Strange Machines

My poem Mercury Rising appears in this exquisite issue of Tales of the Talisman, graced by the eternal Marilyn Monroe.

The poem is about the survivors of a flooded Earth, now living in skyscraper-sized Habitats in orbit around Venus.

It was written back in 2007 during a sudden burst of inspiration along with 2 other still-homeless poems I’d neglected to find a home for.

Although it is a premise that has been explored extensively in many literary mediums, in poetry, such tragedy and triumph can always be remolded into a thing of laconic beauty.

Tales of the Talisman can be ordered here and its TOC here.

One of the difficulties of tandem nursing is when both kids want to nurse at the same time and you don’t or can’t. In the middle of the night and early morning is the toughest because it is hard to balance both while lying down, being really too tired to sit up. Don’t try, you’ll be even more tired.

Day time I can sit down and cuddle both. Hence today I am a zombie today, not because Jade has been up - she woke thrice but slept again quickly after a brief suckle, but Jack’d been up every hour howling for milk.

My theory: that damn chocolate cake I ate after dinner plus Jack didn’t nap that day and had only 10 hours the day before.

I’ll skip the night time chocolate and make sure Jack gets enough attention and naps today. I need my zzz too… zzz

The first month after delivery is always the toughest. A tired mother needs her body to recover yet also care for her new baby. That’s also the time we realise what we’re missing. For me, it was more pajamas for Jade, a new breast pump, and milk bottles. Plus lots and lots of diapers.

I also had to entertain Jack with the promise of presents to make his sister’s presence a positive one. Ok. It is bribery, but it works. So we surfed ShopWiki.com for toys and games as well as toddler books for him.

He’s accepted his sister and is gentle and loving towards her, even when he thinks I am not watching. That is a blessing of both the positive reinforcement with pressies and tandem nursing, although the latter has been tiring for me. I wish I had more support but the consensus by the detractors is that he should be weaned. Still, it is between me and him and I have learnt to stop complaining to them. Only to friends who empathise.

Just one day after I cremated my Boy, I went into labour. Sunday morning my water broke and after a 17 hour labour (4 hours 2nd stage) without epidural - damn thing didn’t work - my little Jade entered this world kicking and screaming. She’s got a full head of hair and her Daddy’s features. She has been smiling since her very first day in the world.

After a week of phototherapy, we brought her home. She presented Jack with an Ikea cat and they have been best pals ever since. We have to remind him to be gentle around her but the tandem nursing (which takes some practice at the angling) and the present and the many months of positive reinforcement about his sister helped him accept her almost immediately.

She doesn’t cry much except for food and never for a wet diaper or attention, although she is immensely curious. She loves to smile at me when I call her. She brings us much joy as her brother does.

Boy ~ 28 January 1992 - 24 April 2009

My sweet baby Boy passed away tonight at 2345h from what appeared to be a cat version of a heart attack. The vet valiantly tried to resuscitate him as his gasping ceased but failed.

He had been eating well at dinner time and seemed his usual self till loud crashes and strange howls from the back around 2240h led me to go investigate.

I found him lying on his side in a pool of spilt water and urine and he was gasping and howling in a voice that terrified me. I carried him to his favourite rug and he foamed slightly at the mouth. He seemed in distress and pain and was shaking. I stroked his fur. He did not flinch.

I tried looking online but found nothing. My Cornell’s Vet book was missing. I phoned the hubby to hurry home. Then I looked for an emergency animal clinic. The nurse took down what happened and told me she’d call the vet.

When she phoned back, hubby was home and getting a box and towel ready for Boy. He said it looks like a stroke and I’d better come along. I burst into tears. For the first time I realised he could die.

I kept telling him as he lay in that box that I was here and I love him. His howling had ceased and he was just gasping.

The nurse was waiting for us downstairs. We hurried up. The vet shaved his paw and gave him a plug. They injected some meds in him and I thought he’d be ok till she put a tube down his throat and the nurse started pressing on his chest and asked us to sit outside.

I knew it was bad then but still held out hope. Tears just burst and I sat while Jack looked at me quizzically. Later he kept asking me where is Boy and all I could say was he is gone forever.

