Only If I

It is quite likely that some time in the not-so-far-off future, I will come to rue the moments I wished that FBC would hurry and grow up already. I don't think I've indulged much in motherhood sentimentality, but I do know that he will only be small and cute and defenceless all at once at this point in his life, and I have no idea when the day will come where we will wake up in the morning and find that he has transformed into a gangly, awkward stranger. Treasure each day with your child! There is nothing more worthwhile! Enjoy all the overwhelming love! Did you ever, EVER think you could ever love anybody SO much? 

Guilt-inducing platitudes abound on social media, and when I'm not dismissing them as absolute tosh, I am holding back tears at my desk and telling myself not to succumb to this crap*.

*I am aware that not everyone who may read this thinks it is crap. No offence intended. I have weird coping mechanisms. 

For the record - even though FBC is almost two and we are expecting our Second Born Child ("SBC") pretty soon, I still don't feel that having children is worth it. Somewhere in my mind, of course, my rational self is aware and believes that it is (after all, we are having another), but when I was in the throes of nausea and a terrible cold* during my second first trimester, I looked at FBC sleeping peacefully next to me, and wondered what on earth I had gotten, and was getting myself into.

*I thought I would never, EVER, be able to eat again. Have YOU ever felt like you would never, EVER be able to eat again?

***

Before we had FBC, I was quite certain that I only wanted to try for a second one after he could communicate properly with us, i.e. tell us what he wanted or was feeling in words. It's not that he can't do so now, but he's nowhere near the fantastic ideal I had in mind when we were "family planning". 

That being said, it dawned on me a few days ago that it's probably just as well we decided to try for another one sooner rather than later, because I would in all likelihood have lost my nerve to have more than one child if we'd waited longer.   

Some days, I sit in the car after FBC gets on the school bus (yowling as he's strapped in, but the overly cheerful (for 8.30am) teacher who accompanies the children to school informs me that he usually stops once I'm out of sight), and feel horribly alone and a bit like I'm drowning (yes, Christians are humans too). I then spend part of those days looking at pictures of FBC on my phone and missing him, but when six o'clock comes and I have to leave the office so I can get to childcare before 7pm and avoid a fine, a sense of doom descends slowly but surely on my heart as I navigate through the little (thankfully) road angst I have to face at my area. I'm convinced FBC has a special whine reserved especially for me*, that he starts on the moment I strap him into his car seat. It's absolutely lovely seeing him run towards me on his short little legs in his too long school bermudas, arms outstretched, one of his best smiles breaking out on his chubby face as he gets closer, repeating "Mama mama mama"; I feel proud at how nicely he says bye to all the teachers and sits down without being told to have his sandals put on. But once we're alone in the car, all hell seems to break loose, and FBC doesn't let up until we're home and I've given him a bottle of milk.

*It is not usually turned on when there is someone else in the car, for example, Jon or my mother.

Moral of that story? Always make sure you have enough warm water and formula on hand to shake up a bottle of milk. Even if your house is, at most, a 15 minute drive from childcare. Evidently, toddlers are unaware of the concepts of patience and reasonableness.         

***

Now is when I tell you that I have found, after seven months or so as a Full Time Working Mother ("FTWM"), that having eschewed live-in help, I get through every day fully believing in the intrinsic worth of, and find great joy in serving my family even after a long and mentally draining day at work (so you can judge me for being indirectly judgmental of FTWMs who have live-in help).

Sarcasm aside, I think it comes down to my stubbornness and refusal to have to give up some of our privacy. And I also have reasons other than the usual How Can I Trust Someone Else With My Child?, What If Having a Helper Just Creates More Problems? and What If My Husband or Sons Molest My Helper? which you can ask me about in real life. We'll see how things go after SBC, I guess - though I am really not keen on the idea.

