water girls

A coup: Both girls love swimming.

JO

Jo suddenly just realized after four years that she wouldn’t die in a swimming pool.

It’s the kind of situation where our jaws drop because it’s such a drastic about-turn.



She puts her nose and mouth in the water to blow bubbles, doesn’t mind when her hair gets wet, gets into the float to serenely kick her way around and plays water games.



Wow.

LU

As with the swing, Jo looks at Lu in the pool with fear.

Lu loves water (not baths but pools).


Trying to pour water into KK’s mouth.



She throws herself into all sorts of death-defying situations.

She took a long eczema-recovery hiatus, but has returned to the pool with a passion. Sans float, which she refuses.


Yes it's that costume. Same back view. Notwithstanding the diaper and age, it's two completely different body types!

She readily jumps into deep pools without caring (or knowing) if she’d drown to death, throws herself backwards into the water and doesn’t seem to care much if she sinks. (which has happened several times when she lost her footing)

I tell KK: “She’s a daredevil.”

KK says, sagely and I agree: “I prefer Jo’s style. Cautious.”

On a water note, the girls recently mucked around in a big puddle at the big carpark. (Drainage is not so great!)



It’s no surprise to us when Lu runs through the puddle and kicks up a storm.

But when Jo does the same and sits down in the puddle with a fine drizzle wetting her hair, we smile in surprise.

They play till the sun goes down. (Day is very practical nowadays and shuns juvenile activity)

the heels

With all good intention, a friend bought Jo a vanity set.

A lucite-ish pair of hot-pink inch-high heels, bangles, rings and a feathery handbag with lipstick and mobile phone.



My obssession for not wasting anything won out.

I let her play with it.

I couldn’t help the bile which rose to my throat when she put on the heels and, like she had worn it the day she was born, traipsed around the house with a little wiggle in her butt, handbag slung over her arm, mock applying lipstick on her lips.

The repressed desires of a little girl who perhaps finds nothing similarly exciting in her drab mother’s wardrobe.

Then again, maybe she’s the normal one.

doremi

Their physical spacing is exactly one head apart. How immaculate!

housework admission

We've gotten into a housework groove.

This is our household’s maintenance sheet and it's a lazy one.

A bona fide housewife would cringe. Those with maids would cringe even more (How can??!).

* Number of times house is vacuumed: 0 (never used one)
* Number of times house is swept: Once a week (by the weekly cleaner)
* Number of times house is mopped: Once a week (by the weekly cleaner)
* Number of times kitchen is mopped: Once a week (by the weekly cleaner. I don’t mop after cooking. Occasional spills I wipe with a rag)
* Number of times toilet is cleaned: Once a week (by the weekly cleaner. I only pick up the hairs)
* Number of times laundry is done: 3-4 times a week
* Number of ironing sessions: 0 (Have not ironed once since I moved in. KK irons his own stuff)
* Number of times tables / windows / chairs / exposed surfaces are wiped: Once a week (by the weekly cleaner)
* Number of times things are put back in their place: Once or twice a day
* Cooking: Daily breakfasts (could be cornflakes but could also be oats, steamed corn, barley, I like cooking breakfasts) and dinner three or four times a week

I still rely a lot on the weekly cleaner.

Does the house get dirty? Clearly, obviously, definitely, yes. Ours is a dusty house. Because it is windy, and it is near the road, it gets a lot of dust.

But I have realized I am definitely not a pro-active housewife. I’m a reactive one. When things get spilled, only then do I clean.

So I can abide dust and dirt. I have a high tolerance for it. Even dirty feet leaving gray stains all over my white bedsheet is OK.

My bugbear is when things are out of place.

What we end up with, a day or two before the cleaner arrives, is a very immaculate-looking house, things all carefully put in their right place (I cannot abide the cleaner putting things in the wrong place), but once you step in your feet are black.

I’m like that.

I used to think housework was easy.

And yes, it is. Not much skill required to do cleaning and packing up. Anyone can do it, even a useless degree holder.

But I have found over the past year that the daily stamina required to go through the motions, day after day, is relentless. I could be a better housewife, only my freelance work is equally relentless.

I would rather live with a layer of dust than an irate client.

(Sydney doesn’t count)

It doesn’t help that I and KK are by nature very slack. So when I’m not in housewife mode, I myself am guilty of leaving things all over the place, leaving my wet mucus-y tissues in strange places etc.

