Time flies! It has been two months since baby S was born into our family. While the first month was on “easy mode” thanks to the confinement nanny, the second month was much tougher without the nanny. The day the nanny left, and after the celebratory mood that was associated with our baby’s first month has evaporated, that was when it sunk in that we are on our own – a family of three.
Of course, it must be said that we are not truly alone – our parents were more than ready to provide a helping hand. But for us, we felt that it was still important for us to give this parenting thing a try by just the two of us. In some ways, compared to my cousins who had kids and were staying with their parents, we are jumping in to the deep end of the metaphorical pool here.
As all parents already know, taking care of a newborn is relentless. There is barely any break – in between the two-to-three hour feeds, diaper changes, burping and Chelsea expressing her breast milk, there really is not much free time for other things like Netflix. The house still needs to be cleaned, laundry still needs to be washed. Having no “extra” hands in this context makes the days ever more so tiring.
But I think we have tried admirably and made it to our little one’s two-month mark. There have been (very) trying moments – when S is crying for long stretches and we couldn’t figure out why, or when we try to put her to sleep when we are exhausted ourselves. But looking back (it’s always on hindsight, isn’t it) it was quite a memorable month.
It really helps that I’m able to work from home too. The separation anxiety that I imagine I would face during pre-COVID days is virtually eliminated, other than the occasional day that I do need to go back to office. The shift to WFH has been probably the best thing for me as a new dad. It allows me to remain engaged in childcare during lull times at work.
So we have made it to two months. Every day, our little one grows just a bit more, and looks just a bit different from the previous day. When we look at photos from her first few days on Earth we are amazed at how much she has grown. At the same time we know that she will grow even more in the months ahead. Time is relentless; like it or not, the moment will pass. So it is a reminder for me to cherish the moments – even the loud colicky crying that comes ever so often.
Wow… when I wrote my previous post on 30 Dec 2020, I had no clue that just three days later, my wife would give birth to our daughter, S — and that at this point, S celebrates her one-week mark in our world. It’s amazing.
Our scheduled prenatal appointment on the 31st of December turned out to be a momentous one. The gynae spent a few more moments on what would have typically been a very quick ultrasound, and informed us that Chels’ amitotic fluid level was a little low. That news was the first domino, which was followed by the next domino which is that the baby needs to be delivered latest by the 4th. Soon, decisions were quickly made for our delivery to be induced on the 2nd. At this point we were definitely not prepared to welcome our little one yet, so it was too much to take in.
The moments between leaving the clinic at Mount Elizabeth Novena and returning to Mount Elizabeth Novena on the stroke of midnight on the 2nd of January were flustered, hurried, exciting and nerve-wrecking. We went for our scheduled bbq session with my family, where we broke the news to shocked grandparents-to-be.
Knowing exactly when our time as a family of two would be up gave the whole 36-hour period a surreal feel. Between rushed laundry runs (for the baby’s clothes and linen) and contacting crucial stakeholders (like the confinement nanny agency), I was keenly aware that our little cozy, quiet nest would be a lot less cozy and a lot more noisy from 2 Jan onwards. And that gave me an extra appreciation to the little things – the quiet when the TV is off, and the relief from the responsibility that comes with being a parent.
As time marches on, we found ourselves in the delivery suite in Mt E Novena when the inducing process soon began. We braced ourselves for a long wait – after all it is an induced labour and they all say the first one takes a long time. For myself, as a “lodger” (Mt E’s term), it really was to provide company for my wife who was experiencing increasingly frequent and intense contractions thanks to the drugs fed to her. Much of time was spent looking at the fetal heartrate and the ‘toco’ which measures the uterine contractions.
Mount Elizabeth Novena delivery suite
The waiting game was made a little sweeter for me as they served lodger meals – from breakfast to lunch to dinner and even tea break. This was as close as to eating hospital food without being admitted… and they served quite ‘atas’ lodger meals too (even before the baby was out!).
