Confrontational

I believe I'm a person who will not shy away from confrontations but there are really times I need bite my lips to avoid one.

Am not the most forgiving person you will come across. In fact, I can remember grudges longer than most people though I might or might not show it to you.

As my colleague sums up my character, I'm someone who can treat you 10times better on how well you treat me. But the vice versa applies when you mistreat me.

In general, I go by the rule of not harming or causing trouble for others unless provoked. In fact, I have this belief that if you stirred shit, karma will come knocking on your door one day. The same applies to taking advantage of people. Won't do it in million years since I do not like to be taken advantage of.

There are a series of happenings recently of people trying to either create trouble or just plain shameless to take advantage of the situation and it concerns the well being of my Dinos.

I might be inconvenient in the situation and I do not appreciate people just take things for granted. I might let go once or twice but if it gets over my limit ( which is mostly not alot especially it comes to my Dinos) I will not hesitate to let you know my thoughts.

You are the ones who walked out because you wanted convenience back then but came running back when your personal needa arises, you turn back without a second thought whether it will affect others or not. How nice. I chose to keep quiet to maintain peace not because I'm scare or afraid of trouble.

The thing I don't understand about some is how can you find your own children troublesome and wanted easy way out after bringing them to this world.

You should know better how difficult it is to bring up a child at this period and even you don't the 1st time, you chose to have a 2nd one. That is your personal choice and please stick to your responsibility.

I might not be the best mum around but I can confidently say I gave in my most to my Dinos no matter how difficult they are. Yes they a difficult pair that even the grannies also afraid of them. Their cries, their tantrums, their crankiness are no joking matter when you multiple by 2 at the same time. Trust me, it,s enough to drive a person with lesser determination insane.

But when I think back how badly I wanted a child in the past 8years, how much heart pain I had when I lost XB, how much medication and treatment I took prior to conceive them, how hard I fought to keep them baking back then is enough to let me hang on despite all the tiredness.

Maybe you might not experienced what I've gone through but the least you can do as parents should at least be responsible for your own children. If you are not, the least you can do is NOT compromised well being of other's children. That's a basic understanding for parents but if you choose to hide your conscience behind your selfish needs, I have nothing to say.

I know I will find peace after ranting it out here and to my surrounding friends, family memebers and colleagues. But really I do hope one day you will be awake or matured enough to stop this rubbish.

Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 -Seoul - Supermart shopping /Around Namdaemum

After touring DMZ, we were dropped off at 5.30pm. Didn't have other plans for the day since I reckon we will be too tired as we woke up super early today for the tour and also had made a long distance train ride back to Seoul the day before.

Decided to go to Yongsan where there is a large electronics mall like our Sim Lim Square.

 The mall was large alright but there was nothing for us to buy and we just walk around aimlessly and oh ya, witness a quarrel between customer and vendor. Damn fierce though I cannot understand their langauage.

Mr Love's meal

We then went in search for dinner at basement of the mall beside Yongsan station and found a food court there!

Surprise, surprise since the only food court I seen in my few days here is the one in Busan. But then the food court is pretty empty as compared to eateries we saw on street. We ordered our meal from a cashier at the entrance and show it to the stall owners to collect our meals.

My meal

 The meal was so-so only and we realised why people choose to eat the various eateries we saw on streets. Cause they sell specific food that they specialised in and is more delicious. Due to language barrier, many a times we did not dare to venture into those eateries.

Ice cream after dinner

We headed back to the apartment after this since there is no where else on plan. Back at the apartment, it suddenly strikes me that there is a super market nearby as mentioned by the owner and we ventured out again for some shopping since we love checking out local supermarket.

It was quite a long walk in the cold winter. Took us 15min to find the supermart as it was tucked in 1 of the apartment buildings and we nearly missed the signage.

Veggie selections

Sashimi that I'm tempted to buy

 We went past the veggies section to come face to face to seafood corner. So tempted to buy back sashimi and abalone since the apartment have stove. But then what can I cook here? Haha So lingered around here awhile before moving on.

