Jewelle Tan Personally

Nesting instinct is the state of mind that usually get pregnant women to do extra and sometimes weird household activities just before they were about to give birth. Some embarked on major spring cleaning while others would be cooking like there was a party.

I did something equally ludicrous when I was about to deliver Qi.

Even though we have a washing machine and I don’t enjoy any domestic chores, I decided then that I must wash my clothes and Eu’s BY HAND in my upstairs bathroom.

So there I was, a couple of weeks before I was due, squatting in the bathroom, washing our clothes and carrying wet clothes in bucket down the staircase to the anxiety of my mother - who could not stop me even if she wanted to.

A few days of these and I woke up one morning to some spotting and the first thing that came to my mind was…

“Oh no, I did not read much about Caesarian!”

And that was exactly what I had to go through 3 years ago today to deliver Qi.

I bravely opted for local anaesthetic because I wanted to try it. So while my normal deliver with Eu was quite a breeze with no painkiller, throughout the whole 20-30 mins procedures I was wishing that I had some superpower to transfer what I felt to the doctors so they can tell me again that the what I felt when they cut and sticthed my flesh was really “just the sensation”.

As compared to Eu, I’ve learned to train Qi to have early bedtime from birth and for the first few months of her life, she slept at 5 pm, waking up only for milk.

The ease of settling her down for bed continues and I never had to rock her and very rarely do I need to stay in the room till she falls asleep.

Until today, after a bottle of milk, a bedtime chat and kisses, my husband and I can say good night, close the room and she will usually sleeps within minutes. Of course there are times when she’d still be active enough to sing to herself but 10 mins of this, it will all be silent.

Until 5-6 am the next morning when she will look at the window and decide that it’s brighter and shouts from her room…

“Mama, it’s morning time! I can come to your bed!”

But while it’s easy to settle her for bedtime, she is not quite so straightforward in other things.

She is small but she is loud with a distinctive high-pitched voice. She may be the youngest in the household right now, but she is the undisputed bully and she can easily make Eu and their cousin brother cry or run to us to complain.

She speaks only after she turned two years old but right now, she can out talk anyone.

She is a rebel, has very short patience and while threats usually works with Eu, Qi is the type who will look you in the face and say, “Ok mama, go ahead..”

Yet she also charms everyone easily. In Eu’s school and few shops that we sometimes frequent, the staffs look forward to seeing her.

When she sings, the whole house can hear and it is sometimes hard to keep a straight face when she is about.

Even though she can be a typical girl fond dresses and dressing up, she also has an alter ego and while Eu is always the princess and the good girl, Qi can be just as happy pretending to be “Ultraman Dyna” complete with the fierce expression and stance (and she only knows of this show from advertisements!).

Deduced by her father, her character can be summed up by her favorite Disney Princess - Jasmine with the pants and high adventures.

While Eu prefers soft noises, as explained by Qi herself, she adores “loud noises”. She told us that she wanted a drum - just as if she is not already playing drums with everything else at home.

And best described by my mother in law, whenever Qi is around, we are never bored.

She is another wonderful blessings in our lives and we certainly enjoy seeing her conquering the small world that she moves about right now and in the future.

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5 years ago today, I was awake for 36 hours.

The day before I stayed up till midnight to watch a movie on TV. Then I spent a few more hours reading in bed. Then I started to have upset stomach and soon enough contractions.

By 4 am, I decided that my contractions were regular and short in between and I got my parents to send me to the clinic.

4 hours later, Eu was born!

10 hours later, I was released to go home. The moment I reached home, I slept straightaway. So on that first night that she was home, Eu was cared for by my mother and my husband.

Until I woke up early the next morning to see her already awake, quietly looking around the room.

Eu was an easy child to care for and from early on, she charmed everyone and instinctively learn to smile and laugh even from the very beginning.

Eu was laughing hard when my sister sang to her

5 years later, she is now an articulate and articulate, “facts” dispenser, creative, sings well, smart-talking dealmaker and artistic.

5 years later and she brings a smile to my face when she sometimes ask that I call her “Sayang” and “Baby girl” to remind her and me that she is still my baby.

She has grown to have a distinctive fashion sense (long sleeve inside a dress with a long skirt underneath is one of her favorite combination) but there are times when I wish I can still carry her on my arm.

She can drive me mad sometimes with her “special ways” of doing things but I am also thankful that she is very demonstrative in her affections.

We are indeed blessed to have her in our lives and we look forward to following her journey in life.

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A few weeks ago, I overheard my daughter Qi said in response to something that her sister was saying.

“Then I will marry my own Prince Charming!”

Qi, my coming-to-ONLY-3-years-old daughter is glibly talking about Prince Charming and marriage!

Non-mothers might not know it but I think parents of other young daughters are having the same experience right now.

Our girls are going mad about all these Disney Princesses!

Perhaps the rage for the Disney Princesses started when a magazine called Princess was published. So far I managed to limit my girls to only three issues because one issue cost nearly $5 and reading material of this kind does not last long in our household.

However I know of other parents who buy every issues and last month when my husband and his friends went to Singapore, I was amused to learn that I was not the only wife who told my husband to get the latest issue.

