Mindspace

Nally 9 year and 8 months

 Nally woke up in them middle of the night because of jetlag and looked for her homework. i looked at her this morning and thought -- look how much you’re grown baby girl. All the years of struggling in kindergarten and first grade paid off, you are finally self-disciplined. It moves me especially with her. Since i know unlike her brother who is a focussed, goal oriented bullet, this process hasn’t come easy. It has taken hours of dropped pencils, ripped slices of donuts, clocked in hours at Starbucks, on purple plush arm chairs, me insulated with 4.5 years of Psych reading to keep me properly distanced and prevented from killing her every second she gets distracted by a change in air pressure.
Today, she can finish pages of chinese, a language she hates and is counting the years till middle school where she doesn’t have to do it anymore. Today, she can take the total number of homework pages divided by 4 and find out what she needs to do per day. More than that, she has accomplished what i feared she would never do ( Which her father is still trying to master ) -- learning to do what she does not like doing.
Yesterday i heard her banging on the piano for a good 30 mins. No small feat for someone who runs to her bedroom crying every time i ask for a replay. It’s been a practice for me to not meddle, take 50 steps back and take my anxieties to my therapist.
But almost 9, she is just beautiful. Grown up and poised. Learning how to “handle” her brother. i watch her talk him down from escalated mood swings, distract him from full blown tantrums, and i think “ Girl, even if you don’t end up a therapist, you have more skills and knowledge about how to handle your brother and men than i ever had your age”.
But she has always been an old soul. Bonding with adults as a baby more than her peers. Her brother rambles on and on about the private lives of his classmates. She misses her CLUBBED camp leader Albert and writes to him. Everyone says i got my hands full for the teen years, but for now, she loves and respects me. And somehow her affection is worth its weight in gold.

Preschool Family

Preschool Family continues to be such an integral part of my parenting.
For me, Tuesday mornings are the only times when i get to focus on my son and simply celebrate his being. To pretend he is an only child and to really see him. Tuesday evenings during the night meetings, i am still fumbling with not filling out Natalie's name when it comes to forms with "child's name", practicing talking about Aidan without being in context of Natalie, not running to examples or burning issues about my daughter instead of my son.
Nally never made it to the 2s. We took her out of the program and put her in my beloved Crescent Park. I was bitter about it, since i really needed a drop off with a new baby. This year, it just tickles me silly to see Aidan in his first "preschool environment". PSF scaffolds it so nicely. We work 1 of the 2 days and we drop the kid off with a partner on the second. They learn to separate slowly and surely. Preschool family kids are handled with kid gloves. Their parents are coached to be the most developmentally astute parents under the sun. We are warned, forewarned, and supported through each developmental milestone.
For me too the responsibility of watching someone else's child has been heavy. i've gotten into such a grove of faith with my 2 kids. Ironically you watch someone else's kid like a hawk. But the skills of being dependable, depending on other mothers for support, watching the kids in spatial zones, extending yourself toward someone else's kid -- these are not ones that come naturally to me.
Just the other day as i found myself actually enjoying being a snack parent, cleaning up the classroom, washing the dishes, while watching 2 kids i realized -- i've grown after all. As someone in community, as my son's parent, as a person, as a mother.

Strategies for Talking to Nally ( and Enoch )

Strategies for confrontation with Nally ( and Enoch )

• Stay calm and non-emotional
• Use low tones
• Make request at eye level, making eye contact, in quiet tones, preferably touching
• Moderate conversation tension with fantasy ( wouldn't it be nice ... ) or distraction before returning to issue
• End every conversation with "i love you" BEFORE the task is completed

It's amazing how Super Nanny translates into marriage.

My child the Thinker

It's official -- i have a Thinker. i am thumbing through "Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime" (Mary Sheedy Kurcinka)
today and she had a really good list that i thought pegged Nally down to a T  -- no pun intended.( i didn't think you could do Myers Briggs that young )
If your child is a thinker she probably

• is an excellent critical thinker who is able to quickly analyze the facts.
• find it easier to explain what happened than how she feels about it.
• needs to know "why" things are done and loves a good debate
• values justice and is alarmed when something is unfair
• hates to feel incompetent and becomes upset if you review her mistakes with her or suggest other strategies.
• does not want to talk about her feelings when she is upset.
• highly values truth and may get into trouble for being too blunt.

