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December 2011

Looking back to look forward

December 31, 2011

It’s New Year’s Eve, the one time I allow myself to look back on the year with fondness and regret. To over-analyze the decisions I made, to pat myself of the back for the glorious victories and cringe while reliving the sucky ones. I actually really like the idea of new years. To be able to close a chapter every 12 months and whether it was good or bad, turn the page and start a new one.

2011 was the year I found myself again. For the first time in 3 years, my life was not chopped up and divided between the kids, with the leftover scraps going to all the other responsibilities that clamored for my attention.

This year, the kids grew up just enough to take the pressure off a little. They learnt to depend on each other for entertainment and I stopped feeling like I was living on the edge for every minute of every day. Heck, I even found the time to go for coffee in the morning, have high tea with girl friends, rediscover my love for movies and even read actual grown up books with tiny words and too many pages. Who’s with me in feeling like if you had to read another page of “This is Peter, This is Jane”, your brains would melt into your ears and disappear from your head because it got upset at all the abuse it was taking.

In short, it’s the year I’ve enjoyed motherhood the most.

It’s also been a year of unexpected but awesome surprises. We went to Disney World, Orlando for the Disney SM Mom’s 2011 Conference, went to Melbourne with the kids, won the Best Family Blog at the Singapore Blog Awards, made it to the finals for Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards and the 2011 Bloggies, had lunch with the President, launched a business just so I could call myself The Boss and the most awesome of all, sent the kids off to school. I totally got my ass whipped by home-schooling and the best decision I made was to cut my losses and let school take over the schooling. Everybody wins.

The beautiful thing about the start of every new year is that it always brings hope. It could very well turn out to be the worst year of our lives but until that happens, there’s always hope that it could be the very best one yet. So c’mon, blow the dust off from your bucket list and at least attempt one. If you don’t have a bucket list, it’s probably a good time to get one started.

Do something for yourself. Do something for someone else. Do something that scares the crap out of you. Do something that everyone else thought you couldn’t do. Do something you’ll remember when the next new year rolls around. Feel alive. Love fervently. Laugh till you can’t breathe. Be furiously happy.

See you in 2012.

by Daphne

Ho Ho Holiday

December 29, 2011

We’ve really enjoyed our Christmas break this year. The kids have been in a spectacular mood all week and we’re all a little high from all the celebrating we’ve done. I’m taking a break from all that relaxing I’ve been doing and wrapping up with some final thoughts on the past several days.

Where’s Jesus, baby?

In explaining Christmas to the kids, we’ve told them a condensed version of the Nativity story and they know that it’s Jesus’ birthday. They were a little confused as to why they were receiving presents on someone else’s birthday but they’re not really fussed about it. At this point, they don’t care much for why they’re getting a present, because “LOOK A PRESENT FOR ME? WOW THANKS!”

Kirsten wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and so we did. When we were done, I asked her where Jesus was and she looked at me for a moment before patting her little belly. “In my stomach”, she said.

“Sweetie, I think you mean *heart*, right?”

“No, Jesus is not in my heart. Jesus is in my stomach.”

“I’d love to know how that happened, pumpkin. Wait, on second thoughts, I really don’t. I think we’re going to have to spend a little more time on the human anatomy next year ok.”

Hunger almost always works

This time every year, the husband takes a week’s leave from Christmas till after the New Year. It’s like our special family time week. This year, the kids still have school so we figured we’d let them go the school in the morning and bring them out for fun activities in the afternoon. Truett saw the husband in his shabby state yesterday morning and asked “When Truett and mei mei go to school, where is daddy and mommy going?” We didn’t really have any plans except breakfast so we told him as much.

He immediately replied with “I’m so hungry, I need to eat breakfast, if not I will be sick.” It almost worked, if not for the fact that he just had breakfast and would be getting more breakfast in school.

It’s the thought that counts

I love everything about Christmas except the gift-buying bit, which is like the bane of my existence. I love the idea of giving gifts and seeing the person’s face light up when they unwrap the item you lovingly picked out after spending all day fighting off hordes of people along Orchard Road to get. But choosing gifts has never been one of my many talents and I hardly ever get that reaction. In fact, the only face-lighting I’ve seen is from the kids and that’s probably because they don’t care if I got them popsicle sticks. Their delight is in the fact that we bought them something special, wrapped it up and wrote their name on it.

