DN's School House

Last Saturday, we spent a rare afternoon at home. Rare because our weekends are usually crazy packed. Two weekends ago, it looked like this:

Sat : Zoo with Katriya, Lunch with Katriya and her parents at United Square, Some shopping at United Square, Nap at home, 80th Birthday Dinner (PF's grandaunt) at Carlton Hotel

Sun : Regular morning walk to the market with Kong Kong, Zoo with Jovann, Clarence, Arianne, Reubern, Rae Ann & Clarice in the afternoon, Dinner with everyone at Orchidville

That's why on weekends, DN only naps once a day (no time!) and his poo is, erm, "less than usual" (no time!). And that is why on MONDAY, DN takes 2 naps of a total of 3-4 hours, and why he super-lets-go an amazing amount of crap that day. I think his body and mind is finally calm, relaxed and free from all that insane zipping about on Saturday and Sunday.

So it wasn't surprising that we felt super uneasy when we had no plans last Sat afternoon. It was like an out of body experience, too surreal.

Me (to PF) : "So what do we have on this afternoon?" (we'd already gone to Botanic Gardens in the morning for breakfast and to feed the fish)

PF : "Hmm... nothing I think."

Me : "Nothing??? Are you sure?"

PF : "Yeah... I think so."

Me : "..."

PF : "..."

DN : "..." (twiddling his thumbs)

So we dusted the castle and blackboard, set up 2 fans in the front, called some neighbours over (Katriya - 15mths, Dillon - 19mths, Daryl - 3yrs & Denise - 6yrs) and ta-dah! The kiddos were suitably entertained for about 3 hours. Katriya's mom even brought over K's trampoline.

DN's School House Fees : $800 per month

(please bring your own trampoline)

Shaken, not stirred

If parents are hothousing their kids by flashing 60 cards a minute in their faces, signing them up for shichida-kumon-mensa-needlework-unicycling-and-whatnot classes, PF and I decided to beat them at their own game by introducing DN to his first REAL drink before he turns 2. Ha! Let me show you what true kiasu-ism is!

(It also helps DN relax after a long day of knitting classes.)

Before you call the police on us, we were actually at Pontini (Grand Copthorne) for my Dad's birthday dinner. I plonked DN on the bar stool for fun and the restaurant manager gave him a cup of warm water for fun!

Hey Diddle Diddle... with sound effects

Before you watch the video, let me just say this first :

1. Yes, I failed music in primary and secondary school.
2. Yes, I uploaded the video fully aware of DN's strange facial spasms at the beginning of the video.
3. No, he's not passing a kidney stone.
4. Yes, I was also aware of the weird body twitches and squeaks at the end.
   
   

I'm sorry, how many kids???

A couple of months ago, I caught snippets of an interesting trailer while channel surfing. It went something like this...

(camera pans to...) Many kids running around screaming
(audio) "We have 2 six-year olds..."
(camera pans to...) Two smiling parents, one looks kind of Asian
(audio) "... and 6 two-year olds and..."

WAIT! STOP! REWIND! HELLO???

Yes. They have EIGHT kids. You know what's worse than having EIGHT kids? Having your toenails plucked out one by one 2 six-year olds and 6 two-year olds. Yup, that's what they have. It's the 6 two-year olds that's the problem, not the 2 six-year olds. We're talking sextuplets, not just 6 babies, but 6 AT ONE GO.

When PF and I finally caught the show Jon and Kate Plus 8, we instantly felt blessed and wanted to do a rain dance to thank the heavens because almost immediately, our parenting problems became amoebas.

For eg:

1. DN has too much for lunch and craps 3 times after lunch. 1 toddler = 3 diaper changes, 6 toddlers = 18 diaper changes

2. DN is in Toys R Us and is pulling toys off the shelves. 1 toddler = 5 dinosaurs thrown on the floor, 6 toddlers = 30 dino... hang on, I won't bring 6 toddlers into Toys R Us.

3. DN misses a nap and is Mr Grumpy. 1 screaming, crying, melt-down toddler = 1 migraine, 6 screaming, crying, melt-down toddlers = 1 phone call to the adoption agency

So, yeah, phew. I can't imagine 6 Der Nens running around the house, asking for raisins.