Lobster stir fried with onion and scallion
Won’t go into the details of the labour process here – other than it is really quite long. All in all, from admission to actual birth, the labour process took us just about 20 hours. I think I only slept for 3 (at most) of those 20 hours. And to witness childbirth – and more specifically, that of our daughter (thankfully not through caesarean section) – is memorable and special beyond words.
Little one
The next few days in hospital were again a flurry of activity – both sets of grandparents were clearly extremely excited over their first grandchild, and my siblings were excited too. Even the friends who came over shared our excitement and joy… but the really special moments – even till now when we are at home – come when it’s just the two of us and S – our new family.
As we engaged a confinement nanny life is pretty ‘good’. Other than being woken up by my wife waking up in the middle of the night to express her milk (which takes tremendous dedication), I have not really been thrown into the deep challenging pool known as fatherhood. But one day the nanny will go back, and the ‘real’ challenge begins.
While I left home on 1 Jan with my wife feeling a little reluctant for the life I am going to leave behind (where my immediate family unit comprises just me & my wife), I returned home on 4 Jan with my two favourite people in the world, excited, nervous and thinking how amazing 2021 has been for us already.
Wow… the last time this blog has been updated is 2018?! Almost exactly two years ago.
A lot has happened in the past two years – not just in my own life, of course, but in society and the world in general. The classic example would be Covid-19 that basically dominated a good chunk of 2020, and if you told me in 2018 that I would be predominantly working from home for virtually nine full months in 2020, I would be laughing my head off.
Why then did I decide to post something new? Other than that fact that I’m on a Zoom course today and there’s a lot of waiting time…
It’s because Chels and I are on the cusp of entering a new phase of our lives – we have been expecting a baby for a while now, and our little one would be entering this interesting, lovely, frustrating and amazing world we live in really soon.
Little one at 9 weeks!
So if you were sharp-eyed you may notice that the EDD is mid next month… i.e. in less than three weeks time!
The pregnancy has been a rollercoaster of emotions – excitement, nervousness, fear… and it has been an exciting journey. I won’t ever forget the first time I heard our little one’s heartbeat at 7 weeks – when the sweet sound of the heartbeat filled the room – quick and rhythmic and more importantly, reassuring – my heart skipped a beat. It was magical.
The beauty of Covid-19 is that Chels was able to work from home for the whole pregnancy (so far; though I doubt her boss will ask her to go back at this stage already!). The morning sickness, nausea, fatigue – all easily ‘resolved’ on a sofa. And at this late stage of pregnancy, I can’t imagine her going to work every day on the train, squeezing with the rush hour crowds. That is the one (and probably only) blessing in disguise from Covid-19 for us.
Work-wise, pretty much the same… I have been quite fortunate to have been promoted in the last year so the slight increment has been really useful for baby-related purchases; so much money is spent even before the baby is out, no wonder people say it’s expensive to raise a child in Singapore!
Fitness-wise, the runs continue, though I know that the days of us as a family of two are numbered, which means ‘run time’ may also see a sharp decrease in the near future. Enjoying all the ‘free’ time I have before a new life begins!
I also can’t believe that it has been three months since I last updated this blog. I keep saying it, but it’s true. Just that life has been pretty happening so far and nothing comes to my mind to post, except for some days (or nights) like this when I feel a bit more contemplative.
2018 is coming to an end. The Earth completes another cycle and humans just take that to symbolise a start and an end. The last 365 days have been generally wonderful. It marks the first full year for Chels and I as husband and wife. Seeing her everyday after work, and first thing in the morning, is really one of the joys in my life, and I’m thankful everyday just for that. Of course, it really helps that we have moved in to our new nest (three months in) and I personally take a lot of pride in our home. So the cleaning, honestly, still doesn’t feel too much of a chore, and I revel in the nice “foot feel” of a freshly mopped living room.
Work-wise, 2018 should be considered a good year. I did quite well appraisal-wise, but whether it amounts to anything, honestly, time will tell. Hopefully something will show for my efforts at work next year, but even if it doesn’t, I know that I tried my best this year. Especially for the committee work that I have done, leading a group of seven peers to organise events and activities for a discerning crowd.
