i embarrass myself sometimes, not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Super Shredheads

I’ve been shredding again. The last time I only managed to last 22 days before a lethal combination of fried chicken + fatigue resulted in a swift and decisive end to my exercise plans. To be fair, it was deliciously crispy chicken with golden brown skin that was fried to perfection – the kind worth getting fat for.

For several days after that, I dreamt of Jillian Michaels yelling at me to “fight for it” as she pinned me down in a stranglehold and confiscated my bucket of Popeyes. It was brutal.

The great thing was that in those 22 days, I converted at least 10kg of fats (more or less) into pure unadulterated muscle mass. And I know this because when I sucked in my stomach really hard, I could see the faint outline of pectoral muscle definition. Oh, sweet definition, how I’ve missed you. Once upon a time before I had kids, I once had stomach muscles. Now, I have one rather large mass of soft-ish tissue.

Yes laugh away, but pop 2 kids and then we’ll trade pictures of our jiggly bits.

That was probably the only reason why I even lasted 22 days in the first place – visible results. I could feel myself getting fitter just after one week of jumping jacks and bicycle crunches. By day 10, I stopped feeling like I was going to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

But discipline is a funny thing. The moment you stop, it takes you 10 times the effort to get back on track. You either progress or you start regressing.  I was down with a bout of food poisoning and after 3 days of non-exercise, all my resolve had turned into cravings for ice-cream and mee pok with extra lard. And the longer I didn’t exercise, the more difficult it got to put in that DVD again because I knew I’d be back to square one with all that huffing and puffing. Vicious cycle, really.

I just realized that it’s now the middle of August and I’ve still not achieved my resolution of completing a full 30-day shred. That leaves me 5 months to get to it.

I was doing my shred the other day and Kirsten was standing by eyeing me with interest. So I casually asked her “want to join mommy, sweetheart?” She pondered a moment and back came her reply. “I don’t need to do exercise, only mommy needs. You do your exercise very well ok.”

“Well, thanks a lot, princess. One of these days, you’ll have jiggly bits of your own.”

Guess I’m just going to start by putting on my running shoes every morning and see how far I get.

What’s your exercise regime? Need a little help here. 

a spot of singapore

Happy 46th Birthday, Singapore!

In the spirit of nationalistic pride, we did a little art and craft with the kids this morning. Me and the husband (ok, mostly the husband) squeezed out every ounce of our artistic talent and drew a beautiful picture of the Singapore flag, complete with the crescent and 5 stars.

The kids were all like “what’s that daddy, what’s that?” and we were all “What have you kids been learning in school? This is the Singapore flag la, like that also don’t know.”

Tru took one look at it and said “No, this is not the Singapore flag. It’s wrong.” So obviously their national education hasn’t been going very well or the husband needs to go for art lessons.

We wanted to teach them what the 5 stars meant but we figured it was more important to teach them to do the 2-finger peace sign while holding the flag (it’s now the Singapore sign, thanks to a certain MP). No matter how hard she tried, poor Kirsten could only muster the claw. Maybe we’ll get her a Kate Spade to see if it’ll help give her fingers some extra dexterity.

Happy National Day, everyone!

Peace out! (and this is me doing the peace sign, y’all)

lists you should paste on your fridge, unqualified parenting tips

Lessons in randomness

1. Kids never run out of toys

Because when they do, they just find ways to make new ones.

Apparently, this is an astro-blaster spaceship and they’re on a mission to the moon. It’s way less dangerous than it looks.

2. School is the best thing since sliced bread

For me, at least. I cannot remember the last time I had a leisurely breakfast and coffee on my own and it’s not because I have a terrible memory.  Although that is partially true. But the point is that it’s been a long, long time and my morning coffee never tasted better.

3. School is taking my kids away from me

My babies are growing up way too quickly and I’m losing 3 whole hours with them everyday. That’s 3 hours of baby hugs and snuggles and kisses. And also screams and fights and unreasonable demands.

I’m confused, is what I’m saying.

4. Building castles in the sand 

Is nowhere near as fun as discovering one and destroying it.

5. Wearing sunnies make you cool

6. No, really, it does

Have a smashing Monday.

PS. In other news, the Mother, Inc facebook page is finally up. I know it’s kind of a little late seeing that even my friend’s sister’s pet frog has a facebook page but I’m taking the very good advice of someone with over 160,000 fans on facebook who told me I needed to have one for the blog.

I’ll be posting videos, pictures and updates not seen on the blog so do check it out.