What am I doing up at 6am and online?

Well, blame that on a missed alarm (ARGH – need to find a better alarm “clock” as I sometimes miss my early morning feeds), followed by a pumping session because she was just too full to take more milk. By the time I was done, I just couldn’t sleep anymore. To add to that, my stomach was growling like there was no tomorrow and I was obsessed with finding the heel portion of the shoes I was sewing up. It turns out that the heel portion was already attached to the tops – talk about morning zombieness! How do people on graveyard shifts (eg, call centers and what-not) actually cope with the hours? Must be nuts!

So here I am, online and blogging randomly about a life that involves a baby, zombie-ness and wondering about how work is like in a call center. C’est ma vie!

…or at least it’s coming soon.

Looking back, time really flies by o-so-quickly. I sometimes can hardly believe that Eva will be turning 4 months old tomorrow! And I get reminders of it all the time. Shopping malls are decked with Christmas decorations, friends talking about putting up holiday trees, more shopping for gifts to be done, Christmas party invitations to send out OR receive, the list just never ends…

And here at home, it’s like time is going by without a rush – at least that’s how it feels if I don’t look at the clock. I start my mornings with breakfast with Nil before he leaves for work while Eva either snoozes in her crib or plays by herself. Then after Nil has left, it’s some housechores, email and surfing not to mention updating my blogs, checking up on the store and Eva? She’s still playing although by 8am plus, she’d have gone into one of her short naps for the day. After her 9am feed, I let her play in the bouncer or I’ll read to her and then we’ll head on out to run errands or grocery shopping or to buy some lunch. Lunch time is just before noon while she naps again and then it’s her bath time, feed and this is when the mad mayhem really slows down.

She takes her afternoon naps and boy o boy, sometimes I wish time would just stand still when I see her sleep. It’s utterly peaceful and calming. Looking at her now, I really don’t want her to grow up but then again, that would be such a crime. Of course we’re up again for another feed at 3pm and then she knocks out for another nap at around 5pm ish after playing in her swing – yes, she does sleep a lot, doesn’t she? For her, life is all about playing, eating and sleeping…how relaxing.

I guess you could say that while time goes by ultra fast for me, it’s just beginning for my little one.

I’ve always been a recycling bunny although of lately, I must admit that I’ve been slipping up. I do try to be good and so no to extra plastic bags whenever I buy groceries without my shopping trolley (but people will still shove it in a bag in fear of cross-contamination). But y’know, plastic bags are the least of my concerns since they double as garbage bags as well. Hah.

It’s the bigger stuff like shipping boxes, cartons and cardboard that frazzles me out. While I can easily dispose of paper in the recycling bin, the last thing I want to do is litter the walkway and area around the bin with cartons, boxes and cardboards. We already have all the boxes we’ll ever need in case we move again (*touchwood*) so yeah…any tips on how to get rid of these boxy babies without being a litterbug?

How can you not love this face????

Every day, I get little reminders about my big decision to become a SAHM. It’s not easy, especially when I go online to pay bills or am at the ATM to withdraw some cash, and I see my bank account looking a little sad. It makes me really tempted to go back to work…

Then I take a look at the cutie pie snoozing away on my couch and I instantly change my mind. It never fails, really.

When I’m reminded of how she grabbed onto her stroller toy rings and try to shove her thumb into her mouth while still holding onto the rings (or maybe she was trying to taste the rings) only to semi-scream in frustration while wondering why mum is laughing her head off, I tell myself that the money isn’t all that important. Missing out on her milestones would be an even bigger crime than not working at the moment.

Without a doubt, that sad looking bank account can wait a little longer. Just need to tighten up the purse strings and well, be more creative when it comes to looking for that extra income (I do wonder if writing about acne treatment reviews would help).

Must have a been a shocker, no, to read that last post I made? Can’t say that I aim to please but it just goes to show that despite what Hollywood (and other people) try to tell us, motherhood, wifehood, marriage and even things like weight loss (adipex diet pills?) isn’t all that easy or simple as it’s made to be.

Like a lovely and new mum-blogger-friend puts it, I’m going through reverse culture shock whereby I have to adjust back to the old life, old place, old surroundings. Not really all that peachy and fun, honestly. But that aside, I’m thankful to have great people and friends who read this blog and my status updates on Facebook. They come in varied personalities but still, it’s amazing the things that they have said about my last post – some are very supportive and encouraging; others still show that they care but not really along the same lines.

I really REALLY have no intention of going back to work for now – not because I’m not career minded but because my priorities have changed. This is something that many here find it hard to accept; that a woman wants to give up a career and supposed life of independence for just a baby and a husband; that it’s NOT draconian and outdated to want to be a homemaker. Yes, HOMEmaker – my job is to turn my house into a home where people in it are loving, warm and well, together. Of lately, it hasn’t been living up to that but I’m hoping that it would slowly change. It’s strange coz many years ago, going back to work would have been frowned upon in society because it was expected of women to give up their jobs to take care of their families.

