A boy's best friend

We were at a birthday party yesterday. The party stood out for 2 things among others.

1. A two-tier birthday cake that looked divine and oh-so-pretty.

2. The fact that my son has a great love for dogs.

I shall talk about the latter.

Both Packrat and I think it's extremely important that our children love and respect animals. Many a child round my parents' block has been terrorised by me for being mean to cats. I recall chasing this one kid on a bicycle down, standing in his way and staring into his terror-filled eyes and demanding to know if he liked the fact that I had chased him down. Staring into the eyes that beheld his fate, the poor boy shook his head. So I lectured him very severely about empathy and how, if he didn't like it, why the hell did he subject the poor cat who didn't do anything to him, to it? When I asked if he was going to do it again after I warned him that I was going to be watching him, he tearfully cycled off with his head down. To make sure he wasn't going to take it out on any cat, I followed him which caused him to skedaddle even faster. Of course, I had no way of knowing if he ever did it to another cat again, but that's how seriously I take respecting animals.

Both kids, as with most kids were fascinated with animals of all sorts. The only problem was when the huge German Shepherd a few doors up leapt at the fence and barked at them out of nowhere. That sent Jordan into petrified tears and Evan to follow suit. It was worrying for us because the fear of dogs over-generalised into fear of all animals. Cats, dogs, hamsters were all "gou" (dog in Chinese) and the identification of that was always followed by the thumping of the chest to show fear.

Thankfully they're getting over that. Evan more so than Baby J. Baby J will go stroke and pet the dog if her brother is doing it and will only pet the non-confrontational bits of the dog like the bum or its trunk. Not the fact and I think she would lose it if the dog tried to lick her. Evan, on the other hand, is all over the dog. Letting it slobber all over his face, petting it, standing in the way of its tail so that the metronome tail will slap him across the body and face.



















We're thrilled at his guileless love for dogs but we feel that we have to keep a close eye out because dogs were not created equal in terms of manner and the last thing I want is for some dog to take a flying leap at Evan and take a chunk of him just for laughs.

Of course, we're being hopelessly evil and teaching him to say "Ah Gong". "Please". "Buy". "Me". "Dog". Which he can and bring chuckles from all around.




Technorati Tags: twins, animals

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25 Random Things

This is inspired by Metrodad.

For those of you on Facebook, you're probably aware of the recent digital craze revolving around a chain-letter/literary exercise called “25 Random Things About Me.", I decided to do 25 random things that might be swimming in the heads of the 21-month-old twins.

1. When I wake up, I like to tell Mommy my dreams but she just doesn't get me.

2. Papa and Mommy speak very slowly around us. Do they think we are from. another. country?

3. When I bathe, I like to stand outside the bath tub and play with the water inside.

4. Pooping is a big deal. When I tell Mommy or anyone I have "potty", everyone cheers! I like it!

5. I would like to drive a bus or a garbage truck one day.

6. The best time of the day? When someone walks in through the magical front door.

7. The worst time of the day? When people walk out the door and we're stuck behind it.

8. Food must also be a big deal. Mommy and Aunties seem very obsessed about getting it into us.

9. Food is fun to play with and belongs on the floor.

10. Mommy sure rolls her eyes a lot when she's downstairs us. We wonder if it's because of other people downstairs. But we haven't figured out who yet.

11. Paint belongs on our clothes and faces.

12. Mommy tells us that thunder is when God goes bowling. How old does she think we are? Thunder is the monsters coming to get us and the only way to keep him away is to make more noise than him!

13. Yes means No. No means No.

14. We like Dora, Boots, Thomas and Bob. Wallace and Gromit scare the beejeezus out of us.

15. Grandma insists on making us watch BabyTV. Yawn! It's for babies! The music's all insipid. Give us some tunes!

16. School is fun. But if only Mommy could hang with us while we were there! Crying doesn't seem to make her want to stay.

17. The best feeling in the world is when Papa dangles us upside down.

18. The easiest way to make the big people laugh is for us to copy one another. Can you say parrot? We can't! But we can squawk like one!

19. It is not cool that I can't wear Mommy's shoes everywhere.

20. Our best friends are a couple of bears, an elephant and a duck. Mommy should make up a tale about some bears, an elephant and a duck walking into an ice cream place.

