coolest kids ever, motherhood

Nobody gets to irritate my brother but me

August 30, 2010

Siblings are one of those things in life that you have no control over. Like your parents just arbitrarily decided that you’re supposed to share all that attention and love and TOYS (ALL THE TOYS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL YOURS) with some other kid(s) and there’s nothing you can do about it.

It’s the whole issue of proximity, really. For the first 20 or so years of your life, you spend every single day with your siblings. Having to share stuff, having to wait your turn for the bathroom in the morning, having them irritate the living daylights out of you, having to live up to overachieving siblings who feel the need to be valedictorian, head prefect, captain of the swim team and every teacher’s pet.

Also, that idea of having a perfect sibling? It’s like a golden unicorn. Doesn’t exist. You think that cool kid at the playground would make a great sibling but then their siblings would probably tell you how crabby and irritating they can be at home.

So the only way of minimizing conflict between siblings is to minimize contact. If you have siblings who hardly say a word to each other, there would be no chance to fight so problem solved. Except that it’s like getting married and sleeping on separate beds. Ok, that didn’t sound like it did in my head because EWW, getting married is NOT like having siblings at all but you get the point.

But if you ask me, I’m in the camp that says having siblings is so much better than not having any. You have another kid to play with all the time, you have someone to form an alliance with against the evil parents and when you become awkward, angsty teenagers, you can talk about stuff that you would never be comfortable talking about with adults, ie boys/girls (whichever is the opposite of you). Sure, you fight tooth and nail over everything all the time but when if comes to the crunch, you know they got your back.

Which brings me to my point. The kids were out playing with a bunch of other kids and there was this 4-year-old girl who really liked Kirsten so she was fussing over baby girl and sharing her toy with her. Then Tru came along to play with them and she was all like “I don’t like you, I won’t share my toys with you, go away.” I was about to intervene when next thing I knew, Kirsten got up, walked over to Tru and gave him a hug like “it’s ok, I’ll ditch the nasty kid to play with you.” In short, 1. baby girl pwned some brattish kid today and 2. this totally makes the insanity of having both kids back to back so worth it.

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picture perfect

Theme park heaven

August 27, 2010

We finally had a chance to check out Universal Studios yesterday on an outing that was totally unplanned. What started out as a visit to Resorts World Sentosa for a leisurely afternoon stroll turned out to be some intense non-stop action at the spanking new theme park.

Typically, an outing like this would be planned way in advance and we’d be waiting at the gate 30 minutes prior to opening time (I take my theme parks very seriously) but what with picking Tru up from school and grabbing lunch yesterday, half the day was already gone by the time we got to RWS.

Tru stood staring open-mouthed at the legendary Universal globe with mist swirling round and he was like “what is this place? I’m never leaving here again” and that was only the entrance of Universal Studios. And obviously, the husband is powerless when Tru turns on the googly-eyes charm so he was all like “what the heck, let’s just get the tickets and GO” even though it was already 2.30 in the afternoon and we had less than 5 hours before closing.

Stepping into Universal Studios was like being back in LA again. Main Street, the palm trees, street signs, music, benches, memorabilia shops that make you feel like it’s ok to shell out $20 for a Shrek-shaped pillow…it was all too good. Honestly, I didn’t expect a lot because I figured we’d just have a miniature version of the one in LA (hello, space constraints) but I have to say, I was impressed.

Not Disneyland by any means, but definitely respectable.

Of course, Tru’s first experience with a mascot had to be Frankenstein. He recognized it from Veggie Tales and started calling it the Boogey Man. Then as if dissatisfied with the description, he proceeded to call it Cookie Monster because ok, this monster does look like he OD-ed on cookies, y’all (I’ll have to do something about his Sesame Street education). His look of horror just says it all.

It was just nice that Kirsten has started to walk all by her lonesome so she was off and running the moment we got there. She made her way up to the little stage area and started rocking to Elvis. She’s got groove, this little one.

The awesome thing about theme parks is that everything looks so picture perfect. Like this one. It’s got to be one of my favorite pictures of Truett, looking all big boy and independent. “Wassup momma, I’m just chilling with my hand draped casually on the bench and my air of nonchalance.”

And a couple more.

I’m a sucker for castles, especially theme park castles with the pretty pink pokey things with flags on top. Real castles, not so much, they’re kind of creepy.

The best part about the trip to Universal was the complete lack of crowds. We expected it to be relatively packed but for the most part, we felt like we had the entire theme park to ourselves. Most of the rides had no queues at all and the kids got to ride on the carousels and flying birds as many times as they wanted. Tru was on the Madagascar carousel 5 times in a row, which was like being able to eat all the candy in the world. Without getting fat.

All in all, a perfect day. Although it would have been better if it wasn’t so blistering hot. The whole time, Kirsten’s hair was plastered to her head from sweat and Tru kept wanting to remove all his clothes. I just hope this doesn’t mean my son is going to be a nudist.

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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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