Hug Tight

Something that he does with increasing frequency now, as if he knows that time is precious and when together, love is all that matters.

The winds of change are blowing. I am happy and excited but typically me, I worry in my constant strive for perfection. I'm a worrywart beneath this carefree veneer. I think too much and do even more, so sometimes I'm on the point of bursting (although regretfully, not with milk).

On that note, Su has been making me soups of all kinds. Spinach soup, wintermelon soup, soup with "chekor manis" leaves all with the express reason for me to be able to well, express myself. It's actually working but it takes discipline. I never thought of love as being disciplined before - it's a new concept for me but it's also true.

Back to Dobbes. He's learnt to turn over and surprises himself most times he does it. When he struggles to get his fat butt over from a side position, he wails helplessly and sometimes Mobbes slyly pushes him over when I'm not looking. Then Dobbes ends up on his face, arms and legs flailing as he flaps about haplessly while Mobbes looks on and laughs before righting him.

This process then repeats a few times until they both give up or dinner is ready.

I find myself suddenly remembering things that I must or want to do with Dobbes and do them on the fly. Grab that book, it's got touchy-feely things in it, good for his development. Why am I not using all these rocker-bouncer-contraptions and baby-gyms that we were given; get them out and get him in it. Those flash cards, they're good for him, let him have a view now before it's time to go to bed.

And all this while, the guilt, the guilt, of not being there 24/7 to be able to do this at leisure with peace even as we swap slobbery kisses and hug each other tight.

So for now, it's just the hugging tight. Because if I have to choose just one thing, it is for him to know and remember that not for one second do I stop loving and just loving him.

Love Takes Time.

And so it seems that time is slipping by, so fast that it is already March, I'm back at work and Dobbes is growing.



Growing OUT, it seems. He hurries through four full bottles of milk in seven hours, wears clothes meant for 6 month-old babies and eyes our meals as he drenches his bib with drool within 5 minutes of putting it on.

While he doesn't seem particularly obese, his triple chins has three red patches of irritation that refuse to go away, and also at the backs of his chubby knees sprouting from thighs resembling fat drumsticks (the kind Alley Oop tears apart with his teeth... am I showing my age much?)

I have already waxed lyrical about how Dobbes changes everyday and is hardly the tiny being I cradled home from the hospital close to four months ago. No mother would lament how her child is well-fed, healthy and growing steadily and strong. The trouble is when she can hardly catch up.

Like a Superhero Mum I aspire to be (breastfeed, career, fashion, lustrous curls... we can have it all!), I made a commitment to breastfeed for two years. It's not a difficult decision: mother's milk is the best food and nothing is too good for Dobbes. Besides, my supply had always been abundant and I'm good at multi-tasking.

But a month back at work and the cracks are beginning to show (though thankfully, not on the nipples). I started with a 3-day workweek but the changes in schedule, activity and focus were enough to make it hard to well, produce. Dobbes does not automatically sleep through the night because Mummy has to go back to work. And it doesn't help that milk expression at the office is mostly a hurried, harassed affair, filled with thoughts of rushing back to work, so that I can hurry through my tasks and speed back home to the Dobbes.

A vicious cycle it is, chasing for time.

I've taken to ferrying bottles of milk back during the day to his highness. Daddoes is a faithful servant when it comes to his grandfatherly duties. Naturally, Dobbes laps it all up (literally).

What mother would begrudge her son, her only son, good food to eat? So what if it's a little challenging? To even view this issue as a predilection is almost an insult to Dobbes, the magic baby himself who made the impossible possible, who inspired an exercise in faith, feats of imagination come true and a new resolve for all things bright and beautiful.

I blunder about in the mornings bleary-eyed, throwing on pre-fabricated outfits planned in my head as I shower and train the unruly rat's nest on my head into some semblance of a french braid. All this an effort to save time so that I can smell him a little longer, or even find time to wash him up myself instead of always depending on Bibik Su.

It's no use trying to fight time. Love is a commitment and making it work derives from a place where time, stress and hardship have no meaning and still I keep on.