks: You’re so di dom dar doo. Hee ha ha ha. La la la.

Ben: I’m not la. You silly pom pom pee.

Becks: YES! You sullee ballee tom tee.

Ben: NO! Poot poot doo doo.

Becks: YES! Ba baa yooooo….

Ben: NO!

Ben & Becks: (together) Hahahahahahaha!

This happens every day without fail. All this while the baby is whining outside, calling out in his babbling, “I need milk. I need my mother. I don’t want to be carried around by the maid. Oh please, would you let me join in the fun with my kor kor and jie jie”. All this while I’m asking them to stop the laughing and to close their eyes. All this while I’m holed up in the room for one and a half (precious) hours patting them till my hands are sore and numb.

Just now, I had to smack Becks five times on her diapered bum for doing the freestyle and breaststroke on her bed while pretending to close her eyes. I had to use the cane three times on her thighs for jumping in and out of bed despite my instructions to get in bed and prepare for nap. I also lost my cool at Ben who fidgeted and squirmed for two hours, to be exact (his sister finally fell asleep before him), picking his nose, scratching his ears, and pretending to be asleep. He was winking and blinking and secretly laughing at his sister while she was being disciplined.

Meanwhile my helpless helper outside the room was rocking my baby silly till he finally fell asleep, tired from all the whining for Mama.

People say in order to get as much rest as possible, I should sleep when my children do. I say, after getting all worked up, I’d rather put up this post than to lie in bed. And go eat some chocolates and think about how I’m gonna do things differently at tomorrow’s naptime.

Finally asleep! At last!

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I ♥ lists Parenting 101

Top Ten Things You Absolutely Must Have If You Have Two Tods & One Infant

April 30, 2012

Here’s a list for the uninitiated:

10. Waterproof mattress protectors – you need them to line the mattresses for diaper leaks, milk spills, drool and in case your kid does the Merlion

9. Lots of spare kitchen utensils (ladles, spoons, whisks, tongs) tucked in every possible drawer and cabinet in the kitchen. It will be the most explored place in the house. Just keep all knives and scissors away. Don’t bother buying toys.

8. A ready and steady supply of all forms of cleaning agent (think Cif, Mr Muscle, Magic Kleen)

7. Contacts for cheap diapers and milk powder (check out forums and network with moms)

6. The number to your pediatrician’s emergency answering service so you can call him at one in the morning instead of rushing down to the A&E (unless there’s mortal danger, of course)

5. Google is your best friend

4. BabyCenter and Dr Sears are your next BFFs

3. A babysitter named Disney Junior

2. A maid of the Burmese kind (to do the three bagfuls of laundry daily; four if you don’t have waterproof sheet protectors – see #10, vacuum the soles of your shoes and be at your beck and call for diaper emergencies and Merlion experiences )

1. Buckets of salt to take with whenever anyone dishes out advice. Well-meaning or not, only you can figure out how to survive this leg of motherhood.

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Close encounters with the maid kind Thunderstorm days

$374.55 for some serious ear-candling

April 28, 2012

There’s a huge hole in my pocket.

It’s a bittersweet feeling, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. The Ear, Nose and Throat Consultant whom I paid $95.01 to consult did a series of Specialised Investigations (it says that in my bill) called Pure Tone Audiometry and Tympanometry, two Clinic Procedures called Clearance Ear (Simple) and Syringing and a Surgical Procedure called Nasendoscopy.

The findings: the left ear has wax that needs to be cleared and basically, sucker, you’re ok! If you wish to investigate further, I recommend a CT scan but that will burn a hole way bigger than this one, so ginormous you can fit my Nasendoscopy machine in it. So go home and take some extra strong painkillers if the pain bugs you.

So this entire experience costs me $374.55 just to see some earwax and hear a specialist say three magic words. You. Are. Ok.

Except that I went through this as the third-person and not the first.

