I finally understand the sacrifices, sheer exhaustion and reality of balancing life and motherhood now that I’ve got a spirited 2.5 year old. In between, life and death happens. I didn’t realise I’d start losing so many friends in my late 30s and now 40s, it feels even more common place. We’re no longer young, foolish and invincible.

I’m still learning to accept impermanence as a way of life and practice the dharma and bodhicitta.

I haven’t time (or energy) to update the blog while trying to balance full-time motherhood and working freelance on lightweight projects with longer lead times for deadlines and few scheduled concalls.

Our lives has resumed some sense of normalcy since they dropped the compulsory mask mandate. Art Basel this year was interesting, many friends have flown in to visit since they dropped quarantine and slowly but surely it feels like Hong Kong’s energy is returning to its old self.

It’s been a game changer since my toddler started unaccompanied nursery classes in January this year and I’ve had 15hours a week to get work done without interruption. This is excluding the amount of time he’s fallen sick and can’t go to school, which means little to no work done, and no sleep either. And then falling sick myself. It’s like a neverending cycle and I can’t get off the struggle bus.

In the span of the last 12 months, I’ve lost three very dear friends. Ben, whom I worked with in Fabrica, a Hong Kong native, the kindest, nicest creative soul based in Shanghai. We kept in touch all these years and saw each other often. Ben lived a rich, meaningful and very exciting life, traveling off the beaten paths, making super creative work as a commercial director. The last time we caught up in Shanghai was 2016 and he was happy with the direction life has taken him. I miss Ben very much and I regretfully didn’t reach out to catch up when I relocated to Hong Kong and was dealing with the PTSD and malarkey of cancer.

Then, I lost Kels, the kindest, nicest, brightest infinite light. An old friend, but we didn’t draw very close until we reconnected over cancer and our miracle sons born 9 days apart. The grief and loss has been heartbreaking, I cannot begin to imagine what Kels family is going through. It’s been devastatingly lonely on my end, losing a mum friend who truly gets me – there’s now no one at the end of the phone to call or update over whatsapp toddler milestones, interesting articles I’ve read or have random discussions. Survivor guilt.

I gifted Kels book of poetry from Jessica Urlichs who writes so brilliantly about Motherhood. Most recently, shortly after Kels passed she shared a poem that was requested by a follower – I reached out to inquire about commissions moving forward. It’s uncanny as the poem was commissioned by Kels herself. When I read it, I immediately thought she would have loved it. I guess she sent me and Jessica a sign as we connected over this beautiful poem on love and loss.

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So many people I love on the other Other side. A year since the passing of my dear friend Ann Lemons Pollack, who was steadfast, funny, kind and so nuturing – an inspiring loving mother figure to me and many others. I think of her often and her parenting advice, life advice and hope to do life justice by living it fully and meaningfully. Ann and I first met in London at a food blogger event in 2014 and have stayed in touch since. She knitted the cutest outfits and a blanket for my newborn, and sent me a birthday greeting every year. Ann, you’re deeply missed. I’ll be looking out for signs.

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I feel like I can never get a break as the whole family is sick and the toddler has been sick for 3 weeks. I haven’t slept much in the past weeks with the cycles of raging high fevers, multiple trips to the paediatrician, multiple swabs, the same cycles of medication we’ve cycled through bottles and bottles of it, with seemingly no end in sight. It’s the flu season and the toddler’s been stuck with the parainfluenza 3 virus for weeks.

We’ve been stuck on the flu/fever bus for weeks and it felt like it was going no where. It has literally brought me to my knees.

In between the season of flu and illness, the husband confirmed his three Michelin stars for the 5th consecutive year. We tagged along to Macau while coughing our lungs out. It was however nice for a change for scenery getting out of Hong Kong for a breather.

I’m happy to report, we’re finally nearly at the end of the tunnel and toddler is back at school so I am able to do other things like life admin in addition to child care. Fortunately, work has been slow, so there isn’t the additional stress of deadlines with a screaming needy sick toddler in the background of con calls.

Potty training is on the back burner for when toddler is ready.

I am reminded of Fair Play Life and finding that unicorn activity. I would like to get back to sewing and creating things.

I’m completely burntout and rageful. I’m working on taking time out. Here’s some helpful reminders from Dr Becky, who has also written an excellent book titled “Good inside” – the belief that we’re all innately good inside, and have a hard time every now and then.

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We started making our own play dough for over a year now because the store bought one dries up really quick and it’s neither environmentally friendly or economical to keep paying for individual tubs of playdoh– more plastic tubs adding to the landfill.

