Father Inc, i embarrass myself sometimes, not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood, stuff best described as not safe for parents, unqualified parenting tips

Good cop, bad cop

June 8, 2010

Good cop, bad cop is a strategy we use all the time in disciplining the kids. From the onset, we agreed that we’ll rotate the roles so that it’s fair and we both get to be the good cop at some point. Because nobody wants to be the bad cop. Besides sociopaths, that is. Or masochists with a sadistic streak. But well, neither of us fall into those categories.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming quite apparent that daddy is emerging as the resident bad cop. Why? Because mommy has no backbone and she can’t keep a straight face when it comes to discipline. Also, it’s terribly weird to talk about myself in the third person.

The kids seem to sense that weakness and they have been exploiting it. They do their cute I’m-so-sorry-didn’t-mean-to-do-it move and I feel bad about being upset because they’re obviously just babies and innocent and all puppy dog eyes looking at me. That makes me immediately forget about how they spat out food all over the floor 30 seconds ago. WHILE I’M STILL STANDING IN THE SPITTLE. I’m such a cliche.

So now whenever we do good cop bad cop, Kelvin gets to be the bad cop while I dangle bribes of ice-cream and Yakult. It never works though and I don’t even know why I bother.

Me: Tru, if you finish your food mommy will let you have a scoop of ice-cream.

Tru: ICE-CREAM!!! GIVE ME ICE-CREAM! GIVE ME GIVE ME!!

Me: I meant you have to FINISH your food first.

Tru: I’m all done. Give me ice-cream!!!

Me: No, you’re not done. You can’t be done if you haven’t even started.

Tru: ICE CREAM!!!!

That goes on for a while until he grabs his head and slumps onto the table, which is his sign for “I don’t care about your stupid ice-cream anyway. It’s not worth having to swallow this broccoli for.”

That’s me wasting 15 minutes of my life trying to bargain with a two-year-old.

So it’s the cue for bad cop to step in.

Kelvin: Tru, open your mouth, say ahhhhh.

Tru: No, don’t like.

Kelvin: Do you like the naughty corner?

Tru: No, don’t like.

Kelvin: I’m going to count to three and if you don’t eat by the time I get to 3, you know where you’re going to. 1…2…

And it works like a charm. Once in a while he tries his luck and ends up in the naughty corner. Daddy says it’s about consistency, which I have none of. I keep trying to find excuses to cut him some slack, to not have to put him in the naughty corner because it breaks momma’s tender little heart to see him cry.

If this goes on I’ll be the kind of mother that has to leave the discipline to their husbands and the best they can do is pull out their killer phrase “wait till daddy gets home” whenever the kids start becoming bratty. But that won’t work very well for me because by the time daddy gets home, I’ll have a VERY LONG list of things, some of which I’m likely to forget.

I think I better start lessons on being a bad cop before Kirsten gets smarter and I get eaten alive by TWO kids with innocent baby eyes.

by
milestones & musings, stuff best described as not safe for parents

Let’s get this party started (or die trying)

June 4, 2010

When I was busy making babies, I forgot to read the memo on planning their birthday parties. It goes something like this: “It’s like planning for a wedding, except worse.” Or “Party planning: NOT all fun and games.” Or “Kids parties, just don’t do it.”

So we went right on ahead and held a party for Tru in his school on his birthday. It was supposed to be a small affair, with a combined birthday bash coming up (God help me) for both kids sometime later in the month (a mid-point between both their birthdays). But small affairs are never quite so small for us because two days prior, we start getting into a frenzy like “Get the party packs, food, snacks and don’t forget the cake, WE NEED A LARGE CAKE FOR A SWARM OF HUNGRY LITTLE PEOPLE.”

Knowing us, we really did forget the cake and Kelvin had to run out to the store the night before the party at 9.30pm to beg them to keep the store open so that he could buy the cake.

About the party packs, I was always under the impression that the birthday person was supposed to GET presents, not give out 30 presents to his friends on his birthday. See, I didn’t get that memo either, and good thing Tru’s teacher reminded us about the party packs, because we would have ended up as the only scroogy parents who didn’t give out presents.

We decided to give out stuff that parents wouldn’t secretly chuck into the bin when their kids got home. We got them character-themed A4 folder, customized name stickers, a crayon set, a stationery set, cute paper clips, milo, raisins and a snack.

Tru got to dress up all nice and preppy for school that day, just in case his friends got confused as to whose birthday it was. I almost wanted to get him a crown and a scepter so that he could order all his friends around and make them clean his toes because that’s the kind of thing you should do on your birthday, but it was also the kind of thing that would get you hazed in the toilet the next day. So I went conservative and stuck to a white shirt and jeans.

During the whole party, Tru went around looking like he was on a lot of weed. He was walking around in a daze, not sure why he was getting all the attention, and more importantly, why he had to serve cake to all his friends first before he could have any. After giving out the sixteenth piece of cake, he was all like “come on momma, get a move on and give me my cake NOW!“

After he finally had his cake and ate it, he was back to being happy as a clam, and moved on to happier things like nose picking.

by
kids inc, milestones & musings

It’s too soon for you to be two

June 2, 2010

To the most beautiful little boy in the whole world,

Today’s your second birthday. TWO! As far as babies’ ages go, that’s a huge number. I have to remember to stop calling you a baby because today, you just gave baby-ness a karate kick in the bottom. I told your daddy the other day that I wished you would stay this age forever. You right now is perfect, but then again I said that about you a year ago and I’m enjoying two-year-old you far more than one-year-old you.

Well let’s see. This year alone, you’ve learnt to converse, which is a massive milestone for me. You can actually tell us what you want instead of shrieking. I was really starting to get confused by the three short shrieks (raisins) and two medium shrieks (biscuits OR water). And if I got it wrong, you’d shriek even louder and then we would all end up in a frenzy because by then I would have lost track of the number of shrieks. That was a bad time for all of us. I hope I’m not speaking too soon but you seem to have made it out of the terrible twos. Before you even turned two.

You’ve developed into a cleanliness inspector and you certainly didn’t get that from me or your father. Your favorite line these days is “Oh no, you made a mess!” in that accusatory tone, then you order all of us to clean up with “EVERYBODY CLEAN UP EVERYTHING!”

I’ve learnt not to mess with the clean mode because that time we were running late (again) and you insisted on picking up every single last piece of your 100-piece Megabloks set which was strewn all over the entire house. I told you that it was ok and we could clean up when we got back but you got so upset that I’ve since incorporated time for cleaning up before we leave the house. Thanks, I guess.

You’ve grown to become a really superb big brother. Ever since Kirsten was born, we’ve taught you to love your little sister and you’re doing a fine job of that. You greet her every morning with an enthusiastic “good morning mei mei, you sleep well?” exactly the way momma does it.

You share all your stuff with her and kiss her ever so gently and take it like a man every time she screams at you for no reason at all. That’s the stuff big brothers are made of and we’re so proud of you for that.

You’re sweet and generous and affectionate and I wake up every day asking myself what I did to ever deserve such an awesome kid. Folks who meet you all think that I’ve done spectacular job of raising you but they don’t know that it’s really because you make me look good all the time.

I know I whinge a lot about how difficult being a mom can be and all the sacrifices we’ve had to make in our lives. Most of them are true by the way, but I’ll do them all over again in a heartbeat. Sometimes your daddy and I talk about how maybe we should have taken a few years off to travel, spend more alone time and pursue our own dreams before having kids but then we look at you and we choose you. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend these years not knowing you.

You’re our little sunshine machine.

We love you with all the love in the world and then some more.

Momma and Daddy.

by