We’ve really enjoyed our Christmas break this year. The kids have been in a spectacular mood all week and we’re all a little high from all the celebrating we’ve done. I’m taking a break from all that relaxing I’ve been doing and wrapping up with some final thoughts on the past several days.

Where’s Jesus, baby?

In explaining Christmas to the kids, we’ve told them a condensed version of the Nativity story and they know that it’s Jesus’ birthday. They were a little confused as to why they were receiving presents on someone else’s birthday but they’re not really fussed about it. At this point, they don’t care much for why they’re getting a present, because “LOOK A PRESENT FOR ME? WOW THANKS!”

Kirsten wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and so we did. When we were done, I asked her where Jesus was and she looked at me for a moment before patting her little belly. “In my stomach”, she said.

“Sweetie, I think you mean *heart*, right?”

“No, Jesus is not in my heart. Jesus is in my stomach.”

“I’d love to know how that happened, pumpkin. Wait, on second thoughts, I really don’t. I think we’re going to have to spend a little more time on the human anatomy next year ok.”

Hunger almost always works

This time every year, the husband takes a week’s leave from Christmas till after the New Year. It’s like our special family time week. This year, the kids still have school so we figured we’d let them go the school in the morning and bring them out for fun activities in the afternoon. Truett saw the husband in his shabby state yesterday morning and asked “When Truett and mei mei go to school, where is daddy and mommy going?” We didn’t really have any plans except breakfast so we told him as much.

He immediately replied with “I’m so hungry, I need to eat breakfast, if not I will be sick.” It almost worked, if not for the fact that he just had breakfast and would be getting more breakfast in school.

It’s the thought that counts

I love everything about Christmas except the gift-buying bit, which is like the bane of my existence. I love the idea of giving gifts and seeing the person’s face light up when they unwrap the item you lovingly picked out after spending all day fighting off hordes of people along Orchard Road to get. But choosing gifts has never been one of my many talents and I hardly ever get that reaction. In fact, the only face-lighting I’ve seen is from the kids and that’s probably because they don’t care if I got them popsicle sticks. Their delight is in the fact that we bought them something special, wrapped it up and wrote their name on it.

Over the years, many of the gifts I thought were brilliant and thoughtful has turned out to be meh so I’m through with all this gift-choosing. Next year, I’m spending all that time I’m supposed to be out buying presents on something far more productive, like watching movies or reading a book while sipping my latte. Everyone is getting gift vouchers so they can pick out their own presents. Done. Best gift idea ever.

Hello, Kitties!

On the topic of presents, Kirsten has been amassing an impressive collection of Hello Kitty merch this Christmas. She’s got a Hello Kitty bag, 2 Hello Kitty plushies, a Hello Kitty dollhouse, a Hello Kitty hooded towel, a Hello Kitty comb, a Hello Kitty bikini and a truckload of Hello Kitty clothes.

I have never been in possession of this many Hello Kitty items in my life and it’s rather disconcerting in that I’m starting to develop a soft spot for it (her? them?). I would normally have gone into an anaphylactic shock in the presence of such saccharine sweet pinkness but I guess it’s true, being a parent does change you.

It’s now day 4 of Truett’s head injury and he’s doing much better. He finally let us wash his hair last night after refusing to let us go near his head for 3 days. He tried running his fingers through his hair and got grossed out at how oily and clumpy it was so he came up to me and said “ok, you can wash my hair now.”

I may or may not have said that lice were going to have babies in his hair.

Anyway, I thought about it and I am going to talk about our visit to the dentist. Because I’m embracing the mundane. Right after this, I’m going to have a cup of coffee with the mundane and talk about mundane stuff for the rest of the day.

First, here are all the things I know about dentists.

1. I’m really bad at dental visits.

2. I’m really, really bad at dental visits.

3. Dentists have lots of sharp pointy things that make pain in the mouth.

4. I really don’t like pain. Or sharp pointy things.

5. But I like my teeth and dentists make sure I keep them in my mouth.

All this while, dental visits for the kids have been on the list of things we know we should probably get around to doing at some point but just not now. We do the basics like brushing and from time to time, I check their teeth for signs of obvious decay. So far, it looks like their pearly whites are still pretty pearly.

Besides, aren’t these teeth supposed to come off in a couple of years? Worst case scenario is that they lose all their teeth and voila, they’ll get a set of brand new ones, right?

Ok turns out, wrong. As I found out from Dr Chin from T32 Junior Dental Centre, messed up baby teeth will likely result in messed up adult teeth so the whole adage about prevention being better than cure – well, it’s true.

We finally brought the kids for their first dental visit at T32 Junior, which is at Camden Medical Centre. I was amazed at how painless the experience was. The place was incredibly kid-friendly it was and I don’t just mean the decor. Lots of dental places do the bright cheery themed walls to distract you from the pointy things, but the staff at T32 were also great with putting the kids at ease.

Dr Chin was a natural with the kids, making a balloon from a surgical glove and teaching them proper brushing techniques. He believes in helping kids combat dental phobias by creating a non-threatening environment and making sure they feel comfortable in the treatment room.

In fact, it was so convincing that the next time I go check my teeth, I’m going to request for a princess room at T32.

