Paying It Forward

I guess we can never pay back enough to our parent. We just have to pay it forward.

Gracie is falling sick again. It started with coughs whenever she took milk a few days ago. Last night she threw up after drinking her milk. This morning, she woke up from a dream yelling that she wants to go out. I held her in my arms to pacify her and she felt feverish. She stopped crying after a while but was still insistent on going out or to go downstair - we stay in a flat. It is a little after 7, so I thought it would be good to get some fresh air. We strolled for a while. Then Gracie said she wants to go home. Moments later, she started to cry and threw up on my shoulder. She is peacefully asleep now but we will have to bring her to see a doctor later. That's one thing she dreads the most.

When Gracie was born, she had jaundice and spent a few days in the hospital. She placed under blue light in a cold looking container. She looked so alone and helpless that our hearts were wrenched. Now I understand what my mother must have gone through when I was young and sick. I remember that I expected to be sick at least once a year. I came to accept that until I was 8 or so and I became stronger. It must be hard on my mother who needed to work to support the family. My father was a stranger all through my life. I can only remember one occasion when he brought the whole family out for supper. I have not started schooling yet. So it was when I was less than 5 years old. Other than that, I do not have any happy memory of my father. I can understand that it was very tough for my mother. It took her longer than the rest of the family to forgive him. That was some time after he was diagnosed with 4th stage lung cancer. My mother is tough. Tougher than all of us combined. Twenty years ago, she was seriously contemplating divorce. Her children are all grown up and she is finanically secure. I gave her the contact for a lawyer but she chose to stay and give grudging support to a man she totally detested. A few months before my father died, my mother forgave him and spent all her effort to make his last days comfortable. At the same time, she was taking care of her mother. My grandmother was over a hundred years old but nobody was really sure of her real age. She has been staying with my uncle all the while but my mother decided to take her in as she could not agree with the care given. So my mother was taking care of her aged mother and her dying husband at the same time. My grandmother passed away just weeks before my father. Unexpectedly. I know my mother blamed herself for not taking better care of my grandmother, preoccupied as she was, with my father. I guess it was tough for anybody and I think few people could have done better.

Now as I watch over Gracie, seeing her grow day by day, I can't help but think back to the heartache my own mother went through with me and my brothers. I can't pay back enough. I will just pay it forward for Gracie.

When I Was Young

"When I was young..". It always tickles us to hear Gracie say this. Just now, my wife dug out some of her old toys and clothing from the storeroom. Gracie immediately pounce on them. She took a tiny little pillow and placed it on her bed. Then, she took a couple of toy and settled down to mismantle them. She told my mother who was reading the newspaper nearby,"When I was young, this was my plaything!" She is all of two years and eight months. Kids do say the darnest things.

I often think back to the time when she was born. My first thought was that she is very wet with clumps of dark matter all over. The doctor handed a snip to me and asked me to cut the umbilical cord. I duly did so and the nurse whisked Gracie away. I guess I was not vey well prepared for the whole affair. I had a camera and a video recorder with me but I did not take any picture of that moment. I took a few photo later as I was getting acquainted with my new baby. You can see in the photo here, Gracie just minutes after she was born. Thinking back to when I was young, I often wished I can remember more of life.

God's Eye View

You have heard of the phase "God's eye view". Here is my thought on seeing through God's eye view. I guess God's eye view is multi-dimensional. It also has the dimension of time. If you can see through God's eye view, you can also transcend time. You can see a person at his or her best. You can see a time when he or she is most loved by somebody and everybody. You can see a time when he or she is so helplessly cute as a baby. Or you can see a time when your heart will weep for this person.

How then, can you hate this person? Or anybody? Everybody will have up and down times. If you can see a person when he or she is so downtrodden as to be pitiful, you will find it to be angry with him or her.

I have never thought of this until Gracie is born. Through her, I can see my past and the future. My past as a child and my future through the memories of my parents in my childhood, and how my baby will see me when I am older.

It has made me more tolerant of other people. Not as virtuous as God but more understanding when I can remind myself that everybody was once a cute baby - like my Gracie. That is God's eye view to me.

