I Told You They Are Different

18 Jun

My two peas are certainly different as mentioned previously. It was one of those boring days at home when I decided to test out their art skills. The topic: draw your dream home and this is the result!

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M1, ever so practical, goes down to just naming the rooms, scribbling the descriptions while M2 is more meticulous on the details – right down to the shampoo and conditioner in the shower, brand name on the TV and more! She has a bedroom, kitchen, gym, dining room, TV room and bathroom versus M1’s kitchen, living, TV, store, bedroom and attic.

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Of Lego and Harry Potter

18 Jun

Both girls love the toy and the character, so much so that M2 did a portrait of M1. Credit goes to M1 for the coloring effort. Picture says it all.

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The iPod Is Not Part of The Jello!

17 Jun

M2 adores her iPod Touch. Everywhere she goes, so does the device; it never leaves her hands. She was rewarded with it last year when she met and surpassed the year end exam’s target.

Anyway, yesterday hubby and I went off to play golf and M2 decided to finally make the Oreo Jello pudding. M1 helped and all was fine, I think. It was 9.30pm, whilst having our dinner after the game I received the call. “Mummy. What time are you coming home?” M1 wanted to know. “Soon,” I said, “Is there a problem?”

“Well, Mabel is very sad. She has something to tell you.” Oh dear. I braced for what calamity I may hear.

It turns out that in her moment of enthusiasm of completing the Jello, the iPod that never leaves her hand chose that moment to dip into the mush just as she was placing the bowl in the fridge. The speaker and the dock connector had a taste of Oreo Jello!

Horrors. M2’s heart and world came crashing down. Her beloved iPod, rendered useless! M1 helped clean off as much as possible but the speaker just couldn’t function, totally blocked with jello.

We got home as fast as we could. The first thing I did was to google up the solution, “How to fix iPod with blocked speaker.” and tadaaa…… Google is amazing!

Hubby used the hair dryer to heat up the iPod to soften the front, intending to pry it open as instructed. But the heat must have melted off all the goo inside because when he accidently clicked the ON/OFF button, a sound came through, loud and clear! The intense heat had resurrected the iPod! There was sound coming out from the speaker again.

You could sense the relief in M2. A lesson was definitely learnt. There are times it’s okay to put the iPod down when it comes to using the hands for other things, like putting a bowl of Jello in the fridge.

 

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The M&M Factory

17 Jun

Last year, we had our “Big Adventure Road Trip to USA” and it was an exciting trip for both the girls as it was their first time visiting the Land of Opportunity.

One of the many stops we had was at the M&M Factory in Las Vegas, Nevada. M2 was thrilled and pointed out, “Our factory! Our names! Whoaaaaaa!!!! How cool is that?”

A pat on the back for the parents to link their children’s names to something famous.

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Ooh! Can I Have It As A Pet?

16 Jun

We have a lovely home and enough space for a pet, or two or three or four…. Official pet number one is our adorable English bulldog, Rooney Wayne or just plain Roo.

Official pet number two of the home is the regal arowana fish called Meow-Meow. Meow-Meow?! That’s another story all by itself. Then there is the pondful of fishes of various species. Not forgetting the two turtles and two tortoises, all official status of course.

All pets, official or otherwise, have names. All of them, yes; even the fishes in the pond, every single one of them. But to make things easy for identification, M2 christened the whole school, Bob. Clever, ain’t she?

Now, the pets are labelled official simply because daddy takes care of them. M1, M2 and myself just give moral support and enjoy them.

The urge to mother and care for a pet sometimes would strike M2. Whenever the hubby buys some live frogs or shrimps for Meow-Meow as food, M2 would ask, “Ooh! Can I have one as a pet?” Yes, even a shrimp can be a pet.

But as she is a school-going, homework-laden child, caring for these pets can be tedious and their well-being neglected. So, often there will be expected deaths and burials subsequently.

There was a time we thought maybe something more substantial, to instill responsibility and a sense of ownership in M2. So for one of her earlier birthdays, we got her hermit crabs, and revived the old crabarium that used to house M1’s crabs before.

It worked out well for awhile but them hermies are a notorious bunch, partying every night and wrecking their abode like a tornado came through or something. We started with four but within a month or two, the population halved. By 6 months, the last survivor eventually died of loneliness and old age.

The crabarium has been back in the storeroom ever since.

M2 is not disheartened even when her last pet fighting fish went to pet heaven due to over feeding. Once, she tried to champion for a hamster but we fear the play thing may elevate to official status. In other words, daddy will end up taking care of it. So no can do.

In the end, she found a clever solution to having a pet of her own and with no deaths to endure. Pancake is now the happiest (conifer tree) pet—in a pot—sitting at the front of the house. With daily greetings, petting and attention whenever she goes in and out, it’s a great solution to M2 having a pet that doesn’t need feeding, just love.Image

 

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Mom Needs a Superhero Name!

14 Jun

When M1 was young, we outsourced her to a baby sitter while we worked. And every evening, she would wait by the front door, around the time when we would arrive to fetch her home. At such a tender age (hardly two), she seems to know when to station herself there. Upon hearing the car pull up at the gate, she would then run off to the kitchen yelling, “My Angie Lee is here!!!!!” to report our arrival.

