My husband has always been for the idea of not having a TV at home. He believes in family time without the TV switched on.

Growing up in a family where sitting in front of the goggle box is everyone’s favourite pastime, I couldn’t imagine life without it. So of course, we always end up with a TV in our home.

Through the years, however, the goggle box has slowly lost its appeal in our new home, a sign that my husband still sets the rules in the household.

Malcolm grew up spending very little time in front of the goggle machine. He has never have very long attention span for the TV and till today, he is clueless about Batman and Spiderman. He dislikes Spongebob. Seeing Diego and Dora on the newspaper makes him upset because they are NOT real. He has obviously forgotten how he went googoo gaagaa at Disneyland when he was 2.

I am glad to have introduced him to the Disney’s mouse and fowl when he was little. It was easy to feed him things then, his little mind has yet to take form. Today, his collection of Walt Disney bedtime stories sits on the bookshelf, awaiting his interest to be rekindled.

When we first returned to Singapore, living with my family made it so convenient and easy for me to revisit my old habit. Malcolm got really upset when he realised that he had to fight for my attention, not with anyone else, but with the TV. There were a few occasions when he blurted during dinnertime, ‘Eating dinner and watching TV at the same time is NOT a good habit’. He took the liberty and conveniently turned off the TV after that. Not the most polite thing to say and do in front of your elders but he was absolutely right and I didn’t know whether to applause or to jeer.

My dear sisters were eager to show their precious nehphew what he has missed out. The heroic Autobots and evil Decepticon soon found their ways to his fictional world. It wasn’t hard to get him hooked when Thunderbolts, Raptors, Hornets and the Falcons constantly flashed the screen.

When Revenge of the Fallen made its debut, everyone was eager to lure him there. We succumbed. We bought 3 tickets for a weekday afternoon screening, gorged ourselves on popcorn and coke and had the whole movie theatre to ourselves ! I was glad I sat through the 2 hours without dozing off.

I concluded that the lure of today’s visual media is inherent. It is our job as parents to teach them moderation and provide guidance along the way. Any effort to shield them is futile, like many things in life. They’ll get there whether we like it or not.

At 25 weeks, my maternity wardrobe is pathetic. Apart from my maternity jeans, which was bought 2 years back during sales when I was in the States, everything else I am wearing now is from my pre-pregnancy wardrobe. I am still living off my over stretched T-shirts, my stretchy capri pants and some baby doll tops which can still accomodate my bulge.

I swore off maternity dresses as they made me look swollen, frumpy and VERY pregnant. With water retention, my legs look stumpy and it is only now that I begin to miss and appreciate my somewhat mascular calves, at least, they were still shapely.

A girlfriend bought me a dress from overseas a few weeks ago. A maternity dress. A cute frilly black one and I thought it will end up collecting dust in my wardrobe.

My husband and I had a date night the other day, just me and him, without Malcolm and I decided to try out the dress.

This was what I saw in the mirror …

and I must say that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT !

I love how the frills have cleverly concealed my bulge !
I wore it with my favourite heels even when my swollen feet hurt in them !

I messaged my friend immediately
giggling and smiling like a little girl as I did so

If not for her, I would NEVER have invested in such a dress
And I would still be stuck with my own stigma about maternity dresses.

Malcolm walks to school everyday.
He doesn’t complain about the scorching hot sun.
He doesn’t complain about the humid air that made him sweat so much that drenched his uniform.
He doesn’t complain about the funny ranger hat that he has to wear that doesn’t seem to make it any cooler.
HE JUST DOESN’T MIND (yet).

I must confess that I am not really enjoying the walk to and fro his school everyday
Not when the sun is burning furiously right above me, not when I am carrying an extra 8 kg of load in front of me, not when I am drenched in my own sweat even when I just had a bath before I left the house.

Yes, I am the whiny one here
and I am not proud of it.

And I began to think about the days when I was just about Malcolm’s age.
The days when I have to walk to school everyday
The days when I am responsible for walking my siblings home from school
The days when I have to travel an hour by public bus to get to school.

I don’t remember myself complaining
I don’t remember myself whinning
I go everywhere
I was free

Then I realised that somewhere along the way, I was crippled
Crippled by the material comforts in my life
Materials that are good to have but not necessarily essentials
Materials that promised me a better life yet robbing me from the simple joy in life

And I wonder is that what I want to feed my child …

Note : Malcolm’s new school is 10 minutes walk from our place and I am thinking that we should continue to walk to school even if we do end up with another car.

