naaaoooww!!!

My dear Lu, does not want to:

* Eat
* Sleep
* Bathe
* Listen to me

To be more precise, she does not want to:

* Eat if someone feeds her. She must grab with her hands (rice also) or use the spoon and fork herself.
* Sleep unless she is slept with.
* Bathe unless she is swimming in a pool.
* Listen to me unless ... I give her contraband? (Chocolates. Sweets. Jellies)

Ooooh.

The little girl has grown horns and a tail.

She DOES, however:

* Want Mum
* Want Mum
* Want Mum

And that's about all she wants. She doesn't want to listen to me, but she wants me.

She hangs onto me with single-minded ferocity.

She clings on when I struggle to wipe Jo's shitty bum. She abseils down my body when I am trying very hard to fry something for dinner (to hook onto my legs). She flings an imprisoning arm across my throat (ala Jo) when I sleep with her.

The first thing she says when she wakes up and I'm not there is "Mummy? Gai-gai?" (because next to me the thing she loves best is going OUT)

And did I say something stupid about child-led weaning? Because since I wrote that post, she's been feeding like a freaking newborn. Every HOUR she pulls down my neckline to hunt for milk while droning: "Nan-nan? Nan-NAN?! NAN-NAN?!??"

It's annoying, cloying love.

Which I return in equal measure when I am not having to wipe somebody's butt or cook or clean or maintain order in this messy drunken household. (because she really is a gorgeously naughty feisty happy little thing)

barrage

Random photos from what remains one of my favourite places to bring the kids: The Marina Barrage. (the two biggest reasons being there is nothing to eat there and you need a car to get there).

* The kids (especially Jo) love kite-watching, identifying jellyfish, squids and hawks in the sky. We tried to buy one from someone who appeared to be selling kites in his van in the carpark, but when it came to our turn a policeman marched up and ordered the vendor to get lost as no one is allowed to sell kites there.




* KK: “I really see myself in Day nowadays.” Really meh? Isn’t he supposed to look more and more like me?




* They do, however, get along famously. The boys bond over all manner of physical antics and slapstick humour. Did I say KK is gunning for another boy? I shoot him down everytime.




* I usually end up with the girls sedate and unmoving in one corner. Not that I don’t want to move, but because the boys always end up together, I am stuck with the girls by default.




* Me and Jo, again. I realize another reason why I always end up taking pictures of her is because she is almost always still. Day hates being photographed nowadays, Lu is a blur of activity (she always turns out blur in her photos) so that leaves Jo. Who demands that I sit with her and because there’s nothing else to do we cam-whore.

bonus

All a man wants to do is enjoy his bonus.

KK decided Wednesday afternoon that Wednesday night was it. Reason being that all 3 kids napped that day (we’re that sad).

All he wanted was:

* Pasta with real bacon in it (ever since Pasta Mania replaced their real bacon with turkey bacon he’s been bereft. But that’s the only pasta outlet we ever go because the kids are used to it)

* Retail therapy (got money must spend)

PASTA

The winning pasta turned out to be from Bakerzin (Vivocity), which I told him was “very expensive but nice” having eaten there once with my gal pals.

The fiery Spaghetti Aglio Olio with crunchy bacon and mushrooms was all he ever dreamed of.



The kids are similarly enamoured of Bakerzin, having followed me that one time I ate with Jo and Pris. They clamoured for the bread and soup which they remembered from the last time and Day would have had the silly Ben 10 cake only I put my foot down.

Me, a third of my pasta went to Jo (which she accidentally dropped on the floor when her elbow nudged the bowl, I very nearly stopped myself from screaming because I had given her one of my two precious slices of ham), a third went to Day and the rest to me.



RETAIL

The four of us tag along as KK shops.

.

By the way that’s how it always goes: KK shops, the rest of us follow.

He is a lucky man. He’s never been a tag-along boyfriend because his girlfriend never shopped. (If I do I zoom straight for what I want and I always do it alone. I hate company when I shop)

So he’s window-shopping. I struggle with Lu. Day and Jo play catch in every shop and I admonish in every shop.

