Family vacation

Once upon a recent-time, I loudly and boldly declared that there was no way in hell I would ever want to travel with our two young kids. 

(Round about 3 months ago, I had “that phase feeling”  brewing and felt that it was necessary for us  get out of Thailand for a little bit, especially since I haven’t been out of the country in more than a year.  Around that time, we contemplated on the possibility of traveling out of Thailand as we did not quite want to be in Bangkok again for another Songkran. With more than 2 weeks of vacation-time available in our hands, it would only make sense to travel to somewhere further rather than Asia. And, with us now having to travel on a budget, going back to the Netherlands seemed like the ideal thing with free accommodation as an option. Still, the sheer thought of a plane journey with 2 little ones, be it short or long-haul, sent shivers down my spine.)

19 days ago, I have officially stuffed up both my feet in my mouth and shoved them into my throat. We took the plunge by hauling Spud (2 years, 8 months) and Squirt (only 10 months old) on an 11 hour flight journey to the Netherlands over the long Songkran holidays for our family vacation.

If anything, that explained the lack of posts on my blog.

For 17 days, we busied ourselves by being full-time parents. The plane ride was exhaustively tiring.  We have had our share of bad flights before and this time round, with double the potential chaos, we had hoped for the best and were mentally prepared for the worst. Forget about being able to do "big stuff" like watching one movie in full or even attempt to read the in-flight magazines, let alone a book...but thankfully, the bumps were nothing which we could not handle. Both flights, if anything were uneventful; in fact, it was even better than those flights we have had with Spud before.

Spud even made friends with an older kid who was only too willing to indulge her antics. She even made conversations with 2 other ladies that were seating almost next to her.

We did not get much sleep both ways with only 10 minutes to almost none on the way there and only a couple of hours on the way back.  While Spud managed to get a few hours of shut-eye camping out in her own seat as deemed what being comfortable means by her standard, Squirt has proven to be a lousy sleeper if he doesn’t get a bed. He refused to use the bassinet, cried bloody murder each time he was being put down that we took turns to carry him in our arms while he slept, or dunk him in the wrap after many, many attempts in trying to get him to sleep. He was so distracted by everything that it was almost impossible to get him to sleep. He was over-tired.

Other times when not sleeping, Squirt was just busy crawling and toddling on the floor – much to the chagrin of a few flight attendants and several fellow passengers.

For most part, both kids behaved surprisingly well throughout the entire trip. They both had their moments (of crankiness), but there certainly had been no major meltdowns.  Both kids seem to travel well. They adapted and adjusted pretty quickly, with minimal crying and temper tantrums. I even dare say that we had a splendid and an enjoyable holiday!

After more than 2 weeks away being in different places and strange beds, the kids (especially Spud) were showing signs that they were ready to be home. I am still a bit jet-lagged and feeling extremely bothered by the hot weather in Bangkok. I can't even think coherently to write one proper sentence but I promise to cover the places we ventured out as soon as I can.

Watch this space. Meantime, here are a few shots from Spud snoozing in the plane - try spotting her in the first few pictures.

Life to Her Years

There is so much warmth to this post from Life to Her Years

Public displays of affection (PDA) between parents are not the most common thing to do within the Asian culture. When I was growing up, there were hardly any adults who would callously be showing some form of affection to their partners in front of their kids. With parenting in the Asian culture, PDAs tend to be regarded as something outside of most people's comfort zone. It is just not done.

But.

I am a big advocate of hugs and kisses, and now that we have our own kids, I can relate to the above so much more. It certainly is  important that kids are able to see and feel the love  and respect their parents have for each other, and that as parents, we could only instill and nurture such gestures of warmth to add life to their years.

Eavesdropping Spud

Spud was due for another vaccination some time last month, and after the deed (which she cried really hard the moment the poke her with the needle), I thought I’d indulge her with us having dinner outside before we came home.

It was nothing fancy – I took her to a food court at the hospital, and for Spud, that in itself is a novelty as it eating out seemed like a treat as opposed to eating at home. Barely 5 minutes into her meal, she then decided that she had to go to the bathroom for a pee. I was a little surprised, given that she had already gone to the bathroom before we sat down at the food court - which was barely 5 minutes ago!

I couldn’t say no. With the toilet being quite a distance away, and given that there were only the two of us, there was no way we could leave our stuff (along with newly bought, almost untouched food) on the table to head out to the bathroom.

I didn’t want the cleaner to clean our table, and I was lucky to be able to inform one of the cleaners not to clean our table just yet before I rushed Spud to the toilet. To Spud’s credit, she peed.

