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i embarrass myself sometimes

A tooth for a tooth

November 13, 2010

I just had all my wisdom teeth removed yesterday, under general anesthesia because I’m terrified of dentists and I’m not going to be awake while they yank out four of my teeth. At first, everyone was like “Are you insane, why are you taking out all four at one go? Just do one side first” but then I would have to go through the toothache and surgery all over again and I don’t really have the luxury of being out of action for another week with the kids and all.

So right now, I’m paying the price for taking out four teeth. Both sides of my face are all puffy, I’m ravenously hungry and I’m eating like an baby, by pushing mashed potatoes straight to the back of my throat. I’m also still heavily medicated but then that’s a good thing because I get to lie in bed all day.

On the bright side, it was actually fun being listening to doctors banter in the OR, like a real episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I thought they would be all serious but they were actually laughing about how the next patient after me was going in to remove 8 teeth (insert toothless joke). And you know how the doctor always tells you to count to ten after they inject you with the anesthesia? I’ve always wanted to see how long I could last like maybe it’s a sign of my tremendous will power and the doctors will be all like “That patient counted right up to 28. Respect”. Guess how long I counted up to: 2 seconds.

Next thing I knew, they were telling me to wake up and breathe and I was trying to fight the drowsiness like “ok I’m awake, I’m fine” but the nurse said I was incoherent, which was mostly thanks to the fact that I couldn’t feel my entire lower jaw or my tongue.

Anyway, I’m back home now, with four wisdom teeth to show for it. You probably don’t want to see it but for those that do, I’m putting it in a discreet apture link so it’s not like I didn’t warn you about the grossness.

I’m putting it under my pillow for the tooth fairy because these babies are so massive it’s worth $10 a pop at least. Or maybe I’ll keep it till the kids lose their first tooth and make up a story about the evil tooth fairy who makes their tooth grow really huge while they sleep so they wake up and freak out when they see my tooth instead of theirs. So many options here.

PS. Tru was horrified to see my teeth and he tried shoving it back into my mouth to make me feel better, which was a sweet gesture but also very painful.

by Daphne

I bet lizards are reading this as we speak.

October 22, 2010

So after I went on and on about how much I hated lizards, it’s like they’ve all read the blog and decided to declare war on me.

Me: I mean it, they’re coming after me.

Kel: Don’t be ridiculous, everyone know that lizards don’t read blogs.

Me: Oh yeah, well obviously they read mine because how do you explain this?

Ok, let’s back up a little. Right after I called them malevolent vile creatures, they decided to launch an attack during my most vulnerable moment. In the shower.

Iceholes. And I don’t mean ice at all.

I was taking my relaxing shower last night when I reached out for the body wash and there it was. The monstrosity. Hiding behind my shower foam having a little siesta. It got rudely awakened when I moved the shower foam and jumped onto my hand so I flung it off with the most vicious, spastic hand jerk and started SCUH-REAMING the house down. But then I was stuck in the shower area with the abomination standing between me and the door. I could either leap over it and risk getting attacked or I could stand there and wait for it to make the first move. And if there’s anything I learnt from Sun Tzu, always be the one to strike first.

So I yanked open the door, jumped over as fast as I could and RAN out of the toilet (still screaming, by the way). And of course, I slipped, crashed into the sliding door and fell flat on my ass and the husband who was lying on the bed calmly playing his Championship Manager, started laughing like it was some sort of huge joke. I can see how the sight of a naked person screaming and crashing onto the floor might seem hilarious but multiple bruises on my hands, legs and ass ain’t no joke, aight?

You would think the story ended when I made him catch it and disposed of it. Except that it didn’t. He came out with a piece of tissue saying that he got it so I figured it was safe to go finish my no longer relaxing shower. This time, I was all lathered up when I saw it again. On the wall right next to my toe. So began the second round of screaming and running (I didn’t fall this time) out of the toilet.

The husband says he might have missed it when he thought he got it the first round but I’m pretty sure that those slimy little pieces of filth are trying to attack me. You know how when you have the boss fight, you always send 2 guys in to do the job. This is *exactly* like that.

