she has yet to learn how to decode words since the last post. but i have to say her preschool teachers have been doing a pretty good job teaching them letter recognition, because truthfully… i haven’t really done much. *ashamed*

0

  

bought this from a Borders sale for five dollars some time back for the kids. it’s called ‘Stretch’, but they associate it with ‘yoga’ coz mommy does some of the strange stuff on the pink mat too….

like this…

and this…

and this…

gotta keep those limbs flexible after all…

so you can dance.

0

  

I’d been wondering when the time would come when they’d tuck themselves into their beds without me hovering over them (I’m always looking for solutions to minimise my energy usage, especially at night when supply is at its lowest…), and came upon a tactic that worked these past few nights.

After our pee+wash feet+brush teeth regime, i invited them into my bed with their choice of books. Note that my bed is considered a treat to them because I’m always shooing them off it, so I give them the terms of condition: that they must kiss me and go straight to bed as soon as I finish the books, which they understood and agreed to.

I’m amazed it worked. Read, got my kisses, said goodnight, watched them march out of my room, everything’s quiet and am now snuggled under my duvet, feeling gleeful coz I managed to trick them into going to bed on their own accord, without having moved an inch from mine heh heh. (Then kick myself for not having thought of this earlier.)

now if only everything had a solution as simple as this….

0

  

post-note: in their defence, they’re really not that bad at cleaning up after themselves. when i’m in a good mood to humour them, they are pretty easily motivated. my trick is to turn it into a game (variations of “lets pick uppppp… the RED lego pieces! now… the BLUE ones!… aaaand the yellow ones! faster faster, quickkk! now close the box, don’t let the lego blocks come out! argghhh!!” -> imagine a 33-yr-old woman prancing about animatedly at this point), or a competition (“let’s see WHO’S THE FASTEST!” coz siblings just loveeee to outdo each other, don’t they?), and they’re at that age when they still fall for such trickery.

there’s also another trick i employ to get them to voluntarily do their nightly 3-step routine of peeing, feet-washing and teeth-brushing. by a sheer stroke of luck, i’ve made book-reading my bargaining chip, my ‘time currency’. when it’s nearing bedtime, i’d start with a high number of say, 5 books (the boy would negotiate for a bigger number), and for every few minutes they dawdle and delay, i’d work my way down to 4… 3… 2… 1… 0 books. (it usually works out to on average of 3 books, which is about the number of books i have the energy for after a long day anyway – sometimes i’d cheat and choose shorter stories heh heh.) now whenever it’s nearing bedtime, the boy will ask “how many books now, mummy?” and off they go….

speaking of books, they’ve concurred with my proposed policy of one malay book per night as part of my on-going Speak Melayu Campaign. but don’t worry, i do not borrow from the library dubious ones like this.

stumbling upon solutions (and subtly winning battles) makes me happy (and slightly smug – please don’t slap me.)

0

  

being the hard-headed april-born Arian that she is, she’ll insist on putting together her own outfit, and will protest when we overrule her choice. many battles have taken place when we veto her decisions – especially in footwear, her final resistance at the door before one party concedes defeat – and are the usual cause of our delays.

here, modelling her brother’s grotty old crocs, just because it matches her shirt (she’s big on matching of colours, something i’m to blame for, really).

speaking of battles, have been reading amy/chua’s book on the Tiger Mother. while she may come across a little nuts (major momzilla alert!), i strangely empathise with her, agree with her opinions, admire her values, and envy her sheer tenacity.

there’s this chapter that i particularly liked, for her in-your-face honesty to her kids (and the reader), which reflects in her own way, her high regard for her kids and her resolute belief that they can and MUST do better, even in something as seemingly trivial as a birthday card.

(to put this in context and how it relates to another important story, you have to read the book holistically – and i recommend it, if anything, for her sense of humour.)

*************************************************

… Lulu handed me her “surprise”, which turned out to be a card. More accurately, it was a piece of paper folded crookedly in half, with a big happy face on the front. Inside, “Happy Birthday, Mommy! Love, Lulu” was scrawled in crayon above another happy face. The card couldn’t have taken Lulu more than twenty seconds to make.

I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one – one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”

“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I saw beads of sweat start to form on Jed’s forehead.