Abalones

 We came to the bakery section and I was impressed by the selection. They have very cute animals bread for kids making me want buy each of everything back.

Turtle bread

 The tags were all written in Korean and we were unsure of the filling therefore were hesistating which one to get for breakfast.

End up, I took the easy way out. Got the bread which has chocolate on top of it. Cannot go wrong with it right? It tastes nice and was considered cheap as compare to bakeries we went to randomly.

Crabs

Chocolate bread that we brought

 Then I decided I wanna eat yogurt/ drink yakult to clear my system as we had been feasting alot. Went to the section and realised they don't sell individually. All is in pack of 6. How to finish when I only have 3more days here? I wanna clear system only, not induce diarrhea.

Mr Love is not interested in it and therefore I cannot buy and share with him. So sad that I didn't get.

Cheese / butter section

Cute character drinks

Sarang!

 Wanted to try soju but didn't dare too for fear of it being too strong since I am not a drinker. Settled for fruit wine instead. It was really cheap at 3bucks per bottle and I brought 2 flavours. The alcohol taste was quite strong and I didn't really like it. Drank 1 and brought the other bottle back here for Dad to finish. He loved it though. Then again, he loved alcohol.

Alcohol section

We did however grab some chips randomly based on the pictures since we did not understand the words. This is the main reason why we love supermart or conveience store. Would stock up on the snacks whenever we found 1. Did the same thing in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. It saves us from going hungry sometimes. Haha.

Chips

And oh, I found the fruit vinegar that I've been drinking too. Much cheaper than home and with more variety but it's too heavy to bring more home, in the end only brought 2 bottles back. It's like half priced as compare to SG prices.

Fruit vinegar

The next day, we went to check out Naedaemum market. Heard from my colleagues that they had a great time buying accessories here and was excited to go. I had difficulty buying clothes when in Asian countries due to my big size but accesorries is an other story all together.

Usually my biggest haul from Taiwan are their cheap earrings where it can last me a year till the next trip back.

Korean accessories are know to be trendier and prettier, so I am hoping to buy some for work.

View from my Airbnb apartment

Busy weekday

Took the subway to Naedaemum market and came face to face with a super long flight of stairs. Was grumbling on my way up when a limping granny overtook us or rather me.

Mr Love was laughing so hard at me that he nearly fell off the stairs back to the starting point. He said in Korea, even grannies walked faster than me. Aggrrr

Naedaemum street

And so we came to Naedaemum at dunno which entrance. Didn't bother to look for map since we are here to just walk around and try my luck with buying the accessories. Haha It was filled with middle age women doing their shopping and the clothes here are also suitable for middle age women.

Brollies

There were shops selling kiddos stuff too. Brollies, shoes, socks, little girls' dresses. The dressses were so pretty. Make me wished that I have a little girl to buy for. Haha. 

Shops selling middle age women clothes

Lots of shoes too

Accessories shops building

Then a building came into our sight. It stated "Accessory" and I got excited and dragged Mr Love right into it. 

Turns out its selling hair accessories. Not exactly what I am looking for but things were pretty so we took a walk round the entire level watching the vendors making the accessories. 

I was very tempted to buy something here but then again usually don't wear hair accessories except to tie my hair up in a pony tail, so decided not to waste monies. Hehe. Good self control eh?

So pretty

Many vendors were sitting in front of their stores doing touches on their stuff and none of them gave us attention. Guess they knew we were not here to buy anything given our looks. Especially me, who is only interested to take photos. Muhaha.

We came across another building next door. This time selling earrings and necklaces. OMG. It was heaven! All things are so pretty that I don't know where to look. 

Some are handmade too as the vendors are busy making their craft. No one will bother you though as you walk around the stalls. I was afraid of disturbing them but receive no attention as we made our rounds.

Store owners doing their crafts

Finally something caught my eye and I mustered the courage to ask the vendor for the price. Turns out that they only deal with wholesale and is not interested to let me buy pieces only. 

