crazy days

feeling really jaded these days...

a soft life

i read on an economist's blog that an academic's life is a soft life.

tons of flexibility. lots of fun. you don't have to see your boss every single day. and, on average, you have fewer meetings in your life than if one were to be in the corporate world.

i'm still in my office. it's past 8 pm. looming deadline to blame. but i don't work late every day, even though i think about my work every waking minute. i worry about it. i form to-do lists even when i'm getting ready for bed. the worst aspect of the job, in my opinion, is having lots of people judging your work. and it helps to develop a thick skin. but i was born with a thin skin and i don't think it grows thicker with age. nor with rejections.

but at the end of the day, it's the flexibility that counts. a virtue of the soft life that i hadn't appreciated this much until i have kids. that i'm so darn afraid to lose it. that i can't bear the thought of going back to the corporate world to ch-ch-chug along.

so, yes. if i'm that "pampered", then it's a soft life. the sort that allows me to at least be a "present-minded" mom, a mom that could be there for excursions, {potential} baseball practices, mommy-and-me gymboree time. and sometimes, a mommy-and-me-and-a-ben-and-jerry's-ice-cream-in-the-afternoon-time .

first dip into mish mesh

we are back!

and we are finally well! i really can't take good health for granted anymore.

it was crazy, the medical bills we've chalked up this first half of the year.

after a whirlwind of sun, sea, sleet, grey skies (from phuket to edinburgh to london), and ingesting lots of english strawberries and smog, we are finally home - jetlagged but man, the kids have matured a lot.

given that we've nursed ourselves back to health (we brought our antibiotics with us), we celebrated by taking a dip in the pool on sat.

alex is a pro - kicking up a storm and even doing breaststrokes...

no pictures - i'm crazy busy .... perhaps after this last conference...

alex is babbling a lot these days, sort of like a garbled tongue... mish-mesh of many-syllable words...

eric set up the baby chair we lugged from london. together with the art on the walls, and me trying to declutter our kitchen counter and other nooks, our apartment now feels very much like a home.

but, it feels like we've outgrown the space a little....hmmm....

about me

yesterday was my birthday.

i had forgotten all about it. in fact, when i looked at my calendar for the month of may, it has things like,

"Alex to go to the Doc's"

"School's out for Christian"

"End of term party for Christian"

"Proctor Exam"

"Baby Ray's Red Egg"

"HK - Zuma, reservations"

"Mom comes back to help out"

"Ah Xiang (our carpenter) at 3pm"

"Board of Examiners meeting"

you get less excited about your birthday as the year goes on. sometimes, i don't even remember how old i am.

but it was a nice, quiet, little birthday. my mom spent the day with us.

eric was very sweet - it's incredible to see that the guy i've known has "grown" to become quite a father-figure(!)

the kids were, as usual, quite smitten with me :)

so tired

have you gotten sick of me complaining how tired i've felt.

i do.

so do you i hope.

the little short getaway did almost nothing to make me feel refreshed. last night, in my own bed, i woke up discombobulated.

the kids do seem to benefit from the mini holiday. they always do.

they always seem to have grown a little after a trip.

i hope i don't jinx myself, but the kids were terrific on the plane :)

as a result, i managed to watch 1.75 movies... grrr, we forgot our own headphones and had to use the airline's. why do they need those headphones back so quickly?

whirlwind

since the start of the new year, it's been a whirlwind of nonstop new experiences...

school, potty-training, speech, job-stuff

the worst bit - being sick. for my 10+ years of working life, i can count with one hand the number of times i've been sick.

the worse than worst bit (technically, doesn't exist, does it?), kids being sick.

i desperately need a breather...

i need time to take a step back...

so many thoughts,

so little time and energy to process them...

too busy living

dearest alex,

3/4 = 9 months. that's a big milestone. it's close to a year. you were in my tummy for that amount of time (thereabouts) and now you are in our world for that same amount of time. wait... er... 9 months old, that's old news. that's a month ago.

