My
wife left me two days ago – on a Friday morning......
I sent her off to Phuket, Thailand.
We had a heavy breakfast and we kissed goodbye. It was a trip she had planned
with her classmates for months now. It was actually a short weekend
getaway. She will return three days later on Sunday morning. And she left me
with three young offspring: 13 (son), 10 and 4 (daughters).
I knew I had my hands full this
weekend. My two older children (Jezer and Jerica) were manageable. But it was the youngest (Joy) that
will be a challenge. She needs her mother. She can't live without her. Her
mother has never left her for one night to go for an overseas trip - what's more two whole nights!
Although Joy had been
weaned off breast milk, she is inseparable from her womb mother. Technically, she cannot
sleep without her. Not a wink. This has been tried and tested. My wife had on many occasions tried to
extricate herself from Joy after she had fallen asleep. But Joy would wake up
after a short while and clamor for her. Her incessant cries would mean that my
wife would have to snug back into bed and hug her in a fetus-like embrace for the rest of the night. That's Joy's human
pacifier.
It is strange but it appears that Joy
has a built-in, motion-sensor alarm system to alert her the moment her mother
sneaks out of bed. My wife just can’t escape from her sensitive spatial minefield. So you
can imagine my dear-in-the-headlights-look when my wife told me she wanted to
go to Phuket, thus leaving me with Joy for two nights. It was a bombshell for me. The image of another minefield spread out before me.
No doubt I was happy for her because
she deserved the never-before-taken
break for taking care of our three simian-like, intimacy-interfering, privacy
disruptors. But if truth be told, two nights of eternal heaven for her would
invariably mean two nights of paternal hell for me (now who's the drama mama here?)
Admittedly, the thought of her brief
absence took a lot of mental and emotional processing. Yet, for the greater
good and her sanity, I consciously suppressed my nocturnal mortal fear (to be
left alone with Joy) and in pretentious high spirit, I encouraged my wife to enjoy
herself.
But still, the ground work had to be
done. We had to break the news to Joy. We had to set her mind (or my mind) at
ease. Surprisingly, breaking the news was the easy part. She took it quite well
- at least that's what we thought. But the dress rehearsal for the imminent
departure was another drill altogether.
To prepare her for the Phuket 3-day-2-night trip, we tried to psyche
her up by telling her not be so sticky. We literally threw the book of maternal
love at her to instill assurances in her little tiny heart. In other words, my wife and I were anxiously playing the roles of Sigmund Freud and Florence
Nightingale to calm her post-utero neurosis of temporary abandonment.
Alas, the AA-like sessions backfired:
she grew stickier. The few nights before my wife’s departure, Joy hugged
her tightly and the grip was like a baby vice-clamp. She didn't let go -
not even for a second. At times, my wife was gasping for air. And when I tried
to pull her away, her instinctual response was to tighten the strangle-hold
even more. She burrowed deeper into my wife's rib-cage like she was running
from the bogeyman. My wife remarked that "she's trying to crawl back into her womb." Immediately, I knew
it was going to be a very long weekend for me.
I had to embrace myself for it (possibly in fetus-like position).
Like preparing for end-time, I
stocked up for the weekend. But it was not canned food or bottled water that I
stocked up. Neither was it sackcloth nor bible verses. On the contrary, it was DreamWorks'
Home cartoon, Doraemon Stand by me movie, and Aardman's Shaun the Sheep. I even planned for lots
of ice-cream at Swenson’s, Terminal 3 mad-hatter
runabout for kicks, toy shops for end-of-the-rope
bribery, and the icing-on-the-cake is a Sylvanian
Grand Hotel Gift Set or doll-house
that will cost me more than $200.
Of course, my wife, Jerica and I have
always wanted the doll-house for creative play but we wanted to wait for the
right time. Alas, no time was more opportune than this wife-less weekend. The timing couldn't be more self-servingly
convenient.
When Friday night came and went - I
methodically played Home cartoon to pass the time - all was quiet on the
Western front. Joy was unexpectedly docile like a toddler OD'ed on drowsy cough
syrup. Apparently, I survived the first night unscathed. It was silent night
for me. But at three on Saturday morning, she woke up. She softly called out,
"Where's mommy?" She dreamily
scoured around for mommy. She looked maternally deprived.
However, she came to me, no tears,
and snuggled in with me, knowing full well my chest was much less cushion-y
than the one she was accustomed to since birth. Yet, she looked content, even
restful. And for the first time, I felt fully maternal. I secreted great
relief. It was a first for me - and for joy too. We slept like babies after that.
Saturday morning was smooth sailing
for all as the kids have Kumon and Mind-stretcher. In the late afternoon, I
went to get her the humongous doll-house and the girls (even Jezer) went crazy,
bursting at the seams with creative play. Joy and the doll-house became
inseparable. The doll house was in fact a God-sent, hole-in-the-wallet
distraction for joy. And for most of the night, she was lost in it. The
strategy had indeed paid off.
We spent the rest of Saturday night
watching Doraemon and Shaun the Sheep
and we had a blast of a time because both cartoons came highly recommended -
especially Aardman's Shaun the Sheep. After the movie, Joy asked for her mother
again – this time, a little determined. "Are you sure mommy coming back?" - was the melodramatic refrain. I smiled and told her just one night
separated her from her womb-carrier. Looking resigned and tired, Joy lay down
on the bed, fetus-position, licking
her lips occasionally while looking forlorn. Soon the knockoff to dreamland came
and I heaved a sigh of relief.
When I woke up at around 6 am the next morning, I was
waiting in anticipation for my wife's return. It's finally Sunday! At this juncture, I thought to myself: "The events leading up to the reunion with
wife at Changi Airport would be to post this weekend "survival"
chronicle in my blog and then to attend Church service with the kids."
Thank God everything went according
to plan. Being a makeshift, replacement mommy for the weekend was definitely
not easy. And I am glad this brief two nights with the kids, especially with
Joy, has added warm flesh to the once-bony understanding of what I thought mothers
do when they are alone with the kids.
So I guess a little weekend togetherness not only builds up the paternal bond with the kids, it also deepens the maternal understanding too. Cheerz.
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