So what have they been upto?

The kiddie updates have been few and far between lately. There are so many sweet little moments, wisecracks that have me rolling on the floor, and monumental temper tantrums that should have been recorded for posterity, but time has been at a premium. 

So what have the kiddos been upto? Ads has been bitten by the reading bug on one hand, to the extent that some days he steps off the school bus intent on his book with no heed to where he’s going. On the other hand, some games and apps on the ipad have him hooked. Unfortunately nothing cerebral or informative – it’s Thor the Dark World and Iron Man 3. Other than monitoring the amount of time he spends on this (and he has been overall pretty disciplined about it), I don’t get on his case too much. I am so happy he reads, and while the time he spends drawing has come down drastically, it’s still an interest and a hobby and for that small mercy, I remain thankful :)

Y has turned into quite the young lady – posing prettily for photos, being eternally interested in clothes and shoes, and being a chatterbox who turns horribly shy when meeting new people. She is happy at school and beginning to read a little bit (a few words here and there). She is passionate about drawing too and a lot of fights are about who borrowed whose crayon/sketch pens and did not bother to return it.

Which brings me to the most annoying thing of all. They fight ALL THE TIME! It’s beyond annoying, it’s exhausting just to listen to them. I hardly ever intervene except when Y uses her hands instead of words. This is happening increasingly often which means I have to rush to Ads’defence otherwise he would be beaten to a pulp in no time. We had a horrrifying incident (while holidaying in Singapore recently) when Y was grimly hanging on to Ads’ arm, pinching him really hard all the while as he howled in pain. I taught my son never ever to use his fists to resolve an issue; clearly I didn’t bother to teach the same values to my daughter!

In the 10% of waking hours when they aren’t fighting, it can be an excess of lovey-doviness – long conversations, lots of cootchie-cooing, mainly by Y when she loudly proclaims “Anna is SOOO cute!” and starts chasing him all over the place in order to kiss him. He hates it and keeps running away and of course from there on, we are just a hop skip and jump away from a major fight :)

So yes, there’s never a dull moment but playing the referee (albeit a very bored one) is not fun at all :(