Pebbles Auni, originally uploaded by izadd.

am missing her today, coz it’s the first day back at work after the long CNY holiday and she’d usually be the first feet to pitter-patter over to our room and lay her head on my side of the bed, followed by her brother, but today i was out before either of them woke up, so something felt… amiss.

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sometimes it’s hard talking about the little things in your life you find pride in – be it your accomplishments, achievements, experiences, aspirations – without inadvertently offending someone.

because, – and perhaps i’m being a cynic here – people would really much rather hear the bad things that happen to you, all your imperfections and failures. because then you wouldn’t make them feel bad about themselves, for whatever reason.

in truth, it’s probably easier finding people – friends and strangers – willing to commiserate in your woes than share in your joys.

empathy is easy; mudita, or altruistic joy, not so.

and when it comes to parenting, ho boy, you REALLY gotta tiptoe on land mines on this one. coz nobody really wants to hear how well you’re doing, not really. not unless they ask. and certainly not when it strikes at their raw, exposed achilles’ heels.

human nature being the funny, illogical thing that it is, i get that, i really do.

(then again, if we keep shoving those achilles’ heels down people’s throats, we’re also shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak, aren’t we? but i guess some find catharsis in airing their hardships and little grievances, while others, well, simply prefer to conceal them; that way, they protect themselves from others – intentionally or unintentionally – belittling/ridiculing them. everybody has a different way of dealing with their heels, after all.)

so anyway, to dispel the notion that only happy, delightful things happen in the life of izadnhana, let me share bits of what everybody likes to hear – our less-than-ideal dealings with our less-than-ideal children.

the four-year old boy: where shall i begin?

- “i want sweet/toy/etc!! i waaaaaannnnttt…!! i waaaaannnntttt…..! *whine whine whine*”
yes, IT HAPPENS. The Whine. the items may differ, but the tone consistent. despite our repeated denying and ignoring, and reminders to “please ask nicely”, this “i want” syndrome persists. we’ve even renamed him Aniq Iwant. on my less accommodating days, i’d even give him a nice fat tweak on the ear. sometimes, a pants-wetting shout that would crack your eardrums. (yes, i shout. bad mum.) and nah, we’ve never given in to his whiny demands, preferring to let him cry it out and wallow in the misery of not getting what he wants. “THAT’S LIFE, ANIQ! YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT!”, i shout, quoting the wise words of the Rolling Stones. doesn’t mean he’s learnt his lesson though.

- “i dowan to bathe/go toilet!!”
with every ‘i want’, is an ‘i dowan’. anything routine is met with almost-violent objection. why do children resist baths as much as cats and dogs? that is the eternal question. we usually ‘trap’ him into bathing when he has to pee. (off with your clothes, into the shower you go, lightning-thunder-evil laughter!) and then we’d have him resist going to the toilet to pee. i told him if he holds his pee, stones will form inside, and then he wouldn’t be able to pee, and he’ll go to the hospital, and yes, you can die (he always likes a little gore injected into his potential ailments). he’d eventually have to pee at some point, of course, but holding his bladder can’t be a good thing. we’ve threatened putting him back on diapers, which makes him even madder. doesn’t mean he’s learnt his lesson though.

- “i dowan to eat/sleep!”
again, more routines, more ‘dowans’. there’ll be days when he wants proper food (ie. rice), days when he’d refuse it. he likes chicken skin. we told him, that’s why his inner elbow looks as gross as chicken skin (he’s got eczema). and they sleep late, my kids. on average, they’ll doze off at 11 – 11.30pm. the whole process – milk/water-drinking, peeing, toothbrushing, reading, talking, cajoling, threatening – takes about an hour each night. we could start the bedtime routine earlier, but no matter what we do, their body clock is stubborn that way. i know they should be trained to sleep earlier, but because we come back from work and get to spend so little time with them, we don’t have the heart to force them down earlier. bad, yes. good luck when they start morning session in school. so all of you with kids who sleep as early as 8pm, i say, WOW.