Friendship-wise, the groups of close friends shrink in number, inevitably, but I treasure the times spent more than ever. Really enjoyed the few times Chels and I had hosting our friends in our new home. It really felt like #adulting, when friends come over to your own place.
Running-wise, I somehow finished my second real attempt at a marathon despite training less than the previous time, and earning a personal best by a few seconds. That said, 2018 has been a leisure year, run-wise, and I don’t foresee 2019 changing. It has become a solid hobby for me and I hope it remains that way, when the only thing that really seems to be running out, is free time.
2018 has been a nice year for me. It may not have been as crazy as 2017 (from singlehood to married life) but it is still very significant – getting our keys to our home, renovating the place, moving in, going through a second year at work… much has happened. I’m thankful for it all.
Wow wow, how time has passed! I think “how quickly time has passed” is probably the single phrase that has been repeated over and over again on this blog, but it’s true. I’ve always wished I had taken some time to write down some of the things happening in my life, but always tend to get swept away by other things to do just when I feel like getting down to doing it. (Plus I don’t like to type long paragraphs on my phone because I feel quite slow doing so)
But okay, here’s a brief moment for me to write some thoughts and feelings on the last day of September!
The third quarter of the year has been a wild one. From checking of defects at the start of July, to finally moving in to our new nest in mid-September (right after the seventh lunar month), we really progressed from property owners to homeowners. It’s really another chapter in the #adulting story.
The last post was really just about key collection. This time round, just would want to share a few photos from post-defect checking (which took a whole month) to getting our home done! Since it’s an EC, and since we are simple people, we didn’t engage another interior designer to co-ordinate renovation or to provide us with renders for how the house will look like. It was all co-ordinated by me, and all the furniture was just chosen based on our window shopping for the past few months.
Even though the renovation work was ‘simple’, every weekend was spent at our not-quite-ready-to-be-home home, or doing something related to it. It was wedding planning all over again; our free time was consumed almost wholesale to the renovation and furniture purchasing process.
The funny thing about our renovation process was that we weren’t even in Singapore when most of the renovation was taking place; we were having our pre-planned vacation in Vietnam! Our electrician and false ceiling contractor (basically the only two parties we involved in our renovation process) updated us through WhatsApp. Our parents also went down to help take a physical look while we were away.
One of the first lights installed in our home; lighting was extended to include a L-box on the left and right side of the living/dining halls
Our master bedroom became very messy after our electrician hacked the walls to install new 2-way switches
Master bedroom with the false ceiling installed without lights…
The renovation process was honestly much faster than defects rectification… just a week after the renovation started, we headed back to Singapore to find many lights installed, and the false ceiling works largely completed. Soon the remaining lights were installed, and we just needed to paint the walls (more importantly the false ceilings which were not painted), clean the place, install the curtains and move furniture in.
Works almost done!
A (probably) more unconventional approach for us is that we opted to paint the walls ourselves, with the help from my parents. It was tough work but it was satisfying that the walls in our home are painted by us… a little homemade touch and effort. We had a tough time choosing the two coloured walls for our living room and master bedroom, but thankfully the colours turned out right for us.
The wife and our first coat for our living room!
The real hiccup in our renovation journey was the curtains. We almost didn’t have curtains in our home when we moved in – most curtains only came in the day before moving in (after ‘unexpected’ delays by the vendor)… in fact the master bedroom curtains only showed up on the actual day of moving in! We got a cheap ‘group buy’ from some Malaysian curtain vendor which honestly quoted a real cheap price for the whole unit (all curtains – including day and night curtains for all rooms – and blinds around $1200). Thankfully a lot of persuasion, some anger, and frustration ultimately led to us having most things installed for our home, curtain-wise. (We still have blinds that are not installed yet in our utility room…)
One week before our scheduled move-in date, we have most of our furniture delivered. ‘Most’ being furniture in our living and dining room. After a lot of window shopping all over the place, we ultimately put most of our eggs in one basket and opted for Castlery for our dining and living room needs. In the end we got a dining set, sofa, coffee table, and TV console (plus some poufs) from them. After mounting our new TV on the wall, we considered our living and dining room done for now.
