Chubs

Isaac got his 6-in-1 jab last Friday and it was a family affair. The Mrs and I took our first ever child care leave and my parents came along too.

Actually he was scheduled to have the jab when he turned 3 months old but according to Dr B, it is alright to leave it to slightly later. Her reasoning was, this way he will be a happier and stronger baby too.

So we decided to bring him in when at 3 and half months and we did it on a Friday so that in case he does not feel well for the next day or 2 at least it was the weekend and we can care for him ourselves.

Throughout the morning I have been preparing him for the jab, telling him he must be a brave boy and will use my index finger to poke him in the arm as if he was getting a jab. This goes to show that I was in fact an inexperience dad because it was only in the consultation room that I learned he will be jabbed in his thigh and not his arm. So much for preparing him huh?!?!

While waiting he got hungry but we decided to hold off his feeding because according to the nurses there were babies who got distracted by the feeding and it helped a great deal when they were jabbed. So we decided to wait till he was about to be jabbed before we fed him.

Isaac was oblivious to the children around him and was pretty cranky as his turn drew nearer but do not mistaken as it was due to his hunger rather than the anxiousness for the jab.

Finally it was his turn and the first thing Dr B said when she saw him was "Wa! Chubby eh?!" The Mrs and I were like "Huh?! Chubby?! Really?!" I think she saw other expressions because she went on to explain that he is on the chubbier side but he's not like fat or anything.

You must be wondering Isaac's weight right? Well, let me tell you, he weighed in at an impressive .................. 6.25kg only!! Actually this is pretty normal for a 3.5 month old baby right?

So while the nurse was preparing the concoction I started to feed him. Oh I forgot to mention that the Mrs had already ruled herself out of holding him during the jab. It was the same with the blood test for the jaundice months ago. Soon the nurses came in with the syringe and needle.

What happened next I believe will remain very vivid for many many moons to come! One moment he was all innocent and drinking his milk happily and when the needle went in, I swear I could feel his muscle contract, his face went all red, his mouth opened really wide to release the milk bottle and the loudest wail came next. I could have sworn the patients in Gleneagles heard it (we're at Mt E by the way). Think I have to take part of the blame for preparing him wrongly. Maybe he was really expecting the needle to hit him in the arm and was caught offguard.

For one who did not want to hold him during the jab, the Mrs strangely enough had the courage to want to film the process. Unfortunately for her Dr B was so quick that the whole injection was done in seconds and all that the Mrs managed to capture was his wailing.

So being a forgiving baby that he is, it took him only a few minutes to calm down and to forgive his "betraying" parents and went back to his milk.

On the subject of milk and chubbiness, Isaac is on 4 feeds a day and each time is 7 ounces or 210ml. That works out to be 840ml per day. Is that too much by your standard?

Since a picture says a thousand words, I will leave you with a few picture of our Chubs here:

You can compare this with the earlier picture under the post, Milk so see his weight gained.

Can still see a bit of a chin hence not classified as fat yet!

As if not enough milk already?!

This was thrown in to show you the uglier side of him. Check out the double chin.

My Superman impersonation, only upside down.

Hmmmmm..... I wonder........

Finally, the Mrs - revealed! Our family portrait!

For some strange reason unknown even to me, this is my favourite picture!

School

A couple of weeks back the Mrs asked me totally out of the blue where I intend to send Isaac to for his education. Honestly, that question caught me off guard. I was still enjoying his cooing and did not for one second stop to think about where he will be getting his education.

This would not have been a problem if I had come from a reputable private school where they welcome children of alumni. The public school which I came from was torn down many years back to make way for a highway (I'm not kidding).

If Baby turned out to be Kate instead of Isaac then we will not have to think about this too because she will be simply be sent to MGS where the Mrs studied.

Funny enough shortly after the Mrs posted the question to me, we had dinner with Mike and Kat and this same topic somehow came up again. They are sort of facing the same problem as us but only their child is not born yet. Mike too came from a public primary as well as secondary school. If they end up having a daughter they will be saved from this issue too because she will go to her mum's school which is Cedar Girls.