For me, the health of my family, the well-being of my children is important to me – say what you will but us turning out fine is no mirror to how our children will be if we walk in the same paths of our working mums. My mother had no choice but to go back to work and leave us with my grandmother and I know for a fact that if she had a choice, she would have taken care of us herself. Sometimes I suspect that’s also why she wants to take care of Eva – to make up for the opportunity that she lost when she had me – but that’s another story altogether. Besides, my parenting direction and wants/needs differs from my parents – different generation, different styles, so forth coupled with the fact that my hubby is not Asian, well, all the more reason for one of us to stay at home and raise our child.

Security and independence comes in many forms and guises. You can be a homemaker yet be secure and independent. It’s not just tied with a job or a career.

Also, some women like me are just not cut out to be full time working mums – I’d absolutely hate it (I just know) and would spend a good time wondering what on earth is my daugther doing today, how is she faring, is the babysitter okay with her and so forth. I’d be one of those mums who would stare at the clock waiting for 5:30pm to hit and run home to be with her little one. The fact that I have problems answering simple recruiting questions is a sign that I’m not ready to go back to work. Other women find it hard to staying at home all the time tending to a little one with absolutely no adult contact. So at the end of the day, it’s more about what you feel is good for you.

Here’s where the trouble starts. In Europe, people don’t really tell you what to do because it’s not polite and definitely not their place to order you around. A person’s career or job choice is a personal decision and off-limits at the dining table or any other place where conversations take place. But in Asia, we don’t appear to have this sort of boundary because to Asians, personal decisions just don’t exist and asking/telling is perfectly okay because it’s under the guise of “we are just being supportive/caring”.

After 1.5 years of LOVING the fact that people don’t ask me when I’m getting married, when I’m having kids, when my 2nd one is coming, what I’m going to do – in fact, my sister-in-law nearly turned red with embarrassment when she asked my permission to ask me whether I was thinking of working in Singapore – and so forth, coming back to Singapore and putting up with “you OUGHT to go back to work”, “you OUGHT to have your 2nd one next year” and so forth, well, it’s kind of overwhelming, annoying and hard to tune out. Gah. And worse is this – I have still yet to find a way to ignore them coz most of the time, it comes from family. Hai.

Hm, suddenly, after all that outpouring, I went blank. It doesn’t help that my little one is shouting and screaming at lord knows what in her crib – I suspect it’s that pink cow whose behind is facing her. O’well, one peril though about being a mum – for me, that is – is that your thoughts can be super disjointed at one point yet coherent at another. O’well…

So yeah, I’m alive, good and yes, still married to a good man with a cutie pie to smooch and cuddle every day and night.

If you ask me today if I am happy, I would say, “Honestly, no”.

If you asked me yesterday if I was happy, I would say, “Not really”.

If you ask me tomorrow if I would be happy, I would say, “I’m not sure”.

I think I’m slipping fast into some serious postnatal depression. It’s not like I have been going all out to purposely feel depressed. I just feel…overwhelmed yet “forced” into things all the time. I’m constantly angry and what’s worse is that I refuse to be comforted. I would drop one thing today and be angry over another thing tomorrow – a couple of days ago, it was the neighbour’s kids; yesterday, it was how I responded to some questions a recruiter sent over. I’m always tired even though I do get enough rest; it’s like I have an invisible burden on my shoulders and no one seems to be helping me to cope…

After some quiet reflection, I realized that the problem is with me – I’m just not happy with my life.

I’m happy with being a mother but I resent having to go back to work and give her to someone else to take care of, even if it is my parents. I don’t want that – I’m not cut out to be a part-time or weekend mother. Other people can do it but not me. And the whole “you don’t have a choice” reasoning just, well, pisses me off. It’s not like we’re starving and yet people keep telling me that I shouldn’t be a burden onto my husband, “help him carry the financial burden” with adds another reason as to why I am pissed with him. What about him helping me carry the parental burden? Why doesn’t anyone consider that? What is so great about a man who works to bring home the bacon so much so that his wife has to sacrifice her life so that he can get some help? What about the woman who was to cook, clean, care for her children and husband? Doesn’t she deserve to get ANY help?

Why doesn’t anyone screw my husband upside down whenever he stays at the office and leaves me to care for our daugther alone? When he does it day after day after day? Instead, I get people telling me that I should let him sleep through the night, he doesn’t have to wake up to change the diapers and so forth, that I should dress up to impress him and not look like a maid, that I should take fat burners and lose some weight, that I should do ALL the housechores and keep the house clean and tidy so that when he comes home, he can relax… Talk about stupid, biased social expectations that do absolutely nothing but teach a man that he can be lazy and lord over his wife & treat her like a slave, that fatherhood means bring back the bacon and not spending a single ounce of his time with his own daugther…

I already cook, clean and take care of his daugther full-time for him. I sacrificed a well-paying job I loved in order to move to Switzerland where I become a WAHM. Then we decided that I should become a SAHM and now I have to give up being a SAHM just to go back to work again for him? Seriously, I’m feeling quite tired of having to give up more than I want to ALL the time plus the constant plan change is annoying me.

