The Stomach Flu Week; What we learnt from it.

The past ten days or so have been surreal. It's been a combination of dejavu and groundhog day. JED have taken ill in a way that they've never done so before. They've never really ganged up on us and plotted to consecutively fall with a 3 day grace period in between.

It was groundhog day because they fell in the same way. First, the complaint of the headache with lethargy, then the stomach ache, which is rapidly followed with  repeated upchucking followed by cramps that could rival contractions and spontaneous diarrhea.

Deja vu was the stronger sentiment because
a. When they were babies/ toddlers with less robust immune systems, if our clinic had frequent flyer miles, we would have got round trip tickets for the family to Disneyworld. In the last week, we were in the GP's office 3 times and the Emergency Room once in the middle of the night.

b. Both Packrat and I have been going to work on 3 hours of sleep and getting through the entire day on that and adrenaline. It's just that the last time we had to do this, we were much younger and we were more junior in our professions.

c. We were chucking out diapers on the hour. With such a virulent strain of a gastro-intestinal bug, the only way to save the furniture was to put even the eight year olds in diapers. My only problem was finding a diaper that could fit a 30 kg child.

d. The house smelt distinctly of oils, soiled diapers, anti-bacterial sprays and the washing machine was going on through the day. At the same time, there was this fog of exhaustion but hyper alertness that we were operating through that felt unpleasantly familiar.

It led both of us to unanimously declare that we didn't miss having young children or the sleep-limited- ships in the night - existence that we end up living through.

e. Children being very ill, like having infants around, bring about back seat nursing by everyone around us, family, friend, foe and even stranger. Everyone insisted on doing what they swear/ swore by. Since we did indeed have 3, we actually tried to take some of the advice. At best, we would have found something that works, But most of the time, it ended up with us changing more clothes, sheets and spraying down the house.

We were told to
a. boil rice with lots of water and feed the water to the ill child. - In theory, that makes sense. Carboyhydrates and liquid, necessary for a child severely dehydrated and retching. Unfortunately, the sight of white porridge causes not just one but all my children to retch and becomes counterproductive.

b. hydrate with 100 plus- Isotonic. Makes sense because there are the salts and sugars. Unfortunately, 100 plus itself is gassy and that makes it another trigger for the spewing. And if I'm going to replace 100 plus with another isotonic, I'm going to find a drink that they like, increasing the chances of them possibly keeping it down.

c. let sleeping children sleep- Dehydration causes disorientation and drowsiness. Muffin was rapidly getting to that point, his skin was scaly, he lay still and staring blankly in space drifting in and out of sleep. We kept being told, Muffin just needed to sleep and rest when I insisted on waking him up to force sips of juice/ ribena/ water down his throat. Thankfully, I'm thick-skinned that way and kept insisting.

d. get the child to drink coconut water- Full of electrolytes. Good for the spewing, purging child. Once again, good in theory but did not live up to expectations. My couch is testament to the failure in execution.

e. listen to the child- One of the meds was bitter beyond belief and required said child to leave it under the tongue and let the system absorb it. It worked like a dream but it required a high tolerance for the bitter and the fact that there was no food or liquid for half an hour after made it difficult. Of course, any child would protest a repeated dose despite it being necessary. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, there is nothing democratic about parenting. Unfortunately also, when the grown ups decide to listen to the child instead of the prescription on the bottle, the child ends up throwing up repeatedly till one of us, mean cruel parents returns.

What did however work was
a. oils- We did the whole gamut. I do the whole Young Living thing and threw everything at their bellies and constitution. While it didn't stop the virulence of the bug, it made them feel more comfortable and purified the air in the house. For Jordan, who had cramps that approximated labour pains, we piggy backed both the Young Living oils with the traditional Chinese Ru-Yi oil that they used as babies.

b. the hot water bottle- Cramping in small children apparently cannot be helped by adult type anti-spasmodics. So the only way to get past the cramps is to, like childbirth, let it pass. Easier said than done but the traditional hot water bottle did help quite a bit. Our kettle has been somewhat over-taxed.

