Things the kids say

Kids' talk can be equally interesting and frustrating... Some recent ones:

1) When I was using the hairdryer...

Yang: Stop, Mama! I cannot hear my video!
mf: Sorry! Give me two minutes ok?
Yang: *nods*
...
Yang: The same! *something about the video and my hairdryer*
mf: *how can they be a hairdryer in playdough videos?* Oh is it?
Yang: Yes...

The next day, I watched his video with him and there was a scene where a kiddy hairdryer was used to dry a toy doll!

2) Yes and no

mf: Are you sure you don't want this?
Yang: Yes.
mf: *testing* You don't want this?
Yang: Yes...
mf: You want this?
Yang: No!

He's better than many adults in this!

3) Blowing nose

This is more like what he did.. Yang's mucous was at his nostrils so I brought him a piece of tissue.

mf: Come, blow your nose...
Yang: Hnh!
mf: Um, no... Do this *blows nose loudly*
Yang: *smile* Hnh!
 mf: Um, close your mouth and breathe out through your nose - hard!
Yang: sssss!

Ok for one second but nothing came out!

4) I was reiterating two learning points of the day to Kai at bedtime.

mf: You gotta know two things today.. xxxxx - that's one. Second, yyyyyy

A few minutes later...

Kai: I have two things to tell you. I was playing with A and S, and S poked his eyes!
mf: Huh?! Did he cry?
Kai: Yes... That's one thing. Second...
mf: *wants to laugh already but steady*
Kai: We learnt a lot in school. *gives me full-day routine* I like going to school.

5) But they also say nasty things. 

Kai called out to a little girl at the playground - "You freaky!" I told him not to say that but he said that again immediately though he clearly heard me. I cut short his play time immediately. When I asked him back home if he knew what that meant, he said he didn't know. He also didn't know where he learnt that from. So scary to have bad language creep into his vocab!

Kai also likes to call people pee pee or poo poo or wee wee or bum bum style (what?!) - all toilet stuff. And so Yang also has a lot of toilet vocab. Sighs - wonder if it's a boy thing *.*

6) Scary revelations

Kai's feet were very near Yang's sleeping body just now.

mf: Legs on your bed. Don't kick Yang accidentally.
Kai: I kicked him before...
mf: !!!

And before I could say anything...

Kai: I also kicked Yu before...
mf: What?!
Kai: ... sometimes, only sometimes...
mf: My poor baby!!

7) Play talk

I was very happy to see Kai and Yang playing together on yesterday - they didn't even bother me!

Kai: You do this... *close door of police station and fix a connector to the door frame*
Yang: No, open the door *remove connector, open door, fix connector*
Kai: *watching*
Yang: Uh-oh *cannot close door*

A minute later, when they dismantled and moved the police station from Kai's bed to the floor...

Yang: You gotta close the door first...

To his credit or blur-ness, Kai remained quiet. Now that I think about it, he could have given a "I told you so" in his "I told you so" way!

Big to small: "I show you..." Small to big: "No, I show you!"

Health, weight and festive goodies

Today is vaccination day!

Kai now weighs a hefty 18 kg!! No wonder I can hardly carry him these days... Think he was about 16 kg a year ago when I wasn't pregnant with Yu yet, i.e. about 2 kg a year. At this rate, Mama wins - I remember I weighed 25 kg in K2 and (more than?) doubled that by the end of primary school. I was also very tall at 125 cm in K2. Kai measured 108 cm last month. But I realised his stats are very kungfu - think Shaolin 18 Bronzemen and tai chi 108 movements! :p

Yu weighs 6.2 kg and measures 63 cm. We always thought Yu grew faster than the other two but no - Kai weight 6.35 kg at three months! Dr Yip said he is growing well :)

And he's strong!

Also asked the doc about his oral thrush. He examined him for a while and said it was ok; I could leave it alone. Yeah! Baby, no more forcing medicine or probiotics on you!

Kai asked me what the doc was doing when he was preparing the jabs - two! - for Yu. I told him, and the doc asked whether he would take one for his brother - he said yes! The doc said he was very brave, and, "Would you like a lollipop?" We all know the answer! And he even got one for Yang! Lucky boys with candy despite having no injection!

