after dinner

Dee has progressively shed her clothes – shirt before dinner, diaper and shorts after dinner – and Day has followed suit, only he has a shred more modesty and he prefers to keep on his briefs.

They play catch screaming “Papoose! Papoose!” (they think the word is very funny).

Dee grabs her gas mask and cups it over her face, tubing trailing between her legs and coming up from behind like a long tail which Day happily grabs.

Somewhere along the way, they insist on going separate ways and amidst the pulling and screaming, the tubing dislodges from the mask.

Dee starts tearing after Day, screaming – not Papoose now – but “Blue underwear! Blue underwear!”



I, exhausted and feeling even more so at the prospect of having to try to bath them, am sitting in a mound of toys with a million parts which I insist on packing with military precision (I am anal that way) and which I intend to get the kids to help out with, but I temporarily have no energy to play Mother Commander.

I glance at KK who is carrying Lu.

We give each other little frown-smiles and left unspoken is our common thought: “What the hell is happening?” We are quite lost in the maelstrom.

* To be more precise, it’s Dee’s maelstrom. She is instigator, ring leader, hooligan. When I have the energy, I will document her Terrible Twos. It will take a thesis.

of boils and coughs

Medical updates.

DAY has been sprouting boils and pimples all over.

Poor, poor tyke.

He started with a boil right between his eyes in mid-April, then clusters of boils on his elbows and scattered on his collarbone.



They sort of get bigger and harder until it becomes a tiny hard red hill (very painful to the touch at this point), then it erupts in pus and blood. OK that sounds a lot more dramatic than it really is.

(Boils are skin abscesses, localized infections deep in the skin)

Now he’s got pus pimples on his wrists and elbows.



The rest of his skin (his entire arms, ankles, backs of his knees, his neck) just feels like sandpaper.

It doesn’t really bother him. We’re not sure why he is breaking out so badly. Could be bacteria. We should probably bring him to the paed.

DEE has had phlegm in her lungs for near on two months now, after not quite recovering after a visit to our family GP in early April.

It didn’t really bother her. I didn’t really bother either.

I’m the sort that, unless it looks REALLY bad, just let nature take its course.

Then she got a fever last week.

Brought her to the GP who gave her one bottle of fever cum cough mixture.

The fever went off.

But the cough got really bad – FOR US. She threw up. She suffered from sleepless nights the entire week – so did we. She got so bad (clingy) I wanted to abandon ship and run away from my entire thankless brood.

Saturday, we decided to make our precious weekend outing to the paed.

For $210, it bought us peace.

We zapped her with the nebulizer – last time I ever saw one was when Dee (again!) used it at three months old – and she instantly stopped hacking.



This time round, however, she mostly nebulizes herself and occasionally sings into the gas mask like it’s a microphone.



KK, in all seriousness, told me to give her a double dosage of the sleepy cough medicine before bedtime.

Anyway we got our nights back.

I am, however, still amazed at how proactive paeds are. Yes I am being sarcastic.

This time, my eyes grew very big when I was handed over a pack of 14 tiny sachets, was told that these were “lung strengtheners” and that they cost $50.



Lung strengtheners, I asked?

Ya, to strengthen her lungs, the receptionist very helpfully replied.

She continued: “You must sprinkle it in her morning breakfast. Porridge or yoghurt.”

“She doesn’t eat porridge or yoghurt.”

“What does she eat in the morning?”

“Erm. Egg. Biscuits. Bread and jam.”

“Cannot cannot. Does she drink milk?”

“Er, not formula milk. Milo can? Can I put it in her Milo?

“Yes. But just sprinkle on top. Don’t mix it into the Milo. And the Milo must not be too hot. Just warm at the most. And she must drink it within 15 minutes of opening the packet.”

WHAT IS THIS STUFF? Some live culture?

first time sahm

I nearly laughed out loud when I brought Dee to the paediatrician.

For there was a woman who completely reminded me of my earnest over-eager self when Day was my only wee one.

You know, the educated professional woman who falls in love with her first child, throws away everything else, tanks up on nothing but parenting tomes and diligently puts it all into practice.

