Odyssey

There's been radio silence.

There's a reason for it. Every couple of years, we take the kids on what has become a traditional odyssey of sorts.

To date, our odysseys have been to the North American continent and this one was no different.

It was meant to herald the beginning of Muffin's primary school life. We did a similar one to Hawaii when the twins were entering primary school.

Our vacation this time was unabashedly non-educational. There was going to be no value in it in terms of exposing them to new lands, new cultures, geography or scenery. We went with one intention; to go on the Disney Cruise, which itself was just about indulgence and comfort. Add on to that, being in the theme park city of the world, we spent the rest of our time in theme parks, riding roller coasters and soaking in everything make believe and computer generated. In other words, we did not go to the United States, we went on a themepark holiday.

But JED had a great time as did we. And it wasn't true that they didn't learn anything. This trip was a first for them in many ways.

1. They had to look after themselves and they did so in a myriad of ways.
In Orlando, they slept in the upstairs bedroom while we were downstairs. They were in charge of getting themselves ready in the morning without any prompting. Many a morning, they appeared at my bedroom door all ready to head to the parks.

2. They had to look after each other.
On occasion, we would leave them alone to get groceries, get dinner and even do a spot of shopping. My paranoid imagination had them fighting and hurting each other or me coming home to a house on fire. But none of that played up. They watched TV, cleared the table at the designated time (as monitored by Evan), brought everything into the kitchen with no mess and nothing broken (supervised by Jordan) and then trooped up to wash up (closely watched by a hawk-like Muffin).

3. They looked after their own things.
For children who have a helper in the house, they can be awfully spoilt and messy. But on vacation and with my declaration that I wasn't going to pick up after them, after the nth time they were unable to find their toys or their pyjamas smelt funky because they left them in a pile together with a wet towel, almost everything got folded away or put away nicely. It wasn't perfect but it was good enough.

Granted, there was the non-Facebook- non Disneyfied version. That included
a) a bout of food poisoning which required a jab and quarantine
b) a hacking cough (that lasted all holiday and made it back 3 continents)
c) bad food (Poor Chinaman Muffin had nothing much to eat except for fries, hash browns, sausages and chicken tenders and even that got old quite quickly)
d) the occasional bad weather (either too hot or too cold)
e) too much walking causing exhausted, painful feet, whiny children too heavy to carry
g) bad airport queues causing us to almost miss on flights on multiple occasions
f) 13 hour long transatlantic flights with our girl child who was unable to sleep, kept throwing up and eventually only settled sleeping on the cabin floor at the back of the plane.

But even then, we miss it.

So, posterity, the a video that JED and Packrat worked very hard to make.



It'll be a holiday we all will be talking about for a long time to come.

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Elections 2016: Evan's Perspective

In the run up to today, we've talked a lot about the US Presidential Elections in our household. JED hear it over the radio on BBC and they talk about it at a child-like level in school. Of all 3, Evan is the most interested in it. Jordan thinks it funny because I rant about Trump.

A few nights ago, at bedtime prayers, we added in praying for the American people and that they would make a wise decision at the polls. They asked questions. Most of them fuelled by crazy hearsay nine year old style. Trump has a nuclear weapon, Trump is going to kill people and so on. We clarified their misconceptions. It was in a sense, their introduction into political science by way of Trump vs Clinton.

Today is a day that will go down in infamy. I exaggerate. But not by much.

Evan rang me at the office. His bus driver told him that Trump had won. He needed to confirm if it was true because his bus driver speaks Chinese and Evan wasn't sure if he understood him right.


His questions to me were rapid fire.
1. Is Donald Trump going to start a war?
2. If he does, is it going to be World War III?
3. Is Donald Trump Hitler?
4. If people say he is like Hitler, then why did other people choose him?
5. Was Hilary Clinton really so lousy?
6. How come Donald Trump won?

His questions were a mixture of thought and hear say but there was also some fear. I liked hearing his questions. Mindful of Packrat's warnings about giving them glib answers like "Donald Trump is an idiot" I tried to explain to him that hopefully, there would be no war because there's too much at stake (though his 9 yo mind didn't buy that). that no, Trump isn't Hitler (Hitler actually killed many people) and how there were problems in the USA that made it possible for Trump to actually happen. I tried to explain how democracy worked. But I could only do so much over the phone.