- “stop biting your nails!”
that’s me, swatting his hands out of his mouth for the trillionth time. there are times when i have to swat his FOOT out of his mouth. (actually, that bad habit is probably genetic, i’m pret-ty sure i used to perform such an acrobatic feat myself as a kid.) i tried telling him about disgusting germs lurking underneath those nails, travelling into his mouth, down his throat, into his stomach, invading his body (and yes, you’ll die!)… but then, he’ll forget. i never got around to getting that anti-nail-biting cream from the pharmacy.

- “i like game! i like tv!”
with an attention span shorter than a goldfish, video games (which i refuse to have anything to do with, but which he gets to play with abandon at his grandfather’s house) have a way of keeping him hooked. i hate it. sure, it keeps him focused and hones his hand-eye coordination, but at the detriment of a more important skill, ie. sitting down with a pencil and paper, which is OH SO UNEXCITING coz no guns are being shot and no bullets being dodged. barely 5 minutes at writing and he’d have wiggled his way out of his chair with an excuse i’d probably hear for the next 16 years: “i’m tired”. the tv thing, i think, is universal. i don’t know any kid who doesn’t like it, or NEED it. and i guess we need it ourselves too, coz how could we possibly NOT have a tv in the house?! unthinkable.

- “i like my friends, dong yi/vincent/lutfi..”
i know there are kids who are shy, but i say, shyness is really not so bad. consider this boy: he sees people or older kids, he barges right in and tries to play with them, which, i observe occasionally, irritates them. and when i do, i’d step in and pull him away. what else can you do? and another thing, these boys he befriends in school, they influence each other’s behaviour to some extent, and you see the bad ones surface, like the “leh”s at the end of sentences, the loudness, the rowdiness. his teacher called me the other day to tell me that he and his friends were scolded for shooting imaginary guns at the back of the class and causing a pitcher of water to spill. (he cried, HA HA!) and he’s only four! imagine being called up in primary-secondary school, for more serious misdeeds. his inclination as an extrovert could somehow attract him to groups of boys equally brash, playful, and mischievous. so, maybe it’s better to have a shy boy. a nerdy, bookish one. the bawah-ketiak-mak type. i don’t know.

- overall omg-can-you-stop-doing-that! behaviour
this ranges from kicking toys not meant to be kicked, to purposely doing whatever we JUST told him NOT to do, to… oh the list goes on. i get tired just trying to list them down.

so as you can see, all of the above are probably common tales of common parents dealing with common children. they may reveal our lack of disciplining, our lack of spending time with them, a lack of something-or-other, always, always a lack on our part.

and while this exercise of revealing the unpleasant side of my kid (and myself) brings little pleasure to me, perhaps it brings a bit of pleasure to you.

but they probably won’t live up to your EVEN worse stories, experiences, plights and predicaments, i’m sure. because someone ALWAYS has it worse than you, and you just. can’t. win.

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am looking at auni’s documentation of her first two weeks at the centre.

it reads something like this. (yes i’m typing it out. don’t call me crazy. i’m a mommy.)

day 1: went in the class independently… sat down for a while and walked to the dramatic corner… played with manipulatives… ate the chicken only.

day 2: went in the class. didn’t cry… sang some familiar songs… enjoyed the walk around the neighbourhood… played puzzles… ate rice but did not finish.

day 3: did not cry… had storytelling… played at blocks corner… had dory fish + rice + vege… able to relate to the story at storytime (Adam’s Daycare).

day 4: cried (!!)… settled down… played at fine motor corner… had chicken mushroom + rice… sat down well at storytime.

day 5: cried… had chinese lesson… went to the library corner… had 2nd helping at lunch… able to sing along with the book, ‘Wheels on the Bus’.

day 6: cried… settled and joined in the music & movement… explored with the discovery corner… chose a book for the class.

day 7: cried for a while… did painting on easel board… had fun exploring with water… had baked chicken + rice.

day 8: cried for a while but settled down… dramatization for the book ‘Wheels on the Bus’… played at the playground… able to answer questions when asked.