We then walked back to the food court to finish off her meal. Barely another 5 minutes passed since we claimed our spot at the food court again , Spud announced that she very badly needed to poo. I asked if she could wait, but that was merely a rhetorical question.  Arrgggh!!!

Again, I couldn’t say no – but it was inconvenient to say the least. We had to leave her food twice in a span of 10 minutes! When she finally sat on the toilet, not 5 seconds had passed and Spud looked at me with her dopey eye and went, "Poo not coming anymore. Poo went back inside.”

This was the part when I wanted to bang my head against the toilet door. I couldn’t get angry, and couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to cry.

I choked a chuckle. I then hung my head in defeat…what’s a mother supposed to even say to that?! 

Rock stars

It's official - as a mother, screaming is part of the job. And that makes me a Rock Star!

Latte Art

The art of creating a "simple drawing or design" on the surface of a cup of latte is a very under-appreciated and underestimated one, in my opinion. I have seen several baristas attempting the latte art, and even the simplest designs would require quite a skillful barista to pull it off.

I am always almost fascinated when I see those baristas in action - and I have only seen a few designs being created for me when I ordered it in some little cafe. I have yet to see all of these in my coffee cup:

I am enthralled by the starfish design and I am most fascinated by the cat - how could anyone bear to destroy those meticulously done design by drinking it all away!

I could even smell the aroma of coffee just by looking at the images above - how weird is that!

Calvin & Hobbes

Have I ever mention that Calvin is just a hoot!

iPad vs Paper

This ad may be in French, but it got me in stitches. Enjoy.

Broken blades

One of our night routines since we moved the kids to their own bedroom is to do a last check on them before tucking ourselves in bed to retire for the night. It usually consist of us checking that they are still breathing, having the air-conditioner turned-off, checking that the fan works well and is pointing to the right direction as well as making sure that their night-light remain on. It has become a habit and I don’t think we even think about it.

One evening however, just as we were checking up on Squirt, I thought the fan sounded a little off. By “off”, I meant it sounded like it was squeaking away with a freaky-sounding rattle – a sound I haven’t heard before. I tried to move the fan around in the dark (sometimes, that is all it takes, and I didn’t want to wake Squirt up), but nothing helped. Silver Bullet chimed and thought that it was probably nothing.  He was more worried that I’d wake Squirt up if I turn on the lights.

Mother’s instinct prevailed and I turned on the side lamp just to convince myself that it was actually nothing. I then turned off the fan as it began to sound way, way off. As soon as I did that, Silver Bullet noticed that the blade had actually cracked!

I did not like what I saw. Had the blade continue to rotate in in the way a fan was supposed to, the cracked blade would have shattered into several pieces. The fan was placed quite close to Squirt’s cot -  I shudder at the thought of us what might had happened had we not gone to the room in time.

It was a scary thought.

Considering that the fan was barely 6 months old, I wonder if it was already defective when we bought it given that it was on sale. I wish I knew what caused it. One of the blades broke off completely a few days later.

And just like that, I can feel my paranoia on fans and blades surfacing. Arrrggghhhhhhhh!!

Potty training: Our story

It has now been almost half a year since I last wrote on our experience of Spud being “accidentally” potty trained. Isn’t it amazing – a whole six months that Spud has not been in a diaper during the day!

At that time, while she was potty-trained to pee, Spud had adamantly refused to let go of her poo in the potty; preferring to poo in her diaper instead.

She would freak out each time she had to poo in the potty, and no matter how gentle we reasoned with her or how hard we tried to convince her to use the potty, Spud would not have it. We tried the reward’s chart and it failed miserably. While we encouraged her to go to the potty when she needed to poo, we never really pushed her hard. At one point, I thought she probably would continue pooping in her pants for the next 5 years; and somewhat resigned myself to it. Cue: Big sigh!

Thankfully, that did not last for too long, for within about a week or two  after she mastered peeing in the toilet, she figured out – without much fuss or hassle as claimed by our nanny, even though she gave us a really hard time over the weekends – that it was really OK to poo in the potty. I don’t really know how and when it happened, but it just happened. While she refused to adamantly use the small potty we bought for her, opting for the adult size toilet bowl (no! she does not want the toddler inserts to be in there either!), she finally overcame her fear.

These days, Spud uses the toilet in the day like a champ. She scoots up to the big potty like it was nothing, and does her business there whenever she needs to. There still are accidents every now and then - they generally happens when she’s too busy and distracted with other things, convincing herself that she does not need to go, even as she does her “pee dance”.

And here's Spud all happy to sit on the big potty (and refusing to use the potty insert in the background)...

 and then telling me on how small she thought her poo would be...

