geographic tongue

The girl has got a Geographic Tongue.



She's just had orange juice but essentially, bald raw pink patches appear on her tongue amidst the fuzzy pink. And the pattern changes.

What's happening - according to the International Geographic Tongue Support Group (!) - is that the little white bumps on her tongue actually fall off. It re-grows, sort of like hair, only by the time it grows out another patch would have gone bald.

So her tongue always looks a like a map.

The paed says it's all OK. It's not an infection or life-threatening condition.

And that makes two in the family with weird tongues: KK has got long, deep tongue fissures.

the lizard

The “Eeee” reaction: Is it inborn or cultivated? Common sense would indicate the latter.

Anyhow, since the kids, I’ve always been intensely curious about whether they get squeamish, when they start being squeamish, what they are squeamish over and (if possible to find out) why.

Another golden opportunity presented itself when KK beckoned me over to his table-in-the-balcony and showed me the dead lizard: Still plump and, clearly, freshly dead.

KK seems OK with the lizard but he refuses to touch it. He very nicely asks me to clear it and we go back and forth for a bit.

I am grossed out. At first.

But as determined as he is to be helpless around me, I am as determined to be stronger around him.

I use a paper edge to pry the body off the table (it’s stuck, melted somewhat) and as it lies dormant and still, I can’t help myself. I use a pencil to poke around.

Now on Day. Earlier I had attempted asking my son to do the job. He took one look, spun around and said NO.

But as I poke around, he comes closer, curious. I don’t think he’s scared of the lizard per se. He was just disgusted.

He becomes fascinated when I tell him the lizard’s body is as soft as a gummy sweet and oh look, it has five digits with fingernails, just like him. With little suction pods! (I am frankly amazed. I have never seen a lizard that close)



He points out: “Look mummy, it’s tongue is sticking out”. Indeed it is, in classic crushed-by-textbook pose.



Dee. We expect her to run screaming away when I say “Mummy has something to show you”. But she eyeballs the lizard, scratches her head, walks over and asks “Can I step on it?”



She doesn’t like it for sure. Makes a lot of faces and tells me “I don’t like it”. But again, the motivation seems more disgust than anything else.

Lu. She reaches over and attempts to pick up the lizard, maybe to put it into her mouth, only I snatch up her hand every time. This is the part where I’m perhaps teaching her to fear the damn thing!

* The last reaction is the best. I show it to their Kaofu Teng, my 24-year-old brother. He jolts like he’s had an electric shock and looks like he’s about to make a run for it.

degrees of swim

The other day we swim at a Pol Yee’s place, which has got a heated pool. (Yes, a heated pool in Singapore)

And it’s really weird (well maybe not that weird because I kind of expected it): Once the rest of us get in to the tiny heated pool (maybe 3m by 4m), we don’t want to get out.



Except Dee. She hates the hot water. She dips a toe in and squeals before running to the normal pool which (by this time) feels ice-cold to the rest of us.

Why I am not surprised: She insists on cold-water baths (with just the mildest warm current).

Day has a tendre for hot hot hot water. The hotter, the better. Only I don’t let him bath in too-hot water because it exacerbates his eczema and goodness knows what it may do to his fertility in future.

In any case, it’s really the cold pool with the underwater gym (treadmill, stationary bikes and massage beds) which I’m interested in.



But by the time I get in, straight after I am warmed up in the heated pool, I feel so cold I can barely work up a sweat.

bye, auntie marcelle

* Kissing Auntie good-bye at the airport in July last year

Who would have known? That the last time we saw her as we sent her off at the airport would be the last time we saw her alive?



My grand-aunt, the kid’s great-grand-aunt, Auntie Marcelle, French by birth, Chinese by marriage and a New Zealander by nationality, died of illness last Friday on the 19th March 2009.

The kids will never quite know her the way we - those of our generation and my parent’s generation - did. A thorny, feisty lady who loved her food and who would indulge in pig’s trotters in vinegar and papaya (one of her favourite fruits) everytime she made her annual pilgrimage to Singapore.

But she knew the kids. She used to love reading the blog until the doctor told her to stop sitting in front of the computer.

And the kids, at least, did hang around with her when she was last here in June.



