Last week, I saw a random tweet which mentioned a contest and took a peek at it.

I saw the number of participants and then thought the site was not quite getting any success through social media, neither much through other medium, if any.

I saw the content of the contest and I was reminded of some day in mid 2008, and it wasn’t long before I found this cute little picture of Minibean.

I saw the prizes of the contest and admittedly was attracted to them. Top 3 prizes and consolation prizes all cameras! Even consolation I also very happy! It wasn’t more than once last week when I had lamented how much I need to get myself a new camera cos the Canon Ixus was dying on me (can’t take with manual mode, somehow), and my 450D which had meant something to me, had long died-ed on me and since warranty was long passed, I was pretty worried how much the cost was going to turn out.

So I put everything together, and was wondering whether to submit Minibean’s picture or a picture of *cough, shameless, cough* myself for the contest, in which Converse loves your smile.

I decided I was too shy to post up mine, and decided on Minibean’s instead.

I submitted but didn’t see Minibean’s picture for a couple of days, and decided the website was probably a dud.

Today, I surfed in again and saw that it was finally up! Then I voted for myself.

I secretly told someone about my cheapo-ness, and asked if it would be very shameless for me to pimp for votes, cos I used to find it quite turn-offish when I have MSN messages from people who would only message me when they need votes to be Mr Potato Chips with some badly photoshopped old-school saloon portraits or contests of such nature.

Then between those few friends which my image had been tarnished beyond hope (so no fear of revealing my maturity in auntiedom), I started asking them to take a look, and told them they could vote, or they could also take part since there was only 5 participants, and there were 6 prizes to be won!

I then went on to busy myself for the day, and at the end of the day, realised all my friends know no shame! They went all out to pimp the site on all the social media outlets they could (MSN, facebook, Plurk, Twitter), and before I knew it, they probably double the site’s visit with their influence.

I think the gang bros out there wanna call for reinforcement (diao zui) also not so fast!

Converse, if you need help with social media, we will be glad to be here for you. I am sure my contact can be spotted, giggles.

Since my friends know no shame, this is for all of you who had… helped to pimp, and helped to vote. Minibean has something to say!

I also don’t know what to say. I am grateful in the slightly emo way because I know it might not be a big help but then still people went out their way. Like, totally out of my expectations.

And since my friends know no shame, my shamelessness shall know no boundaries too (since you guys would probably always like to say how shameless I am but ahem, it is so. not. true. I. insist. -bats eyelashes-)

Here is the site, and you could take a look at my entry of Minibean’s picture here.

Now I wonder if I should take my shamelessness to next level… and post my picture up…. maybe I should just post here for fun, when I find the dormant hiaoness in me.

And I would encourage you guys to take part too, but leave at least consolation for me to win (I NEED A NEW CAMERA DESPERATELY, REMEMBER?! *emotional blackmail* Or else no pictures to post on this boring space of mine!), okay?

No, it has NOTHING to do with what you guys are thinking, though coming from me, talking about gag reflex (*giggles*) without a cheeky raise of the brow is considered quite a rarity.

And in true drama-mama fashion, I shall admit this post is an emo one (for me, that is!) more than anything.

Minibean has not been turning up for nursery classes earlier this week due to an unfortunate bout of flu which skyrocketed her temperature, and exhausted her lungs from all those hard core coughing.

There is one thing in the family about coughing. We never quite have minor coughs, but would often get those bouts that would inevitably give us abs.

I actually enjoyed having some me-time with her keeping her away from school, and now I might have too much of what I wished for, cos her form teacher had called me up yesterday to inform me that the school would be closed till end of the month due to the outbreak of Hand Foot Mouth Disease, and the school would be closed for all necessary precautions and thorough sanitizing of the school compound.

I thought it would be a good time for her to recuperate.

Another thing about Minibean is that, if she didn’t get one thing from me, is the ability to control gag reflex.

I was starting to be worried when some days she would throw up her first milk feed simply cos she was brushing her teeth.