Then when I snap back into housewife mode, I get irritated by myself.

Good thing is, I think I have got into some sort of groove.

And I would like to think it can only get easier as the kids get older.

Day and Jo are already very responsible citizens who I think can take on more duties soon.

It is only Lu who gives me housewifely heart attacks: Milo all over the fabric sofa, sticky sweet-stained fingers touching my piano keys etc.

KK, erm, helps me with the kids while I do the housework.

the gaming party

The tally: Day, 6. KK, 39.

For the boy, 2010 has been the year of games and nagging.

He wants to game, mummy nags.

For his birthday I decide to give him the ultimate: Unrestricted game play with whomever he wishes to invite.

VIPs: Matt, Alex, Kieran.

From 440pm straight through to near 9, the boys on the Wii shout, scream and wrestle.


* Alex, Day, Sophia, Matt

We would have opened the PS3 upstairs only it was under repair.

The boys get two forced breaks for dinner and the cake.


* Cake-cutting is an onerous chore




* With Alex (standing up in green) and Jason's family

The girls mostly did painting and drawing at the Fountain Station.



Did I open a can of gaming worms?

I’m not sure.

Amongst the boys there was foul language aplenty from one in the party – think “bastard!” and “chicken shit!” and “stupid!” – and if Day thinks four-hour Wii sessions are par for the course I’m in trouble.

The boys however did have a lot of fun.

Brief summation of the past year: Day has become less nice. Ruder. Selfish. Quickly exasperated. Detests being told what to do in any way. Shuts his ears to my nagging.

Gotten over Thomas. Completely into Ben 10, animal Kaiser cards, Naruto and all the usual boy things.

Age 5 is not very nice.

Oh and KK is 39! He'd really rather not remember.

carpark playground

Over here we pay $70 a month for maintenance.

On paper it gets us “two carpark lots” but in reality it’s an unlimited number of lots because nobody cares and the foreign workers staying around here cycle.

It's probably one of the few private apartments in Singapore where there are too many carpark lots.

The carpark then becomes the playground downstairs for the kids and other kids in the compound.

Frankly it’s the only facility we have: One carpark fringed by a large patch of unkempt cow grass with loads of mosquitoes.

Some evenings if I feel up to lugging two bikes, one trike and a skate scooter down 36 steps (and then up), I bring them down for a spin.

It is large-ish space, vaguely unsafe because of the cars which drive in and out.


* Lu at the half-way point of the carpark and her sibs at the other end.

It is where Day honed his cycling skills (using the carpark lot markers to weave in and out) and where he is now trying out his skate scooting skills.



It is where they have all fallen down and scraped their knees at some point because, well, it’s road.

More photos, one of each kid.

Just because I love the higgledy-piggledy look at the blocks (60s vintage eh!) and because everyone seems to assume it will be going en-bloc anytime (which I do NOT want now, for the record).

swinging lu

First time Lu went on a swing I expected nothing.

Till today, Day cannot swing without a push, and Jo is still too scared to lift her feet off the ground.

But the little mite took off, gamely pushing her buttock into the swing of things.



“Bigger! Bigger!” Lu orders. She wants a bigger angle.

I stand in front of her, pull her towards me and I let go. Off she goes!

I sit on the other swing and sing the swinging song.

We can go on for ages. Thirty minutes. More.

Once she jumped off, landed with her face in the dirt. She got up, the still-swinging wooden board hit her on the back of the head. She got up again, rubbed her hands on her shirt. “Bigger! Bigger!”

She likes the swing.



Jo sometimes sit in the other swing, using her feet to move 20cm back and forth, staring fearfully at her little sister.

mayday

A break from kiddy news.


* Jiamin, Tiong Wee and me

I play for the Mayday concert April 17.

Twenty-two of us re:mix classical farts, with no idea of who these Taiwanese rocker dudes are, “string-sync” (we act like we are playing when in fact what the audience is hearing is a recorded string track) to rock songs we have never heard in our lives.


* Pix by Ah Beng

Wow moment: When we are told that who we thought were back-up players at rehearsal the night before, were the band members themselves.

(Next to me on rehearsal night was a round-faced genial-looking fellow with unkempt long hair and nerdy black specs on a killer bass, who was friendly enough to flash a smile)

Straightaway we look at our passes and gasp: Surely not! But they don’t LOOK like their photos!



It takes us a while to get over our disbelief. It also takes us a while to match the nondescript people we saw the night before to the glam photos.