First off, the moment I entered the clinic, I knew her as a first-time SAHM as she bustled around her child, communicating with him every step of the way, exhorting him to share the clinic toys with other children and stimulating him by asking lots of questions. The sort who makes you feel breathless just looking at her.

She, of course, was not well-dressed, manicured or primped. Wearing combat pants, a nursing top, hair in a ponytail, no makeup and a sarong sling (definitely no maid), she is proud that she can do it all on her own in this day and age when so few can. She is probably still breastfeeding her two-year-old.

The boy puts a baby doll into the pram. She kneels down so her face is level with him (she wants to relate, see) and asks earnestly: “How is the baby? What is baby doing? Where are you going?”

When he is just mucking around, she takes a toy, gently puts it under his nose and describes it with all the right emphases plus unbridled enthusiasm (it's SO good to learn!): “See! What’s this? It’s a MONKEY climbing UP a LADDER! Look it can go DOWN too!”

Boy gets into countless tussles with other patients. She intercepts every step of the way, every single tussle, and states repeatedly, firmly, while gently (never force) prying the toy away from him: “You must share your toys (never say what he mustn’t do, must always say what he must do. Be positive, not negative)

She is part of the kids, actively participating in the kiddy circus ring – where the toys are, while the other can’t-be-bothered parents sit on the sofa.

Kids that her boy plays with, she enthusiastically addresses their parents while sharing information: "Oh how old is your child? My boy, he interacts with adults a lot and I really need to send him to school so he can socialize with other children.”

She takes her job so seriously, doing all the right things so her boy can grow up - not necessarily very intelligent and successful – but as long as he is Happy and Secure and Enjoys Learning.

There. I think I just took a step back and stuck out my tongue at everything I've done before.

But honestly. Seeing someone else take one snotty naughty child so seriously, like he was an adult, just made me want to laugh very loud.

As for me, at the clinic, I just sat on the sofa with Dee on my lap as Day played with the toys. I don't really care nowadays.

preferring lu

Lu’s big day happened yesterday: For the first time, I deliberately ignored her brother and sister in favour of her, as she has become too damned cute for words.

For me, it all builds up: The tugging-at-heartstrings, starting from sometime in Month 2 when the bub start cooing back at you (hence my desire to quit my job when Day was also about this old) to sometime in Month 6 or 7 (when they are at their chubbiest and smiliest and most importantly, can’t make much trouble).

So now, I am actually WANTING to be with Lu, to contort my face and squeal just so I can get a coo, and not because she needs a feed.

Other special Lu moments: Breastfeeding time.

As much as I look forward to full weaning, I enjoy breastfeeding when I’m in it (16 more months to go).

With Lu, possibly even more so as I am past minding if I have to feed her incessantly. It actually is a pleasant opportunity for me to sit or lie down, grab a book and get a few minutes respite. Sometimes I feed her just because I want to get to the next chapter.

So here’s Lu grabbing my thumb, her favourite thing to do when I’m feeding her.



* Almost everybody who isn’t a mum asks me why there is a clip on my shirt. For the record, It’s to mark the side I should give her for the next feed. So if I feed her from the left side, I immediately move the clip to the right. Otherwise, I forget. Then one breast would be working far too hard while the other is slacking.

southpaw

She’s trying hands out.



At the moment left is the preference.

their university education

Parents in Singapore perpetually complain about the cost of raising a child. That’s why many of them don’t even want one. They think: If I can’t afford to give the child the best, I won’t even bring him/her into this world.

We, we have never quite thought about it that way.

We’re the “take it as it comes” folks.

As it is, to me, the best I can give them is not the expensive stuff. My breast milk and my time is about as best as it gets.

And I have also always thought: Life is only as expensive as your expectations. Hand-me-downs, no enrichment classes, PCF kindergartens if necessary. Cheap.

It is only now, however, that I am starting to sweat blood over the dollars.

Chiefly, over the cost of their education. Their university education, to be precise.

I imagine the day when the kids have to go to university and I have to say: Sorry dears, I can’t afford to send you there.

Why I am panicking is because of what one insurance agent says I have to have, in order to send all three to NUS (not even an overseas university, mind you, but NUS):

I apparently have to save near $130,000 for EACH of them. That’s $390,000 for three.

