3 little children bake a cake

There's a series of books. 5 Little Monkeys... They get into a whole lot of shenanigans. They get bored. They jump on the bed. They sit in a tree. And they bake a cake. I am fond of the series because they are my twins in a nutshell. Plus I am pretty sure that if Muffin were old enough, he'd join in the shenanigans too. Except...I am not having 2 more just to fill up the brood!

Anyway, the twins are very familiar with the stories too. So, one afternoon, I decided that we, like the little monkeys, were going to bake a cake. And to bake a cake for Ah Ma because it was Ah Ma and Ah Gong's anniversary.

On top of that, I feel that the children miss baking. At their previous school, they spent quite a bit of time baking and cooking. This school, not so much. So out came the flour, sugar, oil and eggs to make Ah Ma something baked and edible.

I chose to try to bake Banana Bread. I couldn't bake something too rich because my in laws shouldn't eat rich stuff in those proportions. Plus, with banana bread, the twins not only got to add flour and stir mixtures (of which, there were 3 bowls!), they got to mash banana using a knife. These knives were safe, even by airline standards, but had enough edge in them to slice the banana.

Of course, some of the banana made its way into the children's mouths. I didn't stop them then. I only stopped them when they tried to taste one of the mixture bowls. The one with raw egg in it. Salmonella is not a funny disease to acquire.


Mixing the plain and whole wheat flour together with cinnamon. Evan loved the smell of the cinnamon. He got flour on his nose and proceeded to look like a coke addict.



















Even Muffin got in on the action. He was much pleased. When we took the whisk away, he cried.



Jordan found a packet of chocolate chips we used previously for other baking experiments and proceeds to place them, one at a time, into the batter. It took a long time but it was a wonderful addition to the banana bread. Especially when the choc chips were melted and slightly oozy fresh out of the oven.

Evan had fun with Daddy's basting brush as he brushed on oil into the tin.


















The end product. Doesn't look very pretty but the twins were proud of it, Ah Ma liked it and I was proud of them.




















Plus it kept them busy for an entire hour!

Technorati Tags: twins, baking, banana bread

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Wisecracks

The twins' speech development constantly amaze us. Tied to that is their ability to reason and their brand of logic.

And more often than not, all this is said in all honesty and with a straight face.

Evan

Evan (at lunch) :Tita (Aunty in Filipino), there's a bone in my fish.

Our helper also known as Tita: Ooops Sorry!

Evan: Tita, Evan is a boy. Evan is not a dog. Evan don't eat bones.


Jordan

Jordan (Watching my brother's pet sea snail hoover the bottom of its tank) : The snail is eating.

Me: What is the snail eating?

Jordan: The snail is eating vegetables.

Me: Does Jordan eat vegetables?

Jordan: No!

Me: Why?

Jordan: Jordan is not a snail! Jordan is a girl!


Technorati Tags: speech development, twins, pre-schoolers

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The family tradition

It has begun. The slippery slope into that eventually results in Chinese tuition, remedials, hating the language (possibly) and ranting about all the wasted hours of one's life sitting there learning 听写, 墨写 (if I even have this right!).

The twins got back their report cards for the first semester yesterday. Most of it was brilliant. "A"s for almost everything. The "B"s they got, we mostly expected, like Jordan's power of observation (because she comes across as dreamy) etc.

Then we got to the Mother Tongue part and there it was, a "B" for comprehending lessons and their one and only "C" in conversation.


























It is expected, what with a father from ACS and a mother who is only slightly better for the sole reason that she used to watch SBC Chinese dramas at 3 pm when the TV stations opened for the day!

Packrat doesn't think we should do anything about it or that there is nothing to do about it at this point. I'm a little bit more anxious but I really don't know what I can do short of speaking to them more in Chinese and reading to them more. Well, this is short of spending a ton of money on Chinese enrichment classes.

I'm thinking the easiest way out. Buying them more Chinese DVDs to watch. If I could pick up Chinese from the television, so can they! Now, can someone recommend something for them to watch? They watch Chinese Dora but there has to be other things out there!

Technorati Tags: twins, learning Chinese

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Off with the locks

The entire family, sans Muffin who doesn't have enough hair to warrant a hair cut, went to the hairdresser's today. Till this point, the twins have had their hair cut by our helper and it has increasingly become a struggle to do so. There have been times that no one is up for the fight and the twins go round with shaggy mops atop their heads. It doesn't help that both children have full heads of hair.

