Boys mature slower than girls. This is quite evident; individual personalities and characters aside.

When Hot Mummee was pregnant the first time, I had quietly wished that our first one would a boy. This isn’t a tightly-held preference, just thought it’d be good to have a big brother to the rest of the brood. Of course when Caitlin was born, I love her just the same.

And as she grew, we’ve been enjoying her growing years and all the usual toddler antics that you know comes with children. A lot of fun and treasured memories there

Now that we have Caleb with us too, and with the 3 year gap, I find myself quite often comparing the kids. Not in bad ways of why-cant’-you-be-like-Caitlin complaints, just the wonders-of-human and how everyone is different types of observations.

Most recent of these are how when Caitlin was Caleb’s age now, she was already very independent. I had modified her cot so that she was already getting in and out of her “bed” by herself- how I enjoyed watching her little cute toddler body climb limb over one another in her mini pyjamas with the bed. She was also toilet trained very early. I remember giving her praises in the mornings when I changed her to find her diapers dry. These days I am still reprimanding Caleb when he pees in his pants. I do sing praises too when he urgently tells me he needs to pee, and, while on the toilet seat he would exclaim “No piak-piak right dad?” (No spanking right dad?)

So with Caitlin- girls, generally growing faster, I find myself noting that even with the 3 year gap that it is beyond that “measure” in terms of the gap between these 2 monkeys: That they are more than 3 years apart in terms of intellect, skills, maturity, etc. Though I correct myself in that Caleb is a lot more advanced even for his own age with his motor skills in the sports department. He’s still a happy-go-lucky kid while his jie-jie has already entered the age of moodiness. She is also starting to enjoy older things, sometimes citing “so booriiing” statements typical of older kids on younger ones.

So then I started wondering what things would be like if indeed we had a boy first, and then a girl. Would the “gap” be smaller than 3 years, in terms of their maturity? Would they actually get along better than present differences, because they are possibly closer in maturity levels?

You feed the 2 year old a mouthful. And he keeps it there. No movement, no chewing, no swallowing. It’s J U S T T H E R E in his mouth. Take away his entertainment (which is usually a DVD of Bee Movie or Ice Age or some such) and he’d start bawling, mouth agape, effectively showing you the contents or objects in discussion here.

What the hell do we do?? He won’t chew, or (I think more accurately) forgets to chew. Threaten to take away the uneaten portions and he objects verbally and very audibly. Put it back, 5 seconds later, it’s back to forget-to-chew. He’s probably already no longer hungry, else he’d be chowing down the food. But he still has to finish up the food cos, well, it’s prepared, and he just has to finish it!

But wait a second: I think I used to to it to my mum way after 2 years old, else I wouldn’t be able to recall it. Does that mean that Caleb will be doing this for more years to come??

Not that we minded the idea. Back then we only loathed about what the likely quality of basic amenities would be like. After all, there were stories of toilets with no doors, toilets with no toilets but a hole in the ground. Somehow it never eventuated.

Through the years, the kids (my nephews and nieces) grew, and my parents have also continued keeping in contact with his relatives (well, they are mine too). They too have made visit(s?) here (but I was away studying/living in Adelaide at the time). A recent idea my dad had was to contribute toward a memorial of his ancestors, to keep the roots alive.

Recently, that idea came to fruition. And what better timing to also time the visit to the completed site with bringing the family there as well.

We had spent the week leading to, and including Christmas Day 2009, in Xiamen China. Xiamen city is only about 2-3 hours bus ride to the village, so it isn’t like a real trek too deep into China (please mind my poor knowledge of Chinese geography). That has worked out quite well all this time for my parents, making it easy for them to visit our relatives all these years.

My dad organised a tour group for this visit- which was actually just us, the whole 29 of us! It was a fun time for all as there were no outsiders and we were as our usual silly-carefree selves

I can’t say there was a sense of belonging, personally. After all, we were all born in and grew up in Malaysia. As a father I reckon my dad feels some form of achievement in finally bringing his own children together to see his birthplace, to see where we are from, his and our roots, connect with some distant blood relatives, and his contribution back to the community when he left with his father to seek, and found, a better life in distant shores. He had done well for himself with very humble beginnings, and by extension my generation (and later) are now a lot better off comparatively.

Take away the brick houses beside and behind this structure, and you have the house in which my father was born.

My grandfather built this house in the ’60′s apparently after the ethnic unrest in Indonesia, fearing the same for Malaya/Malaysia, with intention to bring everyone back to China to live in this bigger house.

