dee's art

She blabs something about a boy with a fork and spoon and a car.

I absolutely love her drawing. Like everything she does, it's got nothing to do with me, is completely unexpected and is so different.

weaning

First Taste of Food: Comparative Experiences

DAY
I very carefully wash and boil (so it’s sterilized) bowl and spoon.
Very carefully, diligently mix the infant rice cereal with expressed breast milk.
I give Norma (our domestic helper then) the mixture.
She feeds Day, who is lying in her arms.
He spits most of it out: He is probably not quite ready for food. But I am way eager for him to start.

DEE
I wash bowl and spoon. I can’t be bothered to boil.
Scrape off some banana and give it to her.
She is sitting in a high chair and embraces eating with a passion.

LULU
Since Gina has gone home and there is no one to take are of Lu during dinner, KK chucks her in Dee’s high chair.
Lu looks around watching us eat, licking the table. She has nothing else to do.
My father says: “Why not give her some potato?”
So I fish out some potato from my soup, scrape a smidgeon off with my spoon and feed it to her.
She laps it up and swallows.
We proceed with a smear of carrot and a dollop of papaya.
She swallows.



Completely against the book, this one. Her first taste of food – which happens almost by accident! - and she is bombarded with three at one shot. (by rights babies try a new food for a few days to test for allergic reactions)

Salt, oil, seasoning, all of which babies are not supposed to eat, present in the soup and presumably in the cells of the potato and carrot.

Spoon she feeds from: My oily dinner spoon.

It’s all so WRONG but it feels so delightfully natural!

No stress, no preparation, no nothing whatsoever: To just pop the baby at the dinner table and oh well, since everyone is eating, why not let her sample?

Tomorrow I’ll give her something hygienic, healthy and proper though: No more table food, which can be dangerous for a baby.

The usual infant cereal, steamed carrot etc.

I am, however, very very, very happy. That she has started on her gastronomic adventures!!! Age: 5 1/2 months.

music class

Succumbed. Surrendered. Buckled.

Day’s gone for his first enrichment class: Music.

I wouldn't even have bothered since there are two pianists at home and I think he gets sufficient music exposure. Only his por-por signed him up and since she did, I thought, why not?

Plus he had been – and I realize this is very common amongst kids, I don’t know why – begging for music classes for months.

First off, I thought it was nice and reasonable at $240 for 11 classes, only I realized after paying the school fees that there was another $130 to be paid for materials.

He’s just about halfway through.

Once a week for an hour, I accompany him as he sits at an organ in a class of 10, learning his do-re-mis.

If you ask me, I think the pace is awfully slow.

But he has loads of fun playing along.

I suppose I wanted him to try the class, too, for sentimental reasons.

Nearly 30 years ago I had gone through the exact same class.

It culminated in a graduation concert after two years of class, when I was six, of playing a gypsy piece and I clearly remember the terror I felt on having to play solo (I had the confidence of an ant). That's mum sitting next to me.



What’s more important is that the music legacy that class left me is priceless. That's me and Jun (who is as musical as a block of wood).

gina

* Gina with one-month-old Lu

These are amazing women: Who leave their loved ones for up to two years at a stretch so they can earn more money overseas to give their children a better future, only going home for a few weeks before heading out again.

Today Gina leaves us for 3 weeks.

Truly, the departure of a domestic helper from any Singaporean household which is used to one, measures 8 on the household earthquake Richter scale. Her absence is felt far more painfully than anyone else’s.

How to use the washing machine? Where are the cooking sauces stored? Who is going to iron the clothes?

Most importantly for me: No human being just to BE in the house at those moments when I need to pop out to bring or fetch Day from school. (I suppose I will have to bring both girls along with me if there is no one home)

Then of course, there’s the cooking – which I now know for fact that I completely suck at because I am not looking forward to a rehash of Sydney days - and cleaning.

Luckily, kids-wise, there is no change.

Everything that involves them it all comes down to me, so they just feel about the same.

