c&c: food

Last in the series.

On their food attitudes.



First off, not once have I tried to force something on my kids that they didn’t want to eat. It’s nothing to do with parenting philosophy. I just can’t be bothered. Instead I spend all my energies trying to persuade them to sleep.

So food-wise it’s always a case of “Dowant done”. As in, dowant veggies? Done. Mummy will eat it.

LU

She is the fussiest of the three but it’s due more to age than anything else.

To try and show me that she can take control of her food, she does things like pick out cabbage and fling it on the floor.



Why I say it’s age is because on other occasions, she eats the cabbage.

I don’t think she is really fussy. Though she is really messy, so unlike her sister.



Loves: Steamed peas and corn, macaroni, grapes, guava and everything unhealthy (in particular, salt-laden french fries and potato chips).

She also leaves her food half-eaten and tends to forsake whatever she is eating when she sees something new.

So whip out biscuits and she abandons her ice cream before coming after you, claws bared, yelling “Pees! Pees! Bee-teet!” (Please! Biscuit!)

JO

She has always been the foodie and she still is.

It’s obvious that she truly enjoys her food, unlike Day who sometimes looks like he’s working to eat.

She hardly has issues with leaving food behind.

If anything she asks for seconds. And thirds.

Neither is she fussy. She eats almost anything.

Loves: Carbs: macaroni, pasta, rice, chicken, pork, fruit, peas, dou miao. She has some issues with some vegetables, doesn’t quite like choy sum-type veg, but then neither do I!

DAY

He eats widely.



Chilli padi, ducks tongue and sucking the marrow out of pig bones with a straw is amongst his favourites. He also chomps on raw spring onions.

We pretty much stick to what we tell him: Try everything at least once and if you don’t like it you don’t have to eat it ever again. (I take over the remains)

He also finishes all his food (unless it’s restaurant portions beyond his control).

This, I trained. I HATE wasting food.

A few months ago, after his incessant complaining about how he didn’t feel like eating, and after a few times of my useless proselytizing about the starving children in the world, I starved him.

He didn’t want dinner, I said: “Fine. If you don’t eat this I will not give you any food or drink apart from water for the rest of the night. You will know what it is like to be hungry.” He didn’t look back and stalked off in a huff.

Five am the next morning he crawled into my bed, cold hands shivering, begging me for a drink, anything to fill his tummy.

I told him: “This is what hunger feels like.”

Since then he hasn’t made any more noise.

He takes the portion he can finish, if he doesn’t like it he doesn’t take it, if it’s a new dish and he doesn’t like it on first try, I finish it.

That just about sums it up!

c&c: strangers

Who amongst the three is most approachable?

LU



She is by far the most sociable, outgoing and cheerful of the three. (the photo doesn’t show that but it’s so hard to snap her, she’s always moving, she’s always blur)

Not including times when she is cranky and clingy from sleep deprivation (she does need a lot more sleep than the other two), she is the one to:

* Wave and say “Hi ah-cle / Hi ah-tee” to random uncles and aunties.
* Approach, “talk” to and play with strange children anywhere.

This, despite her currently going through a traditionally clingy phase. Then again, she’s always been consistently smiley.

I wait with bated breath the day she can actually hold a conversation, to see if the cheerful streak runs true.

JO

Jo is the one strangers remember with a smile after they meet her.

She isn’t outrightly cheerful in a bouncy way like Lu. But she is a great communicator.

Talk to her and she’ll probably talk to you quite seriously. And make sense in a funny amusing way.

She’s charming. What a gift.

I bring her for lunches or meals with my friends and they all enjoy her company (only when she’s alone. When the sibs are around it all goes downhill because there’s too much competition).

Here she is with my friend Jo (for Josephine!). The two Jo’s thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.



DAY

He is the most shy and awkward.

He does not like to make eye contact, does not say hi unless he is reminded and will never make small talk with strangers unless he already knows them or really likes them.


* The fake smile

He reminds me of myself when I was a kid. And he reminds me of KK now.

c&c: bath

LU

She loves swimming and she loves water.

But she hates baths.



Lu’s bath is when I look at KK, he looks at me, and nobody wants to do the job.

