kids inc

Girls just wanna have fun

September 16, 2009

I’m starting to realize that having a girl is entirely different from having a boy. Now that Kirsten can do a lot more than ingest milk and scream, it’s becoming quite apparent that I’ve got a girly girl on my hands. Not just any girly girl, but the kind that speaks softly, bats her eyelids and preens when she walks. I’ve gotta say, I am actually terrified surprised.

I had my money on the fact that she’d be the spunky sort but no, looks like that’s not going to happen. For starters, she doesn’t like to be spoken to loudly or harshly, which will instantly cause her mouth to turn into a pout. And we all know what that leads to. We’ve been so used to shouting at Tru from across the hall or singing at the top of our lungs that it’s so disconcerting to have to keep real quiet and talk gently to Kirsten.

Feeding her is also an art form. All the elements have to be just right in order for her to enjoy her milk. I used to just prop Tru on a pillow and hold his bottle with one hand while still surfing the net or reading. But with baby girl, I’ve got to cradle her close, look into her eyes and whisper sweet nothings before she will take in a full feed. If I so much as look away or get distracted, she’ll start to fuss and refuse to drink. So much so that Superdad has acknowledged defeat because he is too restless to do nothing but look into her eyes for 30 minutes.

Then the playing. My boy is an adrenaline junkie. Any form of playing that requires throwing, swinging, hanging him upside down or drowning is a sure hit. He’ll giggle himself into fits and make you repeat it a million times. I tried swinging Kirsten once and she broke out into the loudest shriek of her life. True story. I almost thought I sent her into a cardiac arrest. And even after I spent the next hour holding her and whispering sweet nothings, she still sulked and pouted, as if to say “DON’T YOU DARE SWING ME LIKE THAT AGAIN, MAMA.” I got the idea.

To be honest, I have no idea how to handle a girly girl because I’ve never been one. My favorite color is blue (the husband claims it’s yellow), I love soccer and cars (the faster the better), I outplay boys at basketball (yes, even the husband) and dolls *really* freak me out. When I got Barbies as presents as a kid, I used to beat them on the head with various objects and  trade them for remote control cars with my brother (the going rate was 3 limited edition Barbies and a full set of accessories for a Lamborghini Murcielago). My sister was the one who loved the clothes and high heels and ballet.

Although having a girl has its perks. She’s content to just lie in my arms and gurgle when I talk to her for hours. She’s got none of that restlessness or mischief and she’s got a smile that turns you into mush. Tru never smiles. He grins or giggles, and either way, he’s up to no good, so it’s a refreshing change to have baby girl sit on my lap without squirming.

It’s a good thing I’ve still got some time before she’s into the whole Barbie/Bratz thing. Or the day she starts to make me pick out sand from between her toes.

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Sort of Movie Reviews

Up Up and Away!

September 15, 2009

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I finally went to watch UP over the weekend to celebrate the husband’s birthday. We’ve been trying to catch it on the big screen since it opened but with the arrival of Kirsten, watching movies is a luxury we could scarcely afford.

We used to put Tru at my mom’s place and pop out for a show but it’s just too cruel to leave her alone with 2 kids. We also contemplated bringing Kirsten along for the show but it’s the kind of thing that gets you crucified by your neighbors so that was the end of that. So with a little help from my mom and a friend, we settled the kids and headed downtown for our first movie in months.

You probably already know the movie rocks big time, so I’m not going to rave about it here. *IT IS ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS AND EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT. MULTIPLE TIMES.* Ok, I got that out of my system.

Instead, here are 5 lessons I learnt from Pixar’s latest masterpiece.

1. It’s cute to be fat… Only if you’re under the age of 10.

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I had my doubts about placing the weight of an entire movie on the shoulders of an old man and a fat boy, but hey, that’s why I’m not raking in millions from a movie I just produced. I fell in love with Russell, the fat boy Junior Wilderness Explorer from Tribe 54 the moment he stood on Carl’s front porch with his super backpack and pudgy cheeks.

