Yay for Sunshine!
We had another of pure, unadulterated sunshine today.
So yay!
This is totally off-tangent but the thought of having a child at my age really stuck with me all day today. I am afraid of having a child with Down Syndrome. Is it totally irresponsible for me to even try? It’s like a one in 22 chance these days.
I am a little sad.
On the topic of having another baby
So Lokes and I have been “discussing” another baby. More like me telling him my time is almost up and him claiming he’s not heard of it until now (”I knew you wanted three but not like, really want it.”).
Why do I want a third baby? To be honest, the reasons are not practical at all. I think having babies has stopped being practical the day we hit 1 million unwanted babies in the world, thus procreating has been selfish since 1952 so I’m NOT the first woman in the world to want a baby because I’m hormonal and craving for that new baby smell again.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been photographing new babies.
Perhaps it’s because I am reminded everyday when I look in the mirror that I’m getting older (36?! ARGHHHHHH).
And that some things really can’t be postponed indefinitely. Perhaps it’s because Sky is going to be five end of the year and Rae has been asking for a baby sister or brother and only God knows why because she seems to despise the one sibling she has (as all firstborns do).
And because I’ve always wanted three. Three, I think, is a great number. The triangle is the most stable of all geo structures. I’ve always had two best friends. I love P Ramlee’s DO RE MI. I am a big fan of the word “triumvirate”. The occasional threesome can be fun if I’m a more secure person.
THe only practical reason I think for having a biological child is – and I know this sounds horrible but practical is rarely romantic – to save its cord blood. And it’s not even FOR the baby. It’s for the rest of its family. I told you it’s horrible but if you want a practical reason for having a baby, there it is – longevity.
And yet, I am unsure. I am at a point right now where I’m comfortable. Contented. The girls are able to play nicely without accidentally killing themselves (but they ARE in danger of killing each other). Pretty soon, both will be in school and I’ll have more time to focus on my photography. Lokes and I can have a sitter over nights so we can take a nap at the theatre.
But there’s the fact that we are raising two females in the household, which actually takes more maintenance than males. We have to contend with social pressures much earlier (”BUT ALL MY FRIENDS HAVE JONAS BROTHERS GLITTER STICKERS!”), worry about body image issues (”WHY DO YOU WANNA LOSE WEIGHT MOMMY? IS THIN BETTER THAN FAT?”), making sure they understand why they can’t sit with their legs wide open like Daddy (”THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS!!”). What will having a third child do to the already state of perpetual panic Lokes and I are in raising two girls in a strange land with strange people who believe that children are equal to adults and that it’s crucial for kids to take 15 minutes to work out why five plus five is ten?
So the question is still hovering up in the air above us each day, mocking my rickety ovaries and causing Lokes to break out in cold sweat each night. Maybe with enough new lenses and assignments I’ll realize that I really don’t need another addition to my bevy of self-produced models. After all, Lokes is turning out to be quite good at following orders:
Technorati Tags: having babies, parenting, expecting, planned parenthood, funny, kids, family
Let’s talk power. Or how are you?
Power. Parenting is all about knowing how much power you have, and when, and where.
Oh, was that too sudden? I don’t show up for what, three months and just drop out of nowhere and start ranting about power-play in parenting?
I know how to alliterate, if nothing else.
Ok, so how’s everyone (everyone being YOU two there, still lurking around. I am pretty sure there are one or two other blogs out there more worth your time than this derelict that should be called a…webpage, not a blog)?
Ugh. Cringe. God. Haven’t heard that in a while.
What’s been happening with me? Let’s see:
1) My photography business is doing well, which is why you haven’t seen my sorry ass around. I have a Facebook page to maintain and a website and of course, the business of actually taking and processing the photographs, so yes, it’s been distracting.
2) I’ve also been busy working out. I’ve lost 22lbs so far, knock on wood. I know! It’s like I’ve gone insane.
3) The girls are growing up, fast. Skyler is able to dress herself now although this morning she put her panties on sideways and walked around for a few hours with one butt cheek hanging out because she’d put her right leg into her waist hole. Raeven is joining the presidential race in 2012.
4) Lokes is good. We’re good. Which is always good.
5) We have plans to go back to Malaysia summer 2009. Yay!
I know I should probably write more but life is much more interesting these days.
Although I was inspired to blog today because last night, in bed, I had this amazing old feeling I used to have, lying there in the dark. It was really strange and I’d wanted to write about it.
But not now. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll tell you about this time of my life when the smells and sounds of night made me alive. Sort of like a vampire.
Or maybe I’ll talk more about parent power.
Nature or nurture: Do parenting styles really factor?
A few days ago, at our preschool’s Parent Ed night, we were taught the four styles of parenting, something I’d gone through two previous times when my older daughter was at a co-op.