I have always told the Mrs when she was still pregnant then that she has to remind me not to turn into 1) the Kiasu type of parents and 2) the kind of irritating friends that once they have children of their own will go around urging others to have one too.

Reason for number 1 is pretty obvious I guess. Amid all these competitions I would still like Isaac to have an enjoyable childhood. Plus both the Mrs and I are not myopic so we would prefer for Isaac to continue this good fortune. I'm sure you'll agree with me that myopia is a very serious issue with our children these days.

As for number 2, we had a very hard time trying to conceive Isaac and along the way we get so many people coming up to us and ask "oh how come you guys are not trying?", "don't you want kids?", "you're not getting any younger you know, you should start planning now!". Usually we will brush them off by telling them "Yeah, we're trying" or my personal favourite "You'll be the first to know ok? I promised!" So I will not allow myself to turn into one of them in case this poor couple, like us have been trying unsuccessfully for a while. No need to pile on additional pressure right?

I was a little amazed and wondered why on earth the Mrs would bring up primary school when we were still trying to get Isaac to get off his night feed (oh he is off now by the way). Personally I am still trying to get him to say “Pa Pa” as his first words so how did primary school suddenly get into the picture?

Lately I realised that while I thought the Mrs is being Kiasu for thinking and planning so many years ahead, there are others who are already in the queue to send their kids who are no older that Isaac now, to some prestigious pre-nursery?!?! I’m sorry if you are amongst them and if I had offended you but in the queue?!?!?!?! Seriously?!?!?! I mean what planet am I on or maybe which planet did you come from?!?!?!

Mike summed it up pretty nicely for himself when he said he will try and give his kid a better opportunity within reasonable means of course. He just want to give her (noticed recently that websites always refer to babies as her) a slightly better start and the rest is up to her.

My criteria is actually pretty simple, this school (public or private) should be relatively reputable for the right reasons of course and it should ideally have an affiliated secondary school. An important condition is this school must not be one of those money grabbing ones where parents can simply donate a certain (usually rather obscene) sum and get their kids in. I feel very strongly that a school should at the end of the day be a place where children’s' education takes top priority. I would like to send Isaac to a school with integrity. Having said that I probably cannot afford all the fund raising that these schools usually organise every year anyway so better avoid them altogether.

While we are still studying the schools, I was posted another question. Should we consider sending Isaac to Shichida or Glenn Doman? The verdict is still out on this one. I am seriously not sure if I want Isaac to go through it. I guess we have to do a bit of research on them. Most importantly they have to be fun for Isaac.

By now this whole school issue has gotten much bigger because the Mrs has always wanted to move from our current place so this presents to her the best excuse (er... I mean reason) to move. She was so keen that one morning during the weekend she got up early while Isaac and I were still asleep to work on school selection. The plan is we can work on the condo around the area once we have identified the school that we would like to send Isaac to.

Let’s leave the house issue for another day.

Four

In the end there were Four!!

This past week had been pretty busy for me hence the lack of posting. See, the Mrs was on leave for the entire week so naturally I will have less time to do any blogging. What made me even busier was we no longer have a maid since last Thursday.

Yes, you read it right! We no longer have a maid! Fast huh?!

What happened was I took leave on Wednesday to spend the entire day with Isaac and the Mrs so we told our maid to just do her stuffs and once she is done she can sleep or watch the TV but she is not to go out. We had to leave a set of keys with her in case there is a fire or any other emergency.

Looking back now we should have guessed something wasn't right because she kept asking us separately what time will we be back. I told her we weren't sure because after all we left home at about 11.30 in the morning and with Isaac out as well who knows when he will be cranky right? So I told her we could have dinner out and then packet something back for her or we could come back and then bring her out for dinner together. What I did not know was just before we left she asked the Mrs again what time will we be back and the Mrs thinking that we will be dining out told her we should be late.

Fortunately for us and unfortunately for her, we were all tired by about 4ish and decided to come home to rest before our game of mah jong at night. So we were home by 5.15pm and you must have guessed by now that she was nowhere to be seen. What pissed me off was also my laundry was left out in the rain and Dino was locked out of his toilet.

The Mrs went to check out our caller id and found out that she had called 3 different numbers shortly after we left and these people also called back. It seemed pretty obvious to me that she was arranging to meet these people.