This is (almost) everyone, infront of the “shrine” cum community hall that my dad funded and built

For Caitlin, at 5 years old I don’t think this will be a lasting impression. Ideologies of family ties is too mature for her. She will remember the some of the places we visited, and the fun with the cousins. She probably won’t remember how cold it was; she may remember what she wore; but she’s worn that same jacket before elsewhere.

One thing I’ve been saying to people who asked what I thought about my first visit to China is: “We were on the bus, driving through very long tunnels, to emerge to drive on long bridges.” I was rather awed by the landscape- it’s one thing to read about it and watch it on tv, but it’s another to see the natural landscape: mountains and valleys. Also, the technology deployed in this developing country is actually also more advanced than Malaysia. Tunnels bored through these mountains; long tunnels, and impressive world class bridges to carry you further. The highways are also multi-tiered, criss-crossing each other at higher and higher levels.

It is a big big country, there are uneven developments everywhere. I personally only saw 3 beggars on the street, only in Xiamen city; 2 of whom are disabled, the 3rd looked able-bodied but with a toddler probably 2-3 years old.

More pictures here:

• My brother’s photo collection on flickr
• Mine

Luckily for everyone, Caleb actually likes to push from behind. But it won’t be long though, before he’d be wanting to ride.

Yes, they were still in their jammies. It’s Sunday okay- give us parents a break!

Evening came and it was time to get ready for bed.

Caleb can express his hunger quite audibly / comprehensibly now, by telling us “nan-nan”.

As you can see he’s quite comfortable on the beanbag. Quite a relief for all of us, since we don’t always have to be watching him when he feeds now.

Caitlin, on the other hand, was being rather cheeky about bedtime. Calls to her to go clean her teeth went unanswered.

We found her like this.

Now that’s one way of getting out of doing something. I gotta try that with Hot Mummee one day….

I mean a good laugh, you know the type that makes you laugh heartily, not the I am only entertaining or humoring you laugh.

It was in the evening, after dinner but before bedtime- I can still see it in my head. I was seated across her, she was in her blue short sleeved jammies, somewhat looking up at me, from her schoolbook homework; pretty sure she had a pencil in her hand.

She said the punchline. I found it really funny, and laughed longer and harder than usual.

She wasn’t conscious of herself like I thought she would, now that I think about it in retrospect. In the past she’d get somewhat self-conscious and demanded “Why you funny at me??” to which I often try to explain to her the difference between laughing at you, and laughing with you. I think she got this idea from possibly being teased at school, but not something or at a level that we should be concerned about.

So she laughed along. I think it was initially because she too thought it was a funny punchline, not going the “Why you funny at me” path; and then I think she kinda realised that Daddee was enjoying the joke, and joined in the hearty laugh.

I can still see it: In her blue jammies, the all teeth squinty eyed giggly hee-hee and occasionally mouth agape haha laugh.

Don’t ask me what it was that made us both laugh. I honestly cannot remember! The next morning I asked her, in the car on the way to school, and she too cannot remember!

But it was something else for me. It signaled that she is growing, that it wasn’t just simple things that made her laugh anymore; no, indeed it wasn’t what made her laugh but what she had said that made me laugh like I did.

Call it chicken, call it because-my-hair-is-thinning. It’s because the shape of my head will only make me look (more) silly.

But my son sports it well- the second time proves it wasn’t a fluke

Sigh… Yes- That is drool on his chin…

She’s still got some audible phlegm in her throat, though she isn’t coughing anymore, it’s still there. Apparently she had also promised Teacher Rachel a show-and-tell of her collection of fridge magnets from home. She told me of this on Thursday night when I was tucking her in.

That morning I made the mistake of reminding her that it’s swimming day. All psyched up, she had been carrying her plastic bag of swim gear all morning wherever she was whilst getting ready. HM reminded me of her still-present phlegm, that we should wait for another week before she is allowed back in the pool (the last time I forgot, her cough came back in full force after a swim with Daddee; and we know how easily she pukes when she gets into a coughing fit).

I told her “no, can’t go swimming; wait for another week”. She wouldn’t have it. Repeated Elmer Fudd vs Bugs Bunny of yes no yes no only aggravated the respective individual emotions of our positions. Of course being the Daddee I managed to almost wrestle the bag off her. Okay I did it as gently as I could.

We were already in the car, basement of our building. Every morning we’d be lugging not just our respective bags; there is also Caleb’s gear for the day, some washing to be done, and Caleb himself aided by our helper. Settled in, buckling our seatbelts, feeling pretty shitty about the whole ordeal already, and she says, between the teary jerks of breaths, “DADDEE WE FORGOT THE MAGNETS!!”

