Sibling Dynamics

Ive been observing the siblings interacting with each other and im greatly amused by their antics.

Scenario 1:

Im about to leave the house with Terelle, we are going to watch a play. She gleefully skips over to where her brother is playing quietly and taunts him.

Terelle: Oei Baby! Mummy is bringing me out! We are going to a PLAY. A PLAY, you know what that is? Its for MUMMIES AND BIG KIDS, babies are not allowed! Whahahaha!

Thane: (Realises that he wont be going out with us)

*Starts howling and clings to my leg*

Terelle: Stop crying baby, u cant go out! CANT GO OUT! hahahhaha!

Thane: *Yells louder*

Me, i have to pacify him by telling him that i promise to bring him out the next day, ALONE, without his sister.

He seems to understand and allows himself to be carried away by our helper, back into the house, but not without protest.

Terelle continues her ribbing all the way down the corridor.

My poor son lingering forlornly by the gate

I tell her that when i bring Baby out the next day, it will be her turn to stay home.

She is unfazed.

Scenario 2:

They are playing with their 'Monster vs Aliens' toys from MacDonalds.

Thane wants The Missing Link but Terelle refuses to give it to him, cos she is using him to stage an epic battle with Galaxxar.

He yells, they fight, i manage to break it up.

Awhile later, Thane somehow manages to get his hands on The Missing Link. However, he wants to watch a repeat of the battle so he offers him to Terelle and indicates that he wants to watch Galaxxar pummel the fish-man.

She, by now, is bored and doesnt want that toy.

He insists that she take it.

She yells, they fight.

I laugh.

Scenario 3:

Naptime. They climb into the cot beside the window and look out at the park below and the opposite block.

They are both clutching their beloved blankies and Terelle is pointing out nothing much in particular to her brother.

But he is enthralled and they both go "ooh" and "aah" at everything and anything.

I sit by the side, watching and feeling glad that they have one another for company.

Scenario 4:

Dinnertime. They sit side by side at the table.

Terelle puts her elbows on the table very near to Thane.

He decides that she is invading his personal space and tries to push her arms off the table.

She finds is hilarious that he is geting riled up and refuses to budge.

He yells and starts hitting her.

She screams for me and starts complaining.

I dont know if i should laugh or scold them.

Scenario 5:

We are in the taxi. Thane suddenly decides that he would like to attempt to call his sister.

Thane: *Softly with a shy smile* Jie Jie

Terelle is overjoyed that her brother can call her at last.

Terelle: Baby call Jie Jie, baby call Jie Jie!

Thane: *louder* Jie Jie!

Terelle is really chuffed now. She yells at the top of her lungs.

Terelle: BABY CALL JIE JIE! CALL JIE JIE!

However, by now Thane has lost interest and plays with his toy.

Terelle: BABY CALL JIE JIE!!! CALL JIE JIE!!!!

He looks at her as if she's a raving lunatic.

Ive to calm her down lest the taxi uncle throws us out.

When night falls...

I hate bedtime. Absolutely detest, abhor, dread...even fear it.
Why so, u may ask?

1. The kids love to fight sleep. After the routine bedtime stories, teeth brushing and washing up, they will go to their room and laugh, squeal, bounce around, do somersaults and basically egg each other on to see who can create a greater ruckus.

No amount of yelling, threatening or scolding on my part will make them stop. Only until their last ounce of energy is spent will they lie down , exhausted but satisfied.

I cant leave them alone because they love to play rough and i have to keep an eye on the baby, lest his sister breaks his bones in her over zealous enthusiasm.

And so there i sit, in semi darkness, while they run riot beside me. And i am helpless until all their energy is exhausted.

2. Once they're pooped, I have to breastfeed Thane to sleep and keep Terelle company at the same time. If im lucky, breastfeeding him will take a mere 15min. If im not, it can drag up to 2 hours.

Left side, right side, left, right, left, right... the fussy boy just cant seem to settle.

If he's down fast enough, ill have to play dead beside Terelle till she falls asleep. Some nights she takes a long time to go down, and ill invariably end up falling asleep in a weird position, waking up with a bad crick in my neck/shoulder, totally numb arms and a pounding headache.

Again, i cant up and leave cos Terelle insists i stay. If not she will launch into her hysterics and follow me around the house, simply refusing to stay put in her room.
She claims that Baby Bone is too small to protect her from the monster in her room.


Tsk tsk, you may go. Bad sleep habits, i know, especially the breastfeeding Thane to sleep part.

