Isaac thought Mother’s Day was last Friday cause that’s when they were given back their little craft project to bring home and give to mummy It’s a heart shaped card and a pasta necklace, quite cute I must say! The only problem was, he wouldn’t really give it to me, he kept holding on to it, and only let me look at it for like a minute before he took it back.
Anyways, we spent the day at the supermarket, then went to Labrador Park for a little while. We packed salted egg crab home for dinner – yumz. The boys even bought a cake, but none of us had space for it after dinner.
Des decided to convert Linus’ cot into a toddler’s bed just before bedtime and it proved to be harder then it was supposed to be. The holes weren’t properly aligned so Des ended up having to drill holes into it. You know one thing leading onto another.
As we were fixing the bed, we left both boys to play on their own in their room. After a while, Linus started crying loudly, it turned out he got stuck in the arm of the arm chair After a little while again, Isaac came outside to tell me Linus was peeling out the wall stickers After another while, Isaac said Linus pants came out!
When we finally finished the bed, the boys were hot and sweaty, the room was a mess. Aiyoh!! And I couldn’t find the pants. After searching everywhere, it was behind the blinds. It was funny, so I couldn’t bring myself to get angry with them.
So anyways, this Mother’s Day, Linus gets a big boy’s bed and I’ve decided it’s time to stop breastfeeding. I’m actually so happy that this second time through has been so much easier then it was for Isaac. Thing I didn’t expect was it doesn’t feel so bad deciding to stop this time. Maybe I feel like I’ve done my job in the proper way this time and so it is easier to let go.
I’m getting too lazy to blog. I’ve stopped watching YouTube, more or less, gone back to watching Hong Kong serials, and picked up a new hobby! I’m knitting again!
Crazy I know, who needs to knit in Singapore? But there’s something very therapeutic about counting stitches I tellya! I don’t know how long I’ll be knitting, but I’ll at least be kept occupied this few months knitting scarves and beanies, maybe socks and some mittens for the kids, in time for our holiday to Melbourne in June! Can’t wait!
The boys are getting more and more rowdy! Isaac is surely developing a sense of humour, he will actually try to tell jokes now. We laugh even though the joke is not funny, he looks so funny trying!
Linus, he still isn’t talking, but he is very loud! Although he only says several words, he says it loud and gets really excited when he wants to draw our attention to something.
Days and weeks and months just pass by so quickly, I should try to blog more often. But you know why I choose to knit over blogging? Cause the boys won’t try to take over my needles when I take them out, the most the do is play with the yarn. Unlike once I turn the laptop on, Linus will come try and pull out the keys on the keyboard, Isaac will put fingerprints all over the screen!
I’ll just post some recent pictures…
We’re all very excited about Legoland opening in September!
We still do stuff like feeding fish and mosquitoes at various ponds around the island after school, cause we have time to kill after school everyday before fetching daddy from work.
I wonder how long we can carry them? They are getting so heavy I feel tired just looking at this picture.
Here’s Isaac wearing my first knitting project . I doubt he’d wear it for long or at all, he says it’s ticklish
I had a breakdown last week, that’s when Des decided he needed to give me a day off. I was angry that he didn’t realize it earlier. You know the kind of resentment that slowly creeps up on you because you wish he could take you less for granted, but couldn’t bring yourself to ask for it because he couldn’t give me time off not because he was enjoying himself somewhere else, but working to pay for everything we have?
Well, last week he suddenly told me he would stay home to work, and after I sent Isaac to school I could take some “me” time. Hwah, without a bat of an eyelid I was out the door and I wanted to forget about the boys and everything else. I quickly made an appointment at the hair salon and couldn’t run out of Isaac’s school fast enough.
Once I reached Vivocity, I plonked myself down at Subway and nearly cried. I haven’t had a meal in peace in such a long time it didn’t matter what I was eating. I was so jealous that Des could have proper stress free lunches at work everyday, but so thankful that he let me go that day. Angry at him and thankful to him at the same time. The tears don’t know whether or not to fall.
I spent a nice 4hrs on my own that day, and felt all recharged that evening and the next day. I feel like I’m so “poor thing”, but then, that’s just reality for us, and if I don’t keep focusing on the tiredness and the hardship, we’re actually doing quite well on our own!
We still have happy moments despite all the lousy ones
Killed 2 birds with 1 stone. The dog needed the exercise, the kid had excess energy to burn! After about 20 laps, they came home and settled for the night without too much fuss. Ought to do this more often.