***

I have discovered that making a pot of chicken stock during the weekend can provide the base for two or three healthy and tasty dinners during the week. I usually put about six to eight Sakura chicken thighs and 6.5 to 7 cups of water in my 3.5l thermal pot. After the chicken thighs have cooked for 30-45 minutes, I remove the meat from the thighs, return the bones to the pot, top up with more water, and leave it in my thermal pot overnight (bringing the stock to a boil from time to time, if I have the time to do so (I usually don't)). And there you have the base for chicken soup, chicken pho, chicken porridge, [insert vegetable of choice] soup, etc. for the week. 

Saturday

I last wore the combination of my pink Reebok singlet, grey FBT shorts and blue Nike sports bra  at the Angkor Wat International Half-Marathon 2013, which was also the last long-distance race I ran before becoming pregnant with FBC. Jon had pushed back the operation to remove his tumour by a couple of days so we could go to Siem Reap as planned; after all, we had been told that it was probably benign and leaving it there for another couple of days wouldn't do much harm.

It was about two weeks after we returned from Siem Reap that we were told the tumour was actually malignant. I couldn't wear my pink Reebok singlet and grey FBT shorts again after that, because they served as a reminder of what life had been like before it All Went Downhill. So they remained folded in my drawer for over a year and a half, and after I signed up for the Great Eastern Women's Run (GEWR) this year, I decided that I would wear them again, together with my blue Nike sports bra, because, well there is no reason other than that I decided, why not? and it was significant because it was my first half-marathon post FBC. It may also well be my last long-distance race for some time (we are not expecting again, yet (haha), but committing to training was really painful, especially because I had absolutely no control over the quality or quantity of my sleep).

***

During the run, at the 16km mark, when I knew that if I forced myself to continue running all the way I may have vomited or even fainted, I decided that I would take things easy and walk a little, even if it meant that I wouldn't hit my desired timing. Because making myself sick just for the sake of hitting a timing, meaning I couldn't see to the laundry and cooking and miscellaneous household matters for about a week thereafter, just wasn't worth it. I was a little disappointed despite the fact that I had objectively clocked a decent time, but I realised that as I made my way painfully to the finish line, I had come to accept that life as a parent means Being Responsible, and sometimes (often, actually) that means making choices where you put your spouse and child(ren) before yourself. And then you realise that putting others first isn't such a bad thing after all, in fact, it is a good thing and brings them and you much joy. (In case I sound like Pollyanna-Does-Motherhood, do note that I came to this realisation whilst in a state of severe blood sugar deprivation. I doubt I will ever attain that level of selflessness where I will joyfully and willingly always put their needs before my own. In fact, I spent most of this afternoon simultaneously reading Elizabeth George's latest Inspector Lynley mystery and "playing" with FBC.)

***

I am thankful that the haze miraculously cleared up for the GEWR, and even more thankful that Jon has been cancer-free for the past year or so. Long may this be the case. I thank God for all that He has blessed us with these two years, for the growth we have experienced as people and in our walk with Him. 

Oh Cecilia, You're Breaking My Heart

That song has absolutely no relevance to anything in my life right now (I don't know any Cecilias, therefore my heart cannot be broken by anyone named Cecilia), but it is 10.56pm on a work night (GASP!) and it was also the very last track to RPM 67, so - nope, still irrelevant, but I'm trying to keep with a theme here.

***

I decided that I had to blog about my first week of work because I managed to cook dinner on my first day of work (1 October, Thursday) and from the Sunday which followed that (4 October) to the Thursday after (8 October). Yes, I wanted (needed!) to hao lian, but I must also give credit to our new family member, whom I purchased with some Robinsons' vouchers I found lying around on the study table.

A cousin of our new family member, who looks exactly like him

Credit to random website which came up on Google

This was what I cooked. The menu for the work week starting on 5 October was inspired by The Kitchn's roast chicken meal plan.  

