Because the previous post was a Cheat One™.

Hi. I’m back.

Here’s the account of @cheesiepetit in the past month. I finally had some time sanity to sit down and pen my thoughts.

Disneyland debut for Sakura.

 

For Junya

1st month , 2nd month , 3rd month , 4th month , 5th month , 6th month , 7th month 8th month, 9th month , 10th month , 11th month , 12th month , 13th month , 14th month 15th month , 16th month , 17th month , 18th months , 19th month , 20th month ,21st month , 22nd month , 23rd month 24th month , 25th month , 26th month , 27th month , 28th month , 29th month , 30th month , 31st month , 32nd month , 33rd month , 34th month , 35th month , 36th month , 37th month , 38th month 39th month , 40th month , 41st month , 42nd month , 43rd month , 44th month , 45th month and 46th month here.

 

Nihongo

We spent 3 weeks in Japan and suddenly his first language became Japanese. It’s really very cute because whenever he doesn’t know a word he replaces it with English.

“Mama watashi no leg wa ira ira suru” (My leg is irritated (?))

“Mama kore ii nioi kara smell shite!” (It’s a nice scent please smell it!)

Chatterbox before sleep

He can’t stop talking right before he sleeps. He’d lay in his bed and be yapping and yapping and yapping about his fantasy complete with exaggerated hand gestures  (“then the truck came down and just swooosh!!! like this fall on the shinkansen, and the shinkansen move up here, and everybody go down to the staircase and BOOM! and MELT the lion, so the blue color light is blinking and I close it and then….”) and I was just like oooooh, wow…. uh huh… and he doesn’t care he just kept talking until he is soooo tired and doze off. Haha.

 

Patissier , cleaner, architect, rocket scientist…

He is so many things. Sometimes all at once.

Baker.

Cereal chemist. Experimenting with his newly hired cluless intern. Mix and match to see what will explode and what will not. (In most cases mama’s temper will.)

Engineer. He designed this “Kabocha Basha” (Pumpkin Horse Carriage). I am assuming that his cluless intern has been promoted to be his princess.

Fireworks scientist. He said this is the firework station where hanabi is about to launch. Made with a tripod, Magiclean mop, a plastic rose and a broken snorkel gear. I am assuming the Meiji milk stick is the gun powder to fuel the fireworks. Also the canned fish are… I dunno, explosives, I guess. There are just a lot of bombing going on in this house.  I’m not allowed to meddle with it because it is very dangerous apparently.

Today he’s just a… terrorist.

It’s one of those day I felt like saying to my captor – “don’t torture me anymore. Just… shoot me.

Then I made him my slave.

 

Reflection Time

I try to practice a reflection time when I tuck him to bed. For me, for him. Usually when I had scolded him or became unreasonably angry, I try to make it up to him by ending the day positively.

We talk about the things that happened that day, what he did good, what he did not so good, and I thank him for all the things he did good. Thank you for being a good boy at dinner today, thanks for cleaning up the toys just now… etc.

But to my surprise, he does not accept all of them. I’m not sure if it’s in his Japanese genes to have this compulsory self-deprecation. When I praise him and thank him, he’d think about it for awhile, and then very factually reply, “No no mama, you don’t say thank you because today I spilled the cereal and I didn’t clean up. That’s why you don’t say thank you.” (And then I’ll have to explain to him “yea you didn’t clean up the cereal but you helped put the tomica back into the box. So I still have to thank you for that.)

 

For Sakura

My baby Sakura turned 2.

2 years old!!!

Read Sakura’s 1st month, 2nd month , 3rd month , 4th month , 5th month 6th month , 7th month , 8th month 9th month , 10th month , 11th month , 12th month , 13th month , 14th month , 15th month , 16th month , 17th month , 18th month , 19th month , 20th month , 21st month , 22nd month and 23rd month here.

 

Care bear

She’s a little care bear. I feel that she can understand a lot of complicated emotions now, and she shows that she cares.

Where papa? She asks me everyday after the danna goes to work.