There were really 3 options to handle this: (1) Go upstairs alone. That would be the quickest. But that also means leaving them alone in the car in the basement- toddler, 14 month old, a foreigner; (2) All go up together. Safest option. But taking the longest, making us late for school and work. (3) Fuggedaboutit.

I declared option (3). Caitlin goes into a wailing fit. Feet kicking, top of voice crying protesting she wants to go back upstairs to get the magnets, why wasn’t I listening to her.

I respect that she wants to honour her promise to Teacher Rachel. She was even looking forward to this- I could tell. But either (1) or (2) would mean we’d both be late. I even twisted the argument back at her; not a very nice thing to practise on a toddler I admit; that she didn’t listen to me either that morning when we said no to swimming, that she didn’t listen to us.

I felt bad about her not able to indulge in a simple swimming activity. It didn’t rain that day and the swim session did go ahead. She would, like before, have to remain in class hearing all the cheers and splashes downstairs.

But I felt worse that I couldn’t let her carry out her simple request of going back upstairs to get the magnets. This wasn’t something bad at all. For the longest time I had been instilling in her to honour her word/promise, and this was one example- that she wanted to show the magnets as promised. I was consoling / coaching her to say to Teacher Rachel that she is sorry she forgot to bring the magnets, but that she would be late if she/we turned around to go get them, that she didn’t want to be late, and that she would bring them on Monday instead.

In some ways I was also just lazy.

But what would you have done?

And being the cheeky uncle that I am, during times of emailing and IM-ing with her I pressured her highlighting things like “Are we on schedule?”, “You do realise that it’s now only seven days till the event”, when we (she) still hadn’t settled on which doorgifts would be best for the occassion / guests, let alone allowing time for the suppliers to come back with a quote and also getting them made!

She’s been frantically visiting the venue, executing the questions we had about where and how the tables will be arranged, sorting the seating by guests, getting her team (of cousins) to memorise the tables to help ushering, where to position the tv / screen (we have a slideshow of photos of last 50+ years), compiling the photos, “do they have wireless mics”, “this doorgift is better than that”, and getting her surprise gift completed, etc.

Yes, she’s done a surprise gift too.

At this juncture, from my own observations I’d say she has experienced at least some of these emotions!

• Some small forms of accomplishment (getting things in order for the event)
• Asking for favours
• Asking authorities (her older relatives) to stick to deadlines!
• Gratitude
• Controlling some (anxiety-related) emotions
• Pressured!
• Can’t please everyone!
• Panic!

Pretty good training just before heading off to uni!

Will let you know how the event goes!

Photos courtesy of my brother’s Flickr collection

It is my parents’ 50th anniversary this year, and also a joint celebration for my mum’s birthday.

But my dad doesn’t want people to know these.

He is kinda shy about it, you see.

Also, both my parents just want friends and family to come empty handed. That’s right. No gifts, no ang pows.

They have insisted that the dinner event, some 18 tables I hear, to just be a sit-down happy joy joy dinner with close friends and relatives. No stage, no mics, no hoo-ha.

But the grandkids are up to something…..

Some parts of their grand-plan are finalised, others still need the Committee’s approval and budgetary sign-offs

* Photo courtesy of my brother’s Flickr site

• Change his diapers
• Wipe the poo, wash the bits
• Wash her up after she does both numbers 1 and 2
• Dress her, in her uniform or casual clothes after a shower
• Shower her: shampoo hair and lather body
• Make milk
• Brush her teeth
• Put her to bed: lie with her, chat with her, sneak out when she’s asleep
• Brush and tie her hair in a simple ponytail
• Wished I knew how to braid her hair

Huh? What the??

That last point: Knowing how to braid hair- Does it make me less of a man??

Write about your conceptions about being a dad BEFORE you become and what happened after you become a dad? How have you changed from being dad of one to a dad of two?

Better go get a coffee first- it’s going to be a long post!

Given I am quite passionate about this, I am going to break it up into two posts of distinct experiences with the two kids.

I did always want to have kids- I wanted three but Hot Mummee only wanted one. So we compromised.

I am the youngest in my family, which means there have been nieces and nephews since I was in my mid-teens. I played with them, interacted with them, and at times, was proud of them too- some of their remarks were so amazing that I found myself repeating them to my single guy-friends too.