Ever had the feeling like you’ve reached the point of no return? Like no matter what you did or not do anymore will not change an outcome you don’t want? But what drove you down this road in the first place? Even if you had a chance to do it all over again you’d do exactly the same thing?
Last weekend could possibly have been the worst weekend of our lives. I’ve been so bothered by Isaac’s slow eating in the recent weeks that I really didn’t know what I could do to change that. I couldn’t even convince myself that I needed to accept that. Most probably because of what my sister-in-law’s comment about his habit being like herself and my father-in-law.
Some history…
I seldom talk about them because they aren’t in our lives much at all. I’ve been angry at my FIL since I knew Des because to me, he would be the worst kind of father ever possible. I see it as how he treated Des in the past to have “broken” him so much so even Des doesn’t have the will or ability to see how mistreated he had been.
The kindest word I could think of to describe my FIL would be a “recluse”. Des and I have been married for almost 12 years and he hasn’t even met my parents. I have never actually spoken to him, not even 5 words in the last 19 years I’ve known Des. He has never spoken directly with neither Isaac nor Linus, never carried them. I don’t believe he even looked at them enough to recognize them on the streets.
For Isaac to be like them would be like the end of the world for me. Over my dead body “like them”!!
I hold my FIL responsible for the death of my mother-in-law in 2002 because he wouldn’t sign the consent form for the doctors to operate on her! She had suffered a stroke and the doctor actually gave him a deadline to consent to the operation, after which it would be too late to do anything to help her, and she would just die without ever waking up from her coma.
My FIL had been so difficult from the beginning that he questioned every tube of blood they took from her, to what they were putting into her by drip, all the whys and whats and hows as if he would understand any of it. He kept on that cynical face with a sickening smirk when the doctors spoke to any of us. There was even a point where the doctor practically gave him an ultimatum to let them help her or there’s nothing they could do at all.
I was in no position to say anything of course, but Des and his sister? They didn’t talk to the old man about how they felt, or was he that scary to them that they didn’t dare to have an opinion? I told Des he could at least say something, he’s the elder son, but guess no one can undermine that obstinate old fart.
So anyways, last weekend, I ended up scolding Isaac, so badly he ended up crying outside the house. I got so mad I don’t care what the neighbors must think anymore – this boy is hopeless no other more humane method can get through to him anymore. I feel all beaten up inside of course. The thought of the only way that Isaac would ever listen is to be that fierce really wears me out.
One night, after a bout of scolding and caning, while I stepped away to cool down, Isaac went to Des and pointed to a picture magnet on the fridge and said to him, crying, “I want mummy to be happy, daddy and didi and Isaac to be happy – like in the picture”. That brought us to tears, it really broke my heart. I really don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
But just as I felt like I’ve totally crossed the line to becoming abusive, how disgusted about how I treated Isaac and so lost I don’t know how we could become a happy family anymore.
The next day, when Isaac was in school and Linus was taking a nap, I watched episode 1 of Criminal Minds season 6. One of the characters reminded me in a very touching monologue (to the serial killer in that episode) about how a mother was supposed to love, comfort and protect a child, and not be the object of his fear. That very instant I felt so broken, so sorry that I felt a compulsion to throw our cane away!
Anyway, the point of this post was that I really thought I had reached a point of no return. But I guess time will heal all of us, and I have to find some way to not let my anger escalate out of control anymore. Making a 3yo eat faster then he is willing to is practically mission impossible. I have to be strong enough to know where the line is that I cannot step over.
Here’s the quote, JJ to serial killer…
“What happened to you, it isn’t fair, but what you’re doing to her isn’t fair either, and if anyone should understand what that feels like, it’s you. You have the power, you can do what you want to do. But for once, you can choose to use that power to do for Ellie what should have been done for you. You can choose letting her go. You can choose teaching her, yes, there are monsters and it’s okay to be afraid of them, but it’s not okay to let them win, and it’s not okay to be one.”
Not that I equate myself to a psychopath, but wait…should I? Well anyways, how aptly the show spoke to me, watching re-runs of shows doesn’t come to nothing afterall
The boys can be exact opposites sometimes. Isaac doesn’t mind haircuts, Linus will be crying very loudly. Isaac eats slow, Linus very fast. Isaac is very sociable, even when young. Linus is very shy, takes much more time to warm up.
I hope, that despite their differences, they grow up close and remain so forever
I don’t get those parents who claim they never use the cane! I mean just how much more patience do they have? And why don’t I have that? Or is it the kid in question?