What she hates most is when the water goes over her head, like Jo.

But I’m not going to give her the Princess treatment. She just has to learn the hard way.

Brushing teeth is just as tough. She whines throughout. Her favourite part is the spitting out of water. She loves wetting my clothes.

JO

For someone who used to hate baths, she is now a #1 fan. She likes to be clean and nice-smelling.

The moment she puts down her dinner dish, she fights to be the first to bath.

She still has water-in-eye issues, and most of her face remains dry throughout.

But as she is still in her strive-to-please phase, she tries her darndest to wash her own hair, her own body and soap herself.

And brushing her teeth always makes us want to laugh.

KK makes her do the hippopotamus, mouth open wide for molar-brushing...



... then the sunflower. Her sunny smile and slitty eyes are glorious.



DAY

The day we allowed him to take full responsibility for bodily cleanliness (some months back), we were seriously chuffed.

Relieved of 33.3% of our bathing duties!



As he does everything himself – remove clothes, bathe, brush his own teeth, dry himself, wear his own clothes – it’s significant relief.

He only asks me on occasion to check that he’s washed away all the soap.

Sometimes he helps us to bathe Lu. (not soap her, but entertain her in the bathtub and keep her happy as we do the job)

More and more, he is an asset rather than a liability.

c&c: sartorial sense

LU

The notty one likes dresses.



She flings out shirt after shorts and points to the dresses.

Once on, she spins in a wobbly circle, goes to the mirror, tilts her head. “Peety! Gordeous! Bee-ti-ful!” (Pretty! Gorgeous! Beautiful!”)

She goes to show everyone her dress. Waltzes up to KK: “Dess, papa, dess! Peety!”

He always laughs.

JO

Her current fav: A big pink butterfly striped shirt and pink Barney pants.



It’s hardly dry on the line but she plucks off the peg and wears it straight after her bath. It’s the kind of outfit I wish I had two sets off so she can wear it every day.

What she really wants to wear is Red and Yellow clothes. Anything that is Red and Yellow.

She loves the colours so much she disallows anyone else in the family from wearing Red and Yellow.

After Lu or Day finishes their bath, she solemnly reminds me: “Mummy don’t let Gor-gor / Lulu wear a red and yellow shirt or red and yellow pants, OK?”

And while her fav ensemble is not really Red and Yellow, she bluffs herself. She points to the dark pink: “Mummy that’s red”. Then points to the white: “Mummy that’s yellow, right?”

The reason why she does that is because she has NO Red and Yellow clothes. All the hand-me-downs are pink.

So the pink butterfly shirt is her de facto “Red and Yellow” fave.

That said, she is right fussy about her clothes.

Panties must NOT peek out from the rims of ill-fitting pants or she will scream. Straps of shoes must be aligned perfectly, if the velcro is off she will scream. One drop of water on anything she is wearing and she will scream.

If she is going out, she will not wear T-shirts and pants. She wears a pretty “Red and Yellow” dress (it could well be green), black court shoes, makes me tie her hair in plaits.

So much to say about her fashion sense.

DAY

He has never given a hoot about his clothes, never.

He pretty much wears whatever we put on him.

Now that he selects his clothes post-bath, I realize he has a preference for character clothes.

Shirts with Thomas the Train on it, Ben 10.

His current fave: A green satiny-smooth Ben 10 outfit from a pasar malam, the first and only time I asked him to choose an outfit for himself.



Frankly it’s hideous. But I have never stopped him from wearing it.

The plain-coloured shirts I select for him on the occasion I do, he wears them. But without any enthusiasm.

c&c: wakey wakey

Compare and Contrast.

A five-day series on 3 different responses to the same thing.

It could be age, it could be gender, it could be character. They’re just different.

We start with Waking Hour.

LU

She is everyone’s alarm clock.

No matter what time she sleeps at night, she pops up between 7 and 730am, the first to rise.

Quietly getting up without any crying, she comes straight to my bed, crawls all over, flings her legs over my chin and sits astride my face so I can’t breath, butts all over and gives me new bruises on my face.

Grabs my hand, attempts to pull me up.

She chants: “Mum-MY! Mum-MY! Pees (please)! Dum (come)! Mum-MY!”