Anyway she came back, all dolled up I must add, at 7.30pm and all she said was she had to go out and buy a phone card to call home urgently. When questioned how did she walked to the shopping mall and which shop did she buy from she couldn't answer.

Now before you Human Rights Activists protest, she was told specifically she was not to go out and if her story was true then she could have called us before leaving. There was another thing that we were not comfortable with and that was she has this boyfriend in Singapore. We called those numbers that she called looking for her and found out that there is Myanmese guy whom she got to know from her last contract here in Singapore about a year ago.

All along she wasn't getting along well with the Mrs and that is largely due to her bad attitude e.g. she will give us black face for no less than 3 days each time we pointed out (note, not scold) her mistakes. All this while I have been requesting to give her more time as I really do not like to hire and fire so easily. However she has crossed the line this time by leaving our home without saying a word to us. So we did not say much to her the rest of the night and the next morning and promptly drove her back to the agent. As expected she was neither sad nor remorseful. She wasn't at all teary and pleaded for another chance in case you're wondering. All she did show was her usual black face.

As the Mrs did not want to inform her of our decision to dismiss her, we had to pack her stuffs and bring them back (all 5 bags of them) to the agency later that evening. In case you think that I am a bad employer, I drove her all the way to Hougang to her former agent's place on the 3rd day of Lunar New Year to collect her bags of clothes and also for her to reminisce old times with her. I had to go back and fetch her after 3 hours.

Luckily we have never been overly dependent on her when it comes to Isaac so we are coping fine without her. The only drag I have to admit to is the vacuuming and mopping of the floor. Since we have Dino I personally preferred to vacuum on a daily basis or at most once every 2 days.

On the hindsight I am enjoying the time that we are spending as a family without an outsider hanging around. I am secretly hoping that my parents can cope with Isaac without the aid of a maid then I will do away with one.

Before I can finish this post we had already confirmed a new maid. This time a Cantonese speaking one too. Cool right? She will be here after about 2 weeks so I guess we will have to do the nappy changing and showering of Baby for the time being. Frankly I am not complaining and in fact looking forward to it.

Oh, I must also add that according to my BIL's maid, my maid actually told her that she has 2 boyfriends here in Singapore. A Chinese and a Myanmese and in case she (BIL's maid) wants, she can introduce boyfriends to her too! Imagine our shock!! I am almost too embarrassed to face my BIL.

Lastly, if you're wondering why in the end there were Four, I must say you have to be a non-dog lover right?

Muffin

I am going to divert away from issues related to babies this time but I'm sure it is still something that all of you can relate to. In fact maybe a few of you might even find the topic endearing.

Don’t be fooled by the title because nope, I’m not talking about the confectionery here. You should know by now that sometimes my post title is not quite what it seems. Anyway I, unlike the Mrs, am the “eat to live” type of person as most of you should know by now so I will not normally blog about food.

To be precise I am actually talking about a syndrome here, The Muffin Syndrome!!

For the benefit of you who do not know what it is, like the Devil, it goes by a few other names too. Such as “Love Handles”, “Spare Tyre” and “Pot Belly”. I am not counting “Beer Belly” because if you really look at them, there is a significant difference.

When I got married I found the Mrs secretly harbouring this idea that I should fatten up. By now, we’re into our 9th year of marriage, this idea is no longer a secret and truth be told it is not even an idea anymore. It has been acted upon and there is result!!

About 3 years ago we saw the most significant result (gain) as I jumped from a waist 32 weighing at a decent 74 kg to a waist 33 or 34 (depending on the cut and brand) and weighing in at 76 kg. All these mind you were “achieved” in under a year and without warning my neck has also grown (no, not longer). My shirt collar used to be 15.5 inches. Now I have to upsize to 16 inches.

Yes, I have contracted the Muffin Syndrome, you know, the one where one’s belly actually overflows over one’s belt?!?! I know I have not been exercising enough (alright, who am I kidding here right?!?! It’s more like NEVER!!) but somehow I feel the Mrs did have a part to play in all this weight gain hence some of the “credit” must go to her too.