Over the years, many of the gifts I thought were brilliant and thoughtful has turned out to be meh so I’m through with all this gift-choosing. Next year, I’m spending all that time I’m supposed to be out buying presents on something far more productive, like watching movies or reading a book while sipping my latte. Everyone is getting gift vouchers so they can pick out their own presents. Done. Best gift idea ever.

Hello, Kitties!

On the topic of presents, Kirsten has been amassing an impressive collection of Hello Kitty merch this Christmas. She’s got a Hello Kitty bag, 2 Hello Kitty plushies, a Hello Kitty dollhouse, a Hello Kitty hooded towel, a Hello Kitty comb, a Hello Kitty bikini and a truckload of Hello Kitty clothes.

I have never been in possession of this many Hello Kitty items in my life and it’s rather disconcerting in that I’m starting to develop a soft spot for it (her? them?). I would normally have gone into an anaphylactic shock in the presence of such saccharine sweet pinkness but I guess it’s true, being a parent does change you.

by Daphne

a spot of singapore

The morning after

December 27, 2011

Morning all! Hope you’ve had the Christmas weekend you’ve been dreaming of.

The great thing about Christmas feasting is that there’s usually enough food to last the next week or so. We’re already making plans to have turkey sandwiches, turkey pasta and turkey porridge (for the kids) to finish up all the leftover turkey from our Christmas dinner. And after that, we’ll start working on the leftover ham.

Since it was a holiday yesterday, we made plans to visit the Zoo with a couple of friends but we totally didn’t take into consideration the fact that half the population of Singapore would have the same idea because when we reached at 11, there was a queue snaking all the way to the carpark. I do like my animals but we took a vote and decided against waiting an hour just to get tickets so we turned right back around and went to the Botanic Gardens instead.

The kids roamed the park with their Striders and when they got tired, they just found a nice spot and collapsed to the ground for a break. There were a lot of slopes in the Botanic Gardens and it’s really hard work to push their bikes uphill so this happened a lot.

We felt really bad for having to cancel our zoo plans but these kids have a way of making everything seem better. Truett was all “It’s ok, never mind, we can go to the zoo another time.” I can’t believe I have a kid who helps me feel better when his trip to the zoo got canned.

***

On a side note, the kids’ gorgeous shoes were sponsored by Pediped – the next best thing to bare feet, only much prettier. These shoes are so soft and comfy that they didn’t mind wearing them around the park all morning. As our Christmas giveaway finale, we’re giving away one pair of Pedipeds on the Mother, Inc facebook page. Remember to join, your kid will love them!

by Daphne

i love christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

December 23, 2011

I woke up this morning to my third most favorite day in the entire year – the eve of the eve of Christmas. My birthday used to occupy that spot but ever since I turned 25, birthdays have lost their appeal and I’m replacing it with the day I get to play Christmas songs on repeat, drown myself in Toffee Nut Latte, turn up the Christmas lights all day and bask in the knowledge that Christmas is almost upon us.

There’s only one thing I really want to say today but it just didn’t feel quite enough to say it once, so I came up with 5 different ways to say it.

Have a wonderful Christmas, you guys!

by Daphne

art attack, kids in motion

Bubble bubble, toil and trouble

December 21, 2011

On an average day, the one thing I spend the most time doing is figuring out ways to keep the kids occupied in a constructive manner. Because my toddlers have the attention span of a goldfish who suffered a severe head trauma. Multiple times. To various parts of the head. They spend about 3 minutes actually doing whatever it is I come up with and by the time I skip off to make my latte, there they are standing in front of me again.

“I’m bored.” “Mommy play with me.” “No, I’m not capable of feeding Elmo without adult supervision, you need to stand here and watch me while I feed him imaginary noodles. DON’T TOUCH MY ELMO you can only watch…ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION MOM???”

Yesterday, I started out with something easy – coloring. I printed out sheets of coloring pages with their favorite characters and gave them a box of crayons. And you know how long it takes for the kids to scribble lines on a piece of paper?

Exactly 2 minutes and 38 seconds, that’s how long.

