All about my life — the ups, the downs, the in-betweens — and making sense of it all.
3 October 2009 at 3:59 am · Filed under Family Planning
I noticed that for the last two years, I have posted about motherhood more than any other topic. Does this mean that I am always in my real moment? Does it mean I have truly made my family my only priority? Does it mean that my role as a mother is the role where I do most of my learning? Is this Nature winning over Nurture?
Perhaps I should relish this focus while it lasts. My baby has turned one, and he keeps reminding me that he doesn’t want to be treated as a baby anymore. I can’t explain how he manages to convey this message, but he does it well. From his perspective, I think this is what is happening now:
I want to make my own decisions about when to kiss or not kiss Mommy.
I want to say if I don’t want to eat or drink something, even if it is “good” for me according to grown-ups.
That time that I was sick in the hospital, those tall people kept giving me pain, or scaring me, or confusing me, and were always looking down at me and never asked me if what they were doing was okay!
Why can’t I touch what I want to touch?
Hey, that looks interesting! I wonder what it tastes like…
Why is Mommy saying No! a lot? Daddy let’s me do more stuff!
Mommy what’s this? What’s that?
Go back, I want to look at it again!
Wow, the world looks better upside down!
What’s this? No, this! No! This! … … I wonder what it tastes like …
Since he was two months old, he has been able to indicate to me the direction of where he wants to go. He used to use his whole body to show me where. Now he has mastered the use of his index finger!
He also bullies his nanny. Get me this, get me that, pick me up, take me there, where are you, I want to play… all that, and he just uses a series of baby garble burbles, some tiny shrieks, and exasperated grunts that he learned from Mommy. I have had to gently scold him twice about how he treats other people whenever he bullies the nanny.
Oh yeah, and he hates being scolded, no matter how gentle the scolding.
And he is such a sweetheart. He loves nature, he has a beautiful smile, and clear eyes still unclouded by suspicion or envy. He keeps life simple and interesting. Every day, Daniel and I are talking about him - what he did, what he seems to have learned, and what we learn about ourselves because of him.
Having a child is creating a new dimension of my life. It truly feels like I have two lives now, with two hearts, two minds, two souls.
Motherhood is its own reward. At least for this first year. And I have a feeling that it will be the same for every year of motherhood.
15 May 2009 at 11:34 am · Filed under Family Planning, Humour, Music
I found this link to The Mom Song, written and sung by Anita Renfroe to the William Tell Overture. I don’t remember how I even stumbled upon it but it is a nightmare! She must have channeled my mom from 25 years ago.
Watch it on YouTube! link
Here are the lyrics
Get up now, Get up now, Get up out of bed
Wash your face, Brush your teeth, Comb your sleepy head
Here’s your clothes And your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now
Get up and make your bed
Are you hot? Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where’s your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and your gloves and your scarf and hat
Don’t forget you got to feed the cat
Eat your breakfast
The experts tell us it’s the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at three today?
Don’t forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play!
Don’t shovel, Chew slowly, But hurry, The bus is here
Be careful, Come back here, Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside, Don’t play rough, Would you just play fair?
Be polite, Make a friend, Don’t forget to share
Work it out, Wait your turn, Never take a dare
Get along, Don’t make me come down there
Clean your room, Fold your clothes, Put your stuff away
Make your bed
Do it now
Do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone
Get Off the phone
Don’t sit so close
Turn it down
No texting at the table
No more computer time tonight
Your iPod’s my iPod if you don’t listen up
Where you going and with whom and what time do you think you’re coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me
Makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You’ll appreciate my wisdom
Someday when you’re older and you’re grown
Can’t wait ’til you have a couple little children of your own
You’ll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now I thank you NOT to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew
Would appreciate
Take a bite, Maybe two, Of the stuff you hate
Use your fork
Do not you burp Or I’ll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, Get the door
Don’t get smart with me
Get a Grip
Get in here I’ll count to 3
Get a job, Get a life, Get a PhD
Get a dose of…
I don’t care who started it
You’re grounded until your 36
Get your story straight
And tell the truth for once for heaven’s sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff Would you jump too?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said at least a thousand times before that
You’re too old to act this way
It must be your father’s DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straight when you walk
A place for everything
And everything must be in place
Stop crying or I’ll give you something real to cry about
Oh!
Brush your teeth
Wash your face
Get your PJs on
Get in bed
Get a hug
Say a prayer with Mom
Don’t forget
I love you
**KISS**
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom’s work never ends
You don’t need the reason why
Because
Because
Because
Because
I said so
I said so
I said so
I said so
I’m the Mom
The mom
The mom
The mom
The mom
Ta-da
11 May 2009 at 10:39 pm · Filed under Current Affairs, Family Planning
Newsweek had an article about why working mothers will never be able to balance time for family and work (click here to read it). The author’s main idea was that we have unrealistic expectations of what a mother should be, expectations built into us by our culture or experience. These expectations for Filipinos are usually a combination of one or two or all of the following: (1) have a career; (2) love our husbands well so that they don’t stray; (3) raise our children to be intelligent AND talented AND driven AND good; (4) keep a good household.
