Cinderella Dad

Daphne and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie Cinderella Man. A Ron Howard movie staring Russell Crowe playing James J. Braddock, the boxing legend of the 1930s. In a nutshell, it is a movie about Braddock overcoming the odds in the Great Depression and fought in the ring against various opponents. The last being one notoriously known for killing people in the ring. As history would have it, Braddock won the World Heavyweight Title.

Flash forward to reality.

Parenting I'm coming to terms with, is sort of like a boxing tournament. You feel each other out, check your opponents move, see how his left hook comes immediately after a right block. You get the sense how your opponent behaves and chart your winning strategy. And then once in a while, your opponent springs a surprise move and you get knocked out on the floor. You climb up and start all over again.

Maegan and I have just been in a boxing match. Yes, me and my daughter in the ring. The match typically starts after 11pm when she's suppose to be sleeping but mostly not. A match where I try to coax her to sleep and she bullies me into bring her to her mum.

You can hear the stadium announcer yell "In the blue corner, weighing 180 pounds, Mr "Can be bullied" Dad!" And I raise my hands to a rousing round of clap. Singular. Just a clap. "And his opponent, weighing only 8 pounds, yes ladies and gentlemen, 8 pounds, Ms "I love my Daddy but I'll still bully him" Maegan Tan!" And the stadium erupts.

And so the bell rings and round one.

Maegan cries and wails in an incredibly loud decibel level in her room while her dad, that's me, lays in his bed. He refuses to move. "She needs to learn to sleep" he told himself and covered his blanket and close his eyes. Maegan moves deftly and keeps silent for a moment. Dad thinks he's winning.... She cries yet again. Louder at every interval.

Dad stays in bed. Refusing to give in but the wails from his opponent comes clear and sharp through the baby monitor that fills his whole room. Oh wait.. somethings happening.. I hear ruffles in the bed. What do we have here, Dad is putting on his glasses and leaving the room. Oh what a match..."RING!" And there goes the bell. Round 1 Maegan.

Dad cannnot believe he is giving in so soon but he argues to himself that his baby needs assurance that his parents will always be there for her. He enters her room and "Ring!" Round 2.

Maegan keeps crying as Dad picks her up. Her big and round eyes are wide open staring at her dad and she continues her cry. She changes tag. She pause for a moment. She observes the facial expression of her dad. Wondering if he will bring her to the sacred place called breast. She looks but no movement. She advances and cries again. This time much louder. Dad can't hold on much longer she thinks to herself and she kept on going. Dad seems to stand strong. He cuddles her. He sings to her. He almost sang "You'll never walk alone" but decided otherwise. He is standing strong.

Maegan cannot believe it's happening and she keeps crying. Waking half of Shrewsbury Road residents up while she forces her dad into a corner but he stands firm! Dad smiles at her and sat down and let her cry. What a move! "Ring!" Round 2, Dad.

We've got a great match going here. Who's going to win this championship tonight? It's approaching 11.30pm and we've started Round 3. Maegan decides to rest for a while. Dad is pacing holding her in his arms. He thinks he's winning. He's picturing the podium finish when he's able to place her back into the cot. He walks towards her room and without him noticing, Maegan let's out a huge.. I mean huge cry. The audience sense a turn in the tide.

She punches and kicks, turns her head left and right. She's giving all she's got in this round. She's determined to win this match. Dad does everything he knows.. He pat her, cuddled her, changed positions, everything in the book he threw at her but to no avail. Maegan just keeps crying.

Oh wait...there's a hush in the audience, Dad's making a move. What will he do? He carries her and opens the door, oh ladies and gentlemen, are we seeing this happening.. Dad has just throw in the towel and brought Maegan into the sacred place. "Ring!" Round 3 and World Lightestweight Title, Maegan Tan.

So here I am, blogging away while she's happily at her mother's breast feeding. I've lost this time. When she's done, I'll whisk her back to her winning podium and me, back to my bed.

The time now, 1220am. No pumpkin chariots, no glass shoes. Just a Cinderella Dad wondering when Match 2 will begin.

The Science of Crying

How can someone actually cry so long?

Beats all logic that babies can actually cry almost non-stop. The facts doesn't quite add up.

Babies have a small body mass. That means very small lungs, very small mouth, very small throat, almost tiny diaphram and yet, the cry is louder and longer than adults. Just doesn't make sense!

No prize for guessing, Maegan has been crying and crying and did I mention crying? Good thing it's not getting to my nerves but crying in the middle of the night, I think she's pushing the envelop a tad bit too far. But then again, she's a baby. My baby.

The problem (or good thing) is that with a cute baby like Maegan, you can't help but not get angry even though her crying seems to be at an all time decibel hi when you are trying to sleep.

You go over to her room and stare at her, you start picking her up with everything within you that wants to scream "Shut up!!!" and you see her crying face, and you go "she's so cute." And everything within you melts away and you cuddle your baby and say "It's okay, baby, Daddy's here."

