(Phew, I sure have a lot of hobbies!)

Yup, that’s my son who decided to show up two months before his due date and on a very memorable date too – September 11. Never mind that he shares his birthday with hundreds of other dead people from the NY terrorist attacks (whether it was terrorists or not, I’ll leave that up to conspiracy theorists to decide). More importantly, he shares his birthday with us.

Nil and I first met on September 11 at a train station called Pasar Seni in Kuala Lumpur. It was a Saturday and now, exactly seven years laters (I think – when it comes to dates, my memory is quite fuzzy), we celebrate that day with the showing of our 32 week old!

Being mum to a preemie isn’t easy – you struggle with the guilt, the “emptiness” that surrounds you (you have a baby crib but no baby, you have a baby but nothing tangible to remind you of him/her like their cries, soiled diapers, etc), you have breast milk but it’s a pump that greets you and not a baby, etc) and the constant hospital trips. Sometimes it’s downright depressing but I like to keep my spirits up and focus on the positive side of things.

And these are…

He is gaining weight, he is learning to suckle and latch on and the nurses all love him because he’s such a tranquil baby.

So yeah, normally my FOs are always late or overdue…but this time, it came early and well, caught us by surprise. No matter…at least all is well. *grin* Now, let me go back to my reviews and assignments. I have one on Christmas Cards coming up!

More on the birth story here.

But no.

This week, my office moved and in a way, so did I. I went from spending twenty minutes travelling to and fro work to at least a good forty minutes. This morning, I left the house before Eva woke up. I watch her sleep, carress the hair off her face as she stirred a little and went back to sleeping again. And then I said goodbye, somewhat reluctantly. Chances are for the evenings, I’ll be back a good thirty minutes later. Many of my peers seem to be accepting of such a change but me? I actually felt miserable, so miserable that I spend three nights last week crying and wishing that I could be a stay-at-home mum (SAHM) again. I still feel miserable.

I really hate to accept the fact that my home is now like a hotel more than a home to my daughter, that I only spend less than 35 hours a week with her but more at the office…

Many people tell me that my daughter will still know who I am – the mother – and that sooner or later, I have to cut the apron strings but really, this has precious little to do with that. It has everything to do with how *I* see motherhood and parenting. No offense intended to many parents out there – we have to deal with our own little unique circumstances. For me, I want to be a proactive mother who is there every step of the way in my child’s formative years. To me, the early years are important in establishing not just good eating habits but also strength in character and personality. I don’t like to leave things to “fate” or “they’ll learn it as they get older” – to me, that’s just not good enough.

Sadly, in our culture here, we don’t really support proactive parenting – flexible working hours for industries like mine are not common so lets not even talking about things like coming to work three days in a week. The excuse is that people won’t be productive or worse, some people might abuse the system. We don’t provide enough incentive or benefits to parents, and when we do, single people complain that they are being left out. Honestly, do you think parenthood is the same as being single? How many parents out there can profess to be able to do anything and everything they like without a care in the world or come back in the wee hours of the morning every day?

I haven’t been able to share this openly until now because of existing stereotypical beliefs about the SAHM – that they are uneducated, ignorant, out of touch with the world, are sponging off their spouses, living a life of luxury which is typical of a tai tai and so forth. When I went back to work, the same people try to get me to pass off my duties as a parent to them with the excuse that this is the Asian way of parenting – being a weekend parent, “it’s the duty of the grandmother to take care of the grandchild full time”, so forth. Being a weekend parent, having your parents take care of your child, those are not the Asian way of parenting. It’s just what some people think parenting should be. I wish people didn’t confuse cultural traditions with their own personal beliefs or practices.

For now, I’ll just have to bear with things – and people say that going back to work is fun. Heh.

For more details, check out our latest exciting news here.