She tends to barf her meals out intentionally when she doesn’t want to eat (so that she can get to the dessert part you see) cos it was just so easy for her to do so that it might become a habit.

She can’t take things of thick texture, like sweets, chocolate, jelly, ice-cream cos they would give her phlegm and the phlegm tends to make her throw up.

Now I understand why some mothers are so strict about their children’s diet, because Minibean doesn’t usually get to enjoy the treats she is given, and unfortunately, being a parent also means you get to have first picks of your favourite chocolates have to finish the leftovers and that would make Mummy very displeased with the weight gain (DID I MENTION I GAIN 4 KG WITHOUT REALISING?!).

Apparently, I have became one of those authoritarian parents, who can be rather strict with her liberty with the sweets, though if someone does offer, I would not decline because I feel impolite to do so.

Sometimes, the grans might spoil her a little cos despite what I say, I don’t think the older generation takes suggestions very well, and will attributing it to her being too full and 1) stop feeding her proper food when she starts to gag simply cos she doesn’t want to eat particular food or 2) will repeat the vicious cycle the next time round.

I was worried. I mean, the throwing up is stressing her digestive system, and she wouldn’t get much of the nutrition, she gets bulimic how?!

But my daughter loves food too much to be bulimic (she does have a huge appetite for her petite size!), I was just worried that she would use it to get her way to the food she likes and ignore the other food she is made to eat.

And the acid when she throws up wouldn’t do her system well either.

These couple of days, she threw up more frequently, simply cos she is coughing so hard.

I remember when she was 2 months old she had a cold too, and be it be then or now, hearing her coughing this bad really breaks my heart. I used to think people are exaggerating when they say they get “heartpain” when their kids get sick, cos c’mon, who doesn’t fall sick?! But then huh, really you know, her each cough can be tear-inducing, and you just don’t feel settled enough to want to go sleep.

So. I decided to do something about it.

The other day, when she was coughing, I told her she was coughing too hard, and if she continued, she might feel unwell and throw up again.

So I taught her to control.

Little did I know the effect till when I was brushing her teeth one morning, after she had rinsed her mouth, she beamed and said, “Look, Mummy! I controlled!“.

I didn’t even realise she was controlling her gag reflexes if she didn’t tell me soon. I was beaming with pride. Cos she could even control it when she took her medication (which she would force it out of her throat cos she didn’t like the taste) when I distracted her with.. “CONTROL!! Don’t let it come out!“.

It was kinda like a mini achievement that she has another uh, skill-set in life, and her throwing up incidents were cut down tremendously.

Late last night, I was kept awake by her uncomfortable tossing and turning, feeling the squeeze on the heart whenever she broke into those gut-wrenching coughs. At the same time it was the inquisitive  me trying to eavesdrop on what she was saying in her sleep (she sleep talks quite a bit! She was saying she doesn’t want “7″ and she doesn’t want white colour, and that she wants to play. I blame Apple for this. Find out why in the next post!).

Was trying to pat her chest to make her feel better, replenish the eucalyptus oil on the linens when I feel the smell was going off too soon, and constant tug of war with her as she kicked the blanket and me flustered-ly tucking her underneath it so to keep her warm.

Before I knew it, it was few hours before I finally drifted off a little, and within 15 minutes, I heard a series of vigorous cough and that immediately shook me up. And then suddenly, I heard Minibean wailing… “Muuuuummmmmeeee…”

And what she said next nearly made me cry.

In her tone laced with misery and guilt, she whimpered, “… I cannot control…”

I immediately got up and switched on the light, there she was, lying in her pool of vomit of phlegm and milk, and she was so tired that she wasn’t moving, and all she thought of was what I taught her and that she couldn’t do it.

I changed her, worried she might catch a cold and realised she probably had to take my bed. Realising her medication was wearing off, I had tried to get her to take her medication for a more peaceful sleep for her.