Remember I mentioned the maid has been complaining of a earache for months now? She was pale as sheet on Friday morning and looked like she had cried her eyeballs out the night before. She said there was so much pain in her ears it felt like ten years of bathwater needed to be drained from them (ok, I paraphrased and imagined – all she managed to say with limited vocabulary was “pain. block. heavy. headache”). I decided that the visit to the ENT clinic couldn’t wait till May and if she were to go deaf in her ears, her entire Burmese village would probably come and hunt me down. So I called my lifeline from the hospital – this wonderful Medical Social Worker whom I’ve know all my life, also affectionately know as my mother – to ask if she could help me get an appointment to see a doctor immediately. And then I grabbed the baby and rushed her down to the hospital because the consultant would take a walk-in, like NOW.

After the whole ordeal, she was sobbing away, saying she was really in pain and still is (I just checked) and she was really sorry for everything. I tortured her with my nagging of how she is not my fourth child and why she must learn to take care of herself (she’s from a very well-to-do family and came to work here because ‘Singapore good!’) because she’s probably never taken care of herself a single day of her life (believe me when I say she used to stay at home and do nothing. But to her credit, some sensibility hit her one day and she realised she can’t be a bum forever so she decided to choose the fate of a housemaid! See, I told you she doesn’t have much common sense). I unleashed all my angst about paying so much money to hear the doctor say she was perfectly fine. She seemed grateful that I was willing to pay for her medical fees and asked if she could pay me back. I’m still undecided yet because dragging her to the specialist was totally my idea (she has seen the GP four times!) and it would be terribly unfair to make her pay with her wages although she totally does not need money (so she claims).

Nobody, not even a qualified person, knows what is happening to her ears. But at least I know now it’s not contagious and I did not get a earache from her – the GP said mine was a case of an external ear infection, easily resolved with a round of antibiotics and some eardrops. I joined her in her sobbing nonetheless. Three hundred and seventy bucks could have gotten me lots of new shoes (and soles) for her to vacuum.

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(Self) Examination Family life as we know it Mommy guilt Thunderstorm days

Mega Meltdown

April 26, 2012

I had a meltdown of epic proportions last night. It was the culmination of a series of rather unfortunate events. I say rather because on hindsight, for one, I survived it (hey, I woke up this morning and didn’t feel that depressed), and besides, the Baudelaire kids have it worse.

The morning started with a cough from Ben and him doing a Merlion continuously for a few minutes, complete with Becks yelling “Kor kor pass urine! Kor kor pass urine!” and trying to jump on the spot where he merlion–ed. This was when everything happened in slo-mo for me. I walked out to smell a stench of undisgested goat’s milk all over the corridor. Amidst the stench, I lifted Ben to the other bathroom to shower him while having to answer his questions groggily (Am I going to school? Why are you washing me, Mama? Is Becks going to school? Am I sick? Do I need to see a doctor? Can I eat medicine?) and thinking ahead of myself what this day would bring. We decided to keep Ben home (I think it’s probably a mild case of stomach flu) and so I told Ben to play on his own.

Not knowing how to deal with boredom or being alone, Ben proceeded to help the housemaid with her daily vacuuming and dusting chores. They were happily in it together until she told him that she was gonna start vacuuming the shoe cabinet area and he was like, ok, it stinks so I’m sitting here to watch’ya, Auntie! And lo and behold, just as I was coming out to take the breastpump parts from the steriliser I saw her using the vacuum brush to dust *gasp* the sole of every shoe! Mortified by her absolute lack of common sense of the not-so-intelligent-Burmese-kind (sorry, I don’t mean to be mean here, but seriously, vacuuming the soles of shoes?), I let go a series of expletives (not at her, via whatsapp, to fatherkao) and told her that was a terrible thing to do:

Me: Shoes step… toilet, lift, shopping centre, car, pavement… DIRTY! Dead ants, mud, dirt, saliva, urine, germs – all on soles of shoes!!!!

