nostalgic

Hi,

It's Amada Sophie, on her 2nd day with me.

I got Amada, and Sophie is from my husband. Amada in Spanish is beloved. I got it from an article in magazine about Ryan Gosling's first daughter. I love Ryan Gosling and Amada is beautiful, so be it. While Sophie is what my husband had been save from his college year. It's from a novel "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder. He loved that novel so much. Sophie in Greek is wisdom. 

Amada Sophie is our beloved daughter, hopefully she's full of wisdom.

A Friendly Reminder

As a 29 years old woman, I had some experience in life that God forbid, my baby will feel it too. There's things I do that I hate, forced to do, and clearly unhappy about it. This is some of it, I put it down here as a reminder for future me to NOT doing it to my baby. Here goes the list;

1. When it comes to wedding day, please have a respect for your baby to do it as her wish. It's not your pride parade, clearly no one judge how successful you are as a parents based on your daughter wedding reception. It's her day, let her do it on her way. When she didn't ask for your opinion then ZIP IT!
2. Never ever tell your baby to do something while you don't even give an example to her. Like tell her to eat vegetables while you alone can't stand it. Uh-huh, never. Children learn by example.
3. Enough with what society will said about you and your family cause they give you nothing! It's your life, do what makes you feel good and proud about it.
4. Your baby have no obligation to give back to you just because you are her mother who gave birth to her. She didn't ask for it. Never use that as an argument. That's when you go very low.
5. Always show your daughter that life is about living with her head up with anything she had. No shame to be herself with her own baggage. 
6. Tell your daughter the truth about society. People will always judge, but that's none of her business. Just do what she like, what she believe in, and always pray because there is an invisible hand in life.

PS: If I experience something new and hate it, I'll post it.

- Chia - 

1st

Hi there,

I wanna tell you the story of me being a full time mom, the naked truth, from what I experienced recently.

So, I used to be a working mom. I had a great position in my office, my career pretty fast rised up among my friends. I would never consider quit from my job, cause I love it. I do take my work seriously because I had this perspective “when it comes to work, doing your best isn’t for your boss but it’s for your self achievement.” The feeling of saying “Yup, I nailed it” to myself is EVERYTHING.

Then there’s come along a little tiny human not long after I got married. It wasn’t planned, she came unexpectedly, a real surprise in life when you thought you had it all on plan. It’s not something that I questioned why, I’m literally out of words when seeing the pregnancy test. Just “WOW, I’m pregnant.” Empty, speechless, it’s like my brain explode and nada. Fyi, I never went gaga over babies, I don’t like toddler, and I knew for sure that if I had a kid, they will hate me. But then again, I can’t say no to this gift. I just have to deal with and embrace it.

After 37 weeks of pregnancy, Amada Sophie was born. I had no other feeling after gave birth unless surprised that this tiny human is came out of me. I had a smooth labor, 12 hours of it, exhausted and feel no connection with my baby. We did breast crawl after she’s out from my vagina, but that’s it. I don’t feel anything with her. Did I had baby blues? No, I’m mentally fine but I just can’t instantly love someone I just met (hell with “you have a connection with the baby in pregnancy period”). 

Long story short, she’s now thirteen months and we still learn to get to know each other. There’s not a  single moment in my life that I’m not thinking about her, she took a big space in my head. The hardest moment came to me as a working mom when I have to choose between work and my baby. So many times I can’t showed up for work because something came up with the baby. Or when my attendance in office is ruined because I had to deal with baby stuff first in the morning. I feel exhausted, juggling between two role. So, my husband and I decided to hired a baby sitter. Then this terrible thing happen. 

When she’s turn one year old, she got sick. She got Urinary Tract Infections. This came from human error, a bad habit related to cleaning up her urinate area. It’s really sad for me to know that my baby, a one year old person, should took blood test, urine test, being hospitalized because of a negligence from adult around her. I should know better, this shouldn’t be happened if I pay more attention to my baby. The worst part of this situation is her traumatic experienced with hospital, nurse, and doctor. She’s afraid with new people, changing diapers, changing clothes, and specially took a bath. She’s scream out loud, cried hysterical, and can’t be calm with anyone other than with me. I had to be by her side. There’s not one second while she’s awake that I can go. 

In that moment, I felt that this little person is so scared with things around her and only feel safe when I'm with her. I know better now, she need me more in this situation, to feel safe and not alone. Then I made a decision, I want to catch up with my baby. I want to be there for everything she’ll experience in the future. They said the golden age of baby is  precious. I want to be there with her, have a bonding time and create connection with her. It’s not the guilt speaking but I have the need to get to know my baby better. It’s my baby after all.

So, here I am, for almost a month now being a house mom. Hang out with my baby all day, a new experience, different story, new challenge to accomplish every single day. Still learn to maintain everything so it can goes balance. (I didn’t say smooth cause with baby there’s none). Keep it sane, momma!

- Chia -