The Running Man

 There's been a bug going round the house.

But it's the good sort of bug. It's a running bug.

Packrat runs a great deal. He runs to work out. He runs to clock steps. He runs to hatch Pokemon eggs.

And there is some truth about modeling behaviour because now JED want to run. Especially Evan.

He may not be as fit. But he makes up in terms of doggedness. So slowly but surely, he's running.

It's as good a time as any to pick up running. After all, the twins have to run 1.6 km for school as part of their physical fitness test.

So they've been going out at all hours. I came home once in the middle of the afternoon to a relatively quiet house. When asked, both Jordan and Muffin said that Papa and Kor Kor went out for a 'run/walk' even though it looked sweltering out.

Packrat makes it fun for Evan. He lets Evan hold his phone and walk his Pokemon eggs, lets him catch whatever Pokemon pop up. They talk about how to run more efficiently and Packrat sets him small goals that make running much less daunting i.e. Run till the next traffic light. Run 4 lamp posts down. Run to the next bus stop. And the next thing Evan knows, he's completed 2 km without looking his lungs actually exploding.

Occasionally, the other two and I join in and we sometimes run to the grandparents' for dinner. But it's been pretty much a father-son activity and I'm happy to keep it that way.

I might have been the runner in a previous life but I don't like it as much. Running used to be our thing. But because my back's not been great and truthfully, because I've become lazy, I don't run as much. I did, however, agree to run the Star Wars Run with Packrat last weekend. The problem was that I had plain forgotten that we were doing the 10 km one. This left me scrambling as if it were a last minute exam I had to cram for. Unfortunately, lungs and legs don't work in the same way. And few people I know can run a 10 at a drop of a hat.

I survived it after running every other day for the last two weeks but looked like crap after that. I think I wanted to vomit at some point. But that would have been embarrassing. Packrat, on the other hand, looked a whole lot more chipper than I did and he talked about bringing Evan next year for the shorter run.

I think he's found his new running partner. I'm okay with that. I think it's also for the best.

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To my Valentine

I first wrote this in my old blog (the one I kept pre-kids) in 2005, almost ten years ago. And for Valentine's Day this year, I thought I would dig it up, blow the dust off it and update it.

It was very very nice to know there wasn't much to update. So here it is, for Packrat, my best friend for the last 15 years.

---

You are the boy who spent your school fees on $10 worth of chicken wings thereupon getting a spanking from your mother.

You are the boy who grew up to play games every week with fellow boys.

You are the boy who got a Playstation 2 as an engagement present.

You are the boy who would eat like a boy if you lived alone, living on potato chips and Pepsi.

You are the boy who would like it very much if he didn't have to grow up.

But you are a boy who is also a guy.

You are that guy that she met at the pre-departure talk, who insulted her baby blue mobile phone in an attempt to get her phone number.

You are the guy that commented on how she stood like a dancer with her feet turned flat out.

You are that guy that apparently dedicated music to her over the radio and staked out the uni just hoping you would catch a glimpse of her.

You are the guy that got lucky when you bumped into her at the traffic just outside uni on the first day of school.

You are the guy that repeated her phone number all the way home just in case you forgot it and missed the chance again.

You are the guy that she out ate on your first date.

You are the guy that had to bear all the crap when she couldn't decide who she liked better, you or some other guy back home.

You are the guy that won her heart by buying her gummi bears and walking her home from ballet in the cold.

You are the guy that she impressed by eating through half a bucket of fried chicken and then sat back and asked what's for desert.

You are the guy that had to be taught what relationships were and in turn taught her how to work hard in a relationship.

You are the guy that put your thesis on the back burner while she wigged out about her own thesis through the year.

You are the guy who proposed to her on the plane back to Melbourne and made her dizzy.

You are the guy that wanted to wear Bata shoes to the wedding and refused to be put into ill-fitting Kenneth Coles.

You are the one who got up there during your wedding and sang to your bride.

You are the guy that endured the pillows hurled at you in her sleep.

You are the guy who would go out there and look for yak's milk from Yemen if she ever demanded it.

You are the guy that buys her flowers and burns her cds just to make her smile.

You are the guy who makes midnight runs for iced lemon tea and bandages when necessary.

You are the guy that believes, trusts and prays even when she has given up hope.

You are the guy of her dreams and her greatest fear is to live without you.

You are the guy who also became a dad.

But to your girl, you will always be that guy with the floppy hair and the tail of fringe that made her heart skip.

All growed up here.

Who are you? You are that guy and I am that girl.


 

 

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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 plays with him in the morning when I am begging for another 5 or 10 minutes of sleep.