Lizards: 2. Me: 0

And then this afternoon, I was clearing the trash from the kitchen bin when I found another lizard hiding at the bottom, underneath the plastic bag, so it fell back to the bottom as I grabbed the plastic bag out. This time, I didn’t have the husband around to exterminate it and it was fortunate that it was trapped in the bin. For my finishing move, I poured a whole jug of boiling water into the bin so it’s probably dead now. I didn’t check, I’m going to let the husband clear that when he comes home later.

Lizards: 2. Me: 1

But you know what this means. It means WAR. I could have tolerated them as long as they stayed hidden in their dark corners away from the personal space that is my bathroom. I’m going out to get a dozen lizard traps tonight. Just wait, little suckers, I’m coming for you.

by Daphne

how i pretend to be a cool mum, i embarrass myself sometimes

Even better than the real thing

September 28, 2010

Did you know that I queued up for almost 2 hours to get this shot with Minnie? There were all these kids clamoring to get a shot with Minnie Mouse and there I was, the only grown up (I didn’t even have kids to pretend like it was them who wanted the picture) and I stood there in the queue trying to look inconspicuous for almost 2 hours. But when I finally met Minnie, TOTALLY WORTH IT.

So anyway, we were supposed to take a second honeymoon to California for another dose of Disneyland magic before having settling down and having kids but my son got impatient and came a year and a half ahead of schedule, then Kirsten came right after so we traded in the honeymoon for more milk powder and baby booties and the thousand other stuff babies need. Kind of worth it, because that’s the kind of thing moms are supposed to say. But I was still dreaming of meeting Minnie again so I had to um, improvise.

Meet Minnie 2.0. Somewhat smaller than the real thing but she makes up for the lack in size with sheer awesomeness because you also get to snuggle and kiss and squeeze this one for as long as you want. I tried hogging more time with the other Minnie but her handler kept chasing me off after I got my picture, saying something about me holding up the queue. Not cool, real Minnie. Also, I can make this Minnie change costumes and do geeky dance moves.

I’ll be taking orders for anyone who wants to do a meet and greet.

by Daphne

i embarrass myself sometimes, Kidspeak, Truett goes to school, unqualified parenting tips

Yo Momma got street cred

August 18, 2010

Apparently, I’ve earned quite a rep with Tru’s teachers in school, as I just found out today. I like to think it ups my street cred, like how you’re supposed to become badass after spending a week in prison but I suspect they’re using me as a cautionary tale for other parents during some of their parent-teacher sessions.

Rain, rain go away

Tru was learning about the weather in school this week and today was all about rain.

Teacher: Kids, what do we do when it rains?

Kid 1: Take umbrella!

Teacher: Good. Anything else?

Kid 2: Raincoat!

Teacher: That’s right, we wear our raincoats.

Tru: RUNNNNN!!!

Teacher: Run?

Tru: Run so fast! Raining, mommy carry and run!

In my defense, that’s only my strategy when it’s drizzling. With one kid in each hand, I got nothing left to carry a brolly even if I wanted to, and besides, umbrellas are for sissies and 50-year-old ladies. I tried grabbing it with my teeth once and Kirsten almost lost an eye in the fallout. When it’s pouring, I make strangers ferry us with their umbrellas by playing the frazzled-mom-with-2-babies card. It works all the time. I would also like to point out that I have flip-flops with surprisingly good traction, which is the key to not falling and breaking open your skull. You’re welcome.

Breakfast of champions

A couple of weeks ago, it was breakfast week, or food week or healthy eating week and the kids were learning about healthy options for a balanced diet. Obviously, I have no concept of proper nutrition, seeing that I survived on instant noodles, burgers and fries for almost the entire first year of my university life.

Teacher: What do you eat for breakfast?

Other kids: Cereal, bread, noodles, milk, pancakes, waffles, apple, sausage…

Teacher: Excellent, children! Those are all very good breakfast options

Tru: Eat gummies. So many gummies (complete with hand gesture)

Teacher: *uncomfortable silence* Ok, we must always eat gummies in moderation, that means not too much at once.

Tru does have a normal breakfast, right after his morning vitamin gummy (which I chop up into tiny pieces so it seems like a lot) because it’s the first thing he starts to harass me for the moment the opens his eyes. And the chopping into tiny pieces works because I have 1 piece for every time he goes “gimme more gummies” and by the time I’m all out, he feels like he’s eaten loads of gummies.

