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29/01/2006

Oh, how I love you but I hate your frigging guts!

I don’t know how they do it. I spend 99% of my time with them, watch them cuddle together on the couch watching Playhouse Disney and then the next moment, they’re trying to dismember each other! I just don’t know how they do it! They love each other to….erm…..life…and yet, they try to punch out each others’ teeth the next. I am talking about both my joys and boys…Joshua and Jared.

 

By virtue of the fact that they were born on the same date and also only 2 year apart, they practically share everything and have LOADS of things in common but why oh why do they have to fight about everything? They fight about who gets to choose the last book for me to read at night. They fight about who gets to use the green spoon. Funnily, the green spoon was not all that popular to begin with. It only began when Jared said that he liked the green Power Ranger and he wanted to use the green spoon to commemorate the green Power Ranger that he adored….and that is also precisely when Joshua started to think that the green spoon (and Power Ranger) was indeed pretty cool too.

 

Oh, but my boys don’t always fight all that much – only almost all the time. Joshua would be building his dominos (he’s really patient with these things) and Jared the destroyer would trot along with Ultraman in hand, and knocks his whol domino setup to bits and pieces. Needless to say, Joshua would be crying Red murder and Jared would claim innocence. “But Ultraman is trying to save people. He kills monsters” and Joshua cries harder. “There are no monsters, mom!!!”

 

I don’t know how they can be so cute and adorable at the same time? Kids have this talent, I believe.

 

Joshua would be so sensible and logical sometimes that I would like to think he was mature. But then he proves me wrong the next minute by kicking up a fuss about something as trivial as using the wrong colored bowl. Josh is really sweet and logical most of the time. And perhaps it’s because he’s got my temperamental genes that he’s not able to keep his temper and anger under check all the time. After all he’s only 6 and I am like….30+++++…and I still have trouble controlling my own temperament. So, why should I expect him to perform better than me, right?

 

As for Jared, I don’t know what to say. He’s the absolute cutie pie who knows exactly how to win your heart without much effort. If he did something wrong, he knows exactly what to say to get back into my good books – no doubt about that. He could have knocked my precious vase over – he would look at furious me, shuffle his feet, pout, squint a few tears in his eyes and say “Oops. I’m sorry, mom. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident” and I would have given him all the cookies in the world.

 

I don’t know if they do it consciously as well – but they both always like opposite things. Joshua likes to cover himself with a blanket from head to toe before he would sleep, Jared hates the blanket and would have slept naked if I allowed him to. Jared like cookies while Joshua prefers Oreos. Jared like rice while Joshua likes noodles. Joshua likes sketching while Jared likes coloring.

 

But I have to say that watching them grow up is pretty….erm…interesting, if not challenging. Sometimes I have to literally slap myself across the face and say, “They’re not the same person – you have to love them differently and yet the same”. They have their own individual characters that is just shining through so brightly that sometimes, as a parent, I am overwhelmed.

 

I, therefore, cannot understand why some people prefer not to raise their own kids. It baffles me completely! There’s nothing more precious than the time that I have spent single-handedly raising, nurturing, guiding, teaching, parenting, mothering, caring for and LOVING these two monsters.

 

I SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY wouldn’t have it any other way. I wonder why some people can’t see how wonderful the parenting experience actually is….it’s their loss, really.

 

By the time they miss it, it’s too late.

22:20 Posted in Family | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this | Tags: parent, parents, parenting, parenthood, kids, boys, kid, boys

26/01/2006

Sleep Sleep Sleep

The extra couple of hours of sleep, it seems, may not be the best thing for your body, I’ve just discovered. Why am I interested in the topic of sleep?

 

1. I suspect that my kids lack sleep (Joshua’s dark under-eye circle and Jared’s constant yawning could have something to do with it

 

2. My inability to wake up in the morning in time to send my kids to school on time could ALSO have increased my interest in the topic of sleep.

 

It seems that Eskimos sometimes sleep for 14 hours a day. Lucky them, I get something like 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night…if I am lucky. Sometimes, I have endure a full day with 3 hours or no sleep at all per day! And like they say, while no sleep is no good for the body, the Eskimos may not be leading all-that-healthy a lifestyle either.

 

Everything done is excess is no good and without a smidgen of doubt, if you don’t get enough of something (vitamins, food, water or sleep) it’s also detrimental to the mind and the body. Therefore, it’s important for kids to get about 10 hours of sleep and adults 8 hours of sleep per day. But Napoleon said that a man needs 6 hours of sleep, a woman need 7 hours of sleep and a fool needs 8. So, you decide.

 

And the most amazing thing is that most of us think that we are getting enough sleep because we can function during work. but researches in the US takes on a different view. They seem to think that the reason why people tend to sleep longer hours during weekends or holidays is because they are sleep-deprived during the week day – which is logical, if you ask me. Therefore, you start yawning while driving, it’s your body telling you that you need to spend more time sleeping.

 

During Victorian times, people used to think that sleeping 8 hours = idleness and laziness. During those times, men sleep 6 hours and women tend to sleep about 15 or 30 minutes more than men. It’s an acceptable fact that women sleep a little bit longer than men although they, during those times, are required to do less work (yeah, like housework is not really work, right? Bah!)

 

And preschoolers? It’s funny that my kids still continue to take naps even when they’re already BOTH attending preschool. I’ve read somewhere that preschoolers typically need about 10 – 12 hours a night! My goodness, then I have been doing everything wrong! Joshua and Jared sleeps at about 12 midnight and then wakes up about 8 in the morning. Which works out to be 8 hours of sleep a night. No wonder they still need an afternoon nap. By Western standards, I am probably a terrible parent! But I do intend to turn this around. soon, I will be reducing their afternoon nap to nothing and getting them to bed about 10 so that they can wake up bright and smiley in the morning. In fact, experts think that we can replace afternoon naps with a little bit of quiet time or reading…and maybe just lying down on a mat, listening to music or watching a little bit of educational TV. Hhhhmmm….I’ll try to work this one in.

 

And that works for me too. People who’ve lived with me know that I have this problem going to sleep and waking up. The funny thing is that even if I had enough sleep for a night, I STILL have problems waking up in the morning. I give the saying ‘Sleeping Like A Log’ a brand new meaning. My mother-in-law, mother and grandmother used to say that I sleep like the DEAD.

 

But all this is about to change. I no longer have the maids and my mother-in-law thumping over my leg and face to wake me in the morning so that I can send the kids to school. I only have the alarm clock that I can’t hear (the clock is really loud, by the way) to wake me.

02:40 Posted in Being human , Family | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: sleep, sleeps, sleeping, slept, nap, naps, napping, napped