All Posts By

Daphne

baby talk

My babies on babies

July 29, 2013

Truett: Mom, next time when you have another baby, can you make 2 boys? With the same face.

Me: You mean twins?

Truett: YES! Twins!

Me: It’s not like I’m ordering them from a store, y’know. I can’t make twins at will and even if I have a choice, I will most certainly not make 2 more boys. The girls are already outnumbered as it is.

Truett: If I have 2 more brothers, then there will be 5 boys and the boys will win.

Me: I’m not sure what the boys will be winning exactly but this all sounds like a terrible game to me.

Truett: It will be a fun game. We will have so much fun.

Me: This is my uterus we’re talking about. I’m going with a no.

***

Kirsten: Sometimes, I think Finn Finn doesn’t like me.

Me: Why do you say that, sweetheart? That’s not true, Finn Finn adores you to bits.

Kirsten: Then why is he crying at me? I try to give him my toys but he make a crying face at me.

Me: He’s not really crying at you. He’s just crying in general and you happen to be there. He’s just a baby and when he’s upset, he needs to let it out.

Kirsten: Next time when he cries, I think you should carry him. Cannot just let him cry, cry, cry, ok?

Me: Wow, I seriously cannot wait for you to have your own babies.

***

Truett: How come our family have no babies except us?

Me: What do you mean?

Truett: Like Kao Fu, Aunty Bernie, Yiyi all got no babies. Then we have so many?

Me: Ahem, well, that’s somewhat true, I guess.

Kirsten: I know! Because Yiyi is not married so she cannot have babies. She needs to faster marry somebody first.

Truett: Kao Fu and Aunty Bernie are already married so they can have SO MANY babies.

Me: Hahahhahahah. You guys can go tell them yourselves.

***

photo

by
stuff best described as not safe for parents

Z is for…Zaguan

July 24, 2013

Baby Finn was having a bit of a rash this morning so we brought him in for a check at the nearby clinic. He’s ok, btw – I was afraid it was chicken pox but turns out that it’s just a minor heat rash after a day out at Adventure Cove, phew!

Which brings me to the real point of all this. The clinic. Most family GP clinics these days come equipped with a little play area for kids and in theory, it seems like a really nice idea. You have to wait in a crowded clinic for 30 minutes with a sick, crabby toddler and suddenly, he’s not crabby anymore because he spots the toy corner – a magical wonderland of fun and happy toys.

play area

In the real world though, these colorful little corners of fun quickly turn into a huge cesspool of germs. A major germ fest where germs of all varieties come to play. The kid with HFMD just stuck a handful of blocks in his mouth. Germs! And then there’s the other kid who just left a trail of mucus on a bunch of other toys. More germs! Basically if I were a germ, I’d make my way to one of these clinic play areas for a bit of germy toddler love.

The moment I stepped in and registered baby Finn at the doctor’s, his very high-tech toy-detection homing device immediately located the toy corner.

TOYS! LOTS OF TOYS!! MUST. TOUCH. THE. TOYS!!!

MOM YOU’RE WALKING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION…GO TOWARDS THE TOYS, WOMAN!!

I was determined not to let him go anywhere near the toys because he was there with a possibly fake case of chicken pox I didn’t need to go home with a very real case of whatever combination of germs existed in that corner.

I tried distracting him with other stuff. How about a brochure about acne? Oh look! Super fun medical books! Ok, fine, I’ll give you my equally shiny iPhone. But all he wanted was a toy from the germy toy corner. Reluctantly, I picked up the least germy-looking toy and passed it to him.

photo 2

Which was when I discovered this abomination.

ABC

Looks like your basic educational alphabet abacus toy for educating kids right? Wrong.

First of all, what is this?

deer

Also, there’s this. X is for Xebec. Xe-WHAT?

xebec

Hang on, I just googled it and apparently, it’s an ancient Mediterranean sailing ship. Okayyy.

And then finally, we come to Z. Ok, really? Out of all the wonderful Z words to choose from like zoo, zebra, zip, zero, zigzag, heck, even zugzwang and you go with zaguan. Bet you’ve never seen that word before. Unless you Spanish, then um, Nacho Libre!

zaguan

Alright kids, today’s show was brought to you by the letter Z. For Za-you know what? Forget it, you’re probably never going to use that word in a sentence like ever.

by
side effects of motherhood

Tru-ster, Champion Hider

July 22, 2013

Living in a small-ish apartment, hide-and-seek isn’t one of those games we play a lot at home. It’s just not very fun when there aren’t many places to hide in. I have at most 7 decent hiding spots in the house and I can pretty much scan the entire place within 20 seconds.

Sometimes, to make the game last a little longer, I pretend to not see the kids when in fact, I’ve located a conspicuous baby toe in like 2 seconds. I do the typical “hmm, I wonder where the kids are” routine (*yawn*) for a while before making a dramatic show of finding them.

Unless I want some time alone to have a cup of coffee, in which case I do the hide-and-ditch, where I make them hide before quietly sneaking off to do my own thing. That usually buys me about 5 minutes before they get bored and come looking for me and in turn, I go hide somewhere when I hear them coming. That’s called the reverse-hide-and-seek.

The things parents have to do in the name of entertainment.

In recent weeks, we’ve discovered that Truett is quite a skillful hider. It helps that he’s small enough to fit into very tiny spaces but the more important thing is that he’s very creative in seeking out hiding spots. Also, he’s super patient and quiet while he’s hiding – all the qualities of a champion hider. Whenever we play hide-and-seek now, I have to bring my A-game in order to locate him and even then, it sometimes takes me several minutes of active searching before I find him.

And his secret move is called the surprise-hide-and-seek. Wherein he decides to hide without anyone knowing that he’s hiding. Which obviously requires a great deal of patience because it could be a while before anyone actively looks for him. But when it works, it’s very effective.

Just this evening, I was out with the husband for some quick errands and my mom was helping to put the kids to bed when Truett decided that it was a good time to play a game of unannounced hide-and-seek. My mom was calling out for him and hunting everywhere but nothing – she even thought that he had somehow managed to sneak out of the house with us (she was about to call us to check).

Finally, after a considerable amount of panic, she found him in a little corner behind the bed.

Truett = 1

Grandma = 0

by