Motherhood: Our Dirty Little Secrets

It is often said that motherhood is the toughest job in the world and Oprah is the first to shout that fact out from the rooftops even though she has never been a mother. Many woman approach motherhood with dreams and hopes and ideals thinking it will be a stroll in the park as it is shown on TV. Once the child is born all those ideas are thrown out with the piles of poopy diapers. I mean who knew that a newborn infant could shit ten times a day, especially if they are breast fed and who knew that life for you will never be the same again.

So the other night I managed to catch her show. There were women on her show sharing their dirty little secrets on how they approached motherhood. Many of these women have reached their wits end when it comes to dealing with their progeny and I could surely empathise with them. One woman confessed that she often resorted to tears when dealing with her kids. Yelling and time outs didn’t work so she cries to get her kids to behave. Listening to these women made me think of my own childhood were the motto “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was the rule of the day. There was no problem that couldn’t be solved with a good swift kick in the ass. Today no one dares hit their children, especially in public, for fear of being accused of child abuse. When we went out many people told my mother that my sisters and I were the most polite well behaved little girls they had ever met. That’s because we knew better. We didn’t ask for things when we went shopping, we didn’t dare ask for money and we did not throw temper tantrums in the store. When we met friends of our parents we called them Mr. or Mrs. or if the friend was really close we called them aunt or uncle. Times surely have changed.

When we push that squalling little thing from our loins most of us love our children unconditionally at the first sight of that tiny little face, no matter how ugly. Many of us shed a few tears because we are so overcome with emotions that cannot be put into words. One women on that show confessed that she did not like her baby and it took her a few weeks to feel any connection with it. This is probably not as uncommon as you would think, after all the pregnancy doesn’t always go as hoped and many women feel like crap during this so called special time. During the pregnancy all the attention is placed on the expectant mother but once the child is born the mother is practically ignored and all the attention is placed on the baby. No wonder many women resent their babies.

Confessions were plenty. One woman confessed that she hated the feel of her sagging breasts resting on her post pregnancy belly. Another confessed that her children don’t always get a healthy breakfast; in fact they get pizza for breakfast at least twice a week. A high flying lawyer turned stay at home mom deals with misbehaviour by taking away all her kids toys, only returning them when she feels like it. That’ll teach the little bugger. I have to confess that I once dealt with a temper tantrum that my daughter threw, one of many, too many to count really, by ripping up her favourite colouring book. That sure put an end to the tantrum. I have to confess though, while it stopped the tantrum I felt like a shit afterward because of her accusing eyes.

Yes many of us are not perfect mothers and between you and me there is no point trying to be. If your kids turn out to be rotten adults you’ll be blamed for it anyways. Mothers are only human and there will be times when we forget to stock up on diapers. One woman on the show had run out of diapers on an air flight and had asked the stewardess to bring her napkins from first class and some maxi pads for a makeshift diaper. There will be times when meals are not as healthy as they should be. The house will be in disarray because you haven’t had the time to clean up and there will be times when you haven’t showered for days on end. Many women on the show confessed that after giving birth they didn’t want sex anymore. Not surprising, sex is what got them in that position in the first place. I certainly know how they feel. After every pregnancy, five in total, I told my husband that I was still bleeding two months after giving birth when in fact I had finished six weeks after. Just to avoid sex. It’s not surprising that many marriages are ruined after the baby arrives. A lot of women actually hate their husbands after giving birth.

Many women, after giving birth, become disillusioned about motherhood. While many women want to be mothers they actually hate doing it. The war between working mothers and non working mothers is ongoing, frankly speaking both are disorganised. The only difference being is the working mother gets to join in on adult conversations on a daily basis. Some women rely on Prozac just to get through the day, because they can’t stand their kids and feel like they are the only mother in the world who has lost control. Believe me you are not alone.

So what is my dirty little secret, I have many but the ones I’m writing down here are, I love you but I don’t always like you very much and those times that you all screamed “I hate you mummy” believe me during that moment I hated you more.

