food portioning

Eating out with kids and trying not to leave one scrap behind is an exact science.

Every time we eat out, I have to work out the equations in my head. Like so:

If Day wants yong tau foo and he eats half of it, I reckon Jo and Lu can eat a quarter each. But in case Lu doesn’t touch it, which often happens, I have to eat it. That means I had better buy myself a small popiah so I have space left to finish up the yong tau foo. And then I have to make sure I pick three fishballs so each one gets one, or there will be a fight.
(The above assumes all three are eating the same thing)

OR.

If Day wants laksa and Jo wants chicken rice, I split some chicken rice for Lu and not order anything for myself because I have to finish the leftovers. Which probably amounts to about half the laksa and half the rice. (but if Day doesn’t like the laksa then I’m stuck)

I rue the day Lu starts having opinions on what she wants to eat.

But by that time, Day should be able to finish one portion by himself. I hope. Because while he eats almost anything, he eats very little.

At the moment, the count stands at three adult-sized portions when our family goes to a hawker centre.

I am quite anal about not wasting food. In the process I become a bit of a bin. The kids have learnt to chuck anything they do not want into my plate.

french braid

Still on hair.

I have been trying for weeks to master french braiding.

It is basically a pretty plait which runs in any direction along the head, depending on where you want it to go.

Since the girls want to leave their hair long, their hair is like a blank palette on which to create sculptural masterpieces and I, the sculptor, have to hone my skills.

I try to figure it out on my own but in the end I turn to Master Sculptor Gina for help.

She, the domestic goddess who cannot write or play music to save her life, is possessor of many wonderful skills which I nowadays find far more useful than my own.

On one of my days back at my folk's place, she effortlessly ties a french braid for Jo.



One, and then two, and then a Grecian crown around her head.



Then she does the impossible: She ties a french braid for Lu. (I have to bribe Lu with a gummy to consent to having her hair tied)



Lu looks divine. Grumpy but divine. We can see her face without the curtain of messy hair.



“Aiya in the Philippines, I tie this for my daughter every day when she go to school,” says Gina.

She doesn’t understand why I cannot get it. I can tie an ordinary plait. But I can't figure the french braid.

I videotape the process. I still take a while.

Finally, I get it.

I am immensely proud of myself. My braids are messy and the hair is poufy (I am not yet skilful) but I get it.

Its one of those useless skills, like balloon sculpting, which people nowadays don’t care much for, but which brings me so much joy.


* Girls with their braids. Lu with her gummy bribe.

forever friends?

Day’s first childhood friend, Matthew, is moving away.

They first set eyes on each other when they were six months old and while not best friends (Day still isn’t very big on friends) they have been consistent companions over the past six years.

I wonder: Will they remain friends?

I reckon childhood friends are very much a function of whether their parents are friends in the first place.

Will I and Matt’s mother continue hanging out? I’m not sure.

The boy’s relationship took a hit when we moved out, but on the one or two days we returned to my folks, the boys would play.

I ask Matt, whom I am very fond of: Matt, oh Matt, will we still see you?

He says: Ya of course I'll ask my mother to bring me here.

I’m not sure.

But surely, the end of the week (when the family move out) marks the end of a chapter.

I said in 2008 that I'd rue the day they move out. It's come.

Last looks:

Here's the pond which all three kids have grown up gazing at, at the two pig-nosed turtles and two huge Arapaima fish which swim languidly from corner to corner.



The "air-con" room (the master bedroom) where we all retreat on a hot day (we pop over from my folks place) and where at one point I used to nap on.

It is also where the boys hang out, watching TV (Matt has all the cable TV networks, from Nickelodeon to Cartoon Network) and playing on the DS.



Packing up. Bleu, the majestic border collie which came as a rambuctious baby, in the corner. He loves jumping on me and particularly so when I was pregnant with Lulu. He loves the kids, but they not so much him.



And the boy's favourite current activity, which takes place in my folk's place. They come over and go on the PS3 for hours.

overtaken

It is a fact of life: For most of us with kids, they soon surpass us.

Well of course we want them to.

But it’s with a strange mix of pride (in them) and fear (for myself) when I find myself having to turn to my pre-schoolers for help.