She pulls the tissue, shreds it, goes to the playroom and plays solo.

KK wakes up. Does his thing. Goes off to work. She sends him off at the door, says bye.

She is alone once more. She comes back to me. Slaps me on the face. Grabs a diaper from the store room and throws it on me expecting me to do my duty and change her pee-soaked one.

“MMUUUUMMM-MMMYYYY!!!!!”



I finally wake up. I am gray-faced and tired-looking next to her peachy fresh one.

DAY

He’s always #2.

He usually gets up after Lu and before me.

He wakes up quietly, pees then goes straight to the playroom to fiddle with his trains or takes out a book to read.



JO

I have never let her wake up on her own because we’d be horribly late.

While Day and Lu are occupied eating breakfasts, usually about 815am, I shake her. I push her, I stroke her hair, I whisper in her ear.

She tosses and turns reluctantly, whines, but her eyes never open. She goes back to sleep.

I whisper again: “Jo, I made sweet potato soup for you for breakfast. If you don’t wake up Lulu and gor-gor will finish it.”

She squacks.



If she’s had enough sleep, she quietly pads to the kitchen. If she hasn’t, she screams all the way about how no one can touch her sweet potato soup.

sunflower life

We put two sunflower seeds in a pot and chucked it on the balcony.

The kids squealed when the first shoots appeared weeks ago and then lost interest. (remind me never to get a pet)

Despite the lack of attention, it grew. A pathetic tiny little thing with a face about as big as your average door knob.



Its companion, initially stronger and taller, was severely traumatised when Lu suddenly pulled it up one day and waved its roots around.

I screamed. It was murder.

I buried its roots back but thought it was a goner. KK said: "Don't throw it away. It's struggling to live."

And it did. Half the height but a small flower bloomed nonetheless.



Both, unfortunately, are now dying because the torrential rain and wind flattened them out.

snapshot

It's 4pm. I'm at the computer.

I have closed the door against the kids.

I think we've had quite enough of each other today.

Big 2 did not go to school. Playground, cookie baking, macaroni lunch at home, bookshop, fries at Macs, with all 3.

I order them to have a nap. I didn't have the energy to follow through.

Lu made a getaway to join her siblings in their room and I closed my door.

I just had a peep.

The three were sitting in a ring, munching on the chocolate chip cookies we made this morning (there's one shitty-looking piece on the floor which Lu dropped), reading, enjoying the cold rainy weather.



I took a snap and retreated back to my shelter.

Lu's just come in. "Mummy, mummy, mummy!" she chirps.

I glare at her and point to the bed: "Go to sleep, Lulu."

She scurries back out, quick as a rat (she IS born in the year of the mouse).

I'm still free. But I don't know for how long more*.

* Five minutes.

hiao pors

Baby vainpot.



And her inspiration.



How is it that a vanilla plain mum begets two vain girls?

And how wasted it is, that I have no necklaces (0), earrings (4 gold studs), hats (0), belts (0), scarves (0), bags (only the ugly gray one), shoes (3 pairs including 1 pair of slippers) to inspire them with.

I hypothesise: In reaction to their fashion-blind mama, these 2 girls will be rabid fashionistas.

Don't break my bank, girls.

no more milk

That’s it then. My milk-producing years are over.

Lu has finally gone off the breast.

Last feed: Wee hours of Monday morning, 16 November.

Duration of breast milk: Two days short of 20 months.

She’s had my milk the longest.

Despite this, she was the hardest to wean.

It could be because Day and Jo were both naturally weaned when I became pregnant.

For both of them, the milk slowed to an irritating trickle which did nothing for their hunger. The taste of the milk might have changed. And I was psychologically adamant that there was only enough of me to nurture one (the one in the belly) and not two. I cut them off quickly.

Lu was the first time I had ever tried to forcibly push the baby off my boob for no other reason than “time’s up”.

And the fact that I am heading for a three-day Penang holiday with Day and Jo, sans Lu and KK, at the end of November.

It was horribly unnatural.

Milk was abundant – once I stayed away for a whole day and nearly suffered a blocked duct by evening - she was enjoying it more than ever and had developed a particular tendre for the breast.

