picture perfect

Bring your own sunshine

August 2, 2010

My idea of a perfect weekend used to involve sleeping in late, watching movies in bed all day, reading a nice novel and pretty much being a giant slug. When the kids came along, it seemed like such a waste to sloth the weekend away, especially since having the kids around made it impossible to sloth by default. So it made more sense to bring them out and hopefully tire them out with strenuous activities.

Lately, we’ve been joining the rest of Singapore (it seems) at East Coast every Saturday in a bid to get in some exercise and breathe in the salty sea breeze.

In other news, baby girl is becoming increasingly mobile, taking 5 unaided steps here and a couple more steps there. I think she’ll be walking confidently before the month is out, which means it’s time to get her some walking shoes. It’s probably the second kid syndrome, but she pretty much learnt to walk all on her own because I was more relaxed about teaching her how to walk. One day, she just got up, steadied herself and started toddling around the house and we were all like “OMG you’re walking!! Where did you even learn that from?”

With National Day coming up next week, we saw a chinook flying past with the Singapore flag, followed by a very impressive helicopter formation. Truett is very much in his vehicle phase and he watched the whole thing with absolute amazement. The adrenaline junkie in him must have started hyperventilating. Something tells me that I may have a pilot on my hands.

I just realized that Tru looks like Dai Yang Tian from that 60’s drama serial where he goes around in that oh-so-fancy white singlet and shorts. That’s totally going to be all the rage next season’s and I hear the tight-fitting singlet range is about to hit the runway.

And that’s all I got for you. Excuse me while I attempt to give my son a side parting, DYT-style.

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coolest kids ever, picture perfect

Flower power

July 30, 2010

One time we brought Tru to the beach and we came across some flowers growing under a tree so I started getting all excited like “Tru, look, there are flowers!“. I should probably preface this by saying that this little sensitive guy of mine loves flowers. A lot. The very first word he said clearly and with gusto was “FLOWER!” When he’s throwing a hissy fit in the car, he stops whenever we drive past this stretch along ECP with pink, orange and lilac flowers at the divider.

You should probably also know here that I’m not a flowers and candy kind of girl. The husband used to buy me flowers from time to time and I have to admit, I never quite knew what to do with them. I’m like “oh, great, more flowers” and pretend to smell them but honestly, they’re not pretty enough for the trouble it takes to keep them alive. I mean, I’ve got to change the water everyday, arrange them in the vase nicely (I don’t know how) and when they die, they start to smell pretty bad if I forget to chuck them in the trash. I’d much prefer like an iPad or a new techie gadget, which I eventually found a tactful way of communicating to the husband. (I think I may have said something like “flowers are dumb, get me an iPhone instead“)

But back to my extremely macho, albeit flower-obsessed little man. He saw the flowers, ran and squatted down beside them and smiled his million-dollar smile while shouting “flowers, momma, so many flowers!”

So I mirrored his enthusiasm. “WOWWW that’s really nice sweetheart,” I said.

He reached over and carefully plucked out one tiny yellow flower, held it gingerly and walked towards me. Then he put it into my hand and said “for you, mommy.”

I think this is what they meant when they said that being a mom was the most awesome thing in the world. Seriously, best present ever.

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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.

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