1 October: Slow-Cooker Vietnamese Roast Chicken from A Year of Slow Cooking. The night before, which was also my last night of no-pay leave (when I should have been vegetating in front of the TV for the last time), I stuck a layer of sliced onions in the bottom of the slow cooker insert, put about 8 or 9 small to medium sized Sakura skinless chicken thighs on top of those in a single layer, then poured the marinade over them. I stuck the entire insert into the fridge, and at 3pm that afternoon I sent my mother a message and told her to stick the insert into the slow cooker on "Low". When I got back around 6.45pm the chicken was lovely and tender and had that nice caramelised fish sauce aftertaste.

We went out for dinner on 2 October. One of the things I missed the most about working was anticipating going out to town on Friday night. Since we didn't have cell group, we went to Vivo City where we proceeded to eat a bit too much, but we HAD to get llao llao to celebrate my return to work. 

On 4 October, I roasted a chicken (seasoned it with just salt and pepper). Now, the NTUC fish counter aunties who can cut up the chicken for you and discard all the yucky bits like the head and feet never seem to understand me when I say "butterfly" (I have to pronounce it with a distinctly auntie accent, viz., bah-terh-fly). After having the chicken cut open at the breast bone and the chicken cut in two with the backbone still attached, I took to asking for the feet and head to be cut off and thrown away, and only the backbone removed but returned with the beheaded and de-feeted chicken... which came back to me with the backbone removed and cut in half. 

It actually does make a difference when roasting the chicken, to have it intact and not in two halves - the breast meat doesn't get as dry when the chicken is whole, but since the butcher service saves me from spraying my sink with chicken germs, I can't complain. Anyhow, so I roasted my two chicken halves, and we ate most of one half for dinner along with some roasted broccoli and cous cous. I saved the chicken bones.

On 5 October, I took the drumstick and thigh and chicken wing off the half chicken, shredded the breast meat, cooked some 2.5 minute soba (I threw in some thinly sliced kailan when the water first came to a boil and let that cook for a bit), and added the shredded chicken towards the end to warm it through. The soba cooking water was really tasty so we drank it after dinner, but dinner was essentially soba with chicken and kailan, and I stirred in some ginger scallion sauce (plenty of recipes out there, it got trendy after David Chang included a recipe for it in his Momofuku cookbook). All chicken bones were saved, together with the drumstick, thigh and chicken wing. 

On 6 October I made Niku Miso don with an almost hard-boiled egg (each). There are also plenty of recipes on the Internet which you can adapt to your liking, I just fried up some minced onion, garlic and ginger (you can grate it so you don't really see it after it's cooked), then added a tray of minced pork. After the pork was cooked through (you may need to add a touch of water), I set aside some for FBC before adding a sauce comprising soy sauce, miso paste, mirin and cooking sake in a 2:3:1.5:2ish ratio. Err, just taste as you go, miso pastes come in different levels of saltiness. After the sauce thickened I drizzled some sesame oil over it all, placed thinly sliced kailan on top, lowered the heat and covered the pot so the kailan would wilt in the residual heat. We ate this with rice. 

On 7 October I finally got round to making slow-cooker chicken stock! Again there are plenty of iterations of this out there (I think it started trending after Smitten Kitchen published a recipe for it). I just stuck all the chicken bones from my 4 October roast chicken and some chicken bones from another roast chicken which I had frozen into my slow cooker along with a sliced onion, about 3 small cloves of garlic, two bay leaves and half a carrot, roughly chopped. I used around 8 cups of water, which I think was too much. I cooked it on Low for about 12 hours, and it tasted a bit diluted to me when I got home so I took the lid off the slow cooker and turned it to High for a while. The evaporation did help to give it a more concentrated flavour, but I ended up adding about a tablespoon of tomato paste along with salt and pepper to give the stock more body. I also added in the remaining chicken parts I had saved, skin and all, so that helped the flavour as well. We ate this with mini fusilli and the remaining chicken parts, and some blanched broccoli.