c. the onion omelette- About the weirdest thing I've ever done. Once again, a throwback to baby days, this time to the early baby days when our beloved confinement nanny was with us. 8 years ago, the twins had horrific colic and our nanny chopped up shallots, dry fried them, beat an egg and poured it over the onions to fry. When cooled, she placed a muslin cloth over the baby's belly and placed the egg over it with another piece of muslin wrapped over it. Very bizarre to have an infant smell like something out of a nasi lemak dish. Half an hour later, all the excessive gas in the baby would come trumpeting out. Because we couldn't do much for Jordan's cramping, Packrat suggested we tried that. We did, despite her protests and an hour later, she was happily watching television.

d. feed the child whatever he or she can keep down- We ended up feeding JED Milo cereal balls, frozen juice lollies, copious amounts of Ribena and toast with sugar and Milo powder on it. Eventually, there would be a breakthrough and they eat something resembling a meal and we know we're in the clear. Till then, it truly was a matter of throwing high calorie, low irritant foods at them and praying that they pick up some of them.

We're hoping that the worst is over because I'm truly truly exhausted and would love a sleep holiday with a gorgeous pillow top mattress and lush sheets but I don't think that's on the cards at this point. So, I'm thankful for little things like the fact that it's a long weekend and that the house no longer smells of vomit and poop.

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Beware the mini-me

People always say we have to watch we say in front of the kids. It's all about what they pick up from us and it's not just language.

Everyone says that Jordan is a mini-me. She's got my athletic genes and according to Packrat, my temperament which makes battles with her epic.

But on top of that, she wants to be me. And while I had some vague understanding that our kids always wanted to follow us, she wants to do everything I do or have done. And that's where I have to watch my mouth.

Instance 1:
Some nights ago, we were talking about bed times and I told them that I used to go to bed very early. If you gave me a chance now, I would still go to bed very early. Habits die hard. Anyway, she asked me how I did my homework if I went to sleep so early. Without thinking, I told her that I would go to bed early, wake up at 2 or 3 am and study till 5 before going back to bed.

A few mornings after that, I found books strewn across our coffee table when I woke up. My first instinct was that Packrat, who had had friends over, had not cleared up. On closer inspection, it was Jordan's stuff- some Chinese books, an exercise book and an English dictionary. She announced proudly when she woke up that she had gotten up in the middle of her night and 'studied'. What did she study? According to her, Chinese dictation that she had to memorise, some composition and English stuff. She did this the next night too according to our helper who heard her rustling around in the middle of the night.

When asked, she said she needed to study, like Mommy studied. So Mommy had to step in and tell her that Mommy was 13 years old when she did that and was always exhausted the next day. And she, Jordan, needed more sleep now than time to study.

Instance 2:
In another conversation, we were talking about primary school and I mentioned something about the PSLE and how all 12 year olds took that exam to get into secondary school. I told them that if I had studied harder in primary school (I was a major slacker till P5 when my mother grounded me within an inch of my life), I would have been able to go to the same school many of my friends went to. She then proceeded to ask me what school that was and I told her Raffles. I told her I didn't get in and Mama (their grandmother and my mother) decided that since I didn't study hard enough to get in there, she wasn't going to help me get in and I had to go to whatever school my grades allowed me to.

And the next night, Jordan tells me that she no longer wants to go to Papa's school (She loves Papa's school and has sworn that she wants to go to school there) but wants to go to Raffles because I couldn't go there so that she would go there for me.

Touched as I was, I told her that now that I was older, I knew that it was a good thing I didn't go there and we wouldn't know if she would like it there; that the most important thing was that she was good enough to choose between the different schools rather than be limited by her grades.

Of course, Evan chimed in that he wanted to go to Raffles too and I told him that his future was set for him because his blood, like his father's ran red, blue and gold.

Anyway, much as it is an ego boost that Jordan wants to do everything I did, it's also about remembering that while she's got lots of my DNA in her, she's also her own person and it's only fair if I gave her all the space to be that. On top of that, she's only 7 so I should really shut my mouth because pulling all nighters just to prove that she can be like Mommy is going to stunt her growth.

So, from now on, I don't just have to watch the swear words that might escape my lips,  I have to vet the stories of my childhood before I regale them to JED.

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Bed time ritual

It's been about 3 weeks back in school and back to early morning wake ups.So the entire family has been walking around pretty much in a zombified state.