They – Auntie, Day and Dee – sat around watching Thomas and Friends. (Auntie, of course, knew it all because her great-grandson Cody also loved the train)

They shared a few meals at the same table.



Day got shouted at by Auntie for attempting to poke around her walking stick.

Dee was a constant source of amusement for Auntie.

She got to see Lu, who was all of three months old at the time.

And then just nine months later, Auntie Marcelle is gone.

dee's party

She’s always said she wanted a birthday party.

Problem is, I’m beginning to realize that ours is not quite the Party Family.

For one, KK would frown, go “Ha? Do we have to?” and beg off.

That means it’s all up to me. But I’m really not quite the party organizer. I’m awfully can’t-be-bothered and unless the kids were really big on having a party I wouldn’t have one.

I’m bad with invites, I’m bad with food, I’m bad with entertainment. And I have no moolah to pay professionals to do it for me.

Last year we had a little party for her and my folk’s jaws dropped when we said it’d be just a BBQ for us in the garden. A BBQ for 6 adults and 2 kids is really not their idea of fun.

But this year she did have a smallish party: In school.

School buys a cake every month for all the birthday kids and it so happens that in Dee’s class, she is the only one with a March birthday.

They trot out the cake, the kids sing a song, I hop in to snap some shots and that’s it.


* Dee remains perfectly still, serious and composed (she's like that) as her friends storm around her cake.

Post-party.



What she did have a lot of fun doing the night before was packing the (budget) party packs. With 26 kids in her class, each kid got three chocolates.

She had a field day peeling the plastic bags open (it’s like those packet drinks bags), popping the chocs into the bags and passing it on to Day who was the official stapler and counter.

Anyway, on the topic of Dee, more DEE news:

Today she ambles up to me, rubs her nose on my shorts, looks up at me and yells “Pee-sai!” before strutting off humming a little ditty. Why am I noting this one peculiar incident out of a hundred such incidents which happen every day? I don’t know. It made me laugh.

And as I was telling a friend, Dee is one of those characters who, when she is bad, is very bad but when she is good, is very good. I don’t talk much about her goodness but what she (occasionally) does is:

* Say “Oh thanks” at every available instance, immediate and unprompted, in the most natural manner like she was born with a perfect set of manners.

* Offer to take my bag and things for me when we are out and I clearly have a lot on my hands. (Day never does)

* Come up to me and while flinging her arms around my neck (her hugs are to-die-for because she is all flesh and no bones) while saying: “Oh mummy I want to hug you because you are so bee-yoo-ti-ful! I love you! You are gorgeous, mummy! Are you happy with me?”

I mean, what can I do in the face of such unadulterated honesty but hug her back while trying not to laugh?

dee's 3

We seem to be pretty much going the way of "let the kid dictate the day" when it comes to their birthdays.

Only in Dee's case, her list of "I Wants" push us over the limits of birthday civility into hostile, very hostile territory. (With her it's a case of give an inch, she takes 10 miles)

So much so she ends up bawling until her eyes are swollen because there's only so much "I Want" a mum can take.

But let's forget the sourness. And go into the requests.

PINK CAKE

The girl wants a pink cake with strawberries ("No leaves because I don't like the leaves") with a pink doll.

KK and Day head for Vivocity to hit the bakeries during her nap and really, it's hard finding a nice palatable pink cake.

The boys finally find a heart-shaped slice of pink cake, with a strawberry perched on top, at Bread Talk. It's tiny but as KK put it: "We can all sit around and watch her eat, which is what we do most of the time anyway."

To beef up the sweets, they get 3 donuts. One for each year, a pink one for Dee.

Then they hit Toys R Us for a pink doll. KK scoures the aisles and finally buys the tiniest doll he can find, for a grand $14.50. (What!?)

Come cake-time, I plate everything, we stick three candles into the pink cake and WALLA! The girl is THRILLED! It's all she ever dreamt of! (she doesn't even say anything about the leaf on the strawberry)



And what do you know? She is so high, she shares her cake with Day, offers to feed Lu and only grabs the pink donut without putting her paws on the other two. The plate is wiped clean. We are genuinely surprised that the pink cake is apparently nice. I don't even try it: A pink cake is just wrong to me.