day 9: had music & movement… played at discovery corner… activity at the void deck… played at the chinese corner… had 2nd helping at lunch… sat well at storytime.

day 10: sang songs… played with dough… enjoyed herself at the swing… played at dramatic corner… had steamed egg… chose a book for the class.

we must have made her miss four days out of that two weeks, coz that’s all i have. (wait, actually, 5 + 5 weekdays do technically count as two weeks of school, right?)

and don’t worry, coz she’s been there a month now and has since been reported as going straight into her class with nary a tear. i wasn’t too worried about the crying thing anyway coz, well, she IS barely two years old, what can one expect? they’re dramatic like that! they have good days and they have bad days. heck, i’m 32 and even i want to burst into tears when i reach work everyday. (ok lah, exaggerating…)

also, for the most parts, she’s pretty easy-going by nature, and like most children, adaptable to changes.

when i leave for work in the mornings, she puckers up her lips and gives me a cheerful “bye bye!”, and that, well, makes me NOT cry when i reach work everyday. :D

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exactly 2 years ago, aniq had a milestone moment with his first visit to the dentist, at 2yrs 2mths old, and auni was, well, -2mths (ie. unborn!):

uh oh, i sense a cliche coming now —> “how time flies!”

it’s become a yearly routine and this being his third visit, he knows the drill, so to speak – come in, play with toys, talk to the doctor, sit in the reclining chair, open mouth, scrape, spit, brush, choose a reward from the treasure box.

of course, it helps that he gets HEAPS of praises from the friendly doc for his good teeth and behaviour. sheesh.

his canines have this greenish stain which we can’t remove with a toothbrush despite our nightly attempts. apparently it’s common among kids (actually, even more common are blackish ones instead of what doc described as aniq’s more ‘textbook’ green), and simply genetically inherited. case in point: his cousin, adam, came in right after, and was found to have the exact same green stains on his teeth. sooo, it just HAS to come from my chlorophyll-rich side of the family tree. (by the way, adam would need braces some day, coz his mouth is so small, his teeth would be overcrowding. braces! so cute, right?)

but the stains were easily removed with the right tools (doc said to DIY with a toothpick next time). the ‘gappy’-ness of his teeth makes it hard for food to get stuck in between, so they’re generally easy to clean. remember when you aunties called him ‘madonniq’? turned out to be a good thing after all, heh.

pronounced as cavity-free, his good-as-new, post-polished teeth (i’m not kidding, they look awesome, sigh – dear aniq, please pleaseeee don’t ever mar them with smokes and coffee in the future) were photographed by the doc, and then it was auni’s turn.

okaaay, so ALL the doc managed with our wriggly worm of a girl was count her teeth (16) and made her promise to let mummy or daddy brush them every night (to which she nodded in a very ‘macam paham’ way), before she successfully made like a slippery eel and slid out of her daddy’s clutches on the reclining chair, and ran off to play in the wendy house at the waiting room.

better luck next year, doc.

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M: auni, tadi makan apa? (what did you eat today?)
A: asi! (nasi = rice)
M: lagi? (some more?)
A: eeken! (chicken, obviously, duh) ayam! (she has, as at last check, on 3 feb 2000hrs, decided to answer this instead of ‘eeken’.)
M: lagi?
A: opok! (keropok = fish cracker)
M: eh? sedap? (nice?)
A: dap!
M: pandai! (clever)

and when asked the various body parts in malay, she will obligingly twitch or point accordingly. yesterday, she saw her oma half-undressed and went, “eh, tak alu!” (no shame!).

ah. there is hope yet for you, my young padawan.

=========

M: aniq, ‘fish’ dalam melayu apa? (what is ‘fish’ in malay?)
A: …
M: (prompting with first syllable of ‘ikan’) eeee…?
A: eeee… er san!
M: O-O <--- (talk about culture shock.)

