Yearly Archives

2012

events, kids in motion

These shoes are made for walking

December 1, 2012

The kids had their first ever fashion modeling gig for pediped Singapore at Seb’s Bistro this morning. Together with 6 other little friends, they took to the runway to showcase pediped’s latest Fall/Winter 2012 collection.

None of the kids had ever done this before so it was mildly chaotic but in a super cute sort of way as they walked out in pairs all decked in their gorgeous pediped shoes and stylish outfits sponsored by Elly, a homegrown kids apparel store.

models

group shot

To prepare for this, we gave the kids a pep talk last night and tried to explain the concept of a catwalk.

Kirsten was like “Catwalk? Like this? Meowww…” then proceeded to get down on all fours for an impressive cat-walking demonstration.

“Nice try, but not even close,” I replied, before hastily youtubing some kids fashion show videos for them to watch.

Their reactions couldn’t have been more different. Kirsten loved the idea of dressing up all pretty and being the centre of attention while Truett thought for a moment and said, “Um, I think I’m going to be shy.”

Turned out that they both got really nervous when the show was about to start so Tru gripped his sister’s hand really tight and she got upset at being grabbed so she shrieked and punched him in the arm, which resulted in a bizarre grabbing-yanking-punching exchange the moment they stepped up to the runway. But other than that, everything went really well and it was all peachy in the end. More or less.

Here’s Kirsten in her Flex Maggie White Sandal and Truett rocking the Flex Jett Navy/Red Sneaker.

To celebrate the launch of their Fall/Winter 2012 collection, pediped Singapore will be having a storewide 30% discount off all regular-priced items from now till 3 Dec 2359h. Type in the code FWSEB30 upon checkout to enjoy the discount.

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breastfeeding, lists you should paste on your fridge, not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Bobbly Bobblehead

November 29, 2012

So Truett and Kirsten both go to preschool in the morning and it’s great because by the time they’re done at noon, they come home with a bunch of new skills, tales of their adventures and little nuggets of academic knowledge they’ve gained that day. Like Tru came home last week and declared that he now knows how to clean his own bottom after pooping. I think he tried to clean the toilet bowl as well because I peered in to find half a roll of toilet paper stuffed into it but on the bright side, I’m sure his bottom was extremely clean after going through that much paper.

But then now that they’re in school, they also come home with other stuff like germs, viruses and bacteria. Lots and lots of them. To be precise, about 50 kids worth of them. Which would be fine if we didn’t have a baby in the house but you see, there’s just one problem. The baby is in the house, yo!

Within the first 3 months of baby Finn’s life, he’s already been ill 4 times. And that’s after factoring in a diet of my super-immunity-building breast milk.

The past 2 nights, baby Finn was fluish again and the virus was causing his sleep pattern to regress. He woke up every 2 hours for a feed and each time, he’d flail and struggle to breathe while latched on with his death grip for almost 40 minutes.

In other words, he was pretty much attached to my boob the entire night. Times two.

In my sleep-deprived stupor, I noticed several things.

1. Lying down is the best position to breastfeed. It is also the single most hated feeding postion for baby Finn. He’s all like “THIS IS NO WAY TO DRINK MY MILK AND I WILL NOT STAND IT.” Instead, he likes to be cradled in my arms while I’m sitting upright because he’s a tyrant and a slavedriver.

2. Falling asleep while breastfeeding is very bad. For boobs. The husband can keep his head perfectly straight while sleeping upright but I unfortunately do not possess that particular ability. Once I doze off, my head rolls around like a bobblehead doll and one time, it rolled to the back, causing my boob to be yanked backwards. Instead of letting go of his grip, baby Finn bit down even harder and let’s just say that the yanking + biting combination = a very effective deterrence to falling asleep.

3. Marathon breastfeeding through the night makes me very hungry. And sitting there in the dark gives me a lot of time to think about food. After the 5am feed, I had the most massive craving for a bacon sandwich so I raided my fridge only to find some milk & cereal. Which was nowhere near as good but when you’re starving at 5am, it’s pretty darn tasty.

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giveaways reviews ads

What’s cookin’?

November 27, 2012

For someone who doesn’t like to cook, I’m surprisingly quite a fan of cooking shows, especially the Junior MasterChef series. And I absolutely adore Nigella Lawson. I think it’s got to do with how they make everything look so delicious and easy and I’m like “hey that 8-year-old boy just made that vincotto glazed pheasant parsnip mash roasted carrots and beetroot salad. I bet I could too.”

Until I try it and realize that no, I can’t. Then I’m all like “ok go ahead and make your high-class food with many syllables, I’m going to be right here stirring my fish porridge.”

But it hasn’t stopped me from watching because I’m convinced that one day, I’ll come across an episode and go “Oh, you’re making that today? Guess what? Nailed it.” And I’ll go into my kitchen, whip up the same dish so that I can purr with delight the way Nigella does.