Trust me, ive tried letting him fall asleep on his own. But he'll either cry himself hoarse or wait up and continue playing till i come and nurse him to sleep.

Many a time have i come home from tuition to find him still wide awake at 1030pm cos he's waiting for me. He is obviously tired, but the stubborn boy just wont rest till he's got the breasts.


3. Once they are asleep, im torn between going to bed early and catching up on my forever insufficient sleep or spending some precious quality time with hubby. Cos it is only after the kids sleep do we get to chat, watch some tv or have a bite of supper together.

I always wind up choosing hubby over sleep, resulting in an even bigger sleep debt which i dont think i can ever dream of repaying.


4. When i finally get to bed, i am thoroughly beat. I dread to think that any moment, the baby will wake and ive to go tend to him, leaving me with another night of broken sleep.

If he doesnt nurse, he will want to sleep on my chest for comfort. Imagine a 11kg weight crushing your ribcage. Sleep? What sleep?

If i ignore him, he will stuff his little fingers in my nostrils and yank my face towards him.

If i still resolutely pay no attention to him, he will start to howl. And ill surrender. Cos if he snaps out of his half asleep daze, that's it for me. He'll be bouncing off the walls for the next 2 hours.

And so ill end up spending the next half hour nursing him, me wide eyed in the dark, the rest of my family snoring contentedly around me.

We've tried letting him cry it out when he wakes but ultimately, one of us will give in, usually hubby, cos he has to work the next day.
"Just give him the breast and shut him up!", he would fume.

I would yield when his cries turn into wracking sobs that leave him shuddering for breath.

We've tried giving him water when he wakes to nurse but he takes a few sips and starts to howl again.

We've tried giving him a bottle of milk. Same thing.

We've tried singing, rocking, bouncing, talking...nothing works.
He just wants the mammaries.
Worst of all, he doesnt even drink properly. He just sucks for comfort.

Terelle, god bless her little soul, never had such sleep issues. As soon as her energy is all used up, she sleeps like a dream. No amount of screaming on her brother's part can wake her and she will sleep her requisite 10hours straight at night.
And this is on top of her standard 2 hour nap in the afternoon.

I know its bad to compare, but why is it so damn hard to put Thane to sleep?
Have i really done wrong by not inculcating good sleep habits from young?
Ill give anything if he can sleep independently without nursing and sleep throughout the night just like his sister.

As a stay at home mum, ive had to deal with many challenges regarding raising the kids; tantrums, whining, illnesses, discipline...But NOTHING, nothing comes close to dealing with Thane's sleep issues.

Because of him, im constantly tired, crabby and snapping at everyone all the time. Ive no energy for my beloved sports and can hardly engage the kids in meaningful activities in the day.

I dont know how long more of this i can take. Already my days go by in a woozy daze because i only get 5 hours (max) of broken sleep every night.

If anyone has any ideas, please give me some new insights to resolve this nightmare, if not i think ill seriously go cuckoo from lack of sleep.

My happy Mothers' Day

I received this beautiful hand made card from my brood on Mothers' Day!

Hubby spent many gruelling hours at the scrapbooking shop, painstakingly learning techniques from the pros just so he could come up with this masterpiece.

It is a feat for him and i am particularly touched because he is not one for art and intricate detailing, his fingers are too huge! haha...and also because much thought has gone into making this card unique and symbolic.

• The background is an array of numbers of varyg sizes. Hubby highlighted the numbers '5' and '7' with glittering red sequins, representing Terelle and Thane (To fully appreciate these 2 numbers, read my post on "Uncanny coincidence")

  

• The '5' just so happened to be bigger in size than the number '7'!
  
  

  
  

• Hubby chose fabric flowers with a snazzy retro print on them cos i love all things vintage. He tells me Terelle carefully stuck them on the card


• And the message reads "Not by chance but by the grace of God". How apt!

And i was treated to a Mothers' Day crab and prawn feast, ironically sans kids. Haha cos if they were around, the meal wouldnt have been half as enjoyable!

As Collin Raye would croon," For all the wrong ive done in my life, i must have done something right", similarly i think im doing ok in God's eyes to deserve my 3 greatest blessings!

I love all of you! Thanks for making this Mothers' Day the most special one yet!

On a side note, "she" didnt throw her usual histrionics this year. There was no launching into her annual tirade about how insincere we are and how "everyday could be Mother's Day and not specially today", and even despite us not planning anything fanciful in her honor.

It was a special Mothers' Day indeed.

Foolishly fashionable or fashionably foolish?

