Grieving...

*emo-post*

DEFINITION OF GRIEF:

The emotional depiction of

great loss accompanied by a sense of

hopelessness,

anguish,

denial,

anger and

confusion.

It was a bad day for me today.

I found my Cameron 'baby' gone.

Gone from where I had last seen it just after lunch.

I'd just gone into my room to

shower with Alicia and nurse her to sleep.

When I came out,

it was gone.

My mil had thrown it away - without asking. :(

Again.

I was terribly upset because I had meant to give my Cameron 'baby' a proper 'funeral' and keep the pot in remembrance of it.

I didn't even get to say goodbye to it...

if you've had a pet, you'd know how terrible it feels to have someone throw away your pet's carcass

without informing you,

without having you take a last look at it,

without

you around.

Now I only have this photo of my Cameron 'baby' to remember it (fortunately I took a picture yesterday!)...

It's a pity we didn't take a photo of it when it was flourishing so beautifully.

We used to be so happy to note that it'd grown taller, had more sprouts etc. but somehow we didn't take a photo of it then... perhaps we didn't think it'd leave us so soon... :(

Needless to say, I immediately called my hubby but he was unable to take my call and of course that made it all the worse for me. By the time he called back, I was ironing the clothes with a very heavy heart but upon hearing his voice asking me what happened, I just broke down again and cried.

He offered to buy me a new plant,

and I'd get to choose what I want.

Although that can't make things better or

bring back my Cameron 'baby',

I'd say that probably is the next best thing he can do to make me feel better.

So I told him since my birthday's approaching,

I'd like to have a new plant for my birthday present then -

he'd offered to buy me a DSLR but I think that'd be under-utilised so I feel a new plant would suit me better though it can't take the place of our Cameron 'baby'.

I guess I have to slowly move towards the process of acceptance,

knowing that no amount of grieving will bring my cactus back to life and

blaming my mil for throwing it away won't make me feel better because I know

it is gone.

Gone.

Our poor Cameron 'baby' ...

Here's our poor Cameron 'baby':

It was flourishing well at first... then I think at some point, we both didn't water it for awhile and then it started to wither... and it finally collapsed yesterday... :'(((

I'm down again! ARRRRGHHH

Sigh. I'm down with a bad sore throat and flu again. This is irritating. Very irritating. It's only been a few weeks since I recovered and now... sigh. Must be too much cny goodies and chocolates... My throat was so bad last night I couldn't fall asleep till I used Difflam to gargle and totally numb the throat... :( and my nose is blocked. This seems to be a really strong bug. Hopefully, I don't pass the bug to Alicia... feeling a bit worried coz I shared some food with her in the morning yesterday before the pain and all set in.

Anyway, this week's Daddies' Week at JG so I'm home today while Alicia's at class with hubby. I was supposed to tag along to help out during the washing up but since I'm sick, I'd better stay away in case I pass the bug to the little ones there... Wonder how they're coping without me... Alicia's never been to class without having me around at all... I'd at least be with her in the car or during break time... hehe.

I'd better go start vacuuming the floor now before I go to the clinic...

I'm ill - again!

I thought I'd fully recovered from my throat infection earlier on but no! For no reason at all, my throat started acting up last night and started feeling scratchy again. I felt ok this morning but by the afternoon, my throat became really bad and I started to have a mild fever. And I'm still having one now as I type. I feel so worried that Alicia would catch my germs. I've been putting off her 18-mth booster jab due to my illness and was just about to make arrangements to have her jabbed this week... but I had to fall ill again. This is absolutely irritating. Most importantly, I hope she doesn't catch my germs... to think I was still feeling so relieved she didn't catch the earlier strain... sigh. :( It's back to the doc tomorrow morning again...

It's great to be a mummy!

This is really a random post of mine. I thought that I would just write about how I feel being a mummy to Alicia. It's been a fairly bumpy ride so far and in fact, it was quite arduous at first as I was plagued with breastfeeding problems at the beginning and the postnatal blues in the first month. Fortunately things picked up since then and I really began to enjoy motherhood after that...

Now that Alicia's a toddler, she just amazes me every day with all the new things she picks up so quickly and her fast-expanding vocabulary and most importantly, how she has learnt to show great affection towards people she loves over the past few months, especially towards me.

Recently, I was really annoyed with her on one of the days during the Cameron trip as she really tested my patience by not eating proper food for almost the whole day. Actually her rejection of food started before the trip and it just worsened during the trip. I was really sick and tired of feeding the "unfeedable" one. And her grouchiness was really intolerable. I felt so negative towards her for that half a day when she misbehaved. But something that happened last night has made me feel remorseful for having harboured such bad feelings towards her.

We made a video of our trip using the VAIO Movie Maker and we were watching it on the laptop with her late last night. She was very absorbed in the movie and when there were pictures of me in the video, my hubby asked her, "who's that?". My little darling looked at the picture of me and then at me. We have no idea what was being processed by the little one but something in her thought process prompted her to lean over to me to hug and give me a sweet little wet kiss on the lips and subsequently, she leant over a few times during the course of the video to hug me and each time she called me "mamma" softly with her cute little voice. I was so touched by her display of affection. Just thinking about it makes my heart melt. :)

I feel so close to my little one now and I often marvel at the wonderful bond between parent and child, and how parents can give the child such unconditional love and feel so loved in return, just by showering the child with love.