We pass by Geox. KK turns to me: “Do you want a pair of shoes?” Of course not. “Sure? Last chance?” Of course I’m sure.

Later I turn to him: “I don’t want Geox but if you’d buy me a pair of Campers that would be nice.”

He says: “Ermmm.”

He ends up not buying anything. We go home empty-handed, exhausted from trying to have a night out with kids. But he says the pasta was well worth it. That remains his only bonus indulgence. Good.

child-led weaning

Each child is successively less enthusiastic about the breast than the one before.

Lu, dear little Lu, is outrightful rejecting my mammaries!

I offer her my pacifiers – “Nan nan?” – and she tosses her little head and goes “Naaaooow!”

Day and Jo (to a lesser extent), every time they went on the breast their eyes would glaze over, they would go into a daze (similar to what I imagine drug addicts or glue sniffers look like when they get high), they would dwindle off to comfort sucking and then fall into a deep contented slumber.

Lu has always been an entirely different creature.

She’s never fallen asleep at the breast. It was a habit I stopped her from cultivating in the early days because I wanted to train her to sleep on her own (of course I succeeded brilliantly at the former and failed dismally at the latter).

Once she got mobile it was very clear to me that the breast is (mostly) an inconvenience to her.



I cradle her in my arms, she sucks, her eyes follow the lizard on the wall and then flits to the light, she twists and turns so she is literally crouched on my lap on all fours, arms braced on my chest, looking out of the window behind me while feeding.

She loses her balance, rolls to the left, casually catches the breast and continues chomping as she entertains herself.

Oh, the breast acrobatics she makes me play!

Now she can talk somewhat, she cracks me up even more.

She chomps, she tugs, her eyes still flit around. After a minute or two, she looks at me accusingly, disengages herself and asks: “Eh, nan-nan?” (because ah, the milk hasn’t come down yet)

When she’s done, she pulls off, declares: “No more” (no more) and pushes off.

Nooty girl.

bug watch

Different place, different bugs.

It’s been a month and even though we’re just down the road from the old place, the insects over here are markedly different.

Not a single lizard (so far) and few roaches. Both thronged my folks place.

I now particularly enjoy going into my kitchen, and not having to steel myself against feelers which appear from, oh, everywhere: Under the dustbin lid, behind the Milo, under the hob, on top of my cup. (one horrible night I encountered five in one perilous trip. I habitually focus on what I want, get it and vamoose in a hurry ignoring all the damned creatures)

Or lizards which drop from the ceiling.

Maybe it’s the 36 steps which make all the difference. (third-floor versus landed house?)

We do, however, get a lot of these shiny green grape-sized bugs which I've never seen at my folks.



One flew into the fan and, with one pair of its three legs paralyzed, lay helplessly up-ended for my three kids to discover this morning.

It was a good morning, as I cooked their corn in peace and they, huddled over the hapless bug (two pairs of legs waving frantically) squealed in the living room.



Day, neutral and more amused by his sisters than anything else, watched impassively. (he’s not interested in animals)

Jo lay down on the ground on her back and wiggled her arms and legs in imitation of the bug.

Lu eyeballed the bug seemingly trying to decipher where its face was, took my car key, poked it, stepped on it. I'm glad she didn't try to eat it.

different tastes

This isn’t a food blog for sure, but I foresee menu issues.

That is, in trying to satisfy four very fussy eaters.

It didn’t matter very much when I was still at my folks. Even if the kids did not like their food, I did not care. In a big household there’s always something else available in the pantry, there’s always someone who will be offering them food.

It mattered more when we were in Sydney but at the time it was just two (KK and Day) I had to cater for. (Jo ate everything)

Now it’s four people with very fixed ideas of what they want to eat.

And when the cook is a bit of a culinary idiot, the range of food I can offer is severely limited.

Tonight for dinner I whipped out what I thought was my Culinary Ace: Roast chicken. Please don’t laugh.



KK made a special request – “It’s the only thing you cooked in Sydney that I miss” – and I acceded.

The humbling reactions:

Day: “Eeeew! I don’t like the peppers Mummy!” He ate half his portion before declaring that he was “very full”.
Jo: I don’t like the peppers. I don’t like the potatoes. I don’t like the corn. I only want the chicken.
Lu: Spit out the potato. Spit out the peppers. Ate a few slivers of chicken and one corn cob.