You know, the whole Helicopter/indulgent parent, the Drill Sergeant/Authoritarian (Asian) parent, the Skeleton/Indifferent parent and the nirvana of good parenting, the Authoritative parent who’s loving but firm, who knows how to set boundaries but also allow the slow, transfer of power from parent to child, and so on.
As we went through our notes, I could not help but notice the so-called negative results of the other three styles in my first child. Self-centeredness, because sometimes Lokes can be too indulgent. An inability to deal with failure, because sometimes I can be too hard on her with the rules. Insecurity, because perhaps I don’t pay enough attention to her feelings.
However, she was also a confident child, top of her class and has many friends, my Raeven. These were the results of good parenting – an Authoritative parent.
And then it dawned on me.
This class is for my parenting of Skyler, my second child – not Raeven. Not that it matters but I was surprised I was actually thinking more of Rae than I was of Sky when it came to “behavioral challenges”.
Skyler really has nothing in the first three columns mainly because perhaps it’s still too early to tell. She IS confident, because she’s never cried a day in class, even from the first day I’d dropped her off. She is very trusting of her teacher, the other co-op parents, her friends. She is easy-going and secure.
I began thinking about my parenting styles with both my kids. And the parenting styles of my parents.
As the older sibling, I’d always been subjected to unrealistic standards by my own parents and even though I knew they meant well, it was hard to take as a kid. Luckily for me, I have a great younger sister and with time, the value of my tough upbringing gave me the tools I needed to deal with life and love. Still, I have my flaws. I can be self centered. I don’t like to fail and sometimes don’t admit to my mistakes. I am insecure.
I was also top of my class in school (I have a 4.0 GPA in my two semesters of college last winter and spring) and popular.
Raeven and I are so much alike, although Lokes’ and my parenting style and my parents’, are so different.
This makes me wonder how much really is genetic and how much of it can we change and nurture as parents, these traits and flaws. And why are both my kids so different since my parenting style is the same with both of them.
Or am I just seeing what I want to see?
In any case, I know I am doing some things right, and there are some things I need to correct before it’s too late (like when she’s 12 and will call me on my dorkiness – “Why are you acting all weird, Mom? Oh, don’t tell me. It’s a parenting class thing.” *roll eyes*).
Technorati Tags: parenting, parenting styles
This was NOT in the handbook.
I am pretty sure there are Impatience and Easily Bored genes. If one of you Human Genome scientists could just find them, I need someone to do some sort of a splice on my daughter because man, I am running out of ideas on how to make her more patient and extend her attention span beyond two minutes.
We are trying to get through her summer homework and I’ve been telling myself to go easy, but man, we still have an inch more of all that paper to go through. Everyday, right before lunch, we sit down for two pages of beginning math (which I supplement with a Nintendo DS game called Professor Kayegama’s Cell Math – I think) and two pages of writing (all from the big pile her kindergarten teacher gave us right before summer hols) and at bedtime, we usually read a chapter from a chapter book (Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is on now) which she has no problems with since reading is her favorite of the lot. But man, the math and writing is driving me up the wall because my daughter is, to put it nicely, spirited.
For example, she likes to “do things her way” – her exact words – rather than do things the right way, such as writing along the guide lines or counting with her fingers when counting in her head does not work. It’s all great but then she gets frustrated when the words don’t fit onto the page because she didn’t follow the lines and can’t get her math answers right because she counted it wrong in her head. And then she throws a fit and begins to sob over the fact she’s frustrated and refuses to finish.
And YET, the very next day, she STILL decides NOT to follow the lines or use an abacus or her fingers.
Now a lot of people will say, “hey she is spirited, not wanting to be limited by lines!” or “she’s spirited, doing subtraction in her head!” and pretty soon, some will even say, “hey, getting it right is overrated!” but I am pretty sure simple subtraction and writing in straight lines are relatively standard expectations of a six-year old who could discern that five minutes is not as long as half an hour when she was four, especially when I gave her the warning to turn the TV off.
I am someone who values methodology and process. Not everyone does but I think at the very least these things should be respected. You may be a genius but the laws of the universe, and sometimes, the laws of man, still apply to you, whatever you may think.
Now I am proud to have a daughter who WANTS to be creative and spirited and wants to add a little challenge or fun into mundane things like homework but I believe there’s a time for everything (especially when you’re a SAHM!). And I think that it’s high time someone told my six-year old that her first grade teacher may not find it very funny when she decides to do things her way, writing vertically instead of horizontally, or takes all day to subtract three from ten because she insists on using her head, a head that is probably filled with, “If I buy THREE Barbies from the store which has TEN Barbies …hmm, how would life be with THREE more Barbies?”
