Playing it Safe

Yesterday, we were at a school function with the children. We let the 3 kids run amok because it was an open air area but at the same time, it was enclosed. It was on a roof top garden. The 3 of them had a whale of a time, making friends with Packrat's students and being greatly entertained and indulged in a manner that we, the parents do not.

The issue came later when I was told that I should have kept a closer watch on them, especially Jordan because she was a girl and things can happen to little girls. I understood the concern but have not stopped wondering whether the people who told me that were being too paranoid or I was being too relaxed with her safety.

If it was an open area, filled with strangers we didn't know, obviously we would have not allowed them to run off the way they did. Because these were students, most of them knew Packrat and there was really no place they could disappear to, we set them free. But of course, it takes just one freak incident for any situation to not be safe anymore.

And that is the problem. And that makes it hard for me to figure out how safe is safe and how safe is paranoid? One of the big things on my list to teach them is independence and to be streetwise. I really have no desire to bubble wrap them and to police their every move.
























On top of that, there is Muffin. My little fearless tornado that gets into all sorts of scraps. Just last week, he whirled himself into the lift and before anyone could hop in with him, the door closed sending him on a vertical tour of our block! Thankfully, he stayed put and didn't go a wandering. All he did was bawl his eyes out while he waited to be rescued, which he was, on the sixth floor by a couple who recognised him and brought him to the ground floor where we were waiting.


Of course, there was great temptation to point fingers and assign blame. Especially when I imagined all the horror scenarios that could have befallen him. But I think the incident made me also realise that much as I want to protect my children, it takes a split second for circumstances to move against us. And I can't be hyper-vigilant and watch all 3 twenty four hours a day, every day.

I suspect all I can really do is to hope teach my children to look out for themselves, trust those that help me care for them when I am not around and pray really really hard that their angels continue to deliver them from harm. More than that, I really don't know what I could do!

Technorati Tags: Children, safety

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Little piranha

My parents- in- law and Packrat both regale with fondness and glee how my brother-in-law used to go around biting people. They also regale with much glee how they eventually scared him into stopping by slamming down a pair of old, rusty pliers in front of him and threatening to do a psycho-dentist thing where they would yank out his offending enamel coated weapons one by one. That apparently stopped him in his tracks quite effectively.

I am contemplating the same thing for Muffin. Muffin is a biter. He goes around biting everyone willy-nilly. Sometimes for no reason, sometimes because he is majorly pissed off, sometimes because he wants to tell you he loves you. Whatever the reason, out come his little fangs and he sinks his teeth into whoever has either pissed him off by denying him something or as a sign of affection, like a puppy.

The problem is at 18 months, he has no concept of what rusty old pliers are and how yanking his teeth out one by one will hurt a lot. That makes the threat useless.

But we must put a stop to this biting behaviour. He doesn't have a snout we can smack when he does this. I did smack him on the thigh this morning when he sank his teeth into his sister, forming quite a perfect dental mould on her arm. He cried pitifully and lay there weepy and sobbing for five minutes.

But knowing the little piranha, it's not going to be long before he gnashes his teeth and sinks it into another poor unsuspecting sibling slash parent slash caregiver. He's very inclusive that way. He doesn't discriminate. He bites all, everyone, all the same.

Technorati Tags: siblings, biting

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Own Time Own Target

Before I got pregnant with the twins, I read a book by Naomi Wolf called Misconceptions. It's Naomi Wolf using her unplanned and somewhat traumatic C-section as a springboard to talk about how the maternity system in the US is highly interventionist and possibly takes away power from the mom. That set the stage for what I wanted and didn't want from a birth when I had kids. With the twins, I was sorely disappointed that I couldn't have the natural birth that I wanted. But the safety of the twins came first. But the minute the babies were out of me and I was lucid enough, I was able to articulate very clearly in my head that my next birth was going to be natural.

When I was pregnant with Muffin, I fought very hard to get that natural birth. I contemplated changing doctors, I read up on VBACs (Vaginal Births After C-sections), I talked to people and I bugged my doctor no end. I resisted his suggestions of planning a C-section and I threw rocks at the sky when it was nearing T minus 0 and Muffin hadn't made an appearance. And until today, I am still supremely awed by Muffin's birth and it makes me glad that I stuck to my guns and that my doctor while pushy did not pressure me into making a decision I didn't want to make.

























The problem is I have come to realise that Muffin's birth story isn't very common. The above sight isn't the norm in Singapore. No epidural, not strapped to a machine (I opted for the wireless tracer), the ability to walk around the delivery room and if you spy in the corner, a MacDonald's Iced Lemon Tea that provided sustenance, relief and cold sweet distraction. Most doctors in Singapore are pro-intervention. They were obviously not schooled in the Packrat school of thought that believed that everything happens in good time (this was what he kept telling me while watching me hurl rocks in the sky and yell at God). And this makes me very angry.

