Trying

Payback time for not doing my own art homework properly when I was a kid.

Now I do my kid’s homework. 😅

This term, they are learning about cultures and people. Hence the homework is about costumes from different cultures.

I picked the kimono because it is relevant – we are planning a vacation in Japan – so it would be more fun for her to learn and share about it, and also because I thought it should be “easier” to make.

If “easier” meant having to watch and replay and rewind and rewatch the same Youtube clip multiple times, only to discover I should have folded the reverse side so the colors could appear on the outside. 😭😂

And then I had Clarissa sitting beside me, wanting to join in and asking me every 10 seconds what she could do next.

(She drew the other eye – guess which one hahaha – and colored the hair and helped me cut the washi tape.)

I only started after dinner.

Spent the morning on course work.

Start of the new term!

Allie is enjoying her swimming lessons so much now she refuses to get out of the pool. 😅😂

She fell asleep on Daddy’s shoulder in the last few minutes of Jiejie’s lesson.

And that, my friends, was all the nap she took for the day.

15 minutes.

She woke up right after we parked our car.

She drank not one, but two bottles of milk and cheekily handed the bottle to me with a “Nah!”

Jiejie woke up earlier than usual so Daddy brought the two of them for a McDonald’s run to let me finish my last two questions of the week’s assignment.

And then it was dinner time.

Allie pooped so I gave her a shower before starting on the homework.

I should have had the sense to let her wind down earlier than her usual 8pm, but alas I was in the midst of figuring out how to fold the kimono while assigning tasks for Clarissa.

By the time it was 8pm and the hubs took her to the room for milk and bed, she refused both the milk and the bed.

He got mad at her so we swapped. He would give Clarissa her shower while I would make Allie sleep.

It was 845pm, and she was having a hard time settling. Squirmed around on the mattress. I tried to carry her to sleep. But no she was not happy and did a backward flip on to the bed. I tried to let her sleep on the bed. But she wailed. I put her in the sarong. She wailed even louder.

The hubs came in to take over while she was still crying in the sarong.

He’s much better at making her sleep on his shoulders so I asked him to pick her up from the sarong to try making her sleep.

I went to Clarissa’s room to do bedtime stories with her.

Less than a minute later, I heard cries for help from Allie’s room.

She’d cried so much she puked all over the hubs.

I got the hubs to carry Allie to the bathroom so I could wash her up and he could go to the other bathroom to clean himself up.

I’m quite averse to puke as a child (I would puke when my sisters puke, even though I wasn’t sick 😂) but motherhood has toughened me up (at least on the puke and poop front).

So I was trying to get her out of her puke-stained clothes while running the shower.. deliberately keeping a distance so I won’t get dirty. 😅😂 Not because I was afraid of puke but because I didn’t want to shower and get changed again.

Allie was still crying at this point, probably traumatised by her own puking, and she kept turning towards me, seeking a hug.

I hugged and carried her up while she rubbed her puke-stained face across my chest.. and then she calmed down.

😂😂😂

All good.

I was able to put her on the floor to wash her up.. and Clarissa appeared at the door of the bathroom with a towel.

“I prepare her pyjamas ok?” She said before running off to get Allie’s clothes.

We restarted the bedtime routine after I was done showering.

Love the look on Allie’s face whenever she picks out a book and turns to me with her mouth wide open like she’s discovered the book for her first time. She’d then bring the book over to me and plonk herself onto my lap so I could read to her. 😍

Eventually our helper took over, and I went back to Clarissa to read her bedtime story before going back to the kimono. 😂

It’s not easy.

But we’d have to keep trying anyway.

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In happier news, we celebrated Yaya’s brithday on Saturday.

Spot the new contender for candle blowing.

And the two ice-cream monsters.

Allie had more ice-cream on her face and shirt than she had gotten into her mouth, but still she enjoyed it so much she cried when we took the ice cream away.

Handmade card by Clarissa.

It says, “Thank you Yaya for cooking for us! Love, Clarissa Lin and Allison says thanks! Ayay.”

The message and handwriting are both hers.

😊😊😊