awards i forced myself to win, blogging about blogging, i embarrass myself sometimes

I promise to be more *insightful* from now on. Or less. I’m not sure.

Just found out yesterday that I made it into the top 10 finalists for SG Blog Award’s Most Insightful blog category.

Kelvin: Congrats, you made it into the top 10 for Most Insightful.

Me: For real? Most insightful? There’s hardly any insight in the blog. I think at some point they’ll realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.

Kelvin: Don’t feel bad. How *not* to be a parent counts as insight too.

Me: Thanks hon, you always make me feel so much better.

And then it degenerated into banality about how Truett was spitting out his food again, which you probably don’t want to hear about.

In any case, be prepared for some major insight in the next few weeks just so that I don’t get disqualified from the category completely. Because I did my homework and checked out the rest of the blogs there and I realized that they actually do give insight on stuff like dating and health and technology and here I am flooding you with photos of my kids. So I’ll be loading up on some serious insight here from now on.

What the heck, I might as well start now. Did you know that an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain? Because it is. There, you’re welcome.

I’m not very good at this insight stuff, I’m still working on it.

Anyway, in exchange, you’ll have to promise to vote for me. Ok, stop it, I can see your eyes rolling back into your head. I’m not done yet. You’ll have to promise to vote for me everyday. I told the husband to promise and he was all like “WHAT?! it’s so troublesome. I don’t even read your blog everyday.” Which is the point I banned him from surfing his Arsenal blogs until he voted me for. I also hinted at the possibility of some serious boom-chica-wow-wow action but he knows he’ll be getting some regardless. The guy has got some serious moves. Ok, too much information, I’ll stop now.

But seriously, if you like the blog enough, you can head over to OMY to vote and I’ll be eternally grateful. If not, I’ll probably end up as the only blog without any votes, which will be reminiscent of that time in Primary School where I had this sing-off competition with another girl during Music Class and after I was done, nobody voted for me because my friend said it sounded “really awful and she was saving me from further embarrassment“. Worst thing was, I didn’t even want to sing in the first place but after that, I hid in a hole for a few days and I’ve never sung in public again, not even in Karaokes. True story.

Oh, while you’re at the voting, there are some other superb blogs  in some of the other categories which I’m sure you’ll like and you can vote for them too.

1. Best Individual Blog – ED Unloaded

2. Best Lifestyle Blog – Miss Glitzy (my schoolmate!) &  Story of Bing

3, Best Photography Blog – Hendra & Leonny

4. Best Food Blog – Camemberu

kids in motion, kids inc, picture perfect

Advice: Always wear shorts to the playground

My all action boy is a playground fanatic. The moment I mention the word playground, he jumps up and down on the spot and grabs at my shorts, as if yanking it off will help him get there faster.

I try telling him that it’s a bad move because people who don’t wear pants are usually arrested but he seems to think that “arrested” is a fancy word for “fun and exciting“. I suck at explaining words because I end up making it even more confusing with words like “incarcerated” and he just stares at me blankly like “are you done talking, momma?

It doesn’t help that I don’t know the Mandarin word for playground so it’s not like I can talk in code to the husband. Sometimes I try to mouth the words and Kelvin is all like “What, I can’t hear you!” and I end up having to whisper it loud enough for the neighbors to hear anyway so I just give up and wear tighter belts to make sure my pants don’t fall off instead.

But I secretly kind of like the jumping though. It’s a typically Truett thing to do and the day he’s too cool to bounce on the spot is the day I have to choke back the tears a little bit.

This is me trying to go for an artistic shot. I kept asking Tru to give me some emotion and this is the best he could come up with. I’m afraid I passed on the bad-posing gene.

This pose with Mickey, he did all on his own.

lists you should paste on your fridge

At first I was afraid, I was petrified

I realize that I haven’t done lists for a while, which is weird because I really love lists. I make lists of everything, and I mean everything, like where to hide from zombies (Bill Murray’s house) to the most delightful breakfast options (anything with bacon) to the best places to get tattoos (body parts, not parlors).

Today’s special will be my Top 5 Worst Parenting Moments hall of fame. Wait a minute, you say, isn’t parenting all about snowflakes and glitter? What about all those cute baby moments? We’d like more of those please.

Only except that it’s not. Here’s a newsflash: Being a mom is one hell of a tough job. According to my latest poll (which I love almost as much as lists), here are the top 3 most difficult jobs in the world.

1. Astronaut

2. Mom

3. Neurosurgeon

I know that’s hard to believe because your neighbor’s cousin’s friend’s aunty twice-removed who hoards newspapers and showers once a week is also a mom, but if you look hard enough, you’ll probably also find a neurosurgeon who performs procedures with an scalpel fashioned out of rocks. So just because anyone can make babies doesn’t mean that raising them is a walk in a the park.

Alright then, to the list we go:

1. Being stuck in a jam for over an hour alone with both kids.

Traffic jams are are to kids what kryptonite is to Superman, what Delilah is to Samson, what sunlight is to Dracula – it sends them ballistic. Crap, the analogies are awful, so scratch that, let me illustrate with a pie chart instead. Kindly direct your attention to the chart below.

As long as the vehicle is moving, there’s only an 11% chance they’ll lose it but once the car is stationary, their scream button gets activated immediately. One time, I was stuck in a jam for 90 minutes with both kids at the back and it remains till this day the worst parenting experience ever. Suffice to say, there was a lot of screaming, whining, complaining and for-the-last-time-be-quiet-ing. These days, I avoid traffic jams like the plague.

2. The time Truett fell into the pool and almost drowned

For some bizarre reason only known to him, he insisted on removing his arm floats in the wading pool. I was carrying Kirsten in the water and wasn’t prepared for a meltdown and I figured the water was too shallow for him to drown so I obliged. Next thing I knew, he disappeared into the water and even though I was barely two arm’s length away, it took me 5 seconds to reach him without submerging Kirsten as well. It was the most terrifying five seconds of my life.

3. The first 3 months after Kirsten was born

Technically not a moment, but a series of 7,257,600 moments of please-God-make-this-stop-it’s-killing-me. I don’t know what I was thinking attempting to look after a newborn and an almost toddler all by myself while battling post-natal depression. If you missed all that drama, you can look back at the archives from 13 July 2009, but only if you have days to burn and lots of alcohol to go with it. Or if you’re feeling depressed and would like some company, but don’t blame me if your depression goes into a tailspin, I’m just trying to help.

4. When all of us fell sick at the same time

Having one sick kid is stressful. Having two sick kids is worse. Having two sick kids, a sick husband and a sick me is like Nightmare on Elm Street (literally). Zombies shuffling – check. Screaming – check. Puking – check. Clawing at ankles – check. To be honest, I haven’t actually watched the show because I don’t watch horror at all (the last time I watched anything remotely scary was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) but I’m pretty sure it’s got all the same elements.

5. And that’s all I’ve got

This exercise is turning out to be way more draining than I thought and also, I really don’t have 5 things, which is not because I make this motherhood thing so easy but I suppose being a mom is mostly all snowflakes and glitter after all. So go make more babies because they are totally awesome and not that bad as long as you don’t get stuck in jams or fall ill or let do retarded things like almost letting them drown.