The warrior princess diaries - XIII

All right, it's time for another warrior princess diaries post. Let's go through the pitara of viruses that have hit her since the last update. She recovered from the stomach virus quickly enough, because the roseola virus was standing impatiently in the queue. The roseola wasn't too bad, just some fever and rashes, but next up was the hand, foot, mouth disease (HFMD) virus, or rather a cousin of it because she didn't develop all the symptoms. She didn't get any sores on her hands and her feet, but she had two bad ulcers on her tongue. She was off school for a week, and because of the ulcers, could not eat or drink much. Her intake went down by half. I suppose it's not too bad because zero divided by two is still zero. But the poor baby was in pain and could not sleep due to the painful ulcers. And here's the icing on the cake -- Viv was away in Amsterdam on work! Only I know how I managed that week. She was ill, she couldn't go to school, I couldn't work on my projects, my publishers were at my heels, and because HFMD is extremely contagious, I couldn't even get anyone to come over and help me. She is fine now, touchwood, until of course the pitara opens again. *deep breath*

Other than that, all is well. She's talking nineteen to the dozen, and it is all so hilarious and entertaining I couldn't imagine being at a fulltime job right now and missing all this. She's also getting super shyaani, and here's a sample.

Xena (watching her father pack his suitcase) - Where's Poppy going??
Me - He's going to Amsterdam.
Xena - Xena want to go to Amsterdam!
Me - Err... If you go to Amsterdam, who will go to school?
Xena (thinking for a moment) - Xena and Poppy go to Amsterdam, Mommy go to school.

Here she is, making a long-distance call to her Poppy on her toy phone (she was starting to get the hang of the time difference and knew when he would be sleeping).


We are reading tons of books together and she loves reading and listening to stories. I was telling her the story of the tortoise and the rabbit (yes, I know it's hare, but she only knows hair). When I reached the part where the tortoise was walking past the sleeping rabbit, she interrupted me with this - "Tortoise rabbit ko wake up karega, good morning bolega!" (The tortoise will wake the rabbit up and wish it good morning.) OTT sportsmanship, I tell you.

Just before she sleeps, she likes to name random characters and I'm expected to instantly create a story around them. Sometimes she repeats the story back to me the next day, making hilarious mix-ups. This is her, relating the story of the boy, the kite and the giraffe.


As you saw in the video above, she likes to say 'Thank you' in a sing-song 'Thaaaaaankyouuuuuu' kind of way when I give her something. Sometimes she will pass me something and say, "Here go!" ("Here you go!") and then say, "Thaaaaaankyouuuuuu!"

This is her at the library.


We go to the beach twice or thrice a week, and it's always very entertaining. For her, yes, but mainly for me. Aside from the facepalm moments I have, of course. The other day we were walking past the cable ski lagoon at the beach when a guy emerged from the water, soaked to the bone, skiboard in hand, red in the face and trying not to look anyone in the eye. She pointed at him squarely and loudly declared, "UNCLE FELL DOWN IN THE WATER! GOING HOME NOW." Then there was the time she saw a topless guy jogging and said, "Uncle ka top kangya?? Uncle nangu hokar running running!" ("Where is Uncle's top?? Uncle is running naked!")

We always run into two beautiful cats at the beach - one white, and the other black. She likes to stop to look at them and says, "Hiiiii, cats!" One day, we only saw the black cat. She asked me where the white cat was. I told her I didn't know. She said, "Black cat ko poochhenge white cat kahan gaya." ("We will ask the black cat where the white cat went.") and proceeded to pose her query to the very surprised black cat.

The curls in her hair are getting crazier and curlier and bouncier and I love them. Sometimes she shakes them like Zakir Hussain and says, "Junglee baby!" (I often address her as 'Jungle princess' or 'Junglee baby'.) Sometimes when I'm drying my hair and it's all over my face, she says, "Junglee Mommy!" We also do what I call the 'pull and boinggg' where she pulls at one of her double-helical locks when I say "Pull!" and releases it when I say "Boingggg!" and it springs back. Cheap thrills for Mommy.

Her school had an open house and parent-teacher meeting a few weeks ago, and she got a good report. Of course, she majorly flunked the subject of eating, but the teachers said that she is very helpful and concerned about others. She hands out tissue if someone is sneezing and fetches things that the teachers need. She can match her classmates to their parents so whenever a parent comes to pick up his/her kid, she calls out to the kid.

They had done a project on bananas and the teachers had prepared posters on them. One of the posters said, 'When asked about the colour of the bananas, kid X said, "Yellow!" When asked about the shape, Xena said, "Rectangle!" When asked about the taste, kid Y said, "Sweet!" Xena said, "Yucky!" Uhhhhh... She was running around during the event when she bumped her head and started to cry. The Principal came over, grinned and said, "That sound is most unusual. We have never seen her cry." Her Laoshi (Mandarin teacher) at school said that her heart breaks every time she changes Xena's clothes because she can see her ribs and thin limbs. She commended me though, for sending food cut in interesting shapes in Xena's snackbox. Xena likes Hello kitty so I use a mould to cut cheese, pancakes, parathas into Hello Kitty shapes for her snackbox. The snackbox almost always comes back untouched but some days I see a corner nibbled off and the effort seems worth it.

This a picture of her in her firefighter uniform for her school project. We were supposed to make one at home, so we used a black jacket, her school uniform pants, some insulation tape, a bicycle helmet, black paper and a hose to come up with this.


This was taken at her school's mid-autumn festival celebration.


The teachers also told me that she's the diaper-changing supervisor of her class. When it's time for diaper changes, she stands there and oversees the proceedings. She tells the teachers whose turn is next and makes sure nobody cuts the queue. The teachers actually humour her by strictly following her instructions.

Speaking of diapers, since she was imprisoned at home during the HFMD scare, I decided to make the most of it and toilet-train her. It was a success and now she's off diapers at home, wearing them only when sleeping or when out and about.

