Distracted vs On her toes

Watch how Jon tries to grab Kait's attention, but she reaches for the camera strap instead!


And turning 7 months old a week ago, the little girl has gone from crawling -- on the mat then floor, and also to the edge of our big bed (*mini heart attack*), to standing more now -- hanging on to anyone, anything, and in the crib with the side reaching up to her chest...

It got us scrambling to lower the crib's mattress as part of the babyproofing!

Been a long time since the boys were at this stage, when the place was not overrun with their things and those teeny tiny Legos!

Kait goes from this last month (you put your hands out, and she holds onto them to pull herself to the standing position)...


and more crawling in-between...


to this now... she looks for the nearest object or person to grab onto to stand up...


Hmm... think I've got a potential laundry helper there?! ;p

Cheng Teng for the soul

What do you say to the hubby when he offers to buy you ANOTHER laundry basket to catch those ever overflowing clothes, even though you're already doing one load every day?

What about to the children, when you ask them to lay the table, and to pick up their toys, and they answer back, "But that's what you do, mommy!"?!!

Tell me, I have not spoilt them...*breathe in* *breathe out*!

I grabbed some lovely but seldom available gingko nuts, fresh and vacuum-sealed from the refrigerated section of the Asian grocery store. Same trip, always with Kait in tow, I had 15 min to "breeze" in and out to buy a sack of rice and everything else, on the way to drive Ben home from school, Jon was ending later, and in-between, Kait would need to nurse.

Then, whilst preparing dinner, I popped the gingko nuts into the slow cooker with whatever ingredients might work for this nice big pot of "cheng teng". In this case, pre-soaked white fungus, and longan and red dates (oh, never mind already I didn't make tea with them earlier). The rock sugar I forgot, and substituted with brown sugar.

Cheng teng, good old cheng teng! It worked well for a rare supper that night, and Vern liked it chilled for dessert the next day. As for Jon and Ben, they are big longan fans.

There are other food and dessert you can use gingko nuts with, but I chose cheng teng because it is my favourite hawker centre dessert. As a little girl, I'd gladly have it nine out of 10 times when my father would take the family to eat fishball noodles, my other comfort food!

But now, to the husband's kind offer of the laundry basket, I had to tell him, "Thanks, but no thanks,". Figuring it's still better for me to conquer the mountain loads one at a time.

One load, one day at a time, that's always more manageable!

P.S. This post does not diminish how much I appreciate the husband's help with the children and as and when he can with the chores that (oh well) are more all in a day's work for me the HOUSE-wife. But my guess is he's not alone in being the practical husband, coming up with pragmatic solutions when he can't be there to help. No?

Spring forward

After an exhausting week, it's nice to have spring just around the corner as daylight savings start today!

Vern was away for three days, the children and I weren't without our crazy moments, and a few things (the saner ones) afoot with them...

Baby Kait (almost overnight!) finally sprouted her first tooth. She's otherwise occupied with crawling here and there!

Ben had gone ahead to invite his classmates to his party!

"Party, what party?" I had to ask him, since his birthday isn't until May.

"The one you're going to send cards to tell everyone to come," he shot back without missing a beat!

"Erm... (see how carefully this mom treads)... shouldn't we discuss it first?"

"I am discussing it with you NOW..."!

Talk about growing up too fast too soon!

And moving along with a book report due after next weekend, Jon is trying to hurry up and finish reading the book puh-lease -- I begged him oh-so-politely, and I'm the more anxious one as always! So that he can go on to work on the report, and hopefully it'll be one less thing to worry about, what with three tests coming up that same week! This week, the teacher had sprung a surprise Math test on the class. Only, Jon preferred to call it "a SECRET test... because surprises are meant to be nice!"?!

But nice or not nice, fair or not fair, how do you encourage children who'd rather be laidback about homework, (and honestly, I'm trying not to dread it), that keeping up with it day by day is the only way forward? It is (time and again) driving me quite crazy!