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Baby just received his/her first set of hand-me-downs from a baby friend who is 10-months-old and who will also be moving to Macau! I met his parents through a long-time friend, Li Yen, from Melbourne. Both Hong Fa and Joyce happen to also live in the same neighbourhood as us in Singapore, and we shall also be soon living in the same neighbourhood in Taipa, Macau.
These hand-me-downs were a very nice surprise because I hadn’t been expecting them. So the first set of items Baby has are a 2-in-1 seat carrier as well as a playmat. God’s so good, as always! Oh actually, they are the second! I forgot that I had bought some things for Baby up in Shenzhen in January, even before I knew I was pregnant. It was kind of a faith action really because at that time I was feeling a little discouraged over trying to conceive. So when I saw this tiny adorable bib that said ‘Thank God for little babies’, I decided it would be a great thing to hang around my house to remind myself of God’s September baby promise in 2007. Well so final count of Baby’s possessions now stands at 4 – baby bib, Pooh bear booties, seat and playmat.
Oh me! Oh my! The dreaded pregnancy cravings have HIT me today!
I had a slow start to the day – only eating a bowl of tau huay slushed with tau huay jwee (that is, soya bean curd and soya bean drink) for breakfast at 11am. Well, that soon changed because at at 1pm, I decided to empty my entire purchase of Yong Tau Foo along with the remainder half-pack of udon into a pot of Knorr ikan-billis flavoured soup. After cooking, I promptly devoured every bit of the 10 Yong Tau Foo pieces and udon. That should have been enough, but of course it wasn’t. So I decided to walk down to Prima Deli across the road to redeem my $6 cake voucher. I very nearly gave in to my craving for chocolate fudge cake, but seeing that I should try to take better care of my cough, I opted for a pandan kaya fudge cake instead and a peach danish. Of course, the pandan kaya cake is not entirely good for me because it has egg and dairy ingredients which according to TCM does my cough no good. But well, better egg than chocolate that is probably heaty. That is, according to Sarah’s rationale anyways. 
Upon reaching home, I cut myself a nice slice of pandan kaya and gobbled it up in a minute. I had wanted to attack the peach danish next, and down a cup of nice, fragrant Earl Grey Tea. The thoughts of sugar-overloading my system and contributing towards unsightly weight gain stopped me in time. And so this is why I’m blogging about this to try distract myself from my appetite monster. Distraction is supposed to help fight the cravings as does drinking lots of water…unfortunately, in my case neither seem to be working. Even as I am writing, this computer screen seems to be flashing a wallpaper of pandan kaya slices and plump peach danishes at me. Ahhhh!!!! Someone save me from sugar craving!
Yes, I may be hacking away for the past 3 weeks or so and I’ve finished an entire course of antibiotics and downed almost a bottle of anti-tussive. Yes, I may have just spent a significant $200 on Manuka Honey in a bid to get well. Yes, I have been praying and asking God to heal me but nothing in my physical condition seems to confirm a complete healing from the cough. BUT I think there is still plenty to thank God for for what He has done for me in my body.
So here I am trying to list all the physical blessings I have experienced. A reminder that God is Jehovah Rapha – my healer.
1. A safe 1st trimester for me and my baby: Spotting has stopped after an initial 2 weeks. Baby is growing well despite a very odd-shaped gestation sac. No need to continue taking hormone pills.
2. No more morning sickness.
3. No cravings or an unstoppable 2nd-trimester appetite.
4. Better skin with less breakouts.
5. Smoother skin on my formerly dry legs.
6. Better undisrupted sleep in this 2nd trimester compared to the 1st.
7. Throat is no longer sore and phlegm has reduced. At least I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to gargle with salt water to ease the stinging pain in my throat!
There! Seven good reasons why God is good and God still heals me. As His word says that Jesus has borne ALL my sickness, sorrows and sins. Those who believe shall receive.
Thank you Jesus for what you have done for me and baby. Thank you for continuing to watch over us and ensuring the healthy development of every part of my baby!
Believe it or not, I may only be 15 weeks pregnant now but I have already been hit by anxiety attacks regarding my child’s education. When I was a mere 7 weeks pregnant, I was suddenly gripped by this fascination with pre-natal learning theories and programmes. I was spending so much time at home because of the doctor’s bedrest orders that I decided to do research on infant books for my future baby-and-me time when I came across links to pre-natal learning books on Amazon. And I, the one who prides herself in advocating a holistic approach to child development and not mere intellectual growth, I was amazed and stunned by the vast number of devices that promised to help our young secure access to genius and success from the earliest time possible, which in their terms meant from the time they are about 18 weeks old in the womb.
There are recordings you could wear around your tummy to supposedly help the vital thinking and learning synapses form in your babies’ brains, making them more intelligently-wired sooner. I nearly wanted to invest $250 in one of those because I thought it was a paltry sum to pay for the benefits that my child would reap. I even considered the Glenn-Doman package so that my child could have a headstart in reading and earlier access to the knowledge pool. Recently, there has been an enrichment school advertising heavily on TV. Based on the work of a Japanese researcher, the Shichida method claims that it develops balanced and creative individuals and is able to help even children from 18months of age maximise their brain development and grow into geniuses. So it seems that it is not just the primary children who are facing tremendous performance stress for the 10-years of compulsory education, they have to contend with the pressure from a younger age. Even the infants are not spared.
