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Getting all sentimental now Happy days Milestones and growing up Nat Kao

My baby is one!

February 22, 2013

My youngest turned one just a few days ago and I am getting really sentimental. I miss holding the baby that was him at one month old.

He no longer has that sweet baby breath to smell.

He no longer whimpers and looks helpless.

He’s learned to walk (run, almost!) and yell and act like he is the king of drama.

He’s beginning to assert his independence by pointing where he wishes to go, pushing you away when he wants to get down to walk, and throwing a fit on the floor when he needs you to carry him.

He’s a funny one to watch, too. He goes around kaypoh-ing and disturbing his older siblings when they are reading / writing / drawing / playing, and gets really excited when they start bullying him. He absolutely loves it when they stick tape on him, stamp ink all over his arms and colour his legs.

On his birthday, he smiled at everyone who gathered around him at school and clapped along to his birthday song, before blowing out his own candle – huffing and puffing with all his might. (Ok, he couldn’t in the end so I helped him out.)

Thanks for being the happy, funny you, Nat. Happy birthday!

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Becks Kao Happy days Love language Milestones and growing up

You, me and our special time

February 6, 2013

The biggest challenge of parenting, in my opinion, is to always make sure that our children’s emotional love tanks are full. When we see a kid act up a lot, that’s a sure sign that his love tank is depleting and needs replenishing. A child misbehaving with a problem that calls for discipline is usually an empty love tank problem. This is when we would remember the good advice of a wise someone.

Long before we became parents, someone wise once told us that apart from spending quality time together as a family, we need to make time for alone-time with our children, one on one. The parent is to give the individual child unreserved affection, and lots of eye contact and focused attention during these parent-child dates.

For us, this means that we get six possible variations with three kids – Mama and Ben, Dad and Ben; Mama and Becks, Dad and Becks; Mama and Nat, Dad and Nat – just so all kids get alone time with both parents.

This also means I wish I had more than 24 hours a day. While it is impossible to work out the six permutations every day, we try to schedule in time alone with each child when we can, and if we need to.

Lately, Becks has been throwing a lot more tantrums than usual and clamming up, grunting and whining more than she talks. Her teachers at daycare have also been commenting that she’s been crying for no reason during meal times and after her nap, and she’s been wailing “I want Mama” every day when she’s at school. At home, whenever I spoke to her, she would refuse to reply me or smile.

Red light alert. It’s time for some time together, just me and her.

So I picked her up alone after her nap at childcare last Friday. She was shocked to see me and searched around for her father and brother.

“Becks, would you like to have ‘special time’ with Mama, just me and you?” I asked.

“Where’s Dada?” was her reply.

“No Dada. We’re going out alone, ok?”

It took some time for her to change from grumpy to happy but as we walked out of school, there was a skip in her steps.

I took her by bus to one of the ice cream joints along Upper Thomson. It was her first time on a public bus. We sat together, looking out of the window and holding hands all the way. I think she was very glad to be given all the attention that afternoon.

We went to Neli’s Ice Cream and had waffles with sea salt chocolate and vanilla ice cream. She ate happily and we took some happy pictures together.

We then took a long walk to Thomson Plaza. Along the way, she kept talking and asking me questions. I haven’t heard her yak so much in a while so it was refreshing to hear her as she spoke randomly. We did some shopping together and enjoyed each other’s company; well, at least I did!

I think her love tank was filled up that day with a bus ride, an ice cream, a long walk and some new clothes. Yay!

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Becks Kao Ben Kao Going Out! Happy days The darndest kid quotes and antics

The supermarket adventures of the conehead duo

January 10, 2013

One of the things I find extremely therapeutic is to push a trolley down supermarket aisles. Before I had kids, I looked forward to that quite a bit every week.

Now with three kids in tow, grocery shopping is a whole new experience altogether. When we do lug the kids along, there’s just so much to do. I can no longer zone out and just look at things. I gotta strategise and plan my shopping route. Get the items on the checklist. Check out the weekly offers to stock up. Dettol, detergent, toilet paper, tissue boxes, frozen food, wet wipes, fresh milk, tofu and Sakura chicken – grab these standard items every trip and stock ’em all up if they are cheap. I gotta make sure all bladders (mine included) are emptied before the kids are chucked in the trolley. I gotta make sure they keep their fingers to themselves and have enough entertainment to last about an hour while I push around at breakneck speed.

Sometimes, I break up fights and end up pushing two trolleys, a mean feat if I’m alone; a meaner one if I’m alone and wearing the baby. Some days I abandon all groceries and flail my arms like an insane woman if one of them has to poo or pee. But now with experience and tricks to avert disaster under my sleeves, I’d get them some ice-cream or finger food to eat so they’d sit quietly in the trolley for a good 15 minutes.