Regardless, PF and I are still rivetted because it's amazing how Jon and Kate handle, entertain, discipline, feed and put 6 toddlers down for naps. They amaze me because:

1. They only feed their kids organic food. In one episode, they bought an organic COW. Yes, the entire bovine animal.

2. Even with 8 kids, they still insist on good manners, good behaviour and structure and schedules throughout the day.

3. They are so in love!

After watching one season of Jon and Kate Plus 8, I've come to the conclusion that they cannot be human for the following reasons.

1. They're still alive sane after 8 kids.

2. They even have a sense of humour to boot (unless of course, that's a defense mechanism and a way to block out the pain/screams/tantrums/crying/ whines/all of the above).

3. They don't just look decent, they look good! Jon is Korean-French-Welsh (phwoarh) and Kate is thin. Okay, this is a big deal to me because for a good year, PF and I were shuffling walking around looking like the living dead because DN still kept waking us up at night, and my belly is so soft and floppy, DN sometimes kneads it like dough. -_- (hmm... maybe I need 6 kids to look like... STOP! WHAT AM I THINKING!?)

If you don't want to watch it for all the reasons I've listed, at least watch it for the 8 kids. They are just too cute. :) Jon and Kate Plus 8 is on at 10.30pm, Monday to Friday, on Discovery Home and Health - channel 70.

Imagine this...

... TIMES 6!

Kapish?

It's scary how much DN understands us. Here's an example.

We were shopping at Taka today and as usual, after sitting in the stroller for some time, DN started asking to be freed from the evil clutches of the stroller let down and carried. I don't know why he doesn't like being chauffeured from point to point SEATED. I guess he doesn't realise that the next time he gets chauffeured like that will be when he's 80, shrivelled and 4 ft tall.

When he wants to be carried, he will pat his chest with both hands, reach out to the appointed carry-er and say, "pao pao". When he did that just now, I told him, "Okay DN, Mommy will carry you later okay? Let's take the lift down first." DN nodded and we waited for the lift.

Now, of course, I had no intention of carrying him once we went down. (I'm such a liar!) I was just hoping he would forget. But he didn't! The minute the lift doors opened and we walked out to the street, he patted his chest again and reached out to me. I was like, "Wha...?! He understood!?"

Humph. Coincidence. Never mind. Try bluffing him again. "DN, Mommy will carry you later okay? Let's walk down the street to Borders first okay? I'll carry you when we get there." DN nodded and we set off again (me keeping my fingers crossed he would forget).

So we walked from Taka to Wheelock Place. The minute we walked through the doors at Wheelock Place, DN looked at me, patted his chest and reached out to me again. Woah Nelly, he understood! Looks like our days of baby-bluffing are over, and the days of code-speak are here to stay.

Code-speak? Let me explain.

For the past 2-3months or so, PF and I have been sounding very much like secret agent spelling bees.

PF : "Okay, you distract him, I'll keep the C-R-A-C-K-E-R-S."
Me : "Okay, make sure you keep the P-U-T-I-N-G (pacifier) out of sight."
DN : "???"

or

PF : "Where are you going?"
Me : "I'm going to throw this B-O-X away. If he sees it, it'll remind him of the T-O-Y he's not supposed to P-L-A-Y with."
DN : "Guitar!"

What a morning!

Two Fridays ago, both PF and I took the day off. When you're a parent, taking a day off is not taking a day off. Unless the toddler is at his grandmother's of course.

At 7am, DN becomes bionic baby and can hear the dust rolling in the corner of our bedroom - the slightest sound and he's up. It's like his eyes pop open and he sits up like someone has released the spring in his back. BOING!

And he bounces (literally) out of bed and starts abusing terrorising rousing his parents. You see, DN will not stand for sleeping parents. He goes, "Mama! Mama! Papa! Papa! Up! Up! UPPPPP!" over and over and over. If verbal abuse doesn't work, he resorts to abuse of the physical sort. He will sit on our bellies and bounce. Doesn't work? He tries to lift our snoring heads up and shout "UP!" at the same time.

