letting go

Jo’s water journey has been slow, spacious and all about self-discovery.

She goes to the pool once a week, splashing around on her own as her brother has his swimming lesson.

For months, she sticks to doing the same thing without varying very much. Every tiny step is marked and worthy of a standing ovation, because here is a girl who is very wary of water.

She will not do anything stupid unless she knows - has known after trying it for a few months - that she will not die or be in pain. And water, to her, is a potentially killing medium which is potentially very painful when it gets into her nose.

A whole year on, she is now willing to immerse her entire head into the water and kick along with a float.

Two days ago, she scales another small summit.

I finally get her to freely float in the water, face-down, sans float.

At first she maintains a death grip on the side of the pool.

I look at her in the eye very seriously and say: You've got to let go, Jo.

She does. For about five seconds, she lets her hand hover stiffly two centimeters above the ledge before grabbing it again.

Atta girl.

holiday's over

Left to his own devices for a month (he has no holiday homework), this is what Day does.

ON HIS OWN

* Plan and plot about how to earn money (fortunately or unfortunately, he’s come to the conclusion that he needs to earn money pronto) and his best idea to date is to sell a painting for $50. He doesn’t get anywhere with this.

* Play a lot of online games.

* Watch a lot of Ben10 videos on Youtube.

* Practise a lot of piano, of his own accord, because he has nothing else to do.

* Obsess over the human body once again and spend his holiday staring at a skeleton poster.

* Play a whole lot with his sisters. They do a lot of pretending, swordfighting and all.

WITH MUM

* We cycle a few times to the library to borrow books.

* We hang out twice at the Art Garden at the Singapore Art Museum (nice one, it’s free for Day). The highlight for him here: An exhibit called Go!

Where he plans his picture, counts the total number of round wooden tokens required to assemble it, collects the tokens and puts it in a basket...



... walks up to a higher platform to drop the tokens into 19 columns...



... and form the picture!



* We groom his room.

It’s disgusting how long it’s taken us to get here, but it’s really difficult getting things done when you’re not paid for it, have little money for it and if it’s not vital (like cooking and wiping bums).

The room has been half-heartedly changed from playroom (essentially all the toys were dumped in here) to his room (when we got in the wardrobe and the bed and the table) but it was just a shell.

Since the boy was free, I ask if he wants to groom his room and he sweats enthusiasm.

We paint one wall. Just one, because painting a wall is really arduous.



Day picks the colour - blue - and after taping up all the places-which-must-not-be-painted, paints the bottom half.


* Masking the plugs.




I paint the top half and get into major trouble as the paint tray topples from the top of the ladder and paint splatters over half the room.

We hang up his paintings, of which there are many.

I do the first column of four paintings, then he takes over to hammer in the screws, thread the wires, stick the hooks on the wall and hang them up at his own discretion. He says: Mum I think my spacing is a bit weird.



So here's the half-done gallery.



The girls' and KK's favourite: The wonky family portrait, the 2nd painting Day did a long long time ago. Jo and Lulu fight to be the little girl in red. (Lu: I'm the SMALLEST! That's ME! Jo: But I want to be in RED!)

Anyone wants to buy?

jo says

I tell Jo, who has been tossing and turning for two hours, that children need to sleep early at night because they do a lot of growing up when they sleep.

Her eyes start turning red.

“But mama, I can’t sleep. Does it mean I will become four years old, then three, then two, then one?”

I want to tell her: I wish it worked that way!

lu blossoms

My tiny girl – these days I call her sai sai lup (for little one in Cantonese) – suddenly blooms.

It’s not just the hair, which has finally reached her shoulders, or that her features have settled nicely.

She’s crossed the river and has regained her personality.

The river being sometime between last and this year when she was absolutely hell and drove my heart rate up several times a day with her ridiculous-ness. I think it's called the Terrible Twos.

Specific incidents?

Things like shaking off her shoe at the school gate, refusing to put it back on, screaming for me to carry her to the car outside, screaming at the gate that she’s left her shoe behind, making me carry all the way back etc etc.

Just being incredibly bitchy and unreasonable with me.

The type of behavior which makes everyone around me (who are untouched and unbothered) say: Oh Lulu, why do you make life so difficult for your mummy?

Third time round, I just sort of let it all flow over me instead of trying to fight it.

And I think it’s calm and peace now.

She is at the lovely stage where when I scold her, she comes to me, tears streaming down her face, moaning: But Mummy, I love you so much. I love you so much. I love you so much. Don’t scold me OK, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Ooh. Mummy dowager.

Another photo because I like it and yes, her face is dirty because her pet hate is letting people clean her face:

snapshot

Another miserable dinner time. I’m so thoroughly sick of cooking.

I think it’s pretty clear to me by now that I am no cook and every time I pour my heart into trying out a new recipe which I have to finish up all by myself, it takes all my self control to not lash out at all the ungrateful idiots who are spitting this and that out and whom I have to force-feed because I cannot fart anything else out for them to eat.

There. I had to get it out.

I have tried, a full year in Sydney and two years back here running this household solo, to churn out healthy stuff from my own kitchen and I think three years gives a pretty clear picture.