The then-completed look
Moving our bed on 15 September officially marked our move in to our new nest. Moving the bed from my parents’ place to our new home on our own was no easy task. My dad had to rent a truck and got some of his workers to assist in the move. Cling-wrapping the king-sized mattress, bed frame, and then transporting them gingerly to CCK was quite a tiring experience. We celebrated our first night at home with champagne and spicy cup noodles, hahaha…
Tired but happy!
Now that we have moved, the journey to complete our home is not done. In fact it’s never done – there’s always things to buy, improve, change, throw out, and so on. For instance our entire study room is purchased from Ikea and installed by ourselves, a process that took a few weekends and weekday nights.
Study table installation in progress
The completed look… small and simple
Of course, everything that we have been doing is to build a nest that we feel right at home, and considering that it has been our third weekend here since moving in, it really feels like home. After all, I’ve inspected every tile together with my wife, cooked my first ever dishes, cleaned every corner, and saw it come to shape. I’ve grown up in my parents’ (and grandparents’) place since I was born, and (almost) 27 years on, I’ve finally moved out, with my wife, to a place I can call my own*.
* after I pay back the loans, of course…
It’s a different feeling, the knowledge that you are responsible for our own place. If something is spoilt, and you do nothing about it, it remains spoilt. Or dirty. Or untidy. Or wrinkled. It’s a huge shift, but with it, comes with the freedom to do whatever we like in our space. Sometimes I think about the days living back in my parents’ place. After all, 27 years is a long time. But more often I think about the people that I share that home with – my parents, grandparents and my siblings, and I wonder how that place feels like for them, without me living there. Of course I go back and visit – I try to do so at least twice a week – but I think it’s still different. My brother tells me that my grandmother asks my mum whether I’m coming home for dinner every day. While I never really talked or interacted much directly with my grandma, it is evident that my sheer presence made a difference at home, so I wonder how she (along with my parents) is coping with her grandson leaving the nest for a new one.
Now that myself and Chels, husband and wife, are living together in our own home (instead of my parents’ place in my old room), our marriage yet again feels fresh and new, despite us almost hitting the 10-month mark. We certainly didn’t think it would take this long for us to get here, but I still feel it’s worth the wait. 🙂
Wow – the last update to this blog was in March?! Amazing.
The period between this post and the last really just flew past. A big part of it was actually work-related; it was the peak period for the financial statements audit from April to June, and my agency has a leave embargo in effect for the three months. My peak was in some ways worse than expected, having the ‘opportunity’ (nice way to put it) to work on more things than I think is expected of a “newish” officer like me. But regardless, I had no choice, and I somehow made it through…
The highlight of the whole period was of course, continuing from the last post, getting the keys to our home! Our block was among the last to be scheduled for key collection (sucks!) so by the time we got our keys on 25 June there were families living there already. But I guess the good thing is by the time we move in, there will be barely any renovation left.
25 June was a bonus date for us because we were originally scheduled for 7 July, which would have been our 7th monthsary. But an empty slot popped up when I was checking the MCL Land online portal every day (or rather, every other hour) and we seized it immediately.
On the afternoon of 25 June, Chels and I finally got the keys to our first nest. Even though it’s more than a month since we got the keys, I can still remember how excited we were to finally see how our unit looks like. There are many units like ours, but ours is still ours. Which made it very special for us!
Key collection was honestly quite a fast process. The MCL Land guy who processed our key collection was probably bored out of his mind doing this repetitive process multiple times a day for a few months… greeting homeowners, paperwork, safety video, see people roll pineapple, inventory checks… and repeat.
Our parents were there to witness the big moment with us as we finally have a place to call our own!
