side effects of motherhood

Before I became a mother, I had a pretty clear picture of the kind of mom I wanted to be. Calm. Understanding. Fun. Exciting. Not frazzled. Not hung up over cleaning up or eating their peas. Most of all, not naggy. I hated naggy. Every mother I know has a superpower, which is the ability to go on and on incessantly until their opponent is thoroughly worn out.

I didn’t want that power at all.

Then one by one, my ideals got shredded to bits but still, I was cool about turning out to be the exact opposite of THE AWESOME MOTHER I was going to be. I was driven batshit crazy. I started freaking out after Tru spat out every vegetable for 2 weeks straight. All he wanted to eat was rice with egg. Sometimes, just eggs without the rice. I’m pretty relaxed about food but even I know that’s not good. It’s all about expectation management, I told myself. No big deal, just roll with it. I had long given up on being a perfect mom, but my consolation was that at least I wasn’t naggy… yet.

Lately, it’s getting impossible to not nag at the kids. When they’re babies, there’s really no need to nag because they’re not able to follow instructions so you cut them some slack. The real test is when they start intentionally ignoring everything you ask them to do.

At first, Tru had this wonderful phase I like to call the super-duper-helper phase. He actually wanted to do everything I requested because apparently, it was so *fun* to be helpful. It was like having a voice-activated remote control robot. “Tru, help mommy to throw the tissue.” “Tru, turn on the fan.” “Tru, pick up the toys.” The cleanup song worked like a charm and he would round up all the toys neatly into a pile. On retrospect, I should have milked it a lot more.

Now, he’s in the don’t-try-to-con-me-into-helping-because-I’m-not-that-naive phase. I much prefer the previous one. Instead of obliging enthusiasm, I get a flicker of acknowledgement followed by determined nonchalance.

First he pretends he doesn’t hear me and of course I fall for it and repeat myself, this time a little louder. “Tru, can you take off your shoes?” *No response* After 5,000 repetitions, it becomes “Tru, if I have to come over and take off your shoes for you, it’s not going to be pretty for either of us.” That usually works, but it doesn’t help me in the no-nagging department.

Other times, he pretends to act dumb and flashes me the puzzled look, like “I really *want* to help you, mommy, but I just don’t understand what it means to pick up my toys.” Nice try, young man. Unfortunately for him, I am in fact the master of that particular move. A slight tilt of the head coupled with a raised eyebrow.

I’m trying to make myself feel better with the idea that nagging is part of the job, like how surgeons have to cut and lawyers have to weasel. Mothers, we’re relentless like that.

Unless you’ve got an idea on how not to nag. Although I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.

Tru talks a lot these days. I’m no expert on the linguistic abilities of almost-two-year-olds so I’m not sure if he’s supposed to talk this much but it really scares me sometimes. Most of the time I’m like “where did you even learn that from, young man?”

Then I realize that while he’s not so keen on picking up the words I teach him or make him repeat after me, he’s really good at watching us and learning all the stuff we say that’s way too advanced for his age.

Seriously, momma, I'm watching you

Things like these:

Whenever Kirsten make a mess, he goes “Oh no, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” and gestures in mock horror.

When he makes a mess, he goes “Oh dear, what are we going to do?“, as if we’re now in this together.

If he know that he’s going to be in trouble, he rubs his chest and goes “Sorry mommy, I won’t do that anymore.”

When Kirsten successfully snatches his toy, he goes “NOOOOOO! You want to go naughty corner?”

When I put on make up, he goes, “Yayyy, mommy pretty!” Nice one.

This is an important parenting lesson for me, but also a very difficult one. Mostly because I prefer ordering them around to do stuff instead of doing it myself. Especially things like eating vegetables and cleaning up and sharing.

I’m cool with sharing most of my stuff, but when it comes to things like bubble tea and ice-cream, it’s ALL MINE. Because I grew up with a brother and now have a husband who eats faster than Godzilla and then proceeds to attack my share. Me, I need to savor my food and roll it around in my mouth a little bit which takes ages and sharing doesn’t work out very well for me. So either I’ve got to eat fast, which is totally unenjoyable or by the third mouthful, it’s usually gone.

But armed with my newly-acquired parenting skills, I decided to share my infinite wisdom as well as bubble tea with Kel, while flashing him a look that said “if you finish it, there’ll be no more of this sharing business“. It worked like a charm and Tru followed suit. Kel says this means we always have to share because it’s so effective.

I say sharing is overrated. So is cleaning up and eating vegetables.

It’s going to be my fault if the kids grow up to be exactly like me, isn’t it? I guess this means I’ve got to be better so that they can be better. This is turning out to be harder than I thought.

it's more fun with two

These days, I love watching the kids play together. Seems like it’s turning out to be a brilliant idea to have them so close together after all.

Make no mistake, it’s no fun being pregnant when your first kid is 4 months old. Towards the last trimester, there was an aura of foul smells hovering around Truett because one time I sat down to bathe him and I spent 15 minutes trying to get up. Unsuccessfully. That’s when I gave up on the bathing thing altogether and just waited until the husband got back.

After Kirsten was born, it was possibly even worse. I honestly don’t know how I survived the first 6 months with two screaming babies alone all day. Sometimes, just thinking about those days still makes me want to cry. Or scream. Probably both.

But I think I’ve paid my dues because now that baby girl is bigger, she’s become the perfect companion for Tru. She’s the yin to his yang. She forces him to share his stuff, calms him down when he’s in a frenzy and lets him perform all kinds of ridiculous experiments on her when he’s bored. In turn, he kisses her head and makes her smile.

When they’re a little bigger, he’ll spend all his time being up to no good and she’ll be like “Tru, we can’t put spiders in momma’s panties. They’re going to spin cobwebs and then we’ll all be in trouble.”

I can only hope that the she is able to resist the lure of the dark side. Be mindful of the force, my young padawan.

Right now though, it’s much easier for me. I can read to both kids at the same time. They drink milk and change their jammies and go to bed together. Instead of having to entertain two kids, I put them down and let them go crazy while I sip my coffee.

Granted, there’s plenty of conflict resolution to be done because half the time, they’re pulling out each other’s hair and screeching. Then I get to step in all adulty and yell at both of them just like my mom used to do. And if you think about it, in all likelihood I’d still be yelling if I just had one so I’m still rocking that whole economies of scale business.