It took me a longer to time to blue-tak them to the wall than it did for the kids to color them, just saying.

After we were done with our first activity, we moved on to something more interactive, like clay modeling. By interactive, I mean that I was the one made to do all the modeling while they yelled instructions at me. They obviously didn’t know that I’m possibly worse than they are at doing this. 7 minutes in, they were starting to fidget. “What are you making, mommy?” they asked impatiently.

“A mess, ok?”

If you must know, I was going for a snail, a boot and an elephant. They always make it look so easy in pictures but every single time I attempt to model clay, this is what I get.

Over the next hour, we played with trains, played with blocks, played with bigger blocks, played dress up, ate strawberries, ate yoghurt, ate gummies, played with trains again and just when I was about to cave and stick them in front of the telly, Kirsten discovered a sheet of bubble wrap.

I taught them how to squeeze the bubbles until they popped and they both thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.

Sensing a breakthrough, I told them that they were supposed to pop every single bubble and whoever finished first would get a super special prize of…ANOTHER SHEET OF BUBBLE WRAP.

They sat for 40 minutes in silence and all I heard was the occasional *POP* *POP* *POP* of absolute bliss. They learnt fine motor skills, finger dexterity and mental focus while I learnt that sometimes, the best things in life are in fact, free.

by Daphne

blogging about blogging, travelling

Back from the Nuffnang Blog Awards

December 19, 2011

I was in KL over the weekend to attend the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards. The event went brilliantly and I had a chance to catch up with some of the other bloggers who were there.

Congrats again to Christie from Childhood 101 who won the Best Parenting Blog award. Nicely done! And thanks to everyone who voted for me – much appreciated!

We went without the kids and I spent most of the trip wishing I brought them along. I know, it’s just 3 days but I can’t go 3 hours without missing them. They obviously missed us too because the moment we got back from KL, Kirsten ran to the door, shouting enthusiastically “MOMMY’S HOME! SEE, MOMMY IS BACK, HI MOMMY HIIIIIIII” She jumped into my arms and squeezed me with all the strength she could muster.

When Tru saw us, he got all upset, like “I don’t like you, I’m not going to hug you” and refused to look at us. Which really meant “I missed you so much don’t you ever go for a holiday without me again.”

We didn’t promise to never travel without him but I did hug him all the way home until he felt better. It sort of made me feel better too.

***

This week’s Hipstamatic Happiness is a special KL edition with photos of all the places we visited during our trip. There’s a bit of shopping, some sightseeing and a lot of eating. We have a list of all the best food places that we absolutely had to visit when we are in KL and by the third day, we started to run out of meals to fit in all that food.

KL does not agree with my dieting plans.

by Daphne

Kidspeak

No, sweetheart, I didn’t scold you

December 14, 2011

Having spent so much time talking to the kids on a daily basis, I’d like to think that I don’t get surprised by the things they say anymore. It’s like I’m almost prepared for all the the random yet perceptive quips that they come up with. I sometimes stop and chortle at how astute some of their observations are but only when they’re really good.

Today, Kirsten said something that made me immediately call the husband because I had to rave about how hilarious it was.

***

I had just picked the kids from school and we were in the car on the way home. I thought I strapped both kids in their baby chairs but somehow, Kirsten managed to wriggle out of hers.

I looked in the rear mirror and there she was, standing in the middle grinning away cheekily.

I’m usually very particular about car safety and I get a little upset if they start mucking around while I’m driving. And because I’m alone with them in the car most of the time, the extra sternness helps them to know that whenever we’re on the road, mommy means business.

But instead of using my fierce voice to tell her to sit down, I just sighed and said “Kirsten, please go back to your seat, mommy’s driving.”

She then looked at me with those innocent eyes and said “Huh, you never scold me ah?”

I tried to explain like “Mommy really doesn’t like to scold you, I just need you to be safe” but I couldn’t stop laughing because that was the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.

***

While we’re on the topic of her wisecracks, here’s a clip of her singing Bad Romance. It sounds nothing like Gaga’s version but if you listen carefully, you’ll hear something that sounds vaguely like “Ohhhh…Bad Romance”

[powerpress]

by Daphne

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