10 things every mother to be should know

1. Don’t rush home from hospital!
2. Homecoming is f***ing hard
3. Babies cry for no apparent reason
4. Your husband might, or might not, turn out to be as your expected
5. You will not sleep. Ever again.
6. You will lose 80% of your brain.
7. You will look like shit for a while after the birth
8. You become priority number 999 on your list of things to do
9. Sex will be the furthest thing on your mind
10. Your life will never be the same again.
(via so close)

We won’t need to be told about that as we already knew them thru the hard way. Perhaps the husbands might find it useful to understand the unusual behaviour of their wives, like what is mentioned in #9

What got me interested is #1: Don’t rush home from hospital! I have friends who decided to remain in the hospital much longer then needed, from 3 days to even a week. They told me they wanted more rest. Really knows how to enjoy life.

Some women jump off the bed and head back home as soon as the doctor gives the green light to do so. Some said they want to save hospital bill, some feel bored in the ward, some dislike the food, some prefer home sweet home, some had bad experience in the hospital (like smoking aunties and unexpected man…hehe, phoebe, that’s referring to you). But I think the silliest reason is that some women feel very “steady” and “saht” if they are able to be discharged within the shortest time, and thus try to beat each other’s record in their hospital stay, and then brag about it. They really have nothing better to do.

Today,　I　start tying Yauyau`s legs against the bamboo chair during feeding time. I have been having the hardest and most frustrating times trying to keep her seated instead of climbing out of it. I only have two arms, one for holding the bowl of porridge, and another one to press down her shoulder when she attempts to get out, just in case she falls off the chair. Sometimes I have to deploy my legs to clamp her body while I try to find a place to place the bowl of food.

The velcro straps are perfect. She couldn`t move much with both legs restrained. It is also wonderful that the restriction didn`t aggitate her at all, else I might just give in and remove the straps. I don`t have to do any more juggling during meal time anymore.

Your 2 parents live in this big house with 5 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms and 7 aircon units. They have been living rather comfortably for some time, until they screwed up badly and lend themselves in a very bad debt and zero savings. You supported them by giving them allowances monthly, but that is not enough. That big house has outstanding loans that need to be paid. They offer you a deal: take over the loan and you will inherit the house in future.

Will you take it?

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The girl was running a fever again yesterday. Not too sure what caused it. Maybe she picked up some germs at the coffeshop table when she happily ate the food dropped on it. Maybe she caught a cold because I didn’t let her wear any clothes and let her wander around naked.

Anyway, we decided to bring her to see a doctor. I didn’t have any suitable medication to lower her temperature, and I didn’t want to end up frantically sending her to the doctor again after midnight (just didn’t want to pay the double charges).

The young GP asked:”How long has she has the fever? One day? Two days?”

“Just.”

I am very sure I saw him trying to hide an amused grin. What was on his mind? “These parents ah, so anxious, just got fever, rush down to see doctor immediately!” ? Well, if we are not worried, the GPs better start worrying about their rice bowl. Anyway, we got the medicine, and were told to bring back the child if she has rashes, vomits, or if the temperature wouldn’t come down.

Most of the time, we just need to see the doctor for some assurance and the needed peace of mind.

“Psychologists there have found that babies weaned on rusks are more likely to go on to prefer beige foods, such as crisps and chips, later in life.

The researchers said children built up a “visual prototype” of favoured foods.

But babies exposed to a range of tastes by the age of one, including fruit and vegetables, went on to show a greater preference for those tastes later on. ” BBC: Children’s tastes ‘develop early’

Oh dear, does that means that we might be doing more harm to the kids in future because we are very careful when introducing new food. I have not been very adventurous in introducing a wide variety of food. The top reason is because every other food seems to be unsuitable, unhealthy, toxic, hormones laden or is an allergy trigger. The safest way out is to stick to the few safer choices.

Besides that, I also have the impression that limiting the child’s exposure to different taste should produce a less fussy eater. When you have tasted the flavourful goodies, why would you want to settle for the bland ones? I seem to be getting it all wrong, the young ones build a visual database of the food they like, and might just reject those strange looking new food different from their preferred “prototype”. They don’t even want to give them a chance!

But then, the baby’s food are all mushy and mashed up, how would they know about the colour, texture and shape.

I was reading about the unglamorous part of Cheryl Fox from Cowboy Caleb’s a gonzo journal. “She was dressed in a pyjamas sweatsuit. Her hair was in a mess. She didn’t have any makeup on. Her complexion was rotten. Damn, she looked like a hag. A slightly overweight hag on a bad hair day.”

There are many young moms in my estate and around my area. I see many of them everyday, and most of the time, it is a bad hair day just like Cheryl Fox. This morning, I met two Chinese ladies, mother and grandma downstairs. They were taking a stroll with their son (grandson). The mom was wearing high heals and the grandma even more fashionable, wearing wedges! No baggy t-shirts, but nice blouses and well cut shorts. Not that I am inspired to dress up like that everyday, it just presented to me the different attitude towards personal grooming between locals and foreigners.