For working parents who depend on the helpers when it comes to their kids, I can’t even begin to imagine the chaos, the angst, the logistics. Taking turns to take leave, perhaps.

But truly, how dependent we all are.

And what do the kids think about all this?

I told the kids when I tucked them into bed that I had to go and clean up the kitchen / fold clothes tonight.

Day asked: “Are you a maid?”

Horrors. By natural observation, he’s come to the conclusion that only maids do these things.

I tell him we are very lucky to have auntie Gina to help us out. But these are things we must do ourselves.

canned food

Today, for one feed, Lu did without her fresh milk and got her food from a tin.



Crisis calls for emergency measures.

In recent weeks, everytime I want to store up some breast milk, either she robs me of the opportunity (by feeding. She has developed an irritating habit of waking up around midnight for feeds) or nothing comes out when I pump.

Thus, freezer stores: Zero.

Today, Sunday, is my one and only day out. When I take precious four to five hours to do my thing. I refuse to cancel it just because I can’t pump out any breast milk.

So for that one feed, I waltzed into a supermarket and picked up a tin of formula milk for her. It’s the first tin of formula I have ever bought in my life (Day and Dee didn’t drink any after I weaned them off breast milk) and I was dazzled by the array.

Dumex! Friso! Nan! Enfagrow! Pediasure! Similac! WOW!

The parenting mags should do a formula-by-formula comparison (including taste test, price test – why do prices vary so much? – and contents test) only I’m sure it would offend the formula milk companies which have low scores, and which might then pull their ads.

Why Similac?

Because Zoe Tay feeds it to her kid! No, no, kidding. Because in that particular supermarket, it was the smallest-sized tin – 400g. (I wish there were one-feed formula packs. For fully breastfeeding mums who just need, like, you know, ONE or TWO feeds.)

As all the powder has to be used up within 4 weeks of opening, I didn’t want to waste any. I don’t envisage giving Lu any more formula feeds for the next week or two.

I was stunned to find that the tiny tin costs $17.20. On average the normal-sized tins which I am told don’t usually last more than 2 weeks, cost $30.

I mean, I know formula milk is expensive but actually buying one makes it all the more real. It’s so bloody expensive.

Was it worth it?

I guess. Lu took about 100ml of it, though she spat it out at first.

The surprise was in the aftermath, though: Having heard stories of how filling formula milk is, I expected her to be satiated and not needing a feed for hours. Funnily, when I returned home and fed her, she fed like there was no tomorrow. Like she had been starved.

Maybe she just missed me.

prawning

KK gets another of his bright ideas: Prawning.

“I want Day to see that we can catch our food and eat it,” says the man.

OK. It’s all very farce-y since the prawns are pre-caught and thrown into the dirty green pond for us to catch but honestly, who genuinely catches their own food nowadays?

So, handicapped hunters all, we trooped down to a prawn farm next to our favourite fish farm at Pasir Ris Farmway 1.

$15 an hour got us a rod with a hook, a dish of pre-cut chicken livers (bait for the prawns, which I find curious for since when did prawns eat chicken parts?) and access to the dirty green presumably prawn-filled pond.



I’m sure Day was expecting a bite every minute. I’m sure he expected a big haul of 60 prawns. Kids are like that.

First prawn we got, he squealed. I took a photo.



Then he took the rod. And waited. And waited. And waited.

He squeezed his eyes shut, counted very slowly to 20 and opened them, expecting to feel a tug on the end of his line.



Nothing.

I fed Lu, brought Dee (who was in usual grumpy form) to feed the fish in 20 ponds, changed Lu’s shitty diaper, walked around a lot.

Ah! A second prawn!



I am sorry to say that at the end of the hour, the prawn farm man took one look at our haul of 2 prawns, put them into a plastic bag and proceeded to top up the bag with another 6 prawns from his freezer.

presents!

Once again the Government is throwing money at women to fill their wombs!

All $1.6 billion of it!