I'm not sure how much of it he understood but he did try to make sense of it. When he did, he rang off but not before reminding me to get a newspaper so that he could read more.

Well, if nothing else, I'll credit Trump for my son's political awakening.

But if left to me, I wish it were Bartlet for America.

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Weight of the World

Evan is a worry wart. He worries about everything. He is the 'glass is half empty' kind of boy. He worried when we travelled without him, that the plane would crash. He worried when I was sick because I might be more sick when he lets on. Recently, his worries have become more concrete and it's been keeping him up at night.

We've been trying to encourage the twins to read the newspaper or watch bits of the news on television. Over the Chinese New Year, while out at lunch, Evan caught Channel News Asia on TV in the restaurant. While he couldn't hear anything, he could read that there had been an earthquake in Christchurch and Taiwan. He also saw glimpses of a documentary about the Paris attacks and something about the Zika virus. On top of that, he had read somewhere about MERS and Ebola. He knows there isn't a cure and that they die a horrible death and it's contagious.

His questions to me over the new year were whether Ebola existed in Singapore and what happens if we got Ebola in Singapore? Has there been anyone in Singapore that got infected by Ebola. I try and convince him we won't because we are not in the African continent.

"But what if...?" is his response.

I try many tactics.

I try to just hold him and explain to him the situation with just facts. We've managed to keep ourselves Ebola free very effectively.He wants to know if there is a cure. I tell him they're working hard on a vaccine and are almost there. "But no cure/ vaccine right now, right?" Sigh.

I try to use humour. No, you won't get MERS because you need a camel to sneeze on you. That got him to laugh but unfortunately, he knows that monkeys carry Ebola and there are monkeys all over Singapore and he knows it.

I try to explain to him that worrying about things didn't really work and often they made things worse. What would help him sleep and what would actually make things better if he could try and come up with solutions. In the short term, ways to help himself not worry about it (i.e. think through the facts - use logic) and in the long term, ways he could help other children and people who might worry about the same thing (i.e. we told him how scientists and researchers from other countries were trying to figure out the cure for Ebola). After all, he has said that he wants to be scientist.

I teach him to pray for God to take away his worries so that he doesn't need to think about them. He tells me God hasn't heard his prayers. I tell him that perhaps God wants him to do something about it because God's ways of answering prayers doesn't necessarily mean praying and the problem disappears!

When all else fails, I lie beside him at night and let him hold my hand tight while he tosses and turns till eventually he gives in to his tiredness.

I tell myself that it's not a bad thing that he worries because that means he's introspective and thinks about things. But it's hard to watch him struggle with these worries because he's a not yet 9 year old boy who has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

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A giving sort of birthday

The twins' birthday aren't till the end of June but they like doing a thing with their friends. Unfortunately, the thing about having their birthdays during the holidays is that there isn't ever a time where all their friends are around. The solution: to do something before everyone goes off on vacation.

Term, however, ends a good month before their birthday and it does seem strange and artificial to me to celebrate that much earlier. Eventually, the consensus was to do a simple small early- birthday play date with their friends. Nothing elaborate; just pure, unadulterated fun. Not exactly a party.

At the same time, we've been talking to the twins about learning to not covet and how there will be no end to wanting mountains and mountains of toys. We've also been talking to them about helping and the responsibility to others. Helping others who have less. Helping others who need help. Add to that, we've gotten to the point, with JED, that birthdays and Christmas are met with dread because of having to sort out the presents that they get.

So, the eventual party was a swim date where each twin invited 8 friends with dinner at MacDonald's after. There were no goodie bags and no cake; we bought everyone a simple water canon to play with and they could take it home at the end of the day. They played till the water park closed.

And after talking it through with the twins, we decided that we would ask their friends not to bring presents but to bring a donation that would go to Nepal. The twins had heard about the earthquake in Nepal because for a time, that was all that was on the BBC, ad nauseum. To contextualise it, we had shown them pictures of the destruction and talked to them about what they thought the Nepali people needed.

