Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

I believe that as our kids suck the life, energy, and finances out of us, we have to learn how to suck it out of them too! Believe it or not, I think all mothers do this…we thrive and survive on the joy that they give us, the smile that they can bring to our faces and the love that makes our hearts expand like an inflated balloon. No one can truly explain to you how a mother feels like when they look into the sleeping faces of their kids unless they are a mother themselves.

When the worst hits us, we can turn our thoughts and focus on our children and they will stabilize our emotions (on top of driving us insane with their consistent littering, but we’ll learn how to adapt to that). On a stressed day, you look at how simple their lives are and how they grow and learn from their little-little experiences, you’ll feel like… “Hey, what’s there to gripe about? I’ve got the best thing in the world with me…their butterfly kisses are all I need”

Well, I wasn’t feeling too uppity these past few days because it’s school holidays and when it’s this time of the year, I feel all stressed out because the kids are home ALL THE TIME and demanding my attention, want me to take them out, keep littering the house and can’t keep their gaps shut for one single second. They can’t make peace with each other and like to de-hair each other all the time! And I can’t find the time to work on my stuff.

But suddenly, one evening, Jared was singing on my swivel chair, dancing, and the chair (being a swivel chair) was about to tip over backwards. I screamed and grabbed him off the chair and chastised him for his foolishness.

He looked at me in earnest regret and said, “Sorry, mom. I promise not to hurt myself. Thank you for protecting me”.

Silence…..I was caught off guard as my mouth hung open. Jared is known for his comic relief but not his language-skills and communication skills. He’s 3+ for Crissakes!!

But here comes the clincher…..

He takes a deep breath and said, “When I was a mommy, I will protect you too. And when I was a mommy, I will take money and buy food for you; when I was a mommy, I will wash the plates in the kitchen and I will teach you how to do your homework. And when I was a mommy, I will kiss you before you go to sleep and I go work on the computer. When mommy was a kid, you can play and watch TV, ok?”

Oh boy…..he’s got my heart firmly in his hands. I hope that he will remember his words and keep his promise.

But yeah…it’s time like this that you thank God for giving you something back for those few hours spent in the labor room screaming at your husband. And it’s times like this that makes those hours of washing, cleaning, bathing, feeding, cooking, sweeping, picking and packing, ironing….all worth the time.

I swear to you my heart expanded to the size of a well-fed elephant when I grabbed him and gave him a big bear hug.

Jared, when you was a mommy, you’d better remember this friggin’ promise!

Things I learnt after moving out of the safe confines of in-laws’ home and my own home.

1. When using plastic gloves to wash dishes, you lose the use of your touch (feel) faculty. Use eyes when washing dishes.

2. Dust is not only on your PC. Dust is EVERYWHERE.

3. Ants are hateful creatures. Worse than vultures! And worse yet, they are also very vengeful. Kill one hundred of their brothers (or sisters), a thousand of their kind will come raid your kitchen and dustbins. Thankfully, ants are not very smart creatures. They don’t know and can’t remember what a mortein (insect killer) can looks like.

4. It takes so painfully long to cook, and very short time to eat (spill, throw, stuff in fridge)

5. Each component in a cuisine (albeit dish) is delicately handcrafted by an art master. Read: Have to cut carrot, potato, onion, garlic, vegetable, and whateverelsethereisinthedumbdish each one individually one meh? Cannot cut all at one go?? Someone should design something like this.

6. There’s a very important reason why knives are made sharp – they CUT!!! Wash and use carefully.

7. Clothes don’t wash, dry, fold and return themselves to closet without human intervention

8. The toilet don’t flush, wash and clean itself. Keep soap at safe height.

9. One can actually get bored of canned food. (amazing discovery here. I thought we could actually feed the kids canned food until they are 18)

10. Food doesn’t grow in fridges and freezers.

I wonder if I am the only one on the planet that feels like holidays are…such a complete waste of time. Admittedly, I am one of those workaholics who cannot sit, stand, lie or squat still for a very long time. No, not a hyperactive person, but I do like being useful or doing something.