"yo! ma, nice job... forgetting my milestone birthday"

i hear ya. but can i tell you that you are this amazing little pea nugget? we are so busy living life everyday, you are so busy learning new things every day, bloggin' just seems so frivolous (and i only have lunch time to jot down witty banter/notes in your baby journal - please don't compare notes with your brother... his journal seems more, um, well-thought-out).

so what are the things that make up your amazing-ness?

(a) you put up a good fight. esp when you really want that red fire truck that was your brother's. that same red fire engine that he has painstakingly lined it up together with his 10 million other trucks. we call you the Godzilla. You'll come bashing through his peak-hour-traffic-trucks-stuck-in-a-highway. clomp clomp clomp.

(b) you can stand well now - even though it only lasts around 10 seconds, you seemed pretty proud of yourself (psst, so do i)

(c) you clap and wave bye-bye on command.

(d) you dance (!) and jump (or tries to)

(e) you give kisses - when asked to and on a voluntary basis... i'm the lucky recipient. your papa, feels a little slighted.

(f) you love cinnamon. you actually love that if you pat her she walks away from you. well, cinnamon is an old dame...from my observations, kids bore her. but it's a different story if you show some inclination to share your teething rusks with her...

(g) and if i ask for your bunny friend, you'll happily go find it and give it to me (and then promptly takes it from me so you can give it some tender loving hugs and kisses)

there should be more... but my brain is not really working nowadays. work is piling up...i feel like i'm working on this effing (i can say this, you can't) paper on inflation illusion forever, time to move on...

xo,
momma

Alexandra is 10 months old
Christian is 2 years 11 months and 3 days old.

the past

met up with Lifen - I haven't seen her since Christian was born. It was good to see her - we've known each other since high school but had "spottily" caught up with each other over the years. when i had to move away to go to grad school, i had lost touch with most of my friends. it's sort of like the "meant-to-be" thing - those people that are mere aquaintances just dropped out of your circle, or you of theirs. and there were friendships that just didn't make it. in some ways, people do change and evolve so the preferences are not as aligned anymore. but with Lifen, there was always something to talk about. these early friendships (we were 13 when we met) are like signposts of who you are deep in your core. they just last.

i was really glad that she looked radiant and seemed to be doing well. i had been concerned for her. i brought alex with me since Lifen's not seen her before. and then she asked the all important question: do you want another baby?

i do. i love babies. i love that i could produce babies who are so cute (which baby isn't cute, by the way?) i love being pregnant. but i seriously doubt i could hold down a job and have another kid. the marginal cost is catching up with the marginal benefit. i hate to think about it in such mercenery terms that's so close to being "crass", but i know deep down i do have a ledger and i'm slowly ascending the hill of happiness and if i'm not careful, i might start on the descending route (in short, my objective function is concave).

how do people come up with the right number of kids? for us, it's between 2 or 3. 4 is a stretch. i grew up in a family where emotions were tumultous and when there was a peaceful day, i wondered when the next storm would start up. there were 4 kids and i found comfort in that number. i felt safer because there were 4 of us. but i also wondered, and sometimes still do, if the 4 kids contributed in any way to the acceleration of the breakdown of my parent's marriage.

the past does color the future. the past does affect how i view as important in building a strong marriage and a family. could i finish internalizing everyone's hill of happiness? well, eric could figure out his own quite well (he always has a strong sense of what he wants), but alex's and christian's? and, mine?

a secret

going through our cold weather clothes today.

actually i only picked through the kids' clothes. i'm so flabby that i hate to dig through my old clothes.

thanks to my sweet friend Marnie, Alex has tons of clothes to choose from. hoodies, leggings, you name it, her daughter Nadine wears through the seasons (!)

alas, with Christian, zilch. He has this long-sleeved top that I bought from Espirit a year ago. I bought a size larger back then, but he grew so much (height-wise, that little imp melts all his fat away instantaneously) and the sleeves were a tad too short. And I dug out three very sad-looking dungarees (Editor: overalls). Eric didn't like them. Said one of them (it was from gap, mind you) looked girlish????!!! i think he has a thing or two against dungarees. so does Christian - every since he was a baby he hated them.