=========

in any case, they're both smitten by upin & ipin, you know, identical twin pre-schoolers who are the cutest cartoon characters, like EVUH, hailing from a fictional kampung in malaysia. (well, there was Lat the Kampung Boy back in the days - remember him? - but upin & ipin are so... arrrgh, DEM CUTE, and there are two of 'em!) the husband and i totally approve of the series, more so since the dialogue's so chuckle-worthy and in malay, and, i mean, WHO NEEDS TO LEARN SPANISH LAH, RIGHT?

so smitten by the characters and their antics, that even the little one has taken to mimicking the dialogue. a particular one that stuck to her was where the token effeminate youth in the kampung insists that his name's not Salleh but Sally, and attempts to spell it out: "S-I-L-L-Y", dismissing his misspelling with a flick of his limp wrist, "apa jer lah, tak kuasa aku." ("whatever!" - another thing about the beauty of localised humour - the english version simply does not translate sufficiently. right? betul betul betul?)

maybe i should send them to a kampung in malaysia, if anything, to brush up on their malay.

speaking of kampungs, the other night, in one of my meandering discussions with the little boy after an episode of upin & ipin, i described to him how in kampungs, they have no toilets with a flushing system, and potty business had to be done in an outhouse or behind bushes in the forest. (AS IF i know anything about rural life, hah! but mothers being mothers, must sound convincing and knowledgeable lah, right? betul betul betul?)

M: ingat tak, citer upin ipin, kawan cucu tok dalang sakit perut, nak pegi toilet tapi dia takut pasal dah malam abih tempat dia jauh? ahhh.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. kat kampung takde toilet.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. macam gitu. abih ingat tak, kawan cucu tok dalang nak berak, dia sembunyi belakang semak-samun? (at this point, even i can’t believe i just said ‘semak-samun’, an almost archaic word for thicket/undergrowth.)
A: why??
M: ye lah. pasal takde toilet!!

you can imagine how this conversation went on – endlessly.

like this bridge we trekked last weekend, in our attempt to bring the children close to nature.

well, as close as we could get to the semak-semak, anyway. no potty business going on here, though. it’s as sterile as everything typically singaporean is.

and mummy – again, ever-convincing and knowledgeable – explained away the many whys. sometimes with more than a “ye laah”.

yes. trees and branches may fall. take care.

berhati-hati di semak-samun, kenak-kanak.

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so there was the “Bumper Car” incident on the road two days ago, which resulted in a few inconveniences for us. for those of you who aren’t privy to our tweet-world, i was banged from behind our car was banged from behind while i was driving home on the PIE by a young fella in his early 20s, who apologised and admitted that it was his fault.

the guy’s father called me soon after, asking to settle the bill from the damage without going through the insurance company. he even offered one of his cars (!) as a replacement while our car went to a workshop owned by his friend. overnight parking coupon? “it’s ok, just buy and claim from me later,” the father says.

i asked if his son was ok, since he mentioned that his son had blacked out briefly before the accident. (i know right? behind the wheel! in an overtaking lane! spells ‘road hazard’ in capital letters to me.) the father, either in truth or in defence, said he too had encountered such momentary black-outs, so could not fault his son. he then took our car ALL the way to jurong where the workshop is, and when the car was repaired, drove ALL the way back to return it to us. through all this, we did not hear or see the son at all (he drove his dad’s car to work).

luckily we’d dealt with a nice, honest man, and luckily for him too, we didn’t give him a hard time. luckily, as much as we love owning a car, we’re not exactly car-lovers. we don’t give our car a name, or decorate it with fluff and frills, or go insane if either of us gets it into minor scrapes (“gives it character”, we say, and shrug it off). inside, it’s probably one of the messiest cars you’d ever seen. my mum occasionally nags at us when she sees the backseat littered with crumbs and artfully-strewn crap. she insists how the neatness and pride one has for one’s car is a reflection of one’s personality. welllll…

aaaanyway, back to my story.

so izad had this epiphany while we were driving in the little nissan march loaned to us (the car that, incidentally, banged into our airwave).