The article is humorous, and I recommend it to other working mothers who would like to know how others view the situation. I realized when I was about 24 that I had an unrealistic expectation of my mother that she should be perfect. I realized truly that she is as human as I am, entitled to her fears and faults. From that moment, I let go of most of my annoyance. Later, I realized that I also freed myself from a lot of angst over whether or not I was womanly enough.
I believe that we either are or are not. I am a non-smoker. I am a chocoholic. I am Filipino. If St. Augustine wants us to realize we are the God within, the author is similarly telling women to be the mother within.
I don’t feel that my situation is one of imbalance because I prioritize my baby in all of my free time. It’s not a difficult choice because he is awake from 6 AM to 730 PM, with naps in-between those hours. I am out of the house from 730 AM to 6 PM, so I need to maximize the three hours that I can spend with him on work days. After Baby is asleep, I want to spend time with Hubby. He’s not so high maintenance that I need to fully interact with him; however, we are each other’s sounding board, friend, co-debator, and we enjoy similar movies and CSI. We just naturally want to talk to each other about life.
I don’t resent work and its stresses because I am the kind of person who needs the stimulation of work. I will not be complete without this ability to contribute to society, without the potential to make a difference in the world, without the privilege to interact with a diverse array of nationalities and personalities and irrationalities.
We working mothers are mothers who work, and who can make things work.
8 May 2009 at 5:40 pm · Filed under Family Planning
I went on mission to Jakarta in the last week of April. It was a personal test for me, because it was the first time I left the baby. I was wondering if I could do it, because we had a regular Mommy-Baby time together every day.
I managed to focus on work when I needed to, but all my time alone in the evenings was spent thinking of the baby, of Daniel, of the house, of the nanny.
When I came home, I delayed going up to see him because he was asleep, and I had a little bit of fear that he was going to be mad at me for being away for so long.
I realized how supportive Daniel was, taking such good care of him and the household while I was away. I am blessed with such a good family.
21 April 2009 at 10:17 pm · Filed under Music
Watch the YouTube video of Susan Boyle’s TV debut on the singing contest “Britain’s Got Talent”, where she blew Simon Colwell away with her version of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. (Click here to watch it.)
The lady has enough talent to blow away stereotype and hype. She’s frumpy, very overweight, and 47, so some think that she won on the show because she is ugly. She shook her booty on stage, and it turned everyone off. But when she sang her first line, she showed she has quite a good voice and a great ability to put emotion in it without overacting. (Click here to listen to her 1999 recording of “Cry Me A River”, which is MUCH HARDER to sing than “I Dreamed A Dream.”)
Boyle clearly had solid vocal training, and it shows in the minimal effort she required to surpass even Patti Lupone’s or Lea Salonga’s renditions.
To be fair to Lupone and Salonga, Boyle skipped the first stanza, which is very difficult to sing because it is in monotone. After hearing other performances posted on YouTube, I have to say Lupone sang the first stanza best. And I don’t think Boyle has the best rendition of the song, either. Out of all the performances on YouTube, I like Liv Unni Larsson Undall’s performance best (click here to listen, and I think it’s in Norwegian).
The best part of Boyle’s performance is that she can put the irony across. I can sing this song, and I know that the danger in singing it is that it is easy to get too dramatic, just like Lupone and Salonga do. Coming in hard and heavy will remove the irony.
To understand what I mean about irony, one has to know the context of the song. “I Dreamed a Dream” is Fantine’s reflection on her life, Fantine being a single mother forced to leave her daughter with a couple in order to go to the city to find a job. The couple put the child into slavery for them, while writing to Fantine to send more money for her upkeep. Fantine eventually lost her job, was prostituted in her desperation, and later became very ill. (See lyrics below.)
Lupone’s performance (click here) was of a woman who is a little angry at life, who feels cheated, who has to suffer being away from her daughter. Boyle’s rendition is emotional but not so angry. She sings like a woman who has accepted that she will never find the happiness she wants, and has decided to move on and accept it. Salonga sang it beautifully (click here), but it seemed hollow to me because she probably cannot empathize enough with the song’s meaning. Salonga has been a star of the stage and of TV since she was a child, and she is a star of West End and Broadway; can she know enough bitterness to overcome it and turn ironic?
