James 1:19-20

James 1:19-20
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Was feeling rather hot-tempered yesterday after a series of uneventful episodes of clumsiness and miscommunication. The last thing I needed was my unreliable butter fingers accidentally spilling water out of my crockpot. Exactly what I need at the end of an exasperating day! A large and resounding sigh followed. Coming from what seemed like a disgruntled hog, this situation caught the attention of curious Eli who was happily savoring his strawberries in the living room.

There was a moment of silence before he spoke, "Mummy, what happened?" Full sentences. My baby boy is speaking in full sentences. The 2-year old never ceased to amaze me.

"Everything's fine, darling. Mummy is ok." (I wished!) Still very much fired-up by my clumsiness.

While busy mopping the water-splattered kitchen floor, Eli walked into the kitchen, and in his sing-song voice inquired innocently, "What happened, mummy?

I forced a smile. "Everything's fine. Mummy's cleaning up." The challenge of being a parent - having to feign nonchalance when anger is present in every cell of your body.

I paused, motioned him not to come into the disastrous kitchen. At that moment, the cheeky boy laughed out loud and exclaimed, "Mummy dropped water! Water everywhere!"

That tickled him. A great deal. He just stood there laughing. And I laughed. It's impossible to be angry when an angel is there to remind you that a water-splattered kitchen looks like a set out of a sitcom. It's funny. We laugh if it happens on tv. Why not now?

Frankly I have no idea. But I do realize Eli boy is much happier a human being than myself at times. He sees the best in situations, while I simply dwell into the many uneventful episodes that happened way before my water incident. They did not cause this. I did because I was burdened. So it's time to let go.

Eli and I had a good laugh. And that made the day good again.






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Yesterday was officially the first time I managed

Yesterday was officially the first time I managed to complete the chores of a sahm, by my standard of course :) Did a few loads of laundry, kept the clothes that were drying for way too long, did some grocery shopping where I had to lug 2 big bags of diapers on top of dinner groceries, swept the floors and finally cooked (and washed!) dinner. All while taking care of baby Luke! That to me is an accomplishment. What's best, I did all these without any complains this round. Simply, trying to check off my to-do list, and to maximize my effectiveness and efficiency as a sahm. Even the cashier at the supermarket was horrified at the load I was trying to carry with the baby. Which brings to mind that I have to get the stroller back home from the back of the car so both Luke and I can have more help.


I must say what was usually shared (laundry, dinner) was actually done by myself this time. I'm unabashedly going to take the credit because these chores took me the entire day. And I really mean the entire day. I did manage to catch a bit of rest to watch a horrible movie on HBO while clearing a whole stack of letters addressed to me whilst we were back in UK. So big stack!

So it was an accomplished and challenging day. But it wasn't too good a day. We had forgotten to bring back Eli's bubu (his term for bolster) from school and he was kicking a big fuss not having his favorite item at bedtime. Even when he was sleeping, he was having a night terror on not having his bubu. Luckily, I remembered we had a pack of kids bedding set leftover by the previous tenants. Tried to find a stand-in bubu and found it! It wasn't washed before but well, it did saved my hubby some rest for the night. Luke on the other hand, wasn't much of a consolation for the night. He's been whiny for the past few nights, and I thought he might want to feed but he's often refused the boob, and will suddenly stop his fussing after a while. A long while to be exact. This "while" totally wrecked my sleeping routine.

Anyways, much as I feel accomplished and challenged, I think the biggest challenge came in the morning after. Eli, amazingly, woke up without much hassle, despite a hectic night. Which was fine, until the hubby tried to make a bottle of milk for him. He came back and said I had forgotten to put hot water into the hot water flask and he has no time to boil new water to feed the boy, suggesting to let him have his milk in school instead.

Wow, I did so much and forgot the easiest chore of pouring hot water into the flask. Sadly it's the second time this week. Our kettle boils water in less than a minute, very efficient. But the water transferer is not so. Blame it on baby memory, or blame it on multi-tasking (I was cleaning and cooking while boiling water!), but if things doesn't work as perfectly, blame it on me.

I didn't want this blog to be a complainy one. As much as I understand how stressful it is going at work for the hubby, I'm really trying my best to complete as much housework as possible without getting any help. I can go without rest but I do hope the sacrifice will be worth a thank you or no comment instead of a blame game.

I even took a little effort to get some
Niceties for our special day the day before. And yes, I got a quick thank you and that's it. (They were chocolates, he will always say thanks because they are new around the house.)

I think I'm doing a good job as a mum but somehow don't feel so much when I always get the blame for things undone. There's a bit of self-beating at times to be honest.

I'm expecting this amount of stress with 2 kids. But what I'm not expecting, is that my hubby has turned into an impatient and complainy guy. I guess we switched roles in that one year. Time changes people and it's weird.

Some people say why not get a full time job and engage a helper. In my opinion, getting a helper might be worse. It will give parents the chance to shelve parenting responsibility in due time. Work will somehow take precedence because it's not easy to push away. It's human nature. We think it's ok to pass the responsibilities on for a bit to the helper, after a while it becomes a large chunk of transfer. My family was especially distanced when they got a helper in. The home-cooked meals didn't exactly made everyone come home on time. People take things for granted after a while.

Well, the everyday stresses of a household. More to come I suppose. I don't even want to talk to my husband about it. Lots of things' been going out from me and nothing's going in for him. Although he has been somehow replying me but he forgot he replied. When I reminded him, he said he didn't say what I thought he said. It's his words against mine and I get the blame anyways.