(Guy next to me was Masa, for those in the know.)

That said, what an incredible concert at the massive National Stadium. Their first outdoor concert here, and the first such gig at the stadium in a decade.



Very emotive songs, fantastic playing (and jamming), fireworks, motorbike stunts and a giant Transformer-like robot.



The love for Mayday was palpable.



Playing on the stage a couple of metres behind the guys facing 15,000 people – some of whom had paid $168 – was (I can’t think of a better word) awesome.

And what (from the little I saw) incredible guys.

It was their total lack of pretension which made us think they were back-up players.

When we, the musical mercenaries, finished our rehearsal and prepared to scurry off the stage, they turned to us, bowed and chorused: Thank you, thank you so much.

Thank you, too, for the incredible show.

I’m no fan, but for the first three-quarters of the show (we were only playing the last five songs), the musicians (most, some really didn't care for rock anthems) watched and bopped heads along with the rest of the audience.

our china doll

Our Jo speaking Chinese.



Kudos to school.

I never speak Chinese to her.

Her pronounciation is far more precise than Day’s. He still calls a bird xiao3 niao2. That’s right. Xiao3 niao2.

* Lest anyone thinks she's a genius, she can't actually read the words. She memorized the script. But she does a fair impression.

hello, lancer

This is KK.

A day after we return the Vitara, he takes a half day off, goes to a car mart at AML building (Ubi) and puts down a deposit for the second car he test drives from the first random car dealer we come across.

(Actually the dealer had all of two used cars)

Our second family car (coming next week): A four-year-old 1.6 litre Mitsubishi Lancer for $36,000, in the most incredibly boring shade of gray possible, but which will reliably (hopefully) get us from Point A to Point B for the next few years.


* Our car and Frederick, the salesman who won KK over

The decision is short, sharp and sweet.

I, meaning the trip to be a pure see-see look-look excursion, put up a token resistance.

KK tells me, very convincingly: “I don’t think I want to take another half-day off for this.”

That shut me up. I felt the same.

Fundamentally we’re just lazy buggers.

Plus he’s compromised on his space and power requirement. It’s just a plain old 1.6 litre saloon at what KK says is a very reasonable price.

So here’s the story of the car (if salesman is to be believed): Car was bought for a Greek expat by his company. He went back. The car was sold.

Key thing is, the engine is apparently sound (I wouldn’t know but I hope KK knows what he’s looking at and listening to).

Extras: It’s Ralliart (whatever that means), has got nice black leather seats and has chocked up 48,000km in mileage.


* Pondering the prospect of another huge loan

bye, vitara

It’s over now.

Joey, who so generously loaned us his car, is back for good and we say goodbye to our four-wheeled companion of the last 2 ½ years (since November 2007).

The kids took their last ride in it this morning, to school.


* The standard arrangement. Males front, females back.

I ask them if they will miss the car and all three look at me blankly. I don’t think they give a damn.

A wax, a shine, and it was good as new.

It is the first car I ever drove comfortably and it is incredibly reassuring – to myself – that under my watch the car didn’t get one scratch.

The dented mirror etc was when KK took the wheel.

I found that I enjoyed driving, right hand on the wheel, left hand in my lap, memorising routes and navigating my way to out-of-the-way places with a just-in-case street directory on my lap.

Driving was empowering. It is also where I had some of my most relaxing moments.

Where we and the kids have had some great times, belting out melodies and bopping away at the red traffic lights.

It is where the kids learnt all about seatbelt safety, automatically buckling whenever they get in.

It has brought us to many places and made our lives easier.

Without it, life goes on.

In my mind, a car is not and will never be a survival essential.

Quality of life suffers, yes. But I won’t die without a car.

For now, though, I miss it.

Today we return home from my folk’s place at 7pm. I plan to take the bus.

With four bags in hand, Day and Jo with their own school bags and Lu walking alongside, we traipse down the road and at the main road, I take a deep breath.

Then I realize: It is impossible to jaywalk to the bus stop on the other side.

The cars come fast and furious left and right. The centre divider is a sliver of cement. I have no hands to carry Lu or hold my two kid’s hands. Traffic lights are far, far away on both sides.

I take the taxi.

I do not think we will be without a car for long. While I steel myself for hardship, KK refuses to compromise his quality of life.

I find it slightly disheartening, however, to be in a situation of finding a car – which we as a family with young children probably need – so ridiculously out-of-reach and overpriced.

