Category: Motherhood

I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade but I’m not really into Mothers’ Day.

While my Twitter and Instagram feeds are filled with pictures of carnations and gifts and tales of husbands/kids behaving themselves, I have none of it. Instead, we had breakfast at Tiong Bahru market and headed off to the beach to spend the afternoon with my mother and sister’s family. The day ended with dinner at my brother-in-law’s.

It was…ordinary.

You see, to me, every day is Mothers’ Day. Every day that I get to be mom to the most awesome kid in the world is Mothers’ Day. And every day, I know that husband appreciates me and all that I do for the little man.

My lifetime of Mothers’ Day gift was handed to me more than 14 months ago, when the little man was born. Having battled most of the previous two years to be a mom, his birth was like a present handed to me on a silver platter. And since then, I don’t take any moment for granted.

Sure, it’s not like my life as a mother is a bed of roses and OMG AM SO DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY THAT RAINBOWS ARE SHOOTING OUT OF MY ARSE. (Can you just PICTURE IT! Hilarious and slightly disturbing image.) There are days when I am flat out tired or when I find it difficult to manage the kid or when the lack of sleep gets me down. There are days when I slump on the sofa, drained of every ounce of energy that I possess, or when I lose patience with him.

And yet.

Watching him grow is the greatest gift on earth, it’s the most amazing PRIVILEGE. To see him develop from this orange-skinned, frowny little fellow into a toddler who is ready to walk and conquer the world with his favourite things – banana, ball and that bee night light – is nothing short of MAGICAL. His hugs and smiles and love for me warms me everyday and brings me so much joy.

And so, every day is Mothers’ Day to me.

Oh, and there is no need to wait until Mothers’ Day to be pampered by husband – he fetches me a glass of wine and an ice-cream whenever. Hee.

(PS I did spend it with both my mother and mother-in-law. And also bought my mama a pair of purple sparkly FitFlops. Just cos hers were old and ratty and falling apart.)

Last night was a difficult night for me.

It was the first day of school and I was pretty beat up from lessons. Talking for four hours a day, non-stop, can be a really tough thing to do, let along managing a large group of teenagers at the same time. By the time I headed home, my tank was running on low.

And my little man, oh my little man! His sleep has been downright ugly for the past six months but that’s okay, I am used to it. But between the two of us, we spent an HOUR putting him to bed. That’s one hour of Mr A crying and sobbing and yelling before he finally fell asleep. By the time I came out of his room, I was ready to throw in the towel and call it quits. Whatever “it” may be.

Maybe it was the Universe toying with me, or maybe it’s just me being stupid on social media. Randomly scrolling through Instagram as I sprawled across the sofa, I came across two separate pregnancy announcements from ladies whose babies are not even one.

Let me repeat that: their babies are not even ONE and they are PREGNANT.

I broke down. I couldn’t stop sobbing, the tears just kept flowing fast and furious. All I could think of was how exhausted I was, how I wanted a second little one too, how is it that everyone else can have it all while I was barely keeping it together.

But you know what, life goes on. My lessons are not going to run by themselves just because I had a rough night. I can’t be all mean and nasty and grouchy because I didn’t get enough sleep. My baby still needs his mama. So I get up, brush the dirt from my knees and walk on.

It’s okay though. It’s okay to have one of these bad days. Life is not perfect, not for me anyway. Motherhood is not all peaches and roses. I’m not glamorous, far from it. It is tough and there are days when we hit rock bottom. On those days I do what I can to get through it. And then it gets better.

It will, it eventually will. Just tell yourself that. And then wipe those tears dry, hold your head up high and get on with the day. Because you are strong enough. We all are.

In the end, I cleaned my face and nose on husband’s tee-shirt. Went into the bedroom, turned on the AC and tucked myself under the quilt. At 1030pm. And I slept until Aidan woke up and needed me.

And it was a brand new day all over again.

Well, apparently somebody other than myself thinks so. Hur hur.

Katrijn (who’s recently welcomed their second child into the family, go say hi!) has nominated me for the Beautiful Mama award. And since it’s not like I am constantly receiving awards (and also because work allows me to BREATHE! now), I shall gladly endeavour to follow the rules of the award:

1. Talk about three things that I love about being a mother
2. Nominate as many deserving mamas as I like

Here goes…

Motherhood makes me a more humble person.
The truth is, I had never doubted my ability to spawn mini-mes. Infertility is something that nobody ever talks about. When you try for months and months and get to nowhere while others simply breathe and get pregnant, it hits you like a tonne of bricks. It hurts.

And now that I have my little man, I find myself thanking the big guy above every day. Even on mornings after a night of ravaged and little sleep, I can’t help but smile at and love the kid with all my heart. Because he is here.

Also, watching him grow and develop has been a privilege like no other. Abilities that we take for granted – walking, running, even good ‘ol farting – are skills that babies need to learn. It amazes me to see how nature and nurture combine to unlock these abilities in the little ones.

And this is how and why motherhood takes me down a peg. Or two. And I love it.

Baby kisses, laughter, smiles and hugs are awesome.
No matter how bad the day has been, no matter how weary I am, everything is erased and the slate is cleaned when I get to see my little boy in the evenings. The way his eyes light up at the sight of me, the way he smiles and reaches his little arms out towards me, the way his legs kick in excitement…I instantly become a new person again.

