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With Lucas’ Papa being in China, I feel like I’m a single Mum for the past 2 months. My respect to the real single Mums as I can only marvel at their ability to work, care for their kids, run the household and take care of themselves all at one go! I’ve got to thank my Mum and my family for their first-class support or I’d be a truly headless chicken without them.

Hand, foot, mouth
The little outbreak caused quite an upset to my routine since we didn’t plan on keeping Lucas longer than needed at my Mum’s place when the kids had flu. But when one after another, to a total of 4 kids, had HFMD, Mum put her foot down and said to keep him at home until the virus cleared up. I agreed with her esp after reading up about the pain that goes with it. Meanwhile, Lucas is enjoying his kingdom at Grandma’s and giving Grandpa his daily exercise of running after him.

A house hunting we will go
We’re still in search of a home away from home. As I’d mentioned in my previous post, nice apartments are seriously snapped up in seconds. Come late October, if we still can’t find the one we like, we may have to settle for ones that are available. And settle here means for a whole year (per their leasing standards)!

Errands, errands everywhere
When hubby was around, I used to grumble that he didn’t do enough to help and his reply was, “There are a million things that I do to keep things running but you don’t see it.” Being the Taurean XX species that I am, I refused to acknowledge this until now. I’ve had to pay bills (water, electricity, Streamyx, telephone, cellphone, maintenance, credit card etc), buy/chuck groceries, clear the house, cook Lucas’ meals and sometimes our own instead of eating out.

My sister has been a big help and has had the “benefit” of seeing the business of running a home with a kid. Lucas and I enjoy her company especially as I had moved out of my parents’ home many years ago – this gives us the chance to know each other better. I think Lucas will miss her a lot because she reads and plays very well with him. Sigh…he’ll only have his fierce and strict Mummy for company December onwards!

The working world wreaks havoc
It’s extremely difficult to slow down or even take leave in my industry as operations are client-driven, opportunity-operated and time-sensitive. I could handle the fast pace, multi-tasking, frequent travel and around-the-clock demands when it was just hubby and me. With Lucas in the picture, it’s very difficult and I know a lot of working mums share my situation (or even worse).

As we try our best to fulfill work demands and spend time with him, we really need to plan our time and focus on priorities. With hubby around, we had established a routine that worked well for all of us.

With hubby away, I’ve had to take on 100% of the load of fetching/dropping Lucas, getting dinner, preparing him for bed, getting him ready in the morning and catching up with work at night. While my family helped where they could, I was still his Mom and only Moms can understand the 1001 things we need to think of and do everyday ;-)

At work, a high turnover and bureaucratic hiring process made matters worse with my having to take on tasks of my departing staff. I didn’t have a problem switching priorities but I did have an issue with people who don’t appreciate the new situation and expect business as usual. The story is probably the same everywhere so I’ll not crank this up here.

Mummy’s meltdown
Of course, no human could possibly be a one-man or one-woman show for long without crashing at some point. I crashed one day with a major migraine. I’ve never had one before but I know it was bad as it was a huge headache with nausea (“1st trimester!” neon signs flashed in my brain) that I had to leave midway to see the doctor.

We were worried if it was a brain tumour (especially as a couple of writers I work with reportedly had their own similar scares) but that was ruled out after some questions. I was blessed with a friendly, methodical GP who also had a good sense of humour. He took the opportunity to champion the Husbands Unappreciated Because of Baby cause during his session with me!

He told me to take hold of the stress factors especially as my old friend, gastritis, is back in town. Knowing my history of hyperthyroidism, I’m pacing myself now and am taking firm breaks to have my meals regularly and also fit in exercise where I can. I’m encouraging all Mums to do the same ya!

The second coming
I’ve been thinking about having a second one while I’m a SWAHM but was advised by people to at least settle down a year in China before doing this. The more I think about it, it feels better if the second one could arrive next year before Lucas enrolls in playgroup or nursery. I don’t know if I can cope with the stress of introducing him to school and handling a newborn at the same time! We’ll do our best ;-) and see what God decides.

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