So, presents presents! What would I get IF I were to have a #4?

Loads more child tax benefits!
Ah, something for KK. Less of his income is taxed. Since his income is hardly huge, hopefully he ends up not paying tax at all.

More cash per child!
$6000 for #4! (No change. That’s what Lu got)

4 instead of 3 months of maternity leave for working mothers!
Er, next!

More childcare leave for working parents!
Next.

More childcare subsidy for working mothers!
Sigh.

If I wanted a #4, the pragmatic thing for me to do would be to scurry back into the workforce, hire a maid, send everybody to full-day childcare and milk the Government’s coffers for all its worth.

Staying home, increasingly, is a choice. And it’s a choice the Government clearly does not want women to make.

The nurturing of the “family-friendly” environment they speak of – by way of financial nourishment – is not one where mum stays home.

It’s one where both mummy and daddy work, sending their kids to increasingly subsidized childcare centres in the day or hiring cheap domestic helpers then coming home to put babies to bed (if at all).

It’s become that many women say they have no choice but to work to pay for all that. In the past, they had no choice but to stay home.

The irony.

Anyway – personally – I had been hoping for a little more childcare subsidy not only for working mums, but all. Something more inclusive. That little bit of cushioning every month makes such a big difference. It now stands at a grand $75 discount for Day.

On another note, having covered two dialogues on the babies subject where the ministers opened their ears to roomfuls of complaining mothers, it is sobering and a little disappointing for me, to get a whiff of the pungent attitudes some mums here have towards parenting.

These are all working mums who would rather die than look after their kids.

I don't mean the working mums who talk about how difficult it is to balance their jobs and family time, and who are genuinely motivated by a love for their offspring.

But those who are nothing but selfish. Words they use to describe a day or two of staying home (while their kids are sick): Boring. Strenuous. Tiresome. Stressful. And to the woman who told PM Lee: “I cannot go to the spa or take an afternoon nap anytime I like because of the kids” I wanted to give her a tight slap. For God's sake, grow up.

What they asked for: More money to dump their kids in childcare. Money for the grandparents to look after their kids. More tax reliefs on their (presumably big) salaries.

Well they have got more money now.

Let’s hope they have more kids.

5 months of lu

For a dormant docile dear little baby who doesn’t move around very much and certainly isn’t very active, this is a bit of a surprise.



Monday she turned 5 months. Thereabouts, she got on her hands and knees. How on earth did she get there?

Thankfully, she can’t move. She hasn’t quite mastered the art of co-ordinating arms and legs. Neither is she strong enough to move. Her tummy lands with a “thump” when her arms and legs eventually give out.

And then there’s this.



What’s she doing? Sitting. (It’s a photo I think takes too much work to decipher but which KK likes.)

Important one, this, doing the sitting thing. Once there is enough steel in her spine I am starting her on solids. Shouldn’t be too far off.

KK has chucked her in a high chair and she seems fine.

Hello, dear baby Lulu! Your hair has finally settled!

transport vs birds

The kids loved Jurong Bird Park for its transport conveyances. Not the birds.



One, they adored the red wagon which Deb rented for them to sit in. Dee had to be coaxed in but once seated, she really didn't want to move. Noses buried in their maps, taking a sip of water from the bottle which was conveniently tucked into the cup holders at the side of the wagon and generally enjoying being towed by me, that wagon brought them loads of joy.

Two, the purple monorail. Day saw it, stopped dead in his tracks and whined to get on. And that was about all he was interested in. Getting on that train.

Whatever it is, it’s a very novel way to spend a birthday! Thanks to Deb and Mark!

Gather the kids, throw some friends and their kids into the picture – not too many or it’ll get chaotic - everybody goes to the Jurong Bird Park and has a whale of a time.



Ally turns 4! As the kids grow, I am always amazed at how they change.

I just wish my kids had woken up on the right side of their beds. Only Lu was her usual placid self. Once again, who can predict how kids will react?

insecurity

Dee is changing.