Therefore, holidays are always a bore to me. Strangely enough, when I was in school, I would end up going to school just to play or practice something. You know, in school, we always have this extra-curricular stuff going at one point or the other. And when I was working, I would end up spending more hours in the office during holidays than during the normal working days! Strange creature…me.

And it’s no different now that I am a mother and freelancer.

Having the kids home with me all the time is god-send. I mean, this is what I want – to have them with me and I have all the time in the world to spend with them, tickle them and play catch with them, enjoy their laughter and also to break up their fights. But heck, when in the world is the holiday going to end??!!! I have to get them out of my hair soon otherwise, I am never going to get any work done at all!

Sadly, even during the Chinese New Year, when just about every single Chinese in the world is taking a holiday or enjoying themselves, I am here, mulling over websites, articles and brochures!

Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t like holidays?

In fact, I spend so much more money during the holidays because I have to take the kids out all the time – they get bored pretty easily sitting at home, it seems. So, there we go strolling aimlessly around every shopping mall nearby and breaking every see saw and swing in every garden we find, stuffing our faces with pizzas, spaghettis, lasagnas and other out-of-the-budget food during the holidays is….well, something I can do without.

I can’t wait for school to start so that they can have their life back (they might disagree with me) and get off Astro Playhouse Disney and Cartoon Network and I can get some things done here. Otherwise, my clients are going to have my sorry behind for dinner!

First, read this. It’s an excerpt from Sure Signs you’re the mother of boys by Sharon O’Donnell. I am quite picky about who I like as a writer and for me, Sharon O’Donnell has this way of writing that either touches you or tickles you. Everything that she writes about parenting and being a mother is so true that it makes you want to cry!

Excerpts from: Sure Signs You’re the Mother of Boys

by Sharon O’Donnell

• you find Power Ranger parts under your sofa. Sometimes your vacuum cleaner finds them first.

• your weekend schedule includes more total hours of little league sports than it does sleep

• they think PMS is the new Play Station video game system

• you have to chase down the playful family dog to retrieve your son’s jock strap

• the most romantic movie you’ve watched in the last five years is DieHard II

• you have to arrange two weeks ahead of time to take a bubble bath – and then must lock the door and scream “I’m in the tub – ask Dad!” every three minutes.

I not only find Power Ranger parts under the sofa, I find it in my underwear drawer, in the fridge in the wok and many other unimaginable places. And I have not been able to find the time to sit down to plan the next five minutes….a bath? Out of the question!! The only bath I get these days is in the condo pool. And I don’t think they allow red wine there….

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.

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.

It’s been…what…6 days since I moved out of the safe confines of my in-laws’ home. Gone are the days where you sleep until there’s food on the table. Gone are the days where you surf the net until someone tells you it’s time to fetch the kids. Gone are the days of peacefully working behind the computer while the kids entertain themselves with other cousins.

I have spent 90% of the time in this new apartment washing one thing or another. It’s amazing! Every time I finish washing something, there’s something else to wash. The kids have this radar thing going too – when the floor is clean, their radar spots it and they run around in the clean area until it’s dirty again.

My fingers are coarse like sand paper and no amount of lotion is going to repair this!!! My back aches. My nails are chipped. I call out ‘Joshua’ and ‘Jared’ in my sleep. I’ve pissed off at least 6 clients because of this house moving thing that has taken FOREVER!!! And I almost poisoned the whole family with overnight ikan bilis (anchovies) broth left wrongly in the refrigerator instead of the freezer!

So far, everything’s really…..swell?

But the sad thing is that while he has adapted to his old school, he’s in a new school this year. We’re moving to a new condo this month (probably mid or end of the month) and it would be more convenient for both Joshua and Jared to attend the same school. Hence, I’ve taken Jared out from his old school and both my boys are enrolled with the same school.