Of late, she has become quite fluent in her reading and she practices on Muffin. She reads to him and makes him repeat words after her. On cooperative days, he does and he learns names of insects, Little Ponies, different types of sharks and whatever might have struck her fancy that day. 

Muffin allows himself to be taken care of by her. If I am not around and he is in need of comfort, he seeks her out. She gladly obliges and takes him into her arms, disregarding the fact that both of them are round about the same weight. 

Last night, she offered to read to him before he went to bed. He agreed and laid beside her as she read him Lars the Polar Bear, complete with making Lars swim and voices. Usually, he's like a koala bear on me during bed time and it makes it difficult for us to go out to dinner. But with Small Mommy reading to him, he was blissfully unaware that I had slipped out.

It's useful to have 2 mommies in the house, even if the other one is 6 years old and sometimes, not the most reliable. But her heart is in the right place and she does a pretty good job standing in for me.

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Saturday Morning Snapshot: Kidnapped to Phuket

Friday was our anniversary.

I got kidnapped on Friday.

Well, sort of.

I was told to pack a bag with 2 days worth of clothes and to meet Packrat at work.

When I did, he flagged a cab and told the cab driver to go to the airport. It was only when we checked in at the airport did I realise that we were off to Phuket.

 It was a part of Phuket we'd never been to before. We were on a cliff, overlooking a bay. It was a stunning view.

It was a great weekend, full of food, uninterrupted sleep and absolutely nothing to do (no wi-fi) except hang out with one another and enjoy the view.

This was our view, early Saturday morning.

If you squint hard enough into the distance, the aircraft carrier is there.

My biggest geek thrill? Spotting an American aircraft carrier and its fleet right outside our balcony.

Like I said, geek moment. We were much saddened when it turned around and left while we were at breakfast. And the geek in me wondered if it was en-route to Singapore for the Shangri-La Security Dialogue.

After ten years, Packrat just rolls his eyes at my -right out of left field- non-sequiturs.

Technorati Tags: JED, couple time, Phuket

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Time Warp

Once upon a time, Packrat and I used to go on mid-week dates to the movies. We left it up to chance because Golden Village used to do this thing where they held Surprise Movies- these movies were cheaper than regular tickets because we really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. We would spend the whole day IMDB-ing it and guessing what it was but we never knew for sure until the lights went down and the title of the movie flashed; thereupon a great cheer would swell from the viewers who guessed correctly.

One of the Surprise Movies we watched was Star Trek by JJ Abrams.

Yesterday, I found myself in a time warp.

I found myself watching Star Trek again, this time as a prequel to the new one Into the Darkness. This was the first movie marathon we'd done in a long time. We used to go for movie marathons, we used to organise movie dates with lots of friends. But we haven't gone to one  in recent times. It's hard to stay up for one movie, let alone a whole bunch of them.

But I felt pre-kids for an entire evening, although not without the expected guilt of not getting JED to bed.

There was free pop corn, a free soda and lots of fan boy cheering as Leonard Nimoy came on screen and the second and newly released movie started running. It was a big theatre, it was cold, dark and great for snuggling up.

The movies were great fun too. 

Unfortunately, there was also reality to step back through when we got home at 1 am and all 3 JED kids were up and Jordan was crying from a bad dream, Muffin was setting beside her stroking her head and Evan was so annoyed with her cries, he had sought refuge in our helper's room so that he couldn't hear her cries anymore. As I lay down with them still in my day's clothes at 1.30 am, I knew that it would be massive pay back in the morning. I was right. It didn't matter that they had only fallen back to sleep at 2.30 am and I went to bed at 3; they were up at 7 am despite us trying to fool them by pulling all the blinds down.

My only consolation is that they should crash quite early tonight. That and the memories of a great night that reminded me of how we used to be fun people before JED came along!

 Technorati Tags: JED, date nights

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Flights of fancy

Date nights have been harder and harder to come by. So, taking full advantage of the fact that we were already out for an 'no-kid' family dinner, we went to see Olympus Has Fallen. It was at my egging that we went to see it. I cannot pass up a White House movie. After all, the acronym of my 3 kids' names make up JED [the first name of President Josiah -Jed- (Muffin's REAL middle name) Bartlet from The West Wing] and my favourite re-read of a book is Tom Clancy's Executive Orders. So, off we went to a most definitely schlocky, massively hole-ridden plot line movie about terrorists taking the White House code name Olympus.

As we emerge and Packrat goes on ranting about the movie's multiple and massive plot holes I end up fantasising about what sort of code names we would get, were we to become first family.

