Crazy Mommies

I have come to realise that we, as mothers, all think we are chill in someway and some other mommy is the crazy one because she loses her mind over something seemingly trivial from our point of view but obviously is a big deal to her. And in Packrat's words, we're all crazy in some way or other. I know I wig out big time over certain things and I know that I can't understand why some other mothers wig out over things that to me are well, no big deal and my kids do it all the time.

Well, let's start with me

1. I lost it totally when my then 3 month olds were given papaya and offered ice cream as a calcium supplement.
2. I get very nervous giving the twins anything with sugar or oil in it. That's me channeling my insecurities onto them.
   
3. I cannot stand it when Evan, obviously a boy and has obviously boy clothes ends up in Jordan's very obviously girl clothes.
   

But that's just me.

I have Mommy friends who:

1. Will not let their children drink any other type of water except their filtered water from home.
2. Will not allow any kid to touch her kid's face. It's made of porcelain you see.
3. Wear clothes that are not brand new or branded.
   
4. Eat anything that was frozen. All food has to be cooked fresh. No frozen meats. Kid does not eat out.
5. Fly any other carrier but SQ because the cabin pressure in other planes might be too much for the kid.
6. Insist that come rain, shine, hail or sleet, the child must go to bed at x hrs xx mins regardless of occasion or situation. That means activities or the possibilities of activities are severely limited.

All this definitely comes from being a concerned mommy but at some point, I ask myself, are we reinforcing the bubble effect and overprotecting our kids?

I know of a mommy who totally flipped out because I let my children play in mud because of the germs and bacteria. My defence is I wash their hands. But I flip out at the thought of letting my kids stay up till 10 on a regular night so like I say, there're lots of marbles on the ground and some of them belong to me.




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Diva-esque girls

Baby J woke up this morning in quite a mood. The wrong side of the cot I'm guessing. Anyway, there were tears and protestations as we left for work with her koala-ing her father and having to be pried off him. That of course led to more tears and anger which culminated in her trying to snatch something from her brother and being chided for it. That was when the major water works and screaming started and that was when my blood really boiled when I heard, very clearly, my daughter being chided for being "unreasonable". I've been exasperately teaching my students that animals cannot "scheme", "devise", "abuse" or "murder" because it suggests intent and animals don't sit in the corner and scheme. I think I need to teach people at home the same thing and explain it to them like I would my 18 year olds.

Anyway, I took great offence but I am also keenly aware that it is quintessentially Jordan. She knows what she wants, she has a mind of her own and she is fiercely independent. And she, like me, does things in her own time. Not on anyone else's schedule. Earlier in the year, I was angsting about the fact that some new borns were drinking more milk than she was. Now, she's pretty much caught up with her brother although she is still finicky about particular foods and she is still a good 3 cm behind him in height and a kilo in weight.

This is probably one girl whom I don't have to worry about being bullied when she goes to school. I don't think she will get picked on although sometimes I worry that like me, she will try too hard to get others to like her. I see her toddle after strangers (little girls) and try to befriend them and she is often shoved away or given strange looks. I see her try to be affectionate to her cousin who hates being poked and prodded and wonder if one day she will have sadly understand that people she wants to "friend" may not want to "friend" her. I remember feeling like that in school a lot and I worry that it will be what she will face, especially with that tough girl exterior. But like I said about Evan, I shall not worry about things that may not come to pass.

I love this pseudo celeb shot of her. If you look very carefully, you can actually see the reflection of a tear. She was throwing a royal fit before this because she wanted the mobile phone and I wanted it to take videos of her. She cheered up, when she realised that the camera's attention was on her.

The other thing about Jordan which is unlike me but like her father is her dislike to be covered up. God help her if we had to move to the Middle East. Anyway, regardless of how cold the room might be when she is asleep, she will not allow herself to be covered. No matter how deep asleep she is, she senses instinctively that she is covered and will kick it off. Once, I had a wet hand and wanted to pat her but didn't want her clothes to get wet. So, I put a face towel on her bum to pat her and she wiggled that off too. Anyway, this means that she needs to be dressed head to toe when she goes to bed. Sometimes, we run out of one piece sleep suits so she gets normal PJs. Inspired by a colleague, I decided to put socks on my little tosser. Not just any socks but the tackiest of socks she has since these are the socks I wouldn't let her be caught dead wearing outside.


