“MOMMY WAKE UP!!”

Baby girl was yanking open my eyelids as I curled up on the floor in the living room. We were playing a sorting card game and from a sitting position, I found myself progressing to propping up my chin on my arms while lying on the floor, to a curled up foetal position within a matter of minutes. It was one of those post-insomniac nights and I was exhausted.

Besides, sorting card games didn’t make for the most mentally-stimulating exercise.

I was hoping they wouldn’t notice my lack of participation for 15 minutes but seeing how closely they monitor my participation, they quickly did and before I knew it, my child was in my face screaming at me to WAKE UP AND PAY ATTENTION.

I mustered a lame “Can mommy sleep for 15 minutes please? I’m very tired.”

I fully expected her to do more screaming but she let go of my eyelids, glanced at Tru and said “Ok, it’s very bright, you go to the room and sleep.”

I couldn’t believe my ears but hey, I wasn’t going to wait around for her to change her mind. I hastily got off my ass and did a swan dive into my bed, making a mental note to blog about how considerate and AWESOMESAUCE my kids are.

Now one of the skills I’ve learnt as a mother is to fall sleep with my ears still open for suspicious sounds. I would know if they were playing with water in the bathroom, or climbing up the window grilles or stealing gummies from the fridge. My brain would register all these sounds as I slept, flagging up the ones in which I would have to intervene.

They were quiet for several minutes but then I heard an unfamiliar clink coming from the kitchen.

I bolted out of my bed to find the both of them standing on chairs next to the kitchen counter. They were breaking into the fried shallot stash and shoving spoonfuls into their mouths. My mom makes these fried shallots as garnishing for porridge and they usually only get one spoonful mixed in with their dinner. This “crispy”, as they like to call it, is the magic ingredient that makes them finish their food and we ration it out sparingly. So it was like they found their pot of gold (en brown).

“Orhhh, you guys are busted,” I said, pretending to look upset.

Truett looked a little nervous but Kirsten was unflinching. She looked at me innocently and said “Mommy you tired? You lie down I pat you to sleep.”

I look at my two-and-a-half-year-old and I’d like to think that she’s too young to be masterminding such an elaborate scheme of mischief but honestly, I can’t be sure.

It will always remain a mystery to me how I managed to make a girly girl. And not just any ordinary girly girl. The nail-painting, lipstick-applying, smiles-while-pointing-finger-to-cheek kind that walks around with more pink than should be allowed on any human being. Basically the kind that I used to mock mercilessly as a kid.

It’s like poetic justice coming to bite me in the uterus.

“BAM, here you go, you get the girliest of them all.”

When I was pregnant with Kirsten, I would dream of our all-girl dates which would involve throwing panties (not ours, obviously) at Jason Mraz from the mosh pit,  snowboarding down Mammoth Mountain, watching Manchester United tear Arsenal apart at Old Trafford (the husband gets excused from having to sit through the massacre), and eating profiteroles in Manhattan while rolling our eyes at girly girls that sashay past.

Guess I’m going to have to strike that last bit off my list.

Just over the Christmas period, Kirsten came home from school with a pink purse containing the following pink items: lipstick, compact powder, blackberry, car keys and credit card. It was her gift-exchange present and she’s been walking around touching up her makeup every 5 minutes “SEE MOMMY I’M SO PRETTY.” All I’m going to say is that pouch is headed for an unfortunate end very soon.

In other girly news, she’s developed a photo-taking craze. I used to be the one cajoling them for pictures, like “come on kids, just ONE picture, look at mommy HERE HERE! How about a smile? Ok fine, I’ll give you one gummy for every photo.”

But these days, she’s running everywhere asking me to take her photo. She’ll preen and pose and then proceed to check my camera before making me do retakes until she’s satisfied.

Like when we were at Sentosa last week, she ran up to each animal statue and insisted that she had to take a photo with every single one of them. After 2 animals, I was all “Ok, that’s cute, I got what I need,” but she was relentless. “How about the happy lionfish? And the octopus? There! There! Let’s go!”