Our last attempt at cutting their hair was a 'surround sound' approach where two pairs of scissors were involved with one of us sitting on each side of the child and snipping away with the television on as distraction. Of course, that led to uneven hair and a couch full of stray hair.

It was at that point that I decided, enough was enough. We were taking them to a real hairdresser.

Enter Uncle Ashley.

I have been going to Ashley since I was 19. When I got married, naturally, he did my hair, my entire bridal party's as well as Packrat's. Friends then were amazed that I didn't do a hair trial for my wedding. My response was this was a man who's cut my hair since I left college and if anyone knows my hair, it's him.

And since I trusted him with my hair on one of the most important occasions of my life, I figured I could trust him with my children's hair. Afterall, it wasn't going to be anything dramatic. A simple snip-snip, layer-layer, snip-snip would suffice.

Both Packrat and I were worried about Evan though. We figured that Jordan would be enthralled by the surroundings. Mirrors, lights, a chair of her own to sit on and the promise of looking pretty after Uncle Ashley was done. Evan, we weren't sure. He is the more edgy and twitchy of the two. Thankfully, the little geek-to-be techie was quite engrossed in playing Angry Birds on my iTouch, buying Uncle Ashley enough time to give his hair a good trim and even layer in a slope on the back.








































Jordan also spent an inordinate amount of time staring at me getting my hair washed and cut. Thankfully, she did not bawl, like my niece did when her mother chopped off her locks last week, when I got my locks lopped off. It was time. My hair had a good run through the pregnancy and the ensuing months. But the post-partum hair dropping has started and that has coincided with Muffin learning to grab a fistful of hair.

Evan thought it was cool that it was windy outside and we could watch the leaves move, as well as the fact that we could see the Singapore Flyer (his favourite thing in the world), the Singapore River, the Reverse Bungee and some river boats. There was also an escalator that took him up 3 floors so he was suitably chuffed.

All in, it was a good outing. In an hour and a half, 2 adults and 2 kids got their hair cut. I don't think I can afford to do this monthly but at least, now I know where I can safely take the twins for a hair cut and not have to subject myself to insipid cartoons and bad styling skills at a premium price.

Technorati Tags: twins, hair cuts, family time

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A mother's sacrifice?

Everyone talks about sacrifices mothers make for their children. It's true. We sacrifice a whole lot. Sleep. Our bodies. Sanity. Money.

But to me, those are not the greatest sacrifices. I'm fine (to some extent) without sleep, I could live with my baby belly, I usually have Packrat to help me regain some semblance of sanity and money, well, money is always a problem. With or without kids.

The biggest sacrifices I feel are things like having the energy to think about the world that exists beyond my family and my 3 children. So, I miss blogging about silly things and having time to formulate snarky opinions about things happening out there. Often at the end of a day, I can't even bring myself to formulate a coherent sentence let alone a thought, much less a snarky one. I try to though because I don't feel that motherhood is an excuse to forget that there exists out there a larger world. At the same time, there are only 24 hours in a day so even with that philosophy, some things have had to go.

And then, Sher (a fellow mom) writes about this writing project- eatshopplaylove - that some female overseas Singaporean writers are doing where they write about their lives overseas. While I don't particularly want to be caught in a cross fire between the red shirts and the soldiers in Bangkok, the sheer idea of living overseas and seeing new things, living new experiences is one that I would love.

A friend of mine is preparing to take No Pay Leave for most of next year to follow her husband to Japan while he does his masters there. Another friend of mine was in Ho Chi Minh City for most of last year with her husband as well. Sher quipped that I had already done my stint in Melbourne. But Melbourne as a student was different. We never meant for it to be our last sojourn. Returning to Singapore was supposed to be the sojourn. But as my brother said all those years ago and somewhat ominously at that, "Things happen. Life gets in the way." Indeed, it did.

We would still like to move and still have some intention to but it has become harder logistically and financially to do so. And even if we did, our experiences will be markedly different because of the children we will have in tow.