We've had to re-train them to get up at 6 which meant re-training them to sleep at a decent hour. And that's been difficult. Their bed time ritual has become so long drawn and hilariously ridiculous at times that it isn't easy to shut down the shenanigans. And some of the time, we don't really want to shut it down because they get up to weird stuff that is amusing for us.

But for the sake of an easy wake-up the next morning (read: no tears and no flailing limbs), we've had to pretend that things aren't funny and switch off the lights.

As a rule, their bed time routine, which only starts post wash-up (anything before that is not part of the bed time wind down), consists of
1. Them putting on a show for us- this could range from miming the last episode of Shaun the Sheep they watched or re-enacting comic strips from Calvin and Hobbes to their latest party trick picked up from gym class.
2. Them 'tucking' each other in, though for most part, it's Muffin pretending to be a baby and needing to be tucked in by his "mummy" (Jordan) and "daddy" (Evan) and fed with milk (water from a sipper cup).
3. Them reading to one another or us reading to them. The rule of thumb is that I read them a Chinese book, Packrat reads them an English book and whatever else, they have got to read it to themselves.

That's when we switch off all the lights.

But that doesn't usually mean that they go to bed. It just means part 2 of the bed time ritual begins. 

This is the bit that is a little more meaningful, for them and for us. It's also the bit that winds them down and calms them down enough for sleep. I'm often inclined to rush them through their monkeying around so that we can do this bit properly. Unfortunately, it's more parent- centred and often leaves me feeling the need to borrow some tentacles from the nearest living octopus.

Each kids needs something special for this part. 

1. Jordan requires hugs, cuddles and affirmation that she's done good in the day or that what we were crossed with her, we no longer are. I also need to sing her The Lord's Prayer before she deigns herself ready to go to bed. And it has to be sung by me, in the tone and tune that I learnt it as a teenager for Holy Communion in an Anglican church. This was something I started with them as babies and 7 years later, it's so much part of her bed time routine that without it, she doesn't feel ready to sleep. The only time I'm ever let off the hook is when I'm down with laryngitis. 

2.  Evan requires us to pray very specifically for 'no bad dreams'. He's the most self-sufficient and because of that, the easiest to just leave to his own devices. But because of that, I try to make it a point to lie with him and chat with him before he falls off to sleep. He's most thoughtful then and that's often when the existential questions surface- "what's heaven like?" "Will I be able to find you when I go to heaven?" "Will my duck duck (his security blankie) be in heaven with me?". With him, it's also a great time to cuddle him, kiss him and let him know what I'm proud of him for doing that day (it could be neat Chinese writing or looking out for Muffin at the playground) or just to tell him I love him. 

3. Muffin's learnt from Evan that there are bad dreams out there. In the last 6 months, he's been able to very vividly recall his dreams and has on occasion declared that he doesn't want to sleep because he's worried about the bad dreams. So what we have to do with him is to 'pick' out his bad dreams and toss them out the window. But we have to be careful not to pull out his 'brains'. He will tell us if we have and we have to then shove it back in and glue it down. 

As a rule, regardless of how annoyed they've made me, we make peace before they fall asleep. Thankfully, this second bit doesn't usually take more than 15 minutes with Muffin usually falling asleep first and Evan last.

On bad days, I fall asleep half way through doing this but on good days, they fall asleep quickly and that allows me to creep out to my dinner.

At some point, they're not going to want me to do this any more so I guess while they want it and are still tiny enough for me to cuddle (Evan is rapidly getting to the point where I can't), our bed time ritual stands as is.

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Nightmare Chasers

One of the reasons why as parents, we are often sleep deprived is the 'monster under the bed' that wreaks havoc and causes nightmares. The other reason and possibly more real reason for nightmares is the overstimulated child before bed. There is some truth to not getting them over excited before bed or in the seemingly ridiculous words of my mother 'don't laugh so much before bed.'. And sometimes, there really isn't any reason for the nightmares, they just happen.

Whatever it is, we have to deal with the nightmares and that requires us to get up and soothe said child. It is often why I end up with at least one child in our bed.

As babies, it was much more difficult to figure out the nightmares or the disturbed sleep and there was much of it.

But now that they are older, they are able to vocalise their fears and describe their nightmares. Bad dreams, as they put it, that send them scurrying between our covers and firmly wedging themselves between us, the parents. As a means of self-preservation, we've come up with ways of helping and soothing them of the threat of bad dreams. And that helps us. 

