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kids in motion

kids in motion, Kidspeak

And for my next trick…

August 20, 2012

In our house, toy-packing happens once a day, usually just before bedtime.

They know the drill – they get to pour out their toys everywhere, on condition that they pack up before they got to bed.

While the pouring of toys is done with much gusto and enthusiasm, the packing process involves a fair bit of reluctance and shuffling of feet, accompanied with drawls of “I’m so tired”, “my feet hurt”, “I just need to rest for a while first.”

The other day, I found Kirsten sitting next to her toys with a magic wand (my bubble tea straw) in hand, waving it and going “ALAKAZAM!”

Me: Baby, may I ask what you’re doing?

Kirsten: ALAKAZAM! ALAKAZAM!

Me: Um, hello??

Kirsten: Wait mom, I’m doing something.

Me: Yeah, I can see that. The question is what.

Kirsten: I’m trying to make my toys disappear. But it’s not working.

Me: Oh…I’d be very surprised if it works.

Kirsten: ALAKAZAM! Toys, disappear!

Me: Have fun. Just make sure the toys are packed when you’re done.

Kirsten: *pause* KOR KOR, MOMMY SAYS YOU NEED TO PACK UP THE TOYS!!

Me: Ok, that’s a far more impressive trick, but that’s not what I said. BOTH of you need to pack up together.

Kirsten: *sighhhh* 

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kids in motion, not feeling so supermom

Plastered

May 29, 2012

It’s an unspoken rule – there are certain things we’re not supposed to do as moms.

We don’t let our kids play with knives or stick their fingers in sockets or eat too much junk food. And we most definitely don’t fall asleep on the job because that’s when they will attempt to do all of the above.

That rule changes when you’re pregnant though, because I’m certain there’s a link between pregnancy and narcolepsy. I’m exhausted all the time and not in the I-don’t-mind-a-nap kind of tired. It’s the kind where I fall asleep involuntarily at various points throughout the day.

As a precaution, we’ve toddler-proofed the house and told them explicitly that they’re not allowed to engage in any activity that will get themselves mortally wounded or maimed. So they know to stay away from the carving knives and electricity.

This afternoon, I was watching them fix a puzzle when I must have dozed off for a couple of minutes. If you’ve never watched a 3-year-old fix a puzzle, it’s the ultimate test of your self control. On the one hand, you’re watching them struggle with a piece that obviously doesn’t fit, which makes you want to be all “here, let me help you” and finish the whole thing in 20 seconds. Then on the other hand, you want to let them learn through the struggle so you try to disengage your brain from mentally fixing the entire puzzle in your head.

So the only way to do it is to stone out while they spend 15 minutes figuring out which piece goes where.

Next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of my own snoring. You know how when you’re in the zone between semi-consciousness and a deep sleep and the sound of your own snoring travels back to your ears to wake you up? Yeah, that totally does happen.

But that’s not the fun part. The fun part was when I woke up to discover that I had been plastered by the kids. As in literally covered in plasters. They got bored with the puzzle so they decided to break into my medical box and peeled open a whole bunch of plasters to paste on my arms, face, thighs and feet.

I thought of telling them off for the plaster incident but I sighed and gave them a hi-5 instead because 1) It was pretty creative and 2) I’m just thankful they didn’t break into my permanent marker drawer. That could have been a lot worse.

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Disney Magic, kids in motion

Special School Day Surprise

February 16, 2012

One of my best childhood memories was when my parents would whisk us off for a surprise outing on an otherwise ordinary school day. We’d be in the middle of an typically boring day, expecting to do boring stuff like go home, take a nap or mess around with some crayons, when they would show up all badass like “ok kids get in the car, we’re going out somewhere fun.”

“Really? We’re going out NOW? On a Wednesday afternoon? OMG YOU’RE SO AWESOME!”

Even if we ended up going somewhere lame like McDonald’s or any old playground, it would still turn out to be the Funnest Outing In The History Of The World.

So I try to do that from time to time with the kids. Sneak them out somewhere fun in the middle of the afternoon just because, and then watch their little minds struggle to cope with all that awesomeness. I usually get to spend the rest of the day feeling like a rockstar and making them do whatever I say.

Like yesterday, I picked them up from school and we took a trip down to the Science Centre for a special Disney event. Mai and the rest of the Disney team had prepared a preview screening of an upcoming movie called Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Space Adventure. It’ll be launched on the Disney Junior Channel on Feb 20 and by movie, I mean a longer-than-usual 40-minute episode.

It was so cute because all the kids were gathered in the front row to pilot test the movie.

Being the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse connoisseurs they are, my kids found themselves prime seats and got really comfortable for the screening. They have to have their blankets whenever they watch TV, don’t ask.

While the kids watched, the adults had our own version of fun, which included some food and lots of conversation. It was nice to catch up with some of the other parenting bloggers without having to chase after the kids and yell at them every so often.

I’m not going to be able to tell you what the movie was about because I spent a total of 3.27 minutes watching it. All I know is there’s going to be a space parallel universe green alien Mickey and Pluto is from the planet, wait for it…Pluto. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? But the kids loved it and they’ve made clear their intentions to watch it when it airs.

Judging by the looks on their faces, it was enough fun for a midweek school day surprise.

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kids in motion, kids inc

Busted

January 6, 2012

“MOMMY WAKE UP!!”

Baby girl was yanking open my eyelids as I curled up on the floor in the living room. We were playing a sorting card game and from a sitting position, I found myself progressing to propping up my chin on my arms while lying on the floor, to a curled up foetal position within a matter of minutes. It was one of those post-insomniac nights and I was exhausted.