The poor guy. It's a gargantuan task really. The slug force is strong in us.

He definitely doesn't get the early bird gene from PF or myself because we have the comatose-until-12-noon gene. (My mom used to wake me up for school by pinching my legs. For 10 minutes!) So I don't know where he gets this trait from. Sometimes I wonder if the hospital switched babies when I wasn't looking and put a firecracker in my baby's cot.

Back to that Friday. After finally dragging my sorry butt out of bed, I lumbered downstairs like Babar the Elephant and set about making breakfast for the excitable toddler. After breakfast, I looked at the clock and went, "!!??!". It's only 8.15am! What am I going to do next with the excitable toddler?

Ah-ha! Now's a good time to finally use that activity pack Julia Gabriel gave us when class was cancelled one week because of the HFMD outbreak. So I stripped the toddler to his diaper and plonked him in his high chair, trembling with excitement just watching me get everything ready.

He loved it!

In the pack are "ingredients" for fried rice. The bag of yellow glue is "oil", the white crepe paper is "rice", the green stickers are "peas" and the paper plate is the "wok".

I helped DN with the peas but he "fried" the rest of the dish himself.
Looking mighty pleased with his oily fried rice. This dish definitely won't get the Healthy Choice sticker.



After adding the prawns and egg, it's time to throw in the rice.

After a few grains, DN got fed up and just dumped the whole container of rice into the wok!


No gloves in the kitchen. Tsk tsk tsk.

The finished dish. :D

DN was having so much fun, I decided to let him continue painting with the glue on rough paper I found in the house.















Time check : 9.00am! Only??!

DN and I go upstairs on the pretext of getting a diaper, but really to make some noise to wake PF up. Success! The father slug wakes up and we decide to troop off to Katong for breakfast.

PF orders a Pi Pa Kao canned drink, much to my amazement. The can is damn retro man. Tradition in a can!



It's Sarawak Laksa for PF...
... Chin Mee Chin cupcakes for me :)...

... and chai tow kuay for all of us.

DN : "What?! I have to share?"


















What a great breakfast! Food was good, weather was actually balmy and DN was his same amusing self, endearing the other kopi tiam diners to him. He kept smiling at this man sitting at the next table. I thought he was being friendly... until I saw the roti prata on the man's plate. He's beo-ing* the roti prata!

Since we were in the East, we drove over to the beach for a little walk.

The weather was really nice that day, and because it was a weekday, it was empty. :)


We found twigs and started drawing in the sand. I found a crab hole (this sounds so wrong, but for the life of me, I can't think of the proper name for it!) and showed it to DN. He probably understood 2% of my explanation of why crabs dig holes in the sand and where they go when the tide comes in.

I don't think I even understood myself.

Fiona the Fluke Fish

When DN draws scribbles, I always ask him to draw a fish because they're one of his favourite animals. "Fish" was one of the first signs he learnt and he just loves looking at them. Today, I asked him to draw a fish again and look what he did! What are the odds? Wah, must buy 4D!

The first thing PF said was, "Hmm... must ask him to draw 4 numbers next time."

-_-

Can you see Fiona the Fluke Fish?

Guitar

About two weeks ago, DN started saying "guitar" (of all words!). Not "fish" or "dog" or "monkey", but "guitar". I swear, he picks up the strangest words. Here're some words he can say so far :

car, up, duck, papa, mama, cut, pork (??), bye-bye, zai jian and...

... TAU POK!

He overheard Funny Bee and I talking about her friend's chihuahua, Tau Pok (isn't that the best name ever for a brown and white chihuahua?!), and he started saying "Pau Pok! Pau Pok! Pau Pok!". Wa-hahahaha. We had a good laugh in the car.

Okay, back to guitars. Since DN started saying "guitar", he's been obsessed with them. He makes us show him the pictures of guitars in his books, he points out pictures of guitars in the newspapers and he plays air guitar when we say "guitar". So PF thought it would be nice if he had a guitar of his own. He wanted to get a real-ish type plastic guitar with strings and all, not those fancy-schmancy guitars that play Christmas carols and shoot out fireworks.