Bearing in mind that I have no CPF and that most of KK's CPF will likely go into financing our flat when we get it, that's a huge sum we have to save on our own.

The agent happily trots out the numbers and tell me an insurance endowment plan would do well for me. It would force me to save, I get better returns than just leaving money to sit in a bank savings account and unlike riskier investments the amount is guaranteed.

For all three, it works out to my having to put in $1,200 a month. Bloody $1,200. And I would still be short of about $20,000 for Dee.

I would have to be the one to put in the money as KK has zilch left at the end of the month.

The later I start, the more expensive it would get.

I am not buying into it yet because I am very unsure of making the monthly payments. It'll also mean I would literally have nothing for myself and that, I am sorry to say, is too much to ask for!

It would do well for us to see what other options we have.

But man, the prospect of having to put up $1,200 a month (on top of their school fees which now amount to just over $1,000) gives me a throbbing headache.

KK? He tilts an eyebrow and says: Aiya why you worry so much?

Gah. Men.

* Come to think about it, if I pulled the both of them out of this pre-school and put them in a PCF kindy, I would be able to afford to save up for their university education. Problem is, we all like this pre-school. And there isn’t a PCF kindy in sight.

3 snapped

2 months of lu

A lovely afterthought.

Three words, to sum up Lu’s second month of life.

By way of clarification: When Dee is good and Day is good, only then can I coo at Lu. Hence the “afterthought”.

This month, she still doesn’t demand anything - apart from wanting to be in a pair of arms.

Quiet and sweet, one of her favourite past-times is lying in her cot smiling up at and talking to the pets dangling above her head.



I can leave her there for a good five minutes (yes five minutes of “just leaving baby to play by herself” is fantastic by my standards) before she starts yelling.

Other times, I sling Lu and with my baby appendage, go about the business of pulling the other two apart, following them around the house to make sure they are not in trouble, opening the fridge to entertain one food request after another, making drinks, marshalling them about their various activity zones and trying to minimize the mess they make everywhere.

Happily, most of the time, wide-eyed (and most importantly, quiet) Lu just absorbs the chaos around her.



She is clearly not the centre of our world – can’t be. She sort of tags along to see what kind of family she has to endure for the rest of her life.

She stills sleeps on her front, still has not gone on the pacifier, still hates bathing with a passion, still clenches fistfuls of hair or ear and screams, still doesn’t scream very loudly, still has not-very-smooth goose-pimply skin, still has a lot of hair (it hasn’t dropped yet), still isn’t particularly fat and still has very small eyes. Like father and sister.



To be celebrated in the past month is that eyelashes have emerged, saliva has formed (she now regularly froths at the mouth), the eczema and cradle cap has disappeared, she’s smiling, she grabs things (my shirt in a death grip when she bathes, my thumb when she feeds), she can hold her head up somewhat.

The loveliest part is that she is increasingly lovely. The stage when I laugh when I talk to her because she reacts with a one-sided smile. Now that’s nice and it'll only get better.

car seating

Front seating: KK in the driver’s seat, Day in the passenger seat on his booster

Back seating: Dee and Lu in their thrones, me stuck in the middle.



And I do mean stuck in the middle. I’m so tight I’m stuck.


* That’s Lu’s foot sticking out on the left.

Two car seats dig into my ribs on both sides, it takes me a good minute to fasten my safety belt because I can’t see the clasp and I thank God I’m thin because I doubt a bigger set of hips would make it.

We would put Day at the back only his booster wouldn’t fit in between.

Passengers? Forget it.

It’s not a pleasant ride.

Especially not when Lu starts making it very clear she wants out. Of course I don’t let her out.



Before I used to say “But the baby is crying and screaming! He doesn’t want to sit in the car seat!” and take Day out but I’ve changed.

It’s all a matter of training and like Dee (who screamed all the way back in a three hour drive from Canberra to Sydney in her car seat, so much so that my legs wobbled and my face was green when I came out of the car) Lu will learn.

Anyhow, since the case of the schoolboy who died when he was flung out of his school bus – sans seat belt – the newspaper has been campaigning for proper child restraints and it’s very much the hot topic.