i guess, i'm writing a blog post to justify a shopping trip. i've been dying to go to H&M. i'm planning all this, laced with the slightest tinge of guilt. i'm supposed to be working hard tomorrow.

eric doesn't know my intentions yet.

he will, once he reads this. ha(!)

first words

dearest alexandra,

hello my little darling. you know, sometimes i wonder if this space is too flimsy to share all my thoughts. i mean, i don't even know what the internet is. and for some reason, it could also be a repository. back to why i was writing (besides it being a shoot-from-the-hip, quick and easy way to record my thought du jour!)

you are growing waaay too fast. so fast that i've not been able to jot down your progress with much precision in your baby journal. so fast that i could only manage blogger-minutes to type as fast as i can here and then return to exam grading and depressing oh-god-please-let-this-latest-idea-be-publishable research (note to you - please write legibly and concisely when taking exams. also, i happen to love my job, despite its judgmental nature. and at times when i don't love it, i'm doing it so i could enjoy the quality of life its income brings...i earnestly hope you'll find a job you'll love and if you don't it's okay, as long as you don't give up looking).

you can tell that my mind is all over the place. that's an occupational hazard of being a mom. but i see you. i see you are learning a lot. that little brain of yours must be in some kind of an overdrive. when ever you grow by leaps and bounds, that's when your sleep becomes really crappy and my state of mental alertness goes way down low. and two nights ago, you enunciated your words so clearly i had to do a double take to make sure it was you. you said, "ma - ma", with the gentlest little pause that sounded so deliberate. you have a really amazing full and deep voice - i swear, you really sounded like dionne warwick. i read somewhere that "papa" was easier and so it was the typical words from the mouths of babes. if that were true, then you must have worked extra hard to call me. and for this, i'm really touched.

you've grown really clingy recently. when i put you down to sleep in your own bed, you looked desperate and reached for the only words you know.. "ma...ma.." man, how could i let you sleep alone???? and when i did sneakily put you down in your own bed, once you wake up, you'll be searching for me. "ma..."

God made babies this cute, for a reason. to be loved.

But who can resist you? And this new thing that you mastered, plopping your head down on my shoulder when i carry you - that's waaaayyyy too sweet, babilicious.

I miss you at work. Work is crazy. But because I'm crazy about you (and your brother, and of course, your Papa), I got to keep my sanity and keep chugging along.

xoxo,
Momma

Alexandra is 7 months and 1 week old.
Christian is 2 years, 8 months and 1 week old.

i was (still am) a shy little person

i have childhood memories that go back all the way when i was 3. my mom will testify that this is true. i don't recall a whole lot, but i remember my emotions very clearly. there was this game that my father liked to play with me: we lived on the 12th floor, he would place me at the edge of the low wall along the common corridor and catch me "just in time" just as I was about to topple over. it was scary and i had recurring nightmares about falling over. however, whenever he played this game, i would laugh out of excitement. i'm sure this was enough reason for the social service to step in and send me to foster care - but that was in the early seventies. when we were playing this game, i got the chance to look at the people from 12 floors up, and i remember wondering to myself why would a seemingly tall adult appear like an ant from the 12-floors vantage point. i also remember telling myself that if there were two of me, one on the 12th floor and one below, then i would also observe that the "me" at the bottom of the 12 floors would be very small. i remember mulling over this idea for a long time. i also remember scheming up a plan to perform an experiment. we took the elevator up and down our apartment but my sister and i would play at the staircase all the time. i must have understood depth perception. i understood that the stairs take you one floor up and one floor down. i remember reasoning to myself that if the stairs could take me up and down, one step at a time, and looking at the stairwell, it seemed that the stairs went all the way down - i could go to the ground level on my own one step at a time, without taking the elevator - which was a "black box" and i could not reach to touch the buttons. i hatched a plan - to prove that the very same person that was originally 12 floors up was the exact same person 12 floors down below but only looked ant-like because that person was "far away". but what excited me about the plan was not so much depth perception, i was more intrigued by the curiosity that the stairs that seemed to go forever could actually take me down to the ground level. in my memory, i had observed people moving up the stairs a lot. and finally one day, while playing along the corridor, i took the plunge. i took one step at a time and i eventually found myself on the ground level. i was delirious! i remember jumping up and down. i remember seeing the same person that i saw when i was peering through a peep-hole like vent in the low corridor wall 12 floors up. that person was wearing a black scarf in her ponytail. i remember that black scarf because we had a similar scarf in our home. the success of this experiment was my favorite childhood memory. my mom remember this incident. what i don't remember was the panic that ensued after i "disappeared", and how i caused my grandmother (my primary caregiver) to burst into tears thinking that i had been kidnapped/abducted. my mom told me it happened when i was 3 and she remember i was really happy to have made it downstairs.