The education enrichment companies play on a very real Achilles’ heel of most parents, that is to provide the best for their child. In today’s economy, the smarts are a very real asset. So which parent wouldn’t want their child to be a genius? But every parent who desires to help raise geniuses should also perhaps consider asking themselves the next two questions – How do I , not the society, define a genius? What are the non-material costs of raising a genius – to the child as well as the parent? These are the two questions I have, and still am, asking of myself as I realise that it is so easy to be waylaid by the wonderful child-growth programmes being touted by educational companies that are backed up by research and thus look oh-so-professional. All the stuff I was reading about these fantastic genius-making gizmos seemed to be all so good. This is my child and of course, I want the BEST for my child.
But what is really the best for my child? The best for a child shouldn’t be just based on what I as a parent, an adult think or feel about what I would like my child to have. It should also be balanced with what the child needs to develop into a healthy, happy and well-balanced individual. So what does a child need? The latest educational programmes in Singapore like MindChamps and Shichida say that this 21st century is the century of the Mind and a child needs to be taught to tap into the power of the mind. To quote Professor Makato Shichida, “Rearing children with enormous ability, rich creativity, and the capability to make use of high proportion of their brain should be the goal of child rearing.” Note how the professor co-relates child-rearing with the main goal of brain/cognitive development. But where is the place of important values like love, compassion, kindness, optimisim, hope in this concept of child rearing?
Psychologist Steve Biddulph sums up my sentiments quite nicely when he says, “We worry about our children learning piano or maths, when the really important lessons – happiness, calm and optimisim – can be totally neglected or even damaged by our misplaced efforts.” I am not against the need to develop the intellectual capacities of our children but I believe that the emphasis on cognitive development must be balanced with an equal emphasis on the affective, psychomotor, social and spiritual aspects of the child. I believe that these educational professionals can never, and should never, replace the vital role of the parent in inculcating values and the sense of self-worth in every child. I also believe that the parents’ love and unconditional acceptance and celebration of who the child is will serve a a bedrock for the child’s well-balanced growth in all aspects.
I mean, who really wants to see our society full of brilliant minds who are cold, cruel, self-seeking, egoistic and mercenary? But that would be the kind of society we might all contribute to creating if we simply agree with the educational entities to grow the minds without us striving to help our children balance their growing mind with the cultivation of their hearts and spirits.
As parents, we have probably the singular most powerful influence on the kinds of values our children will develop and these values are in turn determined by how we determine successful parenting. Technically speaking, I may not be a parent yet because my child is still growing in my womb, but I have chosen to think of myself as a parent already because I realise that I have to start working out my system of parenting values along with my husband. There are so many value-based decisions that my husband and I will have to make, or at least start thinking about, before we actually hit the crossroads in the journey where they have to be taken. As I reflect on my values, I have realised to my horror that I was taken by the pre-natal learning programmes because of my own selfish need to be affirmed as a ‘great parent’ and not so much wanting the best for my child.
Last but not least, I am glad I have decided not to buy the pre-natal learning kits. I thought about it again yesterday and I figured that if pre-natal learning programmes were really necessary, God would have included that some sound-playing device in our female bodies to help our babies grow. But since He didn’t, my baby probably doesn’t need them either.
The past month has been somewhat of a sluggish memory. Massive hormonal changes and the resultant fatigue aside, I think I have just simply been a couch/bed potato. With no real income-generating work bearing down on me, I have been largely left to my self-motivating devices to fill my days. And as you can tell, I haven’t been doing very much. Even writing this blog faithfully has been a struggle. My baby journal has also been left neglected on my dining table.
Now that I am out of my first trimester, fatigue has largely worn off as has the nausea. So really, I ought to be bouncing around a lot more doing what I ought to be doing to make good use of my alone time like housework ( see my grimace), working on my writing ideas, reading, praying…the list of productive things I could be doing goes on. For a while, my state of workless-ness started to bug me and I felt a little useless. That kind of changed yesterday.
Yesterday, I went to Tampines Regional Library and decided to pick up books on infant development. I found one titled ‘Growing Babies -Should under-3s go to nursery?’. Written based on research from UK, US and Europe, the book presents a strong case for why nursery care should be limited, and ideally, children to not be subjected to it. The best care an under-3 could receive would be from her parent. I’m halfway through the book now. What struck me as I started reading the book was this wave of encouragement and thankfulness that I am amongst the privileged few Asian women who would be able to be a stay-home mum with the full support of the husband. I am also so thankful for Roy who doesn’t pressure me to go get work and is willing to bear the responsibility of being the family’s sole breadwinner.
The book also reminded me of a conviction I had developed in my mid-20s toward parenting and mothering – that there is indeed no greater responsibility, no greater challenge than raising my own children well. I had forgotten that I had always said that I would want to stay home to raise my own children for at least the first 5 years of their lives. And here was the opportunity to do just that. God remembered my heart’s desire when I had forgotten.
Of course, I am well aware that the life of a stay-home mum is not going to be a rose-dressed one with every day going to be perfect. I am one who has struggled over the years to learn to detach my sense of self-worth from my work. I get a huge sense of satisfaction from being involved in meaningful projects. I love to work. Now, however, I have to redefine my priorities. To do so, I have to begin revisiting and reviewing my personal beliefs and values about parenting.
I realise that to be a happy stay-home mum, and to be able to raise a healthy and happy child, I have to work through my own issues with not earning an independent income constantly. I am aware that there will be times that I will have to choose between my wants and my child’s needs. There will always be choices to be made. But as a stay-home mother-to-be/mother, the web of consequences to the choices have become more complex. I have no doubt that there will be times that I have to struggle with making sacrifices on my end so that my child will have access to better care.
As the book puts it, there is no such thing as ‘child-free parenting’. Married couples make a decision to have children and that should mean that children should become a priority. Changes have to be made to the couple’s lifestyles when children enter the marriage. That doesn’t mean that the marriage and family will be dictated by the children’s needs but it most certainly does mean that their needs need to be considered by parents.
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