Alas, she refused and after I tucked her in, it was laundry time in the dead of the night, and I couldn’t sleep at all listening to her coughs, worried she might choke on her vomit (I know I am paranoid, but, I insist it was a very real worry!), so I ended up staying up till daylight, cos it was until then, after the laundry was all done and propped up, that I managed to feed her medication in her sleep.

Hearing her breathing smoother and the coughing stopped, I made her bed which by then had dried, carried her up, sat there just to cradle her in my arms for a while, shifted her to her bed, and snuck under my duvet. I held her tiny hand and drifted off myself.

I could hardly wake up this morning, finding myself under the weather. I was coughing harder than she is, and I felt her hovering above me, and stroke my face as I coughed. She let me rest a little before waking up, unlike how she would do so immediately everytime she wakes.

I cannot explain how heartbreaking it was to hear her cough this hard. I cannot explain how real the fear of her choking on her vomit was. Most of all, I cannot explain how and why I wanna cry when I heard her whimpering in the middle of the night, and her first worry was how she didn’t manage to do what I taught her instead of telling me how bad she felt.

And as I was kept awake till the morning light sept in, what was replaying in my head, was just her weak whimpers of how she didn’t manage to control, while controlling my urge not to cry.

Everyone who knows me would probably agree that it is unlikely that I would win “Mother of the Year” award anytime soon, or EVER, and it is more typical of me to be spouting something too dirty to be coming out of a mother’s mouth than to dispense wise, proper motherhood tips.

Which was one of the reasons why I was pretty surprised when a friend suggested me to read her sister-in-law’s blog and said that I could just pop by whenever I am free (which was pretty swiftly cos even when I am not, I am a master of multi-tasking and busybodying hurhurhur) and give her some motherhood tips.

I choked. Because scoffing and laughing really don’t go well together.

You know, it probably is a miracle that I have not started spamming her sister-in-law’s email and sending out desperate SOS messages to beg for some help.

I am trying. But like Oscar Wilde puts it best, am not young enough to know everything.

I probably am as imperfect as the next person you see, and with different schools of thought on how bringing up children is like, I am really in no position to tell people what to do, especially when I am wearing shorts even my daughter would disapprove of, or finishing her candies when she ain’t looking (sweets are NOT good for her, I insist. Tolberones are wasted on her too!).

I would even admit that there were 2 occasions when I accidentally let rip the unfortunate English word which is perhaps worse than Kanina, but miles better (in my opinion) than er, well, you know, the Hokkien term for twat in front of her when I dropped things (which happened so often with my clumsiness that cursing twice seems like tremendous control on my part).

But having a child-like, and impossibly vast imagination (where do you think all that kinkiness in me come from?!) certainly does help in parenthood, for those times you need to recover from situations where your friends spew poetry of profanities cos she is just too tiny to be spotted, or the times with the onset of terrible 2s, terrible 3s.. and honestly it probably never stops from there onwards.

So. It was with creativity that I started honing my art of distraction, and as minimal as possible, my art of deception.

HELLLLL YEAAAHHHH, you are right. Hardships lay the eggs of creative geniuses!

And hell ya, I should be frickin Monet by now too!

I do not like deceiving Minibean to get my way, and I would not promise things that I cannot fulfill. If I cannot, I say I can’t. Even if I can, I would just loosely say I would try, in case anything crops up. So the expectation is managed, and it would be a bonus and she is happy when it gets fulfilled.

I do not like to disappoint her with lies, cos I know how lousy it felt when I was younger, and with a memory that serves me since 3 years old (yes, unfortunately, I remember THAT far back), trust me, 3 years old children also got FEEEELING one.

But I still do say those deceptive things like “CANNOT ANYHOW RUN LIKE THAT, WAIT GOT AHBUNEHNEH COME AND TAKE YOU AWAY.“, “CANNOT BE SO NOISY, WAIT POLICE CATCH!” (which we know is not true, or else with the amount of kiddos to catch, no one would ever join the police force) to the point that one day she saw the police and she thought they are all ahbunehnehs.