I inherited this distate for lacy socks from my mother who thought them hideous and never put me in them. So, when I found them in her sock drawer, I frowned because I didn't know what I could do with them. My mother in law, on the other hand has no such delusions, dressing her once in a frock and those lacy socks but that's another story for another time because it involves Jordan, a doctor, my mother in law hoping the doctor had a son my daughter's age. Anyway, the perfect use was to put them on her at night when no one else would see her and I could sit there and chuckle at how ridiculous she looked in the get up. Her brother's pullover and PJ pants and white lacy socks to complete the get up. It's my getting back at Baby Dowager for being imperious and diva-esque when she is actually awake. When she is sleeping, she will be the anti-Diva and I have photo evidence to wave in her face.


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The Fly

Evan got bitten by some insect at a barbeque we were at. I don't really know how he got it or where but it must have been some insect that hopped out of the bushes bit him and then was too full to bite someone else because no one else got it and we saw a bite under his eye when we got home after the barbie. I thought nothing of it then.

But yesterday, when I came home, I exclaimed because the boy looked like he got socked in the eye. Since he is so prone to falling over, I thought he had fallen over and no one dared to tell me. I was about to find someone let rip when my aunt pointed out that it was a bite and he had it on his hands and his other eye albeit less swollen and pronounced.


This morning, the poor boy couldn't open his eye. If not for his other eye, I wouldn't have known that he was awake. So, spirit him off to the doctor we did. Of course, as would have it, this had to be the day where I had back to back consults with helpless students who were 5 days away from their exams and had a staff thing to attend in the afternoon. And the professional guilt was profound. But not profound enough for a voice in my head to chide me for putting other people's kids over my own. So, there was no question about it. My students had to take second place. If they couldn't figure out what an argument was by this point, today's three-quarter of an hour session with me wasn't going to make much of a difference. But my going with my son to the doctor, even though his grandparents offered to take him would make a difference to him and to me.

Photos don't do his swollen eye justice but you get the drift. I wanted to take a photo of the bites on his arm but he wouldn't have it. Even this was surreptiously done. He knows, to be conscious. I did not teach him that.

Apparently, he's got his Daddy's genes and his Daddy is an adult asthmatic which means there's a gene in them that makes him have more sensitive skin, nose and lungs. Joy. So, a tiny bite which sends histamines coursing through his body will manifest severely and take a long time to heal.

It's painful for this to happen or be the case. And of course, there's a fear that he may develop asthma at some point. But I shall not worry about things that may not come to pass. Of course, he seems none the worse for it, getting his fingers stuck in the fan at the doctor's office, finally realising that rules at home apply outside as well, imperiously pointing at everything especially the airconditioning and the traffic lights.

According to the doctor, he must be encouraged to speak more because he's quite happy to point at everything and get away with being told what things are. So, we need to change the "where" questions to "what" questions. She did say, he was a boy and therefore had slower speech development and that was compensated by the fact that the boy could hop/ jump on command.And that, he could do, no problem.

Upon being told this when we got home, his Grandma promptly changed all the "where" questions to "what" ones but gave it such a philosophical slant that even 30 something year old full grown adults who were educated would have given failed to give her any answers. From "Where is the dog?", the question became "What is the dog?", "What is Evan?". I don't think it's supposed to be this interchangeable but I figured she would take offence if I told her that she should perhaps change the question to "What is this on the bed?" while pointing at the dog and "Who is this in the mirror?" while pointing at Evan. Now, that would also teach him self- concept but I am so not going there with his Grandma.


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Keeping the Faith

The worst is over. We're finally out of limbo. We sent back Aunty D yesterday to much sadness but with great necessity. Regardless of how much the kids loved her and how good she was, I couldn't trust her anymore and that meant there was not much point keeping her around. However, that didn't mean it was going to be easy because she has indeed been my right hand since the kids were born and it's hard to send away someone who genuinely cared so much about the children. And over and above everything else, before I became an employer, I was human so I have a heart and the heart is irrational and emotional.

The slate has been wiped clean and we have two new helpers. The problem is they are two new helpers who don't know jack. This meant, telling them to wipe a shelf in the fridge meant switching the entire fridge off. Soaking apples in salt water before serving them meant serving them in the salt water. And the list goes on. What stressed me out more than switching off a fridge full of breast milk was the fact that the kids weren't keen on them. Of course, I'd been warned about it. But it still didn't prepare me for two clingy kids, one literally hanging off each of my legs.