For once, this girly thing is working out for me. And considering how much I’m going to save in gummies, maybe having a girly girl isn’t so bad after all.

Welcome to 2012. I hope the new year is treating you well so far and you’ve been enjoying every moment of it.

For us, the holidays are officially over and our merrymaking ways have come to a rather abrupt halt, which explains why I’m nursing a mild case of holiday hangover this morning. But then that’s to be expected on the first day back to work after a long break. It’s a good thing my work allows me to schedule an appointment with my bed at 2 o’clock this afternoon while the kids take their nap.

It’s one of the little perks of working from home, with another being the ability to spend the entire day wearing pyjamas and looking downright disheveled.

Anyway, since it was the last day of holidays yesterday, we told the kids they could pick their favorite activity and we’d bring them anywhere they wanted to go. They deliberated a moment before deciding on Sentosa, so even though we’d just been there 3 days before, it was off to Sentosa again.

They did have several specific requests, which were to ride the cable car, ride an orange (for Tru) and pink (for Kirsten) monorail train, ride the Luge, ride the Skyride and play at the kids area at Palawan Beach.

After each activity, they would ask “After this, where are we going?”

“To take the luge.” “To take the monorail.” “To get ice-cream.” “To the beach…”

“YAYYYYYYY!”

One by one, we checked off all the items on their list and watched their smiles get wider and wider as the day wore on.

They had so much fun that when it was time to go, they didn’t protest or negotiate for “5 more minutes” like they usually would. Kirsten put her head on my chest and said, “Ok, I’m very tired, I think I need to go home now.”

On an average day, the one thing I spend the most time doing is figuring out ways to keep the kids occupied in a constructive manner. Because my toddlers have the attention span of a goldfish who suffered a severe head trauma. Multiple times. To various parts of the head. They spend about 3 minutes actually doing whatever it is I come up with and by the time I skip off to make my latte, there they are standing in front of me again.

“I’m bored.” “Mommy play with me.” “No, I’m not capable of feeding Elmo without adult supervision, you need to stand here and watch me while I feed him imaginary noodles. DON’T TOUCH MY ELMO you can only watch…ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION MOM???”

Yesterday, I started out with something easy – coloring. I printed out sheets of coloring pages with their favorite characters and gave them a box of crayons. And you know how long it takes for the kids to scribble lines on a piece of paper?

Exactly 2 minutes and 38 seconds, that’s how long.

It took me a longer to time to blue-tak them to the wall than it did for the kids to color them, just saying.

After we were done with our first activity, we moved on to something more interactive, like clay modeling. By interactive, I mean that I was the one made to do all the modeling while they yelled instructions at me. They obviously didn’t know that I’m possibly worse than they are at doing this. 7 minutes in, they were starting to fidget. “What are you making, mommy?” they asked impatiently.

“A mess, ok?”

If you must know, I was going for a snail, a boot and an elephant. They always make it look so easy in pictures but every single time I attempt to model clay, this is what I get.

Over the next hour, we played with trains, played with blocks, played with bigger blocks, played dress up, ate strawberries, ate yoghurt, ate gummies, played with trains again and just when I was about to cave and stick them in front of the telly, Kirsten discovered a sheet of bubble wrap.

I taught them how to squeeze the bubbles until they popped and they both thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.

Sensing a breakthrough, I told them that they were supposed to pop every single bubble and whoever finished first would get a super special prize of…ANOTHER SHEET OF BUBBLE WRAP.

They sat for 40 minutes in silence and all I heard was the occasional *POP* *POP* *POP* of absolute bliss. They learnt fine motor skills, finger dexterity and mental focus while I learnt that sometimes, the best things in life are in fact, free.

Most preschool performances have several things in common – mediocre stage direction, abysmal choreography, average lighting and a very distracted cast. For the most part, it doesn’t even look much like a performance.

