Managing on her (and my) own

Yesterday was a day of firsts for both myself and Rosabelle. That morning, she woke up at 8:30am – no biggie, and nothing unusual, safe for the fact that I thought she would sleep in as she got into bed way past midnight, having slept for a solid 4 hours during afternoon nap the day before (even after I opened the bedroom door and turned on the stereo, she still slept soundly and stirred only when I drew the curtains)! Only thing different, and highly unusual, and totally worth a pop-champagne-and-whoop-arms-in-air type of celebration is – she slept a solid 8 hours that night. No biggie, safe for the fact that since birth, she (and of course I) have never slept beyond 4, or is it 5, hours, before she had to wake up to nurse. Am I on the way to undisturbed sleep? I sure hope so! Am I on the way to getting some form of engorgement? Erm… maybe. Am I on the way to decreased milk supply since she won’t be nursing so much? Sigh… but something’s gotta give, and I am mighty pleased that she can go back to sleep without nursing… nice!

Yesterday also marked a day of Home Alone for me with Rosabelle. I’d been home alone with her when she was younger, and although seemingly traumatic/terrifying/stressful at that point, did not have to deal with meals and potties since she was still on full breast milk and in diapers, and we just stayed at home. However, yesterday, since Nainai had to accompany Yeye to the hospital for his check-up, and they had left by 7:30am in the morning, I was left alone to deal with her when she woke up. Again, no biggie for many other mummies who have already been in such a situation for a long time, and maybe even dealing with more kids. But I just never (maybe I’m fortunate enough) had to, and so I woke up extra early at 7-nish as well to make sure I could prepare as much as possible, getting my own breakfast first and was just in time for her to wake up.

Normally Nainai gets her washed up and ready for breakfast as I prepare her food, but yesterday, I had to also prepare her and breakfast at the same time. Thank goodness for microwaved soya bean milk and Cheerios, as well as a slice of cheese – all easy-peasy breakfast material, haha! As she chomped on her cheese, I then got dressed and cleaned up the table. By the time she was done, I was ready to change her as well. Nice and slick, erhem (eh, proud of myself because this is really the first time I am managing on my own – no big deal for others but it is quite something for me, haha!)…

And so, left to our devices to get our own lunch, I decided to bring her out to Shin Kong Place. On our way to get a taxi, we saw an uber-cute white kitten. My goodness, I do not normally love cats, but this kitten had blue eyes, the cutest purr and was so sweet and affectionate, coming towards us and hiding between my feet. Rosabelle liked it too, from a distance. If it got too near or wanted to touch her, she will say ‘不要猫猫', but once it hid itself under a car, she will meow till it came out, heh! It was quite dirty/skanky, so I only let it go around my feet, and when it pounced onto my thigh, it even left dirty paw prints on my pants, heh!
We met another mother downstairs and she also wanted to bring her daughter Wen Wen along with us – I got a taxi that just came into the yard and immediately got in first as we waited for them to go upstairs and get changed. The taxi driver, whilst waiting, even caught the cat and put it on his headrest, aiyo! And so we headed to Shin Kong Place and the girls had fun chasing after each other, visiting some of the shops, and as usual, we headed to Panasonic Place (where quite a few of the exhibits were faulty, tsk tsk…), and they sat at the Lego table for some playtime. I’ve been meaning to get a Lego set for Rosabelle, and was really very keen to buy some of the more interesting ones with supermarket or circus scenarios. So cute… Lego has sure evolved since my childhood days of drab construction blocks – I will probably source for a set off Taobao as it averages about 30% cheaper than those in-store.
After that we came to the free play area with a ball pit and rocking horses (or dragons?), and my girl did me proud by being such a good big Jie Jie. Firstly, when she was sitting on one of the rockers, Wen Wen came up and kicked up a fuss, wanting to sit on it. Rosabelle did not even push her, and on her own accord, got off, held Wen Wen’s hand and asked her to sit on the rocker. Next, there was a younger boy who kept throwing the balls out of the ball pit. Rosabelle was kept busy running around the place and putting the balls back in. Heh… she can be such a sweetie when she wants to!

We then split up for lunch as they wanted foodcourt food, and just as well, I wanted some alone time with my girl so we went to Olio to grab lunch. They brought me a grubby-looking baby chair and the waitress was very nice when I asked her to help me wipe it clean. After that, I smelt a foul smell from the chair – she had used a very smelly cloth to wipe it, aiyo! I quickly whipped out my disinfectant and spritzed some on the napkin to wipe the chair down – yucky…

Olio now has a new menu with a lot of new items, so I was naturally inclined towards the Fried Hokkien Mee, a Singapore hawker delicacy, on the set menu. The potato soup came first, so our girl enjoyed eating the bread and the soup as I cut up the noodles for her. I had requested for no prawns and squids in the noodles, and what greeted me on the plate was pieces of fatty, layered pork. Faint… luckily I managed to cut away the lard/skin areas and gave the lean bits to Rosabelle, along with some of the egg inside. Not the most healthy of lunches, but it’s not everyday that she eats such things eh. When I tried the noodle, it was slightly peppery and Rosabelle told me it was 辣, haha! She did not really like it at first and refused another bite, but when she saw how I was ignoring her and just eating my own food, she started asking me to feed her, but cleverly held onto her cup of water and washed it down with every spoonful, haha! At least she tried, and managed to finish the bowl of food and the kiwi I brought along. I rewarded her with a treat of pancakes and ice cream – yummy. Surprisingly, she did not want to finish the whole scoop of vanilla ice-cream, instead leaving about half for me as she went on to finish half a pancake – heh, so nice of her to share with Mummy!
After lunch, we headed back to join Wen Wen and her mummy to grab a taxi back home together – and though it wasn’t too long a distance, we took about half an hour as I went about going to the bakery and supermarket, and buying some Beard Papa home, as Rosabelle just dawdled along the way, liking to suddenly lie down in the middle of the road, like this:
At times like these, I will walk on and hide around the corner, keeping an eye on her whilst bemused passers-by looked on and wondered where her irresponsible mother went. She will not cry/fuss, but just lie there happily – strange girl she is…

Maybe she is too used to lying around in Yeye’s house, especially on his bed… These days, a permanent routine is to head to Yeye’s place after dinner as she runs about the place, plays with his table tennis ball and racket, and basically just work off all of a late dinner.