I tried asking a few but keep getting rejected till I felt upset and gave up. My colleague later told me that it was by chance she came upon a vendor willing to sell to her in pieces but discreetly as it is a common rule there to do whoelsale only. 

Oh well, guess I just don't have the luck to meet that vendor. Went out of the building empty handed. So much for the excitement of being able to buy cheap and pretty accessories here.

I want a daughter!!

No luck in the wholesale market

We did come across a shop along the main street selling accessories and I managed to snag 2 pairs of earrings for 5,000 KRW each. Not exactly cheap but its the best I could find and I didn't want go back empty handed. Hehe. 

Blankets

Cooking wares

Besides clothes and accessories, you can also find household items sold here. Saw shops selling blankets, cooking wares and whats not. I was very tempted to buy 1 of those gold cooking pot where you see in Korean dramas that they used to cooking noodles and eat on the cover. But Mr Love shot the idea down. 

The pot that I'm tempted to buy

And we came to what seems to be the an old gate right in the smack of a busy street. Not sure of the history behind this gate.

We also came across entrance 1 haha but were quite lost then. I don't even remember which entrance we came in from. This place is super huge.

Since I'm unable to get what I set out to buy initially, I decided we should at least do my 2nd favourite activity - Eat. There are tons of street food here but our stomachs got limited spaces.

Saw an uncle peddling this and the best part is, it's piping hot. Having walked in the cold for quite some time, I decided to buy 1. Mr Love is not a fan of sponge cake so I'm prepared to eat most of it alone.

It proved to be a great decision since it warms us up quite instantly after taking a bite. We stood by the roadside eating ans thinking whether we should buy a 2nd 1 but decided otherwise. Haha

Then we saw a store selling what look like a smaller version of the Korean pancake. Again, it's served hot and I couldn't resist to buy 1 to try.

Not sure of the ingredients but it sure tastes yummy. No wonder there's a queue while we were buying.

Yummy pancake

There's an underground shopping belt and we went check it out. The atmosphere is damn despressing here haha. Literally empty and the merchandise here seems to suit elderly more.

Empty underground shopping

Impressed by this auntie's skill

It had not been a fruitful shopping trip here but I quite enjoy the walk here. Should the vendors.1 day decided to change their policy to entertain non whole sale buyers for their accessories, I'll certainly come back and visit. Hehe.

Daunting

When the Dinos were born, I had decided against to let them sleep in cradles despite my mummy's advice. Reason being, I do not want them to rely much on the swaying motion to fall asleep.

But when she took over to look after them full them to prepare me going back to work, mummy insisted for me to get cradles for them as she find it difficult to let them fall asleep without it. I think it's because its the only method she knew now to coax a baby to sleep given she used the same while we were young.

Mr Love and I gave in to the request. After all she's gonna be the 1 facing Dinos bulk of the time and I do not want make her life difficult. Turns out, my mil had the same request too. So its easier for us since the 2 care givers are on the same page.

Truth to be told, its easier to let them sleep in the cradles and it saves us quite alot of trouble when getting them to sleep during their initial months.

The down side is they so accustomed to sleeping in the cradles that they are not able to fall asleep on bed. Maybe once in a while yes, but if during nap or bed time, they would need to go back to the cradle. It makes it difficult for us to bring them out and we were mostly at home till recently.

Told Mr Love that we should start exposing the Dinos to going out and should start with our neighbourhood first.

People around me always questioned why we don't bring the Dinos out. I was like if you are not a parent of multiples, you don't come tell me how you are able to cope with going out with 2 children but of different age. To top it off, Mr Love and I are on our own on weekends, we do not have an extra pair of hands and we certainty did not want to bother our family members just so that we could go out.

Its different to be bringing 2 babies of the same age out. They have the same needs and are equally dependent on you. If you have a toddler and a baby, at least the toddler can listen to simple instructions or be a bit more self independent than the baby. Ours is a totally different game.

I'm not saying bringing a toddler and baby out is easy but it's definitely not as difficult as bringing twins out at least at my current stage.

We need an extra pair of hands when its milk time, to make the milk or to coax the impatient hungry screaming baby.

