"Jao An...(Good Morning in Mandarin)" This is the first thing guama (grandma, in Hokkien) says to Sequoia each morning! A LOUD "jao an!!!!!!! ..." followed by a wide-grinned smile, specially reserved for Sequoia. It's true! The only other person (OK, OK, furkid!) I see Mom doing this to is my golden retriever, Heaven, who loves her to bits and has a special place in Mom's heart.
Here's a shot of Heaven, my lil furkid. I can't wait for her and Sequoia to meet and get to know each other... Heaven is truly God sent. She is about as perfect a family pet as you can get. I am very lucky indeed that our paths crossed and that I was lucky enough to be her Mom! She has never chewed any of my shoes and goes wherever I go, without being on leash and without making a noise whatsoever. 
People are always surprised to discover her lying peacefully on the floor mat in the car's passenger side seat, waiting patiently for her Mom (me!) to finish my supermarket errands. People think I am crazy! I actually bought my car because she was getting too large to ride in taxis! She would jump happily into our car and be whizzed to Grandma's (same Grandma as Sequoia's) house to hang out on the weekends! She can see her excitement as I say, "Grandma's house..." once we arrive! And, what's more amazing is that she would never exit the car without me giving her the release word, "OK!" She really is a smart cookie!
Now where was I?..."Mom, not so loud!" I say, playing the paranoid new Mom. "Her ears are still sensitive to loud sounds and can be damaged!"
Mom plays the understanding grandmother, who loves her own daughter enough to appease her and give her space to be a new Mom, doesn't say anything but smiles at Sequoia again and says, "jao an!" in a soft voice.
Mom loves Sequoia to bits!
Understandably since this is her first grand child. But secretly, I think it is because Sequoia just adores her! Since Day 1, on Dec. 31, 2007, each time guama comes within the baby 20/20, non-technicolor, vision range, which is about 30 cm, Sequoia would stare lovingly and NONSTOP at guama! Frankly, I was a lil jealous!
"Mom, Sequoia really stares at you," I would say. "Man, she is really listening to you when you talk to her," I continue. "I guess she doesn't look at me that way because she is used to me. Right?" I say to her but am really saying this for my own inner maternal peace :-) "After all, she is used to listening to my voice talking and singing to her for the 10 months that she was inside me... and she is used to my smell! Right?!" I asked rhetorically, hoping for affirmation on Mom's part :-)
Mom would just look at me happily and then continue talking to Sequoia, "Wu... An... (Good Afternoon in Mandarin), Wan... An... (Good night in Mandarin) Sequoia, guama says heeelllllo.... heeellllooooo!" Mom would continue baby talking to her this way, bless her soul."Mom, can you help me change her nappy?" I would ask at about 10am each morning, dead tired from my graveyard feeding shifts and from sheer lack of sleep. Mom obliges instantly and says, "Heeelllooooo, Sequoia!"
I only realized the full assistance that Mom gave me after she left as I began to feel that all I was doing was changing and feeding nonstop! And I mean, nonstop! I didn't remember changing that many nappies when Mom was here. But of course, Mom split the workload with me.
In a way, I was really lucky. I had it easy with Mom being here.
She helped me with the laundry, with the grocery shopping, with the trash taking, with the dreaming up of delicious meals and trying to ensure that each day's menu differed from the other. I only realized the monotony of my choice of food after she left. I would find myself either eating laksa for 2 days in a row (from the packet, so not as good as the local type :-) But definitely good enough!) or dry rye wafers with cheese for a couple of meals in a row!Or I downgrade, and even resort to having egg sandwiches simply because I am too tired to cook and my recent c section hasn't helped either. It hasn't healed well enough for me to be making grocery trips on my own. Not to mention the arduous task of having to negotiate 16 steps from my doorstep to the main road twice!
Why twice? First, I would take the pushchair down the steps of the Victorian styled house I live in. Sixteen steps to the main road... then back up the steps. Then I make the second trip... another 16 steps down again with Sequoia in my arms. When I came back from any excursion, I have to repeat the same exercise twice except that it is now climbing up the steps, which affects my stitches more than taking her or her push trolley down ..."
"I wonder how anyone ever went on vacation," I said to Mom one day. "How do they manage to get their luggage out of the door and back into the home? It's so bloody heavy! " I was totally bewildered! "I guess in those days, people had butlers and servants to help them carry their luggage," Mom would say.
"But what about groceries and stuff? That must've been hell...!" I continued.
"I guess the milk was delivered daily and they probably never did any super-marketing themselves!" Mom said with a small laugh.
"Ya, I guess you're right," I said and chuckled. "Amazing... but gosh the poor butlers and servants. It is really tough to carry anything that is more than 6 kilos up and down the steps." So, this is life for you where London Victorian houses are concerned. Oh well, I guess I have to live with it until I move. AGAIN! Sigh...
In this picture, Sequoia is more than a month old. Mom insists daily that I walk to ensure my surgery area heals properly. She drags me and Sequoia to the Swiss Cottage Park area on this damp, rainy-ish London day. We bring some lime & chilli flavored chips from M&S, some sweet banana chips, some Maynard fruit pastilles and M&S Brazil nuts coated with milk chocolate for tea time and munch away looking at other kids playing dangerously, and without close supervision. I wonder if I will be as lax as these onlooking parents are when Sequoia is older. I hope not.
Sequoia adores her Guama! It is clear from all her smiles and responses to Grandma! Everyday! Each day, Mom would take some special "Sequoia & Guama" time out and just sing and talk to her. She would sing a particular Mandarin song that always makes Sequoia smile when it come to the words that rhymed at the end of each sentence.