Some questions I have always pondered, however (especially in the days when we had no car and the days to come when we have to return this car to KK’s friend):

Taxis? Am I expected to provide three child seats to the taxi driver and then what happens when I reach the destination? I also doubt any taxi driver would seriously lug around child seats, not even one, in his boot for the occasional child passenger. It doesn’t make economic sense. (In Sydney the driver would just refuse to take us)

Friend’s cars? When we had no car we were sitting in friend’s cars most of the time and these cars had no child seats.

Basically what are people without cars to do to ensure their kids are safe?

breast milk notes

Just because I don't want to forget (and I am apt to forget things nowadays)


* Fascinating how little fat is floating on top. I swear when I pumped milk for Day there was significantly more fat.

Left or right: Always more from the right, sometimes even two times more. Which is odd as I have had an operation on the right breast years ago which might have entailed damaging some breast ducts.

Let-down sensation: Pins and needles in the breasts

Time it takes for let-down (which is when the milk actually gushes out): 10 seconds from the time baby starts suckling, slightly longer for the pump

My preference: Direct to baby. I hate pumping with a passion.

Colour: White directly after pumping, translucent bluish with a very thin layer of opague fat floating on top after a few hours in the fridge, solid yellowish chunk after freezing.

Taste: Sweet water when fresh, metallic aftertaste (but still sweet) when thawed. Either way nobody apart from the baby drinks the breast milk. Even Day and Dee think it’s disgusting. (one would think they would have some gustatory memory)

Time I feed: 5 minutes per breast for actual drinking. If it’s any longer, it’s because I want to continue reading my book while I let baby hang on, quietly and happily sucking on nothing.

Double let-downs: Once in a while, when in the same feed, I get two “pins and needles” sensations. I then look down and say: “Wah you’re so hungry ah.”

Aesthetic changes to the breast: Oh for sure. Nice when breastfeeding, not nice when the child is weaned. All flop and no bounce.

Who drank the most: Day

Who fed the most often: Day

Who thrived the most on my breast milk: Dee (in terms of weight gain alone)

Breastfeeding duration: 18 months each (hopefully for Lu too)

Type of pump: Medela double electric pump

Time of pumping: Midnight

Duration of pumping: Three minutes max (and then there’s nothing left)

Weird pump habits: The moment I stick on the funnels, I automatically take one long gigantic yawn. Always. It’s involuntary. It does not happen when I feed baby direct.

Volume: 100ml on a good day (in total). Which is probably less than a third of a Coke can.

Lesson learnt: Yes small-breasted women can definitely produce enough to feed their babies but they have to feed a lot more often because there is only so much a teacup can hold.

blanket houses

I have never quite forgotten the joy in creating cosy corners with blankets.

I’m glad my kids have discovered it too.

Tonight they sleep on the floor between two empty beds, under a blanket roof of their own making, squished together and very secure in the knowledge that monsters will not get them.

mother's day...

Was GLORIOUS…

… because I escaped from the kids for a good four hours to lunch at a good friend’s house, play the piano, play the violin and talk.

What better way to celebrate motherhood than to celebrate myself?

Plus coming back after my very enjoyable outing, hugging them and thinking: Oh my God I actually missed them!

Was ODD…

… because of the weird-as-hell Mother's and Father's Day wine-and-cheese party - complete with hired belly dancer with platinum waist-length locks (think Daryl Hannah in Splash) and heaving chest barely contained in two red cups – held at Day’s school. Unbelievable but true. (No kids were allowed at this adults-only party)

When Day’s principal pressed a L’oreal pressie (cleanser, mask and toner) into my hand – a freebie for all the mummies – I think my jaw dropped.

For all her sincerity in obtaining freebies for beauty-deprived housewives and for cooking the cous-cous, I felt compelled to join the dance floor (the children’s story-telling area), flapping my arms and trying very hard to swivel my post-pregnancy belly next to the frenziedly-dancing nubile young thing.

The only other Chinese mummy who attended (the rest who had turned up were the Caucasian mummies) stared at me in consternation before she snuck away, probably in fear that she would be dragged onto the dance floor.