It came to the fore when KK bought me an ipod.


* Yes I know everyone knows what an ipod looks like, but this is historic for me.

Apart from a Sony Walkman in 1987 and a CD player in 1998, I have never owned any sort of portable sound storage device. This – yes indeed - was my first MP3 player.

KK sprang at the window of opportunity when I casually remarked: It’d be nice to have an ipod so I can listen to music I like in the car and on the go. (most times I bar him from buying things for me)

The next evening KK came back brandishing the sleek silver beauty.

Straightaway, Day pounced.

His eyes gleamed, his fingers never stopped moving, he huddled in a corner and was naturally unresponsive to all calls to eat / bathe / get his butt moving. He seemed to know exactly what to do.

He begged his father to download Angry Birds. Both boys looked at me, KK signalled to Day, Day got a dollar from his coin bank, he paid me (though technically it’s 99 cents US isn’t it?), he (and father) merrily played all day.

I never had a chance.

I mumbled – “Well it’s MINE, isn’t it? Can I have it back, please?”

I got it back. I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t know how to download the bloody tunes. A lot of consultation and surfing later, I realized I could not buy music from iTunes with a Singapore-registered credit card.

OK I’m veering off, but very quickly, I got the other boy – my brother Teng – to fix it all for me. And he did, incredibly quickly.

So Teng will download songs for me from God knows where (he talks bittorrents and stuff), and sometimes when I need help navigating I ask Day.

When I see Day fixing things that puzzle me and then looking up with a triumphant gleam in his eye, I feel a lot like my parents probably do when I exasperatedly fix things for them while muttering “So easy what! Nothing what! What’s so difficult?”.

I feel stupid. Old. A dinosaur.

hazy

* This picture does not do justice to the haze. It's much worse.

We spend the day listless, prostrate, helpless, mostly finding solace in a variety of screens in the house (TV, computer, ipod).

I look at the sky outside and I eyeball the sun, which I can look at quite comfortably. It looks like a yellow ball through the soupy haze.

We are in an oven. We are told to stay indoors - most of usual outdoor places appear lifeless, but as we do not have an air-conditioner we are essentially breathing in the same outside air, so what difference does it make?

Damn Indonesian fires. The PSI hit 100 yesterday.

Throats are dry, eyes are scratchy, heads are achy.

Adding to the fuel is that all of us are felled by what seems to be a particularly lethal virus, although the extent of the haze's responsibility in exacerbating the illness is unclear.

The kid's fevers go up to 39 degrees. Jo's fever breaks after four days, Day is on Day 2, Lu has just come down with it. Me and KK are still uncomfortably standing.

The kids merrily come to me for medicine, which they all love. We didn't go to the doctor. My two bottles of paracetamol are almost finished.

Life goes on. Illness, haze, we live with it.

outdoors-challenged

I do these interviews with all sorts of people, right, and inevitably I ask them what they do with their families and sometimes they spin these fantastical tales: Oh we go hiking every weekend and some week nights too! We love downloading the map from the website, pack our water and hit the trails! (this from an academic and doctor)

Or.

Oh we love to visit the reservoir, every week, where we look for interesting plants and animal species! Look, this is the creature we found last week (while showing me the tank with what looks like a small lobster inside) and the boys love it! (this from a cardiac surgeon)

These are people with young kids, by the way.

Is it just us or does any other family in Singapore (or the world, for that matter) find it very hard to lead a healthy outdoorsy lifestyle?

I recall wonderful long jaunts in Sydney and the weather truly makes a huge difference to how much outdoors one can take.

These days before I even step into the sun, I can feel the crusty eczema patches on my legs start to prickle and sweat pus. I feel the moles and unsightly brown patches under my skin just waiting to bloom where the sun strikes.

Lu’s inner elbows start turning red. Jo starts to wilt and scratch her scalp, a sure signpost for “disastrous outing” ahead. Day says: Can we go to Vivocity please?

God knows we try.

Why?

It’s one of those things worth being stubborn about.

Outdoors (that includes outdoor playgrounds) is where things are simple, down-to-earth and natural.

Our wallets are usually unopened, we have a lot more fun and what’s probably most important is that we all get a workout (for me and KK that includes carrying kids).

