In the midst of chatting as one does during long road trips, my 10 year old son informed us he was worried about entering high school in a few years time, because the school we planned to enroll him in had a bit of a reputation of being competitive and had certain admission requirements for the students entering it.

It was popular due to the school’s high education standard and he was apprehensive of having to put in more work into his academia to keep up with the demands of the school curriculum.

So I thought it was a good time to try to teach him on one aspect of life that I’d had been guided by especially in the past decade of my life.

‘Do not always take the easy way out son’ my husband advised him.

And I chimed in that some things in life will be difficult, but some difficult things are worth doing.

I went on telling him that if I had wanted a much easier life, I wouldn’t have had children.

Or I would just have had one child and be done.

Because having children is difficult, one of the most difficult things a person can do, and its a job we cannot quit, I explained.

If I had decided then to only have him, he wouldn’t know his 3 younger siblings whom he loves.

For perspective, we now have four children, and the journey to conceiving our youngest child was hard on me, emotionally and physically, me having suffered two miscarriages before having him.

We also explained how we pushed through university and even though I did really badly in physics when I was first exposed to it in secondary school, I grew to love the subject and value the knowledge and how physics was relevant to basically everything runs in our worlds.

We were trying to teach him was that we are capable to handle and do difficult things. And so did he.

And most things that are difficult at the start, become less difficult as time progresses because we get better, we get exposure and experience, and we expand our limits and are able to adapt.

That he would eventually meet that ‘more advanced’ version of himself in the future if he keeps at it.

I continued on by giving him the example of his videogames which he plays on his tablet or on his computer, SuperMario, Castle crashers or Mindcraft, Ori and the Blindforest, among a few, that if he had only stayed on playing at the lower levels, those that he now has mastered, it would always be easy for him.

But it would be less fun, boring even, and that progressing to higher levels meant better adventures, more demanding but more rewarding and satisfying once you have cleared it.

That difficult things can also be fun, after a while, once he overcame the initial hurdles.

And also, you wouldn’t want to just have the capacity for more, but be content to do less due to fear, lack of confidence or plain laziness.

He listened quietly, and I felt that he understood what we meant. He did not gave us his usual retorts that he sometimes adds in.

I hoped that bit by bit, with more conversations like this we were making our children better, more adaptable, more open to challenges and growth, and be less afraid.

Because my goal was always for our children to grow up to be better than their parents, than me, and to utilize their potential without being held back by fear.

This conversation was one of many that we have with our children, because change and growth take time, and we will have to be consistent and patient with them.

Finally a note of advise on the flipside, even to us as adults, we need to be careful and wary of which advise is taken to heart and allowed to influence us.

Because whatever decision we make, we are the ones who will have to live with it.

Some nights, though rare ( 3-4 times at least since he was born), he gave us 3 hours.

Parents will know how tough it can get in those early weeks of a newborn’s life.

And even though this is my fourth child and I have my 3 month long maternity leave, it is still challenging for me and my husband, getting through these days.

Especially when I’m alone with him, and not to mention I’m exclusively breastfeeding.

To be fair, it has been 6 years since I last did this, and I’m ‘older’ now.

Anyway, as he finishes his Day 45 of life, my mind has mapped out a simple wheel of needs for him and I think it can be useful as a quick guide during those days when parents are not at their best due to lack of sleep and recovery (for mothers), and our brains may not be working at its usual optimized condition.

I requested ChatGPT to make me a basic image of newborn baby needs with below prompt:

‘Make me a wheel of newborn baby needs with the factors including tired (time for nap), hungry, overstimulated, gassy (prepare for farts and burps/spit ups), wet nappy, discomfort (diaper rash, too hot, too cold) and the unknown or multi factorial causes yet to be revealed.’

Here it is.

It did such a great job creating the image, and more importantly, I saved time from drawing it out on my own.

Now I have a visual of what I had in my head.

And you can use it too, if you wish and if you think it helps.

