My Heart is Painful...

....says the little one, little hands clutching her chest, her smile, tipping downwards as she falls dramatically to her knees.All this, just because I raised my voice at her for deliberately scattering cheerios all over the floor. With such dramatics at 2 years of age, i shudder to think what else she'll come up with when older! Just the other day, after being quite the pest at the gramps, she managed to save herself from a scolding with 5 simple words "grandma, you look so cute!" I wonder when children learn how to be cute and charming and devious all at once. And I am the constant sucker who falls for it. EVERY TIme. How to discipline when she's at her cutest? Once again, if she turns into a real brat, it will be my fault. Everytime I don't discipline when i should, the hubby gives me the "you're dealing with her teachers and principal next time" look. So i should toughen up and practice my "think you're so cute? Not! and you're not getting away with it" look...until she smothers me with kisses and "mummy, love you bee bee much!" and then I'm mush again.

baby measures and all things considered

Like all mums, i followed the new baby bonus measures with keen interest. Would there be measures that help sort out work-life balance (ie. shut office buildings at 7 sharp so that parents will be forced to go home and interact with kids? on that note, friends in Melbourne usually have to dash off by 5pm to pick kids up from day care or else they get left at the police station or something. Besides, they need to go home and cook and do some weeding and iron some clothes. another friend reported that the security guard routinely chases him out at 7 as he's the only sucker left in the office building!); measures that recognise the importance of dad's in the whole baby equation (as i've always said to anyone who'd listen, 3 days does not a dad make.)by giving dad's paternity leave and flexibility to take more time off to help, even if only to be awake at 3am to help bring the baby to mum for milk; measures that make bringing baby out a little less stressful (i've hardly used the pram as maeve has always been in a sling and later, a backpack or on her own two feet) as it really is quite crazy trying to take a train or a bus with a little one. Just last week,i was on the MRT carrying her AND a big diaper bag, desperately trying to cling on to the MRT bars. Of course i wasn't offered a seat. But being the thick skinned person i was, i stood in front of those marked out seats (the ones you're meant to give up to people like me) and politely told the person in the seat to vacate it if you please. Unfortunately, the average mum doesn't have the hide of a rhino like me, so they endure it and pray desperately they and their bundle don't crash or slip. Maybe we're too polite to tell others off when they are not civic conscious. As a student overseas, i've heard the elderly scold young ones for occupying those seats, or a whole lot of people shouting at a queue jumper, so why haven't we the collective conscience to do likewise? So what i'd ask for in the new baby measures, is collective conscience, or plain civic mindedness.
I applaud the new initiatives although most won't apply to me. i don't work in a single organisation full time (although i work quite a bit) so the maternity leave won't apply to me. i don't intend to send maeve to child care, but a 3 hr kindy instead, so the subsidies won't apply either. The IVF subsidies don't appply as it only applies to fresh cycles (which i've been told in no uncertain terms by my gynae will probably ensure a repeat of my near death experience). i do however benefit from the tax rebates if i do have another one and a top-up of a baby bonus fund with another one (IF God grants us another one). So really, God provides through the state. It isn't necessary but it is a bonus.
I'm really wondering why the government throws all this money at parents when what parents want is something entirely different. we want guilt-free time with our children, we want to be able to leave the workforce for a bit (or work flexibly from home) in the formative years, which most child experts would say are the most vital years and re-enter when they are older.So while the powers that be have held focus sessions with parents, i'm not sure what sort of parents they held it with that would demand more money.surely having children has nothing to do with money? one wouldn't have more just because the state's giving money, in fact, it might just work the other way round.
All in all, i'm glad I have been able to make the decisions i made so that i have lots of time with maeve (although i wish part-timing was available when i had her so i didn't need to quit). i would consider it as building of sufficient good will that i can call upon during her impending difficult teenage years.I'm glad we're not stretched financially, that hubby has a stable, steady job. We have no debt except for a housing one which we hope to pay off real soon, we've got a helper who serves as my personal tutor on motherhood with her immense experience being a mother of 4, we've got wonderful parents who are so willing to help and would bend over backwards for their grandchildren.My parenthood journey has been nothing short of a miracle where i've experienced blessing upon blessing.Do i need financial motivation to have more? definitely not, i'll have many more in a heartbeat.

