My mom was cleaning out her house recently and she found this.
That photo of me and my brother was taken 26 years ago (incidentally, our age gap is also 13 months).
And this is Tru and Kirsten now. Ok seriously, even the hair is exactly the same. Clones attack!
As the kids grow older, I’m increasingly convinced that having them so close together was the best thing we’ve done. Especially when they seem to have really hit it off as siblings.
I’m even starting to forget how tough things were during the first year after Kirsten was born. Those wonderful days when they used to scream for hours in perfect unison as I struggled to carry, feed and pat both babies at once. Fun times.
Then one day they grew up and became friends – friends who had fun together. They would snuggle in bed talking and laughing every morning. They figured out how to deal with each other’s quirks and foul moods. They learnt to play together, dance together, do somersaults together and get into trouble together.
Sometimes I just sit and listen to their conversations because watching them enjoy each other’s company is priceless. Also because it’s important to keep tabs on the harebrained schemes they come up with.
Kirsten: OUCH! Kor kor, you pushed me?
Tru: No, I didn’t push you. I’m trying to hug you.
Kirsten: You hug me?
Tru: Yes, because I love you so much! *pats her head*
***
After almost 2 hours of unsuccessfully putting them to bed, we left the room and held the door shut.
Kirsten: Can you open the door for me?
Tru: I can’t, it’s stuck.
Kirsten: Help, the door stuck it.
Tru: Ok I know, we use the sword to open.
Kirsten: The sword cannot open. We need the chair.
Tru: Oh, ok. Let’s snuggle, later daddy will open.
***
Kirsten is dozing off in the car and Tru is intent on keeping her awake.
Tru: MEI MEI WAKE UP!
Kirsten: *opens her eyes slightly* What?
Tru: MEI MEI WAKE UP!!!
Kirsten: *opens her eyes slightly* What?
Tru: MEI MEI WAKE UP WAKE UP!!!
Kirsten: *mumbles* I’m trying to sleep, don’t disturb me.
If you’ve been following me on Facebook and Twitter, you’ll know that I attempted to bake a batch of 50 cupcakes for the kids’ combined birthday party yesterday. It was a big deal because I’m not the baking sort. In fact, I’ve never baked anything in my life, unless you count baked beans, which I basically pour out from a can and put in the microwave.
My original plan was to buy 50 cupcakes from the store but I got to browsing these really pretty cupcakes online and the kids were all like “I want mommy to make.”
Ok kids, challenge accepted.
I mean, anyone can buy cupcakes from a store right but I’m going to be the mom that makes these babies with my own hands. Also partly because my mom is like a baking guru and she helped out a little (ok she did like 28% of the work). The kids contributed another 7%.
They wore their little aprons and helped to pour stuff into the mixer, all pleased to be making their own birthday cupcakes.
We spent all of Friday afternoon mixing, stirring, scooping and arranging little cups as the aroma of freshly baked cupcakes filled the kitchen. Now I know why people bake – there’s a profound sense of satisfaction to be making something so yummy from scratch. Like it’s just a bunch of flour and eggs on the table and then voila, cupcakes! We even made 2 different flavors, chocolate and carrot cake topped with ganache and cream cheese icing.
But then the proof of the pudding (or in this case, cupcake) is in the eating, so here’s the final product.
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Word on the street is that they taste pretty good too. Well, at least, the kids seemed to love it.
I guess this means I’ve earned my baking badges and I can go back to buying cupcakes from the store next year.
PS. The three winners have been announced for the Child Label giveaway. Thanks for your support!
Ah, the other big question. Your kids are finally out of the random screaming-through-the-night phase and you’re in a good place, sort of. Inevitably, you start missing the newborn baby smell and the way a baby feels just right in the nook of your elbow instead of the gangly limbs that are sticking out awkwardly with your toddler.
When that moment comes, it’s important to know if you’re truly ready to have another child or you’re better off stealing someone else baby for all of 3 minutes.