Evan has taken to asking us to pray for him before he falls asleep. He asks specifically for us to pray that he won't have bad dreams. He also doesn't like being the last to sleep because that spooks him out. 

Jordan went through a spate where her nightmares would spook her out in the day. So what we did,  in broad daylight was to ask her to draw her nightmare (Her drawings were always more explicit than her verbal descriptions). Then we told her to crush it up and throw it into the rubbish chute. After that, we told her that her nightmare was destroyed. 

We do the same thing with Muffin, except we 'pluck' the bad dreams out of his head. He tells us that he has been having bad dreams and we tell him we pluck it out of his head, actions and all, and toss it out of the window. Beware bad dream 'killer litter' being hurled out of our windows. He thinks it's funny and he joins in; we stop him when he becomes over-enthused and over-excited doing it because then it defeats the purpose. 

On top of that, there's the usual shushing, rubbing of backs and legs to calm them down. Packrat has realised how turning on the air-conditioning seems to miraculously also chase bad dreams away. 

And when all else fails, climbing into bed and cuddling Mommy really tightly seems to do the trick, despitethe fact that Mommy looks like she lived through a bad dream the next morning. 

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Conversations in the dark

There are nights where I work late. That means I miss my favourite time with JED; I don't get to get them to sleep where we, read, we chat and we chuckle till we (myself included) fall off to sleep. They are used to it and willingly kiss my goodbye and goodnight when I leave the house. Sometimes I come home to surprises like this, hanging on my front door.

And sometimes, I am met with the sight of JED sleeping in hilarious pose worthy positions.

And it makes me smile but it makes me wistful for having missed bedtime.

What helps it is when my alarm goes off in the morning and I stumble out of bed to turn it off then amble over to JED's room and climb into bed with them for the next ten minutes. This morning, Evan was actually up when I lumbered over and we cuddled and started chatting about the day ahead. I found out that he had discovered 'chee cheong fun' from a friend and knew enough to ask him which stall it was from and how much it cost and went and got it. He declared he liked it, especially with the little sesame seeds on top. Little victories.

I'm glad for that little ten minute conversation in the dark this morning. It wasn't much but it helped me touch base with him and it didn't just put me in a good mood, it put him in one too.

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Triple the tantrums

I took this photograph yesterday at Sentosa. When I put it on FB, someone commented that it would be a photo to memorialize their chumminess as siblings. But as with every time someone says something good, the opposite happens. We call it tempting fate.



For the rest of the day, the trio were absolute horrors.

They fought with each other, they were mean to each other, they made each other cry. On top of that, they were whiny about their poor indulgent first world lives.

"Everyone is so noisy. Our house is so small. Can we move to a bigger house? I don't like this house anymore. "

"I hate it when you scold me about my homework."

"I hate my dinner. Why do I have to eat porridge. Why can't we have yummy fried food all the time?"

They were tired so that meant they were clumsy and uncoordinated. Each one took turns to fall in some way or other and burst into loud wails and sobs.

Irritation didn't begin to describe how I felt. I vacillated between wanting to run away and cane them till they really had something to howl about. It took all my effort not to haul them all into the car and drop them off at the nearest orphanage.

It was downright exhausting; so much so that I called an afternoon time-out today, came home while they were at gym, shut the door, darkened the room and just napped into oblivion. 

On days like that, why people are hesitant to have three kids is self-explanatory.

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It's a wrap, for now.

I have never looked forward to weekends and term breaks as much as I have been in the last ten weeks. And this includes all the years that I was a teacher. I suspect it has to do with the fact that my day begins at 5.30 and often doesn't end till midnight.

So, today I let out a not so metaphorical whoop. No school for the next 9 days and a sleeping holiday to look forward to.

The twins are on a similar high.

Jordan's high began on Tuesday because it was her Sports' Day. She prayed very very hard all the way up to that morning that she would get a medal. And I am awed that once again, God answered the little child's prayers, however small and inconsequential it was. She did indeed win a medal, a gold medal no less and it has buoyed her so much.

Jordan has had a really hard first term and we are hoping that with this little victory, it will go a long way in helping her adjust to the school.