Kai was supposed to get his meningitis shot today but at registration, the nurse said that he had it done in mid 2015. Super blur mama!!!! I even called to ask the clinic about the vaccination details and discussed with Sito about whether we should do this when we didn't even do that when it happened *.* Suffered a busy day coz I was blur as I kept Kai with me the whole day.

Let me digress to the kids for a while...

Focused on making a small helicopter

"It's very difficult!"

Morning was quite ok with him playing with this Lego by himself. Lunch was ok as he was very happy with pizza AND spaghetti. So I told him I would bring him to the "I" place if he continued to be a good boy.

Kai: Is it ice cream??
mf: I'm not saying *sly mama*
Kai: Or eye.... *points to his eye*
mf: .... The letter "I"

"I want both pizza and spaghetti! With red sauce!"

But he whined badly after his shower and when Kakak couldn't find a Lego block that he should be able to find himself. So I sent him off to his nap with his whines and cries and ended all hopes for the "I" place. After I settled Yu down for a nap, I went in to dab away Kai's tears and sooth a cut on his foot when he landed on a Lego block - these things are evil! So we only went to the playground.

On the swing with a K2 friend

"Is this a rock?" Coz he watched a show on rock climbing last Sunday

Trying to copy his K2 friend who climbed all the way up!

When Yang came home, we asked him whether he missed us coz we missed him - really, Kai asked for him more than once. But Yang said no *.* Heartless baby! Sobs!

So yes, back to the title...

I'm the kiasi type. Kai had all the optional vaccinations on top of the mandatory one. Yang and Yu will follow suit, though we'll hold Yang's meningitis shot until he's super clear of any febrile fits! I even went for the HPV vaccine myself lately, after a detailed PAP smear cleared me of HPV. The second jab was very sore. Dreading the third and final jab in May...

Today, I also found that I'm about 1 kg lighter than two weeks ago, and my belly is smaller after a few nights of wearing the belly binder for a few hours per night. I'm super happy! But much as I would like to lose my baby weight and be healthy, I like to have my festive goodies too! And buying festive goodies is also a very happy thing :)

I was already hyping up to go goodie shopping next week but this week, both mothers told me not to get them festive goodies. And just now, when I told Sito, he said he didn't want too! Ok, his new "loseweight" password is showing its effect on his behaviour... This year, Yan won't be back for LNY too. So I'll have very little festive goodies to buy, sighs...

Well, I'll have to look to the little ones then, right? :p Mum gave us a little box with partitions for the kids' snacks. I have bought some small snacks and will let them fill the box this weekend. We'll have a mix of stuff over the next three weekends of so. Hope they learn to proportion their snacks and also learn to appreciate LNY (goodies)!

"They grow up so fast"

When I was patting Kai in bed last night...

Kai: Why are you patting me? I'm not a small boy.
mf: *ouch*

And today, he was playing with a new toy car from a very big goodie bag from a classmate's birthday, using my legs as a hill or "fake real mountain" for the car to cruise. It's the lazy mama way of playing with him :p

I looked at him play and suddenly realised that he is so tall now - 108 cm last month. I asked him to snuggle with me under the blanket. Of course he was squirming about. While I was, on one hand, thinking that a girl would probably let me snuggle properly, I was, on the other hand, sighing to myself that very soon, he would be too big to snuggle with me, or unwilling!

Sito joined us for a bit. I was telling Kai about him growing up so fast and that I was going to cry just thinking about it. He looked at the tears in my eyes and told me not to cry - and carried on playing.

I always marvel at how much they've grown, how quickly they grow, but today marks the first time that I'm really feeling my babies growing up a tad too quickly. In the blink of an eye, they will grow up to be their own person who will, one day, likely be very different from Sito and me. Much as I wish to see them grow up and for the days to be shorter, I also wish for the years to be longer so they would be my babies for just that little bit longer...

Happy Kai so pleased with his work

Source: His Chinese teacher X

Yu is three months old!

Yu turns three months today! Where has all the time gone??

