Not Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic

The little actress' most recent monologue is Psalm 23 complete with actions. While she mis-pronounces some words, it is heartwarming to see her recite it.



*The sound and the picture don't sync very well but this will suffice until Jordan can ham it up and perform it again; hopefully with Evan as well.

Both of them know it and will recite it together. When the camera is on, however, Evan shies to the side. But it once again serves as evidence why I think highly of the kindergarten that both of them are in now. I have been slightly nervous about them being in new classes with new teachers this year. I worried that the teachers would not get the children and their unique personality traits. I worried that the class would be too big and they would get lost in it and slip through the cracks unknown and unseen. Typical mother worries.

But while this has got nothing to do with how much they can now read, write or count, it gives me great comfort and assurance that they are taught this in school. And it makes me certainly feel, despite the times that I am totally and utterly aggravated by them that 'my cup has indeed runneth over.'

Typical mother pride.


Technorati Tags: twins, Christian kindergarten, Psalm 23

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Seeing Red

I just blogged about Jordan being dreamy and loving to doodle. Like most parents, I look at my kids and wonder what they will end up doing when they grow up. I don't think my parents looked at me when I was young and went "Hmm, this one, I think will be a teacher."

I don't really know what they will do and it really is too soon to tell. But I'm pretty sure of some of the things that they won't be. Evan, while being very sharp and fast academically, is unlikely to follow in both his uncle's footsteps and become a doctor. I'm not saying that he won't be bright enough to do it. But I do think some tolerance of blood is expected of anyone in that profession.

At the sight of blood, the child panics. He makes a big fuss and looks as if he might actually swoon. If it's a gash that is bleeding profusely, he gets hysterical until it is staunched and dressed and he can no longer see the blood oozing out of him. I would find that amusing except for the fact that I've had to calm the poor child down all; he had scrapped his knees and it had started to bleed as we were sending Muffin to school. Just that meant he didn't want to climb up the hill to Muffin's school. He wanted to limp, he wanted to hike up his shorts. In short, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure the whole world know that he had a scrap and he was bleeding.

Packrat thinks all is not lost because his brother who is a doctor, while being unable to stand the sight of his own blood is quite comfortable dealing with other people bleeding.

























At the same time, there is Jordan who has the nurturing personality but has an averse reaction to vomit. When she sees anyone throws up, it induces her own gag reflex and she has on occasion thrown up just by seeing someone else throw up.

So, I have one child who cannot stand the sight of blood and another who cannot stand the sight of vomit. What are the implications? Probably quite a lot. But since they are 4, I won't even to bother to speculate and enjoy the hilarity of it.

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Must try harder

When I was in primary school, every year, my report book would say the same thing. "She needs to try harder." or "She is capable of better work." I was. According to my mother, I was a bright little girl with a great imagination but for most of my primary school life, I couldn't be bothered. I was busy dreaming up stories in my head that I was going to enact once I was free from the shackles of school. So I hid a lot of my homework.

Jordan, I am afraid, takes after me.

The one observation that the class teacher has made to me more than once was that she doodles. And she doodles All. The. Time. And because she is doing this, she isn't as focussed in her work. It takes time for her to switch out of the art part of the brain and into the academic-non-art part. So that switch has to happen and when I look at her, I can actually see the gears shifting in her head.

One teacher's opinion is to leave it be as long as it doesn't affect her work. And according to her, it hasn't. Another teacher's opinion is to encourage her to distinguish between her work books and books that she can draw on. And that makes a lot of sense to me. She needs to know where she can draw and where she shouldn't. Wall- no. Paper- yes. Glass- yes. TV- no. Grounds outside (with chalk)- yes. Floor in the house - no. So similarly, workbook- no. Sketch book- yes.
























So far, it seems to have worked albeit requiring constant reminding on my part.























But everyone does seem to agree that she is an artistic and creative little girl who is dreamy and in a world of her own. I am convinced if we could have a peep into what she was thinking some of the time, it would have to do with princesses, fairies, mermaids, rockets, crabs and a weird confluence of things.

My only hope is that as she progresses through school, the teachers understand that about her and that while it is important that she learns to multiply, divide and figure out how pulleys work, it really isn't going to be where her strengths lie. For that, they have to look toward Evan.


Technorati Tags: twins, school, art

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Terrible Twos and more

Muffin turned two about 2 weeks ago. Then he got sick. The two situations put together seemed to have triggered the Terrible Twos tantrums on a nuclear scale.

He is battling everything and everyone. He cries at the slightest provocation or anything remotely disagreeable to him. Water not poured quickly enough for him is enough to send him into a bawling tizzy. He spits out all his food. He flings his toys onto the ground quite angrily at any reproach. He has thrown himself onto the ground, regardless of cleanliness of ground and location.

It is plain exhausting and aggravating.

How do I manage it? Badly.

Within a hair of going insane and homicidal, I ignore him; for a good half an hour yesterday, every time he cried (He cried every time we tried to shovel a spoonful of food into his mouth), I turned my back to him and read a magazine. While that did stop him from crying, it did not encourage him to finish his dinner.