But then they usually also have the most enthusiastic audience.

Because there’s a universal rule of parenting that we all adhere to: “When your kid puts up a performance, you scream and cheer like it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen.”

Which is what we did last Friday when the kids had their year-end school performance. I’ve watched it 20 times and it still cracks me up.

And here’s a dose of Hipstamatic Happiness to kick start your Monday.

On another note, the awesome TaoShu iPad app is out and you can download it here. The kids really love TaoShu - till this day, these are the only Chinese books they will allow me to read.

Also, it’s good to have Petrina Kow back on air every Monday with Joe Augustin. Tune in to Lush 99.5 to check it out.

We’ve all been nursing a flu over the past couple of days so it’s been a weekend of drippy noses and mopey baby faces.

There were mopey adult faces too but I’m not cruel enough to make you see pictures of those.

When the kids felt better, we brought them out to Ikea for a walk. We’ve been to Ikea many times with the kids but they’ve never been in the kids play area because Kirsten never made the height limit and Truett wouldn’t go in without her.

Solidarity is a big deal around here.

Every time we checked her height, she would say, “I cannot go in, I’m too short.” Tru would offer her helpful advice like “you must stand very straight so you will be taller like me” but no matter how straight she stood, she was still too short.

This time, she stood as straight as she could and even though she still missed by a hair’s breadth, the lady at the counter had compassion on her and let her in.

“I’m taller like a BIG girl now,” she said proudly as she took her brother’s hand and walked in.

Just like that, this baby ain’t mopey no more.

***

And not forgetting this week’s Hipstamatic Happiness.

Have a great week, you guys!

Last weekend flew by quick. I thought I was supposed to have 2 days for the weekend but it only felt like 1, and a short one at that. I did a Truett this morning when I woke up like “NOOOOO, IT’S NOT MONDAY!! It’s Sunday right, please let it be Sunday.”

I opened my eyes slowly, waiting to hear the kids jump on the bed and prod at my eyelids but there was just the gentle breathing of sleeping kids and it was the husband telling me to wake up. He never tells me to wake up on a Sunday so I knew it was well and truly Monday.

It’s a terrible way to start a Monday because I like to be prepared on Sunday nights. I mourn the passing of my weekend a little bit, then potter around the house preparing for the week ahead. But mostly, I brace myself for the Monday blues so that when I wake up the next morning and the feeling of dread hits me in the gut, I’ll be all “Hah! I’m ready.”

Sort of like when you knew the husband is waiting behind a pillar to jump out at you because you saw him hiding from a mile off. That’s much better than not expecting it and having him scare the living daylights out of you.

It’s all in the preparation. Or as Ross would say, the Unagi.

Anyway, this calls for happy pictures. And ice-cream. I’m going to get myself a large scoop of salted caramel ice-cream for breakfast.

Kirsten finally allowed me to tie her hair on Saturday. It’s ridiculously cute because it makes her cheeks look chubbier than they already are. Like a hamburger.

And happiness is discovering a new water playground on a hot afternoon.

PS. In other news, the results for the Strider giveaway are out!

PPS. In other other news, I was on 93.8 Live’s Raw and Ready with Sarah Cheng De-Winne to talk about Mother, Inc and other parenting stuff. If you missed it, the podcast is right below or you can download the mp3 (right click, save link as)  here.

We interrupt normal programming to bring you some breaking news.

***

Turns out that Fernando Torres’ shocking move to Chelsea from Liverpool is not the biggest transfer news this January window. While angry Liverpool fans are still burning Torres jerseys at Anfield and sticking needles in little floppy-haired effigies, the attention has turned to even more shocking news.

Arsenal prodigy Truett Kao who just signed a 5-year contract with the Gunners last summer has made a move to Premier League rivals Manchester United. His mother was evidently thrilled, citing the move as a “big step up in his career”. “He’s moving from 2nd to 1st place in the Premier League, I’d call that an upgrade anytime,” she said.