Evan's had a much easier first time and for that I've been very thankful for. The amount of stress and anxiety from having to help Jordan adjust, I am thankful we haven't had to worry so much about him. Perhaps it's a boy's school mentality but he has declared it's like kindergarten.

His most memorable times this term have been that Mommy was in his class to teach a class and having a walk around the neighbourhood where he proudly pointed out his school's old premises as Papa's school and the condo across the road as Papa's house!

His academic geek moment was to announce this week that for all his spelling in both Chinese and English, he hasn't had to do corrections. I love that he doesn't understand the concept of "100 upon 100" (shudder! This is one of those phrases that outside of Singapore, no one would have a clue what we are talking about) and to him, it's all about not needing to do any extra work.

This was his fifth full mark practice at his Chinese 听写 .

Anyway, I think that to their credit, they've grown up and gotten used to Primary 1 as much as we could have expected them to in 1 term. Their successes, haven't been just about getting 10 over 10 in spelling or the gold medal but the fact that they are able to buy food on their own (especially Evan because he has to have lunch in school twice a week), get used to the tedium of primary school lessons and navigate the politics of being amongst 30 odd other children.

So for the next week, it will be about playing, bickering and television. Yes, the no TV ban has been lifted temporarily.

It's a wrap. School shoes have been washed and hung out to sun and dry!

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Surprising Us

The twins have such a busy week in school that we generally try not to do very much on the weekend. It's time for them to wind down, chill and do what they want. It is also the much awaited TV time though thankfully, they do choose to do other things apart from sitting in front of the TV. And with this free time, they roam the house and discover things that they get into and occasionally, it is so out of left field, it surprises us.

Jordan
We found Jordan stretched out on our bed reading to herself with a note pad beside her. The words that she could not read, meaning she could not pronounce went on the list.  So words like Maurice (from Beauty and the Beast) and candelabra appeared on the list. It's one step away from reading with a dictionary which I think we all did at one point or the other. But unlike me, she's doing it without any sort of prompting.

Evan
One of Evan's favourite foods is spaghetti. In fact, anything with meat sauce and carbs. So, spaghetti, shepherd's pie or hash browns with meat sauce and cheese to top it off. Because he asks for it so often and frankly, everyone is tired of cooking it for him, Packrat asked half jokingly if he wanted to learn how to cook it, himself. Surprisingly, he said yes. He gave up precious TV time (while it was on instead of it misbehaving or something) to learn from his dad. And now, he knows the order in which the ingredients go in. He just needs to do it again to get used to the heat over the stove.

Muffin
For some strange reason, Muffin loves the music from Les Miserables. We thought it was because he was bored in his grandparents' car (that was where the CDs were) that caused him to hum along to the songs. But when Packrat put on the 10th anniversary concert, he was riveted and refused to have the channel changed, despite repeated pleas from his bored siblings.

Thanks to these little discoveries that kept them busy, I managed to take a glorious two hour nap, only waking up to the credits of Star Wars blaring and Jordan blaring on top of it that she did.not.want.to.watch.Star.Wars. That was the end of (what is in my book) the long peace. But it was good while it lasted.

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Undoing the damage

We have been back for almost two weeks. It feels like an entire life time ago that we were in the US. JED still talk about the holiday. It's the basis of their in jokes that no one else understands. We're finally over jet lag and we've had to start facing the reality of

a. Unpacking 9 pieces of luggage and facing Christmas at the same time and finding space for two sets of Primary One books; and that is paralyzingly overwhelming.

b. Buying uniforms, school shoes, bags and other school paraphenalia during Christmas week.

c. A spelling list of over 100 words. Even though they are simple words that the twins know, we still have to go through them to make sure they haven't fallen out of their heads.

d. The fact that they actually have a second language. A month of only speaking a smattering of Chinese has made their Chinese word recognition take several steps back.

But more dire is the need for us to undo a lot of their habits that they have inadvertently picked up over the last 5 weeks.

1. Stop eating junk food.

JED's grandparents like many others live to indulge their grand children and one way they do so is to ply them with junk food. They have eaten more ice cream, chocolate, french fries and burgers this last month than they have in their entire life time. Now that we're back, Evan continues to ask for ice cream after lunch and dinner. They ask for french fries at random times of day and ask for burgers when we eat out. I continually explain that it is different at home. We have access to other foods and the burgers here are crap; the burgers we fed them in the US were had fresh lettuce and tomatoes spilling out of them and we were constantly giving them burgers from In and Out and other joints that promised fresh rather than frozen crap.