21. After lunch, the room always goes dark and we are expected to nap. What a grand waste of time. We have things to do and places to go.

22. Supermarkets are like a grand buffet. Take. Eat.

23. The man who invented the escalator and the lift is a genius.

24. We take offence when people call us stubborn and defiant. Do it our way and no one goes deaf.

25. My sister's name is "NO" and my name is "NOTTIE".

Technorati Tags: twins, Facebook

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Itchy and Scratchy

I felt I needed to blog about this because my credit card bill came and I was appalled at how much it was even when I haven't shopped in ages. The bill was in the hundreds and most of them had the same listing. Our family doctor.

The twins have been coughing for a month! It started off with a little bit of a cold and a cough. Then it got better and then it got worse. It got more phlegmy and those noses threatened to run out from under them. First I didn't take them to the doctor and just treated them at home. Afterall, we have 2 doctors in the family and they're ok for coughs and colds. The problem was our home brew of medicines didn't seem to do the trick.

It was Piriton for the runny nose and a Mucosolvon/Ventolin mixture for the cough.

So it was off to the doctor. She said, up the Piriton, continue the mixture and add on something else called Astmafen.

The kids seemed to get better when they were in school which was contrary to popular belief that they were getting more sick in school. And on the weekend, the congestion made the both of them hack up chunks of phlegm and their noses were red from the constant wiping.

So, it was off to the doctor again. This time there was suspicion that something at home was acting as the antagonist. The doctor looked at the Jordan with her rash round her neck and Evan with his rash on the back of his knees, listened to their chests and looked into their throats before pronouncing that they had Allergic Rhinitis. This meant there was dust and stuff in the air that was irritating the heck out of them and the mucous was produced to try and clear it and the cough was there to try to expel the muscous from the body.

This time the bill was even more. More expensive medicines. Sher blogged about it before so I knew about it and was extremely hesitant. But by this point, we'd gone through 3 different anti-histamines and 3 cough mixtures to no avail. Thankfully, it worked. This "magic" powder called Singulair which was like $3.50 per packet and we needed 24 of them! Even then, finally, the twins could breathe, the drippy nose wasn't as bad.

So the regime evolved from

Morning- Piriton and Bisolvon
Afternoon- Piriton and Bisolvon
Night- Piriton and Bisolvon

to

Morning- Piriton, Bisolvon and Asmafen
Afternoon- Piriton and Bisolvon
Night- Piriton, Bisolvon and Asmafen

to

Morning- Zyrtec and Rhinathiol
Afternoon- Rhinathiol
Night- Piriton, Rhinathiol and Singulair

to now

Evan
Morning- Zyrtec, Rhinathiol, Ventolin
Afternoon- Rhinathiol and Ventolin
Night-Piriton, Singulair, Rhinathiol and Ventolin

Jordan
Night- Singulair and Piriton

All this makes my heart ache. And I have to listen to all the disapproving insinuations from the all-knowing-used to be perfect parent-elders that I am a bad mother for keeping my children on medication for so long and don't I know that taking so much medication is bad for their system.

But that wasn't the end of it. The doctor warned us that the twins would spend their lives reacting to allergens this way and they had atopic eczema that would flair up everytime they were in contact with something their body didn't like. It's a nice idea to have an internal alert system but poor them! To minimise the occasions that their allergy induced eczema would flair up, I would have to change all their shower products. I'd been chided for spending money ordering organic shower washes online for the kids when supermarket brand ones ought to do. But apparently the supermarket ones that I eventually and reluctantly switched to on our austerity drive was what was exacerbating the problem to the point that Evan scratched himself into such a frenzy, he had bleedy knees and Jordan was scratching her belly in her sleep, all the time. At first, I thought it was funny because she looked like Homer Simpson scratching her oh-so-rounded belly. But when it didn't stop and it was incessant scratching, I knew something had to be done. So, obediently, I changed their entire shower series to shower washes that cost as much as my skin care range.


