We need an extra pair of hands when 1 of the parents need go toilet.

We need an extra pair of hands during meal time since the Dinos are not able to sit on their own yet.

As much as I love to go out and have a meal,it seems impossible now till the Dinos can sit on high chair and entertain themselves.

That being said, I'm still hoping to do it in the coming months. Am now training to let them fall asleep on us while baby wearing them out. So far so good. Louis was cooperative when I took him to buy breakie yesterday. The queue was insanely long and I'm insane enough to join it.

Thought he might be pissed off since we struck in a queue ( he likes us to walk around so that he can take in the views). But he was just happy looking at the crowd and fell asleep even before I get to order my breakie. He slept all the way till I go on the bus to go home and woke up happy.

We tried going to the nearby mall too and successfully let them fall asleep on us when they are tired of looking around. But the real challenge starts when we got home.

Last Saturday, we did the same. Went out for a short walk at the mall at 3.30pm after the Dinos' nap and milk. It should gives us 2hours or so of free time. By the time we got home, it's time for small Dino's meal time and I fed him porridge. Big Dino seems to be jealous and demanded porridge too though it's still quite early for his next meal. I fed him after small Dino but he was too cranky to take much.

Tried putting them to sleep after that but both were cranky and refuses. You see hear their crying. Its like gonna bring the whole block down. I decided that small Dino must be looking for milk since its 6pm and his last bottle is at 1pm. Though he took porridge but sometimes he still wants milk. Fed him and he drank all.

Mr Love also decided that Big Dino is looking for his bottle and make a bottle for him too. But alas, that guy is just being his cranky usual and got even more when his papa try feed him milk.

End up I took over to calm him down while papa went to attend to small Dino. Small Dino on the other hand wasn't happy that I left him half way and decided to cry again. Man, Mr Love and I nearly died. We know they are tired and want to sleep but there's just something in their mind to keep crying and refuse to be calm no matter what papa do.

End up, I brought small Dino for his night bath. The Dinos have this habit of sleeping after a bath and I was hoping for the best. Turns out to be true. He fell asleep right after his bath. Did the same for Big Dino and he too fell asleep soon after.

It was about 2 hours later after coaxing, feeding, rocking and bathing them then we got to sit down for the 1st time after coming home. Was especially taxing on me since all they want is mummy only. Papa can only be the side entertainer for a while.

Tiring as it might be, but I have no qualms to bring them out again. I hope that by bringing them out often enough will accustomed them to being used to it and therefore not be as cranky as now after the trip.

Daunting as it is, I actually do enjoy getting out of the house with them:)

24hours with our Dinos

Weekend in our house now is more tedious then a work day since we need look after the Dinos by ourselves. I must say we got through the initial crazy stage and things are more manageable now. That being said my dinos usually will chu pattern every now and then. So no day is an easy day with them. 

00:00 - 01:00 Managed to tune their last bottle of the day to this time slot and so Mr Love gotta to feed them while I get to sleep. Haha. It's not everyday Sunday hor. I did my fair share of 2am feeds. So must see whether who is the luckier 1 of us 2.

04:00 Big Dino let out a shriek and I jumped out of bed to attend to him before it turns into full volume shouting where I think the whole block can hear. I initially thought he was hungry and checked the records. But last feed was 00:40. So it might be a case of bad dream only. This is quite common recently with him. Tucked in the pacifier and pat him back to sleep.

05:00 Jumped up from bed again when I hear a shout. Sometimes I really cannot differentiate who is making the noise. Took a while to realise its Big Dino again and repeat the steps. It's still too early for him to be hungry. Mother's instinct. Turns out I was right. He went back to sleep again after some patting.

06:00 My son seems to work on snooze. An hour later he let out a scream again. This time he keep tossing and turning in the cradle no matter how I rock or pat. Its a sign that he's hungry and so I made his bottle with 1 hand and rock him with the other. The dad and small dino are still blissfully asleep.

06:30 Big Dino was fully awake and will not sleep after feeding. Placed him between us on the bed and I went back to sleep.

