Cats in Singapore

Bovine, porcine, equine, canine, feline -- these are just some of my favorite adjectives. Apart from the fact that they sound musical (you have to pronounce the second syllable -ine as /ayn/ like in number nine), I usually use the first four words to secretly mock someone. For example, when I'm tired of listening to someone who is fat, I would telepathically send him/her the message, "Your voice and your porcine looks are so darn irritating!"

Bovine is an adjective that means anything that resembles cows; porcine refers to pigs; equine refers to horses; canine refers to dogs; and feline refers to cats.

However, I don't think feline can be used to insult or mock someone. In fact, in case someone tells me that I have feline features, I'll take that as a compliment. Feline is such a sexy word because I think cats are the sexiest in the animal kingdom. It's no wonder that there's even a vaginal lubricant called Felina!

But cats in Singapore are anything but sexy. Here's the proof:

I don't want to say that fat is not sexy, but felines have to live up to their names at least. You can't be Catwoman if you don't have the bod of Halle Berry. Coming from a country where rats are bigger than cats, I was at first amused to see these "pusang kalye" under HDBs. They're not personally owned by anyone, but flat owners feed them. Cats here are so fat and lazy because they don't need to catch mice, climb trees, or scavenge for food. They're spoiled and loved to bits. Their SPCA (Society for the Prevention and Cruelty to Animals) is one active organization.

Well, Singapura won't be called the Lion City if it won't take care of its feline citizens. 

As for the canines here, I think they deserve one separate blog post.

On Parenthood

A staff from the HR Department of the university where I worked once commented that "feel na feel mo gid ya maging Nanay" (You are so into motherhood). It must be because I took a 6-month leave without pay after my 2-month (with pay) maternity leave in order for me to exclusively breastfeed Thirdy. Another staff said it is the first time that somebody took that leave just for that reason alone. Then, last April 28, 2017 I officially resigned from what would have been a promising academic career so I could become a full-time Mom and housewife. Again, I was asked by the staff from the HR what made me decide to do it and did I have any qualms? No, I said. In fact, it was such an easy decision. I only had to think of my son, and the burning desire to quit my job and personally take care of him was becoming intense everyday.

When colleagues knew that I was resigning, everyone seemed to comment, "kanugun," (what a waste).

If I gave birth in my 20s, I would have probably said the same thing. I would probably not give up my job because when you're in your 20s, you would still like to reach the top of that academic or corporate ladder. I gave birth when I was 31, and at that age, it seemed that accolades and additional academic degrees no longer mattered to me. What I am saying is that I was at the right age to accept the fact that my son is my priority now. Everything else is secondary.

For me, parenthood is more than just posting a picture of your baby in his cute outfit in FB. It is more than just bringing him to malls, so he could enjoy the rides there. It is more than just showing to the whole world that you have mothered or sired an intelligent child. Parenthood is a responsibility and privilege. You are entrusted with a human soul who has the capacity to build or destroy something as abstract as a relationship or something as concrete as the whole nation. Is this not a big responsibility? And it is a privilege because not everyone gets the chance to become a Mom or a Dad. It is a privilege because witnessing a child growing from infancy to adulthood is a marvel that has only been captured by poets and mystics. I am privileged to be given this responsibility of motherhood, and I am willing to let go of my dreams so that he could pursue his.

In this era of feminism and female empowerment where women are told that they can have it all, I decided to take a traditional route and become a full-time Mom. And I think, it is the best decision I have made so far. Not all women can have this opportunity, and I am sure a lot of working Moms would have preferred to become full-time Moms, too but financial setbacks and personal reasons do not permit them to do so. My husband and I have decided this over, and I am blessed that our little family can still survive even though I am no longer working.

Mental illness runs in my family, and I could only hope that Thirdy doesn't have that faulty gene. Schizophrenia is an illness that you inherit, after all. And everything starts from childhood. This is where I would like the nurture vs. nature come into play. A nurturing environment can do wonders to the mental health of a person. If I provide a nurturing family life in Thirdy's childhood, I am confident that he will grow up to be a functional and mentally stable adult.

They said that parents channel their dreams to their children. Someone who is a frustrated engineer would encourage his child to take up engineering. Someone who was born in poverty would like to provide everything for his child by spoiling him with material things. This is true for me. I did not have a happy childhood. It is one beset by abuse, abandonment, and homelessness. I do not want all these to be experienced by my son.