The snarky of the older generation scoff at how we pamper the children and shelter them so much that they need expensive shower products and lotions. How we obviously have too much money taking the kids to the doctor every week and spending hundreds of dollars on treatments when they don't work and when simply feeding warm water from a soup spoon does the trick as well. They regale tales of how in their day, life was simpler and medicine and treatment was much simpler. What irritates me is that, they forget that they live also in this day and life isn't simpler. Our air isn't clean. It's filled with pollutants. Our food is chock a block with unnatural preservatives and sometimes even poisonous ones. And there is traffic. We live by the main road. We live beside a house that's been in construction for close to 2 years and all the corresponding dust that comes from that.

It is no surprise that my kids are ill and have allergies and it is times like that when it is clear in my mind that we have gotta get out of here, before the air here, kills us. Both literally and metaphorically.

Technorati Tags: babies, sick, allergies

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Prison Break

I have a Mas Selamat living in my house. He doesn't walk with a limp, isn't dark-skinned and didn't plan to blow up our airport, but he did manage quite an escape from his padded cell and didn't even need to ask to go to the bathroom to do that. He also didn't climb out the window but did run directly into the authorities, got caught and put back in prison.

Who am I talking about?
My son. Evan. The escape artist.

Evan in recent weeks has learnt to climb over things. He's climbed before but never with much of a purpose. Often just to see if he could. But because they've been sick and have had adult pillows in their cot so that they could sleep elevated, he's discovered how to use the pillow to climb out of his cot onto the bed that we usually pass out in when we get them to bed.

With that in mind, two mornings ago when he was awake at an unearthly hour and I needed to sleep for another half hour, I moved his cot into the middle of the room so that he had nothing to leverage on. But 5 minutes later, I heard, in my half conscious stupor, through the baby monitor "Mummy Mummy Mummy!" and kicked Packrat out of bed to go investigate while I tried to get some Zs. Only that once he opened the door, I heard pitter patter feet running towards our bedroom yelling "duck duck, duck duck". (Duck duck is his Linus blanket). Packrat re-enters the room and asks if I had let him out earlier.

Very quickly, we put 2 and 2 together and made 5, realising that the boy had climbed out of his cot, managed to flip himself over and land on his feet, only to realise that his beloved Duck Duck was still trapped behind bars. Unable to get to it himself, he decided to seek help, first by yelling out of me and then prying the door open to get to me. Thankfully for him, he bumped into Papa outside. All the while, with Baby J squalling in her cot because she couldn't figure why her brother was free and she was still stuck!

The both of us had quite a shock because of all the things imaginable that could have happened. He could have fallen on his head. He could have fallen down the stairs had he decided to venture down. He could have gone into the bathroom and fallen into the toilet. Who knows. We got together after that and prayed and thank God from the bottom of our hearts that He had sent angels to watch Evan while the boy was up to his antics.

Anyway, we decided there and then that this was stress we could live without. So we freed him from his little cot. We took down the rail and converted it into a day bed with a mattress on the floor in case he rolled over. And now, we actually shut the door rather than just close it so that his little fingers can't pry it open. When he figures the door knob, that's a different story altogether.

They're happy now, to be able to slip on and off their little beds but it makes getting them to sleep a little bit trickier. But they have, as of 3 days ago, graduated to day beds and hopefully our little Mas Selamat doesn't try any other break out antics because I don't think my heart could handle that.




















Happier days in the cot.



'

















Contemplating pulling a Mas Selamat.

Technorati Tags: twins, sleeping habits

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Pizza Delivery

One of the epic battles between Jordan and her caregivers has got to do with food. She doesn't like to eat. A workshop I attended talked about how to her, eating was a power struggle and judging by her temperament, it was a power struggle she was insistent on winning. There were ways around this, to defuse the power struggle, either by just letting her NOT eat when she didn't want to eat but not giving her anything in exchange till her next meal, thereby letting her know that if she didn't eat, fine, but she wasn't getting anything else and she could go hungry till the next meal. The second thing we could do was to involve them in their meals and make it fun for them.

Obviously both had difficulties. The first one required all her caregivers to be OK with her NOT eating. It's hard for the grandparents though. They think she might starve. They think she might get gastric pains. There is also the matter of Baby J's great grandfather who will yield to her powerful baby demands for his junk food. What's harder than saying no to a 2-year-old? Saying no to a 92-year-old.

