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i embarrass myself sometimes

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Mom, inadequate

July 12, 2011

Question: Anyone else ever felt as inadequate about being a mom as I do? I mean, I love kids but I’m terrible at teaching them phonics or nutrition or how to make the toilet or being responsible and all that.

Last week, I’ve been trying to get Kirsten to pee in the toilet. I psyched her up about being a big girl and wearing Hello Kitty panties instead of diapers and put her on the toilet bowl. She was all “mommy do” so ok, I figured since kids learnt through imitation, I’d do a live demo for her.

And she just stood there and laughed – nice one, baby girl.

It doesn’t really help that every other mother I know seems to have their act together. They potty-train their newborns and their kids can draw a straight line by 11 months. I’m obviously way behind because I’m 29 and still can’t draw a straight line. After that, they move on to advanced topics like feeding organic vegetables that they’ve grown by hand in their backyard and teaching their kids to perform cardiothoracic surgery.

Then I come across sites like these and I feel so. much. better.

I’ve picked out some of my favorites here. I may or may not have done these at some point.

1. Everyone thinks I’m such a great mom for teaching my daughter how to read already. It wasn’t me. It was the Leapfrog pen. I had no idea she could read.

2. Since it’s summertime, about once a week I take the kids for ice cream… for lunch.

3. I forget to brush my 1- and 2-year-olds’ teeth. I am not sure why it’s so hard for me to remember, but it’s a good thing that these teeth will fall out.

4. At the end if the day, my needs are really simple: To be able to shit in peace.

5. At the end of a long challenging day, I’m apt to call bedtime half and hour early. It’s not like they can tell time yet.

6. I used bandaids to cover my nipples when I weaned my children. See? All gone.

7. I joined a gym just for the free daycare. I drop the kids off and read magazines and blogs in the locker room.

8. Questions of the day: 1) How did the pepperoni get stuck to the ceiling? 2) Why didn’t gravity kick in & make it fall? 3) How did I not notice this? 4) When did we have pizza last?

9. I confiscated my teenager’s stash of pot, gave her a lecture, and have been smoking it ever since myself.

10. Last week, my hairdresser asked how far along I was. I’m not pregnant, but I pretended to be 4 months. I can never go back there.

11.  Mother dropping her kid for a sleepover at my house: “No food dye, no dairy, just soy milk, only organic food, and we don’t eat ANY fast food.” I let them eat all the junk they wanted. They seemed fine.

12. My kids hardy bathe in the summer. The pool totally counts.

13. When my daughter asked me what comes after a trillion, I told her “a gazillion.” Um, we are homeschoolers. Not supposed to just make shit up.

14. My baby is not spoiled, she just doesn’t like you.

15. I confess that most days, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. Everyone thinks I have it all together — good wife, good mom, successful career — but I really don’t. I’m ready to stop pretending to be perfect now.

What’s yours?

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i embarrass myself sometimes

One of those getaways you want to getaway from

April 18, 2011

We bought one of those deal vouchers for an overnighter at Harris Batam last year but never got around to using until last weekend. Actually we realized it was about to expire so it was a last minute pack and go thing. We couldn’t even bring the kids because their passports weren’t ready in time.

In any case, this was our first time to Indonesia and we were looking forward to some pool time with a good book and authentic Ayam Penyet.

When we arrived, they upgraded us to a cabana, which turned out to be one of those upgrades you don’t necessarily want for several reasons. For one, there’s no shelter to the cabana and we had to carry our bags in the pouring rain to get to the room. And perhaps more importantly, I had to find out (in a very unpleasant manner) that our upgraded cabana was home to a very territorial lizard.

Again, it had to happen just as I was lathering up my hair in the shower. There was a sudden flash of movement and I found myself face to face with a grey obese lizard who obviously had too much Indonesian cuisine in its bulging tummy. Unlike the lizards back home, this one didn’t even bother to scuttle away and it just sat (lay?) there looking like I was the one bothering it with my hair washing.

Cut to right after the screaming and running, I called the hotel lobby and made them switch us back to a regular room, one without lizards. Which they promptly did (props to the staff) but we still had to pack up all our stuff and lug everything over with my hair still lathered up and foamy.

