A new chapter…. again

Seems like our life is one series of really short chapters. I bemoan change, but I know I shouldn’t. Many complain about monotony and I know that one day, our lives too will settle into predictability. I should try to enjoy this constant roller coaster ride while it lasts, but the fact remains that I am, by nature, a lover of routine and predictability.

Danny has decided to go it alone. That is, become self-employed. Every fibre of my risk-hating being is screaming for him not to do it, and yet, after having giving it a great amount of thought, I know this is the right thing for him to do. He respects me enough to have shared all his thoughts and concerns about making this move and it is a decision that we, not he, eventually made. 

That said, hard as I am trying to be the supportive wife, I am already beginning to feel the strain. Not financially, thankfully, but on our family life. Danny is working hard for our family and for his dream and in the first few weeks of this new endeavour, it is taking him away from us so much that I’m beginning to feel like a single parent. It isn’t fair to judge him now, however, since the business is only just starting up and we already expected this on the outset. Yet, despite being mentally prepared, it is proving to be quite difficult. Still, Danny also works hard at keeping all this in mind, constantly showing appreciation for all the support I show him and all that I’m doing with the kids. Except the one thing I want right now is the one thing he can’t give – his time.

Sigh. I suppose this is all a matter of adjustment.

That which he cannot have

It’s been Project Nathan these last couple of weeks, both Project Get-To-Sleep-On-Your-Own and Project Weaning. Both are progressing, maybe not well, but nevertheless, progressing. You have to be hardhearted to execute and I must say I’m not doing too shabbily. Except sometimes I feel my resolve crumbling as he sits on my lap, pulls at the neckline of my shirt, inspects and sniffs my chest, lays his sorry head upon my breast and sucks his lower lip to sleep. Sara never used the whole I’m-such-a-deprived-and-sad-baby act on me and was as happy as I was to chuck nursing. Nathan? He’s so totally using it against me. But I’m tougher than that. I gotta be. I gotta be. I gotta be.

Re sleep training. He’ll now go down to sleep on his own, but not without a few minutes of pitiful wailing. But he’ll do it. Now, if only I can get him to stop the middle-of-the-night wailing too.

Standoff

I am sleep training Nathan. Some don’t agree to it, but I think it’s a fantastic way to teach a baby to sleep on his own. I’m not of the co-sleeping, no-crying school of thought – the earlier a baby learns to put himself to sleep, the better.

In practice, however, it’s taken me almost a full year to put my foot down with Nathan. With Sara, I didn’t really learn of the method till she was one and when I used it on her, it took all of three days for her to learn to put herself to sleep. I swore with Nathan we’d start at six months. And as Murphy (of Murphy’s Law) would have it, his eczema broke out about then. Unfortunately, while I can walk away from a screaming baby, I cannot do the same with a scratching (and bloodied) one. So it’s only now, almost six months later, with his eczema under control and me knowing what needs to be done to keep it from flaring up, that I’ve decided to put sleep training back on the agenda.

It’s been going on the past few nights and I can say only this. It’s going to take more than three days. I’m not sure whether I’m proud the boy has true grit to get what he wants, or to hit my head against the way at his sheer pigheadedness. Last night, we had a three and a half hour standoff. He cried (on and off) the whole evening and refused, despite being totally exhausted, to allow himself to drift off to sleep. He’d stand, eyes closed, in his crib, and occasionally let out a wail. He’d wait for me to put him to sleep.  

He finally caved in and drifted off to sleep miserably by about 12.30pm last night. And this morning, we’re back at it again. Despite being thoroughly exhausted from a bad night’s sleep and eyes drifting shut while playing, he’s in the crib right now again, yelling sleepily, waiting for me or my helper to put him to sleep. He’s a determined cookie, he is. But unluckily for him, so am I. So the battle of wills continues…

Check this out

Plugging for my friend Lynn. She’s gone and done what she said she would do and I am in deep admiration – I can only wish I had that much gumption. I knew her back in her Tokyo days and got to sample all that wonderful desserts, for FREE! She is amazing and her food is not only gorgeous to behold but lovely to taste. She is a true artist and I am proud to see how far she’s come.

Go check her personal blog To Short Term Memories, her business blog Enchante and her photoblog. She’s now based in Singapore and not only sells cakes and desserts, but teaches too. Go drool.

The big day

Yes, it’s coming up. The BIG DAY is upon us.

Sara’s Happy Birthday.

We’ve been talking about it for months. Yes, MONTHS. Try teaching a not-yet-three-year-old the concept of time beyond “yesterday, today and tomorrow”. It all started with her BFF’s birthday last November. BFF being Best Female Friend. Seeing how she doesn’t like boys (scrunches her nose up in disdain), I guess I don’t really need to be that explicit about her choice of best friend. But I digress.

Ever since our neighbour and carpool buddy had her birthday last November, Sara’s been going on about hers. What she wants to do, who she wants to invite, which grandparent is going to be around, etc. You get the idea. Of course, with her real birthday many months away at that point, all I could do to explain that she’d have to wait was to promise her that she’d have to wait past Christmas and Chinese New Year before we got to her Happy Birthday. Of course, at the point of saying this, neither Christmas nor Chinese New Year held any meaning to her, but they were soon to be significant events for her. Christmas had the tree, her Christmas concert at school, Santa, Jingle Bells and of course, the PRESENTS. Overflowing under our tiny tree. So now it’s a date she can relate to. Chinese New Year was another big event because we hopped onto a plane and went back go Singapore to see her grandparents. The people, food and ang paos meant little, but seeing cousins and grandparents was the best thing.

