Category Archives: Parenting

[SC May’16] my not-so-Mother’s Day

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Finally got a chance to take a breather today. I knew my May schedule was packed. But this was ridiculous! haha. Okay, I take that back. I am enjoying every bit of it for today. Wonders of a good rest.

This month, Singapore’s Child features celebrity mums to inspiration individuals who share about their journey through motherhood. It was comforting to read that despite being famous, celebrities are ,at the end of the day, just a normal human being who is still a mother to a child. The struggles like depression, their aspirations for their children, and even how they have to spend time away from their children as a result of work.

Just like any one of us here.

Motherhood is a funny thing. You get excited about the little one that is on the way; you fret about how the little one could be feeling after they are born (why are they crying incessantly??) and then you secretly hope that they carry a trait of yours that you like and not be like daddy (kidding! =P); you only wish for them to be healthy and happy.

And you delve into this journey, hook, line and sinker. And pour your unconditional love into them.

The kids frustrate you to no end; they make you pull your hair; they are egoistic & narcissistic; they make you melt into a puddle with one look.

Yet you would do this every day for the rest of your life. Cos you would have no other like the one you have labouriously carried for 9 months and then painfully delivered. All that pain and tears, and yet you would do this every day for the rest of your life.

You would soothe every single tear and heartache, every scratch and fall. You would soothe every cry and wail. You would chase away every fear if you could. Cos there is no other eh? *wry grin*

A week late to jump on the Mother’s Day bandwagon. But better late than never. This year, I didn’t get to celebrate Mother’s Day with the boys. I was busy at an event with Donald. The boys made a Mother’s Day gift at Sunday School and it made its residence at their grandma’s place. I’m not complaining. My mom has been the one faithfully bringing the boys to Sunday School, so it should be for her. I went to her office today with the boys and she had a wall full of their photos. I think she should put more at her house..hahah.

The original plan for the boys was to stay over on Sunday night as my mom had to work the following day. So they would sleep early, and Donald and I would pick them up the following morning. But that was not to be. The boys wanted to go home. My mom had to put them to bed at our place. We rushed through dinner (so much for a steak dinner + salad buffet at Astons haha) and went home to unload everything. My feet was killing me but I had to sneak a peek at them sleeping.

Boy..did I miss them. We made up for lost time the following morning where the boys snuck into my room and snuggled and cuddled to their hearts’ content.

excuse the morning bed hair and morning look

excuse the morning bed hair and morning look

There were lots of kisses and ‘I love you, mummy’ & ‘I miss you, mummy’ from Ollie. There were just looks of contentment and adoration from QT. Ahh..happiness.

Mother’s Day was just like any other day. I didn’t think I need a special day for them to tell me they loved me. They do show it to me in their special ways, every day. Except those days where I want to murder them, which happened after that Monday. Pfffffpt. It was an emotional week. I was down in the dumps (damn you hormones), and by Friday, I sorta broke down yelling at Ollie. And of course Ollie decided that he didn’t love me anymore. *sigh* Kids.

Unless you are telling me that the kids will be exceptionally well-behaved on that day, PLUS not yell for me EVERY 10 mins PLUS let me sleep in and I would wake up with the laundry miraculously done, the house spick & span. now THAT would be Mother’s Day. hahahaha. In fact the kids got to celebrate Children’s Day last Saturday by sleeping over in my room!

sleepover

sleepover

My poor back. That was the LAST Children’s Day they’ll celebrate sleeping in my room!

Anyhoos, I do hope you ladies did have a good day, however you spent it, being pampered or having heaps of attention showered on you.

 

Category: Ad, Parenting

raising Sarah

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Where did the week go?? Honestly, I cannot believe that it is already Thursday. Last week, I would have probably just said, ‘what?? Thursday only??’ Haha..time flies when you are swamped with work.

I’ve been busy with post-event paperwork and orders. We participated in an event on Sunday, the SuperMom Jubilee Baby Bash, where we had a booth to promote some of our products. I am really thankful for the opportunity to speak with parents, to learn more about their needs, and extremely thankful for their patience to participate in our booth activity, considering strollers weren’t allowed and it was mad crowded.

