A letter to Mike...

Dear Mike,

It's been one and a half month since you left us. We miss you... How're you doing in your new home? Though you stayed with us for a short 9 weeks, our lives have been touched and changed. One thing for sure, it will never be the same. Eva has been asking about her little brother because she hasn't been able to understand that you've been taken to a new home by our heavenly father. We'll meet one day at that wonderful place, and I believe that you're being taken care of and are happy there. It's a blessing to have you in our lives. Sometimes, when we see other adorable babies, tears are welling up but we have managed to hold them back as we know you wouldn't want us to be upset.

Well, we need to go now. Will catch up with you later. Please send my best regards to your kind guardian angels. Do be a nice boy, okay?

With love & hugs,
Dad, mom & Eva

A promise is a promise

I can't remember exactly when, probably during the time I was working on the froggy project, I sort of mentioned it to my niece and "promised" to make a set for her and her brother. So, nearly three weeks passed and her ever so forgetful aunt forgot the "promise"...

Cousin Froggy I & II...

Then, one day, she was showing off to her granny and mommy that her aunty Ann's making her froggies to play with. So, her loving granny very tactfully asked her "nice" aunty Ann if the little one's just making up the story. OOOOooopsss! Aunty Ann has therefore stayed up late for two nights to finish off the sewing and tadada... here they are. The cousin froggies I and II!!!

Baby froggy paying a visit to her cousins ;P

Well, I still haven't thought of the names for each of the froggies that I've sewn. But, that's not the main point here. :) Anyhow, when I finally put the froggies in her little hands, she was so happy that she couldn't stop giggling! That really warms my heart... so glad to see that she loves those "alien-like" froggies. (My friend commented that my froggies look more like "ET". I would rather think that ET looks like a frog! hahaha... no offense...)

A bun in the oven.... AGAIN!

just to jot down some thoughts here...

I didn't expect the second baby to come this soon but I thank God for blessing us with the baby. Eva's been fighting for attention (somehow she can just sense it....) and I have been really tired. We're happy.

From SAHM to WAHM? May be...

Okay, okay, I still haven't given it up, not fully... Deep inside my heart, there's still a tiny voice whispering -- I want to work!!! *SIGH*

Happy Family of Three

Froggy Family

Well, the progress on this second sewing project has been slow. I just managed to get them all done yesterday. Voila! The happy family of three lil frogs, namely Daddy Frog, Mommy Frog and Baby Frog. I'm afraid they will just have to be stuck with these generic "names" while I come up with something better. Then again, these names are not too bad, they kinda grow on you, huh? hehehe...

Domestic Diva in the making... NOT

Eva's birthday is coming up. And, I just realise that my DH and I have taken more than 700 photos of the baby. I'm ever so grateful to whoever incorporated the camera into the mobile phone and the inventor of the phone memory card. Okay, my point is, if not of these modern day convenience, I would have no idea where to store that many photos of the baby. But again, I wouldn't have taken that many photos in the first place without this handy mobile phone camera.

Though the photos are stored in the memory card, we need to do something about them, like sort and store them in a easily retrivable manner, or may be beautify them? The idea of scrapbooking come to mind. I have to admit that whenever I saw or heard the word "scrapbooking", I used to picture an old lady sitting by and sorting through a table piled with papers, stickers, scissors and photos. Well, now I've become that old lady...

So, I'm cultivating a new hobby now, on top of the sewing. Don't you think that I'm becoming more and more domesticated? hehehe...

Home Inc.

I am kind of reluctant to tell some family members and friends that I stay home full-time with my daughter. But, they love to ask… Often, instead of cheers and encouragement I get comments like, "Why are you wasting your education?" and, "Won’t you miss doing something with your brain?" Well, anyone who’s ever stayed home with their children for any length of time knows that it takes brains to raise kids. In fact, in the eleven months that I’ve been a stay-at-home mother, I have learned more about time management, efficiencies, sustainability of resources, negotiation and EQ than I did during the many years I spent working for a large established company.