I don't know when humans start developing the concept of fear and how it all begins. Does it happen after a few bumps and accidents and bad experiences? Is it all about personality? Now, at a very respectable age, i don't think i will do anything foolhardy, like bungy jumping or driving off into the wilderness with no preparation or knowing where the next petrol kioks were. If you asked me the same questions a decade ago, i would have jumped at the chance to do these foolhardy things in the name of adventure. the thought that i might die, or injure myself in a big way never occured to me and this risk taking behaviour, or fearlessnes is now evident in the little one. i've been bringing her swimming every week and not once does she approach the water gingerly or with some sense of self-preservation, unlike her older cousin who "tests water" first. nope, not maeve. she jumps in with wild abandonment each time, expecting to somehow bob to the top each time. another favourite activity is hurling herself at me, expecting me to always catch her, whether at ground level, or from a height. how she can have such a lack of fear, or complete faith in me, i don't understand. what if i don't catch her? what if i can't scoop her out of the water fast enough? So far, these thoughts don't cross her mind. To her, there is nothing to fear as mummy will always be there, like magic. It warms my heart but the magnitude of such a responsibility scares me. I hope i'll always be there to catch her when she falls. i hope i'll always be the cushion, the trampoline, the safety net. but i know that she will scrape her knee one day, she will knock her little head, she will bruise her heart. i hope when that day comes, i can still be there to catch her.

you scream i scream

the little one has been having a blocked nose every night for a while and i've tried various methods to get her comfortable and back to bed when she wakes up at night at the average of 3-4 times. unfortunately, she decided to have a good scream and cry last night (which was a bad time given my emotional day yesterday) which really got me cranky. so i did what i knew won't work, but had to do anyway because it was cathartic. i screamed back. so there we were, screaming at each other in the middle of the night. poor daddy got the brunt of it and i'm sure would lose concentration at work today due to exhaustion. after a whole bout of screaming, we fell exhausted into each other's arms, she, sobbing and hiccuping away, me, tearing with sheer guilt and trying to make it up with plenty of kisses. Thank goodness children forgive and forget in a way that adults don't. this morning, she was all cheeky smiles and singing away as she "cooked".she even put up with a doctor's visit (it helps that we changed PDs and this one she liked as he had a kitchen set in the clinic and gave her stickers!)without her usual protests. I will have to find a way to deal with my own lack of patience and frustation without taking it out on her. i need more zen-ness (which hubby has plenty of), but it doesn't seem to rub off on me.

the but-why?s

Ever since i could talk, my favourite phrase has been "but why?" things haven't quite changed in 30 odd years. I'm still asking "but why" which makes my mum feel like she's trapped in an endless time warp. I ask that of salesgirls ("you can't try, sales item". "but why?" "dunno. boss say so"), of people who make you fill your primary school results in forms (ennough said), of admin people who make silly rules (usually the answer to my questions is "dunno sorry")..

Recently the tables have been turning. the little mite has started the Why questions which makes mum really pleased. A taste of my own medicine, she would say. FORTUNATELY, Maeve is not really asking in earnest yet, she just likes asking it and.....answering it herself! ha!
Maeve: Aeroplane fly! Why? mummy why?
Me: (silence as i construct as suitable answer)
Maeve: (without missing a beat) BECAUSE mummy cry!
Me: ????

Of course i am stumped by the enigmatic nature of the response, but thoroughly pleased that she managed to rhyme.
and then it hit me: it really doesn't matter what the reason is behind all the whys. life was never meant to be logical and reasonable. it just flows according to its own crazy patterns and rhymes and "dunno" is as good a response as any!once again, i learn from my little one.

It is strange how a little one can change everything. My house has been thoroughly colonised by Maeve and it isn't just the child spaces. the once adult spaces have echoes of her: Peter Rabbit lies on my pillow like it's his right to do so, crayons and odd bits of toys, half eaten raisins snuggle next to my wallet in my handbag,the potty sits proudly beside the toilet bowl, my doors (at least the bottom half) have modern art (at least that's what i see it as) renditions, as does my coffee table, smoo milk adorns every possible surface, the sound system in the car and house play mother goose ad infinitum, my shoes appear in all strange corners and i usually can't find something or the other, whisked away and hidden by the industrious squirrel...and yes, my lipsticks serve double duty as crayon and face paint. Yet...yet, i wouldn't have it any other way. If i were to take away the echoes of her, the house and everything with it will sigh away, empty and devoid of meaning. how a little one can fill all those spaces so quickly and so easily, leaving you wondering how on earth you survived before on the emptiness. and time marches on. i think i'll be a hopeless mess when she goes to kindergarten and waves me away from the kindy doors.

temper tantrums...

...are as certain as death and taxes. the good news is most parents have an arsenal of measures to keep them at bay/remedy the situation. the bad news is I'm not one of them. The good news is most kids will throw one and get distracted soon enough to stop it. the bad news is Maeve is not most kids...in fact, she averages 3 a day, for reasons only known to her...and for her sake i hope they are sublime ones. so what is a harried mom to do? The bookworm in me has devoured all forms of literature on tantrums and they all suggest, IGNORE. well, i tried IGNORE yesterday evening when the royal highness went berserk on the floor of her grandpa's house. then it became a tensed face-off, who will outlast the other. after 45 mins of IGNORE, the little tyke was the winner and she only conceded to vaguely apologise after her cousin took her by her hand and led her, still fiesty and defiant, over. mum and dad assured me that ALL kids will go through this, till, oh about, 18-we-wish-you-the-best-of-luck. hmmph!! So i'm now out on the market for new methods of discipline. mich says wait till i see the terrible-3s, i ain't seen anythin'yet! i wait with baited breat . meanwhile i will see about self-preservation techniques.