The bright side to this entire saga was that I realised that even without capable Aunty D, we were well able to handle the kids and I loved being with the kids, despite how bone tired I am. I shall blog about how I've been subsisting on 3 hours of sleep a night and finally crashing last night when I have enough energy to do more than one blog post at a time. Even this is taking concerted effort. Anyway, back to enjoying being with the kids.

The darker side to this discovery is that I find myself turning into one of those moms that I have always shaken my head at. I guess, you could say, it is my come uppance. Anyway, I used to think that mothers who revolved their lives around their kids and refused to go anywhere without the kids led unhealthy lives (I'm talking about those who do it out of choice rather than necessity). Those who want to have their kids surgically attached to them. Those who relegate their husbands to second place and make sure their husbands know it. I haven't really gotten to that point yet, but with the discovery that I can handle the kids and I do enjoy it, I have become very territorial and possessive over them. This means, I want to do everything by myself. I don't want to relegate any time to anyone else and I much rather bathe them, feed them and get them to sleep all by myself, even if it means, I'm exhausted and fall asleep holding the bottle to the baby's mouth. For the entire week, Packrat's been trying to get me to go out for dinner, to recharge and just so that we can have a conversation that doesn't require us to speak over the din of yammering that is our twins. But I haven't been able to because the sheer thought of having someone else get the kids to sleep activates my tear ducts and the waterworks get turned on.

I try to explain it to him, with a little bit of a sinking heart and horror at what I've become and at the realisation that I can't seem to stop myself from sliding into it. Well, not easily anyway. Thank God for an understanding husband who could articulate the reason for my behaviour. I've been betrayed and I don't trust anyone anymore so I rather do it myself even if everything else around me has to come to a stand still. In my eyes, I trusted Aunty D and since she betrayed that trust, it's hard to allow anyone else to do it. It's my way of protecting myself and protecting my children.

I know it can't go on. Because of this manic behaviour, I'm hitting a wall. I have a full on 3 weeks at work and I can't do that on 3 hours of sleep a night regardless of how hard I work my body. And I know I need to let go and let our new helper try and get to know the children and take some of the work off my hands. In Packrat and an aunt's words, I can't be there all the time because I have to work and I have my husband too, to take care of and children are hardly. If anything, the last weeks should have assured me that the children do indeed love me and would choose me if push came to shove. And on top of all that, we are slated to go away at the end of the year and my encouraging the children's dependence on me by being around all the time will only end up harming them. And I wouldn't want that.

All the connundrums that I have to face. So I have done the next best thing today. I have declared at home that I have to be at work. I have taken my lap top and my work and parked myself somewhere where I have wireless and can sit down and get some work done as well as blog, something I find hard to do when I'm at home. I still miss the kids. I still want to go home to them and play with them. But I have to, in the words of Packrat, practice tough love. For them and for myself. Sniff.

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"I'm sorry for your loss"...is that enough?

One thing that pregnancy books gloss over is the inordinate amount of time a mother-to-be and a new mother spends worrying and fearing for her unborn or newborn child or for that matter her 32 year old child. It's our way of feeling that we're doing something for the kid. Most of the time, we know deep in us that we are just worrying for the sake of worrying and that nothing will come out of it.

I worried about the twins from day 1. I worried I would miscarry, especially when I read all these forums about how with carrying twins meant a higher likelihood of miscarriage right through to the last trimester. So I worried. I didn't want to tell anyone about my pregnancy. Much less that I was carrying twins. I didn't want to buy anything in case anything happened. I think I only it was much later in the pregnancy when I realised that if I didn't stop with the incessant worrying and waiting till it was all clear to tell people about the twins, they'd be 18 and people would still be oblivious to their existence.

I think it never really crossed my mind that something could actually go wrong and at the risk of sounding condescending, I thank God every day and every second that I never had to discover that something did indeed justify all my worrying. And in the last week, I've come face to face with someone who has had to and just seeing her go through it and imagining myself go through it has been a horrific experience, second probably to her's and her husband's. It is a fate I would never wish on anyone.

This person shall remain anonymous because she is someone I love very dearly and I am fiercely protective over her. When she fell pregnant, I was ecstatic for her and was looking forward to our children being playmates. As it was, I felt upset that she hadn't told me about the pregnancy from the outset. Her excuse was that she was worried that it might end up the same way her previous pregnancy did- all to naught.

I think it's cruel cruel fate that despite her earlier hesitations and her coasting through her second and most of her third trimester that at 35 weeks, her worst fears come true without warning. One day the baby was moving and the next, it was dead, in her, for no obvious reason. She and I are as close as sisters and that meant we have some connection that had given me the sense that something was wrong before I'd actually found out for real what had happened. And all the while, I tried to convince myself, that I was being silly, that at 35 weeks, a foetus is viable and if anything was wrong, an emergency c-section would save the day. But she didn't even get to that point.