With every mouthful of food he spat out, I caught it in the spoon and shoved it back in his mouth. Rinse and repeat every time he spat it out. The record stands at 4 back and forths before he finally swallowed the spoonful. I ask the teachers in school if he does this there, he doesn't. I have half a mind to pay them to feed him dinner before I bring him home.

On every occasion that he flings something in anger, I smack both his wrists. Some people tell me that I should not smack. Whatever works for them.

I have put him in the corner. I have shut him up in a room. He potters around, he waits for me to let him out. I tell him to apologise and he does. But he goes right back to being a terror two seconds later.

So, this has left me at wits end and extremely short fused.

On top of that, there is Jordan, who thinks that this is a great time to push her limits. So she doesn't listen to me when I ask her to do things. Repeatedly she ignores me. She tunes me out. Until she realises that I have left her standing alone somewhere and am 50m away. Then, she comes running, crying, hysterical. She seems to think that instructions are meant to be ignored and she goes her merry way. Until I stop her and threaten her, threaten to withdraw something that she really wants, i.e. go out for dinner, her princess books...something, does she cooperate and that cooperation is as short lived as the memory of her mother being angry with her.

Thankfully, Evan has been a dream. He listens, he is by my side, he tries to police his siblings albeit unsuccessfully. But even he, with his little whining tendencies and complaining that his brother/ sister or both have taken away something of his, poked/bumped/hit/smacked/touched him in some way has incurred my wrath.

I have taken to punishing all 3 even if one is clearly the perpetrator and the other the victim and bystander. Equal misery. Don't mess with Mommy. And stick up for one another. Not rat one another out.


















I guess it is too much to ask that the house is harmonious like that all the time.


Whatever it is, parenting right now is driving me a bit over the edge. I am thinking seriously of renting out my children separately, for a while, just so that I can regain some sanity, sleep in and possibly laugh a little before this stern, pissed off look that I perpetually have on my face freezes and I am stuck with it for life.

Technorati Tags: twins, Terrible Twos, tantrums

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3-D Dragon Pet, not the Tamagotchi.

The love for the movie How to Train a Dragon does not end with Evan. Jordan adores the movie as much as she adores her Princess collection. Dragons are part of our daily conversation. Just yesterday, Jordan demanded to know if there was a shop out there that sold dragons. Much to her disappointment, Mommy said no.

Since she couldn't go out and buy a pet dragon, her next best choice was to make one. First she drew Toothless. Then she drew some people. I assumed they were Hiccup and the girl, characters from the movie. But apparently, it was actually Evan and herself. Then she asked me for glue and scissors, whereupon she cut out the people, cut out some stars and moon that she had drawn as well and stuck them on, standing up.




































By the end of it, she had herself a rudimentary dragon that could kind of fly. She flew it around, she talked to the characters and she fed Toothless some water. After all, he was thirsty after flying so far, apparently.

I liked that she improvised. She thought about how she could make the dragon fly and how her end product wasn't two-dimensional. I liked that she knew how to stick the parts she had cut out so that they would stand up.

I like that they get different things out of the same movie and they express it in different ways. Evan, talking about it till the cows come home, Jordan making craft based on it and Muffin, well, he just makes like a dragon and roars on command.


Technorati Tags: twins, How to train a Dragon, art

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Down to a trickle

Today is Muffin's second birthday. And officially I have breastfed for 4 years 8 months minus a full 40 week pregnancy in between. And it is over.

I had decided that I would breastfeed Muffin till 2 because that is what I did for the twins. Fair is fair.

But I feel a void. It has been such an integral part of my life that now that I no longer express milk for Muffin, I feel lost. I feel a little bit guilty stopping. But I also know that he is now a big boy and doesn't really need the breast milk anymore.

I think there is more finality to it because this is it. There will be no more. My boobs will never be used to provide sustenance for my offspring. My boobs, hereon will be cosmetic. For show.

It has been a good run though. The tiny 2 kg twins who, while still on the smaller side are strong and Evan seems to be heading in the direction of strapping. Jordan, while petite has impressively toned legs. Muffin, even though he wasn't born as tiny has been stronger than the twins were in their first two years, with milder and shorter drawn infections.

So I've done my job. Some people say at my expense because at times, gaunt could be the word used to describe me. And I am pretty sure that my bones have thinned out calcium wise because of it. I suppose now is as good a time as any to actually start taking care of myself. I could also start running again. There is so much potential with what I can do with my new freedom.

But strangely, I mourn the loss of my usefulness to Muffin. I know he still needs me, in fact, he koala bears me now more than ever. But being able to give him boob juice was something only I could do. Everything else, everyone else can do.

























And most of all, I will mourn the loss of the additional 500 calories that I burn, just by breastfeeding. For myself, it wasn't the larger fuller boobs that I loved. It was that.

Now, to keep the 500 calories off, I have to run very very far.

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