That is if you are in my shoes being a parent to a new born and devoting the majority of your days , and nights, to keep them safe, healthy, and thriving.

And to keep our sanity in check while they grow into their own little baby person.

Before I end this post, a quick shout out to ‘sleep’.

I took you for granted, and I miss you. It’s so broken now, sleep that is, I so want a good 5–6 hour uninterrupted stretch of it.

And now off to bed I go for the night watch, just before midnight.

She had only announced it after dinner, having forgotten about it earlier when we got home, and it was already nearing her bedtime.

This is uncommon as her homework is usually completed in the after-school care center in the afternoons, and by the time we get her after work, she and her older brother would just need to prepare their school bags for the next day, have dinner and have the rest of the night to do as they wish, be it television, games or reading, before their bedtime at 9pm.

So today we had an extra task to attend to, and it being a weekday, we had to push off her bedtime to after her homework was completed.

I insisted that we have her finish it, thinking it would be good lesson for her to prioritize her schoolwork and to show her that consequences of not completing work would be that her free time at home are taken up too.

But not only that, I stayed by her side at the dining table while she did her schoolwork , until she finished it, accompanying her to give her a sense of motherly support.

She was initially teary-eyed when I found her sitting on the dining table with her work.

I told her mama was here with her, and I equipped her with ‘study / concentration’ music from my phone’s Spotify app.

A hair band to pull back her hair from getting in her eyes.

A cup of cold water ( I thought the cold would keep her energy up).

And a portable table lamp to give extra light over her papers to help with her concentration.

Plus, three sharp pencils, so she could immediately replace them once the one she was using became blunt. Speed, i assumed, was the contribution here.

Her lamp

Finally she wrote her last sentence.

And it was almost 11pm by the time she was done.

She packed her homework into her bag, and I gave her a goodnight hug and kissed her, and said good job on finishing her work.

We then brought her to her bedroom to sleep.

Why is this worth noting down in a blog entry.

That night I had put off other housework and my own leisure time to be with her, hoping she will remember that mummy was with her and that she was loved, supported and prioritized, and that academic responsibilities are not to be diminished.

We also did this for my 10 year old son, as he too neglected a school essay assignment a few nights ago. He did his work on his study table and I sat on his bed, folding clothes with his dad, both of us accompanying him.

It sounds like a small thing but I think that when children sees and understand that their parents are intentionally giving them the time, presence and the emphasis on their academic work, they too will feel loved and supported, and to see through that their schoolwork are done well.

I’m not a child psychologist but my motherly instincts figured that this will be good for their own mental health, on how to manage responsibilities and also on how to show love and support to their own family.

My hope is that they will grow from these small episodes in their life, and tired as I may be at the end of the workday, my kids are still the priority.

I walked down a flight of stairs hurriedly after a somewhat difficult work day from my 2nd-floor office to the ground floor. I usually take the stairs instead of the lift as it helps me process my thoughts better, and to be honest, also to avoid small talk with people I meet who work in the same building.

I had no issue with them, but being an introvert and one who can leak out my awkwardness and unfiltered honesty when I unconciously deactivated my work mode, well, it can be a little uncomfortable. Anyway, I had started to care less over the years, but that’s another story altogether.

Anyway I was feeling a little heavier that day as I mindlessly relied on the automated movements of my legs going down the stairs while I thought about the work topics that had arisen.

My hand slipped into my left pocket, and I felt two unfamiliar items.

One was a wrapped candy, something like those you view in Candy Crush app.

Another was a twenty-cent coin.

I then recalled the night before, my 6-year-old daughter was going through her little cylindrical coin box, and took out some money. She gave me twenty cents from her stash, told me she wanted me to have some of her money since all her money came from us, her parents. She said I can use it when needed.

My 8-year-old son later on gave me a candy he had gotten from school, and he had a few of them and shared one with me.

