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MotherKao

Getting all sentimental now

Letter to my littlest #02

July 17, 2012

Dear Nat,

You’re four months, coming to five now and you’ve been flipping with every chance you’ve got.

You’ve started to take some semi-solids and how you love your porridge! You’ve had close to fifteen days of green mucousy stools and Mama’s brought you to a few doctors the past two weeks. They told me not to take any more dairy products and to start you on some porridge. You love it so much you wave in excitement and shriek whenever you see the spoon. You savour every mouthful. It must be the next best thing to Mama’s milk.

You’re endearing and way too adorable. You hardly cry. You sleep through the night. You smile at everyone who smiles at you and melt their hearts. The clinic assistants and random people in the lifts have all been charmed. When you had a blistered bum, you handled it like a man. You’re one tough cookie. Your teachers in infantcare love you to bits and can’t get enough of you. You gurgle and beam all day and reserve your widest grin for me. You’ve laughed. You’ve sighed. You’ve squealed. For me, and with me.

You’re my happiest baby yet. Of all the three babies I’ve had, you’re the most responsive, most chuckly, and the most charming. You are such a dear. And you know what? I think I’m going to love you forever.

Affectionately yours,

Mama

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Family life as we know it Happy days The Kao Kids

Two loaves, sixteen cupcakes and a happy weekend

July 15, 2012

The car’s at the mechanic till Tuesday, so we were all home bound this weekend.

For the first time, we didn’t have to crack our heads to think of where to go for breakfast / lunch / dinner, or where to head to so our kids can have their energies expended. We told the kids the car’s not available, so we’d have to make the most of the weekend at home.

And so they did. They played with toy cars, rowed imaginary boats, blew soap bubbles, clowned around with Nat’s rattles, read books, solved puzzles (we finally got down to using the Grolier Logico Primo system) and watched the terrapins chomp down all the fish in the tank (yes, by Sunday there was zero fish). They also played peek-a-boo with their baby brother and hide-and-seek with each other, and helped me crack eggs, mix batter and measured flour. I churned out a total of two loaves of bread, one with whole wheat and one with organic wholemeal, using the bread machine, a dozen lemon muffins and four more with Koko Krunch, and a loaf of bluberry yogurt sponge. And since we couldn’t go to Pasta Mania at Terminal Three, which we do every weekend to satisfy Ben’s creamy pasta fix, I also made kickass angelhair Alfredo with pure cream, cheese and lots of streaky bacon and honey baked ham.

Very satisfying, for a mother who relieves stress by baking and cooking.

But what made the weekend a truly happy one was that I was eternally grateful we spent it as a family; and that Daddy came home. The reason why the car’s with the mechanic was because the car skidded on a puddle of oil while fatherkao was making the bend on the e’way on a rainy Saturday morning. The bumper crashed into the barricade on the road shoulder and the car spun three-sixty. But God’s angels protected fatherkao and kept him snug in the car. He was unscathed and unhurt despite the damage.

You have no idea how thankful I was to be able to snap this at bedtime:

Thank you, Jesus.

8 Comments
Everyday fun!

Eh, fishy fishy

July 9, 2012

I think we spoil our kids silly. First we got them an extensive road system (actually it’s really for fatherkao and Ben). Now they have an aquarium.

On Saturday we went to Kid’s Kampong at Pasir Ris Farmway. It was Becks’ first longkang fishing experience and Ben’s second. He went there with his schoolmates last year and had a smashin’ good time. His stories of scooping fish, feeding rabbits, turtles and ducks went on for days after that school trip. He’s been asking if he could go again since last year, so we decided we should make a trip there as a family to check the place out.

At the longkang fishing area, the kids were excited with the idea that they could catch their own fish. They went round chasing the fish with their tiny fishing nets. But the guppies and swordtails were no fools. They were fast. So fast that after ten minutes of squealing, both Ben and Becks were pleading ‘Mama, catch the fish for me’. So guess who did most of the squatting, bending and strategizing.

