The kids are fine

A typical day begins at around 6am with Amber climbing upon our bed and sitting on our backs and playing slap-drumming on our heads. This would be interspersed with crazy laughter, babble singing and the occasional "oh man", in pure amazement with our ability to completely ignore her and stay asleep. A couple of months ago, she would have been flinging herself wildly around and smashing into our noses and foreheads, but she has since given up that painful habit.

After 30 minutes of this mini rock-and-roll concert, Celest proceeds to breastfeed her and we have another 10 minutes of peace. Quick, grab the last bit of sleep before the full mayhem of day begins.

Nigel barges into the room, waking the just-fed and sleeping Amber. He says, "I need to pee". Celest does a quick scan of the ambient light which enters the room through the drawn curtains. There is a threshold she is looking for, and if it is met she asks him to go by himself saying that "it's bright enough". Else, she pokes me in the ribs and that's fine as I normally have to go as well. When I get back, Amber is playing slap-drums on Celest all over again while Nigel continues sleeping for a short while more.

Twenty minutes later, Shannon walks in sleepily and asks if she can go downstairs. Now that's a no-brainer. "Sure! Go down and eat your breakfast" I say just before Celest kangaroos the bed and gets her to change out of her pyjamas. Amber, by this time, has finished her drumming lessons and is playing with a wide assortment of toys, plastic cutlery and computer accessories on the floor. Shannon rubs her eyes, notices this and promptly changes her mind about going downstairs. "Say good morning to Jie Jie!" Amber ignores this completely and continues to dismantle my notebook mouse.

Nigel's not really lying down at this point, as Celest finds out soon enough. He's secretly sneaked to his grandfather's room and is busy squinting into the PSP pretending to be a MotoGP rider. She shouts at him from outside, several times, with increasing volume and impatience. Today she is thretening to give his breakfast to the dogs and make him go to school naked. He doesn't seem overly concerned but thinks the better of it as he returns the gaming device and heads downstairs.

Amber is already sitting on the baby chair halfway through her bowl of breakfast cereal. Isti is busy feeding her and saying "Good Morning" to anyone that walks by. Between mouthfuls, she gets Amber to say things such as "ek!" (thank you) and "gou gou" (gong gong), mostly for her own amusement.

Later there is this small routine of getting teeth brushes, clothes changed, homework done, piano practised, vitamins taken and other odds and ends before the school bus comes to take 66% of the noise out of the house. The noise and energy level comes down to a more manageable setting then and I proceed to wonder what they are up to on the bus and in school. Amber, for one, has little (Gabriel lingers around for another 15 mins) to no compettion for toys and roams the house like a hamster set loose.