Not sure if this is supposed to be comforting but lately I realized that I am not alone and I am beginning to suspect that there is this universal (ok I may have exaggerated a little. More like nation wide) conspiracy where the wives are all trying to fatten up their spouses. I am beginning to see my friends and colleagues being infected too and the interesting thing here is this Muffin Syndrome usually only happens after one gets married (happily that is).

Do wives really like to fatten their husbands up? Surely they can’t be that insecure about themselves to resort to fatten their other halves up to turn away the “would be” distractions out there right?

Or maybe it is our own undoing. Did we let it all go now that we are happily married with kids? Perhaps it is the more prosperous look that a father should carry?

In my case the Mrs was always complaining that I was too skinny and by putting on weight I will be more “huggable”. I swear she has this sense of joy, achievement and even satisfaction whenever a friend or anyone for that matter comments that I have put on weight. She almost always beamed like a proud mother! Oh and I say mother because the same applies to Isaac (I will show you pictures of his tummy another day).

It didn’t quite dawn on me that this could be a nation wide thing until one evening when we went out with my friend Mike and Kat for dinner. Mike was in this T-shirt which did nothing to hide his tummy. If anything it actually enhanced it due to its cutting (no offence buddy! You know I’m not much better off heh!)

*Mike has recently been make known of this blog because he is about to become a father himself so I thought he can learn a few things from you ladies just like I did.

Anyway the Mrs teased that he looked more pregnant than Kat, his wife. The Mrs said 4 months. Instead of getting an embarrassed or offended look that a husband will give should his friend gave the same comment on his wife, Kat actually smiled rather contently and placed her hand on his tummy rubbing away.

At that moment it all became clear to me. It’s as if the switch in my mind was turned on. You wives really do not mind your husbands putting on weight. Dare I suggest that you may actually secretly yearn for it?

Due to Kat’s pregnancy, Mike is also putting on more weight as we will normally expect from any husbands whose wife is pregnant. Mike calls this Sympathy Weight.

As for me, at least Isaac is already out hence I do not have to worry about the Sympathy Weight anymore. Guess the only thing left for me to do is to eat less and take out the old track shoes and swimming trunks……… or NOT!

Pleasures!

Ever since I became a father I realized that I can derive pleasure from the smallest thing that Isaac does.

Take for example he finishes his milk and progressed from drinking 120ml to 150ml now. I get great pleasure from that. I can’t wait for him to progress to the next stage but according to Dr B, we should not be rushing things and he will let us know himself whenever he is ready for more milk. So long as he continues to gain an average 200 grams each week then everything is fine.

Speaking of weight gain, it did not really dawn on me how much he has gained until I took off his clothes to change him recently. Usually I only had to unbutton the bottom half of his romper but that night he wet himself so I had to change him. It was then that I saw his much rounder body. That sight really brought a broad smile to my face. Don’t get me wrong because I obviously know he has been gaining weight since we’re weighing him ever so regularly. Besides I have also seen him being showered but for some reason and I can’t quite explain it either, maybe it was the angle or lighting or perhaps the time in the early morning, it left a very deep impression. At that moment I can really see the gain in his body mass. My sis who has not seen him for a week commented that he is much rounder.

Sidetrack a little here. You realize that most people are careful not to mention things like fatter; heavier; cuter; rounder; prettier etc out loud in the presence of the subject / baby? I know both my mum and MIL will shush whoever mentions anything nice or good in front of Isaac. In case this person’s skulk is a little thick then they will bring Isaac to another room or simply away for this person and his compliments.

So to counter this, we will have to puff up our cheeks and curve our arms outwards to express Isaac has gained weight again. So a typical comment from my sis will be like: “Eh Kor, Isaac has really (show action) since I last saw him” this is acceptable for some strange reason.

Anyway, there are other simpler things that I derive pleasure from, such as him smiling back at me whenever I talk to him. According to a baby’s growth monitoring website, Baby Center, by the 2nd month Isaac will be able to recognize our voices hence he will smile whenever we talk to him. He usually smiles the most in the morning just when we were dropping him at my parents’ before heading to work. The Mrs always finds it very hard to let him go. She would always want to spend that little bit more time with him.

