Indar, my domestic helper, and I enjoy a very good relationship. If there is anything that could rip a rift between the two of us, it won’t be because she burnt a hole while ironing my favourite dress or because she told a lie, it would definitely due to Yauyau.

It is a blessing that she loves my kid very much and takes very good care of her, perhaps even better then myself. But this means that the kid is as close to her as is to me. One of my greatest fear is that Indar will replace my status of Yauyau’s favourite person. A few days ago, while returning home from my father’s place, the kid actually cried for Indar! My heart sunk, I felt so sour. Then two days ago, she woke up from her sleep and started crying frantically. Thinking it might be one of those terror nights she might be going thru, I just gently pat on her to pacify her. She continued crying “mama” in the most sorrowful manner. After about half a minute, she actually changed her “mama” to “Indar”. That was like sending an instant distress signal to me and I pull up my t_shirt to offer her milk immediately. I couldn’t bear to hear her crying for another person instead of myself.

I guess I overreacted, we will always have our special place in the heart of our children. But I am sure this also happens to many parents, especially when so many of us rely on the help of domestic helpers to babysit the children. Well, just got to control my jealousy, else I will risk pickling myself.

It is a lesson parents like me never learnt and we have to end up regretting our decision every single time. Nope, its not anything abusive or life threatening, it just makes us embarrassed, frustrated and regretful. That’s it, bringing the kid to the restaurant to have meals with friends.

I guess we all go through the difficult decision making stage whether or not to bring the kid out. That poor pitiful look on their face send us instant signals that they shouldn’t be abandoned at home. We reminded each other to stand by the decision not to let the kid tag along or risk the dire consequences. We struggle to stand firm, and then we gave in. She shall come along, maybe she is older now and would sit still. Yupe, fat hope. It was already commendable that she could stay calm for about 15 min or so, and then after that, all she did was to struggle to come out of the high chair. I tried to sit her on my laps, and she started wiggling and twisting to break free. She just preferred to wonder around the eatery and made a nuisance of herself.

We requested for more waffles from the ice cream parlor to keep her busy, but she gobbles them down in a minute or so. Well, I can’t possibly ordered 20 more biscuits to keep her busy for 20min. It was terribly to catch up and chit chat with friends with a kid at hand, until we found our saviour of that night. A glass of cold water and a little spoon saved our night. She tried to scoop the ice to put inside her mouth. The she tried to feed herself with spoonfuls of water. And that kept her busy for the rest of the night. Next time I know what to do, order more water, with extra ice chips.

We were more then a month overdue and received a little addon souviner we get after Yauyau did her DPT vaccination, a fever! She didn’t had any reaction for the last three DPT jabs, but this time her temperature was hovering around 39C. We weren’t as concerned this time, perhaps because we had expected that to happen and have our medicine on stand by. And unlike the past which she displayed clear discomfort, she is functioning perfectly as normal. She slept well and didn’t moan in pain or woke up easily. She still jumped around and not behave like a lifeless soul. All is well, so perhaps fever after immunization’s is really a small case.

We are still postponing her MMR, and the doctor said I would be expecting a letter of reminder from the ministry. She still reminded me that measles can be deadly and it is wiser to take the vaccination. Well, everything can be deadly. Not that we are going to skip them entirely, we are just pushing it back a little while.

The doctor was also not too happy with Yauyau’s weight. She is weighing slightly over 10kg. I guess the doc prefers to see a much chubbier baby. She should see Yauyau a month ago, she was even skinnier then. But why must people always think that a scrawny kid is an unhealthy one? Anyway, I am not too concern with that, thought I think she would look cuter if she is meatier.

Everything is right on path except her speech. That part seems a bit slow, but I guess she is starting to pick up. Maybe she is just like her papa and mama, not too talkative.

Frankly speaking, I don’t like to feed Yauyau during her lunch and dinner, because she would take ages to finish the meal. This is especially so when we started her on table food we eat. She seems to take forever to chew on the meat, vege or other more fibrous stuff. She either sucked away all the juice or spit out the chewy portion, or she kept them in her mouth around her jaws. I have absolutely no patient for such nonsense. To prevent myself from loosing patience, throwing away the unfinished food and starving her, I rather leave that job to Indah.

Guess one of the problem with mothers who aren’t too involve in certain daily routine with bringing up their kids is that we aren’t aware that they have master new skills or have drop the irritating bad habit that annoy us so much. So today, I realised that she has actually stop her bad habit of storing food inside her mouth and is able to chew her food very well. I think her set of baby teeth are more or less done growning.

Like all children, her favourite food now includes fishball, fishcake, mushroom, sweet corn, cookies and things like that. I am also happy to find out that she likes vegetables and fruits a lot. It seems that children nowadays are taking their greens and fruits very well. Perhaps it is because parents have started the kids early on these foods.

Oh yes, I forget to mention that her favourite drink is Yakult.

Sometimes I wonder if it is because I am getting older and thus less adventurous or is it because of some motherly instinct. It used to be normal or thrilling to be on fast moving car, but nowadays I only feel extremely tense and frighten. I can’t even accept a speed like 100km/h, I will start broadcasting my road safety announcements and warn James to slow down, keep at least 100 car length behind the car in front while I hold on to the seat tightly. Really, this doesn’t happen before the kid arrives and I can go even more paranoid when she is traveling with us.

Then there is this smoking issue. Actually, there isn’t any issue at all before pregnancy, I don’t care if you smoke into my face, though I don’t like it. But now, I start feeling offended if someone lights up near me when I have Yauyau around.

By all means, they have the right to smoke. I can’t stop them from their good times, I would just avoid them, no conflict. But why do they have to smoke if there are kids and expecting moms nearby who happen to be there first? We were having a nice little picnic at east coast park yesterday. It was a lovely picnic until a young couple arrived, decided to sit near us and started puffing away. That was irritating. Of all places, they must chose to station themselves near children and let them inhale their second hand smoke. I certainly hope to see more considerate smokers in future, so that I don’t have to gobble down my meals or be forced to change location because of them.