For the rest of the night, I was checking every corner for lizards and jumping at every sudden movement. Not a good way to spend a holiday.

To be fair, the food and the pool were pretty good but seeing that we could get those easily back home, it’s safe to say that we won’t be returning to Harris anytime soon.

But the real killer was the return journey back to Singapore. It was supposed to be a 45-minute ride straight back but our friendly ferry operator, BatamFast, decided to stop over for half and hour at another ferry terminal without so much as a “hey guys FYI we’ll be making a detour here for 30 minutes so just rock out on the ferry ok.”

Now, I’m sure that while BatamFast is a lot of things, fast is not actually one of them. They may want to consider renaming it so we won’t actually expect it to be fast.

It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a high tolerance for rocky boat rides. I’m ok when the ferry is moving but that stationary bobbing kills me. We couldn’t even get off onto solid ground to wait so we were left there just bobbing away while I had my head between my knees trying not to puke. I hope I’ll never have to spend another 30 minutes of my life feeling that miserable again.

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Funny or So I think, i embarrass myself sometimes

I expect hammer sales to go up by 30%

January 24, 2011

Ok, time for a story. A true story.

On Saturday, halfway through her nap, baby girl decided to wake up, drag her stool to the door, climb up on the stool, lock herself inside while trying to open the door and then cry for help like a damsel in distress.

All would have been well if we had the keys to open it from the outside but like most important things in our house, they’re never around when we need them.

We tried to pick the lock but we’re nowhere near as good as Simon Baker in the Mentalist. Then we tried getting her to unlock it herself (which I’ve seen her done before) but she’s a classic girly girl. In a distressing situation, her best solution is to cry for help in the most pitiful way possible. Like “mommieeeee, I want mommieeeeeeee…bwahhhhh” many times over. We were standing outside the door going “come on baby girl, you can do it, just get back on the chair and turn the knob, come on” but when she’s having a meltdown, she’s incapable of following instructions.

At least I know for sure that she’s not going to be a secret agent or KGB operative when she grows up. *Dangerous occupation averted*

So then we tried calling a locksmith to come and pick the lock but it was a Saturday afternoon and it would take at least 45 minutes for one to get to the scene. That’s 45 minutes of lockdown. With a very upset damsel.

Which left us with option D: a large hammer. The husband flexed his giant muscles, gave the doorknob several hard knocks and bam, problem solved. We had our dramatic big-rescue-reunion-moment where baby girl collapsed into my arms and hugged the life out of me. She’s doing fine now, no Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or anything.

As for the doorknob, it’s not feeling so good but it’s just as well since we won’t ever need it to be locked again anyway.

lockpicking gone horribly wrong

That brings us to our lesson, which is this. There are very few problems in life that cannot be solved with a large hammer. For those problems, you probably just need a larger hammer. I mean, have you ever seen Thor with a problem he couldn’t solve? Yeah, didn’t think so.

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i embarrass myself sometimes

So this is what a concussion feels like

January 6, 2011

First of all, I’m probably the only parent who will let my kids do this in Ikea. Because there are so many things that could go wrong here, and it’s like I’m just asking for someone to get hurt. Like fingers getting stuck, locks acting up and locking them inside, heads getting knocked, the list is extensive.

But you have to admit, it is too cute. This is exactly why people pay to watch little Chinese acrobatic kids fold themselves into tiny spaces. Within minutes, a small crowd had gathered to watch them crawl in and out of the lockers, with many whipping out their mobile phones for a photo. For real.

So there they were, milking the attention for all it was worth, giggling and doing their peekaboos; pretty much having a whale of a time.

It was all fun until somebody got hurt real bad. And by somebody, I mean me. It all started when Kirsten got her finger stuck and I rushed over to rescue her. As I picked her up, my head came crashing into the edge of the open locker door at the highest tier with a loud bang. But of course, baby girl was more important so I was fussing over her finger while simultaneously rubbing my head when after a while, I saw my whole palm filled with blood.

