About Daddy & Mummy
At this phase of my career and in this later half of the year in particular, I'm attending back to back military courses til the end of next year. This means that my working hours are inflexible, which translate to less time for me to prepare En Xi for school or bath En Jun. Fortunately, Grandma was around to lend a helping hand, but with her age, this is an extraneous toil on her. Oct '11 also saw the most trying times for mummy as I was away for a 3 weeks overseas exercise. This would be the first time Mummy had to handle both of you (without me around) and it was a humongous task for both Mummy and Grandma.
Thereafter, its payback time for us (or me in particular), your grandparents were away for a week's vacation and we took leave to care for both of you full-time. Yes, we survived, but barely because En Xi contacted Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD) and we'll talk more about this later. At this point of time, both of you might be wondering why we didn't get a helper or maid. To which, my response is that, we'd rather slog a little more for both of you, rather than having both of you grow up with the wrong values. I'm not saying that families with maids are inculcating poor values to their children, it is just a lot more harder to bring across the right values in a spoon-fed environment. Besides, we do have a helper, but she comes by once every week to help do a thorough cleaning of the house.
About En Jun
"Bo Tak Head"
Its been 6 months and how time flies, you have grown quite a bit and is looking bubbly. You are such a smiley kid and its amazing how you connect to the people around you effortlessly. Most strangers adore your infectious smile and cutesy nature, in particularly the ladies. When we have meals at the malls and you get cranky, I will never hesitate to carry you for walks and Mummy always wonder why? Go figure.
You had uneven hair growth and we decided to shave your head at the 5th month. The result was a Michelin mascot look alike, you had really roundish eyes, nose, cheek, head, fists and lots of chubby baby fats on your limbs. Quite often, people will ask if you are a girl and we always wondered why? What do you think?
In fact, you have a character of your own and have distinct different habits to your elder sister. Firstly, you are a very small drinker and is a light sleeper. You don't clock much sleep during the day and needs constant attention. You will not hesitate to cry at a whim for us to carry you in our arms. As such, you are officially the "Mun Jar King" of the family. You still wake up often in the night for feeds and leave Mummy with lots of sleepless nights. I was fortunately enough to enjoy my beauty sleep since you are on direct feed. Lastly, the pleasant surprise that struck us is that you actually enjoy bathing. You would always be all smiles and kicking up the water during bathe time. Bathe time suddenly becomes therapeutic and fun, your sister hates to bath till this day.
Crew cut look after 1 month
About En Xi
In late Sep '11, after 4 months of maternity leave, Mommy was preparing to head back for work on the next day, when you got struck with HFMD. This was a nightmare scenario for us. Firstly, Mommy had to risk the wrath of her boss and apply for another week of leave to bring En Jun to Ah-Por house, so as to minimise the risk of infecting En Jun. Logistically, it was taxing for both of us as it involves Mommy taking a cab in the morning to Ah-Por house and myself to fetch them back. Fortunately, you were cleared of HFMD after 5 days, but we had a hunch that the Doctor just wanted to play it safe by declaring you had HFMD as your fever subsided within a day.
In Dec '11, we signed you up for a week's Drama Workshop with your cousin's Shou Rui and Shou Cong. The workshop was to culminate into a play by all the children who signed up. Regrettably, HFMD struck yet again and you were out from Day 4, it was a pity you didn't get to perform with your cousins on stage. To make matters worse, you missed our annual X'mas party (since '07) with Mummy's girlfriends & hubbies. Quarantine at home for 10 days was dreadful and it almost drove me nuts. Try stopping a shark from swimming, you get what I mean. Thankfully, you recovered just in time on X'mas eve to catch 2 more parties! Hurray! Actually, thinking back, Daddy was at fault that you contacted HFMD. I knew about the spread of HFMD in school from Day 1, but chose to send you back to school after the Drama classes because I wanted some time to do up some household chores in the afternoon. It was a silly decision and uncalled for, sometime for me to ponder and reflect about.
You are 90% potty trained! All big and small business are done in the toilet bowl now and you have started sleeping without diapers with some success. You seem to be going through some regression syndrome of late, meal times are now extremely challenging and takes an hour for you to finish. I do hope this is transient because there was considerable effort in cultivating healthy eating habits and mannerism.
You have 4 books on cautionary tales. These are books to reinforce the idea of "Lying", "Over-indulgence in Eating", "Bullying" and "Bad Mannerism" is not good. Some how, you are now exhibiting or role-playing the exact bad stuff the book was trying to explain is bad. However, not all is bad, at least you are very good at saying, "Please" and "Thank You". Not too shabby for a start.
Sleeping Beauty
You are into "Princess" stuff now and Dora is now considered passe. Sleeping Beauty has also taken center stage for our pretend play and I'm your handsome prince. It is absolutely hilarious when you pretend to sleep, while waiting for your handsome prince to kiss you and wake you up. You squint your eyes uncontrollably, trying to peek at me while flashing your trademark megawatt smile across your face, showing your blushing cheeks and teeth at the same time. Its such a sight and never fails to bring a smile to my face.
Conversation between us has been interesting of late.
Daddy: Its late, let's go man.
En Xi: Dadddddddy, I'm a girl, not a boy.
Daddy: Errr, ok, let's go babe.
En Xi: Noooo, I don't like babe.
Daddy: ?????
Oh yes, you are unofficially my "Ah Lian" Girlfriend. Everything that spurts out of your mouth always starts with "Daddy, ....." this, "Daddy, ......" that. And every time, I start chatting up with Mummy in the car, you would interrupt, "Eh eh, excuse me, Daddy, Why ......, blah, blah, blah...." A peck on Mummy's cheek, would result in an instantaneous scream of disapproval from you. Oh my, its so scary, I'm really starting to get worried for your spouse in future.
Some Random Thoughts
As you can see, raising kids is no easy stuff. Browsing through my past posts, I realised that I focused too much on the negative stuff. Time to bring back the happy stuff! Please do not frown and feel uneasy about your upbringing. It is perfectly human to rant and bitch the "not-so happy" moments, that is why, it is important to remind ourselves and our loved ones of the happy memories on a regular basis.
This probably gave you a glimpse of what's inside Daddy, who is pessimistic by nature. Did this took you by surprise? I shall not reveal much, lets save this topic for our Father-Daughter-Son talk when you grow up.
Its amazing how people (mothers for some families) in the 60s and 70s can bring up 7 kids without any help. But then again, people in past was just about feeding the kids, making sure they don't cry and stay out of trouble. Problem with today, and its a self inflicted problem, is that very single thing is so competitive. Parents want to get the best that there is for their kids with so much research (non-concrete) suggesting early childhood development is key to the child's future. Like most parents, we want to make sure you succeed in life and the society is not making it any easier. When almost every single child is having classes to develop their "this and that", you just can't step back and say, "Its ok, he/she will pick up reading at a later age." Its like saying, every single kid has a computer and you refuse to give one to your child. Imagine what kind of pressures the kid will face when he/she is with his/her peers. I'm not saying we should give in to every demand, but some things, like it or not, has become the norm in the society and you can't just say, "No, you can't have it." Ok, this is going to be a long debate, my left brain is arguing with my right brain now. I shall leave this discussion as it is now.
Sibling Love