As it was a weekday night after work, I had accepted both tokens from my kids and slipped them into my pocket. It was about 8 pm, and I was still dressed in my work clothes and had yet to shower, usually rushing to prepare the kids for the next school day and bedtime before I took care of myself. This was routine for both my husband and me.

So I had hung up my workpants and showered, and worn them back the next day without taking those two items out.

And that day, as I reached in and found both ‘gifts’ from my kids, my heart warmed and I was reminded that my work was not all there was and that I had other things in life to care for, my family and kids. More important, permanent things other than my work.

It helped me compartmentalize my thoughts, and I decided to problem-solve the work issues on the side while I thought about going home for the day to my loved ones. My shoulders felt a little lighter by the time I walked out of the office building.

Work needs attention, yes, but they did not overwhelm me as much that day.

That night I went home, loved on my kids before bedtime, and thanked them again for the little items they had given me the day before.

We all need small reminders throughout the day, week or seasons in our life, on what our priorities are, and what we hold most dear.

Little did they know, but my kids’ small acts of love that week helped their mother mentally and gave her a little boost of energy and love.

“Mummy, I want to do it myself!”

Said my 4-year-old defiantly as she tried to squeeze toothpaste out from an almost empty tube in one hand, onto her toothbrush.

A few thoughts passed through my head at that moment.

If I had helped her, she would have lost the opportunity to learn to problem-solve the tasks at hand.
I also did not want to discourage her enthusiasm to learn and diminish her potential to be more independent.

She’s my youngest of three, and in a way, I’ve babied her a lot more than her older siblings, because in my eyes, I still viewed her as a toddler, and I wanted this era of her childhood to continue.

“Alright Emma, you do it” I said.

It definitely took longer than it should, usually, I would whip out the toothpaste, squeeze it for her and brushed her teeth. It was mainly due to time, we were usually back late after work and dinner, and bedtime routines sometimes needed to be rushed.

I watched her struggle to squeeze out a large pea-size amount and drag it over her tooth brush, she grinned when she succeeded, then passed me the toothpaste tube.

She then brushed her front teeth lightly, left and right, trying to do as how she observed her older sister does nightly. I let her do it on her own for a while, then I stepped in and said I would help her do a ‘second round’ of brushing.

She agreed to it, I think she knew too that she wasn’t ready to brush her teeth solo.

That night I tucked her into bed and gave her an extra long hug, followed by a rapid fire of kisses.

She was growing up, and I needed to give her opportunities to learn and adapt by herself. I reminded myself that I needed to hold back from doing everything for her, and let her grow some independence, for her benefit.

It may sound a bit dramatic as she was only four, but this applies to my six and eight year old as well.

Parenting is a constant journey of learning and growth, adapting to the needs of our children, and sometimes it requires us to take a step back and let them take their own steps when they yearn for it.

Same story different platform:https://medium.com/p/748a2a9d53a7

Sunday nights tend to be the busiest and hardest nights of the week for our family. It marks the start of the school and work week, and we usually have a home-cooked meal and then prepare the children for school, which includes their uniforms, homework, and school bags.

On top of that, we, too, needed to get ourselves mentally ready for another busy week ahead.

So I braced myself for a busy and potentially stressful evening with the children, without support from my husband.

I would be managing the children by myself that night.

Starting with dinner, I prepared chicken rice and added eggs and some leftover fried chicken from our lunch at McDonald’s that day. I couldn’t cook much as we had run out of cooking gas, and had to make do with the electric pressure cooker pot.

We sat down for dinner, and the kids were their rowdy selves, energetic and chatty. They took a while to settle down, and I sat between the two youngest while my son was seated across from me.

After saying our grace, I reminded them that their father was not home that night so I needed their help to ‘behave’ and to listen to their mum.

Because they outnumbered me three to one.

In hindsight, at that point I was already a little winded from rushing dinner and getting everyone to the table to sit, I may have sounded somewhat a cross between tired and bordering on annoyance at their lack of focus on their meals.

Interestingly, they seemed to understand what I said to them.

