Night-night...

Each night, Kit and I spend at least 5 minutes negotiating number of books for bedtime reading. She has become very clever – she starts with 10 and settles for somewhere around 7-8 on most days. Some days, when I am adamant or just not in the mood, she will become mini me and say “7 or 20?” which is a direct lift off from my “3 or zero?” threat that I use on her occasionally when things get out of hand.

When we finally do agree on the number of books, we spend the next half hour or so snuggled up in bed reading them – and this is the time when Kit is allowed to suck her thumb and she uses her freedom to the full. Along with this comes the newly acquired habit of feeling my ear with the other finger and the even more recent habit of alternating hands so you can imagine how wet and sticky my ears are at the end of all this. Thumb on hand 1 goes in the mouth, hand 2 feels my ear - after a few seconds hand 1 with wet thumb feels my ear and dry hand 2 thumb goes in mouth and so on…

We are reading a book from the library called ‘Is your mama a Llama?’ nowadays. I love this book myself and we read this almost every day. There is a kangaroo called Rhonda in this and Kit loves the sound of this name and wants us to call her that from now on and for the last few days she was actually upset when every night she would remember that we forgot to call her Rhonda during the day!

Anyhow, once the books are read and the lights are out, Kit is happy for me to go as long as she can feel my ears one last time, go to pee and drink water (in that order)! One last hug and kiss and I’m out – monitor on and Kit is generally good for the next 10 hours.

THEN I enter Kat’s room and find her sitting quietly with a book in her favourite chair (both girls have identical chairs). READ MORE...

Kit's chair can almost always be found next to Kat's

Care for some tea?

The perfect cuppa tea!

Arrived! The most beautiful porcelain tea set Kit Kat have ever owned. We gifted one to Kat couple of years ago but it was tiny and now that the girls want to have real tea parties, they wanted to have slightly bigger tea cups. The one Kat owned was kindly passed over to Kit who broke almost all of it on the first day (probably in the excitement of actually having something so close to real!) that now only the tea service basket remains... Kat even went to the extent of asking if she could borrow my Wedgewood which threw me off a bit so I immediately went online and got them their own (if Kat wants to do something, she will get around to doing it eventually and I LOVE my Wedgewood to this day)

I was surprised (yet again!) at how clever Kit has become at picking things online – she knows just how to dart her eyes in the right directions till she’s found what she needs in the least amount of time and she will point her sticky little fingers and touch the screen gleefully with “Can I have that one, pleeeeese?”. READ MORE...

The insatiable yearning...for long tresses

HAIR!!! Maybe when I was Kat’s age, I WAS so obsessed with it? 100% has to be my genes, this one – every single morning when she comes into my room to wish me (due to the summer break schedule), the first thing I notice is the beautifully brushed hair and lip gloss (and this is before brushing teeth). At bedtime, she wants to sleep in a correct position so that her hair is not spoilt in the morning – of course, once she sleeps, it’s a different story!

Bad hair day? Never!

The pool in our building closes at 11am and Kat goes for a swim everyday (much against her wishes sometimes) during the summer break. The other day she was getting terribly late for the pool and after much agitation, grumbling and everything included I managed to send her down at 10:30am so she could have at least half hour swim – imagine my bewilderment, my shock when she came back 5 minutes later saying she had forgotten her swim hat and could not jump into the pool without one as it would spoil her hair! HAIR?!

To aggravate an already delicate (at times, hilarious) situation, Kat is now obsessed with LONG hair. She stretches and pulls her hair down from under her ears every night (Kit might do a better job I say) hoping they will grow faster...I still prefer the short style – so easy to maintain, no fuss at all...but that’s me and I cannot impose my wishes on Kat and whenever I have tried, it has never worked :-(  READ MORE...

Best friends forever? Uh-oh! Not so sure...

Best Friends Forever!

Kit has a best friend – of course her friends change ever so often and most of them are the ‘best’ anyway BUT still this friend is really Kit’s bestest friend so far. They play nicely together in the playroom, by the poolside and even go to the shops and parks together with their respective babysitters for little picnics etc.

Kit had a wonderful time at this best friend’s house a few days ago (and has since had this Can I have a baby girl or baby brother? mantra) so it was logical for me to invite her friend over to our house for a play date, right? WRONG!! It was the biggest mistake of this week at least! The other sin I committed was that I was not around for the play date. I had to run an urgent errand and as this was her BEST friend coming over, I assumed all would be fine considering there was Kat and 2 other babysitters around.