Junk

I have always been a bit of a neat freak and my two older daughters have inherited the same tendencies as me. I remember sharing a bedroom with my sister growing up. There was an imaginary line drawn in the room that signified her side of the room and my side. Her side of the room always looked like a bomb hit, my side was as neat as a pin. There was a place for everything and everything had a place.

Now as an adult I am still neat, my room is cleaned once a week and my bed sheets are changed. God forbid that I, sleep on bed sheets that have been on the bed for two weeks, to me it’s just so yucks!! My floors in the house are swept and mopped every day, yes in my house there are chores that must be done every day. MUST! Going to work my house was left in an orderly fashion once I got home from work it was in disarray because of my kids and this would put me in a bad mood for the rest of the evening and have me reaching for the bottle of vodka. I live by schedules and I need order around me so if my schedule is screwed up somehow and there is disorder all around I cannot function. So now with Chinese New Year coming up once again it’s time for spring cleaning.

When I was working I used to use my leaves just to stay home and clean house, not take holidays. With only one day off a week there wasn’t much time for spring cleaning. Now I’m not working I have more time unfortunately I don’t have the energy I used to have, while the spirit is willing the body is protesting. I actually hate spring cleaning and yet I relish in the fact that my house will be clean. With spirits high I painted my bedroom two days after Christmas, nothing like an early start. Painting my room used to take me one day to paint, this year or should I say last year it took me two days. On the end of the first day of painting my body ached so badly I was practically crawling around on all fours. That night I forced my kids to make up my bed and position it in the middle of the room so I could sleep in my half painted room. I managed to finish painting the next day which was New Years Eve. That was Thursday and New Years Day I rested. The day after though I cleaned out the store room or rather forced my kids to clean it out and I of course ended up finishing it.

This past weekend I cleaned out my kitchen cupboards. I thought they had not been cleaned out for ten years but my eldest daughter assures me that she has cleaned them out a few times when she was at home. Phew thank god I would hate to think they had never been cleaned, they certainly looked like it though. One thing about cupboards, they are a neat freaks dream. Any junk can be thrown inside and not seen unless you open the cupboard. This past Christmas though I noticed how dirty they were and there wasn’t any space left. Things were piling up on the kitchen table and that’s another thing that irritates me, junk on the kitchen table and so it was time to clean out those cupboards.

I was merciless in my cleaning; things that are not used and will not be used in the future were thrown out. By time I finished I had two bags of junk and as I put everything back in the cupboard that I was keeping I wondered how all that shit could fit inside in the first place. I got most of it done but I still have two cupboards to clean, this weekend. I also noticed that my legs were aching on Monday.
So this weekend I intend to finish the kitchen cupboards, there really isn’t that much more time before Chinese New year. Once the kitchen is clean the next project is my bedroom cupboard. My cupboards are full of clothes that I cannot wear since I gained weight. Curse you menopause! I’m sure there will be two more big bags to throw out. I had intended to do some painting in the house but after the experience of painting my room nah I’ll wait until next year when I can hire someone to paint the house for me. As I said the spirit is willing but the body is protesting.

Confessions of a smoker

Oh the taste of that first cigarette in the morning. Sitting in the kitchen with the first cup of coffee of the day, this I think to myself has got to be the best feeling in the world. Now I know there are those of you out there who are thinking it’s not the best feeling in the world, actually, its slow suicide. I just can’t stop. I’ve tried to and at some point in the next few months I will try again. The problem is every time I try to stop, I feel resentful. I am not a chain smoker, I don’t smoke three or four packs a day I only smoke one pack. I am not one of those people who wake up three or four times a night to smoke. No, to me better then smoking is sleeping and I’d rather sleep. The reason why I feel resentful when I try to quit is because it’s the only pleasure I get out of this crappy life.

