Me and babies.

The topic of having children have come up multiple times during my almost decade-old relationship with Gareth. Very early on, we decided that we would put off having children for as long as possible for a few reasons – too expensive, too inconvenient, too much work, too painful etc etc etc.

Our beliefs were further reinforced after we got Charlie, our dog. It was quite tough having Charlie at first. As a puppy, he pooped and peed everywhere, he vomited after every meal due to his fish allergy and he howled or barked the entire time he’s left alone at home. So many times I toyed with the idea of giving him away! Thanks to Charlie, we just naturally figured that having a human child would entail all those problems, times a million.

# – Wanted to throw this furry ball away when he was a puppy.

I was never good with babies or young children anyway. I didn’t find them particularly endearing. Sure, there had been kids who were just adorable and had managed to occupy my attention for more than 10 minutes, but I’d eventually lose interest. I actually dreaded going to baby full moon parties because I fear that the parents would expect me to carry their precious newborns!

If I saw a friend pushing a baby stroller in a mall or something, I would deliberate walk the opposite direction to avoid having conversations about babies.

Gareth, on the other hand, is far more accepting of having children. I knew very early on that despite my reservations, I will want to have babies for his sake, but on the condition that I get to cut it out of my belly while I was 100% knocked out. Yeap, “cut it out”. Verbatim.

I also accidentally exclaimed to a then-acquaintance-now-friend, that I will only go for c-sections because I do not want a mangled vagina. This friend, upon hearing those words that came out of my mouth, told me, very stoically, that she does not have a mangled vagina after giving birth naturally to 4 beautiful kids. I felt like a twat.

Honestly, I really didn’t think my perceptions of having children would change but….

Recently, I’ve been strangely drawn to reading mother forums. I get excited when I see expensive used designer strollers being sold for cheap on Facebook. I think about children’s names a lot. I tell Gareth things like we’re going to eschew formula and feed our babies with my milk/cow’s milk. I rack my brains over how to mosquito-proof babies. I look forward to seeing my colleague’s baby girl’s pictures on her Facebook. I get fascinated by stories of different parenting methods.

No, no, no. I’m not pregnant. We haven’t even started trying. Although I would really love to.

# – With a friend’s adorable son at our wedding.

From years of not wanting to have babies to suddenly feeling like I need to be pregnant, now. Of course, I get unusually worried about my chances of getting pregnant. I wish I had taken care of my body better. I get very sad when my period gets really painful (which it does every damn month) because I fear it’s a sign that something’s wrong with me. Gareth told me to stop being so negative and let nature takes its course. Besides, should things get difficult, there’s always IVF.

While writing this blog post, Gareth suddenly messaged me and gave me the link to this adorable video of a kid’s stick figure halloween costume.

I can’t even!!! I want to buy a lot of LED lights.

My thoughts on finances, children

Sitting in a restaurant now waiting for the person whom I’d be possibly handing over my hard-earned savings over for investment.

I know nothing about finances and at the rate am going I probably would not be able to retire with the lifestyle that suits me, hence this meeting.

I think when I have children next time I will make sure that they are equipped with knowledge on finances rather than chasing As.

In fact I think I will skip pre-school altogether and just bring them to playgrounds for socialising’s sake. And I will let them watch loads of Sesame Street, paint, do crafts (by the way this local business called Little Paper Crate supplies craft projects subscriptions for kids and parents – makes me want to have kids to play with!!!), read a lot of books and learn Mathematics by assisting with my cooking/baking.

I read that children in Japan don’t take a single exam until they are 10 years old. The first 10 years are focused on developing good manners and a good character. How cool is that?

Compared that to what I watched on television recently about Singaporean parents who spend $1200 per month on pre-schools and have their kids go for “enrichment” courses (read: fancy names for tuition classes because heaven forbid the kids are not learning enough from the 1.2k a month school) that go on until midnight wtf

Not surprising that the kids featured on the tv show have shockingly bad manners. One called his mother a T-rex on national television, though rightly so hahahaha

Hmmm, don’t know how I veered off the course so much from finances to child rearing but anyway if one day you ever found me blogging about my kids getting straight As and going to some fancy tuition class – I implore you to print this blog post out, roll it up, dip it in excrement and slap my face with it.

Repeatedly.