“kesian, bapak dia.” (“poor thing, his father”.) the lengths the chap went to for his son, taking time off work to meet us and send our car to the workshop, sacrificing his own car for his son to use, footing the bill…

he imagined if it were aniq who messed up like that some day in the future – and we’re quite sure he’s capable of messing up to some degree, not that we’d wish it, of course – he too would be the one to “clean up his shit” (hey, his words, not mine). because, “that’s just what fathers do” (again, his words).

his perspective on fatherhood made me grin a little despite myself. just yesterday, i got mad at the little boy over something and told him i was SO angry, i was not going to talk to him, which made him cry, which made me even madder, and i told his daddy to deal with it.

because that’s what i do when i get mad – i tell them to GO TO DADDY. because daddy is the calm ocean to mummy’s turbulent tornado. (as to why she is predisposed as such, is for another day to discuss and dissect.)

so… yeah, daddy cleans up the shit.

driving lesson 101: DO NOT – i repeat, DO NOT – bang into anyone in front of you. or your mommy will get REAAALLY MAD.

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been meaning to post this up a few days ago.

i’d screamed my head off each time she attempted to climb over the back of our new sofa, and also at her brother whom she was imitating. her daddy told me it was no use coz she’d already done this stunt a few times, but only at the point of me capturing this vid that i discovered she really could do it – without harming herself, apparently.

grrrr.

note her “dare-you-to-stop-me” look while she performed the stunt for my benefit, and then gleefully dancing her arms about as she tottered away from me in escape from persecution.

i once overheard an old makcik, a long time ago in my teenage days, loudly warning her young charges who were swinging on railings or whatever – “jangan buat gitu! nanti kau jatuh, kepala kau pecah!” and i remembered thinking, come on, makcik, seriously? break his head? how melodramatic! hyperbolic! exaggerating! coz it seemed ridiculous that a kid, an agile one at that, could drop on his head from swinging on some mere low railings, and have his skull crack open, spilling its bloody content out all over the ground.

but now, many years later and having become a mom, the image has turned into a highly possible (and gory) reality, and the same phrase, which i once scoffed indignantly at in my arrogant youth, is perpetuated on my very own children.

“TURUN! JANGAN BUAT GITU, NANTI KAU JATUH, KEPALA KAU PECAAAAH!”

yes, i have turned into that histrionic makcik after all, in this great, karmic circle of life.

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not sure why, but when she saw my 11-yr-old nephew, she flashed herself – and kept doing it when she met him another day (means she remembers him specifically; she doesn’t do it to anyone else… i hope). then she kept tugging his shirt from behind, giggling when he carries her.

omg. smitten with boys at 18mths?? :S

speaking of reaching 18 mths, have been thinking of placing the lil one in either her brother’s previous playgroup for a daily 3-hour programme, or half-day care at his current childcare centre. asked him if he would help look out for his sister if she were in his school. he said he would. “adik can go in baby class,” he says.

i like that the boy is largely independent, too curious for his own good, mischievous to no end (!!), but loving and lovable in his own rambunctious way. his sister has somewhat similar traits, but a girl being a girl, has a certain… je ne sais quoi that makes her a bit more adorable AND annoying at the same time. (how do you explain the nuances of ‘mentel’ and ‘menggeramkan’ in english anyway?)

sometimes we like to try to figure out who or where they get their particular traits from – her hard-headed stubbornness from mummy? his playfulness from daddy? – then give up, because it didn’t matter; they’re a mishmash of DNAs, each the way they are as a result of personality, circumstances, environment; a cocktail concoction of nature and nurture. and as they say, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. besides, i’ve asked mum on several occasions whether i was ever like either of them in terms of behaviour, and she could never confirm or deny, excuse being she “can’t remember”. i wish i knew, coz from the few unsmiling pictures of me, i figured i was quite a grumpy child. (not much has changed then.) on the other hand, EVERYBODY on izad’s side of the family tells me he was the naughtiest and most mischievous of the lot, so looks like that part didn’t skip a generation (darnnit).

so anyway, back to my so-called ‘planning’ and ‘strategies’. sure, letting the lil one hang around at home would be the easiest solution. it’s not so much for lack of support from the grandparent or hired help that i seemingly ‘banish’ them to playgroups and childcare. but rather, for the chance to explore, discover, adapt to other activities and people, big and small, in the expansive world out there, outside of the house and the gogglebox, that i wish to contribute to their whole, with whatever limited means that i have. do they really need it? will they be deprived otherwise? maybe, maybe not. i don’t know, i lean more towards the ‘let’s-expose-them’ camp than the ‘let’s-shelter-them’ camp.

but meanwhile, err, let’s not over-expose yourself there, lil one, and STOP FLASHING YOUR BRITNEY BITS!