If there’s one thing about the girl, it’s that her development is consistently drastic and very noticeable.

While Day sort of slides and slowly eases into phases, she drops and gives us all heart attacks.

In recent weeks (or perhaps days) she has become very very very insecure.

She has always been far more sociable than day. The chirpy cherub would say hi, say bye, flirt with uncles, talk to aunties and was generally bold as brass. Even as recently as her 2nd birthday in March.

Rather suddenly she’s retreated into a shell, like a snail that’s been prodded.

Anything new, she rejects.

New places, new faces, new routines, she screams and yells.



During what was a perfectly fine and should have been very enjoyable outing to the Jurong Bird Park – to celebrate Ally’s 4th birthday – she was Madam Mope. (the birthday girl is amused by Dee)

She did not like other people. She did not want to stand on the bench. She did not want to take a photo.

She constantly wants me to carry her or at least, hold her hand. At. All. Times. In the toilet, when she is gazing at the laptop, when she is doing nothing. I must hold her hand. When I physically pry her iron fingers loose she screams.

At this point, she is happiest watching The Wiggles in front of the TV at home, where nothing exists but her and the four techni-coloured men.

Any attempt I make to bring her out, to see new things or meet new people and just to enjoy life, is likely to end up in failure. Unless it’s just me and a familiar routine.

wall of art

I waltzed into Day’s school the other day and I was astounded by the Wall of Art.

I asked: Is that by the kindergarten kids? (the 5 and 6 year olds)

The teacher said: No. It’s also by the N2s. David’s drawing is up there.

I said: Noooo... Cannot be.

She walked up and pointed this out.



There and then, I am consumed with pride.

I realize later it’s all got to do with having the right materials and the right coaching: The other mums are similarly astounded.

Teacher May – the sweet long-haired sylph from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (I don’t know why she is teaching pre-schoolers) – works with the kids 1-to-1.

She sits down, patiently shows them how to draw shapes, how to fill the space, put a piece of art together.

She tells me – I am intensely curious – that to achieve the effect, Day first drew his boat using oil pastels, then coloured over the background using watercolours (which won’t interfere with the boat drawing since oil and water don’t mix).

I am profoundly grateful for Teacher May. That I don’t have to pay extra for the art grounding she gives the kids.

Possibly, the reason why Day likes to draw several times a day, is because of what she has taught him.

Of course, what he draws at home looks nothing like what he did at school.



But if he had the right materials and if I sat down with him for a while, perhaps it may!

sweet potato

She’s my spud.

Lu’s face has gotten progressively longer over the months and I think she looks like a potato, which has led to an acquaintance stating point-blank: Looks like the prettiest of your children is your son.

Which I absolutely take no offence at because well, she’s being objective and probably truthful!

Lu’s still got the lallang on her head. I notice it’s just starting to bend, like a wind is blowing through the grass, and I’m confident it will fall flat in a few more weeks.



In recent days, new tricks she’s been up to include pinching her lips close, salivating like mad and grasping her toes. This photo shows all three.



She’s also raced to the number 1 spot in our hearts.

Still unfailingly sweet and docile, everyone loves her to bits because she is exactly like a huggable soft toy, with little of the twitchiness and screaming demands that other babies ie. her siblings, used to make.

I put her on my tummy and she sweetly lays her head down on my chest, as if she’s saying “Mummy I love you so much!” That has NEVER happened to me. Usually they sit upright and swivel their heads around looking for some action while babbling away.

national day adventure

Driving over the Benjamin Sheare’s bridge towards the city, the Singapore Flyer looms up on the left. Far in the distance beyond the sea is what looks like a dam under construction – the Marina Barrage – and that’s just about where we tucked ourselves to enjoy the National Day fireworks.

That’s where KK works, day after day, stomping all over the reclaimed land and inspecting the soil to make sure it can hold up the spectacular Gardens By The Bay.