My becoming a parent has changed a lot of my perspectives in life. My desires and hopes for myself no longer seem to matter. I only have hopes and dreams for Thirdy now and his younger siblings (I hope we will be blessed with two more).

These days, our household centers around the rhythm of our little boy. We rarely go out because we do not want to disturb his sleeping pattern and meal schedule. We spend lots of time together as a family by playing, storytelling, and preparing meals - things that I could not do with him when I was still working. And I have seen how Thirdy has thrived since we moved here a month ago. He is growing up fine, happy, and healthy.

I do not find letting go of my job as "kanugun." Do you?

The Internet is My Oyster Sauce

When we moved here in SG, I brought along some cookbooks which I bought during my health conscious days (once upon a time, I wanted to be a vegetarian). Before we left, I attended a cooking class at my university but was only able to attend it for three meetings. I was vent on cooking for my family once we get settled in our new place, but my husband ended up cooking for us during our first week! I have always considered cooking as a rocket science, so I dared not cross the line that divides the ordinary laymen (eaters) from the scientists (the cooks). But, survival is a great motivating factor that I think I am now on my step of becoming a culinary scientist myself.

With a toddler, I no longer had the time to open these cookbooks.

The transition of moving was not that overwhelming, but I found out that I did not have the luxury of time for reading cookbooks because of my demanding little boy.

How could I refuse this cutie?

On top of that, the demanding little boy is becoming a picky eater. The pediatrician here said that he is on the small side that she gave us 1 can of S-26 for picky eaters.

...And we crossed the dark side!

I had to feed him something healthy and appetizing if I don't want to rely on the formula milk. Also, the husband has been quite critical of my cooking because mommy-in-law is one swell cook. So, armed with determination and a second hand skillet, I turned to the trusty 'ole friend of everyone these days -- the Internet.

And these are what I have created thru the help of the good souls all over the world who took the time to share their recipes and cooking videos online:

Rellenong Okra from facebook.com

Pasta Chicken Alfredo from marthastewart.com

Carrot and Potato with Minced Beef from greatbritishchefs.com

Tortang Talong with Minced Pork from panlasangpinoy.com

Balsamic Chicken from tasty.com

Stir-fried Shrimp from damndelicious.net

Ginisang Pechay from facebook.com

I'm giving myself a pat on the back for preparing such delicious dishes. Of course, I don't always get it perfect all the time, but like everything in life, cooking is a trial-and-error venture. You have to try again and again to get the dishes right. You may stumble (and get burnt along the way), but seeing your loved ones enjoying the meal you have prepared makes the time spent in the kitchen all worth it. Perhaps someday, I'll be as good as my mother-in-law, too.

Of Funerals and Night Terror

One year ago in May 2016 when we first brought Thirdy here in Singapore for vacation, he experienced what pediatricians call "Night Terror." It might sound like a horror movie title, but in some sense that was what we, the parents (especially me) felt after he inconsolably cried for 30 minutes or so while he was asleep! We were sleeping peacefully when all of a sudden, he started screaming. I woke up with a start and tried to soothe him by giving him the breast (the boob has always calmed him down), but it didn't work. I brought him to the bathroom and turned on the shower because he liked to catch the water, but he was closing his eyes. By then, his Dad and I felt so helpless. We tried to wake him up, but he just kept flailing his arms. After about 30 minutes of incessant crying, he calmed down and welcomed the breast. A quick search at Google about what just transpired led me to Night Terror. Here's the link that helped me.

http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/terrors.html

So the cause of night terror is overstimulation during daytime. But the superstitious in me said it's because of the Chinese funeral under the HDB Building. Everyday, we would pass by the funeral vigil and I would smell the burning incense and the hair-raising chants. It was my first time to witness a Chinese funeral vigil and of course, I found it weird. I was convinced that the funeral caused Thirdy's night terror.

Fast forward to May 2017 and we are here again on a Dependents' Pass. Again, there was a funeral vigil under our HDB for about a week. We are on the 2nd floor, so everytime they're burning something, the smoke drifts up to our window. On the day of the funeral, I heard a melancholic Chinese music and from my window and saw the family of the deceased walking with the casket (inside the funeral car) of their loved one in their mourning clothes. As I watched them in their grief, I could not help but feel sad for the family. I even shed a tear. Grief is a universal feeling, after all.