It's not surprising i understand her, because i am a thinker. The one that resonates with both of us is our discomfort with feeling incompetent and our need for things to be fair.
The little girl still hates to be "taught" anything --everything from demonstrating how to write her alphabets to strokes in the pool. We never knew she could draw or write, or remember her numbers or lower-cases until she showed us one day -- a drawing perfectly rendered or her sounds totally mastered. It was like a gift to be let in to her knowledge.
It'll be tricky for her to learn in school.
By the same token, it's hard for Enoch to understand the importance of seeming "fair" and consistent with her and of working out the entire universal rules in your head before introducing them, of anticipating every pitfall, every loophole, every way she could turn it against you. Every interaction with you is recorded for posterity and retrieved 3 months later.
Once successfully instituted however, the rule runs itself. She is the first to implement it on herself, on you and on the whole family.

Strategies for Cooperation

Little girl's been testing her limits lately. i am toggling between being this indifferent impatient mother who keeps rolling her eyes and being someone that is trying her darnest to be there for her emotionally. i do notice when i shut her out and refuse to listen to her, she escalates.

Strategies for cooperation with Nally

• One-time request/instruction. Making a request more than once trains your child to wait for you to escalate to comply.
• Present reason for instruction if requested. Do not offer a reason otherwise.
• One-time reminder of consequences for non-compliance in a low-tone, non-emotional voice ( courtesy of Supernanny ) No time-outs without warning.
• Introduce logical consequence in a calm non-emotional manner

Things that don't work with Nally

• Nagging. Badgering almost always ensures her ignoring you.
• "Because i say so". This thinker needs face to obey.
• Any whiff of a power struggle or escalation on your part ( i always trip on this one )
• Letting her get away with no consequences ( sets the precedence for enabling )

Mah Mah is coming!

This summer is this one long term of being with family.
For someone who was worried about regression going back in May, i am taking to it like fish in water. i am questioning again what exactly is wrong with the Chinese idea of " 3 generation under one roof ", especially since it takes such enormous pressure off marriage and parenting.
Who cares about individual mind space and growth?
We're getting ready for my mother's arrival and my father is already missing the kids. He's slipped into such an natural part of the routine and schedule, i can't even imagine him not being there.
Everything from getting milk at bedtime to getting baby boy in the morning.
It's been a wonderful time having him here.

Lessons on Rage from a 4 year old

Something's shifted in Nally and it's been hard to put a finger on it. She's more cognitive, and she looks deep into your eyes as if trying to sense the sincerity of your motives. She's sassy and full of attitude. She lays threats of "not wanting to be my friend". The other day, she threw this huge tantrum and said " well i don't want to be your friend! " and then like the English weather turned, smiled demurely and said " but i still love you " she looks at me demurely.  " and Jesus loves you". i swear it's like PMS hormones in a 4 year old.
Her independence has been accompanied by insistent requests for companionship -- be it drawing, or walking, or holding my hand. Something's wrong with the picture of 5 hand-free adults, and me struggling with 2 children in both hands just because they want "mommy's hand". Enoch says i should be flattered, i say, there are some jobs that should be outsourced.
Day 4 of Jet Lag wars, Nally wakes up like clockwork at 2 am in this full-blown rage. Baby boy starts to wail and i just lose it. Armed with episodes of Super Nanny in my head, i go out determined to draw the invisible boundaries of " staying in your bed". But something's changed. Even with my " no eye-contact" and " low tone of voice", Nally keeps popping up. She seems to like being thrown back in bed repeatedly. She screams to disproportional degrees and now i am fantasizing about this slow motion vision of me knocking her out in a boxing ring.
Then suddenly, it occurs to me that what is traumatizing my child is our disconnection.
" Nally, i know it's hard to go to sleep. We are all having problems sleeping  but it's not ok to scream like this "
" But i call and you call and you don't come."
" Was that you? That sounded like a large, scary monster with no words. He stamps his foot and moves things around in your room. Listen to Aidan he is so scared he probably thinks there is an elephant out here."
She listens intently.
So i get her my soft sweater and i wrap it around her, saying how it's like a hug from Jesus and Me.
i sing her the song from her Chinese school about the little rabbits that don't open the door unless they recognize their mommy's voice and i tell her that's how i feel.
" You don't sound like Natalie. My Natalie uses her words. So i'm scared, i close my door and i say i'm not coming out "
She listens.
" But if you use your words and say " mommy i need a hug" i will be more than happy to come out " " So i'm going to go in right now and tell Aidan it's not a monster and i will come back and check on you. But no more monsters when i leave the room ok ? "
" Ok " she smiles bemused.
" You can think about all the things you want to do with Gong gong tomorrow "
" And you can think about things too "
" And we can let him choose "'
She smiles.
We blow kisses. We say " i love you" as i walk all the way down the hall.
i hold my breath and get in bed.
and it's silence.
It's a miracle.
Silence.
Welcome to the world of 4 year olds.