Then there is the cooing. According to Baby Center we should try and engage him in daily conversations which can be considered as a way of playing games with him. We will talk to him as if he understands but with pitch and tone alteration and he will coo his answers back. We should wait for him to finish before we say something again and if he is enjoying himself or the topic of discussion he will smile and coo again. This will usually go on for 15 to 30 minutes before he gets bored from discussing the Malaysian election and Mas Selamat’s escape.

On the sadistic side, I can even derive pleasure from watching him cry. If ladies have mood swings then they must have taken lessons from the babies because babies can change from cooing and chuckling to cranky before the blink of an eye. Sometimes Isaac will be cooing and playing with me and the next minute you can see his facial expression take a 180 degree turn. He will show you that he is unhappy before he lets out his cry. That 扁嘴 (pouting) look still leaves a very deep impression in me.

Obviously I do think of Isaac when I am at work and besides thinking of his peaceful (sleeping) and cooing (smiling) look, I will also think of this 扁嘴 look.

I’m sure I am biased here but every little wink or smile and chuckle from Isaac is the cutest thing that I will see for any day but I guess that’s just the way it is.

Guilty

Last weekend was really fun for us because we invited a few friends over to our place. We have this gathering once in a while to catch up but instead of the usual eating out at some new fanciful restaurant I got them to pot luck at my place instead.

The main reason for this was Isaac was originally scheduled to go for his 5 in 1 jab on Friday so we were preparing for him to get feverish and cranky so we figured we had better stay indoor.

As it turned out our new PD, Dr Belinda said that we have the option to wait another month or two before giving him the jab. This is a good idea to me since he will be stronger and probably happier by then also. So in the end all the mental preparations came to nothing.

Anyway since all the arrangements had been made so we decided to carry on with the pot luck. I wouldn't bore you with the details such as who brought what but overall we had loads of fun and Mike along with his wife Kat (the people we met at Ikea when the Mrs was doing her unconfined-ment) chatted till after midnight. It was fun because we dug up old secondary school photos and passed around. Man, we all looked really silly back then. Mike actually said if he can go back through time then he will smack himself silly for dressing and posing the way he did. Admit it you will do that to yourself too won’t you? I know I will.

So that was Saturday.

On Sunday we met Mike and Kat for movie and dinner. The Movie was Fool’s Gold, another chick flick but I have to say a pretty bad one. Nowhere near "How to lose a guy in 10 days". That's for sure! So if you have not wasted your money on it then wait for the DVD and I mean rent it not buy it.

Dinner was Nasi Padang at the Rendezvous Hotel and that was the most expensive Nasi Padang I had ever eaten. The bill came up to about S$120 for the 4 of us although we did have about 9 to 10 dishes. I told Mike we shall go to the one opposite Great World City the next time. It has more variety and way cheaper too!

It was generally a good evening but the Mrs was in a hurry to return home because she felt guilty that we had left Isaac with my mum. She felt bad for 2 things. Firstly for inconveniencing my mum and secondly (mainly) she felt we should have spent more time with Isaac since it was the weekend after all.

She felt that as it is we are already very busy during the week so weekend should be spent with Isaac.

So when is it a good time, if ever there is one to leave your child in someone else’s care while you take a breather with friends? Or are we doomed to be our children’s slaves from the moment they are born?

Personally I did not and still do not feel as strongly as the Mrs about our little outing. For the record we were away for about 6 hours but the way I look at it, we are not doing this every weekend. I told her that we need some time for ourselves too so I proposed that we meet up with friends once a month without Baby and just do adult stuffs like going to places that are not children friendly.

Maybe this is the distinctive difference between the Man and the Woman; Mars and Venus; the Dad and the Mum. This is also maybe why in the animal kingdom the males will have no issue leaving the young behind and go source for food or in some cases a new mate (sad to say this is also applicable to a few humans too) while the females stay behind and protect the young.

I guess in many instances we are all still very primitive. Perhaps it is the carrying of the child that made the difference. After all the Mums had a 40 week head start and with body parts connected no less.

