kids!

“What?? That’s not fair…”

I had just picked Kirsten up from school and she was protesting that Tru had gone swimming with baby Theo that afternoon without her.

“Why does kor kor get to go swimming while I have to go to school??”

I started to explain that being in Primary school came with more responsibilities, and a half day program was part of the perks. And that next year, she would be able to enjoy the same privileges. But then as our conversation went on, I realised that I couldn’t explain away the fact that she’s right, life isn’t very fair at all.

I also realised that I was sounding an awful lot like my dad, when he would say sagely things like “there’s no such thing as fairness in life, it’s not supposed to be fair” when I used to protest why my brother got to do things I couldn’t.

When my dad said it, I remember thinking that he was nuts. Of course life is supposed to be fair. That’s like a basic human right, a right to fairness. If my brother gets to watch TV for an hour, I’m entitled to the same privilege, right down to the very last nanosecond. Fair and square.

So I couldn’t really blame Kirsten for wanting life to be fair. It’s a hard lesson for a kid to learn, that life is arbitrarily unfair, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Midway through our conversation, I stopped and told her, “You’re right, baby girl. A lot of things in life aren’t fair. I know you want it to be fair – I used to feel the same way when I was your age. Daddy and mommy will try to make it as fair as we can, but there will be many times when it just won’t seem fair and that’s ok too.”

“How can it be ok if it’s not fair??” (Kirsten asks the toughest questions.)

“Well, once you realise that life isn’t supposed to be fair, you’ll learn to be happy with the things you’ve got and not get all hung up over the things others have. We only feel like life is unfair when we’re not happy with the things we have.

I mean, it’s not fair that you’ve gone to Disney World twice when kor kor has only gone once. Most people spend their whole lives not even getting the chance to go once.

It’s not fair that you have three amazing brothers and the best daddy and a super awesome mommy (I had to sneak that in!) and lots of toys and most of the things you could possibly want when there are children who don’t even have enough food for dinner or a mommy to snuggle up with at night.

Hey you know what will make you really happy? Being thankful for all the things you have.”

I was feeling rather pleased about my deeply inspirational monologue and at the end of it, she said, “I don’t really get what you’re saying. Anyway, can we go swimming later?”

“Ok yeah, why not?”

“YAYYYYY, thank you thank you thank you!!!”

At this point, Tru turned to Kirsten and whispered, “actually it wasn’t even that fun swimming without you. Playing with baby Theo is quite boring, next time I think I’ll just wait for you.”

And now for a story this fine thursday. Oh wait, before that, here’s a fun fact: my girl, Kirsten, is an incredible storyteller. That’s the one trait I will actually take credit for – I don’t got much skills but I can tell a mean bedtime story. It seems Kirsten has inherited this particular talent, so she’s been taking over storytelling duties of late.

Finn Finn doesn’t even want my stories anymore, he’s always like “jie jie, can you tell me a story…” every single night.

On this one night, Kirsten was in the middle a masterful delivery of the Three Little Pigs, using Finn’s precious piggy pig pig as a prop.

“The big bad wolf saw a little piggy and he said *licking her lips*, “I’m having bacon for dinner tonight…””

“And the piggy was super scared. “Please don’t let me be bacon, please don’t let me be bacon…””

By the time she got to the huffing and puffing, Finn was grabbing his piggy real tight, looking more than a little horrified. It was no surprise that later that night, he woke up with a bad nightmare, yelling, “I don’t like the big bad wolf, make it go away.”

***

On one of our IKEA runs for hand towels last week, Finn found himself a cuddly kitten (this guy!), whom he named Mr Snuffles. Shortly after, we came upon a slightly less cuddly stuffed toy in the form of a big bad wolf (this guy!), whom he named Go Away Big Bad Wolf.

So what’s a mother to do, except to tell him the story of the big bad wolf right there in the IKEA checkout aisle.

“The big bad wolf was so hungry because he hadn’t eaten for days and there were no little piggies to be found. I suppose this fluffy cat would have to do.”

“You can’t eat Mr Snuffles!!”

“Then what can I eat? I’m super hungry and I’ve got to eat something. All I see here is cat meat and little boy meat. Which one shall I eat?”

“How about some strawberries?”

“I’m a big bad wolf, I don’t eat no strawberries. What’s it gonna be? The little cat or the little boy?

“You can eat the little boy,” Finn said, hugging a very fortunate mr snuffles.