Many mums out there will tell you that those few early years with a toddler is a time peppered with lots of wanted patience, silent frustration and quick weight loss alternatives. You learn to…

…grow eyes at the back of your head,
…sharpened your instincts so that you know trouble is just around the corner when your little bub is silent for more than a minute,
…negotiate and sometimes it can be as if your little bub is a terrorist and unyielding.
…develop a thick skin and that stony face during public episodes of tantrum throwing.
…juggle a family on top of “me” time and if you’re like me, “shop” (own business) time.
…let go and trust that your baby will be back to you when s/he needs you.

Eva is becoming more independent as the days go by, sometimes faster than her 15 month old body can take. In a month, she went from supported walking to unsupported brisk walking and would refuse to hold our hands. She likes to do things her own way sometimes and insist on it to the point where she’d throw a tantrum just to get what she wants. Do we give in? On the contrary. We draw the line between “it’s okay to be yourself” to “it’s not okay to be yourself and get hurt in the process”. Occasionally, I let go, trusts that my daughter knows her limits and come out pleasantly surprised at the knowledge that she does. Often, if she has had enough of playing, walking and climbing, she’d tell us that she wants to go home and wind down for the morning/afternoon/night.

She has her own little agenda, but that’s just it – life with a toddler is never quite boring or the same daily.

But now that she’s walking, stumbling and falling are pretty much out of her control. So we’ve decided to babyproof our coffee table and low furniture by using corner protectors. Babyproofing is not like stocking up on Polaris Accessories for your car but more on the simple matter of moving things that are dangerous (eg, can lead to choking, hurt fingers, etc) up and off the ground by 12 inches or more, stashing away cleaning agents, curving off sharp corners and well, make sure that those little curious fingers don’t get caught in door hinges and etc.

It’s that phase in life that every parent goes through and after a while, it’ll be quickly replaced by another. For now, babyproofing is IN!

I went through the baby blues in the first week and later on the first month; I remember crying my eyeballs out non-stop whenever Nil had to go home to be with my parents. Although the hospital allowed husbands to stay and come in as and when they like, having my parents around meant that he had to juggle visits to the hospital as well as taking care of them. That coupled with the move stressed him out considerably, which left me alone to manage and cope with being a new mum.

While hospital staff were very helpful, patient and understanding (THANK GOD), it still didn’t stop me from feeling overwhelmed. I knew that part of it was hormonal while the other part of it was irrational but people telling me to just stop because it’s wrong was not helpful. When new mothers suffer from baby blues, the last thing they need is the typical “You should cry coz it’s unhealthy” – we know it; we just want someone to say “It’s okay, things will get better” no matter how shallow or superficial that may sound.

My first week at the hospital was basically me learning how to adapt to Eva – she was a sleeper and while some people may be happy to get one, I wasn’t because sleepers are just that; they sleep and don’t eat much. She was also quite content to sleep in my arms but not in her bassinet and was prone to fussing the moment the sun set. While we managed to get her to sleep in her own crib/moses basket, the fussing carried on well into the first month. At one point it got so bad that we had to break out the car seat and drive around just so she could get some much needed sleep. She was easily startled as well and that coupled with the fact that I was the only one in my house who knew anything about breastfeeding made things even crazier in the first month. The typical Chinese confinement of dressing in long sleeved attire in the middle of summer as well as being under house arrest didn’t make things better and sometimes I would stay up with Eva in my arms just crying.

Things went out of control in France – after we moved out of our Swiss apartment and down to Mazelgirard where Nil’s family home is. I broke down one night after Eva wailed and wailed non-stop. I had no idea what was wrong with her and to make things worse, the two of us (Nil and I) were stressed out over the move so my sis-in-law walked into the room (with me still crying with Eva) and offered to take care of Eva for the night (Nil was mortified to wake up to the sight of his sister comforting me beside him). For the first time, my daughter slept on her own in the dark. In a way, it showed me that Eva was just as stressed out as I was about everything and while I felt like a crappy mother in those initial days, I began to realize that I should maybe drop the comparisions and the worries, and go just with the flow. My negativity about being moved from Switzerland back to Asia and all the possible crappiness that was to come with the move not to mention my loneliness (Nil was staying at our Swiss apartment to handle the handover, clean-up and all) and overwhelming feeling of having to cope with all these things was being mirrored in my daughter and it was the last thing I want for her.