Up till a month ago, she fed, five, six times a day. After meals, before sleep, a few times in the middle of the night, any time she felt like it.

I kept putting Project Wean off. Then October became November.

I thought about getting a passport and an air ticket for Lu last-minute. I thought about trying to pump milk out for Lu in Penang. Then I figured it really is time.

I said NO to day feeds. I told her: Lulu, nan-nan is for babies. You are a little girl now.

Oh! How distressed she was!

She came running after me, arms waving, squealing “PEES! PEES, MUMMY! PEES, NAN-NAN!” (Pees = please)

I couldn’t resist her manners.

She would pull down or pull up my shirt and look for milk.

She was breastmilk-crazed.

But slowly, over a week, the day feeds stopped.

She would still come to me at night – quietly unerringly heading for me in my bed from her room in the 2am pitch darkness – for one feed.

That took another week. I think I finally managed to say NO over the weekend in my drowsy state (it is so habitual to just roll over and feed her), she squalled a little and I think she’s stopped for good.

Time taken to wean: About three weeks.

If I have my way and Lu is my last child ever, this would be farewell to breastfeeding.

I wish I could say I’d miss it. And sometimes I do. But looking ahead to a theoretically bright future (kid-less holidays!), I don’t think so!

ellis' party

We recently attended Ellis’ party. She turned two.



The thing about kiddy birthday parties is, most times the kids end up running around a lot and making a mess.

Organize something and it could end up being a big fat failure if nobody’s interested / everyone drifts away / nobody follows instructions.

I mean, kids don’t give face, right?

But this time, Day and Jo (Lu had to stay home for her nap) genuinely had a great time: There was a cookie baking session.



They were captivated.

I was left free and easy (my life is looking up!) to talk to friends, eat and do my own thing without having anyone to bother me.

Jo also met (fellow blogger) Auntie Sylvia, who finds Jo most fascinating!



Again, it's odd how I feel like I "know" Sylvia even though it's the first time we've met. I ask Sylvia about her childhood education course, about Danielle's primary school, as if we are catching up!

It's not a bad feeling at all, this instantaneous rapport.

It also makes me think: How many people "know" me?

when he's a man

A declaration from Day:

"When I'm grown up I want to have four children.

The first two are boys, and the third and fourth are girls.

Their names are Thomas, Gordon, Sophia and Natalie.

Mummy you'll be a grandmother and you can help me to look after them.

But how am I going to choose a girl?"

mickey

We had a pet. It was a rat.

It was living somewhere under our fridge. Or maybe our washing machine.

It came out late at night when we were all asleep and it was pitch dark.

It clambered up the wires, shit and peed in my rice cooker, gouged chunks out of my bananas, gnawed into my wholemeal bread, took the paint off the bottom of my balcony door when it desperately tried to scrabble out one night.

Once it left two pellets of shit in my saucepan. Centimetre-long pieces of dried, black pellets.

How did we know it was Mickey?

We didn’t. We thought it might have been a lizard. A bat. A bird. Or maybe a rat.

We pretty much lived with the shits for weeks, taking our own sweet time to try and figure out what creature it belonged to.

Until KK ventured into the kitchen last night in the pitch darkness and caught the rat unawares when he switched on the light.

He saw something zip past to the fridge. He made out a tail.

He saw red. He was a Man on a Mission.

He said: “I’m going to get the f*@cker.”

Tonight he came back armed with rat glue. Not one, but two types.

Rat poison was no good, we did not want any of the kids accidentally inhaling or eating it and having to get their stomachs pumped.

The management also told us to please not use rat poison as the rat would go off and die someplace and its carcass – which might not be found – would stink up the compound.

Traps were not available.

That left the glue.

Gleeful, KK set about getting ready to annihilate the rat.

Glue one was transparent and odour-less and came spread like jam on a ready-to-use pack with pre-packed bait. Just open up.

Glue two smelt like rotten eggs, was black as tar and had to be manually spread on hard boards.

Both glues were sticky as hell. Like melted cheese (stretch it and it goes on and on) but a lot stickier.



The arsenal: Two transparent glue packs, and four black glue boards.