Add or subtract points for every statement that you can agree with below:
1. The smell of newborns make me feel warm and fuzzy. (Add 10 points)
2. I’m missing the glow of pregnancy. (Add 10 points)
3. I sometimes hold a sack of rice like a baby and sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to it. (Add 20 points)
4. I sometimes feed my kids cornflakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the same day. (Subtract 25 points)
5. I’ve got all this spare time sitting around taking afternoon naps and watching Gilmore Girls reruns. (Add 30 points)
6. One time, I forgot to bring back one of my children because I couldn’t remember how many I had. (Subtract 500 points)
7. I have enough kids to form a soccer team (Add 300 points – for having superpowers)
8. I can go for 2 weeks without bathing or sleeping. (Add 50 points)
9. I need more kids to help run this family business that I’m starting. (Subtract 100 points – wrong reason to have kids)
10. I need more kids to get $18,000 in baby bonus and CDA top ups. (Add 250 points – great reason to have kids)
11. I’m allergic to children. (Subtract 20 points)
12. Screaming babies make me want to tear off my own arm. And eat it. (Subtract 100 points)
13. I’m big on baby kisses and snuggles. (Add 50 points)
14. I enjoy being pooped, barfed and spat on. (Subtract 50 points – go speak to your therapist before you continue)
15. Ok, there are 2 lines on my pregnancy test kit. (Burn all the points and go celebrate. Congratulations, you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.)
Among the list of favorite indoor entertainment for the kids, the airport ranks pretty high. It’s great for us because it’s free, relatively quiet and it’s 5 minutes from our place. And they love it because they can ride the skytrain back and forth multiple times, practice coloring at the carved woodblock station, eat gummies and run from one end to the other.
Last week, at the invitation of Changi Airport, we discovered a whole load of other activities we’ve been missing out on. In fact, we ended up packing in 7 hours of fun at the airport, which is like a trip to the zoo, except free.
Here were their favorites.
1. Plane watching at the sunflower garden.
It was located next to a runway so they could get up close with sunflowers and watch planes take off at the same time. Baby girl was all “Look got flowers, OH SEE THE AEROPLANE CAN FLY!” She even found herself a nice ledge to stand on for a better view.
2. Koi feeding at the pond.
The kids are in a feeding phase now, they feed their stuffed toys, feed my mom’s dog, and from time to time, even each other. Evidently, feeding fish was right up their alley,
3. Window and Sand Art
Baby girl fiddled with the paints for a while and decided to go eat the sand from the tubs. Seeing that she’s already eaten a lot more than sand, I figured I’d let her express her creativity however she wanted.
4. Rocking the Singkids Indoor Playground
Being the playground connoisseurs that they are, they gave the newly launched Singkids an impressive rating of “VERY FUN”. It was a bit small but the activity stations were very different from the usual playgym ones that they’ve grown tired of. This one had stuff like special go karts and climbing structures and automated teddy see-saws.
5. Watching Santa at his post-Christmas day job.
I used to think that Santa just sits around on his reindeer-mobile when Christmas is over but apparently, he has an off-season day job, which is to make chocolates by hand. We tried saying hi and humming jingle bells but he pretended not to hear us. I think he was trying to go incognito but I handed him my Christmas list anyway.
Exciting news, y’all! I’ve been secretly pregnant and I’m thrilled to introduce our newest baby. Meet Child Label, my first real business baby. It’s where you can get awesome labels for your child. Or yourself.
Starting a business is both scary and exciting. Scary because if it flops, it’s basically an epic disaster and I’ll have to feed my kids plain rice and water for several years. But also exciting at the same time because it’s always been my dream to be the boss of me and have a fancy title like Big Boss.
It’s also a lot like being pregnant. The past couple of months, we’ve been working real hard on this, coming up with the best designs, colors, copy and making sure the quality of the labels are the best we can find. And finally, it’s like we’re giving birth to a super cute, colorful and shiny new baby – which as far as babies go, are the best kind to have.