All I can say now is that it's really great to be a mummy.

Alicia's "mamma".

Nothing on earth comes close. :)

I love my little Alicia soooo very much.

The frustrations of taking care of my ill baby

I just need to vent my frustrations a little. My darling has been fussing since Tuesday night. For two nights in a row, she cried and refused to (and couldn't) sleep properly. On the first night, we thought we heard a little bit of phelgm but other than that, she was perfectly well. I had to nurse her almost every hour just so that she would calm down and rest for awhile. She was still alright on Wednesday morning but when night came and it was time for bed, she cried and fussed again. Thursday morning, the phelgm got worse and I detected a slight cough so I brought her to the doctor. He said she's got flu symptoms but there was no fever and her throat was alright (thank God!). He prescribed three types of medicine: one for her cough, one for phelgm and the last one to clear her airway. That afternoon after she took her medicine, she nursed to sleep and slept for five hours straight. I thought she was feeling better and would be able to sleep better at night but she refused to sleep till it was almost 4am. I'm so very tired because I can't seem to rest in the day even when she's taking her nap. I can't get to sleep even though I'm so wasted and groggy. I hate that feeling! It reminds me of my confinement month when I was practically a walking zombie.

Finally, I got some proper rest last night and am more sane today because she could sleep properly from 2am till 9am this morning. Oh, but we were rudely awoken at 4am because she fell off our bed (she was sharing our bed and was sleeping between us - we usually let her share our bed when she's ill). She rolled off the foot of the bed (we don't really know how) but we think it was a pretty bad knock because it was really a very loud thud. Poor darling! After that, we placed her back into her cot for her own safety - she cried for awhile but fell asleep on her own and we had our much needed sleep till 9+am today.

It's not just the lack of sleep that gets to me whenever she's sick. Her lack of appetite worries me too because I hate to see her lose weight (because she takes so long to put on weight)! Recently she's put on weight because she's been eating better and just when we were so happy about it, she had to fall ill. Obviously, her appetite's bad because of the flu and there's nothing we can do about it. I even tried to give her Pediasure to make up for the 'lost' meal yesterday when she hardly ate her dinner! She drank 50ml and refused the rest. Today I tried again when she refused lunch but she tasted it and decided that she'd give it a pass. It's the first time I've given her formula milk since she was 1 month old. Maybe she's just not used to the taste of other types of milk other than mine (which I'm not sure if it's a good thing because I had been hoping that she'd at least accept Pediasure so that we could feed her a bit of that when she decides to be fussy and skips her meals, even on normal days). Anyway, the only things she's agreed to eat today and last night are apple and muesli muffins (which I just baked yesterday) and Gerber stars. And fortunately, she still wants my breast milk...

An ill, fussy and crying baby really tests the limits of one's patience... and sanity. Fortunately, I have my hubby to go through this with me... if not, I might be mad by now...

Life as a Stay-At-Home-Mum

It's been almost 14 months now since I became a stay-at-home-mum (sahm). Do I enjoy being a sahm? Well, to the surprise of many, I'd say yes, I have been enjoying my stint as a sahm, but I'd like to highlight the plight of sahms here.

Actually, sahms are a very misunderstood lot of people. In the eyes of working people, a sahm is a very 'free' person, someone who stays at home and only looks after the child(ren) and the family. Now, can someone point out what the problem is here? Well, why should the job of a sahm be considered easy or even easier than that of the working person? Anyone who has taken care of a baby alone for awhile would know that looking after a baby or a child is hard work, let alone having to handle household chores at the same time. It is extremely annoying to get my ex-colleagues asking me or telling me that I'm leading an idle life as a 'tai-tai' now. Which part of "no-pay childcare leave" do they not understand? I'm a full-time mother, not an idle woman who gets to while the time away.

I'm not resenting my choice (yes, it's my choice, but also a decision made by both my hubby and I) to be a sahm. I'm just irritated by how people make ignorant comments about sahms and how the 'job' of sahms goes unrecognised by the general population just because it isn't considered a real profession. The monotony of the routine of taking care of a baby is enough to kill some women and push them back to the workforce. Is that not true for some? Friends of mine who are mothers themselves wonder how I can choose to continue to be a sahm because they cannot and/or do not want to put up with the stress of being a sahm. Yes, you are reading right. The stress of being a sahm. Again, people who are unaware of what it takes to take care of a child would think that sahms have no stress at all. If you're wondering at this point, what stress can a sahm have? Well, I'm sure many sahms would be able to share how difficult it is to handle a whiny, crying, clingy baby/child (can you just imagine how a persistent crying baby will drive you up the wall?), how to get food into the picky eater's mouth (and make sure the food doesn't get spat out), how there's always housework that needs to be finished or how personal time is hard to come by...

Oh well, after having highlighted some negative points of being a sahm, I'd like to share how pleasurable it still is to be one at the end of the day.

I get to see my little one every moment, I'm aware of her every little new development and preference, I'm always there to 'catch' her doing something new and fascinating and best of all, I'm always there to shower her with hugs and tender loving care and be the recipient of loving hugs and kisses.

So are my degree and scholarship 'wasted'? Well, I would say no, because to me, nothing is more important than being able to watch my little one grow and be there for her now. I can go back to work in future, but I can never turn back the clock to watch her grow up again.