#2 @ 27 weeks: over 1kg

Nothing remarkable from my appointment today.

Just that she now weighs 1.1kg. And again, Doc pronounces that she is BIG and that my tummy is a "good" size, whatever that means. It sure feels sizeable to me.

Anyhow, if she is born now she will have a pretty good chance of surviving and that's a relief to me. I think the critical time is 24 weeks.

There's another mom who gave birth to her twin girls at just over 20 weeks, if I'm not wrong, and each of them weighed just over 600grams. She keeps a blog and while I don't know her, I am thrilled whenever I read about her girls' miraculous progress, from being tiny, palm-sized, pink and silent to becoming a healthy pair of squalling girls.

columbus childcare

This is Day’s House of Horror.



A totally innocuous cheery blue and yellow bungalow just off the ECP, along a quiet tree-lined avenue, which to him is a madhouse of screaming kids, strange adults and here’s the key thing: No Mommy.

I knew it would not be easy. I knew for sure that there would be more tears from Day than from me when it came to school.

So I was fully prepared when I took him on the 10-minute walk from home to the Columbus Childcare centre, in his pram, that he would resist. Lord knows I have been telling him all about the great things he will do in school. I even drew him a little web diagram with him at the centre and all the goodies he can find at school radiating outwards like a spider’s web.

That diagram sure stuck, for the past few weeks whenever we talked about school he would go on about how he will get to eat his favourite macaroni pork, drink Yakult, climb all over the playground, play with all the gor-gors and chae-chaes.

He knew he was going to school this morning, I told him. He was thrilled at being able to go gai-gai.

Until I left. This, I did rather abruptly for my original (sadistic) plan was really to dump him there and leave him cold turkey. So when the teacher took over, I said bye very loudly and disappeared into the office for the administrative work.

Thank goodness the office was air-conditioned and thus sound-proof. I didn’t hear him wailing. When I peeked out of the blinds a good 15 minutes later, he was clinging to the teacher who was slowly swinging on a garden swing and presumably consoling him, as all the other kids who were playing in the playground screamed and shouted with glee around them.

I decided to go to him. Face streaked with tears, he clung on to me and refused to let go.

He only loosened up after breakfast when he started playing with the toys. I said I was leaving, said goodbye, he didn’t seem to hear me and was quite absorbed with his business. So I left and this time, I left for a good two hours.

When I returned, I didn’t intend for him to see me. But when I poked my head in, I heard a little sniffle and sure enough, it was Day, who had seen me at the same time. He was having lunch, sitting on the teacher’s lap. His eyes were swollen and this time, he held out his arms rather weakly, as if he had no more strength.

I stayed with him until it was time to go and for the rest of the day, he was rather subdued.

His daddy, on hearing my account of the day, was heart-broken.

But frankly, my inclination is to stick with it. And the next time, I will honestly just leave him there and return four hours later. Despite a very sore combination of guilt and sadness, I think staying with it will be good for Day and me. As long as I am not there to hear the tears, it's OK.

And despite the tears, what struck me was what the teachers told me about Day’s behaviour when I was gone: He actually went to console another kid who was crying for his mummy. Apparently the both of them were miserably crying side-by-side when Day suddenly stopped and told the kid: Don’t cry. Then he said something to the extent of how his mummy will come and fetch him, I have no idea what he said exactly.

I don’t think he ever has the chance to show empathy at home, where he mostly rules the roost. If school is the place where these aspects of his character can bloom, then he will stay in school.

first day at school

I nearly burst into tears this morning as I was getting Day ready for his first day at school.

We made the decision several weeks back that maybe it's time for him to learn how to get around on his own. He's been with me, day in and day out, for the past 20 months. If I needed any proof that maybe he's too reliant on his mommy, it's when a beetle landed on his pyjamas just after he woke up this morning and he, whining, came to me with arms stiffly stuck out by his side insisting that I remove the scary bug for him.

