Category Archives: Love

memories + paktor-versary

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Recently, I had the opportunity to head out a lot more without the kids. I met up with my close mummy friends and went for events.

Of course I did make sure to check with Daddy Ting that he was perfectly fine with the arrangement before I went ahead to go out. Daddy night-care has been a success so far, QT has gotten a lot closer with Donald so he was okay to be without me.

Donald, on the other hand went out with the boys. He took them cycling and swimming. The boys loved it. Ollie would come back and go on about what happened and what they did. The boys and I have heaps of memories together; I’m glad that Donald is creating some of his own with the boys.

Getting the opportunity to meet up with my close mummy friends was awesome, whether one-on-one or as a group. Now that the kids are schooling, it was hard for us to meet up for play dates. Meeting on weekends was sorta harder as we had to look for alternative arrangements for the daddies to take the kids. Haha. Not that they cannot handle the kids lah, but more of it might be harder for them to handle the kids? =P

We caught up on life. Life about the kids, about the struggles, about our husbands, about managing time, about just some thoughts, about our businesses. My last meet up over this weekend lasted 4 hours! We talked so much over food, sitting comfortably in our booth. Really thankful the staff of Colony didn’t chase us out!

Ahh it was a good month to fill up this social need. Sure, we talk on WhatsApp but nothing like a good face to face meet up and just talk.

It was also during one of these meet ups that inspired my paktor-versary gift to Donald. Donald and I have been together for 11 years now, and we have only been apart from each other 3 times in our time together. We had the luxury of living together when we were dating, and that really eased us into our married life. We are still in a honeymoon phase, where most of the time, we could talk and share about our day. Of course there are the bad days, but I am thankful that we have more happy ones than the sad ones.

I decided to gift him the memories of us that I hold dear to my heart. The ones that make you smile randomly as the memory passes through your mind. The one where perhaps he first held your hand? The one where perhaps you first told him you love him.

The one where you said your vows.

The one where you were at your most embarassing moment but you didn’t feel that way in front of him because he made you feel beautiful and secure.

Those memories. I wanted to remind him of those moments, and that they were my prized and treasured memories of us, no matter how insignificant it was to him. The ones that was the very essence of our relationship. The ones that will make me stay. The ones that make me feel that it is all going to be okay on a bad day because I do love him. =)

It was also amazing to look at it and see how my memories have progressed. There was the dating phase, the living together phase, the married life phase and now the kids. The memories were doing things together with the kids, and how I saw him as the father of my kids and his involvement.

60+ treasured memories and counting. The list will go on!

Category: Daily, Love, Special

what makes my man

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the men in my life0

sometimes I think it is not easy being a guy. it is not easy being a husband. it is not easy being a husband AND a father.

What sparked off this post was a comment that the husband said, and what had gone through my mind earlier this week. Stark contrast.

The kids had been sick this week, starting with Ollie who was coughing over the weekend before it ended up being a full blown cough and cold by Monday evening. Donald also caught it and spent the day at home on Tuesday. QT caught the tail end of it which led to him having a fever yesterday, and continuing till today. Me? Hanging in there but was half-dead when I woke up this morning, having spent the night sponging QT who did not seem to respond well to paracetamol.

ahhh. the ugly side of parenthood. Don’t we all love it?

I asked Donald if he could stay home to help me out, and he agreed. He spent the morning with the kids whilst I quickly finished up some immediate work owing, before taking over with QT, whilst he dropped Ollie off at school. I ended up holding QT to sleep on the sofa. Donald did the laundry and then asked..

‘Is there anything else you want me to do? Have I done enough?’

To be honest, I wondered if he was asking me sarcastically. You know, like your majesty, have I done enough kinda way. And then I decided that he was really genuinely asking me. And then I wondered if I should ask him to mop the floor cos it was getting on my nerves, but I also did think..aiyar we can survive another day of the mess. We’ll clean up when we are all feeling better. 