I’ve been trying to teach Truett the Blue Steel for the longest time now, which is that deadly look all male models have. Yes, it’s the sort of important life lessons I spend time teaching my kids. But hey, it’s a good skill to acquire even if he doesn’t ever become a male model because it is versatile enough to be used anywhere, like if you have to wait too long at the bus stop or when the waiter gets your order wrong at a restaurant or somebody cuts your queue.

It’s hard to get it just right though, because it can’t be too blur or too pouty or too sullen or too constipated.

I told him to imagine how he’d feel if one of his gummies got stolen.

A year and a half later, he’s finally nailed it. Several more years of practice and he’ll be ready.

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What do you say, almost as sullen as Edward Cullen?

I’ve been shredding again. The last time I only managed to last 22 days before a lethal combination of fried chicken + fatigue resulted in a swift and decisive end to my exercise plans. To be fair, it was deliciously crispy chicken with golden brown skin that was fried to perfection – the kind worth getting fat for.

For several days after that, I dreamt of Jillian Michaels yelling at me to “fight for it” as she pinned me down in a stranglehold and confiscated my bucket of Popeyes. It was brutal.

The great thing was that in those 22 days, I converted at least 10kg of fats (more or less) into pure unadulterated muscle mass. And I know this because when I sucked in my stomach really hard, I could see the faint outline of pectoral muscle definition. Oh, sweet definition, how I’ve missed you. Once upon a time before I had kids, I once had stomach muscles. Now, I have one rather large mass of soft-ish tissue.

Yes laugh away, but pop 2 kids and then we’ll trade pictures of our jiggly bits.

That was probably the only reason why I even lasted 22 days in the first place – visible results. I could feel myself getting fitter just after one week of jumping jacks and bicycle crunches. By day 10, I stopped feeling like I was going to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

But discipline is a funny thing. The moment you stop, it takes you 10 times the effort to get back on track. You either progress or you start regressing.  I was down with a bout of food poisoning and after 3 days of non-exercise, all my resolve had turned into cravings for ice-cream and mee pok with extra lard. And the longer I didn’t exercise, the more difficult it got to put in that DVD again because I knew I’d be back to square one with all that huffing and puffing. Vicious cycle, really.

I just realized that it’s now the middle of August and I’ve still not achieved my resolution of completing a full 30-day shred. That leaves me 5 months to get to it.

I was doing my shred the other day and Kirsten was standing by eyeing me with interest. So I casually asked her “want to join mommy, sweetheart?” She pondered a moment and back came her reply. “I don’t need to do exercise, only mommy needs. You do your exercise very well ok.”

“Well, thanks a lot, princess. One of these days, you’ll have jiggly bits of your own.”

Guess I’m just going to start by putting on my running shoes every morning and see how far I get.

What’s your exercise regime? Need a little help here. 

So obviously you guys were all in favor of baby girl’s obsession with all things Hello Kitty (well, thanks y’all…)

Which is just as well because the new swimset I ordered from Old Navy just came in the mail. She tore open the package and made me put it on for her immediately. Just so that she could prance around in her “OMG IT’S SO CUTE I’M GOING TO SCREAM” rashguard all morning. In the living room.

Every minute or so, she looks down at her chest to pat and admire the exquisite beauty that is a snorkeling Hello Kitty. “Oohh the cat got hat! (um FYI, that’s a snorkel mask babe but who cares about such trifles in comparison with a Hello Kitty)” “The cat go swimming like Kirsten!” “OH I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS OFF TILL I TURN 12 YAYYY!”

So a day after I successfully made her wear the “very nice” swim cover-up, it’s been relegated back to its unfortunate place at the bottom of the drawer.

It’s the Hello Kitty revolution all over again.

BTW, that sound you hear is me resigning to my fate. I’m going out to buy myself a pair of Hello Kitty crocs. You know what they say: if you can’t beat them, wear Hello Kitty.

I got this irresistible swim cover-up for baby girl a while back but she has been resisting all efforts to put it on with a dismissive “It’s not nice, I don’t like it!”

All this time, it’s been sitting at the bottom of her drawer because I knew better than to argue fashion with someone whose idea of very nice involved as many Hello Kitties as possible.

In her world of fashion, anything that has 1 Hello Kitty falls into the “nice” category. Anything that has 2 Hello Kitties is “so cute, I like it.” and anything with more than 5 Hello Kitties is “VERY NICE MOMMY YOU BUY NOW!”

Till this day, I still struggle to see the appeal of a cat whose name is made up entirely of a generic feline greeting. I mean, I would never name my child Hello Human unless I was certain she would be the last surviving human in the face of a martian invasion. In which case, I suppose it would be appropriate and somewhat cool.

But back to the swim cover-up. My little fashionista pulled this out from her drawer, stared at it for a minute, then decided it was time to promote it to the category of “ok fine, you can wear this for me.”

We had to compromise on the footwear but it’s still a step in the right direction. Baby steps. It’s all about baby steps.

