milestones & musings

HEY LOOK WHO LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH!!

Yeah, this guy. Who now has the cutest toothless grin I ever saw.

His left front tooth started getting a little wobbly in school 2 days ago and he came home looking mighty proud of it, like “mom, look at my tooth it’s so gross”. And it was really gross, like some parts were dislodged while other parts were still dangling from the gums and I could see bits of gum flesh. Why are boys so fascinated with grossness?

I offered to yank it out but I immediately regretted my offer because ewww. It’s a good thing he objected violently to my suggestion anyway.

Then yesterday, while he was at my in-law’s place, the tooth did us all a favour and fell out on its own. Sort of. I asked him how it happened and he said there was a hair that got into his mouth (how??) which he couldn’t get out (why??) so he started rubbing his mouth and teeth (why would this work??) and next thing he knew, the tooth was in his hand (not sure what became of the offending hair but I didn’t ask). There was a bit of bleeding but apparently it didn’t hurt much so all things considered, it’s a yay, question mark?

I’m new to this whole tooth falling out territory but we wanted to make it special for him so I thought maybe we’d go all the way with the tooth fairy story and see where that takes us.

I told him to put the tooth under his pillow and at night while he slept, a tooth fairy will come and replace it with money. His eyes opened wide for just a moment and he was like “Really?? you mean…” then his voice trailed off as he realised the implausibility of it all.

But I was determined to give it a shot at least so I played along and wrote him a note from the tooth fairy while he slept. Not quite sure what the going rate for a tooth is these days so we settled on $2 and a coupon for an hour’s worth of PS3 gaming.

Two things about this tooth fairy business. 1. Putting a tooth under one’s pillow is borderline gross and unhygienic. 2. It’s impossible to locate a tiny tooth under a pillow in the dark, especially if the tooth shifted during the night and dropped under the bed.

After he fell asleep, I went in with my little fairy note and my iPhone torch to make the swap but his tooth was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t under his pillow or around his bed or in his hands. On retrospect, I should have put it into a pouch instead but these are the mistakes a rookie tooth fairy mom makes, we live and learn. I spent 5 minutes feeling around his bed looking for a tiny gross tooth in semi-darkness until he started stirring and I figured it’d be embarrassing to be caught in the act of pretending to be the tooth fairy. No tooth to be found but I decided to leave the note and money anyway.

This morning, I woke up to the happiest little toothless boy. “LOOK LOOK LOOK! THE TOOTH FAIRY CAME!!”

I gave him a giant hug and he whispered “Actually I know it’s you, thanks mom! Also, you forgot to take my tooth, it’s right here.”

Tooth fairy mission: FAIL.

Mommy mission: SMASHING SUCCESS.

I know that you know I’ve already turned 30 last year but I intend to turn 30 again for 9 more times until it’s no longer fashionable to do so. Actually, you know what? No, screw that, I’m glad to be 31. And I’ve decided that whatever age I get, I’ll be happy to wear it proud.

In the past year, I’ve become a mother of 3 awesomesauce kids. I’ve given out about about 10,950 cuddles, read 1,080 stories, kissed 127 boo boos and whispered too many I love you’s for me to count. I’ve packed up the kids and left for a holiday on the very day we decided to fly. We’ve danced in the rain (with raincoats of course), made terrible looking crafts and sang silly songs till we ran out of silly words.

Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be having this much fun at 30.

I think sometimes we get stressed out about our age because there are all these lists about all the things we’re supposed to have done by the time we turn 30, obviously made by overachievers and people with far too much time on their hands.

To that I say that it’s ok to make our own lists. Lists of things we’d like to do after 30 because we spent the last 30 years living our lives the way we wanted to.

So at 31, here’s my list.

1. Have another kid. Ha ha ha, I kid. Or not. I’m still mulling over this one.

2. Do a cartwheel. I tried learning this at age 7, fell over on my ass and never tried it again. It’s time for that to change.

3. Cook. Well technically I can cook, but it’s not anything I’d like to serve to another human being. At some point in my life, I’ll be able to cook. And babe, you can stop celebrating now.

4. While we’re at that, I’m going to learn how to make one of those fancy desserts with French names that require the use of a blow torch.

5. Run a marathon. I’ve noticed that women past 30 like to pick up running. I’m turning into one of those women.

6. Travel. Visit every continent. Revisit places we’ve been to and discover new places. Maybe even check out an igloo and make friends with a penguin.

7. Go camping with the kids. With a real tent and campfire and everything.

8. And a bonus one where I stop wishing I had someone else’s life. Mine is mine and I’ll make it awesome.

Guess what, y’all? We’ve finally caved and hired ourselves a live-in domestic helper. SHOCKING, I know.

All this while, we’ve never been hot on the idea of having a stranger live in the house with us and besides, we were convinced that we wanted to do everything for the kids on our own so we managed to somehow survive the past 5 years and 3 kids without a maid. The laundry wasn’t always done on time and the house wasn’t as spotless as I would have liked…okay, who am I kidding? Most days, it felt like we were living in a war zone where little kids were doing the fighting with a formidable arsenal of toys.

Over the past 7 months, with a new baby at home and more projects at work, the time has finally come for us to reconsider that decision.