Making our own gives us control of mixing colours, creating new colours and they last for months. It’s also become an activity we can do together. Be careful when it’s on the stove on low heat, but otherwise it’s a relatively easy and doable activity to knead the dough, add the food colouring and violà a new batch of dough.

I tried several recipes and had to tweak them to get the consistency that we like – neither too sticky nor too hard. Maybe it’s the Hong Kong humidity?

Here’s what we’ve ended up with after several experiments. It yields 4 balls of dough (as above).

2 cups of plain flour

2 cups of lukewarm water

1 cup of table salt

4 teaspoons of cream of tartare

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

Mix everything in the pot and stir under low heat for abour 2 minutes. It should reach the consistency of pizza dough, turn off the fire and then hand knead it for a few minutes.

Add food colouring – a few drops and then knead it into the dough balls.

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I hope everyone is staying dry and safe in this Hong Kong super typhoon weather. We’ve been stuck indoors all weekend, no school on Friday and it’s been a very wet and windy Saturday. We made playdoh, oobleck and I’m running out of ideas to keep my toddler entertained.

I’ve also allowed free flow screen time for my sanity. We’ve put vehicles and animals in the oobleck to rescue, I added food colouring to the oobleck.

It’s super simple to make:

1 1/2 cup of corn flour

1 cup of lukewarm water

a few drops of food colouring (we did purple, obviously his favourite colour)

Mix it all together and it get that magical mixture of oobleck – part solid and part liquid.

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This is one of the toddler’s favourite books. We’ve been reading it since birth, and have read both the English and Chinese version of it.

It’s his first time in a theatre. We’ve previously sat through a 30 minutes magic show in Blois at the House of Magic and he thoroughly enjoyed it. I was worried that the blackout before the show and the darkness would give him anxiety, but he really enjoyed the spectacle with lights and music.

I wasn’t sure if his attention span would last the whole 55 minutes show without an interval, but he absolutely loved it! Stood up to join the song and dance, and the rest of the time, quietly sitting and totally engrossed in the performance. I definitely have a future theatre buddy!

As with all children’s story books, there are darker meanings and allusions behind them. If we look further into it, I found the gyrating tiger a little creepy and then wondered about the messaging – we are inviting a predator into the house for tea! Kerr’s story had darker implications and allusions, the tiger represented the Gestapo raiding houses during the terrifying period of Nazi Germany. This BBC article explains.

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We were not allowed to take any photos or videos during the performance, however you can check out Kids Fest HK to get updates on their shows. We’re already planning our next shows. Looking forward to catch the Bear Hunt as well as The Hungry Caterpillar, both books we have read although he hasn’t shown special inclinations to either.

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The toddler absolutely loved The Tiger who Came to Tea by Aba Productions, so I’ve decided that we’ll go see as many shows and productions as we can and figure out what exactly he likes, and doesn’t like (I know, I check my privilege often). It’s a gamble as tickets don’t come cheap, but I love the theatre and I’d love to share the joy of performing arts with him.

For this show, Aba productions kindly offered us complimentary tickets, which I didn’t expect.

I watched the movie many moons ago and couldn’t remember much of it. The Tony Award-winning Madagascar Musical was energetic, full of song and dance, with a very talented crew – powerful broadway show voices. I was skeptical about kids sitting down for 1h40min show, including a 20mins interval, but I think the dynamic pace and momentum managed to keep the children’s attention. Today’s 11am matinee started an hour late, and I was worried it’d mess with lunch time, but the toddler was fully absorbed in the plot “where are the animals?”

We talked about the show tonight and his favourite was the Giraffe Melman, and we discussed friendships, adventure, and being brave about exploring the unknown. I personally loved King Lemur Julien best, along with the irreverent penguins. He was hilarious and whimsical, along with brilliant movement and dancing on his knees.

I think the kids will love the show and highly recommend it. Especially toddlers. My son is 3.

Book yours now “MAD20” for 20% off

No photos or videos are allowed during the performance, so have to make do with these press images. Very grateful for the comp’ed tickets.

I try to support the arts and artists as much as I can as it’s a tough industry. Everyone is working hard to run a business. I don’t know how long the influencer economy of freebies will last, but I truly believe it’s important to value the work/service of others and to pay for it if you can afford to. And if you can’t, I’m sure there are respectful and valuable ways to barter while respecting the craft/time of others.

