I am such a sadist sometimes. I hate to admit this, but I am.

In my three and a half years  as a mum, I’ve done countless things to my kids. Not in secret, mind you. I’m more honorable than that. Most of the time, I blog about them and share them with my readers and friends. It’s nothing to be ashamed of because I am pretty sure I am not the only sadist around, and some other sadist mums who ran out of ideas can take reference from me somehow.

When Baby Joey was still a pretty small little baby, there was once she flew into a huge rage (reason unknown to me) and started screaming at the top of her lungs. The very first thing I did was what every creative mummy would do – I ran into my bedroom, grabbed my camera and took a video of her, then proceeded to replay it 10 times so that I may laugh over it, before starting to pacify her.

And of course, I’m sure you’ve caught some of those wonderful photos I’ve taken of the poo of my kids. All taken in real-time, I promise ya, right after the act was completed. I was in no rush to clean their backsides, as you can tell. All in the name of delivering fresh (pun intended) information to all you dear readers.

Those were the stuffs I would do.

When Baby Jayne was smaller and therefore lighter, I fling her into the air, make her do triple forward somersaults and 2-and-a-half back flips just to entertain me. These were taken during the half-time rest on my knees after a full 45-min session of flinging & somersaulting:

Not very happy with me, obviously.

Now that she’s slightly older and heavier, I forsook those stunts and started going into the arena of teasing her when she gets all fussy & whiney. Provided I was in a good mood, of course.

The sadist mum did this one fine day when she was whining to be carried:

Lying 45 degrees head-down on my legs.

(alright, not exactly 45 degrees, but you get the idea. Head was lower than her buttocks).

 

As expected, she was momentarily shocked by the change in orientation and direction, but gained her composure almost immediately and went back to her whining.

Legs kept kicking and kicking in the air. It was one fine sight.

‘LET ME GET UP!!!!!!!’

‘NOWWWWWWWW!!!!!’

Trust me, as her mum, I know better than anyone else what she’s saying.

 

Having a baby makes for so much fun in life. :)

Joey may be scared of water playgrounds (because of the splashing waters and waters that sudden jets out from nowhere), she absolutely loves swimming. Told her that we were bringing her swimming and she could hardly keep her excitement in!

The last time I brought her swimming was long, long ago before I was pregnant! I ransacked her entire wardrobe and could not find a single piece of swimwear she can fit into. And so, we bought her a new one! Her only request was that it must be in her fav color – PINK!

Too cute.

 

The pool is really nice because we went during late afternoon. It was not crowded at all.

And because she’s so super scared of falling into the water, she insisted on putting on these arm floats. Really very kia see. =P

We went dipping in the kids’ pool only for a while and she did not want to stay inside anymore because of the water jets. In the end, we spent most of our time in the medium-sized pool. I had to hold her hands and carry her around most of the time! Even though I told her that she would float and not sink, she dared not let go of me. She is really not an adventurous sort of girl. =)

While we were swimming, Daddy took many adorable photos of Baby Jayne! Some are really funny.

 

 

What a fun time we had at the swimming pool! :)

My poor baby has been suffering from diarrhea for the longest time, it’ll shock you if I tell you.

It happened so long ago I can’t even when it really started. For 2 weeks or so, she’s had loose bowels once a day. It doesn’t count as diarrhea really, because it only happened once a day. Babies are generally considered as having diarrhea only if it happens a few times a day.

Then 2 days ago, the situation worsened and it became diarrhea. :( She’s also down with flu and cough. Argghhhhhh…!!

I’ve taken so many child sick leaves in the past 3 weeks that I feel so embarrassed about it, even though my bosses are very nice & understanding. The 2 kids keeps taking turns to fall sick!! And while I want to be fully focused on my work, I have no choice because as the mummy, taking care of my kids is my top priority.