The vet came out and said, he’s gone. I rushed to the room and looked at him. His eyes were open and he merely looked dazed, not dead. One of his eyes had thickened already. I stroked his fur, his perfect soft fur.

It was over but I needed answers. It was too late for a blood test but an xray showed no blockage in his throat nor lungs nor unusual in his heart. Most likely she said, it was his heart, not something he ate.

I let them clean him up and put him in another room for me to say my goodbyes. I stroked him and held him for the longest time, knowing I’d never be able to do that again. Tomorrow he’d be cold from refrigeration. He’d be stiff.

The nurse was kind, promised to wrap him in his towel before putting him on ice. Tomorrow we’d take him to my aunt’s garden to bury him. I won’t have him burnt in some furnace. I held him tight, kissed him, and told him that I loved him before saying goodbye.

He was my first baby and for all of my life, I will never forget him.

After one of the roughest and exhausting nights in my nursing history when Jack nursed almost every hour on my completely sore and exhausted nipples (and howling as if the world was ending if he didn’t receive any - “I really really want NAN!”), Jack cheered me with a lovely conversation about me not going back to work.

His Dad asked him, “How about Mom goes back to work and then we have more money to buy you more toys?”

He looked at me and said, “No, I want Mom to look after me. I have enough toys. See,” gesturing to his stuffed animals on the cot. “I have so many friends.”

Then he hugged me. :`)

The whole of this last month, almost as if he suspects his throne will be usurped, Jack has been nursing feverishly every night and every morning almost like a newborn. It has been undoubtedly exhausting and excruciating and I get up every day parched and absolutely beat.

I try to encourage him to stop, hugging and praising him when he unlatches, and I find that the times I am calm, he will be too, but the times I am angry and frustrated, he will pick up on my mood and cry for milk more. Still it is hard to be calm every morning when one is sore, in pain, having Braxton-Hicks, and the sorts.

As mothers we do the best we can with the knowledge we have, and I remind myself constantly that to a child, it is almost akin to us wives having to accept a second wife. It is that painful and traumatising. So I must be patient.

Well, it is almost that time now. 4 days more to the due date. Braxton-Hicks are frequent (although strangely enough none today) and I can almost feel my ligaments shift to prepare for the birth. I worry most that Jack will cry for me at night when I am at the hospital, not so much the pain or discomforts of childbirth, and I hope that I have prepared him enough for the changes to come.

Recently I’ve been too beat to get up - that 38 week exhaustion - but Jack, now almost 3 and wired like an Energizer bunny, loves to play. Here’s how I’ve been coping, all achieved lying down:

1. Read to toddler in bed

Cuddle together with a bunch of books he picked and read to him while he lies under your arm.

2. Play hide and seek

Round up his stuffed friends and man one of them. Stuffed friend hides in the blankets, pillows, anywhere easy to find,  within your arm’s reach, while he seeks. Then they can take turns.

3. Play the Zoo game

Round up his stuffed friends again and discuss with him which ones can pretend to be zoo animals, the rest can be visitors. Make the requisite ooh sounds when the visitors see the zoo animals. Zoo animals can show off by swimming or prancing.

4. Play educational games on iTouch

There are a ton of great educational games on the iTunes app store for a steal. Some he can play by himself, others like Hidden Everest, he can play with you. You could doze or enjoy a fun treasure hunt or cheer him on as he wins in a game.

I just read in one of my pregnancy books that around the 35th week (and that’s when it began) the hormones will turn expectant mothers into aliens. Yes, this post is proof of that. Unnecessary worrying, strange cravings (for sugary food - yuck!), preoccupation with unnecessary things (finishing the courtyard! and maybe sewing some stuffed animals), excessive purchasing of baby things. Heck, I even started Jack on cloth diapers (bumGenius - not bad at all but for the PUL), and have ordered some wool diapers after I read that PUL could be an endocrine disruptor. Dang.

Meanwhile I am still figuring out this cloth diapering thing. Prefolds, doublers… heck, I just bought an all-in-one. Then I found out that they take a while to dry if I don’t wring them out properly and air every bit of it.  They’re expensive too. $30 a pop (or poop) and we’ll need a lot when the little one is born. Currently Jack just uses it once a day and we change it whenever he is wet during this feeble attempt to toilet train. I haven’t had to wash out poop yet so maybe that’s why I am still chipper about the whole thing.