To me, that is the ultimate sacrifice. Because that would be the one thing I would love to do with Packrat and have given up because of the children. I don't begrudge them that. But I do feel a twinge of wistfulness when I read of the adventures of others. Some would tell me that I have adventures of my own with my children. Yes, that is true. But being out there, being in the world, seeing new things, doing new things and exploring a different way of life, I miss that.

The watered-down version of being able to do this exists in 2 forms. One, Packrat insists that we travel without the kids to places where there is culture to be soaked up. Many mothers judge me for this but I have made peace with this, however uneasy. Two, we will still try and move away and set up house somewhere else in the world, with the children. And we will try to expose them to experiences that we know they will not have if they lived in Singapore. We will also try and drive home the fact that those experiences will be precious ones for them because not everyone has that opportunity and therefore they should make the best use of it.

And hopefully, that will be the happy median.

Technorati Tags: moving overseas, parenthood

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Saturday morning routines

Children like routine. They like predictability.

Every Saturday, Packrat and I would take the twins out to breakfast. We tried a variety of places. Crystal Jade for porridge and dim sum, the coffee shop near our block for prata and of course, McDonald's for hotcakes. The one that really stuck was McDonald's. And it was always the hotcakes. We never deviated.

We tried to vary the breakfast menu. We tried Carl's Jr with Aunty J and Uncle S. But the twins demanded their pancakes.

We tried Tanglin Club for pancakes and they didn't sit still long enough to finish the pancakes.

At McDonald's, they know what to expect and they're willing to sit still while I go order. It is the only place I dare to take the twins to, by myself.


















Of course, many would say that we've bought into the rampant McWorld-Americanization- eat processed unhealthy food culture. Well, till this point, the twins associate McDonald's with hotcakes and nothing else. We've never fed them anything else although Evan pinched some of Packrat's scrambled egg this morning. But generally, M is for McDonald's and McDonald's means pancakes.

So much so that once when we brought them to our nearby McDonald's to feed the fish (there's a fish pond there) in the evening, they demanded pancakes. When we told them there weren't pancakes at that time, it did not compute and there was much argument, disapproval and whining.


















We only wish there were a healthier menu for us adults because us eating that McMuffin crap every Saturday cannot be good for us.

Technorati Tags: twins, routines, McDonald's Hotcakes

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Learning about J

I recently remarked to Olie that I was stressing myself out because I had embarked on a somewhat ambitious scrapbooking project and some other little projects for the twins. And since it was all my idea, I took full responsibility for the stress it put on me. Her response was that perhaps I just liked the feeling of doing projects and accomplishing them. Perhaps.

Anyway, one of the little projects I decided to do was to create a lapbook each for Evan and Jordan. I discovered lap books from a fellow mom sometime ago but felt they were far too academic for activities that I was going to do with the twins. But recently, they've been coming home from school asking to do more 'academic' things like colouring and 'writing' Chinese strokes.

So, I decided to create a little book of activity for each of them. I liked that idea because the alternative was to have pieces of paper strewn all over the place. The next big problem was of content. What to put into it? The easiest, I felt was to do an alphabet one and rather than start with "A", I would make them an alphabet lap book based on the letter of their names. So Jordan got a "J" book and Evan got an "E" book.

It took a bit of planning and a lot of deciding what to include. But since it was going to be my first attempt, I wanted it simple.

I decided it had to have

1. The letter their name began with, for them to colour and scrawl.












2. Foam parts that when put together, built the letter.














3. Words and corresponding pictures that began with the letter in question. For Jordan, she got Jesus, Jam, Juice, Jelly, Japan, Jellyfish and Juggling. The pictures appeared on a large laminated sheet and a similar picture was cut, put on hard cardboard, laminated and had double sided tape attached to the back for her to play mix and match. When she's a little bit older, I'm going to get her to make up a story with the words. Jesus had jam and juice for breakfast in Japan. After that, he decided to juggle with some jelly fish.












To show her juggling, I took two rubber balls out and juggled for her. After that, she was more intent at trying to juggle than finish her puzzle.

4. There had to be a corresponding story. I wanted a story that the twins were familiar with, had some action and a story they could get behind. Currently, one of their favourite stories is Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. So, we had 5 individually laminated monkeys that could be attached onto the bed, detached and lain quite pathetically on the ground and a little girl who could bellow in at the right times "NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!"













Everything was prettily laminated so that it wasn't a 'one-time' activity.