2. Jumping into the water at all times of day.

Having spent 2 1/2 weeks  in the ocean or in the pool for 3 to 4 hours a stretch, being in the water became part of the every day routine. And this need to be in the water hasn't gone away. In fact, it has been the reason for many tantrums and tears. The weather now is blessedly windy and cold. This means that swimming is often not an option for them, from a mom's point of view. Of course, they don't get that and think that I am depriving them of pool time out of malice or ill intent. So it's been a battle every day when the first request the twins have once they wake up is to go to the pool or the beach.

3. Watching TV

The rule in our house is that TV is something that only exists for them on the weekend. On vacation however, they had free access to the TV. We needed it to be like that because we had to cook, wash their swim gear or basically just get a break from their incessant noise. Muffin, especially, thinks that he can still sit in front of the TV all day and not move, speak or blink. The twins are a little bit easier to convince and it is tempting to go back to that because they get pesky but as long as it is just Packrat and I, we try to hold out.

4. Sleeping early.

Traditionally, bed time is 7.30. On vacation, because they ate with us and we had to clear up and wash up after, bed time got pushed to 9 pm. That also meant, they didn't wake up at the crack of dawn. This continued back in Singapore because of Christmas and all the merriment. But with school 3 days away, we need for the older two to wake at dawn. So, we have already warned them that they were going to have a quiet New Year's Eve!

The adjusting and unpacking after the vacation makes me exhausted and I have declared over and over again, in the last 2 weeks since coming back that I need a vacation to really recover. I really has been an overdose of domestic parenting and part of me cannot wait for them to go back to school and for me to go back to work.

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Jet lag

We are back after a 14 hour flight to Seoul and almost missing our 6 hour connection back to Singapore. Airlines should not think that 45 minutes to get off the plane, clear security and board another plane is possible. It wasn't as Amazing Race crazy though because we had agreed before hand that it wouldn't have been the worst thing if we missed our flight and stayed a night in Seoul. My only condition was that we did not sleep on the airport floor regardless of how pretty Incheon Airport was.

Anyway, they held the flight for us as ground staff whisked us through security much to the anger of many others standing in line. My guess was that it cost less to hold the flight 10 minutes than to put up 6 people, who missed the flight, in a hotel.

So we are back.

And I have to face the much hated jet lag.

I have always hated the jet lag that comes with flying from the US. Mine manifests as morning sickness- nausea, dizziness and depression apparently brought about by the lack of sleep.

This morning, I had another revelation. That if my own jet lag felt like morning sickness, jet lag with JED naturally and truly does feel like having infants up at all times of night.

JED lost consciousness about 7pm and we thought that it was close enough to their usual bed time that they would sleep right through the night. Unfortunately, like when they were infants and we foolishly thought that going down for the night meant staying down for the night, it was wishful thinking.

By 2 am, the two boys had big big eyes and were awake and wanting to play, Muffin wanted to play with the shadows in the room and Evan wanted to go downstairs and watch tv. Even though the first thing I did was douse them with sleep inducing antihistamines, it took two hours for them to fall back to sleep. Muffin, like an infant, demanded two feeds of milk to make up for falling asleep on his dinner.

Jordan, who had slept through her brothers' shennanigans, woke an hour after her brothers fell back to sleep. She decided at 5 in the morning to be sensitive to my calling her "Baby girl" and burst into tears, once again, a throw back to her infant days. She did however calm down when I told her that I called her that out of love and affection. She declared then that she had "changed her mind" and was okay being called baby girl. If I wasn't so tired, I would have rolled my eyes. By that time, there was light in the sky and the familiar sour taste of bile in my mouth with a stomach churning.

The only difference is that with non-infant JED, both Packrat and I could coerce them, threaten them and show that our being annoyed at being woken at ungodly hours was an understatement. With an infant or two, there was no reasoning let alone yelling at them. Even as I write that, I am reminded of those brochures at the polyclinic blatantly imploring new parents to "NOT SHAKE YOUR BABY!".

Going, going, gone.