PF looked for two whole weeks and couldn't find a simple guitar!

Until we went to Clementi Central. Who needs Toys R Us when you have Sinma Pte Ltd? One up for the neighbourhood store. It was the best $3.90 we've ever spent. ;)

This is him when we gave him the guitar. He couldn't stop smiling and grinning! DN has a little dimple that pops out when he smiles real hard. It made a 30 minute appearance that day. ;)

He was even admiring it in the car.

DN doing an acoustic solo.


Rock on!
Check out the nifty finger work.



I love it! It's only $3.90!

"I want to do it MYSELF!"

DN just lurvvves to self-feed. By self-feeding he can control what goes into his mouth, and most importantly, at what speed. Sometimes, when I'm too slow in feeding him, he paws at my hand (the one with the fork/spoon), grabs it and pulls it towards his mouth. If he was more eloquent, he'd probably say, "Get with the programme, Mom!"

My little DN is like a little cro-magnon man when it comes to food. Think caveman grabbing chicken drumstick, holding it up to his face, elbow in the air and ripping the meat off the bone with his teeth. *smack*smack*

When DN eats rice, he's as glamourous as a hippo in a tutu. When he shovels rice into his mouth, he uses his palm, like your good ole neanderthal. There's rice in his hair, on his cheek, on his pants, in his chair, on the floor...

So we decided to get this bib...


... the Kiddopotamus Bibbity Rinse-and-Roll Bib! It's made of silicon, so you just clean it with soap and water and - tadah! - it's ready to use again. No more waiting for bibs to dry. Also, because it's silicon, the catcher sticks out and catches everything (almost). Way better than those cloth catcher bibs.


We used it for the first time at dinner last night and it worked great. Actually, it worked "better" than we thought. When DN saw all the food that landed in the catcher, I bet he rubbed his hands in glee. He was helping himself to the food in the catcher all night long. He probably thought, "Hey! I get a second chance now! Cool bananas!"

Last Day of School

This is post is so overdue, it's not funny. I'm so sorry, but I've been knocked out by the flu and swamped with stuff at work. Pooh.

I haven't "announced" this on the blog, but PF and I signed DN up for a weekly playgroup class at Julia Gabriel for 1 term (10 weeks). Because they follow the regular school term, 24 May was also the "last day of school" for DN.

Aiyoh. I felt like a proud mama hen, with my plume of feathers all plumped up and glossy and my ego swelling to dangerous proportions, threatening to burst out of the room. I looked like my son had just found the cure to cancer.

*cluck*cluck*

Never mind that all DN has done these past 10 weeks is wander around the room while the teacher is talking, gaze longingly out the window at the outdoor playground (again, while the teacher is talking) and stain my jeans red with the water pistol filled with red paint which he was supposed to aim at the mahjong paper, not his mother.

Sorry, where was I? Ah yes, the cure for cancer. If I felt this way on the last day of ONE term of PLAYGROUP, I think I'm going to collapse when he graduates from University.

*cluck*clu..*

So anyway, we had a little party to celebrate the last day of term. Hmm... actually "celebrate" is not really a good term because DN really enjoyed those sessions. It's too bad that it's over. I can understand why the teachers are celebrating though!

The 2nd last week of school, we were told to bring a little something for the party. I decided to bite off more than I could chew make konnyaku jelly. You know the saying - "a woman's place is in the kitchen"? Well, mine's definitely not there. I had to throw half the jellies away because the culinary dunce in me decided to substitue half of the water with the leftover fruit cocktail syrup. Sadly, the "but they're both liquids!" argument holds no water.

The said / sad jellies.


DN got his face painted, but wouldn't keep still. See the crooked whiskers?

There is always an art and craft activity during these playgroup session. This week's activity was creating a fruit punch for the potluck.


During art and craft, we always let DN do his own thing instead of guiding his hand to paint within the lines or to paint the sun yellow.














There was a second activity that day. The kiddos got to watch bubbles being made - baking soda and vinegar.



DN receiving his certificate, heh heh.



















*cluck!*cluck!*