The Evolution of Parenthood: Cheoklet Evaluated

Karen Cheng recently put up a post on her blog, listing the different reactions of parents to their 1st, 2nd and 3rd kids. I laughed, blinked twice, winced a little and realised I'm really not a typical parent.

Your Clothes
I wore my regular clothes for as long as possible. 90% of my maternity clothes were hand me downs, and were in extremely good condition I might add.

The Baby's Name
Derod and I spent more time laughing and mulling over what we should not name our baby (his surname is Tan and various combinations could well be suicidal to the kiddo). Otherwise, I did the usual flipping of the baby-names book. I'm normal here.

Preparing for the Birth
I didn't practise breathing but the hee-hee-has came in real handy during the terrible 20 hours without epidural. I'd wanted to go all natural but to do so with a 35-hour labour is just nuts. I'll still want to try to go all natural if #2 comes along.

The Layette
I'm a combination of all three as a first time parent! But I did them in this order: I checked that all the clothes (new and hand-me-downs) are clean, pre-washed them and folded them neatly in the new set of drawers we bought from Ikea. I didn't sift out the pinks; I didn't get any pinks. In fact, my mother had to resift the clothes to pick out those with stains. I didn't see any problems with stains back then, but now I do *grin*.

Pacifier
This applies to toys gabe chews on too. I'm a combination of #2 and #3, except it's water I use instead of juice. But if the floor's really dirty, like in the hawker centre, it gets a rinse under the tap.

Diapering
Gabe gets changed once he was wet, when he was on cloth diapers. That's cos he'd scream the house down if it is not done immediately. But once the confinement lady left and he was switched to disposable diapers, it was changed every three hours except for poo poo incidents. Now, hmmm... I'm kinda between 4-5 hours and being description #3.

Worries
We're sooooo NOT #1. We've been given glares and uncomfortable, subtle urms and ahhs when people learn that we allow gabe to cry himself to sleep or not pick him up at his first sign of breaking into tears. This, of course, does not include times when he hurts himself. Then again, when he gets minor knocks which I know he's crying more for attention rather than in pain, I'll sit near him and tell him I'm here, come to me, instead of going over to carry him. If he really wants some comfort, he'll crawl over for some TLC. Otherwise, he'll stop crying and continue with his play.

Activities
I take him to the supermarket, shopping centres, restaurants, homes of friends, on the MRT, the bus and in taxis. No baby programmes in the agenda! We do daily walks (gabe in stroller) and swimming when we can. Am I a terrible mother?!

Going Out
I called home maybe 2 times? I think my mother (the sitter) calls me more often than I call her.

At Home
I think I didn't stare at gabe enough when he was younger... I think I'm more observant now. Derod used to be the one to notice things even when I'm the one at gabe's side 24/7.


Verdict: I think I'm highly abnormal...