The two loves of my life

Kieran is the love of my life. 

We, as parents may experience unconditional love for our children the moment they are born. But children also give us unconditional love in more ways than we expect.

Today I felt sad for some reason. I guessed it was apparent that I looked sad. Kieran was playing his lego and I told him to come play the piano. He was reluctant. He paused as he considered and told me there are two "forces" in him, one said go and practice piano, one said continue to play. He said the force that said continue to play is stronger. I proceeded to explain to him the consequences of choosing to listen to either "force". I wanted to say if he choose the force that said practice piano, firstly, mummy will be happy, secondly, he will be gaining the knowledge and experience in his brain to play better. If he choose the force that said continue to play, firstly mummy will be sad and secondly, his brain will not learn anything substantial and will only learn playing with lego. But he did not need all these explanation. The moment he heard "mummy will be happy", he immediately ran over to the piano and get ready to practice. I was so touched. I told him all the reasons anyway n I taught him the starting notes for "Starwars main theme" after we practice the Yamaha JMC homework. I said thank you and hugged him afterwards. And allowed him to go back to his creative lego world.

Later, before we slept, Kieran saw that I was still unhappy (although I tried not to appear so, you really can't hide from a HSC), and he told me, mummy if you are feeling unhappy, take a deep breath- breathe in, breathe out. Try try! Now, do you feel better? I said yes and laughed and we asked who taught him that? He said his teacher did. So thankful that he learnt this in school.

Caitlin is the cutest little love of my life. She would talk in the cutest way. When she saw small adorable animals in the Zoo, she squealed and cock her head to a side, and said "I feel like pinching their chubby cheeks and say so cute!"

When she saw that I was sad, she won't say much. She will just give me a kiss on the cheek to drive the sadness away. I love her thoughtfulness and her sensitivity to my feelings.

What I like about her most is her orderliness and her independence. She would keep the toys in order and eat her meals eagerly.

She likes to pretend that she's still a baby and she will snuggle up to me and pretend to cry like a baby. I enjoy it. I want to snuggle and cuddle and coddle my lovely children for as long as possible. I tell them they were loved the moment they were conceived in my tummy.

Caitlin looked at my reproachfully and said I scolded her many times and she was sad when I scolded her. I hugged her and told her not to just remember those times that we scolded her but remember those sweet moments we enjoyed together, that mummy kissed and hugged and took care of her. She hugged me and smiled.

What sensible and beautiful children I have.

Bedtime Stories

Kieran loves stories about battles, monsters, spooky stuff and the bad guys winning (interestingly, because he empathise with the bad guys). Sometimes he conjures up exciting tales with them.

Caitlin would snuggle up to me and scream at her brother to stop because she’s scared of the monsters, spooky creatures and fighting in his stories. She particularly hates stories about people hurting or dying. 

There was once daddy told them a story about “The boy who cried wolf” and she sobbed sadly because she thought the baby lambs were eaten by the wolf. Kieran was unperturbed by the story and enjoyed the moral behind it.

I’ll tell Kieran to please not mention fighting or scary monsters and spooky things when Mei mei is around, listening. I’ll proceed to tell them a story about two adventurous children, a boy and a girl, who go around helping friends in need (who are usually cute and defenseless little forest animals) and save them from bullies (who are usually huge and fierce carnivores). Sometimes those huge animals are nice although they look big and fierce, like elephants, huge eagles or vegetarian tigers. Kieran find these stories very tasteless because the good guys always win and there’s not enough scary factor in them. Mei mei would squeal at the description of the cute forest animals and smile when they were saved, especially when they were reunited with their anxious mothers. She loves stories about babies going back to and snuggling with their mummies.

The thought of my little Kieran growing up and being gradually independent filled me with pride and loss at the same time. I love so much to hold that small hand in mine as we walk, and look at his cheeky grin and gleeful face when we were talking about something he loves.

I thought of my baby Caitlin, dressing like a ballerina and trying to pirouette. She has the loveliest smile ever. She is so small and cuddly, and her face is round and chubby. I want to hold her in my arms and snuggle her to sleep every night.

I love to take photos of them in our daily lives. I will flip through those photos while at work. I love reminiscing those lovely moments together.

Kieran’s 5th Birthday

Today is Kieran’s fifth birthday. As I am writing this, he must have given away the birthday goodie bags to his classmates and has met my mom who is bringing him home from school. We celebrated his birthday last weekend and he had a really great time enjoying the company, the ice cream cake, goodies and presents!

Kieran’s birthday is the most significant for me because it means that I am a mother for the fifth year. On this very day, five years ago, my perspective on life changed considerably.

How I wish I can fit work into my schedule instead of family life around my fixed working hours. Perhaps one day, the world will recognise the need for an all-rounded life for all workers. Perhaps one day, the world will glorify and empathise with the role of mothers.

It is unbelievable how long we have come on this journey. I wish the best of health and the most peaceful of mind to my loveliest children, and I wish blessings on the children of this world, who are the future of this world we love.

Reflections after sickness

I had a very bad Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) few days ago. I'm still on antibiotic today. At it's worst, the pain was so bad, I could hardly walk and when I collected urine sample at the General Practitioner's (GP) clinic, my urine is red - not pink but RED. It was so scary. The pain was awful. I never had UTI that hurts so much when I pee. I never had UTI that hurts so much that my lower abdomen aches when I walk. I was also running a fever.

I started to worry that it may be more than UTI. Maybe it's really something less benign than UTI - like bladder cancer. 

There are many things in life that we have no control over, like death - like when we die and how we die. My colleague who is a doctor asked me to do some test. I think I should. 

I started to think about God when I think about death. I hope that when I leave this body one day, I will be able to go back to where God is. I hope to think of death as a reborn into another world, where I become, once again, a little baby, snuggling in God's warm embrace. In the back of my mind, I seem to have memories of such warm, loving, unconditional love and care. Such memories often fill my eyes with tears. God's embrace is like telling me, "It's ok, I know what you are, who you are and I see your imperfections, but here, in my bosom, you are safe from the hurt and the troubles of the World. It is safe to be dependent. It is alright to be needy." Perhaps such warm memories stem from my infancy, when my mother held me and I felt her love unconditionally, like God's love. 

As a baby, we are dependent on our parents but as we grow older, we are exposed more and more to the harshness of the world and we depend more on ourselves. As we grow even older, we have to care for and be responsible for others. These burdens rest on our shoulders like weights. We have to adopt some grown up thoughts and behaviours, just so we can carry these burdens and move on. Sometimes we put down our weights and we become children again, praying and being with God.

In my youth, I used to believe that being right is the most important. Now, I believe being kind is more important. There are many ways that people can prove that they are right. There are many rights in this world. But if I make the choice to be kind, my choice will be indisputably mine. Being kind does not mean I will be a pushover and I will not stand up for myself. On the contrary, being kind means that I will put others before myself, and if I have to say something or do something, it must be for their benefit, and not just to save guard my own benefit and pleasure. If I must stand up for myself for the other person's benefit, to show him that bullying is wrong, then it is an act of kindness. It matters how I do it and why I do it. I generally hate conflicts because I hate knowing people being hurt. Others cannot be hurt, I cannot be hurt too. A lesson has to be learnt and it is beautiful if the bully can learn it in a positive way. 

I wish before I die, I can do meaningful things. I hope the footprints that I leave behind will be one of significance and of positive influence.