When we arrived in Singapore, we set about to making things better for all of us. We bought a vibrating bouncer which saved us during those fussy nights when Eva was suffering from jetlag as well (that meant that her witching hours were 3am onwards Singapore time!) and invested in a Baby Bjorn as I had read and heard that babywearing helps to settle a fussy baby without hindering the parent’s movement too much. It would seem that things got onto a smooth start and before we knew it, we were looking at a calmer, and well, much more rested baby who seemed happier. Just how much happier, well, we had no idea until she was more active and “awake”. All we knew was that the moment she could smile socially, we had people telling us that she is such a smiley baby.

I started feeling normal again as I could go out, run errands, do my own thing without having to struggle with a young baby in tow. On the breastfeeding front, we were both going strong and I was getting the hang of things – she was putting on weight and well, have a good time on/at the boob. It would seem that things were finally looking up but the smooth ride, you could say, doesn’t last forever.

To be continued…

Other related stories:
Part I

Well, it takes A LOT of effort to maintain a relationship – both unseen and seen – as well as self-reflection. Self-reflection is important because that’s how we learn more about ourselves and how to tell if we are heading to disaster in our life journey (or not). We are all human and therefore imperfect. We have our up and down days, we have changes coming into our lives and sometimes we change along with it. The key is in communication, teamwork and reflection.

I’ve not been married for very long but I have had the opportunity to think long and hard about my own marriage and how to make it last. Nil and I have gone through a lot and yes, even sometimes to the point where I feel like giving up – not too sure about him though. But we stuck through it all and learn a few of life’s lesson as well. It is lifelong learning process and slow sometimes. Even couples who have been married for long cannot safely say that their marriage is in good shape as anything can happen at any time. For my HB and me, we have changed upon our marriage and then again when Eva came along and we discovered a few things along the way:

Be intimate regularly
Intimacy is not about sex. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that sex is not important. It is but it’s not the only way you can be intimate with your partner. There is physical intimacy like cuddling, kissing, holding hands and there is emotional intimacy. Many cultures around the world speak of the power of a human touch. Notice how children and babies are soothed easily with a hug, a cradle, a smooch and some skin contact. Sometimes when we are down, depressed or just tired, a comforting embrace is all it takes to help pick a person up. Make the effort to reconnect and build some form of intimacy in your life. With a baby, it can be hard but the rewards are worth the effort, especially when you consider that your actions teach your child a thing or two about what to expect when they grow up, start dating and eventually get married. Eva may just be a toddler but her face lights up when she gets a group hug and smooch from my HB and me and especially when she sees us cuddling and smooching. It sets the tone for your child and how they view relationships in the future – that sex and intimacy is key to a healthy relationship. Besides, it’s hard to be and stay angry with someone you hold hands with, kiss or cuddle with.

Emotional intimacy is a lot harder and most of the time, this is the killer in relationships/affairs. Everyone wants to be emotionally connected to someone; a human being is not meant to be a loner – we are social creatures and being in relationships is important. An emotional relationship can stay healthy if we make the effort to communicate and stay in touch with our partners. I don’t mean just talking but sharing your feelings, your thoughts, and so forth. If we begin to share secrets with someone else other than our partners and we’ve never done that before, an alarm should sound in your head.

If you observed, all the fights and affairs is often sprinkled with things like cold wars, silent treatment, withholding sex/affection, etc. So doesn’t that say something about its importance in a marriage?