I am not going into those big theories on wisdom, character or attitude, just the more superficial personal appearance. We all like nice and pretty thing. While we (the auntie homemakers) blend in perfectly in the wet market, do we stand out like an eyesore outside the market? And with lesser attention paid to our personal grooming, it seems to spiral off and release more auntieness from our inner self.

I am not a celebrity; I don’t have to worry over my image like Cheryl Fox does. I don’t get up early in morning, shampoo, blow dry and set my hair silky smooth. No need to put on make up, since the husband is obliged to accept my most “natural beauty”, the baby doesn’t care, and the cleaning ah pek doesn’t even look at me. I will reserve those nice nice clothes when I go out, so they can have a longer life span. Come on, what is more comfy then those baggy t-shirts, especially those ultra thin, smooth ,completely seasoned ones you have been wearing since your secondary school days, yah?

Should stop finding excuses to allow myself degenerate into a true auntie. It is not difficult to wear stain free, hole free and crease free t-shirt that fits well. It doesn’t need a lot of time to comb my hair properly and tied them up nicely. And I should just stop scratching my nails to allow them to grow neatly. I should at least look tidy and presentable and perhaps doll myself up occaionally to rid that ah soh shadow.

James is away again, and I thought I would be enjoying a bigger space on the bed with yauyau tonight. But it was Friday, and as usual, my mother-in-law decided to visit and stay over the night. And she decides to take over the father’s role and sleeps with us tonight.

Never mind. Unexpected but no big deal. For those who have not been to our place, our home is really a small one. One room for the three of us, and the other room for computers and wardrobe. We don’t have any extra room or bed for guest. It is either fighting for space with the computers in the little home office, or sleeping on the sofa in the living room (which is quite comfy too). My MIL chooses the sofa, because she couldn’t get up from the mattress on the floor and she doesn’t like our aircon bedroom. Just in case you think we are really un-filial and wonder why don’t we simply switch off the aircon and let her have the bed, it was due to fengshui reason, according to my wise MIL. She seriously advised us against opening our bedroom windows and half of the windows in our living room, which explains why our place is so stuffy. We will die of suffocation and heat stroke if we do not have the aircon.

Since she is sleeping with us on the same bed tonight, I thought I should retire early, and hopefully wake up early tomorrow, so as to portray an image of a worthy daughter-in-law. I couldn’t sleep. I will only return to the room when I am confident that my eyelids could not bear the weight of sleepiness anymore. When those close to your heart, like your husband, snores, you find it amusing and probably cute too. But when anybody else snores, it just annoys you like a persistent mosquitoes irritably buzzing around your ears. I tried, but couldn’t get the snoring sound off my mind. My mind seems to be synchronising with the snores and I hear imagery sounds even when the snoring stops for five seconds.

Then I remembered two weeks ago, she slept with us too (because the grandma and cousin had taken the sofa and mattress), and I only fell asleep at around 4am. Last year, while in hospital after the c-section, I had two sleepless nights because the lady next to my bed had the most thunderous snore in the world.

I think I remember hearing her said that she is going to stay for two nights, oh dear!

(She just woke up and is moving back to the living room, with the evil daughter-in-law writing about her on the notebook! I guess the aircon is too much for her to bear. Btw, the aircon is set at 25 deg only, not some freezing temperature.)

The only water Yauyau truely loves are those found in the bath tub. When I bring her to the pool, she prefers to wander around it then getting into the water. We were at East Coast Park today, and she would rather dig sand on the beach, far far away from the water. She was terrified of the waves when I brought her near the water, must be something totally strange and intimidating to her.

By the way, the whole East Coast Park was packed with people. I know it is public holiday today, but nevertheless, it still surprised me! We went all the way to the end near the Sailing Centre, and it was still crowded! Singapore is really too small, not enough places to distrubute the bored holiday makers.

This list was posted at the Asia Parent List some time back. I know the school holidays are over, but there are always weekends to bring the kids to visit some farms and see some animals, and also buy some fresh farm produce to cook dinner

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Though I like my sarong sling very much, I seldom use it nowadays. The thick cotton makes me sweat and feeling sticky all over on a warm day. The sarong kept sliding lower due to Yauyau’s weight and I have to constantly adjusting it. And her bums don’t seem to sit on the sling very well, fed up!

I just found out one more kind of baby carriers from Irene’s site, the Mei Tai. Looks very interesting and pretty, and seems to be rather cooling too. And the carrier has its root in Asia, from our Chinese 老祖宗. The back carrying style looks cool too and the carriers come in a wide variety of pretty fabrics. So far in Singapore, I have not come across any Chinese style carrier. I am tempted to get one myself, but I will control, maybe KIV until the next one arrives.