Potty Training - A Long Long Story

We had a hard time with potty training. Gracie refuse to use a potty. From the time that she can walk, she does her business standing up. She has developed a funny hand clapping ritual too. When she is ready to start, she will wave her palms to warn us away. Nobody is allowed near her at all. Or even to look at her. She will scream her protests. Her favourite position is at the foot of our bed. She would go through this pattern of patting the bed with both hands, then clapping her hands. After that, she would clasp her hands together and strain for a while before repeating the whole pattern. Initially, we were very concerned as she is a very picky eater, refusing vegetable and diet supplements. So constipation is common. A few times, we had to bring her to the hospital as she had struggled to pass motion for a few hours. It tored at my heart to see her screaming as the nurse inserts a suppository. My wife has the uneviable task of inserting the suppository at home a few times. Gracie is now terrified of all doctors and nurses, also partly due to the vacination injections she had received. She is also wary of being near my wife when she pass motion. So the task of cleaning up often falls on me. For a 10 kg child, she is very strong when she is terrified. It is a very dramatic affair. She would be sobbing and screaming the whole time. Not easy to clean up the poop when she is all tense up and refuses to bend over. Another of my tasks is to comfort her after that, as she will not let anybody else hold her. So I would hold her in a hug and walked around till she fell asleep.

My wife and I often spoke about filming the whole affair to show Gracie after she grows up. We thought we will have a good laugh about it. We never did film the whole episode, it is just too painful to watch her suffer through it. Prune juice seems to be the best remedy so far. So it is a daily affair to try to get her to drink some. Things are better now. I guess we will have a laugh about this when she grows older. For now, we are still trying to do potty training!

The Beach - A Favourite Place

That's Gracie with my wife at the beach at the East Coast Park. Her favorite place. Actually, any place with sand is her favorite place. This was taken in Feb 2008 when she is one year and two months old. Around the time that she learnt that sand is not for eating.

We were out at the beach on Sentosa Island. When we were not looking, Gracie shove a handful of sand into her mouth. Luckily, there is washing point nearby and we rushed to rinse her mouth. Gracie was quite crossed with being manhandled like that.

When she is playing with sand, she is in a world of her own. She is mesmerised by repeated action of scooping and pouring sand away. The beach is also a great place for Raine and I to unwind. The East Coast Park is around 19 kilometres long. It is easy to find a spot with fewer people. I can just lose myself glazing at the sea and the sky. One can see airliners queuing up to land at the Changi Airport. Two minutes apart. On the seas, in the distance anchorage, scores of ship covered the horizon. Almost obscuring Batam, one of the thousands islands of Indonesia. It is both bustling and serene.

Raine is still settling down after five years in Singapore. I know she misses her friends in China. So far, Gracie has been to China twice. Each time was a great adventure. The last trip in 2008 was not so pleasant as my wife was taken ill and hospitalised for two weeks. I rushed over to keep her company. I could not spend much time with Gracie during the day. That was the first time that Gracie was apart from either of us for more than a few hours. She has adjusted by the time I went over. It was the Olympic Games period and China has tightened security. Normally, with a Singapore passport, I can visit China for up to 14 days without visa. During the Olympic games, it was an anxious three days process. By the time, I reached Wuhan, China, Gracie has stopped crying for her mother. I was so relieved to see her but she cried when she saw me. We met at the hospital. Gracie refused to let me carry her initially. We have been apart for two weeks then. It took her half an hour to loosen up and then when she let me carry her, she held on so tightly that my heart was wrenched.

The hospital was a cultural shock. I have been to China a few times but I really did not expect the hospital to be like this. Well, that is another story for another time. To talk about dungeon and the great industralised city of Wuhan.

I Dun Wanna Go Home

"Wo Bu Yao Hui Jia" - I do not want to go home.
That's Gracie's pet phrase. She loves to go on a trip. To the mall, to the library, to the beach, anywhere. And when it is time to return home, she will be wailing that she don't want to go home. Sometimes, that's the first thing she says upon leaving the house. All our neighbours are familiar with her tantrums at the playground by now. My wife suffers from backache - just confirmed as slipped disc. So she could not forcibly carry Gracie home from the playground. She will often summon me to do so. Initially, it is easy to distract Gracie by talking about other things, perhaps relating to her recent experience with things and people, and through that, get her to go home peacefully. A few times, I lost my temper, resorting to threats and angry tone. And found that Gracie is very stubborn indeed. Threats just do not work. Now, it is an exercise in tact and tactic. No wonder, people says that good parenting is good leadership.

Yes, she has grown. She is two years and seven months old now. I cannot remember when she starts talking but the first word she uttered was "kai" - to open. Referring to snack packs. She loves snacks especially peanuts and potato chips. I like potato chips too but I had to give it up as I do not want she to eat too much snacks. As it is, she has problem with bowel movement. I had to send her to the child hospital thrice already. She simply refuses veg and water. It is only lately she learned the association between not drinking water, not eating vegetables and the painful episodes of constipation. That is another story. A long long story indeed.