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side effects of motherhood

side effects of motherhood

Of swimwear, shoes and badly-named cats

July 7, 2011

I got this irresistible swim cover-up for baby girl a while back but she has been resisting all efforts to put it on with a dismissive “It’s not nice, I don’t like it!”

All this time, it’s been sitting at the bottom of her drawer because I knew better than to argue fashion with someone whose idea of very nice involved as many Hello Kitties as possible.

In her world of fashion, anything that has 1 Hello Kitty falls into the “nice” category. Anything that has 2 Hello Kitties is “so cute, I like it.” and anything with more than 5 Hello Kitties is “VERY NICE MOMMY YOU BUY NOW!”

Till this day, I still struggle to see the appeal of a cat whose name is made up entirely of a generic feline greeting. I mean, I would never name my child Hello Human unless I was certain she would be the last surviving human in the face of a martian invasion. In which case, I suppose it would be appropriate and somewhat cool.

But back to the swim cover-up. My little fashionista pulled this out from her drawer, stared at it for a minute, then decided it was time to promote it to the category of “ok fine, you can wear this for me.”

We had to compromise on the footwear but it’s still a step in the right direction. Baby steps. It’s all about baby steps.

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side effects of motherhood, travelling

Lessons from the aquarium

May 12, 2011

During our visit to the the KLCC aquarium last week, I took the chance to sneak in a little science lesson for Tru so it would be both FUN AND EDUCATIONAL YAYYY! Except that I wasn’t very good at marine biology so I had to first learn them myself before I could impart those pearls of wisdom (how’s that for a marine metaphor?) to my son.

I usually don’t pay much attention to those descriptive write ups next to the animal exhibits because I’d much rather be making faces at them but as it turns out, learning can be so much fun and we both came back a little smarter.

I’ll even share some with you so you can skip the trip down and go straight to the learning bit. Unless you want to go down to make faces at the fish, then I highly recommend that you do that.

1. Tru and I have the same favorite marine animal – sea turtles.

2. Male horseshoe crabs can remain attached to the female for weeks just because being together is so much better than being apart.

3. Question: What do I have in common with piranhas? We’re both cute and love meat. True story.

4. Sand Tiger Sharks can keep growing teeth to replace broken or chipped ones. They will literally never run out of teeth.

5. The only thing more gross than a regular frog is an albino one. Being translucent sort of makes it worse.

6. DON’T EVER PEE ON A JELLYFISH STING. I don’t care what you learnt from watching Friends. Don’t do it.

7. Tru’s fish motto: Fish are friends, not food.

8. My fish motto: Fish are food. Very tasty and nutritious food.

 

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picture perfect, side effects of motherhood

The universe and long weekends.

November 8, 2010

So I’m a little behind on some deadlines because I just spent the last three days hanging out with the husband and the kids when I was supposed to be doing important work stuff. But it was like the universe was telling me to drop the work by putting a public holiday on a Friday. That’s just basic universe rules 101 and you know me, I’m all about following the rules. Except when it’s telling me to actually do work then I tend to practice a bit of selective rule-following.

But on the bright side, I managed to get these shots of baby girl getting her cute on.

A lot of people have been commenting that she’s looking more and more like daddy and I can see why. But this face right here, that’s 95% momma. This is what I call the serious face.

But the smile and the sexy pose, that’s all daddy. The only time you will ever catch me doing this is if a fly managed to get itself lodged in my armpits. Which is to say um, NEVER.

I don’t have a lot to tell you about last weekend because I didn’t get a lot done. No planning, no writing, no events to organize. It was just a lot of looking at this while sneaking in a few moments of holding hands with the husband and feeling like I got everything I ever wanted. Well, not literally everything, but at least the things that mattered the most. There’s still the pet pony and little island over on the Caribbean.

PS. it seemed a little unfair not to have any pics of Truett so here’s one of him as Superman. That’s like worth 4 regular photos at least.