Laugh together as often as you can and make it a point to have fun, unbridled fun like a child.
Laughing keeps people happy and healthy, not just emotionally but physically. Noticed anything about your child? A happy child is a well-mannered, disciplined and kind child, and consequently, is a joy to be with. Children are easily satisfied with many things and well, their needs are simple/easy to provide. But as we grow older and become more burdened with commitments/responsibilities/issues/problems, we forget how to be happy. And I don’t mean the typical happy that lasts for an hour but I’m talking about true happiness – Christians call it joy. Joy lasts longer than happiness and being constantly joyful is not easy to achieve. Besides, no one wants to hang out with a grouch – it’s emotionally draining.

I always encourage Nil to take some time out and be a child again – do things that makes him happy, be it skiiing, climbing, cracking a lousy joke, playing in a children’s playground, anything! When we were dating, we would spend most of our dates at the children’s playground, on the swings, the seesaw, etc. Those were awesome times and we try to recreate that by spending some time over the weekend for walks, and well, just finding excitement in the little things like a new book that we’ve been waiting, an episode of CSI, etc and so forth – it may look petty but hey, it’s the little things that count sometimes.

Some people may view this negatively, stating that adults should behave like adults but I think they are wrong. There is a little kid in all of us and sometimes it’s good to be a child once again – to feel that unbridled joy in our lives. It is contagious and frankly, I love it. I love watching Nil act silly and have fun like a kid. It makes me happy and I think it makes him happy too.

Understand, accept and play your part – you are in a team
A marriage means you are now part of a team – at first a two-man team and then when you have children, you’ll have more members in that team. Your team DOES NOT include your in-laws or parents. Sorry but that’s now how marriage works.

My apologies to modernist and feminist but in a team, you cannot have two people playing the same role. It is a recipe for disaster. Someone has to play one role and another person the other. This is all the more important when you have a child because how you play your part (and what your role is) sets the stage for your child’s future social development as well as how they grow up emotionally. Mothers and wives need to understand that your role is to care for your spouse and child without compromising on either. You can seek the aid of your spouse but if they have to cook, clean and take care of the baby on top of everything else, why do they need to marry someone? They can always pay for sex or better yet, go for one night stands OR stay with their parents – their mother will do everything for them. No need to get married in the first place. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Caring for your spouse means taking care of their emotional, social and mental needs. How you do that is by first investing in yourself – be a woman that they are proud to be with, proud to have chosen to marry, and someone they can grow with and help them grow. This brings me to one thing that has always irked me – “I don’t know how to cook/sew/etc”. Women today need to understand that “don’t know how to cook/sew/etc” is not a good enough excuse. It may sound old fashioned but sometimes what is old fashioned may be just the thing that holds a marriage together. There is a saying “A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” – it is true. You don’t have to be a Michelin star chef to be a good cook; you just need your HB’s approval. Besides, homemade food is a lot cheaper and healthier than eating out.

As for the rest, learning to sew and etc, lets just put it this way. We all want our spouses to be productive people. We are proud of them when they can do things, like being a regular handyman, a seamstress, a crafty person and we are all the more proud when people know it and compliment us on our choice of a partner. This goes back to one thing – your spouse needs to be proud to have chosen you as a spouse.

This is not limited to cooking/sewing/hobbies but to lifelong learning. People need to understand that we all need to grow as individuals, and that education is constant. If you’re constantly improving yourself and your skills, don’t you think that it’s something worth being proud of? If you never bother to do anything, do you think your HB would share that with anyone openly? Some people think that what I’m saying is controversial, that it’s sexist but all I’m saying is that PEOPLE should grow, women should not forget their role – it doesn’t mean that I’m advocating that women stay in the kitchen and do nothing else. It just means that I’d like to see people continue growing and learning.

