Mad season

A waste of elec­tric­ity by the way

It’s Decem­ber, and I am impos­si­bly busy, not because there’s all that much work, but because a series of domes­tic calami­ties has put paid any notion of putting up our feet and hav­ing a break.

Naomi and I have been cruis­ing along the past cou­ple of months, becom­ing more and more the typ­i­cal young Sin­ga­porean fam­ily — baby, mothers-in-law, maid in tow. Until the last fort­night — Naomi’s mum’s had to go to Tai­wan for med­ical rea­sons, and my mum’s been crook with severe food poi­son­ing, and last week, we sent our domes­tic helper back to her province because she no longer felt pas­sion­ate about work­ing for us.

So it’s just Kai and us. The com­pact fam­ily unit. And you know what? It’s not that bad.

Kai’s a really good baby and more or less fol­lows the sched­ule we’ve set for him. I can imag­ine the num­ber of par­ents say­ing how lucky we are. We know we are. And it’s price­less, being able to plan your day around your baby’s.

Only thing is, this week, Kai’s become aware of this thing called sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety, and has been freak­ing out because it’s dawned on him that Mama and Papa are sep­a­rate enti­ties from him.

Part and par­cel of a baby’s devel­op­ment, but not con­ducive for work or house­hold errands. I’ve tried typ­ing while cradling him. At 5 words a minute, I’m bet­ter off just pay­ing full atten­tion to him. It’s more fun too.

It’s been like that for Naomi too. Worse. She’s down with some flu/cold thing, and is exhausted. But being the fab­u­lous mother and won­der­ful wife that she is, she’s get­ting over her ill­ness by bak­ing gin­ger­bread men. Just so we usher in the mad and merry season.