And that was exactly what I told her this morning.
“Now you have to do what Miss A says. You can’t just do it the way you like, that’s not how it works,” I’d said, a little pissed off by then.
My six-year old thought about it for a while and went, “I’ll do what my teacher says.”
“Good. So do it the way I told you to do it. Use the abacus.”
“But you’re not my teacher.” she’d answered crisply.
And then there are days when you want to drive to the gas station and buy a pack of cigarettes and pay a visit to the liquor store next door.
Technorati Tags: parenting, SAHM, children, motherhood, kids, family
Starting life as a (ahem) photographer
As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been taking a lot of pictures.
I’ve also been exploring the possibility of turning this hobby into a business. I’ve built a site. I’ve read close to ten books on the fundamentals and then some. I’ve camped Photo.net, Flickr and Digital Photography School for perhaps twice as long. I’ve practiced my behind off in recent months on my kids, the kids of my friends, gone on photowalks, bugged the hell out of more experienced photographers, and basically just photographing anything that’s not strapped down.
And yet, I’ve been a little afraid of calling myself a photographer. Much as I’ve been afraid of calling myself a writer (and I’ve been writing a while). Heck I can’t even call myself a blogger without feeling like a fraud because there ARE people who actually BLOG regularly who don’t even claim that.
When I go out with Lokes for his social gatherings with business colleagues, I say I’m a stay-at-home mom, and then Lokes will let slip the fact that I blog, write and is now a “portrait photographer”. I cringe because they all make me sound like I am doing everything and therefore am not good at anything. Really, a writer? One miserable short story, that’s all I’ve published the last two years. A blogger? I am perhaps the laziest, most inconsistent blogger in the history of lazy inconsistent blogging. A portrait photographer? This is the worst because I’d have my camera with me and people will start asking to have their pictures taken and my fingers get clammy and I’d stutter a little when I say, “Okay…ss-say…cheese?” and I’d start thinking, “Great, now I have to spend my evening trying to save my semi-semi-pro photos…”
Usually, the photos turn out great (without the help of Photoshop too!). Sometimes, I also blog or write something worth reading. And yet, my self esteem is taking a very very long time to catch up on whatever it is I’ve set my heart on doing. That is why I’ve had problems “marketing” myself beyond building a blog. How do I get rid of this fear of feeling like I’m not worth getting paid for my services?
The only thing that motivates me is a practical consideration: that times are getting harder, and one income may not hack it much longer, and I will need to GET OVER myself THIS MINUTE before it’s too late.
Nothing like a little tough love.
My bible
So I just finished Muffy Mead Ferro’s Confessions of a Slacker Mom.
This may as well be the book I was supposed to write, the book I would’ve written had I gotten my act together. Then again, I’m not just a slacker at mommying.
Highlights:
- The example of making-do, photographed here. It’s so true that we parents give so much to our kids, thinking more is “better” – more technology, more toys, more room, more praise (but not necessarily more time or attention). Are we slowly taking away their resourcefulness? Their ability to “make do”, to improvise rocks and sticks into flying saucers and magic wands?
- Providing more also takes away their ability to share. I’ve always been advised to buy two of everything to minimise fighting, for my peace of mind, to promote fairness. What about teaching my kids the importance of sharing, taking turns? When we assign cutlery and plates, toys and books, rooms, computers, books and cars to each of our children, are we slowly and subconsciously not just enabling the culture of entitlement (”Rae has one, I deserve one too!”), but also the “Mine and mine only” attitude?
- Lastly, does real and sustainable self esteem really come from heaping praise upon glowing praise on our kids for the tiniest of accomplishments, or should we nurture a sense of self-driven pride and delayed gratification by remaining neutral (i.e. we don’t praise nor do we show are disappointment or criticise if the opposite occurs) unless we are really, truly impressed?
Someone needs to give Ms. Ferro an award, if she’s not already gotten one.
For the love of shlocklate
On the drive home after a looooong day in the city today:
Me (pensively): Skyler said “chocolate” today.
Lokes (dazed): Huh?
Me: She said “chocolate” when I gave her chocolate. Usually she says “shlocklate”, remember?
Lokes: Oh…
Me: And the other day she said “watermelon.”
Lokes nods, smiling a little sadly.
Me: Right? She used to say “waterlemon”.
Lokes: Yea…
Me: Sigh…
(Pregnant pause)
Lokes: No, we’re not having another kid so you can hear “shlocklate” again.
Technorati Tags: parenting
Earning my blog title
Two pages out of Raeven’s kindergarten memory book:
“I want 100 toys.”
“I want 100 boys.”
“I want 100 Barbies.”
“I don’t want 100 moms or crazy dads.”
“Raeven is worried
(picture of something resembling a green sand-person in the middle of swampy muddy crayon scribbles underneath).”
