The kids have been nursing a viral infection the past couple of days and having them at home all day has been keeping me very busy indeed.

To be fair, they’ve been really good considering that they’re both ill and have every right to be cranky, but you know how when they’re at home, you need to be engaged every minute of the day.

“Mommy play with me!” “Mommy, I’m the doctor, I need to operate on your leg.” “Mommy I want I want I want…”

Days like these, I really appreciate the 3 hours they spend in school harassing other children instead of me. You want to fake slice up somebody’s leg, go find a friend. Take turns to be the cadaver or something.

Anyway, they were feeling much better yesterday afternoon, so we all went downstairs for some much-needed fresh air. It’s incredible how they can be all listless and sluggish at home all day but once they hit the playground, they’re miraculously healed and suddenly spritely.

They even had the energy to do a bit of pole dancing at the fitness centre. Speaking of energy, this Kirsten some serious upper body strength. She can hang on the monkey bars much longer than Tru can, which is a surprise because Tru’s the muscular one and she’s somewhat softer around the edges.

They also discovered a new way of going down the slides.

They did this at least 20 times, giggling and shrieking every single time. Happy times.

There are few things in life that are more therapeutic than to feel the soft sand between your toes as the gentle waves sweep across your ankles.

Maybe except watching your kids do it and seeing that hesitant smile turn into a grin of delight.

Or maybe perching them on a tree on a lazy afternoon and resist the urge to sing “Truett and Kirsten sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N…” because it’s wrong on so many levels. Ok, I won’t even go there.

Or maybe building a sand dune together because it doesn’t feel as upsetting when they stomp on it for the 27th time in one afternoon. Stomp away, kids, I did not spend 30 minutes attempting to make a castle with my bare hands.

Or maybe watching my girl spontaneously break into an interpretive dance when a group of boys behind started playing Gym Class Heroes’ Stereo Hearts.

Or just sitting back with the husband, thinking that it really doesn’t have to take a lot for life to be pretty darn awesome.

Some kids are born with special gifts like playing the violin or ballet dancing and it’s our job as parents to discover those talents and nurture them. Ever since the kids came along, I’ve been very diligent in searching out those talents so that we can maximize their potential. Give them a head start and all that.

We’ve discovered that Tru’s talent is in making faces, like the vector face and the blue steel. He used to ask me to explain emotions when he watches TV, like “what happened? The boy is very sad because he lost his balloon? Is he happy? Confused?”

After that he would replicate the expressions. He improvs most of them and really nails it, if I might add.

I’m trying to expand his repertoire so anyone knows how to do flabbergasted?

PS. Episode 5 of the Olay 360 Transformation is here. Hope you guys have enjoyed it so far, there’ll be one last episode before we wrap up the series.

Recently, the kids have been watching a lot of Despicable Me. There’s this evil villain called Vector, who’s like the most annoyingly useless villain in the world, exactly the sort I like. And Jason Segel (Marshall from HIMYM) was the perfect voiceover for the character – equal parts annoying and likable.

In fact, the kids like him so much they’ve made up a game called the Vector Face. Ok back up a little. First, this is the Vector face. They go into hysterical giggling fits whenever it reaches this scene.

So the game works like this. We take turns to randomly shout “VECTOR FACE” throughout the day and everyone has to do this.

Did I mention that I’m the one who gets the most fun out of this whole exercise? When they’re fighting over toys or throwing a hissy fit, I go “VECTOR FACE” and bam, problem solved. Let’s see how long this lasts.

So you probably already know about my thing with online shopping, we’re real tight; like best pals, we are. Especially when I find good deals. I get all kinds of happy when I get 69% off a carton of extra soft, 3-ply toilet paper or lavender-scented hand cream.

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time on these half-off deal-of-the-day coupon sites that have been popping up all over the internet like wild mushrooms. I was a little skeptical at first, not sure if I was being scammed by yet another big-discount website. But to date, I’ve bought a manicure session, an air-con servicing package, a trip to Batam and most recently, a 4D3N trip to Bangkok for $188 per pax.

