To Xuan,

Daddy has the following as his status in MSN.

“Life feels so complete with Megan”

Love, Mama

P.S. Ditto

媽媽的寶貝﹐生日快樂﹗這一年來﹐看著你健康的長大是媽媽的快樂與幸福。我懇切的希望我不會像外婆一樣那麼早離開﹐能夠一直陪在你身邊直到你能獨立為止。媽媽愛你。

First entries into his portfolio…

He has started building his portfolio to be able to take up part-time work assignments on photographing babies and children. I’m actually quite excited about the idea, especially after seeing a few shots that he took yesterday.

The market is saturated with free lance photographers. But I think he will do a good job. His work is much better than some of the folks I know.  I just hope that by doing it professionally, it won’t take away the joy he has in taking photos.

While standing in line waiting for my turn to wash the milk bottles, saw a colleague rinse out her lunch box, didn’t bother to clear the sink of the rice, tore some paper and started wiping the box dry.

Started wondering. Too lazy so bringing it home to wash? Or, that’s considered clean and can be used again?

One of my relatives decided that her family cannot afford any more chemicals in their lives and need to go environment friendly, so she threw out all the dish washing detergent. When she does her dishes, she uses a piece of kitchen towel, wipe off the food on the plate, run water over it, then dry it up with another towel. Ever since I saw her doing that, I always cook up excuses to avoid eating at her house when we are back home.

Do we have to go to such extreme to care for our health and be environmentally friendly? It’s definitely not for me.

don’t mess with me when I’m with xuan. I proved that I can bite someone’s head off if he or she threatened the well being of my kid. For someone who never publicly expressed anger, I surprised myself as well.

Xuan has the ability to attract attention. She waves, smiles and makes noises at strangers. Usually ill just try to politely position myself so that hands won’t start trying to touch her face or hands or feet. Unfortunately I only succeed about 75 percent of the time. The rest of the 25, ill get rather upset and complain.

In this particular occasion, she was trying to charm everyone in the eatery while we ate. A man who was clearly mentally unwell came over trying to snatch her from my sister. I didn’t finish my food, stood up, took her into my arms and made my way to the door. He followed and continued to insist that he want to carry the baby. I spun around, looked at him and said loudly, “No” and stormed out leaving a lot of people staring at me. I was ready to fight him if need be.

Had to fend off another mentally ill lady at a convenience store as well. my sister was nicely telling her not to touch the baby otherwise she will cry. I’m not as kind, I immediately put myself in between to discourage her. I was also staring at her till she left.

Am doing all the things that ill shun previously for my daughter’s sake. I hope when she grows up slightly, she will stop trying to be friendly to everyone.

My helper brought home a mattress from the rubbish dump downstairs. She intend to send it back home and gleefully told us that it looks really brand new!

Matt was terribly unhappy about it ‘cos he is worried about bringing germs into the house. I agree. She looked really down when he told her to get rid of it.

Other than germs, I was letting my imagination go a little wild. Thinking of all the possibilities of someone wanting to dump a brand new mattress. And one of them could be that it belong to someone who passed away. Gives me the creeps.  But I didn’t tell her all these, just told her to quickly send it back home since she seems to want it quite badly.

Day 1 of not having dinner. Feeling very angry and down. Wonder how long I can keep this up.

…know that you are getting older?

• When you step into a karaoke and realised you know none of the songs in the booklet.
• You look like an idiot when you forgot that you pinned your daughter’s hair clip in your hair to prevent it from getting misplaced.

I lost the weight I gained during pregnancy at one point in time but have regained all again now. Yes, I am close to 20kg heavier than I was when I got married. And though I mentally prepared myself for comments, but when they really came, I feel very depressed.

My sister tried her best to wink or subtly hint to my relatives not to harp on my weight. But still, almost everyone had something to say. One went “Oh! You really look like a “MOM” now.” Another gave me advice on not taking too much carbohydrates at night and do more exercise. Another said I inherited the “Chen” genes and grew round just like my mother did after giving birth (my poor mommy). The comments just kept coming.

My father is the worst of the lot. I’m not sure whether it is because of breast feeding but I’m always very hungry during meal times. I don’t leave the dining table till I am satisfied and feel full. That means gobbling down almost double the amount of what others eat. And I realise milk supply will increase if I ate more. So I haven’t been very keen on not eating because it means lower milk supply. I told my dad so and he said I should stop breast feeding since my baby is now close to a year old and should start STARVING myself. He even commented hours ago at dinner that my baby is too fat and I should feed her less. If you think he is joking, then think again. He is damn serious about it.

What’s wrong with this society nowadays? Advertisement on slimming products and pills run nonstop on tv in Taiwan. The girls on the streets look ”perfect” with no fats hanging out at all. And once at a eatery, we overheard a mother telling her young daughter who is probably only about 7 or 8, that she should not eat too much because she is growing fat. She rationed out 2 meal balls and a few spoons of rice out into a bowl for her kid for dinner. My sister and I looked at each other speechless.

I’ve battled with weight issues since young. I hope my daughter doesn’t go through the same growing up pains as I did. And I seriously wish people will shut up about my weight, be it good intentions or bad. Nowadays I retaliate or will tell the person off. Or way before meeting up, I’ll tell my friends not to tell me that I’ve put on because I know it. It’s pretty obvious. Sometimes some people just wont’ shut up or will tell me that I’m over-reacting.

I have been jogging on the treadmill once every week. I know it isn’t enough but I feel very stressed whenever I think of my baby waiting for me at home so I can only allow myself to do it once. If I visit the gym after work, it means getting home only at 10pm.

Sigh. Looks like if I want to keep myself sane, I need to do something about my weight. And the only way to do it now is to curb my appetite. Hope it works.