Yes, you heard right. I want another (few more) of those snuggly little humans that scream all night and poop all the time. I am fully aware of the fact that it’s a severe case of the momnesia kicking in but BABIES! All sweet and cuddly and warm and cute and nice-smelling. I really want some more. Soon.
Over dinner today, I casually dropped the question on the husband.
Me: Hows your noodles?
Kel: Pretty good. Want some?
Me: I was thinking that 5 kids would be nice. All the kids running around the house, so awesome, right?
Kel: Very awesome. Sure, we can do 5.
Me: Like soon?
*This is the point he starts turning a bit pale.
Kel: Soon… like in another 3 years, just like we discussed, remember?
Me: Mmm, how about a little earlier, like 1 and a half?
*At which point he stops eating his noodles completely. By now, his color is best described as ashen.
Kel: Haha, you’re kidding right? Good one.
Me: Actually I’m serious. I think we can handle it. 2 more babies back to back, we’ve done it before, no problem.
Kel: I think you should read your own archives from July last year. You need to get rid of this momnesia before it escalates out of control.
Me: I was totally overreacting last year, all that postpartum hormones. And just think of 5 kids! We’ve even got names already.
Kel: I’m going home to print out the archives and paste them on the wall.
The rest of that conversation went something like 5 KIDS SO FUN! blah blah blah THEY WILL PLAY TOGETHER! blah blah blah THEY CAN ALL BE BEST FRIENDS! blah blah blah ECONOMIES OF SCALE! blah blah blah BABY SMELL! TINY BOOTIES! DISNEYLAND! I WANT BABIES!!!
I obviously drowned out the part about “SWOLLEN ANKLES, GINORMOUS ASS, OMG 27 HOURS OF LABOR, EPISIOTOMY, POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION, SCREAMING BABY, SORE NIPPLES…”
Finally, Kel was all like “you do realize we’ll have even less of a life than we have now, and I’m not even sure if that’s possible. I’ll have to take on 3 more jobs and come back just in time for the middle-of-the-night feed while you shuffle around like a bad-tempered zombie. Postpartum, you’ll be crabby and upset and stressed out and we’ll never have another moment of peace and quiet for the next 5 years. Or sleep, for that matter.”
I nodded. “But sure babe, if you think we’re ready, then let’s make another baby. *boom-chica-wow-wow* But we’ll have to give it another year and a half before we start trying ok. You know we’re not going to need a lot of time to try.”
And that is why I’m so in love with this man.
I was messing around with the camera as usual when Tru started insisting that he wanted to take photos as well. Of course I told him he was too young and he didn’t know how and the camera was only for adults. Then he had to go and ask me nicely like “Mommy can I have the camera please, please? Truett take pictures!” So to prove my point, I put him on the bed and strapped him up and said “See, Truett doesn’t know how” and to prove his point, he located the shutter button, brought the DSLR up to he eyes and started snapping.
Ok so the pictures looked real artistic, with a horrendous close up of my arm and half an eye but he was all like “SEE TRUETT TAKE PICTURES OF MOMMY!” I should have known better than to tell him he didn’t know how to do something. He is my boy after all.
Oh and in case you’re wondering, I took the photos of him taking photos of me with my iPhone 4.
Baby girl is starting to pick up words and guess what’s her favorite word these days? PEEPEE (which is her way of saying pretty, not that she wants to pee). While pointing to herself vigorously for emphasis.
I never thought having a girl was going to be so different from having a boy but it is.
So here’s how you know you’ve got a girl on your hands. Well, I suppose you can just go straight to checking those girly bits to be sure but then where’s the fun in that?
1. They’ve got to pick their own clothes, usually something pink with flowers or strawberries or rainbows or snowflakes or candy canes.