WERNER'S

She wants to head to Werner's Oven for breakfast. KK duly reminds her that it's her big day today.



She wants the donut (again), but as usual she licks the icing sugar off the top and dumps the rest. She grabs two sausages, messes up the eggs and throws it to the rest of us.

KALLANG BAMBINI

This she didn't request. But knowing her, any activity cannot involve dirt or sweat or sun or water. An air-conditioned indoor playground is just her thing.

She LOVED it. Unlike the last time, when she basically stuck to the ball pit, she scurried high and low like a hamster in a cage, gamely following Day wherever he went and going down the long slide.

PRESENTS

Well, the doll of course, which is really her FIRST doll (at the ripe old age of THREE!) and on which she quickly proceeds to pretend-tie ponytails, strip off and put on the dress, make the doll walk and say bye-bye. (on the side: What thick lips Dee has got!)



Two Eric Carle books which she specifically requested for because her teachers read it to her in class.

A boatload of plastic kitchen stuff which the neighbour got for her - at my advice since she insisted on buying something - which I know Dee would LOVE because that's all she plays with, really. Play-cooking.



So Day and Dee spent a good hour whipping up meals, with cold drinks (that seems to be their prerequisite for a worthy meal) at their little stove which becomes a restaurant when I put a tent over it.

Happy birthday, my feisty one. And though you spent the better part of your third birthday reminding us why you are so hard to swallow, we sincerely hope you go down well in the ensuing year.

lu's 1

"Yoohoo! I'm ONE!"

Can she walk yet? Nope. But boy, that is one pair of skinny legs!

My beautiful sweet Lulu turns one today.

Her first birthday cake: A chocolate cake (free, courtesy of a birthday voucher from my mother), shared with me and Dee.



She, unlike Dee before, is fascinated with the candles and wants to touch the flames.



Mum asked me a month ago: Shall we have a birthday party for Lulu?

I said No. It's troublesome, KK would be traumatised (People everywhere! He has to socialise!) and I doubt Lu would enjoy disrupted sleep and lots of threatening strangers.

So I brought her to Ikea. It's just like any other swell morning where we have a swell time, but hey she's happy!

She plays with all the curtains, she's got a thing for it.



And that hole-in-the-wall slide, which just about every other kid I know must have gone through at least once. Funny how they all love it.



On our way home, I feed her with loads of alphabet crackers. She loves it.



FIRST-YEAR FACTS

KK and the maid and the grandparents are all furrowing their brows, wondering why she is still not walking. I’m not particularly concerned. When she gets there, she’ll get there. But she does enjoy dancing a lot, holding onto something and bouncing up and down to some R&B groove.

Can she talk? Nope. Oh well she just started going “mum-mum” but it’s not object specific.

If I had to say who she resembles, temperament-wise, I’d say she is more like Day than Dee: A cheerful sam-seng (at the moment) who is relatively wholesome and open to instruction. She's not ... emotionally complex. Yet.

birthday season

Birthday season is upon us: Mine, Dee and Lu’s birthdays, just two days apart each, will be flashing past this week (the one-week school holiday) in quick succession.

I do realize that for the next 15-20 years at least, my birthday will be buried under the work I’ll have to do planning for the girls’ birthdays.

And on the side: Three Piscean females and two Taurean males in the family! I’m no astrology fan but on the fengshui side at least, I’m told our children – because they are born so close to us – are in harmony with us. If that means we all get along, I’m happy to believe it.

First to go: Me. I turn 34 today.

I’m in my MID-30s! I’m MIDDLE-AGED!

I’ve never been one to fear growing old so I don’t give a hoot.

But I have aged. The glimmer of brown spots on the face, the pigmentation, the visible veins, the eye bags, the weight loss, the fragility, the occasionally twinge in the joint, the bad memory, the placid (versus go-getter) life attitude.

Now I’m making myself sound ancient!

Anyhow, I’m so busy thinking about Dee’s present, if I should give Lu a present, how I’m going to give Dee a “pink cake with a pink doll and strawberries without the leaves please”, that I’m not too bothered with mine.

What I appreciated was other people celebrating for me!

Lunch with my folks. The usual dim sum treat from my mum. During which Lu is very very very receptive to glutinous rice, carrot cake, char siew bao…



Lunch with Theresa. Japanese food at Kandagawa.