Cheeky bugger!

Spud is still not potty trained at night, and we have continued with securing her with a nappy when she goes to bed in the evening. I had an inkling that we probably might have missed that “window” in the earlier stages of her being potty-trained in the day. By that, I mean: During the initial period when she went diaper-less during the day, she had voluntarily woke up several times at night telling us that she needed to pee. After several days, it became an excuse for her to either delay her bedtime and/or come to our room several times a night whether or not she needed to pee, thus robbing us of our precious sleep.

It was quite an annoying period as that had meant interrupted sleep once again. While we always would accompany her to the bathroom, we never really take off the night nappy. After about a week, she probably realised that she won’t be wet if she just pees in her nappy till the morning comes…

When the very last of her nappy ran out recently because I forgot to stock it up one fine day, we thought it would be a good idea to attempt weaning her off the nappy at night. And for about a week, I was committed to waking up at night to wake her up to pee, or hoping that she would be able to sense it when she needs to use the bathroom. However, I may have been a little too late on most nights, as by the time I wake her up, she has already wet herself and was sleeping through like nothing had happened. I could only venture that perhaps, she is still not ready to be potty trained at night. I guess she would continue being in her night nappy till she hits 15 years old…

That being said, here are several tips to toilet train a toddler: 

1.  Let the child go diaper-less. Don’t look back (except at night!) 
2.  Remind the child to go often. Even if you get a “no”, bring the child to the potty. This could be up to 10x every half an hour. (And a constant battle of will to convince her that yes, she needs to pee!)
3.  Buy colourful underwear. Let her choose which one the child wants to wear for the day
4. Bribing works – have ample supply of M&M for each time she does a pee or poo in the toilet. 
5.  Accidents happen. Take a deep breath, pretend to ignore the accident, clean it up and move on

One other reminder I wish I had known before especially for a stubborn child is this:

After sitting on the potty, set a timer for 30 minutes if the child didn't potty, 1 hour if the child did. Sit on the potty when the timer goes off (this way the timer is the one saying it's time to sit on the potty, not you).

My take on potty training is – a child is ready when he or she is ready. As parents, we can only provide the means and encouragement and somehow, they seem to know what to do when the time comes.

I’m hoping I don’t get stressed out when it comes to Squirt being potty trained. Maybe we should be sending him to school by then and get the school to start potty-training him first.

I know. I’m disgusting - I’m copping out of my parenting responsibilities of potty training my child myself. But that’s OK; I can live with myself on this one.

Related post(s):
Potty Training
Potty Tales
Eavesdropping Spud

Chicken soup for the soul: Motherhood

Here's a piece of writing worth a read for a Mother (and all mothers-to-be):

"We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.

"I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes.

I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her.

That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mum!" will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moments hesitation.

I feel that I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her
baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.

I want my daughter to know that every day decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.

However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.

Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself.

That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give herself up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor.

My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks.

I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child.

I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic.

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving.

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike.

I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or cat for the first time.

I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts.

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reached across the table, squeezed my daughter's hand and offered a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings"

Please share this with a Mum that you know or all of your girlfriends who may someday be Mums. May you always have in your arms the one who is in your heart.

By Dale Hanson Bourke
'Chicken soup for the woman's soul'!

 

Boring Sukhumvit

Those funky colourful giant balls on top of a walkway bridge connection the junctions in Sukhumvit I wrote about previously are now gone!

They have now taken off the entire colourful balls installed there and the sight has been transformed once again. This time, it’s plain and boring.

Perhaps it has just become too expensive to make downtown Bangkok all colourful.

The ice-cream monster

Born to a chocoholic mother who also happens to find a lot of contentment from a bowl of good, creamy ice-cream, it is not a big surprise that Spud is now slowly gravitating to liking such treats.

In fact, she has been showing a lot of interest towards both chocolates AND ice-cream, and asking for them quite often. (I have stash of M&Ms, and these days, I have to hide my M&Ms from her and make sure that she doesn’t see them!)

She does get such treats every once in a while – usually for good conduct or for eating her meals- and only in small quantities. There was however, one fine day when I took her out, bought her an ice-cream , thought “what the hell!” and gave her the autonomy to hold the ice-cream cone, which resulted in her polishing off ALMOST the entire one scoop of ice-cream in a cone all by herself!

You should have seen the light in her eyes - she absolutely loved the experience, and since then she would not want anyone to hold her ice-cream for her. In fact, when she knows there is an ice-cream for her, she would tell me, “No. not for Mama. Only Spud.” Such a cheeky little monkey!

