Conversations with my superhero

👩🏻: (crawling around on all fours looking for Saitaomei’s dummies/jiu jius)

🧒🏻: Mummy what are you doing?

👩🏻: I’m looking for mei mei’s jiu jiu Saitaoha. Can you help mummy look for it?

🧒🏻: Don’t worry mummy, I change into superhero and help you find mei mei’s jiu jiu.

👩🏻: Thank you Saitaoha 😍

🧒🏻: (looks at me seriously) I am not Saitaoha, I am SUPERHERO Saitaoha!

👩🏻: 😂 ok ok, sorry Superhero Saitaoha.

2 minutes of hunting later …

🧒🏻: Mummy, superhero Saitaoha can’t find mei mei’s jiu jiu. But don’t worry! SUPERHERO papa will find it for you!!

👩🏻：😂😂😂

I love Superhero Saitaoha.

Daitaoha strikes again

Saitaoha had her first movie experience today! But there are no pictures because her Daitaoha mummy forgot to bring my mobile 😓. It was quite disastrous really and I had a mini panic session because R had dropped us at the cinema, no mobile = no way of contacting him to ask him to pick us up.

In the end I decided to worry about all that later and enjoy the movie with Saitaoha. Toy Story 4 was great if not a tad sad, I always find Toy Story movies sad, this growing up business and leaving your toys and memories behind is just heart wrenching to me. Saitaoha behaved really well in the cinema and concentrated on the movie throughout, only stopping halfway to ask me to bring her to the toilet! I was so pleased.

When we left the the cinema, I had to search around for a payphone. When was the last time you used a payphone? It was quite surreal putting in the coins and pressing the ONLY number I could remember being R’s one. As life would have it, R left his mobile at home and was at my mum’s helping them to drill hooks. My mum msged me to tell me to call her when I was done but of course I didn’t have a clue since I didn’t have my phone with me. When he didn’t answer after the third call, I was like 😓😓😓. Saitaoha who thought it was all very fun kept asking me where papa’s car was. I thought about calling for an Uber then realised I didn’t have my phone so no Uber. Was contemplating walking home when I realised we could take the bus!

Having your kid with you means you remain outwardly cool and calm despite your inner turmoil. Saitaoha thought it was great fun to take the bus and chatted away merrily to me throughout our wait. Luckily the bus came pretty quick and we got home relatively quickly!

What an adventure we had! Things didn’t go to plan but luckily we still managed to have a fun outing.

Are you happy or sad or angry?

Lately Saitaoha has been getting into the habit of asking us whether we are happy or sad to gauge our mood. At first it was quite funny and very effective in getting us to stop being angry (when she knows she’s in trouble) but now she’s repeating it so much that I’m started to get worried that we are horrible parents that are always getting angry at her, hence her need to keep gauging our moods.

It usually goes like this:

Saitaoha does something naughty like refusing to nap or not sharing with mei mei.

Saitaoha: Mummy, are you happy or sad or angry?

Mummy: I am sad because you didn’t share with mei mei.

Saitaoha: Mummy can you be happy please? Pleease…. mummy, can you say it’s ok??

Mummy: (looks at her pleading eyes) ok ok I’m happy.

Sometimes the tables are turned and she comes running to us

Saitaoha: Mummy mummy ! Can you ask me whether I’m happy or sad ??

Mummy: Er ok, are you happy or sad?

Saitaoha: I am sad because mei mei took my biscuit!

Today I spent the whole day working on my laptop, only stopping to feed and bathe the kids, plus read them storybooks and play a little.

Saitaoha: Mummy can you ask me whether I’m happy or sad?

Mummy: Saitaoha, are you happy or sad?

Saitaoha: I am sad because mummy is too busy to play with me.

(Cue my heart shattering into a million pieces)

Mummy: I am sorry Saitaoha, mummy needs to work but I will play with you in a little while ok?

Saitaoha: ok mummy! Mummy are you happy or sad or angry?

Mummy: Mummy is sad because mummy has to work and can’t play with you and mei mei.

Saitaoha: Don’t worry Mummy, you can play with Saitaoha and mei mei later. Don’t be sad mummy, you can be happy later ok?

****

It’s absolutely humbling to have your daughter to remind you everyday not to be sad and angry , and that you can be happy later.

ABC with Saitaoha

Reading with Saitaoha

Saitaoha: Mummy, that is mei mei and me! And that’s Gung Gung in the garden.

Saitaoha: Mummy that’s Gung Gung and Mei mei, Saitaoha and Mah Mah! Mei mei’s best friend is Gung Gung and my best friend is Mah Mah!

Saitaoha: G is for Gung Gung!

Saitaoha: I is for icecream, Mummy, that’s Gung Gung and Saitaoha, Gung Gung always buys icecream for me 😍.