Mama itai? (painful?)  She asks me when she sees a scratch or wound on my body.

Sorry mama. Sometimes even when I’m just quiet and looking a little not too happy, she volunteers to say sorry, even though it could be her brother who made me upset.

T_T

Dowan Mama

On the flip side, she could also be a mini devil when she’s unhappy. She splurts DOWAN MAMA!! in a sulky tone alllllllll the time, whenever things don’t go the way she wants.

(dowan nii nii)

When Junya doesn’t let her play with something, she grouches, DOH-WAN Nii Nii. And then when I try to explain to her aiding her brother (cuz she’s the one being unreasonable), she’d turn to me, DOH-WAN mama oso.

🙄🙄🙄

This one confirm is pick up from her brother. Haih.

But she changes mood much faster than her brother, so after a few minutes she’d come to me herself and be like “sorry mama. Don’t say dowan mama okeh?”

 

Sakura Says

DAAK!

She started talking sooooo much but sometimes I have no freaking idea what she’s talking about. And I can’t just simply 敷衍了事 just brush her off saying “ooooh I see!” She won’t buy it. She will insist that I repeat what she says to make sure I understand EXACTLY what she said.

Example.

“Mama, daak?”
“Hmm? (what?!) Oh I see. Yea!”
“No. Daak!”
“Err.. dark?”
“No daak!!!!”
“Duck?”
“Nooo. DAAK!!!!!”
“Truck??”
“Yes. Daak.”

😂😂😂

 

BURG

“Mama. Burg.”
“Burg?”
“AH. AH. AH.”
“Oh. Bird. Crow.”
“Yesh.”

 

Teeta Tetet

“Mama. Teeta tetet.”
“Ok ok ok. Take off jacket.”
“Yesh.”

 

ABUNAI!!!

She now learned how to abuse the word “abunai” (“dangerous” in Japanese).

Place her on her high chair, she screams ABUNAAAAI! So that I will carry her onto my lap to eat.

Place her on the edge of bed she yells ABUNAAAAI! So I will hold her and change her clothes.

Place her on any general platform of a certain height and she’d be like ABUNAAAIIII! so that I will have to continue to carry her.🙄🙄🙄

 

Mama? Mama. Mama?

It’s horrible. I think I’ll just give up weaning forever until she ownself feel shy or something. She’s back to waking up multiple times a night. I write in this blog on this topic until I sian.

She doesn’t even cry anymore, she just crawls next to me, and keeps calling, “Mama. Mama? Mama!!” until I lift my shirt to reveal my oppai T___T.

Sometimes during day time when she wants to nurse, she even dare to be shy!! And will just look at me wide-eyed and whine “hmmmmm~~~”. I pretend not knowing what she wants then she’ll be a bit louder “HMMMM~~~!”. It keeps on going until I give up and ask her, “oppai?” and she gives the biggest smile, “yesh.”

Haih.

(Oh but still there’s something awesome about it!! Being addicted to oppai makes it almost impossible for her to be angry at me for a long time. Every time she says “DOHWAN MAMA”, and I’ll be like, “you mean you don’t want oppai?” then immediately her face changes and softens down, and there she goes, “sorry mama.😞”. Yeap. I still hold absolute power as long as there’s oppai.)

 

For Mama

1

A couple of weeks ago Junya had an accident. It was completely my fault. Sakura had had fever for days and I was major stressed and was already moody. We were fighting because I insisted that he can only eat snack after proper dinner. He was very upset and tried to snatch the snack from me, I resisted, and by the force of pulling he slipped and fell of the chair and knocked his mouth onto the metal part of the trampoline and before I knew it he was crying with blood all over his mouth and I was crying because I panicked not knowing what to do AND BECAUSE I HURT HIM. IT WAS MY FAULT.

He fractured his front tooth. Both of us were in shock. The feverish, wailing Sakura became super quiet because she was shocked too seeing our reactions. Everyone was in shock.

The danna rushed back and calmly brought all of us to the dentist to have him checked. He is ok now. It’s lucky that it was just his milk tooth which will drop in a couple of years time anyway.