God is awesome. He uses the most unexpected scenarios to teach us the most humbling of lessons. And i was taught an important life's lesson this mothers' day.

The contest form in the Sunday Times heralded the search for Singapore's Most Fashionistic Mum. The contest rules were simple: Mums were to be given a time limit and a budget to shop for themselves and their hubbies and the most fashionable one would walk away with a truckload of prizes.
I was intrigued. Should i sign up?

Im a self proclaimed shopping queen.

I pride myself on being able to grab the best bargains in the shortest period of time, a skill honed from countless jaunts in flea markets overseas on a shoestring budget.

I can pull together a decent look, so that even when i go to the coffee shop, i dont look like a train wreck.

Im a mum and can modestly say i didnt let it all go after 2 kids.

And I love a good challenge in the name of fun.
Hell, why not?

But as usual, the procrastinator in me hemmed and hawed over sending in the application, finally only doing it on the very last day and sending in two rather mediocre pics of myself. Thinking that i wouldnt get chosen since i sent in the form so late, i didnt think too much of it.

To my surprise, a call came one week later asking me to go down for an audition as i had been shortlisted for the contest.

.......

During the audition, as soon as i walked into the room to face the 2 interviewers, they asked me why did i send in such pics which didnt show my features clearly. "Why, are u disappointed with what you see in real life?" i asked. Ha ha...

They then commented on my height and asked if i had any modelling experience and then the interview was over.

So short? Ahhh, that's it for me, I thought.

That night, another call came informing me that i had been shortlisted as one of the 8 finalists for the competition. Whoa now this i didnt expect!

.......

And so, the day of the competition came. I didnt expect that it was to be similar to a beauty contest! In addition to the shopping with a budget segment, we had to catwalk in our denims, and then go through a q n a in our sportswear. Gawd...if i had known it was so pagent-like, I would have thought twice or three times before i signed up!

I always thought pagents were flesh parades for bimbos and was thoroughly mortified to actually be a contestant on one myself.

.........

And so on the day itself, my brood trooped down to Plaza Sing to lend support.

First round: We had to appear on stage in a white top and denim bottom sans makeup, and do a brief intro about ourselves.

No problem for me, Im always running around without a scrap of makeup anyway. (Not to be catty but during the briefing, there was an audible gasp from some of the other girls when they heard they had to appear in public without any makeup on...heehee...)

That's all of us fashionable mums...haha

The eventual winner was the 1st lady

Then we had 2 hours to shop for an outfit adhering to the theme of "Going on a holiday" and get my hair and make up done. And here's where we screwed up...big time...

Hubby and I have always talked about going sailing when we retire. So we thought, why dont we dress as if we were going for a little chi-chi soiree with some close friends, aboard a yatch?
It would definitely be different from the get up of the other contestants, cos everyone would go for beachy, resort wear for a short getaway, and we may just score well for standing out.

But have we EVER gone sailing on a yatch?
Nope.

Do we even know how do people dress at these so called "canape and champagne" events?
Nope.

Wouldnt we be dressing in a way that is way off from what we usually wear?
Oh god, yes.

We made our purchases and had loads of time to spare. Feeling smug and gleefully thinking we had outsmarted everyone, we got changed. Me into my sports attire, hubby into this shirt and preppy, argyle printed vest combo. (He did look smart, but it just wasnt HIM...)

Second round: Q & A in our sports attire. I chose a simple black tube and fitting track pants with stripes down the side, and swung my "look at me" retro purple jacket over my shoulder.

I thought i cut a pretty good picture, and i answered ok for the q & a segment too. I was very encouraged by the nods of approval from the judges and was delighted to see many people casting their votes in my favor. (There was this box for the crowd to vote for any particular mum whom they thought would win the contest)

And then it was down to the last segment. This time, we had to appear onstage with our hubbies and explain the reasons behind choosing each item of clothing. Sounds easy rite?

But hubby and I were so self conscious from being decked out in threads we were unaccustomed to, that we kinda bumbled on stage, shuffled uncomfortably towards the emcee and then stood so far apart from each other it looked as though we were mere acquaintances instead of husband and wife.

Then the emcee ripped our entire getup to shreds.

Why did u choose heels for a sailing trip?
Why is he wearing sneakers?
Shouldnt you be wearing a gown and tux for a high society event?
Why are you guys even thinking about a retirement holiday when u are still so young?