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It’s been a while since I updated, the baby rarely naps and is always curious, wants to chitchat and hangout. A serious case of FOMO. I guess life is fair because he’s very high maintenance in the day time demanding full engagement but he started sleeping 10-11 hours through the night at 9 weeks old.

I don’t have the luxury of time to do my regular things in the day and by the time I put him down to sleep and take a shower it’s already 8 pm. I typically have something to eat and then crawl into bed by 930pm to start the day at 6am, a full-on non-stop day with a baby that doesn’t nap.

He doesn’t cry much though so it’s largely my Mum guilt for not entertaining my pet human who is wide awake and raring to go and discover the world. We have pockets of time where he’s doing his independent play for 20minutes.

Looks like Chicken Scrawlings is slowly turning into a mum blog, which I was quite strongly against, trying to hold on to my old identity.

Bear with me because with Covid, there has been no travel, very little work and I have had no time or energy to hustle because I have no hired help for childcare – previously by circumstances but now it’s becoming a choice. Slim pickings and we haven’t had any luck at all finding reliable and safe help. Maybe that’s just the universe pointing me in the direction of Motherhood content which I had been so hesitant about previously.

So, here are some key learnings and great tips that I picked up along the way. We’re hitting the 16 weeks mark tomorrow. :)

1. Double up mattress protector and bedsheet so you don’t have to change sheets in the wee hours of the morning when there’s a leak.
2. Buy kimono onesies for 0-3 months… I still don’t understand why they still design onesies that go over the head. it’s so difficult to get the top over a wobbly neck of a newborn, so why add to the inconvenience of a quick change
3. Footed onesies pyjamas and onesies for wintertime… we keep losing a sock or two, so thank goodness I was prepared with footed pants and PJs.
4. Cool the boiled water to 70-80 degrees before storing in a thermos flask so you don’t have to wait for the water to cool down for formula when the baby is screaming murder. I sometimes also portion out the milk to dispense in the travel containers so we’re ready to feed when the hangry wailing starts, sometimes he goes from laughing to screaming in 5 seconds.
5. Barrier cream not just for diaper rash. I never used it as a preventative measure, thinking it was something to treat the rash. I’ve started using hemp and bamboo inserts in the disposable diapers overnight as my baby is a heavy wetter, so the usual diaper cream won’t work as it makes the insert repel water. So I use the cloth diapering balm from Grovia. The zinc version is always sold out, so hoping to try that version next!
6. Cleaning mouth encourages good habits for teeth brushing in the future. There are mix feelings about this and Asian confinement nannies do it but seem like the western world doesn’t. I follow my paediatrician’s logical advice, I like cultivating a good dental hygiene habit and baby loves getting his gums cleaned.
7. Double up with cloth inserts for night time and wool covers to prevent leaks. The baby beehinds wool covers work like magic!
8. Line bedsheets with muslin cloth tucked under the mattress/playmat so you’ll do less laundry, it’s easier to just wash a muslin cloth which dries quickly rather than sheets and the entire playmat.
9. Bathe the baby to bring a temperature down. Amazing what a warm bath can do and calms the baby down.
10. Create good habits from the start. You can never spoil a baby so I’m all for picking him up for a cuddle and walk when he’s upset… until sleep training! It’s a different can of worms there but Baby G has always been a good sleeper, sleeping 5-6hours in the night at 3 weeks. He was sleeping in his own room by 4 weeks. Highly recommend the books by Suzy Giordano. I read the baby sleep solution, there’s also the book 12 hours by 12 weeks. The methods are merciful in between from crying it out – you wait for 3-5mins then you go in and pat and pressure him/her you are there. It took us 10 days and we’re now at the 3-4 month Leap 4 of sleep regression that hasn’t been ideal but manageable so far, I still get to sleep 8 hours at night despite the interruption.

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I fell into Motherhood by chance and it has been the most intense and rewarding life experience ever. They say the hardest work is always the best work – unpaid on top of that. Having a child was never on the cards, not to mention the impact on the planet.

I’ve tried my best in 2020 – the year of the coronavirus to prepare for the birth of my child with as much as I could, mindful of my environment footprint and and my eco-anxiety on an all time high.

Of course the naysayers would say why did you have a child then? If we wanted to take the finger pointing hypocritical belligerent approach, we might as well all not wear clothes, shoes, have electricity or own any electronic device and exist for that matter. Every little small step counts and collectively it makes some difference, despite the thoughtless actions of large corporations in the name of profit.

