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kids inc

Somebody needs to invent a pill that makes kids grow up slower

October 28, 2010

Is it just me or is baby girl growing up way too fast? Ok, it was my fault for saying I hoped she would grow up faster just a few months back but she really didn’t have to take me so seriously. It’s not like she takes me seriously when I tell her to pick up her toys or not spit out food but this, she’s all like “WHEEEEE LOOK AT ME GROW MOMMA!! Before you know it, I’ll be off to college and being angsty and bringing boys home SO FUN!”

She’s starting to want to explore the world all by herself and every time I pick her up, she struggles like a wild stallion on meth and I just want to hold her tight and tell her that not too long ago, she wanted me to hold her all the time. Now it’s “WALK, WALK” while pointing to herself furiously.

She’s also asserting herself a lot more these days, choosing what she wants to wear and running away when I pick something she doesn’t quite fancy. Like this fashion disaster she has on. I wouldn’t have picked lilac stripes with flowery pink tights and cyan crocs (yes, I know that they are boy’s shoes; Tru used to wear them) but I’ve learnt not to squash her unique sense of style. I mean, look at Lady Gaga – I bet she wore something like this out at some point as a child.

So express away, my child, just as long as you don’t leave the house wearing nothing but raw beef. Your father will have a cardiac arrest and I will have to fight the urge to eat you.

I was just talking to a new mom last week and she was asking if the madness of having a newborn subsides. So I said the exact thing other moms said to me when I just had a newborn. Enjoy these moments of babyness because they grow up way too fast and one day you’ll wake up and realize that your sweet little baby is now a grimy, sweaty toddler. That’ll be fun.

by Daphne

Flowers and child labor syndicates.

September 30, 2010

We were just done with our usual weekend brunch at the airport when they saw this gazebo-like structure with lots of flowers and made the husband push them there in the luggage trolley. It’s this thing they do where they both sit on the ledge of the trolley with their legs dangling out and they shout orders to daddy to GO FASTER without getting caught by airport security.

I’m usually standing a distance away because those security guys walk around with large machine guns. I’m not about to mess with that. Also, a dude pushing 2 kids around can get away with being spontaneous and fun but a crazy chick running after them – kind of hard to explain.

Instinctively, he reaches out to pluck a flower for Kirsten. “For mei mei,” he says, gesturing impatiently like it’s something I should already know. Every time he sees bunches of wild flowers, he yanks out one and gives it to Kirsten or momma or grandma, looking all chivalrous.

But obviously these weren’t wild flowers and whoever planted them lovingly would frown upon having them murdered so I tried to explain that he wasn’t allowed to pluck these flowers. He nodded, turned to his sister, put his arm around her and I was expecting him to say something sweet like “it’s ok, Truett will get another flower for you next time” but instead he told her, “Truett cannot pluck the flower, mei mei go pluck for Truett.”

By the time I have 5 kids, I won’t be surprised if he has a whole child labor syndicate going on. This is how it all starts.

by Daphne

kids inc, milestones & musings

A very pink affair

July 19, 2010

Yesterday was Kirsten’s first birthday bash and as first birthday bashes go, this went splendidly. The fact that we only sent out invites 3 days prior notwithstanding, we had all the ingredients necessary for a party – food, family, friends and cake. And also balloons, lots and lots of balloons. (thanks Kev and Anne!)

Baby girl wasn’t entirely sure what the commotion was all about, like “why are all these people making me wear stupid prickly hats, it’s making my ears itch eww eww eww.”

She’s in a no-headgear phase now and no amount of cajoling and bribery will make her put anything on her head. I try to make her wear these pretty headbands with giant flowers to draw attention away from her noticeably sparse hair and she yanks them off with a flourish every single time. The noggin is sacred, y’all.

And of course, miniature parties are never complete without miniature-sized friends, because it would just be a bunch of old fogeys rocking out to pink and purple balloons, which is just kind of creepy.