Him going to school is 50% for him, and 50% for me. I need a break to do things for myself without hearing him cry for me from some distant corner of the house.

So the decision was made. But when it came to actually packing him off to school today, my heart broke. Packing his school bag, stuffing in his diapers and water bottle and change of clothes (including one of his favourite orange shirts), I could literally hear the snip as some of the strings between Day and me were cut off.

And when I dressed him up in his shirt and shorts, I was horrified to find a lump rising in my throat. From today onwards, his morning routine will no longer be drinking Milo, reading newspapers, playing with and reading books with me.

There will be no more morning bus trips to nearby eating places for a taste of roti prata, chicken pie or some new food he has never tried.

No more. He will be in school with his newfound friends and that little part of his life will no longer be mine to cherish.

groovy trains

How many train sets does a boy need?

For Christmas this year, Day's papa popped into Toys R Us and gleefully got him a Thomas the Train Engine set, even though Day has already got one from me. And not just one box, but two, including heaps of extension tracks, so when it's all spread out the railway track spreads across half the room.

The difference between the old and the new?

THE OLD IKEA SET

* It's manual. You gotta move it or it's just gonna sit there.
* Everything is wooden.
* Everything is brown.
* The trains haven't got any character. They're just plain trains.


THOMAS THE TRAIN

* It's auto. It's got 2 batteries in it so it moves on its own round and round. KK insists a moving train has a lot more kick.
* Everything is plastic.
* Everything is blue.
* Thomas the Train is a TV personality that kids watch all the time.


Which do I prefer? Of course, my own. Thomas doesn't move me. As a proud member of the back-to-basics mom's brigade - those slightly deranged moms who squeal at all things wooden and manual and who go ga-ga at Takashimaya's The Better Toy Store - and poo-poos anything that runs on batteries or is plasticky or can be seen on TV, sure I prefer my sturdy stodgy old IKEA set.

Which does KK prefer? Of course, Thomas. If I may say, there has been more than one occasion when the two boys fought over the arrangement of the train tracks and where to put the train. There's Day struggling and screaming to lay his hands on Thomas and there's KK, brandishing it above his head and shouting "Wait, no, wait, wait!"

In that sense, I suspect the numbers add up quite nicely.

One train set for each boy.

Which does Day prefer?

At the moment, we can't tell. Trains turn him on, though.

merry xmas

* All those cones pointing threateningly at Day are polka-dotted Christmas trees.

car seat

SPLAT.

That is NOT what I want to happen to Day's brain in the event that we are involved in a car crash and he hits the dashboard or windscreen.

Why hasn't Day ever sat in a car seat? We don't have a car, so we didn't buy one. But we do sit in cars occasionally. Typically, Day stands up besides me, careening from one side to the other, gets down on the floor to sniff the floor mats, tries to get through to the front. Because I have to chase him, my safety belt is never fastened either. Ooops.

So finally, we got a car seat. Well, actually we didn't get one. We were given Tiger's old car seat (a MILLION thanks again J!).


If I had known how easy it was to strap in and out, I would have gotten one earlier. It's not something which takes a manual to do. Just slip the safety belt in and out.

For the past 2 weeks, Day (at the ripe old age of 20 months) has been getting used to his new car seat and contrary to expectation, it's been a breeze. Watching Tiger sit quietly in his own car seat - a great role model - probably helped. Day settles in without protest and can last a good long journey without a grunt.

Thank God.

And just to remind myself of the RISK we were taking, I read that in a car crash, there are two collisions. The first is when the car hits something, or is hit, and comes to a sudden stop.

The second crash happens a split second later when anyone not buckled in can fly forward, slamming into the steering wheel, windshield, dashboard or front seat (from the back seat). The force of a 30-mph crash is like jumping headfirst off a three-story building.

Some tests conducted show that even the most loving parents are unable to hold on to their offspring and the baby is inevitably ripped from their arms. Worse, if I don't wear a seatbelt, I may end up crushing Day.