Of course, there was also 'by the way' learning where she had to count and basically subtract the monkeys that were left jumping on the bed.

I call it by the way learning because I did not set out to use these activities to intently teach them math or rote learn their alphabets. I created these activities so that they could have fun, wouldn't drive me up the wall and perhaps pick up a thing or two from it. Basically, there wasn't going to be a test after they finished playing with the activities.

All in all, it took her most of the morning to do everything with numerous breaks where she went off her merry way to do other things. It was a great set of activities for her to do since she was down with a high fever and couldn't go out to play.

Evan has a similar book and had an equal amount of fun doing it at a different time. But because when he was doing it, Jordan was around too and I had to stop her from showing off, I couldn't take any photos of him with him learning all about E!

Technorati Tags: twins, learning

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The Brothers Tan

When Jordan and Evan were born, they were showered with gifts. They were twins. Twins were a novelty so they got gifts, lots of them. Muffin loses out in that way. He is not the first born and he has a tough act to follow. He's a singleton. Every other baby is a singleton. No big deal. He has a brother as well so everyone assumes that he's got most of his clothing needs covered.

It's pretty true. But at some point I'm going to need to buy the little Muffin clothes because he's going through Evan's clothes quite quickly. Here he is wearing something that Evan wore when Evan was 9 months old. It isn't so much that Muffin is a big baby but Evan was a small one.

It was fortuitous that I actually have Evan in the same onesie. And when I put the pictures side by side, I marvel at how alike they look.


























It doesn't matter all that much that Muffin is wearing Evan's clothes actually. He doesn't know any better. And at least the clothes get a second lease of life because their first lease, wasn't all that long!


Technorati Tags: twins, newborn baby, hand me downs

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Boyzilla

My first email address ever was snailet[at]singnet dot com dot sg. This was because I had a propensity for snails. I spent much of my JC career doodling snails on everyone's notes. My best friend from college and I trademarked our snail doodles.

The real thing, I'm not entirely fond of because of the slime. But I do have a soft spot for them.

One of the first 'science' lessons the twins had watching how snails moved around and watching how they'd retract into the shell if touched. The twins loved looking for snails. They also soon learnt that they only found snails on their way to school if it had rained the night before or early that morning.

These photos were taken the first few times they chanced upon the snails last year and we would be late for school because they would insist on watching the snail inch across the walkway. I would be very stressed because I was constantly fearful that Evan would stomp on them. Jordan was much gentler about it although I suspect it had a little bit to do with how squeamish she was about the snails.



















Yesterday it rained the rain of the apocalypse. The drains were overflowing and some resembled water falls. Because of that, we took the twins down to have a look. Especially Evan because he loves flowing water in any form. And as we taught them last year, when it rains, the snails come out, they saw snails, all over the place.

Evan is going through a defiant phase where he tries to see how far he can push him limits. It is indeed trying. Packrat took Evan down first. By the time Jordan and I got down, Packrat was giving Evan a talking to. I later found out it was because Evan had stomped on a snail. And I couldn't help but exclaim when I heard. Of course, the boy was being self-righteous about it.

Packrat (teaching him empathy): You don't like it when people step on your toes right?
Evan: I want!
Packrat: It's cruel to step on snails.
Evan: Evan be cruel.

And so it went on.

It occurred to me then, that was what people were talking about when they said parents had to teach their children values. Not all parents would have made a big deal out of it.

I remember once, chasing a boy who was on a bicycle all over the void deck because he had chased a cat. He looked at me in terror as I stormed down at him. And looked as if he were going to pee in his pants when I asked him how he liked it as I chased him round the void deck. Then I told him that was how the cat felt. And if I caught him chasing the cat again, I would chase him all the way up to his house where I would tell his parents.

I also stare at parents and make "tsk"-ing noises when they stand by not doing anything as their children disturb cats or dogs and worse still, egg them on. Makes me want to yank them by the ears.

So quite obviously, every time I take a personality test, empathy emerges as one of my strongest traits.

And that was obvious from young.

My mother took me to see Bambi. When Bambi's mother got shot off screen, I cried and cried. When my mom asked me why, I said that Bambi had no more Mommy. My mom told me that the trees moved in the rain because trees liked the rain and were happy and dancing. She also told me that trees gave us oxygen so that we could breathe. When we saw a crew outside our house chopping off a big ol' tree, I scolded the crew and cried.