Then I have to keep myself in check.

Having said that, it was not being racist in anyway, but it was just how we were brought up when younger, and it became some sort of “traditional” thing to say, but to me, the image of ahbunehneh when I was younger would be those fluffy monsters (think the monster Stitch in Lilo and Stitch!) and not with relation to any race, cos the term is an affectionate one (sounds quite cute what?).

So, with that failed examples, it was perhaps better to rely on the art of distraction and using some creativity to counter the very brilliant, may I add, overly brilliant mind of Minibean.

You know what is more dangerous than driving under the influence of alcohol?

I tell you. Driving under the influence of kiddos.

They scream, they whine, they cry, and if you haven’t encountered it – I hope you never do – they might even throw a shoe or 2 at you when you are not there to reassure them or rubba their tummies, while driving with your elbows as you mix the milk powder into the hot bottle of water you had “kiap-ed” in between your thighs.

They don’t take no for an answer, and NOW means NOW.

Then some time ago, to get some peace, I started counting 1 – 30, restarting at 1 when I have to, just so to distract her, and perhaps she wouldn’t interrupt when I am talking.

There was another time, I decided to change my tone, and then started to ask, “Hmmm Minibean, have you ever wonder….?”

Wonder what, she asked.

… instead of crying and making a fuss, you should just relax, slow your pace, and look at what is happening around you? The beautiful sun setting… handsome chaps walking out there, the differences between each tree.. and hey look, that tree has flowers. Look at that car driver and how rude he is, and have you ever thought why your mother is so awesome…?

She went absolutely quiet.

I turned to her and realised she had fell asleep.

I felt pretty insulted but yet at the same time, it was as if I had found a diamond mine or something.

I tried it again the next time, she didn’t fall asleep but ended up asking me why the sun setting, why the tree has flowers while the others don’t have and why is her mother awesome.

I was glad to tell her why which means she wasn’t fussing or crying or throwing a shoe at me cos she was too focused on finding out the answers.

It is interesting how over her growth, at different stages, more things are required out of me to deal with her infant years, the terrible years (I must tell all those people out there who can’t stand screaming kids and how kids misbehaving are parents’ fault, judge them until the terrible years have passed!), and now, transitioning to making sense of the world years.. Some of such creativity also means honing her creativity cos well, she has to counter us sometimes, isn’t it?

She has successfully pulled a couple of “LOOK, IT’S A BIRD” (not exactly that, but you know what I mean) tricks, and stuffed couple of gourmet chocolates into her mouth while I had my sight diverted.

It is constantly a game of chess.

I remember on my flight back to Singapore from Sri Lanka, I was sitting next to a breastfeeding new mum, who had wrapped her daughter in winter gear (they were heading to Ozzy) when she had boarded the very packed and warm flight.

Her child was hungry and covered in sweat, I can only imagine how uncomfortable it was for the baby. But she had no idea how to stop the child from crying.

Of cos, she probably didn’t know how painful the pressure would cause the baby’s ears to be, so the baby probably need to suckle something. But I would think this part would be more of common sense than being creative cos your ears would have hurt too right?

And now with Minibean (yes, I am jumping topic from topic randomly!) down with a fever and a bad, bad cough, another challenge would be keeping her medication down without her puking it out, if we manage to fool her into finishing her medication in the first place.

The syringe method, the dilute with water method, the spike her milk method, the force it down her mouth method (done by the older folks but never by me), the bribery method (I really don’t like to use bribery methods for ANYTHING with Minibean), the coaxing method, the begging method, the make-it-look-damn-fun-and-I-challenge-you-to-do method…. you name it, I’ve done it.

The spike her milk method was my favourite until it failed when one time, she told me that it was not her “normal milk” cos it tasted nothing like it and insisted I got it changed.

This morning, I spiked her water, only difference was, she was asleep when I tickled the bottle teat to her mouth and she chomped up everything.