Now my problem is: What do I do when I take a TAXI with Day? (and we all know how taxi drivers drive)


Put on a SEATBELT?

#2: nutcracker in her ears

She's got ears by now. And through the murky depths of the amniotic fluid she is swimming in, she probably has a pretty good - albeit muffled - idea of what the world outside sounds like.

In the last two weeks, above the cavernous thump of her mummy's heartbeat and the thunderous swish of blood sweeping around in the placenta just next to her, she would have been able to make out the strains of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, a cracker of a ballet in which half the tunes have been poached for advertisements and soundtracks and the like.

The famous Christmas staple where a little girl and her Nutcracker Prince journey through Spain, France, Istanbul, China, Holland and meet the Sugar Plum Fairy before finding out that it's all a dream.

It so happens that I am playing for the Singapore Dance Theatre's version of The Nutcracker. And for two weeks, every night, I sit in a black sunken pit in the Esplande Theatre and wind my way through the Nutcracker score as the dancers sweat and pant their way through on the stage above.


Directly to my left just beneath the stage is the kitchen (otherwise called the percussion section) and they are so loud, with gongs and timpanis, I am sure #2 cannot fail to ignore it. Even if she is sleeping, I am sure she would be jolted awake at the ear-crackling sections.



And to my right is... the audience, where a new bunch of noisy kids come every night to whine / cry / giggle their way through the ballet.


It's a lovely, lovely score though and I have to say it twice because one lovely is not enough. I wonder how #2 likes it?

Two years ago when Day was in my tummy, at around the same age and when his ears had fully unfurled, I was involved in the production of Puccini's Madame Butterfly, a similarly gargantuan, lengthy and very moving opera.

I must say Day was a lot more reactive. Whenever I played, especially at the loud parts, there was lots of kicking going on. With #2, funnily enough, The Nutcracker seems to make her move LESS. She is very calm and possibly even bored, even at parts like the rousing Trepak.

I hope all this musical immersion whilst in the womb is having some effect on them. Though I really cannot tell, based on womb behaviour, who is going to be the musical one (if at all).

#2: the difference

A second pregnancy is supposed to be different from the first.

Do I feel any different with #2? Yes.

a) Everything is LOWER. In fact I was prompted to write this post because I suddenly felt like she was going to drop out of me and I felt compelled to hold my bump with both hands and give it a little upward boost. I suppose my insides have sort of given way, that's why. In that sense, this pregnancy is slightly more uncomfortable.

b) Everything in BIGGER. The bump I mean. It feels horrendously large to me even though some of the orchestra folks only realized a few days ago that I was pregnant. (I screamed out loud in shock. I could not believe they had only just set eyes on the bump)
But seriously, I think I'm bigger this time round than with Day and I always say, it's because the skin has been stretched once so it's like a loose pouch that is just waiting to be filled again. So everything looks bigger and drops more.

c) TUMMY SHAPE. Old wives always talk about how they can tell from a glance at the mom if the baby is a boy or a girl based on the shape of her tum. In my case, I feel a definite difference. With Day, the tum was high, pointed and sharp. Any growth went frontwards. With #2, I have these horrible love handle-like things which are not flabby, but firm (as it's part of the womb!). The tum is splayed all over the sides so from the back, I probably look more pregnant than I did with Day. Seems I look better when I bear boys eh.

d) I'm THINNER. Doesn't gel with the bigger part but there it is. This baby is bigger and I'm thinner. A full 2 kg less than first time round. That makes me feel the weight of the stomach more because it is a very obvious protrusion, with not much connecting fat to make a nice round bump. Yes I look like a fat-tummied bee. I reckon it's due to muscle loss as I have not been exercising.
I suppose I will look even more emaciated after #2 is out, though I am stuffing my face now in a vain effort to get fat. How awful.

e) I'm more DISTANT. This website very nicely explains to me that since I have another child to take care of, I'm may feel emotionally distant from this pregnancy. That I do. Though I was given a pre-natal set to listen to her heartbeats / thumps, I haven't bothered with it at all. They also assure me very nicely that "this is a normal reaction and is by no means an indication that you will love this baby any less."
They also say that "your partner will also probably be less interested in this pregnancy." How true.

battle scarred

As if it isn't enough. Day had just won one battle against eczema and now he's got another.


