School holidays are best spent with friends. Great for the kids but more importantly, great for the parents. We call it MAD – mutual assured destruction, where they neutralize each other’s powers and all of them are completely knocked out by naptime. Spectacular win for Team Parents.

Plus, it’s so cute to see little people playing with other little people who are not your own kids. Your own siblings are always snatching your toys and being a real pain in the ass but friends, ooh, they’re so fun to be with, look they have cool cars and water guns!

And that’s not taking into account the free massages you get while you take a break and sip your water. Boys have to stick together and wear the same manly colors like brown and khaki.

Tru loves having a boy friend to play with. Not boyfriend, but boy friend. Ah, you know what I mean. All that testosterone needs to find other testosterone to be happy. They trade cars and kungfu moves and peer at creepy crawlies. Except ants. Tru hates ants. One time, he saw an ant (actually it was just a speck of dirt but he was convinced it was an ant) in his bathtub and had a meltdown of epic proportions. Even after I scooped it out, he made me change the water and scrub the tub before agreeing to get in again.

Kirsten’s favorite game now is sitting on Tru’s back and smacking him to make him go faster. He’s been a very obliging horse but he doesn’t understand the concept of size so he tries to sit on her when it’s his turn, which usually doesn’t end very well. It’s hard to explain to a kid that his sister is too small to be sat on but big enough to usurp his toys.

Oh and Tru’s latest Casanova move is  to grab us by the cheeks and plant a big, juicy kiss square on the lips. He know that when he does that, he basically gets anything he wants.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on my little Georgie Porgie when he goes back to school.

]]> http://www.motherinc.org/stuff-best-described-as-not-safe-for-parents/mutual-assured-destruction/feed/ 9 http://www.motherinc.org/milestones-musings/if-all-goes-well-i-should-be-able-to-have-my-boobs-back/ http://www.motherinc.org/milestones-musings/if-all-goes-well-i-should-be-able-to-have-my-boobs-back/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:29:17 +0000 Daphne http://www.motherinc.org/?p=4392

Finally, it’s time. But first, I need to congratulate myself for sticking through nine months of exclusive breastfeeding, and also my boobs for really stepping up and delivering.

That’s 947 hours of expressing milk, $463 spent on equipment, $1392 saved in milk powder, 18.6kg of fats transferred to baby girl and 2 rounds of mastitis. It’s been quite a journey.

Before Kirsten was born, I was so psyched about breastfeeding. Still feeling a little guilty about not breastfeeding Tru, I totally succumbed to all that propaganda on how “breast is best“. So I got all the equipment and read up on all the books and visualized my boobs spraying milk but all it took was 2 days with a screaming baby who was more interested in gumming the life out of my nipples and I was ready to give up. I’m *resilient* like that.

My breasts refused to produce milk despite being manhandled by the lactation consultants who pinched and squeezed them like as if they weren’t attached to any nerves. The psycho commando nurse actually made me chant “no pain, no gain” as she gave me a pep talk on pain endurance, which is like asking for me to punch her in the stomach because there’s nothing worse than having a really enthusiastic sadist who looks like she’s enjoying the process. According to the husband, it is exactly like the game where a friend sneaked up on a you and pinched your nipples till you cried uncle. The kind of friend you want to kick in the balls.

And of course I have to talk about the pain. It’s possibly worse than the actual delivery because you can still rely on the epidural to provide some relief. Ain’t no doctor is going to give you morphine for the pain in your nipples no matter how much you beg for it even though they’re cracked and sore and bleeding. It’s something OBGYNs need to look into because I guarantee a little bit of painkillers for the boobs will result in a spike in the number of mothers who successfully breastfeed.

I still look at mothers who manage to latch on their babies and wonder if maybe their breasts have no nerves.

Good thing there’s always technology to rely on. I didn’t think I could do it but just like that, I’ve been lactating for 9 months. After tasting solids, baby girl is starting to push away the milk and I take it as my cue to transition her to formula. I’ve cut down my milk pumping to once a day just to clear out the lumps and hopefully I don’t get bitten in the ass by mastitis one final time.

Some mothers feel a little emotional at this weaning stage because it marks the end of the special bond with the baby. But then all I’ve had is a special bond with a bunch of tubes and some machinery so I’m a little less nostalgic. Alright who am I kidding? It’s time to bring out the champagne and do my victory dance. I can’t wait to have my boobs back.

Hello freedom. How I’ve missed you.

Daddy’s been home these two weeks, the longest break he’s had since he started work. I heart having daddy around at home, he does all the manly stuff like cleaning poop and yelling at the kids while I sleep in. In case you missed that, I actually said sleep in. That’s like the Holy Grail of motherhood. And you would think that it’s going to feel overrated after you have it but oh no, it. is. good.