During our stay in the States 2 years back, I collected a whole carton of crafty supplies. There were stuffs for scrapbooking, card making, glitters, acrylic paint of varied colours, cute punchers, stampers, ribbon of all sorts. I HAVE EVERYTHING! Well…almost.

I told my husband that he should NOT view my collection as junk but instead, as a sign that I do have a wee bit of feminity or girlishness in me - my weakness for little, lovely, cutie, girlish stuff.

I enjoy whipping out cards and working on craft project that will let my limited coagulated creativity juice flows. I am not the artistic sort and I admire those who have a flare for arts with bountiful creative ideas.

Last week, we decided to dig out our priced collection and that was how we got started with our little project, Making Something for Dad’s Birthday.

For consecutive days, apart from school, the project kept us busy. We couldn’t rush for it takes time for the glue, the paint and the plaster to dry. Some of the paint did harderned and some of the punchers weren’t working anymore, after being in storage for so long. However, we had more than
enough stuff to whip out something simple.

I am so proud I did not spend a single cent. EVERYTHING we used was from my carton of collection.

Part of the fun for this project was finding a hiding place to stash our unfinished work before my husband gets home each day. I was totally impressed by my 5 year old’s ability to hold his excitment, seal his mouth and not breath a word to his dad while we work on the craft.

It was a few days before my husband’s birthday when we finished. Malcolm could hold it no more. He insisted on giving the present. And I let him. He had the present bundled up with some tissue paper and placed his work at the foot of our bed while my husband was still sleeping.

Dad was pleasantly surprised when he woke up. But he had his birthday card and gift, 2 days BEFORE the actual day.

For a long time now
the boy wears a tail
It started off when he was little
when life began in the USA

Boys wearing tails
Not quite an acceptable norm
especially for the elderly in the family

Home is a temperate place
the tail helps to warm the neck
these lame words help to fend and shield

The fact is
home is where the cacti flourished
at northeastern reaches of the Sonaran Desert

So for many years the tail remains
And a special attachment blossom
between mama and the tail

Then one day
the little boy murmured
‘Mama I want to cut my tail’

A request so plain and simple
All it took was a snip from the shears

Off goes the few inches
Off goes the tail
Off goes mama’s unrequited love

And all that remains
is mama’s tale behind tails

Note : I just gave Malcolm a new haircut a week ago and as requested by him, I snipped off his tail.

At 23 weeks, I weigh at 54.5 kg, a 7.5 kg gain from my pre-pregnancy weight.

My thigh, my butt, my arms look swollen, not sure with water or fat but I do secretly hope that it is the former, though it is more likely the latter.

I screamed and was in total distress when I discovered dimpled skin around my butt and thigh area. Arrrggghhh….NO! NOT dimpled cheeks! NOT ON THIS CHEEK! Ewwww …. CELLULITE ! every woman’s worst nightmare has FINALLY found its way to my aging body. I blamed it on my love for starchy food and inconsistent exercise regime when I was in Paris.

I have stopped craving for specific food though I still have a voracious appetite, which is really my pre-pregnancy self. Other than feeling fat and the occassional leg cramp in the middle of the night, I sometimes forget that I am pregnant until someone offer me their seats or warn me about my bulging tummy.

I can walk faster than most Singaporeans, something which I have unconsciously picked up from the Parians. Parisians don’t walk, they brisk walk. I realised that an aging senior Parisian can probably walk faster than an average Singaporean.

I am back to my 1 km swim and I am hoping to do more cycling now that Malcolm has mastered the 2 wheeler bicycle. I am very happy to be back to a more active lifestyle, something which seem to come naturally with the sun, the sea and the heat. I am born for the tropic not the temperate.

I am loving my maternity jeans and I am grasping every oppotunity I have now to enjoy myself before the baby pops.

It took us a day to drive around the neighbourhood hunting for a school for Malcolm.
We checked out the government schools, those we used to attend when we were little but there wasn’t any vacancy. Malcolm will be joining the K1 class which is already half way through the academic year.

We visited a Montessori childcare in a private house. The teacher was nice and friendly. The kids were happy and I liked what I heard from the teacher, that they believe in letting the kids develop and learn at their own pace. The place was a bit cramped and for places without the air condition, we felt that the air was abit still and stuffy. The biggest consideration for us was the exhorbitant school fees. It costs $650 per month to put Malcolm there and we are talking about more than $500 difference if you compare that to a governent kindergarten.