Going to the supermarket is spelled F-U-N for Ben and Becks. They’ve had much fun sampling all sorts of finger food, melting aunties’ hearts by cheekily waving and saying hi to random strangers, pinched and stabbed their fingers into tomatoes, carrots, apples and mushrooms, squealed at live crabs, butchered frog legs and fishes awaiting their deaths in the tanks, and playing with plastic bags, using them as gloves, socks and helmets. Yes, apologies to my tree hugging friends, but I’ve resorted to giving them plastic bags to play with to keep them out of mischief.

Yesterday, everyone who saw them in the trolley did a little giggle and gave me a sympathetic nod.

These two alien coneheads made their day, I’m sure. They made mine too. I wouldn’t say it’s therapeutic now but I’m certainly laughing a lot more bringing them out grocery shopping.

P/S: We know the risk of giving a plastic bag to a child and have explained to the kids about the danger of suffocation. Which is why they did a “Look Ma, it’s on our heads and not over our faces – duh!”.

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Christmas happiness Going Out! The Kao Kids

What fun it is to laugh and sing

December 26, 2012

We took a road trip up north this long weekend.

Days before leaving for Desaru, the kids were like, “Are we going? Are we going yet? Are we?”; on the two hour car trip there, they were quizzing every waking minute, “Are we there yet? Are we at Desaru already? Are we?”; and when we got there, they were going, “What shall we do next? What can we do now? Can we…?”.

I felt like I was living life out of a Baby Blues comic strip.

So while the kids jumped around like monkeys, shot water from their Super Soaker Nerf guns (at their mother, baby brother, grandpa and aunt), played with light sticks, screamed Jingle Bells all the way through Christmas Eve and watched the fireworks display leading to Christmas Day, the adults were totally tired out and couldn’t wait to get home to laze in bed to enjoy the nice, cool, rainy weather.

We don’t get no silent nights no more since the kids came along. But hey, we ain’t complaining.

Hope you had a great Christmas too.

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Christmas happiness The Kao Kids

An enchanted early Christmas

December 20, 2012

When the kids were younger, they clung on to me like koala babies whenever we’re at parties. They were shy, extremely wary of people who said hi to them and terrified of those in funny costumes twisting and shaping balloons. Now that they are a little older, they’re beginning to really enjoy being at one. So now, every time I announce, “We’re going to a party!”, Ben and Becks go “Yay! Party!” and don’t stop jumping around the house like kangaroos for the next thirty seconds.

Last Sunday, we received a very kind invitation from the Forest Friends to attend their exclusive pop-up party at the White Studio at Fort Canning Centre to celebrate Christmas, and I must say, it was an enjoyable, enchanted evening indeed.

The party was a cosy affair and planned meticulously for younger kids. There were festive fun stations all around the studio and friendly “Christmas buddies” to assist the little ones at each station. After grabbing some yummy mini cupcakes and cookies from the buffet table filled with little treats, Ben and Becks had a great time decorating their Christmas trees and colouring Christmas bookmarks and pictures of Santa. They also loved Captain Dazzle’s magic show and were very tickled by his juggling, teasing and the missing Santa trick.

Best of all, they sunk their first bite into Christmasy goodies and candies, just cos’ it’s Christmas.

The kids were also sketched by a really talented artist at the party at one of the stations. These caricatures of them were the highlight of my day. In those few minutes they tried to sit still, the artist was able to give attention to the details (like Becks’ rabbit-head shoes!) and capture their personality in his sketches. Way too cool!

The weather was also lovely for lots of outdoor play in snow suds. It may not be real and a tad soapy for their shoes and clothes but the little ones had fun running around the “snow machine” and looking like every moment’s a picture perfect moment. This was as close to snow we could get, for now.

The kids enjoyed themselves tremendously and had an exhilarating time. So much so they wanted to blow soap suds in the bathroom for the next few days just so they could recreate being in “snow”. A trip to see the real stuff is in order, I know; but till then, thank you for inviting us, Forest Friends!

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Christmas happiness Going Out! Invites & Tryouts

Learning recycling the Chuggington way

December 13, 2012

If you don’t already know, the kids don’t really watch tv at home and they don’t watch cartoons much either. Or rather, they don’t get to watch anything on tv unless supervised.

So when we were invited to watch the Chuggington Christmas Live Show at City Square Mall, Ben was like “What’s Chuggington?”

I figured it didn’t really matter if he did not know the various characters featured in the cartoon. I was told that the Live Show, ‘Clean up Chuggington Day’, will focus on an eco-theme, which aims to impart knowledge of being green and share tips on how children can learn to be environmentally friendly. I’d thought that it would be great to catch the show for the message it was spreading and for the kids to learn something about the environment.