To redeem the Bangkok voucher, we were supposed to show up personally without kids for a pitch (as stated in their email) at their offices at Orchard Towers, the single most sleazy building in all of Orchard Road. That’s the worst combination, having someone hardsell you a tour package in a sleazy building with all the special services massage packages. I was half expecting to be touted by a skimpily clad massage therapist.

When we got there, they made us fill up a form in a dingy office space with a receptionist who was wearing far too little for a receptionist. We put down all our particulars and right at the bottom, there was a tiny little box to check (next to the word OPTIONAL) if we wanted to receive information regarding their services. Whenever I’m given the option of choosing whether I want the awkward situation of sitting through 30 minutes with a dude trying to sell me a tour package, I always choose um, no.

Although, I was prepared to have the lady tell me I needed to check the box in order to redeem the voucher. And then have to tell her that contradicted the meaning of optional. And then have her look at me like I’m retarded, while telling me it’s company policy. And then have me look all exasperated before sighing heavily.

Something like that.

10 minutes later, a dour-looking Indian lady came in, glanced at the form and asked us to follow her. We followed her out of the office, down a funky-smelling, badly-lit staircase (where I exchanged glances with the husband to see if we should make a quick getaway) and into their shop space on the 4th floor. There, we were told to fill up another (almost identical) form to indicate our preferred travel dates, choice of airline and hotel.

After we were done, she smiled, told us to wait for an email confirmation and we were out of there in 5 minutes. She didn’t even try to pitch us while the couple next to us (I assume they ticked the optional box, poor things) sat looking very awkward through a mind-numbing powerpoint presentation.

All in all, it was a very good deal. We’ll be flying by Singapore Airlines and spending 3 nights at Novotel Bangkok for $325 (inclusive of taxes). Best of all, we didn’t even get pitched.

Fair play, Connection Tours. Fair play indeed.

PS this is not a sponsored post, or even a solicited one.

PPS if you want the list of some of the better coupon sites, these are some of my favorites.

1. Deal.com.sg

2. Voucher Wow

3. Groupon

4. Super Deals (insing.com)

5. Big Deal

I’m down with a terrible flu infection and heavily medicated but I’m still lucid enough to write this down before I go take a nap. Last night, I threw up the entire contents of my dinner after a terrible coughing fit. The kids came running to the toilet looking very concerned because they’ve never seen momma this sick before.

On the way home in the car, Tru turned to me and said “Are you feeling ok mommy? You feel better?”

My head was pounding and I was still hacking away but I felt instantly better. I’ve got the sweetest boy in the world and that really does make everything ok.

If you’re also a mom, you’re probably sympathetic to the fact that post-baby, your body is never going back to the way it was before. I blame all those slimming centre commercials with all the before and after shots (which were all probably photoshopped in anyway) because they make it look so easy. Pop 3 kids, wear some glad wrap and bam, you’re back to a svelte 45kgs.

Wrong.

First of all, glad wrap doesn’t work. Yeah, I’ve tried. I even let the masseuse slather me with some miracle ginger concoction that’s supposed to burn all my fats away. All it does is give you a hernia and you can’t even pee the entire time, which will mess with your bladder. Fail.

Oh, it’s all about controlling the food intake, you say? Ever since baby girl popped, I’ve been down to having 1 or 2 meals a day. If I’m lucky enough to find time to wolf down a sandwich in the morning, it’ll take me to dinnertime when the husband gets off work. If not, I only get to eat at 2 or 3 in the afternoon when the kids go to bed. I know there are a lot of theories on how eating at irregular hours will trick your body into storing fats but let’s just put it this way. My body is going to store more fats if I have more food than if I have less. Basic math, people.

Then there’s the exercise. Which I do not have the time for. If I have a spare hour in the day, I’m going to use it to eat, take a shower, catch some shut eye and watch the new season of Grey’s Anatomy. In that order. Doing squats to Richard Simmons on DVD is very far down my list of things do to on a day I manage to squeeze out some free time.