Birds and the bees

Then there was clothes week, where the kids learn about the different types of clothes you wear for different occasions. They learnt about how you should wear a uniform to school and a pretty dress to a party.

Teacher: Children, what do you wear to sleep?

Kids (in unison): PYJAMAS!

Tru: Pa…pa…pagina!

Remember how I was teaching Tru the proper words for the different parts of the human anatomy? Penis, he pronounces very well. Vagina, not so much. He calls it pagina, which gets him confused with pyjamas. And this, total badass.

by Daphne

i embarrass myself sometimes, stuff best described as not safe for parents, yet another pregnancy scare

Hormones

August 10, 2010

Hormones are one of those things I don’t understand, alongside nuclear fusion and quantum physics. I just tried reading the wikipedia definition on hormones and I haven’t got the slightest idea what the entire page is talking about. It’s filled with words that have more syllables than I can pronounce. Heck, I’m not even sure it’s written in English. Sometimes I swear wikipedia is just trying to make me feel like a moron. Thanks for the help, wikipedia.

Here’s my definition: A hormone is a great big pain in the ass. When you have too much or too little, it causes mood swings, pimples, weight gain, nausea, headaches, backaches and depression, among other things. It can occasionally give you bigger boobs but for the side effects that come with it, not even worth it.

Remember my contraceptive dilemma? A couple of days ago, I finally went on the pill because I had a feeling that if we keep taking our chances, I’m going to get myself knocked up before the year is out. Now that the kids are getting more manageable and I can fit into my old jeans again, another baby is so not on the cards right now. The last time I went on the pill, it wasn’t pretty because you see, my hormones do not like to be messed with. It was like my baby-making machine knew something was wrong and started going stark raving mad. I was sick, pukey and moody for a couple of weeks until I realized it was caused by the pill. I know because the moment I stopped, it all magically went away. This time, I asked the doctor for something that wouldn’t cause all the side effects and he introduced me this pill called Yasmin. Besides, I have this friend called Yasmin who’s a perfectly nice person and yes, that’s the kind of advanced decision-making skills I have.

Anyway, turns out that Yasmin hates me. Or my hormones. The day I started, I could feel all the symptoms coming back with a vengeance. At first, I thought it was all in my head like that Inception movie but by the second day, I was as edgy and irritable and nauseous and depressed as I had been during the first round. I checked the list of symptoms in the box and what do you know, I had most of them. Then as I read on, the list just got worse, right until I got to the point where I saw weight gain. Talk about crushing irony.

Now why anyone would want to take a pill that makes them gain weight is beyond me. I mean, the whole point of not having another baby is so that I don’t gain another 30 pounds in my ass so I’m certainly not about to help myself retain more fats. I can do that by eating a double quarter pounder with supersized fries and at least, I would have enjoyed the process.

I’m off the pill now and back to Russian Roulette. Seriously, don’t wish me luck.

I got to ask, what contraceptives do you use? If you’re not comfortable leaving a comment, just drop me an email. Help a girl out here.

by Daphne

i embarrass myself sometimes, lists you should paste on your fridge, side effects of motherhood

I should stop being so weird.

July 29, 2010

Quirks, we all have them. A peculiarity of behavior that we can’t explain or understand, really. Some are cute, others weirdishly charming and some downright bizarre. Most of mine were acquired during childhood and they have been honed to perfection these 20-some years. I can control them if I need to (like when I’m trying to impress a guy or at an important meeting) but not for long because after a while, I get all irritable and twitchy.

Here’s my list of all time favorite quirks.

1. Walking in between the lines of tiles in the pavement. I absolutely have to avoid stepping on the lines, even if I end up walking like a very uncoordinated gargoyle. Two small steps, then one large step, and so on. Depending on the size of the tiles, I modify my steps so that they’re just right. If I manage to complete the whole pavement line-free, I win!

2. Eating my fishball skin first before eating the meat. Same goes for Ferrero Rochers and those 9-layer cakes. I’m very systematic about my eating habits and one time, the husband took a huge random bite out of my 9-layer cake while I was meticulously peeling off layer by layer. Let’s just say that I was really upset at having my masterpiece destroyed.

