Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

The other day when I was playing MafiaWar on Facebook, I came across this quiz from NeslacExcella. An interesting quiz for us, to see if we have ever wondered which famous historical figure our children may share similar characteristics with.

I did the test. Quite difficult to choose the answers, because sometimes I can’t decided whether Ian/Isabel belongs to which, A or B. Like for example, the first question “My child is…” A=animated, B=daring. I think Ian is both, and Isabel is none of them. So, which one should I choose??!! You should try yourself to find out!

Ian’s result: “Your child is emotionally artistic like Leonardo da Vinci and an intellectually decisive leader like Abraham Lincoln.”

Isabel’s result: “Your child is emotionally adventurous like Christopher Columbus and an intellectually decisive leader like Abraham Lincoln.”

I would expect them to be completely different, so the part about Abraham Lincoln was a bit of surprise.

This quiz then led me to their website Excellence Begins Young. Actually hor, what caught my attention here is the question in the bubble “Should you push fussy children to sleep?“

The other day when chat with Piggy on Facebook, I told her that I would BRB, needed to let the kids sleep. In about 15 min I was back to chat. She was very shock and said they are well-trained. Piggy, if you are reading this, do check out this site, coz they have the answers for this in the Expert Corner. I did exactly what was shared there. Tips are very effective in training kids to sleep.

The other interesting offer in this site is the Activities area. There are 3 activities there. At first I wasn’t interested in the first one “True or False Quiz“.

I thought I would know all the answers lah! But hor… I sombong-sombong but only scored 8 out of 10. One was silly mistake, but another one was really a misunderstanding. I learnt something. If you take the quiz, let me know your score and what is your mistake? I don’t want to share mine first, not to spoil the fun of the quiz!

The second activity, “Child Development Tracker“, is for children up to 24 months. It is quite cute, with animation and sound. It shows 4 child development areas – movement, speech, skills and cognitive. And when you choose your child’s age at the bottom, the boy (wonder if they have girl?!) will change his size accordingly. LOL! I like it when he says “Mama” – that is exactly what my kids call me!!! Isabel is imitating it now as I am writing! LOL! It also has a tool to give you tips on how you could achieve the milestones, in case your kids are a little behind. Worth taking a look at it, and I believe you could look at stages beyond your child’s age as well. Maybe I am kiasu lah! (BTW, don’t worry if your child cannot do those, coz every children develops differently.)

The third activity is for the kids, not for us moms. It is a set of flash cards. If you have your kids with you, can play this together!! It is also available in Mandarin. Currently it is available for fruits, vegetables, shapes and colors. 2 more categories still under development.

BTW, they have another application on Facebook to Create Fun Photo. You know me lah, I never share my children’s photos, not even on my FB, so that is really not for me. But I went to check out the gallery, very interesting and nice photos there. Maybe Jazzmint should check it out since you love photography and have lots of nice photos!!

Remember I wrote about an article that explains scientifically what causes ghost oppression? I told everyone that I have never experienced it.

Not until this morning.

At about 5:20am, Isabel came to my room crying. She said she was scared. I accompanied her to her room, settled her, came back… just within a min she did that again. This went on for a few rounds until I was too tired, I decided to sleep with her.

So, I lied down on her left, in her tiny single bed. Slowly I drifted off (Isabel still not slept yet despite I was there).

Suddenly, something jerked me up.

It was something wriggling under the mattress violently. It pushed up and down like someone was beneath me.

I was terrified. I wanted to scream, but no sound. I couldn’t move. It was exactly like that ghost oppression that legend says.

The sensation was so real. I felt that the mattress risen on my left (at the left edge of the bed), and something came out underneath trying to reach me.

I felt it, I swear I was very conscious. I was so scared but couldn’t scream. I kept praying and praying and praying, but couldn’t mutter a sound.

I wanted to move my left hand to punch that thing, but I was frozen and mute.

At that point, I could feel Isabel rolling on my right, turned to face me. I could feel her warmth on my right side, but my left was cold.

I struggled so hard, suddenly I could move my arm, and a loud but somehow muffled “ARRGGHH!!” followed by my punch on the mattress on the left.

I was suddenly ‘released’ by that strong grip. Isabel asked me “what, mama”?. I just said nothing.