If you had been at the Big Little Me booth, I thank you for stopping by, whether for that stamp or not. =)

Now back to regular programming!

We are at week 18 of being pregnant with Sarah. Now, THIS is the point where I go, ‘WEEK 18 only??’ Starting to feel the aches and being klutzy to a certain extent. Still have to be nimble enough to chase after QT even though most of the times, the role has been delegated to Ollie (if he chooses to cooperate!)

So..the other day, hubby and I had a conversation about raising Sarah. After raising two boys, we are back at square one with a girl. Gender differences, both emotionally and physically. I am glad that both Donald and I are able to come to a compromise on how we want to go about raising the boys. Most of the time, I do some reading and then we would talk if I felt strongly about how Donald was dealing with the boys.

Both Donald and I grew up in the typical Chinese household, where the cane is freely used, ‘because I say so’ was spoken freely and kids were mostly seen and not heard. I’m not saying that the method then was wrong. It just worked for our parents then. But I definitely wanted to do things differently with my kids. Yup I am your classic case of ‘not going to do what my parents did’. So hello attachment parenting, hello gentle parenting. As a SAHM, I have more time to look into it and implement it. Donald does see the results and agree that it is a better approach, although it takes up a lot of time.

It wasn’t going to be any different for Sarah, except on certain issues. jeng jeng…that’s where Donald and I differed big time.

I was determined to nurture her to be a confident young lady. One that knows how to love herself, and not have body image issues; one that knows how to use both her intellect and her heart to make decisions; one that knows how to take that leap of faith.

Basically, all that I wasn’t when I was a teenager and only slowly began to learn how to do so because of my kids and husband. You’d be amaze what love AND support can do to a person, and I hope she finds someone who can love and support her the way Donald does for me.

So the conversation came about when I asked if Donald would allow Sarah to go out in a bare-back halter with hot pants.

‘Well, if she is 2 years old, sure!’

‘What if she is 14?’

‘She’s not going out!’

At that point of time, I laughed it off, and the first thing that came to mind was ,’of course not. She will lose out more.’ It was the same thing that Donald did say as well. It took me a day to mull over it before I thought differently.

Why was it that a girl would lose out more? How could I have thought that I would want to protect my girl more than my boys? Did it mean that it was okay for the boys to lose out too? I need to protect them both equally! Both the boys AND Sarah will have just as much to lose out!

That started me getting on the defensive and offensive on the differential treatment between boys and girls. Attire. Attracting the wrong attention. Conservative. Okay, this momma here is a liberal. Very 开通 you know. But I draw the line at no self-worth. 自甘堕落 is NOT okay. And this applies to both boys and girls in my household. And I expect my boys to treat females the way they should. The gentlemanly way and with respect. Same with Sarah; to treat guys as an equal and with respect.

I got on the offensive on a few things, which I won’t list here cos it might open another can of worms haha. But let’s just say it bordered along the line of gender equality, societal norms (which I totally detest cos I think saying it’s a norm is a total cop out and bullshit excuse IMHO) and being psuedo-feministic. Not that it’s a bad thing, but to me, they were areas worth discussing between Donald and I, but society may not be ready for it. Educating society will take a long time. It digressed ALOT but it was interesting to see what my husband felt and thought about it.

Else I will whup their asses, regardless of if they are 12 or 21. Hormones raging or not. Dammit.

Hais. No wonder Donald says raising girls gonna be headache. Hahaha cos wife also female, and she is liberal! It will really be interesting to see how Sarah will turn out!

Category: Daily, Kids, Parenting

do you still love me tomorrow?

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to be honest, before Ollie went to school, I had no idea what school holidays meant. Afterall, we spent 24/7 together. We had playdates, we went out, we stayed home, we had naps.

