Along my journey, I have learned a lot about taking care of a newborn (well, from day 1 to 10 anyway), and I want to list this down as a reminder for the future—if and when I have a second child. Hopefully by doing so, you’ll learn a trick or two as well. So here are the things that work, and those that don’t, and the things that are worth their bucks.
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It took me a while to accept my birth story as it is, as during those dark days, I was convinced that my baby was robbed of his chance to be born healthy, without complications, and without needing to suffer for a lack of food.
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The first shower after birth, they said, was the best shower you ever had. It was great, for sure. I was able to move normally, not even needing the bathing chair that was given for extra support, and I thought, naively, that probably this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
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Where to begin? I believe all women have their own birth stories, one that is usually not shared to those apart from close friends and families, and justly so—after all, it is private, and if you’re not a parent, you might need a medical degree to fully understand what mothers are going through.
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Your husband wakes up before you do.
This has always been the case, as he goes to work earlier than you—on the days that you have work anyway.
His alarm rings, and you are aware, just vaguely, when he reaches down to turn it off. He goes back to sleep, as he always does, for an extra minute or two, and you’re vaguely aware of this too. You occasionally give him a pat on the shoulder when you feel like he’s been laying down for more than a few minutes. Then he gets off the bed, and heads to the shower. You would then grab the blanket that’s been misplaced somewhere, pull it up until just above your neck, and snooze a second time.
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I was watching TV with Tjok—my husband—when he started to annoy me. He nudged me, made funny faces, and asked me questions on unrelated topics.
“Hun,” I said to him, “Korean moment.”
I was still staring intently at the TV, being in the zone where the super cute, nice Korean guy professed his love to the nice, slightly prideful Korean girl with supet smooth white skin. She previously said she didn’t like him that way, but it’s a K-drama, of course he persevered. Cue in the emotional soundtrack with the word sarang repeated over and over.
Tjok stood up and pretended that he had a violin and started moving his right hand back and forth.
“Hunny,” I gave him a look, “my Korean moment. Why do you annoy me every time I’m having my Korean moment.”
“It’s too over the top,” he said, “too cheesy.”
“You’re the one who introduces me to K-drama,” I said. “Your fault.”
“Yah, it’s good,” he sat on the sofa again. “Just too cheesy sometimes I can’t stand it.”
“Doesn’t mean you need to ruin my Korean moment.”
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It’s quite remarkable how humans adapt to a situation.
Merely eight months ago, the only few times I slept with another human being in my bed were either with my sister or my mother during a trip overseas. And another a few handful times when I went on a trip with friends (which could be counted by one hand). Point is: I love sleeping alone. And I couldn’t possibly imagine how I would get used to a permanent human being sleeping by my side, night in, night out.
(I don’t count the times when my toddler-nephew slept with me, because sleeping with him feels a lot different. For one, you don’t really care of moving around when you’re sleeping because once he falls asleep, he will stay asleep no matter what. Getting him to sleep is the hardest part.)
Sleeping on the same bed, no matter if it’s with your sister, mother, or friend during trips, requires you to exercise control even when you’re asleep. You’re scared of moving too much, because it will disturb their sleep. You feel like tossing and turning, but doing so will wake up the other person.
So you stay still, unable to sleep, unwilling to move, probably for hours, until the oblivion comes.
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When we brought home two medium-sized orchids from the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show last month, our apartment was already full of plants.
In our humble two-bedroom, one-bathroom residence, we have a medium-sized peace lily, two terrariums (one big, one small), a small peperomia, four bonsai plants (all small, thankfully), and two herb pots (basil and chive).
With the exception of the bonsai plants (jade, juniper, buddha belly fig), all the others reside in the living room. So with the arrival of two orchids, we have to make room for them.
“Probably the peace lily should move,” Tjok said. It was situated on the small marble table beside the sofa, and I do agree, it has to move. (I always felt like the peace lily was too big for the table anyway). So we moved it to the floor just beside the door to the bathroom.
Not ideal, but it would do for now.
We placed the bright purple orchid on the marble side table. One down, one more to go.
“What if we put it behind the peperomia?” I asked. The plant was sitting on top the TV cabinet, just next to the window.
“Can’t,” Tjok said. “Too much sunlight.”
He decided that the white orchid would sit in the middle of the coffee table. It would have to share space with the small terrarium.
I was not convinced. But we’ll see whether this arrangement would work.
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Two months into my marriage, I attended a friend’s bridal shower.
We were all strangers to each other, coming together to celebrate our dear friend’s last few days as a single woman. But over the two-hour flower crown making session, we got to know a little bit about each other.
Since it was a bridal shower, talks, naturally, centered around each other’s relationship status. Some were married longer than I have been in a relationship. Others were married with babies and/or toddlers. A few were in a long-term relationship.
I was probably the most recently married at that time—it still felt weird to be wearing a ring on your left index finger all the time. Interestingly, someone asked, “How’s your first year of marriage?”
She was asking another woman, and soon everyone talked about their first-year experience. One said that it was wonderful, another felt that it was okay. Nothing like the bed of roses advertised everywhere. But I never forget one woman who described her first year of marriage with such passion.
“It was horrible,” she said. “We were in long-distance relationship for years before we got married, and adapting to be together under one roof is hard. We have different habits, different ways to do things. I think we quarrelled all the time.”
It turns out she’s quite right. Living under one roof is not easy.
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There are those who consider grocery shopping a chore. There are others who genuinely love to do groceries. I’m part of the latter group.
Even when I was still young(er), Mom would ask me whether I want to accompany her to go to the supermarket. Oftentimes, I would say yes, because I like the experience—browsing aisle upon aisle on things that I don’t need nor want, discovering that people do invent weird stuff.
Since I got married, I’ve made grocery shopping some sort of a project. Since my local supermarket (Woolworths) offers fuel discount (4 cents a litre) when I spend AUD 30 or more, that number has become the weekly benchmark. I try my best in shopping the specials, changing my planned meals for the next week should the beef is cheaper than the pork, and vice versa. And it doesn’t really matter if I don’t need other stuff apart from milk, I’d still walk down most of the aisles anyway.
I’d go to several Asian groceries to find out which one sells the cheapest soya bean. And I’d buy fruits at another store—which are of better quality and cheaper price.
Yeap, I really enjoy grocery shopping. I wonder how many of you feel the same.
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