The second one required us to be ok with mess, something that once again, because we don't live in our own house, was a little bit difficult. And once again, there was no guarantee that involving them in their meals was going to make any difference to Baby J. But I decided to try any way. We decided pizza was the way to go. We could have all the basic food groups on it and it would be colourful and crispy for them. So this is what I did.

1. Buy pizza crusts. Small ones work because it's just the right size for the kids to muck about with.
2. Stir fry some diced chicken.
3. Slice mushrooms.
4. Steam some cauliflower, peas, carrots and corn.
5. Pour canned tomato paste and some shredded cheese into bowls.
6. Drag their little table outside and line the floor with newspaper.
7. Preheat the oven and guess what 450Farenheit is in Celsius.
8. Let the fun begin.
















The tomato paste was a big hit. Its tarty and sharp flavour must have been fun for the kids because they were eating the stuff out of the bowl. We had to boil the rest of it because we needed to keep it for the lasagne that we're trying out tomorrow.
























Evan mucking about, laying cauliflower onto his pizza and then picking it off and popping it into his mouth.


















Jordan focussing very hard on laying the peas and carrots out individually and spacing them out. And also popping them into her mouth. She liked the peas but not so much the corn. Totally the opposite from Mommy who loves corn and can't stand the sight of peas.

There was also the eating of the chicken that was supposed to go on as topping but generally, they seemed to have been very thrilled at being able to muck about as well as eat what they were mucking about with.

The end product didn't look too bad and I decided to improvise and make it an Aussie pizza, not with beetroot (!) but with an egg broken over the pizza and baked with the cheese.

















So, did they like it? Verdict?






























Yes they did! Evan ate more of it than Baby J did but she had a fair share and she ate the pizza as it should be eaten, holding the crust and putting the pointy end into her mouth.

So was it a success? Yes. She ate most of her dinner, we didn't have to fight her on it and she was quite excited at the prospect of al fresco dining. I will endeavour to do this again but she needs to eat stuff that is good for her and not as enjoyable as well. Plus, if we made a mess everyday in the yard, our helpers would not be too pleased.

Technorati Tags: twins, cooking with children

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The biter

When Evan doesn't get his way with his sister, he surreptitiously reaches over, grabs her hand and slowly sinks his teeth into her hand. Most times that he does it, it is provoked. Baby J probably snatched something from him, either something that he wanted or that he actually was playing with. We scold him for biting. But we also scold Jordan for snatching and causing him to behave in that way.

Then, we get a note from school saying that Evan did the same thing in school. That he bit some other kid and it was apparently unprovoked. Part of me felt like I needed to take Evan aside and give him a talking to, as much as a 21 month old can understand. The other part of me felt that it wasn't Evan's fault and it was probably provoked, just that the teacher did not see it.

At that point, I stop short and ask myself. Am I one of those parents that cannot accept that my child has done wrong and I need to find someone else to blame? I hope not. I sincerely think that Evan is guileless and will only retaliate when provoked. But then again, do I let him get away with it scot free? No. So, what to do? Find out who got bit and try and apologise to the parent? Instruct the teacher that such a thing could happen again and is unacceptable? Indulge him and tell him it's ok? Definitely not the third. An ideal situation would be a combination of first and second. And only time would tell I guess.


Technorati Tags: babies, biting

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Bye bye airplane!

People have remarked that Singapore is the only place where families go to the airport, as an outing. They aren't necessarily seeing anyone off. It's just a cool, remarkably large open space for kids to run about and they can look out and watch planes take off and land. Furthermore, there are some relatively nice, family restaurants with above average service there.

Anyway, the twins did not go to school on Monday. Instead, they went to the airport. No one mock us. We actually had someone to see off at the airport. But I must admit, I was absolutely chuffed at taking the twins to the airport because of their current obsession for planes. Overhead, we hear the planes fly by at home. On Mondays, we hear helicopters, more specifically Chinooks and on Thursdays, Superpumas. Packrat thought it was absolutely hilarious if we taught the kids to say "Chinook" and "Superpuma" instead of helicopter. And everyday, we hear an array of different planes fly by. C-130s, F-16s and possibly others that I don't know the names of. So, we thought, seeing planes close up would be a big thrill to them. They could finally learn that planes are large rather than tiny specs in the sky that we have to look up and squint to see.