Initially, we got a part-time cleaner to come in once a week for a couple of months, but it wasn’t quite enough so after a lot of thought, it made more sense to get someone in full time. Also, it might be a direct result of too much Downton Abbey.

So last Thursday, we picked up our domestic helper and so far, it’s been working out really well. I still want to do the baby stuff like the feeding and bathing as much as possible but it’s nice to be able to outsource the cooking and chores to someone else. Seriously, my house hasn’t been this clean since like ever and it’s nice to have an extra pair of hands to help out with stuff here and there so we don’t have to work till 2am every night.

Obviously, we’ve all had to make some adjustments (the helper included) and it’ll probably take some time to get used to one another but the important thing is that she seems to like the kids, and they like her back. They were a little shy at first , like when they wanted an apple and I was busy feeding Finn, I overheard them whispering to each other “you go and ask aunty”, “no, you go”, “okay, scissors paper stone…” and finally Tru went up to her and asked “Aunty, can you cut an apple for us pleaseeeee?”

Now they realize that with another adult in the house, they don’t need to wait for me to finish feeding Finn to attend to them so they’ve warmed up to her nicely.

Hopefully this arrangement works out. I do so enjoy being the Dowager Countess of Grantham around here.

All his life, Truett has had one hairstyle. ONE. Maybe slight variations here and there but it’s always been the same basic look. Sideburns, wispy fringe, longish layered look at the back and sides.

I loved that hair. It’s so easy to tousle and I like running my fingers through his hair when I’m talking to him.

Plus I could do so many things with it: spiked and standing, gelled side-comb, lightly-waxed out of bed look and the occasional shampoo mohawk in the shower.

Several times, I thought of changing his look and we’d go to the salon and Tru is all “okay, let’s do this” but the moment the stylist starts brandishing her scissors, I’d get cold feet and chicken out. That’s right, I’m more possessive of his hair than I am of my own.

But he is a big boy now and it’s about time he gets a big boy haircut. So last Friday, we went to the kid’s salon and finally went through with it. The husband calls it the undercut. I call it the sophisticated ang moh beng.

I’m already missing his old hairstyle but I dare say this new look is growing on me.

So far, each of my kids have a special cuddly friend. The chosen one. That precious item that keeps their world spinning and helps them fall asleep.

It’s the one thing I’m most terrified of losing because you’ve seen Armageddon right? Except instead of Bruce Willis saving the universe and everyone living happily ever after, it’s the alternate ending where everything gets blown up into a gazillion little pieces.

And this is coming from someone who has lost a number of pretty important things. Like my wedding ring. Wallets. Phones. A $2,000 cheque that I accidentally chucked down the chute (which btw, I managed to retrieve by opening up the chute downstairs and digging through a pile of poopy diapers, an army of cockroaches and other nasty stuff that shall not be described in detail). But none of those things are as bad as losing THE PRECIOUS.

For Truett, it was his blue striped blankie and Kirsten had her precious duck duck. Finn, well, he’s finally made his choice.

Might I add that this selection process is an elaborate one because one does not just anyhowly select a best friend. Since he was born, we’d give him different variations of cuddliness like a blue bunny, a white bunny, a bear, a giraffe and even Kirsten’s spare duck. He’d take one, roll it around in his fingers, smell it, rub it against his cheeks, taste it and then toss it. He did this to each one multiple times until yesterday, he finally settled on a supersoft minky blanket, pressed it to his cheeks and fell asleep.

He held on to this blanket all of last night and this morning, he was all over the thing trying to make out with it.

I think we found a winner.

If I had to describe 2012 in one word, it would be…intense. I imagine that when I look back at 2012 several years later, it’ll be like “remember that epic year, what was that, 2012? Man, that was intense.”

I just read the post I wrote this time last year and if 2011 was the year I found myself, 2012 was the year I lost it again.

Too many things happened this year, epic ones. Good and bad ones. Ones that I’ve written about at length, ones that I’ve mentioned briefly and ones that I couldn’t quite find the right words for.

For starters, I went and had another baby this year. If I had to choose a defining moment in 2012, this would be it. Just like the other two monkeys, baby Finn is the love of my life and if I had to redo the year all over again, I’d have him a thousand times over. But still, having babies (even a third one) is the kind of life-changing experience that throws your world into absolute chaos.

I’ve got people who tell me that “you’ve already got two kids, one more can’t be very different.” Um, it’s like telling a guy who got shot twice that a third bullet to the knee wouldn’t hurt at all. Oh, trust me, you’ll feel the pain and in fact, the cumulative pain from 3 wounds will make the third one extra painful.

I still struggle with the breastfeeding and the depression and the long, sleepless nights that go on and on and on. Plus I have two more kids who still need a lot of love and attention. I guess it’s all the little things like  how my house is one giant petri dish of nasty bacteria so everyone falls sick easier. They also feed off each others’ grouchiness and with another person to add to the mayhem, let’s just say that the stressful moments are intensely stressful.

But then the awesome moments have also been intensely awesome. Many times this year, in spite of all the frustration and stress, I found myself looking at everything I had and felt truly thankful for all of it. Recently, Truett came to me all excited after watching Lilo & Stitch and said “Mom, ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind. We must always stick together, right?”

He’s right.This is our crazy little family and I love every bit of it, madness and all.

Tomorrow, it’ll be a brand new year and I’ve decided to dance into it because it’s going to be a good one.