Not only do I not have the cooking gift, I HATE it. HATE HATE HATE.

I hate when I have to cook but I force myself to because eating out is unhealthy and expensive.

Now. What can I do from here?

Another 20 years of trying to play cook? Urgh.

Eat out every meal? Double urgh.

Maybe all I need is a little bit of perceived satisfaction, that someone likes to eat what I cook, to egg me on. But all the kids like from me is porridge and steamed stuff like corn and peas. Nothing which requires too much of a culinary hand.

I confess, for a modern control freak who pictures her children eating good and heartily, I have been a complete and utter failure.

Now I go back to eat up Day and Jo’s remains, mee sua with chicken and choy sum. They say they don't like mee sua.

No solution in sight.

darwin journey: us

I was so cold.

Memorable moment for me: The cold one.

With only blankets and thin jackets, me and the kids shiver it out in our tent on night two at Katherine.

It’s so cold, Day and Jo wake up in the middle of the night and after a hellish episode where Day needs to pee and I follow him out into the windy darkness and lend him my one jacket so I only have one thin T-shirt on, we all end up giggling ourselves silly once we are back in the tent, our blue fingers clasped to their chattering teeth, because I am so frozen I cannot get a word out.

I also think the kids are slightly hysterical as in: I can't believe our parents let us get this cold! Ahahaheeheehaha!

The rest of the night, I hear wallabies gnashing their teeth right next to my head (outside the tent) and giant bats (or flying foxes, I don’t know) flap-flapping overhead.

First thing the next morning, I open my eyes after the endless night and I find KK already in the car, engine on, heater turned on full blast. One by one, as the kids wake up, we all take refuge in the toasty-warm car until the five of us are all in looking out at our tent through the glass window.

Choon, who is well-prepared with sleeping bag and warm stuff and who slept like a baby, says: Eh, you are in the wild.

Kid-less luxury

KK and I manage to sneak out of the tent for an early morning 630am two-hour trek to the Edith Falls while the kids are still asleep (this is after night one which is warm).



What bliss.

To breath in the crisp morning air and to actually take in the falls without distraction.

All thanks again to Choon, whom we leave with the three sleeping kids, of course the kids wake up while we are gone and Lu goes over to Choon’s one-man tent sobbing her heart out.

The child-minder:



Then I ask KK what he thinks is most memorable about the trip: To see my kids happy lor. I think they are really happy in Darwin.

darwin journey: day

This is a trip of many firsts for Day.

We are glad he is open to new experiences. Or maybe he’s just at the right age?

He tries his hand at tennis.

Darwin weather this year is cold, far too cold for swimming.

The one time we swim, the kids dip their toes into the water and retreat into their respective towels, refusing to see KK and I swan around in the pool. (I have no idea why this year, we are more cold-tolerant than the kids)



Left with nothing to fill long boring afternoons, Day joins KK and Choon to pick up some tennis.



He’s OK. KK buys him a junior racket from Darwin to bring home. Long way from this!

He scales a rock wall.

Choon hosts a rock-wall climbing event for the families of the Type 1 diabetes kids he is looking after – he gives them diet advice – and happily, the five of us benefit from Government funds which pay for our participation.



At the indoor facility, a huge old World War 2 oil tank with rock walls lining the interior and a space for parties on a viewing platform, Lu tries perfunctorily. Jo goes no higher than a level which she deems safe if she should fall, safety rope be damned (about two metres) and Day goes all the way (that's him).



He goes a few times, trying out different walls.

He particularly enjoys letting go when he’s at the top and bouncing his way down. He likes it so much, I think he goes up in order to come down.

He lets a snake crawl all over him.

Day really, really liked the snake. He held on for a long time as the snake’s tongue sniffed the air all around him.

It was only when the snake, making its way up from Day’s waist, seemed to be trying to worm its way onto his face that he cringed.



He eats everything.

From oysters to weird spicy mushrooms, he tries it all. He also discovered Greek Dolmades – rice-stuffed vine leaves - at the Greek Glenti, a big bash organized by the Greek community in Darwin. He loves it.



He loves camping.

Of the three, he is most positive about camping. He observed cooking, tried to help, washed the dishes, fiddled around with kerosene lamps and torches.

He is also very pleased that he got to use what he learnt in school in Semester 1: How to pitch a tent.

darwin journey: jo

Ah. Jo. She’s looking like a city girl.



Buying things on holiday

What gets Jo really, really excited this holiday is shops, which Darwin doesn't even have much of, but it was probably the holiday mood.

I will remember the pink bag episode. We walk in to a toy shop to browse, she spots a shelf of pink bags. She begs me to buy one, when I say no, she desperately eyes another, when I yell no, she latches onto a pink box.

Lu raises her arms, both palms out as if to say stop, and quickly states: I’m not buying anything OK.

Jo is desperate.

I am adamant. One, I only have one suitcase. Two, budget. Three, I’m not feeding her consumerism.