And on this day, I bathed Yu in the Stokke Flexibath using a bath support coz I was losing grip of him when washing his hair at the basin as he tended to kick about a lot. In any case, his Puj tub is getting small too; I had to turn it around to accommodate Yu some time ago when I only turned it around for Kai and Yang way later! This first attempt was a bit messy with the support in the wrong position and not quite enough water. I wasn't sure if he would fuss and he didn't know what was coming! Thankfully, we got through with no fussing. I'll try again and hope to eventually shower myself while he's in the bath.

Also, we reclaimed our bedroom Yu graduated to sleeping with his two brothers in the kids' room.

Before

After

Yes, his mattress is tiny coz we had to fit that in our room for a while; our room is really tiny compared to the kids' room. It took a long nursing session and two tries to put him down asleep but I did it, phew!

The next challenge was getting his brothers to sleep without waking him. I went in with Yang and N to make sure Yu stayed asleep before leaving them alone. Then Kai wanted to go to bed early tonight before Yang fell asleep. So I went in with him and sat there until Yang fell asleep coz Yang is more likely to be noisy. Then Sito went in to sit with Kai for a while before leaving him to fall asleep on his own. Yu is still asleep so let me continue writing this :)

Yu has grown so much in the past three months! Unfortunately he is not 100% - he still wheezes through phlegm sometimes, and his runny nose is on and off. His thrush did not get better with Nystatin so I stopped that and gave him probiotics instead which seemed to be helping but these few days, he had difficulty pooping - strange...

So here's a rundown of what happened lately:

Yu seems to like reading!

Yu loves to sit

"Argh, someone shot me..."

"Where's C3PO?!"

So handsome!!!!

He took some time to aim at the snail and hit it!

Managed to drop him down asleep - for less than five minutes

Head up high and face your meh meh friend!

He can hold his head up very well now. Think he has the strongest neck of them all at this age. Well, he's the biggest at birth so I guess he's physically more able. He can also put one foot ahead of the other when we stand him on his feet. His brothers both started to walk past one year. We wonder for this one... I once saw a nine-month-old boy walking unassisted - very amazing but I want Yu to be more baby for just a few months more please!

Standing baby!

Looking at my hand in the air

Came in to find him slightly rotated

He's been rotating 90 degrees clockwise lately and twisting to his right - signs of flippability! His brothers flipped at five months or so despite showing signs early - can't quite remember and lazy to check haha! So I guess he might take some time too...

But then, he did crunches which his brothers never did....

Also unlike his brothers, he's now refusing bottles and pacifiers :(

So I let Kai try his rejected milk upon request - he said yucks!

Yu had only one bottle successfully - the first one with frozen milk. I tried chilled milk, fresh milk - failed. On Friday, I bought a Pigeon teat that fits the Avent bottle - he seems to reject that less so I'll try again. We also wonder if the thrush is making him reject bottles. Shall see...

His fave toy at the baby gym

Put JGJ on him and he hugged it!

My boys in my bed - they're now all in their own beds, sighs...

I hope that they can all play and sleep together happily, and grow up to be great friends with one another!

Update 10 Jan 2016

We survived the night. Kai slept through. Yang woke n times. Yu woke normally to nurse and once rotated until the whole of him was on the blanket on the floor. I slept like shit next to Yu.

37 part 2 - skincare

Because skincare is super pertinent to 37, isn't it?

Sito happened to comment on how 37 seemed to feel very different from 36. I didn't think much of it then but the next day, I was like, SHIT. Haha! Well, I'm not afraid of ageing but I still want to look youthful!

So for some reason, The Little Book of Skincare by Charlotte Cho showed up on the recommendation page on the NLB homepage on Overdrive. I was queueing for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child so I borrowed the skincare book to pass some time. (I've read three other books since! Yeah!)

IT WAS LIFE CHANGING!

Or at least, face changing.

That sounds wrong. Haha! Anyway, so I have been pretty nua since Yu arrived - I kind of stopped washing my face in the morning, or I washed but left it neat. Save time! After all, my face was so dry that it didn't feel oily in the morning, even when I put on moisturiser the previous night. Sometimes, I could even feel my skin stretch and threatening to crack! But that's just a wrinkly disaster waiting to happen.