***

//I told Kirsten about what happened when we got home and she was all, “good thing Theo didn’t go along because the big bad wolf sure want to eat him instead, he’s the most delicious of all.”

Hahahahahahahaha. I’m with the big bad wolf on that.

Truett came home from school starving yesterday, like “Quick, is there any food?? I’m super hungry, I need to eat 2 bowls of noodles!!”

Me: Why are you starving? Didn’t you eat during recess?

Tru: I only had 40 cents left so I just had some biscuits.

Me: *sigh* Were you buying stuff from the book shop again? We need to talk about this.

Tru: I got this princess sticker book for Kirsten. I didn’t get her a birthday present so I wanted to give her a surprise today. Then I didn’t have money left to eat. But never mind, I know that she will surely love it so much.

Me: That’s really sweet of you, Tru. Ok let’s go get you noodles pronto.

After he got home, he wrapped it up himself and spent the whole afternoon preparing an elaborate treasure hunt for Kirsten, who was thrilled out of her socks.

See these two lovebirds.

We need to talk about birthday parties.

When it comes to planning kids’ birthday parties these days, there seems to be only one rule: go big or go home.

My relationship with birthday parties was somewhat short lived. :( There was that one time we decided to throw a massive party for Tru and Kirsten in 2012; fast forward 3 years and we’re still recovering from that hangover. We’ve been on a party hiatus ever since because having to plan another party like that requires too much bandwidth, of which I have very limited quantities of these days. And the thought of doing 4 parties a year, that’s just too much madness I can’t even. So I guess you can say that me and birthday parties are kind of on a break. We’re not really speaking right now.

First, let’s get into the cost. For a basic no frills party, we’re talking easily $500 per pop. On the low side. $200 for the food/deserts, $150 for a standard 3D fondant cake, $50 for the decor, $50 for the goodie bags, and $50 for the program (pinata, some basic game props).

Additional something-somethings like a schmancy dessert table, balloon sculptor, magician, game host or marching band will run the bill up by another $300-$500.

And then there are the cool venues. Want to party with the horses (actually just 1 horse!) at Gallop stables? That’s $450 just for the horse and venue. How about a Frozen party (at the ice rink)? Upwards of $350 for a minimum of 10 kids. Indoor playgrounds range from $300-800, depending on the number of kids and general awesomeness of the party.

I love my kids and I’d do a lot to make them smile, including celebrating the heck out of the day they were born. But if I’m blowing $1k on a birthday party per child per year, that’s easily a trip to Melbourne or Tokyo or Maldives. And let’s see, 4 times the madness that is planning a blowout party versus a relaxing trip? Is this even a real question?? And perhaps more importantly, I’m not sure if having a formulaic party just because this is how everyone else does it will make them happier than say, a fun day out with us and a delicious cake that doesn’t have Elsa standing in front of a 3-tiered snow castle.

Kirsten’s birthday is around the corner and she asked if she could have a birthday party this year. Her request was very specific. She wanted to have it at an indoor playground, with a huge Elsa made of ice-cream (??), cake pops (I had to google what a cake pop was), blue and silver balloons, and horses (???).

I told her in the gentlest possible manner, “Ummm, no, sweetie.”

“How about this? I can do the balloons, and you can choose an Elsa cake, and we’ll have fun celebrating with your friends in school. And then we’ll do a special day out just for you – you can choose anywhere that you want to go and we’ll make it happen.”

“Anywhere?? And we can all go, daddy and you and kor kor and Finn Finn and Theo?” she asked, after a while.

“Yes.”

She smiled. “Ok, yeah, that would be very super fun.”

on one of our non-birthday dates

Have I already said that these kids are the best?? Because they are.

Exam fever

Truett’s first exam starts in 2 weeks and things are getting straight up academic around here. I don’t remember what my first Primary 1 exam was like or ever preparing for it.

At the start of the year, I told the husband that I’d let Truett learn at his own pace and not stress him out about the exams, but 2 weeks out from the first paper, I’m totally flip flopping because here we are, with 116 pages of past year papers from other schools to get through. I might have also told him that if he fails his exams, he would have to join Kirsten in redoing his Primary 1 next year and they can be classmates. Does that still happen? Fail then kenna retained??

At first, he was all “yay, we can be best friends and go to Primary 1 together”, then he realised the implications of that particular scenario and he said, “I think…no thanks.”