She likes order, and everything must be done properly, or like she says, "Pij do poperly!" We were at her friend's birthday party and she had been in the queue to sit on a rocking toy. When she got to the toy, she passed me her shoes and socks. I randomly put them outside the play area. I didn't realise she was watching me until she got off the toy, walked towards the shoes and neatly put one sock in each shoe. Whoa. She actually let go of the toy she had queued up for, because Mommy had not kept her shoes and socks 'poperly'.

She's also very particular about queuing up and taking turns, which makes her set a great example in the playground, and she even makes all the other kids comply. She also uses the word "turn" in odd scenarios. We were in the bus and she asked me why the wipers were not moving. I told her that wipers only move after it rains. She declared, "First rain turn, then wipers turn."

She has started correctly pronouncing some words which she used to mangle before. It's nice, but kind of sad too, as the mangled versions were so cute. She used to say "magmo" (mango), "klangya" (kahan gaya), "connot" (cannot), "ni hola hai" (nahin ho raha hai), "coolinform" (school uniform), "wadithat?" (what is that?), "goob job" (good job), etc. But of course, there are still some words she mispronounces, which Viv and I lap up, like "contocton" (construction). Whenever she sees any construction going on, she will point at the workers and say, "What uncles doing? Contocton!"

When we are out, she is vigilant and keeps telling me, "Car coming, be careful!"

She's developing a cheeky sense of humour, and will sometimes, instead of singing "So many fishes swimming in the water" sing, "So many fishes swimming in the... TOILET!"

My cheeky monkey


All the fun aside, it can get very exhausting to take care of a toddler all day. It's also challenging to keep up with her energy levels and come up with activities to keep her engaged and happy. Our no-TV rule is still on, and when she was ill and couldn't go out, I was really running low on my creative juices. (I will do a post some time on some of the things I do to keep her engaged.) I couldn't wait for Viv to get back from Amsterdam and take over so I could catch a breather. Once he got back, he had a cricketless Sunday and I decided to take the entire day off and do random things, while he stayed at home with her. I met up with a friend and we went to my shopping mothership Vivocity. We had a great lunch, and proceeded to shop for 5 hours straight, after which we had dinner and went for a movie. It was wonderful to be able to shop without worrying about Xena's meal time and milk time and pee time and poop time and nap time and what not. Now that's my kind of 'duty-free shopping'. I strongly encourage all mommies who are the main caregivers of their kids to take such a full day off when possible. It really refreshed and recharged me.

I leave you with one last video - my blatant use of bribery to make her eat. Fingers crossed that she hits 10 kg before she turns 3!

Booked out

Xena is now about two and a half years old, and reading books with her has never been more fun. I graduated from reading to her to reading with her, and now she does most of it herself. I just sit, listen and laugh.

The first video has her going through a book on seasons, and the second, the one that made me die laughing, is one where she points at the udder of a cow and declares that "there is a small pig inside the cow". :D

Picture of health

So guess what I was doing at 3 AM this morning?

Nope, not club-hopping to relive the days of my teenage. Nope, definitely not that. I was down on my knees, cleaning the floors of KK hospital. Before you think I just had a mid-career switch, I have to clarify that I was merely cleaning up after Xena who had thrown up for the tenth time last night. The poor baby has not been well for about a month now, visited by not one, not two, but an assortment of illnesses. First, she had the usual cycle of cough/fever/breathlessness which lasted much longer than usual, followed by the roseaola virus, and then followed by a fall that has sprained her ankle, making her limp, and then she was throwing up most of last night because of a stomach virus. We rushed to the hospital at 11:15 pm, and she was given the first set of rehydration solution which took an hour (it's four doses, 15 minutes apart). She could not keep it down, so they gave her some medicine to stop the vomiting, followed by another set of the rehydration solution. It was really hard to manage a limping, coughing, puking, crying, cranky and sleepy child (as soon as she'd doze off, it would be time for the next dose, so she didn't get any sleep either). I cannot describe how heart-breaking it was to see her like that. We managed to catch most of what she threw up in a plastic container which we always kept at hand, but some still fell on the floor. Of course, the cleaners would get to it as promptly as they could, but we cleaned whatever we could because the hospital was crowded and there were kids walking everywhere.

We were there till 4 am, by when she was not only okay, she was bringing the hospital down with her chirpiness. In fact, when we went in to see the doctor after the final set, she barged into the office, looked at the jar of candy that the doctors give out to their tiny patients, gave the doctor an incredulous look and loudly declared, "SO MUCH CANDY?!" as if that's what the doctors did - sat in their offices all day and all night, merrily chomping on "SO MUCH CANDY" while their patients suffered outside. The doctor smiled and said, "I knew she was fine already. I could hear her chirpy talking from here!" Xena then proceeded to ask for three candies, with a "One for mommy, one for Poppy, one for Xena." The doctor was really amused. So was I. Because she doesn't eat anything. Not even candy.

She's going to be resting at home till Monday, and it's a little sad because she had prepared these teachers' day cards which she was supposed to give out today. Basically, we'd made some pictures using fingerpaint on the outside of the cards. As for the inside, I just gave her a pen and asked her to go nuts and she did. I wrote 'Message from Xena' on top of her 'art' on the left side and on the right side, I wrote 'Translation by Mommy' and sent our heartfelt thanks to each teacher for taking care of her and especially trying to make her eat (she stills eats an average of two spoonfuls at lunch). We added a tiny notebook and a giant animal-shaped paper clip to each of the envelopes, and there, our teachers' day gifts were ready. Well, she couldn't give them in person, but Viv dropped by the school on his way to work to hand them over.

Sometimes I cannot believe how jinxed all my plans relating to her are. Every time her school has an outing that she's looking forward to, she falls sick. Every time there is something exciting about to happen (show and tell at school, friends' birthdays, teachers' day, mothers'/fathers' day celebration, picnic, play dates, etc.), she falls sick. Like clockwork. Even teachers tell me they understand why I don't sign her up for any more school excursions. From the time she joined the school, she has missed every single excursion because she was in the hospital. Sometimes I feel she's in the school less and in the hospital more. And the damned insurance folks wouldn't give her health insurance because she was born a preemie at 32 weeks weighing only 990 grams.