because i can remember some childhood incidents clearly, i sometimes feel that i can relate to how christian is feeling. whenever he throws a temper tantrum, there were flashbacks in my mind. i remember feeling this rage that i could not control. the emotions were too complex to understand; and even when i was angry and i wanted to stop crying, i couldn't. the emotions were a monstrosity to control. and i would cry about my failure to control them too. but because of these flashbacks, i sometimes feel i have to be careful too - that christian's emotions do not necessarily mirror mine at that age. we are, after all, two separate beings.

i've mentioned my friend Elizabeth here before. she runs this company called Embodied Movement which focuses on dance therapy. I don't have a good grasp of what dance therapy is and won't attempt to describe it here. Elizabeth wrote to me months ago about a possible dance therapy workshop here in singapore (she lives in rotterdam, the netherlands). my thought then was to support Elizabeth's endeavor and so i signed up without any hesitation. it was a session for little toddlers and their parent(s). and it happened this past Saturday at the Substation.

Christian and I headed out to a part of town that we hardly visit - it turned out to be a sunny Saturday morning and we sang to Yo Gabba Gabba! in the car. He seemed really happy to have all of my attention - on a typical weekend, I watch Alex all the time. It was a refreshing change to me too - I realized that I really miss these simple moments with Christian. But upon reaching the dance hall in Substation, Christian hesitated. He didn't want to take off his shoes, and didn't want to go in. He kept pleading and pushing me toward the door to leave. I instantly felt bad -- I was the one who made the choice to do this dance class with him, yet when he wanted to leave, he couldn't. Christian is always shy with strangers. He takes a long time to warm up. I wanted to encourage him to try different activities with people around him. But on that Saturday morning, he would have none of it. I stood my ground and tried to encourage him to participate. He wouldn't. He wanted to leave. He went to grab his little Miffy backpack and was adamant about leaving. I could tell it was the shyness.

I was a shy kid myself. It was painful to even say "hi" to strangers. My parents teased me and said they didn't like my reserved behavior. I remember not understanding what I was to do. And I remember very clearly that my parents would prep me before meeting their friends, it didn't encourage me to open up, i clammed up all the time, and the pep talk just added tons of stress way before meeting those strangers.

shyness is not a bad trait. but i don't want it to be a social handicap.

I understood Christian's shyness and his insistence on leaving the class. The guilt was starting to seep in. with Christian's protests and my coaxing, it was close to a battle of wills. But way before the class, I had anticipated Christian's behavior. I had convinced myself that the lesson I want Christian to have was that it was okay to be shy, that's who he is and what he feels, and that it will be okay to have these feelings and still be able mingle with people - either playing together or to play alongside. So I chose to stay. I chose to encourage Christian to dance just with me and that it was okay not to dance with the rest. He seemed pretty calm throughout the entire session but needed to have his bag with him all the time.

