So Kind!!

Yesterday, I went to the library and borrowed 3 books.

I've been going to the library very frequently, about 3-4 times a week. I'll borrow 2-3 books each time.

In the past I would know exactly what I want to read because my reading time and library visits are extremely limited. So, before I went to the library, I would have a list of books/authors that I want to read.

Now, with more free time in my hands (because I don't have to spend my nights doing lesson plans, marking blood-curdling compositions, writing work review etc), I don't need a list. I just pick and choose any book whose cover I fancy, read the first few paragraphs and if engaging enough, I'll borrow the book.

If the book turns out crappy after the first few chapters, I'll just skip the entire middle part and head straight towards the last few chapters (because I need to know how it ends).

So that's me digressing, as always.

Anyway, I borrowed 3 books from the library yesterday.

Then, I boarded the bus, picked up Huda, talked to her teacher (it was Parent-Teacher's Conference; that's another story), then took a cab back because it was going to rain and I didn't have an umbrella (why on earth am I justifying my cab ride to everyone; in any case, most of the time, my cab rides are never justifiable).

I went home, attended to the kids, cooked the vege dish for dinner, bathed the kids, fed the kids, played with the kids, welcomed TheHusband, had dinner, played some more with the kids, changed diapers, brushed the older kids' teeth, breastfed the little kid and then, it was ME-time.

I took my books from my bag and, horrors, there were only 2! Checked the receipt and I did borrow 3 books. Gaaaaaaah!

Just now, I checked my library account and am extremely relieved to see that there were only 2 books in my account. Which means that an extremely good and kind-hearted samaritan had returned one of my books which must have fallen out of my bag somewhere along the way yesterday.

Oh you kind, kind person who returned my book, I wish you all the goodness that life may bring. Thank you, oh nice person!

(My digressing is getting worse. I intended this to be a super short entry with only the first and last 3 paragraphs in it. This is what staying at home does to you, I suppose..)

9 + 44

I wrote this almost a month ago and hopefully I'll finish it today.

 

Farah & Huda

1. Farah. Farah is now 9 months old. She's a crawler and has begun to pull herself to a standing position. I don't think she's gonna start walking anytime soon because her sister was about 14/15 months when she started walking. I suppose she will start walking when she's about that age but then again, siblings can be very different.

She has also had her fall-off-the-bed-rite-of-passage. Boohooohoooooo.. I know that practically all children fall off beds at one time or another but I thought I could protect her from it. But, of course, I thought wrong.

It happened one evening when I was in the toilet and TheHusband was attending to Huda. Farah was supposed to be sleeping in her cot which was pushed against my bed. (She was sleeping in our room instead of her own room because she was sick and whiny and we didn't want Huda to wake up.)

She climbed out of her cot, crawled all over our bed and just when I peeked out of the toilet, she was at the edge of the bed, looking down, about to take one more step forward. I raced to her and of course, even though it was a distance of about 2-3 metres, I failed miserably to catch her in mid-fall. She landed on the floor. :( 

(Therefore, must exercise more and work on the sprint.)

2. Weight. Farah isnow about 6.5kg. Definitely petite but it's okay lah. I am coming to terms with the fact that my children are all in the featherweight category. They are pretty much like what TheHusband and I were decades ago when we were kids. Yes. TheHusband used to be a scrawny little kid. There *are* photos of him as a scrawny little kid. And I used to be thin too. Stick-thin. But, those are days which will never come back. I am now the poster girl for Michelin tyres.

3. Food. It is fun cooking for Farah. I like knowing that I'm giving her healthy food with absolutely no salt added. Someone asked me why I bothered because they would all be sodium junkies when they grow up. And that's exactly why I bother now. When I still have full control of their diet, let me give them the best and healthiest of food. At least, I make sure that they will not cause harm to their insides so early in their lives. And, hopefully, they will have a low tolerance for salt and additives as they grow up. (They will most likely be chocoholics like me.)

But feeding her is another story. While she is eating a lot more than Huda used to, she is still not an easy baby to feed. Sometimes, she enjoys making those sputtering buh buh noises (bilabial trills, if you are into phonetics) and she especially likes doing this during mealtimes so mealtime is a messy messy affair.

4.  TV. I still have control over their TV intake for now. The TV is hardly switched on when they are awake. When I first started my maternity leave, I was bored beyond belief so I did watch quite a bit of TV. Farah was sleeping most of the time then anyway. But, slowly I got back to the no-TV groove and hardly switched on the TV in the daytime. (And I guess that's also because of the ridiculous facebook games; the computer is switched on instead.)