And we were right. Once they caught on that the large metal tubes with wings in front of them were planes, they were running up and down the viewing gallery, squealing everytime one landed, took off or taxi by them. Evan took even screaming out "Bye bye airplane" everytime one took off.

They obliged us by sitting still for lunch but that was because my mother, who was off to London bribed them with thick peanut butter toast and after that, they were off again. For their little legs, running up and down the length of the viewing gallery must have been exhausting for them, but they didn't let up, much to the amusement of others at the gallery. It crossed my mind that someone would probably have thought that these were children out of control and what kind of parents were we to let them run amok like that. I'm sure that was what I thought at some point of my pre-mommy life.


















But they weren't bumping into people, they weren't destroying anything, they were just filled with childlike enthusiasm. But then again, I'm the Mommy and likely to be looking for excuses for my children's behaviour.


Technorati Tags: babies, Changi Airport

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Late work

Some things don't change even when you become a parent. In primary school, I did a great amount of last minute work or no work at all. I was very good at hiding my workbooks and feign loss of workbooks so that I didn't need to do the work. Obviously, it got found out later on. As an older student, I was much more conscientious but that was more a case of discipline rather than my nature.

The original me hasn't had occasion to rise to the surface till recently. What has changed? I've stopped work so technically, I don't have an employer I am accountable to. Not really anyway. This in itself, hasn't been a bad thing. It's allowed me to be much more relaxed and take things easy. An unnatural yet natural state for me. But it's also allowed me to get caught out in a way I would never have been post primary school. I actually forgot to do my homework. Well, not really mine, but the twins'.

Part of me knew that it needed to be done by Monday. But the other part of me just pushed it to the back of my mind because I knew the twins weren't going to be in school on Monday. But come Tuesday morning, I decide to look at the twins' communication books from school and realise that there are 2 reminders in there about bringing in the home-school project. That's when I gulped and realised that the school had taken the entire exercise seriously and I really did need to hand in something. Thankfully, we had spent some time actually doing the actual project. It was just a matter of putting it together into a story board of sorts and printing it out. This didn't't sound like much until I realised I had about an hour to get all of it done while also getting ready to send the twins to school. But the eventual product was something I was quite proud of, so here it is.




Prologue
Jordan and Evan had a pond. E-I-E-I-O. And on the farm, they had some ducks. E-I-E-I-O. And a 'quack quack' here, and a 'quack quack' there, here a 'quack', there a 'quack', everywhere a 'quack quack'...Jordan and Evan had a pond. E-I-E-I-O.














Jordan and Evan decided that their farm would have a duck pond. So we all got together and started to create a duck pond. We printed some pictures of ducks. Jordan decided her duck was going to be black. Evan thought rubber ducks were a much better idea than the paper ducks mummy printed so he did not bother with paper ducks at all.







Our duck pond was actually the top of the box that our pram came in. We made water by sticking blue paper onto the base. Mummy taught us how to make trees by soaking cotton wool in green paint. We glued the trees on and Daddy decided that the pond needed some boats as well. Since we were bigger than the duck pond, we could climb in and pretend to be GIANTS in the pond.










Our duck pond was surrounded by trees and flowers and some butterflies. There was also grass growing on the embankment. We had lots of fun doing that with a brush. Dab dab dab.
Evan felt it was missing something so he put his favourite yellow caterpillar by the water side. The caterpillar was not afraid that the ducks would eat him because he was bigger than the ducks! Mwahaha! (Talk about metacognition here)







Evan decides to take his GIANT status a step further and decides to do a Godzilla on the duck pond. Lift and Flip. All fall out! Thankfully Daddy had photographed the entire project before the ducks came tumbling out.










There. All done in an hour. Neatly printed, put into sheet sleeves and a file. To me, it was a rushed job. When I brought it to school and another mom saw me hand it over to the teacher, she exclaimed that it was so professionally done and so impressive. Thought bubble over my head..."seriously?" I guess, I'm a hybrid now. Slacker mom where possible but Little Miss Perfectionist still lurks somewhere beneath the surface.