I have thought many times whether she should be in school at all, and every time I conclude with a yes. Her doctor and dietitian certainly think so, and even though it's painfully slow, her eating has improved after she started school. Besides, I can't protect her forever from the germs by means of a house arrest. She needs to experience what's out there and learn to fight it. So we chose this middle ground of half-day play school.

When you're in a hospital in the wee hours of the morning, waiting for something (the queue number to be called, the receptionist to register your child, the nurse to do the preliminary check-up, the doctor to see her, the clock to tick faster so you can finish the last dose and go home if she can keep it in, the pharmacist to finish her calculations, the cab to take you home), your mind wanders. You think about why your child keeps falling sick. Much much more than regular kids. You wonder if there will suddenly come a turning point after which she will stop having to go to the hospital, and if so, how far away that point is. You think about whether you'd EVER be able to go back to a full time job, an office, colleagues, lunch with team mates, and what not. You wonder why her immunity is so low and where the benefits of breast milk went. Were the 16 painful months of pumping breast milk worth it? (In case new readers are wondering, I couldn't nurse her directly as she was taken to the NICU immediately upon birth and spent the first two months of her life there, drinking pumped breast milk through a tube). And then I tell myself, yes, it was worth it. Without it, her immunity could have been even lower. Now when she gets sick, she fights hard. I see it. Maybe she wouldn't have been able to, if I had given up on the breast milk. Maybe she will get stronger eventually. Once she starts eating. And this will pass. Until then, we just gotta be prepared for whatever else is in that bag of illnesses and shrug and say, "Bring it on, yo."

Someone once told me that I wrote too many fun and happy things about her on the blog and on Facebook. That if I stopped blogging and Facebooking about her, she wouldn't fall sick anymore. The whole 'nazar' theory. Evil eye and all that. Well, guess what? Tried that too. Just to see. And she still fell sick. So of course, I am back to blogging and Facebooking about her antics. The happy moments that intermittently but regularly happen between the spells of sickness. I am not going to stop living and sharing these moments.

Much as I try to be positive, motherhood has not been an easy journey so far. And I am not going to hold back on expressing my thoughts, and especially documenting and sharing the fun things related to her growing up. Because every now and then, I go back to read all that and remind myself all over again how these moments of togetherness and happiness far outweigh all the stress, pain and exhaustion that come with being Xena's mommy.

The warrior princess diaries - XII

So the last warrior princess diaries post was on 3rd April and I'm seriously lagging behind. Fortunately, FB comes to my rescue because I jot down little things about her as my status, which not only updates my family and friends about her antics, but also helps me when I compile these posts.

Xena is now at an age where she thinks about things, and processes information and makes little statements that touch my heart. Every day on the way back from school, when the bus would take a sharp turn and she would cling on to me, scared. I would hold her hand and say, "It's okay, baby." One day, as the bus turned, before I could do or say anything, she took my hand and said, "Sokay, mommy."

Then there are other times when a potentially touching moment becomes hilarious. She was peering into my face with much interest so I peered back into hers, tapped her nose with my finger and said, "Mommy loves you." She tapped my forehead with her finger and said, "Mommy has pimple." Great.

But then the touching moments always come back. Once I held her face in my hands and said, "Hey, beautiful." She then held my face in her hands and said, "Mommy beautiful." Then she held Viv's (whom she calls 'poppy') face in her hands and said, "Poppy beautiful." Then she finally declared, "Sab log (everybody) beautiful."

And then the other moments come back. She came running to show me her latest bruise and said, "Mommy, please sayang-sayang!" ('Sayang' is a Malay word for 'caress/pat'.) So I sayang-ed her bruise and just for fun, showed her an old scar on my hand and said, "Xena, please sayang-sayang?" She took one look at it, realised it was not worth her time or sayang-ing, and said, "Mommy, please sayang it yourself." :|

I didn't know she observes me so keenly whenever I take a cab with her. We were at a friend's place and he offered to drop us home in his car. As soon as she sat down and belted up, she turned to him and said, "Siglap". (That's where we live.) It was a facepalm moment of course, but it was hilarious nonetheless.

In April, my mom-in-law's sister and brother-in-law had visited us and went back and recounted her antics to my mother-in-law, such as how she says, "Xena almost gir gayi" ("Xena almost fell down") when she stumbles but doesn't fall. My mother-in-law could take it no more and planned a sudden visit to see the live show. Xena had a lot of fun getting pampered by her grandma. And I started making chai again (I only make it every day when mom or my in-laws are here). Xena was once playing with an umbrella when I suddenly felt mean and adventurous and gave her a long set of instructions, "Baby, can you put the umbrella back in the bag and then go out and see if paati (grandma) is awake and ask her if she wants chai?" To my total surprise, she put the umbrella back in the bag, went to the living room and said to her napping grandma, "Wake up, paati. Chai?"

I'd also asked my mom-in-law to bring a plastic cricket set from India as I couldn't find it anywhere here. Xena was super excited to see it and took to it like a fish to water. Viv was so proud.



As outdoorsy as she is, she loves to help out with housework too. This also helps me keep her occupied in the late afternoons, since I still don't let her watch any TV. Whenever she sees me with a broom, she asks for her "blue wala" and sweeps the floor, aka, pushes everything that I'd swept back to its original location. So I just allocate a corner to her and tell her that it's VERY DIRTY, and as she rushes there to launch a vicious attack on the non-existent dust, I quickly sweep the rest of the room.



She also likes to peel boiled eggs and garlic, which works great for me since I hate peeling garlic. She gets really engrossed in it. Once, to liven up the tedious (to me) activity, I tried to make small talk with her. Without looking up from her garlic, she said, "Xena is peeling garlic. Please don't disturb Xena." Whoa. My mom-in-law had told me that when Viv was a kid, he once pointed to the crescent moon and exclaimed, "GARLIC!" I was very amused when the first thing Xena said when she saw a garlic clove was, "MOON!"



