Who is His Mummy?

I have not done enough for my Zaky and I am feeling guilty.

When it was only Lil Shauna, we had time to teach her how to read alphabets, recognize sharps and colours. Although there are days that I worked late, we fetched her earlier on days that I don’t. Now, we don’t see the kids until 8pm every weekday and I have no idea why. After running some simple errands with the kids (and sometimes without), we are home at only 9pm and they are packed off to bed shortly after bath. Whatever time that was left before bed is spent reading to Lil Shauna or coaxing her to do her homework, practise her keyboard, etc. while Daddy Lim entertains the tiger to stop him from being a pest to us. When I am finally done with jiejie, it is bedtime and Zaky only gets to sleep. Poor boy.

I am still a mother to Lil Shauna, who will look to me to bath her, change her, tie her hair, feed her, etc., when I am around. I have no chance to do those for Zaky. Popo, Nainai and Auntie will be “fighting” to do those for him when I am around. They seem to enjoy taking turns to be his “mother” while the one who indeed gave birth to him grew lazy and happily sublet those mundane tasks to them.

So why am I upset? Bcos I am worried that Lil Isaac will be behind his peers and it is my fault for not spending enough time and effort nurturing him. And I had an uber big realization over the weekend. I was “preparing” dinner for the kids, scooping rice and chicken and fish into their bowls so that Nainai can feed Lil Isaac and jiejie eats herself. I was hit when I realized that I don’t know if Zaky eats broccoli and had to ask the maid, who confirmed that he does. Boohoo. Bad mummy.

To make it up to him, I have been trying to spend more time talking to Lil Isaac while tucking him to bed. Daddy Lim says that the ENT specialist encourages us to do so too. The only problem is that the tiger can go on and on and on and on. He talks and I can’t understand him fully. When I do and reply him, he can carry on and repeats and talks the whole night long, even way beyond his bedtime until I had to put a stop to it. Then I have to pretend to sleep (or really did fall asleep while waiting for him to do likewise) and ignored him while he continues on his own for a little while. Sometimes, it could be a long while before he finally stops thrashing about in the bed and drifts off to lala land.

Hmmm.. the Korea trip is coming (yes! It is coming! 4 more days! Counting down!) and I will get to spend plenty of time with my kids. Maybe so much so that I will figure out that I am better off away from home. Lol.

Mummy Lim