Ben: (after school one evening) I don’t want to play with my toys today.
Fatherkao: Why?
Ben: Because I don’t want to keep them. Every day ah, I play then I need to keep. Today I don’t want to keep.
Me: (to myself) Right, let’s see how long you can hold out.
~~~
* WTBW: Welcome to Ben’s World
Dear Little Baby Honey Bun,
Your name means “God has given” and God has indeed given me so much joy and happiness every day with you. You’ve brought so much laughter to my life and I cannot help but to love you more and more with each passing day.
I remember months before you were conceived, I was looking at your older siblings and thinking to myself, “I can live with having two kids” because they were learning to be independent. Moving around and going out was becoming so much more convenient. But then I knew your father always felt that we must have you to complete our family. And so you came.
You’re distinctively different and unique as an indivdual. You’ve got your own ways of teasing us, giggling, babbling and being coy. And you’re ALWAYS so happy.
You’re the first baby we’ve had that’s able to interact with everyone. You chase after Ben on all fours; you yank Becks’ hair and laugh whenever she goes “yeow!”; you press your forehead against mine and rub your cheeks on my face and chest to tell me you want me; and you yak with your father and signal for him to move around in signs only the two of you speak. Last week, you started to walk! I’ve not seen a wider grin on your face than when you toddled towards everyone at home, and you must be feeling on top of the world seeing how everyone at home was cheering crazily for you. It was as awesome a feeling it was for us as it was for you, baby love! You made us so proud to receive you with open arms as you took turns walking towards each one of us.
Thank you for completing the family, and for making me feel I’m the most blessed person in the world to have you in my life.
With all my affection, and more, and then some more,
Mama
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!”.
My iPhone and iPad are two items I protect with all my life from my children. They don’t play games or watch anything from these gadgets. They don’t know my passcode even though they technically know how to unlock them. They swipe and swipe and enter all sorts of random numbers (and sometimes disabling my phone!) but they’ll never get to use any apps.
Until lately, they discovered that they could go ask other people for their phones using the excuse that they’d like to have a picture with them. These are smart kids, I tell you.
So my BFFs, and all the other aunties and uncles, grandpa and grandmas end up being suckered by Ben and Becks. Of course, my kids end up making their day cos’ these happy folks get to upload a ton of pictures on fb with smiling pictures of themselves posing with my kids.
Lately, Ben has also discovered the camera and what he could do with it. Last Saturday, at my cousin’s wedding dinner, while I was busy chatting with my cousin at my table, my son who must have been bored to his last toe asked if he could have my phone.
I just checked my phone today and found out he took 300 over shots of himself without even needing my passcode to unlock the phone! He’s meddled with people’s phones enough to learn how to use the camera and toggle to snap pictures of himself.
So I scroll through pictures of his socked foot, his sneakers, his silly faces, his fingers, the steamed garoupa on his plate, the chandelier on the ceiling and my skirt!
‘Gawd! They start camwhoring young!
I thought I’d do a little happy dance today and celebrate 321 days of breastfeeding my littlest.
That’s a hell load of unlimited, all-you-can-drink liquid carbohydrates, proteins, fats, antibodies and lymphocytes that’s on demand and FREE.
That’s 4 full feeds in the day and 6 snack feeds throughout the night, and a lot of running in and out of the nursing room if I’m at work. That’s also having to endure pain from itchy gums and 6 tiny teeth that’s bent on tugging and yanking.
And looking at this boy’s happy face, I don’t intend to stop. It’s been so fun being his milk machine.
Milk for you, yes Sir!
I still try to make the kids bento as often as I can. They are still not eating much and remain as picky as ever. But I am a persistent mother who would very much like to win this long drawn battle of wills at mealtimes.
These were prepped during Christmas. I taught them the song “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” one day and made them a little Rudolph with a cherry tomato nose. I used fried wantons (meat and shrimp dumplings) as his antlers.
I made these when my goddaughter came over for dinner some evenings ago. I used a little ketchup to make the rice a little orangey in colour and cut nori (seaweed) to make the tiger cubs’ stripes and ears. I used a craft punch for the mouth. The cubs sit on some baked chicken wings, tomato-scrambled eggs and broccoli.
And this was how I shaped rice just to get them to eat when we had some roast duck. The brownish black bit is the roast duck sauce.
The kids always prefer pasta to rice. For pasta meals, I would usually cookie-cut some cheddar cheese slices to add to their pasta. I tried to make the shape of a bone using flying fish roe some time ago but it was an epic failure.
Kids: Wow, look! Dogs! Mama, erm, but what’s that thing? (referring to the roe)
Me: It’s roe. The stuff you love in your sushi.
Kids: Oh yay! Pok pok pok! We like! (they refer to roe as that cos’ of the fun they have trying to bite into each one)
Didn’t connect to any “bone”.
The tv’s turned on in the house again.
Nope, I’m still the nazi mother that I am with the tv ban on regular tv programming. It’s now switched on for a different reason. A dear friend blessed us with an Xbox 360 Kinect and we’ve been having so much fun as a family, as well as with friends who came over to visit during the festive season. The weather’s been wet last month and the kids’ been so bummed not being able to go to the playground or run around wildly in the park. So we’ve been home playing Kinect Sports and Fruit Ninja a lot these days and laughing at one another till we are rolling on the floor with stitches in our abdomens. Totally entertaining to see each other throw the javelin, box, sprint, dance and slice fruits.
Ben and Fatherkao sprinting away!
Oh yes, I also happen to be holding my husband hostage now with a video of him dancing to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. Hur hur hur. I love the Xbox 360 already! Come to think of it, there’s just so many things to blackmail him with. Such a great start to my new year!
December has been such a busy month. There was shopping to do, errands to run, a road trip to prepare for, and the lethargy that followed to unwind from.
I’ve been meaning to try the activities in the LolliBox which was couriered over to us earlier this month but we were just too busy to do so. Finally, we had a chance to unwind from all the festivity and merry-making today. We checked out what’s in our “Blow Wind Blow” box and learned something about moving air.
Inside the box: materials for a hands-on project to create a sailboat and a theme-based project to measure and record the wind with a windsock, additional selected activities to enrich the kids in line with the theme, and a reward badge for the kids to boost their sense of achievement. The Lollibox was created with 3-7 years old children in mind, and I’m sure by the age of 4, a kid can pretty much take the box, ask Mama what the instructions in each pack are, and go to work on his own. Seeing that I have a 2 year-old and a 3.5 year-old who can only be meaningfully engaged for at most 15 minutes, I’d thought I try out the hands-on project with them.
I introduced the word “wind” to Ben and the letter “w” to Becks. “Wind” is defined as moving air, and something we can’t see but can feel. We stood still for 30 seconds to enjoy the wind coming through our window. Thank God it was a windy day today!
We then used the paint provided in the pack and painted the sailboat together. Becks didn’t want to move on and wished to continue painting, so I brought out more paper to indulge her, while I moved on to decorate the sail with Ben.
Sailboat completed! And that was a good 15 minutes of meaningful engagement.
We tested the sailboat when the paint dried up but unfortunately, the sailboat couldn’t sail! The wooden base was too heavy and it kept sinking. Ben was blowing his face silly but it refused to move in the direction he wanted it too.
The box came with theme-related questions for the children and another theme-based project, which I felt was more suitable for ages 5 and up. To make a windsock and to record and measure wind would require more than fifteen minutes on my end which I couldn’t afford because the baby was waking and Becks was almost flooding the bathroom playing with water and paint. Shall leave it for another time. Perhaps next year when Ben is ready to skip a nap.
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!
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.