The Myth of Coparenting

When i tell people that i waited seven years to have children, i tell them that watching how kids changed the lives of the couples-friends we loved was the best birth control.
But these days, i am finally willing to admit that it was the lifestyle of the women that stopped me from having children. Most of our peers were in residency then, and i watched the women struggle with parenting young children alone. i watched how their lives and careers upheaved and their husbands' lives stayed completely intact. i shuddered and swore that would never happen to me. i would have my children when my husband could be physically and emotionally present.
i never regretted it. By the time Nally was born, enoch was out. He worked hard days but not enough for him to not be there for every middle of the night those first 2 weeks, feeding his little girl while i pumped. For the first 3 years after, i always boasted of being "dispensable". i trained my children to never "prefer" either one of us. i could leave and trust my husband completely for a night or a weekend.
It was more than the logistics, it was sharing an experience. It's the bonding that came from caring for and loving the same children. It's knowing the nuts and bolts of what makes up their day, knowing them enough to fill in sentences that don't have the vocabulary to complete, to understand fears that have been cumulating, the ability to interpret the real reasons behind tantrums. It's the shared experience at the end of the day that would be the only motivating force prompting appreciation and "thank yous" that nobody else sees due. i could fall asleep at night knowing my husband knew what my day was like. 
Co-parenting --  i was dead set on having it. My mother didn't. i came from generations of women who never experienced it -- i was going to be one of few to.
Yet today as i help Aidan stick stickers on a page of lions, my eyes fell on the female lion with her cubs. All around her male counterparts roared on the adjoining pages baring their teeth. She stood stately as her cubs clung to her. i wondered if i was fighting what was so evident in nature.
i had co-parenting but not without a cost. There were constant tensed negotiations everyday. He still made decisions assuming that i was the one that was to stay with the kids ( my constant question " who's baby sitting ? " ). i defined business hours for my mothering work ( 7am-8pm ) but i never got to turn that mental switch off. He never shared my stress in handling two because a lot of the time, he was handling one. He was a cheerful responder to my requests for help but he still had to be asked. He could still disassociate 2 feet away from a crisis or disaster. In short he was a fantastic mother's helper but still not mommy.
i started to question whether the the goal of having him share my maternal experience and undergo the same stress and angst i did, (so as to prompt genuine appreciation) was a futile one. Was i working against the grain, the Original Design?
Was my husband never going to learn to appreciate me via empathy. Was he going to just have to fake it?
When baby boy was 1.5 years old, i decided to pick my battles and throw in this one. It was either a lifetime of trying to replicate the maternal experience in my husband's head via brute force immersion or i was going to spend that energy having a life.
i picked the latter. The result is a life so vastly different, both of us won't touch the nanny budget with a 10-foot pole no matter how tight our finances. We view it with a sacredness of someone who has restored years to our life. i view it as finally having that maternal companion that i've longed for in the father of my children. He sees it as finally being liberated to do the things he's wanted to do now that he's career is off the ground.
i won't kid you: i think about what my nanny costs me all the time. When i see the remaining bits of my husband threaten to "check out" now that he's contributed to care-taking. When i see his definition of fathering fit in perfectly with all the fathers here in Asia. He is the champion of all dads among his peers here in Singapore. Here in Asia, i have to accede to his assertion "i do far more than any father i know...".
But what does it mean when the requirements of fathering are so easily surpassed, and the ones for mothers are insatiable ?
i argue with my mother that i am not fighting a comparison battle with all the fathers in the world, but i am fighting for the fathering my children need and cannot get from me.
So the world has a shitty history of fathers who have been there for their kids ( apart from putting food on the table ), why should my family join them? Especially since, we are one of the privileged few that can give more.
My husband works 3 16-hour days. He is free 4 days a week. Why can't we expect more quality family time from him than other dads who are struggling on business trips away from their families or slogging late hours?
Somedays, i feel bad for copping out and getting a nanny instead of choosing to hammer out family values that can only happen when push comes to shove.
Other days, i think why should i pay the price and force-feed a value that is so fundamentally different between my husband and i.
God will take care of my children.
My children will be fine.
Some things are not worth fighting for.

