Monthly Archives

April 2011

i embarrass myself sometimes

One of those getaways you want to getaway from

April 18, 2011

We bought one of those deal vouchers for an overnighter at Harris Batam last year but never got around to using until last weekend. Actually we realized it was about to expire so it was a last minute pack and go thing. We couldn’t even bring the kids because their passports weren’t ready in time.

In any case, this was our first time to Indonesia and we were looking forward to some pool time with a good book and authentic Ayam Penyet.

When we arrived, they upgraded us to a cabana, which turned out to be one of those upgrades you don’t necessarily want for several reasons. For one, there’s no shelter to the cabana and we had to carry our bags in the pouring rain to get to the room. And perhaps more importantly, I had to find out (in a very unpleasant manner) that our upgraded cabana was home to a very territorial lizard.

Again, it had to happen just as I was lathering up my hair in the shower. There was a sudden flash of movement and I found myself face to face with a grey obese lizard who obviously had too much Indonesian cuisine in its bulging tummy. Unlike the lizards back home, this one didn’t even bother to scuttle away and it just sat (lay?) there looking like I was the one bothering it with my hair washing.

Cut to right after the screaming and running, I called the hotel lobby and made them switch us back to a regular room, one without lizards. Which they promptly did (props to the staff) but we still had to pack up all our stuff and lug everything over with my hair still lathered up and foamy.

For the rest of the night, I was checking every corner for lizards and jumping at every sudden movement. Not a good way to spend a holiday.

To be fair, the food and the pool were pretty good but seeing that we could get those easily back home, it’s safe to say that we won’t be returning to Harris anytime soon.

But the real killer was the return journey back to Singapore. It was supposed to be a 45-minute ride straight back but our friendly ferry operator, BatamFast, decided to stop over for half and hour at another ferry terminal without so much as a “hey guys FYI we’ll be making a detour here for 30 minutes so just rock out on the ferry ok.”

Now, I’m sure that while BatamFast is a lot of things, fast is not actually one of them. They may want to consider renaming it so we won’t actually expect it to be fast.

It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a high tolerance for rocky boat rides. I’m ok when the ferry is moving but that stationary bobbing kills me. We couldn’t even get off onto solid ground to wait so we were left there just bobbing away while I had my head between my knees trying not to puke. I hope I’ll never have to spend another 30 minutes of my life feeling that miserable again.

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too awesome for words

Motherinc @ the Moleskine Passions exhibition

April 15, 2011

Awesome news! My collaboration with Moleskine on their latest Passions Baby Journal is out in Harris, Kinokuniya, PageOne and Times bookstores.

There’s something about a Moleskine notebook that makes me want to caress those crisp white pages. Also, it makes my scribbles look so much more artistic. I mean, it’s a Moleskine, y’all!

Pop by to take a look if you happen to pass by any of those bookstores.

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homeschooling

Lesson 4: Sorting – a proper lesson for once

April 15, 2011

I’ve been trying to incorporate proper lessons into my homeschooling plans to supplement their playground/monkey face lessons, which although fun, don’t seem like the sort of thing that will get them into Harvard. By proper lessons, I mean the stuff that they’re required to learn in school like spelling and numbers and shapes. Pretty much stuff that they have absolutely no interest in.

Whenever it comes to these lessons, my kids have the attention span of a fish and 2 minutes into the lesson, they either ignore me or simply get up and walk off unceremoniously to go play with trains instead. So I’m constantly on the lookout for ways to make learning fun. Or as I like to call it, sneaking in a lesson so they think they’re playing but I’m actually teaching them something valuable.

I came across this brilliant idea from Jus and decided to try it on the kids. It’s a home-made sorting game where they can sort these cards according to shapes or colors. In one game, they learn shapes, colors and words. Bam, 3-lessons-in-1.

It’s very easy to make, even for someone as artistically challenged as I am. I printed out these shapes in different colors and cut them up into little cards for them to sort.

I actually wanted to laminate it but my laminating machine decided to eat up all my laminating pockets last night so I had to improvise by taping up the sides with magic tape. Tedious but it worked.

I was really surprised by how much the kids loved it. Well, Kirsten only wanted to sort the stars and she would scour the pile then go “TADA I GOT STAR!” I tried getting her to sort according to colors but she was all “no mommy, it’s wrong” and went for the stars instead. But at least she understood the concept of sorting, which was already a success.

Truett, as usual, was very focused on doing it right. He would peer at the stack of cards on the bed before carefully selecting each one as I shouted for random colors and shapes. He also stole my trademark finger-to-lip move whenever I’m pondering something intently like “hmm, let me see…”

Seriously, any game that makes him think this hard has got to be good.

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stuff best described as not safe for parents

Ah Beng goes to East Coast

April 12, 2011

I’m dedicating this post to anyone who at one point in their misguided youth ever (secretly) thought ah bengs and ah lians were cool. Or might have ever been one before (not judging!) I could never bring myself to be one but I’ll admit that there was a point in my life where I thought the outrageously tacky dressing was kind-of-almost-ok-more-than-a-little-bit awesome.

It seems like my kids may just revive the ah beng/lian look and give it a new grunge meets j-pop twist. Basically, a walking fashion disaster.