While she loves the colour pink and would occasionally asked for “the pink one”, she changes her mind when we let her taste it because they tend to be the berry-flavoured ice-cream (raspberry) and are usually quite sour .

Her favourite ice-cream, so far? It has got to be the blue or the green coloured ice-cream. And that’s usually mint and chocolate chip ice-cream for you; a flavor I was surprised that a little tot like her would like. But I can’t complain, mint and chocolate chip ice-cream is my favourite flavor too.

I guess it would only be a matter of time before Spud would refuse to share her ice cream with me.

Eavesdropping Spud

Spud has recently gotten into the habit of asking people around her if they are OK. Several times in a row. They usually tend to come out of nowhere, and a typical conversation would go like this:

While having a meal:

Spud: Are you ok, Mama?

Me: Yes, I am ok. Are you OK?

Spud: Yes.

And a few minutes and several times later,

Spud : Are you ok, Mama?

Me: No, but I’ll be if you start putting the spoon in your mouth and eat your meal! Or, yes, I’ll do much better if you start listening to me more or No, I’ll be happy and dandy if you stop taking your brother’s toys away from him while he is still fiddling with it!

You get the idea.

And so one morning, this conversation happened while I was walking Spud to school

Spud: Are you OK, Mama?

With a wry smile, I replied: Hmm..not really Spud. I feel quite sad today. (I had a bad day at work the day before and it was eating me up. Not that Spud knew any better, but as soon as I said it, I thought that perhaps, it was not something I should have "imposed" on a little child) 

Spud: No, no sad, Mama.

I then squeezed her hand and gave her a smile and said I’m OK. She then went, “You need to go to the doctor!”

I had to laugh real hard. Bless the ignorance and innocence of a young child.

Judgement calls

After putting up an ad for about a month now and after entertaining countless queries on the item I was selling and not hearing from the potential buyers ever again , Squirt’s (cheap) temporary cot bed which we bought from IKEA a couple of months before he was born has finally been sold!

And there’s a little story that came with it.

This time round, when a potential buyer contacted me, asking if the cot bed was still available and that if she could come by to see the product, I was just too happy to oblige. Given the fickle-mindedness of interested potential buyers who had contacted me and then changed their minds, I was expecting more of the same. The only difference was that she made an appointment with me to come by the next day. I didn’t think anything of it.

Next day came, and closer to the time of the appointment, I received 2 missed calls. When I called back, a man answered the phone saying he is the husband of the lady who was asking about the cot bed. He said he was making his way to our apartment.

When he finally got to the main entrance, he called again saying that the security guard had refused to let him in even though he stated his intention of seeing me. I had to talk to the guard and convinced him to send the bugger up.

As I hung up the phone, I suddenly had a “light-bulb-red-alert” moment. Silver Bullet was out of town, the kids are already in bed, and I was all alone at home. What if the guard made the right call? What if the potential buyer wasn’t genuine, but, was actually some random people with a sick mind? What if something happen inside my own home because I let a stranger in – be it female or male?

I tried to push the thought out of my head, telling myself that it was just my paranoia on over-drive. But I went into the kitchen anyway, trying to find a weapon small enough to conceal in my pocket – apart from a kitchen knife that was too big for the pocket that I have (save for a butter knife!),  I couldn’t find anything when the doorbell rang.

I then took a deep breath, convincing myself that I was nuts and opened the door. The wind knocked the hell out of me when I opened the door to a much disheveled and scruffy-looking man in berms, tattoo all over his body with some facial piercings. I was already paranoid and given the circumstance, I couldn’t be more judgmental – simply put, I wasn’t prepared to see what I saw!

Flustered, I asked if his wife came along. He said he was alone as she had to take care of a baby. In my head, I went, “Right! It could be a convenient excuse for any ill-intention person”. But my other alter ego cursed me for being judgmental.

I knew I had to think fast, so I politely told him to give me a minute and closed the door on him as he waited outside. I reckon the guy was probably offended when he saw the reaction on my face - but what’s a woman alone in her own home supposed to do?! (I know, I know, I should have thought about it, but honestly, none of that thing crossed my mind before the guard refused to let him up)

So in a split second, I decided that I should call the guard up, just in case - for, should something happened, it would be better to have someone accompanying me rather than no one at all. I wasn’t counting my luck on the guard to be honest (he is usually not very keen to leave his post), but luckily for me, our trusted, regular maintenance guy picked up the phone.