“Sometimes, I get worried when Mommy scolds me.”
I’m not sure what concerns me more; the damage I’ve irreparably done with my (occasional) screaming or the fact that she wants 100 boys.
There she is, my six-year old going on sixteen. Congratulations, baby doll!
Technorati Tags: parenting
The perfect reason to lose weight
A few of my friends from way back when have asked me since I posted the two photos of myself in my recent posts, “Wow. Why the change?”
No, they’re not being rude. They know me, these guys. They know I’ve never been a vain person, because I believe that there’s only so much time and resources one has, and as such, image has never been one of my priorities. I prefer to go after other more, shall we say, meaningful pursuits, like how to enrich my mind or my writing, to be a better parent.
Don’t be mistaken. I like looking at beautiful people. Who doesn’t? I totally grasp the concept that appearances matter and the slightly narcissistic but totally primal desire to be admired, but I’ve been one of those fortunate ones who’ve always been able to slip through the cracks of this societal pressure, managing to get by without needing to constantly watch what I eat, spend a lot of money on product or fashion. An example of my good luck is that I married a man who was 150lbs overweight (”was” as in not anymore – no, I’m not divorced, he’s just lost over 130lbs so far). He fell in love with me even when I was a good 50lbs overweight.
So, I figured I could continue to get by.
And then I had a six-year old.
Living in a country where extremes like obesity and bulimia can co-exist so comfortably within a square mile of fast-food chains, yoga studios and everything in between telling you one moment to love the shape you’re in and the next that those 10lbs can come right off if you just drink some Oolong, is a little like being Alice. You don’t know the next moment if you should get bigger or smaller, or stay the same size. If it’s confusing for a grown-up, what more a child?
A month ago, Raeven told me she didn’t want to eat because she didn’t want to be as big as me. I know, brutal but cute at the same time. I told her that it was okay to eat, as long as we eat the right foods and exercise to keep us healthy.
“Do you exercise?” she’d asked.
“Of course,” I’d managed, without even blinking. The next day, I started walking three to four miles each day and went on the South Beach diet.
That was four weeks – and 6lbs – ago.
What I’m saying is that I am losing weight and trying to look good to set an example for my kids, because like it or not, we’re the sun and the moon to them. Like it or not, at this young age, they look to us for guidance and we’re the be all and end all of all standards in their world. If Daddy swears and hits, then it’s okay for me to swear and hit. If Mommy is fat and lazy, that’s good enough for me.
Those who’ve followed my weight-loss journeys (emphasis on the plural) have known that staying motivated is my biggest challenge. I’ve always told Lokes I fail because I just don’t care enough about how I look and put no stock into what total strangers think of me when they see me lumbering by, particularly when my health is still tip-top (I go for annuals and my doc reluctantly tells me it’s a miracle). So preaching to me that I have to be healthy for kids so I can get old enough to see them get married and give me grandkids, doesn’t really hack it either.
But what my children think of me, in the midst of all the noise about health and a healthy body image? Now that matters. It really does, because what they think of me shapes – pun intended – who they are.
That’s more power than I’m willing to screw with.
Technorati Tags: weight loss, parenting, self image
$70 and two haircuts later…
Today is proof that you can cut your hair twice in a day, and the cheaper one will do a better job.
T-4 to going on a flight across the universe with my two kids ALONE
What the hell was I thinking, agreeing to do this? That’s the problem with not thinking. Do not ever not think. Husbands do it all the time and we give them hell for it and now look at where it’s landed me. Not thinking is just baaaad.
We’re going to Disneyworld in a few days. It’ll take me all day to reach Orlando from Seattle with two kiddos, a flight with zero in-flight entertainment, a one-hour transit in Minneapolis, a laptop that claims a four-hour batt life only if you run, like, Notepad; one PSP to share between the three of us (thankfully the batt life trumps the laptop, now that’s a REAL gaming machine) and I just spent $50 on all sorts of “creative” implements that won’t get us kicked off the plane (hopefully).
Thank God we live in the age of Internet. I am totally a Cheat Sheet kind of gal and after Googling “flying with kids”, I am now the authority. I am ready. I am SO thinking:
Thinking that perhaps they should make families with children-only flights so I won’t have to battle all those dirty looks when Skyler decides to start a front-seat kicking contest.
Technorati Tags: flying with kids
One year later
I’ve probably said it close to 57,000 times since last week but I can’t believe that the preschool – yes, the very same one I had helped found (by accident) – is now done with its first school year.
What have I learnt?
That you can find friends in the most unlikely places, surprisingly good ones, the ones who will tell you like it is and stick through hell and high water with you – and with whom you will go to the ends of the earth with because they are not just all talk and because even though they judge you, you know they’re just being honest and not malicious and come across, in the end, as the most valuable friends you can ever have. Yes, I’m talking about you, Sara. You rock!