5. Me & FB. Sidetrack a bit about myself and facebook games: I've got rid of Barn Buddy and Mafia Wars out of my system. Now I'm hooked on Cafe World and Scrabble. I think Scrabble is something I would play again and again and again but Cafe World is not something I'll play for long. Give it a few more weeks and I'll delete it from my facebook account. Really, facebook is a time-waster. :p

I know I'm hopelessly addicted to Scrabble because when I'm on the throne, picking up a call from Nature, I'll suddenly think of EIOPMNS. Then I'll shuffle the letters about in my head and I'll get words like POEMS, MOPES, MONIES etc. Of course, the target is to get a 7-letter word so I'll shuffle the letters in my head some more. I'll think of the ending -ISM. Then I shuffle the rest of the letters about and then I think of NEPOISM (no such word but if there's a T somewhere on the board, I can get NEPOTISM), NEOPISM (rubbish word), PEONISM (sounds like a nonsense word but I just checked against the scrabble dictionary and found that it exists). Such is my life now. :p

Back to Huda & Farah...

6. Huda's formal education. Huda is still in a childcare centre and will still be goin there next year although I'm still on unpaid leave then. I'm very pleased with the school she goes to. Perhaps my expectations are low or perhaps other people's expectations are too high but I'm happy with her school. One of my neighbours whose grandson goes to a $1000plus-a-month childcare centre talked about how everybody there spoke good English with no hor meh lah.

Well, my daughter barely speaks English herself so this is no issue to me. Hur hur. She does pick up crappy English from her friends like, 'I don't friend you' but that's why she has parents who know how to string a few words together in a grammatically coherent sentence. We correct the nonsense she picks up. Well, we try to lah. And when we fail, we'll tell her teacher so that she may find it in her to forgive us if our daughter were to use foul words in class. ;p

Talking about teachers - one of the main reasons I chose this childcare centre is because of the teachers. I hate to use the word 'passion' because it's been terribly misused when it comes to teaching but you can tell that the teachers and principal there are passionate about what they are doing. They should be the poster girls (err, women) for early childhood education.

I've actually digressed quite far from what I wanted to say. Initially, when I started going on my leave, I wanted to send Huda to school only 4 times a week and on Fridays we'll do something together. A trip to the Science Centre, Botanical Gardens etc. That has yet to happen because other than taking both girls around Woodlands, I can't imagine going out on my own with the both of them to the far ends of Singapore. What I fear most is, what do I do should I need to go to the toilet?

7. What my neighbour said. Two weeks ago, I bumped into the neighbour who lives one floor below me.

I was with Farah and she said that she hardly hears Farah's voice. I thought she was deaf because my neighbour 2 doors away often hears Farah's cries. Then she added, "But I hear you very stress with your older girl."

Ah.

She's not deaf. She so politely phrased her words, this woman. What she meant to say was, I always hear you screaming like a wild banshee at your older girl after which I hear her cry so miserably.

There are times when my patience really runs thin with my Huda. She's still afflicted by the Terrible Twos (doesn't matter that she turned 3 more than half a year ago - I heard this Terrible Twos stage only goes away when they are 25 years old).

Being Miss Contrarian, she tries to do everything differently. If I tell her to put my phone back where she found it, she will then put my phone in 17 different places before reluctantly returning the phone back where she found it. Of course, by then, I would be a mad raving lunatic. 

Her bath time also gives rise to the loony in me. I'll tell her not to run in the bathroom and she'll be hopping and jumping all over the slippery floor. When I mop the floor and tell her to stay in one room, I'll soon find her in the kitchen or somewhere else.

And the result is - my neighbour hearing that I "very stress with my older girl". *insert nervous laughter*

As a result of that chance meeting, I did a bit of reflection and I might have been a little hysterical with Huda at times *insert more nervous laughter here*. And so, I've decided to try my mighty best to rein it in. I hope for the past two weeks, my neighbour hasn't noticed my stress levels. I've been trying to not raise my voice and to take short breaks should I notice that I'm going bonkers. (Short break = going to the toilet to sit on the throne and breathe deeply - and after breathing in the foul air in there, I'll start scrubbing the toilet from top to bottom.) 

8. Farah's health. Just now, we had a follow-up appointment at KK for Farah. After she recovered from her bout of bronchialitis in the first week of Hari Raya, she got another round of cough and phlegm and mucus just 3 weeks later. It's still going on now. Obviously, I do not like that she's falling ill so frequently. But, what medication can be given to a child who's only 9 month old?

The doctor suspected that she is allergic to something, most likely common allergens like dust mites and pollens. So, she's given a dose of medicine. The side effect? Possible increased appetite! Hooray! She's gonna be cured (hopefully) and she'll become a chubby baby in the process. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

9. Conclusion and AOBs. Yesterday I did ten little sit-ups and today, my stomach is still screaming out in agony. I am getting sleepy. I know this entry feels disjointed but that's what happens when you write one entry over a period of a month. I shall just post this one, warts and all, so thank you so much if you have actually reached this final full stop. :)