Dats me in my sailing booboo getup

Yet we could still fend off his line of questioning and foolishly thought we still stood a good chance. (I didnt think i would win, cos one of the mums - the eventual winner, was really good looking and she was tall and slim and had great fashion sense, but i really thought we could at least be placed)

When the results were announced, I had the highest number of votes from the public and was presented with a swarovski crystal necklace.

That was a nice surprise and spirits buoyed, i waited to hear my name being called for at least 3rd place.
Such big headedness, such overconfidence!

Posing with Fong Fan, the celebrity stylist after winning Most Popular

Of cos, God does not favor such arrogant thoughts. When my name was called as one of the consolation prize winners, I was stumped. I could see hubby was stupefied too. The same thought flashed between us: What went wrong?

After thinking long and hard, it then dawned upon us that we were just not ourselves. Why did we bother to choose such outlandish outfits? Our simple tank top, tees, bermudas and sporty walking shoes would have sufficed.

Why did we say we were going sailing when the thing we missed most after having kids was going on our backpacking trips? A short getaway could see us going off the beaten track to nearby Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos and our usual getup would be perfect for such a holiday. (Come to think of it, i really should have just bought a new pair of walking shoes with the budget money, mine are so worn out! I wanna kick myself!)

And being in those alien clothes just made us so awkward. Zero marks for chemistry. Zero marks for confidence. Zero marks for relevance to theme.

Sigh...we've realised that we are highly competitive people. Every contest we join, we hope to win and that aggressive spirit of ours costs us dearly cos we never stop to think carefully and plan our course of actions.

And so God has taught us a humbling lesson. Always be yourself and never let things get to your head, cos when you fall, it will be a pretty hard wake up tumble.

But it was fun and we'll definitely still sign up for more contests! Just no more pageants for me. *Cringe*

Bento Binge

Went to Daiso a couple of days ago and chanced upon these adorable little containers that could be used to hold different kinds of food to be packed in a bento. They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes - penguins, hearts, butterflies, flowers...and had lovely pastel hues.

I gleefully bought a couple back home, thinking i could pack a little bento set for Terelle on the days she has to stay back in school for enrichment classes.

On the said day, out came the cute little silicon cups and in went a cheese sandwich (cut into 3 bite sized pieces to fit 3 little cups), some raisins, some colorful cornflakes and a marshmellow.

Terelle was bug eyed with anticipation when she saw what I had packed that day. She was profuse with her "i love you Mummy"s and "Thank you so much mummy"s and lavished me with hugs and kisses and kept declaring that I was the "best mummy in the whole world".

Here she is, not able to take her eyes off the bento box, all the way to the car

Thank you baby, for reminding me that it doesnt take alot to make you happy and that simple things can earn me the stripes of a pretty awesome mum in your eyes.

Flu bug

She has succumbed. After 7 long months of being in the pink of health, she has finally succumbed to a flu bug. In fact Im surprised that she hasnt fallen sick in such a long time! *touch wood!!!*

It all started with a little, intermittent cough that slowly developed into a runny nose and watery eyes. But that was as bad as it got. She skipped school for a day and i knocked her out with medicine from the GP. After an extremely long nap of 4.5hrs, she was 80% back to normal.

I am so relieved and thank God that her health is so much better now. Never again would i want a repeat of how sick she was when Baby Bone was just a month old. (Read my post on "Things will only get better")

This is a cinch. This doesnt make me a wreck. This I can handle.

Speechless

Terelle has no qualms about voicing her displeasure and will unabashedly comment on something that offends her sensibilities or for my following case in point, her senses.

We get into the lift which is jam packed with people. Someone in there has a serious case of body odour. Terelle clamps her hand over her nose and mouth and blatantly declares, "Mummy it stinks! Someone STIIIIIINNNKS!"

Some guy turns beet red and shifts uncomfortably. The others either stifle muffled giggles or look horrified.

And me? Im mortified. I keep trying to silence her with "shhhhhs ok that's enough" but nothing will stop her.


"Mummy its very smelly, very smelly! I cant stand it!"

She makes a big show of pinching her nose and breathing through her mouth.

I wish the ground would open up and swallow me.


As soon as we reach our floor, i bolt. She follows me nonchalantly, all the while continuing her tirade.


"Wah that was really stinky. Right mummy? so stinky...tsk tsk..."


I try to tell her that its not nice to say things like that in front of strangers and that she should exercise restraint and not make known her comments until later. To which came her swift reply.

"But why Mummy? When Daddy farts at home, we all say its smelly rite?"

.......

Blessed

When i look at these 3, i feel like ive been given the world