Not long ago, I posted a thesis on how I believe we should approach the search for happiness, or equilibrium in our lives. I did consciously put it into practice and I daresay the results have been highly satisfactory.
First, I made the effort to give myself as much intellectual stimulation as possible each day, even if it was not to be found through my work, I got it from other sources, like books. I finished Tom Plate's "Conversations With Lee Kuan Yew" which was really a precursor to the just-published "Hard Truths", another book of interviews with LKY written by a bunch of Straits Times journalists led by chief editor, Han Fook Kwang, who very likely ripped the idea off of Tom Plate. But this is not a book review, I will get to that another time. The point is my mind was highly engaged and I had very interesting thoughts and ideas as a result of reading, this made me extremely satisfied and I did not feel restless, bored or dwell on useless things like the past and the future.
Second, I continued to work on my relationships. The one I am most satisfied with is that between my father and me, perhaps it is because of the baby or perhaps he realised I am seriously making an effort to normalize things between us. Whatever the reason doesn't matter, only that he has made something of a choice to relent and speak to me. In life, there is not much else available to us humans except choice -- as constrained as we may think of our choices, we still have them, and it is but only the lack of courage or insight that keeps us from exercising the very choices that would change our lives for the better.
Third, the "flow" is coming in spurts and starts, mostly when I am reading and when I am busy at work, or when I am cooking (this is one of the enjoyable things I have begun to do more of) and yes -- when I am ironing Daniel's shirts! Today I found myself looking almost disappointedly at the rack as I realised I had finished ALL the shirts. I have become something of a pro when it comes to ironing his shirts, they are not completely perfect, but I do them quite efficiently and in half the time I used to take 2 years ago before we had the part-time help. Indeed, I get some strange kind of flow in ironing, it is almost therapeutic!
The overall assessment hence, is it has worked for me. I have not felt unhappy, angry or depressed in as far back in my short-term memory as I can remember. Even driving has become less stressful -- I only swear once or twice a day and I seldom honk the horn. What I feel regularly is a sort of placid calm, marred sometimes by irritations but they pass quickly. My mind seems to be achieving more focus and clarity, I approach tasks with less reluctance and more focused neutrality. I have achieved what I set out to achieve 4 years ago when my entire life had been upended in a black hole of chaos: equilibrium.
The next challenge is our project: little Julien is becoming more and more of a human entity and less of a surreal idea. As I feel his tiny but increasingly self-assured kicks against my uterus, I cannot help but marvel at the whole journey we've taken. The jitters about the impending responsibility to a hapless child has passed. Daniel and I have both achieved what we set out for ourselves in our 20s, and we have been happy simply being together the past 3 years; this baby isn't an attempt to bail a sinking ship or plug any dissatisfaction we have with each other, it's something like the icing on our cake and it gives me a feeling that is beyond happy.... it all just seems right. As in, I did the right thing, and it feels right, and this is worth more than all the money, fame, status and gold in the world.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
We Have Coffee
Amazon.de gets thumbs up for fast and reliable delivery of Daniel's Nespresso.
(Price: $358)
They get double thumbs up for sending us a second machine (which we didn't order). Two for the price of half in Singapore - awesome.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Project Baby: Week 22 - Fathers and Pokes
This was a poster found in the ladies room of a restaurant in Thailand, courtesy of my friend Jatuporn. It's part of a breast-feeding campaign but also tells you about how much more European dads are encouraged to be involved parents. Here is what the caption says:
Shame on us - Singapore's men are only entitled to 3 days' paid paternity leave. I don't want to compare it with the Western European states, since our social systems are based on radically different principles of welfare and taxation. We have done a lot more than the other Southeast Asian countries in terms of maternity and childcare benefits and have come a long way in changing and improving our policies since the nefarious Stop At Two campaign of the 70s.
Still, our TFR in 2010 was 1.16. The lowest the nation has ever sunk to yet.
My comments on our birth dearth have already been expounded in this blog. This post is not a critique, it's a note on fathers' involvement. I do not have anything really original to contribute to the debate that hasn't already been said, so I will instead share our ideas about how we're going to solve our Dual Working-Parent Dilemma.
I get 16 weeks paid maternity, which I will take as close to popping as possible (so let's hope my water doesn't break before 21 May). Daniel will take his 3 days when Julien makes his way down the birth canal and then some of his own annual leave to help me out at home. He has 4 weeks of this so that's more help than a normal mother can expect from the husband. My mother and aunt will be on hand to feed me nutritious stuff while I am feeding Julien, and Tobi should by then be squatting with us on internship, so he can feed Daniel and help us with the chores. When I return to work full-time in September, hopefully, Daniel can work one day from home so that Julien gets some Papa Time and German exposure once a week. The rest of the week he will be with Grandma from 7am to 7pm.
How long the above arrangement will last, I do not know. But this is the best we can do now, given that I work in a bureaucratic and rigid organization where working part-time would mean I lose 50% of my income and all my career prospects in the next few years. Daniel works in the private sector, so he has considerably more flexibility than I do, it makes sense for him to get the most out of it as a new Dad while I keep my job which pays us the other half of what we need to get by and raise a kid too. It means I will see less of Julien than Daniel, but this is okay as Julien needs as much quality time with his dad as he can get if we are to raise him multilingual.
As they say of us middle class parents: raising kids isn't only about the financial cost to us. It's about giving the kid a quality childhood, and the "edge" over the rest. Competitive as this might sound, I have no illusions about the society and world that Julien is going to inherit as a grown-up, and this world is going to reward him a lot more if he has the linguistic, social, cognitive and cultural gifts that we help him acquire. And this means Mandarin from Mummy, German from Papa and English from everyone else from the get-go.
Goodness, we're already modifying our behaviour now that Julien can "hear" from the womb - trying to swear less in the car and trying (unsuccessfully) to speak German and Mandarin to him before bedtime. On his part, he's poking around a lot more these days, I call it poking and not kicking because he's still quite small at 400 grams and Daniel has to press his face against my tummy to feel his movements. I get a few pokes at various intervals, usually when I am lying on my back (which I hate, as it gives me an awful backache).
On my part, I now weigh the heaviest I have ever weighed in my life at 60.5 kg. That's 6 kg more than my heaviest weight, and it causes so much pressure on my spine that I cringe in pain when I have to wake up at night to cough. I also look funny because at 1.7metres, I look like an ordinary, skinny girl from the back (as I have not put on visible weight anywhere else) but from the front you see a huge basketball poking out of my tummy. That means I am not visibly pregnant as a whole, until people look down at my tummy. Someone told me that being taller and skinnier than average probably means the baby/uterus exerts more pressure on my spine, and the baby is likely sucking my calcium supply -- I have been having cramps in my right calf.
I have 4 full months to go. So far, I've been feeling better than I've ever felt since getting pregnant. All systems go, as they say, and all I have to do is put on weight and stay healthy. I've got some misgivings though, I do not intend to heap on more than 15 kg and I've been eating no different than before (no snacking except for ice-cream on some days), that means I should not pile on more than 9 more kilos between now and May. I really do not know how I am going to carry around 15 extra kilos in my mid-section!
Snow - A Lot Of It
Koblenz, Germany
At the top of the range from Hintertux, Austria
There are ice crystals flying around at over 3000m.
Glacier included.
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