On 8 October I Googled recipes for baked salmon, found this recipe from Natasha's Kitchen, decided parsley was too expensive - one box would cost almost the same as a coffeeshop meal - and so headed out to the mini-mart opposite our place when I got home, bought some stalks of coriander to use in lieu of the parsley, and some potatoes, and had dinner ready by 8.20pm. I was quite pleased with this achievement, and clean-up was minimal. Alright, I know not everyone will agree with that but there was just the bowl I used to mix the vinaigrette-like marinade in, the pot for the mashed potatoes, the potato masher, and my plate and utensils. Jon came back late so he had to eat from the mashed potato pot. 

***

Let's see how long this cooking thing lasts. Next week is pork week; tomorrow's dinner sits in the slow cooker insert in the fridge, waiting to be put into the slow cooker tomorrow morning. 

It also helps that my new workplace is about a 15-20 minute bus ride from my house, and we are going to buy a bicycle so I can cycle to work via the park connector. I am thankful to God for this posting, which literally materialised out of thin air when I was bopping up and down outside Kim's Family Restaurant at Lorong Kilat during an early Mother's Day celebration with Jon's family, trying to get a sick FBC to sleep.

***

Having finished haolian-ing, I have a thought that I want to share, which is the primary reason I have stayed up so late writing this (really!) although FBC is running a slight temperature and I really should go to bed because I forsook a nap in the afternoon to continue rereading American Gods.

Now and then, although FBC is already over a year old, I feel bad that I stopped breastfeeding so early. The bad feelings are mostly a combination of guilt and fear that I have disadvantaged him in some way; I was relieved when he started walking around the same time as other babies of the same age, and he also doesn't show any signs of obesity or being developmentally slow. It's all in my head, I know, but it's hard not to compare, to worry. 

But whenever I start working myself up about this, I remember the circumstances leading up to FBC's conception and birth; after everything Jon and I had gone through the year before, what was the point in continuing if our relationship was deteriorating because of someone who was meant to (and did, and still does) bring us so much joy, who was a clear sign of God's faithfulness in our lives? What did it matter, so long as he was well-fed, happy and healthy? 

***

Going back to work has been S. H. I. O. K. I know why I didn't go back earlier, but I'm still going to say it anyway: WHY DIDN'T I GO BACK EARLIER? 

What's Going On?

Two and a half days before I'm back at work! I can't believe I survived an entire year and a bit as an SAHM. Can you?

***

Thank you for hanging out with me here, if you've been keeping up with my posts since I decided to start blogging again. I think I would like to write about being a FTWM, so maybe we'll meet back here in near future, who knows? 

I suppose I should be waxing lyrical about how much my baby has grown (and feeling wistful at how fast he has grown) and how much I've enjoyed witnessing his milestones - FBC is now big, fat and noisy, weighing about four times as much as he did at birth. He babbles in the full belief that we understand him and he is having an actual conversation with us. He sings along with his encouraging singing helicopter which Jon's parents got him for his first birthday, also in the full belief that he is carrying a tune and not just babbling some more. He has started taking a few tentative steps unassisted, though he is a bit of a scardey-cat and lurches towards the nearest stable piece of furniture the moment he realises that he is actually walking. 

In all honesty, the past year has already melded into a blur of diaper changes and having sung Be Thou My Vision one too many times. Perhaps I will have tender memories of this period of time when FBC is older - it was only recently that I started to marvel at just how amazing it is that Jon and I (with God's blessing, of course) gave life to another person. Better late than never!

***

Being parents has led Jon and me to reminisce about our childhoods. It's funny how all these things I didn't even know I remembered have been coming to mind. 

I remember my father bringing me to West Coast Park to play before dropping me off (late) at kindergarten, and also him buying me the 'one ball one ball' ice cream in a cone. I remember that for everyone's birthdays for a good few years we had the lurid green kaya pandan coconut layer cake from Bengawan Solo, and "Happy Birthday" would be iced in clashing, festive, bright pink icing across the top. It was delicious but I'm not sure I would eat it today; would I eschew it in favour of a more "wholesome" Cedele cake? I remember hiding the cane with PoBe (Jon has similar memories), I remember being made to write lines and trying to finish them more quickly by going down the columns - for instance, if I had to write "I will do my homework before watching TV", I would write all the I's, followed by the will's, and so on and so forth. I don't remember actually completing all the lines, and that method resulted in some alarmingly crooked sentences. 