I grew up in a family of smokers. Everyone smoked and most of them smoked themselves to death. My own mother had triple bypass surgery because of all the years she spent smoking. It’s ironic that she had actually quit smoking two years before her surgery, which is lucky for her but she still has trouble breathing. The only reason why she quit was because she couldn’t afford to smoke any more, not because she wanted to.

As a kid I remember being in the car with my parents. Now the summer months weren’t so bad but in the winter, my sisters and I would be sitting in the back seat, all the windows up and both my parents would be smoking. If we complained they told us to shut up. If we wanted to roll down a window my mother would yell it’s too cold. How’s that for second hand smoke. It’s no wonder I smoke. Those two should have been arrested for child endangerment or abuse. But hey that was pretty normal back then. I remember my mother taking me to family doctor when I was sick. He’d have a cigarette burning away and my mother would light up as well as soon as she sat her butt in the patient’s chair and the kind doctor would say “here Marilyn, here’s the ashtray”.

I started smoking quite young. I was around fourteen years old when I picked up this nasty habit. I know its nasty but I can’t help it. Much to my shame I smoked during my first three pregnancies, but did manage to stop for pregnancy four and five. I really suffered. As soon as I gave birth I was screaming at my husband to get me some cigarettes. Luckily I only spent two days in the hospital with the last two. I remember giving birth to my first two children; they allowed us to smoke in the rooms. People back then didn’t know any better.

At least I can say that I didn’t smoke in the car when my children were inside. I smoke in the house though, but I live in a tropical country and my house is open all day with a fan going until I go to bed at night. Not like when I was a kid growing up in Canada, the long winter months, the house tightly closed and adults inside smoking and when we had company the smoke was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Maybe that’s why our mother threw us outdoors every chance she got.

No one forced me to smoke I decided all by myself. My cousin started first and I just naturally started. The first time my dad saw me with a cigarette he pulled it out of my fingers and yelled at me not to smoke, but it was ok to drink at the age of fifteen, such logic. I do have to say though that I do regret starting smoking. Now at the age of fifty-one my mortality is staring me in the face. I want to quit, so maybe I should try the patch or the pills they have now to help you quit. Or I could sit and stare at the disgusting pictures they put on the packages now, if that doesn’t make me quit, I don’t know what will.

American Idol

So once again American Idol is on the air and going into their ninth season. I didn’t watch the first few seasons because of the late hours I worked but around the third season I started to watch. At first I enjoyed it watching the show but year after year I began to lose interest and season eight I did not watch at all.

Idol has just lost its appeal for me every year it is the same old thing. People across the US fill the stadiums where the trials are being held. Mind you there are some really good singers out there and disserve a chance at the title, unfortunately there are also those idiots that insist on auditioning who can’t sing worth a damn. The trouble with these people is they are so full of themselves that they think they can sing and get right upset when they are asked to leave.

Another reason why I stopped watching Idol was because of Paula Abdul. She has got to be the most brainless, blubbering idiot to ever grace our screens. So when I read that Paula’s contract wasn’t going to be renewed this year I cheered. Through all the seasons I don’t think that witless woman has ever said anything remotely intelligent. One day, with nothing to watch on TV, I ended up watching her reality show and I have to tell you it sucks ass. All that woman did was whine, bitch and complain. Seriously if I wanted to listen to all that whining, bitching and complaining I’d go out and buy myself a bottle of vodka, drink it and sit and listen to my own thoughts.

So this season when they announced that Ellen DeGeneres was going to be the new judge I was ecstatic once again. Once again I sit and watch Idol with all the crappy singers that make your bowels cringe and also a few very good surprises and once in Hollywood Ellen will join the veteran judges and I can’t wait for her to bring some humour and wit to the tired out show and to see how she pits herself against Simon. Here’s to you Ellen make this season a good one and one worth watching.