The men failed but one wife got the coveted issue from Kuala Lumpur!

Both my daughters know every single one of the Disney Princesses although they’ve only watch “Beauty & The Beast” and a little bit of the “Sleeping Beauty” which we bought only last weekend.

When it comes to drawing, my daughter Eu draws nothing else but Princess pictures - with Aurora from the Sleeping Beauty being her most favorite subject.

They regularly paraded around the house with my mother in law’s old sleeping coats as their princess gowns, announced themselves as the princess-of-the-week and demanded that everyone else addressed them as such.

And we have had a “Belle”, “Ariel” and of course “Aurora” over the last several months.

Qi however is less princess-y and she assumed both the princess and the villain. More often than not, she preferred to be the “Wicked Witch” or “Wicked Queen” and lately, the “Evil Stepmother”.

And it’s not only the kids who are sucked into this. Mothers including myself are equally “in love” with these beautiful characters and it is only the question of cost that stopped me from decorating their room with Princess theme (except cheap stickers and posters from the magazines).

So, how Disney Princess-crazy are you?

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Last night was the first time that Eu performed in public.

Her dance show with 12 of her classmates was part of last night’s program held in conjunction with His Majesty’s 62nd birthday celebration, together with at least 15 other numbers from her school ranging from the Kindergarten, Primary to Secondary classes.

Earlier in the week, we had a chicken pox scare which threatened to bring down at least 3 of the dancing troupe members (Eu included), but luckily the performance evening arrived with a perfect show time weather and all the children in high spirits.

Excited parents made-up their kids in full glamour - on top of their already extravagant costumes, which my mother in law claimed was a copy of costume from western China.

While I fixed Eu’s thankfully-long-enough hair myself, one mother confided that she sent her daughter to the saloon to have her hair fixed twice. Later as I was touching up on Eu’s lipstick, which she managed to lick clean along the 30 mins drive from home, another boy gleefully told me (with a wide grin and several missing teeth), “I also have lipstick!”.

For the record, he also had blusher, eye shadows and spiky-gelled hair full of glitters!

But although the weather was perfect and the kids were eager to perform - with none of them having last minute stage frights seeing the crowd - technical problems plagued their show.

Billed to be the first show, Eu and her friends only managed to appear as the 8th or 9th show - about an hour after their frazzled teacher finally returned from having rushed back to the school to resolve some problems. But although she arrived and they finally went on stage, luck was still not on their side.

In the end, Eu’s class “Drum Dance” was performed with NO MUSIC.

While the rest of the parents and myself were slightly disappointed that their show was performed in silence, it was heartwarming to see all the kids did their steps as if nothing was wrong.

All complete with smiling and happy faces.

To this I say kudos to their teacher who trained these children so well that there was no disorientation and no confusion. I was lucky to join them once for a full-dress rehearsal and they were the only class which rehearsed twice - and that to me was a clear show of dedication by their teacher. Glitches can happen to anyone but what differentiate an ordinary and exceptional troupe and trainer was what they are able to do when things did not go as planned - which they proved to us that night.

As they were leaving the stage, we could even forget that they had danced without music from their excited faces and exaggerated goodbye gestures.

It might not have been the ending to her first performance that we had envisioned, but Eu had fun, she was happy and it was obvious that she and her friends were very pleased with themselves.

As with the other parents, despite the unfortunate glitch, we are thankful that her teacher gave Eu this experience and we are indeed very proud of our daughter.

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Eu has been going to school for more than 4 months now.

It has been interesting for us at home to hear her adventures of learning new things from school - from new words to many new songs which Qi picks up instantly. Let’s just put it this way, there are that much singing at home courtesy of the songs that Eu learnt from school that even their Ah Mah (grandmother) can sing some of their songs.

Her Mandarin has improved tremendously too and although I can understand some basic everyday Mandarin, there has been one occasion when she said something to me and I had to ask her to translate. My husband’s warning that I will soon be lost when my kids start speaking more Mandarin is fast coming true.

But I am in a way luckier than some of the other parents who have nil Chinese background and knows not a word of Mandarin and yet have their kids in a school where Chinese language is dominant.

At least for me, I learn a new word every few months or years judging from my how much I understand Mandarin and I’m sure I will never be that clueless. Unless Eu and Qi learn to converse in poetic Mandarin in which case even their father would be lost, I’m sure!

And 4 months along, I noticed that these few kids still shy away from the rest of the Chinese speaking students including Eu and I wonder what is it like in class for them.

I wondered because I have a cousin who comes from a non-Mandarin speaking household and his first few years in a Chinese school was a funny family story - he would regularly run out from his class. He now speaks passable Mandarin and my aunt is having second thought about having all her kids in a Chinese school as they have began to talk in Mandarin around her.

And I have another cousin who has not an ounce of Chinese blood and yet has mastered the language so well that she won an award as the best speaker in a statewide debate competition in Mandarin some time ago.

So I will not be surprised if these few students who now communicate with Eu with a combination of body languages and face expressions, might even speak the language better than her in a few years.

This will be an interesting thing to watch.

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