Hopefully that’ll happen with this new show called The Bosch Dream Kitchen Cookoff. It’s a locally produced web-based reality cooking show  – sort of like MasterChef, but done in pairs to compete and cook their way to a dream kitchen containing Bosch cooking appliances. It aims to give food lovers an insight to working in a well-designed, modern and functional kitchen, a hallmark of Bosch home appliances.

Each webisode revolves around the creation of different components of a meal under the observation of a group of Mentoring Master Chefs, which include celebrity chefs John See of The Food Dot; Andrea Scarpa, Executive Chef of Da Paolo Bistro Bar; Heather Barrie of Fine Palate; and Tim Ross-Watson of The Garden of Eden Restaurant. Adding sizzle to the show is host and local funny boy Hossan Leong, who will add his signature brand of tongue-in-cheek humour to the show as he “slices and dices” his critique of the contestants.

The competition will culminate in a finale cookoff on 14 December as contestants try to out-cook each other for a shot at winning the Bosch Dream Kitchen Makeover with Bosch appliances including domino gas hobs, chimney hood, built-in oven, built-in microwave oven, built-in espresso machine, built-in dishwasher, and a kitchen machine.

If you’re a cooking enthusiast, head on over to check out the webisodes and you’ll have a chance to win a Bosch Juice Extractor worth S$239 in a Weekly Quiz. Or vote for your favorite team to win the People’s Choice Award and stand to win a Bosch Classic Edition Fridge worth S$2,399.

 

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a spot of singapore

Rip-roarin’ good time

November 26, 2012

The kids skipped school to check out the new Adventure Cove at RWS last Thursday and you know I hardly rave about such attractions but I’m going to take a moment to rave about it.

It was surprisingly very fun.

How fun? This fun.

It looked ordinary enough when we entered the place so we thought it was like a tiny waterpark like Wild Wild Wet. First of all, the place is massive. There are a total of 13 attractions and by the end of the day, we only managed to check out 4 of them.

1. Big Bucket Treehouse

This is an interactive water play area similar to the ones at POLW or the Zoo. There’s a huge bucket that tips over, some climby areas, 2 water slides and lots of splashy things. Kirsten loved it so much she spent like 3 hours running around non-stop. Apparently kids under 122cm need to be accompanied by an adult but she went on it like 15 times on her own before one of the lifeguards spotted her. But they were really nice about it and one of the girls even offered to ride it with her another dozen more times.

2. BluWater Bay.

It’s a wave pool with gorgeous landscaping and a rest area where you can sit back and sip a couple of mojitos while Copacabana plays in the background. About the wave pool itself, you can either swim around or lounge in one of the floats provided. I did the lounging on the float while Truett (in his life jacket) dragged me around to catch the waves.

3. Riptide Rocket

Ok, this one is Truett’s favorite ride in the entire park. It’s a hydro-magnetic coaster that rides like an intense rollercoaster on water, complete with climbs, plunging drops and quite a bit of speed. Tru went on it with the husband 6 times and he was all “it’s SO SUPER FUN! Can you sit with me please please please?” I took one look at it and I told him “Mommy will do a lot of things for you, but riding on a crazy water rollercoaster where I could get flung out violently? Nuh uh.”

4. Adventure River

If you feel like chilling out and taking a breather, there’s a river that takes you around the entire water park with different stops at the various attractions. Again, there are life jackets provided so you can either swim or relax on a float. Plus the water is heated so baby Finn had a nice time splashing around in the nice warm water.

There were also a number or rest areas around the water park, which was rather thoughtful. When baby Finn got tired and hungry, I could grab one of the beanbag chairs to nurse him and read a book while the husband brought the two big ones for more rides.

And that’s Finn looking knackered after a long day of fun. As for why he is in a Hello Kitty rashguard? He doesn’t have his own swimwear yet so he’s dressed in Kirsten’s hand me downs. Plus the little guy is manly enough to pull off a girly pink top, don’t you think?

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coolest kids ever, growing up, homeschooling

Carrot and stick, without the stick.

November 22, 2012

We’ve just introduced a reward system. It’s a system where good behavior is rewarded. Like if I manage to get through an entire day without yelling at the kids, I reward myself with a large bowl of ice-cream. Ok scratch that, it’s a bad example because I reward myself with ice-cream even on bad days with lots of yelling.

I tried the sticker reward system a while back when the kids were younger but they didn’t really buy it. It went something like this.

“Kids, these are called reward stickers! Whenever you do something good, we’ll give you one sticker and when you get 3 stickers, you can exchange it for a treat,” I explained with my enthusiastic high-pitched voice. “Who wants stickers?”

They glanced at it and threw me a dismissive “No need thanks!”

“You sure? Look, these stickers are so pretty and they’ve even got your name on it. You can exchange it for gummies and potato chips.”