‘Well..I would like you to mop the floor but don’t worry about it. I can do it another time.’

Before I knew it, he had taken the mop and done a quick wipe around the living room. It was good enough. It was then I compared the thoughts I had earlier this week, with what I was feeling now. This is what I wrote on Tuesday:

Sometimes…i think I put a lot of pressure on myself.

Make sure kids dun get ipad so often (or rather no ipad), less tv, do more activities. And i feel like i damn bo eng to do my stuff cos i gotta entertain my kids

Then the hubby takes over this morning. I still take one kid to do marketing, come back…everyone on devices. Didi gets hubby’s phone, ollie gets ipad, hubby gets to be on his laptop looking at his shares.

And i tmd think why the fuck i work so hard for.

Is like he on mc and he still get to do his things. And i no chance to take mc, stay at home but i gotta wait till one go to school, one nap liao then i can focus on things. Then tell ppl i damn busy whole day, ppl sometimes give me face.

Faaark. What logic.

Yup. That was what I thought about the hubby that day. I was tired and I did think the worst of him. And then today, I was thinking, WAHMy hero. 

The days when I think the worst of him are when I am feeling unappreciative and down, more so when I am tired. Then I start nitpicking about all the other things that I thought he could have helped with to make me feel less tired.

Why couldn’t he help with the laundry?
Why is it so difficult for him to mop the floor the way I wanted it to be mopped?
Why is he not pro-active in helping out?

I think the worst part was thinking he doesn’t take the initiative. Most of the time it stems from that. We do have our chats about what we think he should be doing more off, what he could do to offload my chores when he is back. Sometimes it takes an argument to find out what we expect and want from each other. Sometimes we forget that we are first husband & wife, before we can be parents.

So the good bits about him? He really takes orders from me. I don’t do it in a commanding way okay! But more like he doesn’t ask questions, he just pretty much does it. If me, I sure ask why. Why you want me to do it? *suspicious mode on*. Sometimes he does surprises me when he does the household chores without any prompting.

His reason? Cannot always do, else you won’t get surprised & think waah so nice of my husband!. WTH. What logic. hahaha. #assholehusband

He really does try with the kids. Sometimes the kids are just clingy and want to stick with me. No fault of his really, but I mean, when you are faced with kids who don’t want you, how good can you feel? (I asked the hubby this, and he was like I don’t feel bad! All the better man! -_-“)

But about what happened on Tuesday. It has occurred on a few occasions. And I have always felt annoyed at that. Drives me nuts in fact. But heck, cos I am heading out so I shouldn’t really care less. Lao niang get to do things in peace and am out. So gotta learn how to close two eyes, cos afterall it’s Daddy Ting looking after. But..if the two give me nonsense after the iPad iPhone session..then Daddy Ting is gonna have to handle that. haha.

But I will give credit where it is due lar. =P You’re DA BEST. Thanks for being my calm in the storm. And you better step up your game cos things are gonna get crazier now that the boys are crazier too!

 

 

Category: Daily, Love

Dear almost-4yo Ollie

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Dear Ollie,

Merry Christmas, my darling. I hope you have had fun today, receiving presents. At this point, mummy has put away all of the presents that you have received, bar the two presents that was opened at kor-po Doris’ house today. Now, they are all stacked nicely at the Christmas tree that we did together. I know you will get a huge surprise tomorrow morning when you wake up tomorrow! I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you and didi go through them.

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I was searching through my phone for a photo of you and I to post..but I could barely find one. When was the last time we took a photo spontaneously? The last photo we had was you and I at the Christmas baking workshop.

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We definitely need more photos together. We should take more and have more memories okay?

We’ve had a little rough school holidays, you and I. Too used to having a little break in the middle of the day, I didn’t really know what to do with you during the school hols where you were home the entire day. I struggled to think of activities that would keep you occupied, whilst trying to hold back on pushing you to far ahead of your peers. I didn’t need to push you. You are so enthusiastic about learning. You love learning in fact. You would ask me for activities to do. You are constantly practising your writing, now even writing in block letters. You love drawing.