I know I half expected Jared to accept the fact that he’s in a new school with new teachers and new friends easily…but that was naïve and wishful thinking. He cried and bawled senselessly and refused to quite down. The moment I said, “Mommy will come back for you later, ok?”, he would grab my thigh and cling dramatically to my leg.

But I’ve seen Joshua do this before and Jared wasn’t exactly easy going when he first started school, so, I know for a fact that you have to be cruel in order to be kind. You see, I remember the second day of Joshua’s school year (first time entering school and all) where he was thrashing around on the floor of the kindergarten when I tried to leave. His teacher tried to pick him up and he gave his teacher a nasty bonk on the nose! But the teachers assured me that he will be alright in 5 minutes. I wasn’t too sure. I stuck around outside, playing pink panther hiding behind trees and slides, spying on the status of my little boy in school.

Well, Joshua can throw a worse tantrum that any other kid I know, so, I was worried the teacher was going to peg him to the door by the back of his uniform or something. But none of that happened, of course. What actually happened was that, I spent approximately 10 minutes in hiding outside watching his eyes, nose and ears turn red with crying and then suddenly, like something snapped, he stopped, looked around and realized that HECK, mom’s stopped coming in the door….so…..the drama can stop too.

And with amazement, I watched as he colored stuff. Occasionally, he turned around towards the door and the teacher stops him. He sniffs and cries pitifully again but then always resumes his position and started doing some work again. That was the second day. He cried a total of 1 hour, I think. The third day, he cried all of ten minutes and even sang some songs. The fourth day, he sniffed at the door but waved goodbye as I drove away. And the fifth day…is history. When I changed him to a new school, he didn’t really cry either.

Jared, on the other hand, is a little bit younger than Joshua when the transition was made. Yesterday was traumatic because I hung around. Today, I went in, took him to class, spent 2 minutes reassuring him that I will be back and then just left. I heard his bawling and his ‘I want to go home!’ and ‘I want my mommy!’ but decidedly and purposefully walked out of the door.

In the case of first day of school jitters, let me issue a reminder to all parents – make the life of the teachers and the children easier. The longer you hang around, the worse it will be. Trust me, the moment you turn around, they’re going to adapt.

Oh, you can promise gifts and presents if you want but- after school and if there’s no crying. Works every time!!!

I love the piano and have spent my childhood days dreaming about playing wondering music and composing songs. Because I have this gift musically, I didn’t speak to my parents for close to a week, I think, because they sold my organ off. I didn’t know then but now I do – my parents had financial problems and selling off the piano was an option I think they didn’t want to (but have to) make.

But I swear to you…I was the maddest kid on the block for a long, long, LONG time!!

So, off Joshua goes to music class. This is not the first time he’s going to attend music class. The first music class he went to was under Musikgarten program. I have very good reviews about Musikgarten but they teach a whole lot of singing, dancing and drama in the classes. So, after about a year of classes under Musikgarten, I suppose I decided that Joshua’s reaped enough benefits through their program. In attending the music class, he’s come out of his very solitary shell and has become more confident and vocal about things. Like when I shout at him unreasonably (bad PMS mom in action), he will sniff silently and tell me, “Mom, you shouldn’t just simply shout at me”. The first time he told me that, it stunned me silent. Then I ran to him and gave him a big hug, telling him, “You’re right, Josh. I shouldn’t. I am so, so, sorry!”

Marsha
www.marshamaung.com
www.creativejooz.com
www.allmomstuff.com

My husband and his family members have been staying here, the house that we’re currently residing in, for decades! Decades! And when they bought the house, this place is a budding city with promises of being one of the most developed areas in our State. True enough, it has become so.

This area (I shall name it MyCity) is now one of the best place to raise a family and at every corner, there’s either a supermarket or a convenience store. There’s a popular mall here that people from every other places in Kuala Lumpur come to and sometimes, it might even seem as though the world is here. It’s a torture, sometimes, but I am proud to be a part of MyCity and have decided that this is where I want to raise my kids. This is going to be my city, my home town. I love it.