The same happens everywhere. Somehow, she always sees something she wants to buy ala Rebecca Bloomwood. Bags (shudder, she seems to have a thing for bags which I know makes her normal and me weird), sweets, donuts.

KK whispers to me: You know I was always like that? When I was young? I always wanted my folks to buy me things and I remember making a lot of noise but my parents were too poor.

I whisper back: How do you think we should deal with it?

KK: I don’t know (duh). But if she ever tells you she wants something specific, you better make sure you buy exactly what she wants and never try to surprise her because she won’t like it.

I make concessions in Darwin, of course. We are on holiday. Jo snaps up the cloth dolly from a crotchety old woman at the Nightcliff markets.



And fisherman pants from the same market.



She goes for the luxuries.



In camp, she completely falls in love with the air bed (which KK bought) and the highlight for her is Milo and chocolate bars at night after dinner.


* OK this picture shows her eating fishballs.

She will trek. If she has to.

Does she enjoy trekking? Actually, yes.

Originally sitting on KK’s shoulders, she, like Lu, also gets down and gamely scrambles her way to the top and then back down with a lot of self-congratulation. “Mummy I’m so good!”



We don’t know if she will still deign to go camping and trekking in the years to come, though.

The picnic on top of the tree.

And finally, I think the moment for her was when she made us all climb up to the top of the Botanic Gardens treehouse for our fried rice lunch.



It was her fantasy come true, to eat in a tree.

darwin journey: lu

Personal revelations and reflections from our Darwin trip.

Lu is my happy little camper, such a low maintenance trooper she is.



We discover she is a wonderful flyer.

Far less fussy than Jo, who complains incessantly about the lack of space and how she cannot sleep (Jo is a first-class girl), Lu sits quietly in her seat, buckles up throughout the 4 ½ hour flight even when she asleep and best of all, does not require the loo throughout.

When she cannot sleep, she sits quietly in her seat, thinking things.

What she does want is a steady supply of snacks and sweets. Strangely, no sugar-related histrionics despite finishing a tube of Mentos on her own.



* She looks at the safety brochure and asks me before lift-off: Mama is the plane going to fall into the sea? Worst question for a slightly plane-phobic mum.

She likes hiking and climbing

At least, her three-year-old self.



My proudest moment on the trip is when, after preparing to trek with Lu on my back up to a high vantage point, she dismounts early on and makes the entire journey on her own. It's not long, about an hour there and back.

But I'm glad the kids, and unexpectedly Lu, are all willing and gleeful about it.

Lu especially likes climbing up boulders with hands and feet.



She slips and slides on the way down and she thinks it’s all very fun.

She declares: “Mummy we climbed up to the Katherine Gorge, right?” I think this is her highlight too.


* Also trying her hand at rock-climbing in an indoor facility

Camping? She’s not sure

Last year, we camped one night at a waterfall one hour away.

This year, we make it to the Katherine Gorge which is over 300km away and we camp two nights.

Lu asks after the first night: Mama, can we go home now?

I say we have one more night of camping.

She keeps stoically quiet and endures another night of sleeping in what is maybe 12 degree weather with nothing but a blanket (which she keeps kicking off), a cotton jacket and a layer of tent to keep warm in.

My fault again. I didn’t bring enough warm stuff for the kids.


* That's what she actually wore the night before. That sleevless dress. She is warming herself with a cup of warm Milo.

we're back!

We spent ten days in the same old place and it’s just as good.

There is something about the idea of annual June holiday camping trips which is increasingly attractive. (well, truthfully we camped three days and bummed the other seven)

And camping, as it is, is turning out to be something we (at least, KK and I and Day) look forward to.

This time, we return more familiar, the kids remember much more than we expect them to (Jo: “I bought a doughnut HERE last year and I want one NOW”) and we go deeper into discovering more about the state.

More to come. But here’s the one and only family snap we’ve got from the trip, at the Katherine Gorge.

Thank God I had the presence of mind to remember to get Choon to take it.

we're off!

For a holiday!

isabella

There’s been a shift in Jo’s thinking: She wants atas.

These days she delights in dreaming up long, complicated, sophisticated names for her toys.

She tugs my shirt and re-introduces me to her children: Mummy, these are my children. This one (brown) is Catty Rosalie and this one (white) is Catty Ezeline.



White Hello Kitty, by the way, is one of the crazy MacDonalds cats which Singaporeans queued miles for, and which our old Auntie neighbor downstairs gave to Jo two years ago, intact and pristine in an unopened plastic bag.

(We should probably have kept it untouched in case it can be sold in time to come, but the bridal feline gives Jo so much joy, and we’re all about fulfillment in the present!)

On the two crazy dolls – which are still the only busty bee-figured figurines in our household, Jo tells me: This is Isabella (orange dress).



Me: But Jo, last time you named her Fokasan.

Jo: Tsk, NO! No Fokasan! Her name is Isabella!

And at night, while Lu struggles to come up with a name for her story character, Jo suggests: What about Oogazilla?

water music

"I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored."

I manage to find him something to do.

We run out of glasses, hence just six notes, which is good enough for chords and simple songs!



I don't think Day is very good at self-entertaining.