Some ask me, "Why?". Well, one of the reasons I had my daughter was to be with her and I like her (most of the time :P). Sure it can be tough but all paths in life have tough moments, they help us to grow. Indeed, I have done quite a fair amount of growing up in the past months. Still, my pace can barely keep up with my daughter’s. She’s growing at an amazing speed, day in and day out, she surprises me. There’s not one moment I want to miss growing with her.

Some may ask, is being a stay-at-home mom harder work than holding down a full time job outside the home? It’s certainly a different kind of hard work, and it deserves respect, as well. Though I have, many times, wondered if I’ve made the right decision to stay home with my baby, whether due to a comment heard from a loved one about wasting my education, or contemplating to make a big purchase after cutting the household income, or dealing with the lack of my own personal income and inevitably being tempted to go back to work.

I still relish in the fact that my mother always sent me off to school in the morning (most of the time in a chaotic manner, …hahaha…) and was always home when I got home from school. That was such a constant source of comfort to me. I feel very good about the fact that my mother has always been a constant in a constantly changing world for me and I want to pass on this legacy to my daughter.

AGAIN

A friend called to tell me about a recent vacancy at a local college and gave me the details of the contact person. For the Nth time in the 11 months of mothering, I was tempted to go back to work.

I prayed. I consulted with my husband and my parents. I talked it through with my best pals. I considered the pros and cons.

I kept thinking how hard it is to find a decent job these days, needless to say a professional position. I thought of a much-needed vacation, the lack of personal income and how nice it would be to make contribution to the household income and hopefully to take some loads off my DH who is the sole breadwinner now. I even thought it would be fun to get dressed up in suits, heels, and makeup again. On and off, these "pros" consumed me for one full week.

Yet, even with all those pros I could list, it was the childcare realities that tilted the scale. I couldn't bear the thoughts of leaving my daughter with some strangers, probably letting her cry her heart out, for hours day in and day out. Mind you, she gets really bad separation anxiety. And again, if I were to go on a business trip, somehow I suspect I would suffer from the separation anxiety more severely. I could still feel the tightness in my chest when I thought of my niece who came home from child care with bruises on her lip one day and bite-marks on her arms and legs the other day. Just yesterday, there was a shocking news of a 4-month old baby boy died of hemorrhage, possibly as a result of the negligence of the nanny.

Even though I am already rushing around in the morning to get things done before the baby wakes up and staying up late at night struggling to finish the house chores. I can't imagine the extra time and work required in order to get out of the door in the morning and the piles of house chores waiting when we're back from a long day of work, most probably exhausted... I thought of the tight schedule, the pressing deadlines, and the inability to take a quick nap when I need to.

The contemplation went on for one whole week and then I finally came to my "senses". I am so blessed to be able to make the choice of staying home and to have a husband who wholeheartedly supports our decision. I have an incredible opportunity already staying home with my daughter and to grow with her. Raising her is the best professional job there is and I just need to learn to be content being home and enjoy it (though it can be a real challenge sometimes...).

Now that I have found peace, my commitment to being a stay-at-home mom is renewed -- until the next temptation comes along!

Just wanna share...

My DH loves to draw caricature, and here is one of the many sketches of his most loved subject -- baby Eva. He tends to sketch on any space he can find and then leaves the sketches lying around. Well, it's kind of fun to treasure hunt for his work and get pleasantly surprised. I've found sketches on the back of my niece's drawing, on envelopes, and on the scrap papers...

Baby Eva's sitting up straight now and likes to pull up to stand. She drools a lot. Her first tooth has just emerged and the second one is soon to surface. She experiments with vowels and consonants combined to produce an alien language of her own. She hums "jingle bells" as A...A...A... sometimes. She says "daddy", "mama", "mum mum", "kitten", "papa", "give" and "thank you", most of the time unclear but there are times when she speaks crystal clear of certain words. She smiles a lot more now and loves to ask questions (though I barely understand what she's talking about...). Well, I can go on and on about her... Let's just stop here, huh?