She's a total chatterbox, and forms full sentences with ease. I love looking at the world from her perspective, and figuring out why she says what she says. And some of the words she uses send me into splits. Once she pulled the skin at my elbow and said, "Wrinkles." I bent my elbow and she was totally amazed that the 'wrinkles' disappeared. She straightened my elbow, pulled at the skin again and said, "Mommy, please switch off the wrinkles again!"

Just yesterday, I introduced touch-me-not leaves to her at the beach yesterday. I got her to touch the leaves with a stick and she had a blast watching them close. On the way back, she was surprised not to spot any (it was getting dark and the leaves had closed) and asked me, "Touch-me-not kahan gaya?" (Where did the touch-me-not go?), and then answering her own question said, "Home chala gaya, dudu peeke, teeth brush karke soooooo jayega." (It's gone home, it will drink milk, brush its teeth and go to sleeeeeeep.)

Lately, more and more people are saying that she looks a lot more like me than Viv. Muahahaha. I still maintain that she looks most like my dad, but then I look like my dad so it's ok. Last week, she and I were on Skype with my parents and I was telling them how much she looks like my dad. Just for fun, I tapped her nose and asked her, "Is this Grandpa's nose?" She said, "Nooooo," and pointing to my dad on the screen said, "Grandpa already has nose."

Honestly speaking (and touchwood), I'm not having a hard time with the so-called 'terrible twos'. Yet. She's generally well-behaved and does not throw tantrums. It's possible to reason stuff with her in a calm manner. Of course, I do use my 'stern mommy face' when needed. Once, she was about to throw a toy to the floor when I glared at her with the sternest face I could make. I'd never given her this look before and I think I even scared myself a little bit. She looked at me for a few seconds, gently put the toy down, burst into tears, came running to me and said, "Mommy, happy face, please!"

Of course, I'm not the only one doing the scolding. It comes back to me too. I was reading a book and cycling at the same time when I got a rap from my little safety inspector, "Hold the handles, mommy!" Did I mention I was riding a stationary bike?

We spend our afternoons singing a lot of songs and nursery rhymes (I had to actually Youtube some to recall the lyrics!) and she seems to love it.



She's eating a little better now, though she's still very very underweight (8.5 kg at 2 years and 5 months). Her teachers tell me that she's started self-feeding a bit, so that's great. Her average lunch at school is still about 2 spoons (the teachers note it down for me every day). I have stopped pureeing everything and she's tolerating a little texture now. Sometimes she surprises me by actually asking for food. Once she was reading a book where an elephant was drinking orange juice from a glass with a straw (don't ask) and she said she wanted to drink orange juice from a glass with a straw! You can't imagine how high I jumped with joy, and how fast I produced the deliverables in front of her. She's also been eyeing this strawberry kitchen toy set that I have been withholding from her. Now she knows the drill. She will point to it and say, "Strawberry wala toy chahiye." ("I want the strawberry toy.") and then she will say, "Xena bahut sara khana khayegi, dudu piyegi, big and strong ho jayegi, toh mummy strawberry wala toy degi." ("Xena will eat a lot of food, drink a lot of milk, become big and strong then mommy will give the strawberry toy.")

When the haze hit Singapore, we had to stay indoors all day, which was a pain. Luckily, I always keep a stash of library books which pulled us through. I also think that the haze had hindered her photosynthesis so she was actually asking for food. Look, she's having popsicle for the first time! Of course, she had three licks and politely returned it to me, but still!



My haze-hindered-photosynthesis theory was further supported by the fact that when we were making banana 'happy face' pancakes for her school project, she actually ate a 1 mm x 1 mm x 1 mm piece!



And ooh, she finally fit into a very pretty dress that our friends had given her for her 1st birthday!

Recently, her Bubblegum masi (one of the bar's bewdis who met me and became best friends with Xena instead) came home, armed with her DSLR and took some really nice photos of Xena.







Speaking of great photographs, here's one of Xena and me taken by my sister-in-law at the beach.


Last week, her school celebrated Hari Raya Aidilfitri (Eid) at school. Children could dress up in traditional Malay clothes if they wanted. I braved and scoured the Hari Raya bazaar for two hours and came back armed with a kebaya for her. I wish they had it in my size too! (Purple is my favourite colour.) The teachers were thrilled to see her in the outfit.



She also celebrated Singapore's National Day on 9th August, dressed in the Singapore colours of red and white. I had dressed her up in a red and white dress, red and white socks, white shoes, a red and white clip, red and white flag stickers on her wrists, and armed her with a flag. OTT much? I think so. But I reckon she will only let me do inane things like this for another year, after which she will learn to roll her eyes at her crazy mommy. Till then, crazy I shall remain.

My musical monkey

I'm so thrilled. Xena is showing interest in Hindi songs! I was humming Piyu bole and she seemed to take a keen interest in it, even attempting to sing some of it with me. Here's the video of us singing Piyu bole.



And oh, do you guys know of the cup song from Pitch Perfect? I didn't, till my sis-in-law mastered and recorded the very complex-looking cup moves that go with the song. I showed Xena the clip and she was so fascinated she wanted to try it out! Here she is, having a go at it. (Not that she gets anywhere, but it's music to my ears.) But before that, here's a fascinating a cappella cover of the original.

The fast track

Half an hour to spare??

Wow.

It was a glitch in the matrix. It was most definitely a glitch in the matrix.

I had dropped by the mall before picking up Xena from school, to buy a new swimsuit for her. Perhaps I hadn't expected to find one so quickly. Perhaps I hadn't expected to find exactly what I wanted, in the very first shop I went to. Whatever it was, I had an extra half an hour on my hands, which by my planning should have been 10 minutes -- just enough for me to grab a quick bite at the food court and head for the bus stop. 