We accepted the kind invitation and headed down to City Square Mall yesterday. We watched the live show which featured the three trainees, Wilson, Brewster and Koko, none of whom the kids knew. There was some sing-along and “chugga chugga” action at first and even soap suds “snow” at the end. Ben was a little lost with the songs and couldn’t sing along. When the trains appeared, the kids around him were all screaming their names. The boy was asking me repeatedly, “Who’s that, Mama?” and had to settle for the “red train”, “blue train” and “green train” to make sense of the story that was unfolding.

But the best part of the show was that it introduced the concept of recycling to the kids. The three trains wanted to clean up Chuggington and realised that sorting out the trash into paper, plastic and metal was a good way to help save the environment. That was an important message to send to young children, something which stuck to Ben because after the show, he was like ‘Mama, recycling means you sort out the trash. You throw paper in the yellow bin, plastic in the blue bin and metal in the green bin.” He actually remembered what the Chuggington crew did in the show!

After the show, we were given an opportunity to meet and greet the chuggers on stage to take a photo with them.

In addition, we were also given two complimentary Chuggington Holiday Fun train tickets so we could head down to three different stations to enjoy colouring fun, receive a balloon and bring home a photo memento. The kids also received a goodie bag with a Chuggington tote bag and pencil case, much to Becks’ delight (this girl is into bags these days!)

All in all, the kids had a good time. Best of all, they learned something new. I’m going to see if I can colour code trash bins at home so they can practise sorting trash according to plastic, paper and waste!

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Christmas happiness Food, glorious food! Motherkao loves... Product Reviews

Eat well this Christmas: featuring Preparazzi [plus a giveaway]

December 1, 2012

[Product / Service Review]

It’s hard enough to be juggling a full-time job and minding three kids. It’s even harder if you expect a mother like me who’s trying to get her juggling act together to serve up piping hot homecooked food for dinner every day or host a party with homemade meals. Or ask me to plan how to celebrate Mother’s Day / Father’s Day / Mom’s birthday / Dad’s birthday / In-law’s birthday / whatever Day for the extended family.

So it’ll be great if someone could deliver healthy gourmet food to my doorstep (sick of pizzas and curry chicken in a bun already!); or better still, prepare the food, semi-cook it, and let me do the last minute heating up and garnishing so I can look good and get all the credit.

Enter Preparazzi. I’ve been calling them for help every time I need to have gourmet food delivered to my doorstep.

For Father’s Day last year, as of every year, the extended family stayed in the comfort of home and feasted away. Preparazzi did all the slicing, dicing and seasoning. All we needed to do was to pop the chicken and the accompanying sides into the oven. We ate healthy, fuss-free.

The birds were seasoned and the vegetables were prepped for us

There was also glutinous rice stuffing in the juicy chicken!

For my mother’s birthday last year, we had their signature roast pork crackling with caramel apples, specially seasoned with Preparazzi’s very own spice. For that one, we just reheated when we were ready to eat. Didn’t work up a single drop of sweat in the kitchen at all. Mom loves Asian flavours and this dish had the whiff of it fused to the aromas of the roasted pork and spicy apples. Absolutely mind-blowing.

Preparazzi’s Signature Roast Pork Crackling, photo courtesy of Preparazzi

When I lost my appetite in the first trimester while preggers with Becks, Preparazzi’s home delivery service brought me gourmet tingkat for a while every day. I could even make special requests – like if I didn’t want to have spices added to the mains that particular day, or when I preferred to skip fish and have chicken instead. It was like having a personal butler, and it was nice to be pampered this way, at least for a while. The only work I ever did was to pop the food into the microwave as instructed.