Besides, sorting card games didn’t make for the most mentally-stimulating exercise.

I was hoping they wouldn’t notice my lack of participation for 15 minutes but seeing how closely they monitor my participation, they quickly did and before I knew it, my child was in my face screaming at me to WAKE UP AND PAY ATTENTION.

I mustered a lame “Can mommy sleep for 15 minutes please? I’m very tired.”

I fully expected her to do more screaming but she let go of my eyelids, glanced at Tru and said “Ok, it’s very bright, you go to the room and sleep.”

I couldn’t believe my ears but hey, I wasn’t going to wait around for her to change her mind. I hastily got off my ass and did a swan dive into my bed, making a mental note to blog about how considerate and AWESOMESAUCE my kids are.

Now one of the skills I’ve learnt as a mother is to fall sleep with my ears still open for suspicious sounds. I would know if they were playing with water in the bathroom, or climbing up the window grilles or stealing gummies from the fridge. My brain would register all these sounds as I slept, flagging up the ones in which I would have to intervene.

They were quiet for several minutes but then I heard an unfamiliar clink coming from the kitchen.

I bolted out of my bed to find the both of them standing on chairs next to the kitchen counter. They were breaking into the fried shallot stash and shoving spoonfuls into their mouths. My mom makes these fried shallots as garnishing for porridge and they usually only get one spoonful mixed in with their dinner. This “crispy”, as they like to call it, is the magic ingredient that makes them finish their food and we ration it out sparingly. So it was like they found their pot of gold (en brown).

“Orhhh, you guys are busted,” I said, pretending to look upset.

Truett looked a little nervous but Kirsten was unflinching. She looked at me innocently and said “Mommy you tired? You lie down I pat you to sleep.”

I look at my two-and-a-half-year-old and I’d like to think that she’s too young to be masterminding such an elaborate scheme of mischief but honestly, I can’t be sure.

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kids in motion, kids inc

The Art of Girliness

January 4, 2012

It will always remain a mystery to me how I managed to make a girly girl. And not just any ordinary girly girl. The nail-painting, lipstick-applying, smiles-while-pointing-finger-to-cheek kind that walks around with more pink than should be allowed on any human being. Basically the kind that I used to mock mercilessly as a kid.

It’s like poetic justice coming to bite me in the uterus.

“BAM, here you go, you get the girliest of them all.”

When I was pregnant with Kirsten, I would dream of our all-girl dates which would involve throwing panties (not ours, obviously) at Jason Mraz from the mosh pit,  snowboarding down Mammoth Mountain, watching Manchester United tear Arsenal apart at Old Trafford (the husband gets excused from having to sit through the massacre), and eating profiteroles in Manhattan while rolling our eyes at girly girls that sashay past.

Guess I’m going to have to strike that last bit off my list.

Just over the Christmas period, Kirsten came home from school with a pink purse containing the following pink items: lipstick, compact powder, blackberry, car keys and credit card. It was her gift-exchange present and she’s been walking around touching up her makeup every 5 minutes “SEE MOMMY I’M SO PRETTY.” All I’m going to say is that pouch is headed for an unfortunate end very soon.

In other girly news, she’s developed a photo-taking craze. I used to be the one cajoling them for pictures, like “come on kids, just ONE picture, look at mommy HERE HERE! How about a smile? Ok fine, I’ll give you one gummy for every photo.”

But these days, she’s running everywhere asking me to take her photo. She’ll preen and pose and then proceed to check my camera before making me do retakes until she’s satisfied.

Like when we were at Sentosa last week, she ran up to each animal statue and insisted that she had to take a photo with every single one of them. After 2 animals, I was all “Ok, that’s cute, I got what I need,” but she was relentless. “How about the happy lionfish? And the octopus? There! There! Let’s go!”

For once, this girly thing is working out for me. And considering how much I’m going to save in gummies, maybe having a girly girl isn’t so bad after all.

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a spot of singapore, kids in motion, kids inc

Happy as a clam

January 3, 2012

Welcome to 2012. I hope the new year is treating you well so far and you’ve been enjoying every moment of it.

For us, the holidays are officially over and our merrymaking ways have come to a rather abrupt halt, which explains why I’m nursing a mild case of holiday hangover this morning. But then that’s to be expected on the first day back to work after a long break. It’s a good thing my work allows me to schedule an appointment with my bed at 2 o’clock this afternoon while the kids take their nap.

It’s one of the little perks of working from home, with another being the ability to spend the entire day wearing pyjamas and looking downright disheveled.

Anyway, since it was the last day of holidays yesterday, we told the kids they could pick their favorite activity and we’d bring them anywhere they wanted to go. They deliberated a moment before deciding on Sentosa, so even though we’d just been there 3 days before, it was off to Sentosa again.

They did have several specific requests, which were to ride the cable car, ride an orange (for Tru) and pink (for Kirsten) monorail train, ride the Luge, ride the Skyride and play at the kids area at Palawan Beach.

After each activity, they would ask “After this, where are we going?”

“To take the luge.” “To take the monorail.” “To get ice-cream.” “To the beach…”

“YAYYYYYYY!”

One by one, we checked off all the items on their list and watched their smiles get wider and wider as the day wore on.

They had so much fun that when it was time to go, they didn’t protest or negotiate for “5 more minutes” like they usually would. Kirsten put her head on my chest and said, “Ok, I’m very tired, I think I need to go home now.”

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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.

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