from around here

It’s 4 days to Christmas!

In preparation for this wonderful day, I’ve been listening to carols and eating large amounts of my mom’s fruitcake. I think if I could only choose one cake to eat, it might have to be moist, delicious fruitcake stuffed with rum-soaked raisins. And the best part? I don’t have to share it with the kids because ALCOHOL. It’s the only cake Theo has ever spat out and I’m like “Yeah, eww so nasty, don’t eat it!”

We just had our candlelight service at church last weekend and it was perfect as always even though 2 kids were terribly ill and the other 3 were borderline sniffly. It reminded me that no matter how the year went, it always ends beautifully because Christmas will come and it will be beautiful.

I’ll be spending what’s left of the year with these guys doing important things like eating more cake, opening presents, loading up on snuggles and partying till way past bedtime.

Here’s Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

We’re almost into December, you guys. Most years, I get to December and it feels like it’s too soon but not this year. This year is like that mannequin challenge scene in X-men where everything else is frozen in time and I’m blitzing like Quicksilver. Having to Quicksilver it for a whole year is exhausting.

For the most part, 2016 has been hard.

Okay, not like 2009 kind of hard because that still holds the record for being rock bottom in a very deep, dark hole. 2016 is more of a cavernous valley that’s scary and menacing, but also just pretty enough to make it bearable. So not the worst place in the world to be in but not somewhere you want to stay in for a long time.

I think transitioning to 5 kids blindsided me a little; I wasn’t prepared for it to be this difficult. I mean, 4 kids was intense but I still mostly had a grip on things. With 5, I’m operating at full capacity all of the time trying to keep things from spinning out of control, and I’m not even really doing that good of a job. Things are falling out around me and I can’t seem to catch them all in time.

Like Finn has all these unsigned permission slips that I keep meaning to get to but don’t, and the other day, he went to school with 2 extra shirts and no pants so he couldn’t change into fresh pants after his shower. Poor baby doesn’t ask for much, just a pair of fresh pants to change into after his shower and I couldn’t even make it happen for him.

Then there was that time where I left my 2 big kids waiting in school for an hour because I didn’t read the memo that said they were finishing early that day. I was on autopilot until I got a call from Kirsten who was like, “Mom are you coming to pick us? We’ve been sitting here for an hour and everyone has gone home.” When I got there, there was dramatic sad music playing in my head as I walked towards my abandoned children sitting on the floor of an empty foyer waiting for a mom who didn’t show up.

I haven’t slept in 6 months, drank way too much coffee and I constantly feel bad that I haven’t spent enough time hanging out with each kid and now they’re all going to grow up having to deal with the crushing weight of parental neglect. It’s sobering to know that I’ve hit my ceiling and this is about as much as I’ve got to give.

The worst part of it is that this is everything I’ve wanted. 10 years ago, if I had known that I’d be right here with all that I have, I would have told you that I’d be the happiest girl in the world. And I am. In my moments of clarity, I know that this is the dream.

Being here with these 5 tiny humans that bring me so much joy, in our little home that’s safe and warm and filled with love and mayhem and baby laughter, this is all that I want. I should be happier.

Except that the thing about getting what you want is that you have to take everything else that comes along with it. The accompanying tantrums that come with my 2-year-old’s surprise kisses. The squabbles that happen right after those lovey sibling moments. Want to love on this sweet, sweet baby? Well, get ready to have fun with the 2-hour-crying-baby-zombie-night-walks that eat away at your soul.

It’s a package deal, equal parts awesome and difficult.

I love that scene in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where she said “A person can stand just about anything for 10 seconds…then you just start on a new 10 seconds. All you got to do is take it 10 seconds at a time.” It’s spot on. In 10-second chunks, things become a lot more bearable. I can get my anxiety under control when I only have to deal with it for 10 seconds at a time. So when it gets too much to take, I breathe and make it to 10 before starting over again.

I’m the only one responsible for my own happiness and life goes on one way or another. Some days are harder than others. Some years are harder than others. But life keeps going on and maybe when I wake up tomorrow, it’s going to be a really good day. If not, we’ll figure out a way to get through that one too.

