I AM MOTHER, HEAR ME ROAR

     The story was told of two mothers who delivered three days apart and shared a ward, with their babies in the hospital bed. In the middle of the night, one woke up and saw that her baby was dead. She then quietly switched babies with the mother in the next bed. When the other mother woke up and saw that the baby was not hers, she freaked out and took the first mother to court.

     In the courtroom, the judge calmly heard the case from each woman. Both claiming the living child to be her own. With a wave, he silenced them both, pronouncing that the child be sawed in two, so that each woman could have half.

     The woman whose child was the living one, was deeply troubled and quickly begged that the judge give the child to the other woman. Immediately, it was made clear who the real mother was and the living child duly returned.

TERRIBLE THIRTIES

There was a mum who constantly wondered why her children threw tantrums. She was puzzled when they raised their voices at her or at one another. Why they often chose the most public and most embarrassing of places to kick up a fuss – in line for groceries, at the toy section of the furniture mall, in the quiet hipster cafe, her best friend’s wedding luncheon and the list goes on.

Then one day, arms akimbo, her three-year-old glared at her sternly at said, “mummy, no shouting!”

And that was the day she realised, with equal parts of shame and horror,

that the mum was me.

SUBSIDISED WITH A ‘C’

     Barely a month since Humblet’s discharge from the hospital and Singlet gets warded for stomach tract infection. He never really recovered from the cough he caught from her, and that worsened into a ten-day vomiting episode. On day ten, he threw up eight times, water included, and we knew we had to bring him in before he got dehydrated. As expected, the poor boy was put on a drip and stomach rest ordered. Meaning he had to fast from milk and solids completely so his gut could reboot.

     Unlike his sister, who stayed in an air-conditioned four-bedder B1-ward, Singlet stayed in the eight-bedder non-air-conditioned C-ward because his heart condition does not allow him to have medical insurance of any sort. In the waiting area, we overheard a wife say to a husband, “later the nurse ask you, just choose A-ward. Subsidised ward a lot of bad influence. The parents let the kids watch TV all day long. They give formula milk to their babies and many of them don’t speak English properly.”

This post is really a response to her and all others who feel the same way –

WHAT TO SAY WHEN A CHILD IS SICK

Processing a lot of thoughts and reflections since we since got word that Humblet’s best friend from school was diagnosed with cancer, a few days shy of her fourth birthday. Some of the emotions are still pretty raw and as this precious child fights cancer, goes through round after round of chemotherapy, our thoughts continue to be with her, and our prayers surround her daily.

This post is one of the many things we first struggled with, that is what do you say to someone when their child is sick? If you would like to read on –

A IS FOR ATROCIOUS

Dear Humblet,

SINGLET'S SOLIDS

Here is a detailed right up of Singlet's solid food journey. The disclaimer is that we allow ourselves to guided by the child's interest not by what the experts say. As with Humblet, we let our kids explore with different foods but we also never rushed them to start.

From around the middle of his fourth month, Singlet started showing interest in our food. Grabbing our utensils or cups mid-meal and shoving them into his mouth. We began to introduce single solids in the last week of his fourth month for three weeks and then moved to blending in the last two weeks. Here's the low down -

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

A day in the life of @jieames for the new mums who were asking what an average day looks like for Singlet (6mo) and I, this is specially written for you!

WHAT'S THE BIG NEW YEAR DEAL?

A fellow SAHM raised an eyebrow when I told her we were heading out for a New Years Day party. She remarked that a new year made no difference since its the same routine day in day out with her kid.

That made me think about - why do we make a big deal of the New Year?

Here's why I think its important.