Updated!! Fill in the blank (A Book Review and a Giveaway around the world!)

When it comes to JED, I sometimes like books with no or few words. I like the book Tuesday with 12 words in it and I really liked this book that Fish Book Co Ltd sent out to JED. It's essentially a picture book of emotions as narrated by a fish, who is talking about emotions that little children encounter. JED obviously descended onto it like a pack of wolves and in between snapping photos, I got them to point out which fish they like best and I...

Read More

Organised vs free play

When I wrote the I cannot be a mom if... post, things were getting nuts.  Now things are crazy nuts. Jordan whines that I haven't gotten home in time to get her to bed in a while. Never mind that I'm with her in the mornings. Whatever it is, she complains that I'm not there. Muffin plaintively whines that I need to play with him and Evan keeps bugging me about helping him to somersauts on the bar at the exercise yard at the base of our block. I...

Read More

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...

Read More

A Proud Moment

I often use the fact that I am a teacher as a soapbox. I tell students, that while their A's and academic achievements are good things, they aren't what I count as my greatest successes. I tell them that the reality of the situation is that the world is bigger than they are and that in the face of all these problems, it is easy to just go living the way they do and pretending not to see the reality. I tell them that what they try to do to change...

Read More

I cannot be a mom if...

Occasionally, my schedule doesn't allow me to be at home all the time and sometimes requiring me to fly out of the house just as JED come home. At times like that, I  have to live on stolen moments with them. For the most part, I see them to the point that I want to dump them, take a book, head over to Starbucks and sit there, uninterrupted for an hour.  But when it's crunch time, it's a totally different story. And I realised that...

Read More

Small Mommy

If you ask Muffin who his Mommy is, he will tell him that he has 2 mommies. "Big Mommy" which is me and "Small Mommy" which is Jordan. There was a period of time where he would go round the house hollering for Mommy and when I replied, he would chide "Not you, Mommy. Small Mommy. You, Big Mommy." Humph. But I am thankful. She picks up the slack for me. And gives me quite a breather at times. She succeeds in feeding him when we fail to and she...

Read More

The Beginning of the End

I am a sentimentalist and the twins are nearing the end of their pre-school years. They are going to leave the kindergarten that has become so dear to us and I can say without a doubt, it was really worth the wait. Today was the twins' Open House. Their last one. I saw through the years, their projects becoming more and more complicated, demanding more creativity and thought out of them. Their projects never sound like much when we get the title...

Read More

JED M.D

One of my deepest guilty pleasure is to watch Grey's Anatomy. It is usually my Saturday night tv. I am saddest between the months May and September because the season ends, the actors go on hiatus and we wait with bated breath to find out if the series is renewed for another year. So, it didn't surprise Packrat when I told him that I signed up the twins (Muffin is still too tiny) to be  Doctors For a Day at the new Mount Elizabeth at Novena....

Read More

Home is where the family is

The coming of the long weekend had JED asking us what we were going to do. We didn't have any plans to go away so we asked them  what they wanted to do. This was their list. 1. Have their cousin B sleepover. 2. Go swimming at Grandpa and Grandma's club (their club's pool has got slides and water features) 3. Visit and hang out with Uncle B 4. Sleep in our room. We're half way through the long weekend and this is what we've done. 1. We went...

Read More

NDP Roof Top Party

We like traditions. We like to do the same thing every year. And JED know it now. They know that one of the things we do is that when National Day rolls by, we go to Packrat's school to watch the fire works. Every year, the student government at his school organises a roof top party, the music and theatre students set up a band and provide music and entertainment. The atmosphere is buzzing with energy, laughter and much excitement. We go every...

Read More