In any case, Truett has been a real champ, powering through 4-5 exam papers after school everyday without the onset of his usual ailments such as a headache, stomachache, and excessive boredom. Even if he doesn’t kill it during the exams, I’m so proud of how well he’s done.

E is for English

I can only conclude that whoever created the English language wasn’t a very nice person. It’s like he was trying to be annoying about it just because he could. You think you know these rules that govern the language but really they’re just sort of vague guidelines that may or may not be applicable to similar words.

For example, singular and plural forms. By and large, it’s relatively simple, just add an “s”. Bam. Problem solved.

Except for when it’s not. When it ends with “y”, you sometimes change it to “ies”. Not always though, because some “y”-ending words like “boy” continues with the “s” rule. When it ends with a ch/sh/s/x, you have to go with “es”. “O”-ending words are tricky. Tomatoes vs casinos. Heroes vs photos. “S” or “es”, how do you tell? You just have to know it to know.

Foot becomes feet. Tooth becomes teeth. Child becomes children. Woman becomes women. House becomes houses but mouse doesn’t become mouses. They transform into mice. And don’t even get me started on axes, crises, formulae, chateaux, mothers-in-law, cacti, octopuses? octopi?

Then of course, we have words that refuse to change even when they’re pluralised. Sheep. furniture, aircraft, deer, offspring. They insist of having the same word represent both singular and plural forms. Why? Maybe they want to be special.

Oh wait, there are also words that can’t make up their minds as to whether they want a plural form or not. Bread is bread even if you have many slices of it. Unless they’re different kinds of bread like wholemeal, white and wheat. Those guys don’t like each other very much, so you have to use breads to refer to them collectively.

“Why don’t they just make it easy and add “s” to all the plural words?” Truett asked as I tried to explain the randomness that is English plurality.

“Well, it wouldn’t be fun now, would it? If it was easy, you wouldn’t get to laugh at people who say mouses because they got tricked by the non-rules of English. Kidding. Don’t laugh at people who say it wrong ok, that’s mean. Besides, would you rather be learning Chinese?”

“No way.”

Orange you glad…

I was sharing an orange with Finn yesterday evening and here’s the thing: sharing a potentially messy fruit with a child who’s all dressed and ready for bed requires a system. I peel the orange into perfectly de-skinned, bite sized pieces for him while he carefully picks up those pieces and puts them in his mouth one at a time. No fuss, no mess.

As he picked up the last piece of orange, I saw him put it between his tiny hands in an attempt to divide it in half. “Don’t!! Don’t squish it, just put the whole thing in your mouth.” I said in my mom voice. “You’re already in your jammies, let’s not have to change it again.”

With juice dripping down his pyjama sleeve, he shoved one half of the squished up orange into his mouth and offered the other half to me in his outstretched hand.

“For you, momma,” he said.

URGGGGH.

Of all the lessons I’ve learnt from the kids, perhaps the most important one is “If you really want to overreact and yell at your offspring for doing making you do extra, unnecessary chores, make sure they’re not just trying to be a sweetheart and giving you half of their last piece of orange.”

Great news! The marble is out, I repeat, THE MARBLE IS OUT. My in-laws are the lucky winners of the super gross family treasure hunt that’s been going on and this is how it all went down. Want to hear it? Sure you do.

Wednesdays are typically the kids’ “midweek party at ah kong and ah ma’s house day”, and this week, I thought of having Truett stay at home with me so I could dissect his poop meself, in the name of parental responsibility and all that. My awesome in-laws were like “it’s ok, we can do it,” and you know me, I’m not one to rob anyone of the joy of partaking in poop treasure hunt. I’m happy to report that yesterday afternoon, they found it, all shiny and round and covered in poop.

Thank you, dad and mom!!

I now declare the poop hunt officially over. And it’s only day 3.5 out of 7. I was prepared to do this for 7 days and I only had to do it for 3. That’s some serious discount we’re talking. It’s like setting aside money to pay full price for your favourite bag, then to find it on sale for half the price. Now you’re like, I have all this extra money, what should I do with it?? Except now I have all this extra faeces-free time to to all sorts of non-faeces related things.

Also, I think I’m done talking about poop. It’s been less than no fun while it lasted.