"Shi shang zhi you ma ma haoooo... (Loosely translated, in the Universe, the only person who will be best to you is your Mom!)
You ma de hai zhi xiang ge baoooo... (Kids who have a Mom are like gems...)
Sequoia would love hearing Guama sing the words "hhhhaaaaoooo (Good)" and "bbbaaaaoooo (gem)" She would gurgle nonstop and beam her famous Sequoia smile. It would start as an Elvis-type grin on the left cheek and then break out spontaneously into a full strength smile from ear to ear! It is simply beautiful to watch. God made babies so beautiful. Sigh... No wonder we fall in love with them so easily as parents! Lucky me!
Sequoia's gonna kill me for this shot one day!!! But the story behind it is sooooo precious, I simply have to share the tale... You see, Guama taught Sequoia how to poo whilst being dangled somewhat precariously over the sink. Knowing that we would have to sail through some 100 nappies each week and to minimize nappy rash, Mom thought that she would try to teach Sequoia to "potty train" way ahead of schedule.
How did she do this? Beats me. Mom said proudly to me after a week of Sequoia being born, "Sequoia has learnt how to poo on command!"
"What do you mean, 'poo on command?'" I asked, confused. "She can poo when I make the sounds... uhn... uhn.... or shhhhssshhh... shhhhhsssshhh..." Wow!
This new ability that Mom has managed to train Sequoia to have is truly amazing. Until recently, Sequoia had almost no nappy rash. All thanks to us catching her on time as she is about to excrete the poopiest poo at 2-3 hour intervals :-) Then again, Sequoia was a wee 3.1kg back then.
It is March 23, 2008 and she is now about 5.8kg and is a heavy lil bundle. Too heavy for pooing over the sink, that is. I play the sad Mom who is dismayed at seeing the red spots of nappy rash on her butt and nether areas! But thanks to the miracle cream, Sudacrem, these pain-producing torture spots disappear as fast as they appear! What would we do without pills and creams...
Even though Mom has left, Sequoia still remembers her. When Mom calls and speaks with her grand daughter, Sequoia would actually stop whatever she is doing (feeding is the most common activity :-) and listen to guama's voice. On a number of occasions, Sequoia has even used her not-so-tiny fingers to reach out and touch the mobile phone, trying to bat the phone. Perhaps she hopes that Guama will magically appear on command beside the speaker phone :-) Oh, baby dearest...
Other times, she would break out in a smile. Or, she would try to "speak" back to guama, using her baby talk repertoire of sounds and vocabulary, "ehhh ..." or "eeeiiii... ooowwww" or even a quick "hei... burh," her favorite expression for her state of happiness.
This is a shot of Sequoia with Guama whilst she was in transit at Heathrow, Feb 28, 2007. In the taxi on the way back home, Sequoia actually screamed her head off... and I couldn't figure out why. She had not done any extreme crying or screaming since her stint at the hospital. Feeling helpless, I called Mom. She was just passing through immigration and had to stop and say to the authorities, "my grand daughter is crying... I have to take this call!" Way to go, Mom!Mom tried successfully to calm Sequoia down. She has this amazingly calming effect on Sequoia. She, too, was surprised to hear Sequoia scream like that. Perhaps it really is true. Babies are smarter than we think they are. Perhaps Sequoia knew that Guama was saying good bye for now, that she wouldn't see Guama for a couple of months. Perhaps she knew deep inside that when she saw Guama again, she would be older and precious time would has passed without physical access to Guama's love and pampering. Perhaps she just knew that someone she loved was going away. Perhaps my little anjo (angel in Portuguese) is more intuitive than I realize...
Mom has proven herself to be completely indispensable during my confinement period and the weeks thereafter. I wish I had one of those tummy wrap Muslim doulas though. That would have done my tummy tremendous benefits, not to mention the fact that I haven't had a real massage for 2 years now! Damn it... :-)
I now understand the full value of the three generation family. I always thought I would prefer my privacy over it. But now, I long for it. And I see that it will bring tremendous benefits to Sequoia. Mom thinks so, too. She really makes an effort to be close to Sequoia. She continues to make calls to her grand daughter and speaks with ease into the Singapore air, not caring who might think she was crazy cooing to, "Hello Sequoia! Jao An... Wu An... Wan An..." all in one sentence. How is little Sequoia... Guama hopes there's no more green poo..."
Sequoia continues to stop whatever she does and listen intently to Guama's melodic voice. I am not kidding! I wish I had videos to prove it. As Mom rattles on in her monologue, Sequoia would just stare, for long stretches at a time, at the mobile phone, conjuring a mental image of a smiling Guama in her mind. She has now learned that Guama will not be appearing on a daily basis like during her earlier months. So, the clever girl is content to simply listen to Guama's voice, knowing (I guess) that one day she will see her beloved grandma again. Mom is the luckiest grandma in the world. Sequoia really does adore her to bits!
Before Sequoia was born, Mom made some baby pillows for her. And I mean, baby! You won't be able to find these in the stores anywhere! Mom made two types. The first one was a marine-blue color with yellow planets and sun motifs on it. It was smaller and flatter for Sequoia's use as a newborn since she is required to sleep as flat on her bed as possible! The other baby pillow, lilac-pink in color, with buttons right down the middle for easy access to washing the soiled cover, had a little bit more padding and was of a larger dimension as well to accommodate the growth and width of Sequoia's baby head! How very thoughtful! As you can see from the photos, they are simply delightful! Sequoia is so lucky to have a grandma who cared enough to take the time to hand make some very precious items for her. Items she will cherish dearly when she grows up and looks back at them :-)
Now, who says this grandma doesn't deserve to win the "Grandmother of the Universe" award and the "Greatest Mom in the World" award. God bless you, Mom!
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