Imagine my surprise when I came home after the play date only to be told by Kat that all Kit did for the entire torturous 2 hours was cry and not share a single toy – my darling little girl who is adored by everyone around her and is the epitome of niceness and manners, who is usually such a matter of pride for me, turned into someone unpredictable just like that? Apparently, she just sat there bawling every time her friend touched any one of her toys/dolls. I believe Kit softened a little bit towards the end but wonder what went wrong? She’s had play dates before but nothing as fierce as this! (I believe in the end her friend ended up playing with Kat so I guess we did have one successful play date combo in the end)

When I questioned Kit, she said READ MORE...

Back to School

KIT KAT GO BACK TO SCHOOL (*sob*)

Loaded backpacks, lights out by 8:30pm, hopping from one after-school activity to the other – YES, the summer vacation will finally end in 2 weeks and YES, in spite of the exceptionally long break, I will miss having the girls home with me...I will miss the constant arguments, the ‘not so occasional’ kicking and punching (between Kit and Kat, of course!), the slamming of doors on each others' faces (they have been told so many times!), the never ending rounds of food being served all day long with the equally long (Kat *yawns*) stories of Ariel at the dinner table over and over again for Kit…YES I will miss all this when the girls go back to school.  READ MORE...

Pride and Joy

I am the bad cop around here and Papa is the good cop. He can never say ‘NO’ to the girls. If he feels something should be declined or taken away, some way or the other, I end up being the one who actions it and invariably I become the bad cop once again!

Kat has Papa wrapped around her little finger and Kit is surely learning FAST. They have this little game very day – Papa will come home and ask Kit – “Who do you love most, Papa, Mummy or Kat?” and Kit will raise her eyebrows, pretend to think, shrug, roll her eyes and then say – “Today is mummy day” or “Today is Kat day” and then Papa will pretend to cry and she will say “OK – today will be your day!” – then Papa will act crazy and do some jiggle wiggle and they will end up tickling each other – all this ending with five kisses for Papa – 2 cheeks, forehead, chin and lips – after all this love affair is FINALLY over, Kit will start her LONG list of complaints about Kat and how she never got those doll clothes or those books from Kat and how she pushed her...how she wishes she could have all of Kat’s things – Oh my God! Such drama for a 3.5 year old! READ MORE...

Today's Wish...A Baby?

Kit’s best friend has a baby sister and she’s just come back from a play date with her. All I’ve heard for the last 15 minutes is non-stop oohs and aahs about the little, tiny baby and how cute she is. (Kit’s also had a new baby girl cousin recently so conversations have been dominated with baby talk and baby pictures etc.)

Kit (with a puzzled look on her face): “Mummy, I don’t remember you from when you were a baby?”

Me: “That’s ok. I remember you from when you were a baby.”

Kit: “I was born when Papa was born”. She believes that. (She also believes that I am Papa’s mum!)

In our house, Kit is the expert wisher. She will always WISH. Sometimes she will wish that her toys or her dolls could fly or sometimes she will wish that all of Kat’s things could be hers (not a bad one!) or sometimes just a blanket wish to cover everything – “I wish all my dreams could come true”. However, today’s wish is different – today she is upset with me because she wishes I could “born a baby” on her birthday (by November?!) READ MORE...

Silent Heroes

When I was 10 years old, life was all about having fun today and looking forward to having more tomorrow. The complex relationship battles and awareness episodes came much later in my life and once they did, they lingered on...

Life today is so different. I look at Kat and I look at myself when I was 15-16 years old and she’s only 10! Her mind is so complex, her feelings so mature but her mind is still of a naive child. So last night, following a cue from a story of a child paedophile arrest, we discussed at length with Kat. READ MORE...

My green-eyed wonder or will it be grey?

Kat has beautiful brown eyes with even more beautiful, long eyelashes. I have to admit I have pretty eyelashes too (deteriorating bottom up, maybe? Not that top parts are enviable anymore!) BUT I think gene wise these long eyelashes come from Papa as do the long, sleek hands and feet (are only the chubby cheeks in the infant stages mine?).

Now that Kat is taking good care of her looks and face, she looks rather well turned out and smart especially with her glasses that she has to wear constantly because of her near sightedness. However, she hates wearing them and is so looking forward to the day when she can switch to wearing contact lenses. Apparently it’s best to wait till she’s 12-13 years of age before we make that switch so she’s REALLY excited (and she’s only 10!). I thought she was only excited about the makeover she was going to have – I was not aware of anything else on our visit back home from the optician until:

Kat: “Can I have green coloured lenses?” READ MORE...

How about a shower today?

When Kat was little, we had a hand-held shower, so I remember her graduating from the bath to the shower quite early on. The shower we had also had adjustable strength so Kat discovered the joys of showering much earlier on and never looked back (of course having a long bath with her toys is always a luxury which she still manages once in a while and can’t stop gloating about how much her skin glows after that!)