For Packrat - Razer
For myself - Shera
For Jordan - High Tops
For Evan - Cheese Toast
For Muffin - Hurricane (most definitely)

Obviously there could be others but those were at the top of my head.
Of all 3, only Evan has political ambitions. He has announced that he would like to be President and live in the President's House. Jordan wants to be a mermaid and right now, Muffin's a lion.

He is half way there. From a young age, the both of them had the 'walk and talk' pretty down pat. Now, the only problem would be the fact that the future POTUS is wearing his Mommy's heels.

Hooking up with SANSES' Talkative Thursdays:

 

 

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Going Steah-dy

Easter is a very nostalgic time for me.

14 Easters ago, I went "steah-dy" for the very last time.

I didn't mean to but swept up in the finery of an undergraduate ball and having been secretly nominated to be King and Queen of the Ball, he kissed me, I giggled and laughed and smeared lipstick all over his mouth and his lapel. The rest they say is history. 

And to always remember the journey of our relationship from our first encounter to the proposal, we immortalized it on our wedding invitations.

One of the reasons I didn't get married at Easter was because my mother was convinced no church would marry us on one of the busiest weekends of the church calendar.

The other reason was because I badly wanted to get married on Easter, 4th of April and the next Easter on the 4th of April would be in 2021. Call me impatient but I didn't want to wait that long.
 

Hooking up with Regina's Princess to Queen series.

Technorati Tags: JED, couplehood

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Friday Night Freedom

With three children spaced 2 1/2 years apart, saying that parenting is challenging is an understatement. It's worse when it is coupled with a Super Type A A personality so I am often exhausted by JED's shenanigans and so wound up it doesn't benefit anyone. Often, I need some breathing space to regain my centre. As I once blogged about,  I am much less inclined to fob them off as much as I used to want to when they were little. The irony of the situation is that since I've stopped full time teaching and have availed myself to them when they are not in school, I feel it more difficult to tear myself away despite being a lot more exhausted and frustrated at times. Thankfully, I have a wise voice in my head.

That voice isn't mine. When it comes to JED, I am hardly rational (Now, I just sound like a neurotic mom!) Packrat remains the rational voice when it comes to parenting and he openly encourages me to let other people take JED off my hands once in a while.

So, we've got a little bit of tradition in place. Every Friday, JED go swimming. Some time along the way, the twins basically suckered their grandparents into letting them stay over after swimming. These are Packrat's parents whom the twins are super close to. Now while I feel that it is an imposition and I shouldn't allow them to stay over on a regular basis, I also know it is a good thing. Packrat reiterates that, reminding me also that this way, we kill many birds with one stone.

1. The twins get to spend time with their grandparents, which to both Packrat and I, is an important relationship they need to establish and cherish.
2. Muffin gets undivided attention from both Packrat and I. Something he has to fight for when his siblings are around.
3. I get to sleep a little bit more because I only get disturbed by one child through the night.
4. The twins learn to be independent from us and get used to sleeping away from home ( I remember a cousin who stayed over as a child and had my parents send her back in the middle of the night because she couldn't sleep).
5. The twins get a little bit of breathing space away from Mommy and her strict rules.
6. Packrat gets a wife who is a little bit more relaxed for the night. 

Like I say, it's a difficult thing for a mum to do; to let go. But it's good for everyone and all it takes from me is to let go and go easy a little bit. It's easier said than done but every Friday, I try and every Friday it gets easier, especially on Saturday mornings when we pick them up and the twins are excited, happier and more importantly none the worse for wear.

The message it sends out to them, according to Packrat when he tries to rationalise it with me, is that 1. Their grandparents are important.
2. They can survive quite well without Mommy and Papa.
3. They need to learn to fend for themselves without us aforementioned parents.
4. Their parents' relationship and marriage is as important as they are to their parents.

I am linking this to Simply Mommie's Tips for Mom Series because if anyone asked what was the biggest survival tip I could share, it would be this. What has helped me survive being a parent to twins and a fierce, younger Muffin is to find time to step away. I know that not all mums have that luxury but where ever and whenever there is some opportunity to let go, sometimes, there is wisdom in doing so.

Technorati Tags: twins, Tips for Moms

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Conversations by the Sea

Today we pack up and leave this divine spa getaway to go home to reality and go home to being parents to JED. We miss them muchly but these few days have been great. Among all the reading, eating and the massages, we've also managed to reconnect.

It's always hard to be a couple with 3 kids. We become 2 people parenting 3 kids and we become just their parents. We are thankful that even in Singapore, we sometimes get little time outs to be with one another but it really takes a plane ride and a great body of water in between for us and our responsibilities to really throw down the shackles of parenthood and just be us and talk like we used to when we were going out and just getting to know one another.

