Each day, I have to prioritise my non-maternal activities. The basic three that need to be done are: shit, shower, eat lunch. The rest of the activities are planned contingent to these basic three being met, or having the possibility to be met through the day. The first two are best and only done with Gaby asleep. (It really is hard trying to relax the bowels when my mind goes into a frenzy at each cry from Gaby -- is that a random coo, or is it about to escalate into a pick-me-up wail where I have to quickly toiletpaper me up, wash my hands and get to her?)
Thankfully, Gaby is very much like Lionel and I. She likes to laze in bed for half an hour or so before opening her eyes fully. She would grunt, shake her head bald, scratch her ear, rub her face unsatisfactorily with her mittened hands, and twist her face into several expressions -- a blissful smile, a grimace, a frown, a condescending smile.
Finally, after a satisfying amount of lazing in bed, she would cry out, eyes still closed like a newborn mouse. Or occasionally, her eyes would open before her mind does. I strive to be the first thing she sees when she blinks opens those eyes. I smile at her and use that one octave higher, smoothing mummy voice to greet her. She would frown and look around, as if surprised by her strange surroundings. She would then raise an eyebrow in a "do-I-know-you" way at me, before looking away with a stretch, and returning her gaze at me. Ah.. Mummy. Her face breaks into a smile. And I am in heaven.
The greatest want after my three big needs is to spend a precious and much needed half hour on my cross-trainer. Break a sweat; get my adrenaline and happy hormones pumping, and of course try to reduce the volume of the postpartum paunch. A workout though means that my shower has to be timed after it. That is a gamble -- what if I get my workout and Gaby doesn't sleep enough for me to shower?
That happens often enough. So Gaby gets almost salty milk. On her cry announcing her waking up, I jump off the machine, leap to the toilet and run my arms and neh nehs under the tap, deftly patting them dry with a towel. With my heart still pumping blood loudly in my head, I pick Gaby up, console her and tell her to wait a while, put her down. Try to cool off a bit more, and pick the pleading baby up to feed. Hectic, but the workout makes my day already. If there is an outing that needs to be done, that usually means no workout for the day.
My two showers a day are much valued as personal space. Without any other distractions, that is where I start musing about my current stage of life and its appendages (like how I used to be a guy-friend kind of girl, how irrelevant I have become to my peers working in Singapore now, and how that has led to my human interaction with mostly only fellow mummies), or what I should write about in my next too long blog entry (that only my mother reads in its entirety).
It is hard to do anything that requires long stretches of time or full concentration as long as Gaby is awake. So I try to busy myself with mindless routine that is both concurrently necessary (to keep me sane) and unnecessary (Lionel barely notices if I remove the stray strands of hair from the bed, and the universe remains the same whether I make the bed or not). In the short breaks where Gaby is asleep or happy playing on her own, I reply to emails and write blog entries in instalments.
I breastfeed Gaby almost every hour and the British channels -- the only channels besides news that are fully in English -- keep me occupied while I am couch-ridden with my suckling mammal. Friends (the season where Rachel has a baby) keep me company. CSI makes breastfeeding sessions fun.
During Gaby's waking hours, she mostly wants to be engaged, or at least have a good view of me. So there are the activities I carry out with her.
Then I spend a huge part of my late afternoons anticipating Lionel's return from work. These days, he has been working till later. So to ease my aching longing for adult company and well, simply my husband's homecoming, I bring Gaby out for short supermarket trips. There are enough logistics and uncertainties to keep my mind occupied in such a mini excursion.
Now that I have grown confident and more adept at bringing Gaby out on my own, we make these short inconsequential walkabouts when she is happily awake and well fed. She loves looking at the colourful display as I walk down the aisles. But fusses if I stop for a tad too long deciding on which meat to buy, or if I am queuing up at the counter.
On good days, I prepare and cook most of dinner. On most days, Lionel returns and we take turns working at the kitchen and entertaining Gaby.
At night, I try to put Gaby to sleep, not too early (e.g. at 9pm for that means she would be awake too early in the morning), and not too late (so I still have some energy myself to do a nice wind down).
We sleep, and the day plays out again the following day.
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