Ring Bearer

A week ago today my little boy walked down the aisle, hand-in-hand with his father, bearing not the pillow with the rings but his favourite Baby Einstein DVD case.

I was very proud, like all mums must be when their children first take part in a bridal march. When we were first asked if Little A would be the ring bearer at my cousin's wedding, I accepted with great trepidation and told my aunt in all honesty that I doubted he would cooperate. At that stage he was refusing to wear shoes, not at all given to following instructions and rarely walked but mostly ran.

In the months leading up to the wedding I tried on a couple of occasions to make him walk down the hallway of our little flat carrying a small pillow but had no success. If he walked, he would throw the pillow aside. If he carried it, he would hug it to his chest, run down the hall and crash into the couch, laughing.

Two weeks before the big day, I borrowed the top he would wear from my best friend from childhood, the same top her son wore to my wedding. The native Filipino dress top, called a Barong Tagalog, was long-sleeved and made of slightly scratchy cotton. Every time I tried to put it on Little A just to check it for size, he would pull it off. I was already unsure he would walk down the aisle, let alone with the rings and now half-dressed as shoes were still a no go.

On the day of the wedding, we had to wake him from his nap to get to the church on time. He had slept two hours and woke up cheerful. Always eager for a car ride, he enjoyed the trip to the church but weekend traffic meant we arrived just in time. I ran him into the church where the march had already begun, and got him into his top with surprisingly little fuss just in time to push him down the aisle. A little confused, he looked at me with a puzzled expression, as if to ask what exactly he was meant to do. Right then, Big A came up, took him by the hand and off they walked, just perfectly.

Later on, I helped him deliver the rings for the priest to bless, and this time he wanted to climb the stairs to the altar. During the photo session following the ceremony, the other little boys and girls stood at their places obediently while Little A had to be chased away from the priest's chair and hauled back bodily to the steps where the photos were being taken, several times as he attempted escape more than once.

Nevertheless, I considered the event a huge success. Next on the list, performing at the school end-of-term concert. That one is still a dream.

Busy Busy

Another month has just flown by, and I have found little time to write the things I've wanted to post about. Ah, well, such is life and a working mother's priorities.

The past few weeks have been crazy, and I've survived by reducing my number of sleeping hours per night to 5. I actually forgot to pay my au pair and day girl last payday, and only realized this when they had to ask my husband for money for their twice-monthly market trip.

A Day in My Life before mid-November:

8am - Wake up, read paper while Little A plays, check email, make work calls, have breakfast, do laundry if Monday or Thursday

10am - Off to the supermarket, bank, Gymboree or whatever set of errands need doing, usually with Little A in tow.

1pm - Home for lunch and Little A's nap. Time online, working and surfing.

Afternoon - meetings if there are any, more errands if needed, snack time for Little A and more play. Reading time for me if he has a long nap.

730pm - Dinner, bathtime then downtime until bed.

1030pm - Lights out

12pm - Everyone usually sleeps

A Day in My Life since mid-November:

630am - Wake up with Little A, turn on laptop, answer emails, pay bills online, make calls. Do laundry if I have time to load the washing machine or laundry pile threatens to overwhelm the flat. Ignore newspaper. Have a quick breakfast when I can squeeze it in in time to -

1030am - Take Little A to preschool if Tuesday or Thursday, otherwise off to the mall to open the store if needed, or do errands or have meetings. When we are faced with imminent starvation, go to the supermarket and race through the aisles throwing things into the shopping trolley while simultaneously texting suppliers or work partners and making calls.

1pm - Drop Little A off at home for lunch and nap, head to the store to put in a few hours training and overseeing the staff, interviewing new applicants, handling all the admin work, dealing with both the mall management and customers and doing all sorts of retail business things without once sitting down, until -

730pm - Home for dinner and to see my son, who by this time thinks he has done something horrible and is being punished by not being able to see his mother. Watch Little A play or eat while frantically answering emails, printing reports and the like. (The laptop and printer now live permanently on the dining room table). Perhaps get to play with him for 10 straight minutes if I'm lucky.

830pm - Back to the mall to close the store if needed. Otherwise, bathe Little A and go back to paperwork, as the inventory updating is even worse than laundry pile.

1030pm - Lights out. Shut Big and Little A in the bedroom and continue work, or pay bills online, make Christmas lists, organise presents etc. Spend half an hour putting Little A to sleep, then sneak back out to the laptop.

