Be grateful, dear.:)

I’ve got three colleagues in my department who all also had newborns within the space of 6 months from Hannah’s birth. It’s quite evenly spread out: two of my colleagues had boys, and the third colleague had a baby girl too.

One colleague and I were chatting about our wives returning to work the other day (his wife is also a teacher), and he said that it was only a few months after his wife gave birth that that she was asking to return back to work. I’m guessing she was feeling too listless at home.

Truth to tell, Ling has started remarking the same for the last few weeks now. As fun as Hannah can be when she isn’t wailing, Ling’s mused a few times that she sometimes feel rather caged up at home. Ways to help alleviate going gila (that’s “going stir crazy” in Malay for you, Matt!) is for her to read newspapers at home, watch TV, take Hannah out for walks etc.

One thing though I’ve been telling Ling to be grateful for since Hannah’s birth is that Hannah has been sleeping soundly through the night after the first month. I’m not sure if Ling fully understood the significance of that until yesterday morning’s Tea with Parents. My mum said wryly that we should be very grateful as many kids bawl at night. Cousin Ying Jia also chirped in to say that her own 1 year old son needs a lot of feeds, and when Ling asked how often, she said it could be “every hour”, even at night LOL.

So, as tiring as Hannah can be – she’s now at the age where she bawls when she doesn’t get attention (i.e. “carry me!”) – at least her grumbling only happens during the day time. Ling has got a routine from the Internet and with input from Jasmine too about setting babies down for the night. The nightly routine of wiping down, changing Hannah into jammies, a final carry before sleeping, then laying her down and pulling the mosquito net has been very successful in letting Hannah know it’s bed time at about 10 PM every night. Hannah will typically coo a little, do her angelic smile, blow raspberries, sneeze (maybe), then go to sleep – and the both of us can either watch a bit of TV or zonk right into bed.

Now, if only our luck will hold!