They vastly preferred the chicken soup.

But we (me and KK) prefer the roast.

His reaction, however, was: “Are you sure the chicken is cooked? How come it looks raw? How come it’s so oily?”

Haiya.

first movie

The first movie Day and Jo ever saw in their lives: UP, 15 August 2009, Vivocity.

Stupidity

We paid $40 for four seats. Not having watched a movie in yonks plus never having watched a movie with a kid, we don't know that kids below 90cm get in for free (Jo) and that a kid below 12 who goes in with 2 adults gets in for free (Day).

Jo ends up sitting on my lap the entire time.

We sit in the front row, necks at a perpetual 45 degree angle.

Result

Day laughs at the right parts and seems engaged. But he mostly has his hands over his ears and cowers in his seat. It's way too loud for him.

Jo wriggles incessantly in my lap, turning around to look at the people behind her and chiming very loudly repeatedly - "Mummy can I have that? Can I buy that? Can I eat that?" (referring to the popcorn), making irreverant squeals and yells and screams in the quiet moments, running to the front of the cinema so her head just touches the bottom of the screen.

Not bringing the kids for another movie soon.

cook

Until I get up the guts to cook, home is not quite home.

We leave in the morning and stay at my folk’s place the entire day, only to return home after dinner for bath and bed-time.

Cooking is truly the hardest thing I have to do. I delve into laundry with gusto and relish putting things in their right place but cook?

Simple barley, oats and instant noodle breakfasts don’t count.

I haven’t gotten near a hob since Sydney.

But cook, I must. Not every meal, every day, but cook, I must.

A kitchen is the cornerstone of a home.

So a month after moving in, I cross the psychological barrier.

After school, I cart the kids from school, make a quick trip to the supermarket and then go home.

Somehow, I successfully put both girls to sleep and then I stare at the food.

And then - even though I forget how much water to put in with the rice and I have to call my folk’s maid for help – it all comes back.

What to do, the order of ingredients, how to fry.

Wonderful, sweet, enthusiastic Day chips in every step of the way, chopping up all my vegetables and making me think that we’re doing great.



The greatest part: I actually remember how to fry an even omelette.

This time, unlike Sydney where I was truly a cooking idiot, it all comes back, like a bicycle-riding skill. I didn’t forget.

They polish up the food with gusto. Even though I am starting to think it has less to do with the quality of the food (very simple plain fare) than the fact that it was mummy who whipped it up.

The meal: Cannot-go-wrong chicken soup with potato, carrots and mushrooms (and one very important stock cube), sausage omelette and rice.

1000 posts

… and it’s still fun!

What’s the readership?

According to site meter, 359 visits and 615 page views a day. I’m not sure what that means exactly. I also don’t exactly know who is reading, and how they get here.

In November 2004, it was only me, KK and Theresa reading! And it was Theresa was left the first comment on my first post: “…Hmmm wonder how long you will maintain the blog?”

Why not make money from this?

Five years on and I have never veered: The blog is meant for KK, me and the kids (and whoever else drops in) to enjoy, like a family mag / photo album. Ads clog up the blog. Ads irritate me. Ads corrupt the intention of my blog. That said, let me cover my own backside: Never say never.

How long do I take to blog?

Writing, five to 20 minutes, maybe longer if it’s about an issue, but I seldom do issues because I don’t want to think too much. Photos, five minutes. It’s all very fast because I find the kids rather newsworthy and I usually know exactly what I want to blog about. In the course of the day, something might strike, I take the relevant photo, by the time I sit down at the computer it all spills out.

Usually, I don’t even sit down to blog with a purpose. Blogging is my Time Out from onerous writing jobs, when I’m just so fed-up with trying to write an intro to an article I turn to writing a blog post to make myself happy. It’s become an enjoyable habit, like reading while eating.

Ever got into trouble from the blog?

Just once, recently, and it was KK I got into hot water. I wrote about his worksite, the head honcho of his company’s client saw it (maybe because I put in a link to worksite), I had to pull out the post with all the photos of the uncompleted site.