And like the little elephant she is, she remembered. Upon returning from Singapore, she brought up the fact that now we were past Christmas and Chinese New Year – was it her Happy Birthday yet? How right she was to ask the question, but no, we weren’t there yet. So we’ve been passing the last several weeks in wind up mode. Everything’s now gearing up for the BIG EVENT and we’re into final days now.

I swung from having a big do at a function room with a paid entertainer, to having a tiny thing in our house with me as the entertainer/child minder. I finally decided on the latter - my wise mother said to me one should never have more children than the age of the birthday child. I’ve broken that rule a little – we are having four little girls over, rather than three. The nice thing is that I’ve invited children whose mothers I know, so it will just be a big playdate. Going the route of a big bash was thrown out quite early because (a) that’s just not my style although I felt the need to reciprocate the many parties Sara, Nathan and I have been invited to in the last few months; and (b) let’s face it, no one really wants to travel out to the boondocks for a child’s birthday and does anyone really care in the first place.

But, as we all know, it is still a Happy Birthday, so we must therefore do birthday things. So I trawled through the web and found that there are crazy mothers out there who put together PERFECT birthday parties, from themed invites to costumes, decorations, presents and games. Me? I’m not mad. Plus these are three-year-olds we’re talking about. Martha-Stewart-esque parties for a wedding celebration, I can understand, but themed party favours and handmade costumes for a child’s party? You gotta be stark raving mad.

So here is where I am: we’re doing a fairy party, although I haven’t been able to do much in getting fairy-themed stuff. Our helper is baking the birthday cake since she’s half decent and loves to do it anyway. The only really fairy thing about the party is the simple costume I’m putting together for the girls – a pair of tulle wings (a big bow, really) and a wand (some cardboard and a chopstick). They get to wear sparkly make-up, make their crowns and necklaces, and fairy bread (buttered bread with sprinkles). I’m planning to play lots of music and have them run about outside like the little lunatics they are and we, the moms, can snack nervously on cake and coffee.

Yes, it’s set to be a good party. It will be Sara’s first one (I’m a bad mother – so shoot me), so it better be.

Eleven months and counting

Courtesy of my dear friend Kim and her wonder camera at Chinese New Year.

Silence

I’m getting a little tired of apologizing for my long silences, as I’m sure you who are still hanging around to read my rather stagnant blog are a little tired of reading my apologies. So I’ll skip through all that and head straight to the updates.

Writing: I’m writing! I’m writing! Well, sort of. I’ve started a writing group with a bunch of ladies and we now meet on a regular basis to offer each other support and helpful criticism. I’m not sure where this will go, but it’s fun and it forces me to get to it and make time to write. One of the ladies recently got published and I’m now trying to push myself to bite the bullet and send what I have in to some magazine or paper. Publishing in itself doesn’t mean much (some mags and papers publish dross), but it’s a physical achievement of sorts, a milestone. So this is what I’m working on now. Plus, I’m trying to put together a portfolio of writing to submit as part of an application to do a part-time writing diploma at the local university. I’ve decided to tell everyone about this because it doesn’t matter what you all out there think of my writing. What’s more important is that I’m taking the initiative to DO SOMETHING WITH MYSELF, other than mind the kids. It’s a big step and I want to do it and nothing gets me going more than announcing it out loud.

Then again, look what making a big deal about NaNoWriMo got me…

Kids: I heard this many times before but never paid much heed to it. Now I have to say I agree. If I had my second child first, I may not have had a second child. No, it isn’t that Nathan’s a horror (well, sometimes he is, but he has his reasons), it’s just that he is plagued with allergies that I never experienced with Sara. They aren’t very severe allergies, but serious enough to cause him discomfort and hence make him a cranky old man suffering from insomnia. That makes me a cranky old mother trying to pacify a crying baby in the middle of the night, several times a night, nearly everyday. We are now doing battle with the allergens. The first step is to IDENTIFY the bugger(s). At this point, it could be anything – he’s most recently had a break out and there is absolutely nothing new in his diet or his surroundings. This can only mean he’s developed a sensitivity to something that’s been around for a while. Oh joy. This means super sleuth work with little sleep. The laundry detergent and softener are the first suspects, so that’s what we’re working on now. The poor boy has gotten heavier duty hydrocortisone cream (yes, yes, it’s a steriod, but you see my crying and itching baby and tell me how I can deny him relief) and antihisthamines. In the meantime, we (helper and I) are getting geared for what could be a long battle to identify the allergen.

Everything else: Change is upon us. So much for hoping that this will be the year of unchange. No, we aren’t leaving Hong Kong yet, although it certainly smelt that way a short time ago. We now enter a new phase in Danny’s career and I think I’m about to get a whole lot more religious (i.e. pray a lot) because of it. God has His way of throwing curve balls at the least expected moments.

Chinese New Year: Had a stressful time back in Singapore for a week. I think I add stress to myself (I can hear everyone who knows me yelling a resounding “YES!”), but seriously, it was such an exhausting trip. Not least because we had back-to-back appointments nearly everday, but amid all the visiting and errand-running, we discovered Nathan’s separation anxiety. This is somewhat of a surprise to me because Sara hardly suffered from it. She could be left with just about anyone and be happy when she was his age. Nathan, on the other hand, won’t settle for anyone other than me or my helper. Since my helper did not come with us, that just meant me. My poor mother-in-law suffered through hours of yelling (and neighbours inquiring if the boy was okay) one evening when we couldn’t take him with us. Sara, who typically doesn’t mind being left behind, decided it was time to exert herself. She wasn’t to be left behind if Nathan was to be taken along, so this meant everyone coming along to wherever we were going. Next time, we bring our helper -I’m ready to toss my I-can-do-this-myself pride out the window.

I’ll post a few photos taken over CNY in a little bit. Till my next post…