It's almost as if we do not have a choice. They point a gun at our heads and say: Pay through your nose, or no car.

not bald

For the first time in her life Lu goes to the hairdresser and doesn’t emerge bald.



Throughout the cut she clings to me burying her nose in my neck.

Trimming her fringe and the buzzing of the shaver makes her flinch but she is otherwise quiet. I get hair all over me.

She gets her unruly tails trimmed and comes out with a nice little bob.



For all of her two shavings, her hair is perceptibly thinner than the bob Jo had when was a baby and it pisses me off.

I conclude: This silly shave-baby's-head-to-make-thicker-hair is a myth.

Hair is all in the genes.

day's planter

Day was into plants.

He would draw pots of the dream plants he wants to grow once he lives in a house with garden: Corn, tomatoes, apples.


* November 2009

In our little flat, all I could offer him was a planter.

He, Jo and I painted it red and yellow.



Filled it with soil.

First thing that went into it was a handful of flower seeds from the nursery, the sort that comes in a foil pack, and which promised to bloom into gorgeous golden yellow profusion (according to the picture).

It never grew. Just like our other bunch of foil-packed chilli seeds.

Lesson: Foil no good.

Then Gina foisted on us a turnip from the kitchen which had already grown shoots. It would have become popiah or kueh pie tee filling.

“Why don’t you put it in your planter?” she said.

We buried the palm-sized knob in the soil.

In two weeks...



... the amazing turnip’s shoots have outgrown Day, and the green tentacles are curling all over the balcony grill.



Day is also looking after a honeydew melon seed, which got lodged in our kitchen sink but we didn’t realize it until we saw leaves sprouting out of the mesh.

It was clearly a survivor. We transferred the seed into a pot, where it has been doing beautifully.



Day has proven to be a distracted little boy who only waters his plants when reminded or when he feels like it.



But KK and I are very fascinated by our balcony plants.

My sweet-smelling yellow bells are blooming again, and they are a welcome sight when I come home and look upwards.

weight's up!

In the last three months I put on five kilograms to hit the latest high of 48kg.

I am almost at pre-Day weight. (Cheer! Cheer! Clap! Clap!)

It is stunning, how fundamentally useless my attempts at putting on weight were in the past five years, and how quickly the weight has piled back on post-breastfeeding.

Now I know. It WAS breastfeeding’s fault.

It’s not apparent weight.

Apart from KK who can see all my bits, friends would probably not notice anything. Someone actually asked me if I had lost weight.


* Nice and normal with little paunch.

I think it’s all gone to the bones. And maybe muscle, because I have been exercising. And the tummy.

Even the little aches and pains I had in my teeth, gums and joints ever since the kids came along, are gone.

Did breastfeeding really take such a huge toll on my body?

Come to think of it, three consecutive rounds of pregnancy + breastfeeding in six years.

I think my body is thrilled it can finally keep its nutrients for itself.

(Despite the weight gain my appetite is significantly smaller)

peanut butter sweetness

Jo’s ultimate act of sweetness: Making peanut butter bread for KK.



She did it for the first time a month or two ago. She asked, I let her try, have some fun, she presented him with a peanut butter sandwich.

KK was so delighted, so clearly thrilled, so proud to sink his teeth in – “Jo’s bread is nicer than yours because she spreads so much peanut butter! You’re too stingy” - she now jumps at every opportunity to make him his peanut butter bread.

“Please take out the things for me, mummy”, she asks prettily.

I lay out the plastic plate, two slices of bread, open the Skippy and hand her the knife.

She concentrates on the task like it’s a work of art, labouring over the careful, even application of the peanut butter, tilting her head now and then. Go near and you can hear her audibly breathing from her mouth. It’s that laborious.

The glow on her and KK’s faces when she hands him the bread is priceless. Two sets of dimples flash in unison.

baby bonus bank

The Government will give me $18,000 for birthing Lu, has given me $10,000 for birthing Jo and nothing for Day. (the mechanics, with co-paying and all, are complicated but that’s the gist of it)

It’s sure nice to have, and I’m being sincere here.

School fees amount to $12,000 a year for Day and Jo combined.

With what’s left of the fund (it’s being used for Day and Jo’s fees) I can just about cover two kids for another year or so. Probably. Maybe.

Just a quick word about my experience with the two banks running the scheme: OCBC and Standard Chartered (parents choose one).