It felt so real. Honestly, I didn’t make this up. I think of it again, I still feel the chill.

But then… when I was ‘released’, I didn’t feel the mattress dropped/fallen. So I believe it was just something of a mind trick.

I must have fell into that state as described in that article. My mind must have awoke, but my muscle did not. But what puzzled me really was the wriggling sensation beneath me that woke me up in the first place. Geez… not sure if it was the reason why Isabel kept saying that she is scared.

You know, after my alarm clock rang, Isabel sigh “Mama, it is morning already?” and then only she relaxed and drifted to sleep.

I refused to think there is something wrong in that room. I have the church coming to cleanse the house already, it should be alright. I have never invited anything into the house (as far as I remember).

I hope it is something that the article explained. Furthermore, although the feeling was so real, I didn’t feel my mattress dropped after I conscious. So, I must have imagined things. When brain/mind plays tricks on us, that is pretty scary!!

Yesterday, on our way to dinner, Ian suddenly burst out this question in the car, “Mama, what is f*cking?”

I know, I know, we shouldn’t react so strongly, but we don’t speak foul words at home, so we really cannot accept it.

My spontaneous reaction was disbelieve and wanted to confirm. I asked him, “What? What did you just say?”

This time, he was so confident and said out and spelled out loud, “F*cking. F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

DH and I both burst out different questions at the same time.

DH: “Who say this in front of you?”
I: “Where did you hear this from?”

So, apparently he learnt it from the pirated CD he watched at MIL’s house — Transformer movie. He said, one soldier said this before the Decepticon fired at him.

We tried to explain that it is foul words, but he was so confused why the “good” soldier said it.

You see, this is the problem with pirated CDs. There is no censorship. 70% of the subtitles are wrong, 60% with spelling errors. Kids can easily learn the wrong things, especially when played and watched repeatedly.

So, this CD will be ‘banned’ now. It has never happened before, with the original CD, which we watched quite many times. Sigh!!!

Last night, I was just too tired. That’s because, Thursday night Ian kept waking me up, saying he is afraid of Monsters! Why? Coz for 2 consecutive nights, he watched Ultraman on ASTRO.

I asked him, “Is the monster big?”
Ian, “Yes, very big.”

“So, can it come inside the house?” “No”

“Then, why are you afraid? It is not in the house!” “But what about aliens?”

“Aliens are big also, they cannot come inside the house. They are like giant.” “No, aliens got small one also!”

Sigh! Ya, there are small aliens also. So, I ended up slept in his bed and woke up with sore back.

I came home last night, battled and tired. Long day, had dinner in the office. Picked them up from MIL house. Reached home, went straight to sleep.

I couldn’t bother with laundry. That could wait. LOL!

Every Friday is “Sleep With Mama Day”. Love it very much, but DH will have to sleep in the guest room (he can’t sleep with the kids around).

We like doing this –> everyone turn to one side (Ian’s side). I hug Ian, and Isabel hugs me. Like holding bolsters. LOL! This is the position that everyone is happy. Isabel would kiss me all the time on my shoulder/arm. Very sweet… And Ian would care my hands that wrap around him, kiss them too all the time.

I brought my laptop into the room, thinking that after the kids sleep, I could do some FB Mafia War, but I was practically unconscious before the kids. LOL!

There are moments that I regret of having kids – when they drive me up the wall! But… there are also moments that I feel so glad that I have them.

I have very low confidence when it comes to my appearance. But my kids really make my days.

Since starting my new job, I have to dress up a bit, unlike the previous job which I could wear casual to work.

On my first few days to work, my children were in awe most of the time, when they saw me dressed up. Isabel in particular. She would stare at me and tell me, “Mama… you are so beautiful…”

She would suddenly sigh and say, “Mmmm! Mama, I like you. You look so pretty today…” Or, “Mama, hmmm…. you so ‘xiang-xiang’ (nice smell)!”

And she would kiss me and hug me.

Wah! With all these, it is hard not to feel like butterfly! LOL! Whether I actually look good or not doesn’t matter already.

It feels so good to know there are someone at home truly adore you, don’t you think so?

Love you kids. You are also very pretty and handsome! And you smell good too!