I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled “Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!” I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday, Lulu – would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No – I got you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and eraser party favours that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” I threw the card back.

“May I please be excused for a second?” Sophia asked in a small voice. “I need to do something.”

“Let me see it, Sophia. Hand it over.”

Eyes wide with terror, Sophia slowly pulled out her own card. It was bigger than Lulu’s, made of red construction paper, but while more effusive, equally empty. She had drawn a few flowers and written, “I love you! Happy Birthday to the Best Mommy in the World! #1 Mommy!”

“That’s nice, Sophia,” I said coldly, “but not good enough either. When I was your age, I wrote poems for my mother on her birthday. I got up early and cleaned the house and made her breakfast. I tried to think of creative ideas and made her coupons that said things like ‘One Free Car Wash’.”

“I wanted to make something better, but you said I had to play piano,” Sophia protested indignantly.

“You should have gotten up earlier,” I responded.

Later that night, I received two much better birthday cards, which I loved and still have.

****************************************************

personally, i doubt i’d have the heart to “throw” a birthday card back at my kids. i’d be lucky enough if they could write ‘happy birthday mummy’ without any help. heck, i’d be lucky to even get a card in the first place.

unfortunately, i’m too soft, and truthfully, not driven enough to go the Tiger Mother way. at five, i still let the boy wriggle his way out of boring tasks like writing or counting or reading or colouring after a few minutes. to add a musical instrument to that? unthinkable. (ms chua, by the way, makes each kid practice the piano and the violin respectively for hours on end without toilet breaks and even rents the hotel lobby pianos/brings the violin for the girls to practice during their family vacations. just so they don’t slack off.)

so, our battles are different.

for example, there’s this one thing that always makes me go absolutely ballistic – that is, when they make a terrific mess with their toys/books in one spot, then move on to do something else without cleaning up first. that’s when the roars and claws come out, and i’d maul them if i could, but i can’t – instead, i admonish them, threaten them, sweet talk them, bribe them, put them in the naughty corner and a few times when none of the above worked on the little one – yes, the hard-headed april-born Arian one – i plonk her outside the house, close the door and won’t let her in until she promises to clean up – which she invariably does, after some drama filled with tears and wails, scuttling back in like a tiny mouse released from a tiger’s paw. the brother has smartened up, though; he’d take it upon himself to either: a) complain to me about his sister’s mess (preemptive measure); b) scolds her (preventive measure); or c) simply volunteers to tidy up after her when he senses the impending wrath of the tiger (give up!).

maybe i should pick better, more worthwhile battles.

then again, i imagine there’ll be many, MANY more battles ahead of me as they grow older, and these right now are the easiest ones yet…

0

  

the small training wheels on the bike we got him in december for his 5th birthday had gone wonky from.. err, ok, actually it was my fault – we were at east coast beach some time back and i, in a moment of impulse, tried out his bike for size, but my, hmm, considerable gluteus maximus weighed it down (the bike clearly was not ready for this jelly) and caused one of the training wheels to bend upwards, so technically he’d been riding on < 4 wheels ever since.

which was a good thing, coz it made him learn to balance much faster, and after seeing how he'd been zooming around with the training wheels barely touching the ground, the daddy removed them over the weekend.

once again, mommy's a genius.

he’s fascinated with speed. he’s already asked for a skateboard. and a motorbike. and let’s not forget, that “fe-lari” sports car…

at this point, i wish to launch into an introspective post about my many worries for him, The Firstborn. but… my anxieties need further evaluation, so let’s just say for now that i worry a lot about him (well, obviously not his physical or motor development), and maybe i’ll pen them down in another post.

