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Monthly Archives

April 2014

growing up

Oh hello terrible twos, didn’t think I’d see you again so soon

April 11, 2014

It’s been years since I last encountered the nightmare known to moms as the terrible twos. In fact, it’s been so long that I almost forgot what that’s like. Hahahaha, who am I kidding? I remember EXACTLY what’s that like and it’s not a whole bag of fun.

angsty baby

Finn’s been having himself a feeling explosion in the last few weeks. Like there are so much of these complicated toddler feelings bubbling inside that his little chubby body is not able to contain all of it. And then *BOOM*, his feelings are suddenly all over my living room. I mean, I adore his super cute 19-month-old feelings and I’d very much like to get to know them better over a skinny latte but right now, they’re everywhere and also, they look a little scary.

We were having some mommy-Finn time working on puzzles and there’s this one train puzzle that he loves to do over and over again. After 8 rounds, I was like “hey, how about let’s try the plane one instead!” so I swapped out the puzzles, not realising that I had just pressed the giant red self-destruct button.

Little man was M-A-D. Like MAD mad. Like full on hissy fit kind of mad.

He stood up, flung the plane puzzle with gusto and yelled NO!!!! And then he decided to protest some more but he wasn’t sure how so he stood there for a moment before deciding to…well, sit himself on the floor in a follow-up silent protest. I’ve seen some pretty epic meltdowns and in comparison, that’s kind of a cute way to protest so I was all “ok baby, protest registered, can mommy give you a hug so you feel better?” but he swatted my hand away so I just sat beside him to give him some space but then he got mad and he lost it a little bit more until finally he inched himself closer and closer to me and flopped his head face-down onto my lap in exhaustion. I mean, I was exhausted just watching him.

This ain’t typical Finn behaviour because he’s normally such a sweet, gentle soul. I was sitting there watching this feeling explosion unfolding right in front of me and I felt so bad for my angsty baby.

baby finn

He’s trying to express himself and he doesn’t know how and all this frustration is stressing his little baby brain out. Like he wants me to be there to baby him but he also desperately wants to stop being a baby and it’s all so confusing for him.

I think we could all do with some happy juju and extra hugs around here.

in happier times

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side effects of motherhood

One little, two little, three little brothers…

April 9, 2014

kirsten finn

Kirsten: I can’t believe I’m going to have TWO baby brothers, what if I love baby Finn more than baby Theo? Will he be sad?

Truett: What?? He will be SO SAD, I think he will cry everyday.

Kirsten: *looks appalled* But I haven’t seen baby Theo, I don’t know what he looks like. And I love my baby Finn Finn so much, he’s really cute right?

Truett: I’m just kidding lah. Don’t worry, when you meet baby Theo, you’re going to love him so much also because he’ll be super cute like Finn Finn.

Kirsten: How do you know that?

Truett: Trust me, he will definitely be cute because he’s our baby what.

Kirsten: Oh ya, that’s true. And then there will be THREE BOYS and just ONE GIRL!

Truett: *LOL* Yay, boys win.

Kirsten: No, GIRLS WIN. Because I’ll be the only princess, that means I’m special and you all have to protect me.

Truett: Gah! Ok fine, we all win. Fair.

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getting ready for baby

Too many tiny humans

April 7, 2014

I’m 16 weeks out from THE ARRIVAL of one baby Theo and it still feels a little bit surreal. I’m mostly a picture of calm but I get these “WHAT HAVE I DONE??!!” moments where I start to panic a little about having 4 kids and it’s been happening with increased frequency as the EDD draws nearer.

That’s normal right, moms with 4 kids?

It took me a while to get used to having 3 and for the most part, it already feels like we’re getting overrun by an army of tiny humans.

I still remember what it was like when Truett was born and we were reeling from the shock of having ONE teensy weensy little baby. That first day we brought him home from the hospital, he screamed all night in my arms and we felt like our entire universe was falling apart it was all WOE IS ME please make him STOP CRYING ouchies MY BOOBS ARE FILLED WITH ROCKS and THIS IS THE HARDEST THING I’VE EVER HAD TO DO.