So last night, the diluting method didn’t work when it worked wonderfully previous times when she fell sick. She had gotten so yucked out by the taste that she threw up right after she got to her fever medication.

Eventually, I pretended to be really urgent when I asked her to pinch her nose “OH! QUICK QUICK QUICK!” in the kind of exaggerated, baby-tone voice you will see on kiddy channels too often.

I told her to hold her breath, and she had to do it really fast. I put the medication on the spoon without diluting it, and quickly send it into her mouth, and immediately pop a blueberry into it. When she tasted the medication and wanted to barf, I pointed to this random chap on television and asked, “HEY, WHO IS THAT HANDSOME GUY? You think handsome or not?”

Then, she suddenly forgot about the taste in her mouth and stopped gagging.

And I am quite thankful she is a child who loves her greens, her fruits, her meat, her seafood and the occasion durian. Apparently, my dad started her with a sip of beer a week or 2 ago, before I realised that was also the age I had my first sip of beer.

But I still do have some challenges when feeding her cos she could love long beans today, but she would not want them in her porridge the next.

The “Aeroplane flying into your mouth” spoon trick no longer works, and my old bones are too old for running around to feed her.

She didn’t want the greenies, and I had asked her to close her eyes, and tell me what she thinks is in the porridge.

She did so, and she didn’t taste anything (which would be followed up by “HOW COULD IT BE? I give you one more chance, you try again and guess!“). It has been almost 2 months that during most meals she would be having her eyes closed, and those will be the days she would finish an entire massive bowl of rice/porridge.

Sometimes I feel like I need more energy to keep up with the perpetual kiddy show I have to put up, or the exhausting scheming, and now with her reading up on ballet, I have to demo the moves to her when I am the last person she should be picking up graceful moves from.

I shall end this post very abruptly cos she has just been knocked out by the very potent medication and I am now scoffing at the non-drowsy formula given by the same doctor the previous time which only made her more energetic, more restless, and Mummy more tired.

Since she is now knocked out, pardon me that I have to treasure this break and catch some 40 winks for myself too. My mind has automatically shut off the moment I heard her soft, tiny snores, and my body just yearns to snuggle up close to her to enjoy her angelic moment, which of course, when she is all subdued, and not bombarding me with too many “Whys”.

Many parents had discussed and asked about the tricky questions regarding raising a girl.. and I have to admit I have constantly worry myself to death about her impending teenagehood (hey, it is less than a decade to go, you know?!).

Like, today, an aunt’s son was bringing friends over, and she quickly went to the maid and asked “the friend guy or girl?”.

Suddenly an ominous vision came to mind.. that it would be my turn to ask the same question next time, and I would probably barge up to find out the answer for myself, yet trying to play it cool so, you know, I can play the “mole” to find out more….

And then, there are more worrying things at hands for me to worry about.

Very worried in fact.

While changing to head out today, Minibean and I were scouring through the basket for clothes.

And this was how it went:

“Aiyoooooooooooo why your shorts so tiny? So short!”

“Niiiiiccceeeeeee what!”

“NOOOOOOooOOOo! It is toooooooo short and too small for you! Don’t wear this!”

“I don’t waaant! I want to wear!”

“Cannotttt! It is too small, you are too fat to wear it!”

And this sentence, prompted the never-say-die spirit, and it was a full-on effort to squeeze into the teenyweeny pair of shorts and then when the final button was done up.. “SEEEEEEEEEE! Can wear! I not too fat!”

“Seeeee so short! Cannot! So short cannot go out like that!”

“Don’t care, I want to wear this! Hmphffff.”

“I don’t like it!”

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? MY MOTHER?!”

So this conversation ended with me sashaying out of the room in my shorts, ignoring her protest.

Sooner or later, your spawns will start playing parents to you, and more often than not, the day will come too soon.

So yeap, my dear honey bunny Minibean, this episode will one day come back and bite you in the bumbum.

And that’s with no pun intended.