3. Always going for the left side first. I brush my teeth from left to right. I wear my left shoe first. I always clean my left ear first. I cut my left fingernails first. Starting from the right just makes me very uncomfortable.

4. Counting my candy. This is so subconscious and most of the time, I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I reach 25, by which time I’m all like “shoots, I’m doing it again, stop counting, stop, stop it!” I count every single m&m while I eat them and when I’m done, I count everything that’s left in the bag. Multiple times.

5. Singing in the shower. Seriously, I can’t help it. I don’t sing at the top of my voice because that’s just too weird, but I do it just loud enough for me to hear. And also, when the song is really groovy, I dance. Stop judging me.

The list is way longer than that but some will go with me to my grave because it falls under the bizarre-shit-nobody-should-ever-know category. Anyway, I’ve recently discovered that Tru has a list of very interesting quirks as well. Things like these:

1. He doesn’t eat soft food. He used to eat porridge and mashed up baby food as a baby but one day he just decided that it was totally gross. I think it gives him a weird feeling in his mouth and food he stays away from include mashed potatoes, chee cheong fun, porridge, and peanut butter. Yes, he hates peanut butter. I gave it to him once and he scrunched up his face and shivered like he had never tasted anything so foul in his life.

2. I’m not allowed face out when I’m patting him to sleep on my bed. That creeps him out big time. Every time I face away from him, he climbs over, grabs my face and tells me to “turn around” so that he can see me looking at him while he sleeps.

3. He’s got to have all his toys lined up beside him on the bed before going to sleep. There’s the precious blanket, Kirsten’s duck (good thing I have 3), his 3 care bears, his Playskool butterfly car, his giant Tweety Bird soft toy (that thing is almost as big as him) and his group of assorted bears. He gets upset when they’re not in their proper places and if one of them is missing, he screams bloody murder until it’s found.

Right now the quirks are still cute enough for me to go all googly-woogly about instead of screaming “What’s wrong with you??? Stop being so weird!!!” And if I ever do, that would just be me calling the kettle black, wouldn’t it? You know what they say after all, the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.

by Daphne

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

When your car smells like a boot, something fishy is going on

June 17, 2010

During our honeymoon, we rented a car and drove from LA to SF to Tahoe to Vegas and back to LA again. By the time we returned our PT Cruiser, it was filthy like you wouldn’t believe. In fact, we were so grossed out we started calling it dirtbag halfway through the trip. Note to self: melted snow does not mix well with all that desert sand. That was just the exterior though. It was still cosy and clean inside, which was the more important thing I suppose.

When we got back home, I thought there was no way our car could ever get that dirty again. I thought wrong.

Because this thing called kids, they’re compulsive little mess-makers. It’s like they *want* to live in a shanty town and so they try their hardest to turn my house into a refugee slum trailer trash shack.

Did I say house? I also meant car.

And every little inch of clean space I own.

Just the other day, we were on our way to pick the husband up from work. I was carrying a kid in each hand, digging for my elusive car keys with my elbows/teeth and when I finally managed to get the door open, I nearly passed out from the smell that was coming out from the inside. Something smelt fishy, and I don’t mean it as a metaphor. To be more specific, it was like all the fish in the Singapore River crawled into my car and died there.

Believe me, I’ve had my fair share of foul smells coming from the car (there’s something about the sun’s heat and moist, enclosed areas that make things rot at an alarming rate) and I have a pretty high tolerance for weird odors but holy cow, that was about the most awful smell ever. I think I threw up in my mouth a little.

Even though my arms were about to give way, I stood there for a while, trying to decide if I should attempt to brave imminent death and enter the fish mausoleum. I drew in a huge gasp of air, strapped them both in and started to search for the dead fish. Except that I had to dig through a giant pile of scattered toys. Covered in dried bread pieces and drizzled with sticky, gooey pastes. I swear I saw something move, so I decided to leave whatever monstrosity that was buried underneath all that rubble the hell alone.

Remind me again why I allow my kids to bring food into the car. Oh yes, because food was the only thing that made them stop screaming during those hour-long car rides.

Now I’m paying the price for those hours of (relative) peace and quiet. With mysterious fish carcasses.

I’m pretty sure this means my life sucks.

by Daphne

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