//

Hang on, it doesn’t seem right to leave a post like this, talking about not wanting to talk about poop. One time, I was reading The Graveyard Book before bed and that night, I tried to force yourself not to think about cold-blooded murderers hunting for tiny babies as I fell asleep but that was all I thought about the entire night. (Do not recommend! To clarify, the book was fab, but the timing, exceptionally poor.)

Moral of the story? Always remember to neutralise your brain with adorable cat videos on the internet before going to bed.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a cat, but I do have a baby who’s growing up far too fast for my liking and he’s as good a brain neutraliser as any.

Here’s Finn to wrap things up today, over and out.

‘Twas a very exciting weekend. Started out with the usual weekend excitement, and then it got plenty more exciting when Truett accidentally swallowed a marble. I know, right?? So many questions. How does one accidentally put a marble in one’s mouth and accidentally forcefully push it to the back of one’s throat and accidentally eat it?

Apparently, it’s possible when one is trying to perform a magic trick for one’s sister.

Behold the amazing marble swallowing trick.

“Kirsten, look carefully, I’m going to make this marble disappear inside my mouth.” For most budding magicians, this involves a masterful sleight of hand plus some artful misdirection, but my son, well, he’s dedicated to his craft, that’s for sure. Method magic, I think they call it.

Sunday afternoon, Truett ran out to the living room, gasping, “I…I swallowed a marble.” On his face was a look of sheer panic. This sort of information takes an extra half a second to sink in, before you get that feeling of paralysing terror that comes when you realise your child is in peril and you couldn’t do anything to help him.

Was he choking? Could he breathe? Should I attempt the heimlich maneuver? What if I break his ribs? I’ve seen that stabby move where they poke a straw into the throat when patients asphyxiate on Grey’s Anatomy. Crap, I don’t have a tiny straw. I should have bought yakult from the supermarket the other day, then I’d have some tiny straws. Ok, don’t panic. Hold it together and think.

“Can you breathe, Tru? I need you to calm down and take a deep breath for me.”

Upon closer inspection, he could breathe. He was hyperventilating, and his breath was shallow, but I could hear breathing, so that’s good. At least it’s not obstructing his airway.

“Are you in pain? Does your throat or chest hurt?”

He nodded, looking teary and terrified. Poor baby. He must be feeling even more afraid that I was right then. I gave him a hug and told him it’s going to be ok.

“First, my chest was pain, then my stomach. I think it’s in here,” he said, pointing at his abdomen.

We brought him in for an x-ray and indeed, there’s a spherical foreign object in his digestive tract. Look at it, it’s monstrous.

The doctor at Raffles initially recommended a scope (under general anaesthesia) to retrieve it, but after some consult with another paediatric surgeon, seems like the best option right now is to sit tight and wait for it to pass out from his system. He’s got 7 days to poop it out before they go in to get it.

Thankfully, he’s gotten past the initial shock and he’s back to his usual merry self. “Hahaha, you can call me the incredible marble eating boy,” he told Kirsten while waiting to have his x-ray done. Not bad, still can joke. (h/t to Oliver Jeffers)

Group hugs for moral support while waiting for the x-ray

Meanwhile, I have the unfortunate job of performing surgery on his poop to locate a marble like a super gross treasure hunt. They don’t tell you this when you become a mom, that your duties would include smooshing poop with a spatula (that will be thrown away after 7 days or once I locate the marble, whichever comes sooner. I mean the spatula, not the poop. The poop gets thrown away immediately, it’s not like I’m keeping it as a souvenir or anything.) But they also don’t tell you that it’s really not that bad. You’ll just throw up a little in your mouth during the first couple of times, then it gets easier. Kidding. Smooshing poop never gets easy but hey, at least my baby’s ok and he’s generating poop for me to smoosh. I’ll take that over…you know, the alternative.

The husband had a chat with him to see how this could have happened and turns out, he wasn’t dumb enough to want to swallow the marble. He was trying to hide it under his tongue while talking at the same time but the marble was very slippery (who knew??!!) and it rolled up over his tongue and down the back of his throat. I might have laughed for 2 minutes when I heard the explanation because as someone who has done my share of stupid things as a child (and adult), this sounds entirely plausible.

At least now he knows not to put non-edible things into his mouth ever again.

//

On another note, I think I’m signing up for one of those child first aid CPR classes. It’s terrifying knowing that I’m not equipped to handle a real emergency and 4 babies = 4 times the risk of having something bad accidentally happen.