Supper with the hubby, we sneak out for a quick bite at Coffee Club. Otherwise, I tell him to please not buy anything else for me so as not to put a dent in our feeble finances.



It's all food! (I did ask KK if we could just be really irresponsible and go out for a full - GASP! - three to four hours, so I can watch my first movie in years and I so want to see Slumdog Millionaire. He says: "Aiya cannot. Tonight I have work to do. I have to write meeting minutes". So there)

matt's five

How different they look now from three years ago!

Matt, Day's childhood friend (they've been seeing each other since they were babies, just turned five.

His only birthday companions were Day, Dee and Lu as it fell on a Thursday. But Matt was deliriously happy as the ice cream, cake and - the highlight - a round of golf at Lilliputt with Day (we were the only ones on the indoor course and the boys had the run of the place) worked better than any big party.

Watching them, I felt old. That I have effectively documented the boys' blossoming friendship for nearly five years now. From baby boys who could barely hold up their heads, how different they have grown.

Matt, from a tiny thin toddler into a TV-watching, (toy) gun loving mischief maker who has quite the wrestler physique.

And Day, from a big chubby boy with cheeks into a relatively frailer, skinny boy who is obedient to a fault.

Differences aside, boys will be boys. They find common ground in balls, guns and Cartoon Network.

rei

Pris' gorgeous baby, Rei, with an utterly lovely heart-shaped mark on her cheek, at the airport, about to go off to Hongkong with Mum and Dad.

routine 7

My routine.

The last time I documented it was in 2006 when we were in Sydney.

I realize how much BETTER life is in Singapore (with family support and income) than when in Sydney!

Anyway it's all going to change once we move out, so for posterity's sake:

MORNING

I wake up at 8. Lu has been brought downstairs by KK, Gina is looking after her.
Get the kids ready for school.
Walk them to school at 830.
I try every other day to go for a short swim / cycle / walk.
I return home to Lu, who has woken up from her morning nap, for Lu time!
Sometimes I go out with the neighbour, Lu in tow, for food.

AFTERNOON

I eat lunch, which has been cooked by the helper.
She feeds Lu as I eat.
Lu goes down for her afternoon nap.
I do some work, send out some emails.
I pick the two up from school at 130, put them to bed.
Lu almost always wakes up when the two just fall asleep.
I take Lu.
When the two wake up, we may go out (all 3) or stay home, depending.

EVENING

Dinner time.
The helper feeds Lu as I eat my dinner.
I pick KK up from the MRT station.
We bath the kids, play with them, read them books, put them to sleep.
I do my work and blog, usually from 10pm until about midnight. Later if there is a lot of work to be done.

It sounds like such a terribly pampered lifestyle, particularly since the helper is around so I can at least eat my meals in peace and not be pulled in all 3 directions!

Of course, most times, I'm just frazzled with a headache.

routine 6

Sundays are where they run amok in Bukit Panjang.

Once upon a time I used to have my Sundays to myself.

With Lu, no longer. I have to go along to feed her. But since she started enthusiastically guzzling porridge, I have managed to make Afternoon Escapes because she really doesn't need milk the ENTIRE day.

Mornings, though, I am stuck. And what I do is to bring the older two out.

It's evolved into something that we all enjoy, simply (poor Lu!) because Lu is not there.

The routine is almost always the same. And what is always the same is that in every case, the journey is just as important as (if not even MORE important!) than the destination.

We head to one of three places. In descending order of popularity:

a) Fajar Shopping Centre
b) Bukit Panjang Plaza
c) Lot 1

FAJAR

We trek to the Macdonalds for lunch.

On the way, they slide down the drains, play in the playground, fool around with the exercise equipment for old folks, monkey around the hand rails for wheelchair-bound people, run up and down the grass slope next to the LRT track, suck on ixora flower juice. Takes us a good 30 minutes to cover a short distance.



Macs, it's always the same. They have nuggets (no burgers because burgers make me vomit and I would never be able to finish the leftovers. Kids really DO have to eat what mum eats, no?), fries, corn and apple juice.



I read The New Paper on Sunday (so trashy!). We head back.