That no matter how tough the going gets, it can get even tougher.
That you can be sure of one thing one minute, and of another the next, and it’s okay because you’re the one taking all the crap for it anyway.
That some of the most well-paid, highest-qualified people are also the laziest.
That kids don’t really care about how a preschool looks – parents do.
That such an endeavour – an accident though it was, since I didn’t really know what I was getting into – has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life.
And I am secretly very proud of it.
Jennifer Tai: writer, mother, photographer and preschool founder. My work is done.
Technorati Tags: cooperative preschool, preschool
Mushrooms for Life
Lokes sent me a video yesterday, another one in the Highly Important series of TEDtalks that Everyone Must Watch, where a mycologist named Paul Stamets shared with attendees six ways how mushrooms can save the world.
First of all, it was a VERY educational video. I had never heard of mycelium before, let alone how this amazing fungi is the “natural internet of the earth” and that – wait for it – it can break down petroleum products, eat away bacteria such as ecoli and basically cleanse the earth of all its toxins by natural process.
Secondly, it was truly inspiring and…a relief, really, to know that there IS a solution right here, literally, under our noses – fungi.
Sure, this guy owns all these patents to save the world and why shouldn’t he? He’s dedicated his whole life to fungi. If they do end up saving the world, I think Stamets should reap the benefits. Heck, he should be awarded sainthood!
Paul Stamets has a website called – whaddya know – Fungi.com where you can buy his books and learn more about how mycelium and the field of mycorestoration (a term Stamets concocted) can help save the earth.
Check it out
Technorati Tags: TEDtalks, environment, ecology
This Mother’s Day, I have an Answer
Every Mother’s Day,
breakfasts in bed
handmade cards with handprints and hearts
flowers are bought and given
restaurants booked and meals eaten
ang pows from the elders
a day alone (a year)
to take a breather
“What do you want this year?”
the husband asks, with tired trepidation
“And don’t say nothing.”
Of course, then, the answer is,
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
This year, it’s not nothing.
I have an answer.
The answer is, I want to love being a mother
I want to wake up
and want to spend the day
cooking and cleaning
worrying and scolding
chauffeuring and doing laundry
breaking up fights
wiping bottoms and blowing noses
I want to want to talk in a silly voice
get excited about another piece of paper
with globs of green and purple
some on the carpet
and glue on the couch
I want to want to read stories
ten stories every night
and one more
and another
and one last one, pleaaase
I want to love to love
and love and love
my growing children
before I blink
and find them grown
Technorati Tags: Mothers Day
It’s one of those mom things
Come May 11, I’ll be commemorating my sixth year as a mom. What have I learnt?
That there’s no such thing as a “bad” kid.
That it’s possible to discipline your child without guilt.
That one can still be surprised by how different you and your child can be – and how alike.
That loving has nothing to do with liking.
That dads can be trained to do “mom things” (we already do lots of “dad things”).
Here’s to another year of inept parenting, obsessive self doubt and the indubitable wisdom of simply winging it.
Happy Mothers’ Day, TIM readers!
Technorati Tags: mothers day, mothers, parenting
Who’s the best mommy? Huh? HUH?
I speak with my mother quite often, almost once a week. She calls whenever she’s bored, mostly in the afternoons (Malaysian time) when there’s a lull in the day’s business at my uncle’s grocery stall which he’s owned and run for over 30 years.
Mom tells me of a tree she sits under to chat because, apparently, that’s where the reception is the clearest. We spend 30 mins to an hour, talking about the kids, gossiping about my sister in particular, and our relatives in general. Sometimes, she gives me advice on how to improve some of the recipes she’s given me.
I must say that never in a million years did I imagine that I would share such a relationship with my mother, much like how both of us had never imagined that I would be married, with kids, and a full-time mother who’d actually have the time and inclination to refine recipes. My mother was a working mom herself when we were growing up. Being a housewife was, to her, a privilege, and I guess it still is back in Malaysia where most young families have dual incomes. Ironically, you’d have to be filthy rich to be a stay-at-home mom but only so-so rich to have a foreign maid/nanny. Here in the US, it is the reverse.
“Your sister tells me you’re a wonderful mom,” she’d said to me once. It was awkward, for praise was a precious thing in my family, heck, in my country. We Malaysians have trouble accepting praise gracefully, and may tend even to think that one is being patronising and not genuine when kind words are offered. That’s just the way it is.