Ever been recognized?

Just once or twice. Once someone came up to me at the pool and said: “Hey that’s Jody! I recognize her from the blog!”

That said, I hate talking about the blog when I meet people face-to-face. When a friend goes… “Oh! I enjoy your blog!...” I tend to go “Eh don’t talk about the blog.” It embarrasses me.

Will I go on forever?

No. I will stop if I get sick of it, if I or the kids ever feel threatened, if the kids reach the age when they want me to stop dissecting them in public.

Why do I still enjoy blogging?

I heard someone say once that she puts up beautiful laughing pictures of her children on the wall. Whenever she gets royally pissed off or a bit depressed, she takes a deep breath, looks at the pictures, grits her teeth and says: “They are a blessing. They are a blessing. They are a blessing.”

This blog is my happy picture.

What different blog layouts have you used?

Just for myself.


* Until March 2013

parents grim

More than ever before the kids have been seeing our grim miens.

KK, lips all pursed, yells at Day: “CAN’T YOU SEE WE ARE TRYING TO DO SOMETHING HERE?!? CAN YOU THINK!?!”

I, rolling my eyes and sighing, ignore the endless increasingly loud stream of high-pitched “Mummy I want... (insert anything)” and wish they were anywhere else.

It’s all Ikea’s fault.

Specifically, when we attempt to self-transport and self-assemble Ikea furniture with kids in tow. (OK our fault)

A dish rack is fine and dandy, everyone has fun.

But when it comes to heavier-duty stuff like a bunk bed and a wardrobe, well.

We aren’t grim to start with.

KK almost always starts out ridiculously positive, with one of his “OK let’s whack! Let’s bring all the kids to Ikea with us!” followed by “It’s easy lah, I can fix it up in 30 minutes” while I splutter in the background: “Why don’t we leave them with my folks?” etc etc.

Then what almost always transpires is this:

A high-stress shopping trip during which the kids get cranky and fed-up with having to follow us to all the boring parts of Ikea or test all the safety limits.



A dangerous car ride during which furniture takes up an entire half of the car, the kids (gleefully) crawl into the space between the (usually two-metre long) boxes and the seat, and I sit on the floor of the car with Lu’s feet right next to my left ear. She almost always purposely kicks hard.



A even more stressful trip back to our front door (typically after bathing and settling all the kids we grit our teeth and make the back-breaking trip up 36 steps with furniture in tow. KK singlehandedly carried up all the bunk bed parts in one trip and I think he sprained something. The wardrobe, we broke open the box and made many trips carrying the planks)

The most stressful part: Assembling the whole thing with kids underfoot.

Lu picking up the hammer and scampering around nails and screws small enough for her to swallow.



Lu examining the drill.



Lu running under the wardrobe as me and KK heave it into position. As it is really tremendously heavy I shriek silently and pray I don’t drop my half of the wardrobe on her head.

Lu and Jo running around each other with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers respectively.

For the most part, Day is a real trouper, he helps to read the manuals and passes us the relevant equipment.

We could make life easier for ourselves of course, there are so many ways. But for some reason we are such bad planners we end up doing everything on the fly.

singapore’s 44

I doubt we’d go anywhere else, but the symbolic hanging out of the Singapore flag on our very first family home puts a stamp on it.

KK has never hung a flag out anywhere, not on our first marital home, not at my folks, not at his folks.

This year, he nagged and nagged: Can we get a flag to hang outside the balcony?

I ask what the hell for. I’ve never done it before why should I do it now. I don’t particularly feel very much for this country.

He retorts: Because you never did NS.

Ah, so.

We get a flag (from the community club) and out it goes, where our flag proudly joins the two other flags in the entire 50-something unit compound. (not because everyone else thinks like me, but because everyone else is a tenant from China or Philippines or something or other)



Anyway, the kids have been nationalised at school.

“Count on Me Singapore”, “Stand Up for Singapore”, the Pledge: They know the words, they sing it with gusto, they wave their little flags, bless the patriotic little Singaporeans I produced for this country.



The school teachers also brought them on a boat tour, same one that Day did two years ago.