And yes, I actually let my kids out of the house looking like this. Very terriberrrr parenting.

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homeschooling

Train-setting

April 11, 2011

Truett has been eyeing a wooden train set for several months now. He first saw one at The Better Toy Store, a Thomas train table set that cost a whopping $600. Usually, we try to indulge them since they don’t ask for toys very often but for that price, the train set better be made out of gold and not wood. I checked it many times and I was pretty certain it was all wood (not even wood-plated gold) so we told him there was no way we’d fork out $600 for several pieces of wood.

He didn’t kick up a fuss, but instead kissed the train and waved a longing goodbye before saying, “next time daddy buy train set for me.” That was smooth, and secretly, it made us want to get him the set even more.

So when we made our trip to Florida, we were on a mission to return with a wooden train set for the kids for a lot less than $600. After scouring every toy store in the Orlando vicinity, we decided on 2 different train sets (1 from Imaginarium and 1 from Circo) for about $40 USD. Since the tracks were compatible, I figured I’d mix them up to create a giant set for them.

Joining up the sets was a lot harder than it seemed. I didn’t have any instructions to follow so I had to freestyle most of the time. Also, Tru had a lot of demands like the track had to run under the bridge and I had to use up every piece of track and it had to be rectangular not weirdly shaped. After many hours trying to come up with a design, I finally settled on version 5.3.

The good thing is that it was a huge hit with the kids. It’s by far their favoritest toy and they’ve clocked more hours fiddling with this than any other toy they own. But the frustrating thing is that the playing inevitably degenerates into a Godzilla-destroying-city reenactment. Both kids will stomp on the pieces till they all come crashing down, then they will be all “OH NO TRAIN BROKEN…” and harass me till I rebuild it for them.

I’m thinking of mounting all the pieces on a table for them so I don’t have to keep rebuilding it again and again but I’m a little reluctant to glue all the pieces down permanently in case they want to change the design or add on more tracks in the future.

Any ideas on how I can do this?

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motherhood

If yesterday was a lesson, it’d be: enjoy the journey

April 8, 2011

One of the perks of stay-home mothering is room for spontaneity, a quality often sacrificed in exchange for scheduled routines and regularity.

Yesterday though, was one of those days I decided to play the spontaneity card and be all “ok forget routine, let’s go do something fun just because we can.” Right after they got up from their naps, I told the kids we were going on a field trip to the airport. By bus. Just with mommy.

A year ago, I would have considered something like this to be a suicide mission and not to mention, a physical impossibility. I would have needed to carry 2 kids, a stroller and a diaper bag UP A BUS AND TRAIN. Now I’m not a public transport snob (even though I haven’t been on a bus for 2 years), but the thought of hauling 2 kids and half a mobile home up a bus seems ridiculous. I would have been the mother who dropped a kid while struggling to tap my EZ-link card with my teeth as the rest of the passengers gasped in horror.

Before we left the house, I gave them a pep talk to lay down some ground rules.

1. They were to carry their own bags so I could saunter freely along.

2. They were to hold my hands at all times.

3. No whining or tantrums or meltdowns.

Any violations would result in immediate termination and we would turn right back around, hop into a cab and head straight home (that was my back up plan for when something goes awry).

Long story short, it was a hugely successful field trip, one that will be remembered for all time as THE MOST AWESOME FIELD TRIP ALONE WITH MOMMY. They were on their best behavior the whole time, waiting patiently for the bus, sitting absolutely still on the train and following every instruction I gave (at one point, I made them do the Hot Potato dance just for my own entertainment). The journey to the airport took me an hour and a half and we enjoyed every moment of it.

So then that made me realize that I was guilty of being so destination-driven all the time. We talk about “enjoying the ride” like the overused catchphrase that it is without actually meaning it because the journey is so like meh, totally boring.

But for the kids, the journey was as much a highlight as the destination. Being on the bus and train was as enjoyable as being at the airport. So instead of stoning out and wishing the travelling wasn’t such a pain, I should just stop and enjoy the crap out of the journey.

Looking back at our recent Florida trip, some of the best moments we had was during the journey – waiting for the bus to arrive or being on the tram talking for hours. Sure, the destination was all kinds of fun but those long talks and bonding sessions, we had them on the go.

In short, remember to enjoy the journey, won’t you?

PS. I wanted to take some pictures but being alone on an adventure with both kids, I kind of had my hands full. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

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coolest kids ever

When I grow up, I’m going to be a race car driver

April 7, 2011

From time to time, I like to imagine the kids in different occupations. Occasionally, I take it a step further and dress them up for more realistic visualization. Most of them have flopped miserably and as a result have been struck off the list.

This one made it to the possible-but-potentially-problematic list, and only because baby girl totally rocks the race car driver look.

Truett got stuck with the job of the reluctant chauffeur coolie. He doesn’t rock that look so much; I’ll have to work on his list of approved occupations.

As a back up plan, we’re also adding playground safety officer to baby girl’s list. Not quite as prestigious as a race car driver but they always tell you to work on their strengths and she is really good at limbering up and making sure the playgrounds are safe for babies.

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