Three years ago I gave birth to my eldest child. From a single girl who used to hang out with friends during the weekend, shopping for clothes, shoes and bags during sales or window shopping when I was broke, I suddenly graduated to being a mum. My life had suddenly taken a drastic turn.
I learnt how to bathe a baby, diaper-change, breastfeed, feed and burp a baby. From looking for the next sale in town I moved on to reading all about how to care for a baby. Before I knew it, my son was a toddler and then it was time to learn about being creative in preparing “colourful” porridge for his meals, running after him when he crawled all over the place or lending a helping hand as he learnt to cruise all over the place and not forgetting learning to sing all those nursery rhymes all over again.
When my son was nine months old I thought I was seeing double when the pregnancy kit showed I was pregnant again. I was not really ready as I still considered myself a new mum.
“Am I ready to handle not one but two babies?” I asked myself.
But when reality set in, I realised I was really looking forward to having another child and I knew I was no longer young. Plus, I had a very strong feeling this time round it was going to be a girl; there were unpredictable cravings during odd hours and sometimes in the wee hours in the morning and kicking in my womb when I was conducting training for my staff or when I was in the midst of an important meeting.
I was right. Even though my baby girl was born premature, she was a strong, brave and a beautiful girl with a mind of her own. A real feisty girl.
During my confinement with the challenges of a premature baby and the countless visits to the hospital, I was further challenged with my son's “terrible twos” syndrome; throwing tantrums, being picky and refusing his food, screaming and running into a series of mini accidents.
Month by month passed and I stocked up on diapers and formula milk like nobody’s business. I had also started shopping online to buy baby necessities as it was cheaper online and I would avoid impulse-buying since I am a shopaholic. Also, I did not have any time left to go shopping at the malls.
Recently, after a long break from online shopping (since I had stocked up quite a lot) I was browsing the baby websites again. I was busy checking out products I used to purchase when it dawned on me that I no longer needed these items.
“Hey my babies are no longer babies ... they are toddlers now,” I thought. How did time pass me by?
When I reached home that night, I sat quietly and took a close look at both my children. My son was busy lining up his toy trains and was curious about how the wheels of the trains moved when he pushed them. He took a closer look to examine the way the wheels were turning. My daughter was busy playing with her toys and was engrossed in the colourful blocks she was stacking up. Soon my daughter walked over to her brother and tried to “negotiate” her way into playing with the toy trains and my son gave her a disapproving look.
They are indeed toddlers now!
Time really flies. I reminded myself that night that I need to spend more with them, or soon they will be going to primary school then secondary followed by college without me realising it.
Tears welled up in my eyes. They were happy tears as I realised how fast they had grown up. My thoughts were soon interrupted when my son said, “Mummy, what is that?” and my daughter rolled onto my stomach and the sweet smell from her shampoo wafted through the air.
Rosalind Foo