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we used to do this on aniq to amuse ourselves, now it’s her turn.

==================

(purely for recording purposes):
i guess i should note for posterity, like i did the last time with the elder one, that she’s weaned herself off b/f-ing at around 16 mths (11 of which were exclusive). a mean feat? i think so, seeing she wasn’t as much of a guzzler.

guess we both didn’t have the drive to keep going till she turned two years after all. which was just as well, coz the supply had gone dismal, and we’re both happy being independent off each other.

so yeah, no more baby hanging on mah titties! *throws confetti* (though there’s actually little for celebration, as i’ve learnt the last time, re: deflated boobs, slower metabolism, etc.)

OH WELL. bbbffffbbbbffffff.

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So we got an explanation for the crankiness. Little A’s got Roseola aka false measles.

“Roseola is a common viral infection in children. It is also known as erythema subitum. Roseola is not a major health problem. It goes away on its own without treatment.

Roseola is caused by a viral infection. It is spread by droplets in the air when someone who is infected sneezes or coughs. It most often affects children ages 6 months to 2 years.

Symptoms progress in stages. The stages are:

Stage one: 3-4 days of high fever (102-104°F). Your child is likely to feel cranky and uncomfortable during the fever.

Stage two: A rash that appears on the torso after the fever goes away. The rash is red and can be raised or flat, and may sometimes spread to the face or limbs. The rash is not painful. It tends to wax and wane (get better and worse) over the course of 3-4 days. Your child may feel cranky or itchy during the rash stage of roseola.

Other symptoms are fussiness, loss of appetite and sleeping less.”

You can say hers are typical textbook symptoms, coz the doc literally opened her drawer, took out a medical textbook, and flipped open the page on roseola, with pictures and exact descriptions of the virus.

Aiyah, why you never sayyy, ah girl.

So anyway, mystery solved. Her oma can rest well now. Sheesh.

On another note, think we’ll make raffles medical at tampines 1 our regular paedi now. So convenient and we paid subsequent consultation fee although it was our first time, coz she was born at RMH.

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“Even if she’s no beauty, dear God pls give her a good brain.”

who would’ve thought that an off-the-cuff, half-baked thought, in the middle of the night, typed out in the haze of slumber, in the confines of a text bar for 140 characters, would spark such controversy.

the scene: mother nursing her baby girl who was falling asleep in the comfort of a suckled bosom, her lids drooping heavily, drifting away to dreamland, sweet and innocent, right down to her tiny toenails.

looking at her, her big round head and funny-looking hair (what we call “mad scientist hair”, especially when it’s all wiry with sweat), her little button nose (in malay, you’d call it “pesek” or flat) and her perpetually drooling lips, her barely there eyebrows and lashes – the mother swells with nothing short of pride that this little being in her arm is “JUST SO CUTE!” that she repeats it like a broken record every day to her husband for affirmation, and receives it with a nod of agreement and a fatherly grin each time.

coz let’s face it, in every parent’s (very) biased world, their child/ren ARE the cutest.

but rationale being a bitch, they know that to say it out loud often enough to anyone else would appear presumptuous to the point of obnoxious.

and well, we wouldn’t want THAT, would we, now?

so mother downplays it.

yeah, baby doesn’t have curly locks of hair. she doesn’t have fluttery doll-like lashes. her nose isn’t sharp, neither is her chin. she doesn’t have a dimple in her cheek. and so, through absolutely no fault on her part, she has little of the features associated with your quintessential beauty.

