When Mama’s at work, Nat’s at infantcare and in good hands!
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
I’m convinced after today that my kids are somewhat different from other kids. I’d had always thought all kids loved crowds, carnivals and carousels. Not mine, apparently.
Fatherkao and I have an aversion to crowds and queues. As far as I can remember, we’ve never stood in a queue for anything for more than three minutes and generally avoided crowded places. We would never queue to eat at any restaurant or stand in line for a taxi. If we had to queue to pay for groceries at the supermarket, we’d rather put everything back and order stuff online. We don’t even queue to go to church. We just head straight to the Overflow Room. We don’t go to town and we don’t like waiting for a parking lot. We avoid the heartland malls in the weekends and find respite in the airport terminals where there’s plenty of space for the kids to run, lots of restaurants which we don’t need to queue to eat at, and GST-free shopping. We weren’t always like that, of course, but as we got older, we just felt that life is too short to be wasting time doing unproductive things like queuing up. If we needed to pay more to save on time, we would. If we had to queue to get something free, we’d rather not. Yes, not even if they were giving out free handphones and iPads. Or houses. Or cars. But I digress.
So it appears that our kids have taken after us in that way.
I won priority passes to the Drypers Little Day Out at East Coast from the giveaway at Daphne’s blog and thought it would be nice to take the kids out to a carnival to have some fun before I officially start work on Monday. So when I told the kids that we would be going to a carnival, they were all yay and hooray; but when we arrived there, they started looking like the Grinch stole Christmas. They didn’t want to queue for the kiddy rides or the carnival games. At the bouncy castles, Ben asked me if I could make all the other children go away so he could play. They didn’t share the enthusiasm other kids had for chasing bubbles. They headed to find open spaces and stood there to watch the crowd, mostly for the one hour we were there. I actually had to tell Ben and Becks that we would go home if they continued to be so grumpy to get them to ride the carousel.
There you have it, signs of crowd aversion, just like their parents. I’m sure other kids had much fun, going on unlimited rides (they were free), playing carnival games, eating popcorn and cotton candy (they were free too), dancing with Alvin and the Chipmunks and watching the outdoor movie screening Chipwrecked.
Mine were just grouchy, until dinner time at a quiet restaurant. Only then were they back to their usual selves – when away from the crowd.
My daughter has officially entered the Terrible Two one month shy of her second birthday, and not a day goes by without fighting epic battles of wills with her. She’s learning to assert her independence and testing the boundaries so much so that bathing / feeding / changing / sleeping has become struggles between me and her on a daily basis. She would choose what to wear and the colour of spoon to eat with. And if she decides to sit on her diaper-filled poop today, she is so going to. She would not have you shampoo her hair if she doesn’t feel like getting it wet, and trust me, she will.give.you.hell if you so decide to get her out of bed to go out. She will lie in bed for as long as she wants, and any attempt to pry her away from her bolster and carrying her from the bed will result in a fit so hissy you’d rather go find a hole and bury yourself. When she has her tantrums, she can wail non-stop for more than half an hour and no amount of talking sense and cajoling can make her stop. I have videos to prove that she can cry and scream at the top of her lungs for that long.
And to make matters worse, she has night terrors. They started when she was about 14 months old. She has been sitting up and crying inconsolably at regular intervals nightly for a while now, usually about three to four times between 11pm and 5am. And the past week has been hell. She yelled the house down while in her semi-conscious state at least five times in the night. She had a viral fever the week before and I’m pretty sure it could have been the reason for the excessive partial night wakings.
So I have no respite, day and night.
This is Becks after three tantrums today. She refused to wear the pretty jumper I prepared for her and when I attempted to put it on, she kicked and fussed and shrieked. That was the first. When I finally decided that I was not willing to die on this hill in this battle and allowed her to choose what she wanted to wear, she chose her brother’s t-shirt. I said no, and wailing started all over again. That was the second. When she finally stopped, there were mucous and tears all over her face. I cleaned her up and made her drink some water. She refused to drink, and that started her third outburst. She was promptly sent to the naughty corner. When she finally calmed down, I allowed her to choose what she wanted to wear, with the exception of her brother’s clothes.
