GARGANTUAN steps
Tuesday, November 06, 2018
letters to a son - the first
My dear Nathan~
As your first birthday approaches, I find it necessary to pen down my thoughts and memories of the year past - the many disrupted nights have dulled the mind, but you have left an indelible mark on both your parents, and of course, the many family and friends who have been so warm and caring towards you and us, and whom we would have struggled without!
And so you arrived on 6th November 2017, right at the start of the work week, on a Monday, at four minutes past eight in the morning. Your mother had gone into labour the morning before, the 'funny' sensation she felt on Sunday morning became the intense, regular contractions that very evening. She'll vividly recount the story of how her first epidural, done by her friend, still left her in a lot of pain at the right gluteal region, and she needed to have a second one done (by her same friend) to stave off the pain. I'll always vividly remember how my hand felt very numb after she had squeezed it with every contraction she experienced - it was my only way of sharing her experience. She'll also recount how I applied EMLA cream (an anesthetic cream) at her proposed cannula site (she had found what she thought were her best veins), as well as at her spinal lumbar region, though I had gotten the anatomy of the epidural site wrong.
And the labour progressed rather slowly overnight - we were only at 3 or 4 cm at one in the morning, and I was thinking that it was going to be a long day ahead. But it turned out not to be. Your mother's obstetrician, Dr K.T. Tan, did her morning rounds at six in the morning (doctors do have an early start, some more so than others), and we were all so groggy, we barely registered what was going on. But two hours later, you were all ready to come out! I guess, looking at your penchant for starting the day early now, you must have started trying to squirm your way out since half past five! And you made it out with your mother barely having to do much pushing. I must confess, neither your mother nor I cried when you came into this world - but we couldn't wait to catch our first glimpse of you, me first before your mother of course! I didn't get to cut your cord - I was too anxious to capture every single moment on a camera (the tragedy of our times), and our obstetrician was efficiency personified. I was also very hesitant to carry you - you were so small, so frail, so tiny, so fragile, so delicate - I felt inept to that particular task! I did, eventually, a few hours down the road, after I had mustered enough courage. I did crack a joke though, my usual coping mechanism to ease tensions - 'What's the APGAR score' I queried, knowing full well it was full marks with your entire body straining to emit that loud, high-pitched cry that was soon to be your trademark.
My very first glimpse of you
0804 hr
6th November 2017
You weighed just a shade below 3 kg - an ideal weight according to your mother
Our very first family photo
With 爷爷 and 奶奶
With 公公 and 婆婆
With 公公 and 小姨
With godpa, godma and your god-brother Raphael
With our obstetrician - Dr K. T. Tan
She called your mother - 'girl' - as in 'girl ah, keep pushing'
We named you Yan Zhiren Nathan (严至仁). Besides your surname, Nathan was the first one we came up with - we wanted some thing that meant 'God's gift', since that is what you are to us, and what you are going to be to those around you! Your mother and my confirmation names have the same meaning too - Joanna and Nathanael. Your Chinese name means 'towards benevolence' - you share the same second character as your older cousin Raphael, with Zhi (至) meaning 'towards'; and Ren (仁) meaning 'benevolence' or 'humane'. It makes for easy writing, but it comes with a lot weight behind it! We hope that you will always be God's gift to those around you - a constant reminder of His love for us. We were given a hard task by the priest who presided over our wedding, Fr. Jude - to make sure our children became saints! We decided a meaningful name would make for a good start.
And so we brought you home with us, with us having to adjust to you, and you having to adjust to us! We must have sounded rather foreign to one another - your cries, our words - we barely understood each other. Was that a hungry cry? Was that a soiled diaper cry? Was that a 'cuddle me' cry? But our goals in the early days was to make sure that the cry lasted a short as possible. You could wake up the entire neighbourhood with those lungs of yours! We did make many parenting mistakes along the way - not capping the milk bottle properly and spilling milk everywhere when feeding you; or not covering you up when changing and then you giving us showers of blessings (or even worse); not putting enough milk powder in your bottle and then wondering why you were feeling so hungry again so fast! So many things, but we gradually learnt.