“I think perhaps you’re even a better mom than I ever was,” she’d added nonchalantly, something which I’d, being Malaysian to the core, had rejected profusely not only because it wasn’t true, but because I found it really sad as well, that my mother thought my half-arsed efforts at being a SAHM would always be looked upon as being more dedicated than what she had to go through when my sis and I were kids as a working mother. There were no maids in her time, and even if there were, we couldn’t afford one on two teachers’ salaries.
“This is all I do now, so I’d better do it well,” I’d told Mom that day, a little pensively. It was true. Lokes asks me, sometimes, why I’m such a stickler for rules and schedules and, like, breakfast means pancakes, not pizza. Because this is what I’ve chosen to do. If I were still a journalist or an editor, I’d still be a stickler for rules and schedules and eat pancakes for breakfast if it meant doing my job well.
People are always making fun of “supermoms”, painting this really anal-retentive, OCD “Bree Vanderkamp”, Stepford-wife type who drinks in secret and has sex with her best friend’s husband and has everything set on the clock, even Tuesday sex nights (I prefer Sunday afternoons). Seriously, nobody thinks it’s funny when I’m anal retentive and OCD about crunching the numbers and making sure my magazine survives another six months. Oh wait. Then the joke’s about how I’m a sucky mom for being more interested in my career than my kids.
Ah. What do they call it? The Mommy Wars?
This whole Working Moms vs Stay-at-home Moms debate is an old one, but once in a while, it resurfaces like a willful child to nudge and poke us into finally giving it the attention it truly does not deserve. Working moms will always feel guilty about not being home for their kids, whether or not we SAHMs remind them, and we SAHMs will always feel resentful and jealous because delayed gratification isn’t all that fun. We try to be mature about it, think about how our kids will appreciate the scrapbooks upon scrapbooks we’ve filled with billions of dollars of crafty rubbish and pictures from the moment they’re born, and how healthy and well-adjusted (hah!) they’d turned out JUST because we’d been around between 3-5pm everyday, preparing their after-school snack without fail, driving them to and from art class, dance school, track, baseball, soccer, gym, paying our full attention to all the adolescent drama that would put any mid-day soap to shame.
In the mean time, working moms have to contend with stories of the drama from their nannies, all the while feeling jealous and shameful for not having been around to hear these things first-hand, berating themselves to their husbands in bed, “Oh, what kind of mom am I? What kind of parents are we that we have to listen to messages of our kids’ problems from our nannies like some message service?!”
You’ve gotta admit it – it makes a great topic. Gets people all riled up for nothing because there is no resolution. Because there’s no problem. Moms will work and moms will stay at home and some moms will even do both. We will strive to do it all, and do it all well. Forever and ever, Amen.
Because it is all we do.
That’s why we’re magnificent.
Technorati Tags: mommy wars, parenting, SAHM, working moms
End of the tunnel (or almost)
What a week.
Yesterday, Rae was finally struck down after almost a month of battling the battery of cough, cold and flu viruses that had invaded the rest of our family.
The stomach bug dealt her a swift defeat, and Rae threw up all day, only managing to keep down fluids towards the eve, with a bitch of a fever of 104.6, culminating into only one bout of diarrhea, which we’re all thankful for. Finally, at around 6pm, she had one small piece of banana, some crackers and two sips of Pedialyte, before retiring to bed.
This morning, she woke up with a fever of 104 again, which Lokes managed to banish with some Tylenol. Both girls tucked away some white bread, more banana and Pedialyte, and I ventured so far as to give Skyler some milk.
No incidents yet *wipes brow*.
Oh God.
What’s that I smell?
Gotta go.
Technorati Tags: stomach flu, parenting
Let’s call this Skyler’s Bowel Movement, The Sequel: More diabolical tales of diarrhea
So I thought I should share with you how I’ve managed to streamline the whole Diarrhea Containment Action Plan to three steps, it being stomach bug season, still. I know. I thought it was spring already, what the hell.
Anyway, so here’s what you need near you AT ALL TIMES when you have a child under five who has diarrhea:
1. A gallon-garbage bag.
2. Toilet paper (duh)
3. A kitchen sink with those spray hoses (if you are peevy about having shit where you eat then use your bath tub. I don’t since I wash off everything with Clorox every time. I can show you the next time I invite you over for dinner, haha).
4. Vaseline
Here’s the Diarrhea Containment Action Plan in three easy steps:
1. When you hear it coming (they usually cry since their bottoms are so sore from purging or just keep an ear out for that guttural bubbly rumble, pfff), grab the garbage bag and sack ‘em from under.
2. Carry them to the sink and remove sack when they are safely IN the sink or tub. Remove diaper IN bag, wrap and throw.
3. Hose ‘em down, dry gently with toilet paper and apply Vaseline to help soreness heal.
Okay, I think I’m done.
How do you like my new theme?