Poor mite. He broke out in this horrendous rash this morning, after a bout of very high fever (nearing 40 degrees), cold and sore throat. It started out as tiny red spots but by the time I took his picture just now, each spot had bloomed.

It's not just on his face, but all over. His tummy, back, bum, arms, palms, legs.


My mother tells me (and I never knew this) that when was I was a tot, I had the exact same syndrome - of breaking out in a rash after particularly high fevers. Which is kind of consolatory, as it could be a genetic thing.

But it could also be his reaction to the recent MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) jab he had to take, which is part of the compulsory local immunization programme. It seems 5 per cent of kids develop a rash about 10 days after the jab (Day was on the dot, jab on the 7th, rash on the 17th) that resembles measles. But it goes away harmlessly.

It certainly looks a lot worse than it feels. Day is not behaving like there is anything wrong with him. He's recovered from the fever and the rash doesn't bother him at all. In fact, he finds it rather amusing when I point out to him that he's got red bumps on his legs, for all of two seconds before he goes back to whatever is occupying him.

For that reason, we are not bothered either. His papa calls him his little leopard and we think he looks just fine spotted or otherwise.

Parents.

Still, we hope it goes away soon.

two feet off the ground

Jumpin' jiminy cricket, Day JUMPED!!!

It sounds like nuts to the non-parent, but jumping is a Big gross motor skill that is akin to climbing a mountain for a tot. As big as walking.

You have to watch a baby try to jump to fathom how jumping, which we take for granted as something we can do anytime anywhere, can be DIFFICULT.

It's just not an automatic reflex like breathing, to bend your knees, harness your energy and spring upwards with both feet off the ground. It really isn't, it has to be learnt, though I bet no one remembers the jumping learning process.

For months, Day has been making these odd little skippity motions, throwing his body with all his might upwards, flinging up his hands and lifting up ... just one leg.

I was just looking at him today before it hit me: BOTH his feet were off the ground!

His jumps still look awkward and unrehearsed, his legs are straight and he often ends up sitting down with a thump at the end of his jumps because I reckon he has not learnt how to bend his knees on the way down.

But from my screaming congratulations and hearty applause, I'm pretty sure he will now be practising all the time.

As an aside, when was the last time you jumped? Isn't it strange how a skill which a baby revels in and puts so much effort into mastering, is pretty much done away with by adulthood?

(My excuse is I'm pregnant. No jumping allowed.)

burp-ha-ha

Men. Truly, sometimes I just don't get it.

Day and his papa are sharing what appears to be an intensely rib-tickling moment over Burps and Rude Retching Noises. His papa makes them and Day laughs. Repeatedly. Even at the 10th time, Day's explosive laughter is genuine and he sounds like each time is funnier than the last.

I don't find it funny in the least. What's so funny about a bloody burp?

Then I recall that even during my university hostel days, the guys (despite having gone through some serious army training) had a ball organising burping competitions and emitting truly monstrous blasts of air into the microphone after downing can after can of Coke.

I am dreading the day my boy takes part in his first such competition.

Anyhow, for anyone who can be bothered, here's another 9-second quickie (taken in the wrong direction, sorry) of KK's burp and Day laughing his head off.

pride

It may be one of the seven sins, but Pride is always there in the heart when you have a child.

I must have always been proud of Day, but I had a moment just a few days ago when, watching my son, I realized for the first time that the tingly feeling running down my spine was naked pride.

The occasion will mean absolutely nothing to anyone else. He was doing his little puddle jumps on the concrete slabs in the back garden, skipping from rock to rock without touching the grass. Norma our maid, fearful that he would slip and crack his head on the kerb, was aghast and gripped his hand so he would not fall.

