Mummy blogs…

Before the Easter weekend, I made a decision to ensure the kids were entrenched into Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection.

We were going to spend lots of time in church—the kids will have an excellent Children’s programme, Nicole will get to watch the Easter Drama, and for bedtime stories, we will tell the Good Friday story and Jesus’ resurrection.

I thought we should be covering it pretty well, until Nicole asked me on Thursday night,

“Are we going to make Easter Eggs? Do you know how to make Easter eggs?

Wooooah! Without skipping a beat, I shot back,

“Of course darling! I know how to make Easter eggs, and we will make them TOMORROW!”

Now, for those who don’t know my artistic background… here goes:

• I can’t draw a straight line.           
• I don’t know how to use the scissors properly.    
• I have difficulty colouring within the lines.

 My earliest art rejection was at Pri 4.

I crumpled up a sheet of notepad paper, and used it to write a thank-you note to one of Mum’s friends. I thought it looked really cool and had the crumpled effect. Well, it was crumpled alright. Mum rejected it, thinking I used something from the bin!

Oh Man! What was I thinking?

I’ve NEVER in my ENTIRE life made an Easter egg…

Is this going to be the moment when the kids’ image of their perfect mummy would come crashing down?

I knew this day would come… but surely not over an Easter Egg?!?!??

On Friday, I tried to sleep in. Didn’t work, cos my little alarm clock rang in my ears:

“MUMMY, time to buy eggs! We’re going to make Easter eggs RIGHT?”

We went to the market, and there was absolutely no way to try to forget buying those eggs. Nicole went on and on, and Nathan caught on, and started asking about eggs too! Thank God Nadine can’t really talk yet…!

Back home, I decided to do a Martin Yan ala Rachael Ray show.

#1: Put Eggs in the pot gently

#2: Add Water

#3: Put the eggs to dry

#4: Draw. (No turning back. Those are permanent markers. Can’t say I don’t know. Can’t give up. Can’t pass markers to daddy)

 

What do you think? Can pass? Well, kids think they are LOVELY and they taste GREAT too!

… phew …

Parenting Tip: Don’t underestimate what you can do! Kids just love it when we do something different with them… you don’t need to be an expert in that field =)

btw… I took the easy way out with Markers cos I was not so sure if postal colour paint works on egg?!?! Anyone knows?

It seems seasonal, but such RANDOM lists are appearing again in Facebook, blogs and tweets. So we decided to do our own list of Random things we learnt about parenting since Nicole was born!

Here goes:

1. Each diaper can only hold that much pee and poo. As much as you wish for one that is super absorbent, one that doesn’t leak, one that doesn’t irritate the bottom, IT DOESN’T EXIST!

2. Until the child is old enough to communicate his irritation with the full diaper, there are various ways to check!

a. Touch or rather press and squeeze (don’t ask me why) the front of diaper to check if it’s full.

b. Put your nose to the buttocks area to smell (only works if your child did a major smelly poo)

c. Lift the diaper in the following spots to see:

3. Children do not know and cannot understand the word WAIT

When they want your help to take something, it must be now. When they want a drink, it must be now. When they want to open something, it must be now. When they want to pee, it must be now. (this one, you better not try ur luck. can get messy!)

4. As above, I learnt children are not exactly the most trusting people in the world.

They don’t believe you when you say don’t touch.                            They don’t trust you when you say you’ll buy it later.                     They don’t think you mean it when you say the cane/spoon/spanking is coming.                                                                                                       They definitely don’t care a hoot when you say it’s good for them!

5. However, #4 does not apply to stuff they put in their mouths.

They really think everything that they pick up off the floor tastes good. Their tongues have a magnetic draw to anything-TV screen, mobile phones, books, shoes, wall, floor, ceiling (if they can reach it!). Their favourite? Nose snot! They love it!

6. Back to #5, it doesn’t apply to food with vitamins and proteins.

Try dropping a cooked pea on the floor. It should entice them, ya? Green, round, small enough to pick up? Well, no kid I know would pick THAT up and pop into the mouth!

7. All parents are dictators

This is just one of our many dictatorial examples… 

Don’t you think when little kids dress-up, they look really cute and adorable? Those miniature costumes look fantastic on them, and it would be so so so great to hear lovely comments like,

“oooh, she is soooooo cute!”

