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Kao Kids

Going Out! Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids

Not ready for a vacation YET

October 8, 2012

I don’t know why we do it again and again. Ever since the kids came along, we no longer go to get refreshed and recharged. Instead, we’d always feel more drained and tired.

There was even once I attempted to do it without the domestic helper — in the name of “more quality time” with the kids. Who was I kidding? Fatherkao and I were totally bummed after that one.

I’m talking about going for a staycation.

We have a membership going on with the Copthorne chain of hotels and decided to redeem our complimentary night stay last weekend at Grand Copthorne Waterfront to celebrate Children’s Day. Of course, we had to book another connecting room to make sure everyone could sleep comfortably.

Now, a staycation with three kids in tow is like a simulation exercise for a family holiday. With every staycation, I learn to a) pack better, b) shush my kids up quicker for fear of the hotel management knocking at my door, and c) occupy them with available resources in the most creative way possible.  Last weekend’s exercise had a new quickfire challenge: the baby was having a cold and a mild fever — so I had to pack medicine, nasal sprays and my mucus shisha, and made sure he was carried and snugged all the time so he wouldn’t be crying the hotel down. Then it poured on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, so we couldn’t check out the swimming pool and were stuck in two hotel rooms for the whole time. We had dinner, breakfast and lunch at Cafe Brio’s and only managed to take a short walk down Robertson Quay on Friday night when the skies cleared, but had to hurry back because my daughter decided to poop as she walked. Throughout the stay, the kids just ran from room to room, played with curtains and jumped on the beds, “swam” in a tub of warm water, while I nursed a cold and fatherkao watched movies on the iPad.

Every staycation just leaves us with the conclusion that we are not ready to fly and travel as a family yet; and we probably need more practice like this one before we go.

Till the next simulation.

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Motherkao loves... The Kao Kids

Hooked on shisha

October 7, 2012

Some of my friends have tried it for fun and loved it. I never did try; flavored tobacco through a waterpipe is still tobacco. I’m referring to the shisha, also known as the hookah.

But lately, I had to do it; I didn’t have much of a choice. The littlest one was all clogged up and my PD recommended this contraption to help ease his congestion.

I call this my “mucus shisha”.

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Ben Kao The darndest kid quotes and antics

Rock-a-bye-baby’s desperate mommy

September 17, 2012

Picture from nursery-rhymes.org

My three-year-old and I have been conversing every night lately. While I nurse my six-month-old infant, Ben would snuggle close to me and start a conversation. He asks me questions about what it’s like to be on a plane, why people fight wars and how flowers grow. I’m always amazed at how much he knows and even more amazed by how much he wants to know. That hunger for knowledge to satisfy all the “whys” in his head is truly impressive.

So just a few nights ago, he asked me to sing him a lullaby. He specifically requested for Rock-a-bye-baby. I didn’t think much of the request, so I started to sing. To my surprise, he stopped me after every line to ask me what each line meant. What do you mean by on the treetop, Mama? Why would the wind blow? Why would the bough break? Why would the baby come down with the cradle?

He practically analysed the whole song like I would in prac crit for my Lit papers. He didn’t do it with academic intentions (no, he’s only three!) but for the one sole purpose of asking me this question:

“Where is the baby’s mama, Mama? Why would she leave the baby there? AND to let him fall?” My three-year-old is traumatised by rock-a-bye-baby’s irresponsible mother.

For the purpose of this post, I googled the history of the song and found out why mommies would leave their babies on the treetop. Native American women rocked their babies in birch bark cradles, which were suspended from the higher branches of a tree, allowing the wind to shake the infant to sleep. [Source & picture from nursery-rhymes.org]

Gonna have to tell Ben that the babies probably gave their mommies hell for not sleeping, which explains why these mommies would be desperate enough to put them on the branch of a tree!

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Milestones and growing up The Kao Kids The real supermom What to Expect... As a Mother

Bye bye sleep training, bring on co-sleeping

September 11, 2012

The marriage bed has lost its sanctity. I thought I could preserve it, but alas. I have also officially lost the battle in sleep training.

Everyone’s now on our bed, in our room, every night; while fatherkao sleeps alone in the children’s room. So much for buying fancy bunk beds and cartoon bedsheets. For the kids, it’s not what they sleep on, but who they sleep with that matters.