We would have gone to watch the fireworks like last year only KK no longer wants to brave the traffic.

So this year it's a sit-around-the-TV-and-watch-fireworks sort of National Day.

sisters

Our beautiful troublesome girls.

spidey dance

“Dear Jo, the day you go bar-top dancing I want you to know this is when it all started.”



Origins: She saw the scene in Spiderman 2 where Tobey Maguire is frantically spewing webs to surrounding buildings to try and stop a runaway train, hopped off her chair and immediately copied him. With some spicy hips thrown in.

genital discovery... again

(And we’re back to original kiddy programming!)

Lu is, at almost exactly the same stage as Jo, has discovered how her brother is different from her.

And how she revels in it.

She spots, she reaches out, she pulls, she giggles hysterically.

budget 5: salvation army

Salvation Army everybody knows.

For cheap unwanted stuff, one must go there.

On all that junk, someone somehow values the used furniture and whatever you pay goes to charity.

The little I’ve learnt:

* Only the branches at Upper Bukit Timah Road and Upper Serangoon have furniture.
* The branch at Upper Bukit Timah is smaller but reputedly (OK just one person told me) has nicer things because the people living around there are monied.

Having scouted out both, I think Upper Serangoon Road is far more impressive. It’s huge with roomfuls of furniture with much bigger variety.

I haven’t got much from the Salvation Army, chiefly because the house is still in a state of flux and things are changing every week.

What I did get – and which has proved a bit of a mistake – is this Egg.



Cute as hell, it sat pretty at the Upper Bukit Timah Road branch, right at the entrance.

I asked: What is this?

Then the volunteer flipped it open and I was sold.



It's exactly the kind of stupid impractical thing I occasionally fall for.

Made all of fibreglass (so its heavy but will probably float in the sea if I threw it in because canoes are made of the same stuff) it is, well, used.

Scratches, peeling bottom, seats that smell like mothballs (KK: "Who the hell has sat on this? There are stains on it.") and the price written on the surface in permanent ink ($100).

I got it anyway. For $90. ($10 discount for being a member)

Why I say it’s a bit of a mistake is because it’s a hazard. It bangs shut with the lightest tap and it’s heavy.

Once Lu tapped it close and the lid smashed on Jo’s foot.

Maybe I’ll just hide it in the bedroom. Or let KK use it to rest his feet which is what he’s been wanting to do all along.

Anyhow it’s not comfortable for people any larger than me, but the kids sure look great in it. Whether it's comfortable for long-duration seating, however, is questionable.

budget 4: wholesaler

All those industrial areas where normal people never venture conceal hidden treasures.

Treasures straight from the wholesaler without the mark-ups which retailers charge.

Defu lane, Toa Payoh Industrial park, Kallang, Changi South. The names send little frissons of pleasure down my spine.

Only, again, only those “in the know” will know where to go for what, and unless I really have a lot of time to ask around / make site visits / scour the Yellow Pages, I can’t do it.

EUROMARK

Our major electronics purchases were made from one such HDB-void-deck shop: Euromark.

Recommended by more than one (unrelated) person, including (again!) Ondine as a place for cheap electronics, our first visit to Euromark was during their warehouse sale, to some God-forsaken place in the Toa Payoh industrial park.

There, plied with coffee and Hacks sweets, we browsed catalogues (everything was in boxes, there was very little on display) as the standing fans furiously dispelled the wet afternoon heat and Day scratched at his rashy neck.

The very helpful man, cheerfully blowing cigarette smoke in my face, knocked off a few hundred dollars off the price of our fridge when we also got a standing cooker and a washing machine. (the fridge and the cooker, we only saw its pictures on the Internet before deciding on it)

I know for sure the standing cooker was quite a bit cheaper than at the Harvey Normans / Best Denkis / other air-conditioned electronics stores in shopping centres.

And what I really really liked about them was when I asked: “Erm, my place is a walk-up apartment on the third floor.”

And without a groan, without mentioning a word about $10 per extra floor, he said: “Oh no problem. We have carried up six floors before. We’ll just give you a bigger guy.”

* Kids mulling over the novelty of spinning clothes.