Farmville

I’ve never been a person who likes to play games, probably because I get very competitive and also I can be a sore loser. After joining Facebook I kept getting invites from friends and family to join all the online games so I ended up joining Farm Town and played at it in between writing my articles. I haphazardly worked at my farm. My fields were crooked and for the life of me I could not get them straight. My son laughed at my farm and an online friend said it was cute. I planted crops that would take two and three days to grow so I wouldn’t have to visit too often as my writing took precedence. It wasn’t long and someone asked me to join Farmville. At first I worked haphazardly at this farm as well and my fields were crooked. I planted crops that took two and three days to grow here as well after all I now had two farms to look after in between writing. Then my daughter went back to work after her maternity leave and grandma was to babysit. Grandma found she no longer had much time to write, but online games could be played while feeding baby and when baby was asleep and you didn’t have to use many brain cells to play them.

My addiction to Farmville began.
Farm Town takes back seat to Farmville hands up. While both games are basically the same, you build your farm level by level, you tend your crops and earn virtual coins once you sell them Farmville has the added advantage of being able to harvest your animals. On Farm Town your animals walk around aimlessly and you can’t harvest them so you can’t make money off of them. Once you reach a certain level you can sell your animals for mere cents, on Farmville you can harvest your animals and earn money or you can sell them. On Farmville it is easier and faster to level up. Even though I have been playing Farm Town much longer my level on Farmville is higher. My farm field rows are now nice and straight, my farm has grown in size three times since last month, I have animals galore, two cow sheds where my cows pop out a baby calf once in a while. I have a chicken coup, two barns and trees and recently upgraded my small house to a larger farm house. During Christmas there were decorations and the farm was blanketed in snow. The snow has melted now that Christmas is over. Yesterday I was lucky to adopt a lonely pink cow, which I have wanted for the longest time, and also managed to adopt a pink calf, what luck. I now plant rows and rows of crops which I harvest every day.

Feeling stressed, play Farmville and while I play many more online games on Facebook nothing beats Farmville, a relaxing way to pass time. You can almost feel the virtual dirt running through your fingers. It’s a non competitive game where you can see your virtual coins growing every day. Better go, have to harvest my crops and animals and by the way those of you who have fish tanks FEED YOUR FISH! I hate seeing those poor dead fish floating around the tank.

Cats

I’m an animal lover and love all animals. Insects and lizards who wonder into my house are safe from me for I will not squash cockroaches, spiders or kill the little house lizards that adorn the walls of my house, as they do in tropical Asian countries. For the most part these little creatures only need to fear my cat or if my daughter, who is deathly afraid of cockroaches, comes screaming out of the bathroom yelling at me to kill it. I have four dogs, two cats and one rabbit. But of all the animals around it is the poor cat which gets the bum rap.

Cats are not only disliked in Asian countries but also some people in the west don’t like them. In Canada cat owners are not allowed to let their cats wonder around outside now because of complaints from people who do not want cats crapping in their gardens. In Asia many people don’t like cats and so there are a lot of strays out there. They have dog catchers who periodically go around rounding up stray dogs but cats are pretty much left to their own devices, living in the rough. My daughter has eight cats. All are rescue cats except for one. At one time she was quite active in a group called “Cat Rescuers”. Now that she has the baby she doesn’t have the time although she still has the eight cats.

During her pregnancy well meaning friends and acquaintances informed her that it was time to get rid of the cats. They insisted that you can’t keep cats with a baby in the condo. Why is there so much fear over cats? Yeah I know there have been reports that have found that cat urine and crap is harmful to pregnant women. But it has also been stated that if a pregnant woman cleans a litter box all she has to do is wash her hands thoroughly. If you have a baby at home any sane person is not going to clean the litter box out with their bare hands then attend to the baby directly. There are pooper scoopers to clean out the box and all houses should have soap and water to clean up afterwards. So far the cat fur doesn’t bother the baby. For the most part it is people with allergies to cats or has asthma who should avoid them. The baby is fine.