This is usually how our weekday works. As soon we Xena wakes up, all of us quickly get into the smooth groove of perfect dovetailing. While Xena is brushing her teeth, Viv is bathing and I'm getting her breakfast ready. He comes out and starts feeding her. I start making his breakfast and as soon as they are done, he starts eating his breakfast, while I get her into her uniform and tie her hair and pack her snackbox and water bottle. After kicking both of them out of the house, I grab a quick breakfast over a physical newspaper, and if my work deadlines are not crazy, head to the gym with a book (the cross-trainer has a book-holder), which thankfully is just downstairs. I get back in 45 minutes, bathe and start working. Depending on whether I'm eating dinner leftovers for lunch, or having lunch near her school, or running an errand like today, I leave home. I get her back, bathe her, give her milk, put her down for a nap and start working again. I work for an hour and then finish any household chores so I'm all hers when she's up. She wakes up around 3-4 pm and then we play, take photos and videos, and do some fun activities. I give her an early dinner (which doesn't take long because as you know, she hates food) and then exactly at 6 pm, we head to the beach or the playground for an hour. Viv is back at 7:30 to take over and I start cooking dinner (most weekdays I like to cook dinner, but we do eat out once or twice). By the time I'm done with cooking, she's had her bath, milk, brushed her teeth and is fast asleep. Viv and I then have dinner with a movie or conversation. On most days, I manage to sneak in some gmailing and fbing. On good days, I manage to sneak in some blogging. And thus, the perfectly-planned weekday ends perfectly. I like it to be like that. Fast. Efficient. Well-planned. Well-executed.

Yes, I know the importance of me-time, especially for mommies like me who work from home and don't have domestic help, but I don't get much of it, and definitely not in the weekdays. But I'm not complaining. The thing is, if I had too much me-time, I'd probably get a little sick of it. Or worse, use that time to plan the non-me-time time. Horrifying, isn't it?

So today, when I realized I had half an hour extra in my packed day, I was amused. I honestly didn't know what to do with it. So I decided to spend it at MOS burger. I love their spicy MOS cheeseburger and never have the time for it before picking Xena up as I eat at places where I don't have to wait even a bit for my food.

Compared to other fast food places, MOS takes a while before giving you your burger. They give you your drink and a token number and bring you the rest of the stuff later. So I sat and waited. It felt strange. I felt jobless. Like I could be doing something more productive than this on a weekday morning. But I had to kill time. Wow, I can't believe I said 'kill time'. That phrase rarely appears in my vocabulary. (If I had a smartphone, I'd probably be busy on it. But that's precisely why I don't have or want a smartphone. It consumes you.) So I sat there and wondered about what I should be wondering about. I wondered if I should spend that time planning the rest of the week and making some fun weekend plans. But guess what? It was all done. I literally had nothing to do. I was not used to that feeling. At all.

So I sipped my drink and looked around and took everything in.  Things I generally wouldn't notice. Like how green the seats were. If someone had asked me before what colour the seats at MOS were, I would have had no idea. I was noticing them for the first time. And just like that, sipping my iced peach tea, waiting for my burger and fries, staring at that rather revolting shade of green, I relaxed. The gears in my head slowed down and stopped turning. Agreed, I was most definitely not in my comfort zone, but I felt like I could do it. I should do it. I didn't want to think about anything in particular. I just wanted to sit there and... you know, just sit there.

And I did. For a while at least.

It felt good. 

I had managed to slow down. In a fast food restaurant. 

Sing-ing praises

This is a week of milestones.

Today marks my 15th year in Singapore. On this very day, a clueless 18-year-old me (okay fine, you know my age now, hmmmph!) landed on the shores at the airport of Singapore, not knowing what life had in store for her. And now, I have lived here 15 years. That is more than twice as long as any city in India I've lived in. My dad's an ex-banker so we moved around a lot and I kind of grew up all over the place. And that is why I don't really identify any Indian city as my 'hometown'. Of course, I have a huge soft corner for Jharkhand where I spent most of my teens (if you want to know more about my hilarious Jharkhand days, you have to read my Jai Jharkhand series), but I still can't call it my hometown. If there's a city that seems effortlessly 'homely' now, it is Singapore. You know how we all crib about India but if any outsider does it, we jump to defend it? I feel like that very very strongly about Singapore too, and I think that's the greatest sign of me being a Singaporean. Sure, it has its issues, but then which country doesn't?

It was not an easy decision taking up Singapore citizenship. We were emotional about giving up Indian citizenship, and it took many many years before we realised that if we're going to be here for good, it just makes sense to exchange our dark blue passports for red ones. A passport is just a piece of paper that enables international travel; it does not make us any more Indian or Singaporean than we ourselves feel from within. It took a while for this thought to sink in, but eventually it did and I'm glad. Because I love Singapore and I'm proud to call it home. Of course I miss India and my family (and roadside pani puris... and winter!), but I also miss Singapore a lot when I am elsewhere. I can't choose one and I don't want to choose one. So until India starts handing out dual citizenship, I shall be a Singaporean with an OCI card.

So here, in no particular order, are five things I love about Singapore:

Food - We say that eating, shopping and complaining form the national pastime here. I don't do a lot of the second and the third, but I sure do a lot of the first. Though virtually every cuisine you can think of is available here, that's not the cool part. The cool part is the local food. The wonderful, delicious, amazing local food. Think chilli crab, chicken rice, rendang chicken, laksa, ayam penyet, yum, yum and more yum!

The little red dot - It is amazing what the country has done in less than 50 years. It is a tiny dot, measuring 49 km from east to west and 25 km from north to south. And yet, it is highly urbanised without compromising on greenery. Things are hair-raisingly efficient. Stuff actually works. The public transport is great. (I mean buses and trains. Not cabs. Definitely not cabs. I don't believe they really exist. Cabs are just an urban myth.) It is really clean, yes, even public toilets. And yes, while the rest of the world laughs at our chewing gum ban, when I compare the streets of London and Singapore, I prefer the ban. If you love travel, it's a nice central hub to explore the region from. Another nice thing is that people from all kinds of cultures and races live in harmony. They may not fully understand one another's cultures, but the basic respect is there.