Technorati Tags: parenting, diarrhea, stomach flu
The business of being born
My friend Jill sent me a link today.All women need to watch this.I’ve written about this almost three years ago. It’s happening in Malaysia. It’s happening in America.”We gynaes have lives too.” – my old gynae Dr Kim on why she thinks Cesarean is a good thing.Watch it. And let’s talk.
When sorry is not enough
One of the main emphases of our co-op preschool program is positive discipline, and a lot of the training us parent teachers get in the course of our involvement in the school is through conflict resolution in the classroom. This is one of my favourite reasons for joining a co-op, in that twice a week, I am exposed to not just my own kids, but other people’s children as well, and get to ‘practise’ how to resolve a conflict between two kids in a positive manner.
Don’t I have two kids of my own at home who are constantly fighting? Yea, I do so yes, I am clearly insane.
Seriously, resolving conflicts between your child and someone else’s is a different dynamic, and from the experience, I have learnt to see both my children more as individuals than just my own kids and siblings. Rae takes the fact that Sky is her sister for granted sometimes, and hence is more likely to take advantage of her, whereas she knows she can’t take the same liberties with her friends at school. As such, she’s more likely to have a meltdown when she can’t get her way because she is at a loss of how to make her friends do what she wants. At the same time, she is adamant at wanting things the way she wants them, so it’s really interesting to see how she works these situations out now that she’s in kindergarten. It’s the same with Sky, my three-year old who’s at the co-op now, as well.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learnt at the co-op is How to Accept an Apology.
Back in Malaysia, I didn’t know that there were other ways you can accept an apology graciously, other than saying “it’s okay”. Think about it, my Malaysian friends. How do you respond to an apology? Do you say, “it’s alrightlah, don’t worry about it”?
When you think about it, what does “it’s okay” mean? Does it mean you’ve forgiven the person? Or does it mean that the apology was not necessary? This automatic, seemingly polite (when really, it’s quite thoughtless) response may be appropriate to a grownup because we can figure out what it means. However, to a three-year old child, forgiveness is a foreign and complex concept. And hence, what they will glean from “it’s okay”, is that they had not committed an infraction at all, and the apology was not necessary, when it really was. Aside from being polite, saying sorry means you knew you did something wrong. So if it’s okay, it means I did nothing wrong.
And then I came here and learnt from the fine teachers at the co-op that there were other more meaningful ways to respond to an apology, especially when the wrongdoer and the wronged are children.
“Thank you for saying sorry. It was really hard and I really appreciate it.”
And there it was, so simple and yet effective. You are accepting the apology and thanking the little person for it. And yet, the child is clear that what he did was wrong.
What if sorry is not enough? What if you feel that the apology does little to assuage your anger or frustration or sadness? At the co-op, we’re taught to ask the wronged child, “Did that make you feel better?”. If not, we escalate to “Okay, then what can (the wrongdoer) do to make you feel better?”. Usually, the wronged child is already crying and a hug is then recommended by the grownup, or perhaps a handshake.
Now this is a beautiful process and it usually works – the operative word being ‘usually’. As in real life, things sometimes do not go as planned. For instance, what if the kid who is apologising clearly does not mean it and is saying it in a teasing manner just to get the apology over with?
The recommended response than was that the wronged child must learn to walk away from the situation until a later time when the wrongdoer is ready to apologise correctly, and the wrongdoer is given a talking-to about the importance of being nice to his or her friends.
When my friend Mat and I were discussing this yesterday, I started to wonder. While these techniques work well in a classroom with a one parent mediator, perhaps even at home if one is consistent about it, do they really work in real-world situations, especially when your child enters public school where a grown-up’s assistance may be hard to come by?
Are we, in a way, preparing our children for the less forgiving real life by stepping in all the time to resolve their conflicts, overcompensating by mapping out the resolution so neatly when in real life, they’re rarely so smoothly resolved?
Rae is in kindergarten at a local public elementary school and during recess, she plays with some older children at the school playground with little adult supervision. This has, in the past, caused me some worry. As such, I’ve had to equip her with a ‘bully blocking’ action plan, which I review every week with her because, yes, I’m an over-protective mother.
Of the two times I was around to observe a conflict resolution (without her knowledge) this was what she did: She’d simply stomped away to a corner and sulked. A few moments later, she’d glance over at her friend (who’s probably said sorry a couple of times but of course, with my over-dramatic daughter, it’s never enough), who’s now playing happily by him or herself. Seeing that no hug or satisfactory action will be given, she goes and joins him begrudgingly, dealing with the disappointment by simply not thinking about it, and voila, they are laughing and playing together again as though it’d never happened.
It wasn’t perfect but it was enough. I tell myself that at least, she had not thrown a fit right there on the play structure just because sorry was not enough. It was so hard for me not to step in. I didn’t know of whom I was more proud – Rae or myself.
