Our Third Baby

And her name is Nespresso!

She is my favourite at the moment because she doesn't take away my sanity as there is no mealtime battles and wastage of food. She just sits quietly at a corner waiting to serve delicious coffee at the press of a button.

Nespresso, my life will be disastrous without you!




My beautiful, wonderful Nespresso.

MIL = Monster in law

"The importance of grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren is underlined in a study published today.

But the research showed that it was only granddaughters who were likely to do better with their paternal grandmothers involved in their early lives. In contrast, the presence of paternal grandmothers had a detrimental effect on the survival of their grandsons."

(The above was quoted from an online article in "The Independent". )

Thank Goodness, Gerard is going to be enrolled into a childcare centre soon!

How should I put it? It's been almost 7 years since I became a DIL but the relationship with my MIL has become more complicated in the recent years, to be exact, after Gerard was born. In the past, although she never made it to the "People whom I love" list, she was not in my list for the other extreme of love. However, perhaps I have become more daring and did not hold my tongue when I was supposed to, the conflicts we have had made her number 1 in my the other list.

Nowadays, her presence makes me feel uncomfortable, her voice makes me feel that my ears have been pierced. I used to throw a tantrum at my husband - her son, whenever my emotions were attacked by her tactlessness. However, "Blood is thicker than water" and this saying perfectly describes the result I got so I need not say more. As time goes by, I learn to play smart. Unless absolutely necessary to rebute, I take a deep breath whenever I hear her barking. Then I will find a suitable opportunity to recount the incident to my husband. Although I still may not get the support which I yearn for, I get heard better and there is lesser tears being shed.

The only saving grace for our relationship is her love for my children. While this trait opens up a whole new chapter about "grandparent spoiling the grandchildren", which if I quote all the examples, I can probably write a book, I choose to overlook it and reason to myself that spoiling is better than abusing.

Since her image keeps appearing in my mind when I am writing this entry, I think I have to stop here or I may just throw my monitor out of the window now!

Bitter Sweet Symphony

SWEET:
Time flew by so quickly and before I realised it, my daughter is almost 3 months old. Sim Gretchen is her name and the moment my gynae put her in my arms in the labour room, I fell in love with her. I used to wonder how I should divide my love between Gerard and Gretchen because before Gretchen came into my world, Gerard owned it. However when I held Gretchen for the first time, I just knew the answer; I don't have to divide, the amount of love has simply multiplied!

Gretchen is an angel. Initially, she slept a lot but yet knew when it was time for her to drink milk. Everyday she would drift in and out of sleep and seem oblivious to her surrounding. We had a lot of visitors in the first two weeks when she arrived home but all the cooings by my friends and relatives never seem to bother her. The only complaint I had about her was she took ages to finish a bottle of milk.

As time goes by, I began to get accustomed to her routine. In addition, my mum came to the rescue and took over most of the care-giving job. Day by day, she grew into a more active baby. She enjoys company and loves to smile. She is generally a very pleasant baby who seldom cries. Maybe I am stereotyping but somehow, she just makes me feel that she is so fragile and needs my protection. So we stay at home most of the days in an attempt to keep her away from the crowd and viruses.

BITTER:
As for Gerard, he is with his grandparents on weekdays and I reckon he's been spoilt to bits, for he gets very rebellious and willful these days. His grandparents probably give in to him all his requests and therefore he expects the same at home (which is NEVER going to happen). Therefore everyday he gives a wide grin when he sees his grandparents at the door. At night when they send him back, he refuses to them leave. Although it is not unusual for grandparents to spoil their grandchildren, I take it to heart a lot because it gives us a harder time to discipline him. A vicious cycle emerges when the more we discipline him, the more he dislikes to come home. I hope he gets a place at the childcare soon so that this wild horse can be tamed.

BITTER & SWEET:
Two more months and I will rejoin the workforce. I have mixed feelings about becoming a working mother, because while I will be financially independent again, I have to give up spending time with my children. Sometimes I wonder if this is a worthwhile sacrifice but then again, I will never know the answer if I do not try.

A letter to my daughter

Dear Mei Mei,

This is how we address you ever since we found out that you are a girl on my 20th week checkup. Daddy and mummy have not quite decided on a name for you but we do have a nice name in mind and hope you will like it.

By now, you have been in my womb for 37 weeks. I wonder if you already knew who are in your family. Besides daddy and mummy, you have a big brother who came to the world just 19 months earlier than you. The reason why I am writing this letter to you is because I am sorry that I am neglecting you most of the time. Looking after your extremely active brother takes away a lot of my attention and energy. As a result, I do not have much time left to talk to you or let you listen to some soothing music. However, be assured that we love you just as much as we love your brother. We have already bought many pretty clothes for you and we are anxiously looking forward to see you too.

Mei mei, your movements in my womb often keep me awake at night. Sometimes, I thought you were doing aerobics; fast and powerful kicking, other times, it felt like you were doing yoga; slow and relaxed stretching. Don't be mistaken, mummy is not complaining (except that your movements kinda have an effect on my bladder and makes me pee every 2 hours at night). In fact, I'm happy because that is the only tangible way I can feel your presence and know about your well-being.