It all started way back when I wanted to get some customized name labels for Truett. Everything we found were too tacky, boring and of pretty bad quality. I wanted something that was simple, clean, yet gorgeous enough to turn heads. And of course, something that would last so I didn’t have to get all frustrated scraping out sticker remnants after every few washes.
During this hunt, the idea for Child Label was born. Soon after, I found some insanely talented slave bunnies who got sold on the idea and we’ve been hard at work ever since.
We’re starting small – with passionate worker bunnies, a bunch of incredible designs, and a whole lot of ideas to introduce in the months to come.
The journey up to this point has been incredible and we hope you’ll love these labels as much as we do. Seriously, labeling is addictive and extremely contagious. Not to mention, very useful too.
So stop by, shop a little and have fun browsing the designs.
As is customary, there’ll be a giveaway. Come visit us on Facebook to select your favorite designs and leave a comment here on which design and size you would like to get. Contest ends on Sunday 26 June midnight and 3 winners will be selected randomly.
PS. Not necessary for the contest but do like our page on Facebook ok? Invite all your friends too!
Update: We have 3 winners! Congrats to Qiu Xian (#5), Kelly (#18) and Gina (#7). You’ll be receiving an email shortly to confirm the designs and names to be printed. Thanks everyone for joining the contest.
I’ve never written much about my dad on the blog, except for this one tribute that I did for him a while back. Partly because it’s too personal and too painful. Also because talking about it just makes it seem so real again. 5 years on and I still fall apart when I talk about my dad for more than 2 minutes so the husband knows that all conversations relating to my dad should finish within a minute or so, or he brings out the tissues.
Like from time to time, I’ll say “I miss my dad. He would have loved the kids to bits.” and he’ll say “I know. I miss him too.” Then silence. And right about the 1-minute and 58-second mark, while I still have some semblance of composure, I’ll say something like “We should watch X-men tonight…the reviews are stunning.”
This Father’s Day, I thought about him a lot. Mostly about how nice it would be to be able to give him a call to say Happy Father’s Day. And make him another of my limited edition but truly appalling personalized cards he used to love to much.
I miss how he used to be my biggest fan. He would laugh heartily at all my jokes even when no one else got them. He thought I was brilliant and got more indignant than I did when I didn’t make it into law school (even though Comm Studies turned out to be a much better fit). He told me I was beautiful when I was 15, had bad hair and an even worse fashion sense. He would give me a kiss, pray for me and say “daddy loves you” every morning before he left for work. When I was 16 and had my heart broken for the first time, he took me out for lunch and said “life is like taking buses. When one bus leaves, a better one always comes along.” It was cryptic and awkward because I thought I kept the boyfriend pretty secret but secretly, I was glad he knew and he was there for me.
He always said I was special and he was proud that I was his girl.
When I was 22, he got diagnosed with colon cancer. With 2 surgeries and several rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, he did get better for a while but 2 relapses seemed too much for him and when I was 24, he passed away on the year he was supposed to turn 50.
People would say comforting things like how he’s in a better place, and at least we had time to prepare for it and say goodbye. But honestly, none of it made me miss him less or make the pain go away. It seemed terribly unfair that he didn’t get to walk me down the aisle. Or be there to hold the grandkids who would have stolen his heart and wrapped it around their little fingers. Or be around to have dinner and ask me about my day.
Well-meaning folks told me that I should be thankful I had an awesome dad for 24 years, and the amount of awesomeness packed into those 24 years should be enough to last a lifetime. Maybe they’re right and people shouldn’t deserve to have that much daddy awesomeness. Or it’s baloney and maybe life is sometimes just plain unfair for taking away the things that make you happy. And I’d have to remind myself that even when bad things happen, God has a plan and everything is going to be ok.
It’s funny how even though I’m now a mom, I still miss being a daddy’s girl. I think that’s something that will never go away.