Just before entering our new nest!
Hello!
View from above
Freebies from the developer
Of course the excitement soon gave way to the painful reality of defects checking, which revealed that the workmanship of the unit (and units in this EC in general) is pretty lacking, especially for the floors – slightly uneven floor tiles in the living and dining rooms, and bad hollow flooring and poor sealage for the laminate flooring in all the bedrooms. We could literally crack the floor open by stepping close to the edge where the wall meets the floor.
It was disappointing to say the least.
That weekend was filled with a lot of work marking out the defects that we found, painstakingly logging each one into the phone app that the developer uses to track defects. We spent so many hours inside that weekend just tapping tiles, running our fingers on tiles, and tearing blue tape.
This is what getting a new home is like, I suppose! I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
The whole bedroom floor is condemned!
Blue tape, defect by defect
The developers have one month to fix the defect from the day of logging (which is actually tomorrow), but in the meantime we have been trying to source for contractors to do some simple renovation such as false ceilings and lighting works… We have also looked at (a lot) of furniture shops trying to find the right stuff for our home. Not engaging an interior designer means trying to fit the pieces ourselves, into something that we both can accept, from the size of the TV console, to the types of lights used. It was not an easy process, and it is still ongoing, but I think we have made much progress since the day of key collection.
Many more can be said – and typed – but honestly I’m too tired to type further at this late hour. Maybe I will find the inspiration to type another post soon… 😛
Exactly one year ago, on 1st March, Chelsea and I bought our first home together. For some reason or another, I didn’t blog about it. Strange because it was the one thing that catalysed the changes in 2017 that made my life what it is now – married with the love of my life.
The days leading up to the purchase of our new home (Sol Acres in Choa Chu Kang) were quite hectic. I still remember spending hours in my parents’ bedroom, trying to figure out the perfect unit. It was all very rushed because we had this thought that if we were to buy it, it has to be a good unit, and there were not many good units left (the project launched in 2015 so the units remaining were really not that many).
When we finally did decide, and when we finally went down to the showflat on the evening of 1st March 2017, I could remember me didn’t really believing what was going to happen. The downpayment was made, the unit was assigned – to me and Chelsea (what!) – and soon photos were taken.
Living area
Masterbedroom
Can’t believe this was one year ago
Site progress as at 3 March 2017
Because we knew that the EC was slated for TOP (aka completion) in the first quarter of 2018, we knew that we had to get married soon. After considering various factors such as work and timing issues we decided to say ‘yes’ to each other in December.
Things were going pretty exciting for the EC – we had a group chat and so on, and there were even awesome ‘spy’ shots taken by fellow residents. One of them was a subcontractor for the project so he had shared a great number of exciting shots from inside the condo. It was really exciting to see things inch towards completion.
Somewhere in the second half of last year we received a letter from our lawyers that told us that the developer was expecting the TOP to be in December or January. It got us *really* excited because it could mean that we could move in to our new house earlier than expected. Of course, as things would have it, we are still waiting for the TOP announcement today.
But at least the developer did share that the place is *almost* ready.
Enough teasing already!
Looks good huh? Taken (supposedly) today
Even though I knew that things would progress quickly after we received the option to purchase, at that point we were still in a typical relationship… I barely started working, and had close to nothing in my CPF account. We weren’t even engaged – and we didn’t even think that we would get engaged soon (my own plan was to surprise Chelsea in July last year). Now? Engaged, went through the wedding prep process, wedded my wife, went on honeymoon, even gave our first red packets during Chinese New Year. What a change.
Can’t imagine how life would be like one year from now.
But I’m pretty sure I’ll be living in my new home with my lovely wife!
Today when I was walking to the MRT station from work, daydreaming as usual — mostly glad that the workday is finally over — I wondered how the moment would look like if I were a bird, looking down.
Looking down on Telok Ayer Street, and then further out to Cross Street, and the greater Telok Ayer area. Looking at these somewhat predictable bipedalled creatures, getting sucked into the underground as they make their way on small metal tubes criss-crossing the urban landscape above, eventually making it to the surface, and then — predictably — make their way to the little colonies (also known as homes).