I love the way he pats my chest when I carry him, the way he cheekily turns away when I say “KEEEEEES!”, the way he babbles in the car seat when I am driving us home.

Everything. I love everything about him.

He is my mirror and more.
Being able to see myself in my son is such a funny, fuzzy feeling. His smile, the way he bites on his lower lip, his talkative nature – these are my traits that were genetically handed down to him.

At the same time, he makes me more aware of how I behave. Little persons have such strong abilities to mimic the adults that I am trying to be a better person for him.

Now, although I am supposed to be nominating three mamas for this award, I’m not going to do that. Instead, I am giving this out to all mamas reading this because we are all beautiful in our own ways. So go on, grab this for your own blog if you want to!

Let’s cut to the chase: SLEEP DEPRIVATION.

Can you guess what I am going to write about? Hur hur.

So. Lack of sleep. Every parent’s battle to fight. Or, in our case, pure and unblemished resignation. We are rather resigned to the fact that Mr A sleeps like crap in the night. He wakes up, Mr Thick goes to soothe him. If he refuses to calm down, he comes to me and I whip out the Holy Milk Bar. Sometimes, it takes me three to four attempts at latching before he is knocked out, by which time I would be semi-awake and doomed to have a bad night’s sleep.

If I am lucky, I get to nurse him only twice a night. But on the nights when the moon is full and winged pigs are streaking across the velvety dark sky, the little fellow wakes up three, four SOMETIMES FIVE times, in our bed. And guess who needs to be the bartender to this free-for-all buffet?

Whatever the reason for his shitty sleep, I don’t care. I’m tired. Constantly. I drink so much teh-si on a daily basis that I should be a shareholder of Toastbox.

(I am considering becoming an NTUC union member, just so I can get 15 percent off my Toastbox purchases of $5 and above! #auntydom)

Look, I get it. I get that sleeplessness is part and parcel of parenthood. But when I say that I am tired, I am not asking for candies or poms poms to be waved in the air. I am not even looking for a hug or a kind word. And I most certainly am not looking for comments in the vein of “this is parenthood, everyone else is doing the same” or “been there, done that”.

Because I don’t give a rat’s ass how little “everyone else” is sleeping. My primary concern is MEMEME and how I can stay on top of MY game. Four months in and the kid is still not showing any signs of sleeping through the night like he used to. There were once periods where we can look forward to a decent night’s rest but those nights are gone. LONG GONE. DEAD AND GONE.

So yeah, when I say I am tired, I mean that I am FREAKING TIRED. I don’t want to hear pithy words, I don’t want to hear about you and your sorrows, I don’t want to hear about how YOU lived through YOUR sleepless nights, I don’t want to be all SUNSHINE! and OMGAMSOPOSITIVETHATRAINBOWSARESHOOTINGOUTOFMYARSE.

I just want to sit here with a beer (if only!) and give myself a pitying pat on the back.

While watching Grey’s Anatomy.

And munching on some Kettle chips.

…Preferably the sweet onion flavour.

(Disclaimer: we are considering sleep training and night weaning but it is our personal parenting philosophy not to do so until he turns one. We are not against it, nor are we for it. We just believe that you do what you can to get through the situation and if sleep training is the solution, then yay for you. No judging!)

Mr Thick and I have been talking on and off about having a second child. Well, if you consider me saying, “I WANT ANOTHER BABY NAO” and him going, “Uh huh”, talking. Hmm. That’s quite reflective of how we converse around here, actually, HAHAHA.

Anyway, he would love to have another one and I am definitely looking forward to adding one more to our family. It’s like I can’t help it, there is some chemical or hormone in my brains going BABYBABYBABYOH. I cannot – absolutely CANNOT – look at newborns or even ultrasound photos without tearing and going “AWWWW WANT ONE TOO”.

I just LOVE itty bitty babies so much.

Of course, the driving force behind my desire to have another baby has always been the hope that we can have a daughter. I love baby girls. I love looking and squealing at baby girl things. I want to have mother-daughter conversations the way my own mother and I do. I want to go shopping with my little girl. I want to teach my girl to be enjoy the pretty things in life and still learn to climb trees and letter boxes.

Husband, the practical creature that he is, assures me that the odds of having a girl are 50-50. I tell him that I will love any child of mine but go produce more girl sperm, please. How? I don’t care.

So yes, that’s me and my dream of having a little girl of my own. And so yes, we’ve talked and joked but we have never made any concrete plans.

Then one night, as I sat in the backseat of the car with my babbling little man, something suddenly hit me: if I ever become the mother of two little boys, I would be so, so thrilled.

Besides the fact that yes, I would most definitely adore all my children, it was also a sudden sense of longing and love for this yet-to-be-conceived baby. No matter if the bubs is a boy or girl. Because this baby will complete our family. And this child will make us so, so, so happy. I can live with just one child but nothing would make me happier than to see the little man love his sibling.

And so I guess this means that I am definitely ready to try for another child. My heart is ready to expand and love another again. I am ready to see my heart walking around outside of me again.

I don’t know how this will end up, it may well lead to another WOE IS ME THIS INFERTILITY SHIT saga, or it may surprise us, the way my baby boy surprised us.

My little surprise! How I love, LOVE him.