34 years of life has taught me that if I keep showing up and getting through the hard days, I’ll eventually get to the good ones.

Baby Theo’s least favourite number is 3 because holding up 3 fingers requires the kind of motor control and isolated muscle power he doesn’t have. And because I’m a terrible parent, I’d always offer him up to 3 pieces of his favourite food, like “show mommy how many gummies you would like – 1, 2, or 3?”

“FIVE!! Um, no, TEN!! I WANT TEN GUMMIES!” he’d yell enthusiastically.

“Good try, but the maximum number is 3 and I need to see those fingers.”

He will struggle to contort his fingers into variations of a misshapen claw until finally, he’ll give up and show me 2 fingers while declaring “I don’t like 3.”

Guess who just mastered the 3 finger move? Yeah, this guy. He still needs his other hand to hold down the pinky but this works too.

***

It looks like we have another foodie in the house.

I wasn’t planning to start baby Hayley on solids for another month but she’s been actively trying to eat all of our food, which makes me feel so bad because every time I’m stuffing food into my mouth, she’ll be trailing it and trying to move her mouth closer to the deliciousness that’s just out of her reach like the little chomping fish from the hungry fish game.

I couldn’t give her fried chicken so she got the next best thing: peas and quinoa.

At first she was all like “Wow all this food for me???” and then when it reached her mouth, poor baby was like “WHAT IS THIS ABOMINATION??? BLEARRGHHH.” See, that’s the mark of a foodie right there.

The next day, she tried some pureed pumpkin with baby rice. Much better. Then sweet potato, avocado, banana, spinach, applesauce. Yes, yes, yes, no, yes.

Also, Kirsten is an amazing baby feeder. I don’t even have to do anything around here anymore.

***

So this was baby Theo 18 months ago learning to say his first word.

And now the student has become the master.

I will just say that if my tubes weren’t so successfully tied, we’ll be talking baby #6 right about now.

I know Pokemon Go is so two months ago, and I’ve pretty much given up after getting stuck at 121 on my pokedex, but that’s ok because one can learn things from playing ridiculous time-wasting games that make you cluster around crowded void decks like you’re part of a zombie apocalypse.

For example, parenting can be a lot like Pokemon Go in that you spend a lot of your time running around chasing down adorable little monsters and feeding them raspberries. Especially this one. This one will do anything for raspberries. Or strawberries. Basically any kind of berries/food in general.

Occasionally, you take photos of them when they’re spotted in the wild.

And the battles I have to engage in with these guys??? Sleep battles, food battles, shower battles, come-back-here-and-wear-your-pants battles, DON’T-EAT-CAKE-SCRAPS-FROM-THE-FLOOR BATTLES, too many battles.

I will not speak of the number of times I wished I could stuff them in a ball and put them in my pocket, which is like every single time we have to leave the house because I’ll be all “GUYS, HUSTLE!!” and they will be taking turns to show me their most exceptional sloth impressions.

Clock wipe 10 minutes later and I’m still at the door yelling “Kids, we’re late! Can you guys move any slower???” and they’ll be like “WHY YES, YES WE CAN!!”

But the most valuable thing I learnt is that there’s no shortcut to getting good at this. As tedious as it sounds, the only way to get better is by getting in there every single day and knocking out those experience points in order to level up and attain grand master status.

<<To become a grand master at parenting, go get them EXP points.>>

Like all those hours and hours spent bouncing a fussy infant till I can’t feel my arms. Guess what? Levelled up.

And all those nights spent sponging a feverish toddler, worriedly running my hands across his warm forehead all night to make sure he’s not burning up too badly. I’ve done this so many times I can tell with startling accuracy a baby’s body temperature without even checking the thermometer. What’s that? Levelled up.

All the times I had to catch a baby’s vomit with my hands/tshirt/other available body parts so the bedsheets don’t get stained. Uh huh, levelled up.

All the times I lost it at the kids and then felt really bad for being a high-strung crazy parent and had to apologise for my temporary lapse of self-control…levellel up big time.