Unfortunately, jet lag features differently on holiday and back home. In reality, it means being muddled headed, getting JED ready for the day and cleaning them up before starting the day proper. Jet lag on holiday meant watching sun rises and allowing them to loll around in pjs while we tried to doze on the couch. There was none of that this morning.

One can only hope that tonight is better. And I remember the mantra of sleepless nights.

This too, shall pass. 

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Sleep

Travelling half way round the world means that the body clock gets very screwed up. Because we are older, we are better able to cope with it but for JED, it has truly gone amok. Thankfully the both flights we were on flew off at night. We insisted that they slept.

This meant that
a.  we insisted they slept at home before we left for the airport.

b.. they were not allowed to be on any electronic devices.

c. we gave them cough mixture. Coincidentally, they all flew with coughs and the GP insisted they have cough mixtures. Happily we acceded.

d. they skipped all their meals and we let them.

e. us parents got a little bit of sleep although my grouse was who uses 747s anymore to fly long haul. Canned sardines had more space than we did.

Unfortunately, the sleeping through the flight wasn't enough for them. Muffin refused to wake up and had to be carried off the plane. The minute we got into the car to go to the hotel, the twins fell back to sleep.

At 7 pm Hawaiian time last night, JED were asleep though Evan woke at midnight, wide eyed and demanding to go to the beach in the middle of the night.  He complained that his body clock was still on Singapore time so he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon. So, for And even though Jordan slept through the night peacefully, she woke up feeling green, massively miserable and nauseous. She is still sleeping (at 1230 pm) although now, she has migrated onto the couch.

Jet lag is really running amok with that one. I don't look forward to the jet lag homeward bound. But I won't have to think about that for a while more.

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Sharing the bed

I am a self-indulgent mother. I like time to myself. I like time to get my nails done or sit at cafe with a book and just read. But sometimes, there really isn't much time for these pockets of indulgence; what with our helper hospitalised and the general circus that is the house.

In the absence of Me-time, there is one thing that I look forward to every night. That is to sink into my bed, enjoy my very expensive mattress and luxuriate in it till I lose consciousness.

I love it so much that there have been nights where I have had to choose between air-conditioning in JED's room (their room is smaller and therefore cooler) and having the bed all to myself, I have chosen the latter even if it means that I sleep without air-conditioning.

That usually means not sleeping with Packrat. While I love to sleep beside him, I don't love fighting for space on the bed with JED.

Unfortunately, not moving into their room never guarantees that I get the bed all to myself all night long. By the early hours of the morning, there is at least one child on the bed with me, usually Muffin and by 6 am, Evan would have joined us and on occasion, because she wakes up alone in her big bed, Jordan traipses over too. That's when I get evicted because there is no space on the bed.

Mums with older children say I will miss them when they stop migrating over. But right now, I want to roll around my own bed, have my covers and pillows all to myself without having to worry that I would flatten or kick a kid in the face (as they have often done to me).

Simple dreams. Simple dreams.

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Choosing my battles

I took a nap this afternoon. Fighting a sinus infection meant I was woozy and in no condition to play with JED.When I woke up and was conscious enough to go out and look for them, I discovered that tired little Muffin had fallen asleep. I felt bad because I hadn't caught up with him the entire day and I wasn't going to be able to do so till tomorrow morning.

It drove home the point that for me, as a mom, sleep was important. It was one reason why I stopped teaching at school. I couldn't teach and parent on 4 hours of sleep a night. I don't get very much more sleep now but I don't have to be coherent on my feet for long stretches of the day and that goes a long way in helping me. It might sound selfish but I am much less cranky, much more willing to do fun things with JED and much more tolerant of their rubbish and shenanigans.

Tangentially, there have been many in the family who have suggested that I night train Muffin. That way, I wouldn't need to waste money on diapers and that money could go towards something else. While austerity is a big deal to me, this was one thing I was reluctant to do. Night training Muffin meant that I would have to get up to bring him to the bathroom. I remember when we were intensively night training the twins, Packrat and I would take turns to get up and haul them to the bathroom. By morning, both of us looked as if we were battling a newborn again. And truthfully and others may disagree and judge me for saying this but all that night training wasn't really worth it. Till now, the twins still go through the night with more than occasional accidents and that actually means we have a lot more laundry to do in the mornings. The amount of Febreeze we use on their bed and the number of times their sheets get washed, I am certain, comes up to the same amount as their diapers cost.

