I want my Mummy...

Checking in 10kg over the limit (and too soon for me)

Mum and Sis left this morning for Singapore. I can't believe my days are going to quieten down again. Mum was here for three months, Sis for one. It has been so much like homely Singapore during the time they were here. I had forgotten the convenience and easy-to-take-for-grantedness of having everyone close by. 

The emotions related to moving out of my Mummy's home, and into my own lovenest in Strathmore Singapore wasn't anything like this. Mum was always a phonecall and four wheels away. In Schwamendingenstrasse Zurich, Mum is a trunk call, planning, a plane and some 20 hours away.

After Lionel and I returned from the airport this morning, and Gaby was still sedated from having a late night, I grabbed the rare opportunity to clear up the clutter. I don't like clutter, but this was something I had to deal with when there were so many of us living under one roof. 

Suitcases and coats -- all gone now

I must have been looking forward to this catharsis -- finally restoring my home according to my idiosyncratic need for order. Yet, as I started putting away Mum and Sis' few remaining belongings, I suddenly didn't want to -- didn't want the departure that led to this spring cleaning. And I started crying all over again.

I'm a weepy mess when it comes to partings involving my Mum. I cried pathetically just before I entered the departure gate some 4-5 years ago when I was going for a six-month exchange programme in UC Berkeley. I cried again at the departure gate when we left for Zurich. And here I was, all teary and nose-drippy as I saw Mum and Sis off.

It has been a crazy time having three women in the house, oh not forgetting Gaby the latest addition and the one contributing the most madness to the house. Poor Lionel was up against four females in our 2-bedroom apartment. Not that he complained. He had the best of two additional cuisine repertoires and loads of time while there were two extra pairs of hands to do the baby carrying/entertaining/diapering/consoling. Lionel the holiday-lover also had the perfect excuse to plan excursions, and even an overnight trip to Bern.

Mum calming Gaby to sleep

In the first two to three weeks after Gaby and I returned from the hospital, Gaby would not sleep so easily after her feeds at night. And still exhausted and aching from labour and intensive breastfeeding, there was little of me left to rock Gaby to sleep. My Mum would sacrifice her sleep for mine and comfortingly hold and walk Gaby to sleep. Then she would put Gaby in the pram with her in the other room, so that I get my quiet rest.

Mum would also make me a drink in the middle of the night in those early couple of weeks post-birth when I was ferociously hungry and ate as often as Gaby.

 

Gaby smiles the most readily with my Mum

Grandma spent so much time with Gaby it was no wonder she was the first to draw a smile from Gaby. Hence when I was playing with Gaby this afternoon and she was all smiles, it just made me cry even more, thinking of my Mum.

Two months after my Mum came, my sister, Cui, came to spend her summer holidays with us. She's a natural with babies! I was telling her how difficult it was to handle a newborn and how we sisters needed to plan the timing of our pregnancies so as to have Mum with us in the first few months after giving birth. But now, I think she probably doesn't need my Mum as much as I do. I guess her baby minding skills came from all those children's church camps she helped out in.

Helping carry the load

Experimenting quite successfully with new carrying positions to appease Gaby

Very willingly and adeptly taking Gaby during her colicky moments

Yet another funky carrying position

Mobile with animals representing all of us stitched by Cui

Insanely happy together

A family affair oo-oo-ing Gaby to poop

And Gaby amused with her favourite vowel sound "oo"

Cui's home-baked quiche

What parting gifts did they leave behind? Four of Cui's home-baked quiches cut and packed into individual portions in the freezer, over one kilogram of manually skinned and deboned chicken thighs, manually grated cheese, Mum's green bean sago soup, and two microwavable lunch boxes of homemade Oyaku Don. All to help me get by at least the first week on my own. (It can be quite impossible to take a pee, much less prepare meals on my own on Gaby's fussying days where she insists on being carried at all times.)

Of course there's a lot more other little things too, but it would be verbal diarrhoea and reader nausea if I write them all here.

So much love... All the intensive baking, deboning, grating, packing in the last few days before they left. How not to cry leh?