Broken Arrows

I turned 32 last weekend. 

Childcare was closed on Friday for Teacher’s Day, so I took the boys by the bus and MRT to the National Gallery, followed by the National Library, and then we stopped at Star Vista on the way home. Don’t ask me why I took them so far on public transport and stayed out for so long. (The answer, you and I both know, is probably naiveté.) The boys appeared to enjoy the outing, despite the fact that the MRT ride from Bugis back to Buona Vista was rather trying – I had to carry Daniel all the way, while Andrew tried his level best to push the braked stroller around a moderately crowded train. Naps were not had by anyone when we got home, and I ended up in tears at dinnertime because Daniel would not stop throwing a tantrum, and I felt like I had failed him in some way. 

On Saturday, I finally ran a sub-55 10k, but because I was slightly sick and really drained from the previous day’s shenanigans, the effort wore me out more than it should have and I got more upset than I would have at the fact that Husband hadn’t bought me anything, and I still had to do dishes and laundry and clean up poo poo. I wound up indulging in feeling sorry for myself, even during the awesome K-BBQ we had with my brother on Saturday night; I cheered up only after lunch on Sunday, having spent the morning at home baking a 6-inch chocolate cake and reading Norwegian Wood instead of going to church. My mood improved even more after I had a nap, after which we had a lovely dinner at one of our favourite Japanese restaurants – the waitress brought us a scoop of green tea ice cream, on the house, after Husband told her it was my birthday. We also finished all of the cake (mini cakes FTW. What took me so long?). 

Would I have had it any other way? If given a choice, probably, except for the 10k timing and dinner on Sunday. 

But of course, whether I could have had it any other way is another story.  

***

At some point in the past few months, I stopped being able to see the funny side of things where the boys were concerned (which explains the dearth of posts – I just couldn’t write, although I wanted to). I mean, there were moments, like when we first read the Three Little Pigs and Andrew went around knocking on all manner of random things, yelling “Chin, chin, CHIN!” followed by “I’LL HAH! An’ PAH! An’… DOWN!”, but many of such sweet and funny happenings were ultimately overshadowed by the horribleness of the Wednesday Weepies. Wednesday is usually the first day of the week the boys go to childcare; Mondays and Tuesdays they spend with grandparents. 

For weeks on end, Daniel invariably threw a tantrum on Wednesday morning about going to school, and when he finally let up, maybe about half-an-hour to forty-five minutes of weeping and utterly nonsensical raging later, I would be emotionally spent, and arrive at my desk after dropping them off capable of doing nothing more than drinking hot tea and staring into space. It took me at least one day to mentally recover. Nothing worked to stave off the Wednesday Weepies. Putting him to bed earlier, less TV the night before, more TV the night before, spanking, wielding the cane, reasoning, sending him to stand in the corner, me bursting into frustrated tears myself, telling him he didn’t have to go to school, offering to send him to a grandparent for the day (but I WANT to go to school! Ok, then let’s go. I DON’T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL!), me “throwing a tantrum” right back at him (he burst into even noisier tears at this), extra reassurance and hugs that I would be there to pick him up as soon as I could… 

In the end, one recent Wednesday, he simply woke up smiling and asked to go to school “a special way”. We go to childcare by this “special way” most days now; I have to make a detour of about 7 minutes on some narrow roads, but it’s worth it.

  

***

The Wednesday before my birthday, I had a meeting that started at 4.30pm and stretched later than I thought it would. Ideally, to reach childcare in good time, I have to leave by 6.15pm at the very latest. Traffic isn’t the most predictable during rush hour. I excused myself at 6.25pm and sped all the way to The Grandstand, and after I parked at the only available lot, which was the furthest away from the relevant entrance, I picked up the container with Daniel’s leftover breakfast cornflakes without thinking, only realising after I had sprinted about halfway across the carpark that it was probably a huge mistake. There weren’t any for Andrew. 

As I drove home that day, Daniel smugly satisfied after having managed to quickly cram the cornflakes into his mouth in large handfuls without giving any to Andrew, Andrew squalling as a consequence of my feeble and ultimately futile attempt to get Daniel to share the cornflakes with him, I looked out the front window of the car at the glorious sunset and thought about my role as a mother, and a wife. I’ve come quite a way, I think, from resenting being the one who has to rush off from work and take leave when the boys need a caregiver and grandparents are unavailable, to accepting that that’s just how it’s going to be because of the choices I have made, and how I want to live my life. 

Much has been said in the past two years or so about the emotional load mothers and women have to carry in the home, about unequal treatment at the workplace. I’ve read all the articles, believe me, and these may be unpopular views, but I have concluded that:

(1) Employers are fully entitled to favour men (although they should also favour women who have chosen to give their careers priority). I don’t blame them, really. Who wants an employee who can’t stay later than official working hours, whose emotions are subject to the capricious whims of young children? 

(2) God made women and men different, and a male would not be able to handle the emotional load half as well. Not many men have the emotional capacity after the s**t they go through at work. Often though, they do try, and maybe that should be enough, or we should learn to accept that that is literally all they can give, and therefore, it is enough.  

We ate leftovers for dinner that night, watched some Dinotrux, WhatsApp video-called Jon, read about four books, and went to bed. 

***

I do not in any way think that my trials are unique (though it sometimes seems that everyone else’s kids are sooooo well-behaved on social media, like, real life!), and while I am weary and sometimes fear that I am raising anti-social hooligans, it is through these trials that my love for my little family grows; I love the boys more than I ever thought I would. Daniel is at that stage where he’s all skinny arms and legs and questions, like a long bean that won’t stop talking. Andrew, in contrast, is for want of a better description, a solid little “Cute Fat”. I’m also proud of Jon and all that he has achieved at work, and happy, the genuinely contented kind of happy, that I have been able to play a part in providing a stable and secure home base for him to come back to. 

And that ends the story of whether I could have had things any other way on my 32nd birthday. I guess we all know the answer to that.