1am - Turn off lights, pack away whatever messes Little A has left in his room and the living and dining room. Shower and fall asleep with hair soaking wet.

Somehow on paper it looks less hectic than it actually is. Maybe I'm missing something out. Don't have time to think about what it is. Little A is down for his nap and I've got to man the store now.

Frequent Traveler

I am amazed at how some mothers can blog so frequently. Just looking after my one child, keeping our small flat in order and having partial charge of a new business venture leaves me with little time to eat, sleep and even breathe. Still, all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl and Jill's toddler and husband sad people, so time must be alloted for "recreation."

With a trip to Hong Kong that needed to be taken before mid-November, (originally scheduled for a trade fair some months ago, the sudden onset of H1N1 worldwide required a postponement of a trip booked on what should have been non-rebookable, nonrefundable tickets) we found ourselves airport-bound for Little A's 5th overseas adventure.

Since he was born in July 2007, our son has been to Hong Kong twice a year. Two October journeys were Big A's business trips that we tagged along on, and the January trips were family ones for my parents' wedding anniversary and Chinese New Year, respectively. This one was partly work for me, and partly a nice break.

This trip also marked a couple of firsts for our little family. It was the first trip taken after Little A was completely weaned and since he decided to stop wearing nappies completely. With visions of wet pants dancing in my head, I packed three sets of trousers and shorts and a couple of nappies just in case, plus his favourite non-spill sippy cup, an assortment of books, and an entire box of his favourite biscuits for a half-hour car ride, two hour airport wait, two hour plane trip, half-hour train ride and ten minute taxi.

Amazingly, Little A did not have a single wee accident the entire 3-day trip. While at home he had to be taken to the toilet periodically or he would pee on the floor, all throughout the long weekend he would indicate when he needed to go, or go to the toilet himself and pull his shorts down and wait for someone to lift him up to reach the seat.

I was overjoyed. Perhaps it was the layout of the hotel bathroom, or the blue water in the loo (the toilets in the hotel were treated with disinfectant that turned the water bright blue), or even the fact that there were less distractions in the form of toys, videos and the like. Whatever it was, I was the proudest mum on earth.

Apart from the toilet training, Little A was perfectly behaved on the aeroplane both ways. He sat quietly in his seat, watched his Mickey Mouse videos, read his books and ate his snacks. Granted, the flights were short and he did do his share of sprinting in the airport and on the train into Hong Kong city, where he refused to sit anywhere but the luggage rack. Still, we were expecting much worse and were pleasantly surprised.

We have been back home a week now, and apart from one accident the night we arrived and another the next day when his nanny didn't take him to the toilet in time, Little A has kept his pants dry. He still needs to be taken to the loo every couple of hours, but I am hoping that soon he will be just like he was in Hong Kong and walk to the bathroom himself when he needs to go. Next week he will do a trial class at preschool. If that goes well, he will start attending twice weekly sessions. My little boy is not so little any more.

Best Buys

With November just around the corner and a soon-to-open small business that should see plenty of demand as the Christmas holidays approach, I am trying to finish up my Christmas shopping before the seasonal rush begins.

I normally begin this shopping in July and August, when the local bookstores have their annual sales. Little A's wardrobe gets more and more packed with presents until the time comes for them to be wrapped and distributed to boys and girls both naughty and nice.

Needless to say, majority of my presents every year are books. And while some may be unappreciated (and hopefully re-gifted) by those for whom reading is not a huge priority, others are read and enjoyed, some of them time and time again.

For my nephews, nieces and godkids, I get titles I have loved from a young age and still do, books that I think should be on every shelf. A few of these are not often available in local bookstores, so it is always pure luck to find them at my favourite secondhand bookshop. Some of them can be had for a song, and I snap them up eagerly.

I hope this year's recipients enjoy their books. After all, as Carlos Ruiz Zafon said, "Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not for the merits of who receives them."

Growing Up

About a month before he turned two, I was determined to get Little A sleeping through the night and weaned, if it was possible to do both at the same time. Up until that point, he still nursed to sleep every nap and nighttime and managed 2-3 feedings a night plus one upon waking up in the morning. It was starting to drive me crazy.

The first few nights of denying pre-sleep nursing meant plenty of crying and throwing himself about the bed until Little A collapsed with exhaustion. Within a fortnight though, the crying decreased to whining and then to just cuddling next to me until he fell asleep. Hooray! The nighttime and morning feedings continued, though, as did the naptime one unless we weren't home and he fell asleep in his stroller or car seat.