Saturday mornings, for our family outings, we try to get out at least half the time.

Sometimes, though, the weather is so unforgiving we give up. Airport / IKEA / mall / stay home again? OK lor.

Some snaps from nice sweaty Saturday mornings, because these really are the ones worth remembering.

MACRITCHIE RESERVOIR


* Mr Fit jogs past. Jo wants out. Day and Lu also wilting. We had just walked 200m. Wow.


* The best moment: When we are sitting down in the shade of a tree, Jo in her pram. Everyone finally has fun when they stop moving. Oh look, another Mr Fit!


* Another highlight: The food (which they always clamour for whenever we go outdoors). Lu is holding a chicken puff.


* At last. Day is huffing and puffing his way up the hill.

EAST COAST PARK


* A picnic. Day does some beach stuff. The girls don't really move. They sit down and eat. Jo later brings a pillow from the car to lie down and stare at the sky.


* Healthy picnic food. Day's sandwich.



PASIR RIS PARK


* Loads of shady trees. Very good.


* Loads of playground stuff which distracts from the fact that they are sweating.

bye, diaper

There is a stack of 10 diapers in the cupboard, the last stack of diapers I will ever have to see in my life.

Dearest Lu has gone off it completely, including nights.

In line with the rest of her breezy toilet training, we simply let her go to bed in her panties one night a few weeks ago, she woke up nice and dry before scrambling to the toilet, and has been doing so thereafter.



No questions asked, no explanation required, no recrimination.

It seems a very natural and pleasant process for her to go to the loo.

Even the one time she fell bum-first into the toilet bowl - I think she lost her tenuous grip, her feet were dangling as she did not have a stool - did not deter her.

The few times she lost control or when there was no one around to hoist her up, she scurried to the toilet shower stall and did the job on the shower floor.

It's so considerate of her.

her time in the sun

ethan's 5

Colin and Janet’s Ethan turns five and blows out the candles at MacDonalds.

It is a simple free-flowing event without any games or a host (typical of most Macs parties), because apparently the Kallang MacDonalds is fully booked for birthday parties until March 2011, and they can only squeeze in a 90-minute slot for venue rental.

Wow.

It doesn't matter. The kids have a fabulous time just racing around, messing things up and gorging.



What strikes the kids:

The cake. Day sees it and gasps: Plants versus Zombies!


* Ethan with crown

Day has completely stopped playing the game but it’s a mighty cute cake. Ethan loves PVZ.

I find out its from Temptations, where you can email an image you want to appear on your cake and they print it on.

The Polaroids.

In a time when almost all the pictures we see are onscreen, the kids squeal when they are snapped, see ghostly, and then clear, images of themselves materializing on a tiny Polaroid.

We go away with a handful of Polaroid snaps which KK has grabbed for his wallet.

long hair

Something so banal and so obvious suddenly struck me out of the blue today: Little girls with long hair have really patient mothers. (Or maids)

It had never crossed my mind that somebody needs to put plenty of tender loving care into maintaining the smooth sleekness of little girl hair.



Why that thought struck me is because I find myself devoting 15 minutes a day combing out hair balls mainly from Jo and Lu’s snarly heads. KK pips: “Aiya don’t bother it’s always tangled anyway.”



But I sigh, I stroke, I roll my eyes, I do it.

Plenty of finger combing first, then the comb to clear the lines.

In my childhood, I think my parents or my grandma cut off my hair without my knowledge and I cried my heart out that day, refusing to go to school as I had been disfigured.

Once I chopped off my hair in Secondary 1, however, I never wanted to let it grow past my shoulders again. I’m consistently low-maintenance.

I make half-hearted efforts to convince the girls to go for a neat bob. The two refuse. The funny thing is, I concur.

Kids really do have the most beautiful hair. Before puberty lends a too-oily sheen, before age frizzles and dries it up, hair is perfect. Soft and shiny and falling in one smooth black curtain.

Jo in particular. She has the best hair (and skin) in the family.

The single tube of hair conditioner on the toilet shelf is for her, just because her hair is the longest with the most knots and I really need the conditioner to help me out.

She’s told me she wants her hair to reach her backside. Bath time, she loves tilting her head back and snaking an arm behind to touch the ends of her hair while chirping: Mummy my hair can touch my backside!