Fathers and husbands need to understand that your role is to be the provider and I don’t mean financially alone but in every sense of the word. A provider is not just someone who makes money and brings the bacon home but also making sure that your family unit is stable and growing. Christians believe and feel that a man’s job in a family unit is that he is the stronghold, the leader, the one guiding the family – that is the job of the provider. It doesn’t mean that women don’t have a say. It just means that if anything goes wrong, the MAN is the one who has to take charge, step in and do his job as a leader/provider and not just ditch everything to the woman. This also means protecting your family against external forces, including your parents. If your parents takes pot shots at your wife, your first impulse should not be to protect your parents but to protect your wife. This is the woman who shares your bed, your home and will give your children. Any smart individual can see that she is the investment you should protect. Of course, we do not mean that you completely ignore your parents – but you need to understand and accept that your responsibility is to step up to the plate and protect your partner. Your family comes first and your parents need to understand that. They need to learn to let go and let you grow and focus on your own family.

When you have children and they take pot shots at your wife, you need to stand firm by your partner. Never allow your child to turn you against your spouse. It undermines your spouse’s authority and sets the stage for future attacks. My father once told me – and I still remember it well – “I will never choose you over your mother. She is my wife and her needs come first even if she is wrong.” And I respect that decision because if I were in my mum’s shoes, I’d feel completely betrayed if Nil were to side anyone else but me. If you must scold your spouse, do it in private and not in front of your child.

Shitty teamwork is when you leave your partner open to attack – we see it all the time in double badminton, in war strategies, etc. Women are often the first target and that’s why men are always told to protect their women and children. So why are men today – husbands and fathers – not doing their job? Perhaps it is because they were not told by their fathers or mothers, perhaps it’s how society sees marriage/relationships today. Who knows? But I have always told Nil – before we got married – that we are a team. If I’m attacked by people and he does nothing, I might as well be single and handle it myself. What’s the point of being with someone if I have to stand up alone?

Remember, men, when you married, you took a vow to protect your wife. Carry that promise out.

…

So yes, this may make it sound old fashioned but really, if old fashioned works, why not?

I was never a baby-fan…or rather, I just wasn’t a baby magnet. When I see babies, I just freeze and sometimes I think they freeze up too. We would look at each other for a minute or two, try to figure each other out and along the way, either one of us would just give up. It’s like going to the cashiers with a boatload of goods and she stops using the barcode scanner, look you in the eye, you look back and well, nothing clicks. The same happens with children.

Overtime, I begin to tell myself that maybe I’m just not cut out to be a mother. I look at some of my friends and my cousins, and they handle children so well. Me? Well, I just freeze. So you have to understand that I really felt that motherhood wasn’t me at all. I don’t understand babies, I have my own little problems and well, I just didn’t see myself as a motherly person. Having said that, it didn’t mean that I didn’t want children – of course I want babies. I just wasn’t quite sure of what sort of parent I wanted to be or if I could handled it all.

Then I got married and when we started talking about raising a family, that got me thinking. I wasn’t quite warmed up to children yet so what more babies? We ventured onward into the unknown anyway. I figured along the way that no one person is born ready to tackle babies. Most of the time, it all boils down to experience and since I didn’t have nieces or nephews to practise on, I was left with just one option (which isn’t even an option) – to practise on my own child. Hah.

When I got pregnant, I realized that this was it. No more chances to experiment. So I did the next best thing – I bought books and read up. One of the most memorable things I remember seeing was this – “Women are pregnant for nine months for a reason and one of it is called preparation”. Preparation here doesn’t mean buying a manual and learning to drive with that manual beside you. What it does is that it give you a certain edge in the fact that you have an idea of what you’re doing and not just jumping into the water blindly. Especially important for a person like me who isn’t all that baby-friendly. Nil often teased me whenever we go for my antenatal check-ups because I never seem to have any questions (because I know what’s common and what’s not OR I’d do some read-up on this test and that test, etc).