 

After catching a miserable number of ten fish per bucket, my thighs were aching so bad, we had to stop and do something else. The kids went to feed the hungry koi-fish, bunnies, turtles, ducks and chickens. Actually only Ben was brave enough to go throw food at them. Becks shared my disinterest (and fear) of small animals, and was contented to just skip around the pond and pose for her photographer dad.

After lunch, I had this crazy idea to get terrapins to finish off the fish that we were bringing home (insert evil laughter), and fatherkao entertained my crazy idea by driving to Nanyang Aquarium at Seletar Farmway which was just a stone’s throw from our place to see what we might be able to get to house the fish since things are really cheap there and they are moving out at the end of the year. We ended up buying a glass tank, complete with a filter and LED-lamp, two terrapins, five-kilos of white gravel, a beautiful wooden log, a pot of water plant and a tin of krill to feed all the swimming ones.

The last I heard this morning from the observers of the fish tank was that the terrapins were too afraid and too small anyway, to be eating fish, and one pregnant guppy gave birth to a fry. Oh well, exciting times. Let’s see what this overcrowding would do to the inhabitants of the tank. For one, I’ve got science 101 covered for Ben and Becks.

 

MORE DETAILS:
  • Kid’s Kampong is at No. 11, Pasir Ris Farmway 1, Aqua Fauna Centre. It costs $10 for one child to enter the longkang fishing area and to fish for an hour. You’ll have to pay $4 for their bucket and fishing net. Because Ben has a net from the previous visit (he didn’t bring his bucket), he paid $2 for the bucket, on top of the ten bucks.
  • One adult goes in free with every child. For my helper to enter, we had to pay an additional $1 for her to sit around.
  • The admission fee comes with three packets of feed for the fish and small animals, and one packet of feed for the rabbits. You get to keep your longkang catch. If it’s too miserable, the uncle there would add in more fish for you to take home.
  • The kids got a bottle of mineral water and a cup of Paddle Pop ice-cream after their experience.
  • Nanyang Trading Aquarium @ Sea View Aquarium is at 2, Seletar Farmway 2. You can get everything related to aquarium fish from tanks to tubifex, as well as almost any type of tropical fish .
2 Comments
Ben Kao Everyday fun! Fatherkao loves... Happy days

Unfulfilled childhood dreams

July 9, 2012

This is what happens when my children’s father has unfulfilled childhood dreams.

He goes to Planet Toy, blows a couple of hundred on Takara Tomy’s diecast cars and tracks. He says he would never allow our sons to say ‘I’ve always wanted one of these, but never got them’.

I wished I’d taken a picture of my two boys, aged thirty-eight and three respectively, playing with cars; and a video of them making funny sounds when they play.

And I happen to also know my husband had always wanted a massive rail system, complete with diecast trains, and a Husky. Uh-oh.

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Food, glorious food! Motherkao loves... The real supermom

Stressed is desserts spelled backwards

July 8, 2012

What do you do when you’re stressed out?

Some people go for a run. A friend of mine does yoga. My husband shuts himself out from the world and takes long baths.

I scrub toilets with a toothbrush. And bake.

It usually has to follow this order: I’ll need to vent my frustrations so whenever I feel stressed, I’ll typically be found scrubbing the tiles on bathroom walls and floors with an old toothbrush. I see grime, I begin cleaning with sheer brute force. Then I’ll feel much better. To complete the de-stressing, I ransack the larder to see what I have and bake something. Anything. There’s something calming about throwing butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a mixer and seeing batter turn into something pretty and yummy. It takes the edge off the stress, at least for me.

Now, with three kids, it’s much harder to perform this ritual. I’ve been so wound up lately. And it’s been so hard to move on without scrubbing the toilet and baking a cake.

So with the Youth Day holiday being a good break for me, I did what I needed to. I scrubbed. And I baked a cheesecake.