In all my 28 years, I’ve never bled from the head before and I was pretty sure that’s not a good sign. Also, I was feeling a little woozy from the pain so I just sat there for 15 minutes holding a bag of ice to my head, never mind the fact that I looked like a nutjob.

After an hour of bleeding, I decided to go the doctor to have it checked out, hoping to not have to stitch it up.

Doctor: I’m going to have to stitch this up.

Me: Can’t we like put some cream on it and let me go home?

Doctor: No, unless you want it to get infected and swollen, then you will have to come back.

Me: Does that mean you have to jab me right in the head?

Doctor: Yes, the jab will numb the pain and you won’t feel anything. I’ll also need to give you a tetanus jab.

Me: Isn’t there like a painless way to do this? Like cream?

Doctor: When you knock yourself on the head, this is what happens. You will have to deal with the pain.

Me: True. Then will you give me the tetanus jab in the head where it’s numb?

Doctor: No.

Me: I think I’m going home. I’m gonna risk the infection rather than have a needle stuck in my head.

Doctor: It won’t hurt, just count to 20. You will only feel some mild discomfort when I give you the first jab.

*Every single time a doctor has told me “it won’t hurt”, it has ALWAYS hurt like hell, so I wasn’t really convinced.

The whole time, my sister was sitting there giggling and enjoying seeing a needle get stuck in my brain so I had to man up and take it. FYI, it was insanely painful and it felt exactly like someone sticking a needle in your head. Mild discomfort is when I pick out a big piece of booger. This is nothing like that at all.

As if the pain was not bad enough, I had to watch him snip off a handful of hair “so it won’t get stuck to the wound”. Great, now I have to suffer the indignity of having to choose between a bald patch and a toupee.

Me: Try not to cut off too much, take off as little as you can ok.

Doctor: It’s ok, you can use the rest of your hair to cover it up.

Me: That’s not a good option. Can I even wash my hair?

Doctor: Yes, but not like they do it in the commercials. Try to be gentle when you wash.

That was a total bummer because I *only* wash my hair like I’m filming a commercial, vigorous hair flick and all. I mean, I already have a bald patch, the least you could do is let a girl have her movie star hair wash.

Lesson learnt: when you’re bleeding from the head, it means you’re pretty much screwed.

Updated: PS When I said that this year, I was going to embrace pain, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Not quite so literally. I think I’ve hit my pain quota for the month, thankyouverymuch.

PPS Tru knocked his head very gently on the bed today and said “Mommy my head very PAIN, got blood. I need to put ice pack.”

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i embarrass myself sometimes, stuff best described as not safe for parents

Believe it or not, I can pass off as 16. Apparently.

December 29, 2010

According to my calendar, it’s 3 days till the end of the year. Instead of the usual “WHERE HAS THE YEAR GONE” meltdown, I’ve decided that what this year really needs is for me to finish it up with aplomb.

While that used to mean a very late night with loud music and some tequila, it has now come to mean some very early mornings with lazy breakfasts and walks in the park.

In a week, we’ll all be back to the usual routines, geting all busy with work and school and important things to look into. And then before we know it, another year will have gone by. And then another. That’s how people get to become old and tired, as the years pass us by without stopping.

So just for a couple of days before the year ends, we’re starting a new tradition. To make the year stop. Or at least, make ourselves stop and take a breath before sprinting off again. Press the reset button. Relax a little.

Since the husband is on leave till the new year, we’re clocking in some proper family time these couple of days. Maybe even sneak in some alone time without the kids and act like kids again. On a bunny trail, I was out shopping with my mom and my sister when a girl from the store told us she thought I was 16. Or at most 19. I used to think that being happy to be thought of as younger than you really are was lame. The obnoxious 21-year-old me was all like “there’s nothing wrong with looking your age, as long as you still rocked the look.” But I realized that when you got to 28 or 30, all you want is for people to think that you look much younger.

I hate to admit it, but grown ups are so predictable.

