Continued.....Milestones Part 2

Continued from Part 1

The following year (birth till full 1 year old) was a year full of struggles. Struggling to handle infant (2 at a time), kept changing our lifestyles to adapt best to the rapidly changing environment then, and struggling with work, struggled with sacrifices made, lots of arguments, conflicts with huby, with mom, with maid basically over how to care & handle the babies…..

It was all bcoz I had a super “pah pai”/fussy huby….wonder if it was the 1st time fatherhood syndrome? I’ve never see that gentle side of him when he was with his babies. I could recall, immediately after the twins went home from hospital, huby had an overseas trip to his HQ then in Aust. The twins were having sleeping problems….kept crying & crying at night until the confinement lady & my mom also gave up…dun know what to do. So out of no choice, my mom introduced the swing/”salong”/”buaian”. Before we implemented the idea, I thought better gave a call to huby to inform him of the situation. He got so pissed off, angry, mad & upset over the idea & had told us sarcastically that he didn’t want to see any swing at home when he is back home….phew!!! It was a strong command I tell you... until my mom didn’t dare to do anything! He said he doesn’t feel save putting such small infant to sleep on the swing! But not long after his return, he encountered the severity of his babies crying at night and FINALLY decided to give it a try on the swing to see if the situation improves. Of course we ended up relying on the swing for the next 2 years.

Dady even imported back a side-by-side double pram from Aust which we eventually sold off 2 years later…bcoz it was too heavy & bulky! We called it the boys’ Mercedes Benz!

Huby continued to be paranoid & peculiar pertaining to the care & handling of his babies for the next year. He was there all the time to decide on what to feed his babies, selection of diapers, bringing the boys for every single immunization, be the chauffeur all the time when his babies travelled etc etc.

During this period I recall one incident. The boys were on the walkers & as normal as any other baby, one of the boys tripped a step & the walker over turned. Of course the baby did fell & knocked a bit when my mom was around too. So the maid as instructed by us reported the incident to his dady. This ‘kan cheong’ dady again showed a big response. He kept asking & queried the maid about the incident. Despite my mom said it was only small matter, nothing to worry about, this dady still not satisfied……………and asked the maid to bring the walker and acted out + demonstrated the incident on how his boy fell !!! Goodness….my mom got so pissed of that time & really "beh tahan" him so she told him : “u go bring your boy to the hospital & do x-ray or scan if the head/brain alright or not”. Only then he kept quiet!

Then when it was time to go out, no one could persuade this dady to move despite it was already late "IF" his babies were still in the nap. He would not bother what time the clock strikes, he will not wake his babies up from their precious sleep. So there were many times that me & the maid silently pat/shake the babies in order to wake them up so that the dady would nod his head to move.

Both mom & huby are quite hot temper person, thus little exchange of quarreling in life were inevitable between them! Despite those squabbles, mom still felt blessed & happy to have such son in law which she reckoned that his peculiar attitudes were purely for the love & good sake of her grandsons!! She said she rather have him that way than those father that doesn't bother much about his own blood & flesh!!

I'm sure you could imagine the level of pressure that was instilled on us indirectly (me, my mom & the rest of the family members) in taking care of the boys when they were younger!! Given that, i had not (or rather was not allowed) bring the boys out by myself (even with the maid). The 'rule' was such that there must be either the dady or my parents are around. I only have the guts to bring the boys out with me alone when they almost reached 4 years old !!

See the boys in their mercedez benz?

No matter how difficult was the initial path,

With a blink of eyes the boys celebrated their FIRST b'day......

Guess what....soon when the boys approached their 2nd year, these paranoid episodes faded away gradually & slowly as the boys had started to grow naughty, hyperactive and cheeky. The poor dady started to experience the tortures of handling the boys’ FIGHT! They basically fight over anything, anytime & anywhere. If only there is a peaceful moment of 5 minutes where they do not fight/argue, we would be very blessed!!

From then onwards, dady has been driven up to the wall, boiling blood was burning up in his head and being a person with hot & short temper by nature, dady started to yell, shout & scream a lot to control the boys over the fighting syndrome! Since then dady has been seen shooking his head very often….very headache!!

But when his boiling blood actually cool down & when his boys were exceptionally good, dady was still very sweet & bonded much with the boys. He obviously still loves his precious sons very much or else the boys wouldn’t be treating their dady as their KING/HERO no matter how dady beaten/scolded them. The boys were on top of his priority!

At the age of 2 too, it was a period full of nightmares for us. Our maid’s term has expired after 2 years & we decided to send the boys to nursery for day care. We regretted landed our boys there. It was such a torment seeing how they lost so much weight through out that whole year.

Sickness & illness became a monthly affair…flu, cough being the normal thing but fever was a real nightmare. It was at the nursery that the boys started to develop a series of ‘FIT’ whenever they had fever. The fit episode was really shocking to us. We didn’t heard & experienced it before so seeing it with our eyes was like stabbing our own heart with a knife !!! It was so so so painful……… Their antibody was very weak & having to put up with many kids in the day care had worsen their health.

We finally gave up & decided to get back a live-in maid to take care of the boys ourselves. There was one stage, that my mom ran out of ideas over the solution to their often sickness, and she being the superstitious one, went to seek the help from the chinese temple (despite the boys are Catholic), brought home those "fu"(yellow paper with red wordings leh) but dare not burn it to make drinks for the boys lar....

Anyway, lets leave all the sad stories behind……….

The 2nd birthday was celebrated at mom's house (when our new house was still in renovation)....and see just how skinny they have became from their earlier chubby faces!!

Lets talk about mumy now…..i was definitely not good comparing to dady. Mumy has worst patience than dady with the boys. Comparatively, mumy wan’t sacrificing as much as dady so I don’t blame the boys for loving their dady much much more than mumy. It was dady that woke up to prepare milk for the boys when the boys were already at 3. Mumy’s heart was as hard as the rock, mumy refused to attend to their unreasonable demand for milk despite already 3 years old. No matter how much they cried, mumy just shut her ears to sleep but dady’s heart was rather softer or rather the boys know who to bully, they kicked his dad up to make them milk….the consequences of being too pampered!! They are dady’s boys for sure, everyone can see & tell that. But never mind, that’s exactly what I want.

In no time, we celebrated another year of success.......

we had a party for their 3rd birthday together with our new house warming!!!

to be continued...