She wanted to be pink from head to toe.
I almost fainted.
40: the reading on the thermometer in degree Celsius on Monday night when Ben had a viral fever
10: number of times Becks woke up this week to ask for milk in the middle of the night (twice nightly for the past five days)
5: average number of times my son coughs into my face a day
3: average number of times Ben and Becks fight over nothing in a day
2 and 387: number of days before Nat starts infantcare and number of times my heart ached this week at the thought of it
I didn’t have a great week and I’m dreading the next. Come Monday, this mother will be crying buckets as she sends her littlest to a place where Mama is no longer his world and his everything. He will meet new caregivers and have to learn how to drink from the bottle, somehow. A good deal of crying and starving might follow.
My heart is aching so bad now. My baby will be searching for Mama and I won’t be there!
Excuse me while I go and dry my tears.
I’ve shared a little on how tough it has been trying to train the kids to sleep on their own.
Just that very night after I posted, fatherkao had a terrible time co-sleeping with Ben and Becks. He has had many nights of terribleness so far and it seems to be getting worse. Becks would have her witching hour nightly and it usually happens between 2 and 4 am. As for Ben, he would wake his father up religiously at 1.30am and ask if he could sleep with him. If fatherkao says no, he would sit on the floor and be really stoned out, looking pitiful and all, so usually the father says yes and they would be vying for space on the sofa bed.
And every morning fatherkao would wake up looking like a truck’s ran all over him. I think his eye circles are darker than mine. Already I’m waking up a few times in the night nursing the baby, who is having growth spurts.
Which was why he announced yesterday with no sentimentality whatsoever that we are getting rid of the fire engine bunk bed. No more funky stuff in the room. We’re gonna have to lay mattresses on the floor and everyone can all huddle like refugees. Don’t need to compete for space, don’t need to worry who would fall off the bed, don’t need to force the kids to stay, and sleep, on their beds.
So we’re saying goodbye. It was good while it lasted.
The trickiest bit to parenting, in my opinion, is training the kids to sleep on. their. own. by. themselves. And it’s not just the toughest battle but the most arduous. Even with advice aplenty out there – sleep coaching, crying it out, no tears approach – it’s usually easier said than done. When Ben was born, fatherkao and I decided to preserve the sanctity of our bed and so we agreed that we will never co-sleep with our kids on our bed. I ended up co-sleeping in Ben’s room instead. I gave up running in and out whenever I heard the baby monitor, so we bought a sofa bed that I could sleep on in the nursery. That worked out quite fine because the husband got his rest and I could get my son to relieve much of the engorgement I had suffered in the night. Even when I found out I was pregnant with Becks and no longer had milk supply, I did the co-sleeping thing still because I was a needy mother, and being with my son at night had become more of an addiction to fix my withdrawal symptoms which I had earlier suffered in the day at work.
When I was pregnant again, we needed the cot for the second baby. So we hurried Ben’s graduation from cot to bed by (making the huge mistake of) buying him a bunk bed, thinking that it would make him want to sleep in it and on his own. Even with a funky fire-engine for a bed, he would be found on the sofa bed with a very pregnant me in the middle of the night. I was too exhausted to put him back to his bed every time he came down, and if I ever did so, I would have spent more time waking than sleeping, really. The plan was to hang on in there until the baby was born because I needed to give him as much assurance as I could (he was only nine months when I was preggers again) and fatherkao would take start training him while I co-sleep with the other baby.
But who would’ve known that fatherkao would suffer a sports injury so bad one month after our daughter’s birth that he had to be wheelchair-bound for the next eight months. I was back to co-sleeping, this time with two needy babies. That period was the darkest for me. The husband wasn’t mobile and needed care; Ben was bewildered and insecure with the changes at home, and Becks was a screamy bundle of terror. We huddled on the sofa bed every night for a year.