Somewhere at the back of your mind you go "Daddy WAS here to scold you but thank God you are born cute."

When they cry, you start wondering what is wrong. Is it the t-shirt I'm wearing that should have been sent for wash 3 days ago? Is it because the room temperature is too cold? Is it constipation again? So many possibilities and one baby crying. It is a guessing game.

So why do baby cry?

I think for a variety of reasons. So far, I've discovered three.

1. Milk.
2. Milk.
3. Milk.

Well, perhaps one more.

4. Poo.

Maegan can cry and fuss all night long but when her delicate mouth (that same mouth that is as loud as a loud hailer) latches on her mummy's breast, peace descends in an instant.

So currently, in our short tenure as parents, we've learned that Milk and Poo causes Maegan to cry and breasts and constant carrying makes her stop. That works for us for now.

I now know why almost every young person played charades when we were young. It's a game that sets us up for parenthood. And I'm just glad we've got two of the answers right so far. I'm still guessing the rest.

Any clues?

It's official. Poo has begun!

Saturday, 27 May 2006. The time was, in my half-awake and half asleep calculations, 2am, our confinement nanny entered our bedroom with Maegan in tow. She bore good news. Maegan, our little baby gal, all of 10 days old, has finally pooed on her own.

I have never been so happy about babies pooing before. But boy was I elated. Happy. Estatic! SHE POOED!!!!

In my previous post, I mentioned about how worried we were about her not pooing. The fact is, I got so worried that I decided to call a good friend who is a paedietrician for a second opinion and the answers that came back remained the same. Stay patient. The coming of poo is imminent.

Daphne's auntie also mentioned that something interesting happens to a baby when she hits 10 days old. It seems that after 10 days, babies starts to realise that they are no longer in their mothers womb and function normally, including pooing.

So 10 days to the dot and almost to the hour, Maegan pooed on her own. It's hard to fathom how anyone can be so happy about poo but we did.

The revolution has begun. Revolution of our lives really. The poo cleaning days are here and here to stay. Perhaps it's God's way of making me happy about cleaning poo. Some of you may know, I'm adverse to cleaning babies poo. I've always told Daphne that I'll take care of nail cutting, bathing, changing clothes etc but she takes care of poo.

I might have just changed my mind. God, as usual, is cleverest.

But then again, all these emotions of relief, happiness happened at 2am. My mind was in a state of flux I will argue in the courtroom of parenting. "Objection , your honour!" My mind isn't working, would be my defence, when I said I'll take care of the poo. And the evidence of that is the memory I had of that day, I stirred to hear Maegan pooed. I smiled and said to Daphne "Yeah!" And I fell back asleep.

And in the hushness of the parenting courtroom, I hear the hammer rattle thru the silence and Judge Maegan declared "Overuled!"

The Thing About Names

Names to me are kind of important. Actually, names are very important. Sometimes I think, it makes or break a person.

Naming something or someone is a delicate and important exercise. Both practically and spiritually. It has to sound right, mean right and most of all, feel right. Wouldn't you agree that there are some names that are totally hedious? Yup, that's the last name I would name my daughter.

There are names I would never name my baby gal.

One of them is Chloe. Don't get me wrong, Chloe is a beautiful name. Elegant, nice but, Chloe was the name of my first dog. Chloe was a beuatiful mongro that I adopted from S.P.C.A. and a dog very close to my heart. The first and only dog I ever had. But despite the feelings I have for Chloe, I'll never name my baby gal Chloe.

Names sometimes sounds great on its own but place it together with a surname like mine, TAN, you get a whole lot of combinations that perhaps draws a joke or two too much.

Then you have the chinese names to contend with. Both Daphne and I found it more difficult find a suitable chinese name because of our limited vocabulary.

Names for me too needs to pass what I would term a "scolding test". It needs to sound right when I call the name for discipline or scolding. "Bernadette! Come here!" doesn't sound quite right compared to "Jackson! come here!". It needs to short and punchy.

All in all, it was a far greater exercise than we both expected during the nine months of pregnancy. Choosing her Christian name was the easy part. Daphne knew all along what name she wanted for our baby gal. Since I got to choose the name for our son Mattheus, Daphne chose our baby gal's name. Getting the chinese name right was the challenge. But we soon, with her dad's help, found what we were looking for.

We didn't want anyone to know her name until she was born. So to appease everyone that asked, our working (ok.. make that my working title) for our baby gal was Frodo. When it became certain at about 4 months that she was really going to be a girl, we switched to Arwen. Of all the laughters I get for using both working names, my daughter can be thankful that her working title wasn't Gollum. (would be quite fun actually. Then I can call her "My Precious!")

And so her name.

Maegan Tan Ee Ning. 陈依宁 (Chen Yining). Not Megan. Not Magen. Just Maegan. Maegan with an additional A. Mae in short.