Even bought the Seventh Generation size 3 diapers which looked so small and thin I haven’t dared to put them on Jack yet. They are supposed to fit a child of weight up to 13kg but they look small enough to fit only Kaku! I better try them soon though. Jack’s growing like a weed. Or maybe I can save them for the baby. Hmm…

The courtyard project is almost complete. The glass roof is leaking in 2 places so that’s gonna be fixed soon - clothes can’t hang there yet but I have populated the place with some sun-loving plants, including a sweet basil that freshens up the place a bit. I’ve given up on Boston Ferns which have all but died on me. Ivies too. They hate the heat. Only 2 survive and I am giving them as much TLC as I can before I pop.

Ornery after 8 months of changing cat poo, DH banished Boy to the back with the other cats after he peed and pooed indiscriminately outside his pan after the workmen traipsed all over the area. Surprisingly he’s doing quite well and only Tux seems upset about this new arrangement (maybe cos he is now half Boy’s size and the change in hierarchy since Sam and he broke off and Sam grew bigger than he has affected him somehow). Boy nabbed a nice spot on a chair with a soft towel and seems happy there. I do miss petting him in the kitchen.

Jack has been clingier than normal, especially at night. And that has been so hard cos it hurts ever more now to nurse. Thankfully it is mostly the first minute then the pain abates. There’s still tons of milk, although it looks more like water to me. Jack swears it tastes the same. “Nan is the sweetest”, he chirps. And then sings me a song he made up about the joys of nan nan. How can I not give him any?

Back to the feeling alien thing. I think it is the girl hormones. There’s been weeping. Lots. Especially during sad Buffy moments. When Angel left. When Joyce died. All very sad. Even when Riley left! The only other time I cried during a movie or TV show was when the guy Lou Diamond Philips played died in La Bamba. Anyway. Hope I’ll feel more myself after baby is born. And that the labour is short, painless, and safe…

It’s been an interesting pregnancy to say the least. And I have not been myself. Much.

Hang upside down and I still upchuck my food, I cry at a drop of a hat, and I wilt under the hot sun. I worry unnecessarily, eat too much junk, and can’t walk round the zoo anymore. Very not me.

Still, my dear friends and family take me and Jack out and cheer me much. Today my sweet friend Carol buoyed me with a lovely story of how she rescued a turtle from being cooked in a Hong Kong restaurant.

I feel distinctly hippo-like although I have been told I look “compact” (by strangers largely). Friends and family have told me I look much bigger. I’ve gained 16kg and as of 33 weeks, my baby girl is 2.1kg. A good weight, the doctor says. She’s growing well.

After a meal I feel like throwing up. Yes, even in the third trimester. My back hurts constantly. My pelvis feels like an elephant is sitting on it. I move like one too. And that awful insomnia is back. Doesn’t help that Jack senses baby is coming and has been waking up more often at night for milk.

The thought of an epidural frightens me some still. I’d be lying if I wasn’t feeling a little eww about THAT CUT again. The prospect of a potential C-section is terrifying. The indignity of the enema is well, undignified. Thing about labour is no one can predict what it will be.

Still, I’m looking forward to the birth in 6 weeks (plus, minus). Of meeting this little girl who has been growing inside me and hoping real hard all the stress from the whole pregnancy won’t have affected her, nor the potential poisons - pollution, smoke, pesticides, etc - I have unintentionally exposed her to.

I hope she’ll have the resilience of my mother, the memory (literally - he has a memory like a computer) and reliability of my father, the different smarts of her parents, her Daddy’s charm and steadfastness, my nose, and my mother’s eyes. She has the prettiest eyes in my whole family.

And Jack? He’s growing like a weed. 1m tall already. A genius with the iTouch. He spies the new games I download for him in a flash. Last night he discovered a yoga app I downloaded for myself and proceeded to copy its moves. His Dad and I had a ball of a time watching and instructing him. He continued his yoga practice this morning. :p

He’s sweet, smart, funny, and a sheer delight to be with. He’s the reason why I decided to have a second. Ready for his sister (somewhat), he is prepared to share only one boob with her and has agreed to allow her to sit on his lap while nursing.

It is going to be an interesting 6 weeks to come.