It used to be when I visited my daughter all the cats would go into hiding. Now that I have been going to the condo to babysit my granddaughter the cats are used to me and during the day you can see them lying around the apartment in different area’s catching their forty winks. Cats are mostly active at night and the early part of the morning so when I enter the condo in the morning I am greeted by cats swarming around my ankles looking for food. Half the time I end up tripping over one of them and I am surprised that I have not fallen and broken my neck yet. During the day they are not much of a problem except for the odd one that steals my chair and stares daggers at me when I kick its ass out. Another cat likes to irritate me when I make my breakfast. Turn around too long and the cat will be on the counter licking my toast. Yuck!! The other day I washed the baby’s clothes and one of the cats was sleeping on the washing machine so I had to throw his ass off so I could load the machine. He wasn’t happy. He sauntered into the kitchen flopped on the floor staring cock at me. When I walked past him and bent down to pet him he scratched me. His displeasure was made known.

The cats don’t bother the baby although once in a while one of them will try to sleep her baby chair. I just throw it out. The baby is not bothered by fur, as my daughter vacuums the condo regularly. For the most part all you have to do is keep it clean. After all cats do have a purpose. They keep mice and rats away, walls are free of lizards and cockroaches. Now all I have to do is watch where I’m walking. This morning, when carrying the baby, one of the cats entwined in my legs and almost tripped me up. I should be used to it by now though, as every day, for almost ten years, there is a cat in my house which will almost cause me to fall down the stairs.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world and the sight of a woman breastfeeding her baby is one of the most beautiful sights to behold, so this morning when I read an article in the newspaper about a woman who breastfed her baby until she was six years old almost made me gag. Anyways this woman wrote a book about her experience.

Now I can understand women in underdeveloped third world countries having to breastfeed their children until they are five years of age. After all breast milk is cheap and nourishing and this way the poor woman can make sure that her child grows to be strong and healthy, but in developed countries where technology has made it possible for woman to buy good quality fortified infant formulas, I don’t think so. It just seems a little grotesque.

Breast milk is nutritious for the baby up until the age of two years, beyond that there is no scientific proof of it having much nutritional value so it is not necessary to feed the baby any longer than that. This woman claims that breastfeeding her daughter for that length of time has aided in her daughters emotional wellbeing and development even though there is no scientific proof of this being true. During her years of breastfeeding she came across many other woman who breastfed their babies up to five years and beyond with one breastfeeding her child until the age of twenty. There was also the case cited in her book of a mother suckling her daughter for comfort after her daughter’s husband died. She said that many women who breastfeed their children for so long do it in the privacy of their own homes and would never dream of doing it in public. Gee I wonder why. Wouldn’t it be absurd to see a mother suckling her ten year old kid in a shopping mall? I bet that would make people stop and stare and wonder what weird shit is going on, never mind the embarrassment for the kid to be found out by one of their peers. They’d never live that down at school.

Women’s breasts are meant to feed their children and breast milk provides the best nutrition for their babies up until the age of two. Beyond that it’s just weird. In fact most women today, after going through their confinement period, must return to work and the business of pumping breast milk at the office and again when coming home is a tiresome job especially after putting in their eight hours or more at the office. Once women return to work most will stop breastfeeding altogether. For those that breastfeed beyond the recommended two years all I can say is they must have too much time on their hands.

Happy New Year

Another year has come and gone and as I reflect on the past year, which was 2009, I can see that it had been a year of ups and downs for me. In the beginning of the year, during Chinese New Year in fact, my eldest daughter informed me that she was expecting my first grandchild. The happiness I felt was overwhelming. Many years previously I had informed her not to make me a grandmother at too young an age, but now I was ready to hold my first grandchild. After all I had been bugging her to have one since the married the year before as I did not want to be dead before my grandchildren came.