Even before I was done with the book in mid December, I started washing my face, AND putting on my neglected products:

1. Homemade cider vinegar toner at 50% concentration - it's really good for me!
2. Vitamin C serum, my secret to zero blackheads, in combination with the toner 
3. Eye cream but its effectiveness is iffy at best; 10 seconds of concealer has proven to be more effective than 10 years of eye cream
4. Moisturiser - I just use a light one now though I should really use a heavier one at night
5. Sunblock

After a few days, I even added makeup - a little blusher and lipstick - when I went out with Sito :)

Sample - dewy not?? :p

Dewy, the epitome of good skin, is....hard to describe - the skin shines but not in an oily way. But it's so hard to achieve as it needs really good skin. So I'm not ditching my loose powder even though matt is apparently passe. It's all about balance and finding out what look is best on myself.

And another important part of skincare is the lips. Some may take their lips for grants but not me. Since having a series of horrible ulcers in primary two that went from my lower lip all the way through my cheeks to the back of my teeth on I think the right side of my mouth, my lower lip no longer looked normal. I couldn't help picking at the peeling bits. For years, I tried various balms to no permanent effect.

Then over Christmas weekend, as I was nursing Yu one evening in the dark, I felt my lips getting dry and starting to peel for the first time in two days. I realised that I had been googling for the wrong search terms - my lips were not chapped, not as much as they peeled ALL THE TIME.

I googled peeling lips instead of dry lips, and learnt about exfoliative cheiliti, where the lip gets inflamed when the top skin is removed, which caused it to regenerate too quickly only to peel off again - or something like that. But after reading more, I don't think I have exfoliative cheilitis, which look pretty serious. Since the symptoms and causes are similar, I decided to give the remedy a try: STOP PICKING AT MY LIP!

Gosh, it was so difficult! Two days later, as the skin on my lower lip started to peel off, it took all my might to not pick at it. I started to have skin drooping off my lip *.* So I cheated and kept pursing my lips so the loose skin came out. Two days later, more peeling, more pursing. Two weeks later, I'm looking at pretty lips in the mirror!

Droopy skin - before and after lip balm

A bit of skin came off after I applied lip balm and pursed my lips! 

(PS: Now I think my lips look like Mother's!!)

I still peel here and there but less often and less peeling. Of course I still put on lip balm all the time - I'm now more conscious of the need for lip balm than ever as I think it helps the skin recover. I'm not hoping for lips that don't need lip balm forever. I'm just happy that my lips are looking normal - no red areas due to peeling and picking. So happy!

37 :)

I turned 37 today :)

... It's a prime number! Oops...

Sito was on leave on 14 Dec and went out on his own as I had a prior appointment. That evening, he asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said, no need to get me anything. Then he told me he got me something already! As he was rocking Yu, he told me to look behind his pants. But I couldn't find anything behind his pyjamas pants. Then he sent me out of the room and dug around himself, baby in arms. When he was ready, I stepped in and saw...

A new diaper bag!

(Yes, I kind of knew when I saw the package!)

I should have looked behind his work pants *.* He said I couldn't exchange it even if I didn't like it coz it was at 50% discount. But I like! This husband of mine, very good at getting - and hiding - presents. I had been using my four-year-old Samantha as a diaper bag for about a week prior to this new bag so I don't have to keep repacking stuff for weekdays for Yu and weekends for three kids. But the faux leather was fraying badly. I didn't mind - I just wrapped the handles with two of those silk ties and decided to keep using it until it 寿终正寝!

My poor Samantha

But my husband decided otherwise so....

Kate with a charm from Samantha

Actually, this is our first diaper bag. The brown Fion bag we've been using is just a normal bag with a huge cavity that I used to bring to work. Think I bought it in 2007/8 - it's leather canvas a la LV and super durable. I was googling for a diaper bag four years ago but I refused to buy one when I saw most priced over $100! So I bought two $3 diaper bag inserts from Qoo10 :p I've only recently dumped the green one coz it broke and started using the pink one.