KK cut up a bit of banana and dumped it in the centres. We knew Mickey liked bananas.

As to placement, we knew exactly where Mickey would go. I’ve been finding his shit pellets every morning, I knew his hang-outs.

The result? (skip if you don’t want to see a rat)
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Not even an hour after we had primed the battlefield, we saw Mickey in the flesh.

Quivering wetly on the first black glue board, all 15cm of him (not including tail) at the side of the fridge.

KK said, in triumph: “I know my strategy. There can only be one entrance and exit.”

Oh Mickey struggled. Pushing vainly with his hind legs to get off the board.

But he was well and truly mired. His tail was stuck fast. His body was stuck fast. His snout and one eye was stuck fast. He couldn’t even breath. I saw air bubbles come and go even as his abdomen heaved.

We stared at him. His fur was clean and brown, his ears were pink.

KK said: “Could this be someone’s pet?”

I hunkered down for a photo and looked into his beady round eyes. I confess, in a Ratatouille moment, I felt sorry for the poor dying creature.

KK, unbelievably, actually took me seriously: “Come on it’s either the rat or your kids. No need to feel sorry for it lah.”

Mickey’s final resting place: In a Cold Storage plastic bag, down the rubbish chute.

We hope that’s the end of it.

Then again, maybe not. The rat must have come from SOMEWHERE outside.

* Morning Update

Oh my God Oh My God we caught Mickey's dad.

We left the glues lying around.

This morning KK came in and announced with a smile: We're clean.

But he had not opened the balcony door.

(Skip if you don't want to see a BIG rat)
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A disgusting big wet rat which had sufficient strength to drag the board around the balcony and make a mess of the area (the glues are a bitch to clean up. No ordinary water or soap would do the trick, only industrial strength soap), I did not have the slightest sympathy.

We have a rat problem. Rather, the compound has a rat problem. They're coming from outside.

bao faces

Char siew bao for tea.

Day loves bao.



Jo loves bao.



Lu pretends to eat bao. Like me, she doesn't do bread.

swimming with vincent

Day loves to swim.

He’s got a teacher he likes: An old lifeguard by the name of Vincent.



I think that’s key: Whether teacher and student click.

The swim lessons fell into Day’s lap.

The neighbour was looking for kids to form a minimum three-strong class with her two, I asked Day, he thought about it and said yes.

I think he was ready. Months of swimming with KK at the Safra pool and the boy had managed to go underwater.

It’s been almost two months of swim class now.

It’s an easy arrangement. He goes, I pay $10 for the hour. If it’s gray or if Day just feels tired, we don’t turn up and I don’t pay.

Like I said, they click. Vincent likes teaching Day, Day likes learning from Vincent.

The man of few words is one of those slow-moving, ever-smiling, soft-spoken, affable types who never ever loses his patience.

He tells me: “David... good lah. He is improving.”

As for Day, he’s learnt to retrieve a watch from the bottom of a pool, kick his legs in a Z-V-I formation (that’s breast stroke for you), tread water for 40 seconds (head bobbing in and out of the water though) and learn the rudimentaries of freestyle and breast stroke.

That's Vincent releasing him to swim back to the edge of the pool. Nice.

snapshot

It's the holiday crazies again.

Somehow end-year is when all the music gigs and writing jobs start piling up and I am left an exhausted wreck, a spiritually absent mother apart from dreary-eyed washing of bums and fetching food and drinks.

It's the time when I try to sleep when the kids are awake (they merrily bounce around my head and jump my limbs) so that when they are asleep, I have the energy to squeeze in some work.

KK asks: Why don't you just reject the jobs and relax?

Well I don't because I am inherently fearful.

I fear not having an income, I fear dependency. I fear if I say no now, they will never call me again then what am I to do?

In any case I think it's great that I have too many jobs, to make up for the times I have none!

Today is a day of four (phone, thank God) interviews, a thousand-word profile, a clutch of Apec stories and one harried trip to the library with the kids.

Low point of the day: Finishing all interviews and the profile piece to realize that I haven't had breakfast or lunch and it's 1.30pm. Time to fetch the kids.