As dinner progressed they ate relatively well and placed their dishes into the sink after their meals. Sure, there were crumbs under the table and on the seat covers, but that could wait. I was on a schedule to get them to bed on time.

I hastily ordered them to bathe and brush their teeth before bedtime, leaving the unwashed dishes in the sink and the dining area uncleaned.

My 8-year-old boy was independent enough to perform these actions himself in a separate bathroom, so I focused on my younger girls instead. I took down the shampoo and body soap to a level the girls can reach, and to my surprise, my 6-year-old voiced out that she would bathe herself, so I let her. Meanwhile, I proceeded to help my 4-year-old brush her teeth for a second time, as she insisted on doing the first time herself too.

I was about to leave my girls in the bathroom to finish up their bath to help their brother with his school bag preparation. I made it a point every Sunday to check that his books were packed correctly for the school subjects in his schedule and that his pencils and stationaries were in order.

But I found out that he had taken care of it himself.

My eldest had also packed his daycare bag as well as his school bag, and had even sharpened his pencils by himself while I was with the girls.

He then wheeled his school bag to my bedroom where I was, passed me his school schedule, showed me he had packed according to all his subjects and his homework that was due tomorrow. I checked his sharpened pencils, and his wallet for money. After I gave my approval, he wheeled the bag to the front door, and also placed his filled water bottle inside it.

As I returned to my girls I found that my 6-year-old had dried herself and had taken out her own clothes from her closet to dress herself. Sure, she didn’t use the correct pajamas, she had taken a pair of shorts and a shirt that were clearly not suitable for sleeping in, but I let it slide. I towel-dried my 4 year old and then she too then wanted follow her sister, so I let her.

Not only that, I had asked my boy to help me vacuum the dining room, and he did without complaint, he took our Tineco vacuum out, and then proceeded to vacuum the crumbs off from the floor, as best as he could.

By 9 pm they were all in my son’s room, for a short storytime and then nighttime prayers. They asked about their father and I said he would be back later. I let my son send a voice message to him as he missed his dad. Then I took the girls back to their own room, tucked them in, did a whole routine of kissing and blanket flipping for them, and then I said good night too.

As I closed their room doors, I thought to myself at how much more independent and responsible they had been that night when their mother was alone.

As I washed the dishes, cleaned the tables, and took out the trash, I felt a sense of pride and joy at how they were that night.

They were more capable and empathetic than what I usually thought them to be.

I realized then that for many years, I always thought of them as babies, young kids that depended highly on me and my husband, and they required high amounts of patience, and energy from us to keep things in order, or anything from burning down.

But I hadn’t realized that they were growing up, and are growing still.

They were not the babies I kept thinking they were, though young as they are now.

I dare say, they were becoming like companions to me now, people who I can relate to, and make jokes and have chats with.

And that made me glad, and even a little less lonely, on night when my husband may be away.

I cherished this thought of them, and I love them so much, and I prayed that they would continue growing up well.

It was a big event for me as elementary school was not the same as the kindergarten he had been in during his earlier years.

To me, kindergarten was akin to a nursery where the kids learned via play activities, crafts, basic introduction to languages, and other studies, and the teachers there played dual roles as educators and also as babysitters.

Then in the year he was to turn 7, he started his formal education.

In elementary school, the teachers are no longer babysitters, the hours are longer, the classes are bigger with more students, academic performance is prioritized, and sometimes kids may even get bullied.

Hence a level of independence is expected as they go into this new school era.

So I was nervous for him, and anxious as the days drew nearer to his first day of elementary school.

The day arrived, and I took leave from work to be close to his school, in case he needed me.

His uniform looked oversized on him, we had bought a size or two larger on purpose, knowing he would grow into them.

Even his school bag was large on him, so we got him a trolley bag that he could pull, to reduce the weight of his new school books on his back.

We walked him to his school entrance, and let go of him as he went the rest of the way to his class, alone.