During our visit to the the KLCC aquarium last week, I took the chance to sneak in a little science lesson for Tru so it would be both FUN AND EDUCATIONAL YAYYY! Except that I wasn’t very good at marine biology so I had to first learn them myself before I could impart those pearls of wisdom (how’s that for a marine metaphor?) to my son.

I usually don’t pay much attention to those descriptive write ups next to the animal exhibits because I’d much rather be making faces at them but as it turns out, learning can be so much fun and we both came back a little smarter.

I’ll even share some with you so you can skip the trip down and go straight to the learning bit. Unless you want to go down to make faces at the fish, then I highly recommend that you do that.

1. Tru and I have the same favorite marine animal – sea turtles.

2. Male horseshoe crabs can remain attached to the female for weeks just because being together is so much better than being apart.

3. Question: What do I have in common with piranhas? We’re both cute and love meat. True story.

4. Sand Tiger Sharks can keep growing teeth to replace broken or chipped ones. They will literally never run out of teeth.

5. The only thing more gross than a regular frog is an albino one. Being translucent sort of makes it worse.

6. DON’T EVER PEE ON A JELLYFISH STING. I don’t care what you learnt from watching Friends. Don’t do it.

7. Tru’s fish motto: Fish are friends, not food.

8. My fish motto: Fish are food. Very tasty and nutritious food.

The whole point of having a baby girl is to be able to play dress up barbie

and take them to the pool on a beautiful sunshiney day

for a skip and a splash

to chase the blues away

PS I’m exploding from an overdose of cuteness and I’m allowed to get a little cheesy when that happens.

So I’m a little behind on some deadlines because I just spent the last three days hanging out with the husband and the kids when I was supposed to be doing important work stuff. But it was like the universe was telling me to drop the work by putting a public holiday on a Friday. That’s just basic universe rules 101 and you know me, I’m all about following the rules. Except when it’s telling me to actually do work then I tend to practice a bit of selective rule-following.

But on the bright side, I managed to get these shots of baby girl getting her cute on.

A lot of people have been commenting that she’s looking more and more like daddy and I can see why. But this face right here, that’s 95% momma. This is what I call the serious face.

But the smile and the sexy pose, that’s all daddy. The only time you will ever catch me doing this is if a fly managed to get itself lodged in my armpits. Which is to say um, NEVER.

I don’t have a lot to tell you about last weekend because I didn’t get a lot done. No planning, no writing, no events to organize. It was just a lot of looking at this while sneaking in a few moments of holding hands with the husband and feeling like I got everything I ever wanted. Well, not literally everything, but at least the things that mattered the most. There’s still the pet pony and little island over on the Caribbean.

PS. it seemed a little unfair not to have any pics of Truett so here’s one of him as Superman. That’s like worth 4 regular photos at least.

PPS. Technically, that’s like 2 pictures of Tru (the one in the mirror also counts) so now I have to take a photo of Kirsten as Wonder Woman to balance it out. Having multiple kids is like sitting for a very difficult Math exam.

A lot of moms get really stressed out over cleaning. I used to be one of them, especially when it seems like I’m spending so much time cleaning and things never stays clean for more than half a day and I get all frustrated and start yelling at everyone a lot more, which is all so unnecessary. Until I discovered a formula to determine what needs to be cleaned up immediately and what doesn’t. Now my house is in a constant state of disarray but the important thing is that I feel SO much better.

Formula:

M (How bad is the mess) x B (How much does it bother you) / H (How long it is likely to stay clean) = C (Should I clean?)

Let me illustrate with examples to make it clearer.

#1: Kid’s Room = Don’t Clean

I call this the war zone because epic battles go on in here. At any given point in the day, someone will be emptying boxes of toys into a massive heap on the floor and then someone else will observe the destruction, throw her head back in maniacal laughter, and proceed to fling toys everywhere. Because it’s so fun to watch mommy grab her head and look horrified.

I used to categorize their toys into neat little boxes. One for vehicles, one for play cooking, one for animals, one for pirates and one for weird items (broken doll limbs, that kind of thing) that don’t fit anywhere else. I had a whole complicated organizational system going on that made the Dewey Decimal System look like child’s play. But the moment it’s all neatly packed up, they would drag out all the boxes and dump them onto the floor all over again in less than a second.

With the formula, I’ve learnt to leave it the hell alone. That way, I didn’t have to spend hours packing up or nagging at them to pack up only for it to be messed up again. WIN.

#2: Dishes, Laundry, Spills = Clean

No brainer. It’s relatively easy to clean and it stays clean for a decent amount of time. I mean, only slobs leave dishes piled up in the sink for weeks and I’m no slob. Only a cleaning pragmatist. There’s a difference.

#3: Living room = Debatable

I have clearly demarcated territory in my house. The kids know that toys are meant to be played with in the room but the occasional toy encroaches into my space and I put it right back where it belongs, i.e., the war zone. Other times, I leave it until the end of the day when I do my evening clean up of the house.

Cleaning is like money – there’s never enough. Everything could always be cleaner if it bothers you enough to get off your ass and put on those scrubbing gloves. Or if you have someone to do it for you then just flog them every now and then to give them some added motivation. But if you find yourself getting all high strung over cleaning, I suggest you try the formula and spend that cleaning time having a cup of coffee.