So for a while now, we’re all sleeping in the master bedroom. Tuck-ins start at 9pm. Baby’s on my chest, Ben’s on my left and Becks is on my right. They fall asleep after a lot of nagging and threatening (of Mr Cane coming) from me.

We’ve managed to squeeze a toddler bed from IKEA and a toddler mattress on the floor in the master bedroom to accommodate everyone, so by 10pm when they all fall asleep, I shift everyone into position: Ben sleeps on the floor, Becks sleeps on the bed next to mine, and I sleep with the baby. Like this:

 

But with this arrangement, I shuttle around the room every night on a three hourly basis on good nights and an hourly basis on bad ones.

12am: Ben discovers he is alone on the floor. He gets up and cries. I awake (usually with great annoyance) and pat him to sleep in the little corner where his mattress is. On good nights, he sleeps through and gets over the fact the mother-presence is a metre away. On bad ones, he wakes up again and crawls onto the bed to search for my armpit and snuggles under it. Don’t ask me why. I think he feels very tucked in and safe under it.

2.39am: Baby Nat stirs and looks for the mother-presence, usually with his rooting reflex in full gear, ready to suckle for comfort. I indulge his bad, bad habit. Since going to infantcare, he has had the sniffles frequently and my heart has been broken so many times to see him ill. And so he suckles, left and right and right and left, all night long. And by the way, I do the moving from left to right and right to left – the baby doesn’t.

4.58am: Becks whines and asks for milk. Her night wakings have become less frequent, so on good nights she usually wakes up at this time to ask for milk. Some nights I ignore her and she falls asleep again. Some nights I roll over to her bed and hold her tight and speak to her in a soft voice telling her to wait till it’s “wakey wakey” time. Some nights she badgers till the baby wakes up and Ben starts stirring, and I do a shuttle run and make her milk at the fastest possible speed to stop her from crying the house down. Some nights she gives me hell even before this time with her night terror screams and I’m like running from one corner of the room to the other in a semi-conscious state making sure everyone is ok. During those nights, if they all wake up in shock and can’t go back to sleep, I gather everyone like a mother hen and we all huddle on the bed.

6.20am: Time for motherkao to wake up

My night duty applies for both weekdays and weekends. I’d thought if I delay tuck-ins a little later on weekends, the kids would probably be knocked out and not have me perform this running about in a groggy state, but boy was I wrong about that.

I’m severely sleep deprived. I’m so glad Kai Kai and Jia Jia are coming soon. I hear they are on a ten-year loan from China. Tis’ great cos’ for the next ten years of my life I will bring my kids to the zoo and teach them personification with illustrations: my mother is a panda.

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Ben Kao Milestones and growing up Motherkao loves... Nat Kao

You’ll always have a place in my heart

July 31, 2012

These are my boys.

My firstborn and my littlest. Amidst the challenges I’ve been facing with their sister, the middle child, they’ve been the loveliest and most patient to have around. They wait their turn to get Mama, they play by themselves and with each other. Ben, my eldest, always has a smile on his face, a skip in his step and a question to ask. He follows instructions, listens to good reason and shows his love for the people in the house in his own little ways.

Baby Nat has been having a viral infection with a bad combination of mild fever, runny nose and whooping cough. He’s been wakeful every possible hour because it’s been just hard to go to sleep with a cough as bad as his. And yet, he always, always, always has a little grin on his face for anyone who asks how he is doing.

These are the two sweetest babies a mother would ever know.

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Becks Kao Happy days What to Expect... As a Mother

It’s my party and I cry if I want to

July 31, 2012

The little girl has officially turned two.  Most of you know I’ve been having quite a challenging time with her. Ever since she was born, she was this screamy bundle that wouldn’t give a hoot about the time and place to let her wails out. When she was a baby, at least I had a pacifier. Now that she’s 24 months, it’s hard to stop her from her crying crescendos. At 24 months, she still doesn’t give a hoot about the time and place. Just this week alone, she threw hissy fits in the lift, at the lift lobby at our flat and in the carpark. She also tortured me and the baby at night by crying and kicking hourly, and into the wee hours of the morning. It would have been perfectly fine by me if she whimpered like a baby; but unfortunately she usually yells her lungs out and we end up having to shut the windows to save ourselves from being stoned by the neighbours. Oh yes, she also bit me on my left leg when she got angry with me for trying to put her to bed.

Her turning two has left me feeling a sense of anticipation and dread. I’m hoping things with her will get better soon enough. Or will it?