What makes it worse is that after you have a baby, you have to work doubly hard to keep in shape, as if it wasn’t hard enough before you had the baby.

But not to fear because I’m about to tell you how to get rid of that postpartum baby bulge – which is already sans the baby so it’s just a bulge – right in the comfort of your living room. And you don’t even have to spend thousands of dollars on expensive gym equipment. Now that you’ve already gone ahead and had the baby, might as well make the most of it.

1. Breastfeed.

For those of you who are still breastfeeding, DON’T STOP. Until your kid is 12. I think it starts to get a bit weird once they start hitting puberty but up till then, it’s all cool. Every breastfeeding session is equivalent to one solid workout at the gym so you can still watch tv and snack on nachos with extra cheese while those gym rats are huffing and puffing away pumping iron.

2. Weightlifting while on the treadmill.

Mothers are the masters of multitasking and we should use that to our advantage. When the baby is screaming and demanding to be rocked to sleep, it’s the best time to get in that extra workout. At one point I had to carry baby girl and run around the house in order to get her to fall asleep. I lost a whole kg in that week alone. Then I got lazy and left her to sleep on her own, at which point I gained it right back. And then some.

3. Drills.

I used to do this a lot during my basketball training days so I’ve incorporated some of them into my daily routine with the kids. So I’ll be fixing their lunch in the kitchen when I suddenly hear a scream or a thump or worse still, absolute silence and I drop everything, leap over the baby gate, rush into the room to find the kids up to some mischief, yell at them a little, remember that my food is getting burnt and dash back into the kitchen. Repeat.

4. Endurance training.

These days, there are all sorts of fancy schmancy baby slings and carriers to keep the baby stuck to your hip as you potter around and do your motherly stuff. Use them. It keeps the baby quiet and you get to work out a little while you do the dishes or clear the chores around the house. You may get a slipped disc at some point but if you’re a real athlete, that’s part of the package. No pain, no gain. (which is what my nazi lactation consultant said as she manhandled my boobs and the next person who says that to me will be punched in the gut)

5. Make up your own

It just doesn’t seem right to end with 4 points so you get to come up with your own. It’s like an assignment that nobody wants to do but I’m asking anyway because I’m all out.

PS. If you tried it all and nothing works, crap, just do this.

I finally got started on some art and craft activities for the kids. And by art and craft, I mean I got color pencils, coloring books and a bunch of stickers for the kids. You see, a few months back, I attempted chalk on the corridor but it didn’t turn out quite so well. Tru was more interested in doing a leopard crawl on the sidewalk most of the time and Kirsten was busy eating the chalk so I figured this time, I’ll go easy on them, start with the basics, you know.

Surprisingly, they took to it a lot better this time. Tru is like an expert on coloring these days because he’s been doing a lot of that in school, I reckon. And baby girl is trying to imitate everything her brother does so she observed him intently, then picked up a color pencil and got cracking as well.

Being the domineering big brother, Tru took it upon himself to educate her on the fine art of coloring. Mostly he was all like “OH NO KIRSTEN, SO MESSY!” and I was expecting his to be some sort of a masterpiece but when I looked, it was EXACTLY THE SAME. Identical blobs of mess in different colors.

So of course I had to show them how real coloring was done. Behold, my magnum opus. When I was done with it, Tru stole my credit and insisted it was his by making me write his name on it. Way to go, thunder-stealer.

Then came the fun part – STICKERS! Every kid I know (and some adults too) loves stickers, even fugly ones. It’s like “Thundering typhoons this colorful plastic thing has got adhesive, you mean I can attach it to stuff and have it stay there? Then why am I using color pencils in the first place when I can just stick stuff, momma?” That should have been the point I explained the importance of learning fine motor skills and how to grip a pencil and artistic expression but I know they will just look at me like I’m a crackpot so I didn’t bother.

Seeing how successful this went, I think I’ll try something more ambitious the next round. Ideas, anyone?

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 tru jodie tru jojo jojo tru kiki tru kiki 2 tru kiki 3 kiss 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.