Right now I worry how my father in law is going to be able to manage him, picking him up from school daily. This boy can be a handful and has shown some tantrums. This morning itself, Sarah who was babysitting him, had to call SOS as she was having her hands full trying to manage. I really wonder how this boy will manage under his grand father…
Not only do I have a fish doctor, she is also a fish psychiatrist!
D: I think my fish is going through depression after all the other fishes died.
After we bought more fish…
D: I think the fish is having an inferiority complex cos all the other fishes are so colourful and pretty… That’s why its hiding cos its so ugly
Hmmm… either she wants to be a vet or its a projection of her own inner turmoils!
And now she has decided that one of her fishes is pregnant and started formulating diagnoses of her pregnant state. So yes I have a fish gynae too!
The mum to be under the watch of Dr D
Being a mother of 4 girls and an only child with numerous girl cousins, I was ignorant of what it would be like to have a son. It seemed weird at first to even be able to say out loud that yes I have a son. I wondered how I was going to clean his ding dong (as Daniah puts it), when I should have him circumcised, how to toilet train him and basically what to expect in general.
Interestingly, or maybe not, I realised, he was not all that different from the girls. He is just as affectionate and cuddly. But what stands out is him being the risk taker, he was not afraid to climb and jump. Initially I thought it was part and parcel of him being a boy but I realised through observing others his age, that it was just him being him. He was a risk taker. First time ever I lost my child in the Courts shop cos he decided to wander around at age 2.5 when I was distracted. We went searching for him to find him in a far corner, with not a tear. He was searching for us too but didn’t seem too anxious about it. Father of cos would compare this to losing Sarah at age 2 in the HK night market cos she decided to walk back to see a toy she wanted. Or when Sarah and Daniah went missing in Aust SeaWorld. Hmm, why is it always Sarah getting lost?
He is sociable and would not be afraid to go to someone he has never met before to ask to play. Well, all the girls were this way too. All social butterflies who became absolutely unsociable as teens! Now I worry how he will be as a teen!
But seriously, back to the topic, I have not found it to be much different. Well yes toilet issues will be different but other than that, it’s been very much similar… all 5 walked at 9 months or so, are cuddly, sociable…oh wait, I suppose the biggest difference would be in speech development. Simply put, Hanz has not been talking. Far different from his sisters who were talking a mile away before the age of 1, this boy has not been talking very much even at the age of 2. He has speech delay but not language delay as his language comprehension is good. Funny thing was his tendency to use sign language rather than speech.
Well boys do use language and speech very differently from girls and this is very apparent for Hanz who is just happy to gesture what he wants rather than to ask for it verbally. His sisters say that he is a man of few words! He has been making recent strides but hopefully, he will say more words as he goes to school. Now, we just have him calling mama, papa, nana. He does says words when we least expect it, screaming out Daniah to ask her to wake up and Kakak when he sees Sarah coming to pick him up. There are other words too locked up in him, coming out here and there but most of all he is just a good actor - acting out animals and even how to die when he is shot by a bullet!
We were definitely not planning to be parents again at the age of 44. In an earlier post, I mentioned about feeling very scared. That anxiety and worry never really went away even after his birth.
When I was pregnant with him, I came by chance on some CNA videos on a couple who had 10 children (OK I have no plans of having 10 kids though I am halfway there!). The mother was asked whether she would have more. Her immediate response was no, due her health and age (my reasons too) but her next sentence struck me hard. She said but if God has decided to give her another child, it is because he trusts that she has space in her heart for another child.
I suppose God had trust that I could bring up another child and has space in my heart for that. Children are rezeki and I am blessed.
Sometimes though the worries do take over. Would we have the energy to chase after him? (well that's what older sisters are for right?) Would we be able to expose him to the same experiences we had given the older girls (we can try but covid did take over)? Would he be embarrassed to have such elderly parents - imagine, we would be 60 when he does his PSLE! But one of my greatest worries would be for us falling ill and dying while he is still young. Sometimes we feel that it is unfair for him to have such older parents like us.
I know we can’t predict death and that many of my friends had parents who died when they were very young and when the parents were still relatively young as well. I just pray that God gives us good health and a long life so that we could be there for him, and that his sisters would be old enough to take over his care by then and bring him up well.
Both Hana and Hanz had bronchitis which started off from coughs that just didn’t go away but worsened. It was the first time that any of our kids ever ended up in hospital and to have 2 within 6 months was tough. Hanz was only 4 months old. He was a cheerful baby which helped.
I remembered it being the second day of the fasting month and I was at work that morning. A check up showed that I was 5 cm dilated and we went to buy lunch so that I could break my fast before labour. Got to say though that the child birth was easy. Mistakenly thinking that I had negative reactions to the painkillers in previous child births, I went for a total painkiller-free birth. Thankfully, it was a short labour at 1.5 hours and out he popped at 6 pm.
And I was totally wrong about the painkiller. I wasn’t having a reaction to them. I went into full shivering mode after labour as my body went into a shock response. I could have had a pain free birth! Oh well…
We went longkang fishing the other day. D managed to catch 2 of the fishes and the shop gave us a whole bag of the longkang fishes making us instant grandparents! We bought her a tank to keep the fishes.
Papa: as these are longkang fishes, there wasn’t a need for food cos they can just be fed with breadcrumbs.
D: well they need eat good food too sometimes. If we adopt the fishes then we must give them a chance to live a good life!
Papa: Uh, gardenia bread is expensive you know!
With the fishes tucked into their new tank, all named and being fed luxurious blood worms, D’s journey into fish vetenarian life through doctor google begins. Every 5 min I get besieged with news about the fishes.
D: I think that fish is pregnant!
D: I think that the water has too much chlorine cos I googled it and it says that if the fishes….
D: I need to put one fish into quarantine as it has been infected by a parasite!
D: The small fish has died!
D: Another fish has died and I gave it CPR! See this is the poop from the CPR!
Oh God, spare me…Thank God she didn’t give it mouth 2 mouth!
Fast forward to Aug and I wasn’t feeling too good. A quick test revealed that I was indeed pregnant … with number 5… at 44! Feeling scared was an understatement. What I googled stated that 1 in every 5 pregnancy above the age of 40 ended in a miscarriage and I don’t look forward to being part of that statistic. My husband was in complete denial and refused to believe the test kit, cos he said it was a generic Guardian brand (roll eyes)
We agreed not to tell anyone till we got confirmation from the doc. I remembered asking Dr Heng what I needed be careful of. She essentially scoffed and said I wasn’t even her oldest patient (it was a 52 year old lady who was pregnant at the same time as her daughter!). Dr Heng assured me that all is well as long as I took care of my health.
With that, we decided to break the news to the girls first and held off from telling anyone else. T’s response - is it going to be a baby brother?
And that was the start of our journey with number 5