Technorati Tags: babies, school, homework

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I am a lousy mother

I spent the entire day out today. I was out of the house at 8 in the morning and didn't get back till 6pm. In the hours that I was away, I was made to feel that I ought to be doing more as a mother and that because I wasn't, I felt like a failure. I wasn't shopping and I wasn't at the spa. I wasn't doing anything particularly ME except that I had decided that being on leave, I ought to take advantage of the fact that I could in fact do courses that I was interested in and it was a good opportunity to learn. Ok, long sentence. Anyway, I was on course. Why it made me feel like a failure of a parent? It was a parenting course, run by a child development specialist from the US. This woman, in herself was an inspiration. She was a full professor who specialised in a demanding specialty and she had ADHD. Anyway, why did I come away feeling like a failure? She didn't chide, she didn't say that I was doing anything particularly wrong. So why?

She was so full of ideas. She pointed out what were the important things we ought to be doing with our children and the activities we could do to encourage such development. And these activities were done with materials that either didn't cost very much or anything at all. The entire session was basically an "add this to your repertoire" session and by the end of it, I realised that I hardly did a quarter of the things she suggested even though I was home with the kids. But now, I am motivated to try to do at least one of her suggestions a week, just to mix it around for the twins. I am also motivated to try her discipline methods which involve alot of common sense, a cool head and an even tone rather than yelling at them.

So what were my favourites, of what she suggested?

Activities

To teach colour and how colours blend as well as the idea of how perspectives can change.
Egg carton glasses-
1. Cut out the egg carton in a shape that would have held 2 eggs.
2. Cut off the base of it and replace it with cellophane paper.
3. Attach string to the ends of it so that the child can "wear" it like a pair of glasses.

Outcome-
1. They seem to be able to pick out miniscule bits of things.
2. A yellow sunflower that is looked at through blue cellophane turns a shade of green.
3. Colour awareness.

To teach sorting, textures and categorisation as well as colours.
Sorting coloured pasta. Pastas don't come in colours although I think we can get orange and green ones. Anyway, to get coloured pasta, we can stain them. Here's how.
1. Get a Ziploc bag.
2. Put some rubbing alcohol in.
3. Add desired food colouring in and swirl mixture around.
4. Add pasta in, zip it up and swirl it all around.
5. Take pasta out, lay it on paper towels to dry.

Outcome-
1. Colourful pasta for kids to run their hands in.
2. Sorting according to colours.
3. It makes for different types of noice while playing.

My favourite bit about emotional development.
- Kids, like adults have a love bank that is like a styrofoam cup of sand. You can spoon sand into it relatively quickly. But once, something hurtful is said to them, a whole is poked through the base of the cup and the sand escapes. And no matter how much we try to add more in, the sand escapes faster than we can top it up.
- Translation, we need to love our kids and we need to be careful that we don't say things that hurt them. If we do, we need to patch it up because no matter how we still try to love them, if we don't patch it up, the kids won't get it.

My favourite bit about congitive development and tantrums.
- What differentiates us from animals is the very developed pre-frontal cortex that we possess. It allows us to rationalise. But when we or our kids are upset, the brain downshifts and reactions don't make it to the pre-frontal cortex anymore. It's not rational. It's emotional, controlled by the limbic system. If we're really upset, our reaction is a 'fight or flight' one, a primal one that has been wired into our genetic makeup since Neanderthal days. Because of that, if a kid is in a state, no amount of explaining is going to help the kid. No one's home at that point.
- Same goes for the parent. If the parent is angry, the reaction is no longer one controlled by rationality. That can be harmful or hurtful.
- So the best thing to do is to allow the brain to kick start itself again, by removing the kid or oneself from the situation and to actually do something as simple as breathe. When everything has gone back toward the basal rate, then rationalise.

My favourite bit about discipline
- Realising that the contraction "Don't" and the word "No" are actually interpreted differently with toddlers. Toddlers and pre-schoolers don't understand "don't". They have a bit of auditory blindness when it comes to "don't". Instead of it hearing "don't touch" they only process the "touch" bit. To circumvent that, say "No". Simple, doable.

So that and much more. Now to start paying my dues.