07:30 After an hour of resting with Big Dino trying to scratch my whole body, small Dino wakes up for milk. But I haven got my sleep back yet since 4am!! Fed and decided to change both of them out of their PJ and put them on our bed in hope of getting some sleep.

08:30 Sleep in no where in sight when I need check constantly if they are trying to scratch each other's face or let each other eat their foot or trying to roll on top of each other or any other actions since they are too young to realise they can hurt each other.

09:00 Decided that the whole family should wake up and adjourned to the living room. Kicked papa off to wash up 1st while mummy entertained the dinos like a clown. But their laughters make it all worthwhile.

09:30 Finally both parents are done washing up. But the Dinos decided that they are tired from waking up too early and playing too much and is now asking to sleep. Oh well, we tucked them in and left them in the room while we sneaked out to the living room for a quiet breakfast and mummy managed to bring out the clothes to sun.

10:35 Just as mummy took her last bite of the bread and haven even got time to wash the cup, small dino started to cry and it signals the end of our breakie. Rushed into our room hoping that Big Dino didn't wake up from his brother's cries. No such luck. Move everyone to the living room wanting to feed them puree and small dino feel asleep again. Thanks pal. For waking your brother up.

10:50 Start feeding Big Dino Puree and its like going to a war.

11:20 Finally fed and cleaned up, placed big Dino in walker to entertain himself. Start another war by feeding small dino.

12:00 Papa baths them 1 by 1 while mummy cleans the bottles and bowls and sterilized them for later use.

13:00 Both dinos are well asleep after bath time and mummy start her maiden stint in cooking congee for the Dinos. While the congee cooks, mummy steals a nap of 15min.

13:30 Big Dino wakes up and papa plays with him while mummy is with the sleeping small dino in study room.

14:00 Decided that Big Dino is having serious withdrawal symptoms of not having milk for prolonged period and quickly feed him.

14:15-15:20 - Big Dino refuses to nap as mummy had told him we will be going out. He kept talking in the cradle. Papa entertained him while mummy prepared a small diaper bag for the intended trip at nearby mall. Also brought in the clothes after sunning.

15:20 Small Dino wakes up for milk and mummy quickly feed him and prepare to go out for the promised trip.

15:40 Finally got out of the house with 1 Dino on each parent. The Dinos are excited over the bus ride and mummy is excited on how they will behave. This will determine the future trips.

15:50 - 16:50 Papa & mummy run some errands and also walk around the mall soaking in the cool aircon. The Dinos fell asleep halfway. Brought early dinner too.

17:00 Reached home and both Dinos took a nap for a grand total of 15min. Mummy threw in the laundry.

17:15 - 18:00 Play around with the Dinos

18:00 Big Dino takes his porridge

18:30 Small Dino takes his porridge

19:00 Big Dino takes his bath. Mummy folded the earlier dried clothes while entertaining small Dino who is in walker.

19:30 Small Dino takes his bath

20:00 Parents take their super cold dinner with Dinos watching inside their respective cradles.

20:30 - 21:30 Whole family goes back to room for bonding /playtime. A bottle of milk for big Dino.

21:30 -22:00 Lights out. Small Dino asks for his bottle of milk.

22:00 Parents get to take turns to shower and sleep. Mummy hangs the washed laundry.

01:30 Big Dino wakes up for milk. Papa feedsl him.

02:15 Small Dino wakes up for milk. Papa feeds him

04:00 - 04:15 Big Dino shriek and mummy managed to pat him back to sleep.

05:05 - 05:20 Snooze mode from Big Dino.

Basically we spent Sunday in similar fashion but if my brother is here to help, Mr Love gets to go out further to buy food back or run some errands at the supermarket.

Its tough but I believed we got through the most tiring initial stage where we need adjust to parenthood and learn how to care for the Dinos at the same time.

As overwhelming as it seems sometimes, I would not done it in any other way. Yes, I'm enjoying motherhood though still trying to learn to be a better mother for the Dinos.

Lucas with Papa

Louis with Mummy