My dsyfunctional family

I wanted to go out for dinner to celebrate with my colleagues today, but my mom told me last minute that she wanted to go out and could only take one kid. The bigger one who is easier to bring out. After I've asked if she could take care of them both, and she promised to, and I had told my colleagues that I'll be attending. *sigh*

Now why did she have to go? Today she rushed home so as to pack lunch for her son. Her 28 years old son. Who is going overseas to work. Who wrote out a list of essential things to bring then dump the list with the mother and expected her to get for him. Whose mother had to worry about him getting a flu jab and bringing the appropiate medicines. Who expected the mother to pack his luggage for him.

I do not begrudge my parents going overseas after he settles down, but all these preparations should be done by him himself. So today after my mom rushed home, she called me to say that he would be going for dinner with his friends after all. They were supposed to go shopping for stuffs for him. I mean, can't he even get his own stuffs himself?

And my mother told me that because she was not around, her sons were not able to have breakfast in the morning. Like it's my fault for keeping her away from her sons. Geez. Hey, we aren't talking about school-going children here okay.

Next time, my kids will make breakfast for me and for themselves.

It's not that difficult to take care of both kids actually, just tiring. And hubby doesn't come home till so late. Although I really appreciate my mother helping me with the kids, the way she goes on and on about it sometimes drives one crazy. It's more stressful listening to her.

The government wants its citizens to have more kids, but what's the point of having kids if one does not have time or energy to spend with them? If you don't have time to spend with the kids, don't expect to come home from work and have your children running to hug you because they miss you. Bah, they won't because they don't even recgonise you. And when you're working so hard, by the time you're home and have free time, all you want to do is to rest and have your own personal time. The government wants mothers to have more kids, and continue working after that. Is that going to work?

Phut phut ... the poo index

It's a lovely day today. Let's talk about poo. They come in many different shapes, colours and smell.

My dearest boy is now potty-trained. After a few canings and 'accidents'. I won't really call them accidents you know, after all, poo announces itself quite loudly, it's just that he didn't want to sit on the potty and pooed all over the floor. That's one gross factor 10 plus plus. Nowadays, he'll sit on the potty after announcing that he has a tummyache. And his poo is a LOT. Well formed, nice solid durian-like poo. Feels like durian too. That's what dear hubby said, after he had to pick up his son's poo off the floor. Euuugh.

And while he sits on the potty doing his poo poo, us poor mummies have to sit by him to keep him company and smell his really smelly poo poo. Reason being to make sure he completes his poo poo business, and not get up suddenly and drop the poo poo on the floor. That defeats using the potty right? (Trust me, it happened) So sometimes I'll read him a book (yeah, it's really a big long business), and sometimes I'll tell him a story. Actually I've only sat with him twice. Most times, he's at my parent's place. Timing, you know. Heh.

Now my dear daughter, she poos just about every minute. She sneezes, and phuts. She coughs, and phuts. She hiccs, and phuts. So there I was lifting her little butt, when she phut. The poo shot out with a force of a speeding bullet, fortunately, I had quick reflexes, and could feel the poo shot past the hairs of my arm. Splat, and it landed on the floor mat. Yellow runny eggy stuffs. Gross.

Life after two

I know I haven't been posting much nowadays. There're always other things to do when one is on the computer. Like reading other people's blogs, reading reviews an watching animes. Well, that is when the two kids are sleeping. Otherwise, my dearest boy will always be clamoring for dinosaur cartoons, which one has to look for them in youtube. The power of the internet! The power of YouTube!

The grandfather and the father have been showing him youtube vidoes of tanks and aeroplanes and lots of war stuffs. My darling boy has quite a violent vocab at two years and eight months. Also, the darling boy can switch on the laptop himself and I'm trying to get him to recognise alphabets by teaching him on the computer keyboard.

Fortunately, he still likes listening to stories and enjoys cuddling with me to read books together. *whew* It's quite scary what computer takes away from us!