The session lasted for maybe an hour. Toward the last 10 minutes, Christian warmed up. He played with the scarfs in the class. He finally was having some fun. And I was really encouraged. Elizabeth had been fantastic - she was not pushy with Christian at all and just let us be. These are the pictures from the class. Elizabeth's husband Jeroen took these pictures of Christian and me. The pictures were very sweet. We were obviously oblivious to the rest of the class. My focus was entirely on Christian. I tried very hard not to be too self-conscious about Christian's protests. I know kids are sensitive. I didn't want to shame Christian into any action ("look, everyone is looking at you. you should dance.") and I know that if I were embarassed, Christian would pick that emotion up too.

I had thought the word "therapy" in this dance therapy session made it sound too clinical. but upon reflection, maybe it was therapy after all...it taught me a lesson or two on how to interact with a shy little person, who's not so different from me. i still have thoughts of Christian's shyness in my mind and i still have not ruled out the probability of calling a child psychologist to assess the situation. but for now, little baby dance steps will suffice.













{all pictures courtesy of Embodied Movement}

Christian is 2 years and 8 months old.
Alexandra is 7 months old.

being a wild child

i've been thinking about child play and learning. it's true, parents evolve with their kids. ask me what a 2-year old needs a year ago, i would have drawn a blank and wondered "what do they need, they are 2-year olds, for crying out loud." but as I watch Christian absorbs his surroundings like a sponge, as I spend quiet time with him just watching the different shapes of the clouds and he being the rambuctious child he is could sit and watch the clouds and point to me the "mama clouds and baby clouds", as I listen carefully on how he uses new words he learned through osmosis, I realize that as fleeting as childhood goes, this period of time is a great opportunity to expand one's mind and taste for living. for me as well as for the children.

music, smells, tastes - the senses have a memory of their own and those early memories stem from childhood. ever since I have kids of my own, i'm frequently reminiscing what my grandmother did or said or taught.

call it the "kiasu" syndrome or whatever label you want to call it. but i know that if i don't seize the childhood days and fill them (to some extent) with pleasurable "lessons" and mommie/daddy-and-me times, they will be gone forever.

on that note, i'm obsessed with this site.

give me some chill

it's always the heat that gets to me. i know it gets to eric but it's different -he grew up in a cold place. me, for some reason, i hate the heat here. and i think by some cosmic power, i was to go to grad school in wisconsin to enjoy the winters there since i missed out so much for the early part of my life (i.e. pre-grad school). i love love love the cold, dry air. summers are so uninteresting, save for beer by the lakeside and maybe a block party (so. not. a. fan)....

anyway, i put on a thin springy/fall-y sweater today and have started fantasizing about being able to take the kids out to play in the park and still be able to wear sweaters and jackets and maybe a hat. not forgetting sending emails harassing eric to think of a place cheap enough where we can pack the kids up and just chill. and enjoy the chill (haha)

*sigh*

restlessness

eric's finally home after getting stuck at the newark airport for 16 (or was it 18???) hours. yikes. i wonder if the US airlines will ever, ever work out their debt and service problems.... hmmm.

anyhoo, we are all glad he made it home. life is just not the same without him. christian was delighted to have his papa back.

i went out with my girlfriends for dinner tonight and when i came home, alex and eric were both asleep. shows that the girl is agreeable to having daddy come home and putting her to bed. i managed to get some work done while the kids are in bed. alex has been sleeping better at night and i'm hoping this keeps up and gets better (how greedy we are of our precious sleep) - this will allow me to work a little every night, chipping away at the mountainous maternity-leave-haystack-of-work <--urgh!

i'm all hyped up after working for 3 hours straight. can't fall asleep even if i were to try... hence, my hanging around here... but i've got nothing to blog about. the balcony's finally done, my herb window box is thriving (thank goodness) and i'm officially bored. i told my girlfriends tonight i needed a new project and they both looked at me like i'm crazy. what next? i'm restless...