Speaking of 40 weeks, I wonder if the pregnant guy has given birth already. Those of you who have been following this blog will know whom I'm talking about. Maybe he will be all teary too when he has to leave his young behind and go source for food. As for those of you that do not know, you will have to read my old posts cause I forgot where I mentioned about him too!

COYS!!

I am not sure how many of you ladies are into sports or enjoy watching the sports channel with your husband. The Mrs will only occasionally sit down beside me and watch while surfing the Internet. I will have to give her background details to raise her interest to achieve that.

As for me, I am an armchair athlete because the only sport I do is to follow the English Football and Tennis (only the Grand Slams). So you will find me usually glued to the TV on Saturday and Sunday nights between Augusts to May each year watching football. Oh, not to forget the hours I spent sweating on the football pitch and tennis court taking on the likes of France, Brazil and Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic on my Xbox 360.

In reality I am a Spurs fan, no it’s not Antonio Spurs (NBA team for those of you who do not know) but a certain London football club called Tottenham Hotspur. I have been following them since I was in secondary school many moons ago and yesterday was a very happy day for us fans because we won the League Cup. We have not won anything since 1999.

Now what has this got to do with this blog you ask. Well, Everything!! because this is A Husband’s Voice with me being the husband and this is my voice!

Well, the Mrs has always said it herself many times that she jinxes my Spurs whenever we play. The truth is whenever I tell her that Spurs is on live and I am watching it then chances are they will not win. I will not go as far as to say that they will surely lose but I observed that more often than not they will fail to win.

This has gone on for a while so I had the brilliant idea of bringing her to White Hart Lane (Spurs home ground) to “exorcise” her. We were touring in Europe back in December 2006 and London was one of our stopovers so naturally I have to go to White Hart Lane right? I was hoping to bring her to watch Spurs play live and maybe just maybe the combine effort of 30,000 chanting spurs fan will be able to “exorcise” and convert her!

As I have always said God has a wicked sense of humour. Weeks leading up to our departure the tickets for that match were not released for sale yet and by the time I got to London the tickets were all out. Apparently almost all the tickets were for season ticket holders with only a tiny handful up from grasps. Needless to say what chance had I, a fan traveling from over thousands of miles, got?! So that idea was done the drain.

Then I thought maybe by stepping on “Holy” ground alone will do the trick but we couldn't even get in because the day tours were all fully booked also. Sigh…….

So the whole of 2007 I had to see my beloved Spurs endure the curse of the Mrs. The only way around this is NOT to let her know whenever they were playing live. However this was often hard to achieve because we were usually having a round of healthy mahjong during weekends. Okay it’s more like 3 rounds. So whenever I was playing I would have the TV on as well so I could keep up with my game. Don’t forget I need my exercise too being an armchair athlete and all. I will normally not mention to the Mrs the teams that are playing but sometimes she will notice then she will give me this wicked smile where her eyes are thinned to one side while her lips and closed and curled up to one side as well. Sometimes she will nod her head ever so slightly and at that instance I know, it’s finished!

However I believe all that has changed with the arrival of a new Spurs fan in Isaac Tan Tiang Tze.

I challenged the Mrs’s “power” once again when I told her that I will be staying up on Sunday night because my Spurs was taking on Chelsea at the new Wembley stadium for the Carling Cup. She must be wondering why I told her and gave me the “huh” and the “smile” before brushing it off and went to sleep.

I have to admit that when Chelsea scored first and by the player (Drogba) that held the record of not losing whenever he scored first, I thought the curse lives on! I guess I should not have underestimated Isaac’s ability to convert because at the end of the day, we came out winning 2 – 1. This score has more meaning than just the outcome of the 2007 – 2008 Carling Cup final. It is also the outcome of the battle within the Tan family. In the end it is also 2 – 1 with Isaac and I teaming up and winning the Mrs!!

I look upon this as the beginning of many more beautiful results for Spurs as well as Team ID (Isaac & Dylan).

Disclaimer: The above covers only one tiny fun segment of our household. It has no bearing when we talk about love in the family and it definitely does not remotely reflect the love that we have for the Mrs because even though she is not a Spurs fan and had jinxed them before, we love her wholeheartedly none the less.

COME ON YOU SPURS!!