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kids inc

I’m having an Easter Egg Hunt in the middle of October

October 23, 2009

The husband and I, we’re major scatterbrains. I attribute it to the fact that I was born three months premature and the doctor said I was probably going to be retarded. So it’s like a miracle that I managed to survive all these years without eating my own hair and I guess I can live with losing stuff now and then. The husband, he’s got no excuse because his brain is broken so I don’t really blame him for it either.

In the years that we’ve been together, we’ve lost phones, wallets, wedding rings, keys and countless other stuff. We’ve been locked out of our own house and car enough times that it has stopped being funny. It says a lot that I consider it a personal achievement that I haven’t lost my babies…yet.

Now that Tru is a little bigger, he’s not helping the cause because he has taken to hiding our stuff around the house like some great Easter Egg hunt. Not like we don’t have enough trouble finding them as it is. Usually, we just leave everything on the dining table and even though it’s a mess, it’s an organized mess because I know exactly where everything is (after some scrambling). But you see, that was before Tru started hiding our stuff.

And he doesn’t just leave them sprawling on the floor in plain sight. It’s all strategically hidden in places I would never have thought to look. It was funny at first like “what’s this potato doing in my underwear drawer?” but after a while, it’s not fun having to search for the house keys when guests have been standing outside twiddling their thumbs for 15 minutes.

I’ve narrowed down his favorite hiding places and the list is getting longer by the day.

1. In the tissuebox

2. In the trash bin

3. In his shoe

4. Under his bed

5. Under my bed

6. In various drawers around the house

7. In his car boot (One day, I’m going to destroy that car)

I’m trying to teach him to locate stuff instead of hiding them, but when I ask him where’s my credit card or iPhone, he grins and says “no”. (Whaddya mean no, young man?) Then he’ll toddle behind me and peer knowingly as I start panicking and scrambling to turn the house upside down.

I’m being mocked by a baby.

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kids inc, motherhood

By the powers combined, I am MegaDutchess.

October 22, 2009

Sometimes I astound myself with my abilities. And by that I mean I’m like a new X-men, with special powers and all. If I were an X-men, I’d be Vishnu, or is it Krishna or Shiva. You know, the one with a thousand arms sticking out from everywhere. But I’d have a much cooler name like Megadutchess. Incidentally, I got the name from a kick ass Superhero Name Generator (this is the kind of thing I spend my free time doing).

Right, so yesterday, I brought BOTH kids out for a walk around the neighborhood alone. By myself. With only 2 arms and 2 babies. Impossible, you say? Not with Megadutchess to the rescue. Because I’m a psychopath superhero.

Tru has been down with a long-drawn battle with the flu and he’s been itching to leave the house. After whining for the whole day, making me wear his shoes and saying BYEEE repeatedly (his cue to leave the house), he finally got his way and I figured it was way easier to take him out for a walk than to be driven mad cooped up at home. This would be easier if I had a lift that came right up to my house, but I have to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the lift. Which means lugging a stroller up and down with 2 kids is out of the question.

I grabbed Kirsten with one arm and handcuffed Tru’s hand to my own and made my way slowly downstairs. It took me 20 minutes just to get from my doorstep to the playground and half of that time was spent shouting “Tru, come back here this minute” while he attempted to lie on the floor, pick at dirt, eat ants and dig out trash from the bin.

Then when we reached the playground, there was this brattish 4-year-old girl who tried to terrorize him. Obviously she could run faster than Tru and she monopolized every inch of the playground that he tried to touch, the whole time raining curses on him like “you are very naughty” and “I’m going to beat you”. When she thought I wasn’t looking, she threw a bottle cap at him. I was about to burn her with a cigarette stub when her mother suddenly appeared and started going ballistic. It was like I had some psychic powers that summoned her.

She pretty much smacked the living crap out of her right there in the playground and I watched with more than a little bit of satisfaction before grabbing the kids and making a quick getaway. Talk about poetic justice.

But I digress. The point is I don’t even know why I do these things. Like finding new ways to torment myself. By the time I got back, my arms were deadweight. But Tru was happy though. And Kirsten looked better with some fresh air. Although now I think they expect this is going to be a regular feature in their daily activities. Megadutchess, transform.

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kids in motion, kids inc

Peekaboo

October 20, 2009

All parents love to take indulgent videos of their kids and make disgustingly awful home videos and then post it on youtube and make everyone they know watch it multiple times.

I’m *NOT* one of those parents because after I make one of those home videos, I post it on my blog and make strangers watch it till their eyes bleed.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S70C50F0Q1g

If you actually know me, you’ll be compelled to leave a perfunctory comment on how cute/smart/awesome my kid is.

If you don’t, be thankful I actually edited it down to 23 seconds instead of showing you a full length feature film .

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kids inc

I can’t shelter you forever. So I won’t.

October 3, 2009

Tru 3

Tru seems to have grown up more in the past month than in the past year. He has so crossed the line into big-boyhood. When he turned one, he was inching towards the line, sometimes straddling it with one foot on each side, and sometimes retiring into the safety of babyness. He would threaten to cut off the apron strings and assert his independence one moment and next thing I knew, he was back to the familiarity of being mama’s baby boy.

But all I did was blink and now I’ve got this 2-year-old boy stuck in a 16-month-old body. It’s like one day he just decided to grow up and *poof* there went my little lambchop up in flames. In his place was well, a sheep (I had to give the metaphor a home run, you know). He started eating my clothes and destroying all my appliances one by one. He’s already murdered a fan, sent the dvd player into a coma and given my flatscreen TV a solid beating. (literally – with the remote control no less)

He talks a lot now. Way more than a 16-month-old is supposed to. Much of it still sounds like Brad Pitt in Snatch, but his vocabulary is growing by the day and it’s loads of fun talking to him. Just yesterday I said, “Tru, can you pass the bottle to mama?” He promptly put down his car, toddled over to the bottle, picked it up, then with the cheekiest glint in his eye he shook his head and said NO. I probably shouldn’t be encouraging behavior like that but I couldn’t keep down the giggles and it took me five whole minutes to regain my composure.