In a few weeks' (or maybe even few days') time, you will officially be part of our family as I can already feel that you are working your way to come out to meet us! Although mummy still has cold sweat whenever I think of going through labour and experience the real contractions, darling for you, I shall be brave, for nothing is more important than having you safe and sound in my hands.

With all my love and kisses,

Mummy


This is a recent picture of daddy, mummy and brother Gerard taken during my birthday dinner. You will join us next year too!

Spider Spider I 'love' you.

It is funny how children can be really innocent and naive but yet this character often gives parents a way to "scare" their kids and prohibit them to do things they don't want their kids to do.

A few months ago, I introduced a new concept to Gerard; When I say "Eeeeee", it means I'm referring to something disgusting. It did not take him long to grasp the concept. Hence saying "Eeeee" (the more animated the better) becomes my "top secret weapon" to prevent him from touching or eating things or going somewhere that I don't want him to touch/eat/go.

Gerard is also especially afraid of "spiders". A formidable combination will be "Eeee.....the spider is there!" On hearing this, he never fails to retract his steps or hands, thereby the lid of the dustbin or the kitchen cupboards remain closed, the wine rack stays in place etc etc.

On one hand, I am thankful that I manage to find a way to "frighten"my otherwise dauntless toddler. However on the other hand, I wonder if this will have any repercussion on his development. Although I recognise that a better way is to explain the reasons why he is not allowed to do certain things, I think I shall just leave it till the day we can communicate through proper conversations. Right now, I will just adopt whichever is the most effective method.

Accident Prone / Accident Proof

For the past seventeen and a half months, motherhood has been considered enjoyable to me as long as the following things don't happen:-

1) Gerard is sick;
2) Gerard is not interested in eating or drinking (ie. poor appetite);
3) Gerard is hurt (physically of course)

Fortunately, no. 1 does not happen very often. No. 2 happens quite often but it is not insurmountable; there are always some ways to trick/threaten him to eat, even if it's only half the amount I gave him. No.3 is what bothers me the most, my son is ACCIDENT PRONE!

Yes, he is and don't ask me why. Ever since he has learned how to crawl, his forehead becomes a magnetic board for bumps and bruises. He took his first independent step a week after he turned 1 year old and since then, the probabilities of him falling down or knocking into somewhere or something increase exponentially. His forehead is perpetually dotted with big and small, dark and light bruises. One and a half months ago, he had the ultimate bruise that made him look like a bull terrier. Till now, I can still see a little bit of swelling and greyness around his left eye. We are all worried that it will become a permanent scar on his face.

Last Saturday evening in church, Gerard was as usual, enjoying his freedom of walking and running around. Suddenly, a small piece of paper on the ground caught his attention and he attempted to pick it up. In view of the most talked about epidemic recently (yeah, blame it on the swine flu!), I quickly tugged at his right arm so that he would not touch that paper and dirty his hand, but the sudden impact caused his elbow to be dislocated! Fortunately after an x-ray, a very experienced doctor at Thomson Medical managed to manipulate the dislocated elbow joint back in a mere two seconds. However, the poor boy suffered the pain for about an hour before he became cheerful (and mischievous) again. I felt so guilty that I cried from the time he was injured till I went to bed that night.

The next episode happened on Tuesday. While in a spur of excitement, Gerard brushed his shin against our tv bench (he was probably trying to get closer to the cartoon character in the tv or just simply wanted to jump for joy) and a small piece of skin was scraped off. It must be painful because there was quite a bit of bleeding and he did not want to walk and held his leg up high for about half an hour. He did not allow me to bandage his leg or cover the wound with a plaster. So he cried everytime he looked down and was reminded of the "injury".

I really want to know, how can I protect Gerard more and make him more accident-proof, at least during this toddler stage.

My little bull terrier

No I did not get myself a dog because Ed is terribly afraid of them (I should have checked this box before we got married and now I can never dream of getting one!) Rather, it is my darling who looks like one now.

Last Sunday morning after a diaper change, a happy Gerard was rolling in our bed while I tried to fold his soiled diaper into a smaller piece for easy disposal. Suddenly, from the corner of my eyes, I could see him bending towards the edge of the bed and almost going to fall over. I tried to grab him as fast as my reflexes allowed but whilst I managed to prevent him falling down from the bed, his face knocked against the corner of our dressing table and immediately, a huge purple bruise swelled up the bottom of his left eye and there was also some blood as there was a bit of abrasion on his skin.

The poor boy wailed for a minute but halted when he saw his mummy even more upset and terrified. I quickly brought him to the doctor to check if his eye was ok. Fortunately, he said it was just a bad bruise and his eye was not hurt. The bruise and swelling should subside within a few weeks.

Since then, wherever we go, Gerard gets stares from people for obviously the wrong reason. The o-jiisans and o-baasans give us their sympathetic looks and sometimes whisper among themselves. Some friendlier ones offer me their "home-tested" remedies and say babies at this age are very active, so we have to be really careful.

Well, I cringe with guilt and feel heartache whenever I look at Gerard. I think it was partly my fault that I failed to look after him properly because he was technically "under my care, custody and control" at the moment the accident happened. To make things worse, I have to bring him to visit his paternal grandparents tonight. His grandma called three times since last night when Ed broke the news to her, I can already envisage a big drama is going to happen later with probably lots of crying (not me!), pitying and reprimanding. At times like this, I wish we were still in Denmark or anywhere that is far far away. :-(