Boyle’s voice teacher, it turns out, had been trying to persuade her to pursue a singing career for a long time. Boyle felt she wasn’t pretty enough to become a singer. But honestly, Beyonce and Mariah Carey and Spice Girls and J Lo and whoever else is famous in spite of your flat voices, I think you should all reflect on your careers and listen to Boyle over and over. I hope she can inspire you to really work on your singing, and just sing. No more shake your booty. Sing.
I Dreamed A Dream
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
14 April 2009 at 4:43 pm · Filed under Current Affairs
View from our office of Victory Monument. They had blocked all four roads leading to the roundabout; one of the roads passes under the BTS elevated train system, and passes in front of our building.
12 April 2009 at 10:44 pm · Filed under Religion
Ninotchka Rosca wrote that an egg can hold together the elements of time.
An egg is a universal symbol for life.
An egg is life that is all potential, tabula rasa, perfection by not being anything. An egg is and is not.
I myself was once an egg, but now am a 37-year-old something. In between I was a pianist, a nerd, a frustrated writer, a pacman addict, a karaoke killer, a student, a teacher. An optimist, a bully, a victim, an activist, a feminist, an analyst, an apologist, a socialist, a realist. Daughter, granddaughter, sister, surrogate mother, auntie, mother.
Every day I play with my child and try to reconnect to the egg that I used to be. Babies are enchanting when they are still hatchlings, I believe, all fuzzy and sweet-smelling.
At the end of our lives, Ninotchka Rosca wrote in Sugar & Salt that the soul can ascend only in innocence, after it passes on all its knowledge to others. In the act of giving out what it knows of the world, the soul becomes unchained to the world. In my head, such a soul is unblemished, unmarked, and as unremarkable as the next soul rising with it to heaven.
I wish to be an egg.
9 April 2009 at 5:10 pm · Filed under Current Affairs
Our office is about 275 meters above the ground of Bangkok, and is located one train stop away from Victory Monument where the Red Shirts are massing. I watched them earlier, a couple of men about 1/8th of an inch high waving flags walking around the roundabout. I saw about three layers of taxis, blocking the part of Paholyothin that connects to the roundabout. Now, the part of Victory Monument that is visible from our office is almost half-filled with little people in red shirts.
The reports from media say that Din Daeng is blocked, as well as the roads in front of the government offices in Ari. I’m stuck waiting for our hired van to break through Din Daeng and get to the office to pick us all up. Please bring us out of Bangkok.
I am anxious to go home because this morning, I saw red on my baby’s forehead. He fell out of our bed and hit his head on the wooden floor with a resounding THUD!!! that was heard throughout the house. Oh my goodness, Daniel was crying Oh no oh no oh no, because the sound awoke him and he thought the baby broke his neck. I was in the bathroom and just about to re-enter the bedroom when it happened. I thought that the worst had happened, and the baby was bleeding on the floor.
The baby was shrieking, but quieted down after a few minutes. He was soon smiling, and I think a bit sheepish, and I think trying to tell me that he was just reaching for my reading lamp that is on the floor next to the bed. I had to stay home and watch him for two hours, just to make sure he didn’t have a bad concussion. The redness went away in an hour, and my husband told me during lunchtime that he didn’t even bruise. I will be watching him tonight still.
All the experienced parents were telling me Don’t worry. Babies always fall. At least once. The head is the heaviest part of the body, so they will fall headfirst. They are tough.
One said Welcome to the club.
My favorite comment was Sometimes a knock on the head makes a bad thing alright.
6 April 2009 at 5:04 pm · Filed under Games
I found a new game through NYT. It’s pretty cool! The drawings are similar to the style in Asterix and Obelix. One gets to choose between being a village of Romans, Teutons and Gauls, then one gets to play against other or with other people while one is developing the village! This is my first time at an interactive game, but I can already recommend it to people who are willing to try something new! (Old hands at such games may not find it as interesting.)
28 March 2009 at 10:58 am · Filed under Family Planning
Every week, there is something new with Mick. He starts to smile, starts to roll over, starts to push himself up off the mattress, gains a bit more fat. I started to feel anxious when he started to prefer being supported so that he can stand over being carried in our arms. He can’t even sit up yet, and he already wants to stand. I feel that he wants to be like the adults in his life — upright and mobile.
Now he has sprouted his first teeth! Not one, but two teeth at the same time. Daniel said that it is normal in the Netherlands to have two teeth come out. It just makes me feel that Mick is in a hurry to grow up and leave me.
I miss the time when I was pregnant, because I had him all to myself. I miss the time that I was breastfeeding, because only we two had that connection. This baby is so sociable that it won’t be long before he has his own friends and pursues his own social interests.
And Mommy will be someone relegated to the background of his life.
*sigh
Next entries »