Highlights of NDP 2008:



Trekking across slippery hoarding boards, drains filled with muddy brown water and climbing up huge gunny-sack covered earth mounds (technically called “surcharge fills” and how I know is because I vetted his report) to get a better view.



With both of us carrying one child and one umbrella each (plus I had a camera and a bag of Ruffles chips) I am seized with joy at our foolhardiness.

Day scampers happily alongside, digging in for handfuls of Ruffles every few metres. Dee hates roughing-it-out and she refuses to put her feet down on anything other than tarmac.



The Black Knights fighter jets – because we are all alone in a great tract of dark-brown land – seem perilously close, defeaningly loud and life-threateningly treacherous. Me and KK protect the girls. I feel sorry for Lu’s delicate ear drums. Dee buries her face in my neck. Day claps his hands over his ears. Me and KK’s ears are left unprotected, but I am awed.

We bide out the rest of the time, before the fireworks, in KK’s swanky office, which is sort of a glorified container with a laminate parquet floor and Ikea shelves.



It’s one of the nicest, most spacious site offices he’s ever had and we are alone. In the huge air-conditioned space with drinks vending machines, hot water and a squeaky-clean toilet at our disposal.



Canadian pizza, grapes and drinks. Lu, in her royal high chair which we removed from the car, looks on in faint disapproval. Dee had just hit her head on the corner of a table, hence the tears.



The fireworks are disappointingly short and blocked by trees. But in this case, truly, the journey mattered more than the destination.

Excepting a 1-hour jam to get through a stretch of road which normally takes 2 minutes when the whole thing ended, we had a great time.

* In a role reversal, Dee was terrified of the loud noises, unlike last year. What she kept saying was: "I’m scared of the planes, you know. I don’t want to go there! I’m scared!" Even the helicopters freaked her out. Day,who was petrified last year, loved it all this year.

singapore's 43

Patriotic Singaporean braves the rain to watch the aerial salute to Singapore.

* 'Twas more a drizzle but as Lu was in KK's other arm he felt compelled to carry the umbrella. Me, I was carrying terrified Dee in one arm and struggling for a steady shot with the other arm.

attachments

It’s odd how other kids respond to Day, and how he responds to other kids.

In a nutshell: They (well, some) love him. As for him, he doesn’t give a damn.

When I say love, I mean that even when they do not see Day, they talk about him. They get excited when their parents mention David. They want to see him. They want to hang out with him. Maybe because he’s a nice harmless boy? I don’t quite know why.

Anyhow his latest conquest is neighbour Matthew.



In recent weeks, Matthew has had to be physically yanked away from our house, kicking and screaming and crying because he wants to play with Day.

Sans shoes and sometimes unsupervised, Matt opens his house gate and bounces over, staying for hours at a stretch, refusing to go home.

When he is eventually dragged home, we can still hear his screams go on and on (up to an hour on one occasion, I’m told).

I tell Day that Matthew really wants to play with him. Day sighs.

When I say Day doesn’t give a damn, I mean he has – to date – never gotten excited about any of his friends and playing together. He never talks about them, never says he wants to play with anyone, he’s never formed an attachment.

Never. (Though he truly enjoys playing when he is with company)

But oddly enough, he talks about my adult friends – the ones I have brought him out with before.

He goes on about going out with Uncle Jason in his blue car, going to Starbucks with Uncle Chong, going to the art shop with Auntie Theresa, he remembers Auntie Deborah’s house unit number.

neighbourly oasis

Thank God for one good neighbour.

For being a stay-home mum in Singapore can be a very lonely proposition: There’s no one else around.

The street we live on, there are plenty of kids around. Do we hang out, though? On a hot boring day with nothing to do, can I simply bring the kids out and waltz into a neighbour’s house for a sanity check while the kids revel in a new, fresh environment?

No.

For every kid is looked after by a maid. While I absolutely have no problems hanging out with domestic helpers and their wards, they cannot – without their boss’ permission – simply let me into the house.

From the boss’ point of view, I completely understand: Security issues, privacy issues, accountability issues.

