weaned

28 July’s night feed was Dee’s last.

She has been fully breastfeed for nearly 16 ½ months now, almost exactly the same amount of time Day was fed. If one must nitpick – and of course I had to go and count the days – she got a week less of breastmilk than Day.

I have been meaning to wean her since I returned.

Because nutritionally speaking, she no longer needs it (she didn’t drink much) and on the frivolous side of things, I desperately want to wear underwire bras once more.

It was far easier to end the breastfeeding relationship with her than with Day.

Within a week, with hardly any lingering attachments apart from an occasional “nan nan” which was easily deflected with offerings of food or water, she was off.

I, in fact, was the one who got all misty-eyed about no longer having her warm chubbiness nestled snug against my side as she drank from me, seeking solace in my armpit.

I do hope, however, that it's entirely a coincidence that the moment I chose to wean her was when she came down with what was probably the worst illness of her life: A chesty cough, breathlessness, running nose and fever.

sweet treats

KK is back at it.

Doing what I absolutely disapprove of: Stuffing his pockets with sweets for the kids on nearly a daily basis, when he comes back from work.

He did it before Sydney, he did it in Sydney (after school) and he's doing it now.

I reckon working parents like to sweeten their arrival home but honestly, everyday? And such HUGE lollipops?



For a sixteen-month-old too?



Tsk tsk.

loving fajar

If I had to mark one positive trait that Day developed as a result of Sydney, it would be that he seems to show a far greater appreciation of his family than ever before.

Before, he used to hate going to his Tata and Nene – my in-law’s – place at Fajar on Sundays.

He would sulk in the car, greet his grandparents by compulsion and reject any attempt by the old folks to take him out for walks, preferring instead to sit in front of the laptop in the flat and hang out with us. With them, he was stubborn, uncooperative and defiant.

Upon our return, he changed.



He happily and cheerfully greets Tata and Nene every Sunday, holds their hands, follows them downstairs for playground jaunts or walks and – this, to me, is the best part – attempts to mimic Hakka phrases, to the delight of all.

When closed before, he is now open.

It’s as if, after not seeing them for a year, he realizes how much he had missed them, and how lucky he is to have people around (other than his parents) to dote on him.

I’m glad he learnt the same lesson we did.

Ironically, however, my in-laws are far more interested in Dee than in Day! Which is completely understandable as everyone pays more attention to the baby than the toddler.

their first ndp (preview)

Day hated it, Dee loved it.

The boy, who’s always had this thing about loud noises, cracked during the 21-gun salute and turned into a quivering puddle during the fireworks; face squashed into KK’ s neck while whining repeatedly: I want to go home now!



Dee, I had my hands clapped tightly around her ears during all the loud parts. While she bemusedly tolerated it at first, she later flung my hands away, with increasing irritation.

I suddenly realized that the fireworks didn’t scare her one bit when she, admiring the sprays, started jiggling to the accompanying music.

Which makes us always-judgemental parents go: Oh she's so much more "zai" (steady / cool) than her brother!"

Me, I found the entire spectacle of the first parade by the water most impressive, particularly the illuminated balloon jellyfish which came drifting in tied to boats.

dad at work

KK kissed us all before he left for his first day of work today at 7, and made it back just in time at 7 to bathe the kids and put Dee to bed at 830.

Lying down on the bed, watching him make the most of his precious hour, I said, in a somewhat flat cynical dead voice: Welcome to the rest of our life.

What a profoundly depressing reality.

Yes, we overall love being home.

And the both of us, KK especially, have looked forward to finally bringing in the dough.

But after having been so time-pampered in the past year, and as all my thoughts have been on financial deprivation, I never really turned my thoughts to what time deprivation would mean.

Reality has bit hard.

How can any parent be satisfied with leaving home before the kids wake up, return home when they are about to sleep, and be happy with a bed-time story or two at a time when everyone (including kids) is at their most tired? None, I’m sure.

And when not one but both parents have to do this, it’s the nadir of despair.

I know it’s not a matter of choice, I know it’s what everyone has to do here, and I know I have been remarkably lucky (or naïve) to have stayed home for three years. If parents get home before 9pm here, I think that would be considered good.

In this aspect, it remains my impossible wish that people will be chased out of their offices at 430pm sharp so they can go home to be with their families, that moms and even dads can work two, three or four-day weeks and bosses, who ideally have their own families, are equally sympathetic. That’s the case in Sydney.

Right now, I think KK has resigned himself to missing his kids terribly for the rest of his working days ie probably Forever.


* At the UNSW (Sydney) campus

$1,300 less

Some people would call us plain stupid.