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i embarrass myself sometimes, seriously somewhat serious, stuff best described as not safe for parents, the gripes of wrath

A tale of two kinds of kids

November 23, 2010

So baby girl was going on and on about french fries at 7am this morning and because we haven’t had our dose of unhealthy fast food for a total of 6.5 days now, I brought her to McD’s for some Mcjunkfood. They didn’t have fries for breakfast but as far as my baby was concerned, anything made of potato and fried till golden brown was called FANFRIES!! Tater tots, hash browns, chips, criss-cut fries, all FANFRIES, GIMME FANFRIESSSS!!!

It’s lame to disclaim but before anyone gets all judgey on me, I’ll state that she only gets to eat them on very special occasions like birthdays or christmas or parties or when they catch me snacking on chips from my secret stash of Ruffles cheddar and sour cream (I’m a potato chip snob, it’s got to be worth the fats for me to eat it).

When we got to mackers, there were no baby chairs around except for one at the outdoor al fresco section. Which I went out to get while carrying Kirsten in one arm and bunch of groceries in the other. In my experience with Singaporeans, about 37% of people will hold the door open for a frazzled mother carrying twice her weight. About 50% will pretend to not notice and the final 13% will watch on like it’s some kind of slapstick comedy.

I encountered the final 13% today. In the form of giggling schoolgirls. As the previous guy walked out and the door swung back after him, I stuck out my foot to keep it open while balancing on the other and trying to manoeuvre everything else through.

The whole time, these 6 Secondary School girls were standing about 3 metres away, watching us struggle with the door. I know because I saw them momentarily pause midway through conversation and look at us. So I stood there pondering if I should make one of them hold the door open for me (while I gave them a lesson on helping others in need) when a little boy no bigger than 8 ran up, opened the door and ran off with his friend.

Saved by the bell, girls. And I found myself thinking, if I were that boy’s momma, I’d be so proud.

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i embarrass myself sometimes, love bites

I want to be a ninja more than anything in the world

November 18, 2010

Except maybe a teleporter. A teleporter would be even better, like Nightcrawler. Have I mentioned that I occasionally have dreams that involve me fighting villains or running away from villains or getting shot by villains. In typical dreams, getting shot is the point you wake up but mine go on and I’m all “crap, I got shot again” but I have to fight to stay alive because I’m afraid that if I die in the dream world, I also die in real life.

But this post is not really about my weird dreams, though I have many. Just 2 nights ago, I dreamt I was trying to escape from a zombie apocalypse, which was both horrifying and incredible at the same time (just a tip: don’t take the MRT when zombies attack, unless you want to get cornered and eaten).

No, this is supposed to be about my need to acquire stealth abilities.

For the last few months, we’ve had to stay with baby girl till she falls asleep every night. Her daytime naps are great, I can just tuck her in and leave the room but at night, we’ve got to pat her till she falls asleep. Only then are we allowed to tiptoe out of the room.

At first, I thought she was sensitive to sound because she seemed to stir at the faintest creak and rustle. But then I realized that she wasn’t at all concerned with sounds like sneezing or throat-clearing. I could have the mother of all sneezes and she doesn’t even flinch. It’s only certain sounds that will make her sit up with a look of “I caught tou sneaking out, mom. You’re busted!” Sounds like footsteps, the creak from the floor boards, the door opening and closing.

I’m fairly certain that at 16 months, her advanced cognitive abilities have been trained to filter out sounds that indicate I’m still around, and to pick up on the sounds that suggest I’m leaving.

Like I said, the only way for me not make a sound is to be a ninja or Nightcrawler. Evidently, I’m avoiding the obvious solution of training her to sleep on her own at night because I’d much rather spend all that time learning to be a ninja. Of course, I had to have a word with the husband first.

me: You think I could be a ninja?

Husband: You would be the worst ninja in the world. You’re like the opposite of a ninja.

me: There’s no such thing as the opposite of a ninja, don’t be ridiculous.

Husband: Oh, if you were a ninja, you’d wake up every single person in the village, injure all the good guys with your shurikens and knock yourself out with the nunchucks before the bad guys got you. That’s pretty much the opposite of a ninja.

me: You mean the ninja stars? Trust me, I know how to hold a ninja star. I’ve read the tutorial.

Husband: That’s it. You don’t get to be a ninja anymore.

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