I used to think that it was a matter of conditioning, where girls end up liking pink because everyone told them that it was a girly color but that’s really a myth. See, since she was born, I’ve been dressing Kirsten in Tru’s hand-me-downs at home which is made up of mostly blues and yellows. But that doesn’t stop her from going pink-crazy every time she sees a pink dress with flowers in the store. “Peepee, peepee” she says, telling me that I should get it for her.
2. They milk every ounce of pain sympathy from daddy.
Baby girl has got it figured out that she gets extra love and attention when she’s in pain so she deliberately knocks her head on the wooden bars of her cot and goes “pain pain, bwahhh…painnnnnnn”, knowing that daddy will rush to pick her up and smother her with kisses.
3. Their idea of being cheeky is throwing cornflakes on the floor.
She gives me an I’m-trying-hard-to-be-cheeky look whenever she does something mildly naughty but never goes all out because deep down inside, she really wants to be good. I don’t have the heart to tell her that throwing cornflakes doesn’t even make it into the top 10 list of things her brother has done to make me lose my marbles.
4. They let you hug and kiss them for as long as you want.
My favorite baby girl time of the day is when she just wakes up from her afternoon nap. She’ll look all pleased with herself as I squeeze her tight and kiss her a thousand times. Then she’ll snuggle on my lap to read books and listen to me talk about stuff for a good 30 minutes. I’ve never gone more than 2 minutes with Tru on my lap.
5. Shoes and bags. Mostly just shoes for now.
All my life, I’ve never owned more than 3 pairs of shoes at any one time – 1 pair of birkis, 1 pair of trainers and 1 pair of black work shoes. I’ve never seen the fuss about shoes but I tell the husband that at some point, I will have a walk-in shoe cabinet filled with shoes to make up for all the shoes I’ve been missing out on and they will likely be called Manolos and Louboutins. Baby girl already has 8 pairs and counting. And she know exactly where they are kept so she’ll go try them out and parade around in them whenever she’s bored at home.
Siblings are one of those things in life that you have no control over. Like your parents just arbitrarily decided that you’re supposed to share all that attention and love and TOYS (ALL THE TOYS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL YOURS) with some other kid(s) and there’s nothing you can do about it.
It’s the whole issue of proximity, really. For the first 20 or so years of your life, you spend every single day with your siblings. Having to share stuff, having to wait your turn for the bathroom in the morning, having them irritate the living daylights out of you, having to live up to overachieving siblings who feel the need to be valedictorian, head prefect, captain of the swim team and every teacher’s pet.
Also, that idea of having a perfect sibling? It’s like a golden unicorn. Doesn’t exist. You think that cool kid at the playground would make a great sibling but then their siblings would probably tell you how crabby and irritating they can be at home.
So the only way of minimizing conflict between siblings is to minimize contact. If you have siblings who hardly say a word to each other, there would be no chance to fight so problem solved. Except that it’s like getting married and sleeping on separate beds. Ok, that didn’t sound like it did in my head because EWW, getting married is NOT like having siblings at all but you get the point.
But if you ask me, I’m in the camp that says having siblings is so much better than not having any. You have another kid to play with all the time, you have someone to form an alliance with against the evil parents and when you become awkward, angsty teenagers, you can talk about stuff that you would never be comfortable talking about with adults, ie boys/girls (whichever is the opposite of you). Sure, you fight tooth and nail over everything all the time but when if comes to the crunch, you know they got your back.
Which brings me to my point. The kids were out playing with a bunch of other kids and there was this 4-year-old girl who really liked Kirsten so she was fussing over baby girl and sharing her toy with her. Then Tru came along to play with them and she was all like “I don’t like you, I won’t share my toys with you, go away.” I was about to intervene when next thing I knew, Kirsten got up, walked over to Tru and gave him a hug like “it’s ok, I’ll ditch the nasty kid to play with you.” In short, 1. baby girl pwned some brattish kid today and 2. this totally makes the insanity of having both kids back to back so worth it.
We finally had a chance to check out Universal Studios yesterday on an outing that was totally unplanned. What started out as a visit to Resorts World Sentosa for a leisurely afternoon stroll turned out to be some intense non-stop action at the spanking new theme park.
