Appreciating the GOOD days

I think I might have discovered an epiphany...

After the bad round of sickness for the past 2 months, I am starting to appreciate and enjoy the good days.

I think parenting must be like that. Good days and Bad days.

Bad days: kids are sick, parents are tired and everyone is in a bad mood. Days like that I really wonder about parenting skills, why life sucks and just how tiring everything is.  Days like that I miss the childfree times, sleeping in weekends and holidays, the freedom to stay out late, eat rubbish and do anything we want. Go on holidays at the drop of a hat, ski holidays at that.

Then we get some good days... the kids are finally well, they fight less and we feel more energetic. We still can't sleep in or go on multiple ski holidays but at least I'm not in a constant state of impatience/ annoyance/ unhappiness.

I was having trouble with Madison's apparent bouts of aggression towards her sibling/cousins.. and I think we might have found out why.

When she's at my sister's place for the afternoons, I suspect she spends a large amount of time watching videos on the iPad.

After the last round, we put an end to her iPad privileges and I am pleased to say that her behaviour has improved markedly!

She now plays more amicably and is less moody at the end of the day. I think the mindless watching of videos was probably doing more harm. I just needed my dad to enforce it, since he is quite generous with iPad privileges.

I'm holding my breath to see how long this current "good" round will last.... my next concerns will start when the baby is born.. .

Long Weekend break

We had a long weekend over this past weekend.

It had been a tough week for me because Annika had been ill for most of it. So when our neighbour friends asked us to a joint movie night on Thursday to see Fast and Fabulous 7 I jumped on it.

The movie was alright... not as good as Ironman 3 but it was a good break. Unfortunately with movies it usually means a late night out..

Friday was a public holiday due to Vesak day.
But somehow with young kids public holidays never feel like a holiday... they were still up before 7am!

Annika was still under the weather, refusing to have breakfast, being whiny etc...

Madison had a golf course lesson scheduled for 8am, so we had to have a quick breakfast and head out. We left Annika at home with Warni since she needed to rest.

We dropped Madison off to golf, then Chris went to see a few patients. I headed off to meet up with a friend. It started to pour, and the course lesson was terminated. Chris picked Madison up and we went to Takashimaya for a spot of shopping and lunch instead. It was pretty fun, actually! Madison is getting so much easier to go out with...

Saturday was a really busy day... it started with the girls tennis coach FORGETTING to turn up for the lesson(?) .. afterwhich Elizabeth had her birthday party at the kids eXplorer indoor playground.

Getting to the place was a nightmare! For one, E's party coincided with the start of the school holidays.. I think the entire population was there for the day! There was absolutely no parking ... and there were hoards of people EVERYWHERE. Turned out it was a family day fiesta, and they were offering free entry to the playground for 300 kids!

In any case, I think the kids had a real ball.. Annika missed out because she was still not quite healed.. however Chris was a real trooper and took care of her for the morning. I think they went shopping and had lunch together. We now have 4 or 5 brand new goldfish in our tank.

Saturday evening we had a potluck dinner with several neighbours... It was a feast... Japanese curry, braised tofu (me), braised pork knuckle, chap chye (stanley ) , grilled salmon, chicken wings ( Fanny), Pavlova (Sabine). And lots of wine... fine weather was a bonus too.

On Sunday morning, we took the kids to Bishan park on the spur of the moment. Madison didn't have her usual golf lesson because she had it on Friday. It was super hot. We brought the kids' roller blades and scooter along.



It just so happened we met with another bunch of neighbours at the park! They were there having roller blading lessons. Madison was having confidence issues with using the rollerblades and scooter. Chris and I are convinced it's our genes. This dislike of speed/ lack of control issues.. or maybe she just needs to do it more frequently!

In the blink of the eye.. the entire weekend was over. When this week is through, we will enter the month of June. Where did 2013 go???

Being a parent

I think I really suck at being a parent.

1. I have very little patience.

2. I don't know how to discipline my kids in a way they 'get' it

3. I can't deal with sick kids, not even my own. I can see them as patients, but not actually care for them.

When the kids are well, things are better.

The mornings are still stressful trying to get them both ready for school. I really don't understand why kids have to dawdle so much in the morning when it's exactly the same everyday. I have an hour to get them ready now. I can't even begin to imagine when they start primary school and have to be ready for school at an unearthly hour..