All this before my 5th birthday she proudly tells me.

Now, I need to figure out how to teach my Boyzilla that.

Technorati Tags: twins, animals, rainy weather, empathy

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Dream job

It fills me with dread every time I think about the fact that I go back to work in a little more than a month. I don't really have much of a choice because 3 children mean a lot of costs and these costs cannot be covered by love, fresh air or a single income. So come end of June, I will have to give up what has been my life for the last year and a half effectively with a 3 month break when I went back to work last year.

Packrat knows I'm miserable about it and has asked me if given a choice and if finances weren't a problem, what I would ideally like to do. There are two scenarios and they are not exclusive.

One.

In the mornings when the children are in school, I have breakfast with friends, go to pilates, do my nails or whatever I need to do, grooming wise. Get home in time to have lunch with the children and get them to nap. Then I slip out and meet friends for tea or go to the spa or whatever I feel like. Perhaps a bit of shopping. Shop for supplies to make things with the kids. Shop for myself. Shop for the house, whatever. When they wake, we play, we go to the park, we do little activities that I have made for them before they have dinner. While they have dinner, Packrat and I hang out for a bit before we start their night routines and put them to bed. Alternatively, we slip out for dinner and a movie while they get put to bed by the help. ( I am supposed to be rich in this scenario).

I have realised that I love doing little craft projects for the twins to work on. Olie says I like the sense of completion and achievement. I realise I like doing things. I'm in the midst of doing one now. When it's done and the twins play with it, I'll post pictures.

Two.

I go to grad school. I realise that I've been wanting to go back to school and I suspect it's got a lot to do with my feeling that I'm not done with school. This feeling probably comes from the fact that I wasn't supposed to have stopped school for good when I started work. I was meant to have gone to grad school. I had a scholarship. I had a PhD offer. But the problem was life got in the way. More specifically, the twins got in the way. I don't resent them for it. But occasionally, I think about grad school and really really wish that I could go to grad school. In the current situation, I can't because that would really take my income and time out of the running.

In my Doppel-world, we would have moved overseas. Packrat would be able to work at home and we'd have enough money for the kids to go to school while I am in grad school. Packrat and I would work out a schedule of who minds the children. And when it isn't exam time and crunch time, the time that I'm not in school or doing assignments, we'd be in the park feeding the ducks (we are overseas!), we'd be at playgrounds and we'd be at the beach.

And of course, occasionally, I will still slip out to pilates, get my nails done although tea with friends would probably be minimised. Unless I move to Sydney where one of my closest friends live. Then it would be breakfasts with Iced Milo for her and Iced Lemon Teas for me.

All this is wishful thinking with a tiny tiny bubble of hope that some of it can come true in the near future.

Fingers crossed. Because, till then, I will miss the children very badly when I go back to work and be resentful that I can't do fun ME time things because all remaining time will be dedicated to them!



Technorati Tags: twins, SAHM, motherhood, grad school

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Let the children come to Me

In Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

In obedience to that and to honour our covenant with God that we would dedicate our children to Him when they were born, we got the twins baptised before they were one. And faithfully, every Sunday, we bring them to church, to Sunday School.

They love Sunday School and Packrat and I love watching them in Sunday School because they are so sincere and earnest in their praise of God. In addition to that, they loved all the action songs and catchy tunes. But apart from that, Sunday School at church is relatively straight forward. There is none of the southern, gospel choir type of praise.

So imagine our surprise when we walked into their bedroom to investigate the ruckus coming from there and discovered them jumping up and down with their arms in the air, praising God at the top of their voices.





It really looked as if they'd grown up in a southern Baptist church. Arms waving, feet jumping, praising God at the top of their voices.

Both Packrat and I are more sedate in our ways of worship but both of us agree that God must be thrilled watching our two little monkeys so unabashedly glorifying Him. We would not have dreamed of telling them to play it down if not for the fact that they were getting so hopped up just before bedtime and their baby brother had had a hard time being put to bed and we didn't want them waking him up again. So, we asked them to sing a quieter song, changed them out of their sweaty pyjamas (once again reminiscent of southern summers) and settled them.

