Being a children's writer and a mom

My kids are giving me toddler's problem: Not listening + whining.

For your information, they are going to be 3 and 5 years old.

Lately, Jasper has been bullying Jaime. Maybe it is out of pure fun. And Jaime has been whining so much that none of us can take it. This whining includes Jasper's bullying: "Gorgor (Older brother in Mandarin) takes my toy! Gorgor takes my blanket! Mummy, gorgor.. gorgor.." She whines so much that I raise my voice at them, well, most of the time.

So much for being a children's writer, and writing educational books. My next book is about Mischievous Marley, and I got that 'inspiration' from Jasper. He is the Marley.

But I stop halfway, with no idea how to carry on, given that I have no idea how to educate. I need to research more about parenting. This is giving me a headache.

I wonder how other children's writers succeed in writing an educational book. Doing research and interviews? Which gives me another idea to do interviews. Hmm, maybe for next time.

I realised I am spending a lot of time and money on these children's books. And being sick now makes me unable to spend time with my children, or reading for them at least.

Have been reading to them before bedtime now that Jasper has taken a reading interest, and Jaime just wants to follow. I would get my husband to read to them, or Jasper to read to Jaime, or read by himself. Hopefully, this establishes a bedtime routine, because they are refusing sleep. =(

Refusing sleep is one thing, the other thing is wanting to sleep with us. As long as they are separate, they can fall asleep quite fast. If not, it is just chaos. This helps with my cough. *sarcasm* I cough more when I have to scold them. My husband can't help because they don't want to sleep with him. Me and the kids are in the master room, while my husband sleeps in the kids' room. This happened because I was so frustrated with them that I went back to my room to sleep, and obviously, they followed. And from that day on, the master room became my (and the kids) room.

And with them, I fell asleep fast but woke up again in the middle of the night. I cannot sleep for 2 hours. So I might as well check my email and social media. Luckily their grandmas come to help in the morning to send them to school. Or I will be too sleepy in the morning. I am grateful for my mums so that I can focus on my work.

Well, see you next time...