The weeks went by, and we somewhat normalized the new routine. In the morning we would send him to school first, then his sisters to kindergarten and a babysitter, and then the adults to work.

But even after a few months of him starting big boy school, I still have some amount of anxiety every time we drop him off at school early in the morning.

On a typical day, I would walk him to the school gate, I’d tell him I love him and he would enter and turn back to wave goodbye to me from inside. Then he walked to his class amidst a crowd of students and teachers surrounding him.

I will stay back a minute or two and continue to watch him from the school gates.

He was going to be on his own for the next ten and a half hours, as he would go to an after-school care center when school was dismissed. There he would stay until 5.30 pm, and we would only see him after work.

These are some of the thoughts that run through my head as I watch him walk towards his classroom.

“Will he make new friends today?

Does he have enough tissues to clean himself up after eating?

How about his nose, he had a tendency to get nosebleeds on occasion. I’ve put an extra face cloth in his bag in case he does.

What if he breaks his face mask straps, did I pack a spare in his bag?

Will he have a stomach ache in school from having milk in the morning?

Will he also then have enough tissues to use in the school toilets?

Will he get sleepy in class? He did sleep a little later last night.

It’s been very hot lately, I hope he has a fan over his seat, so he won’t sweat too much. Ah, good thing I packed that face cloth in his bag.

I hope he enjoys his school.”

Only after he disappears from view, would I turn back towards the car.

I had to let go and trust that he would be fine, and if not, we would receive a call from his teachers.

It sounds like a lot to process in a minute, and it could be due to him being my first baby to reach this milestone.

The rest of the day I would be occupied and distracted by work, till I came home after work to see him and his sisters at his grandparents’ home.

There I would hug him and find him alright, happy, and that he is on his way to being an independent kid.

Parenting is a balance of holding on and letting go.

I’ve heard this saying once, and it felt apt to be used now.

My 2 Steps Method On How To Avoid Feeling Self-Conscious In Public
Because really, no one cares how you look like while you’re walking down the street.medium.com

I can still remember those newborn days well. After putting them down for sleep, we would tip-toe out the rooms, and turn on their baby monitors. From then on, with every sound we heard from the rooms, we would quickly check on the monitors to see if they had awoken or if they were in any discomfort.

It gave us peace of mind as we could go about our day at home, knowing we could always check on them and be alerted when they needed us. We would even put the monitors in our pockets as we went around the house, its usage now akin to a pager for a doctor.

As the years went by our babies outgrew their cribs, and we started to co-sleep with them in our beds. They later transitioned to separate beds in our room, and eventually, they graduated to their own rooms.

We repeated this routine three times for each of our children.

It has been over 7 years since we bought these monitors when we had our firstborn child.

Our youngest is now three, and her older two sibling are five and seven years old respectively.

But up to today, we still use these baby monitors daily.

Why, you might ask.

The kids are grown, when they needed us they would come out of their rooms and find us. What use are these baby monitors to us now?

You see, we now have a reversal of the use case for these devices.

Now, it was not used only as a method for us to check up on our kids.

Instead, the children wanted us to keep it on at night, as though they still felt we were connected to them although we were in separate rooms.

Because the kids have grown to be aware that we can see and hear them from these monitors.

We can even speak to them through the monitors when needed.

They felt comforted by knowing that their mum and dad were keeping watch on them as they slept, apart from us in another room.

This helped with the transition of the kids into their own spaces, knowing that we were still ‘monitoring’ them.

My girls would always position it so that it faced them directly on their beds.

“Mummy, it is not facing me, please make the monitor face towards my bed please” my five-year-old girl would tell me as I tucked her into bed.

Eventually, one day, as they grow and get older, they will request us to remove these baby monitors from their rooms. When their own privacy is more important than the need to be close to us at night.

It’s a funny thought, how the roles of these devices changed over time.

Maybe in some ways, it gives me comfort too as a mother, who is also transitioning away from the years my children needed me the most, toward the years when they gain more independence from me.