Technorati Tags: babies, parenting

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Homework

The dreaded day has arrived. Many years earlier than I expected it to come. My children came home from school yesterday with homework! HOMEWORK! It's due in a week. There are instructions and expectations! HOMEWORK!

Now, why am I freaking out? Because they're only 20 months and their greatest feat to date is to e-nun-ci-ate the phrase "a min-ute"? Can't read or write despite some weird expectations that an optopist had of Baby J, but that's a different story. Anyway. So, is it then because it's the beginning of the end? The rat race that I was so fearing?

Actually, nothing of that sort. The freak out comes from the fact it is not the kids that have to do the homework but the parents. I have homework? I didn't slave all those years in school to get given playschool homework. But like it or not, Packrat and I have homework. It's not a bad thing actually. We're supposed to, with our children create some aspect of a farm; they're doing farm animals in school. And in the spirit of environmental preservation, we're supposed to do that using scraps- so I'm thinking toilet rolls and old boxes. While doing this, we're supposed to photograph the effort and write a 50 word blurb on what our kids and us did.

Of course, Packrat, in a moment a little like the optopist, asked what and how the kids were supposed to write. When I pointed out that WE were supposed to do the writing, he very rightly pointed out that it wasn't the kids that had homework, it was us. We were the ones who were going to be compared with other parents and other projects. Our kids will be the mere accessories that accompanied the project.

In all fairness, we applaud the school for pushing us to spend more constructive time with our kids instead of standing still and letting run circles around us which we on occasion do when we're too tired to stop them; they eventually stop when they fall from all the dizzy spinning. We're just a bit cowed that 3 months into our kids' foray into school, the both of us are worried about homework.

School. Indeed.

Technorati Tags: babies, school, homework

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Minding the P's and Q's.

One of the twins' first words was "please" or a derivative of it. They knew that "please" was the password to what they desired, a promise of good things and their way of gaining favour. Now, I'm teaching them "thank you" since they've pretty much got that one down pat. Of course, they use it incessantly and sometimes it's the escalation to a tantrum when the something they want is not kosher.

Packrat and I are pretty particular about this. That they be taught manners. That they learn to yell and say hello to their deaf-as-a-post but still insists on being addressed Grandpa. That the first thing they do when someone walks through the door is to run up and say hello. At Chinese New Year, we made sure they could present the obligatory oranges and greeting not just because it was funny but because it was respectful.

In that way, Packrat and I are very traditional. Almost Confucian, one would say. But that's how we want our kids raised. Respectful to the right people, polite to most and to one another. It seems a common sense thing that should be taught from young. But with all common sense, it doesn't seem all that common. Without a doubt, I'd like my kids to succeed in life and do well in whatever they do. But I think I will be bitterly disappointed in them if they turned out to be spoilt, rude and expected the world to revolve around them and everything to be laid at their feet. I come across so many of them, those so arrogant with no sense of modesty or humility. Those who suck everything from you, use you and then deem it fit to ignore you and waltz right by you when they've succeeded. Those who don't thank you for helping them succeed but would have had no problems pointing a finger at you had they failed. Those that I see like that disgust me, make me feel that everything I did was a waste of time and I'd failed by allowing them to succeed. And those make me feel sad.

And I'll be damned if I allow my children to be like that. To claim all victory as their own, to forget who helped them get there and to be humble in success. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I sure as heck am going to try. No child of mine, on results day, will waltz right by his/her teachers pretend they didn't exist and exclaim that they got xxx number of distinctions. That's just bad manners.

Technorati Tags: babies, upbringing, manners

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The things they learn

The twins have been in school for a little over a month. The morning histrionics have died down to a minimum; on a good day there is none. On a bad day, there’s a bit of crying, some clinging and nuzzling aimed at inducing emotional guilt on my part. But generally they are happy.
They cause a ruckus in class, Jordan being the rabble rouser and Evan being the class clown, making funny faces at his classmates while the teachers are trying to lead them in circle time. Packrat and I both think it’s hilarious now. Probably not so much later on when we keep getting called to school. A dear friend who used to be a primary school teacher once asked me that if I got called in to school because my kid hadn’t done his homework, what would I do. I couldn’t answer that but I’d imagine, if I got called into school because they were asserting their independence and being generally harmless, I’d find myself hard-pressed to keep a straight and suitably stern face.