My moment: When I saw Day fling off her hand so he could go at it alone.

I am even embarrassed to admit, how proud I am at his little show of independence, but there it is.

And that, honestly, was the first time my pride swam into consciousness. Nothing sinful in that, is there?

eczema

Picture says it all.

The horror of eczema.

Day has had eczema pretty much since he was a newborn, and always concentrated around his left ankle. It got worse after I stopped breastfeeding him (breast milk is supposed to have protective qualities against allergies) and he started eating all sorts of nonsense.

In the last few months, it's been its absolutely worst.

The damned family-inherited (from me), incurable skin disease gives him chronically dry skin that itches and flakes. Everything and anything (from sand and swimming pools to peanuts and cow's milk) triggers it off.

Once it flares up, there is no turning back. He scratches incessantly, every minute, without thinking. Sometimes his fingers get bloody and he sticks them into his mouth when he eats a biscuit, we catch it too late. Self control is about the only thing that stops me from scratching but what does a baby know about self control?

The skin bleeds, and the only thing I can do is to apply steroid creams, which are not the long-term solution as it has scary side-effects like permanent thinning of the skin and even retarded growth.

When the bleeding got so bad it started staining the socks we make him wear at night and the eczema started creeping upwards, towards his knees and arms and even a spot on the face, that was it.

I brought him to the doctor yet again.

This time, the paediatriciation gave him an arsenal of medication: Oral and applied antibiotic creams, antihistamines, mild steroid creams, everything.

For the record, this is the first time in his life that Day is eating antibiotics. Damn and double damn. (ironically, he slurps up the antibiotic and looks forward to his nightly "sweet" because I think it tastes very like a sweet fruity milk shake)

But while I'm sure the eczema monster will be beaten down for now, it is far from dead. Then what do I do?

day@home

At least Day has been home several times. More than five, less than 10.

These 2 weeks, whenever there are tenant viewings or when I simply need to go clean up, I pack him along with me. I even wanted us to stay the night once, before we hand over the keys, but KK refused to. He can't live without his TV / computer / peanut butter toast / Milo etc.

Does Day like the place? He sure seems to. It's a big playground, lots of nooks and crannies to explore, ups and downs to climb. He never stops moving when he is home and he loves the expanse of spaces, whether it be on the concrete ground below or the wooden platform above.


Today will be the last time we bring him there, today is when the new tenant - a very nice soft-spoken bespectacled chap from Indonesia who is (lo and behold!) working as an interior designer in Shenton Way - officially rents the place.

I got there early with Day to take some pictures and shake out the cushions.



Our front door, plain on the outside but full of doodles on the inside. That's Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, drawn after we returned from our honeymoon in Spain and when I was probably newly pregnant with Day but didn't know yet. Well, two years on, he's out and about!


The one thing I felt sore about was our having to throw out our mattress. It was deemed to be too crap to sleep on. But despite not having springs or coils, that mattress was an old-style bed that was custom-made for us. Too bad, no space to store it. So we had to move it out and chuck it out onto the void deck, where I am told foreign workers will take it and sleep on it.

a tribute to home

We found it together, our cosy little three-room home in Marine Parade. HDB it may be, and as old as me when we first got it (built in 1975, I must say it looked a lot worse than me, all peeling, wrinkling and crumbling everywhere) but after we were through with the plastic surgery and moved in at the end of 2002, it was Home.


A first home, as with any first, holds many memories. For us, it was as perfect as it could be. Open, fun and a little crazy, every day was an adventure. Whether it be scampering up and down the platform, doodling honeymoon memories on the back of the front door or banging on the piano in the cupboard (come to think of it, my piano WAS in a cupboard), every day was warm and fuzzy and sepia-tinted.