Distance to India - You can skype, call, sms, or email, but whatever said and done, physical distance matters. My parents, in-laws and other family are in India, but because Singapore is just four hours away by flight, sometimes I don't feel like I live in a different country. For all I know, if I were in India in a different city from them, it would take me longer to reach them than it would now. This is also one of the big reasons why we chose to settle here rather than the US.

Safety - I know I should not take safety for granted anywhere in the world, but Singapore's safety levels amazed me from day 1. During my university days, I'd go jogging on the roads at 1 am. After orientation (that's just a fancy term for ragging), I'd walk back to my hostel by myself at 3 am. And it was fine. I never felt scared. That is something I, coming from India, appreciate very very much.

Viv - "Huh?? Viv??" You ask. Well, Viv and I came to Singapore from very different parts of India on the same scholarship. If either (or even both) of us had turned it down, we'd have never met. And though my life in that parallel universe might not be too bad, I just can't imagine this one without him and Xena. So yes, it was Singapore that brought us together, and I'm grateful and thankful.

So there, that's my list. Of course, there are things about Singapore that annoy me, and some day if I'm in a ranting kind of mood, I might list those. But today, I am celebrating my 15 years here, and reminding myself of all the good stuff.

But... there is a hidden agenda too. Through this post, I am also attempting to yank back old friends I miss who have moved to Dubai, New York and India. You know who you are.

Move back pronto. 

Run of the mille

My dad reminded me that my blog's thousandth post is coming up, and that I should write something significant for it. So I decided to skip writing about other matters of national importance, such as a survey on What Bewdas Really Think of Deepika Padukone's Accent in the Chennai Express Trailer, and write something about the bar itself.

The bar. Ah, the bar. Where to start and how to start. So let me not even start and simply point you to this post, which explains why I call this place a bar, and you guys and girls bewdas.

Sometimes I can't believe that the bar has been around for 8 and a half years. Even more incredible is the fact that some of the bewdas have been with me all of these years! I mean, blogging was 'in' when I started, but it is 'out' now, isn't it? We just don't have the patience to read long posts anymore, do we? We find even long emails addressed to us tedious. That's why many of my blogger buddies from ye olde times have moved on to Twitter. Blogging is old school now. So why am I still a blogger and not a tweeter? One, I feel Twitter is a platform more suitable for celebrities; two, I have too much to type (how will I ever ramble in just 140 characters?); and three; I can barely keep up with updating the bar and Facebook, I can't imagine having one more thing to update. So, for the record, I am not on Twitter and never will be. The plan is to blog as long as I possibly can, and that's that.

Some day in the future, when I'm old and retired and don't have much to do, I will start reading my blog from the beginning to relive bits and pieces of my life. Since I started my blog, I have moved from being a clueless fresh graduate to switching my career and starting at the very bottom, getting my master's degree, building my career in publishing, getting married, getting pregnant and becoming a mother. Yes, yes, I hear you bewdas who are shaking their heads and going "Yaar yeh aajkal sirf apni beti ke baare mein hi likhti hai..." I really don't know what to say to that. It's like that cheesy line "Pyaar kiya nahin jata, ho jata hai." Xena ke baare mein blogging kiya nahin jata, ho jata hai. I can't help it. I seriously can't. But in a way, I like that the bar always reflects what is going on in my life, and right now, as you know, she's top of the goings-on in my life.

Sometimes, I read some old posts and wonder if it was really me who wrote it. In many posts, I sound so silly, so childish, so juvenile, so egoistic, so deluded, so utterly foolish. But in a way, it is interesting how the blog has chronicled the changes in my thoughts, my character, personality and writing style over the years. I started this blog not because I had a lot of thoughts (actually I don't think I had any, looking at my first post!), but because everyone else around me seemed to have one and I felt left out. Seriously. My colleagues couldn’t stop talking about this ‘blog’ thingie. Apparently, they all had one. So I decided to get one myself and find out what it was all about. Never did I ever imagine that I would keep the blog going for so many years. But to be honest, I'm taking too much credit here. The blog is alive because of the bewdas who made this their adda. True, we blog for ourselves, not others. But it's also true that sometimes it's those others who keep us going. I can't count the number of times I was pinged by a bewda and reminded to get back to blogging. Truth of the matter is - I love blogging. I LOVE it. But sometimes, it takes a backseat, and I honestly miss it. So thank you, bewdas, for your support, your patience, your comments, your emails and your love.

Assuming that at the very least, I spend about an hour (yes, even on this post!!) on each post, that's 1000 hours I have clocked in at the bar! Some may consider it a total waste of time, but thankfully I don't. It has been worth it and more.

Thank you for choosing the bar for your addabaazi purposes, bewdas.

I made the bar happen, but you make the bar happening.

Hospital-ity II

First of all, my very sincere thanks to all you bewdas for your overwhelming wishes sent for Xena. I'm seriously struggling with some of my writing deadlines because I had been in the hospital with Xena for five days, but I feel like I really owe it to you guys to update you that she is now home! After five days, most of which she spent in an oxygen mask, she was finally discharged yesterday. She still needs to be given the ventolin puff regularly to clear her lungs, and we have been referred to a specialist, but other than that, she's all active and jumpy and umm, monkey-like again.

As soon as we got home, I gave her (and myself) what I would call not a bath, but a hosedown to wash away the hospital germs, after which mommy and baby were off to slumberland. The bed never felt better. We were so exhausted and sleep-deprived that as soon as we touched it, we dozed off. I would have slept longer if I'd not discovered her sitting on my neck and trying to pry my eyelids open with a "Mommy, please wake up!"