You did love your milk right from the get go - it was and has been the only thing that can pacify you! Initially, you woke up every two to three hours to feed, and me and your mother took turns feeding you - I even managed to watch the entire 'BBC Blue Planet II' documentary, and some other Netflix shows as well, with all the frequent feedings in the middle of the night. It was my only way of staying awake, sitting at my study desk, on the study chair. Your mother was equally prolific - she managed to complete a few parenting books (as well as a long-lost Christmas present I bought for her long before we were even dating), as well as 'Descendants of the Sun', 'Stranger Things' (seasons one and two), and many others as well that I'm not privy too!
You were jaundiced in your first few days of life, and your mother was so afraid, she wanted to have you admitted for photo-therapy, though I managed to convince her otherwise, and so did her friends. Back in those early days, we were even counting the number of wet diapers you were producing, so fearful that you were becoming dehydrated. Anyway, to combat your jaundice, we had to subject you to a lot of heel pricks in your first two weeks of life! We brought you, nearly daily, to Parkway East Hospital, and your mother was your first ever Paediatrician, managing your jaundice - through watchful waiting. You did manage the whole episode rather well - you have, thankfully, no fear of needles (currently)!
Your jaundice levels at its peak!
You had your first job at seven days old - a baby model - for a group of photographers who specialized in taking baby photographs! And the photographs were done by a professional photographer from the UK (Russ Jackson)! And you were, for the most of it, a really well-behaved model. Only right at the end when you decided to let it all go on your mother's white blouse! Both of us had a good laugh in the end, but we did have very beautiful pictures of you, and us, to remember those early days!
Sleeping peacefully
All safe and sound
You having the last laugh!
All too soon, my paternity leave ended, and you were left with your mother, 婆婆 and aunty Nelma to look after you throughout the day. I did my best at night, sleeping outside the room on a mattress, and coming to help your mother whenever the distress lights were signalled! Your mother bore the bulk of looking after you day and night, continuing where she left off from her pregnancy - ensuring that you were well nourished, well entertained, and well slept! She kept a very detailed log-book of your sleeping pattern and waking hours. She also chronicled, very nicely, a monthly picture of you, as well as all the little milestones you achieved, as you gradually inched towards your first birthday! I'm sure she'll continue to do so - she can never tire of looking at you, and she is very obsessed about you reaching your developmental milestones, if not way ahead of time, at least on the dot!
Your mother doing a very important job~
You were extremely brave too - you survived your first surgery the day after Christmas - just barely more than a month's old. A chip off the old block - you had a right inguinal hernia (same as your father) - that needed to be fixed! And intra-operatively, they found another a small one on the left too, which was duly repaired. You probably didn't know much about what was going on, but we were so proud of you! It's a funny feeling which you probably wouldn't understand, till you have a child of your own. But you'll have a swell in your heart, witnessing every little milestone conquered, every little achievement made, every adversity overcome, by your own little one(s).
A familiar sight for your parents, but with an unfamiliar patient
You gave showers of blessings to everyone on your baptism day, not least your godpa when you regurgitated all over his sleeve!
Your were officially a child of God on 4th February 2018!
The very first words you uttered - 'OK!' And all we wanted for you was to have a good night's rest (so we could as well!)
Attempting to take your passport photo before going on your first trip abroad - to Kluang to visit your great-grandmother and the rest of the family over Chinese New Year!
Daddy left you with no choice but to follow the family tradition and be a Liverpool fan!
Mummy took up infant massage lessons specially for you!
You learnt how to hold your own milk bottle really early - any milestone related to food, you reached way in advance!