Truly odd. No I didn’t have to pay a thing.

I only wish I were not breastfeeding so I could have sampled the 10 or so wines on offer.

Was SWEET…

Isn’t this what it’s all about?

Apart from the school-made cards and a baked muffin, Day handed me a surprise unsolicited card he made from scraps at home. It's not too pretty but I like it because nobody told him to do it.

Words: “From David Mummy For You Love You.”

bunsen bbq

Having suffered a battering to his male ego, KK pushed for a cookout again.

Only this time, his bright idea was to use bunsen burner attached to a palm-sized portable gas canister to cook our food in a saucepan.



Well and good. It’s not the first time we’ve done it, that’s how we ate all our meals when we went to over-priced Bintan– cooked in army mess tins over a portable bunsen burner (those meals were still the best I’ve ever had in Bintan).

Only this time, the saucepan in question (selected by KK so it’s clearly his responsibility) was heavy enough to club someone to death with, with a very thick base.

Can the tiny flame possibly penetrate that huge heavy saucepan?



Five minutes after he had sloshed in the vegetable oil - which looked as placid as a lake and probably just as cold - he looked up worriedly: “I’m afraid there isn’t enough gas.”

I momentarily stopped gorging on the spread of straight-out-of-the-can goodies - beans, corn, pineapple, longan and lychee - which I had prepared in the eventuality none of our meat makes it, and very happily replied: “Never mind lah.”



Into the pan went 10 rock-solid frozen sausages, which settled on the vegetable oil without a hiss. “Oh dear we should have thawed the meat. We’re wasting gas just to thaw the meat,” he said.

I had to throw it at him. “What a disaster,” I said.

Happily, it wasn’t in the end.

Despite the agonizingly long cooking time, KK churned out 10 beautiful very evenly-cooked sausages (“Nothing will get burnt because it’s a very very very slow fire”) and one big slab of rather nice chicken.

We also did away with the tent. It doesn’t quite work in super-hot humid Singapore and Day did a fair bit of chilling out, looking up at tree leaves while enjoying the breeze, idly plucking away at his hair.



Dee was happy that she had food to eat the moment the mat was spread and, like me, went straight for the chick peas. Then she ventured to the long kang to look for fish.

what a disaster

That was about all KK was nattering on about during one Saturday evening attempt to have a family BBQ on the beach.

I shall count the ways the entire affair was a disaster.

ONE



Dee was in a state throughout, ranging from panic to disapproval. Scared of planes, scared of flies, scared of bugs, scared of grass, the only thing she ended up doing was hitting her sister in the tent and that scared us.

TWO

Not being particularly creative where the art of food is concerned, our BBQ fare for the four of us consisted of a bunch of bananas, a bag of lychees, a bottle of peach tea, one packet of sausages, four sweet potatoes and one piece of chicken. Yes, just one piece. KK said it was enough.

Which of course, was not. But it was a good thing we had nothing to BBQ because of the third and biggest disaster.

THREE

That ridiculous portable BBQ set we picked up from Giant for $8.

One filmsy aluminium tray, one filmsy grill, a smattering of charcoal and two pieces of tissue (the firestarters apparently).

KK, in very dire tones, had issued me a warning at Giant when I chucked the set into our trolley: “I’m not going to be responsible for this.”

I, desperately trying to prevent him from spending more on sturdier, permanent but obviously more expensive sets which we may not use at all in future (depending on the success of this BBQ) said OK OK.

So it wasn’t pleasant at all when KK – who had to do all the work because I cannot BBQ for nuts – set fire to the tissue, watched them burn down to nothing whilst the charcoal beneath remained cold and dead.

“What a disaster,” he muttered to no one in particular although it was clearly meant for me.

After what seemed like hours of agonized blowing, he got some sparks going.



Which miraculously roared into an inferno, starting off a mini bush fire beneath the tray as it was perilously close to the grass. We doused it with our peach tea.

Hungry as horses by now, KK fashioned an aluminium foil tray and poured the sausages in.

Only we had no oil. Sausages got stuck, got burnt by the inferno, rolled onto the grass when KK desperately tried to remove the tray, we ended up with a grand total of three edible sausages which went to the kids.