Anyway, it is clear that it is money well spent. Every Thursday, they cook something exciting in school; there’ve been cakes, pasta, fruit salad and yesterday egg mayo sandwiches. It inspires me to actually cook with them at home too. On top of that, their language and communication skills seem to have improved somewhat as well. However, it has caused much disapproval from their Grandma. I think it has to do with the fact that Evan has learnt to stick out his tongue and does it ever so often.


Grandma is not pleased that we spend close to $1000 a month for her darling grandson to learn bad tricks like stick his tongue out. It coincided with the boy having a cold so the gross but apparently, more acceptable alternative that I laid on the table seemed to mollify her; that the boy had learnt to stick his tongue out because that way, he could get a taste of his mucous. Apparently, that was more palatable to her (as with him) than him learning this from other kids in school. I and only I knew the truth. He was doing that because the teachers taught them a song where they made funny faces and one of the funny faces was to stick the tongue out. Now if Grandma knew that, she would not be amused.

Of course, she will tell anyone who will listen how great the school and what a good idea it is when she sees them feed themselves, take off their shoes and put it on the shoe rack and communicate what they want. I, on the other hand, am pleased as punch when I see their craft displayed in class, when they come home with streaks of paint on their clothes, say new words and sway and jiggle to music.

The not so fun bit is that they pick up germs and bugs. They’re just getting over their colds and half the class has got drippy noses and phlegmy coughs. I wouldn’t be so fussed if they didn’t lose so much weight together with the being sick. And today, Evan had his first accident, where he was leaning against the hinge of a low door and someone slammed it shut and pinching his flesh quite badly. He's got a flying saucer welt on his arm that breaks my heart and will incur the wrath of the Grandma. But my mother reminds me that it’s something, they, as well as I have to go through since she went through it with me.

Ah, the mother’s wisdom. Or the mother’s curse. Depends on which way we’re looking at it.


Technorati Tags: babies, school

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The busy SAHM

Baby J is punishing me. She doesn't do it by ignoring me or anything violent. It's actually her sub- conscience that's punishing her Mommy. I've been ill and extremely in over my head the last week. I stupidly agreed to do some work that sucked a whole lot more time than I was counting on. That mean me holed up in the room for hours on end trying to get through the work, ignoring the kids even as they thrashed and cried for mommy.

That was an awful thing to do. I'd never missed the kids so much while I was in the house. And they probably felt the same way. So, when I finally materialised from the bedroom, they clung to me like fly to sticky paper. "Mommy bao bao peessss" was the common refrain the entire evening. (bao bao is carry, peeesss is please, add 'e's and 's's depending on emphasis).

I know I've talked about guilt before and here, once again, it rears it's ugly head. It also came in the form of Packrat who was berating me for agreeing to do something that was taking away time from the kids like my job was. And that was true. I chose to take time off to time off to hang with the kids and not do stuff with my time that was going to take me away from them.

Anyway, because of the weekend, Baby J was subconsciously angry with me. She was okay when she was awake. She'd play and run around although she was insistent that I was there with her. But when she was asleep, that was when it really showed. She needed to feel my hand on her back as she fell asleep. And I could only remove it after she'd fallen off to sleep. The problem was when she started in her sleep and discover my hand no longer on her. That's when she would chuck a huge fit, in her sleep, stamping her feet, flailing her arms and screaming, all with her eyes closed. She would only calm down when I put my hand back on her chest and sing to her. That doesn't sound too bad until you realise it was going to be that through the night. And to make matters worse, she developed a ear infection just round about crunch time and stayed up hours at night crying and trying to do a Van Gogh with her ear.

Evan too, had his own way of showing he was pissed off with Mommy. His was more obvious and during the waking hours. He would cling on to me for dear life, wouldn't do anything that didn't involve me and would cry at the slightest thing which included thunder and Gordon from Thomas the Tank having coal rain down on him.

I'm just relieved it's over and I can go back to spending the afternoons with them. We owe God-mama a card that we were supposed to make last week but I wasn't able to. That and their drippy noses weren't a good combination. So now that everyone is better, time to get started on the card.

Technorati Tags: babies, SAHM

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