BUKIT PANJANG

Because it's a little further, sometimes I drag a discarded marketing trolley with me for Dee to squeeze into in case she refuses to walk.



We go by the teh-tarik lake, a formerly nice green lake (or river? Or reservoir? I have no idea) browned by construction. They suck on ixora flower juice (again), sing songs, find interesting-shaped tiles on the ground.



Once there, it's Macs again. Or KFC. Sometimes they go on a ride.



LOT 1

This is their favourite. But the one I like the least because I have to cab back and I don't even want to pay that fare.

We walk to the LRT station. The kids sit right up front so it feels a little like a roller coaster. Day gives a running commentary on the switches and the signal lights and I don't know what else. Dee just smiles at the tracks, she's enjoying it so much.

At Lot 1, erm, it's Macs again. Sometimes we drop in at the library.

Anyway, just for a laugh, here they are on a Sunday at their grandparents. Over lunch at Macs, Dee made up a song, something about "I wash my dirty hands and go" and they're gleefully belting it out.

routine 5

Bed-time.

Things have changed so much in a year.

One: Papa no longer does his Fun Thing, because KK is in-charge of Lu. Once bathed, Lu is in KK’s hands. He lets her crawl around him in the balcony, he feeds her a bottle of milk, he puts her to bed, usually by 830pm. By that time he’s already had his Kid Needs met and he doesn't bother with Day and Dee anymore. He zones out in front of the TV as I am put solely in charge of the two. He only comes in to give them a kiss when the lights are out.

Two: They no longer sleep between 8 to 830pm! (unless they did not have their naps). Between 9 to 930 is more like it nowadays.

Three: I no longer sing!

Instead what happens once they enter the room is, Day or Dee may play the Memory Game. Simple game of uncovering like pairs of cards.



They read a book or two.



They request for bed-time drinks, which can run from iced honey to Ribena to Milo to milk. I only give them tiny sips. I do not want urine on the bed.



I turn off the lights with no trouble.

Day always asks: “Mum can you tell the Red Boat story? Tonight it’s Part Twelve!”

Dee pipes up: “No I want the Yellow Boat!”

The Red Boat story is a long-winded concoction which I had meant to use to lull them to sleep since I ramble on very s-l-o-w-l-y describing very picturesque scenes, but it seems to have sparked their imagination.

Unlike Mer-mer, suffice to say it revolves around a red boat floating in a huge crystal-blue pond with white pebbles far beneath, islands of jelly or ice cream or marshmallows or chocolate fountains, clothes trees, talking whales with decayed teeth, rainbow slides, treasures hidden in coconut trees and a traveling monkey companion called Arthur who rows a yellow boat.

After a good five or ten minutes where I spin the craziest tales in my head, I kiss the two goodnight. Dee (who has finally STOPPED putting her arm around my neck) pipes up: Mummy don’t go to work and don’t go to gig OK? OKAY?!

I assure her: No mummy is not going out and I am not going for a gig. I am just going to the study room.

And she nicely lets me go. After months and months and months, she has finally learnt to let me go. At bedtime. Only.

routine 4

I forgot to bring the camera for this one.

But one of our set-in-stone routines has been built around Day’s music class.

It’s what I call the “KK Suffers” routine.

It’s when he’s stuck with the two girls (nightmare) while I cruise with Day - the only precious hour in the week when I get to enjoy one-on-one time with my first-born.

Typically, once the kids wake from their naps, I haul them to the bath, get them cleaned up, strap them into their car seats and make off for KK’s workplace.

We pick him up, he takes over the wheel, we drive to the shopping centre near Day’s music class.

We rush through dinner: Either at Pasta Mania, an overpriced food court in the shopping centre or the non-airconditioned hawker centre outside.

I always push for the hawker centre (good cheap food), KK always pushes for the air-conditioned alternatives (expensive bad food but comfortable).

Needless to say we end up at the air-conditioned spots more because he pays.

Then I gleefully take off with Day for one blissful hour.

KK is usually stuck with squalling Lu (at her crankiest time) and ornery Dee.

When Day started his music classes I took Dee and Lu for one session. Just ONCE. I was yelling at KK to hurry up and get his butt over so I could throw at least one girl to him before the hour was up.

Steady KK is unflappable.