All those fights I had to mediate and all the tantrums I had to suffer through and all the discipline I had to dole out, each one of them was worth one level at least.

//

Few nights ago, I decided that I was going to put all 3 of the youngest kids to bed at the same time. I’ve never been successful at it but I was feeling ambitious so I breastfed baby Hayley with her nestled in my left arm while Theo snuggled up on my right chest and Finn found a comfy spot on the far right holding my hand. IT WAS GLORIOUS.

For all of 3 seconds.

Suddenly Theo got really mad with Finn for lightly touching his ear, and Finn was like “that doesn’t even hurt!!” Some screaming later, the two boys decided to do the pyjama party dance in the dark, which led to Theo falling off the bed and bruising his bum. Finn thought it was hilarious (which it was a little), but that made Theo even more upset, which made the baby upset, and there was just a lot of commotion going on.

It was 10.20pm and from experience, these ridiculous babies were at least an hour out from falling asleep.

The me 3 years ago would have gotten increasingly agitated as I watched the minutes of my sacred quiet evening mommy time disappear into the darkness.

But not the levelled up me. Levelled up me knows that these babies were going to destroy my designated unwinding time whether I liked it or not. Levelled up me knows how to deal. So I turned on the lights, put on some pyjama party music, secured the perimeter with pillows and we all had an epic dance off on the bed. It still took about an hour of dancing, somersaulting, taking turns to carry baby Hayley, and climbing up and down the bed before they all finally fell asleep.

As they drifted off to sleep in my arms, I thought about how much we’ve evolved as parents. When we started out, all we had were a ton of parenting theories that we acquired from books – some worked for us, others didn’t. It took us 8 years of walking through this every day, dinging one level after the next, figuring out what worked for our kids and what didn’t, to get to where we are today.

Not quite grand master status, but we’re getting there!

The thing about having kids is that you don’t expect anything in return for all the things you do for them. I mean, we try our best to teach them about being thankful for what they have so they don’t grow up to be entitled human beings but on a day to day, I really don’t expect them to be gushing with effusive gratitude each time I fix them a snack or stock up on their school supplies, that’d be super weird.

We do everything that we do for them and kids just sort of expect that whatever they get is what they’re supposed to get, that’s how it is. And it’s ok because I’m happy to do it; knowing that I loved on these babies the best I could is enough.

But then once in a while, you get to wake up to a crumpled, messily scribbled note that makes your heart so so so so full.

I shall now bask in this moment for a bit.

“I’m so so so so so so so so so so so so so so thankful for you being my mom! And I have the best life ever and thank you I’m really blessed!”

– Truett

//

Also, this piece of kiam chye won’t survive very long around here so this way, I’ll get to look at it the next time I wonder why I’m doing this to myself.

We’re almost at the end of the school holidays, which is to say that we made it through this insane week. I will just take a moment to congratulate myself for a bit before I continue.

Here’s pretty much how my week went.

Early Monday morning, I woke up to cuddles from all my babies and thought to myself, “school holidays with 5 kids? I got this! I’ll just spend the whole week with these angels soaking up the love, how hard can it be?”

The snuggles lasted for about 3 seconds and clock wipe 10 minutes later, I’m standing in the living room with messy hair and an exhausted, crazed look in my eye because I haven’t even had time for coffee and somebody’s already spilt chocolate milk everywhere, someone else is yelling for more “BIG, BIG BREAD”, and everyone is talking at me demanding to know what special activities we are having today.

What special activities?? How about the special activity is you guys get to do assessment books quietly for the next 3 hours?

This week has been challenging – it’s already Friday and I feel like I haven’t had time to stop and catch my breath. But it’s also been kind of fun.

We went to the Punggol Safra water playground, tried out a new meatball recipe (it’s like playdoh except edible!), hung out at the library, did a few grocery runs (because you forget things when you’re trying to stop your 5 children from destroying the supermarket), tried some experiments from Truett’s new library books (YEAH SCIENCE!), went pokemon hunting at the park, stopped by for cake (I’m sorry the lady next to us had to experience my family during her quiet afternoon tea break).