As you can tell, my kids are very very close with their grandparents.

Light at the end of the tunnel

My pretty girl and the photobombers at the back. I wanted to bring them to the playground and park to catch some Vitamin D and hopefully kill some germs at the same time.

You can tell she’s feeling better right? We still had nights of cough-till-vomit, R had one with Saitaoha at 4am, mine with Saitaomei at 1am. Both of enough spew to require bath 🛁 level 😓. It’s been a tough month lah.

Another day another playground. This one was completely empty, so good. Mei mei enjoyed the slides a lot!

Saitaoha has fun too, she told me afterwards ‘I had fun at the playground today’.

Doting grandparents came visiting with char siew baos for their darlings even though it was their day off. They had one each for afternoon tea.

Help! Help! Crawling towards the goal post. The weather was sunny and perfect, so good for running in the park. Days like these you’re so thankful to be in Perth with its abundance of parks, sunshine and nature.

Cousins hanging out. Saitaoha loves school holidays because she gets to be with her cousins all day.

Tristan getting a trim!

Looking sharp kiddos!

I feel like the kids are finally on the mend. Please stay well for longer!! I can’t be in this grey rut forever 😬.

Down in the dumps

It’s been a pretty lousy week. Both kids are sick with Saitaomei having the worst of it. I always spiral into this black hole when the kids are unwell, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or the incessant crying, or feeling like a failure of a mother for being unable to protect or soothe my children, whatever it is, it makes me feel terrible and I just shut down from the world.

It doesn’t help that work is stressful and so emotionally charged. I love being back in the space where I’m invested and passionate about the cause, the only difference is I am unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel and beginning to doubt my own capabilities.

So yep, all round a failure. Sigh.

Last night despite Saitaomei trashing around in agony and wailing most of the night, we still managed a couple of hours of sleep. But I had the most horrible nightmare that Saitaomei died in a plane crash. The overwhelming grief was too much to bear that I woke up feeling numb. This flu season has been hard on the kids and the newspaper screaming the latest flu death toll is scaring the hell out of me. Yet I know she’s not at the stage where we should be sending her to the doctor’s or hospital, but am I being a bad mother if I don’t ?

So I’m sneaking out of the house at 7am to put in a full day at work when I should really be looking after the kids. And then at night I’ll have to rush to the hospital for my dreaded mri scan. Is this worth it you think?

Oh gosh I hope things take a turn for the better soon.

4am grumbles

4am with a sick and very cranky, irritable Saitaomei. I’m kinda resigned to the fact that I won’t be able to make it to work tomorrow. It’s school holidays so my parents will have the full set of grandkids with them. I can’t lump them with my very clingy, feverish and upset mei mei, it will be too much to handle. She caught her cold from Saitaoha but whilst jeje recovered very quickly, mei mei’s cold seems a lot worse and she’s really feeling it.

Sigh this is not the best time to be away from work and I have a full day workshop that I’m running on Tuesday too. Never mind, the kids come first.

I am supposed to start on a health kick but at times like these I really want to binge on junk food.

Breakdancing Eskimo?

Despite the lack of sleep and sick kids, we still had a nice weekend.

Please recover quickly babies.

G for Grandparents

This is my ah ma on most days, single handedly feeding both my kids at the same time. Grandparents are underrated in my opinion. A while back some dayrean was comparing herself with her own mother in terms of how tired they are looking after her daughter. I was incensed, why would you even compare yourself with your mother? Your mother is not obliged to look after your child, if she feels even an inch of exhaustion because she’s looking after YOUR daughter, you should only feel grateful and humbled, not ‘why is she so exhausted, I am even more exhausted’.

My little helper is very helpful! She did a good job cutting up the bananas for our banana walnut cake.

Mix mix mix. This is her fake smile btw.

The end product which mei mei enjoyed more than her sister even though she had no hand in helping. That little girl leaves a trail of crumbs behind her, she’s like Hansel and Gretel.

Is this mine mummy? Is this for me? Oops she discovered the chocolates my friend gifted me from Melbourne.

Enjoying icecream with Tristan Koko, she looks like she’s hankering after his icecream.

Little miss enjoying her pandan icecream. Whenever I see pandan icecream on the menu, I think of my brother and Sunny Hill icecream.

She’s getting so big now!

Sometimes I really 服了that husband of mine. He can come back from work at 8pm, hand wash and scrub the bathroom mats, wash the kids’ shoes, eat dinner, shower then work on the coffee table that he is building himself! Maybe he enjoys this furniture building and DIY work like how I enjoy baking after work? But his hobby seems a lot more labour intensive than mine, and the fruits of my labour are sweet and satisfactory too 😬.