Month: August 2012

The organised chaos

Let there be light

yannisms

Oddly enough, for someone who likes to stay up late into the wee hours of the night and has difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, I am a creature of the light.

Sunlight makes me very happy.
It inspires me, imparts a bounce into my step, makes me feel alive.
It’s bright, it’s warm, it embraces me.
(Even though I don’t like the humidity that accompanies it right here in Singapore.)

Which is why I love our home, because there’s always light streaming in.
Which is why my current desk at the office is a tad depressing.
I’m stuck in a corner – which is great for privacy but not so great because the light doesn’t get to me.,
Oh, I try to brighten it up with a table lamp, but it’s simply not the same.

And then along comes a coffee shop on campus.
It set up shop at a little strip facing the serene, picturesque garden.
On good days, it has plenty of gorgeous light and a gentle breeze rustling the pages of my books.
And this is where you can find me these days, alone with my iPad and my textbooks.
I plug into my earphones to shut out the world and alternate between typing and reading.

I guess I am really not meant to be a corporate rat.

Motherhood

Married life #24

yannisms

Him: I think our son will start to talk earlier than most babies.

Me: Why do you say that?

Him: Because you are such a yakker.

Me: EXCUSE ME?! What does it have to do with ME?

Him: I mean, because his mother talks to him so much.

Me: Shut up. Remember to thank me in future when he becomes some hotshot lawyer.

(PS: You didn’t think there would be more of such posts, did you? Hur hur. Don’t worry, deep down, we are still the same Thick & Thin, just with a very demanding human attachment now.)

Motherhood, The organised chaos

The case for having babies

yannisms

Every time the elections or national day comes round, my levels of irritation shoot up to an unhealthy, blood boiling high.

(Granted, I do get irritated quite easily but still…)

This is when the government tries to talk down to us about falling birth rates and how Singaporeans are not procreating fast enough to replace the population.

Let’s get this straight: I desperately yearned for and had a baby not because I wanted to create a true blue Singaporean. I had a baby because I wanted one. I love children and I knew that having a child would bring immense joy to my life. Call it evolution, call it human instinct, call it whatever you want. Maybe there IS indeed a biological clock that’s ticking in me.

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.

Conversely, many of us are not having children NOT because we find maternity leave too short. It’s not because the Baby Bonus is not enough. It’s none of these policies that are driving our decisions. The choice to have children or not is a personal one and should remain a personal one. Ramming policies and statistics down our throats is not going to push us to have one or more children.

Is that so difficult a concept for the government to understand?
So please, as my brother-in-law put it so eloquently, get out of our bedrooms.
Don’t turn something as personal as having children into some moralistic, paternalistic “national service” to the country.

**********

Recently, I have been thinking about having a second child. I’ve always wanted two kids. I love having a sister and I grew up among cousins so I don’t want Aidan to miss out on having the fun that I used to have. It’s sad enough that he will only have one cousin (my sister’s son, none of Mr Thick’s brothers have kids) although thankfully, Rai and him are close enough in age to be playmates. As the only baby on the paternal side of the family, I am constantly conscious of the fact that the likelihood of him being spoilt silly nilly is extremely high.

Also, I feel like my baby-making days are not quite over yet.

And still I hesitate.

Of course, biologically speaking, I am aware that our chances of conceiving are not great. I mean, just look at our history. Conceiving Aidan naturally was a stroke of luck and there is no guarantee that we can replicate that feat. At this point in time, I am uncertain if I will want to embark on assisted reproductive technologies again. Seven IUIs and one IVF is more than enough for a lifetime, thank you very much.

But more importantly, I don’t know if we will be able to bring up two kids in today’s climate.

I hate that by the time I get off from work, I barely have time to spend with Aidan before he is fed and put to bed by 830pm. It’s especially tough when Mr Thick works long hours and comes home to a sleeping baby. Twice the children means half the time spent with each kid and double the Mom guilt.

Also, my financial advisor had told us that the cost of tertiary education is likely to rise to S$100,000 by the time our kids go to university. Frankly speaking, neither Mr Thick nor I make that sort of moolah. If possible, I wouldn’t want my kids to be saddled with a fat bank loan the way I was even before I had even graduated. We hadn’t thought carefully about how much our expenses would escalate once we had Aidan and two is going to be even tougher.

So that is a dilemma. If I want to spend time with my kids, I would have to make a sacrifice in terms of my career. But doing so would mean that we take a hit financially.

How do we strike a balance?

Health Goddess

Pregnancy: the new cure-all

yannisms

Note: the following contains language pertaining to female plumbing and my womanly health so scoot off if you feel squeamish about reading such stuff.

It has come to my attention that pregnancy is the cure to many of the common woes that plague women.

To my great sadness and extreme irritation, my period went back to work the same week as I did. If I choose to look at the glass half full, I can say that my body is SO in sync with my schedule. Yay. However, since I have been told that I whine quite a bit on the blog, I might as well go the whole hog.

WHY DO I HAVE MY PERIOD WHEN I AM BREASTFEEDING?!

It’s not fair! I mean, I faithfully offer my boob juice to Mr A straight from the tap in the middle of the night almost EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. since he was born! AND STILL THE PERIOD ARRIVES. What the eff-ing eff. Some women don’t even get their periods and OOPS, PREGNANT AGAIN (yes, Squirt, I am looking at you).

BUT. I have to say that my cycle has never been more predictable. In the first month, I could actually feel myself ovulating. Those ovaries of mine were bitching like crazy about producing eggs for the first time in 13 months. A couple of weeks later, I told my IVF support group of girlfriends over our WhatsApp group chat that I knew my period was arriving soon because the vajayjay was bitching like crazy about working again so soon after trying to squeeze a baby out.