I then applied one of the techniques detailed in Elizabeth Pantley's No-Cry Sleep Solution, decreasing the length of nursing time with each nighttime feeding, and eventually just refusing to feed at all. At first, Little A would go from half-asleep to more awake and protest loudly, but within a week or so, he learned to put himself back to sleep because there was no boob to be had, and then, joy of joys, he simply started sleeping longer until he was making it through the night. Hooray!

Morning feedings were quickly eliminated by taking him out for breakfast before he could complain too much, but surprisingly, the naptime feedings were the last to go. Perhaps Little A wanted to hold on to this last bonding session as long as he could.

When we are at home, at naptime Little A comes up to me, takes my hand, leads me to the bed, lifts his arms up to be carried onto it (though he is perfectly capable of climbing up himself) and then pulls me down next to him. He cuddles into my side and makes sure I do not leave until he is well and truly asleep.

Even when he no longer nursed to sleep, I had to be there every time it was naptime, unless I was not home, in which case he fought off sleep as long as he could before giving in and sleeping in his stroller. Some days he simply refused to nap at all.

Last week, my growing boy managed to fall asleep twice on the bed for late naps without my being next to him. The au pair let him play quietly on the bed until his eyes shut from tiredness.

Today, I was sitting at the table reading while Little A finished his lunch when he just walked off down the corridor. A few minutes later, I peeked into his room but didn't see him playing there. When I looked into our room, where Big A was on the bed watching tv, I saw Little A at the foot of the bed, reclining. Big A waved me away and called me in two minutes later to show me our son sleeping quietly. Little A had climbed on the bed by himself, held on to his favourite dvd and lay down. He turned his head to look at his dad and then shut his eyes and was asleep instantly. He knew I was there ready for the regular naptime routine, but chose to grow up today and go to sleep without mum, on his own.

I looked down at my sleeping son, feeling a mixture of pride and sadness for the little person who once depended on me for nourishment and comfort and is now well and truly on the way to being all grown up.

Nighttime and Nappies

An old schoolfriend recently had a baby boy. At six weeks she was marvelling at how he slept through the night in 6-hour stretches and at three months he is sleeping 11 hours a night.

I was very envious of her non-sleep deprived state. Little A only started sleeping 6 hour stretches just before he turned two, and sometimes that was a single stretch per night, meaning he and I were up incredibly early while he played for a few hours before napping. Slowly though, he learned to sleep longer. Coupled with the end of night-time feedings, he can now sleep the full night through, and if he does wake up, he goes back to sleep without needing to wake me up.

This victory was not yet celebrated when he decided, for the second time, (the first being when he was about 20 months old) that he no longer needed nappies. The first refusal stage lasted a few weeks and was solved by switching to pull-up nappies. This time, we thought he might be ready to start toilet training.

Little A quickly learned that the bed, couches and rugs were no-wee zones, but would go on the floors instead, stubbornly refusing to make it to the bathrooms unless he happened to already be in there for a bath. Night-times, however, he has generally remained dry, allowing him to sleep without nappies most of the time. He only wets the bed at night if he is very tired and has had a long day that is different from his usual schedule.

In the morning and after his nap, Little A pees in the bathroom, but we are still working on regular daytime wee times. I hope that this continues to work as forcing him into nappies now results in two-year old tantrums, and anyone who has raised a child will know how tiresome these can be.

Searching for Greens

Two weeks after back-to-back storms lashed the northern Philippines, flooding an island slightly smaller than the size of England and causing landslides, massive population displacement and now, leptospirosis, I went to the supermarket to find many areas empty.

The tinned meat section was cleared out, which was fine by me as most of that had gone to relief goods, but the produce section was woefully vegetable-free because most of the vegetables we buy are grown in the north, which at the time was inaccessible by road due to the floods. Parts of the south had flooded as well, so the salad greens normally sourced there were absent as well.

What veg there was was marked up by about 4 times its regular price. Three layers of price stickers showed massive price increases in the span of a few days. I purchased only what was absolutely needed, and went home with bags full of meat and fish but very little vegetables. No carrots, no potatoes, no greens.

One good thing brought about by the floods was an abundance of fish, and while prices of these hadn't decreased, supply was better, giving a wider variety of choice.

Weather reports warn of a new typhoon headed our way, due to make landfall tomorrow. With most of the country still reeling from the last two storms, we pray that this one will sweep by with a minimum of damage.