The cream cheese was left to soften at room temperature for three hours. The preparation took one hour and the baking took another. Then I left the cake in the oven to cool for another six; after which, the cake was refrigerated overnight. The recipe I used was easy to follow and the result was a mouth-watering slice of dessert everyday for the next one week.

Now to burn off the calories. Perhaps I could do with more toilet scrubbing.

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Family life as we know it What to Expect... As a Mother

Three kids and not counting

July 4, 2012

I’ve heard them all and wouldn’t want to hear them again. Everywhere I go, people I meet see me with three kids and they ask if I’m going for the fourth. And when I say, no, thank you, they say why not, you’re so pro already, you should just have one more. They assume that just because I upload pictures of smiling children on my facebook, it means I have it all made and am having a smashing good time with three kids.

Not that there are no moments of smashing good times but I’m telling you, some days I think to myself: what the hell was I thinking, having three kids all at one go.

It’s really very, very tough. Even that is an understatement. Especially if you’re a hands-on mother and have no granny night care or weekend care. It’s even tougher, being a full-time working mom. There are no breaks, no date nights, no me-time. So I’ll state outright here that I.do.not.have.it.altogether. Come be the fly on my wall.

When it’s time to pick my kids from daycare after work everyday, my stomach churns – there’s a mix of excitement to see the kids, a sense of guilt for leaving them there for the last ten hours and a feeling of dread. Dread of meal hour, tuck-in hour and witching hour. The moment the gates of our flat are unlocked, it’s the cue for my kids to become whiny, sticky and completely incapable of following instructions. I know that’s supposed to be normal because they want my attention, having been deprived of it all day.

So every evening, Ben and Becks would whine non-stop to be carried, showered, fed and cuddled by me. The baby, having not seen me the whole day, is desperate for comfort from my boobs. I struggle to do the juggling act, trying to shove dinner, fruits and a little treat of jelly down their throats while nursing the baby. I try to read them books but the story would always be unfinished or interrupted. I say no all the time to Ben when he runs to me with activity packs of sand art, craft, sticker fun and join-the-dots, and end up feeling so guilty for not being able to do something with him. I break up fights eighty percent of my time in the evening. I run out of patience and lose my cool and sanity usually by 8pm. At night when they all need me for the tucking-in, I use one arm to hold and breastfeed the baby, one hand to hold my son’s hand because he needs to hold hands to fall asleep and one foot to pat my daughter. I take three-hour naps at night still, because Becks is still pulling her night terror stunts on me a nightly basis, complete with screams and ear-piercing shrieks. Doctors online and offline tell us that this is probably due to her need for more attention – she might not have had enough in the day, so she’s unconsciously waking up at night to get it. As of today, Baby Nat is in his tenth day of diarrhea. And with loose watery green stools eight to nine times daily, he’s got a blistered bum and a bad case of nappy rash, and I got a broken heart every time I change his diaper. To seal the deal, I’m totally exasperated communicating instructions to the helper who requires a repetition of anything I say at least five frigging times; some days it got so bad I ended up doing the thing I asked her to do myself – like preparing the baby’s bathwater or microwaving my food – because by the time I repeat myself five times, I might as well do what’s needed.

I know that in a larger scheme of things, this too shall pass and I will soon lament the lost years and cry my eyeballs out when my kids don’t need me like this anymore. I know that many people have it worse and they probably have to deal with problems bigger than mine and situations more dire than mine. I know that I ought to be thankful that we can at least afford a helper to do the never-ending bags of laundry, keep our house clean so we can be house-proud and wash the dishes so we can all hang out and spend family time together. I know I ought to be grateful that my tag team partner doesn’t complain whenever he gets tagged (and it’s very often) and supports me in every way possible, as much as he knows how. And I know, that God has given me three beautiful children, called me to a meaningful profession and I should really stop complaining and ranting like this.

For now, I am feeling totally inadequate, exhausted and overwhelmed. Please, somebody, tell me things will only get better.

