December 22, 2012

Mama’s little helper

Spud has been in a “I want to do! I want to do myself!” mode, and this includes her wanting to help feed her little brother his milk when she strongly feels like it.

When Spud knows that Squirt’s about to be fed, she gets all excited and wants to be mama’s little helper. I sometimes wish she would try to feed herself with the same gusto too…

It is actually quite cute to watch her in full concentration and trying so earnestly to put the bottle into his mouth. The only thing was, she did it as and when she pleased. Which meant that when she felt that Squirt was done, she would then just pull the bottle from his mouth without warning, telling him, “OK. Finish!” and literally leaving that poor little guy flapping away as he got his still-full bottle of milk taken away from him for no rhyme nor reason and just because his sister decided so.

This was soon followed by some screaming (Squirt) and me telling Spud several times to hand me back the bottle so I could feed her little brother. Spud would then offered to help again by shoving back the bottle to him, and then took it away again as soon as the guy started to suck on it. Do this several times more, and you can imagine how frustrating this could be if Spud continues this antic of hers.

I guess her (good) intentions were there, but execution wise…well, not so great! To be fair, her antics and his reaction gave me a good chuckle. Well. Initially. My kids can be such comedians.

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December 21, 2012

Our first school recital

Category: Being Parents
The last day of the school term last week marked a rather eventful day for both Spud and us, as Spud did her very first school recital. On stage. In front of a hundred parents and teachers.

While it was cute and all, I thought the whole thing was a little bit of a rip-off as they charged 450 baht (abt. SGD 18) per parent for admission ticket plus lunch, and, parents had to fork out almost 600 baht (SGD 24) prior to the event to pay for her costume. That totalled to almost 1500 baht (SGD 60) for a 3-hour show listening to kids screeching – I mean LISTENING, as we all booted a wooden ass by sitting on a plastic chair for the entire time.

The “hi-so” looking program

Not quite my idea of fun, but we got into the spirit of celebration soon enough watching all these young brave kids belting their guts out and dancing their feet along to the rhythm of the music that were played. For the amount of money we paid, we were given a rather “classy” program booklet and were served quite a decent lunch after the show.

It was quite a novelty for us to be watching our little tot *trying to* perform and mimic what their teachers do in front of the stage. As most kids stood around, while, perhaps wondering what the hell was going on, they did their part well. At some point, they did what toddlers do best – they jumped and bounced along, on cue, to the parts of the song they knew they should be jumping about. 
 

To be able to witness how Spud reacted in such a situation was priceless – she seemed happy and unaffected and going with the flow, and did not freak out when on stage. When she saw us in the crowd as she made her way back to the dressing room, she grinned away and acknowledged us with a “Mama!” or “Papa!”.  She was comfortable being independent from us during that time and it felt nice. She looked like she had loads of fun while at it.
The kid that stayed put !

It is worth a mention that there was this 2 year-old toddler who was sitting next to me and literally stayed put on the chair for the entire 3 hour session. The only time she got down was to pick up her hat she had dropped and when her Mom moved forward to the stage to take a picture of her son. The sheer fact that a 2 year old toddler sat so calmly in that seat amazed me to no end. I could not help but asked her mother (who was sitting right next to her on the other side) how she managed to get her kid to do that – for there would be no way in hell, we could ever get Spud to sit still in a chair. Not even for 3 seconds. Life really is ain’t fair. 

I forgot to bring my point-and-shoot (duh!!, bu tthanks to mobile phone camera, I managed a few snapshots from the event. It was also the very first time she sat on Santas lap – the school’s tradition for kids at a Christmas recital – and at that point, I could tell that she was not too comfortable sitting on some strange-looking bearded man and wanted to get off as quickly as she could. 
Getting ready to start dancing to “Can’t help falling in love with you”
Standing and looking around as the music went on
Queuing up for her turn
Her first Santa encounter
Caught her mucking about in the dressing room before the show – can’t help but asked her for a kiss!
My guess is that we’ll certainly be looking at many more recitals to go from here on but this was certainly one of those “firsts” moments to be savoured.
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December 20, 2012

From happy to cringy

Category: Random


Something hit me at about 4pm this afternoon.

All of a sudden, I felt bleahhh.  Bleahhh in a way that, I just don’t feel like doing anything anymore for the rest of the day. I immediately stopped what I was working on, got up from my seat, left my desk, walked towards the middle of the office and with my hands on my hips, declared to one of my colleagues, “Suddenly I don’t want to do anything anymore. I am DONE with this bullshit

I don’t know where that came from, really. Apart from the fact that silly Christmas songs have been playing in my head all day,  I have been nothing but extremely focused on getting a some things done before I leave the office at 6pm today. Yet, somehow, just like that, something in my head snapped.  

I think the holiday mood just hit me.

Suddenly I felt the springs in my feet, my spirits uplifted and I felt really happy that I’ll be taking a few days off till mid next week. (no Christmas holiday here in Thailand – off days have got to come from the annual leave!) . I packed up quickly and left the office with a surge of super happy energy all around, feeling excited to get home and see my kids as soon as I can.

The moment I got home though (after being stuck in traffic for more than half an hour), I saw something which riled me up completely – the AC in the living room and the foam mats on the floor were pretty much plastered with some sort of cream. Next to the splotches stood Spud, who quickly went “uh oh!” the moment she realised that she made a mess. While there were no opened jar (she cleverly put the jar back in its place, lid half closed), I quickly figured out that she had quietly been playing with Squirt’s jar of Sudo Crème when no one was looking.

I wanted to initially let it go, but when I discovered that the cream went all over the AC vent and the possibility of some going into the filter, I went mad. I was so mad that I punished Spud with no TV time after her shower – something which she was quite upset about at first. While I realised that I was being a little too harsh, I was not about to relent because I was really, really, really angry as Spud knows better that she was not supposed to be playing with any of those creams! Realizing that I was quite angry at her, she calmed down, really listened to me, had her milk, and stared at the blank TV screen quietly while sitting CALMLY on my chair till I was ready to put her to bed after I settled Squirt down.

Things got a little bit more interesting when I went to Squirt’s room to prepare him for bedtime – I discovered that his bed was infested with a bunch of ants! It was the ickiest sight I have ever seen; so icky and disgusting that the sight of those ants clustering on his bed sheet gave me severe goose bumps. I should have taken a picture, but because of all the stress, I didn’t as the Nanny was quick enough to help me clean up. I cringed and I cringed and I cringed,

I have no idea where those ants came from – and according to our nanny, that was the 2nd time in the day where she had discovered ants’ infestation in his bed. In fact, she had even put on a fresh new bed sheet before I put Squirt to bed. The worst part is, we have absolutely no frickin’ idea where these ants came from. We have had ants’ infestation in our home for months now, but to see them clustering in one of our kids’ bed is just too eerie.

And I hate, hate, hate frickin’ ants! They all need to die!!!

Needless to say, I was stressed. The holiday feeling I had earlier was gone. Now I am just worried sick of my child being eaten alive by ants while sleeping in his cot, alone in his room. I am not so sure I would sleep so well tonight.

Fucking ants.

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