I have spent the last week coming to grips with it. I have gone through some of the stages of grief which included me wanting to hurl bricks at the sky, me sobbing inconsolably for hours and tearing at the slightest thing. Through all this, I'm constantly reminded that I'm not the one going through it and I'm already taking it so hard, what more if I were her. That's when I break down again and talk about how it is injustice on a cosmic level. My mother has tried to rationalise it with God. Ironic but true. That God knew best, that if the baby had a problem and was having a problem in the sheltered, protected environment that is the uterus, what more in the cold, cruel world. I accept that and understand that, on a purely intellectual level. But instinctively, it was of disbelief, of vain hope that when she delivers the baby, the baby will draw a breath, that he was just sleeping. But the 12 hours of labour came and went and the child was born and the room was silent. She never saw her child because it was thought that it was better this way.

My heart hasn't stopped bleeding for her. That she never saw the child she grew for close to 9 months. That she didn't get to say goodbye. And when I look at my children, that's when the floodgates open. Because I know that what she wanted more than anything was to have a child and I look at my two little munchlets and ache knowing that she will never have her little boy on her breast, go through colic with him or just stand there and stroke his head like I do with the twins before they fall asleep.

There's nothing I can do except stand and hold her hand when she needs me to. There's nothing I can do but ache for her and her child. And I hate that feeling, especially when it is me feeling helpless and someone I love and grew up with is in need of so much help and comfort. My prayer is that she will one day, discover God and that God will show her her child and that he is happy and at peace. And that's all I can do. Pray for her, pray for her husband. Pray for peace for them.

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Birthday vandalism

It's Grandma's birthday on Friday and the best thing about having kids is that I no longer have to pay Hallmark money in exchange for a card. I will be able to make original cards that no one else will have and the children will be my paintbrushes. Literally.

In the last few weeks, both of them have finally grasped the concept of paint and crayons. Crayons are no longer just for eating. You can scrawl squiggles by moving them around on paper. Absolutely brilliant! And it keeps the attention for quite a while too. Same with paint, in a way. Not just something to rub together but whatever is on the hand transfers quite nicely onto wall, ladder, clothes, body and occasionally paper.

And finally this afternoon, I found some time to put their newly acquired skills to work on a card for Grandma. I didn't want to be ambitious so I gave them a colour each and led them to the paper I had tacked on the wall, hoping they would smear it on the paper, thereupon creating an original Jordan Evan Tan masterpiece.

If you look very carefully, you can see footprints as well. And no, even though my kids seem quite kinesthetically developed, they are not Spiderbabies. I basically used them as my potato mould and dipped their foot in paint and printed them on the sheet. When Evan got the hang of what I was doing, he would help by stomping his foot around with the full knowledge that Mommy wouldn't drop him.

Jordan however, had more fun putting war paint on herself. Because she was in a pretty dress and because Mommy was too lazy to actually go up and get her something else to wear, she painted in just her underwear. This meant, her body could also be her canvas and that was exactly what she did. She became, very quickly, Squaw, the native American toddler who goes by the Indian name Pukka Rainbow Flower Bellybutton.


Evan on the other hand, was happy spreading his colourful joy around. On the step ladder, on the wall, on the grass, everywhere got dirty but he managed to keep himself relatively clean. My little cam-whore was more interested in making sure that he was in front of the camera.

All in all, quite successful.

Incidentally, the twins are getting to the point where they are fascinated by difference. When Evan had diaper rash and we let him run around bare-bummed, Jordan spent much of her time chasing him and trying to stare and grab at what was between his legs. And today, because Jordan was running around topless, Evan went after her trying to pinch her nipples. Try that again in 10 years and he would be in SO much trouble.

All that excitement as well as having people around meant bedtime got pushed back an hour. Thankfully I had enough sense not to give them cake or I would still be in their room right now trying to convince them that Mommy's hissy voice is indeed a sign of displeasure rather than something to imitate and chuckle at.


Anyway, the 2 chuckleheads, their cousin and their beloved Grandma with 2 birthday cakes and Jordan trying to work out how she was going to blow out all those candles when she hadn't yet figured out how to inflate her cheeks and blow out the air. The both of them did get their first taste of what candle tasted like. Thankfully, they thought it foul despite the pretty bright colours.

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