Typically, an outing like this would be planned way in advance and we’d be waiting at the gate 30 minutes prior to opening time (I take my theme parks very seriously) but what with picking Tru up from school and grabbing lunch yesterday, half the day was already gone by the time we got to RWS.
Tru stood staring open-mouthed at the legendary Universal globe with mist swirling round and he was like “what is this place? I’m never leaving here again” and that was only the entrance of Universal Studios. And obviously, the husband is powerless when Tru turns on the googly-eyes charm so he was all like “what the heck, let’s just get the tickets and GO” even though it was already 2.30 in the afternoon and we had less than 5 hours before closing.
Stepping into Universal Studios was like being back in LA again. Main Street, the palm trees, street signs, music, benches, memorabilia shops that make you feel like it’s ok to shell out $20 for a Shrek-shaped pillow…it was all too good. Honestly, I didn’t expect a lot because I figured we’d just have a miniature version of the one in LA (hello, space constraints) but I have to say, I was impressed.
Not Disneyland by any means, but definitely respectable.
Of course, Tru’s first experience with a mascot had to be Frankenstein. He recognized it from Veggie Tales and started calling it the Boogey Man. Then as if dissatisfied with the description, he proceeded to call it Cookie Monster because ok, this monster does look like he OD-ed on cookies, y’all (I’ll have to do something about his Sesame Street education). His look of horror just says it all.
It was just nice that Kirsten has started to walk all by her lonesome so she was off and running the moment we got there. She made her way up to the little stage area and started rocking to Elvis. She’s got groove, this little one.
The awesome thing about theme parks is that everything looks so picture perfect. Like this one. It’s got to be one of my favorite pictures of Truett, looking all big boy and independent. “Wassup momma, I’m just chilling with my hand draped casually on the bench and my air of nonchalance.”
And a couple more.
I’m a sucker for castles, especially theme park castles with the pretty pink pokey things with flags on top. Real castles, not so much, they’re kind of creepy.
The best part about the trip to Universal was the complete lack of crowds. We expected it to be relatively packed but for the most part, we felt like we had the entire theme park to ourselves. Most of the rides had no queues at all and the kids got to ride on the carousels and flying birds as many times as they wanted. Tru was on the Madagascar carousel 5 times in a row, which was like being able to eat all the candy in the world. Without getting fat.
All in all, a perfect day. Although it would have been better if it wasn’t so blistering hot. The whole time, Kirsten’s hair was plastered to her head from sweat and Tru kept wanting to remove all his clothes. I just hope this doesn’t mean my son is going to be a nudist.
Can’t say that I’m a huge fan of mornings. I operate much better after 10am and a large cup of coffee, neither of which I usually get because it’s always GET UP AND MOVE THAT BOTTOM COME ON HUSTLE PEOPLE WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE and we scramble to get everyone out of the house in time only to reach the car to find that Tru forgot his blankie or Kirsten dropped a sock along the way and as a result, more scrambling.
Some days, one of us wakes up on the wrong side of bed all cranky and crabby from insufficient sleep (ok, mostly me) and it’s like total anarchy for a good 30 minutes.
But once in a while, we all wake up happy and Tru goes “Good morning mei mei, you sleep well?” then proceeds to climb into her cot to drink his milk right next to her while we stand at the doorway going all ohh and ahh about out perfect lives. For a moment, we get to forget that we had front row tickets the night before to what was the biggest smackdown of all time (maybe not as big as Robots vs Wrestlers, but close), the one where they were trying to claw each other’s eyes out over a bowl of cheerios.
I usually don’t blog about blogging (because yes, I get how lame and geeky that is) but there’s been a disturbance in the force here in the local blogosphere over the weekend, which is like watching an episode of the Young and the Restless unfold, complete with slow upper body close-ups and killer soundtrack. A prominent food blogger allegedly demanded for a free champagne brunch for himself and his 3 companions over at a chi-chi restaurant in the Joo Chiat vicinity.
