Dear Huaihao
A medium once said, my love for you might perhaps cause your downfall—- or words to this effect.
Sometimes I see it, but, what really is love in the right measure?
How much is too much?
And how can love be too much?
Don’t we all want to be loved —every so badly?
As I m typing these thoughts down, we are going to move yet again. Last October, we moved out of our flat of 12 years, out of Redhill to Marine Crescent, living just beside grandpa and ah mei ayi. Qinzhi and Huaihao walked in and out straight into grandpa’s and ah yi’s house. Each time I needed eggs, or a pot, Qinzhi would help me race through the door into grandpa’s house. Sometimes we ran out of bread and Qinzhi or Huaihao would have to go next door to ask from Ah Yi. Saturdays after her runs, she would always ask you two if you wanted breakfast, once she waited for 35minutes for breakfast of rice flour rolls for you and Hao.
Though this is a smaller flat and we all had to squeeze into 1 small room, which was where Mommy and Ah yi slept in before I got married—–i told you and Hao little tidbits of my younger days.
In what used to be my room, we had to sleep on a mattress on the floor. And even if we did not have the luxury of space and 2 toilets like we used to, we did not even have TV in the last 9 months, but we had a lot of fun (and our fair share of heated arguments) here
Though this is a smaller flat and we all had to squeeze into 1 small room, we had to sleep on a mattress on the floor. We did not have the luxury of space and 2 toilets like we used to, we did not even have TV in the last 9 months, but we had a lot of fun (and our fair share of heated arguments) here
Every night when grandpa is about to sleep, he would come and hug you and say Huaihao darling/bao bei, gong gon g is going to bed.
You picked up lots of chinese here, did raindrop for grandpa when he strained his shoulder, and watched tv with grandpa asking him lots of qns
Every weekend, we ordered in and had lots of food.
Sometimes we had deliveries from hotels and chefs to ah yi, like this gigantic dumpling during the Dumpling Festival, to durians and ice creams that Mommy bought to share with everyone. Its the joy of sharing which made food even better, i hope you felt that too
Most of all, I cooked. Simple organic stuff but brilliant and pure. On father’s day, genyan jiujiu bought wanton noodles, ah hui ayi cooked glutinous rice and bought ang ku kueh, she even made barley drink
All in all, i hope you had fun living in this smaller space but you made so much fun out of it. I hope that in time when you grow up and look back, you will remember this space you lived in, that is my room before mommy got married.
This school holidays, you and qinzhi stayed home most of the time because of SG’s heightened alert phase. You hand squeeze orange slices and took to enjoying orange, which grandpa would share with you after dinner. He would keep 2 slices for you. You would help me “cook” dinner and although you planned for the holidays, in the end, you did not really follow.
And this is one wonderful weekend for the kids, when they stayed over at ah mei ayi’s house. ah yi treated them to a movie night and popcorn! The next morning, her signature eggs on toast huaihao has been raving about!