I got lots of inspiration from Pinterest for minimalist nurseries. Less is more. And in a place like Hong Kong where apartments are tiny and real estate is gold, it definitely helped to keep things tidy. My flat still looks like a shipwreck as I haven’t had the heart to get rid of old furniture that sparks joy as we’ve worked and moved around a fair bit collectively as a couple and picked up many things along the way. (well mostly me, I still regret leaving my traditional wooden bathtub in Beijing – but it would never have fit anyway into a tiny Hong Kong flat).

1. Reusable cloth diapers. Our parents and generations before were doing this for the longest time. My brothers and I were raised on cloth diapers too. I found new and secondhand Grovia, Charlie Banana, Alvababy diapers on the circular economy and have managed to cloth diaper in the day time (6-8 diapers) and a disposable diaper at night and when we are out (which is hardly thanks to Covid and social distancing). It’s also more economical in the long run as diaper costs add up. Baby G turns 5 months next week and we average 128 diapers every 2.5 months, which is about roughly 1.7 diapers a day.
   
2. 90% of baby G’s clothes I bought were secondhand as I don’t have that many friends with handme downs with the age gap. Retykle has been a wonderful resource for everything from sleep sacs to clothes and the quality of everything is excellent. I know Green Ladies in Wanchai has Green Little that stocks lots of secondhand toddler and kids clothes, that’s definitely another option when he gets older.
   
3. I am trying hard to reduce plastic in our lives and children’s toys are FULL of plastic. My mother in law kept her children’s toys so we have wooden vintage toys from my husband’s childhood and they are over 40 years old!
   
4. 2020 has been a strange year of trickles of work thanks to Covid19. I made the best of the luxury of time to DIY and craft. From mobiles to the decor in the nursery (using leftover fabric to make buntings), recycling paper to print graphic symbols.

5. Apart from the car seat, stroller and Ikea crib that we bought new, everything else we have is secondhand. I kept my pregnancy low key and mostly secret as I was anxious how it’d all turn out, so I didn’t have the fortune of inheriting too many handmedowns from friends. I’m sure we would have had plenty more handmedowns if we were in Singapore or France.

6. Making clothes – like how my late grandmother did in the old days. She was widowed during the war and became a seamstress to support her 8 children. Her frugal and ingenious nature made sure no fabric went to waste. She used to cut small triangles and sew them all together to make blankets – I saw a similar art piece at Art Basel a couple of years ago selling for several hundred thousand dollars. Every Chinese New Year, she made us all new pjyamas, so we didn’t have to waste money buying new ones. This was all pre- fast fashion era of course.

7. I gladly accepted my friend’s bag of maternity clothes as I didn’t plan to invest in outfits that I would only wear for this specific period while growing a human. Fortunately, she has excellent taste and I couldn’t be more grateful for all these “new” old things to wear. Everyone’s pregnancy experience is different and some really relish this “magical” moment to splurge, but I’ve always hated shopping and have eco anxiety about adding to the landfill, so this was absolutely perfect that she found the bag while packing her relocation boxes, given her twins are already 5 this year!

8. Whittle down the baby’s essentials list, based on several friends’ lists and their notes and comments on the list, I skipped a good many items on the list.

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I can’t believe a year has gone by and the baby is ONE! I finally understand the cliché phrase of “the days are long and the years are short.” We survived as a family – everyone is alive, healthy and happy, inspite of the many bumps we’ve had to navigate along the way!

My sister-in-law reminded me that raising a child is a marathon and at no time should I even think about sprinting – there really isn’t a finish line. She also made a great point that “it takes a village” in our generation and modern life with internet and technology, we don’t have the same support network and system. Raising a child today is probably the equivalent of raising ten in our parents’ generation- when they had the milk man, post man, neighbours etc watching each others kids and looking out for each other.

Now, we worry about privacy, paedophiles lurking on the internet and cyberbullying — things the earlier generations didn’t have to worry about.

It takes all shape and form – working mum, Stay at home mum, hired help, nanny, grandparents help, working and doing an MBA or PHD on top of mothering. It’s all hard. I spent the first 8.5months flying solo with no family or hired help and a husband that works 12-14 hours a day, along with all public holidays, which means I’m doing bath and bedtime on my own 5 or more nights a week.

It’s all hard and I think we all just get on with it, choice is a luxury and even a ton of money does not always buy reliable help. It’s all luck. I told myself that I would take a year off work, but ended up accepting projects and working when the baby goes down to bed at 630pm. The exhaustion is real.