We started to sleep train you when you were nearly five months old, once we felt you were old enough to sleep through the night. Before that, you were waking up nearly every two to three hours, requiring either soothing to sleep, or to have a bottle of milk. It left us rather exhausted, and your mother was going back to work soon, so 'urgent' action was needed. Not everyone was agreeable with our idea for sleep training. It involved leaving you in the cot to cry yourself to sleep, without a pacifier, with graduated time away from you! So initially, we would let you cry for a minute before going in to the room to sooth you, then leaving you again (regardless of whether or not you were still crying), and then increasing the time of separation up to nearly ten minutes each time. The first night was rather painful - I sent your mother off for dinner whilst I did the 'dirty' deed. Hearing you cry was painful, but hearing you sob was even worse. But you eventually managed to fall asleep after an hour, excruciating as it was for all of us! And you got better in the subsequent nights, and eventually was able to sleep through without a single whimper! We were very proud of you. There were ups and downs, but eventually, with a variation of 'sleep training' administered by different people, plus the fact that you started standing in the cot, meant that we reverted to patting you back to sleep, together with the use of a pacifier. Nowadays, besides the very occasional bad nights, you are able to sleep through the night with just the aid of pacifier. Though I wonder why you have developed this habit of waking up so early every morning - almost like clockwork, you are awake anywhere between 530-6 in the morning! And our alarms are only set for 6 onward. You leave us with no lie-ins, even on a weekend! Hopefully you'll be able to wake up a bit later as you gradually get older!
And a typical day for you goes like this - wake up, feed (milk), have a short bit of play, sleep 2-3 hours from your last wake time, and then the cycle repeats till it is time for your bedtime, which is around seven in the evening! If I get home from work in time, then I'll either bring you out for a walk (to the nearby playground or park, or to the beach), or have an hour of music appreciation on the piano! 婆婆 also brings you out for a walk every morning as well - and I believe it is to the same places as well! Mother was, and still is, very strict about your routine - to make sure that you don't get over-tired. When you get over-tired, you become very cranky, or become hyper-alert (which is sometimes rather amusing), though it means either a difficult time attempting to put you to bed, or you get frequent wakes throughout the night, or you wake up even earlier the next morning. All of which made us decide to forego even that extra minute of playtime with you, so that you could have a better sleep (as could we). Everything, throughout the day, revolved or revolves around your sleep, even till this day.
And we loved hearing you laugh, especially over the silliest things that made no sense!
Going to the beach with Daddy and Mummy
Mother's Day photoshoot
- by aunty Alexandria!
And we started bringing you for swimming lessons every Sunday - and you were definitely not a huge fan of the water at your first lesson. You were crying at the top of your head, whilst the rest of your classmates were enjoying the session very much! But you got much better at it as the weeks progressed, and you managed to even put your head underwater for a short while, after much conditioning! But all that has been put on a hold for now after the beginner lessons ended, and we look forward to resuming lessons with you! Remember the magic words always - 'Nathan, ready, go!'
At your first lesson with Mummy at Happy Fish Swim School
Nathan, ready, go!
Another one of those things that tickled you inexplicably!
You enjoyed listening to godpa playing the piano (as well as 婆婆 and me of course!)
You had your first illness at the age of nine months! Your mother was hoping that you would be spared till past the age of one, but it was not to be. We still aren't too sure where you got it from - you were really fussing the night before, and it was aunty Nelma who noticed that you were having a fever the next morning! And a 38 degree fever steadily rose till nearly 39.9 at the polyclinic when we brought you there for a check-up. Thankfully, you have doctors for parents, we weren't overly anxious, and your mother had everything under control with regular paracetamol and ibuprofen, occasional cetirizine and then some nasal decongestant. Just so you know - your father is very stingy with regards to the use of antibiotics. It was just - a viral upper respiratory tract infection. And though you were having a fever, you still had a good appetite and managed to finish most of your milk for the day! In fact, you recovered pretty quickly, when your fever lysed after just a day, though you continued to have rhinorrhoea for the following few weeks! Thankfully you have some good going immunity - whether it be active or passive. We know it's only going to get tougher though - with each subsequent bout of illness - till your immunity is right up to scratch! All we can ensure is that you are properly vaccinated!