Lu has little hair like me, and like most people with eczema, her hair is on the dry side. But it’s still pretty. To me.

Day has the blackest, thickest and roughest hair. Combing his hair is most traumatic for he yells and screams “MuMEEEEE!!!” at the slightest pull. He has the lowest pain threshold. Is it because he’s male?

*A question: Apart from conditioner, what tried-and-tested ways would make my life easier when it comes to combing their hair?

giving care

I interviewed somebody. What he said made me think.

He said:

Caring for a parent is essentially the same as caring for a child.

The difference is, parenting is considered normal. Whereas, somehow, we don’t think of caregiving for a parent as being a normal part of our lives.

The thing is, many people will spend more of their lives caring for a parent than they will caring for a child. And yet we talk a lot about parenting but not very much about caregiving for the elderly.

For that moment, I see myself as a frivolous, indulgent, pretentious mummy all caught up in the cuteness of my kids, shouting out to the world all the challenges I face as a caregiver in a funny way.

There will come a day when I have to care for my parents.

Would I blog about the challenges I face? Probably not.

As the fellow said, caring for our parents is often a lonely process so unlike the meet-and-greet culture of mummies, although both entail similar roles and responsibilities.

I should expect and embrace the role thrust upon me as a daughter when the time comes, just as I have embraced my role as a mummy.

And I hope my children will do the same for us when we are old and weak. Hope being the operative word.

joan's photos

* This was one of Joan’s favourites

It’s always interesting to be captured by a third party lens.

Sick of me always taking the same sort of photos, I recently got Joan from Joan Leong Photography to spend a few hours with us while she snapped away.

I was curious: What would she capture?

I’m glad I did.

Apart from the posed shots - one of which has, of course, been printed and put onto the wall - there were loads of other real candid shots which I thought were the gems.

Here are the ones which struck me and why.

KK and Jo. Two peas in a pod separated by gender and a generation.


One of Lu’s prettiest photos. She just cried, there’s a mascara effect on her short lashes and she has a milk moustache.


My escape expression. Bored and xian and zoned-out.


A rare, rare, rare candid shot of The Parents. It took a lot of cajoling from Joan, asking about how we met (at uni) and how he proposed (I did), before we relaxed enough to get this. Usually when the kids are running underfoot, we have our roles and responsibilities.


Craft / colouring / drawing with the kids: KK is always in the background. He doesn’t get involved.


There are too few photos of me loving the kids.


Over an hour into the photo shoot, the kids have just about had it. Day is hating Joan and the girls struggle valiantly.


Jo is such a joy to photograph when she forgets to pose.

cockroach war

This morning, I and the three kids were confronted with what some others would consider the ultimate of domestic nightmares: It rained cockroaches on our balconies.

Happily seated in the kitchen munching on ham and cheese on rice crackers – it was one of those rare mornings where the trio woke up early, smiling and polite, Lu suddenly gasped.

“Cocka-loach!”

A big one whizzed past the back balcony door.

Nothing to it. I grabbed hold of The Straits Times, rolled it up and gave the cockroach a whack. One hit and it oozed juice. Good.

Jo went to the living room to put on her uniform and she screamed. “Ahhhh!! Mummy!!! Another one!!!”

Fear prickled up my spine as I tiptoed into the living room with the same newspaper.

Ack. I nearly stepped on it. Another hard whack.

“Cocka-loach! Cocka-loach!”

Oh man.

I started getting creeped out. One I can deal with, two yes. I can even play with them. But three, four? In the space of three minutes?

Betweeen 8 and 830am, I killed 15 roaches. FIFTEEN. And all of them were biggies which FLEW.

Seven on the front balcony, five on the back balcony and three in the house.

The three kids huddled on the sofa, fearful and quivering, letting out the occasional “COCKA-LOACH!” or “AARGH!” as they spotted new ones climbing up the glass doors.

Everytime they screamed, I tried not to scream as I whirled around with the stupid cockroach-smeared Straits Times searching for the next damned bug.

As gungho I may sound, it really was mother’s outrage powering my killer instinct. (and someone had to do it. Imagine 15 cockroaches flying around the house)

Give me a roach in my folk’s house, and I run away screaming to my dad to do the dirty job.