a nice break

the kids at my mom's. alex has the "i've been harrassed, get this dude away from me" look.
which happens on a daily basis. christian LOVES his sister and tends to suffocate her with kisses and hugs. there weren't any internet access at my mom's. i spent days reading, going out with christian and sometimes alex and my mom and learning french (can you believe it?). it's kinda nice. no air-conditioning either... thank goodness it was super breezy and the kids slept well in the gentle caress of mother nature's refreshing breath.

nostalgia

strangely, with eric being away, with my being at my mom's clearing out the boxes i've left behind when i first moved out to go to grad school...i sorta got in touch with who i was before i became a mom. being a mom could bring out something (good-something) in myself i've never known but in that process, i had lost touch with my old self. cliche but true. and i used to think that i'm still me.

not true. my 24-hour-day is different. my priorities are different. heck, even my body has been put to use i've never really experienced (being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, being a cradle, a story-teller, and sometimes, a clown<-- eeeuww)

it's not anything bad, this new life of being a mom to two kids, but it's kinda nice to remember the times when it was just eric and me and i think, i ought to dig and drag that old self out a little more frequently. hello there, old me.

10 days to go

according to the pregnancy counter, i've 10 days to go! wow!

a restful weekend proved to be such a salve to my very sore muscles... part of the fatigue is due to the fact that i've been giving non-stop presentations last wed. i've seen a physiotherapist in the beginning of my second trimester and it had been money well spent. it enables me to deal with the soreness i get now and then through simple exercises and observance of my posture. i can't wait to go back and start strengthening my core postpartum.

i'm still in the office - trying to get as much done as possible. the funny thing is that i'm seeing my documents in "dot-matrix"... something's gone wrong with my eyesight and i'm pretty sure it has to do with the pregnancy.

i'm also amazed that i got my to-do list done (i can't bring myself to delete this list on the right hand side - it's too much of a testament to a labor of love). last night, i started the preliminaries of sewing a crib sheet - hopefully, i'll get to finish it tonight :)

eric's been super wonderful this entire pregnancy - despite his heavy workload, he was able to run errands to get things done for little babe and christian. and that's the best gift we could ever give our children - a strong marriage and a commitment to keep it strong.

Latest pic of mei mei

She's very cheeky, like her brother, though in a different way.

postscript by sky: little babe grew (yet some more) she gained 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) and is estimated to be 2.5 kg (5.5lbs). she's huge! We know these are just estimates and plenty of times, these measurements are reportedly off - but her little round tummy and her head circumference have definitely grown. meanwhile, momma gained 200g within 1 month and weighs at 58.6 kg at 34 weeks... so how little babe put on the pounds was a little confounding... the bad news is that she's lateral, in a horizontal position, plus the fact that i'm sometimes having regular contractions (15 mins interval that lasts 1 minute each) was a little unsettling for the doc. to prevent pre-term labor (would have to be by caesarean if she remained in this position), i was prescribed ventolin (eeks) that gives me the jitters... i'm typing this with trembling fingers because of the drug. doc also prescribed rest. eh...doesn't go too well with my personality. in spite of feeling a little "uh-oh", it's always a joy to see her at the doc's. little babe looked really cute and had spiky hair. rocker chick, oh yeah!

single-minded

one thought.

man, i could really go for a mug of asahi beer.

hello ...

"Like all new mothers, I couldn't believe at first he was really for me, and I could really keep him...I'm still filled with the wonder of his being, to be able to go out and come back and find that he's still there..." ~Audrey Hepburn in Barry Paris's "Audrey Hepburn", 1996.

I remember when I held Christian in my arms the second time (I got to nurse Christian immediately after he was born, then I was wheeled to a maternity ward while he went off somewhere else to get a smorgasboard of baby tests). I stared and stared and smiled myself silly. I looked and touched his perfect little face, eyes, nose, mouth, fingers, hair and toes and felt him still kicking a little while he was sleeping and thought to myself "is this really my baby?" i remember feeling that he was too perfect for me, and felt this big emotion of wanting to introduce myself gently into his very new life... afterall, he was very new to the world...