Well, I hate to say it but this sucks.


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Growing up pains

Last year on this day, our family flew to UK for WY's one year course at Cranfield. And less than a year later we are back with a second little one, and our not-so-little-anymore Eli boy, who is now an active toddler learning by leaps and bounds. I'm experiencing much joy watching him grow up. He has also made me a more grown-up grown up in the midst.

Eli's been trying to speak for a couple of months now. It's amazing how much we could communicate with him ever since we came back in May. Grandpa Tan has been actively teaching him mandarin and he's now rather fluent in both languages. Beginning his speech with a single word (eg ball, please, yes, no etc), he's now trying to speak in short sentences.

Was rather intrigued he actually said "no sound" when he tried to make funny noises by blowing on my tummy. To be honest, our gap has widened a little since we got back, with me busy with the new little one Luke, and Eli's introduction to Grandparents. "Gong gong" aka Grandpa Tan is now Eli's favourite. It's no longer mummy he wishes to put him to bed.

With this new speak, it also means Eli is communicating his needs and wants more. Besides the usual "I want" which kids learn so fast, he's also getting really well at communicating what he doesn't want. Eli has been sick for a couple of days and I've just brought him to the clinic today. He's been given a whooping 5 types of medication. I remembered he used to have no problem having medication when he was younger. Imagine my shock when he tasted each one, and shook his head with an assertive no to further doses. No matter how much I tried to negotiate with him, he just wouldn't relent. In the end, I had no choice but to force the medication on him. Coercion would usually result in crying for the younger Eli, but for the not-so-little-anymore Eli, it's usually followed with new speak - the harrowing "No" and "Come down" (which means let me down).

After the ordeal which left me helpless and close to tears, the next trauma came when I tried putting a stick-on cold patch on his forehead. Previously, he would just cry and stop after I placed my hand continuously on the cold patch to seal it in. This round, he was crying so loudly and yelling "Take down". I should have been happy my boy is increasing his grammar and vocabulary. Contrary to that, my heart broke when he said that. I took out the patch, but with his eyes lowered, and him turning his back to me on the bed, I knew I had scored a trauma. For both him and me. And just like that, I teared. My parenting pain has got to the next level.

My mother-in-law has offered to help take care of Eli for the next few days while I go prepare our place for shifting in. When I called her and commented it has not been easy with the medication process for Eli, her response was cool and straightforward - force it in. She said this with lightheartedness as well. I'm pretty sure I will get to this stage as time goes by. But before that, I shall leave the feeding to her instead. :p

Lucky woman

What started out as an innocent comment turned into an angry march to bed (for the hubby) and a 7 week old not-so-newborn babe having to boob suck to a soured-faced mum.

"You're the luckiest woman." The simple comment sounded innocent enough, could even be hailed as a loving comment from a husband to a wife, except that it was said when the baby was crying for milk, and the dried laundry was piling up waiting to be folded, and the wife exclaimed that the hubby could actually see the piled up laundry and have his leisure time on his mobile device and do nothing about it.

Then why didn't the wife keep the dried laundry? She quit her job to be a SAHM and so the job is logically hers to do, don't you think? Or perhaps we should say she has been busy with the newborn since 530am, and has been working around the house (and the older boy since he came home from school), such that she has YET to (at 2300h) get around the tasks of clearing the dried laundry when HER not so newborn started crying for a wrinkly boob to suck again.

It's HER newborn because once a wife is tagged as a SAHM, any work that has got to do with the home and kids are 100% her responsibilities. Once she gets help from the hubby, it declares her inefficiency and incompetence as a SAHM, and she's really lucky that other people are helping her with the job. The employed one who works 8hrs non-stop don't even get the privilege.

Why does being a SAHM make the shared parenting responsibility seemed to be just her role now? She's working full time too, except that her full time is not limited to the 8 hours like her employed other half. Her full time is a thankless 24-hour job. Strangely enough, being employed provides the excuse of coming home to rest when the work day ends. For the SAHM, her job is never finished after the 8 hours. She has the expectation to take on both loads of parenting after the 8-hour shift just because she sacrificed her full time career to provide for the family.

Suppose the circumstances changed, and both parents are now employed. With this arrangement, it makes more sense that parenting chores are equally shared when they get home so both have enough rest. Is the work outside any more tiring than a SAHM who spent the same 8 hours taking care of a child, cleaning the household, running errands, cooking for the family? She basically took on the 2 full time role of a housekeeper and a Carer at a childcare centre, to say the least. So why should the responsibilities not be shared once the other parent get home after his first shift? Perhaps the Wonder Woman as her role implied needs no rest, or perhaps her new employer (the employed one) expects a super human to emerge with a new role called SAHM.

No wonder SAHM are the most unappreciated workers. I wonder how I can ever be considered luckiest to be this unappreciated. I'm not even harping on a meek thank you. A lack of thank you would have been better than a caustic thankless comment like the above. I must be having my resting time now to be able to write this post you say. Yes and no, I multitask my resting time while soothing the not-so-newborn on my chest to dreamland, with one hand typing a sarcastic entry on my blog. All these done with my almost non-existent sleeping hours (note: 2 feeds in the night), and knowing that I have to wake up before 6am to repeat the restless cycle again. Very lucky I say.


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