It promptly came the next day.

Exactly 27 days later, I fell asleep while watching Project Runway at 930pm. I typically DO NOT doze off at 930pm (discounting those times when I am ill) and I have NEVER fallen asleep while watching Project Runway.

My period arrived promptly the next day.

I have NEVER been a textbook 28-day cycle girl, not even after my laparoscopy. And look at me now! I am actually ovulating! (I think.)

PREGNANCY IS THE CURE TO INFERTILITY!

Okay, I’m being sarcastic. You got that, right? Right? The irony is not lost upon me, really.

But seriously, it appears that pregnancy is also the cure for acne. I used to have really shitty skin and it was so bad that my ex-boyfriend would make insensitive comments about it. It was only in recent years, when I started working and had money to see a dermatologist, that it cleared up and looked a wee bit better. But I continued looking like the middle of the Kuwaiti oil field come noon and required loads of blotting paper for my nose to stop shining like a beacon.

Oh wait. No wonder I was such a bad driver. I WUZ BLINDED BY MY OWN NOSE!

Anyway, a gay colleague told me recently that I am glowing and that my skin is so much clearer now that it had been during pregnancy. Apparently, I had “bad breakouts” and looked “drab” then.

As bitchy as he is, I have to admit that his comment is half true. The glowing half, that is. Because now, my skin almost seems radiant and the oil field has been replaced by the Sahara desert! I actually need to use moisturizer under my sun block in the mornings.

MIRACLE!

Forget about those expensive laser treatments, BOTOX and SKII products, just get yourself KNOCKED UP for clear and radiant skin. [boing boing]

Aidan

5 months of Aidan

yannisms

Dear Aidan,

Today, you are all of five months old! This month is all about you developing into a little person. You are no longer this eat/sleep/shit little bundle, no siree!

Let’s cut to the chase. Your sleep is still rubbish. Oh, how I long for the days when you went down for the night from 830pm to 4am and then went right back to sleep after a quick feed. Now, your internal clock is programmed for 1am and then 5am. The latter is the cruelest thing you can inflict on your poor mother. You yell, I wake up, feed you, unlatch you, pat you back to sleep and then OOPS the alarm rings.

And let’s not forget your day naps. They remain as epic as before although we are seeing some improvement. Your Por Por gets very excited when you sleep for an hour (like, twice) and hey, there was also that nap when you fell asleep on your own on the rocker. She and I, we are like warriors trying to beat the AH HAH! SLEEP IS FOR WUSSES monster into submission. Meanwhile, you gurgle, suck your fists and drool all over your onesie in nonchalance.

My little man, your naps are seriously the stuff of legends now.

Thankfully, you are such a happy and mellow baby otherwise. You make motherhood such a breeze for me now and everyone who has met you can’t help but love and coo over you. You stare at them with your big, big eyes and then smile when they chat with you.

And oh, how generous are you with your smiles and that laughter! You giggle at the simplest and most incongruous things.

Like, when we tell you to “SMACK!” the water during baths.

Like, when I play peekaboo with you.

Like, when Daddy smacks his own cheeks with your hands.

Like, when we were singing and dancing in the bedroom with Daddy. (Okay, you might be sniggering at how we two bags of creaky bones – and fat, in your daddy’s case – were busting a move.)

Speaking of singing, you have certainly inherited our musical genes. You LOVE it when we sing to you. Your gummy grin gets wider and you wave your arms and legs so enthusiastically when I warble “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to you. It’s YOUR song.

Everyday, I can’t help but hold you to my chest tightly and rain kisses on your cheeks. It’s an addiction. Those cheeks are putting out the KISS US KISS US signals. If I could chomp you down like a xiaolongbao, I totally would. You are that delicious.

Two evenings ago, we were on our way home after picking Daddy up from work and you were snoozing in my arms in the back seat. As I watch your chest rise and fall so peacefully, your long lashes framing your closed eyes, I told your dad that I would gladly go through those two dreadful years of battling infertility a thousand times over.

Because you make everything worth it.

Love,
Mama

Arts & Entertainment

Waste time chasing cars

yannisms

I’ve only been in love with Snow Patrol since 2004. This was when “Run”, “How to be Dead” and “Chocolate” were played constantly on the airwaves of the radio station previously known as Virgin Radio. And I was in love, so much in love with Gary Lightbody’s voice.

I love them so much so that husband sang “Chasing Cars” to me on our wedding day.

And I love them so much so that I started spamming their website, leaving desperate comments for them to hold a concert in Singapore under different pseudonyms. Uh hmm. That was, obviously, before I found out about this thing called IP address.

So imagine my joy when I realised that they were FINALLY coming to Singapore. AYYYYYYYEEEE!

Mr Thick bought our tickets on the day they went on sale – fastest fingers first! – and I am so looking forward to hearing them perform “Chasing Cars” and “Chocolate” and “New York” and “Set Fire to the Third Bar” live. A tear or two might be shed. The voice will go hoarse from some screaming and loud singalong-ing. Fists will be a-pumpin’ the entire night. The legs will be bouncing up and down. Underpants might be thrown on stage.

Okay, maybe not the last part.

It will be a night to remember.

(PS Check out this version of the song. It’s majorly awesome on so many levels, especially from 3:55 on. I almost burst into tears when I first heard it and I wanted to marry Gary Lightbody then and there. With my husband sitting next to me on the sofa.)