That’s the amount of monthly salary KK is giving up - the difference between one job offer and another - because he aspires to get behind an office desk and draw up building designs for the first time in his life, instead of getting all hot and sweaty on a work site which he's done for 10 years.

In a nutshell, his Masters (if it comes through and it should) has finally opened the door for him to join a design consultancy and with a year or two of designs under his belt, he will then be able to try and become a certified Professional Engineer which is, I gather, the top echelon of the profession and which is where I hope he will finally make big bucks to feed us all.

Come Monday he dons his spiffy new work shirts and heads off to an air-conditioned building somewhere in Thomson to work, for the first time in his life, as a Design Engineer.



God bless, in the last three weeks since we returned he hasn't even had to browse through the Classifeds. Potential job openings came unexpectedly fast and furious from his marvellous network of engineering friends, whom he had simply called to say hello after his year-long disappearance. (A quick look around Singapore and I can see why civil engineers are so hot)

Four out of five, however, were for site jobs - the kind which require wearing of hard hats and work boots and tramping around very dangerous construction sites for six or seven days a week.

One particularly hard-hitting and unreasonable interviewer was, I reckon, so desperate he demanded KK take up the job on the spot. His offer was admirably high.

KK called me for an opinion. I said: Site jobs are always available but this may be your only chance to get into a design firm.

Admirably (in my opinion though some people would say he is stupid) KK stuck to his guns and decided to start from scratch on the design board.

Thankfully, his new taskmasters think the same.

Even though he's got absolutely no design experience, this is what they think (as worded in an email to him): "Your interest to move into design is admirable. To take on design after over 10 years in the field is usually very challenging. However, I can see that you have the determination to see this through, just like the way you did your Masters."

And even if KK is getting less than his last-drawn pre-Sydney salary, I'm just glad he got his foot in the door.

To good times ahead ie a Professional Engineer husband who is also a Master's degree holder!

caleb

Newborns all look the same, no?

All red and squashy, the Chinese babies in particular share noses which are uniformly flat and eyes which are uniformly slitty (for want of a better word)

I know both mine looked exactly like every other baby in the nursery, and without the name label I would have been hard-pressed to identify my newborn son and daughter from everyone else's.

Not baby Caleb - my cousin Dawn's first child, the newest addition to the family.



Born on Tuesday three weeks early, at a miniscule 2.3kg, he wouldn't be hard to locate in the nursery even if all the name tags were ripped off.

He's got an incredible Andy Lau-ish nose which means he's got a side profile to speak of. And he's got a very knowing calm look in his large eyes. I feel like I'm looking at a wise old man in a very very tiny body, so tiny his head's the size of a grapefruit.

big family dinners

Seventeen people including one fidgety toddler and two babies, squashed around a table, passively indulging in platter after platter of gloriously oily fried food for close to two hours.

I miss Big Family Dinners.

Last night’s dinner at the Por Kee Eating House, a place I associate with a dire lack of space as well as good food, was particularly momentous.

Apart from a dramatic fainting spell from one of my pregnant cousins (it was an Oh My God moment), Day and Dee were being presented in the flesh to the rest of the family after our year-long hiatus.

Other memorable moments:

SEEING THE FAMILY

These are the people who plied us with well-wishes, prayers, inspirational booklets, red packets, sweets and presents for the kids, when we were alone in Sydney.

What a joy to see them again.



The dinner was held in honour of my French auntie Marcelle (in green), who married my grand-uncle David, is now Singaporean enough to enjoy pig trotters in vinegar, and who has lived a life exciting enough to novelise.

It was also a joy to see how miraculously my uncle Ling (in orange), two years after a freak accident involving a train collision which severed his spine and left him paralysed, is enjoying his food, his family and his life more than ever.

MEETING JANINE

Cousins, cousins, cousins. My children have none to speak of, not directly, as all KK and my siblings (all four of them) are regrettably single.

Janine, my cousin KY’s daughter, comes closest.

Just two months older than Dee, we have, since they girls were bubs, always wanted them to get along. Every family event, we stick them together, snap a picture, and hope they click sometime down the line.

Last time we saw her was a year ago, when Dee was four months and she was six months.



Last night we put the girls side by side. Apart from the fact that both girls are thankfully prettier, they did some major clicking.





And Janine the fidgety baby has grown into a curly-haired fireball of a girl who really can’t stop moving! While Dee placidly chewed away, making herself even fatter than she already is, Janine attempted to climb up window grilles.

One other huge difference: Anyone can carry Janine. No one can carry Dee except her mama. That makes a gigantic difference to me.

BELLY BRIGADE

It’s always a warm and fuzzy feeling when the family is about to get bigger.