Thankfully, Baby Jayne is not cranky even when she’s not feeling well. She doesn’t have fever and she doesn’t whine more than usual. She still smiles all the time and at any tom, dick or harry.

Please say a prayer for Baby Jayne, won’t ya? My plans to bring Joey out to the zoo today for a one-to-one just disappeared into thin air because I have to take care of Baby Jayne at home. :(

Here she is lying on a big square pillow sewn by my mum.

 

She chews on anything and everything now. I got to frantically sterilize & clean every single thing just so that her diarrhea doesn’t worsen.

Every now and then, I look at Joey and can’t believe that the cute little baby girl has become the adorable & pretty toddler today.

There were times I wondered why time passed so slowly. You mean it’s only been 3 years??! And there were times I got amazed at how fast time has flown by. You mean it’s been 3 years already?!! I tell you, motherhood makes for lots of ironies in life.

When she argues with me, I get pushed up the walls by her annoying and sometimes illogical arguments, yet at the same time, feel a rush of pride at her linguistic ability.

When she gives her 101 reasons for not doing something I asked her to do, I feel like yelling at her, yet at the same time, get really amazed at her creativity and imaginative mind.

When she keeps harping on something I refused to give her, I get really frustrated at her relentless nagging, yet at the same time, admire her perseverance and never-say-die attitude.

When she sings her favorite song at the top of her lungs for a whole 15 minutes, I almost went crazy, yet at the same time, get really intrigued at how carefree she is about life and how she puts her whole heart into doing something as simple as that.

You see, motherhood is a whole crap load of ironies. While babies are always cute and make us laugh, they also come in a package complete with whining, shit (literally) and many other god forbidden nonsense. On good days, we are on an adrenalin rush and think that having 12 kids would be a perfectly wonderful idea. On bad days, we wished we were single & free again. That’s how it is.

I guess the key to keeping us mummies sane in the midst of all the insanity is to look on the bright side.

When my daughter keeps talking and talking non stop, I focus on how good her vocabulary and sentence structures are rather than the fact that she’s talkative. When she goes about her monkey business, I focus on how creative she is at creating that mess rather than the mess she created. I instantaneously felt much better at the whole situation. Although the mess was still there waiting for me to clear. *roll eyes*

5 years down the road, if I have to look back in my life and pinpoint a specific time when Joey started to get addicted to computer games & internet, I reckon it would be October 23, 2009.

It all started innocently when Papa Isaiah bought a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse CDROM for Joey. It’s an educational CD for preschoolers, and the moment Joey started on it, it was no turning back.

I have to admit that the graphics were excellent, music was nice, and the games & exercises were interesting and fun, mainly focused on coloring, counting, matching and identifying. Any preschooler would probably get addicted to it.

Mind you, my Joey did not even know how to use the mouse previously, much less maneuver it accurately. Just after a few tries and coaching by Papa, she is now very proficient in it and can move it to wherever she wants it, click it and get what she wants on the screen.

It’s not such a bad thing, except that we got to supervise her usage for fear of the possible damage to her eyesight. I heard from several friends that Primary One kids are now expected to complete online supplementary exercises and submit specific assignments on their student portals. How fast do they want our kids to grow up, man?! Too scary.

I brought Baby Jayne to see the PD near my place this morning because she was having diarrhea, cough & flu. Actually all not very serious, and I could just let her fight the virus without medication, but just in case it escalates into something more serious like bronchitis, I thought it’d be good to let a doctor check her.

Turned out her cough is not that serious, and it has not affected her lungs, which is good news. Babies are very prone to bronchitis because they are lying down most of the time and the phlegm can flow into the lungs easily. The doctor prescribed her medication for her phlegm, cough, running nose and diarrhea, all to take only when I think is necessary. I will lay off all medication until really need to administer. It’s good to let kids fight off the virus on their own and strengthen their immunity in the process. I did that for Joey most of the time.