The months went by and her abdomen steadily grew, she had her worries and I did my best to alleviate her fears but in early July my sisters informed me that my dear mother had been diagnosed with cancer and they really weren’t sure how long she would last. I cried then moved heaven and earth to be with her one more time before she died. I was elated that I made it home once again to be with my family after ten long years. We had a lot of catching up to do. My eldest son and his girlfriend went with me; it was the first time my son had been to the land of his birth since he left when he was only eighteen months old. My eldest daughter had wanted to go as well to see her beloved grandmother one last time but she was too far along in her pregnancy to follow. My son met his cousins for the first time and all got along really well. It should have been a happy trip but it was not, sadly my mother passed two days after I arrived. Everyone agreed that my mother was waiting to see me one last time before she went.

We put my mother’s ashes at the top of my father’s grave, the only man she had ever loved, and it was during this time that we received a call from my daughter informing us she had gone into premature labour and had been hospitalized. She had only been thirty two to thirty three weeks along in the pregnancy. She informed me that the doctors were trying to stop her labour, thankfully they succeeded. She was put on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy. While I didn’t want to leave Canada and my family I had family at home who needed me more, so after two weeks we returned to Malaysia. Thankfully labour had been stopped but the baby did not turn and so the doctor informed my daughter to prepare for an emergency cesarean section. The date my daughter picked had been 09-09-09 which is a very auspicious day according to the Chinese beliefs; it was just as well she had picked that date because she went into labour again.

Our little darling Dallas Rose Wong Wei was born at 8:55 on the morning of 09-09-09 weighing in at 6lbs 4 ozs, quietly, by C section. She opened her big black eyes and gazed at her father who immediately fell in love as did we all. She is the brightest most beautiful child. After my daughter and granddaughter were released from the hospital they came home to mommy where my daughter would start her confinement period which is in accordance with Chinese tradition. It was a few weeks after the birth that I found my baby crying. The hormones were playing up and she had a feeling of being overwhelmed as most new mothers do. She was worried about leaving her baby when she went back to work. I was to be the one who would look after Dallas. I climbed into the bed beside her embraced her and informed her that as long as I was alive and able she would not have to worry about her child, I would always be there to help her out.

She is back to work now and everything has fallen into place. My two youngest children sat for their government exams. My youngest son sat for his PMR and my youngest daughter sat for her SPM. My son managed to score three A’s which is an achievement. Through most of his years of school he has had difficulties and had always been exalted if he came second last in class instead of last. We are proud of his achievement and I hope with all my heart he continues to do well. At this time my daughter is waiting for her results happy in the fact that she did not get picked for National Service. She is now learning to drive. She will work for a year before starting college and she has decided to study photography.

Christmas came and Christmas went and all my children came home. I did not feel like celebrating this year I kept thinking about my mother. While I had made it home to see her I was not with her when she died. My sister and I had gone home the night she died thinking she still had some time. For the rest of my life I will forever feel guilty that I was not with her to stroke her brow and soothe away her fears of dying. I’m going to bad daughter hell. On another high though my son and his fiancee, he proposed to her on Christmas morning with a nice rock that any girl would be proud to wear, bought their first house. While I have informed them that they can stay with me for as long as they want to they want their own space. I don’t blame her; I lived with my in laws for eleven years of hell.

The week after Christmas I painted my bedroom. It is now time for spring cleaning as Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Last year I did a considerable amount of painting and did not feel as bad as I did after painting just one room. My muscles and joints were on fire. Proof that age is catching up with me and I am not as strong as I used to be. I have always been a physically strong woman and often used to wonder how I would feel when I was old. Now I know. The weakness is appalling to me, but there it is we all grow old and there is nothing we can do about it. I finished my room on New Year’s Eve. All my children went out and I ushered in the New Year alone. They all called me though or messaged me and I knew they had not or ever will forget me, even number four who I am constantly at logger heads now. I sat in front of the TV and vegetated with my bottle of vodka and reflected on the past year, hoping that 2010 will be better. Then I thought how it could be better when 2009 brought me my first grandchild. While I have lost two friends to petty grievances on their part I have found an old friend who I now keep in touch with through Facebook. “Happy New Year everyone and I hope the new year will bring you all everything you always hoped for or ever wanted.