It truly became more of an end of term bash with an occasional reference to the twins' birthday since there weren't balloons, banners and cake with only the small occasional present from parents who thought the twins might still want something tangible for themselves. The biggest thrill for them came when breaking open their home-made donation box and counting the money in it. While there was a great amount of exclamation about how much money they had counted (we raised an even $1000 from their friends!), not once did they ask for that money to be spent on them. Yesterday, we finally found the time to take them to the Red Cross to donate the money. They fought all the way there. Both wanted to hold the envelope. Both wanted to present the money for donation. Both were thrilled when they got the receipt for having donated $1000. 

In the recent week or so, we wished that we could have donated the money to the guide who lost his life trying to rescue victims in Sabah or the local teacher who also lost his life in Sabah as well. But because Nepal was what we had told the twins' friends and their parents, we honoured our commitment and donated it to Nepal. This was once again something we had to explain to the twins. Jordan had asked if the money could go to Sabah when she heard about the tragedy and the children who had lost their lives. We explained that while we wanted to, we had already promised that money to Nepal and we would donate to the Sabah victims separately. Evan's remark was an insightful and telling one- there are so many people in the world that really need money.

Yes, indeed.

If I had a birthday wish for the twins, it would be that we would be able to do this every year with them, now that they are a bit older and able to understand their obligations to the wider world out there.

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Words not to describe a 7 year old

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Dear People out there in the world,

We as parents of young children would like the opportunity to allow our children to stay as children for as long as possible.

This means that we don't really appreciate adult characters stylized in skanky clothes shaking their booties in cartoon programmes meant for children under 8.

It also means that we would like to ask the People in the fashion industry to please stop making mini versions of adult clothes for young kids. It won't be all that long before they are grown up enough to wear the adult versions.

And it really really means that if you are People who run courses for young kids like dance or modelling courses, please refrain from using the word 'SEXY' to describe how my child is supposed to move and make my child for terrible for failing to be 'sexy' enough in how she moves.

This was what happened when Jordan took part in a fashion show and modelling workshop for children under 10. We let her go because we thought it would be good fun and building some confidence along the way, which it did. But despite all the fun, her one take home had to do with the 'sexy' comment, unfortunately.

After all, she is only 7 and because we've raised all three children, not just our daughter, to understand that sexy is not something to be associated with children, she now feels very guilty for having followed the instructions of the trainer. We have instituted a rule in our household that the word sexy not be used to describe our children under any circumstance. And when the children talk about their own bodies or other people's bodies, it ought to be done with respect. The connotations of sexy have the idea of desirability mixed in with sex and a certain amount of sluttiness associated with it. All things that should not be part of a 7 year old's vernacular.

It doesn't matter if you need the child to strut down the run way and pose. There are tons of animal imagery that can be used to demonstrate to children how to strut (peacocks and apparently, even turkeys strut!) and pose (cats! Cats are good!) instead of invoking images that I hope to God these children have not been exposed to yet.

Children today already face such a gamut of challenges. We are already so worried about the pandemic of sexting that occurs with tweens that we don't need another source normalizing sex for younger and younger kids and putting pressure on them to be okay with it.

Miss Bour from Tulsa's "Think Before you Click" social media campaign

We like that our 7 year old daughter reads Star Wars comics, transforms Autobots with her brothers and engages in light sabre battles both imaginary and real with them. We like that she has tea with her stuffed animals and makes up stories about ponies and animals. We like that when she plays pretend make up, she ties a piece of cloth round her waist, uses talcum powder on her face and markers on her finger nails.

We love that she improvises and has the child like sense of wonder in her eyes.

What we did not love was that even when she went to bed a week after the workshop, it was still bugging her enough to keep her up; that she was so confused because what she was taught at home and was expected to do outside were in conflict with one another. We hated that she could not sleep because she was thinking about how she had failed at what the trainer told her to do but doing more was something she couldn't muster, making her feel inadequate. And what we totally and utterly hated was her distress trying to reconcile this criticism and expectation with that budding moral compass she had growing inside her and coming up confused and distressed. 

Many out there may say that we attended this out of our own volition and think us as prudes. Many may think that our way of child rearing is antiquated in this day and age but this is how we choose to do it. Many may also accuse us of being ridiculously puritanical in the way we bring up our children and they might grow up sexually repressed, Amish in the future. I hope not. I hope that when the time is right and when they are old enough and with the right people, they have wonderfully physically intimate relationships. But to us and right now, for the want of a better phrase, it's all about being age appropriate and there are some things that aren't. And for now, at 7, these are some of the things that aren't.