Well played, my boy.

Tru 1

These days, when we go out, he doesn’t cling on to my jeans for dear life anymore. He used to walk a few steps and then run back to make sure my jeans are within reach. But now, the moment his feet leave the house, he’s off and running without so much as a glance to see if I’m following. He just assumes I’m going to be there, or maybe he’s too fascinated with the world to even bother. Everything is so new and awesome to him and I can just see him taking it all in.

All of it. Like the blackbirds having a conference on the porch, the old dude lighting up yet another cigarette and the bunch of rowdy kids hurling profanities like it’s some sort of competition. And there I am, wondering if I should keep him sheltered and babied just for a little longer. That maybe he’s too young to hear words that I am unable to repeat. That a whiff of that nicotine will send his tiny lungs into overdrive.

Tru 2

After all, he is barely 16 months and he’ll have his fair share of being in the real world soon enough. And maybe being stuck at home with his *educational* toys and Playhouse Disney ain’t so bad. But then I see him looking longingly at the goings-on outside and the way he breaks into a huge grin when he’s told to “wear his shoes” and I can’t help myself. He’s an adventurer and it would be a grave injustice to not let him explore the world.

Although I do miss the jeans clinging.

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kids inc

And it goes BOOMZ!

September 29, 2009

Of the 17 words in my son’s dictionary, one of them is BOOMZ!

I think this is a sign he is watching too much Youtube.

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If you missed out on the boomz revolution (and hence this post does not make sense to you) –  check this out.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c_A7-7B7-w

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kids inc

Girls just wanna have fun

September 16, 2009

I’m starting to realize that having a girl is entirely different from having a boy. Now that Kirsten can do a lot more than ingest milk and scream, it’s becoming quite apparent that I’ve got a girly girl on my hands. Not just any girly girl, but the kind that speaks softly, bats her eyelids and preens when she walks. I’ve gotta say, I am actually terrified surprised.

I had my money on the fact that she’d be the spunky sort but no, looks like that’s not going to happen. For starters, she doesn’t like to be spoken to loudly or harshly, which will instantly cause her mouth to turn into a pout. And we all know what that leads to. We’ve been so used to shouting at Tru from across the hall or singing at the top of our lungs that it’s so disconcerting to have to keep real quiet and talk gently to Kirsten.

Feeding her is also an art form. All the elements have to be just right in order for her to enjoy her milk. I used to just prop Tru on a pillow and hold his bottle with one hand while still surfing the net or reading. But with baby girl, I’ve got to cradle her close, look into her eyes and whisper sweet nothings before she will take in a full feed. If I so much as look away or get distracted, she’ll start to fuss and refuse to drink. So much so that Superdad has acknowledged defeat because he is too restless to do nothing but look into her eyes for 30 minutes.

Then the playing. My boy is an adrenaline junkie. Any form of playing that requires throwing, swinging, hanging him upside down or drowning is a sure hit. He’ll giggle himself into fits and make you repeat it a million times. I tried swinging Kirsten once and she broke out into the loudest shriek of her life. True story. I almost thought I sent her into a cardiac arrest. And even after I spent the next hour holding her and whispering sweet nothings, she still sulked and pouted, as if to say “DON’T YOU DARE SWING ME LIKE THAT AGAIN, MAMA.” I got the idea.

To be honest, I have no idea how to handle a girly girl because I’ve never been one. My favorite color is blue (the husband claims it’s yellow), I love soccer and cars (the faster the better), I outplay boys at basketball (yes, even the husband) and dolls *really* freak me out. When I got Barbies as presents as a kid, I used to beat them on the head with various objects and  trade them for remote control cars with my brother (the going rate was 3 limited edition Barbies and a full set of accessories for a Lamborghini Murcielago). My sister was the one who loved the clothes and high heels and ballet.

Although having a girl has its perks. She’s content to just lie in my arms and gurgle when I talk to her for hours. She’s got none of that restlessness or mischief and she’s got a smile that turns you into mush. Tru never smiles. He grins or giggles, and either way, he’s up to no good, so it’s a refreshing change to have baby girl sit on my lap without squirming.

It’s a good thing I’ve still got some time before she’s into the whole Barbie/Bratz thing. Or the day she starts to make me pick out sand from between her toes.

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kids inc

Boy Genius discovers Ipod at age 1

September 9, 2009

The day has finally arrived. Tru has discovered the ipod. Like DISCOVERED the ipod. I was preparing his lunch in the kitchen and after a while, it got unusually quiet, which is far more worrying than him raising a ruckus. At least I know what mischief he’s up to.

So naturally I shout out from the kitchen, “Tru, I hope you’re not up to no good.” *Silence* Not a good sign, so I drop everything in a flash and leap over my safety gate into the living room. And lo and behold, there he is, with the earphones stuffed into his ears, head bobbing geekily to the beat. (he clearly didn’t learn that from me)

He casually glances up at me and what do you know, starts SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS. And I’m like “Young man, don’t you raise your voice at me.” But he clearly couldn’t hear me with the music blaring into his eardrums so he shouts some more. On retrospect, I should have yanked those earphones out, but it was too cute so we had a shouting match for a while before he decided to SING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS, and right about that time, I decided that there was no use fighting it. This is going to be my life for the next 18 years. Me shouting and him with earphones on blasting some angsty music pretending not to hear me.

ipod

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