But I repented. I spent days and days repenting what I had been feeling and unknowingly doing to all my family members. I was angry, moody, irritable and stressed out the whole time. I didn’t realized how much negative energy I have been spreading to everyone in the house.

For many months now I had been quite cold and impatient especially with Junya. At almost 4 I expected him to behave more civilized and less drive-me-up-the-wall. I kept my distance because I knew that I was like a time bomb that could explode any time at the littlest things that tick me off.

At the dentist I couldn’t stop crying not because I was worried, but I was shocked at how unbelievably brave he was. The dentist asked him to open mouth, he opened. Dentist touched his wound, he just laid there quietly. Dentist asked him to gargle to disinfect, he did it so obediently. Although I know it must have hurt A LOT. Dentist took X ray to check his teeth bone, he was alone in the X-ray room without a sound. Even I cannot imagine myself being this brave. And he is not even 4 yet. How dared I expect so much of him?

I repented. Greatly.

And then I realized how much a good boy he has been. At the dentist, in school. I just didn’t understand why the moment he comes home he’s a completely different person. This wild, uncontrollable mini terrorist. But now I know. It is because kids do have stress too. They are forced to do what they are told by many many different adults. They are trying their best to be their best self outside. They have to do things that they don’t like, just because they are told to. They have to be brave. They have to be strong. They have to put up with lots of things that they don’t understand. And when they finally come home to familiar faces, they just want to manja a little. Release a little. Be a little wilder. Act a little more willful. Have a little more love from us parents. And I had been depriving him of his little indulgence. I didn’t give him love. Everyone needs to de-stress, right? Outside stress, come home also stress, anyone will go crazy, right?

I was so ashamed of myself. I remember when I gave birth, all I prayed was that he was born a healthy baby. 4 years later, suddenly I have so many extra expectations. Must be obedient. Must have good manners. Must learn to clean up toys. Must eat vegetables. Must this must that…

Whatever happened to “just wish he is healthy”? If I’m god, I will just tell this greedy mommy off to stop expecting so much. Your son is already healthy. Whatever is more, are bonuses.

I will atone my sin. Less anger, more patience, more love.

2

Last week I mentally collapsed. Lots of things happened, I couldn’t eat or sleep and I was 37KG. The lowest since secondary school.

I didn’t celebrate mother’s day because I forgot about it. I sometimes do wonder why I had kids. I hated kids before I had any. It’s a lot of work. It makes you lose sleep, lose weight, lose focus on work, lose all the happy things you used to love and enjoy when you were childless, lose sanity, and worst, lose yourself.

Having kids also put a tremendous test on your marriage. Now you have to work on both your kids and your marriage. Sometimes you just want to pack your bags and just disappear for a few days because F it you’re done with all these mothering bullshit so you don’t F care anymore BUT YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU ARE A MOTHER AND YOU CAN’T JUST DUMP YOUR CHILDREN AT HOME AND F CARE ABOUT THEM.

I think this is the shittiest part of motherhood. It’s not the cooking, changing, bathing, coaxing, threatening, paying attention when you just want to black out, cleaning up spilled cereals cookie crumbs hot soup sandwich bits and vomit that is daunting. It is that you have nowhere to escape to or fall back on when you are about to collapse. When you feel like shit, you can’t really be really feeling like shit because you still have to care for other people and pretend that you’re not feeling like shit. That’s the WORST.

I wanted to just really allow myself to truely feel like shit for once without caring about other people’s assorted shit anymore. So I hurled myself at that oncoming speed train. I jumped right down.

(Luckily only in my mind.)

And then I mentally blacked out for days. Some of me is still broken, to be honest. Lots of things needs to be fixed inside. You can’t heal from a mental train wreck in days.

I don’t have a solution to this, and I don’t think I ever will. But one step at a time, even though it looks to me like a fkcing Batu Caves staircase. To exercise your heart. Make it tougher every day. Give it some serious muscle.

To try again the next day. Because you are a mother.

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