Technorati Tags: twins, praising God

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Morning surprises

There is a line that Tina Fey says in Date Night that I fully agree with and empathise with. She is complaining about how after work, she goes home and she has to fight with her kids about taking a bath and putting on their pyjamas and she screeches about how despite the fact that they do the same thing every day, her kids protest, put up a fight and generally make her wish she didn't have to come home from work. I'm loosely paraphrasing here because I can't actually find the quote.

But that's what it's been like for me every. single. morning. Every. single. morning. I wake up and get the twins ready for school. I let them sleep on as I mop them up, put on their uniform and socks. They basically can get away with opening their eyes five minutes before we're out of the house just so that they can get their teeth brushed and their shoes on.

But every morning this week, they've protested. Not in the whiny, reluctant sort of way but the full on screaming, kicking and flailing way as if taking off their pyjamas was akin to taking away their Arc Reactor and they would die without their pyjamas or heavy pee soaked diaper for that matter. And wiping off their eye goop and drool stains would severely reduce their resistance to the evil forces abound in school.

We've gone from bribery (promising Evan the iTouch, promising Jordan her pacifier) to cajoling to outright ultimatums. It's hard to battle with them every morning, especially when I'm tired, sleep deprived and all kinked funny from sharing the bed with bed monopolisers. I try to breathe and not lose it but I've come very close to tipping the entire wash basin of water over Jordan because she's screeching about wanting to keep her dress on rather than change into her uniform.

After they get up the school bus (by which time, all is forgotten and they're happy and excited to be going up the bus), I wearily turn to Packrat and ask him, like Tina Fey does, why oh why do they fight it if they know that this is what needs to be done in the morning and they've done it every single day for the last 5 months?

Of course, his logical answer is they're trying to push their limits.

Well, newsflash to the Terrible Tiny Twins as Plentyfish is fond of calling them, you've pushed Mommy's limits and the only thing stopping Mommy from getting a cane and using it is Packrat warning me about how using the cane on children breeds violent children in the future.

Argh! My hands are tied and I need a spa holiday.

Technorati Tags: twins, Date Night, Terrible Twos

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The Star Wars way of doing it

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, much to the dismay of my brothers and my husband. But I know enough about it to appreciate this and wish I had had the ability to create a birth announcement like this when I was expecting the twins or for that matter, Muffin.



Technorati Tags: twins, birth announcement

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How to train a your little boy

Logic and reasoning is underrated. Especially when talking to children or raising children, especially if the parent comes from the Sergeant-Major school of parenting. Being teachers, especially teachers who think critical thought is as important if not more important than their multiplication tables, we have attempted to teach it to our twins. Not so much in a Superman is a superhero- Superman wears his underwear on the outside.-Superman wears red underwear-Therefore, anyone who wears red underwear on the outside is a superhero-way.

We've done it with Evan. Jordan is a little bit too in her own world for us to attempt it now.

Evan: Papa, car go!
Packrat: We can't.
Evan: Why?
Me: What colour is the traffic light?
Evan: Red!
Packrat: So what happens when the traffic light is red?
Evan: Stop.
Me: So can the car go?
Evan: No.
Packrat: Why?
Evan: Because traffic light is red.

Q.E.D.


Technorati Tags: twins, critical thinking

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Mothers' Day

A friend who ushers in church used to indignantly tell me that on Mothers' Day, all the women usher. And when it is Fathers' Day, the women still usher. She thought it was ridiculous because wasn't Mothers' Day supposed to commemorate moms and be thankful for all they did the other 364 days of the year? So why make women work on Mothers' Day as well?

I found that was the case at home too. I spent the week stressing out about the children's gifts to their grandmas. Last year, we made simple cards with a collage on it. This year I decided we'd do t-shirts for the grandmas. Something they could wear. So these were the steps to completion.

1. Track down fabric crayons. Not really difficult but considering I don't go out as much as I used to. I finally tracked them down on Crayola USA and got them ordered and posted to Singapore.

2. Get tops for the grandmas that were the right material for fabric printing. I found these at Uniqlo. I t was the first time I wandered in. I was not impressed.