Years later, M1 would not be calling me by my name but variations. When “Oh Mother dearest…” is uttered, I know she wants to buy something and would be at her best in manners to make her case. However, when “Eh! You know…” leaves her mouth and is quite often, I would shoot back with “Eh?? A?! B?! Excuuuuuse me!!!” and the proper address will fall into place. It’s a jovial banter that I don’t recall doing with my mother in my younger days.

Unlike her elder sibling, M2 has summoned me “Sup Philaf!” (albeit a short stint only) during the Captain Underpants years. But she has also decided to give me a superhero name. She claims all moms are like superheroes and as the name “Angie” is so “nyeh”, I need a more heroic sounding name. So my superhero alter-ego is called……

 

Linda. Smack you if you laughed.

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Mom Goes on A Date

14 Jun

When M1 was a little toddler (if memory serves me well, she was three) and M2 has yet to be created, I thought I could take a break from being a mom and have some social life. So hubby approves to me having dinner with my girlfriends. I would tell M1 that mummy is just going out for dinner with Aunty Yew Ling and Aunty Geraldine. It will not be long as Jake’s is quite close to home and as soon as we are done eating, I will be home. I said Goodbye several times and reminded the hubby of the do’s and don’ts before I could finally walk through the door.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, the first of the many calls came. “Mummy! Are you there yet?” “Who is with you?” A short little explanation and I hung up. My friends were very patient and understanding; after all, we grew up together and understand each other very well.

In the midst of our girly chatter, another call came through. “Hi Mummy! What are you doing?” “Are you eating now?” “What did you order?” “Is it nice?” “What is Aunty Yew Ling eating?” “What about Aunty Geraldine?” More explanations took place before I hung up again.

But before I could heave a sigh of relief, another call. “Mummy. What time are you coming home?” “Why are you still with Aunty Yew Ling and Aunty Geraldine?” Sigh.

By the time M2 came around, you can be sure girly dinners never happened until much much later in our lives. Amazingly when daddy goes out while the girls are playing, they would not have an inkling of his disappearance. No dramatic acts of clinging onto your legs to prevent an escape. It will be two hours later before they realized, “Where’s Daddy?”

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Suckered Again and Again

13 Jun

Every now and then, right after the school exams, I will call home to check on them receiving their results. Dutifully, M1 would report her results, with the usual opening of “Good news or bad news first?” followed with enthusiasm, no nonsense reporting and all’s fine; I don’t have to have a panic attack. However, the same cannot be said for M2, the drama queen.

She would put on a sombre tone and rattle off a number, say 58 for a subject, catching me off guard and I would be like “Aiyoh! So bad ah?” Then she’d go, “No laa, mummy, it’s actually 85! heheheh” I would be caught in this little play, many times, believe me, many times. The drama queen’s good.

The Captain Underpants Years

13 Jun

Letters From the Authorities

During this time when M2 was reading Captain Underpants, I came home one day and found these, two days in a week. Needless to say, M2 and I had a talk about it and since then, no more letters came my way…
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Following that, during one of my routine calls home to check on them, I was greeted with a deep voice attempt: “Mabel’s Residence”. Muffling a chortle, I played along and asked for M2 then queried the voice if she was M2. But no…. the voice said she was Janice, M2’s assistant and I was put on hold before M2 came to the phone! We then had a normal conversation.

It’s so hilarious. I don’t think I even dared to try this on my parents back then, let alone think about something like this! My creative child makes me so proud! In this era, I guess one must be open-minded and understanding to be cool parents, or we end up mirroring our own strict parents.

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Is English a Funny Language?

13 Jun

I’ve always loved telling my kids that prior to attending college, their grandma (my mother) had advised me to study English to become an English teacher (don’t laugh!), this being a noble profession. But I would scoff at that idea and gently break my mother’s heart and convinced her that I would fare better as a graphic designer instead.

While in college, I did enjoy my English classes, having signed up for both English101 & English102 AND scoring ‘A’s in both courses. I am most proud of the ‘A’ in English102 because firstly, it is not a typical class taken by Asian students and secondly, the lecturer was a mean looking, typical American lady and I was the only Asian student daring enough to be in her class full of American students. Until today, I still remember her name, Carol Ewing (and thoughts of Dallas and its theme song would break out in my mind!) Thankfully, the class was more of creative writing and I guess I stood above the rest.

Despite this, I feel my knowledge of the language is inadequate as I still cannot tell the difference between a verb, a noun and a pronoun, you know, all those linguistic jargon which are very important, along with correct punctuations and pronunciations. But having said that, it irks me to no end to see spelling mistakes and grammar error.

Last night M1 was sharing stories about her teacher and the way she pronounces her signature phrase: “Thats mean…” instead of “That means…” It has becoming so glaringly wrong and disturbing that her friends decided to pick on it. They purposely created a scenario to question the teacher to prompt her reply. And the whole time using the erred sentence repeatedly to the teacher, unaware of the situation! Naughty kids!

I think “That’s mean!” in this proper context of use.

And not to be outdone, M2 also shared about her teacher, who made a comment “I knows” in class. Immediately, her good friend made eye contact with her and pointed to her eyes and nose! These 12 year olds are so cheeky but then again, are they at fault?

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