But that was all I “did” for them. I didn’t participate in changing or feeding them. I did also cringe at their crying fits; one of them was a rather “difficult” baby in that she just cried all the time, the vein-popping type of cry (neighbours came around offering herbal ailments to soothe her, a la your baby is driving us raving mad).

Though I didn’t participate all that much as an uncle, I did have a rough idea of what it would entail: The scheduled jabs, the endless bottle-sterilising, being grounded, endless shopping for diapers and baby formula, endless washing of cloth diapers, sneaking around sleeping babies, deciding if a runny nose was life threatening… I just wasn’t full-on hands-on with most of them. There were also the gambles: The pregnancy’s success (a sister in law had a miscarriage, but has 3 subsequent teens now), healthy baby, character, nature, and traits of the baby (angel or devil), etc.

When we were expecting Caitlin, I was excited. But not the Hollywood-type OHMYGAWDIAMGOINGTOBEAFATHER excitement. It was gradual. I was also somewhat hoping for a boy, since boys can be the big-brother to a younger brother or sister. But I was happy either way nonetheless for a first child.

And there was a lot of planning, spread out to weekends; mainly on Hot Mummee’s side, cos she and her mum are the bargain-hunter type, and thus were on the lookout for baby furniture, rubber changing mats, cleaning aides, sterilisers, bottles, etc. On these trips I merely tagged along, was the chauffeur and concierge, not having much opinion about this or that product; except where it came to gadgets like baby monitors, cot ergonomics, etc. Till today mum inlaw still bargain-hunts for diapers, for Caleb’s use.

I guess I was mentally prepared, but wasn’t in the mode of making plans yet such as which school, what insurance; only insofar as where the cot was going to be.

For me, the emotionally high point was Caitlin’s birth. The whole ordeal deserves another long post by itself, but the highlight for me was my own involuntary thought that popped into my head right at birth; more specifically, when they had just towelled her off.

I am not the weak-stomach type. Hot Mummee’s labour was pretty bad, and as much as she wanted a completely natural birth, as much as she is a determined lady, and as high as her threshold for pain is, she needed an epidural.

When time came for Caitlin to greet the world, I opted to stand at the end of the bed, peering over the shoulders of the nurses and Dr Wong. Because I wanted to see this in real life, but mainly I felt I needed to watch this, as a father to my child.

Hot Mummee later shared with me that it was very helpful that I stood where I did. With the epidural, she didn’t know what she was doing or whether she was doing it right. My expressions, and I guess my occasional two thumbs-up, were good indications of the progress!

So, what popped into my head?

Kid, I am going to (try and) be your best friend.

Since my teens and witnessing how my elders interacted with their kids, I started forming an opinion that kids ought to be spoken to in an almost-adult manner. It’s fine to use baby talk once a while, but it should be kept to a minimum. And as soon as they begin comprehending the need to comprehend their universe, to start giving them as-straight-as-possible answers. I will admit I dodge the evils-of-the-world type of question, only to offer “it’s because they are naughty and didn’t listen to their parents”, or that violence on TV “is just acting for the camera”, for now- real violence on the news is a matter for an older age. Caitlin understands this last concept as I replay some of our home movies, and she recalls “acting” for the camera, that it’s not real.

From this, I intend to befriend my kids. I will still scold and spank if necessary, but I want to use a participatory-but-guide style on them, rather than I am dad and you shall listen with no reasoning. Firstly because I think that is just naturally my style, and secondly I want them to come to me with their issues and concerns, and not rely too much on their (school or whatever) peers. This way, at least I get to know what is going on with their lives, to some extent.

All this is, of course, only in the last 4 years or so, counting when we started expecting our first child, the nine months of preparations, and the 3.5 years since. And, as much as I can, I will also make her childhood as fun as possible, without compromising on teaching values and ethics.

Is it what I had expected it to be?

I guess more or less. I knew, in theory, what to expect and there were no real surprises. But in practise, the mental and physical efforts is another matter. The sleepless nights, Caitlin’s unique knack for vomitting, alertness for their safety, the answers to ever-curious toddler’s questions that need careful crafting, nursing their illness.

The pluses are also many: Choosing a name, the first steps, the first words (thus the name of this blog!), the intellectual interactions and bonding, the hugs for Daddee simply because.

Expectations of how Hot Mummee is as a mum, however, is another matter!

So, since there are a few dads that I regularly catch up with in this blogosphere, it would be great to hear the different (or the same?) perspectives from you guys too.

Thanks Lia for this topic idea! I shall follow up soon with part two: Becoming a Dad the second time.