High point of the day: Chomping on Twisties, Mamee and chugging Winter Melon Tea (my breakfast and lunch) with the kids at mama shop behind the library.


* It's just one-off. I usually eat very well.

Now I do the Apec stuff. What time will I sleep tonight?

wrong

Three phone calls.

One, her primary-school-going daughter calls her up and tells her: “Mummy I don’t feel like going to school today.”

Two, she calls her husband: “I’m not sending the girl to school today. She has got diarrhoea and vomiting, she’s not feeling so well.”

Three, she calls her daughter: “OK you can stay home today. But I told daddy that you are sick. Remember to pretend you are sick, and say you are not feeling well if he asks you.”

I nearly choke on my toast.

Her calls are so hideously wrong I don’t even know where to start.

jo's envy

Today while going on an evening walk she sees another little girl.

Five-year-old Lerell is tall, skinny with manga-big eyes and long hair and she is wearing kitten heels.

Jo stares at Lerell. And frowns.

She turns to me and whispers: “Mummy I want my legs to be long and my arms to be long and I want to be tall. I want long long hair like the chae-chae. I want to go home and bath and then come back so she can see me.”

She repeats her message several times. She is clearly troubled.

Oh, Jo.

Will you believe me if I tell you that you are absolutely gorgeous? And will you believe me still when you are a teen?

the beginnings of violence

I started it.

One day a few weeks ago I was playing soothing ballet-type music for the girls to dance to and Day requested: “Can I have some fighting music please?”

So I socked it to him: Eye of the Tiger, which just happened to pop into my head.

That singularly inspiring movie soundtrack has led to an all-out obssession with boxing.

He’s memorized (Youtube) lines from Rocky: “We fought, we had the eye of the tiger man, the EDGE. And now you gotta get it back and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning, know what I mean? Eye of the Tiger.”

Every day the boy kicks, punches and snarls. He asks me to please play Eye of the Tiger as he boxes his way around the living room.

Like I said it’s me.

I got so hyped up by the song - I haven’t even watched the damned show myself – I went straight to Youtube to search for it and we all spent a good half hour just watching Rocky clips.

Blood, bruises, gore, Day and Jo took it all in.

It’s made me want to watch the movie, it all looks rather inspiring.

I am, however, quite impressed at how savage he looks. He’s killing the pillow.



He’s totally ineffective but with a few pounds of muscle he could do some damage.

KK is very amused by it all and wants to get a punching bag for Day.

Jo tried boxing and she looks like she’s jogging on the spot. So do I.

In his angsty moments the boy has also taken to mock boxing his sisters with a glint of madness in his eyes.

for the album

Choon returned to Darwin yesterday.

We haven't taken a family photo in years.

Here's one for the album.


* Choon, me & Lu, Teng, mum, Jo and pa. KK was taking the photo and Day refused to be photographed.

Kids will miss Choon.

Ours was literally like a second home, he'd come waltzing in early in the morning or in the afternoon to hang around. The squeals start soon after he arrives, from all the tickling and playing catch.

Lu, who was too young last time Choon came, took to him like a fish to water.

Jo wanted him to stay over every night.



Day was relatively nonchalant but he's older and less easily enamoured.


* At Choon's Szechuan Court farewell lunch

lu talk

Observations about what comes out of her mouth:

She is stellar at the ends of words but not the fronts. Meaning she goes “YooK!” (Look with a very pronounced K) and “WeeT!”) (Sweet with a very pronounced T)

Her enunciation is blur (to Day’s Starbucks Coffee at the same age, she goes “Tar Tuck Tot Tee” or something to that effect) but her tones are what makes her understood. She sings her words the right way.

She can tell short stories. To describe a vaccination, she goes “Ah-tee, jeet! Pain pain.” (Ah-tee = Auntie.)

She's got a swear word which sounds like Bear That. Every time I or Jo or anyone gets on her nerves she hisses "Bear That".

She very naturally says "Tatoo" (for Thank You) and "Peas" (for Please).

Word count: I haven’t cared since Day! Haha!

But she’s at the stage where she cracks us all up.

Especially Day and Jo who try to teach her all sorts of bad words about genitals and such, just to delightedly watch her mangle it.