Goodbye, Cousin!

After battling breast cancer for close to 2 years, my cousin, Kim, passed on at the age of 37, leaving behind a husband who loves her dearly and 3 very young sons.

I was Mandai Crematorium, saying my last goodbye, this morning. It was utterly heartbreaking to see Kim's second son, who was only 5 yrs old asking his father where mommy was going, just before the casket entered the cremation chamber. I felt so sorry for Kim's 3 boys, to have lost their mother at such young age. I felt so helpless, not knowing what I could do to make any of them feel better.

As a parent, myself, I knew how much Kim had hated to leave this world, to let her sons grow up without a mother. Death, itself, can never be as frightening as not knowing how it can affect your children and their lives thereafter.

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Kim, or Ah Leng Jiejie (as how I had always call you), I wish we had the opportunity to bring our kids together and let them play, then perhaps I would know them better and be a better aunt for them, than the one, I am today. I am sorry. But I will try to meet up with your boys and get to know them in the future.

I am not a believer of any religion, nor do I believe in heaven or life after death, but I really hope you will be free from sufferings and be happy wherever you may be.

So long, Cousin. It's has been good being your relative all this time.

Being the "Maria" for a day

I had the most tiring day on the Hari Raya Puasa public holiday. My helper was given a day off, so I had to wake myself up at 8am on a non-working day (I usually sleep in until 10am or sometimes 11am).

My helper went off at 9ish and soon after Mr Hubby also left to attend his business. Here I was alone, with the two little ones at home. My "survivor game" began.

I got Leonitus to take his late morning nap while setting Laetitia up with some colorings to do, I cooked Leonitus's lunch. Leonitus was up shortly after; I fed him and kept Laetitia company while she played her toys near us. After his lunch, I bath and changed him, and then quickly dialed for Pizza Hut to order lunch for Laetitia and myself because it would be suicidal if I attempt to cook ours.

Lunch arrived. Stuff myself with mouthful of food, fed Laetitia at the same time and threw breadcrumbs into Leonitus's mouth from time to time when he made noise.

Lunch done. Showered and changed Laetitia; gave her a book to read and put Leonitus away safely on the exersaucer while I rushed into the bathroom, threw some water onto my face and body, jumped out of the tub, rubbed dry and prayed that my 2 minute shower was good enough to keep me smelling fresher than before.

Made milk for Leonitus, fed him and read a story to Laetitia at the same time. Managed to get both of them to take their naps together.

I cleaned and washed up the dinning area. Tried to read a newspaper, but fell asleep after the 5th page or so.

Leonitus stirred. I woke up. Feeling very happy because they had managed to sleep for 2 and a half hours, then my joy was cut short when I realised Laetitia had wet her mattress!

Cleaned and changed her up, then took a long time to clean up the soiled mattress while letting the television do the babysitting of the kids for a while.

Thought I could sit down and joined them for some telly, Leonitus threw up. I changed him and washed the stain off his top before dumping all the kids' clothing into the washer.

Mr Hubby came home and brought Laetitia out to buy dinner. I hung the laundry up while keeping Leonitus entertained with some silly songs that I made up.

Dinner time. Shared a porridge with Laetitia. Cleaned up the dinning area. Smelt something crappy. Leonitus's poo was over-flowing out of his diaper onto his clothes and the seat of his exersaucer! What luck!

Showered Leonitus and changed him before scrubbing the stench off his exersaucer.

Laetitia was getting impatient to wait for her turn to shower, she was starting to make some fuss about her toys. She was catching me at the wrong moment, I was exhausted and disgruntled. "Mommy is not your slave!" I shot at her, she shut up immediately. She is smart.

Finally, our helper came home and save the rest of my day! My hair needed a wash really badly!

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Verdict:

I had on me pee, poo and puke and all the time, I kept wishing I could grow another pair of arms but I am glad that I had the chance to go through a day without helper and spouse.

I would recommend everyone, anyone, who uses a maid to try this, at least for once, because it will really helps you to understand why your house is never as neat and clean as you wanted. You would become more forgiving to your helper.

And husbands, with homemaking wives, you really should do this, for you would never understand why your wife's face is always so black when you thought you are the one at a hard day's work, bringing home the bacon.

Outburst

I had just sent Laetitia off to bed early and I had to take away her privilege of bedtime story as a punishment for throwing a horrendous tantrum that shouldn't had escalated in that way if I wasn't totally flustered.

And here I am with the 2 kids asleep; very alone and feeling very... very... I don't know how to describe but my heart just aches. It's excruciating.

This was what happen some 45 minutes ago....



Laetitia was in the bathtub whining and making senseless fuss over the littlest thing. I thought I better nip it in the bud before it turned into something out of proportion, so I stepped into the bathroom to give her a quick shower. She was screaming and kicking in protest, as though she was a fish out-of-water and caught on a hook!

After I dried her, she complained that her tummyache and asked for medicine. I felt suspicious about it because she was well a moment ago, plus she HATES taking medicines. Anyway I gave her the benefit of doubt and got her gripe water, which might help if she had wind in her stomach. She took a tiny sip, followed by a large mouthful when I urged her to finish up the spoonful of "medicine". The next second, she spit the gripe water all over herself and on me which I believed she did it in deliberation.

I yelled at her. She shrieked even louder than me. That moment, I just snapped. I lifted her up by her arms and threw her into the bathtub!

She continued to wail even when I carried her out from the tub and dried her up. She didn't stop wailing until she threw up her dinner. Ironically the puking ended it all.

It took us a short while to calm down; I apologized to her for losing my temper and for doing things that weren't very nice. And I got her to say sorry to me and my helper (she puked on part of my helper's bed).

Then we laid down on her mattress and talked for a while; I told her I love her and explained to her that I was mad at her partly because I was facing some tensions with planning our Oct's holiday and I had been feeling like a damn martyr because I was trying too hard to perfect the vacation, to accommodate everyone and to anticipate all potential obstacles when I am not the best planner to begin with.

As I spoke, tears ran down my cheeks. Laetitia looked at me emphatically and she wiped those tears off with her tiny hands. Then she rolled to her side and shut her eyes, after she mumbled, "Goodnight. Sweet dreams." My usual line when I tuck her into bed every night.



As I am typing this, I am so consumed by shame for having an outburst which spun so out of control. I felt really lousy about myself because I was unable to guard my own emotions. I allowed setbacks to get to me and I was such a reptile when I took it out on my own daughter.

From now, I have to remind myself to take it easy and not beat myself up to try to come up with an unbeatable all-inclusive trip. After all, Laetitia is only 33 months, not 33 years old; she will do just fine even if our trip was only to Sentosa.

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