PPS. Technically, that’s like 2 pictures of Tru (the one in the mirror also counts) so now I have to take a photo of Kirsten as Wonder Woman to balance it out. Having multiple kids is like sitting for a very difficult Math exam.

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lists you should paste on your fridge, side effects of motherhood, stuff best described as not safe for parents, unqualified parenting tips

Here’s one for all the cleaning pragmatists

October 12, 2010

A lot of moms get really stressed out over cleaning. I used to be one of them, especially when it seems like I’m spending so much time cleaning and things never stays clean for more than half a day and I get all frustrated and start yelling at everyone a lot more, which is all so unnecessary. Until I discovered a formula to determine what needs to be cleaned up immediately and what doesn’t. Now my house is in a constant state of disarray but the important thing is that I feel SO much better.

Formula:

M (How bad is the mess) x B (How much does it bother you) / H (How long it is likely to stay clean) = C (Should I clean?)

Let me illustrate with examples to make it clearer.

#1: Kid’s Room = Don’t Clean

I call this the war zone because epic battles go on in here. At any given point in the day, someone will be emptying boxes of toys into a massive heap on the floor and then someone else will observe the destruction, throw her head back in maniacal laughter, and proceed to fling toys everywhere. Because it’s so fun to watch mommy grab her head and look horrified.

I used to categorize their toys into neat little boxes. One for vehicles, one for play cooking, one for animals, one for pirates and one for weird items (broken doll limbs, that kind of thing) that don’t fit anywhere else. I had a whole complicated organizational system going on that made the Dewey Decimal System look like child’s play. But the moment it’s all neatly packed up, they would drag out all the boxes and dump them onto the floor all over again in less than a second.

With the formula, I’ve learnt to leave it the hell alone. That way, I didn’t have to spend hours packing up or nagging at them to pack up only for it to be messed up again. WIN.

#2: Dishes, Laundry, Spills = Clean

No brainer. It’s relatively easy to clean and it stays clean for a decent amount of time. I mean, only slobs leave dishes piled up in the sink for weeks and I’m no slob. Only a cleaning pragmatist. There’s a difference.

#3: Living room = Debatable

I have clearly demarcated territory in my house. The kids know that toys are meant to be played with in the room but the occasional toy encroaches into my space and I put it right back where it belongs, i.e., the war zone. Other times, I leave it until the end of the day when I do my evening clean up of the house.

Cleaning is like money – there’s never enough. Everything could always be cleaner if it bothers you enough to get off your ass and put on those scrubbing gloves. Or if you have someone to do it for you then just flog them every now and then to give them some added motivation. But if you find yourself getting all high strung over cleaning, I suggest you try the formula and spend that cleaning time having a cup of coffee.

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side effects of motherhood

The real smoking gun

September 18, 2010

In lieu of a real post, here’s why I probably shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. Because how bad is it that my 2-year-old knows how to put his game face on and hold a machine gun like a pro?

For the record, he didn’t learn it from me.

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side effects of motherhood

Almost as good as Robots vs Wrestlers

August 24, 2010

Can’t say that I’m a huge fan of mornings. I operate much better after 10am and a large cup of coffee, neither of which I usually get because it’s always GET UP AND MOVE THAT BOTTOM COME ON HUSTLE PEOPLE WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE and we scramble to get everyone out of the house in time only to reach the car to find that Tru forgot his blankie or Kirsten dropped a sock along the way and as a result, more scrambling.

Some days, one of us wakes up on the wrong side of bed all cranky and crabby from insufficient sleep (ok, mostly me) and it’s like total anarchy for a good 30 minutes.

But once in a while, we all wake up happy and Tru goes “Good morning mei mei, you sleep well?” then proceeds to climb into her cot to drink his milk right next to her while we stand at the doorway going all ohh and ahh about out perfect lives. For a moment, we get to forget that we had front row tickets the night before to what was the biggest smackdown of all time (maybe not as big as Robots vs Wrestlers, but close), the one where they were trying to claw each other’s eyes out over a bowl of cheerios.

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