In my pidgin Thai, I asked him to come up to the apartment and tried to explain to him that I needed him to just hang around.  I wasn’t sure he understood, but he said he would come up anyway. I then quickly decided to drag the dismantled bed pieces out to the hallway, instead of leading the guy to the room to see the cot bed. That way, our maintenance guy would arrive just in time, he could inspect the goods and decide if he wanted it after all, and if anything untoward happened, I could just bash his head with the wooden planks!

Just as I opened the door again to show the guy the goods (me apologizing profusely) which I dragged out to the front door, our maintenance guy came up. I tried to tell him my intention, but it was not getting through. He then decided that he was not needed there, and wanted to leave. (Arrrghh!) By then Mr.Tattoo decided that he would take the cot bed, and I took the opportunity to tell our maintenance guy that perhaps he could be so kind to help get a taxi. Just as quickly, our maintenance guy disappeared into the elevator. (Argghhhh!)

Mr. Tattoo thought the goods looked fine, didn’t really bother to inspect it and handed me the money right away. We chatted a little bit and when I asked, he said that they have a 2 week old baby. He told me that they got some cheap bed for the baby because they didn’t have much money. The bed they have did not appear safe to them, and thought that the IKEA bed we were selling came with credible safety standard and seemed to be good value for money.

Just as quickly, even though I was still a little wary, I warmed up to Mr. Tattoo – I somehow felt a little guilty for my paranoia. In my defense though, under a different circumstance, I don’t think I would be half as judgmental or paranoid.

I then offered him some water  – which he was grateful for, while waiting for the taxi to arrive. And knowing that he has a new born, I asked if he needed anything else.

Funnily enough, I ended up leaving him alone in the dining area several times because I was running up and down to get stuff from the room, including a couple of old mattress covers and newborn clothings for his baby. I thought it would be better to give those stuff away since they were still in a pretty good condition, and he certainly didn’t seem to mind hand-me-downs.

In the end, all ended well. Nevertheless, I don’t think my paranoia was unfounded. The me-being-alone- at-home scenario when strangers visit to view items we want to sell and not knowing if they are genuine buyers, is,  in retrospect, quite a scary thought. It was really stupid of me to agree to meet up with strangers when Silver Bullet wasn’t around.

The incident was a good reminder to err on the side of caution. It made me realise that such things should not be taken lightly as one never know what is going to happen. And when things do happen, they happen in a split second, and by then, it might be too late.

10 months

Woooohooooooo! Squirt’s 10 months old; just only 2 months short of turning one. TWO. TWO whole months! Beat that. It’s amazing how all the memories of his first few weeks of life seemed so fuzzy now.  Time really flies.

Gone are his reflux days, and Squirt is no longer on his reflux medication. He has been completely weaned off Prevacid when he was about 8+ months, and he seems to be holding up really well without any medication. Another reason to go Woooooooohoooooo!

Squirt is still as smiley as ever, if not more. He laughs so easily too, and even when he is tired and sleepy, he still is able to flash you his grins just by us talking or chatting with him. He has got these tiny little dimples on the corner of his lips whenever he smiles, and that makes his facial expressions ohsocute.

This little boy needs distraction when it comes to food, but it still is a joy to see him enjoying his solids. We still haven’t been offering him finger food consistently - that means, he is not yet trained to feed himself. That means, I'll probably still feeding him when he is 20.

He seems to be more adventurous to try new things though, as it is looking like he is enjoying drinking his milk off a Doidy cup at meal times. He gets upset if we take the cup away from him, and would scream if we don't give him the cup. At the same time, he has somewhat figured out how to use a straw when he started nicking off Spud’s water bottle whenever he gets his hand on that, resulting in a very whiney Spud who gets upset that he is taking her things away.  

At 10 months, we are now officially a bottle-free zone, too! He has been completely weaned off his bottle when he was about 9.5 months, and has been using the sippy cup since for his milk intake. One more reason for me to go Wooooooohoooooooooo! (A post on weaning him off the bottle in a separate post)

Squirt’s certainly getting more vocal and tends to want to engage in a “conversation”  especially with his sister every now and then. He blabbers, grunts, screams and gets really, really excited when he sees the cats. He has been properly hyper too these days; even I am finding it hard (not to mention exhausting) in trying to keep up with him.

The good thing about him is that he still does a much more decent nap than Spud ever was – napping at least 2x a day for at least an hour each time, and sleeps better in his own cot. A norm for most, but for us, having gone through Spud almost napless period for over 8 months, having a baby who naps is god sent!

Squirt still hasn’t got any teeth just yet, and as for walking, he is still working on it! I reckon him walking will not be too far away now given that he is already able to stand up without any support for a few seconds.He is going to be a bumbling little toddler, soon.