I remember listening to 'Top Of The World' on my father's hi-fi set in our old house, remember being scolded for getting 77/100 for a Math test when I was in primary three, remember turfing my father out of my parents' bed on weekends so I could lie there and talk to my mother (this carried on until I was quite old). I remember feeling upset with my mother whenever we went shopping because she would say that shopping centres gave her a headache and she would always want to go home before we bought anything, how come other peoples' mothers bring them shopping and they have so many nice clothes and now I am the one having headaches and dreading bringing my child(ren) to shopping malls on the weekends in the future, all the time wishing that I could dress them in Uniqlo forever and be done with it. I could, of course, if we just had boys, but I think it would be nice to have a little girl. Until she reaches puberty.  

The quarrels, the cuddles, the countless meals my mother cooked. The things which I am only now beginning to realise I took for granted, because that is the way of children. Such is the stuff memories are made of. 

***

FBC will not, of course, have any memory of his first birthday party, but I definitely will! I made everything from scratch as a birthday present to myself, from the crackers to the hummus (Googled and adapted so no real recipe) to the chicken curry shepherd's pie I spent nights dreaming up (I was fearful it would be an absolute failure but it was lovely), to the cake (yes, FBC was allowed to consume that much sugar), the mini pizzas which were topped with a riff on FBC's favourite butternut squash tomato puree and lots of cheese - because what is a kid's birthday party without kid-sized pizzas? - and the garlic and lemon pulled pork I cobbled together at the last minute because I feared there wouldn't be enough food. 

I intended to post recipes regularly when I started blogging again and this would be the perfect time for a recipe spam, this farewell to SAHM-hood (for now) post but firstly my phone up and died on me so I can't post pictures, and secondly, I'm feeling lazy. Drop me a line in real life if you would like to discuss anything I made, I'd be more than happy to do so. 

***

I also wanted to blog about my path back to pre-pregnancy fitness but it seemed a bit odd to do so, it not being a very me thing to do, somehow, so I stopped. Since this is a round-up of the past year, I'll just say that I've actually been keeping up with yoga videos and yoga regularly, if I can't get to a yoga class I do yoga at least once a week at home. In terms of overall fitness I think I am stronger than I was before I got pregnant (from lugging FBC around, inter alia), I can maintain about 6:00/km for 10km or so, with my fastest split being about 5:51/km. All it takes is being ever so slightly obsessed (running at 4pm in the blazing heat because there is just no other time to do so), and a healthy dose of vanity. One thing I've learnt as well, that I will try to force myself to put into practice with my next pregnancy when it happens, is to be PATIENT with weight loss and getting back fitness. What's more there will be two babies (three, if you count Jon - haha) to look after and as obsessed and competitive as I am, there is no point pushing oneself that hard (but ask me again after I have no. 2).  

As much as I will miss being part of the Tai Tai Gym Gang (I made that up, it doesn't really exist and everyone at the Tai Tai Time spin classes looks at me as if I am either a university student or an errant employee), I am glad to be going back to work and being a Lunchtime Gym Rat again. And who knows, maybe this new place I am going to will afford me the flexibility to sorta kinda be part of the TTGG. 

***

Before I go, I know I said a few posts ago that I would write about discipline after I had given it some thought, and my views on it are that: (1) we agree with spanking; and (2) I can't wait until FBC is old enough to understand the concept of a naughty corner. It does get easier to tell when they are being naughty as opposed to just being babies - a couple of weeks can make all the difference. 

Till we meet again, it has been nice sharing my SAHM journey with you.