For a few months, I ruminated over the kind of mother I wanted to be, the things I wanted to teach my child, the things I wanted them to not pick up at first impulse…many things. I started following blogs of parents I wanted to be like and formulate my own parenthood strategy according to what I read/saw or observed. I remember fondly talking about wanting to breastfeed for at least six months, if not a year. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mum for the first two years of my child’s life. I wanted them to learn cooking together with me. I wanted to be those mums who are involved in their children’s life without the appearance of a maid (common in these parts of the world). I wanted a lot, I remember. In that sense, I was quite greedy. *grin*

I forgot that sometimes wanting certain things isn’t always the same as getting them.

To be continued…

Other related stories:
Part II

For most of you who aren’t aware, our little Eva is turning one this Wednesday and my parents decide to show up this weekend for the big occasion plus they wanted more pics to add to their slide show. Kekeke. So they are a few days earlier but no biggie. We didn’t really plan for a big celebration as we don’t really have a lot of kiddie friends (Eva, that is) and most of our family are abroad. This coupled with the fact that we’re not very big on parties was enough for me to just keep it low-key and limited to family – that is my parents and the three of us.

Initially I wanted to make a cutesy cake with cow toppers to celebrate the fact that she was born in the year of the cow/ox. But this week was crazy at work and consequently, I ended up feeling more tired and stressed out than ever. My nights, which were supposed to be dedicated to making Eva’s cake and working on the shop booties were just used for recovery and recuperation, not to mention the daily laundry and cooking. So I ended up with the idea of making a cheesecake – mango flavoured since she likes mangos (and cheese). Bought everything during lunch on Friday, carted it back and started work on it after she went to bed.

My problem started then. My whipped cream had gone bad so I couldn’t use it. I sent Nil out to look for a replacement only to find that none of the sundry shops nearby stocked it (they have cream cheese though – weird). I goggled some recipes and discovered a few that called for milk and thought that it would fine. So after mixing in some cream cheese and milk, I tossed in some gelatine for good measure. I had a nagging feeling that it was going to fail me since I was only familiar with gelatine sheets and not gelatine powder. But I carried on. As I placed the cheesecake in the fridge to chill, I was quite excited to see the outcome.

The next morning, I checked on it. It wasn’t firm enough. After running a knife though, it looked more like thick cream rather than cheesecake. I added more gelatine and chucked the whole thing in the freezer. After breakfast, I went back to check on it and it looked quite firm so hey, why not place it in the fridge? I did so and forgot all about it until earlier this evening. I was utterly disappointed to see that it was just as it was before I added in the extra bit of gelatine. So I had no choice but to give it some freezer treatment as we headed out for dinner.

When we got back, it was time for Eva’s “dessert” so I removed the cake from the freezer. Total disaster struck here. As I removed the pan from the cake, Nil started yelling “QUICK QUICK” and there it was, my cheesecake starting to flow like slow lava onto the kitchen countertop. And the star of the show was waiting in her high chair. Gah.

She ended up finishing a “slice” of super creamy cheesecake with fresh slices of mango. Just goes to show that as long as it tastes good, babies don’t mind a disastrous cake. Am not too sure if it’ll work with toddlers though.

Since turning 10 months or so, she has started becoming more vocal about what she wants, likes or doesn’t like and so forth. At restaurants, she’d grab hold of the menu and start flipping the pages, but sometimes I suspect it’s more because they resemble books and she just LOVES books. That aside, it is slowly dawning on us that our baby is becoming a little adult already.

Gone are the days when she would placidly smile back, and well, it was easy getting her to do things, even regular stuff like just going for evening walks. If she has had enough or is bored, she makes it clear; in fact, she makes it very clear! So recently, I started digging out a book I have on discipline (I put it aside due to my crazy schedule at home with best acne cleanser reviews and crocheting booties) just to see what I can do to make things comfortable for everyone and by comfort, I also mean that she doesn’t go out of bounds by screaming, throwing tantrums and shouting – something which I find common and would like to avoid.

So far, we are still alright on the quiet, calm and polite grounds but I do foresee a quiet storm brewing in the near future. Looks like we have a little opinionated miss on our hands and in a way, I think that is just fine.