So far, in most aspects of Isaac’s “training”, I found that no matter how “positive” I start, we end up learning the hard way. Eg. toilet training, we didn’t start too early, I was consistent, I endured the accidents, and I even gave rewards. But when no amount of reasoning, and when the rewarding no longer motivated him, when he started to treat it like a right, the only way that we got through to him was punishment, and that came in the form of caning. It worked.
I’m glad that there wasn’t much caning after that incident as between then and now, we haven’t had any issues to address. And I was happy, I felt like I was one of those nice parents who never cane their children.
Until recently. I don’t know if it was something we could overlook before but we somehow lost that ability all of a sudden, or did patience run out, or if he got even slower at eating. He literally eat until he felt sleepy, and I felt sleepy and angry. We’d get really upset at the table and I would start banging the table to “wake” him up, snap him out of his day dreaming.
Since young he always liked to keep food in his mouth and take forever to finish his meals. It is likely our patience ran out. Many times you find me staring into space holding a spoonful of cold food waiting for him to swallow so I could shove the spoon into his mouth. I remember having to pry open his mouth when he was much younger. Argh, it feels awful!!
Thank goodness Linus is the opposite. He eats much faster. But it can be very frustrating when the boy on your left keeps shouting for food, and the boy on your right simply won’t swallow. I really hate meal times.
These days, I feed Linus first before everyone else has their meal. This so that we can actually eat something before he shouts at us. Even then, he would still be demanding for food as we eat, but we could be slower with delivering food to him and in smaller amounts cause he would already have had his main serving.
And Isaac, I scolded, and I even threw him outside the house to finish his food so that I don’t end up hitting him cause I don’t see how sluggish he gets to finish his food. My doctor suggests physical separation as one of the methods for anger management. When that didn’t work, I ended up caning him one day. I really don’t like it. And I think about how we might “break” him one day. It’s just too much to take sometimes.
So now, we set a timer before he digs in to 20mins. If he finishes the main serving (it’s definitely not too much for him, and we have tried with normal food as well as food he really loves, he is slow no matter what he is eating) in time, he gets to do what he likes like every other day. If not, straight to bath and into bed. No play, no tv, no books. If I’m very upset, not even a hug and kiss. That really gets to him. I am trying my best not to resort to caning… but it still gets to me why other parents have so much patience!!!
Anyway, then there’s also the problem of him sleeping too late and waking too early. And how he wants us to be in his room. I think I’ve come to my boiling point, having all the aches and pains that sleeping on the floor totally doesn’t help!
Just that night, I really made sure he understood what he was to do if he woke up before the sun came up. He repeated for me many times, “go back to sleep”.
The next morning, instead of waking up at 6+, he woke up at 5+! That hit another nerve. I chased him back to his bed, but he wouldn’t stop making noise. So I dragged him into the living room and asked him to stay there on his own if he didn’t want to sleep. I only hit him when he screamed. Anyway, my point was, he only responds to beatings! The next day, he stayed quietly in his room. He didn’t come over to our room, and he didn’t shout and wake Linus.
How like that? I don’t want to hit him all the time. I don’t want him to grow up in fear How to be more patient?
Sigh… this parenting business, it’s so stressful, so tiring sometimes. And I don’t mean the physical chasing after them. I mean how mentally draining it is to try to be a good parent. Some days I’m over the moon when they do something endearing. Some days I feel like running away and never coming back.
I suddenly felt guilty that I hadn’t brought the boys outdoors during the March holidays at all, so we dropped by Jacob Ballas after sending Des to work this morning.
Not even one hour in I remembered why I didn’t take them outdoors last week Not just cause it’s so hot & I seem to attract mosquitoes, my left shoulder has been aching for weeks and my right elbow and wrist hurt, plus I seemed to have hurt my right knee and my right index finger as well. I’m covered in aches and pains, I feel like an old lady.
Good thing was the boys had fun. In fact, they had so much fun Isaac was upset when it was time to leave – we had to go home for a shower before going to school.
13 May 2012, Sunday, 11:10pm
It’s a heart shaped card and a pasta necklace, quite cute I must say! The only problem was, he wouldn’t really give it to me, he kept holding on to it, and only let me look at it for like a minute before he took it back.
After a little while again, Isaac came outside to tell me Linus was peeling out the wall stickers 
After another while, Isaac said Linus pants came out! 
How to be more patient?
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