Your first bout of illness - you were very 狼狈
A funny head bobbing movement you developed at 9 months old - whenever you were happy and satisfied!
We went on our very first family holiday to Phuket when you were just about ten months old! Now, to bring an infant on a holiday, there were lots of things we had to take into calculation, things you should consider when you want to bring your own child for a holiday! So, in the order of importance, here it goes. Firstly, the journey shouldn't be too long - anything more than a four or five hour journey might be too strenuous for you, us, and those around us, should things go awry. That meant Southeast Asia, or at most, Perth. Secondly, we wanted somewhere safe - safe for the family, and safe food and drinks for consumption - no developing countries or cities then. Ideally, there would be a supermarket, with labels we could read, though we circumvented that by bringing our own food and drinks for you when we went to Phuket. Then, very importantly, if you can, get a hotel or an apartment with a separate room, and a cot, for the child to sleep in, so you can carry on with any other activities you may want to do whilst the child is sleeping - example, having dinner or even watching the television. Marriott's Mai Khao Beach Resort offered just that, though we still had to watch 'The Greatest Showman' at a whisper! Finally, unless your child can appreciate it, activities or sights take the least priority on these sorts of holidays. No museums or ancient ruins, no greatest nature's adventures and amazing picturesque sites, no amusement parks (though something to consider as your child grows older). I've volunteered to look after the bags in future, at ground level, should you and your mother decide to go to Disneyland and sit on roller coasters in future. Unfortunately, amusement park rides and me are incompatible - I'm more of a museum person.
We did have fun as a family in Phuket! Your mother made the comment that what we accomplished in three days and three nights with you, we could normally do in a day. But we still managed to go shopping, go to the beach, have a massage (your mother only of course), and have plenty of good food! And you were also very tired, and perhaps a little delirious - you were just babbling with disinhibition, something you don't normally do when you are well rested! Meanwhile, I look forward to our next few coming holidays together - hopefully we'll be a little bit more adventurous, though thinking about the next trip, and preparing for it, appears very daunting. I once told your mother we could go and hike to Machu Picchu in Peru (something that is on our bucket list) after you were born, when she was pregnant with you. I now have to take those words back humbly. Perhaps when you are a teenager, or even older!
You blabbing in Phuket - we were having breakfast at Coffee Club at the Turtle Village! Before this, you couldn't even mouth any proper word!
We had our first every family holiday, and you had your first ever flight and holiday - to Phuket - for a beach holiday
You started waving at around 11 months old - though only with the incentive of food or milk! Your mother was very afraid that you were rather slow in developing your social skills - I think you just pick after your father.
And just a few days before your 1st birthday, you are starting to walk independently!
People always asked who you follow after - and they thought you looked like your mother when you were younger. I hope this settles the debate! Though your mother says you got your smile from her! Wouldn't want to argue with that.
Meanwhile, as you continue to grow as a toddler, me and your mother will continue to grow too as parents! We may not be perfect, but we are perfect for you, just as you are perfect for us, being a gift from God! My final words for you as I sign off, is that you always remember that no matter what lies ahead, be they good or bad days, be they the happiest times or the darkest hours, sunrises and sunsets, we will ALWAYS be there for you. We would prevent every tear, every fall, every failure if we could, so that your life will only be made of smiles, but that will not be possible. Life will be tough, but we will do our best to prepare you for it, but we are only your guardians in this life, whilst ultimately, you belong to God! May you always trust in Him to guide you, just as we trust in Him to guide us to guide you.
Milk bottle cake
~Happy 1st birthday our little one~
Labels: Family
posted by Gabriel Yan at 12:00 AM
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