0

  

found a kids’ yoga book at the library, so that evening they dragged out my mat…

Bow pose (Dhanurasana)

Triangle pose (Trikonasana)

err… Wrestling pose? (WWFasana ha ha)

inevitably, they ended up in a crumpled heap within minutes and started horsing around instead. a 5yo and a (almost-) 3yo staying in one position for more then 5 seconds? HAH, fat chance.

meanwhile, mommy is always trying to find her inner calm, peace and zen… because she tends to lose them a lot. *does a Lion pose (Simhasana) on her cubs*

0

  

so our weekends are quickly turning into a vortex of activities as we’ve added two more to his weekend itinerary – reading and swimming.

am not exactly proud for sending him to the former, really. i mean, a mother who was an english & literature major… quite embarrassing, doncha think? oh, the irony! but i tell ya, teaching your own kid is quite a different animal altogether. the cajoling, the threatening, the negotiating, the emotional blackmails, the guilt trips… they never taught you all that, you know.

but as much as you hate it, and are very likely perpetuating the vicious cycle of putting unnecessary pressure and expectations upon a child when he’s probably not developmentally ready, you do it aaaanyway, because the harsh reality is: it’s terrifyingly competitive out there, and being a full-time working mother with little time (and frankly, patience), you swallow your pride and do what it takes to keep him on par with – if not ahead of – his peers.

it’s sink or swim, honey.

0

  

with the daddy on night shift, it’s easier for me to impose my no-tv rule in the evening before bed (we activated the child-lock, and it’s SO effective, even mommy doesn’t know how to unlock it… erm..), which means having to come up with more ways to ‘entertain’ or keep them occupied. so we’d play bouncing balls or monopoly or ‘masak-masak’ or drawing, and sometimes they’ll ‘exercise’ with me….

(i think auni’s downward dog is so cute – her heels are all the way down. love how flexible kids are the younger they are.)

you can guess what usually happens during my downward dogs and my bridges and whatever poses i attempt – they’d gleefully crawl under/over me, so yeah, yoga at home – not so safe for me!

but i figured out a way around it the other night, by giving them the important grown-up task of taking mommy’s pictures with her grown-up camera. is she a genius or what? :p

(my amateur-ish Wheel/Upward Bow and Plow – still works-in-progress.)

(the girl on the mat – perhaps a little confused, heh.)

0

  

busy day ahead…

0

  

was caught up with cleaning and rearranging the girl’s room today. finally got her a proper big-girl bed, about the same age her brother got ‘upgraded’ as well, i think. realised the bed rails look a bit, erm, clinical, but it’s comfy, definitely nicer than a cot, and the two of them reckon it’s just “like hotel”. (yes, they’re still in a holiday mood.)

sleep tight…

0

  

(a little note: about the part on the rattlesnake, coincidentally, an episode of The Pink Panther was shown after we’d read this a few times together, where the panther accidentally stole a basket containing a baby instead of food during a picnic scene and in an effort to pacify the said baby, now crying, he’d removed the end of the rattlesnake’s tail to give to the baby as a rattle, and i guess this left such an impression with the kids that they associate it with this particular rattlesnake every time.)

(also, another note: they will inevitably ask the same question in every story with illustrations – “where’s the daddy/mummy/baby?” not sure why but there’s always a concern for the whereabouts of a missing family member in the story.)

0

  

it was the first time for the quasi-playgroup-teacher-wannabe mommies conducting the baking session last weekend, and all we had were basic baking ingredients and an online recipe we’d never tried before. we were each sorta assigned to take on one activity and thankfully, Is took the lead for this one.

we went for a ‘thematic approach’.

we spelled, counted, measured, talked about what the ingredients did, passed around the vanilla essence for everyone to smell….

we scooped, stirred, broke eggs, took turns, resolved conflicts…

we rolled dough, created shapes, sprinkled rainbow sprinkles and chocolate chips…

and with the smell of cookies baking in the oven, we did some storytelling… bilingually, too. :D

and of course, we tasted the fresh, warm, home-baked cookies, nevermind the dubious hygiene level of the cookie-makers, lol. they tasted pretty good, actually, despite the fact that we didn’t follow the ingredients too closely (seeing how things kept spilling).

we balanced tea time with fruits and nuts and then it was free play…

and we got hungry again at dinnertime, so we made some pizza. the little chefs were actually more interested in piling stuff on the dough than eating the final product, though they did collectively run to the oven every few seconds to peep through the oven door. so the ones who eventually ate were the adults, who also got creative and designed their own satay pizza (izad’s family are in the satay business, so it’s a staple at every function – the satay and peanut sauce are awesome.)

inspired by the success of this playgroup session, we’ve assigned the daddies to take over the next one. something less domestic and more outdoorsy… though it’d be interesting if they could conduct, oh i don’t know… origami or scrapbooking, maybe?? :p

0