Tru was down with another bout of the flu, which left him pretty stoned the whole time but he was a real trooper, shuffling around distributing his precious collection of sesame street friends. Towards the end, he was all maxed out and he started telling everyone to go home like “Bye everyone, thank you for coming, see you soon, Truett very tired.” It was both very impressive and mortifying at the same time.

At first we thought of ordering one of those 3D cakes with castles and princess figurines but we figured that we will be having plenty of those soon enough, when the kids are old enough to want one. And since we have a weakness for this awesome home-baked chocolate-banana cake, we went and ordered a 2kg version, hoping that we would have leftovers for breakfast today but no, it was totally wiped out within minutes.

You know I don’t usually plug a lot of stuff here but this cake, you seriously want to try. Go check it out, she does the most wicked cakes ever, with the perfect combination of rich, chocolatey goodness without being an overkill. Sometimes, I plan events just to have an excuse to have more cake. And I’m not even kidding.

Best part was, both kids were so exhausted they went home and collapsed into bed at 7.30. Now that’s what I call a successful party.

by Daphne

kids inc, motherhood, stuff best described as not safe for parents

Please, pretty please, please, please…

July 14, 2010

Having been a stay-home mom for almost 2 years, I sometimes forget why I wanted to do it so badly in the first place. I mean, you do something long enough and the grass starts to look greener on the other side. I start to think of how nice it would be to dress up and have power lunches (do people still call it that or am I that outdated) with other non-babies. To not have to start work at 10 at night, after a whole day of manual labor.

I know it is a privilege to be able to work from home and take care of the babies at the same time and I’m not complaining.

Well, maybe just a little bit.

Ok, maybe a lot.

But the point is, at times like these, we all just need a little reminder of why we are doing it in the first place.

Everyone, meet my reminder.

So a couple of days ago, I had one of my nights off to attend an event organized by Pat Law from Goodstuph (more on that later), who as I found out, is a former colleague from my short-lived advertising days at Publicis. 6 years later, she’s now a bad-ass social media guru (I think that means she invented the Internet or something, I’m not very sure), and me, I’ve got two babies. Also, I can make a killer aglio olio, which is like the parenting equivalent of inventing the Internet, obviously.

Anyway, I was getting ready to go out when Tru starts to smell a rat because momma never puts on makeup at 630 in the evening, and that means only one thing – a night out without him. My preemptive strike involved explaining that mommy has to go to work. (which at that time sounded far more credible than mommy had to go chill out over mini sandwiches)

Next thing I knew, he flung his body onto my calfs and proceeded to attach himself surgically to my legs while shrieking “NOOOOOOOO, mommy don’t go work! Don’t like mommy to go work, mommy stay home” about 20,000 times. At which point I switched strategy and tried to explain that mommy had to go for an event, because I figured I might as well confuse him with words he doesn’t know, hoping that it would distract him from the issue at hand.

Except that my kid apparently knows what an event is, and he was all like “Not work, mommy go e-ben.” He ponders for a moment, then goes “NOOOOOOOO, mommy don’t go e-ben! Don’t like mommy to go e-ben, mommy stay home.”

When he realizes that it’s not working, he suddenly remembers that he is more likely to get his way when he asks nicely. “Mommy, can stay home please, please, please?” Now that always gets me, because 3 pleases is a big deal.

I was close to ditching the event because my little boy needed me to tuck him into bed but the husband told me that I needed a breather and he had everything under control, so I went. I was glad to be out for a while but that night, it all came back to me – the reason why I left my job in the first place. Because if I had to hear that many pleases every morning while I left them with a bunch of strangers and went on my merry way, I would be crying all the way to work every day. And honestly, I wouldn’t have lasted a week.

On retrospect, manual labor and a couple of late nights don’t seem so bad after all.

by Daphne

kids inc, picture perfect, unqualified parenting tips

It’s like I’m like a scientist or something

June 29, 2010

Weekends are best spent at the beach so that’s what we did last Saturday. We woke up early, packed the kids into the car and headed down to Sentosa for a leisurely morning by the beach. I’m not really one for beaches, what with all that icky sand and sandflies and murky water filled with gooey slimy stuff.