After Ollie started school for that measly 3 hours…OMG. I have been exposed to having to only deal with one kid for 3 hours and that was it. No turning back. I started to dread school holidays cos that meant having to rack my brains for activities to do. But it also meant play dates resumed. I could deal with 1 week holidays, but I absolutely dread June and December holidays.

Of course, if we were going on a holiday, it was a different matter altogether. But we’re not. So there.

And as we would all have it, the one week hols are where things act up. Yep. Just before the school hols started, QT came down with a fever that wouldn’t go away. We headed to KKH when it peaked at 39.6 degrees. And we were back again when QT’s cough just got worse despite the meds. I was brought back to the time both Ollie and QT came down with pneumonia. Yikes, definitely didn’t want that, so off we went to KKH for a chest x-ray. That was Wednesday. Half the holidays were gone and I had spend the most of my time sitting on the sofa with a koala pinned on me.

*sigh* And Ollie was acting up as well, despite going out on play dates with family.

He wasn’t having an easy time. Neither were we. Donald and I subscribe to the gentle parenting approach and try as much not to yell. We are also human, and when we are tired, we are more prone to our frustrations and we flare up easily. It is not an easy journey. There were a lot of sit outs with him (he has a spot on the sofa where he has to sit on with us nearby talking to him). We would try to make him empathise with the situation and reflect about what had happened. After which, he would have to apologise and there were hugs all around.

It backfired. He wasn’t deliberately acting out, but he was selectively acting out. He refused to listen to instructions and wanted his way. That brought on more snapping. A reminder of what was discussed with him the day before. More snapping. We thought we were being patient with him, or rather I thought so. In reality, we were snapping much faster because we felt that he should have understood, especially when the previous episode was just..well, the day before.

Today, it got to a point where I thought I saw a tired and despondent boy. Even I was tired and I was close to giving it all up. I thought, let’s try this differently. 

Ollie, what can mummy & daddy do to make you listen to us? He stared at me blankly.

Are you sad? Why do you not want to listen to mummy & daddy? Do you want to try?

He shook his head. Why not? ‘Because you always scold me.’ My heart did break a little.

Do you feel that mummy & daddy don’t love you anymore? Because we keep scolding you? He nodded, for a long time, he looked at me straight in the eye, saying quietly, ‘Yes’.

Ahh, my heart broke some more. How could I not know how that felt? As a kid, I had that very same thought whenever I was yelled at by my mom. I had thought that by closing each yelling session with hug, kiss, I love yous & do you feel better now?, it was enough. But obviously it wasn’t. Actions speak louder than words.

I told him how proud I was of him, how happy I was during the times he helped out around the house, and when he listened. I told him to never doubt that we loved him, that despite the yelling, we love him. I told him that when he doesn’t listen, no one else has fun. No one gets to continue what we are doing because one person does not cooperate. That makes everyone upset. I told him just like he feels sad when he doesn’t get to listen to his CD in the car despite asking politely, we feel sad when he doesn’t listen to us. I told him that both Donald and I didn’t enjoy yelling, that all of us liked to be happy. I did most of the talking, but he had time to think about it and then respond to me.

Do you want to try listening? Shall we try? He looked at me apprehensively. We’ve been down this road before, ages ago, where both him and I agreed that we would try. And it worked for a bit. Shall we try, Ollie? Let’s try listening. 

‘Okay.’ He nodded. We had a hug & a kiss, and he scooted off to Donald.

Writing this now, do I feel like I failed my kid? Hell yeah. For him to even feel that we don’t love him, the last thing I would EVER want him to feel. It was just a 20 min chat, but it was a heavy-hearted 20 min chat.

Just a couple of days ago, Donald and I were talking about Ollie’s behaviour, and the fine line between reasons for his behaviour and finding an excuse for his behaviour. When does trying to understand your child become denial that the child is an absolute brat? Most of the time..well, yeah, there is a solid reason for the behaviour. But is there a thing as being too lenient to your child, and trying to amp up the discipline now?

Argh. So complex. But for now, let’s all just try. Okay?

Category: Daily, Parenting
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