STANDARD CHARTERED

Jo’s account is with Stanchart.

I picked it because at the time, I liked Stanchart for its no-frills approach. The ads talked about interest rates and nothing much else.

No marketing nonsense.

Problem was, few down the line seemed to know what the Baby Bonus was. I was greeted with puzzled frowns, long waits and “I think you should have brought this to the school, not to the bank” when I went to the bank with forms in hand – as instructed by the school.

The school also seemed to have issues communicating with the bank. “This Stanchart is very blur,” the teachers would say.

Are they better now? I don’t know. I throw all the forms to the hapless school.

OCBC

Smart bank, this one.

Despite my turning my nose up at fluff, what made all the difference was service at a time when I needed it.

Their people clearly knew what the Baby Bonus was, and what frazzled mums needed.

I had applied for Lu’s account only recently (I was too disorganized to get it done earlier), and was desperate to get it done fast in case there was a due date (actually MCYS tells me it is two years, after which an appeal might be required).

MCYS told me to drop in at any hospital.

At KKH, at the birth registration counter, the most incredibly genial boy in tie and spectacles took in my long-winded explanations, took all my forms, photocopied them for me, filled them in, pushed it to me to a signature and carefully put them into the envelopes for me.

He would have licked them close if I had asked him to.

After the cash came in, I got a call to check if everything was OK.

The boy as it turns out, to my great surprise, was not a KKH staff, but a OCBC bank officer stationed at the hospital to catch mums.

He checked that I had all the right cards, freebies, and then asked: Would you like to plan for your child’s education?

I, full of gratitude and coincidentally thinking of getting an endowment, said yes.

He came round to my place with a nice ELC-type toy for Lu, ran through the plans. I signed on the line.

So now the bank gets $18,000 from the Government (for Lu’s account).

Plus another annual commitment from me for six years, which is all going to sit in the bank for the next 18 years.

Clever, canny Alvin. And his employer.

lu's first movie

...was at the Science Centre’s Omni-theatre.

Movie: Under the Sea.

The lights dimmed, music boomed, fishes exploded onscreen and Lu threw her arm over her eyes, like so.

“I scared,” she mumbled.

Sigh.

She later. reluctantly (the arm jerked up now and then as a protective response particularly when the car-sized cuttlefish attacked a fish) fell asleep in KK’s arms.



The Jim Carrey-narrated 40-minute movie was otherwise gorgeous.

Day’s strident voice kept ringing out in the auditorium like an irritating mobile phone: “That’s a jellyfish! I knew it! That’s a squid! What’s a CATFISH?”

Jo, on a slightly lower register but no less strident, repeatedly asked: “Mummy are we moving? Is that real? Will a shark eat me up if I went downstairs? But is it REAL? Are we MOVING?!?”

I, strangely enough, was comfortable in the fact that the Omni-theatre is one of the few places I remember as a child which still exists in its original state.

Post-trip, while waiting for the car: It's obvious who liked the Science Centre and who didn't.

a dramatic call

I’m minding my own business enjoying a lonely Good Friday.

The phone rings.

The moment I lift up the handset I can hear the wail.

“Mummy! (hic hic hic) Gor-gor said he hates me!” She breaks down in what sounds like a torrent of tears.

Well! Such holiday drama!

I remotely assess the situation.

Apparently they had an argument over unfinished food (Day insisted she finish her food so as not to waste it, Jo refused to because she didn’t like it), they fought, she pulled his shirt hard and he yelled “I hate you!” before stalking off in a huff.

Well!

I must say, without being there in person (in which case I would be very irritated), it is vastly amusing and I am infinitely tolerant.

I remotely get Jo to stop crying, wait for gor-gor to cool off, apologize to Day for pulling his shirt.

Day blusters away in the background.

easter art at school

Day's egg box

The kids’ school hosts a little Easter art exhibition.

I really like these art events.

There is so much love: From the kiddies who put their hearts into drawing / making egg baskets / birds on wires, to the teachers who have to get the kids to do it.

Times like these I am glad Day’s school has a remarkably high number of parents who can turn up on demand - on a working day - to enjoy the exhibition.


The wall of art

What I really like is how Teacher May takes photos of every kid in the school, mounts the photos on black card, and puts the photos next to the child's artwork.


Jo's piece

And then there is Day's Field of Flowers, which really has nothing to do with Easter but which is just nice to look at.