But I’m a parent now so I do what I do best these days, which is to suck it up and get on with the program. Just because it makes the kids smile.

I’ve come to realize that the best time to take pictures of the kids is at the start of any activity, way before they have a chance to look like a street urchin. At least for my kids, that is. Which means that I’ve got a 15 minute window of optimum photo time tops.

Remember my theory about boys and girls? I’ll summarize it for you. Boys are disgusting and girls are not. Initially, it was just a theory and I didn’t have any conclusive scientific evidence to support my hypothesis. But I do now.

Peruse Specimen A.

The moment Tru saw the shimmering water from a mile off, he yanked off his shirt and started RUNNING for his life. Before I knew it, he was flinging sand everywhere, and by everywhere I mean in his hair, nostrils, ears, belly button and I don’t even want to know what else. I bet he ate handfuls of sand in the process.

And before that, I was still debating with the husband as to whether we should pack their swimwear. I was all like “It’s so gross, I bet Tru won’t want to go in” and the husband, well he’s a dude, so go figure.

With Truett, he doesn’t take things slow. He doesn’t dip his toes in the water and get his feet a little wet. He goes ALL IN. And at first I was yelling at him to stay out of the water but it was a lost cause. I should have known that I can’t expect Tru to see water and not jump in. It’s physically impossible for him to exercise any form of self control, like there’s some primitive override button the moment he sees bodies of water.

Moving on to Specimen B.

Did I already say she’s a princess? The whole time, she never stepped beyond the boundaries of her little beach mat. Some sand bits inevitably got in between her fingers and she started frowning intently, like “SERVANTS!! Get this grain of sand away from me! And why is it so blistering hot?? BRING ME MY FAN AND MY GRAPES! HELPPPPP THERE’S SAND ON MY DOLL, I’m just going to hold it gingerly like this with 2 fingers!!”

That’s my girl.

by Daphne

coolest kids ever, kids inc, unqualified parenting tips

Of coke and jedi classes

June 21, 2010

Have I told you about the time I brought Kirsten to the pool and halfway through she saw my can of coke sitting on the table and insisted that she NEEDED to drink it? Being a responsible parent and all, I said no obviously, because it’s filled with sugar and bad stuff for kids.

But then I once used coke to remove rust so maybe it means that it will remove bad stuff from your system so we should all have more coke. I’m not sure which. I’m going with the second one.

Anyway, so she put on her jedi robe and used the force to take it when I was not looking, which is kind of like taking it by force if you think about it. And I figured, the last guy to mess with young jedi powers got all his limbs sliced off and had to wear a life support system and breathe like someone who chain-smoked for 40 years.

If you must know, the story ends with me chickening out and giving her the coke. Only thing is, she hasn’t reached the advanced jedi level of learning how to open the can with the force so she spent the next 15 minutes prying it open with all of her 4 teeth and pudgy fingers while I sat beside her and gloated.

You know what this means though. I’m not sending her for jedi classes anymore.

Happy Monday, y’all.

by Daphne

kids inc, picture perfect

It was a rather Hort Day

June 9, 2010

Tru is on a two-week break from school and that means only one thing for me. SMACKDOWN. Momma, the reigning champ, taking on a tag-team of 2 new contenders at the same time.

I’m still not crazy enough to bring both kids out alone so we’re all under house arrest. Which translates into two very hyperactive kids confined in a very small area for extended periods. Two kids, I might add, who are addicted to going out. It doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s outside.

So my day goes something like this.

1. Skull-crushing boredom (for all of us)

2. Oh, let’s fight over toys, fighting is fun and exciting

3. How about some screaming to spice things up a little

4. I’m not going to take my nap because I’m not tired

5. Yay, time to play the lying down game where momma lies down on the floor playing dead while the kids tear the house apart.

It’s a good thing the husband managed to take two weeks off to join in the fun so that I don’t lose my mind completely after 3 days. We planned out an itinerary of fun activities for whole week, starting with Hortpark this morning. This is all part of our elaborate plan to tire them out until they collapse to the ground and beg for mercy.