So when what did we end up talking about?

1. Our next big family holiday plans.
We don't go for very long with talking about other holiday plans. I suspect that's how we survive. Hanging on till we can next skedaddle out of town. But this time, instead of fanciful dreams, we could talk about the logistics, how much money we had to save for it, how we were going to save the money we needed for it since, note, I did say BIG family vacation.

2. Our responsibilities as parents.
We parent everyday. Sometimes we don't have time to think about what we are doing, let alone discuss it with our spouse. So we talked about what aspect of parenting stressed us out the most. I talked about how much I feared having to be in charge of their academic work. Packrat talked about how he worried about how he was going to impart the values we so believed in, to the children.

3. We talked about our kids.
It's hard not to talk about them. But we weren't talking about them in the "see what they did today" kind of way. But we sat and talked objectively about them. Their strengths, their weaknesses and how to help them grow their weaknesses into strengths. For instance, Jordan has an eye for beauty. Jordan is extremely athletic. But she doesn't like anything that is too difficult to do or too hard. She likes it to come easy. Our challenge with her is to convince her to that some things are worth working hard for so that she gets even better at what she is good at. And then, Evan who is bright, wise and sensitive but so sensitive to failure that it strips him of the confidence that should come with his ability to achieve. How do we, teach him that failure and disappointment are fleeting and the important thing to do is to pick himself up, dust his knees and go on? With Muffin, the cheekiest of the lot who loves to push boundaries, how do we teach him that certain boundaries cannot be crossed yet allow him to venture far and wide, because with that audacity comes greatness?

It felt a little bit like what we do as teachers where we assess our students objectively, based on what we see.

4. We talked about our futures.
We talked about what we wanted for ourselves and what we wanted for our families. We talked about what we wanted for each other. We even talked about what sort of parents-in-laws we would be, even though our kids are not yet even in primary school. Apparently, I need to internalise the eye roll and I have about 20 years to perfect that one. Since it took about 20 years to master, yes 20 years to internalise it sounds just about right.

Yes, much of what we talked about still revolves around the family and about us being parents. But the difference is that it became a safe environment to do so, it wasn't antagonistic, defensive and it wasn't about anyone winning or losing. It was just views, opinions and values up in the air.

We need more of this; to be able to do this more often. But with 3 pre-schoolers, we are thankful for what we can get and this time, especially after Packrat's long absence and whirlwind schedule upon return was God-sent! Enough for us to feel ready to face JED and all their shennanigans again!

 Technorati Tags: couple time, parenting

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In search for the perfect Banh Mi.

When JED are on vacation, it also means that Packrat is on vacation. And when Packrat is on vacation, he makes it a point to spirit us away without the kids. After the fiasco of the last vacation, I was more hesitant to travel and more laden with guilt. Mommy guilt is irrational. But he would not hear of it and here we are, in a divine resort in Danang, Vietnam.

It has been idyllic and one of our first vacations where we have done nothing but look for food (I put on 2 kgs in a day and a half! Who puts a weighing scale in the bathroom of a resort?!) and spa (spa treatments are included into the room rate and you can have as many as you can fit into the day).

To date and we have been here 3 days, we have had close to 15 bowls of pho between the both of us. Some better than others. The best being a hole in a wall in Hoi An where the waitress wore an iPho t-shirt and her eyes bugged when we order seconds.

But what has almost completely eluded us is the perfect Banh Mi; the Vietnamese baguette which is street food and supposedly ubiquitous. It hasn't been as ubiquitous as it sounds. When we do find it, it doesn't have the all important radish. Or when it did have the all important radish, the bread was stale. At breakfast, the baguettes were fresh but there wasn't anything else.

The best we found was in Hoi An, where apparently Anthony Bourdain ate. It was hefty, it had a good amount of pickled radish and carrot and the all important, unnameable meat. The problem was that by the time we found it, I had had 3 bowls of pho, some rice paper rolls and a plate of Com Ga (chicken rice) so Packrat had it and raved about it as I stood on the side and belched sulkily; knowing full well that if I took another bite of food, I would throw up all over.

                        

We shouldn't have to go so far out to find Banh Mi. Today, we will attempt Danang itself. All of them are sold out of carts and that makes me slightly nervous. Packrat's theory is, buy it back to the room so that if we need to be sick, we have clean toilets to be sick in!

And since it's Friday and I been wanting to link up DinoMama's Food Fridays.. here it is!

Technorati Tags: Couple Time,Fusion Maia, Danang, food

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