I know it’s weird of me to say this but I hate Singapore. I wasn’t very keen on moving back to Singapore in the first place because I knew how it was going to be like – the noisy, the social & cultural expectations, the whole craziness of it all. I had a taste of it once in Kuala Lumpur and I was somewhat relieved (after some time) to be rid of it while we were in Switzerland. Now that I’m back in this part of the world, I am constantly reminded about what I left behind. I hate how there are so many people, how it’s noisy ALL the time, so noisy that I can’t seem to hear myself think anymore… People shouting on the top of their voices, people talking oh-so-loudly to the person next to them, screaming over the phone, buses zooming past, people reeving up their car engines and motorbikes. Heck, I’m on the 10th floor and I can hear all this clearly. Throng after throngs of people everywhere…it gives me a headache.

Sometimes I really wish we can move back to Europe but then part of me always feels guilty because it would be that Nil would have to find a job all over again and so forth. Then I get angry again – “Why do I have to feel guilty for wanting some shred of happiness? Why do I have to sacrifice my happiness? Why can’t my hubby share the load as well?” – and it bugs me because it’s a neverending cycle. It really feels like I have no more say in anything, that I’m just tagging along and dancing to the whims & fancies of someone else, that I have no control over my life anymore. I read that postnatal depression can hit any time within the first year…am I going through it? Sigh.

Honestly, I don’t think I’m cut out for living in Asia. Unfortunately, it’s where Nil is working. So bah. Perhaps I should see a counsellor or someone about this. Heh.

After some long and careful consideration, I’ve decided to destash some of the yarns and fibres that I’ve had with me for a while. Reasoning? I haven’t been doing much knitting or spinning; am concentrating more on crocheting and sewing up goodies for the shop while trying to figure out if I should just trash my drive for these promotional flash drives instead.

No point letting all that yummy fibre and yarn go to waste so they are now up for “adoption”. So up for grabs at the mo are some loving fibres by Ewe Give Me The Knits, JulieSpins and Spindlefrog as well as some yummy laceweight yarns.

Do have a look see at my destash page here to find out more about prices and shipping. I’m awfully tempted to put up my unddyed yarns and fibre stash up but will see how it goes. I just need to find the time to dye up some goodies!

So what’s in store for the unveil? Hopefully the pic above will be tantalizing enough…

I have been busy but never quite this crazy busy, trying to rush out items for the store while making sure that I get enough rest. It has even gotten to the point where I have smallish pimples popping up on my forehead (best acne treatment, anyone?) and of all places, my thighs – well, they aren’t pimples…just red bumps that are filled with funny stuff when I press them. But enough of the gross stuff.

In my quest to have a lovely unveil for the new storefront, I had initially decided to sew up two types of baby items and crochet booties. One week later, I’ve only done four pairs of booties and about a dozen baby items. Not a lot, if you ask me. It doesn’t help that I’m constantly distracted with new items of what to feature for the store, shopping for materials for supposed new items and well, just wanting to be lazy! Ah, the perils of running a store! I definitely need to focus, focus, focus!!!

So yeah, remember how I said I was busy tracking down some appropriate detergent for my cloth diapers? One thing about cloth diapers is that to make them last longer, you have to get detergent that is free of

• enzymes


• phosphates


• brightening agents


• softener


• bleach


• and if possible, fragrance

That pretty much rules out every adult detergent around as they contain bleach which can destroy the fabric and PUL layer or softeners which make the diapers less absorbent. Some baby detergents contain whitening agents which leave a residue or enzymes to help with cleaning which either leave residues or worse, destroy your diaper.

So when a M’sian based seller recommended Pureen HAD which contains none of those things and was a cheaper alternative to Country Save and 7th Generation Baby Laundry Detergent, I thought it was great.

After making phone calls and visits to at least six different stores in one day, it wasn’t really all that great any more. I did ask Mum to help me get some back in KL (and we chatted too…about a few things and the fact that she actually went out and bought one of those weight loss diet pill stuff I put up on my blog) to keep at her place for us to use when we come over with Eva.

It wasn’t until this morning that I woke up to an email from the Pureen supplier here that I found out why it was so difficult to look for this particular bottle/model/brand/whatever. They had discontinued it!!!! ARGH! So much for looking for a cheaper alternative.

Now I’m on the hunt for some 7th Generation detergent and if the cost comes up to about the same as Country Save, I might just make the trip now to Bumwear and get it from Rita directly there and then. If you thought that observing poop colour is a sign that you’re a mom, wait till you get to the part where even the brand or type of laundry detergent drives you bonkers!