Chicken Rendang, photo courtesy of Preparazzi

Preparazzi offers a service that deals with all the fuss and mess so that you can enjoy the fun bits of cooking and entertaining. They prep the food in cooked or ready-to-cook options, just so you get to impress. Their goal is to help people cook, eat and entertain better, which is perfect for busy people! What’s even better is that they scour the region for the freshest produce and choicest gourmet foods, and blacklist preservatives and additives, just so you can be assured that every bite you take is of the highest purity. I can attest to that: I’ve had their food on many occasions and so far, I’ve not been disappointed. So if you’re hosting a get-together this festive season, or any celebration, big or small, you can just give these folks a call and they will show up with great food at your doorstep.

~~~

*Yay, it’s time to do a giveaway!*

This Christmas, be the star at your dinner party. Preparazzi’s bespoke culinary services include a well-appointed delivery service, an indulgent bar and bistro dining experience and of course, a luxurious private chef service for a plush night in. Check out their Christmas party packages and other festive goodies here.

Gula Melaka Caramel Glazed Ham (1kg) $58

Roast Turkey with Traditional Sausage and Walnut Stuffing, Gravy and Cranberry Jam (4kg) $220

Specially for the readers of this blog, order from Preparazzi’s Gourmet Delivery Menu and get a 15% discount for your orders. Quote “KAO” at the voucher portion when you check out.

Preparazzi is also doing a giveaway just for Motherkao’s readers! Win their 2kg Signature Roast Pork Crackling (worth $80), redeemable only in January 2013.

This is how you can stand a chance to win in 4 simple steps:

1) LIKE Preparazzi’s Facebook Page

2) LIKE Motherkao’s Facebook Page (if you’ve not already done so!)

3) Leave a comment on this blog telling me how you would define eating well.

4) Leave your name and email address (only if you want to be contacted if you win!)

Giveaway closes on 16 December 2012. A winner will be picked at random.

UPDATE: And we’ve picked a winner at random! Congratulations to Dominique! Preparazzi will be in touch with you shortly. Enjoy the roast pork crackling!

**Disclosure: I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post. All text and opinions are solely based on my experience using Preparazzi’s gourmet home delivery service and dining at their bistro.**

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Becks Kao Ben Kao Happy days Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids

Better than a rock concert anytime

December 1, 2012

It was a performance good enough to make any mother proud.

The lion danced (even though he lost his head).

The chicken didn’t cry.

She even morphed from chicken to little bikini girl.

Totally made our day.

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Christmas happiness

Christmas comes early [With a giveaway for you!]

November 25, 2012

Christmas is our favourite time of the year. Here’s why:

Here at the Kaos, once again, we’ll be bringing on the Christmas CDs, blasting christmas carols and singing Jingle Bells all day long.

We’ll also be smelling fir again. The smell of a real fir tree in the house does wonders to put everyone in the festive cheer. If you don’t believe me, go get one this year. It’ll probably set you off by about 60 bucks or more but the smell that lingers every day is worth every cent! We used to decorate artificial trees until one day, fatherkao decided that it was just too much of a hassle to set it up and take it down. We buy a real one every year and haven’t looked back since.

Our real fir tree last year!

Tis’ also the time to give thanks; to take stock of the year and be grateful for the little and large things in our lives. It’s not only the season to be jolly but also the season to celebrate the reason for Chrismas: for unto us, a Child was born.

And best of all, Christmas is the time to PARTY! With all the merriment in the air, we hang out at friends’ and indulge in great food and some wonderful fellowship.

This year, Christmas comes early for us. We’ve been invited by The Forest Friends to The Enchanted Christmas Party at Fort Canning Centre on 16 December! I hear the children will get to see some snow and be entertained with endless merrymaking and festivity fun, including magic & puppet shows, picture taking in a photobooth, balloon sculpting, getting some christmas tattoos and decorating a christmas tree. There’s also gonna be christmas stockings for every kid and a yummy buffet candy table. Ben and Becks would *finally* get to try some Christmas candy and get some tattoes on, something that I would probably allow, just cos’ it’s Christmas.

If you’d like to join us, (and watch the Kao kids sink their teeth into their very first bite of candy, hur hur hur) do check out The Forest Friends’ event page or email them (to.forestfriends@gmail.com) for ticketing details.

*With that, it’s time to do a giveaway!*

And just so we spread the Christmas cheer, Forest Friends is giving away a ticket (worth $50) to the Enchanted Christmas Party!

This is how you can stand a chance to win in 4 simple steps:

1) LIKE The Forest Friends Facebook Page

2) SHARE the Christmas Party event on your Wall

3) LIKE Motherkao’s Page on Facebook

4) Leave a comment to tell us ONE reason why Christmas is your favourite time of the year. Remember to leave your name and email address so we can contact you if you’re our winner.

We’ll be picking a winner on 3 December and updates will be posted here. Do watch this space!

**Disclosure: Motherkao and the kids received media invites to the party organised by The Forest Friends. All text and opinions are our own.**

UPDATE: We’ve randomly picked a winner using the old-fashioned draw-a-lot way! Congratulations to Irene! We’ll be in touch with you shortly. 🙂

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Everyday fun! Family life as we know it Happy days Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids

It’s beginning to look a lot like… fun!

November 16, 2012

The sniffles are clearing. The laughter is back.

At three-half, two years four months, and nine months respectively, the kids are beginning to play together. They now monkey around a lot. The older kids have taken it upon themselves to entertain their baby brother. It’s like an unspoken competition between Ben and Becks; everyday they try to make Baby Nat laugh and see who can successfully do it, and who can do it more. They play catch with him, throw balls his way and prance around him with peek-a-boos and butterfly kisses. In the evenings, before they all go to bed, they would hang around the little one to cuddle him and make him laugh. They take turns to be his little pony and rocking horse. They impart their planking skills. They do the tehee giggling together. They make cacophonic sounds of merriment and glee.

Life just got better.

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