I saw the movie “The Wisdom of Trauma” and in it Gabor Mate mentioned a child’s need to attach physically
He also mentioned famous writers prescribing letting the babies cry themselves to sleep or adults withdrawing and letting children be on their own until they know they have made a mistake
I thought of when HuaiHao was younger and I too read online on sleep training and how children can be trained to sleep themselves by crying themselves to sleep
A few days after watching the movie, I lie down with HuaiHao on the bed on told him how I read online on sleep training and letting him cry to sleep
The first two days he cried for about 40 minutes then he slept
The third day he went beyond 50 minutes and I decided I cannot do this anymore
And as HuaiHao listened he teared up them choked on his emotions
I apologized to him
I sat up and bowed down to apologize to him
At that moment i recognized that HuaiHao and I are equals
Our souls are as old as time even if he is only an 8 year old
And I asked for his forgiveness
I asked him why he cried
And he told me he felt really sad
I asked if images of himself at the playpen crying zoomed past
And he nodded his head
I tried to make up for my wrongdoing by explaining to him the circumstances then—- that although qinzhi was my first born
Huaihao was the first time I took care of a baby alone and he was wanting to nurse every hour at night
I explained to him that this silly mommy of his googled online as if he would if he wanted to find out something
And then I tried
To which he said, “ but you do not try out on a life “
I asked him if I was foolish and he said no because I decided to stop
And as i explained to HuaiHao , I understood why HuaiHao is still sleeping with me now
And what made qinzhi feel unfair
It was because of this incident I decided I would let HuaiHao sleep with me until he felt confident enough to be on his own
And we were locked into this certain past together —— until just now when we spoke and freed it , and us——-altogether
As much as it hurt, as we went back to that past, we felt something lifted from us
The night before , I was feeling upset and teared at bedtime
Huaihao caressed my face at bedtime and asked why my face is wet
He switched the light on and saw me teary
Obviously affected, he asked me why do I cry
And he was moved and became teary
At that moment I felt something beautiful
And that was the bond we had built up
He could feel my heart
And always, when any of us left home for work, Huaihao would run to the back room’s window to wave and shout goodbye to us. I always saw him do that to daddy, ah mei ayi, I asked him why? and huaihao said, its to let that person have a good day and he is thinking of him/her
I understood what he said but didn’t know how it felt
this time, I felt it myself.
when i heard him, i just felt my heart ‘s urge to search for him and I was using my hp to try and record this down. he makes my heart feel so full and so warm, so loved.
He then called me after finishing his math, and wished me “good day”.
I thought he had a hidden agenda and wanted to play with the computer, i asked him if it were so and he said no, he just wanted to wish me good day
and I felt really bad for second guessing him.
Life and work has taught me to deviate from from simple beautiful moments.
And because of this Huaihao did, I feel like I want to do my best every single minute I step out for work duties and I want to come back to him and share with him all the happy not so happy and unhappy everything that has gone by in the time he was not with me. We will discuss my day his day and what we could have done better. Because of him and Qinzhi. I get a chance to be better.
And talk to him I did—of the happy and unhappy things that I experienced, and we had so many wonderful conversations . Every night at bedtime, Huaihao would wait up for me and we have too many beautiful conversations.
Yesterday, after sleeping at ah Mei ah yi’s for a few nights he came back to sleep with me and hugged and caressed me face as he always did.
and he heaved a relief, “ah this feels so much better!”
and we began speaking.
Asked him what Mommy’s hug feels like and he says, its like the sky, white and blue and there’s protection.
Then, like the sun and grass.
I asked him about leaving work behind at one of the projects which I am working on now and he asked me why? To which I said, because I am not aligned with the management styles of the company.
He says, “but everyone is different, has different feelings”
I took the chance to tell him about what is unique or special and that means you are the only one, “So what do you think is unique in you?or in me?”
He says, “I m huaihao, one and only and you are pinyen”
I spoke to him about whether i should leave the project behind and he says, “follow yourself”
“But i get a few thousand dollars out of this each month, so i should follow my heart and ignore the money? “
“you cant earn money if you are not happy!”
“follow your heart, you are pinyen so follow pinyen’s heart!”
This is hao at our new house, making shields out of cardboards.Now that he is going to get a room, he is still sticky and says, “mom, you must comfort me and make me sleep before you leave the bedroom and go over to yours”
How oddly—would that feel like? He’s always with me, in my tummy, and outside since he was a baby till now.
At this time, Huaihao is enjoying reading lots, and asking lots of questions on how many types of sharks do I know or how heavy is the megladon (?)
This month, Huaihao has been making lots of craft, from daggers to guns and boomerangs. But I still love his drawings lots
That day, he made a father’s day card. And secretly hid the card next to his sleeping dad, checking in so every often to see if his dad had seen it. And after a few rounds of checking, squealed in delight and excitement :”he has seen it he has seen it”
It means too much to him to be acknowledged by his dad.
and when i went to the bedroom, i saw this wonderful surprise.
Other times with Huaihao was fun.
One day, Huaihao released some gas and wind.
Me: That was a ….
Huaihao: nice song!
I love you Huaihao.
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