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September 27, 2010

If you’re also a mom, you’re probably sympathetic to the fact that post-baby, your body is never going back to the way it was before. I blame all those slimming centre commercials with all the before and after shots (which were all probably photoshopped in anyway) because they make it look so easy. Pop 3 kids, wear some glad wrap and bam, you’re back to a svelte 45kgs.

Wrong.

First of all, glad wrap doesn’t work. Yeah, I’ve tried. I even let the masseuse slather me with some miracle ginger concoction that’s supposed to burn all my fats away. All it does is give you a hernia and you can’t even pee the entire time, which will mess with your bladder. Fail.

Oh, it’s all about controlling the food intake, you say? Ever since baby girl popped, I’ve been down to having 1 or 2 meals a day. If I’m lucky enough to find time to wolf down a sandwich in the morning, it’ll take me to dinnertime when the husband gets off work. If not, I only get to eat at 2 or 3 in the afternoon when the kids go to bed. I know there are a lot of theories on how eating at irregular hours will trick your body into storing fats but let’s just put it this way. My body is going to store more fats if I have more food than if I have less. Basic math, people.

Then there’s the exercise. Which I do not have the time for. If I have a spare hour in the day, I’m going to use it to eat, take a shower, catch some shut eye and watch the new season of Grey’s Anatomy. In that order. Doing squats to Richard Simmons on DVD is very far down my list of things do to on a day I manage to squeeze out some free time.

What makes it worse is that after you have a baby, you have to work doubly hard to keep in shape, as if it wasn’t hard enough before you had the baby.

But not to fear because I’m about to tell you how to get rid of that postpartum baby bulge – which is already sans the baby so it’s just a bulge – right in the comfort of your living room. And you don’t even have to spend thousands of dollars on expensive gym equipment. Now that you’ve already gone ahead and had the baby, might as well make the most of it.

1. Breastfeed.

For those of you who are still breastfeeding, DON’T STOP. Until your kid is 12. I think it starts to get a bit weird once they start hitting puberty but up till then, it’s all cool. Every breastfeeding session is equivalent to one solid workout at the gym so you can still watch tv and snack on nachos with extra cheese while those gym rats are huffing and puffing away pumping iron.

2. Weightlifting while on the treadmill.

Mothers are the masters of multitasking and we should use that to our advantage. When the baby is screaming and demanding to be rocked to sleep, it’s the best time to get in that extra workout. At one point I had to carry baby girl and run around the house in order to get her to fall asleep. I lost a whole kg in that week alone. Then I got lazy and left her to sleep on her own, at which point I gained it right back. And then some.

3. Drills.

I used to do this a lot during my basketball training days so I’ve incorporated some of them into my daily routine with the kids. So I’ll be fixing their lunch in the kitchen when I suddenly hear a scream or a thump or worse still, absolute silence and I drop everything, leap over the baby gate, rush into the room to find the kids up to some mischief, yell at them a little, remember that my food is getting burnt and dash back into the kitchen. Repeat.

4. Endurance training.

These days, there are all sorts of fancy schmancy baby slings and carriers to keep the baby stuck to your hip as you potter around and do your motherly stuff. Use them. It keeps the baby quiet and you get to work out a little while you do the dishes or clear the chores around the house. You may get a slipped disc at some point but if you’re a real athlete, that’s part of the package. No pain, no gain. (which is what my nazi lactation consultant said as she manhandled my boobs and the next person who says that to me will be punched in the gut)

5. Make up your own

It just doesn’t seem right to end with 4 points so you get to come up with your own. It’s like an assignment that nobody wants to do but I’m asking anyway because I’m all out.

PS. If you tried it all and nothing works, crap, just do this.

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unqualified parenting tips

I’m such a badass at discipline.

September 24, 2010

You should probably know by now that I missed out on the disciplinarian gene when they were giving it out at parent school. The rest of that feeding, diapering stuff, I can manage just fine but it’s becoming apparent that I’m not very much good at making them do what I say. And kids are like bloodhounds, they sense your weakness and they go for the jugular, if you know what I mean.

Since Kirsten was born, I haven’t really had to discipline her. Because she usually gets away with stuff with those innocent I’m-such-an-angel eyes of hers. Also, I’m secretly dreading having to attempt to discipline her only to look like a complete wuss in the process. Mostly the second one.

In any case, I’ve got nothing to be afraid of anymore because it’s come true. Baby girl is oblivious to any attempt I make to enforce a set of rules around her. The kid is like a free spirit, and I’m being nice here. To be fair, she’s a really good girl and not really into any of that adrenaline-inducing feats her brother does. The only things I’ve got to stop her from doing are like spitting out food and pressing the buttons on the fan repeatedly, which let’s face it, are far from hardcore. In other words, my tolerance for her misdemeanors is pretty high.

Anyway, yesterday, I finally had to put my foot down. She was making a colossal mess on her baby chair, flinging food everywhere just for kicks and laughing like it’s a big joke. So I mustered my fierce mommy face, raised my index finger close to her and said “No no, don’t fling your food around.” Lame as that gesture is, it usually works with Tru. He will at least stop for a moment and look remorseful before going back to making an even greater mess.

Baby girl looked at me, then reached forward and BIT MY FINGER. With her 4 very sharp teeth. Now that my ego was as bruised as my finger, I waved my teeth-marked finger just out of her reach and told her again, “NO NO KIRSTEN, NO FOOD-FLINGING AND NO BITING!” as if that was going to help.

She then proceeded to snap at my finger with her teeth like a hungry piranha. Not what I would call a successful attempt at discipline.

I’m not going to get fooled by those innocent eyes no more. Next stop, naughty corner. Wish me luck.

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coolest kids ever, picture perfect

The Kaos jumped over the moon

September 22, 2010

It’s the Mid-autumn festival today, I think. I’ve got to take a look at the moon tonight to be sure but then again, as far as the moon goes, I can only identify it as crescent or full, so anything in between can only be described with those two terms like thin crescent, fat crescent, half full, almost full, full-ish, you get the point.

Which I suppose is not a big deal unless I’m a werewolf, then I’d be a really bad one. As in lousy, not evil.

The kids have been having a lot of fun with lanterns and I’m not surprised though, with all that flashing lights and tacky ching-chong music. For the past week, my house has been like an awful 90’s daytime disco gone horribly wrong. Initially, I wanted to get them those conventional paper lanterns with real candles but the husband said they would set themselves on fire and I said they weren’t that dumb (and besides, the whole point of lantern festival is setting fire to stuff) but apparently, he’s the perceptive one around here so we stuck to getting them the battery-operated ones.

A couple of nights back, we brought them to Hort Park for a bit of fun in the dark and it’s official, their favorite festival is now the Mid-autumn festival. On the way there, we were telling them about how we’re heading out to play with lanterns and Tru was all like “YAYYYY YANTERNS!!” without having any idea what they were so after a while he was looking at me like “What are these lanterns that you speak of momma?”

When we actually brought out the lanterns, they were um, over the moon.

Even Kirsten, who’s usually nonchalant about such things started pointing to herself and saying “mine, mine, mine” when she saw the lanterns. Way too cute.

The great thing about kids is that they don’t need a lot to be happy. A bunch of $2 lanterns, some quality time with daddy and mommy and they’re happy campers. Maybe tonight we’ll bring out the sparklers then they’ll really go crazy.

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