I’ve read many books navigating this journey cluelessly, and I can’t recommend enough 12 hours by 12 weeks for starting sleep training, it was God sent and recommended by my paediatrician. We had a couple of hard nights and still do with sleep regression and teething, but as my paeds said if you have a good sleeper, they always return to base and back to their sleep routine. It has been true after weathering out 7-10 days, the longest stretch. We’ve had a couple of days here and there with sleep regression, teething, night terrors, but we’ve returned to base and feel a little more confident.

Grateful for the internet and all the resources available. During this pandemic times, it makes it a little less lonely trying to navigate the unknown and trying to show up as a better parent and undo all the trauma of earlier generations.

Wherever you are on your Motherhood journey, you’re not alone and don’t feel bad about asking for help, don’t waste time secondguessing and overthinking. And most important of all, walk away from any drama the moment you smell it.

Life is short and we are time poor, got to keep moving forward!

For his first birthday, Papa made his cake. Banana bread base with very ripe bananas with no added sugar. I made apple compote to line the layer and the cream is mascarpone, whipped cream, vanilla beans and a dash of maple syrup.

We are looking forward to what the next days, months and years will bring and it’s been so much fun watching human evolution and witnessing all these developmental milestones.

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Now that the pet human is 16months old, cloth nappies have become second nature to us. I started when he was 6-7 weeks old and haven’t looked back since. We’ve had to evolve our strategy as he got older because his output has increased and we’ve had to add extra inserts and prefolds and he now waddles even more with a cute oversized Queen Bee bum.

Here he is for the longest time scooting on his Ikea stool from about 11 months old that we had to hide and he didn’t start walking independently till last weekend at nearly 16 months.

Through trial and error, secondhand and new diapers, wool covers, PUL covers and the many (confusing) variations and types of cloth diapers – oh the luxury of choice! – I’ve finally found what works best for us. He’s non-fussed either way. Different strokes for different folks, everyone has to find what works best for their child and themselves.

The most economical and efficient diapers is the chinese brand Happy Flute. How cute are these??? if I didn’t already have a great stash in rotation, I would buy them, but I don’t need more. Being truly sustainable is buying only what you need and where possible buy them secondhand.

I have to confess eco-anxiety aside, it’s the irresistible cute prints that made me persevere when we had to deal with poo-namis and leaks. In the summer, we go without pants because the prints are great to show off. So win-win, you even save money on pants/shorts!

For longer outings, I use disposables as it’s way more convenient and not very nice to be carrying around a couple of soiled nappies in a wet bag. I’ve tried the charlie banana bamboo inserts, but with a heavy wetter, you’d still have to change the whole nappy, if not you could do with changing the disposable bamboo insert. There are some eco-friendly disposable diapers which cost a little more than the run of the mill brand, but i’m not sure how truly sustainable they are even marketed as such. We use Honest and Bambo diapers when we’re on the go.

I’m not sure how many diapers I’ve saved from the landfill, but hopefully a significant number as we go through about 5-7 nappy changes a day, including one overnight (fitted snaps bamboo/cotton – baby beehinds, Imagine) works best with a wool cover over. We’ve also recently added Grovia ONE diapers with an extra insert for overnight

As I have a mild case of arthritis on my fingers, they aren’t very nimble (was it because I didn’t have a confinement nanny?? I’m still glad in hindsight we managed on our own, driven by instincts), so snap button nappies are the bane of my life while I struggle to keep the toddler still. the Hook and Loop option have been the best for me so far, it’s also easier to put on a wriggling toddler. (basically the same functionality as the disposable nappies with the velcro straps). I’ve an olympic wetter, so I’ve had to double up on an extra insert to all his nappies.

In a turn of events, he’s now been taking off his own nappies because he has figured out the velcro clasp and he’s sometimes walking around butt-naked and recently enjoys looking me in the eye before peeing directly the bed. I know my faux pas because they do it for the reaction and I am yelling in panic!

I haven’t found the best solution for cloth diapering a wriggling toddler. JustPeachy works as pull-ups which is great, only that the poo-liners get dislodged while you’re pulling them up. I am hopeful that once potty training starts it will get easier and I’m still figuring out the optimal way forward.

In terms of absorbency and ease of use, I find Happy Flute, Imagine, Niki’s diapers (for prints!), Just Peachy, Baby beehinds fitted snaps + wool covers (our fool proof night routine) and Charlie Bananas – in order of preference. Grovia didn’t work well for us being bubs has chunky thighs and we always ended up with leaks.

I’ll leave you with a video of my cheeky groovy bubs with his Queen Bee cloth nappy bum.

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