So, we're asking all those out there who deal with little kids in one way or other, please think of what message you are sending across when you say certain things to them. Some other parents may not mind or may laugh it off but not all parents will and not all kids will either.

Yours truly,

Parents from another age.

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Being picked on

One of my biggest fears as the twins entered Primary 1 was the presence of bullies in schools. I worried more about Evan than Jordan because he was going to a boys schools and boys would be boys, meaning that there would be thugs and bullies who would do stupid things.

Generally, I think his class is fine because they are all at the bottom of the food chain together. But over the last week, he's told us about a bully on the bus. It seems like the bus is the breeding ground for these little hooligans. The bus is like international air space. Not under the schools jurisdiction and not under the parents' either. It's no man's land, in transit and the bus driver cannot police a rowdy bus and drive at the same time.

This bully was unimaginatively annoying. While Evan was drinking from his bottle, he tipped the bottle so that Evan inhaled water into his nose and got it on the front of his shirt. Then took away his lunch bag and lay on Evan's lap. Another couple of boys played football with Evan's water bottle.

Evan didn't react in any way. We've told him to plainly ignore irritating or annoying behaviour and he's quite adept at doing that.

I didn't really expect to encounter such episodes for Jordan since she was in a girls' school. Unfortunately, girls can be bullies too. While their modus operandi may be different, their end point is the same; to harass and pick on some poor girl.

Jordan's being bullied but not physically like Evan; the girls pick on her (and from what we've heard, picked on others too) and ostracise her. They tell her they aren't inviting her to their parties. They make her feel left out and small. Then, there is the business of the boy in her art class that smacks her with a shoe and calls her a boy.

The incidences have raised our hackles, made all our claws come out and want their blood. Firstly what kind of parents raise kids to behave like that to other kids? Secondly, pick on kids your own size (For Evan at least). They made us dream up our fantasy revenge plans. And that is where our kids have actually taught us a couple of lessons here.

Evan has chosen to deal with the problem by telling the bully's younger brother. I asked him what good would that do. His response was that if he (Evan) told me what happens in school everyday, there was a good chance that the thug's younger brother would tell his parents stuff too and this would come up in the conversation (Evan's idea, my words here). He would also sit in the single seater so that boy could not sit next to him. It worked yesterday. We'll see how it goes today.

Jordan, while still very hurt by what her classmates have done, has elected to divide her class into friends and good friends. Friends are just people in class whom she says hi and bye to and are nice to but won't hang out with them for various reasons (i.e. they are mean or rude to her). Good friends are friends who help her, are kind to her and protect her; she does the same for them. We hope and pray that her good friends do not desert her and that she will realise that just having a few good friends around is more than enough. What surprised us was how she chose to deal with the boy from her art class. This was her recount. Verbatim.

Bully: You're a boy! Neh neh neh!
Jordan: Ssssh! The teacher is talking.
Bully: You're a boy! Pfffffht!
Jordan: SSSssssh! I'm going to tell the teacher if you don't stop it.
Bully: You're an ugly girl. Like a boy!
Jordan: Oh! Do you want a snack? I have snacks in my bag.
Bully: Huh? What snack?
Jordan: I have nice potato chips. You want?
Bully: Yes! I want.
Jordan (pretends to look in her bag): Oh sorry! The shop is closed! No more chips.
Bully: -stunned- 

So, in their own ways, they have dealt with the bullies in their lives. We don't know how effective it will be but for now, it is holding and they are calm and collected about it. If left up to us, this is what we would have loved to do.

Papa
March up to the boy and tell him "If Jordan is a boy, that must make you a girl." He also has the advantage being the boy's elder sister's teacher so he actually knows where the boy lives. Given a chance, he would probably hunt down the boy like a rabid dog and put him down, like one. He said he would do the same to the boy in Evan's bus and pour water down his clothes, laugh at him and announce to the bus full of boys that the boy peed on himself.

Mommy
Wait for Evan's bus to pull up, march up the bus and yell at the boy. Demand his name and his class and tell his teacher.

For the girls that left Jordan out, no birthday goodies for them when Jordan gives out her birthday goodies to the class. Then when they wonder why, I'll tell them without the politeness that my daughter has. I'll also tell them that Elsa is actually a really ugly man in disguise.