My experience with branded preschool started when Mal was 3 1/2 years old when we started him on a 1/2 day school in Singapore. I must say that I wasn’t very impressed with the school. In fact, through the years, I have developed a distaste for early childhood educators and businesses targeting at insecure parents who believe in giving their children a head start in their school years. I am a skeptic and I WAS, and perhaps, still AM, an insecure parent who is finding my way to parent my child, the way that I think will best prepare him for this world.

So we visited a 3rd school. We couldn’t visit the classrooms because of the ongoing H1N1 virus. The monthly fee was a third of the private school and we love its proximity to our home. It was in fact a chinese school where most lessons will be conducted in Mandarin and we were relief when they told us that Malcolm could start school as soon as the next day!

Malcolm was however quite upset when he heard that he will be attending a chinese school. His experience with a French school where NOBODY speaks English wasn’t very pleasant and it had affected him quite a bit.

On the first day, he cried a little when the teacher separated him from us, to usher him to his new classroom.  Due to the ongoing virus, no parents were allowed to accompany the kids to the classroom, not even if it was their 1st day of school. I was appalled by the shcool’s emphasis on hygience and cleanliness but I guess it wasn’t such a bad thing afterall. Malcolm was happy and chirpy by the time we came to pick him up.

On the second day, he had his temperature checked, his mouth and fingernails checked, planted a brief kiss on our cheeks and walked to his classroom BY HIMSELF, WITHOUT TEARS. We were so relief. Later on, when we picked him up, he told us that time passes so fast that he didn’t even realise that it was time to go home!

Today is the third day of school and he woke up happy and eager to play with his toys before heading for school. He obviously enjoys school here more than in Paris and we were glad that he could adapt so well. Maybe having exposed to the rougher kids and tougher environment in France has made him stronger.

Each time, as I watched my boy walked off to his classroom by himself, his little back, with his little backpack, reminds me of a little warrior, fully armoured, ready to take on the challenges that might come his way. With that, I am happy.

And Malcolm got it wrong
So did my husband

It’s a BOY !

a boy to practise kong fu kicks with Malcolm
a boy to take over his little pants and shirts
a boy to share his Lego toys

and I wonder how he will look
another Malcolm’-look-alike ?
who is really a carbon copy of me
and what shall we call him ?
what about this site ?
….

I am so thrilled
I am so excited

Just a day before my husband was back. Malcolm and I officially moved into our new place, a rented apartment in the east near our favourite hangouts. Unpacking 60 boxes was an exhausting task. it took me days. I would travel to my new place with my mum and Mal and start cleaning, mopping, unpacking and organising. By the end of the day, which normal ends around 9 plus in the night, my eyes were literally seeing stars. My brain shut down, my reflexes retarded. I would stare at the same pile of mess sprawled on the floor for at least a good 15 minutes or so before I could finally figure out where to put them. I was obviously conked out.

We had the kitchen, Mal’s bedroom and the study area set up before my husband came back. The bigger furnitures such as our master bed, sofa, dining tables and chairs will take another week to arrive.There is still no internet connection and I am tapping on my estate’s free wireless network to write this. The signal is weak from our unit, but it works.

In the living room, we have an old bean bag, a few cushions, some of Mal’s little table and chairs for us to sit down for meals. The apartment is still empty and bare and it will probably take another month or so for us to settle in.

Still, I am relief to finally have our own roof.

Maybe I am too used to life with just the 3 of us or perhaps I am just a control freak who wants things to be done my way. I seriously think we can function better given our own personal space. No doubt, living on our own means less time for me to laze around as I have to do everything myself. There is no one to help out and there is less time for me to slack. But I seriously think all these responsiblities is not only good for me but for Malcolm, who is watching me all the time. I believe it is easier for me to teach him values and responsibilites if I practise it myself.

Malcolm is back to eating his meals, on his own, at the table with us, without the TV on. He is back to sleeping at his desginated bed time and is more willing to carry out his daily task. There is less struggle, less whinning and less tantrum throwing.

Sticking to our usual breakfast seems more possible now and we are back to our Rolled Oat Porridge with Honey, Peanut Butter Jam with Wholemeal Bread and Cocoa Cereal with Milk breakfast.

Nothing fanciful, perhaps even a little bit bland for most people but seriously, I don’t think I will ever want to trade our privacy, personal space and preferred lifestyle for ANYTHING, not even if it means less work for me.