Close-up, we look different. We dress different, we walk different, we are different. But I guess looking down, we are essentially the same. Moving towards concrete structures also known as “MRT stations”, disappear from the bird’s eye for a bit, and then resurface. Predictability in the unpredictability.
No wonder worker ants are called ‘worker’ ants. The ones I see at home, move in one straight line, from presumably their nest to wherever food is left unattended. Just like us, they are doing their work and whatever is required to survive. Just like them, I’m essentially a worker ant (on weekdays at least), where this daily routine of walking from Telok Ayer MRT to my workplace and back almost makes me feel at ease. From the nest, to where the food is at.
Chinese New Year had just ended, with the last bit of visiting completed earlier this afternoon (yeah I have quite a big extended family). For me, the last ten years of CNY was really more-or-less the same, programme-wise. The same rituals, the same visits, the same sequence of home visiting, from CNY Eve to whichever-day-our-visiting-is-complete. And of course, not forgetting the other customary stuff like receiving red packets.
One year ago Chelsea and I had no clue that that would have been our final year receiving red packets from our older relatives. If we had known, I think I may have relished the experience a bit more (hahah!).
This year has been really different, and CNY this year was really something that hit me (again) that I am now married and live a somewhat different life. The transition to married life is a little disjointed for me in some ways, because I’m still living with my parents, in the same house. In many ways things have not changed. Of course I’m living happily with my wife now, and it’s really a blessing to see her every day (instead of once a week last time when we were dating).
But CNY was an occasion that hits me that I no longer have the “family” that I’ve grown accustomed to (my paternal side and my maternal side). Rather it’s now “my side” and “your side” (i.e., my in-laws). Chelsea has a much smaller extended family than mine but that doesn’t make it any less important. And that, really, is the tricky part because CNY is only that long, and we want to visit as many relatives as we can… but scarcity would come into the picture and we really need to prioritise and see what is more important than others.
This also meant that CNY was particularly exhausting for both of us this year… whatever free time I had on my side, it would likely be visiting Chelsea’s family. At some points I wonder how we could keep this up in the years to come.
But of course, there’s nothing that implies that we can’t achieve a healthy balance… just that the process to get to that balance may not be so easy and clear-cut. After all there is no right-or-wrong answer, and we may take a few tries before we know what works for us.
Well I would be an optimist and say that it would be exciting to find out, and really, it is part-and-parcel of how newlyweds find a way to begin anew as a new family. Before long some kind of routine would form and this feeling of exploration, of trying, may slowly fizzle out. Better to enjoy the bubbles when they’re still around! 😛
It has been a year since I’ve started working – in fact, more than a year as of this writing. As I get past the ‘probation’ stage and enter the ‘real’ part of work, things get more stressful. Somehow, I managed to get myself into two committees, and (somewhat unfortunately) became the chairperson (fancy title for “the guy who will do probably everything”) of one of them, which mainly involves planning a whole ton of activities for the company. The difficult part? The company has such a wide range of age groups and interests (for a considerably small place) that it would be hard to come up with things outside the usual tried-and-tested mould.
And the committees are obviously just supplementary to the work that is due. And right now? The project that I’m on at the airport is wrapping up, and soon I’ll be moving on to the audit of financial statements, where the peak period would be in April. Till then, it is likely that everything will overlap, which is never a fun thing to do.
On the bright side, I guess I enjoyed a slight bump to my pay? But will it make everything suddenly worthwhile? Of course not. Where I work, it never is about the pay, but about the bigger purpose of serving Singaporeans (as one of those bigwigs would say). Whether I feel that my job has meaning in the year ahead would be one thing I would consider if I would make this job a career, or just a necessary stint before I head for other experiences.
Miss those days when every year just meant moving up one grade, from Secondary 1 to Secondary 2 for instance…
Swee Life 