What shocked me during the doctor’s visit was how heavy Jayne weighs now. From her last visit to a PD for her 3rd month injection, she has put on less than 1 kg! Now, that’s really hard to believe because I thought she felt so much heavier compared to a few months ago! The only logical explanation is that she lost weight in the last few days because of her diarrhea. I was pretty sure before that, that she probably weighed 8kg! :(

Now, where did all the milk go to???

Baby Jayne drinks crazy a lot of milk for her age. Now she downs 180ml every 3 hours (sometimes 2 & a half) with no problem, and she has been at that mark since she was 4 months old! That’s the same amount of milk as what some toddlers drink, you know? It’s very bewildering to me why she’s not piling on weight.

Compared to Joey, she was on breast milk for a longer period of time and she drinks more milk than Joey when Joey was 5 months old. Then why is she not putting on weight???!!!

Maybe she’s born to be a petite little lady. Hehe.

Doctor advised me to let her sit or lie at 45 degrees as much as possible to discourage backflow of her mucus & phlegm, so I’ve been letting her alternate between her Bumbo chair & the car seat all morning.

For once, this is more about me than it is about my kids.

I am sure most people haven’t noticed, but I’ve slightly amended the intro text about myself on the right hand column of this blog. I’ve added in a paragraph that says that a new entry will be published at 8.30am everyday. Now, that instantaneously puts some form of curse discipline on me to blog every single day.

I’m not trying to make life difficult for myself, as if it’s not difficult enough already as it is. I’m just trying to be more disciplined when it comes to things pertaining to my kids.

After 3 and a half years as a mum, I’ve come to realise that my kids grow up faster than I want. In fact, they are growing up by the second, and if I so much as forget to take photographs of them or blog about them for more than 2 days, they have already become vastly different beings from 2 days ago. It’s lightning fast.

I used to blog according to my whim & fancy. I can blog 5 entries at one go, or go 5 days without a single entry. Much depends on my mood, my schedule and my camera battery life.

There were times when Joey said something really funny and I made a mental note to blog it, but I never got down to it because I had forgotten about it. I mean, those were the things I want my kids to read about when they grow up so that they know they said something as ingenious as that when they were still babies. That was the reason why I started this blog. I swear it was not because I wanted to whine about how much I sacrificed for them as their mums. Nothing of that sort.

Alright, it doesn’t seem fair if this entire entry is about me, and nothing about my babies. And going by the usual style of this blog, cute photographs are must-haves.

Baby Jayne.

 

She’s such a smiley cutie pie. Some of the most common recent comments I’ve heard these days are that she loves to smile, and that makes her so different from Joey. Yes, she loves to smile, but says who that Joey doesn’t smile? I remember Joey also smiles super a lot when she was a baby, except she is more selective when it comes to who she smiles at. =) For Baby Jayne, anyone goes. As long as you are not too hideous looking. Haha.

[P/S: I hope you don’t really believe I make myself sit in front of my laptop, check against my watch & click the publish button to publish an entry every morning at 8.30am, ok? I preset my publish date & time, alright??!]

It seemed to me that Joey had a mini breakthrough in her fear of splashing water yesterday.

We brought her to Sembawang Shopping Centre yesterday for lunch. While we had coffee & desserts in the Hongkong Cafe, she was playing herself crazy in the water playground just outside the cafe. There are ‘opening hours’ for the water playground. The water will be switched on during lunch and dinner time. I think this is a good strategy too, because it saves water, and it encouraged customers to dine in the restaurant during meal times. Joey had so much fun, I had a hard time dragging her away when the water was switched off!

It used to be that she dared not step into the water playground, and even if she did, she would never go near the splashing water. At this playground, she dared to venture towards some of the low-level splashing features. Some improvements at least!

 

 

 

I feel happy seeing her have so much fun! Coming Thursday, I’ve planned a one-on-one trip to the zoo with Joey – Just Joey & Mummy!!! – and I’m so looking forward to it!!! =D