And then there were two and everything got…so much worse. Post natal depression? It hit me so hard that there as a time I thought I’d never walk out of it. I had 2 babies to feed, twice the amount of diapers, and what seemed like 20 times the amount of shrieking going on at any given moment.

2 years later, we were crazy enough to go for a third and now, we’re a couple of months away from welcoming a fourth. I suppose you could say that things escalated quickly.

Am I ready for 4? Between you and me, I feel like I’m way out of my depth. But looking back at every point of having (more) babies, I never really felt like I was ready until it happened and I found out that I was in fact, as ready as I could ever be. Ok, so there were (too many) moments where I could barely keep my head above water and I ended up drinking in more water than I would have liked to but that’s how we level up our kungfu skillz.

Besides, I have these adorable tiny humans to make up for it.

kids

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picture perfect

Just a shy guy

April 4, 2014

just a shy guy

One, the husband is going to slaughter me for posting this picture on the blog because deep down inside, he’s just a shy guy who doesn’t like the spotlight (we’ll get to that in a minute) but it’s too good not to share so in the spirit of compromise, I’m (reluctantly) cropping out most of his gorgeous face and delicious muscles.

Two, artistically speaking, the focus and aperture and composition for this photo ain’t great but it’s one of my all-time favourites because…

Three, I look at this and I get a glimpse of my two favourite shy boys. Recently, baby Finn has taken to burying his head in his father’s chest whenever he meets new people, it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And I know exactly where he got that from because that is the same look his daddy had when we first started dating. He’d be all confident and suave in a large group but when it was just him and me, he’d look at his shoes nervously and I’d see those same eyes.

Four, that chest sure looks comfy.

And five, smooth-talking casanovas are overrated. If you ask me, shy guys are the very best kind there is.

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side effects of motherhood

Always baby burritos.

April 2, 2014

“Mom! Can we build a fort, please please please?”

I made a quick mental calculation: set up time – 20 minutes, dismantling time – another 20 minutes, effort required – in the region of far too much. I glanced at my to-do list and nuh-uh, fort building was out of the question today.

“Um, how about another time? Hey let’s do some colouring instead. Here’s a bunch of crayons, knock yourselves out guys.”

***

“Can I play dress up with my princess Belle dress?”

This particular dress was a colossal pain to wash by hand and the odds of her spilling chocolate milk on it or getting ink stains on it or getting it ripped while tearing up and down the house were a gazillion to one.

“We should keep it for special occasions, sweetheart. If not, it’ll get destroyed and you won’t be able to wear it anymore.”

***

“I’m bored. Shall we go to the playground?” Truett asked.

Out of nowhere, his sister’s voice replied, “I don’t think so, kor kor…mommy’s busy. Maybe another time, ok?”

OUCH. In the scheme of awful mom moments, that was one of my worst.

Right then, I realised that I was turning into one of those parents who said no all the time. In my head, I had super important valid reasons for the each no and I even tried to disguise them as maybe laters but they were really just a whole bunch of big fat NOs. I was busy and anything that was too messy or time consuming or required too much effort had a default NO attached to it. Worst of all, the kids were catching on.

There’s value to kids learning that they can’t get what they want all the time but it’s like moms are given a bag of NOs at the start of the day and these should be used wisely and sparingly.

Me, I was blazing through my bag of NOs faster than I knew how to replenish them. And since they weren’t the sort to throw a hissy fit when they didn’t get what they wanted, most of the time, they’d just walk away with disappointment all over their little faces. At the rate I was doling out NOs, it was probably a matter of time before they knew to stop asking for my attention and company completely.

I needed to start turning my NOs into YESs. Yeses? Yesses? Whatever the plural of yes is.

I looked at my laptop and then I looked at the kids who had turned their attention to making a human burrito out of a very bewildered baby Finn and it was suddenly clear which one of those things was more important.

Burritos. Always baby burritos. And then we would play dress up and build a fort and maybe even squeeze in some time for the playground.

baby burrito

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