The second one has been a bit neglected. Today she just had her first jab. Which should actually be done when she was one and a half months old. With our boy, I was very concerned about dates and stuffs, and he gets a proper assessment every month, plus we did all the weighing and measuring height and head circumfence diligently. We weighed our girl at one month, and she was about 5.2kg! Very big! Mom was already complaining that she doesn't fit into the bathtub! Didn't take her height and head circumfence though, and now she's two months already! Time sure flies.

My dearest daughter has quite a different disposition from her brother. She's not amused to be awaken at night for her feed even though it's been like more than four hours already. She's not amused when she's crying loudly to have a breast stuffed into her mouth. She's not amused when her diapers is soiled. She's not amused when she's not hungry but it's more than four hours and she needs to be fed and so stuff breast into her mouth. Gosh, her voice is loud and fierce. And she's not easily soothed. Unlike her brother. Cry, give milk = happy. This one, cry, cannot give milk. Must soothe first, generally by carrying (must be upright) and walking around and patting. *whew*

It's really not easy taking care of two. Mom still comes and help, and some nights, we send our boy over. Wednesdays and Fridays are school days for our boy. He is in the morning session, and we have been late for the past few weeks. *bleah* It's not really our son's fault, it's just that there's so many things to take care of, and the boy is not the easiest person to feed breakfast to. Fortunately, he looks forward to going to school, so there's no problem in that at all.

I'm glad that my boy adapts so quickly to school. It really saves a lot of headache. The first day in school, I sat in with him for the two and a half hours. The second time, he cried for an hour when I left. The third time, he cried for half and hour. The fourth time, he pulled my hand a bit but didn't look back when I disengaged and left. Nowadays, he hops into class, sits down besides his best friend, says things like 'I brought my police car today!' and never a look or bye to his poor mom. Heh. Not that I'm sad or anything ... I'm really proud of my darling boy. Of course the heart aches a bit since he didn't even say goodbye.

I'm so lucky that my mom is so caring and helpful. When we send our boy over, I could really spend quality time with my baby daughter. When she's here, she'll look after baby and cooks for us. And I could spend quality time with my boy. Or to get a proper rest = sleep. Nights isn't really restful. And when my mom is around, I could bring my boy swimming. We did that a few times already, and my boy has become a bit braver. He'll hold onto his floats, those long stringly ones, and I'll be a few feet in front of him. I also bought him a watergun to encourage him to swim, and he was so happy. The last time we went swimming, he toppled over into the water, somehow the stringly floats rolled under him and he slowly toppled - from upright position to lying back on the water and slowly starting to sink, after he lost his grip on his floats. I rushed to him, but you know how things are ... when in a hurry it became even slower! Heh heh. All is okay, he just got a bit of a shock, and the darling boy never even let go of his watergun throughout!

Will bring him swimming again when all of us recovers from runny noses!

Motherhood

It's really nice not having to wake up so early and rush to work. Life with the kids is so meaningful, yet sometimes it can be rather stressful, especially when the two of them cries at the same time. The big one should know better, and fortunately he's not like that all the time. Except that one night, just me and the two of them, and that wasn't very fun.

Anyway, the dearest son is a really good kid most of the time. Sometimes he does get jealous and scratches his little sister. But when I look at it, I see that he just wants the attention, especially that of his grandmother. He doesn't do that when I'm around. Except that one night when she cried non-stop, and he was trying to be helpful by beating her cos' she's naughty. *sigh* Of course that only makes her cry even louder!

He's an intelligent boy and knows what is right and what is wrong. It's rather amazing what kids know nowadays. I'm glad to be able to spend time with him.

Been watching the olympics. Didn't know that starhub had six channels dedicated to the olympics until 3 days before the end. Caught the rhythmic gymnast performance and am so impressed with the gold medalist individual, Evgenia Kanaeva. Her performance is so beautiful, so graceful, really a class above the rest. She seems to be dancing and floating, definitely deserves the gold medal. Catch her ribbon performance here. She performed the same dance in the olympics. The music is as beautiful as her dance. Photos of her here. I love her performance with the ribbon and the hoop best.