With Kit, things have been REALLY different – she’s always loved a bath. With dozens of toys around her, so many drama lessons, so many swimming lessons have taken place in that bath of ours! Her skin gets slightly red and itchy after being in the water for a bit long so Kit’s bath is not longer than 10 minutes on an average but even then, those 10 minutes are the most cherished moments as we race to the bathroom every day (Yes, we do that!)

SUCCESS AFTER ALL!!

Post swimming is the only time when Kit will step into the shower with Papa and she will scream! She does not like the shower one bit. For one, it’s not hand-held so you cannot play with it or do it your way and secondly it comes down on you full strength from the top – FULL STOP! So I had given up all hope of Kit graduating to the cleaner, happier world of showering in the near future (at least) when she came up to me yesterday and said:

Kit: “I think I will have a shower today like Kat.”

READ MORE...

The lonely tap with no friends

Today was Roof Tank Cleaning Day – normally this day is insignificant, it comes and goes and the notice in the concierge which reads No water between the hours of 0900 and 1500 has little or no meaning whatsoever. However, in the SUMMER HOLIDAYS this day has a different meaning altogether – this means super duper rush to get all water jobs completed before 9!

So, after the task of waking Kat up was achieved successfully (Kit was no issue at all!), we set upon the water jobs. As I was helping Kit with her teeth, I was a bit distracted and was also trying to explain to Kit about the roof tank cleaning in a simple way…

Kit: “There will be no water today?”

Me: “Some people need to clean the tank on the roof. They will turn the water on after some time and it will come from here (pointing to the tap)”

The second I said the word Tank I knew I had made a mistake because now I had a million questions ahead and this brush job would never get done. Tank reminded her of fish now!

Kit: “Tank? What tank? Water is in tank? There is tank on roof? We have fish in tank, right?” READ MORE...

OH! COME ON...LETS  GET THE CLEANING DONE!

Half Blood

Of course our house is magical! We have elves watching with cameras during the day; we have Gruffalo waiting outside the door listening to bad children; there are little fairies who tidy up the room at night when good children go to sleep and leave money under the pillow; you grow witch feet if you don’t wear slippers; important objects appear and disappear almost instantly etc. BUT nothing prepared me for the question Kat asked me a couple of nights ago as I tucked her in bed...

Kat has this new love of listening to some audio book (current favourite being The Lightning Thief) – so as I was setting it up, adjusting the volume and generally fussing around, she looked at me and said: “Mummy, am I a half blood?”

Me (all I can see right now is Harry Potter smiling at me!): “What do you mean? Why do you ask?”

Kat: “No I was just wondering if I was part magical, maybe some Greek God or someone? I haven’t seen many pictures of my birth but Kit has so many. I’m so different from her.” READ MORE...

God made us Sisters, Hearts made us friends

After many tears and emotional blackmail, Kat managed to move out into her own room (well, it’s actually our guest room converted into her room) a couple of months ago. There were a lot of “this is mine”, “that is mine” type of arguments and with Kit it was simple – everything Kat touched belonged to Kit that very instant! In the end, it was a peaceful separation with Kit Kat now having their own space (and surprisingly less arguments over lost belongings). Both of them, however, continue to make rounds in each other’s room to scavenge whatever they can!

Since the move, the one thing that Kit loves to do in the morning is that if she sees Kat’s door is closed, she will quietly sneak into her room and face the big question – should she nick some dolly clothes at this ripe moment when all is clear and confess to me in the other room with that innocent face? Or should she simply lie down with Kat and bug her?

Some days it’s the dolly clothes for which Kat’s anger surfaces as and when the discoveries are eventually made…Other days she will make her comfy position alongside unsuspecting Kat, put her thumb in her mouth and start feeling Kat’s ear! This will get an INSTANT reaction.

Kat will jump up on the bed with “Eeww! Disgusting! Mummy take her away from here. She hasn’t even brushed her teeth and she’s breathing on me! She even smells of pee” (She still uses this on Kit from her nappy days when she did smell in the morning – not fair!)  READ MORE...

Now THAT was a fun ride!

I did it with Kat and I knew I should not with Kit but I was on the verge of doing the same with Kit this weekend. I hate it when I have to introduce my kids to bigger rides or something which they might not be ready for yet (or is it me?) – Thank God for Papa – if I was married to someone else or if he was like me or even if I had my way, our girls would have been hiding under tables/in closets or staying indoors on brilliant, gorgeous sunny days!

I think I may have got away to some extent with Kat with my I know best, it’s the first child authority. But secretly in my heart I know that we overprotected Kat. I know we should not make the same mistake with Kit but it just tends to happen with me. Here is when Papa steps in…he will not let it happen – but then, Kit will never let it happen too! Such an explorer, such an adventurer she is! READ MORE...

THE SWINGER THAT POPPED MY EYES OUT !! (*gulp*)