And the truth of the matter is that the diapers that Muffin is using aren't exactly the most expensive on the market. He uses Drypers and it is a somewhat recent discovery. When the twins were little, Packrat refused to go anywhere near Drypers. Then, they had plastic tape, that when we removed sounded like poor quality scotch tape; that also meant that they didn't re-stick well . So we stayed well away till I saw a sample of their new ones with the flex tape that works like velcro. On top of that, the prints were adorable. Acorns (Muffin started off on the L size) and elephants (The L size he is on now), what's not to like?

Now it was easier to convince Packrat to switch to Drypers since they were reasonably priced and  often sold on offer as a two pack. That two pack, because we only use one a night, lasts a long time. And the ditzy me also loves the fact that there are elephants on his bum. Hang on, I've said that already.

                                    

Because he is much older and he only uses the one diaper a night, I don't worry so much about diaper rash. But I have realised that when Muffin strips off his own diaper in the morning (he doesn't like the feel of it on) and I sleepily grope his bum (Ok, I'm his mom and I'm allowed to!) to check if his diaper is full, I've been met more than once with an exceptionally dry bum. 

So why would I want to go through the trouble of night training him right now? I will freely admit that when the nice people at Drypers sent me a couple of packets to test drive on him, I was most thrilled that I had more reason to hold off the night training that I'm constantly nagged about. 

I think he will go through the night dry when he is ready for it and I'm not going to push it to just save money. The only reason I would love for him to go diaper-less is more about the carbon footprint than the cost to my pocket. And if he isn't ready, all that washing and laundering will similarly contribute to the already large carbon footprint.  I am also quite sure that my coping mechanisms to deal with the sleep deprivation will similarly balloon the carbon footprint. Once again, first world problems. I would love to buy diaper credits if such a thing still existed (It did a while ago but I can't find seem to find the site anymore). 

So apart from that, I make little apology for choosing sleep, sanity and diapers over deprivation, insanity and wet beds. That way, I wake up in the mornings a little cheerier and much more willing to plan adventures with them. 

Disclaimer:  Muffin's diapers were a gift from Drypers and neither he nor I got any monetary compensation for it. Apparently, if you go to the Drypers Singapore Facebook Page and ask nicely, they might give you a couple of samples too.


Technorati Tags: JED, night training, Drypers

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Dear Papa Series: A foot in the hand is worth two in the mouth

Dear Packrat,
I am writing this in bed with Muffin wrapped round my trunk rather tightly. Every time I attempt to pry his arms and legs off me, he whimpers, kicks a bit and tightens his grip on me ever so tightly. So I decided that since I haven't had enough bed time any way, I will write this while lying on your side of the bed. The little one has since you left, claimed my side of the bed. We're in for trouble when you get back.

Anyway, he misses you. The larger part of the human sandwich that forms his sleep cocoon is missing. He speaks more now and articulates very clearly first thing every morning "Where Papa?" with a correspondingly quizzical look. For most part of the day, he behaves as he usually does. But come bedtime, after his nightly shenanigans and as he begins to wind down, he grabs my hand and burrows his foot into it. If not that, while tossing and turning, he grabs hold of your favourite-stolen from SIA-blue pillow, buries his face into it and takes a long whiff, eventually settles on my flabby, water mattress like belly to fall asleep.

This has been the case every single night since you have left. I wonder how long it will keep up for. When I told my mom, she said something that had me in stitches for a good ten minutes and I still chuckle when I think about it. Here it is for posterity. And Muffin, we WILL tell this story on your wedding day.

Me: Muffin is such a koala bear. He will only sleep when I am there.
Muffin's Mama: He really is the baby of the family.
Me: Yup! And he's even taken to having me grab his foot in my hand. Only then will he fall asleep.
Muffin's Mama: Well, we all will then know why it is that he will need his wife to hold his foot before he falls asleep!

 I look forward to warning his future wife about his strange yet endearing sleep habits. That said, I'm not entirely certain how endearing it would be to hold his future, stinky foot.

You are most welcome to take over foot holding duties when you get back. But you gotta lie in the middle this time because not only do you gotta hold his foot, you gotta hold my hand as I go to sleep too!

Much is expected of you, upon your return!

 Technorati Tags: toddler, sleep patterns, dads

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