This is what parenting is, isn’t it? From the moment they’re born, you start to teach your children to be independent, not so much for them to eventually let go, but so that you yourself are able to one day do so (knowing that they won’t embarrass the heck out of you when you’re not there!).
Another post about cleaning. This is a mommy blog after all.
One of my biggest Mommy challenges is keeping my temper in check.
My friends may be shocked by this since I’ve always been pegged as ‘easy-going’ or ‘cincai’, in Malay-Chinese speak. The truth is, I get pissed off just like everyone else. Perhaps even more frequently so since I’ve become a parent.
Perhaps the biggest pet peeve I have about being at home with the kiddos is cleaning. I hate to clean and any situation that results in me having to clean upsets me tremendously (and we all know how that is never an issue with having children). Although in recent times I’ve learnt to appreciate, even more, an impeccable house, I deplore no less the space and time between 1. a dirty house and 2. a clean house. In short, I hate having to get on my hands and knees to scrub tile or tub or toilet bowl, pry crumbs off the carpet, vacuum or scrape nasty caked stuff off the stove top.
Now if I were ‘easy-going’ about cleanliness, in that I just ignore the mess, it would obviously not be something I’d be so moved to write an entire blog post about. Or if I liked a clean house so much more than cleaning like my friend Sara does, that I look beyond the labour. As it turns out, I’m one who NEEDs things to be clean but do not want to do the work, and is too cheap to pay someone else to do it.
So yes, I am officially now a moron.
Really, how healthy is it for one to keep completely calm (”remember, gentle but firm”)when one’s three-year-old spills milk or yogurt onto the carpet? Or decides to empty every single box of toys just to look for her favourite Polly Pocket outfit? Or decides to water the one plant in our house with a full bucket of water? How is one to sit back and bask in the happy fulfillment that is parenthood when one is awaken at two in the morning to change out a mattress soaked with pee?
I am in perpetual cognitive dissonance over this, having to reconcile daily the natural (and therefore chaotic) development of young children and my need for tidiness and order. I was, after all, brought up to believe that no bad deed should ever go unpunished. We all live in this world together, and it would be unfair if some people got put away for, say, peeing in bed and some didn’t.
And yet, children rarely want to spill milk. Or pee in bed. Or stick marbles up their nostrils just to smell them a little better. Or roll play-do on the carpet because it’s more fun. Or get pregnant at 15.
Children rarely do these things JUST to piss us off. How self-absorbed are we to even think that? Do they have accidents, make mistakes to see if mommy will REALLY go off the edge and smoke that very last secret cigarette? Deep, deep, deep down, in that small little box called their subconscious, do they draw on walls with permanent marker just to fuck with us?
Of course not.
And yet, we wish it were so. When our kids misbehave, we wished the reasons were more sinister, so that we can feel better when we, say, bitch on our blogs about yet another day spent in pig sty hell.
Phew, that felt good.
Back to making sure all the markers are capped and every car is in the bin and every teeny tiny little Polly Pocket and their teeny tiny shoes are accounted for.
Don’t even get me started on those things.
I hope that’s a compliment!
As the aroma of my mother-in-law’s famous pork and eggs braised in soy sauce filled our home, Raeven took a sniff and remarked, unremarkably:
"Mommy, that smell reminds me of an experiment we did at science camp."
Here’s to a whole new year of good smells and great memories (of smells and other things), everyone.
End of an era
Yesterday, my friend Sharon and her husband Ross came over to pick up the girls’ crib, which I’d kept all this time, and a number of my baby items.
Yes, I took five boxes of baby things with me when we moved here, preparing for the possibility of baby No.3.
After Sharon and Ross left, it finally hit me how final it all became, the decision that Lokes and I made some time back that we would not be having anymore kids. I am going back to school January, preparing that in the next four years to get my own life back on track so that when the girls are both in school full time, I can get back out there, write the Great Malaysian Living Abroad novel (or more likely, a collection of short stories). Or perhaps revolutionise speech recognition by fusing technology with linguistics.
I decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life at home with the kids. I’m just not built for long-term SAHMhood (I think ten years is about as much of it as I can take). I don’t think anyone is, really – not that they’ll admit that readily. I still want to be home when the kids get home from school each day, help them with homework and be available whenever they need me.
But I will want to do something that is mine. All mine.
Still, it was a sad moment of realisation for me yesterday.
No more anticipating double lines on a pregnancy test.
No more ultrasounds (well, not on my womb anyway).
No more thinking of baby names.
(Sharon and Ross, don’t feel bad please. I’d rather my things be with people I care about than sell them off on Craigslist. Guess I know now why it took me so long to put the items up for sale!)