Maid: Yes, ma’am.

Me: Vacuum brush… clean bed, cot, toys, chairs, tables, tv top, everything. Children touch, put fingers in mouth, rub eyes, nose…Fall sick!!!!

Maid: Yes, ma’am.

I’ll leave it to another post to rant about why I needed to get a maid and why a maid of the Burmese origin. Suffice to say, she was scared shitless by my outburst and I was left wallowing in guilt for being so unkind to another human being in front of my very stunned son, who probably thought vacuuming soles was the coolest thing to watch if not for his mother shrieking her lungs out.

Then my mother-in-law came because she was such a kind soul to take my maid to the polyclinic because she had been complaining of a earache for almost two months now. I am convinced more than ever that she might end up being the fourth kid I have to take care of because of her absolute lack of common sense, but like I said, it will be for another post another time. So she left with my MIL and I was alone with a three-year-old toddler and a two-month-old infant, which was fine by me because Becks wasn’t in the equation, and if she was, then it would definitely NOT be fine (are you kidding me, one pair of eyeballs to two tods and an infant?). Ben was a darling (I don’t think it was stomach flu) and played on his own as long as I sat beside him. Occasionally he would ask for biscuits and help with flushing the toiletbowl, but it was lovely to have some time to spend with him. Until I discovered that there was laundry in the washing machine, toilet rugs unwashed (the boy had also vomitted in the toilet in the morning!), a very unsterile washing machine that has loose threads and grime, and kitchen cloths and floormats stuffed in the children’s laundry basket of clean clothes. I nearly went ballistic. Add to the madness of putting right what the maid didn’t – three knocks on the door by the postman (at different times) because I have been happily g-marketing away last week, a hungry infant and a toddler in need of lunch and a nap, plus the realisation that I need to fix lunch for Ben, that pretty much sums up the madness in the afternoon.

The maid came back with a referral letter to see an ENT specialist and I had to beg my MIL to take her to the hospital next month. Then my daughter came back from daycare looking like grumps and throwing tantrum after tantrum, wanting my attention, all 58 kilos of me to sit right next to her. Both tods wanted Mama to feed them their dinner so there I was practising my octopus-juggling act while stealing occasional glances at the baby telling him soon it would be his turn to feed.

Then I came up with a brilliant idea of letting fatherkao do a bottle feed so I can feed the kids and grill the red wine-marinated ribeye in my happycall pan and have a nice romantic dinner complete with rucola salad and Cabernet Sauvignon (ambitious, I know). Except that I forgot to factor in baby Nat refusing the bottle (he gags) and fatherkao needing to move his bowels and take a shower after a hard day’s work.

So you have it, the perfect conditions for a meltdown: two whiny kids, a screaming infant, a tired hubs and a my-rubber-band-is-going-to-stretch-and-break mom. And it took one MISunderstanding amidst the 100-decibel noise pollution (called a crying symphony by two tods and an infant) to lead to a screamfest between fatherkao and me, resulting in a meltdown of swearing, sobbing, sulking, et al.

By the end of the day, I felt so bad for screaming/sulking/sobbing that I cried so hard singing lullabies to my babies. They must be wondering why Moses crossing the Red Sea and Jesus Loves Me makes Mama feel so sad. By the time they were asleep, I was a hungry, exhausted wretch. I thought I’d get some junk food to make me feel better so I ordered McDelivery and chomped down a mcchick, nuggets and a pack of fries. I didn’t feel better; I felt bloated which led to more guilt pangs of adding to the kilos which are already so hard to lose from pregnancy. And as I tried to sleep away all the bloatedness and guilt, I started to have a earache too. It was certainly not from the earlier noise pollution. It was a real earache which was so painful it kept me awake all night. It was like the terrible-ness to end a terrible day. I hope earaches are not contagious. If they were, it must be because the maid has been vacuuming the soles of our shoes.

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