Maegan means "Pearl" in Gaelic. Ee Ning 依宁 means Reliable and Peaceful.

And now that we as parents have done our part to find the best name possible for her, it's up to her to make out what her name will mean for her and what it will mean for the world as she grows up.

As the saying goes, names are what we make it out to be.

Maegan Tan Ee Ning. I like the name. :o)

Poo

I wish this entry was simply about good old Winnie. If only.

It is 1214am and Daphne had just witnessed an avalanche of pooh that was miraculously produced by our tiny Maegan. And the best part, we're jumping for joy that she is pooing.

Pooing, it seems, is not what Maegan's specialty. Unlike many young parents who dread the poo that comes as frequently as Singapore Idol's trailer on TV, we are getting worried that Maegan is not pooing.

Ever since she's back from the hospital, she hasn't poo until our pediatrician Dr Belinda inserted a glycerine suppository into her behind and poo finally came. That was Tuesday.

Since then, Maegan remained constipated. She's great at having a bottom's up with her mum's breast milk but she just doesn't poo.

We've tried everything. From the famous "Mmmmmmmmmmm", to drinking water and to wet cotton buds at her behind, every trick in the bag were used to no avail. She just couldn't poo.

Every night at this time, she starts crying ... change that... wailing, because she just cannot get rid of all the poo that is acumulating and her poor parents, desperately needing sleep, gets worried about her, wondering what else we can do to make her poo.

Back to the avalanche.

Thanks to the advice of Dr Belinda's nurse Susan, we've been advised to purchase the same suppositories and to use it when needed. And use it we did and the avalanche came.

We'll probably take her back to the doctor tomorrow just to see how we can make her feel better and poo better. But for now, we're happy.

It's amazing how one can be so happy with poo. If you ask us, we're extremely delighted that poo came (in a big way). We're delighted not only because Maegan's jaundice can finally come down (stayed up because she couldn't poo), but because she can finally rest well.

And for us, we can finally sleep. Believe it or not, all thanks to poo.

I Survived

I have officially survived my first week of being dad.

I've always wondered how it feels like to be a dad and now, I'm a one week old dad.

And the feeling? Indescribable.

Have you had times where you are in an euphoria of sorts that you cannot quite find the words to describe the feeling? "Excitied"? Cannot quite describe the intensity. "Happy"? Way too mild compared to what I'm feeling right now. "Ecstatic"? Close enough but doesn't quite capture the other feelings that comes with the whole experience.

It's really a collection of words. Words like happiness, relieved, proud, awe, wonder, amazement, all rolled into one. I wonder if I could find that one word. Perhaps, perhaps not.

That aside, it is has been tremendous.

I am now a proud dad.



Maegan Tan Ee Ning was born on 18 May 2006 at 1101am. A thursday morning where Barcelona won the European Cup by beating Arsenal 2 - 1 in Paris. Arsenal's keeper Lehman was sent off for a professional foul on the 18th minute and the complexion of the game changed. Sol Campell scored first with ... I'm digressing.

Maegan was born with the cutest look in the face of this planet. She was born 3.25kgs or 7lbs 2.6oz and she was simply adorable.

Truth be told, she looked more like a prune when she was born. All wrinkly and blue, she burst out in a loud cry the moment she came out and caught her first breath. It was then that a huge weight on my shoulders was lifted.

You see, Maegan is our second child. Our eldest son Mattheus was born premature at 22 weeks + 3 days and could only survive 3 hours with us. We're grateful enough to hold our baby boy alive at all but I won't share too much about that experience here.

So for 9 months since Maegan was conceived, we really didn't know what to expect. Daphne and I lived in perpetual fear that history would repeat itself. We took every precaution imaginable and got the best medical advice we could afford. We were fearful to state the least and when Maegan let out her cry, a sense of relief came upon me.

You never know what to expect and what will happen until your child is born. Only then when the doctors say all is well, do you finally enjoy that moment of euphoria.

So to go from the delivery suite where Maegan was born to one week later where I'm lying in bed typing this blog, I must say it was an incredible one week.

I've witnessed the birth of my child, carried her in my arms, cuddle her to bed, showed her off to the whole world, took almost 300 pictures, made a 15 minute slideshow, bought medicine, helped Daphne breast feed, talked to her, kissed her, hugged her. All within one week.

And to top it all off, I survived.

This blog will be my journey of being dad. There's just so much details to share but I'm going to take my time to share this exciting journey that I'm embarking on with Daphne and Maegan.

It's almost one week exactly ago, to the hour, that Daphne's water bag burst in our bedroom.

As I look back at this one week, one momentous week, one history making week for Daphne and me, I have perhaps found the word that I've been looking for to describe how I felt. An old fashion word that I think sums up all the feelings and emotions that I had this whole week.

Grateful. I'm just grateful.