I still don't quite know how he manages with a cranky baby and a girl who (sometimes) refuses to listen and (sometimes) refuses to walk.

I do know he routinely takes Dee to do some squeeze painting (the kind where she squeezes paint out of a tube and the whole picture is baked in an oven to solidify) then walks around a bit.

routine 3

Three kids, three very different baths!

All three are bathed just once a day, after dinner roundabout 7-ish. (I couldn't do more than one as bathtime is something I continue to sigh over, not only because it can get difficult but because I have eczema on my hands).

No, they don’t bath together anymore.

The order is almost always like this:

NUMBER ONE
Lu. She’s first because she has to be put to bed soon after and she’s the easiest to drag into the bath because she has no say.

It takes two of us to bath her: Me to hold her by the armpits and KK to do the soapy honours. She only wants to bath standing up, but generally hates bath time. She wiggles and wriggles and bawls as the water runs down her face.

NUMBER TWO
Day. He is acquiescent but doesn’t love bath time either.

He is happy to have either me or KK bath him.

Sometimes he does it himself. It gives him a thrill. But I don’t let him self-bath regularly as I’m not sure he does a great job, particularly with washing the soap out of the hair.



NUMBER THREE
Dee, in the nicest terms, is what I would call a dawdler.

Lu and Day are quickly bathed, combed and moisturized – work’s done! - after which KK literally retreats to the balcony, puts his legs up and watches TV.

Thereafter it’s all down to me, to undertake the most challenging part of bath-time: Getting Dee into the toilet. (it’s me because I’m the only person in the world who can bath her)

It takes a while of to-ing and fro-ing plus a threat or two.

Finally she allows herself to be stripped and led to the toilet. She dawdles some more.

Then I Hair Salon for her.

This, in Dee’s context, is not a noun. It’s a verb. She wails: “Mummy Hair Salon for me!”

It’s something I started months and months ago, to quell her screams during bath-time, and it’s something it seems I’m stuck at. I lay her over my lap and wash her hair like I’m her bloody hairdresser.



The water must be of the right temperature (warm verging on the cold side), I must scratch her scalp vigorously – “Scratch, mummy, scratch!” - and not one drop of water can enter her eyes or her ears.

KK thinks it’s a big mistake and has been trying to get rid of this particular Hair Salon routine since it started, but its stuck. Now if I’m not around at night, he has to Hair Salon her or skip bathing her altogether.

routine 2

Mornings are Lu-time! It’s a happy time for the baby because there’s no one else to compete with her for mummy!

Once I drop off the older two at school, I come home unfettered and free to indulge the baby.

* On that note, how wonderful it is to have just the one kid to focus on! These morning times (first Day then Dee now Lu) are times I miss with each one of them because that’s when I really enjoy them, one-to-one.

Sometimes I take her out in the car, to visit people or go places. To keep her quiet (she occasionally still yells in the car seat) I stretch out my arm behind and pass her all manner of nonsense.



Most times we stay home and do the whole tickling / kissing / hugging thing. I go from bed to bed. I don't know, it's just awfully fun getting her to show her (now eight) teeth. She's a cheery little thing!

Mornings are also when I read books to her.



She’s not really a book fan, though. Scoots off after a book or two.

routine 1

Because when it comes to kids, routines change.

The last time I did Seven Days of Routine in January a year ago, every single routine has since changed. But I so enjoyed reading it back (and laughing at what they did then) I have to do another series! Because these are the day-to-day memories which I treasure!

Mornings.

Lu is the earliest riser. Typically she sits up at 7-ish, rubs her eyes and starts pottering around my sleeping self. Pulling clothes out of drawers, eating books, coming over to slap me once in a while.

Eight, I open my eyes. I smile at Lu and hug her before carrying her and going over to the two older kids.

They are always both squashed on the same side of the bed. I dump Lu on their bed.

She crawls over and slaps her siblings. She yells "Eh!"



Within minutes, Day is up. If he's had a late night, a pat or two from me gets him up and going.

I go to Dee. I nudge her, I pat her, then I slap her. I whisper, I state, then I yell.

Like a hungover teen, she refuses to wake up. It takes a few minutes.

She is hard to put down to sleep, and hard to wake. Day is easy to put to sleep, and easy to wake.