Our baby is now just after 12 weeks old and the short journey up till now has been like a constant roller coaster ride – not just the thought of having an additional member in the family but also all the procedures and precautions needed to take care of the new member. Last time I talked about feeding but there is so much more – changing diapers; cleaning and bathing; taking him to doctors watching him cry during injections; trying to stop him from sucking his fingers, and the list goes on.

There are always so much frustrations especially since when things don’t go the way you want…when he doesn’t drink his milk; he cries in the middle of the night. The biggest challenge is when sometimes your child does it when you were exhausted, and when you get so frustrated does the temperaments flares up rapidly. Figuring out the case of these and then tackling them accordingly is the name of the game. For example, he may not drink milk because he has a lot of gas in the stomach, in which you obviously try to make him relax and then burp him; or if he cries at night, you then observe his body movements such as clenched fist or kicking which may indicate attention or hunger and diaper change respectively. These do take time and patience, but you can control the situation and also bond with the child more in this way.

Yet there are times when you may simply have to endure because there is nothing you can do about. Take myself for example, just as we think things were settling into place, two bombshells dropped on us recently. The first bomb is our helper suddenly calling quits because of personal issues, leaving us in a quandary. With the relative short notice and being end of the year, help is hard to come by. In the past week, we interviewed and tried out nannies almost every day and pretty much aren’t up to par taking care of my child. With the helper leaving next week, there is little more we can do than to take it all up ourselves…i.e. me…so bring it on…sleepless nights.

If it is just that, then I can at least focus my efforts, but then the second bomb falls: renovation works. You know how it feels when the apartment above or below you is under renovation and you constantly hear drilling, hammering sounds? Multiply that by two…when the apartments above and below you are doing renovation at the same time…and even if you can stand it, imagine when your child and wife is at home resting and the big drills come. You then not only have to stand the sounds, but also take care of a frustrated wife and shaken baby. So at this moment, I am still trying to defuse the two bombs but time is getting short, and no new options are showing up for me to try, so if worse comes to worst, I will be using my entire days and nights taking care of the household. Only time will tell…