Even if they are stay-home mums, not everyone welcomes drop-in visitors. One neighbour I attempted to hang out with never invited me into her house again after she realized I was the kind of mum who let my kids peer into drains and sit on the roadside pavement. I think she thinks I have hygiene issues.

So Thank God there is at least neighbour - she of the swimming-pool-under-the-tree - who has a similar old-fashioned kampung spirit, so rare in what seems to be a mostly suspicious secretive neighbourhood.

We waltz into each other’s houses unannounced. Our kids play together virtually every day. Here they are, walking over.



Proximity has bred a particular kind of closeness which I have never shared with anyone else: We have driven each other’s cars, raided each other’s refrigerators, eaten each other’s food (I always eat up her remainders because I effectively eat 1 ½ portions and she, half), seen each other’s bleary gray morning faces, looked after each other’s children.

It’s a strange relationship because we two would probably never be close friends otherwise. She does not know about the blog. We don’t talk about anything apart from the kids and domestic matters.

But how I appreciate her as a fellow mother.

Someone whom I can drop in on late at night if I require Ibuprofen for the kids. Someone whom I can leave Dee or Lu (or both) with if I have a morning job. Someone who can fully appreciate the need to just get out once in a while for a change of scene.

Day and Dee regard their home as a second home, they are content for me to bring and leave them there.



They know where all the food is kept, they like having their lunches there. They love playing with Matthew and Sophia. Day, in particular, has been playing with these two since he was a little tyke.



And because it’s a pet menagerie over there, they get to admire loads of animals. From birds to huge fish in the pond to Bleu, the gorgeous border collie who absolutely loves Lu to bits. Here he’s with Dee (who is actually petrified of the dog so I wonder why she was getting all intimate with him).



I rue the day we - or they - move house. When company is rare, we are each other's lifesaver.

swimming under a tree

Lucky lucky kids. (Day in blue underwear and green goggles)

They get to play in a nice garden two houses away with a portable pool which is always placed on the lawn, under an overhanging tree where dappled sunlight is always streaming through.

If I were a kid this would be my fantasy. What a way to while away a hot muggy day.



Some diving. On a different day. (Day in white underwear)



And Dee. Who only does her thing when the big boys are out of the water.

garden festival

Day admiring the ModGod Garden.

A modern reconstruction of ancient temple gardens which pay tribute to the rulers, this fantasy garden by a Malaysian designer pays tribute to Marilyn Monroe – a contemporary God of sorts! – whose charisma and power commanded the same religious fervour.

Honestly, in the flesh, the enormous tableau looks like a whole lot of balls of grass. It was only after I snapped a pic and looked at the camera screen that I gasped.

Which, I think, very aptly summarises our trip to the Singapore Garden Festival: Blah in reality, more a photo opp than anything else.

Why?

Kids. They were completely disinterested in the gardens – Day and Dee were mentally playing with the Thomas Mega set. Both were whining to go home.



We – even though our tickets were free, courtesy of KK’s company – tried to admire the Fantasy and Landscape Gardens but with 2 very bored and restless toddlers, I think we vamoosed in less than an hour.

Anyhow, KK’s favourite: The Pitcher Plants



My favourite: The tulip garden.

choon scores

Back from Darwin for a conference in Singapore, my brother Choon scores big-time with the kids.

For Day, he lugged back a Thomas Mega Set which literally took mine, Day’s, Dee’s and neighbour’s kids breath away.



The boy has been doing nothing but play with his giant train set the entire day.

It’s nice having doting bachelor uncles and Day is a very very lucky boy.

Choon didn’t buy anything for the girls.

But Dee, for some strange reason, loves her Uncle Choon to bits.

She begs him to carry her.



And time for nap, she snuggled up to Choon and actually quietly fell asleep – I cannot stress what an anomaly this is because NOBODY can put her to sleep.



Lu has no reaction. Yet.

But I suppose she will. My brother is one of those kid-friendly folks.