“Wah! they really look the part!”

“You are so creative! They look so good!”

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Well, we were certainly creative! We achieved that through pure dictatorship, forcing, coaxing the poor kids to

“PUT IT ON!!! BECAUSE YOU LOOK SO SO GOOD!”

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Erm… you can see Pirate Princess #1 has two good eyes, Pirate Princess #2 doesn’t really know where to focus her remaining good eye, and Pirate Prince’s scruffy look is marred by half-open eye lids.

So much for enjoying the party! We learnt that this dress-up AT BEST, can only last that 5 MINUTES for you to take your kodak moment. Thereafter, everything goes back to 21st century local time, local garb.

The primary lesson learnt … … … parenting is all about them … … …    if the kids are happy, we are happy!

Chinese New Year is not just a season of Ang Pows and an exchanging of greetings, but it is also the time of the year, where Nicole has her yearly performance in school.

As usual, Nicole was “pumped up” for her performance.

However, this year, the performance was going to carry a deeper meaning for the family: As it was also….drum roll…Nathan’s 1st Public Performance.

Nathan has been attending Pre-School for only 1 Month, and naturally this was going to be a BIG time of adjustment in his life.

Naturally, Nathan was not at his  ***cough*** cough *** “VERY BEST”

Just look at him and his friends…I think the anticipation is killing them…check out the “NOT Happy face”

Nathan has not “broken out of his shell” yet, so he does like the public attention.

Check out him and our friends daughter in comparison:

Yes…That is him crying…despite the fact that Daddy was standing in front of him.

When the music started, the kids were supposed to pick up their tambourines and do some simple dance steps.

This is what the situation was like 1 min into the music…

Yes…All the kids in the back row had stage fright…and were basically stoic throughout the performance. (I think the “not-so-good” performers are all put behind!)

Don’t worry, he was alright…and Daddy gave him a big hug after the performance. My boy will definitely do better next year!

Meanwhile, Nicole was looking forward to her performance…

It was a Chinese Ribbon Dance and she performed well!

Overall, the kids enjoyed the whole outing, as the school organized a mini carnival after the event, and the kids enjoyed themselves with the food and the games!

MeiMei was there as well and she loves playing with the drums!

Here’s a picture with the 2 girls and their teacher wishing everybody a Happy CNY!

Nicole’s Vocabulary has been improving!

As the eldest, Daddy has had more time observing Nicole’s behaviour, and she is very good at the ancient art of looking after her own interests! Man does not need to be taught this art…it seems to be an inborn skill!

Read this post to jolt your memory.

Whenever, Nicole comes to the office, she has been putting her improved vocabulary to good use.

As Nicole loves her food, she is always trying not to share her goodies with anyone.

Here are some scenarios:

When you ask to share her soup, she will say it is TOO HOT! (so that you can’t drink her soup)

When you ask to share her soup 5 mins later, she will say it is TOO COLD! (And she keeps on drinking her soup)

Lately, When you ask to ask to share her Donut, she will say “CANNOT! Got Germs!” 

To be fair, Nathan has got some tricks up his sleeve as well:

When you ask to share his food, he will point you to the store, to indicate that you can order some for yourself!

To avoid sharing his food, he uses the body block and his butt to keep his younger sister out of the way!

The kids are really funny. Check out this funny moment, when she was younger.

I wonder how the kids will feel, when they read about the things that they have done 10 years from now?!?

We are constantly looking for new things to do with the kids, and with the success of the last bake out with the kids, we decided to something along those lines again.

The picture is really enticing – and the moment I picked it off the shelves at the supermarket, Nicole was super-duper excited! She was jumping up and down the trolley!

Upon reaching home, the kids were more than ready to bake their Oreo Cake.

Advice for parents

The kids actually love getting involved in the whole process of getting the cake done.

Here are some pictures of the kids getting the cake done:

Little Nadine was fighting to get involved as well. U can see her peeping from the the bottom of the table top!

At the end of the day, making the cake was more fun than eating it…as we did not even manage to finish eating the cake.

But mummy and the kids certainly had fun in the kitchen!