For the art class bully, I would stand outside the classroom and wait for him to come out. Then kneel down, look him in the eye with the Ng glare and whisper very softly to him that if he ever taunted Jordan again, I would take all his art supplies and make sure he wears home every single colour he has in his bag.

Their Uncle
Send Evan to MMA class so that the next kid who bullies him will get a big surprise and live to regret it. Use the bully himself as a bat and smack his parents with him (punishment for bringing up such a kid). I never got round to telling him about Jordan.

So, like I said, our kids' responses were more measured, reasonable and mature than what we would have liked to do.

In reality, we have praised them for how they have tried to deal with the problems and explained why some children are like that. We have told them to stick with those who are nice and stay away from those who are mean. We have also used the instances as lessons of why they ought to be nice to people and be inclusive. Both of us feel (having been bullied and ostracised at some point or other) that it is the only way we can teach our children empathy and humility.

But the bottom line is that I really hate that the kids have to go through all this and I wish they didn't have to. I would physically put myself between them and the bullies like I have done with Muffin (But then again Muffin is 4 and his aggressor was 4 too so that was easy) but I can't always be there and at some point, the bullies will be taller than I am, unless I wear my 5 inch heels. All the better to slowly drill little holes into their foot with. But that's not the point. It truly is one of those situations where the things are more easily said than done.

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An Apology Letter to My Husband

If you asked me for tips to 'survive' staying home with the kids, I would say I don't have anything new and practical to add to what's been already said. But the 'tip' that I do have, has to do more with helping the mind and heart survive the transition. And it's all about being aware of your own needs and being able to tell hubs about them, before they blow up in a bad way. I learnt that the hard way and here's how I learnt it, in a form of an apology letter, to my long-suffering husband.

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Dear Packrat,
I know this happened many years ago, but it is something that till today and I am still utterly mortified that I had said to you and I have never stopped being sorry about. It's one of those things that I wish I could take back.

The twins were just 18 months at that time and after working through most of their first year, I felt too guilty and torn to work any more. And you made it happen. You helped me work out our finances so that I could stop work and be with them. I was ecstatic and I didn't think anything else would matter.

And I hung out with the twins all day. I was happy to do that. I was at my most creative. I would make stuff with them and play with them. But then, that's all I did most of the time and at the end of the day, I had done nothing much else. On a good day, I might have read the paper. On a bad day, I would be in the same clothes I was in when I kissed you goodbye in the morning.

Slowly, I realised that it niggled at me on many levels. I had 2 college degrees. I had been offered a PhD scholarship. At work, I had been on my way to positions that would have given me a private office rather than a cubicle. On top of that, I loved my colleagues and we spent on time having working lunches and teas. It was where I felt that I belonged. But I had given up all that. The most productive thing I would do in a day would be to make play dough with my kids and embark on finger painting projects. I also realised that I had nothing much to say to you when you got home from work. All I could talk about was what I did with the children because for most part of the day, that's all I did. In a flailing attempt to make conversation with you, I would ask you to tell me about your day. Your replies were always vague because you said there was nothing much to tell me.  And then crickets...

I had always cherished that connection that we had. That our relationship had grown from chats that lasted the whole night. I couldn't fathom how we had gone from that to not having 2 things to say to each other at the end of the day. It weighed down on me and that slowly bloomed into full-scaled panic. I am not sure if you remember the night I am talking about but I do, like it was yesterday.

You were at your computer. I was saying something to you and you gave me a dismissive response which was pretty much an echo of the last two words of my sentence and something in me snapped.
Out of no where, I flung something across the room and announced somewhat angrily "NOW I KNOW WHY SOME PEOPLE HAVE AFFAIRS!" It was a surreal moment. It was a strange out of body experience where I heard and watched myself say that and went "You really need a filter between your brain and your mouth". I regretted it the minute I said it.

The hurt look in your eyes grew into wild anger; where you took the car and floored the car right out of the house without looking back. My fear was that you would get into an accident and it would have been because of what I had said.

I spent the better part of the 2 hours you were out pacing the room going "What have I done? What have I done?". I remember being so thankful that you came home even if you refused to come into our bedroom that night.

We went to talk to someone after that because I was appalled at myself for hurting you like that and I think you found it hard to forgive me for saying that. I think it took us months for us to fix and realise that staying at home was much more complicated than just making sure our bank balances could afford it.