Mothering with a Mute Button

i always said that i could get mothering down pat if i had a mute button.
This i found especially true since i had my son, who, after i attended a lecture on learning styles, is every inch a verbal processor. Couple that with an extrovert personality, and it is a non-stop auditory invasion.
i also learnt in that same lecture that i was not an auditory learner. This is not to say that i don't enjoy music or love listening to talk radio but it means i have the grievous tendency to "hear everything". i have indiscriminate hearing. i can't block sounds out.
i can do most of the tricky things of mothering -- design multi-age educational distractions during wait-times at restaurants, envision potential disasters and preparing extra-clothes, snacks for potential melt-downs. i can sleep train, teach self-reliance, get girls ( no track record with boys yet ) to "use words" instead of whine.
But those times when i have demands in pre-verbal toddler-ese, sarcastic preschool-ese, and prolific boisterous Mandarin as articulated by my nanny ( who conveniently does not understand English ) i just positively lose it.
i go into mental overload. i malfunction. i break down. i have visions of running from the house. Sometimes i do. Nally knows that mommy needs time-out to feel less crabby. She sometimes prescribes exercise to "feel better".
i know that the minute i move into the next room, and the silence hits me, the relief is instantaneous. It's the noise. i need a mute button desperately.
With baby girl, it worked perfectly. She is an introvert and spoke late. Her cry-it-outs were 15 minutes max. Even now, her sentences are paused, long contemplated, insightful and patient. We sit in silences and ponder comfortably.
We watch baby boy's long drawn out temper tantrums with a detached confused bemusement of a foreign film without subtitles.
" Do we do that Nally ?" i ask introspectively.
" No" she says.
" What do we do instead"
" Use our words "
We both nod gravely.
But baby boy never stopped talking from birth. His cry-it-outs are 2 hours long. Even now as a good sleeper, he talks for 30 minutes to himself before sleeping. He wakes up talking.
Nally used to wake me up with the sweet sounds of "mommy...." His are violent, increasingly loud demands " Mommy... MOmy..... MOMMY! MOOOMMY!!!!" i am awakened by commando-like bugle calls in the morning.
i swear it's contagious because now Nally is starting to call. Granted hers are these sweet demure " Excuse me mommy...". She is learning the incremental technique though.
Presently, i am implementing a "No-nagging Mommy" campaign with severe consequences ( ie. " if you ask twice the answer is? " no " they say in cheerful unison )
Hopefully it'll work, or i'm praying for a mute button for my birthday.

Whole different Animals

i was watching Aidan and Nally in the IKEA ball pit the other day and was just marveling at how completely different they are. At age 1.5 and 3.5, they are just wildly different animals. They miss each other's social cues completely.
Aidan runs over and hugs her passionately and she pushes him away. She is brisk and detached, calmly stepping over him when he falls and yet she save him parts of her Sunday School snack, and is meticulous about making sure he has "everything she does".
They miss each other completely. i say " look Aidan Nally's being sweet say "thank you". My hurt twinges a little when the little man offers up an peace offering or love gift and she looks at it with incredulous horror.
i look at them and ask what kind of crazy joke is this that men and women are suppose to get married and make things work.
Wouldn't it be a lot easier for us to simply love our "like gender" ?  ( i am not make a statement about homosexuality  ) At least we would know what we're working with. It would be like parenting a girl vs. a boy.
Could it be that right from the beginning, at age 1.5 and 3.5, it would never work to begin with.
That marriage, this insane idea was a "ploy" from God to keep us dependent on Him. To keep us on our knees in sheer desperation shaking our heads the way i do when i see my little man. A whole different specie, nothing all of our intellect and intelligence can help us understand.
That marriage was suppose to break without Him.