which is all well and fine, coz that’s all part of your DNA, baby. god knows mummy herself looked funny as a baby (with pictures to prove).

the thing that really matters, is that she is adorable to me, to no end. couldn’t you guess from the infinite number of photos and anecdotes streamed through our various platforms of communication?

but at this point, and mostly in the future, it is a mother’s utmost wish that this girl will worry little about the superficial, and hone her more worthy God-given faculty of the mind and intelligence, to make the right choices and decisions, to better herself and acquire everything she will ever need in life through that. as PCK would say, though in quite a different context, “use your blain!”

and all that, my friends, was what mother meant to convey, albeit pathetically, in a 140 character tweet. (yes, i over-think things, that’s my dysfunction. annoying as hell, i know.)

but if you even bothered reading between the lines in the first place, if you knew me well enough, as i would expect you, a non-stranger, to – you would never, EVER, for a moment think that i would intentionally ‘insult’ my child through a compressed one-liner to convey my innermost thoughts.

then again, i guess i never should’ve attempted in the first place, coz the fact that you think i’d even do such a thing, is an insult in itself.

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so we’re halfway through our week-long break.

we let aniq ditch school from tuesday onwards, and since our half-cooked plans to get out of the country didn’t look like it’d materialise, i thought, what the heck, we can still have fun right here without getting our passports stamped, dammit.

no fixed itinerary. just free-and-easy.

at marina barrage, after our holiday ‘tradition’ of a mackers big breakfast.

a panoramic view of the skyline marred by cranes and buildings undergoing construction, some information about water (i think, ha haha), a wide open grass area that’d be great for kite-flying or a picnic (if one doesn’t mind a suntan while at it). and a shallow wading pool thingy, alike the one at vivo, except, perhaps, cleaner. nothing makes kiddies happier than splashing about in a bit of water on a hot day. coz they’re easily amused like that.

and after all that sun, a bit of ice kacang was called for. these were particularly good.

can’t you tell? they were so good, daddy’s ratty handkerchief had to double up as a bib for the little one, who dug in with as much relish as the rest of us.

Bottle Tree Park, where some pathetic attempts at fishing took place. lol!

for $10, we got a boy with his pants soaked, mommy with slimy feet from pond scum, baby with restraint fishermen instincts, and daddy who caught 11 longkang guppies but gave credit to his 3-year-old for the triumph. much to the delight of the baby, who now knows what ‘fish’ is. (when asked “where’s the fish?”, she’d waddle to the kitchen where the fish was subsequently held captive in their fishtank. they were all to die tragically 24 hours later – death by chlorinated water. talk about irresponsible pet owners, tsk.)

the boy spent quality time with his yai today (no doubt glued to the video game console), while the girl spent quality time with her daddy (trawling sim lim and funan, future techie in training). and mommy, err, spent quality time with her friend in retail therapy. ahh, the life.

“let’s go, my engine’s revved up!”

nope, it’s not turning out to be a SAHM week after all. there’s to be no staying at home, that’s fer sure.

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oh well, if all mummy had WAS a backrub, we wouldn’t have anyone for abang aniq to torment.

and we wouldn’t have anyone else for daddy to dress up like a boy. (yes, this was all his work.)

she’s turning out to be quite a character, and developing quite a sense of humour too. this is the part i like best, where they discover they can purposefully make us laugh, and laugh along with us.

and just as soon as she’s perfected her nodding, she’s gone on to the next phase – head-shaking. which made me laugh the first few times she started doing it, till i realised that encouraging it probably wasn’t the best idea coz now she’ll start to refuse everything we want her to do.

guess the joke’s on me. :p

now, gimme that backrub…

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this happens pretty often at home.

two kids, outside my bathroom, banging down the door, hurrying me to be done with whatever i’m doing already. they can always sniff me out when i’m in there. internal gps, much? but, it’s mummy’s only sanctuary!

and if you can make out the big brother’s silhouette, he’s bending down to relay to his little sister that mummy is not done yet. (he also heard my camera phone in action and asked “why you taking picture?”. i was too busy giggling to explain.)

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