When fatherkao recovered and became mobile again, we attempted to proceed with the plan. Co-sleep with Becks but at least train Ben to sleep on his own, alone in his room. Stay with him till he sleeps. And when he does, come back to the master bedroom. Unfortunately, whoever puts him to bed hardly returns, largely due to extreme exhaustion.
We recently graduated Becks from cot to junior bed (a month before Nat was born). The two children are now sleeping with fatherkao in the same room. I am sleeping with Nat. Three years have come and gone, and still, Ben cannot sleep without one of us being around. He can’t even just go to sleep with his sister in the same room. It’s like, he has the ability to feel the parent-presence. The moment that presence is gone, he is awake. And strangely, this ability is genetic. His sister has that power too. That is why when fatherkao wakes up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you will usually also hear two kids whimpering / whining / moaning, “I want Dada!”.
I’ve been quick to blame myself for never really training the two of them with all the methods that I’ve read about from parenting books. Good thing is, my children usually don’t have problems falling asleep as the routine is pretty much set: dinner, warm bath, bit of TV or story-telling, milk, brushing teeth, a prayer and some songs, and they’ll soon be drifting off to slumberland. But to ensure they stay there for an uninterrupted length of time, there must be the parent-presence. Take it away and you will see two jokers in pajamas suddenly wide awake asking why you aren’t in the room with them. Sometimes, if I’m the one doing the tucking in, Ben wants me to hold his hand. He says I must hold it at all times. This afternoon, I tried taking my hand away from his after an hour. That promptly ended his nap.
I’m kinda at a loss right now as to how we should proceed with this sleep training thing with three kids. I don’t have a big enough house with rooms to lock every kid in and try the CIO method. Neither do I have the money to hire a sleep coach to train my kids to sleep without the parent-presence. I guess I may have to settle for all five of us huddling on the sofa bed someday.
Or perhaps, finally giving in and letting everyone loose (*gasp*) on our bed in the master bedroom. And then when the kids are finally asleep, we’ll dress two bolsters up with our clothes, play a broken record of sorts of our breathing and sneak into the children’s room and sleep together (finally) on the sofa bed.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Overheard today between Ben and Becks…
(rumbling of thunder in the distance)
Ben: Mama, I’m scared. I don’t want to hear the thunder.
Becks: Don’t worry, darling. I’m here.
Overheard today between Baby Nat and Becks…
Nat: Bawaaaaaaaaaah!
Becks: Ohlalala, Nat Nat, don’t cry. I’ll carry you…
And she isn’t even two.
Becks: I’m not a girly girl, and I like to play with cars. Can you be my road?
Nat: Urghhgwawekaka
Becks: Ok, here goes. Vrooom vrooom vroooom zooom!
Ben Kao Milestones and growing up The darndest kid quotes and antics The Kao Kids
Nice Ugly Dog
May 18, 2012
Ben’s been staying home with me more days than he’s been to school this week. He’s been down with a bout of stomach flu. Feeling chirpier today, we decided to head downstairs for a stroll and get some lunch.
It was mid-day and the estate was relatively quiet. An elderly man was walking his dog (a Maltese, methinks). The dog was sniffing grass, minding its own business.
Then my son broke the silence.
“Mama, see! An UGLY dog!”
The elderly uncle gave me a look and I returned it with a contorted embarrassed smile. When we shuttled past, I told Ben it was not nice to call a dog ugly. Though truth be told, it was. It was shaven bald and its skin was so raw there were patches of pink and brown and all sorts of blotches – the dog did look horribly ugly.
Me: It’s not nice to yell “ugly dog”, dear.
Ben: Why?
Me: The uncle might feel hurt that you called his dog ugly.
Ben: Why? The dog IS ugly what.
Me: Maybe he thinks its the most beautiful dog in the world and you just hurt his feelings. (This, I know, was complete bull.)
He stated his point of view and I did mine, and that was it. I was honestly tickled by my kid who says the darndest things. At the darndest moment. Oh well, it’s just a dog. I was glad he didn’t march up to someone and declare that he/ she was fat / ugly / gross.
When we returned from getting lunch, we walked past the dog and the man again. This time, Ben yelled:
“Mama, see! A NICE dog!”