I had needed you to know how inadequate and inconsequential I felt because I was home all day and I had no way of communicating with you on any intellectual level. I had felt my brains, literally dribbling out of my ears as I watched a puppet panda teach our toddler children Chinese for the 10th time in a day. I had felt taken for granted, that I would be home all the time and everything in the house would be in good running order; my natural state has always been one where I am out actively doing something. Staying home felt counter intuitive to that. I missed being out at work. I missed being able to hang out with my colleagues and friends. I miss having spare change to buy something nice for myself if I wanted to.

By the end of the day, it would always feel like I had made a huge mistake by choosing to stay home. I had forgotten the guilt and it had been replaced by something even more hideous; panic and doubt. I needed to know that I had made the right decision by doing that and I needed to know, not from the kids but other adults, especially you, that they were thriving because I was home. I needed to know from you, that my time had been well-spent because I was beginning to not be able to justify it to myself. I needed to also feel that I was still equal to you. In short, I needed to be affirmed for what I was doing. Because when I reached out to you and I couldn't find you, I lashed out.

It doesn't explain away what I said but I guess after all these years, what I went through those early days of leaving my career has crystallized. The fact that my social circle shrunk down to just you, my ability to do things to pamper myself (like get my nails done and heading out to get a massage)  hamstrung by sticky toddlers and my world becoming so small that I had nothing to say to you were things that I hadn't counted on and was unable to deal with. It scared me more than not having an income did.

If I could do those days again, I would have talked to you first, long and hard about how much insecurity I felt at leaving my job and how for the first few months; singing nursery rhymes all day and eating kiddy food wasn't enough to feed my soul. I would tell you that my life up till that point had not prepared me for the dive I was going to take, socially, professionally and as your partner.  I would also not assume, at all, that you had a clue that any of this was churning round in my head and actually come right out and say it. Using the perfect 20/20 hindsight, I would have been more honest with you, about all these conflicting emotions in my head. But then again, only if you promise not to discourage me and only make it easier. I know, I am being demanding here. But it's my 20/20 and I can pretty much make it up as I go along!



But after 5 years of being home somewhat, thank you for slowly realising that even though I wanted to this, I badly needed outlets to just be myself and my own person. Thank you for creating the opportunities for that to happen. Things are by no means perfect and I still feel taken for granted occasionally, especially on days when I spend all my time in the car driving one kid or other around and I don't hear from you the whole time.

But for the times that you do remember and for the times that you take time to help me, I am grateful that you have heard me and I love you for always trying to place my needs first. And for that crown jewel of a hissy fit and the subsequent ones that have followed, I am eternally sorry and please forgive me.

With all my love,
Ondine.

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This post is part of a blog train hosted by Gingerbreadmum where 31 stay-at-home mums share their survival tips. We hope that you'll find our tips useful and remember that you're not alone!

The next mum to blog is Ling Siew is mom to two adorable boys, Nathan (4.5 years old) and Noah (3 years old).  She blogs at 'The View from Mama's Desk' and she quit her full time job 2 years ago and is enjoying every moment as a SAHM. As much as she misses the corporate world, she can't imagine missing out on her boys' growing up years. She is thankful that she took the plunge to quit, and has no plans to return to full-time work in the near future.

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Glimpse into the future

I had a glimpse into the future recently. I didn't need Doc from Back To The Future and the Delorean for that. I just needed a day out with Jordan and her bestie.

School was out earlier for Jordan and her bestie than for Evan. So, I took the two girls out to celebrate the end of term. It was interesting watching them play and chat with one another. Their conversation never let up. They were very animated and involved with one another to the point that no one else existed, mom included. I was just there to keep an eye on them, hold on to their water bottles, escort them to the wash room and eventually take them home. For all intents and purposes, I could have been the helper or their bodyguards. 

There was no malice intended and it wasn't because they were being brattish or spoilt or anything. It was just a real sign of them growing up, disengaging from their mums and becoming their own little people. It was like weaning all over again, feeling slightly out of place and not needed.

Both the twins are slowly doing this, in their own way. Both of them are establishing their own identities and choosing to do things separate from each other. Jordan wants to stay with her cousin. Evan wants to stay with his grandma.