Thirdy no longer has night terror attacks, and after witnessing that funeral, I can say that perhaps, his night terror was not because he was haunted by the dead. It was probably just a nasty case of overstimulation.

 A funeral at the basement of our HDB (Home Development Board)

NOTE: This is weird but Thirdy had another bout of night terror (the worst, so far) AFTER I published this post. Coincidence?

Teaching Babies (and Parents) To be More Human at Balay Binhi

In my mid-twenties, I was a snooty graduate student who liked to toss philosophical words in any word salad essay like idealism, empiricism, and theism. But my favorite one was the word 'humanistic'. And for awhile I claimed to be a humanistic person because I adhered to the philosophy of humanism. To make it academic sounding, I'd tell people (who cared to ask about my teaching philosophy) that I am into the existential-humanism philosophy, which basically means that human beings are inherently good and that they carve their own destiny.

I am now in my early-thirties, a full-time mother and a wife. I have since stopped being snooty because after almost a decade of being in the academe, I really don't have anything to show that I am scholarly. My rather mediocre resume will prove just that. But I have learned so much from my short stint as an elementary teacher and from my 9 years of teaching in a university. For one, no matter how much private and public schools in our country claim to mold the character of our youth, we still end up with self-serving leaders (and they come from the so-called Ivy League schools here).

I still claim to be a humanist, but what does it mean to be one? I found some answers in my son's toddler school in Leganes called Balay Binhi.

Here are other lessons I learned from this little community of nurturers:

1. Love is best spelled as T-I-M-E.

Every article I have come across about how to rear a genius or how to have well-adjusted kids seem to boil down to this simple advice - spend time with your kids. Nothing beats having Mom around to listen or Dad helping little Johnny fix his bike. Everybody knows love is best spelled as t-i-m-e,  but it's difficult to practice it when you're a career mom. This is one of the reasons why I was happy to let go of my job.

2. Exposure to gadgets at an early age do more harm than good.

And not just gadgets, mind you. Include battery-operated toys, as well. I have personally witnessed how pushing buttons on a plastic toy to prompt animal sounds and blinking lights caused Thirdy to become a zombie. TV, tablets, and cellphones not only damage a child's vision, it also damages his brain causing him to become addicted to such.

3. A child's job is to play, not study.

From 0-7 years old according to Steiner (founder of Waldorf Education), a child should be taught that the world is beautiful, not a structured place where spewing the multiplication table and the alphabet backwards are more superior tasks than climbing trees and playing with mud. And how do we teach them that the world is beautiful? By nurturing their imagination. But how? By play, of course. Period.

4. Early academics will not make your child any smarter.

Sure, you might find a 2-year-old who already knows how to read a genius, but will this little bit of a talent matter to him after 30 years when he is struggling to find a job because he has poor interpersonal skills? I think what matters more is for our children to become highly functional adults, not someone who can memorize a textbook from cover to cover.

5. Parents need to be educated, too.

This is what I truly appreciate from our sessions at Balay Binhi. The parents are the ones who are educated and the children are allowed to just be children.

And the humanistic part? Balay Binhi focuses on the head, heart, and hands of a child. They make sure that none is too big nor too small than the other. Now, that's one lesson in not being snooty.

Change is Coming!

May 1. Isn't that Labor Day? It's also the day we're going to move to a new country. I feel apprehensive yet also excited. We will be together as a family and we want our little boy to grow up in a safe and healthy environment. We will be together, yet we will be expats. It's going to be quite an adjustment for me, too. I'll be a full-time mom and housewife. It's going to be a giant leap from the career woman (single days) to a working mom mode that I did. But I know this is the best decision that I have made so far. It's for my family's best interests. I'm a mom and a wife now, so family comes first.

Back to Work

My 6 month leave is officially over. I reinstated last April 1st, and incidentally the university graduation fell on the same day, so I didn't have a choice but to attend it. Actually, I had a choice. The HR advised me to take a sick leave, but God forbid I don't want to lie about being sick! So, there, I attended the graduation. I want to show my face to the bosses that I am indeed back, and I'm not going anywhere until the first semester is over. I intend to resign after that because my husband and I have other plans, and Thirdy is learning to walk by then. I'd like to be with him every step of the way (pun intended).

So for the next two months (April and May), I am going to prepare my lessons and finish the paper. I feel pumped up and excited! It's good to be back.