He also added a new middle name after his favorite player, so he will now be called Truett Rooney Kao. His father, a diehard Arsenal fan, says it’s a ridiculous name, preferring Van Persie but even he admits that Truett Van Persie Kao Kai Xuan sounds exactly like the kind of kid everyone wants to beat up. Nobody has 6 names, aight?

Seeing that he’s cup-tied for the Champions League, he’ll be sitting out the match against Marseille but he’s expected to start against bitter rivals Manchester City this weekend. Which is why he is spending his time doing drills and improving his already fancy footwork with his new Red Devils ball.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson expects his latest signing to add a new attacking threat to his team of superstars. “He’s got a superb scoring ability, he’s fast and makes excellent passes. He’s been on our radar for the last few months and we’re pleased to have him.”

Meanwhile, at the Arsenal camp, Arsene Wenger has taken 0.01% of his profits from selling the player to sign new youngster Kirsten Kao (who happens to be Truett’s sibling, no less) for a price of only $2,000. “Ve are very happy to have zis new player and she holds ze record for being ze youngest ever Arsenal player. For now, she needs to lose some weight and work on her fitness. Hopefully, she can do well but if not, ve can sell her for maybe $50,000 and it vill be a good profit for Arsenal.”

According to insiders, even though the 2 siblings are now playing for different teams, they still maintain a very close relationship, often training together in their hometown of Singapore.

They have a common understanding that on the pitch, family alliances will have to take a backseat as they try to challenge for silverware but off the pitch, it is amazing that these 2 remain the tightest of friends.

PS I’ve just added a portfolio page with some recent work. That’s the work I do in between diaper changes and baby snuggles, right after I cook, clean and chauffeur.

I only recently got to know about this ingenious invention called balance bikes when we were hunting for a bicycle for Truett. It’s like a regular bicycle but without training wheels or pedals, which seemed rather bizarre at first but after watching some 20-month-olds with their balance bikes on youtube, I was sold.

When I was growing up, we all did the tricycle and training wheel thing before struggling to keep our balance on a two-wheeler. It was usually a rather unpleasant affair accompanied by lots of falls and tears.

Introducing the balance bike. Kids instinctively know how to propel themselves forward using their legs and they first learn how to balance on a bike without the pedals as a distraction or the training wheels as a crutch. When they’re able to lift their feet off the ground and cruise without falling, they can progress to a regular bike all on their own.

Last weekend, we picked up a  Kettler Sprint balance bike for Tru in princess pink and he’s been bugging us to let him ride it everyday since. Why pink, you ask? Because real men rock pink and we got it at a really good price. Mostly the second one. Also, I like my boy to be comfortable with his feminine side.

Unless he gets way too comfortable then we’ll make him do manly grunts while rolling around in the mud. That’ll up his masculine factor just about right.

Baby girl wanted to try the bike so she barter-traded 3 flowers and a hug with her brother for a turn. I usually have to arbitrate the terms of the trade to make sure it’s all fair and square but I’m teaching them the subtle art of negotiation here so I sometimes leave it to them to work it out unless someone (usually Kirsten) gets fleeced then I intervene.

Unfortunately, her legs were way too short to push herself so the husband had to push her around for a ride. A deal is a deal after all.

I’ve heard lots of people say how movement shots are great for kids and how it’s nice to capture pictures of them jumping, which is great and all except that baby girl doesn’t even know how to jump. Her idea of jumping is like a cross between a constipated squat and a knee spasm that results in zero elevation.

In mathematical terms,

(constipated squat + knee spasm) x 0 elevation = jump fail

But while I was going for that perfect picture, I realized that what made for a more awesome picture was the fact that she was learning how to jump and enjoying the process. I’ll get the perfect jump shot with Air Jordan hangtime soon enough, now is the time to get the gawky zero elevation shot.

So here they are.