Note to Self

2013 has come and gone, and we've all succeeded in rolling over into a new year.

this year i won't be making any (lofty/ambitious/unrealistic) promises or resolutions, but i would really want to remind myself to love my family.
put more specifically, to love each and every one of my near and dear ones as equally as possible.

put even more specifically, to love my husband every day of our days together and not have the daily grind eat away at the foundation that was us, before JJ came into the picture.

the married-with-kids will probably know what I'm getting at.

once a baby comes into the picture, a husband is somehow relegated to the bench.
he becomes the one-with-the-heavy-diaper-bag, the why-arent-you-doing-as-much-as-i-am part of the marriage.

it's all very sad, so i swore to myself when i was pregnant that i won't be one of those who ended up relentlessly picking on her husband post-baby.

but i fell into the same rut.
i would very much like to blame it on my changing body shape, postpartum hormones, the fact that we now have a screaming infant in the house, but there really isn't a good enough reason for constantly finding fault with your own husband.

i realised how monstrous i had become last christmas, when i was searching for JJ's lost sock and my eyes wandered over to the foot of the christmas tree, where ken had left a present for me.

i used to be the one with the surprises, but last year, i bought ken's birthday gift 5 months ahead and handed it to him at the shop register, and i neither planned nor did anything for our wedding anniversary and christmas.
i became icy and snappy, and ken was made the convenient victim of all my thorns and prickles.
the baby had become the excuse for my forgetting our marriage, and his gift made me remember.

it reminded me that we existed before JJ, and our love is the reason why JJ ever made it into the picture in the first place.

so this year, this monster of a wife will try to be nicer. there will be no equating the number of times he changes JJ's diaper to how much he loves me. there will also be no faulting him for not being home more because of work.

and if the husband wants five eggs in his breakfast omelette, so be it.

Fleeting

It's 12.30am and he just fell asleep in my arms.

the husband is away at work so it's just me and the bub for the night. the lights on the Christmas tree are twinkling, and the television turned down low. I see the soft rise and fall of his chest, the gentle flutter of his eyelids as he finds his way into deeper sleep.

he feels both light and heavy at the same time cradled in my hands. how soon it has been, he has already turned two months old. I remember those trying first nights when I wished he would grow up faster so that I would have it easier and be able to have more uninterrupted hours of sleep.

funny but now I am already missing him as a newborn. I wish it could always be just us both, him small enough to fit in my hands and always looking up at me with that disarming toothless smile of his.

very soon his tiny hands will no longer be mine exclusively to hold, his head will no longer seek my chest for comfort. his legs will grow strong and wander into the world beyond and away from me.

and that day will come sooner than I think. so let me always remember tonight, with the fairy lights and the way you look and the way we are.

it won't always be this way, you and me. how fleeting this all really is.

goodnight my dear, and see you in the morning.

Saying Hello All Over Again

I can't believe it's been so long.

in my long absence life remained pretty much the same, although

some old friendships were strengthened and renewed while others quietly faded into the past
a few old mindsets gave way to a set of new perspectives
i put into action the thoughts in my head and co-started a store in japan
and then another in singapore a year later

and now, our family of two has become three.

meet JJ.

life has changed indefinitely. some changes are good, others not so.
but the richness of the experience has taught and moved me in ways i never expected.

there really is a greater love.