They were unimpressed. “Uh, no need.”

I couldn’t understand it, it seemed like such a great idea. Perhaps they didn’t understand the concept. Perhaps they didn’t like my specially printed pretty stickers. Perhaps they were actually surly teenagers wo didn’t care for stupid rewards. Whatever the case, my ingenious plan was failing miserably so I shelved the idea.

Recently, I was inspired to give it another go and for some reason, this time it turned out to be a massive hit. I basically said the same thing to them while waving the exact same stickers.

“Kids, these are called reward stickers! Whenever you do something good, we’ll give you one sticker and when you get 3 stickers, you can exchange it for a treat. Who wants stickers?”

“ME!!!! I WANT, I WANT,” they yelled in unison.

“Ok, let’s start by packing up your room. You’ll get one sticker each if you pack up your room really well.”

5 minutes later, I came back into the room and they were scrambling to pack everything into their toy boxes. When they finished packing, we held a reward ceremony and bestowed upon them a shiny new sticker each. It was the lamest reward ceremony ever but they looked so terribly pleased all the same.

That night, we tried it again.

“Guys, you’ll get a sticker if fall asleep on your own. Daddy and mommy will be right outside but you can’t get off the bed ok. If you do well, you’ll get a sticker in the morning.”

We walked out of the room and waited for the usual requests of water, milk, toilet breaks and bedtime stories but there were none. 5 minutes later, nothing. 10 minutes later, still nothing. Finally, we sneaked in after 15 minutes to check on them and they were fast asleep. On their own. For the first time.

Reward system = hell yeah!

*Here’s a sample of what their charts look like. Download the printable versions here (Truett’s) and here (Kirsten).

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kids in motion, precious moments

Outdoorsy fun

November 21, 2012

The kids are what I call outdoorsy types. They get cranky when they’re cooped up at home too long, and their restlessness will manifest itself in a remarkable variety of ways. Truett will slump on the floor and look like he’s in actual pain from boredom. Kirsten will stage yet another fashion parade trying on dress after dress before tossing them everywhere. They’ll take turns to stare wistfully down the corridor and ask to be let out of the house.

“Can we bring Mickey down for a walk?”

“How about we go to the playground?”

“I know! We can go swimming, that would be fun right?”

“I think we need to go for an adventure.”

On weekdays, we’re usually too tired or busy to lug everyone out for an adventure but because they love it so much, we try to reserve the weekends for a little bit of outdoorsy time, even if it’s just to the beach or the park nearby.

Truth be told, I’d much prefer to spend my weekends curled up in bed with a good book and a cup of coffee but then I look at their excited little faces and next thing I know, I’m out in the blistering heat chasing after the kids and watching them enjoy little moments. Moments I know I’ll remember years later when I’m curled up in bed because they’d much rather be off hanging out with friends instead.

The way I see it, we’ve got 52 weekends with the kids before another year passes us by. That’s not a lot considering that some of those weekends will be spent on boring obligatory functions or work-related stuff. So we’ll take whatever quality time we have with the kids and make them count.

Hopefully years down the road, they’ll remember it too.

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breastfeeding, the breast things in life are free

Hot property

November 19, 2012

I’ve had one goal the past 3 months: to successfully transit Finn completely to direct boob feeding. And I’m pleased to say that we’re finally there, more or less.

After having tried formula feeding (with Tru) and expressed bottle feeding (with Kirsten), this is so ridiculously convenient.

Instead of having to spend 40 minutes at the pump, washing the bottles, sterilizing everything, warming the milk, then finally feeding the baby, I just have to pop out my boob and I’m done. When I’m out, my baby bag is more like a baby satchel with some spare clothes, diapers and wipes.

But there’s a downside to it, which is that baby Finn now refuses the bottle. Did I say refuse? I actually meant that he hates it. With a passion. He makes a face, pushes it out with his tongue and looks at me like “hey, don’t you give me no bottle when I can see boobs right there. Now give me the real stuff.” But you see, I’m training him for those days where my breasts are unavailable and he’s with my mom or in-laws. So I pass him to the husband for boot camp bottle training and he goes into meltdown mode. He’ll struggle and scream and tears will be flowing out of his eyes and milk will be sputtering everywhere like he’s choking. And amidst all the frenzy, I’m pretty sure I can make out something like “BOOBS!!! GIVE ME BOOBS!!”

Sometimes, when he’s positively starving, he’ll struggle through a feed like it’s the nastiest thing he’s ever had to drink. Then when he’s done, he’ll launch into a complainy monologue of baby talk to drive home the point.

Other times, I’ll cave and offer him a boob and while he’s drinking, he’ll put one hand on it and look at me as if to say “just so you know, this is my property.”

Ok, it’s really cute but this means that being apart from him for any length of time at all will be a problem.

Any tips on how to reintroduce the bottle?

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