This is how you drew Olaf

This is how you drew Olaf

You worked with your Duplo bricks, building alphabets and numbers. It didn’t take you long to figure out how to build the curves, all from just watching Youtube videos.

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You indulge in tangrams, using the Osmo app. You love tangrams.

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I tried to do other activities with you. We did an advent Christmas tree out of felt. You stuck the felt pieces on tree. You loved it. We did heaps of drawing. We went out for a couple of bike rides. We went out some days. You did well, my little man. You did well.

But just before Christmas, mummy was getting frustrated. I have suffering from a massive brain drain. It was mentally exhausting to catch up with you and didi. I left you two to your devices. The tv, the iPad. the phone. Just to get more and more peace. And I also took it out on you guys, yelling a lot and feeling just down, like why would you just not cooperate? And then I would feel guilty for yelling at you guys.

Then I happened to read and article, My Kids Turn into Total Brats the Day after ChristmasWorst..it wasn’t even Christmas yet. I wondered who was the brat then?

We went for dinner at your paternal grandmother’s place. As I was putting didi to sleep in the carrier, you came over and asked if you could play with the “small blocks”, the Lego pieces. I told you that you can once didi was asleep and that you would have to put away the rest of the toys that you have taken out. I watched you. Patiently, tidying everything properly into their containers. Lifting up the huge container of train tracks, and then putting them back into the respective places.

I watched you grow up that very moment. I also wondered why it took so much nagging from me to even prompt you to put away your toys. And even then, you would tell me it wasn’t you who poured out the toys. That you didn’t want to put away your toys. And that I didn’t personally see you pour out the toys.

I told your daddy about it, and I said, I wondered what we did wrong. And then I knew.

I was wrong to tell you that I wasn’t the one to pour out all the toys, so I didn’t have to put it away.

I was wrong to yell at you to put away the toys to make the whole process a negative experience.

On Christmas eve, Daddy took all of us to join him and his colleagues at the National Gallery. There was a children’s play area there, and I knew that you were going to enjoy it. Before that, we had breakfast at Raffles City. You had more than 12 hours of sleep, and I thought, we were going to have a great start to the morning. We didn’t. But we were cool, until we got to the National Gallery.

And then Daddy lost his cool cos you weren’t listening when we were walking through the children’s area at the gallery.

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I took over and carried you. You struggled. You cried. You screamed to be let down. You wanted to hide. You wanted to runaway. You wanted to go back into the playground. You were so angry.

But it was a normal reaction. And I let you be whilst holding you. I had a calm talk with you, slowly explaining to you why things were happening. What happens when we don’t cooperate. What we need to do when we want to have fun. And I told you that I love you, and that I’m not yelling at you. We had to talk outside the National Gallery, cos your screams were disturbing the peace in the gallery. We talked for 30 minutes, in between struggling, tears, and moments of calm. I asked if you have calmed down, and you nodded your head. We went back inside, sat on a bench together, looked at some photos and had a really nice chat after.

It took half an hour. But it was one of the best 30 minutes of my moments with you. I think I need to understand that..dealing with you takes time. And when I actually take time with you, we walk out of our frustrations way better than we would if we had yelled at each other. I don’t want you to fear me, I want you to love me, trust me and confide in me.

Ollie, you have grown a lot this year. You say the most insane thing that crack both your daddy and I up. Your sense of logic is a bit 歪理 sometimes (I need to take care of daddy’s phone so I take it), but otherwise, pretty much on track. You’re going to turn 4 in a month! Argh..has it been 4 years already?

But I will try to take more time with you, so we will make more beautiful memories together. But please hor, stop doing the opposite of what I want you to do!! Aiyoyo!!!

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Love,
mummy

Category: Love, Parenting, Special