We could probably have done more. Educational museum trips for the big kids, some fancy Montessori type activities for my 2 and 4-year olds to pour stuff into other stuff, maybe some elaborate craft sessions to develop their artistic flair instead of “here’s a piece of paper and some colour pencils”, quickly followed by “here, just take the iPad and watch veggie tales.”

During bedtime yesterday, the kids were feeling a little bummed that their school holidays were almost over.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to do all the things we planned to do, mommy will try to make the next school holidays more fun ok,” I told them.

If there’s one thing I want for the kids, it’s that they can look back on their childhood and remember that it was a fun one filled with good memories but a lot of the time, I’m not sure if I’m succeeding at it. There’s a lot of scrambling involved in our day to day. A lot of just doing what needs to be done from moment to moment, which leaves very little time for creating special memories.

“Thanks for spending time with us mom, it was actually very fun,” Truett said.

“Ya, we don’t need to do special things all the time. Even normal things can be fun,” Kirsten added.

What did I do to deserve these kids? And they’re probably right, even normal things can be special if we get to do it together. I think as long as they look back and remember their days to be filled with love and laughter, those are good enough memories.

My favourite part of the day, you guys.

I turned 34 yesterday. That’s like terrifying mid thirties territory – I mean, not too long ago, I was a bright eyed 25-year-old, and now I’m 34 and what’s next? 60??

I thought it’d be scary being this old but turns out, it’s really not so bad.

Yeah ok, there’s the part where I’ve lost track of how old I actually am when I’m filling out forms and I have to do that counting thing with my year of birth to be sure, plus I can sometimes feel myself aging rapidly with all these bodyaches and reduced mobility, but I suspect that’s just what happens when you have far too many pregnancies.

This morning over breakfast, Finn tried to guess how old I am and he was like “Are you 8 years old?”

“No, much older than that.”

“Are you 100???”

“WHAT?? That escalated quickly. Do I look 100? I’m MUCH MUCH YOUNGER than that.”

“Are you 99?”

“Ok, this game is gonna take a while. Why don’t I just skip to the part where I tell you that mommy’s 34.”

“Phew, I thought you were super old like 100. I like you to be 34,” he said with visible relief.

“Wow, ok, thanks for that. I like to be 34 too.”

Which is true. My 20’s were ok, it was great to be young and feel young, but 30’s is where it’s at. Hopefully I can say the same about my 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.

When I was younger, I used to dread the thought of getting really old one day, but I’m starting to think that being in my 70’s would be fun. The husband knows that when I get to the part where I’m seriously old, my plan is to be like Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, delivering these caustic zingers with my deadpan icy gaze.

One of my goals in life is to amass enough of these one liners to deliver them at opportune moments later in life.

One of the perks of being that old is that you get to call it like it is and people generally take it even if they don’t like it. That’ll be so much fun.

Also, how about Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall? Nobody should be allowed to be that awesome. It almost makes me look forward to being old…eventually. Or at least, it gives me hope that it isn’t going to be all that bad.

***

Onto birthday matters, seeing that the husband had to be away for a work retreat, the kids made it their responsibility to plan a special day for me.

Kirsten even wrote a letter of excuse to approve of the husband’s absence on my birthday, so adorable. At first she was like “Daddy’s not going to be around?? How are we going to celebrate your birthday on our own??? Without any money????” But then after some consultation with her brothers, they came up with a pretty solid plan.

So you know how kids get really obvious when they’re trying to hide something and they were like this all week, whispering in secret and being all mysterious about their plans. They would come up to me and ask super obvious questions like “Um mom, so what is your favourite food in the whole world?” and “What kind of cake do you like the most?”

As a birthday treat, they brought me out for a date, or rather, they made me bring them out for date and buy myself a cake (which they chose!).

They also prepared a birthday present, which was to inform me that for the rest of the month, I’d be entitled to unlimited hugs and kisses because as they so eloquently put it, “We know that we’re your best present ever!”

Right about that.