Tears

My kids cry a lot. They scream quite a fair bit too and man, can they project those voices. So much so that our front door and windows remain closed most of the time. Yes, yes, kids need fresh air and all but I think avoiding my neighbours calling the cops for suspected child abuse is paramount.

I don’t think my kids are unhappy or not thriving. We have a good time hanging out, with Alya babbling away and Aidan trying to climb everything he can (sister included). He’s extremely interested in eating, you can’t wave around a piece of food near him without him grabbing your hand, chomping down and gumming it furiously. Alya, as usual, seems to survive mainly on formula milk and air. This is occasionally punctutated by rice (a total of 5 spoonfuls at best), bread and whatever else we’re having. Since she spends quite a lot of time with my in-laws, I noticed that they indulge her with ice cream (‘cem’). Which creates a problem when she comes home and starts asking for it.

I think my kids are hitting their crying phase at exactly the same time. I mean, they used to be a lot more quiet. Alya’s at that stage where the word ‘No’ and ‘Kejap’ means nothing and everything seems to end in tears. Play play play, melalak. Whine whine whine, melalak. Demand demand demand, melalak. Typical toddler behaviour? She’s even started experimenting with tantrums by throwing things and thrashing about on the floor. The funny thing is, she will carefully lower herself on the floor first before thrashing about. Auta je lebih…

I usually just look at her blankly or quietly ask her to kemas, which will infuriate her more. K is not as patient as he’ll usually scold or give her a smack on the bottom. Once I feel she’s stopped crying cos of anger or frustration and just for the sake of it, I’ll start pacifying her and point out what she did wrong. Doesn’t always work but I figure I should teach her what’s wrong and reinforce that slowly.

Aidan seems to be very attached to me. He plays happily when I’m around but as soon as I’m out of sight, starts to whine before graduating to full-blown screaming. Even if K is there cajoling him to play, he would still cry and crawl around looking for me. I can’t really do my chores properly unless he’s napping (so the house is constantly a disaster area) and he hates the playpen/cot and the carrier, so those options are off the list. I tried driving alone with him once from the in-laws’ place while K drove his car with Alya. What is usually a 45-min journey took me half an hour more, with 2 stops on the emergency lane. No toy or song in the whole world calmed him down unless he was taken out of the carrier. He basically cried and squirmed around until he threw up. So now, he usually sits on my lap in the backseat where he’ll stand and jump up & down. I know it’s totally dangerous but he absolutely hates to be confined or tied down. I wonder if we should try him on Alya’s car seat.. How ah?

Frazzled is an understatement..