On that note, I can see them coming to me everytime they see a roach. They think I’m the Roach Hero.

I tried to get Day to smack one which was already dead. HE COULD NOT EVEN SMACK A DEAD COCKROACH.

Cause of the pestilence: No idea, although there were roaches littered all along the red stair.

Last November it was rats. This year it’s roaches. I suppose that is the price we pay for vintage charm.

"i love mummy"

Lu, at 2 ½, has developed a sudden consuming obsession with me.



Oh she’s always loved me, truly, madly and deeply.

But in the last few weeks, she:

Wants me to do everything for her
Meaning that even if 10 free people around her and I am the only one who is busy, I will have to be the one to help her brush her teeth. She will wait and scream if anyone else attempts to drag her to the sink.

Does not want me to be out of sight
Whenever I leave her she cries her heart out. Nap time, she tells Gina who helps me put her to sleep in the mornings: “I am waiting for mummy to come home”. She does not want to sleep. Usually, she very coolly waves me off. "Bye Mummy, see you later."

What brought it on?

Nothing, really. I’m sure it’s a phase.

Irritating in the moment, very sweet on hindsight.


* Her favourite: Having me carry her like baby, horizontally

The nice part is having her bury her nose in my neck or giving me a wet smack and telling me: “I love mummy soo much.”



* All photos in this post by Joan Leong

peace

snapshot

I bit off more than I could chew and now I'm sitting here at 3am knowing that I will pay the price tomorrow.

Why do women want to do so many things and why the arrogance in insisting that everything is done perfectly?

I have to take a leaf from my husband in this regard.

It happens every once in a while.

The work is overdue, the fridge is empty, the children are neglected, the house is chaos, I can't find my cheques, no one has underwear because I haven't done the laundry, there are cockroaches breeding in the car, my eczema is uncared for and flaring up and right now I do not even have the time to brush my teeth.

Why am I blogging?

helpers

* A hand-drawn sign Day sticks up on the kitchen glass door after Jo slips and hits her bottom

Day and Jo are so good at helping me at home.

They are the only two in the house who have any sort of empathy. Jo: "Mummy I love you so much because you do EVERYTHING for me!"

A word or a frown and the duo pack, clean, mop, tidy.


* Day prepares the mixture of detergent and water, Jo mops the floor with a dripping wet mop because she doesn't quite have the strength to wring it dry



KK watches TV. Lu is causing more destruction, which is very distressing to the two.

I don't often ask them to labour. I feel a bit mean especially when most of it was caused by Lu.

But it's usually when I reach the end of my tether, tear my hair out at the chaos, shout and scream like a mad woman, that they jump up and play maid.

I should build it into the routine instead of having to get angry before they do it. But even that takes effort and scheduling and training and consistent enforcement.

parties with strangers

These days I find myself attending plenty of two and three-hour parties with complete strangers with whom the only thing I have in common is that our kids know each other.

The funny thing is, I enjoy it.

I like not having to talk to anyone apart from a perfunctory “hi”.

I like being given the licence to step into all sorts of condominiums and homes around Singapore with nothing but a present in hand, and eat till the cows come home.

KK of course would rather undergo surgery than go for one of these.

By default it’s always me who accepts the invitation, buys the present and brings the relevant kid.

Day is invited to Kai’s party last week. And truly, I know no one.


* Kai and his rainbow cake


* Reeti, Gabriel and his mum, Day, Jojo and Kai's dad trying to light the candles

Most of the adults come with at least one other mummy they know, but I am solo.

I shake hands – “Oh my son David is Kai’s friend from school”, no adult names are shared (who remembers?), spend about 50 words on dialogue most of which was with the maid asking for her fabulous recipes, and eat for two hours.

Those were some scrumptious home-made rice paper rolls and nachos with salsa.

Day, to my great surprise, runs off, effortlessly makes new friends and completely leaves me alone. I expect some awkwardness but he just kicks the soccer ball around the field with the daddies for over an hour.



He doesn’t want cake, he doesn’t want hot dogs, he doesn’t want nachos. He just wanted to kick that ball.

I never knew he was so big on soccer.