 

7 Comments
I can't categorise such entries

WWW:World without work

July 3, 2012

It’s been a crazy week.

I returned to work after being away for about four months. And it felt like I had amnesia for a while. I couldn’t remember my passwords. I forgot names of colleagues. I felt a great sense of disconnect with what I was supposed to do.

All these months of feeding and burping the baby, of blogging and reading mom blogs, of being comfortably at home have left me feeling like I don’t belong to this profession and place where I work.

I miss Nat. I miss his crying. I miss his laughing. I miss cuddling him.

I miss bossing my helper around and planning the dinner menu with a little bit more thought and love. I miss rolling up my sleeves to prepare breakfast for my children.

I miss being able to read and read, and then read some more. I miss checking my fb account every other minute. Every day, this week, I collapse in exhaustion after tucking my kids in bed. I don’t even have the strength to walk to the study and kiss my husband goodnight.

Work. With kids. This is what it has done to me. I feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

This would be very nice, tyvm.

2 Comments
Getting all sentimental now Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids

Simplicity

June 25, 2012

To my dear children,

The world you will be growing up in would be so much more perplexing and complicated. I pray you will make God your guiding light in every step of the way.

I had a childhood in a much simpler world.

When I was your age, the playgrounds I knew consisted of sand, granite fixtures, wooden splintered planks for see-saws and rusty merry-go-rounds.

The grandpa I knew grew a jackfruit tree so huge cats could sleep on its branches. The grandma I knew pierced my cousin’s ears with a hot blistering needle. I watched her kill rats with her wooden clogs. I watched him crack open jackfruits from his harvest.

I ate iced pops for ten cents and called my mother at a pay-phone with the same amount of money. My father had a pager louder than a siren.

I took school buses that did not have air conditioning and carried a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle school bag in purple. My favourite Ninja Turtle’s name was Leonardo. My sister’s was Michelangelo.

I listened to cassette tapes and made collections of my favourite songs by pressing the record button on a blank tape. I played handheld games that needed only four AA-sized batteries. I wrote to penpals, collected stamps and joined the Bookworm Club.

I ran around barefoot, ate dirt and chomped down curdled pig’s blood in my bowl of yong tau foo.

I threw coins in a wishing well and got a Boggle game set and a Charlie Brown metal pencil case for Christmas.

When my mother and father took pictures of me, we waited for almost a week before we could see them.

This was a picture taken almost three decades ago. No surprises here which one is your mother.

Someday, when you’re old enough to recall bits of your childhood, remember to write a letter back to Mama. I would like to hear what you thought your world was like.

 

Love always,

Mama

 

5 Comments
Food, glorious food! Going Out! Reviews

Wild honey yum

June 24, 2012

I’m the sort who can eat breakfast for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Actually, I am the sort who can eat eggs, butter and toast any time of the day.

So I heard from friends who raved about this restaurant that serves all-day breakfast. And I got the husband to indulge me a few days ago to have breakfast for lunch.

Wild Honey serves different possibilities of breakfast. We went to the one at Mandarin Gallery. The European Signature ($19) I had featured Eggs Benedict, prosciutto ham and mushrooms on a thick slice of toast. I’m not into food reviews so the best word I could use to describe what I ate is “yum”. I could use the toast to soak up all the oozing egg yolk from the eggs Ben and that, was very satisfying for me. Becks had forest berries in a bowl of bircher muesli, which they call their Swiss breakfast ($12) and my husband had a generous portion of spinach salad with slices of sweet potato and pumpkin ($16) and a cappuccino ($6).

It was a pleasant experience. The wait staff was chatty and friendly. The ambiance of the place was cosy and lovely. It wasn’t crowded but that’s because we went on a weekday. The breakfast was scrumptiously worth every cent I paid for.

Would definitely go again to try their version of a Tunisian breakfast. I heard the tomato stew with fried eggs and chorizo sausages are to die for.

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