Someone once asked me what my ineptitudes were as a parent. Or are.

“You look like you know what you’re doing, what?” she said, half-mockingly, although I would NEVER insinuate that for fear of having my head bitten off (she’s the one who REALLY knows what SHE’s doing).

I never answered her, and had simply laughed it off, nervously. The truth is, I don’t even know WHERE to begin.

For one, I am not a very ‘adult’ parent. I’ve never been a very adult anything. By ‘adult’, I mean knowing what to bring, say, to a dinner party. Wine? What kind of wine? How much should we spend? What if the hosts are Christians or Muslims? Flowers? What kind of flowers? Roses? Carnations? What? How about a pack of fried rice and chicken wings? Hey, everyone likes fried rice and chicken wings, no?

By ‘adult’, I also mean knowing what to do in an emergency, say, when your child has a nose bleed. Skyler knocked her nose falling down one time and she immediately bled out. The first thing I did was rush her to the sink so she could drip there (instead of, like, on the carpet of our rented townhouse, you know) and THEN realise I needed tissues and THEN screamed my head off for Rae to help me get them. I also panicked and panicked and THEN panicked some more, inspecting her nose for a good 30 minutes AFTER it’d stopped bleeding, my mind going all kinds of crazy over what might’ve happened in there.

“Have you never experienced a nose bleed before?” asked an American friend of mine when I related this incident to her. Which reminds me that I should stop telling people about my inadequacies if I still want them to have a chance at liking me. She probably wondered if this ulu-fied (translation: country-fied) Malaysian should really be having kids.

Thing is, I’ve never had a nose bleed EVER. Noone in my family has and in fact, I don’t even remember if I know anyone who’s had a nose bleed before. So much so the first thing that pops into my mind when I see a nose bleed is what those Hong Kong serials say is probably happening: That your blood pressure is through the roof and you’d better cut down on the seafood and ‘heaty’ stuff.

Another example of my not having really grown up is the anxiety I feel when doing the chores assigned to me, as a parent’s commitment towards a cooperative preschool (Rae goes to one). For example, parents are allocated tasks like preparing meals and story times.

I remember spending a MONTH ‘preparing’ for my turn at story time by ’spying’ at what books the other moms were reading, and HOW they were reading them. I went over ALL of Rae’s books, which were mostly Peter Rabbit (which I love) and her Princess (Little Mermaid Ariel) books and then dug up all her old books from Malaysia and THEN spent over $80 on new books, JUST to make sure I didn’t accidentally pick a completely inappropriate porno, horror story and read it ALOUD to 16 three-year olds.

I’d even practised the reading, voice-acting out the characters in a sing-song voice.

“Must you…act, like that?” Lokes had asked.

“ALL THE OTHER MOMS ARE DOING IT!!!” I’d replied in an uncontrollable high-pitched voice.

But all of these inadequacies pale in comparison to the anguish I feel about the one thing I’m pretty sure I suck at: Meal preparation.

Now Lokes thinks I’m the best cook in the world, but he doesn’t know the difference between cooking for your family and cooking for other people.

“Just whip them your Thai Chicken Rice and you will PWN them!” he says. Yea, right. The amount of chillies we put in there, they’re definitely going somewhere, like THE TOILET FOR A COUPLE OF DOZEN TIMES!

I guess when school begins, I am going to have to do more ‘research’. Let me see. My first meal prep assignment for other people is coming…late September. Holy crap. That’s a little more than a month.

Wonder how four-year olds will respond to nasi lemak…

Yeahaaaa right, if I could make that, I wouldn’t be peeing in my pants now.