I can really get used to this, not having to do everything on my own. A 2:2 (two-parent to two-kid) ratio is so much easier because we can divide and conquer. One to hold the fort while the other takes five.

I’ve also noticed that the kids are closer to Kel whenever he’s at home. Tru asks for daddy all the time and he shouts for “dad-dyyyyy” in that sweet baby voice, which is a relief because I can escape diaper changes but I’m also bummed about being displaced as his favorite person.

I know boys need a strong, masculine presence to give them security and all but I miss that special look he used to give me like I’m everything he needs. Now everything is morphing into something once in a while and soon it’ll be “mommmm, don’t kiss me in public anymore, it’s WEIRD and EMBARRASSING!”

I hate to break it to you, kid, but momma’s going to kiss you till you’re 65. Maybe not all over because that would be weird. But kiss you, I will.

We’re all going to be a little sad when daddy goes back to work next week. Tru’s going to throw a hissy fit when I have to tell him that “daddy’s at work, sweetheart”. Baby girl will look all forlorn again. Momma will cry a little and maybe dust under the sink for a place to hide.

But we’ve got three days left, right about the time where you start to feel the blues sinking in. The last few days of any holiday are always bittersweet because at the back of your mind, you’ll always be thinking about how it’s going to suck after. That’s why the last three days of our honeymoon was spent in Disneyland so we wouldn’t have time to sit around and mope.

Three more days and I’m going to par-ty like it’s 1999. We’ve got Kirsten’s baby dedication and a wedding coming up so it’s going to be fun. Hopefully we’ll have some good pics for you guys. Here’s one first, for the record.

Apparently today is International Women’s Day, a day that we’re supposed to celebrate women, whatever that means. I usually don’t keep track of things like that unless it involves me getting a little bling from Tiffany’s.

Somehow I got invited by Nanzinc to go for a little get together with a group of women at Overeasy, right by One Fullerton. I was expecting like 50 or so women having cocktails and I was hoping to slip in unnoticed at the back and kind of like blend in, you know, because I’m socially retarded at these kinds of events. Also, it suddenly occurred to me that Motherinc is awkwardly similar to Nanzinc, which is like showing up to a party thrown by Angelina Jolie wearing the exact same dress as her. Awkward.

And unlike Nanzinc, whose name was inspired by Cindy Inc and is supposed to connote wonderful things like personal branding, female entrepreneurship and a strong positive mindset, Motherinc was solely derived because Monsters Inc was my favorite Pixar animation of all time. Stop judging me.

So as it turned out, I had to reach fashionably late because I have 2 kids to settle and I walked in to find 12 women all seated at a long table chatting over nachos. Which was right about the time I started to panic because you can’t blend in when there are only 12 and all of them turns to look at you. Then I got closer and I realised that these were some of the most successful women in the entire country. Women who win awards and give important speeches and sip bubbly at chichi events. Like Nanz Chong, Theresa Tan and Elim Chew. Sweet.

hang on a minute while I try to blend in

I made my grand entrance and as I looked around the table at all these over-achieving women, all I could think of was “I’m pretty sure they invited the wrong person. I’m going to have to pretend to be whoever it is. Play it cool. Breathe, come on.”

Turns out, they actually meant to invite me but I’m guessing the only reason why that is so is because I represent the bourgeoisie. Except that I have no job and no actual skills to contribute at the meeting so I’m still a little fuzzy on what I was supposed to do there besides actually having lunch.

It is exactly at critical moments like these that I suddenly freak out because I couldn’t be sure if part of my bra was peeking out because it would be monumentally embarrassing if I sat through the entire lunch flashing my bra at these ladies. I thought of fiddling with it or checking discreetly but it would then draw unnecessary attention to it, which would be counterproductive.

So there I was, trying to furrow my brow and look intelligent and as they talked about important stuff like helping women to do better and giving back to society. I think I did my part by eating the killer mac and cheese. But I wasn’t sure if that was enough so I went back home to burn a bra for good measure.

Still, happy International Women’s Day, ladies. Flash a bra or something. It’s your right.

Well, so I know this is a little late but we just had a crazy past couple of days with copious amounts of merrymaking. But that’s fun of Christmas, isn’t it? Getting swept up in all the excitement, being with family, catching up with old friends, exchanging presents and well-wishes. It’s a time to spread the love, then sit back and take it all in.

The husband on leave for the next week so we’re just going to take a little break and spend some time together. Maybe go to the zoo, have a picnic, do more partying or just snuggle up in bed and catch up on some sleep.

That means I’ll be back after New Year’s so before I forget, have a lovely end to the year. Hug somebody and tell them how special they are.

Merry christmas and happy holidays.