Under the dining table was not just one, but two baby-filled bellies.

The bigger bump belonged to my cousin Dawn, who is due to cradle her son Caleb in three weeks but who is still on her feet teaching all day long. She’s also had some incredibly sobering experiences with incredibly inconsiderate selfish self-absorbed Singaporeans who have absolutely no heart for pregnant women. Bah.

The smaller bump belongs to my ex-air stewardess cousin, who is experiencing a most turbulent pregnancy.

DEE’S STOMACH

Bottomless.

Does this girl know when to stop?



I fed her a macaroni dinner at home, in the hope that she will be full enough not to want to eat the MSG-laden restaurant food.

Fat hope.

At the restaurant, she first shared, then ended up finishing Janine’s porridge dinner.

That’s not all. She went on to eat every single course of our meal. Spring rolls, chicken, keropok, beancurd, fish, noodles, Por Kee’s famous orh nee. She ate more than her brother, who was predictably quiet and left on the sidelines enjoying his favourite prawns, as everyone laughed at the gluttonous girl.



Someone asked me: She has many teeth? No. Only eight in the front, but man, her gums work well.

At the end of it all, she stood on KK’s lap and happily rubbed her distended tummy.



We were not happy though, when MSG-ed Dee, bouncing off the walls like a teenager on crack, refused to sleep and later woke up screaming in the night possibly because she was over-stimulated.

her hair cut

Apart from an occasional jagged trim fringe, we’ve let her hair grow and very very slowly, the skinny strands got longer until she had what I liked to call rat’s tails fringing the back of her neck.



Ugly as hell, I say.

My fingers itched to give her a Posh Spice cut. Lop off the back and leave the wispy long sides.

KK was dead set against it. With a father’s typical love for everything feminine about their daughters, he thought the rat’s tails were pretty.

Come Singapore, the tails had to go. Perpetually wet, they looked even worse than usual and made her neck itch.

Between me and a neighbour, we managed to give her a nice little China doll bob which, in my opinion, rather suits her.

bicycle

Day's first set of wheels.

water terror

She hates baths.

And since we have brought the kids swimming, we now know for a fact that her water terror extends to the swimming pool.



No matter how much fun her brother is having, blowing bubbles and squealing and throwing himself in, her pretty swimsuit might as well be a tanning suit.

Once the water goes past her abdomen – she reluctantly wades in holding tight onto one of our hands - she wants out.



KK holds her armpits and tries to float her through the water. She screams like he’s trying to drown her.

So I spend most of the time carrying her, walking around the pool. Or she stands by the side staring at what she must think are her crazy father and brother.



Day, however, is making up for a year of not swimming. He is in love with the water. He's loved it since we chucked him into the pool when he was five months old or so.

home

Would things have been any different if we had been ventured to Australia as a childless couple?

Would we – like my brother, who perpetually has one foot in some state of Australia - have been greater seduced by greater weather, greater scenery and a greater lifestyle?

For at the moment, sad (or perhaps happy) to say, Singapore is Home and we would truly really rather be nowhere else.

The children – eczema, humidity and mosquitoes notwithstanding – are deliriously happy. So happy they sleep at and bounce out of bed at ungodly hours because there is so much they want to do. So much to see, so much to play, so many people to say hello to.

Dee has, as I expected, now basking in the glow of so many people paying attention to her. Her measly vocabulary (I didn’t have the energy to speak much to her in Sydney apart from barking No) has ballooned as she calls the myriad of now-familiar faces milling around her day and night.

KK, in the wake of golf games, Old Chang Kee curry puffs and AXN, has completely forgotten Coogee.

I, too, have not given one thought to the beach we left behind. I have simply been enjoying my holiday for the past week, enjoying the luxury of cycling at the beach every morning and stuffing myself silly with (finally!) tasty, home-cooked food from the woks of people who can actually cook and who have more seasoning than just plain salt and garlic.

The day I left the kids behind at my in-laws place and wandered around Bukit Panjang Plaza once more on my own (I plucked my eyebrows for $8!!!), I had a beatific smile plastered on my face which drew more than one frown from the mostly scowling people around me.

Honestly, our Sydney experience was worsened by the fact that we were living on a shoestring. With kids, that is seldom fun.

If KK had been working instead of studying in Sydney, if he had even been on a scholarship, we might have been able to afford better accommodation. A car. Day trips out to explore all of Sydney’s beautiful surrounds. Send the kids to one of Sydney’s wonderful childcare centres.

But as he didn’t, we made do. Which isn’t all that much of a bad thing.