Next up: The one piece of chicken. Not much better, this, but it was my dinner.

KK relied on the bananas.

I was contemplating calling Canadian Pizza to deliver to our tent. Everything we ate fit onto one small metal plate. Which in the end was littered with burnt sausage skin.



The good parts, if any, were clearly not food-related!

ONE

Day loved poking around the BBQ, being the little assistant with his tongs as I fretted around Dee and Lu.



TWO

Lu, regal in her car-seat throne (an unbelievably smashing hand-me-down from the neighbour), thoroughly enjoyed the sea breeze and nodded off in the seat on her own – a very rare occurrence.



THREE

Er… cute photos!

day's stories

Nowadays, I write, he writes.

Me at my laptop typing away, Day with his colour pencils and paper writing train stories.

Every night after his dinner and bath, he asks "Can I draw?" and of course I say yes because then I can do my own thing, and he spends a good 30 minutes just spinning tales.

Ever so often, he shouts out "How do I spell porridge? (or pork or egg or favourite or colour or whatever word he wants)" and I distractedly rattle off the letters.

Every piece, he dedicates to me. I call them my love letters.

He writes: "For Mummy. Mummy like porridge with pork and egg. Mummy like pink. My favourite colours is yellow and orange. Mummy I love you. For Mummy. Love you." (grammar mistakes all included)

How I love my letters. I keep them all.

I love the little hearts he sometimes draws, I love that his trains now have teeth (two big buck teeth), I love that his flowers look like spiders, I love that he can write "I love mummy".

writing again

My friend calls me: “Er can you do a Mother’s Day story?”

Me: “On what?”

Friend: “On your own experiences.”

Me: “Ha? What’s the theme?”

Friend: “On the joy of parenthood.”

Me: “I’m not feeling very joyful right now.”

Friend: “We’ll be paying you, like writing a normal article.”

Me: “Oh. OK.”

And so, a month after Lu is born, I hurtle back into resuming my writing (a financial necessity), kicking off with a story on motherhood.

Miraculously, I manage to squeeze out something vaguely positive, the bottom line of which was: I suck at motherhood but I do my best.

Lame? Like any personal column I write for mass consumption, I cannot bear to read my own story. I cannot bear to witness my own embarrassment.

Sort of like if someone video-tapes me dancing and I cannot bear to watch it back. (It’s different from blog writing though. I love re-reading my old blog entries)

I admire all three family photos that accompany the piece, cut it out without reading and keep it.



Then I send out emails to whoever can hire me to HIRE ME AGAIN! I need to pay expensive pre-school fees!

I also get busy with chasing for money, the bane of every freelancer I can imagine.

First off, I turn up at the doorstep of a certain publishing company which owes me money for articles I submitted in AUGUST 2007 and who, despite repeated monthly emails, cannot be bothered to stick a stamp on an envelope to mail me the cheque.

I contemplate slinging Lu over to their office and declaring: When I did these articles, this baby was the size of a green bean. LOOK AT HER NOW AND YOU STILL HAVEN’T PAID ME!

Happily, they pay up.

On to more writing and chasing for money!

cycling commute

These days, 630pm, as the kids play outside in the cooler evening on their buggies, what they await is not papa driving up in the black car but papa cycling up the road.

Yes, Commando Kheng has decided to try and shed off the belly flab which has afflicted him and so many of his former commando mates (and save some petrol money in the process. And be environmentally friendly) by cycling to and from work.



615am, he sets off from Upper East Coast and can get to Marina Bay in under an hour. Why so early? Fewer cars. Cleaner air. He has time for a long coffee and breakfast.

The ride back is a bit hairier, what with the going-home traffic, but if his colleague can drop him off at the Fort Road end of the East Coast Park, he enjoys a beach ride home.

Fantastic.

The only not-so-nice part is that my exhausted husband ends up sleeping with the baby at 830pm and I have to take on the older two’s bath time and bed time. Plus I get lonely because he’s sleeping and there’s no one to talk to or make supper with.

I also feel compelled to whip myself back into shape. When it comes to exercise, there is no greater motivator than a motivated mate.