I am hearing stories of doctors, I know not all are like that, but enough for me to be angry at a large section of obstetricians in Singapore, who 'force' their patients to abide by what they want. Packrat and I were very clear on how much risk we were going to take with the VBAC. As long as Muffin was okay and I was okay, we were sticking to that birth plan. But what of doctors who tell their patients, many of them first time moms that they should induce at 38 weeks because the baby is fully formed and there is a risk that the baby might at some point go into distress or have the cord wrapped around the neck? Never mind that there is no evidence of that. And what of doctors who induce their patients who have not even entered the early early stages of labour. No cervical dilation, no bloody show, no Braxton Hicks even? I was led to believe that those were signs that the body gave out to signal that the baby was ready. But when these signs are not there, why induce?

It really irks me. Of course, the same doctors provide caveats. "Oh, you don't have to if you don't want to." What lay person would take up the challenge of openly defying their obstetrician? Particularly if the patient was a first time mom? No mom would dare to take that risk. Shouldn't it then be the responsibility of the obstetrician to provide the best options for the patient and her child? How can it be right to scare and bully the patient into agreeing to an induction just so that it is convenient for doctor? I mean, what other reason is there when there is no imminent danger to the mother or the baby?

I feel so helpless when I hear about these things. Especially when I've seen how they don't work out and end up with a very unplanned, painful and drugged out C-section. And I feel so helpless that countless women think that this is their only option and they follow it blindly, be in more pain than necessary and be more traumatised than necessary. And who am I to tell them? I hold no clout. I am no obstetrician. I only have my own experience to go by.

This makes me sad. This makes me angry. But this reminds me that I can't do a damn thing about it no matter how much I believe it is not the way babies should be born.

And all I can do is pray or call the New Paper.



Technorati Tags: pregnancy, natural delivery, intervention free births

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Parting is such sweet sorrow

The twins are not in the same class at school. People always ask if they are. The common perception is that they should be because they will feel lost otherwise. I used to think that too. After all, they did spend most of their waking time together, even if it was fighting with one another. So, when they went to play school and pre-nursery, I asked that they were put together.

In the current kindergarten they are at, they are in separate classes. It is policy there. I was nervous about it at first and the twins were a bit lost as well. But they seem better for it. We have discovered that Jordan was used to depending on Evan. She would wait a split second before answering or she would just follow whatever he did. And in that way, being on her own has forced her to focus her attention on the teacher and to learn to follow instructions independently of her brother who is many classrooms away.

When I was in primary school, I had a set of twins in my class. I used to think it would be cool if they took turns to come to school. After all, they were identical twins and I could only tell them apart on PE days when they wore different house t-shirts. I thought of all the ways I could get away with half the amount of work and half the amount of time in school if I had a doppelganger of sorts.

But that was me as a kid. This morning, as a mother and an educator, I was reminded why I should never send the twins to the same school, let alone they be in the same class.

I had asked Jordan to write some numbers while I took a shower. Evan was off doing goodness knows what. When I got out of the shower, Evan comes up to me to show me Jordan's book. When questioned about what he was doing with his sister's book, his response was "Jordan did half, I did half! Good right?" True it was cooperative effort, but not in an area where it should be.
























We can tell very clearly whose half was whose. But two halves here don't amount to a whole. And then, my GP's (who has teenaged twins) ominous warnings about twins and the shenanigans they get up to, resound loudly in my mind and I know I am in for a lot of trouble in the not too distant future.

Incidentally, the squiggles and attempted star are Jordan's way of rewarding herself for numbers well written.


Technorati Tags: twins, learning

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The Colour Pink

Evan loves pink shoes. He doesn't like anything else pink. He doesn't have a pink shirt or any pink clothing but he loves wearing his sister's pink Crocs clogs. He would choose them over his blue ones or grey ones. And I have no objection to him wearing them out. He looks good in it and he's happy with it. I have even let him wear a different coloured shoe on each foot.

Anyway, Evan wears the pink Crocs on a school trip and returns home with his first lesson in gender stereotyping. We are about to go out again and I tell him to just put on the Crocs that he had worn earlier. He shakes his head and rummages in his shoe collection for a more 'presentable' pair all the while muttering that his friends had laughed at him and that boys couldn't wear pink.

When I asked him what happened and he repeated out loud what he'd said, I was extremely saddened because he had this injured look in his eyes and a resigned acceptance that it was undesirable behaviour. It wasn't like he had spat on someone. But the judgements of four-year-olds are harsh.


















Part of me felt that it should be left alone with no intervention on my part. Packrat and I did make a point to tell him that if he wanted to wear pink shoes, he was most welcomed too and should he get laughed at again, he should say that there was absolutely nothing wrong with wearing pink shoes. The other part of me, the more protective part of me wants to go to school, find out who said that to Evan and smack him silly or dress him in a pink tutu fairy dress.

I am in the midst of reading this article that talks about how kids learn resilience when they have to fight their own battles and when their parents don't make a big deal about it. Much as it pains me to see my son hurt by such accusations, I can only arm him to defend himself against rude little kids who only parrot what their parents say to them. The rest of it, is up to him to figure out.

But out of all this, I truly hope he doesn't stop wearing pink Crocs. Personally, I think it gives him a bit of spunk. But that's Mommy talking.


Technorati Tags: twins, gender stereotyping

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