In the aftermath of Sydney, however, the both of us have completely gone off spartan.

KK is determined to buy a car because he felt he had a hellish experience in Sydney without a car. He wants to employ a maid because he is sick of having had to do housework.

Me, I am determined never to wear another ratty T-shirt or underwear with holes, for the rest of my life. Even though I wore them quite comfortable pre-Sydney, there is a difference between choosing to live cheaply and being forced to live cheaply.

I have become thoroughly sick of being forced to.

If this post is a bit of a ramble it’s because I haven’t given a thought to blogging in the past week. Nobody likes to work on holiday.

dee and durians

Like her brother, mother and father, she likes the foul fruit!

adapting differently

It’s almost as if the light behind Day had been switched off when we left for Sydney and in a Eureka light-bulb moment of pure joy, started glowing the moment we touched down in the Changi Airport and he was swept up into his beloved Gong Gong’s arms.

For him, the last three days have been nothing short of ecstatic. Almost as if cheerful chatty Day hibernated for a year and just woke up.

As much as he hates the Chinese language, his place is clearly here amongst Singlish-speaking black-haired yellow-skinned fishball-eating people who love him, and nowhere else.

The stuttering has suddenly stopped completely. And I mean completely. He’s still brusque with strangers, but to his family, he talks nineteen to dozen.

He’s been scarfing down big bowlfuls of his favourite bee tai mak fishball soup and other hawker favourites, and I am quite certain he will start putting meat on his visible ribs – everybody says he got painfully thin during his Sydney jaunt.



He wanders the house, upstairs and downstairs, with a beatific expression on his face, exploring the nooks and crannies which were but ghostly memories for a year, plonking notes on the piano and playing with the old toys which he clearly remembers.

He has been completely disinterested in the laptop or watching DVDs because he has more important things to do.

He puts his arms around his Gong Gong and tells Por Por “I love you”.

Each day, his conviction to want to go back to Leeton Avenue in Coogee Beach wavers more and more.

My son is completely, utterly, fully, happy and at peace.

It makes me feel very sorry that I even carted him off to Sydney in the first place.

Dee, on the other hand, is down while her brother is up.



She is not sleeping well, not eating well and - in what I reckon is the truest measure of whether a child is stressed – not pooing well. She hasn’t pooed in days.

As Sydney was to Day, Singapore is to her. She only wants to be in my arms all day long because she’s so dazed.

Put in her shoes, I suppose anyone would feel the same.

The weather is too hot. Her hair is hanging in uncomfortable wet strings. The house is too big. She can’t go up and down the stairs. Her Gor Gor, who used to play with her all the time, is always off in some other part of the house doing his own thing. Too many strange people trying to kiss her. She no longer eats her brown rice porridge (I just feed her our meals but that probably isn’t a good idea at the moment). She hates bathing under the shower. Her papa is no longer always sitting at the same spot at the dining table where she can climb up and sit on his lap to watch him study. She no longer watches The Wiggles. Her parents no longer plop her in the pram to bring her out to play at Coogee Beach.

Tonight I took out my recorder and, like in Sydney where I would play it nighly for the kids, played her favourite tunes. She was thrilled.

Her life has been turned upside down. But unlike Day in Sydney, I am fairly certain my fat fairy will bounce back. She is made of sterner stuff than her sensitive brother.

tomorrow

Tomorrow morning at 1130am our Singapore Airlines flight lifts off and we leave our Sydney home behind for good.

Our lives here, after just one frenzied day of packing yesterday, have been summarised into two suitcases and two boxes which fit just nicely into our rented car boot.

The front passenger seat of the car is piled to the top with bags of clothes, hats and toys which we are donating to the church.

We threw out another truck load of things, including all the uneaten stuff from the fridge, bags of rice and noodles.

Last night the kids slept near 11pm, as they roamed about doing the things they loved; sliding down their slippery dip, playing hide and seek in the wardrobe.

Day knows we are going back, he wants to see all his "friends" (meaning his grandparents) and he seems upbeat and happier than usual. His only concern: "Mum, my toys will all be in Singapore right?"

I, horrified by my mother's revelation that she perspired when she walked out of her aircon bedrooom (in Singapore) to take my telephone call, can't wait to see beloved faces.

Otherwise I still feel nothing.

Perhaps the occasional sad tinge when I throw away the half piece of dory fish which I was going to prepare for Dee's porridge, when I tear up the box bookcase which Day and me had finger-painted together, when I junk some of his pieces of artwork.

But otherwise, there is still no sentimentality.

Today, we return the keys of our apartment (good riddance I say) and stay one night in a Darling Harbour hotel.

See you all folks back home soon.