In the evening, we couldn't wait to get out. I decided to take her to the park in the beach. It felt SO awesome to see the roads and trees and sand and water and everything else we had not seen in five days. However, I have to say that the hospital stay was not all bad. Xena had entertained me (and the doctors and the nurses and the interns and the nursing students and the cleaners... the list goes on) quite a bit with her antics and I thought I should do a sequel to my hospital-ity post from two years ago.

- Xena now says almost everything in full sentences and likes to provide running commentary of everything around her. Every morning, when the doctors did their rounds, she'd stand up in her cot and hold the railings of her cot like a jailbird and give me a full account of everything she saw. "Doctor aa gaye. Ek aur doctor aa gaye. Two nurses aa gayi." and what not. Once, a whole troop of about twelve came - doctors and medical students. She exclaimed loudly, "So many doctors??!" All of them burst out laughing.

- She soon figured out that the people in the white coats were doctors and the ladies in the white dresses with the colourful teddy bear aprons were the nurses. She would refer to them correctly. Once, she called the main doctor on her case "Aunty". The doctor was very surprised. "I am Aunty today?? Why??" She asked. Then I pointed out to her that she was not wearing her white coat, and that's why she was "Aunty" and not "doctor".

- Whenever the doctors would check her, she would play with their stethoscopes. They usually have toys hanging from the stethoscope to make it less scary for their patients, but Xena was more interested in the apparatus itself. You guys know I take devilish delight in teaching her to say long words like 'photosynthesis' so 'stethoscope' was no big deal. It always amazed the doctors every time she said, "Xena want stethoscope. Check mommy." And they would give it to her and she'd actually check my breathing, while they stood there laughing.

- Ditto with the nurses. They came over several times an hour to check her temperature, her BP, her breathing rate, her blood oxygen level, or to give her the ventolin puffs or other medicines. They always had stickers in their pockets and Xena loved them (both the nurses and the stickers). She would actually take the smiley face round stickers, put them on her forehead, and declare, "Bindi lagaya!" while the nurses exploded in laughter. She would ask them for more stickers, but after I told her that she can only have one because the nurses had to give them to the other children too, she stopped. The next time they came around, she took one sticker and giving the box back, said, "For other children".

- Two doctors once came to check her and she tried to offer them her stickers. She gave one to the first doctor and said, "One for doctor...", paused looked at the other doctor and said, "One for another doctor!" Later, her running commentary went, "Doctor checking, another doctor standing."

- One of the nurses had a tiny slipper-shaped keychain. While she was counting Xena's breathing rate, Xena took it out and actually tried to wear it on her foot! "What are you doing, baby??" I asked. "Xena ghoomi ghoomi jaayegi," she said. :')

- The machine that measured her blood oxygen level was low on battery and one afternoon, it started making a loud boing-boing sound with the display saying "Low battery". She looked at it in alarm and said to me, "Xena darr gayi!" I told her it was okay and that the battery was down. When the nurse rushed over, Xena updated her, "Battery down. Loud sound. Boing boing boing boing!"

- The nurses would use a supermarket-style scanner to scan the tag on her hand every time they gave her any medicine. After the first day, whenever the nurses came, she would simply hold up her hand without even looking up from whatever she'd be doing. It was hilarious. Sometimes she'd remind them, "Puff puff time?" and they'd laugh and say, "Not yet, baby."

- Within the first two days, she had learnt that if the machine beeped, it meant that she had to put her mask back on. Obviously, she hated the mask and kept trying to pull it off, but the moment her blood oxygen would go down and the machine would beep, she'd put the mask back on by herself. Sometimes she'd even say "Oy ma Gode!" (Oh my God!) when the machine beeped.

- The nurse who first gave her the nebuliser told her that if she didn't cry, she would get lots of candy as a reward. Viv and I were laughing our heads off. First, Xena never cries on the nebuliser, and second, they were trying to bribe her with FOOD?? Ahahahahaha!

- The kid with cerebral palsy was discharged a day before she was, and when he went home, she rejoiced too. She kept saying, "Baby ke poppy stroller lekar aaya, baby home chala gaya!"

- The first few times, I had to remind her to say "Thank you" to the doctors and nurses each time they checked on her, but after a while, she started thanking them herself. THe funniest was when one of the nurses woke her up at 3 AM for the ventolin puff, making her cry. She was crying by the time the puffs were done, and between her tears she said, "Thaaaaankyou, nurse." and promptly went back to sleep. The nurse looked like she was going to cry!

- There was a nursing student who would always come by to play with her. She always had her mask on like the rest, and I would identify her from the way she tied her hair all the way up in a bun. When Xena was discharged, she came to see her without her mask. Xena didn't recognise her! Oy ma Gode! Poor nurse looked quite heartbroken, until I gave her the mask explanation.

- She used to say "Thank you" to the cleaning lady who changed her bedsheet every morning. The lady was from China and did not speak any English, so I taught Xena how to say "Thank you" in Mandarin. The lady would always smile and respond. On the day Xena was discharged, the lady gestured to me that she wanted to take a photo of Xena with her phone. I said okay, she happily snapped away.

- At one point, I really started to run out of ideas on how to occupy her and keep her inside her jail. So I asked her, "What do you wanna do now?" She replied with a "Wipe chahiye." So I handed her a wipe and guess what she did?? She started cleaning her hospital cot! She even wiped her blood oxygen machine clean! Don't believe me? Evidence below. :)

Catch-up #5

Hola, bewdas!
I know I have not posted anything for more than a month, and I'm quite shocked myself that there was nothing at all on the bar's notice board all of June. I didn't think I could go a month without blogging. I meant to write a post on 30th June, but guess what? We are back in the hospital again, and Xena's warded on oxygen. We came here on the morning of the 30th and have been here since. This is the fourth time in four months that we have had to bring her to the hospital for breathlessness. The cycle is exactly the same. It starts with fever, then a cough that doesn't go away, and then her blood oxygen level starts dipping (yes, we have an oximeter at home to track her blood oxygen levels; after two rounds of hospital visits, we decided we needed it) and we rush to the hospital. So here we are, back in the hospital where Xena was born and I was reborn. It's been two days and she seems to be okay when awake, but when asleep she's unable to breathe normally without oxygen support. Her doctors say she can go home as soon as she can do a full night without oxygen support. They can't say yet if these recurrences indicate the beginnings of asthma or it's just that her lungs are still too weak to handle any kind of trigger.