More than just the wood and bolts, our home was about our life. The two mountain bikes which we managed to hang on the wall after KK sweated buckets drilling holes into the concrete wall were bikes which took us everywhere at a moment’s fancy, most often on long intense rides to the Esplanade along the Kallang River and Nicoll Highway, culminating in a cup of Max Brenner’s hot choc.

The lime-green kitchen was where I had the confidence to heat up a stove and cook for the first time in my life, not only for myself but for someone else. I would like to think I was very successful: I did it without killing anyone.

And just downstairs was the library and Starbucks Coffee where we spent many a night just enjoying the books, lattes and free air-con and thinking about how lucky we were.

We were not practical at all when it came to our home. It’s the kind of crazy home that gets featured in home magazines (it was actually, on the cover!) and which interior designers cut costs to do, to showcase just how far they can go. We didn’t think about kids or safety or privacy. But who cares about practicality when you just want to live life?


Then I discovered Day’s existence barely a year after we moved in. And the inevitable happened: We had to leave home. That, I think, was the most painful sacrifice we had to make for Day (not my job). We clung on, until I was almost due, before we moved back to stay with my folks. We opened our home to strangers.

I still remember the day we had to pack everything up for the tenant to move in. I cried. Strangely enough, what made me cry the most was the severing of our TV cord, a cord which we had spent hours twisting and plaiting and which made our TV fully mobile from one corner of the home to another. Maybe to me, like an umbilical cord, it represented separation.

We moved out in March 2004. And have never gone back. But it will always remain home in our minds.

Why am I writing this tribute? Because we have just passed a fork in the road and we are saying goodbye to home, a second time. The tenant moved back home and it was a choice between moving back or staying put at my folks and getting a new tenant.

We decided to stay put, for financial and other reasons best known to us.

The search for a new tenant the last three weeks have made me even more fiercely sentimental about home.

For nobody wanted to rent it. It took two agents and probably over 20 viewings before a bachelor (an interior designer, believe it or not) came along and fell in love with our home the way we thought everyone would.

Every time I had to go for a viewing, I felt like my home was violated. As strangers who refused to take off their shoes clomped all over my abode, all the nice things I wanted to say would die on my lips as the inevitable frowns and pursed lips would appear before the comments came, hard and fast: “Why would anyone want to live like this?! There is no privacy! Isn’t it very hard to climb up and down the platform? The kitchen is too small! This is ridiculous!”

I shouldn’t have. But I took it personally. Every one of those comments. My home’s most vitriolic critic was an Ah-Beng who had accompanied the potential tenant, a China study-mama with her daughter, to view the place. The mama, with long rebonded brown hair, breasts bursting out of a tight white satiny tank top and buttocks straining the seams of her tight white pants, made it clear that she was not impressed. “I only like the location,” she declared loudly. But made it clear that if I threw in a TV and sofa seat covers, she could be persuaded.

I did not want this woman staining my home, seat covers be damned. But I did not have to say a thing because the Ah-Beng, with a ferocious frown on his face which never cleared up and long pinkie fingernail waving frenetically, made it clear he did not approve. In a whisper loud enough for me to hear, he told the agent: “What if someone is watching TV? Then won’t the people sleeping be woken up? I don’t understand why anyone would want to live here!”

The real reason he did not want my place, I was told later, was because he could not cavort with the mama with the girl in the home.

I hate having to hand over the keys to my home a second time. But I think it is something I have to get used to because it looks like we may never be able to move back. Pragmatism has truly got us by the balls. All we can do is hold on to the memories.

#2 at 23 weeks: still a girl

Bless us all, there's still no sign of a penis!

The other thing that I remember of my three-minute appointment today (after waiting 1 1/2 hours) during which I breezed in and breezed out and still managed to get my blood pressure taken / listen to her heart beat / look at her on the ultrasound to measure her girth, was that #2 is BIG.

At 614 grams, she is slightly heavier than Day was. I just tip the scales at over 50kg, which led Doc to remark: Seems like all your weight gain has gone to the little lady. Well and good. She already knows how to suck me dry.