It makes me feel slightly sad because we are no longer the centre of their universe. Packrat assures me that they will always look to us but we have to face up to the fact that while the space we inhabit in their world does not shrink, their universes grow and begin including more people and more stuff.

Part of me feels proud of them, that they are stepping out from under our metaphorical skirts and becoming their own little people. But at the same time, we do seem to be on the inevitable road towards growing up and not needing Mommy and Papa as much.

I suppose this is when some parents decide it is time to have yet another child. But since that just delays the inevitable by a couple more years and prolongs the sleepless nights and further deepens the lines around the eyes, no thanks. I think I'll just accept the truth as is.

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Evan's first war

It's a strange thing to recall but my first conscious memory of a war was watching the news the night the Iran-Iraq war ended. Idly, I've caught myself wondering if JED would only know war in terms of Singapore and World War II.

Then I had this conversation in the car with Evan today.

I had put the radio onto music from the BBC when he got into the car. He fiddled around with the buttons.

He tells me he wanted to listen to the news channel and asked if there was war news on it. 

It was at the point of the day where we had just moved into the top of the hour and the BBC was rehashing the news items of the day which included the Russian troops in the Ukraine. So my answer is that yes, there is war news, between Ukraine and Russia.

Evan: I need to find out where Russia and Ukraine are.
And he proceeds to magic out a map/ flag book that has been lying around in the car and flips furiously, looking for the two countries.

It took a while to explain to him that even though the two countries were on different pages (Ukraine being part of Europe whilst Russia part of Central Asia) they were near each other. He eventually gets it.

The observations he made were that Ukraine was in big trouble because Russia was a big country. Russia being a big country meant that it was a powerful one.

This followed with a question about whether Ukraine and Russia were embroiled in an arms race (not in those exact words, but he did use the words arms race.) Evidently, he had been listening when I explained it to him one day. Disclaimer: I wasn't trying to do a pol-sci thing with him, more that he had a funny book that required my explaining a funny picture of a kid thinking that arms race meant a whole lot of human arms racing one another.

So at this point, I think he understands more about global affairs than some of my 17 year olds who think that Ukraine is me, in exasperation, comparing them to a long legged, long necked bird.

Of course, he wanted to know who were the good guys and who the bad guys were. I guess that the black and white version about the Russians being the bad guys and the Ukrainians being the poor thing good guys is kosher for a 6 year old's first encounter with war.

Then it occurred to me that I just had my first geo-political conversation with my son. I'm going to enjoy these car rides home with just him. Maybe when he's ten, I will pass him my Tom Clancys.

 

 

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Capturing freedom

As a child I hated being in front of a crowd.

I always feared being embarrassed. I was always self-conscious.  I don't think I dared to speak in public. My voice would tremble and crack. And not until I went to uni and had to do a VIVA, did I dare to speak in front of an audience. After that, I haven't been all that fazed. I ended up choosing a career that required me to stand in front of people and speak or teach. Call the VIVA the baptism of fire.

I cannot remember whether or not there was a time, as a child, that I didn't fear being embarrassed.

Slowly, the twins are becoming old enough to understand what embarrassment means. So that means they have become a little bit more self-conscious.

But generally, they are a lot less fearful of being in front of a crowd than both Packrat and I were; though more so Jordan and Muffin.

Evan is the closest template to us. The other two just belt out tunes, ham it up for all and sundry to watch.

Muffin has no qualms being in front of his class, talking about what ever strange item he chose to bring to school that day. Jordan loves performing and she has a mega-watt smile for the crowd. Evan, if he has rehearsed enough pulls off a pretty good show even if he tells me later that he was actually very very scared.

Thankfully for pre-schooler performers, the critics are not as demanding and harsh. We've all had one of those critics in our lives (occasionally our teachers), who have told us that it was wrong to colour the ocean green, mocked us when we tried to speak up or plain laughed at us because it was such a ludicrous thought, whatever we were suggeting.  Hopefully, whatever freedom they've felt just singing, waving their arms and speaking in front of a crowd, will be the beginning of courage to stand in front of others and be heard, as they grow older.

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A life without kids

There is an article floating around from Time Magazine about the Childfree Life. It's what makes up the worst nightmare of policy makers in developed countries like Singapore. But it also truthfully talks about how women who choose not to have children are judged and are often labelled as selfish.