I think I'll retire the brown bag upon the end of my maternity leave and use only Kate since I'll only need one bag for all three and the brown bag is starting to fray at the edges. Hopefully by then, Yang is also fully potty trained so the bag is really just full of Yu's baby stuff.

So this morning, I told the verbal boys that it's my birthday. I asked Kai to wish me happy birthday - demanding mama! He said NO! Grrrr... But he said I should have a present and he would make me a present. Soon he sang me happy birthday in both English and Mandarin :) As for Yang, he shyly said happy birthday to me :) A short while later, Kai gave me the presents - a jail (?!?!?) and another structure both built from his Lego blocks. He clarified that we were both policemen who guarded the jail - phew!

I didn't ask Yu for anything - perhaps that he would sleep through the night soon?? - but he gave me something yellow..... Yup, he pooped two big ones! Nothing unusual but the first time, I might or might not have got some poop liquid on my brand new Mi Band 2; the second time, I definitely got some poop on it *.*

Our latest gadgets which arrived on Saturday

The bands have got nothing to do with my birthday btw haha!

Today, we implemented the regular Sunday routine, i.e. spending the afternoon at Mum's place. We had cake for tea, courtesy of Ah Yee, and went out for dinner, thanks to Mum. I'm so full now!!

Happy birthday to me? :)

*gasp* I have scary arms which are bigger than Sito's!!!! But my dear husband said I had it pressed against my torso hence... Sobs anyway...

Kai enjoying sweet and sour pork

Yu having his fill while I had mine

And Yang liked almond pudding!

It has been a pretty uneventful birthday. But uneventful is good. There is beauty in the simplicity of life :) Let's see what my 38th year has in store for me!

Yang's school work and potty training progress

Yang brought back a jotter book one day. A jotter book leh!! Gosh, I haven't seen one in years and would have forgotten such an existence if not for this! It was a plain one with lots of his colourful scratches. When I next went to Popular, I happened to chance upon a whole tower of them jotter books - there were plain ones and lined ones with various widths. I lugged back a pack of 10 - from Bedok :p

Yang's jotter book

"It's skeleton!"

X for xylophone - he once took two chopsticks to form an X at dinner time

We practised saying the various colours in Mandarin and English

"蚂蚁"

I like how he names insects in Mandarin. "It's 蜜蜂 - not beeeee!" Um, ok... He had a very good Chinese teacher last year who also doted on him lots. But it's getting more apparent that his language skills are veering towards English, sighs...

On the first day of school this year, we sent him to school wearing underwear instead of diapers. His current Chinese teacher told us to do so as he was not wetting his diapers already. And this morning, he woke with a dry diaper. So happy! That's earlier than Kai. To think that last weekend at home, he was still peeing through his underwear in the day and filling his diaper at night, which sometimes overflows or leaks. We often had to wash his bedsheets and waterproof mattress protector. But potty training can regress so I'm keeping a close watch. Jia you, baby!

School work, strange names and a strange activity

Some of Kai's latest works:

Kai's meatball spaghetti - "fake one", he said, coz they also made a real one on a cookery day

Kai's colouring is so good now!

"These are dry now", Kai referring to the wool threads in his Baa Baa Black Sheep book which he glued on the page himself

Who is Zhneoki?!

And Zhoneaki?! This is a fish, btw...

And a jelly fish

And today, Kai brought this back

Kai and I had a good laugh over his new names but yes, baby, please learn how to spell your name!

Ok, not school work but make a guess what this is?

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I smeared peanut butter on a plate and asked him to tear and fold toilet paper to wipe the peanut butter off, taking care not to get peanut butter on his hand!! Yup, it's to prepare him to wipe his own bum after a poop! Learnt this online.. Killed plenty of trees already...

I think he's wiping himself in school already but we do find poop stains on his underwear sometimes. At home, we use the bidet on him - very clean but we don't let him do that himself as he would spray water all over the place and outside coz the door is left open. Sometimes, he will close it when he pees coz "you must not let others see your private parts"! Not sure why poop is different, haha!

Anyway, hope he gets it soon. Wiping your own arse is undoubtedly a very important skill!