Before this, we had been co-sleeping in the same bed since her birth.

First in her crib next to me, then eventually she shared our bed, sleeping between my husband and myself when she neared her 1-year birthday.

It was my choice to keep her close to me, one reason was for the ease of nursing her at night, which I had continued till a few months before she turned two.

But honestly, it was also because I wanted her physically near me. I loved cuddling her warm little sleeping body at night.

Then this happened.

I told myself that she probably felt that her mummy was no longer needed at night to soothe her.

So this is it, I thought.

The last bit of my children’s baby era was ending, the co-sleeping was the final part of their dependency on me for the past six and a half years of my life since my eldest was born.

All 3 of my babies had eventually grown up and now needed me less.

I had felt this way when I weaned her from nursing a year ago, and a similar feeling is felt now as we end the bed-sharing era of our relationship.

Looking back, we could have made this transition for her earlier as she had begun sleeping through the night a few months after she turned one, and we were already getting decent sleep by then.

Still, I wanted her with me and reasoned with my husband that since she was probably our last child, we should take our time with her before moving her out.

A part of me didn’t want to let go of my attachment to her at night.

While most mothers look forward to the day they get their independence from a needy toddler, mine was bittersweet.

On the plus side, since we got our bedroom back, my husband and I had regained more of our intimacy without her sleeping in between us.

Back to the day that she moved out, that night I cuddled her pillow to smell her scent on it and checked on her occasionally through the baby monitor, as she settled to sleep on her sister’s bed after some tussle with her sibling.

You’re being so sentimental, I told myself.

Maybe she will want to sleep with me tomorrow night? I thought.

But it was permanent.

She took the transition well and was happy to be sleeping with her siblings at night.

The only time she slept back with us again was a few months later when she was sick, and I wanted to be near her to monitor her fever at night.

That being said, we still have nights when the kids come over to our room after a bad dream or thunderstorms, or when they just needed us emotionally.

Our king-size bed then had to fit three, four, or even up to five of us.

To the mothers who are struggling with nighttime sleep with your baby or toddler, just hold on.

That day will come when you get your nighttime independence again. Some sooner than others.

I too have since moved on.

But on those nights when she creeps back into bed with me, I snuggle her as much as possible and savor the feeling of her warm soft cheeks and hair against mine.

In the dimly lighted bedroom, I see the outline of my 2-year-old daughter’s body sleeping in the middle of my bed.

I slip into bed quietly next to her and cover her with her small orange blanket that she had kicked off in her sleep earlier.

Then I proceed to take in a deep breath of her head and give her a kiss on the cheek or on her closed eyes.

And I immediately feel calmer and gain a little sense of happiness and gratitude.

I still do this to this day, every night, and it is my little ‘drug’ of choice.

Yes, I still co-sleep with my 2-year-old daughter.

As she is the youngest child, I do tend to dote on her more compared to the older kids.

It wasn’t the same for them, when they were 2 years old they were already sleeping in separate rooms from me and my husband.

But for my youngest, we didn’t rush it. We will take the time to transition her to her own bed. The plan is for her to share a bedroom with her 4-year-old sister eventually.

Also, deep down a part of me still wants her by my side at night, cuddling her in the cold of the night and pressing her sleepy head against my cheeks.

And if she does wake in the middle of the night for any reason, she will crawl over to be by my side and falls back asleep in my arms.

My mummy heart loves this, that she still needs me so for comfort.

Maybe it’s hard for me to let go of the years my babies needed me so much. I’ve said it before, that it feels like the end of an era is coming.

I will definitely feel the loss when my youngest starts to sleep apart from me, and that day is not too far.

For now, I cherish the ability to have her in my arms at night.

And whenever I smell her and cuddle her before I sleep, it comforts me back in return and centers my mind, especially after a long day at work or after going through whatever stress I may have in that season.

So I’ll keep my little innocent ‘drug’ with me a little longer.

Anyway, she’s not complaining about it either.