3. Decide the designs that the twins were going to scrawl over and then get Packrat to actually draw them.

4. Get the twins to scrawl all over them. This meant posting it on the wall with protective cardboard behind it so that they wouldn't end up scrawling on the wall accidentally. That's where it got a bit tricky and the first outburst of tears were heard. I put up 4 outlines, foolishly thinking that two drawings each per child would be enough to keep them busy. Unfortunately, Evan, like a dog peeing to mark his territory took one crayon and scrawled on each sheet in the same equal, uniformly, disorganised manner. Jordan got pissed off because she had taken her time to carefully choose her crayon (closest to pink) only to realise she had no sheet that was devoid of black scrawls.

5. Trace out design so that Jordan has a fresh piece to colour on. She is attempting to actually colour so it's nice to watch. The red bits on the flower petal and flower middle, the black eyes and purple ribbon of the cat as well as its collar were her doing.

7. Iron the prints onto the tops repeatedly because the transfer colours weren't all that clear.

8. Select photographs to print and make cards out of them.

9. Write out the cards. I ask Packrat if he would like to write the one to his Mom. He asks me to do it, claiming I have better handwriting than he does. Growl.

10. Deliver the gifts and cards.


















So, I spent last week very stressed about day that was supposed to be a little bit about me and I am glad it is over.

The only funny part of the day was a very cheeky Jordan. We tried to teach her to wish moms we met Happy Mothers' Day and she insisted on saying Happy New Year. When we tried to do it in Chinese, she cheekily started putting her hands together and going "Gong Xi Gong Xi" (a Lunar New Year greeting).

That girl sure has sass.

Technorati Tags: twins, Mothers' Day

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Post-it

One of my favourite series of books as a child was the Fudge series by Judy Blume. Superfudge was a precocious little boy with a penchant for big words. He drove his older brother crazy and then got annoyed when his parents gave him a little sister and they called here Tootsie.

Anyway, Fudge got annoyed with Tootsie as all older siblings get with new additions and stuck supermarket stamps all over her in an attempt to trade her for something better.

Evan was home from school today because of a mysterious midnight puking session last night. He drove me crazy because he was bored and nothing I did for him entertained him or engaged him enough. My only time out from putting out fires between him and his sister (who also spent a better part of last night puking) was when I went off to feed Muffin.

Times like that, I totally miss my quiet moments with Muffin who is unassuming, charming, chatty and guilelessly smiley. It takes no effort to be with him. Of course, with the older two at home and wanting to claim Mommy, that peace was quickly destroyed.

Evan got hold of some stickers and plastered a whole lot on himself. When he ran out of space on his own canvas, he decided his little brother's body needed some as well. I chuckled because it reminded me of Fudge and Evan is such a Fudge! Big words, smart mouth and middle child.



















Thankfully Muffin thought it was quite funny too and kept trying to eat Evan's fingers.

If you look very closely at the first photo, you see Jordan tunneling her way through under my knees.

Children are a joy and are funny. But after a morning like that, I feel like doing a fire sale. Everyone must go.

Anyone wants any of them?


Technorati Tags: twins, siblings, Judy Blume, Superfudge

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Child of our time

Evan: Mommy, ask Evan what he is doing?
Mommy: What are you doing Evan?
Evan: I am SMS-ing.
Mommy: Who are you SMS-ing?
Evan: Aunty on bus SMS. So Evan SMS too. Mommy SMS too?

Maybe, that's how I can teach him his alphabets!

Technorati Tags: twins, technology

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Spot the similarities

Trust us West Wing, Obama-philes to chuckle and clap our hands with glee at this series of shots.

In Mommy's shoes, looking terribly serious, taking a walk and pondering state secrets and issues of national security. Wondering if it's a good idea to launch an attack on the Gruffalo and the wicked stepmother from Snow White and whether it should be unilateral action or reinforcements in the form of the 7 dwarfs and Larry and Bob from the Vegetales. Should a rescue mission be sent out for the Kitten who fell into the pond and intervention be ordered for the self-destructive 5 Monkeys that keep jumping on the the bed and bumping their heads?

























The similarities to these photos are uncanny and for a moment brings me back to a make believe world of Secret Service men, Air Force One, Hail to the Chief and a really good guy in the White House.






















I miss the West Wing.

Technorati Tags: twins, Walk and Talk, POTUS, Obama, JFK

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The various faces of Muffin

The many faces of Dylan at 3 months.

He is a joy. He laughs, he chuckles, he chats.

He cries when he's hungry. He cries when he is ignored for too long.

He speaks with his eyes and his face.































He knows to be pensive.


