It got me thinking about what life would be without JED. In the last decade, I've gone from not wanting kids, to wanting kids and realising that it wasn't going to happen to having twins and realising how full my hands were to having a third as a surprise and being exhausted ever since. That isn't to say that I haven't been happy and fulfilled. But there are days, when I'm particularly exhausted, frustrated and have my nerves ground raw by fighting with them (the most traumatic fights are not amongst JED but between myself and either of the JEDs), that I wonder what would life have been like if I had taken up Packrat all those years ago on just accepting our childless status. He had told a heartbroken sobbing me (we had been told by an unsympathetic heartless obgyn-that combination should never ever exist- that we would never have kids naturally) that if we didn't have kids, we would be able to travel to the ends of the world.

Now, 3 children later, I constantly dream about long vacations. But if I really thought about it and were truthful to myself, there are reasons why a childfree life does sometimes seem appealing

I wondered if I felt the same way and I polled some of my mommy friends. I asked them to be honest,  not tell me what they felt they were expected to say about motherhood being perfectly fulfilling and them not wanting nothing more.

There were 3 categories of answers.

There were the flippant and short-term answers.
1. I could sleep in more.
2. I wouldn't have aged so quickly.
3. I could wake up late on the weekends and go out for brunch.
4. I could take naps in the afternoon.
5. I wouldn't need to go to the spa just so that I could get uninterrupted sleep.
6. I wouldn't have a flabby tummy/ thighs/ hips.

And many other illustrations that revolved heavily around the need for sleep. That in itself is telling.

Then there were more serious ones.
1. I wouldn't worry so much. Children exponentially increased the number of things we worry about. They get sick. They sometimes have difficulties that require diagnosis and therapy. We have to see them through school which can be especially hair wrenching in a system like Singapore's.
2. I would have more money.
3. It wouldn't take a year of planning go on a vacation. We could do it at a drop of a hat.
4. We could go trekking in Timbucktoo or the Patagonias.
5. We could go to grad school without having to worry about logistics and support.
6. We wouldn't be so short fused and frustrated all the time.
7. We would be nicer to our spouses and more tolerant of their sometime clueless nature that we found a little bit more endearing pre-kids.
8. Our spouses, whom we married because we loved them and wanted to spend our lives with them wouldn't be relegated to second place and to varying degrees neglected. On this note, even my phone's autocorrect has placed the children before the spouse or in this case, affection towards the spouse.

But the ones that sometimes make me shut my eyes really tight and wish I could go back to pre-kid days are
1. Never being able to see any type of conflict beyond how much a child suffers in it. I declared stupidly, at the beginning of the Syrian conflict that I would stop following the news till they stopped reporting the death and suffering of the children. That was 2 years ago. My profession requires me to keep up with the news, especially the human interest side of things. And hearing about children dying from Sarin gas poisoning or being forced into slavery, prostitution, behead people and the likes makes me ache and cry as if they were my children. And they all become my children. Every time I hear something happen, I imagine how I would feel if that happened to JED.

2. I have never been able to look at stem cell or genetic research in the same way again. Previously, I could think about it extremely academically; a bunch of cells extracted and grown in the name of science. But knowing that the twins were these little 8 cell balls that were grown in a petri dish and put back into me made me think of every single one of those stem cell research projects as taking cells that grew to become what Jordan and Evan are today.

3. Sometimes, my imagination gets the better of me and in a situation where something could have gone an inch the wrong way and there could have been great tragedy that would involve JED, I am paralysed with imagined horror.

4. Nightmares that used to involve only myself and or Packrat (and those were bad enough) now have taken on a new level of terror when they involve JED and the sense of helplessness in my dream is a million-fold. 

At the end of the day, I now take every single injustice, pain and suffering inflicted on children personally and it's hard to carry a load like that in a world like ours.

So, since it causes us so much grief, would we ever trade it?

Most moms are unanimous with me on that one. No, they wouldn't trade it for the world. Their lives would be a lot easier yes, but the nights would be darker and the silence would kill them. 

True.

But being fully aware of my own occasional ambivalence makes it a lot harder for me to judge those, who by choice, decide that they do not want kids. It's another way to go. It's different. But who am I to judge them for that? In many ways, they have a point too.

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