Of course now Annika is sick again for the month. She was so well.. and then just suddenly became sick in a blink of an eye. This morning her temperature was 39C, and she threw up after eating 2 spoonfuls of yoghurt. Thank goodness Warni was already here and she handled it. I seriously cannot do sick kids.

Last night, out of the blue, Madison kicked Annika off the sofa. Annika landed on the hard marble floor head first and smacked her forehead on the ground. It was so loud!

I was flabbergasted. And really angry.

I admit it... I smacked her hand and Chris put her in a naughty corner for a long time. We got her to apologize and make up with Annika afterward.

Then this morning.. she did it again! Kicked Annika but at least nobody fell off anything.

I was like ????? She got 3 smacks on her leg and a really stern warning. I really didn't know what else to do. We've warned her so many times. She's already been in naughty corner. What's next?

I was really glad to go to work this morning.

Days like that I seriously wonder if I should ever have had kids! I'm not good at this! It doesn't help that this sort of thing gets to me and I feel guilty/bad/sad about it afterwards. And obsess about what I should have/should do.

My sister is way more zen about parenting than I am.. and maybe I should take notes ...

My little pony cake...

That's Elizabeth's 4th birthday cake.

I think I'm getting more comfortable making these fondant things!

The first time I took like a week to prepare the cakes, crumb coat them, then cover and decorate...

Now the process takes just over a day! In fact, baking and cooling the cakes on the same day as the decorating is quite alright too! My main limiting factor is probably the oven. It takes only 1 layer at a time.

This cake is a My little pony cake. I thought I was going to get away with not making E a cake this year because my dear brother volunteered to get her cake for the party.

But my dear sister brought it up and asked for a My little pony cake since that's a current hit with the kids at the moment. ( Blame it on Youtube )

Chris insisted we try to make the fondant from scratch this time too.. amazing that he's into cake decorating now...

We found the recipe online and we bought the ingredients. Surprisingly, he actually rolled up his sleeves and made the fondant himself!

Which surprisingly turned out really well, and he was right, it did taste alot better than the commercial stuff.

In other news... Annika was supposed to have gone on her first real school outing to the zoo today.
She had been looking forward to it, and had surprisingly remained sickness free for the past 2 weeks.

And of course, she had to start puking last night out of the blue.

And spike a temperature this morning. So no zoo outing for her.

I have to confess that I have this phobia of puke. I cannot deal with puke, not even mine. Last night when she randomly decided to upchuck it was lucky Warni was around to take care of it. Swiftly she cleaned up the mess and the kid.

My job was to get the meds and get them into Annika fast.

I just pray my kids have iron stomachs that don't get into gastro trouble too much.

Vicky in hospital, Intussusception

What a tumultous night!

The day started out pretty normal. Kids off to school, adults all off to work.

I had a pretty good day in clinic, then headed over to my sister's house to see the kids after work and also for dinner.

All 4 kids were at home; my 2 were running around the house, Elizabeth was eating her dinner and I noticed that Vicky was having her clothes changed. MH was at home, watching TV on the couch. Nothing particularly unusual. My parents, Geok, Chai and HT were not back yet.

I went to the back kitchen to help with dinner preparations, when I heard Siti telling MH that Vicky was vomiting.

Vicky had been down with a cold/croup type thing over the weekend, so I assumed it was a post tussive vomit.

So initially she was given instructions to administer some cough mixture because we were told she had been coughing.

However, I think Vicky still continued to throw up. MH made the decision to take Vicky to the children's hospital then. That was just after 6pm.

We waited around at home, when at 730pm Geok called me from the hospital to tell me that they were still waiting to be seen.

Since none of the other adults were home yet Chris and I had our dinner and proceeded to our kids home for bed.

At 830pm I get the message that Vicky was to be admitted for suspected intussusception!

She had continued to throw up in the hospital emergency, and the vomitus was now green.

I think they were really unlucky in that it must have been a busy night. It took another 2 hours before she was assessed by the paediatric surgeon, and for the ultrasound to be done.

Fortunately once she had the ultrasound and the diagnosis was confirmed, she had the air enema which reduced the intussusception.

The hospital was also short on single rooms so my poor sister had to stay with Vicky in a 4 bedded room.

Here's hoping that things stay resolved and she comes home soon.

It's been such a shock!