We had a celebration for her in school on Friday. We got her excited way before this day came and asked her what she wanted for her cake about three weeks before her birthday. She was into penguins then, so she quickly said “Penguin!” and I got Debbie (sweetyendings.blogspot.sg) to customise a healthy, pretty Penguin cake for her celebration (read how she made the cake). We arrived at the school early hoping to surprise the little girl with this gorgeous creation, and pretty colouring-book-and-pencils party packs we had painstakingly packed the week before.

But when she came to the dining area, her royal highness was looking like the grumps. She obviously threw a fit before coming in. Her teachers said she didn’t want to wake up from her nap. She saw me and started sobbing.

Despite the clowning around by her father and brother and cuddles from me, Little Miss Grumpy still wasn’t excited, or even look it. We went ahead with the celebration anyway. A hundred marks for the loveliest big brother of the century who tried to twit around her to make her laugh. Needless to say, our birthday star couldn’t care for it.

Finally, after some time, it suddenly hit her that it was her birthday. And that she was gonna have cake! That was when she finally smiled.

The cake was the best part of the party. It was uber yummy and wholesome. Chunks of banana and cinnamon and generous toppings of cream cheese. Not too sugary. Not too heavy. The children all ate with a smile on their faces. Becks’ bestie, KM, had three helpings! The birthday girl and her brother licked off the penguin’s eyes, nose and pink ribbon.

Finally. At last, my darling was happy.

She also got a party pack for her dainty self that reads “Thank you for being a part of my 2nd birthday celebration“. Thank you, my dear girl, for being a part of your own birthday celebration. I was so afraid you were gonna sulk throughout!

 

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Milestones and growing up The darndest kid quotes and antics Thunderstorm days

Terrific Terrible Two

July 25, 2012

These days I’ve been struggling to keep afloat.

While I would like to keep some things that are going on in my life private, I can, however, share how terrible it has been with Becks in her Terrible Two phase. Apart from being grumpy and sullen and constantly challenging authority, my little girl has been smacking her brother, biting him and pulling his hair. She bosses him around and bullies him silly. Even Mr Cane and time-out have no effect on her. On good days, she’d say sorry eventually, but on bad ones, she wouldn’t give a heck whether she was disciplined. Suffice to say, her stubborn streak is certainly driving me up the wall.

I’ll be very honest. On some days, even loving her has been tough. I do love her. And very much for that matter. But when she acts up, it’s just very hard. I’ve lost my patience with her so many times. Her hissy fits and tantrums drain every ounce of energy in me.

I need to keep in mind that she’ll be reading this someday and that this phase shall eventually pass. I sure hope it will be ok soon so that I can stop feeling drained and totally bummed out.

My dear baby girl, you’re turning two in five days. I’m sure we’ll get through this together. It’ll also be Terrific Two, yes?

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The darndest kid quotes and antics

Once a kid, always a kid

July 20, 2012

Last night, I had a very deep conversation with my three-year-old. It went something like this:

Ben: Mama, do ah ma and gonggong (referring to his maternal grandparents) have children ?

Me: Yes, dear. Me, yeeyee and jiu jiu (referring to my siblings) are their children.

Ben: (with some frustration) No, they have children or not?

Me: Yes. That’s us – me, the firstborn, followed by yeeyee, who’s the second, and jiu jiu, who’s the baby of the family.

Ben: You, yeeyee and jiu jiu are babies?

Me: No, we are adults.

Ben: Then you’re also children?

Me: We’re not little children, like how you understand “children”; but yea, we’re ah ma‘s kids.

Ben: You’re kids? Or adults?

By then, I realised where this was heading. Ben was confused by the fact that we were adults but also children of our parents. He couldn’t grasp that. To him, babies were babies, children were children, and adults were adults.

How do you explain to a child that no matter how old you are, you’ll always be someone’s kid?

So I said:

Me: Son, children can mean little children, and also the fact that you’re someone’s son or daughter. Like you’re my son. You’ll always be my son. You’ll always be my child. No matter how old you are.

~~~

I hugged him real tight and smooched him silly last night. This will be one conversation I will remember for the rest of my life. Largely because the understanding that when you have a kid, you have a kid for life, took on a deeper meaning. I know that even when Ben turns fifty, he will always occupy that place in my heart, as my child.

Ben, if you’re reading this at twenty, you’re still very much Mama’s baby, k?

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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 .
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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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