But when he smiles, his little broad face and big eyes are enough to light up the entire room.























Of all 3, he is the happiest and chirpiest baby. And also, at this point, the easiest. Hopefully, it stays this way.

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Mother tongue

Mine was the generation that grew up hating Chinese and hating Chinese tuition. And I didn't even have it bad. My brothers had it worse. They learnt what failure was because they failed Chinese many times and repeatedly at a national level. Thankfully, I was put into a Chinese kindergarten, went to a neighbourhood school where everyone around me spoke Chinese (or dialect!) and I had a thing for Chinese drama series. It helped counteract the detriment of being in a primarily monolingual household; not by much, but by enough so that I managed to score a distinction in one Chinese national exam. And I rendered my family and friends speechless when they found out that my research thesis in university had to do with the cognitive structures in our brain that facilitated second language translation using Chinese as the second language.

I can roughly make myself understood in Chinese and I can understand when I'm spoken to, most of the time. And that, in my world and to many of those around me, is considered a success. Packrat, by virtue of being from a school that prides itself in producing "kantang" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside- effectively monolingual and unable to speak a word of their mother tongue), relies on me to be the Chinese representative of the family. His Chinese is halting, his comprehension is pretty basic and he can't remember the proper way of writing Chinese characters. He blames the system for forcing him to do Chinese at a level that was too much for him. As with most things, I don't think much about it and think that while Chinese was a struggle, I got through it and am grateful that it's over and remember some things about it fondly.

But this Chinese thing is back to haunt me because now I have children and should we choose or end up having to put them through the Singapore education system, they will have to struggle with it. With that in mind, I have attempted to make their introduction into the language as painless as possible. Videos with talking panda bears, Dora in Chinese, music and books (that I had to painstakingly learn to read first) that they enjoyed.

We were extremely proud of them when they started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars in Chinese last year and I asked their teacher to give me the words so that I could help them with the bits that they would inadvertently use English to continue because they'd forgotten. The teachers also told me that they understood simple Chinese instructions although they couldn't converse in it.

So for a long time, it was just a matter of picking up vocabulary words. Until recently.

Because I did my thesis year studying our bilingual brain, I understood that there was a need for them to first acquire metalinguistics awareness and part of that awareness is the understanding and knowledge that there are different languages out there and across the different languages, there are different words to describe or express the same thing.

Evan has recently acquired that ability. He now knows how to ask what the names of objects are in Chinese.

These are some of his favourites. Some of which, I've had to ask people for the translation because never in my life had I had the need to find out what some of these things were.

Mischievous Prankster- 捣蛋鬼 (This one, he learnt the Chinese word for it without a translation into English, from Dora the Explorer!)

Circle- 圆形 (His favourite!)

Triangle- 三角形

Square- 正方形

Thunder- 雷声

Lightning-闪电

Escalator- 自动扶梯

Tunnel- 地道 (I tried to ask Aunty J and Uncle S what it was. Uncle S replied 一个大洞 [a big hole] and Aunty J's reply was "no, that's Nicol Highway" But that's another story altogether)

Door- 门

Helicopter- 直升机

He, being a boy, I suspect, also enjoys the technical aspects of it. I was floored by the fact that the school was teaching my almost 3 year olds Chinese strokes. These are among Evan's prized possessions. A set of worksheets that denote each basic stroke.
























We also have a visual of him demonstrating said strokes, as taught in school.



Jordan, as I have discovered of late, is far less interested in the academic side of things, preferring to indulge in what is pretty and pink. Even with Chinese, she seems to be interested in different words from Evan. Evan seems to like naming objects, things that he sees around him. Jordan has been far more interested in naming people. The only way I have managed to get her to speak Chinese is to point out people to her and name them.

你是 妈妈 (You are Mommy)

你是爸爸 (You are Daddy)

我是姐姐 (I am Big Sister)

我是凯慧 (I am Kai Huei)

你是凯智 (You are Kai Tze)

你是弟弟 (You are my younger brother)

Even here, she is rather distractedly responding to me but she does so. Evan couldn't be bothered if he didn't know how to refer to us in Chinese. I do have my work cut out for me.



And strangely enough, when Jordan is feeling vulnerable and teary and needs a hug, she calls me 妈妈 .

Technorati Tags: twins, toddlers, Learning Chinese

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