He obviously overdid the chocolate thing, but when you’re 8, nobody’s going to judge you. Heck, you can probably also get away with eating that much chocolate if you’re a 13-foot multicolored bird . What they’re not showing you is what happens to him after he grows up into an obese teenager and eating that much chocolate is no longer cute.

2. When you start to have a gazillion talking dogs, you’re bound to lose your marbles a little.

Case in point: Charles Muntz . Ok, so nobody believed he found the bones of an imaginary creature and he got banished to Paradise Falls, which is clearly NOT paradise at all. But he was still pretty much sane. It’s only when he started breeding dogs like hamsters and making them talk, he turned into a psychotic bird stalker. He’s got them cooking his meals and making him coffee, which is when he started losing his sanity. I bet if he kept fish instead, he wouldn’t have fallen off a moving aircraft.

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See, its not that I have a bone to pick with him, but..

3. Guys in black suits and shades are EVIL.

Never trust a guy wearing a suit.  They’re always out to run down your mailbox or steal your money or destroy your house. Even when they don’t physically do it themselves, they’re probably still to blame for whatever bad things that happen to you. The next time you stub a toe or break a fingernail, look for the nearest suit and punch him in the gut because he’s likely to deserve it. Only the bad guys wear suits. With shades. Duh.

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Case in point

4. Girly girls are so yesterday.

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i'm a woman, hear me roar!

You don’t have to be into make-up and nail polish to snag the guy. Girls that hold hands and dance around the campfire are so last season. Spunky girls are all the rage now, so feel free to knock out a few teeth, snip off those locks and ditch the miniskirts. In fact, if you really like a guy, go ahead a terrorize him into submission. That’s the key to a marriage that lasts a lifetime.

5. If you need to do some major business in the jungle, dig a hole BEFORE you go and not after.

Nuff said.

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motherhood

Somebody tell me again why I’m breastfeeding

September 14, 2009

The good news is that Kirsten has started sleeping through the night. Since she turned 6 weeks, she’s been sleeping from 12 midnight to 6 in the morning, which gives me six whole hours of uninterrupted sleep. Now at 9 weeks, she’s been stretching that to 10 hours every night.

Naturally, I’ve been taking advantage of this new development to catch as much sleep as I can, except that my breasts seem hell bent on destroying me. I figured that if I ignored them, they would stop bothering me and eventually adjust to the new feeding hours so for a few nights, I express my last round of milk at 1o and crawl into bed by 11.30. This would last till 7 in the morning when Kirsten starts stirring. Initially, I started leaking milk all over my top, which I was prepared to handle in exchange for more sleep, but a after 2-3 days of leaking, they decided to develop blocked ducts instead and believe me, it is a pain in the ass breast.

I know it sounds like a very mild condition, like a blocked nose or something, but no, it is nothing like it at all. You can’t just blow it out and go along your merry way. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s worse than hemorrhoids combined with herpes at the same time. The pain is pretty much indescribable, like someone stuffed rocks into my breast and started beating it. Repeatedly.

A few nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in my left breast. I waited for it to pass, but it got so unbearable that I had to get up to check it. I tried expressing, but putting the pump to it was sheer torture. The entire breast had become rock hard, inflamed and filled with tiny lumps. Worst thing is, nothing came out. I’ve been averaging 120ml per session, but after 45 minutes, I was still at 20ml. The next morning, I came down with a flu and a fever. A quick check on google and apparently, these are all symptoms of blocked ducts. And check this out, if left untreated, it could develop into mastitis, which is NOT GOOD. You don’t want to mess with a name like mastitis.

Despite the pain, I’ve been back to a 3-hour expressing schedule, even through the night. And I have to battle a flu at the same time. Just like that, there goes my dreams of sleeping through the night. Now I can only look on with envy as my 9-week-old sleeps like a baby for 10 straight hours, while I’m banished to breast purgatory.

I never thought breastfeeding would be this hard. After going through all that initial teething problems, I though I had paid my dues but it just keeps getting worse. I only hope all that “Breast is best” propaganda is true, then at least it would all be worth it. If not, I’m seriously going to set fire to the person who came up with it.

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