Update: The other side of the story.
It’s not my place to talk about who’s right or wrong here, but I figured it is a good time to talk about how I navigate around this tricky issue that is blog advertising/sponsorship.
The way I see it, blog advertising, product reviews and advertorials are a relatively new concept which has been gaining popularity among marketers and PR companies in recent years, which means that the rules governing how this should be done are fuzzy at best. By virtue of the fact that a blogger is basically a dude in his PJs behind a laptop, it’s easy to see how regulation is kind of difficult. These days, it takes you 5 minutes (maybe a little more if you’re picky about choosing the template) to start a blog and even my neighbor’s cat has one. That being said, the really big blogs are sometimes more influential than your local tv station, so when they talk, you want to listen.
I started the blog last year because I wanted someplace to store pictures of the kids and also, it was awfully cathartic to write about how crazy but yet awesome it was to be a mom for the 20,000th time. The husband is always like “how many ways do you have to say the exact same thing?” and I’m like “more than you know because LOOK, TRU JUST DREW A BLOB ON A PIECE OF PAPER AND SAID IT WAS ME ISN’T THAT PRECIOUS?”
Along the way, blogging became a way for me to meet a whole bunch of other moms who were willing to tolerate hearing me go on and on about my kids while I spent hours reading about their lives and their kids and their pet hamsters because it made me feel so much better to know that I’m not the only parent who messes up all the time. Also, it was like research so I could tell the husband to refer to appendix A about how it is statistically proven that my job is way tougher than his so he should give me all his money. Which was all kinds of awesome.
Then further along the way, I had to deal with the whole issue of reviewing products and advertising stuff on the blog and at first I was incredulous because you mean people want to give me actual money for writing about how my kid drew a mural out of his own poop? Somebody should have told me this earlier so I wouldn’t have had to spend all that time getting an education and for that matter, a proper job. WHAT UP fancypants advertisers, here’s my very professional rate card and you’re welcome to send me a cheque for $500,000 while I take a couple more photos of my kids.
I searched the blogosphere for a set of guidelines on how to do this. How much are you supposed to charge for ads? Was it ok to get swag? What’s the acceptable ratio of reviews to non-sponsored content? Am I supposed to rave about stuff just because they sent me a couple of diapers for free? The answers were elusive, with different big-shot bloggers advocating different things.
So I made up my own rules along the way.
1. Reviews aren’t for sale.
The integrity of this blog is something that I guard very closely. It’s tricky when it comes to reviews because we all want to operate on the basis of goodwill. You send me a few jars of your premium organic baby food and I’m supposed to say it’s awesome, even when it tastes like my kid’s vomit. No can do. That doesn’t mean that I act like a diva or an arse just to piss you or your spectacular product off. It just means that I tell it like it is. When I review something, it’s something that I’ve tried and love, even those that I paid for myself.
2. Review vs Content ratio.
People come to this blog for reasons that are beyond me because even I get tired of hearing myself talk everyday. But the one thing I’m sure of is that they’re not here to listen to how I got more swag and how brilliant that swag is. That is to say that I try to keep reviews to a minimum and those that I do review, they’re pretty badass. Which is good, not bad. Just to be clear.
3. Getting free stuff is a privilege, not an entitlement.
We all love free stuff, especially if it’s something you were prepared to pay for anyway, or like a trip to the Bahamas. So when it comes knocking, we smile and say thanks (and do a victory lap) but we don’t get off expecting to be treated like royalty because that’s the kind of thing that makes you a douchebag.
Now for the disclaimer. I’m hardly the authority on social media, seeing that I had no idea what a blog was until not too long ago so you’re welcome to ignore this post and wait for more pictures of the kids tomorrow. Which will look exactly like the pictures I’ve posted before except cuter because seriously, have you seen my kids??
What’s your take on this? Do share.
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