And what a trigger we had last week. You might have read about it -- forest fires in Indonesia caused a thick blanket of haze on Singapore and the psi was close to 500 at one point. 300 is already considered hazardous and anything above 400 can be life-threatening for the elderly and ill. Singapore is one of the cleanest and greenest places in the world and yet, we were so helpless when the haze hit. Even though we had her on full house arrest with all windows and doors shut tightly and the air purifier and air-conditioner running overtime, it didn't feel enough. We were especially worried as Xena has weak lungs and is more susceptible to such things. But the haze passed and I thought that was it. Well, I'm still not sure if it was the haze that caused her hospitalization or some other trigger, but she's here and we gotta get past this.

She's taking a nap now and as I move my eyes away from her face behind that oxygen mask and look around, my mind is filled with so many thoughts. One, to always be thankful for what I have, because many others have it much worse. There's a kid in the bed opposite Xena's, and he has cerebral palsy. He is also here for some respiratory issue, and nothing can compare to what he and his parents are going through. When the doctors do their rounds and discuss him, I hear words like 'morphine', 'palliative', and I feel so heartbroken for him and his parents. I'm not sure if he is aware of pain, but from the sounds he makes all day and all night, I really do hope he can't feel the pain associated with them. Every few hours, the nurses use a tube and suction to make him a little more comfortable. Compared to him, Xena, who when not coughing or trying to pull the oxygen mask off, is generally chirpy and happy, seems like she doesn't even belong here. I don't know why it always takes someone else's misery to trump ours before we come to our senses (actually sometimes we don't) and stop ranting about our lives.

The other thing I notice is how articulate and patient the doctors and nurses are. I don't know why I expect them to be rude and snappy. Maybe it's because this is a government hospital. Maybe it's because they have been dealing with sickness all day and night. But they totally surprise me. I am especially amazed at the nurses' dedication. Doing your job is one thing, doing it with passion and feeling, is another. Of course, I deeply admire the doctors for their knowledge and skill, and how patient and clear they are when explaining things to me or answering my questions, but I admire the nurses more because they don't even get the credit and recognition the doctors get. And they do the 'dirty work' day after day after day. How do they remain so polite and cheerful after having a full work day that involves putting tubes down throats and cleaning up perfect strangers' waste? Xena coughed so violently once, she threw up in her oxygen mask. I could not believe the speed with which the nurses managed to get the mask off, clean her up and get her new clothes and a new mask, reassuring her all the time that it was okay, and that it was actually good that she managed to get rid of the phlegm. The very next second, housekeeping had already changed her bedsheet too. It felt like I was watching things in fast-forward mode. 15 years of living in Singapore and I still stand amazed at the level of efficiency here.

Yet another thing I notice is how the doctors and nurses do manage to catch a moment of respite from their gruelling work. One of the Filipino nurses came over when all was quiet in the ward and asked Xena to teach her some Hindi in exchange for some stickers. "Baby, I don't understand what you are saying, but I find it very very cute," she said. She's now armed with some Hindi, courtesy Xena and her translator (me). When she comes over to bathe Xena, she says, "Baby, nahana nahana?" Then there were these two junior doctors who came over with a small box of toys and played with Xena for half an hour. I don't know if it was part of their medical training as pediatricians to get to know their patients more, or just them looking for some light moments to include in their tiring day. But I do know that all three of them had an absolute blast together. Xena kept asking me, "Doctor klangya? Doctor coming soon?" after they had left. For Xena, harder than staying in the mask is staying inside the cot, considering how jail-like it is and how jumpy and outdoorsy she is. So one of my main struggles is keeping her occupied and happy and so I get Viv to bring me a few of her toys and books each morning. (I really don't want to plonk the iPad in front of her just to relieve her boredom.) I'm eternally grateful to my friend N, who has brought me lunch every one of these days and helped to keep Xena entertained too.

I have stayed here with Xena for two nights now and am gearing up for a few more. Viv has offered to swap with me so I can go home and get some rest, but he's too tall for the parent bed they provide and I know he will have a horrible work day if he's not well-rested. Besides, last night one of the kind nurses who saw me sleeping like a horse aka sleeping standing up with one hand holding Xena's (she wakes up very often and asks to hold my hand so I just decided to stand next to her cot and sleep), she asked me to hop into Xena's cot so I could be next to her and still get some sleep. "Is that allowed? And more importantly, can this take my weight?" I pointed to the cot, looking for a 'maximum weight limit' sign. She made a "Tchah, it doesn't matter." face, so I lowered the side of the cot and curled up next to my baby, hoping that the cot wouldn't give way in the middle of the night! I must say both Xena and I managed to get some good sleep this way, and the cot didn't break either. But I'm pretty sure Viv won't fit if he replaces me tonight, even if he curls himself into a ball. So his job is still to fetch things for Xena and me in the mornings, and take back stuff in the evenings. This has also made me realise the importance of keeping a tidy house. On the first day, I sent him a list of some 40 items that we (mostly Xena) would need during our stay and though I had written down their exact locations, it still took him an hour to get everything together. So I have made a mental note to keep our home tidier than it is. I've noticed that when I am away on stuff that is out of the ordinary routine, such as holidays or hospitalization, it always makes me think of things that I generally don't think of, such as how to live a better life.

So there. While the doctors discuss whether this is just a viral infection of Xena's weak lungs or whether she is likely to develop asthma in the future, we're here, wishing and hoping that we can go home soon.

On a final note, I have some life-altering philosophical advice for you - tidy up your home. And oh, lose weight. So that if needed one day, you can sleep in a hospital toddler cot without breaking it.